Ramirez promoted me on a Monday.
Not to the office. Not to the inner circle. To the route. The main route. Hialeah to Doral to Little Havana, the route that carried the most product and the most money. I was now one of four men who drove the main route, the artery of Camila's operation, and being inside the artery meant I could see the heart.
Ten weeks undercover. Three hundred and seventeen days remaining. I was no longer the man who carried boxes. I was Mateo Cruz, driver on the main route, a man Ramirez trusted, a man who'd climbed the ladder one rung at a time until the rungs ran out and the only direction left was sideways, into the room where Camila sat.
The turning happened on a Wednesday.
I was driving the route. Doral stop. El Sabor, a Cuban place on NW 36th Street that served lunch to construction workers and stored product in the walk-in cooler behind a false wall. I parked in the back. I carried the boxes in. Fifteen kilos each. I carried four.
