The answer was it didn’t. Exactly nothing was going the way we’d expected. I couldn’t believe this was happening.

“A squad car is pulling over. Can I please, please, please go home?” my informant said.

“Of course, Valentina. You did good. I’ll call you,” I said, hanging up.

The metal clang of a passing garbage truck bouncing over potholes in the street rang off the gouged walls and dirty marble steps as I stood there trying to figure out what was happening.

“So?” Hughie said, holding up his hands.

“We were wrong,” I said. “Candelerio isn’t coming. He’s going to his daughter’s graduation.”

“How is this happening?” Hughie said, speed-tapping the barrel of his M4 as he paced back and forth. “You heard the transcripts. Perrine said the meet’s at Margaritas! This is Margaritas. Candelerio is a silent partner in the place. He eats here three times a week.”

I slowly went over the case in my mind, especially the telephone transcripts. They were written in a weird mix of Spanish and Creole that had been translated by two different FBI experts. But Hughie was right. In the calls, Perrine kept talking about being at Margaritas. Margaritas at noon.

“Maybe Margaritas isn’t a place,” I said.

“What is it, then?” Hughie said. “You think Perrine wants to meet Candelerio for a margarita?”

“Maybe it’s a code word or something. Does margarita mean anything in Spanish?”

“Um… tequila and lime juice?” Hughie said, lifting his phone. “I’m the Gaelic expert. Let me ask Agent Perez.”

“It’s a name of a flower,” Hughie said, listening to his phone a moment later. “It means… daisy.”