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D’s, getting a few atta boys, and then building a real case against Valdez. None of that ever happened. He was sitting in a DC cab, daydreaming about being a hero when he got boxed in by two SUV’s. He was abducted at gunpoint in broad daylight by Delta Force operators with aviator shades and ear pieces.
    Driven to an abandoned warehouse, they held him naked and cuffed to a table for two days. In between beatings he found out the suit Gonzalo met with was a top CIA spook. They were on their way to the land fill when someone called and ended it. The operators were actually pissed off that they couldn’t kill him, and one of them told Happy it’d be better for everyone if he spent some time investigating worms from underground. Before they let him go they told him to keep his mouth shut or they’d finish the job—said he was messing with the wrong people and to consider this his once and final warning.
    When he got back he was booted out of narcotics, and barely managed to keep his job after being suspended for a month with no explanation. The icing on the cake was getting permanently assigned to the front desk at the 9th Precinct right in the heart of Valdez country, but the nut shot was a gift box delivered to his house by messenger. It was all wrapped and ribboned up, and Happy and the wife opened it together. Top layer was chocolates and truffles, the bottom had his Valdez snitch’s chopped off hands holding a picture of himself in cuffs with Happy walking him into One Police Plaza. The wife left him that day, and he’d been sitting at his desk and staying out of Gonzalo’s business ever since.
    He couldn’t share his story with the two undercovers who arrested John and Felix, but still felt obligated to warn them about the shit storm that was coming their way.
    “Look fellas, all I can tell you is that Valdez is all the way connected. He got a lot of power in this town, and he gonna be seriously pissed off you two.”
    “Come on, Sarge. We’re NYPD. Nobody fucks with us. I think you’ve been sitting behind that desk for too long. You need to kick some ass on the street with us for a few days and get your bal… your head back in the game.”
    Happy knew it was only the chevrons on his sleeves that made the officer say “head” instead of “balls.” It pissed him off that they saw him as a timid house cat, but he kept his cool.
    “All I know is there’s a big welcome home party just a few blocks from here for the war hero you just processed and he ain’t gonna make it. Both nephews are in the system now and we can’t undo it, so you’d best get ‘em outta here. Did they make a call?”
    “I asked the soldier if he wanted to use my phone, but he said he didn’t want to get in trouble,” said the lead officer.
    “Actually, what he said was that he didn’t want you to get in trouble. I didn’t think anything of it at the time,” his partner said.
    “Well, at least he’s looking out for you guys. That’s a good thing, but too many people know ‘em and the word’s gonna hit the street. As soon as it does this building’s gonna be surrounded by an angry mob.” Happy didn’t add that he’d already been captured once and wasn’t about to let it happen again.
    “Get a car right now and take ‘em down to Central Booking before the shit jumps off.”
    “You think that’ll be the end of it?”
    “Can’t say for sure. You apologize hard enough to the cousins on the way downtown they might put in a good word for you.”
    “Apologize for doing our job?”
    “Up to you. From what I just told you, you know Valdez is a serious player with lots of pull, and the man definitely holds a grudge.”
    “Gonzalo Valdez, huh?”
    “Yeah, the one and only Gonzalo Valdez.”
    “Fuck me.”
    “Just hope he doesn’t.”
     
    Gonzalo was born in Panama in nineteen-fifty, the eighth of Maria and Juan Valdez’s seventeen children. The Panama of his youth was a daily adventure filled with fun and