Tequila Shuffle

"Isn't there anyone you can call?"

"The SEC has a reporting mechanism, but Hell, that'd probably just tip them off."

"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?"

I nearly choked on the tequila. "Who watches the watchmen? In Latin? I think I've underestimated you."

Rosa gave a huge smile. "It was in a comic book I read a long time ago. I always thought it was a great question."

"It really is a good question. I guess the DOJ. Or maybe the FBI?"

Rosa smiled maliciously. "Why not both?"

*****

It turns out that the FBI and IRS have websites for reporting fraud. Very convenient. I used the computer at the library, since I didn't really want to drag Rosa fully into the problem. I figured if nothing else, it might sow enough trouble that Beth and her cohorts would stay away from me.

That was it. I reported to PO Anderson and worked with Miguel and the crew another month, right up until the end of harvest. I managed to find a job making donuts, which was easier but I missed the old crew for a while. The hours did match Rosa's almost perfectly, and since we were pretty much living together full time, that was really convenient.

That definitely qualified as "life was good" for me. So, of course, it couldn't be that easy.

The knock came as I was nuzzling Rosa's neck and grabbing her butt while she struggled to get plates laid out on the table.

"Stop that." She tried to sound serious, but I could hear the husky tone in her voice and she tilted her head further to let me get to more of her neck. Besides, she was arching her back to make it easier for me to fondle her ass. I was pretty sure supper was going to have to wait a bit. Right up until the harsh knock sounded.

Rosa glared at the door and struggled to get her breathing to slow down. "Dammit. I'm going to kill Leonard if he's come over here again trying to borrow my robe. The answer is no."

It wasn't Leonard. It was two uniformed deputies backing up a couple of guys in government standard suits.

It was some comfort that I recognized the deputies. The older of the two plainclothes men held up his credentials. "Joseph Bateman?"

I nodded. I could see Leonard and Maisie peering out from the curtains of Leonard's trailer.

"I'm Special Agent Tanner with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. We need you to come down to the field office to answer a few questions."

Rosa clamped onto my arm. "Are you arresting him?"

"No. We just have a couple questions to ask."

I looked at Rosa. "I probably need to do this."

She reluctantly let me go, but not before taking cell phone pictures of the agents and hissing something in Spanish to one of the deputies. From the way he paled, it was probably a death threat, a very explicit and painful one. As we drove away, I could see Leonard and Maisie making their way to Rosa's trailer.

I was escorted into the FBI field office, sat in an interview room with nauseatingly white walls, grey carpet, a dull grey table and told to wait.

It was probably twenty minutes of torture-by-florescent-light before a clean-cut guy in a black suit came in and sat across from me, placing his credentials on the table, pulling out a folder and flipping it open as he introduced himself.

"Mr. Bateman, I'm Senior Special Agent Michael Rivera out of the Criminal, Cyber, Response, and Services Branch in the DC office. We've received your tip and we'd like to follow up on some information you included for clarification in an ongoing FBI-IRS investigation. We appreciate your assistance."

I stared at him in surreal horror. "Miguel."

He ignored my whisper and ran a finger down to a line item on the list. "In your account, you stated that you believed the money may have been moved to an account in the Seychelles and we need to try to narrow which institution your former wife may have used..."

The next two hours were had a twisted dreamlike quality as SSA Rivera went over every detail of what I suspected the plot was and how it worked. I had to handwrite and sign statements, go over maps and itineraries of my honeymoon, and do it all while Rivera acted as if we'd never met.

At least there were no references to Isobel, Björn or Kelsea; I was relatively sure I couldn't have handled that. They were supposed to be family.

After we'd finished, He stood up and reached across to give me a perfect government official handshake with a "Thank you for assisting us in our investigation."

I walked into Rosa's trailer with silence roaring in my ears.

She was waiting for me. "Are you okay."

"Did you know about Michael?"

"Michael who?" She recoiled from my tone.

"Miguel."

She blinked. "What about Miguel? Is he okay?"

"He's an FBI agent."

The obvious shock and disbelief on her face was probably the most comforting thing I could have seen. "Miguel? Are you serious? He said he came out here because he had some kind of trouble in New York. He told me..." Her voice trailed off and she stood silent for a second.

The silence didn't last long and I was probably lucky I didn't speak Spanish. After a couple of minutes, I was wondering if Liam would be willing to let me hide under the chair with him.

"Rosa, I'm sorry."

She stuttered to a stop and blinked. "For what?"

"For even thinking you could have..."

She shook her head. "You asked. You didn't accuse me of anything, but that hijo de puta lied to us. His family."

*****

We saw the arrests and trial on TV; the FBI and IRS investigation of corruption in the SEC was in the news for the next year.

Beth took a plea deal but still got fifteen years, even after turning over the money she'd stashed overseas. The SEC investigator was sentenced to twenty years. No plea deals for him. There were more people involved than I thought, which made me more than a bit uneasy, considering how Beth had drawn most of them into her plan. I was lucky I wasn't a CDC case study. Most received five years or so, although one pimply-faced IT guy drew only 18 months.

Rosa's only real comment was reserved for Beth when she finally saw her on television. "You were married to that skinny bitch? I thought you liked having a woman with a real ass."

"What can I say? I was deprived for four years. I'm making up for it now."

She shot me a fake scowl, but the corner of her mouth twisted up in a slight smile. "I know, I can't even wear shorts, you keep leaving toothmarks all over my ass."

That was utter crap. She still spent most of her time off wearing nothing but her skimpy little robe; if anything, her exhibitionist streak had gotten worse. I didn't argue with her, though, she did occasionally have a toothmark or two on her.

The court was looking at vacating my conviction; somewhere in all the finger pointing, somebody admitted that when I was being set up; Voorhees had planted the drugs in my car. Beth had thought of it, though. I wasn't really holding my breath. At the speed the courts moved, I figured I would be done with parole before they ever got to it, and PO Anderson had gone pretty much hands-off; he'd even been the one to let me know about the move to vacate.

Fish retired quietly without any charges being filed and I wasn't sure how I felt about that, but Rosa said she suspected he wouldn't have been able to go through with it. That was good enough for me.

*****

Four months after Beth's sentencing, Rosa and I went to meet Björn and Kelsea at the Salsa club. We'd run into them at a street festival and started occasionally meeting them at the club for dinner and drinks. Dancing with a double-jointed clown was an absolute trip, and watching Kelsea play her street magic tricks on patrons never got old.

We got there a bit early; I grabbed a table while Rosa headed over to "freshen up." I'd just waved a waitress over when Miguel pulled a chair out. "I'll get this round, man. I owe you one." He talked to the waitress for a second, then sat down.

"Miguel. Or is it Michael?"

He sighed. "Miguel."

"You might want to keep a clear path to the door. Rosa's pissed at you."

"Yeah. I figure she might be."

"You earned that."

"Doin' the job, man."

"I bought it, I really did. I thought you were my friend. You're good."

"Lots of training."

"Björn told me he suspected something; he just didn't figure FBI. He thought maybe you were on the state narcotics task force."

"I wasn't even there for you, you know. We had an op running but came up empty. I was already in place and you fell into my lap when the employment agency dropped you there. Blind luck."

"The FBI stalks low-level drug parolees? Really? What kind of shit is that?"

"Everyone was convinced you had the money hidden. Probably six agencies watching and just waiting for you to run for it. Took me a while to suspect you weren't in on it."

"Why didn't you say something?"

"I couldn't be sure for a while, and once we learned that there was an SEC investigator in the middle of it, I was stuck. The rules are simple, the FBI should have been able to investigate, but none of the evidence we had was legal. And the politics are complicated. We couldn't legally initiate an investigation with what we had, but..."

I sat for a second. "But if somebody lodged a whistleblower complaint, you'd have probable cause."

He nodded. "It worked, didn't it?"

"I can't argue with the results."

"We even figured out why she kept targeting you after you were out. You were supposed to be a fall guy, but they didn't realize that they hadn't left enough evidence to really railroad you. So then, when you got out after a few months, the SEC and IRS were on high alert and Beth couldn't do anything to get to the money without drawing attention."

"If I went back into prison for a long time, the pressure would be off and she'd be free and clear. That's fucking cold."

"Yeah, I interviewed her. She's probably a full-blown sociopath. They're attracted by the money and power. They tend to end up in politics, law and the finance industry. Cold as ice and damn good liars, convincing as hell."

"Kind of the pot calling out the kettle there, Miguel."

He shrugged. "That's fair. Still, you're lucky you're alive. She probably figured killing you would draw too much attention. She did ask about you though. Kinda wondering why you hadn't tried to see her and talk to her."

"What the hell is there to talk about? She was never who I thought she was."

Miguel put his beer down. "If she's like the other sociopaths I've met, she wants to know she won, at least in some way. See you break down or get upset. See your reaction when you realize you were played." He laughed. "It really, really pissed her off when I told her from my angle it looked like a clean sweep. You screwed up her plan, cost her all the money and put her in prison. Pretty one-sided win there."

"I was just trying to stop everything."

"I know, but it worked for me. These sociopaths are usually narcissists. She tried to show how she won by explaining shit we didn't know about. Put two more assholes behind bars and recovered a bit more money."

Rosa was suddenly by the table glaring down at Miguel. She hissed something that dripped with evil and he held his hands up in surrender.

"I know. My mom relayed your, um, opinion to me." He seemed to send a prayer up. "I'm never going to hear the end of that, so thanks for that."

Rosa glanced between us. I shrugged. "He's explaining what happened."

She pulled a chair right next to mine and sat down, gripping my arm possessively, still glaring daggers at Miguel.

He took a sip of his beer. "What else do you want to know?"

"How many guys was she..."

"You sure you want to know?" He frowned. "Ten people, but two of them were women." He paused. "Eleven if you count the IT geek that fucked up the frame job on you. He said he only got a few blowjobs back in the server room, though. He rolled on everyone as soon as we put pressure on him."

"He the one that got eighteen months?"

"That's the one."

"Eighteen months in prison to get a couple of blow jobs. Damn." I shook my head.

Rosa elbowed me hard with an evil grin. "You don't think mine are worth that?"

"Well, of course, yours are..."

"Oh God, That's too much information." Miguel held his hands up to ward off Rosa's wicked laughter.

Things got oddly quiet for a second. The intimate joking uncomfortably reminding us how close we'd all been before.

I turned the beer bottle in my hand a couple times. "What are you after Miguel?"

"I wanted to kind of set things right, man. Family, you know?"

I had a half dozen bitter replies pop into my head, but they fell away. "Are we?"

"José and Miguel? Yeah, cousins. Michael and Joseph? Probably not so much."

I looked at Rosa. "I think I can live with that."

She studied him for a second. "You ever do anything like that again, I'll make you regret it for the rest of your fucking life." There was no venom there, just certainty.

He nodded. "I know and I deserve it. Thank you for giving me a chance to make things right."

Rosa nodded obviously mollified by his apology.

He finished his beer. "I need to get going. I have to go apologize to Isobel. I talked to Björn and Kelsea this afternoon, that's how I knew you'd be here. I don't know that I can say we're good, but I think Björn understands. Kelsea will probably take a while, She doesn't trust a lot of people, but when she does, she trusts with her whole heart and I kinda messed that up."

I nodded. As clever and street smart as Kelsea seemed, she had a kind of precious naiveté. Rosa loved that about her.

He stood up, pulled an envelope out of his back pocket, held it up and smiled with a bit of irony. "I asked if I could deliver this personally."

"What is it?" The wariness in my voice was even obvious to me.

"The adjudication on the IRS claim. Reward money for reporting tax evasion. It's not exactly Batman money, you aren't going retire on it. It's a percentage of the taxes that should have been paid on underreported income, then they take taxes out of and all that shit. Whittles it down quick but it should help get you back on your feet." He paused. "If they vacate your conviction, are you going back to your job?"

I shook my head. "No. There's always going to be a suspicion that I got over on it somehow, nobody would sponsor me for a Series Seven again. The owner of the donut shop is thinking about selling it. I'm pretty much managing it for her, already, and I was looking into bank loans. It's not too expensive and the profits are good."

Miguel snickered. "Look at you, a big shot donut shop owner. Jesus."

"You're saying it wrong, remember? He works at the shop. I hired him and Alejandro to work there."

"Man, it's still hard to picture."

"Money is just... money, Miguel. I got family now."

I saw a flash of pain just before he walked away. I pulled the envelope open and sorted out the legal papers. The total was a little over five hundred thousand dollars. I showed it to Rosa. She smiled. "No problems buying out the donut shop now."

"We can get you a nicer engagement ring."

She held her hand up and studied her quarter carat ring for a second. "No. I'm keeping this one. You had to work hard to save up the money for it, 'cause you didn't have any at all. That means a lot more."

I squeezed her thigh. "So what are we going to do with the money left over from buying the shop?"

She looked up at the ceiling. "There are a lot of empty lots in the trailer park. Maybe we could get a double wide trailer with a big deck on it? So we can have everybody over?"

"Like Leonard and Maisie?"

"Maybe even Miguel, in a month or two." She looked at the door for a while.

I nodded. "With a barbeque grill and patio furniture?"

"And a good stereo system."

"That sounds about right."

Rosa leaned against me. "Maybe...maybe we could think of making one of the bedrooms a nursery, you know. Maybe in the future?" Her voice was measured, but I could hear her uncertainty.

"Maybe not make it too far in the future, okay? Maybe get one of those four-bedroom ones. You never know."

Rosa sighed. "Maybe I'll be the one leaving tooth marks on your ass tonight."

"Pervert."

She giggled. "You better believe it."

Post Production Notes

Not much to say here. This was inspired by the song "He Drinks Tequila." I didn't go into the trade violation mechanism because it would take 5000 words to outline it. The small con, big con stuff is an entire world of its own. The shuffle is a common term in that world -- hopefully we will get to give Kelsea her own story someday -- it'd be a blast.

It has been way too long. Been a crazy spring and summer; The Missus and I have been swamped by issues ranging from work to family illnesses, so we really wanted to get back to writing -- this is what we do to have fun. The crazy ideas don't stop just because you don't have time to write them, so it's been frustrating in the extreme. With any luck, things will slow down soon and we can concentrate on the 50 plus outlines and story seeds sitting on the computer, written in the grid notebooks and the endless post it notes The Missus has pasted all over the notebooks and the computer -- things like "BtB horror story with that terrifying ending" and "Don't forget kitchen surgery scene with Delaney" and "Jinxy is from Detroit, right?"

Seriously, Thank you for the support. Knowing that readers are out there and we brighten a few days is amazing. We'd never have seriously considered doing this without all the support we've gotten. We're even taking a shot at novelizing the Needles&Delaney stories into a single book to see if we can get an agent interested. That's something we never even thought possible before this all started, so thanks for that experience.