Crossing the Line by Clinton McKinzie

and then once more during the criminal trial of the state’s governor-elect, when his attorney used the Cheyenne incident to try to impeach my credibility. The picture they’d shown on the TV screen—me looking outraged but also furtive as I dodged out of the courthouse—might have been fuzzy to the citizens of Potash over the rims of their beer cans and whiskey glasses, but with my brother’s life at risk I didn’t want to take any chances.
    Mary Chang circled all the way around me. Then she examined me head-on, with a slight smile of her own.
    “I guess you do know what you’re doing.”
    “I’ve been doing this for eight years. I can be whatever you want me to be.”
    I wasn’t bragging. All my life it had been easy for me to fit in with whatever clique or group I wanted to. Whatever natural ability I started with was enhanced by growing up on military bases, with a new school each year, and the desperate need to fit in. My mixed heritage—Indio, Spanish, and Anglo—didn’t hurt. I could pass as either a light-skinned Latino or a dark-skinned gringo whenever it suited me. With a Jewish fiancée, my horizons might expand even further.
    It wasn’t all pretense, either. I’d become comfortable in these clothes—except for the boots, which hurt like hell—just as I was comfortable wearing a navy suit while testifying in court, or a tweaker’s torn black T-shirt and Doc Martens, or my sandals, hemp shorts, and tie-dyes when hanging out with post-hippies. Working as a DCI agent in Wyoming for so long, I had been thoroughly immersed in the drug cultures of two races.
    “Where are you thinking about placing the drop?” she asked.
    “In one of the bars. There’s not much else in town. I’ll find out which one of Hidalgo’s
sicarios
frequent and pick a spot or two. I assume whatever Roberto brings out is going to be small.”
    “Tom’s idea is for him to communicate with us by placing notes on the inside of cigarette packs then casually discarding them.”
    It wasn’t original, but I knew it would be effective. A message could be written on the inside of the foil that lined the pack and then replaced.
    “Uh-uh. I roll my own,” Roberto said.
    We all looked at him because of the firmness of his voice. It seemed like such a very small thing to need to be firm about. But I guessed he needed something to keep for himself. Smoking that foul Indian tobacco was an act of rebellion for him, something he’d only started when imprisoned in Colorado where it wasn’t allowed. I thought it was probably symbolic.
    It had been a long day for him. For all of us. It had been spent indoors, pulling out everything he knew about Hidalgo from his past, as well as cramming into him everything he’d need to know about El Doctor for his future. Roberto was feeling the tug of the leash around his neck. He fingered it now, touching the turquoise stone.
    Tom glared at him, saying, “You’re a Marlboro Man now.”
    “The fuck I am.”
    “Okay, okay. We’ll work something out,” Mary said, wisely giving in on this.
    A brief argument followed because Roberto refused to smoke those “toxic rods.” He seemed to think his pure tobacco was healthy. At least it was healthier than the needle and his preferred blend of cocaine and heroin. Mary finally agreed to get some bidis, all-natural Indian cigarettes. It was a better idea, really. Roberto could deposit them in a seldom-emptied trash bin and the exotic packaging would be easy to pick out later.
    Mary gave me a long look before I left.
    “Be careful, Anton,” she said. “That town looked pretty tough, like something out of an Old West movie. Don’t do anything to draw attention to yourself. And don’t go anywhere near Hidalgo or his men. Remember: Don’t take any chances.”
    “Yeah, that’s my job,” my brother said.
    Then he smiled. “Have a cold one for me,
che
.”
             
    I was happy to be going, but Mungo wasn’t happy at being left behind. She