A ZEN STORY
A man walking across a field encountered a tiger. Fearing for his life, the man fled, but the tiger gave chase. The man reached the edge of a cliff, and just as he thought the tiger would get him, he spotted a vine growing over the edge of the cliff. Grabbing it, he swung himself over the edge to safety.
The tiger snarled at him from above. While precariously hanging in midair, the man saw another tiger growling at him from below. Trembling, he clutched the thin vine that was saving him from serving as dinner for the tigers. What could be worse than this? he wondered.
Then two mice appeared and began gnawing at the vine. As they chewed and the man pondered his fate, he saw a plump strawberry on a ledge next to him. Grasping the vine with one hand, he plucked the strawberry with the other.
Ah, how sweet it tasted!
CHAPTER ONE
Before Cash woke in hell, the last thing he remembered was the hypodermic needle that sent him there.
A death rattle greeted his return to the real world. Well, a rattle anyway.
He lay on his back on the cold, concrete floor of a dimly lit building that smelled like a barn. Six feet away, a diamondback rattlesnake coiled for a strike.
An inch of reinforced glass separated the lawyer and the rattler. That and the whim of La Tigra looming over him.
Cash catalogued the damage through his reflection in the glass. A black eye and a busted lip. Three days of stubble. Brown hair, a matted mess. But on the bright side, still boyishly handsome for his mid-forties.
From Cash’s vantage, La Tigra looked ten feet tall, roughly twice her true height. This was his first brush with her in the flesh, though he’d seen plenty of photos. For two decades, she had made the FBI’s most wanted list. Ditto for the DEA and ICE.
An incredible run for a cartel kingpin. Unprecedented for a queenpin.
Had he not known her true age, he would’ve undershot by a decade and pegged her as late thirties or early forties, based on her hard body and mocha complexion. Her only visible ding—a tiny white scar—bisected her upper lip. The curl of a cruel smile swallowed the scar.
Cash rolled onto his stomach and climbed slowly to his feet, woozy from whatever drugs jacked with his system and senses. “Where am I?”
“In the world’s sixth largest zoo,” La Tigra said, “and the largest private one.”
Her English was good. Far better than Cash’s Spanish.
He turned full circle to take in the hive of glass enclosures housing snakes of all sizes, stripes, and colors. Hundreds of them were on display, not counting the armed guards at the exit.
“I began your tour with the reptiles,” La Tigra said, “where you should feel most at home.”
His full-body shiver said otherwise. It wasn’t the first time he’d been called a snake. Or compared to one.
Nor did it calm his nerves when a miniature crane whirred into action, remotely controlled by an acne-scarred soldier who looked all of seventeen. The kid should be home playing video games and surfing porn sites.
The crane lifted a cage containing a hyperactive white mouse and swung the cage up and over the rattler’s terrarium. The mouse froze. The floor of the cage opened, and dinner fell into the snake’s lair.
Cash turned away from the sacrifice.
La Tigra didn’t. “Your last stop will be my pride and joy.”
Cash shuddered. Last stop sounded ominous. Two guards dragged him outside the reptile building and into the merciless heat. It took seconds for his eyes to adjust to daylight. The natural habitat preserve extended in all directions—far as the eye could see.
La Tigra took a frayed straw hat from a groundskeeper and pulled it low down her forehead, shading her face. The hat clashed with her black, leather outfit.
He had a sinking sense there was a shot clock on his life. Score soon or time would expire.
The straw hat held the key to his survival. Not the hat so much as what it said about La Tigra. A reminder that she had a keen sense of self-preservation and a practical streak a mile long.
From all he had read and heard, she had wiped out hundreds, perhaps thousands, to become the apex predator of the human zoo. To remain on top had called for even more sacrifices.
A drug czar had to be ruthless. A drug czarina, ruthless squared.
What he didn’t know was whether she killed for sport, pleasure, or amusement. If for any or all of those reasons, it was the end of the line for him.
Perhaps, however, she eliminated an impediment only after running the cold calculus and concluding that the downside of letting someone live outweighed the upside of keeping another pawn on the board.
Another snake in the pit.
Soldiers shoved Cash onto a golf cart. La Tigra sat next to him. A caravan of carts carried the odd couple and a dozen armed goons down a twisty, paved path. Past galloping giraffes on the right, lazy lions to the left, elephants huddled under shade trees ahead, and in the far distance, a herd of hippos wading in a lake.
“It was brave of you to sacrifice yourself to save the FBI bitch,” La Tigra said during the ride. “Brave or stupid.”
“I’ve been told they’re not mutually exclusive.” Cash’s voice barely rose above a whisper.
“Either way, it was beyond stupid of Hector to trade the beautiful agent for you. Unforgivable.” Her last word was spoken more to herself than to Cash.
Poor Hector.
The carts stopped outside the domain of a white tiger, who emerged from a condo-sized shelter and approached the ten-foot glass fence, drooling at the prospect of feeding time.
Cash backed away from the fence. The tiger held its ground.
“He’s beautiful,” Cash said.
“She is magnificent.” La Tigra sounded like a proud mother. “One of only five in existence.”
“You might want to check your math on that,” Cash said. “I saw one like her in Vegas, as well as in every zoo I’ve visited the past thirty years.”
She shook her head. “Not like her. Bianca is a white Siberian, born and bred in the wild. What you have seen are crossbreeds, born in tiger mills and raised in captivity.”
Cash would’ve bet his law license that Bianca was the only purebred in the hands of a private collector. Not that he still had a license.
Mesmerized by the beauty of the beast, Cash was slow to notice the crane truck rolling down the path. It stopped at the fence, facing the tiger. Big-ass crane this time. Had to be thirty feet tall, with a scoop large enough to lift a man.
Didn’t take long to figure out how this would end. Cash’s life—like that of the late white mouse—dangled by a thread. A sinner in the hands of an angry goddess.
He was down to his final appeal. “Killing me would be a bad deal for you. Worse than Hector’s tradeoff.” His voice cracked.
“You have nothing to bargain with,” she said, “and no time left.”
“Do you know who I am?”
She nodded.
“And what I do for a living?”
“You’re a fucking lawyer. I own a hundred just like you, on both sides of the border.”
It was his turn to shake his head. “Not like me. Not with my trial record.” He forced himself to slow the pitch. Kept his voice steady, more or less. “Call Mariposa Benanti. She’ll vouch for me.”
La Tigra laughed. “Who do you think told me about you? She has a final message for you. Said she would see you in hell.”
“What’s it worth to have a guaranteed win in an American court?” Despite his best efforts, he rushed the pitch. “A get-out-of-jail-free card…one you can play any time…any place you choose.”
“Hmmm, you said free?” She sounded skeptical but interested.
“I waive my trial fee. You pay only expenses.”
She nodded to the crane operator. The crane revved up. The scoop yawned.
“Okay,” he shouted, “I’ll cover the expenses.”
She smiled, and both the crane and the tiger went away hungry.
CHAPTER TWO
Three months and one regained law license later….
Cash McCahill stared into the killer’s eyes. Not for the first time. Probably for the last.
This was far from his first visit to the women’s prison in the sticks of west Texas. Hell, he could hold a reunion of ex-clients here at CCI Big Spring—the latest and largest facility fattening the wallets of prison profiteers.
Officially, CCI stood for “Contracted Correctional Institution.” Unofficially, for “Cash Cow Inmates.” Prisoners locked up and milked dry by the American Corrections Enterprise, or ACE for short.
Cash entered the visiting room and sat across the table from Mariposa Benanti. The windowless room stank of sweat and cheap perfume, and the peeling, puke-green paint job gave it all the personality of a cardboard box. Regs required the space set aside for lawyer visits to be soundproof and bug-free, but Cash harbored doubts on both counts.
Despite the familiar setting, today provided Cash with one first—a chance to study Mariposa in captivity, to gauge the toll taken by her lockup pending trial.
Pushing fifty, she seemed smaller than he remembered. Swapping stilettos for slippers had shaved three inches. Her lips had deflated—he guessed going cold turkey on Botox would do that. Crow’s feet were taking root. Gray swaths streaked her dark hair. Cruel lighting bleached out an olive complexion, and orange was definitely not her color.
At the sight of Cash, her dark eyes flickered to life, but the jolt of seeing a familiar face fizzled as quickly as it had flared. While seconds silently ticked by, her eyes sank deep into their recesses.
No smile greeted him. Then again, she had rarely smiled on the outside. Not a good look for her, and she knew it.
Cash had expected to find Mariposa in even worse shape, given her self-exile to the isolation wing. Fifty-three days in solitary behind her and twenty-seven to go before the bell rang for round one with the federal prosecutors.
At Seagoville Federal Correctional Institution—where Cash had done his time for jury tampering—he had spent only a week in solitary. Six days and seven nights alone had left scars on his psyche. Every fortnight or so, the cold sweats struck.
He had landed in isolation as punishment for a smart mouth. Mariposa sought refuge in solitary in a desperate bid to stay alive, or at least to last longer there than she would in gen pop.
Given the change in their circumstances, it was damn unfair that she could still jump-start his juices. Heaven help the prosecutors if her defense lawyer managed to pack the jury with straight males.
“About time you showed.” Mariposa’s voice hadn’t changed. Still the same toxic blend of brittle and badass. Equal parts hurtful and haughty. “You playing hard to get?”
“You haven’t got me.” Cash delivered the line straight, as if he actually believed it.
“Yet,” she said.
He shed his ex-lover skin and slipped into lawyer mode. Legal Ethics 101: set the ground rules for the meeting at the outset and stick to them. “I don’t and can’t represent you.”
Not that I’d want to.
He went on. “That means whatever you say to me will not be privileged and confidential. Also means the feds can bug this room. Keep that in mind before you decide to bare your soul.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Why can’t you represent me?” It came off more like an accusation than a question.
“For starters, the government has put me on its witness list to testify at your trial next month. Ethical rules don’t allow me to be a lawyer and a witness in the same case.”
“You weren’t always so keen on following the rules—certainly not while you were representing my husband by day and screwing me by night.”
Damn. Cash would hate for that statement to be picked up on tape. The last thing he needed was another beef with the bar.
“It was never clear back then who was screwing whom,” he said. “Either way, I never lost a case for Larry.”
“Was that to save his skin or yours?”
“Your late husband made it painfully clear on many occasions that either we both won or both lost.” The defensiveness drained from his voice. “Even if I could represent you and you could afford to hire me—”
She cut him off. “I’m a very rich woman.”
“You were a rich woman. But since the feds froze your assets, you couldn’t afford to hire my paralegal.”
“So you really think the government found all my assets?” Her tone said not a chance.
Two ways to interpret her allusion to offshore accounts in tax havens, given the likely presence of a bug in the room. Either a slip of the tongue by her, or a warning shot at him.
Much as Cash hoped for the former, he steeled himself for the latter. “Remember what I said. Our conversation isn’t privileged, and this room could be wired.”
Her tone turned hard. “If I go down, it won’t be alone.”
Nope, not a slip. Of the legal fees paid by the Benantis over the past decade, Cash wondered how much had been dirty money, laundered to look and smell clean. He came up with a rough calculation: all of it.
“As I was saying before being interrupted, even if I could represent you and you could afford me, there’d still be one tiny technicality that would prevent me from taking your case. You tried to have me killed.”
“Well, if you’re going to hold that against me.” She laughed.
He didn’t.
“For what it’s worth,” she said, “I had no choice. It was either you or me.”
“So you did have a choice.”
“Yes, and I made the same call you would’ve in the circumstances.”
“Then I’ll make the same decision now that you would if our roles were reversed.” He rubbed his chin. “Come to think of it, our roles have been reversed. When I was doing time and you were on the outside, I don’t recall a single visit from you.” He stood. “That’s my cue to exit.”
“You won’t walk away from me.”
“Why the hell not?”
“Because you are who you are. You may not be my lawyer, but you’re still a lawyer. Even worse, the kind who got in the racket for all the wrong reasons.”
“As if you’d know the right ones.”
Her stab at a smile fell short. “Money, prestige, power. But mostly money.”
He didn’t ask about her list of the wrong reasons for doing what he did. “Stop dancing around and get down to business. What am I doing here?”
“You have to convince La Tigra to spare my life.”
It was Cash’s turn to laugh. “And while I’m at it, why don’t I get the feds to issue you a formal apology?”
“I’m dead serious,” she said.
You’re half-right anyway.
“I’m in no position to ask our mutual friend to the south for a favor. Other way around, I owe her a big one,” he said.
A roach the size of a rat skittered across the floor. Good timing. Reminded Cash of a lawyer he and Mariposa knew all too well. “Besides, this sounds like a job for your trial counsel, Rhoden.”
She stiffened in her seat. “We both know who hired Rocket and what he was hired to do.”
“Puh-leeze,” Cash said, “that publicity whore calls himself Rocket, but no one else does.” He didn’t dispute her read of the fix she was in. Higher-ups had hired Rhoden to make sure Mariposa didn’t flip.
“I don’t give a shit what anyone calls him,” she said, “but we both know what he is.”
“Then I’ll give you the same advice I’d give my best friend if she were in trouble, free of charge.” Cash almost choked on the last three words. He hated to fall into the habit of handing out freebies. Downright unprofessional of him. “If you don’t trust your lawyer, get a new one.”
“Not an option,” Mariposa said.
Cash shook his head slowly. “You can’t go to trial with a lawyer you—”
She cut him off again. “We both know that I won’t make it to trial, not unless you help me.”
He didn’t challenge that either. “Don’t get your hopes up, but I’ll make a call.”
“You have to ask her face-to-face, and by ask, I mean beg.” Her eyes misted. Not the first time she had used that weapon on him.
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