Devil's Harbor by Alex Gilly Page A

harder on the way home.
    *   *   *
    Finn came through the front door breathing hard and drenched with sweat. Mona was sitting at the table, eating toast. She was smartly dressed but barefoot. Her shiny black leather heels were on the floor by her case, which sat with its telescopic handle extended by the front door. She looked up at him and smiled.
    The organization that Mona worked for was championing, among other things, a bill that outlawed California employers from withholding overtime pay to workers who had irregular immigration status. Mona was flying to Sacramento to testify before the state assembly’s labor committee, and to persuade it to send the bill to the floor. She was staying overnight.
    It wasn’t the first time that members of California’s legislature had heard from Mona Jimenez, and, if she had her way, it wouldn’t be the last. Mona had been only ten years old in 1994, when Californians had voted in a referendum to exclude undocumented migrants from the state’s health care, education, and social security programs, and she had never forgotten the tears on her mother’s face or the worried looks in her father’s and uncles’ eyes. She remembered how the atmosphere seemed to have changed that November day, how she had sat in the backseat of her father’s truck driving through the streets of Lincoln Heights, in the city where she’d been born, and had felt as though when Anglos looked in their direction, their gazes had lingered a moment longer than usual.
    Since Finn was confined to shore duty and no longer did night patrols, their schedules coincided, and he’d promised to drive her to the airport. At the drop-off zone at LAX, he set her case on the sidewalk and opened the passenger door for her.
    She got out and took the handle of her case.
    â€œPromise me you’ll call the counselor today, Nick,” she said.
    â€œI promise.”
    She smiled. “Thank you,” she said. Then: “Wish me luck?”
    â€œAre you kidding? With that brain and those heels, they don’t stand a chance. That bill’s going through, I know it.”
    She grinned, kissed him, and swayed into the airport. Finn sat behind the wheel and kept his eyes on his wife’s behind until an airport attendant waved him along.
    *   *   *
    Finn walked into the field operations station at Long Beach. The supervisor handed him a clipboard full of shipping-container manifests and took it upon himself to mention the shift Finn had skipped the afternoon before. Finn gave him a long look, and the supervisor didn’t say anything more about it; shooting Perez had made Finn famous—or infamous, depending on your point of view—throughout the CBP.
    He walked along the giant wharf to the truck with the mobile VACIS system installed on its flatbed. It was sweltering inside the operator’s cabin. He tried the air-con; nothing happened. He couldn’t keep the door open on account of the radiation that the VACIS produced—the system wouldn’t operate unless the cabin was sealed. He rang the supervisor.
    â€œAir-con’s not working. It must be ninety-five degrees in here,” he said.
    â€œNothing we can do about it until tomorrow,” said the supervisor.
    Finn swore, loosened his collar, and looked at the pile of cargo manifests. His job was to read the manifest, then look for inconsistencies on the X-ray image of the container—false walls or ceilings, areas of high density, things that didn’t match the manifest—that warranted opening the container. In other words, his job was to stare at the screen for hours.
    He powered up the system. In an attempt to get comfortable, he took his keys, wallet, and phone from his pockets and put them on the desk next to the monitor. The corner of the card that Mona had given him, for the counselor, was sticking out of his wallet. Finn remembered the promise