Heading down one aisle and then another, I feel like I’m playing a live version of those dungeon crawler computer games, the ones where you encounter goblins and skeletons on the first floor, then find the door to the next level down, where the monsters get harder and the treasures bigger. No skeletons or treasure here, but lots of goblins. I come out onto one of the main aisles, a regular highway through the center of the crate maze, and run into another one of Bala’s boys. I almost step out right in front of him, but he’s looking at his smartphone as he walks down the central aisle, all his attention riveted on the small window of glass in his hand, so he doesn’t see me. I step back into the shadows and let him stroll past, still staring at his phone. Like the dead guy, he too is in T-shirt and jeans, like some working-class gangbanger, and he’s also sporting a soul patch that’s so last millennium. Once he walks past, I flit across the aisle behind him and into a gap between the crates on the other side, always angling toward the dimly lit back.

Soon I’m close enough to hear actual words in the conversation. The first is chinga, which doesn’t bode well. Then Cargill’s voice floats over the crates.

“Hey, amigo, don’t get your panties in a wad,” he says. “They’re all yours, with more to come at the same price.”

Bala’s voice is low and about as friendly as a wolf’s growl. “Which is not the original price.”

“I told you, overhead costs,” Cargill says. “Plus with that crazy bitch sneaking around, I need a little danger insurance, know what I’m saying?”

I turn down a narrow aisle that dead-ends into a stack of three crates. Bala sounds as if he is directly behind that stack. “I know exactly what you are saying,” Bala says in his low growl. “Men like you always make excuses to take a little more for yourselves, and then a little more. You’re like a remora swimming with sharks, nibbling at leftovers.”

“Maybe,” Cargill said. “But I’m the remora that’s got the weapons you want. You wanna be a bigger shark, let’s do business. Comprende?”

A pause. I lean forward against the stack, looking for gaps between the crates so maybe I can see the men. Then Bala says “Vamos” and the crate on top of the stack moves, scraping across the crate below it. I duck just as the top crate is removed by two of Cargill’s men, nearly exposing me. I crab-walk back down the aisle as fast as I can before they pick up the other crates. I need to find another place to eavesdrop.