(1997) Down-and-out attorney Dan Galindo defends a female singer in a rock and roll band, and the DEA believes he’s involved with her dope-dealing sugar daddy.

     Two men stood looking out past the ruined terrace into the blazing light of a Sunday afternoon. One man held a pair of binoculars to his eyes; the other peered through the long lens of a telephoto camera. No one across the lake was likely to see them. The shadow of the roof and the overgrown trees cast the interior of the house into an unnatural darkness.
       The room was silent except for the clicking of a shutter.
       Along one wall a folding table held recording equipment. The woman sitting there jotted notes on a clipboard. The glow of a small lamp reflected on her face. Her movements were precise and unhurried. At her feet electrical cords were routed to a junction box. Another line ran along the wall, then across the living room, held down by strips of duct tape.
       Eileen McHale walked in hearing the slight echo of her own footsteps on the bare concrete floor of what had once been a two-million-dollar lakefront house in a development in one of those vast tracts northwest of Miami. Elaine had driven up to check out the surveillance operation. The agent in charge, Vincent Hooper, had opened the garage for her so she could park her car out of sight. As far as the neighbors knew, the place was being renovated for the new owners, who lived out of state.

      The woman at the table looked up from her notes. Daisy Estrada, petite and auburn-haired, could have been any of the wives who might be found lunching at the Lakewood Village country club, except for the pistol holstered at her waist. She greeted Elaine by name.
       Elaine knew one of the men at the windows, Carlos Herrera, a Colombian-born agent with a graying mustache. They exchanged a nod. The other man was younger, with a dark blond ponytail. She extended her hand. "Elaine McHale, assistant U.S. attorney."
       "Glad to meet you. Scott Irwin." The knees of his jeans were ripped, and his black T-shirt had a picture of a guitarist with spiked hair. His one earring was a silver skull.
       She took all this in, finding it impossible not to smile. "You're the agent Vince put undercover at Coral Rock Productions. You have to be."
       Carlos patted his stomach. "Because the rest of us are too old or too fat. Scott, show her your navel ring." The younger man pulled up his T-shirt. A silver ring pierced his skin.
       "Ouch," Elaine said.
       Vincent Hooper put a foot on one of the steel chairs and lit a cigarette. "Scott plays bass guitar, fits right in. He's getting his arms tattooed next."
       "Not even for you, sugar pie." Scott pulled down his shirt.
       The DEA had planted an agent at a music production company because the man who lived across the lake, Miguel Salazar, was using the company to launder money for a drug cartel based in Ecuador.
       From where she sat by the tape recorders, Daisy Estrada said, "What about the wiretap? We're ready to roll."
       Elaine said, "The warrant should be signed any moment. They have your number here."
       Scott laughed in disbelief. "What's the problem? Salazar's been making calls all morning. He's walking around in there with his phone stuck in his ear."
       "Take it easy. We've got time." Vince watched the younger agent go sit down by the windows. Then he turned his head to look at Elaine.
       She felt a sudden weakness in her chest, a catch of breath. Vince had said nothing at the door, just opened it and let  her in. She hadn't expected that seeing him would get to her. Vince had been undercover in Ecuador since before Christmas, back in Miami for more than a week. She wanted to stare at him, to soak in the subtle changes; Vince always came back changed in some way. Following him into the room she had noticed that his skin was more deeply tanned. His shirt seemed tighter across his shoulders. He had a beard, neatly trimmed but full enough to cover the scar on his jaw where last year a cop in Panama had clubbed him with a rifle butt. There was some gray, not much.
       Elaine walked to the sliding glass doors that formed the west wall of the living room, facing the lake. One of them was broken out, replaced with plywood. She slid another back to get some air. This house stank of decay and desolation. On the patio, the screening was gone. Leaves and algae choked the pool, whose tiles had blackened with mildew.
       This time of year, late January, air conditioning wasn't necessary. She doubted it even worked. The former owner, who had been charged with securities fraud, had broken everything in the house rather than let the government seize it. At trial he had ranted how federal agents had set him up, lied to him, led him into a trap. Before the guilty verdict came in, he had punched holes in the walls and ripped out the wiring, sloshed motor oil onto plush carpeting, shattered every sink and toilet, then poured cement down the drains. His wife had already run out on him, so what the hell. Then he went into their bedroom, bit down on the barrel of a .38 revolver, and blew his brains out.
       Beyond the glittering blue lake Miguel Salazar's mansion soared upward, an expanse of glass and peach-colored stucco under a red tile roof, with a tennis court on one side and a pool on the other. Purple bougainvillea twined through a trellis shading the terrace. Tropical flowers bordered the brick walkway that led to a white gazebo, then to the lake, where a catamaran had been pulled to shore.
       On the terrace women in bright dresses were tying balloons to the backs of chairs set at circular tables. The balloons danced in the light breeze, and the tablecloths fluttered. Children played in the grass, laughing and shouting. A young girl came out of the house carrying a box with a ribbon on it, which she put on a table already stacked with presents. Elaine heard music-a salsa melody. Rhythmic, pulsing, fading in and out.
       She turned her head slightly. Vince stood beside her. "It's a birthday party."
       "I didn't know Salazar had children."
       "A teenage son, but he's in boarding school. He has some relatives living with him. A sister, cousins. The party's for his niece."
       "What about his wife?"
       Vince took a last drag on his cigarette and flicked it into the pool. "His wife is dead. She was a girl from the country, married him at fifteen. At the time of her death they lived on his ranch outside Quito. Salazar found out she was pregnant by his foreman. He shot her. The foreman lived, minus his cojones. That's the story, anyhow."
       Elaine let out a breath. "Good Lord."
       Vincent Hooper could repeat these horror stories without a flicker of emotion. He had told her worse than that, inventing nothing, and there were more things he refused to tell her. They had left their mark. He thought of himself as a soldier in a nasty war, the last line of defense. And yet Elaine had seen tenderness in this man-not often but enough to keep her from losing hope.
       She noticed a Mercedes-Benz flashing in and out of view among the big houses on Salazar's street. A minivan appeared after that. Both cars turned into his driveway, then were blocked from view by the house. More guests. A few minutes later a couple came out onto the terrace with a little boy, who ran off to join the others. The parents sat in the shade with the adults, and a woman in a maid's uniform brought a tray of drinks.
       "Just another happy family Sunday in the burbs." When Elaine didn't respond, Vince said, "What's the matter? You're pissed off because I haven't come to see you."
       "Don't make it sound so petty."
       His lips barely moved. "And don't be bitchy, Elaine. I couldn't get away."
       She didn't speak. It wouldn't do any good.
       To the south she could see white mounds of earth and the boom of a dragline moving slowly back and forth, digging up muck and limestone, making lakes and dry land out of what had once been Everglades.