Chapter 27

The man waiting in the hallway was round. Not fat in the same way as Sidney, the head of his security was a wall of muscle with a gut thrown on top like an afterthought. This guy was just... spherical. A beach ball in a tactical vest. His gut strained the velcro of his vest so badly the ICE patch had practically warped into a crooked parallelogram, and his belt was cinched under his belly rather than at his waist, giving him the silhouette of a snowman wearing a duty rig. His face was round too, with a soft pink flush across the cheeks and a tiny mouth that looked like it had been drawn on as a joke. He was maybe five foot eight, and Calvin was fairly sure that if they were both barefoot they would be the same height. Instead in his four-inch heels, Clara was taller than him.

'There is no way that man passed a physical fitness exam,' Calvin thought, genuinely offended on behalf of the standard. 'I have… had? a trainer who makes me do box jumps and this guy is out here hauling immigrants around? How the hell did he get this job or at least keep it?'

The guard gestured with two fingers, not even speaking, taking note of the girl eyeing him. Calvin minced after him.

The walk was long to wherever they were going. Calvin tried twice to talk. "Where are you taking me?"

The question gained him nothing, so he tried another tactic "Is my lawyer here? Has anyone come for me?"

The guard this time grunted. It might have been a word. It might have been gas.

They passed through three security doors, each one buzzing open with a mechanical whine, before the man finally steered him into a small room that Calvin had not seen on the way in. It was a side room, not the processing area. No counter. No plexiglass. Just a long scuffed metal table bolted to the floor, two folding chairs, and a single flickering fluorescent light overhead that made the whole space look like the break room of a failing auto shop.

The guard dropped into one of the chairs. The frame creaked under him. He leaned back, hooked his thumbs into his vest, and with one soft pudgy hand, motioned at the chair opposite. "Sit."

Grimacing, Calvin sat. The skirt of his dress fanned out over his thighs as he crossed his legs at the knee out of habit and immediately hated that he'd done it. He folded his hands in his lap instead, then realized that looked even worse, like some demure girl, so he rested them on the table.

The man across from Calvin studied him. He had small dark eyes set deep in his face, and they moved over Clara slowly, without any of the frantic hunger Mateo had. This was a different kind of looking. Slower, More patient. It felt like the look of a man who had decided something and was now just taking his time about getting to it. "So," he said. "You're the one who's been screaming about lawyers all night."

"I have a lawyer," Calvin said, and his voice came out too high, so he dropped it though it was still not close to his true vocal register. "And I have people. Sidney Larson. He said he was coming hours ago. Is he here? Where is he?"

The guard's tiny mouth curved. He shook his head, slow, almost pitying. "Doubt a lawyer is coming for the likes of you tonight." He dragged a finger along the edge of the table, wiping a streak through the dust. "It's eleven at night on a Friday. You think some public attorney is gonna roll out of bed and drive to a processing facility for you... What did you say you did? A housekeeper? Sweetheart, they've got better things to do. And I don’t know anything about someone named Larson."

"He's not…" Calvin started, and then stopped, because Clara was a housekeeper and getting into the argument could potentially mean making this whole mess worse. He gritted his teeth and tried again, softer. "I don’t belong here, you have to understand this is just a mistake."

That got him a laugh. A wet little chuckle that shook the man's belly against the table edge. “I have heard that before." The guard said, once more looking the girl over.. "Sure. Sure. I;m not unsympathetic. Mistakes do happen.”

Nodding vigorously, for the first time feeling like someone was listening to him, Cal leaned forward, unaware it was giving the man ideas as he saw Clara thrust her chest forward sitting up straight in the chair. “Yes, exactly!”

“Miss, you have to understand that's what they all say. Or close it I assume, I don’t know what most of you wetbacks are saying most of the time." He leaned forward, elbows on the table, and the chair screamed. "Let me tell you something, Clara. That's your name, right? Clara? Pretty name. Pretty girl. You know how many people come through here screaming about their lawyer, their, their cousin in the state senate?" He waved a fat hand. "All of them." He shrugged, not even believing his own dismissive lie or caring.

The guard let the shrug sit there. Let it breathe. Then he pushed his chair back, the legs scraping the concrete as he stood up. The effort was visible. He braced one hand on the table, grunted, and hoisted his weight upright like a man levering a refrigerator. "Okay," he said. "You know what? Let's do this right."

He walked around the edge of the table. It wasn't a long walk, but he made it look like one. He stopped beside Calvin, gripping the back of his chair that he had dragged over in both hands, until it was sitting right up next to Calvin's chair, near enough that their elbows would touch if either of them moved. Then he dropped back into it with another creak and settled his hands on his gut like it was a lap dog.

"There," he said. "Now we're on the same side."

Squinting at the comment and not just feeling scared and overwhelmed but also exhausted. "The same side of what."

"Of the table." The guard gestured around them like a host showing off a restaurant. "Of the room. Of the whole situation, really." He tipped his head. "I’m Doug, Doug Kingly. I;m not here to interrogate you like a cruel stranger. That's no good. You want somebody on your side."

More than a little skeptical, Cal bit back a harsh reply going with something more neutral. "And that's you."

"That's me." The guard patted his own belly, and the sound was less a pat and more of a thud, a hand hitting a surface with too much give to it. "Look at me."

Looking at the rotund man. It was hard not to.

“‘I’m not exactly what people expect to see when you think of a federal agent. I would say I spend ten or more hours on my feet but we both would know that is a lie. See… I have asthma. Really only took the job because of the large incentive bonus and they couldn’t tell me no because of a disability. So I sit and do paperwork. That, laziness and eating my feelings for the shitty things we have to do gets you.. Well me.. This…. He gestured at himself, top to bottom, like a man showing off a car with a dented fender.

"I am five foot eight on a good day, and on a bad day I'm five foot eight lying down too, because my spine's given up. My knees are made of wet cardboard. My back has been filing grievances since… for a long time. And this vest … " he plucked at the warped patch on his chest, " … this vest does not fit. It has never fit. They measured me for it and gave me something that wouldn't fit on purpose. I don't blame them… it's me..."

Despite the last four hours of his life, Calvin almost cracked a smile. ‘Fatty knows he’s fat.’

The guard caught it and pressed his advantage. "These guys out there hauling people into vans all day and night? They love it. They've got energy. They jog. They jog back to the van. Do you know what I do when I get to the van?" He leaned in. "I lean on it. That's the whole job. I find something vertical and I put my body against it and I stay there until somebody tells me to move."

"Look. I'm not gonna lie to you and say I could pass a fitness test. I've seen the fitness test and if the test itself could speak after seeing me. It would scoff at best. I can't run, can't jump, can't squat. Can't … " he paused, "Honestly I shouldn’t be here and you say you shouldn’t be either. Perhaps we can help each other out."

Negotiations were an area Calvin felt confident in. Sure he wasn't some big executive but he had prowess and swagger in spades as far as he was concerned and tubby didn’t feel threatening like most of the other officers. “I scratch your back and you scratch mine?”

Slumping in his seat Doug pointed at the girl. “You get it, smart girl.”

Drumming his long nails on the table as he thought about what to say, a physical action he knew Moriah often did. “There is a teen girl put in the same cell as me, could you help her too?”

Running his fat fingers through his hair the large man huffed. “What? She your sister or cousin or something?”

The question reminded Calvin of how Ana had no problem being vocal about people being racist thinking everyone of color knew one another or they were related. “Hmm? How much more to help her too?”

Throwing his hands up in the air Doug shook his head. “No… nooo, I would never steal money. You will need that to get a real lawyer not a state provided one for your immigration court hearing. I was thinking about how people get lost in the system all the time. So long as you avoid people in uniforms like mine and show up for your court hearing. I don't see why you couldn't go free.”

“REALLY!?” Cal said excitedly but as he did so he felt the meaty hand of Doug on his bare knee.

The touch had Calvin flinch, it wasn’t rubbing on him or squeezing, just resting there.

“I like you Clara, not like some of the lowlifes we bring in. No, you're nice. The thing is, unless this Larson you brought up has a lot of pull, he isn't getting in the door. You more than likely won't see a lawyer till you are in front of a judge on Monday. But… But… Paperwork can go missing. Would you like me to help you with misplacing paperwork so you can leave with your little cousin tonight?”

Swallowing hard he finally felt the hand on him to grip his flesh lightly. He had been part of negotiations like this too, only never this side of them. "Mierda, mierda, mierda..."

“Yeah? I think…” Doug paused, rubbing his thumb on the girl's smooth leg. “I think fuck would be a better word, what is that? Joder?”

Nodding at the question and the fate that was before him, Cal thought he was ging to cry, but the fucked up situation he was in was ripe with corruption and it felt like the only thing he could take advantage of to not end up in Mexico. ‘¡Chinga tu madre, Sidney!’ Calvin cursed mentally, it finally dawning on him why his fixer hadn’t shown up nor his lawyer.

Keeping his hand in place as he talked, like he had every right to keep it there, he took note of how the pretty latina didn’t pull away from him. "...and look, I'm not saying it's guaranteed," Doug was saying. "Nothing's guaranteed. But paperwork gets misfiled all the time. Files get left in drawers. Terminals go down. If somebody wanted to make sure a pretty girl's case never got scanned into the system properly, well." He shrugged. "Happens every day. Least for me… but as we discussed I’m not very good at being an ICE officer.

Calvin nodded. Or he thought he nodded. He wasn't sure. His whole body had gone strange, tuned to the hand like a radio frequency.

'Okay,' the distraught man thought. 'Okay. So here's where we are.' He started laying it out in his head, the way he laid out plans to meet his ideal of a slim but efficient budget. The way he laid out a deal.

'Fact one: Sidney is not coming. Sidney hung up on me. Sidney is, at best, drunk in a booth somewhere, and at worst has already decided to screw me over to get me in more trouble.'

The thumb on Cal’s leg moved. Slow. Back and forth.

'Fact two: the lawyer, my corporate lawyer Sidney was going to call is not coming either, and even if Sidney called him the man is not an immigration lawyer.'

'Fact three:I don’t have my real ID and if I somehow convince them who I really am there will be more questions that I do not want to answer.. But that would still be better wouldn’t it?' He thought his mind was having a hard time staying on topic.

'Fact four: Maria.'

That was the one that stuck. A teen girl that claimed she had all A's and was graduating high school two years early. The sob story was even complete with no parents and a sick grandfather who worked nights. Sitting on a metal bench in a bleached room with no idea if she'd see her abuela again. ‘I have fired people for underperforming and have never in my life lost sleep over anyone's sob story and yet that girl… Maria… I went and promised her. What the fuck was I thinking? WHAT am I thinking now!?

“I told her it would be okay. I looked that girl in the eye and told her she wasn't going anywhere.”

Doug cocked his head to the side, unsure what she was saying.

'Fact five,' he thought, and this one made his stomach turn over. 'Fatty can fix it. Not because Doug here is powerful. Doug is a nobody. But a nobody that has access. So. What does access cost?'

The thing was Calvin knew the answer to his question. He'd known since the moment the hand landed on his knee. Because he'd been on the other side of this power dynamic.

“It's just a means to an end.”

Putting his free hand over his heart, Doug grunted. “Boom right in the feelings.”

'He wants… ' Cal’s mind kept going unaware of anything the man touching him said. 'He wants sex… I can’t but I could.. No… gah fuck… Better than living in Mexico… right?'

'Oh God!'

Doug's thumb did one more slow drag, up the inside of the girl’s knee. All while Calvin started to mentally collapse thinking of what would happen if he refused. Not just for himself but what could happen if this man was alone in a room with Maria.

Reading Clara’s stillness and lack of her pulling away from him took the immigrant for accepting things.

"You know Clara, you are beautiful. Those lips of yours look like they are begging to be kissed but I;m betting they are good for something else too."

In a deadpan voice Calvin spoke up looking directly in the pricks eyes. “You want a blow job, right?”

Letting go of her like he had touched a hot stove, Doug put his hands in a surrender position briefly. “Hey now, I didn't say anything like that But… If that is something you want to do for me, who am I to tell a pretty girl no? She can’t have the cock she wants when she wants mine.”

Squeezing his eyes closed tightly cal repeated the mantra in his mind finding no comfort in it this time. “You want me on my knees?”'

"Yeah," he said. "Knees."

And that was it. Calvin did the math. The math was stupidly in Doug's favor. The math was insulting. 'A blow job,' he thought. 'A blow job. I bought Moriah a Lexus for her birthday last year and now I'm paying for my freedom by putting a dick in my mouth… well my freedom and Maria’s. '

'You don't have any other options, genius. I have options! 'Name one.' Calvin argued with himself before slipping out of the chair to his knees in front of the overweight man.