I, Michael Bennett (Michael Bennett 5)

I stared down at the restaurant in disbelief. Candelerio wasn’t coming? Which meant Perrine wasn’t coming. What did that mean? They were onto us? Were the drug dealers meeting somewhere else?

“Why isn’t he coming? Did you hear anything?” I said as calmly as my racing pulse would allow.

“They said it was a family thing. A graduation? Something like that.”

A graduation? I thought. This early in the year it would have to be Candelerio’s oldest daughter, Daisy, the one at NYU la

w school. That actually made sense. It explained why Candelerio had brought his family, and why they were all dressed up. Except on the phone for the past month, the drug dealer had said he wanted to meet Perrine at noon today at the restaurant. How did that make sense?

The answer was it didn’t. Exactly nothing was going the way we’d expected. I couldn’t believe this was happening.

“A squad car is pulling over. Can I please, please, please go home?” my informant said.

“Of course, Valentina. You did good. I’ll call you,” I said, hanging up.

The metal clang of a passing garbage truck bouncing over potholes in the street rang off the gouged walls and dirty marble steps as I stood there trying to figure out what was happening.

“So?” Hughie said, holding up his hands.

“We were wrong,” I said. “Candelerio isn’t coming. He’s going to his daughter’s graduation.”

“How is this happening?” Hughie said, speed-tapping the barrel of his M4 as he paced back and forth. “You heard the transcripts. Perrine said the meet’s at Margaritas! This is Margaritas. Candelerio is a silent partner in the place. He eats here three times a week.”

I slowly went over the case in my mind, especially the telephone transcripts. They were written in a weird mix of Spanish and Creole that had been translated by two different FBI experts. But Hughie was right. In the calls, Perrine kept talking about being at Margaritas. Margaritas at noon.

“Maybe Margaritas isn’t a place,” I said.

“What is it, then?” Hughie said. “You think Perrine wants to meet Candelerio for a margarita?”

“Maybe it’s a code word or something. Does margarita mean anything in Spanish?”

“Um … tequila and lime juice?” Hughie said, lifting his phone. “I’m the Gaelic expert. Let me ask Agent Perez.”

“It’s a name of a flower,” Hughie said, listening to his phone a moment later. “It means … daisy.”

We both did a double take as the realization hit us simultaneously.

“Candelerio’s daughter!” we said at the same time.

“Margarita must mean Daisy, then,” Hughie said. “Has to be. But how does that make sense? Perrine wants to see Candelerio’s daughter graduate? That’s why he came to the States?”

I thought about it. “Maybe he wants to meet in the crowd, or—”

I snapped a finger as I remembered something from the surveillance photographs, something that was out of place. I immediately called our control post back at the precinct.

“There’s a picture of Candelerio’s family on my desk. Text it to me pronto,” I said to the detective manning the shop.

Less than a minute later, my phone vibrated, and Hughie and I looked at the photo, which was tagged with the family members’ names. I looked more closely at the oldest daughter’s face and smiled.

“I knew it. Look at the oldest one. She has darker skin than the others. And her eyes—she has blue eyes. Both Candelerio and his wife have brown eyes, and she has light blue eyes. That’s impossible. How did we miss it?” I said.

“You’re right. She even looks like Perrine!” Hughie yelled. “Shit! That’s it! That’s goddamn it. You’re a genius. Daisy must be Perrine’s daughter.”

“That FBI lifer was right,” I said. “Perrine isn’t risking his ass coming to the States for money. It’s to see his daughter graduate.”

Hughie answered his ringing phone.

“Candelerio just passed the exit for Washington Heights and is continuing downtown,” he said. “Aerial is staying on him. SWAT wants to know what’s what.”