see it. In the lower left-hand corner is a familiar flash of color tucked in among the typical black and brown parkas and navy windbreakers. The blurred image of a platinum-blond woman wearing a bright-pink sweater decidedly out of place for a frigid February evening in New York.
Eva
Berkeley, California
August
Six Months before the Crash
The man’s name was Agent Castro, and over the next few days, Eva began to see him everywhere. She’d thrown away the business card he’d dropped through her mail slot, and tried to pretend he hadn’t followed her to her house, walked up her walkway, and knocked on her door. But he kept cropping up. In the parking lot at the supermarket. Driving down Bancroft Avenue as she exited a coffee shop. He even showed up at DuPree’s, taking a table in a different section and causing Eva to mess up several orders while he slowly ate a prime-rib dinner and drank a Guinness.
It worried her, how unconcerned he was about being seen. And it made her wonder how long he’d been watching her before deciding to make his presence known.
When Dex finally called her back, she demanded they meet immediately. “How did you get that Brittany referral?” she asked him. They were at a sports bar on Telegraph Avenue, sitting across from each other at a beer-sticky table in the basement dining room next to a pool table while semidrunk students around them watched a preseason football game on the big-screen TV.
“This guy I grew up with moved to Los Angeles. He knows her from down there. When she moved up here, he gave her my name. He told me she’d be a steady client. Why?”
Eva studied his face, looking for any signs of a lie, tension, or a flash of guilt. “I saw her talking to a federal agent after she tried to buy from me. Now he’s following me. I see him everywhere.”
Dex set his burger down, his expression serious. “Tell me exactly what happened.”
Eva described how Brittany appeared to be strung out. The jittery way she spoke, and the scabs on her hands. “I guess my question is why you sent me someone you hadn’t vetted yourself. That’s not the way it’s supposed to work.”
Dex’s gaze darkened. “What are you suggesting?”
“I’m pointing out that shortly after I met with a client you referred, I’m being tailed by a federal agent.”
“Fuck.” Dex tossed his napkin on the table. “I want you to stop everything. Don’t make or sell anything until you hear from me.”
“And how will you explain that to Fish?” she asked.
“I’ll handle him,” Dex told her. “My job is to keep you safe.”
Eva stared at him, weighing his words, knowing how this game was played. At the end of the day, if the choice was jail or selling out a friend, people in their business did what they had to do. She didn’t delude herself into thinking Dex would be any different, and she wasn’t entirely certain she would be either.
And yet, Dex had been the one to teach her how to evaluate risks, to identify who might be an undercover agent or an addict who could expose her. She couldn’t picture him leading her into an abyss that would surely pull him in after her.
* * *
They’d been meeting someone, several months after her expulsion, while she was still living in Dex’s spare bedroom and making the drugs on old equipment in his kitchen. They saw him, a shaggy-haired student, barely twenty years old, with headphones and sagging pants.
“Watch him,” Dex had said. They were tucked behind a bus kiosk, as if they were checking the schedule. The man had a tic of some kind, shrugging his left shoulder, shaking his head, almost imperceptibly, as he waited. In a low voice, Dex said, “You always watch first. You look for anomalies, like whether they’re wearing a sweatshirt in eighty-degree heat. Or if they’re wearing a tank top when it’s raining. These are clues, and you have to notice them. Check out his headphones. They’re not plugged into anything. See the way the cord is tucked into his front pocket, but the outline of his phone is in his back pocket?” Eva had nodded, filing these things away, knowing her survival depended on remembering them. Dex continued. “When you see anything like that, you keep going, because something isn’t right. Either he’s an addict or a cop.” He looked at her with a grave expression, his gray eyes locking onto hers. “Your number