Savages: A Novel

by Don Winslow

  I know you have heard this before—too many times—but this time it’s the real thing. John knows and loves the Lord, too, and now that we are back from the retreat we intend to marry and start a jewelry business—bracelets and necklaces that will proclaim the wearer’s faith. With my sense of style and John’s business acumen—he’s a self-made real estate multimillionaire—I know it will be a big success. The Lord wants His people to live abundantly.

  I will miss you, but Indiana isn’t that far away, and that’s why the Lord made airplanes.

  Your loving, mother,

  “Paqu”

  271

  We had for a brief time a civilization that clung to a thin strip of land between the ocean and the desert.

  Water was our problem, too much of it on one side, too little on the other, but it didn’t stop us. We built houses, highways, hotels, shopping malls, condo complexes, parking lots, parking structures, schools, and stadiums.

  We proclaimed the freedom of the individual, bought and drove millions of cars to prove it, built more roads for the cars to drive on so we could go the everywhere that was nowhere. We watered our lawns, we washed our cars, we gulped plastic bottles of water to stay hydrated in our dehydrated land, we put up water parks.

  We built temples to our fantasies—film studios, amusement parks, crystal cathedrals, megachurches—and flocked to them.

  We went to the beach, rode the waves, and poured our waste into the water we said we loved.

  We reinvented ourselves every day, remade our culture, locked ourselves in gated communities, we ate healthy food, we gave up smoking, we lifted our faces while avoiding the sun, we had our skin peeled, our lines removed, our fat sucked away like our unwanted babies, we defied aging and death.

  We made gods of wealth and health.

  A religion of narcissism.

  In the end, we worshipped only ourselves.

  In the end, it wasn’t enough.

  272

  A crossroads out in the desert.

  Because why not?

  There’s a convenient pullover where the cars can pull up and make the trade.

  And Elena’s troops can gun them all down and be gone long before the sheriffs or the INS can get there.

  They all know this.

  Lado knows it.

  His men sure as hell know it.

  Any reader of Western fiction or fan of Western movies knows it.

  Ben and Chon know it.

  And go anyway.

  Because it has to happen.

  273

  They take the pony, of course.

  Loaded with two shotguns, two pistols, and two AR-15s.

  If they’re going out, they’re going out blazing.

  Shoot Magdalena up with just enough junk to keep her docile and walk her out of her motel arm-in-arm-in-arm. Put her in the backseat, tape her mouth shut and her wrists in front of her.

  Long quiet drive out to the desert.

  What’s there to talk about and what do you put on the radio as a soundtrack to kidnapping and killing?

  Silence is better.

  Nothing to say anyway.

  274

  For the first time in her life, Elena feels sheer terror.

  A nausea deep in her stomach.

  And the time just … will … not … pass.

  She jumps at the knock on her bedroom door.

  Lado’s wife, Delores.

  She’s on the verge of tears and Elena is strangely touched by her simpatico.

  “Elena,” she says. “I know you have … so much … on your mind, but—”

  Her voice quivers and then she starts to cry.

  “My dear friend,” Elena says. “Whatever is so wrong?”

  She puts her arm around the woman’s shoulder, leads her into the room, and shuts the door behind them.

  Delores tells Elena all about her husband, what he did, what he’s done.

  275

  Short ride for O.

  She’s out for most of it on Ambien.

  Pharmaceutical duct tape.

  Wakes up shivering in the cold desert night.

  “We’re close,” Lado says.

  So close, he thinks, to winning it all.

  His men left an hour early and are in position around the pull-off.

  276

  Delores sobs and sobs.

  Elena understands but tires of it quickly.

  She pats her hand one more time, sits her up, and says, “You did the right thing. You did what any woman would, to protect her children.”

  Men teach us how to treat them.

  277

  Ben and Chon find the pull-off by the junction.

  They pull over and blink their lights twice.

  An answering signal comes out of the darkness and then a black SUV comes forward and stops about ten yards in front of them.

  Chon can smell a night ambush and he smells it now, along with the creosote bush and Indian tobacco, the soft desert scents even on this chill night.

  “They here?” Ben asks.

  “Oh yeah,” Chon says. “Both sides.”

  Doubtless they’re lying in the brush next to the pull-off and on the other side of the road.

  “The second you get O,” Chon repeats, “hit the ground and stay flat.”

  “Yup.”

  “Ben?”

  “Yeah?”

  “It’s been a ride.”

  “Yes, it has.”

  Ben tucks a pistol into the back of his belt, takes Magda, and leads her out of the car.

  Chon reaches in back and grabs the two ARs.

  278

  Lado sticks a pistol in his own belt, walks around to the passenger side, and pulls O out of the car.

  The little cunt is still out of it.

  Her legs wobbly.

  They should be, Lado thinks, after what I gave her.

  He walks toward the gueros’ car.

  279

  Elena gets out of the Land Rover.

  Hernan at her side.

  She sees one of the bastards walking with Magda in front of him.

  Thank God, thank God, thank God.

  As soon as he releases her, the men know to open up.

  “Let her go!” Lado shouts. “Send her my way!”

  “You, too!” Ben answers.

  He gives Magda a gentle push toward Lado.

  Lado does the same with O.

  As soon as Magda is out of Ben’s reach, Elena nods her head.

  280

  The night lights up.

  Bright red muzzle flashes from twelve guns, all trained on

  Lado.

  As Elena shouts, “Dido!”

  Informer.

  What Delores told her.

  281

  Lado does a Wicked Witch of the West.

  Melts in front of Dorothy O as

  Ben rushes forward, tackles her, and presses her to the ground and they watch

  Lado dance a funny little jig

  Light on his feet, as they say, for a big man, he tiptoes back toward his car like he still thinks he can get in and drive away from this, but then he trips on himself and falls face-first on the hood then slides down, his blood leaving a smear on the shiny black paint.

  A shooter comes out of the darkness, grabs him by the hair, and jerks his neck back.

  The machete is a silver flash in the moonlight.

  282

  Then it’s quiet.

  Save for Magda, screaming under her gag, stumbling into her mother’s arms.

  Who says

  “Kill them.”

  283

  The world erupts in fire.

  Ben presses O deeper into the ground but she squirms out from under him and

  Scrambles across the desert floor, grabs Lado’s pistol from the ground, and starts to fire and so Ben

  Starts shooting as

  284

  One rifle cradled in front of him, the other looped over his back, Chon belly-crawls toward Ben a
nd O, shooting as he moves. He aims at each muzzle flash and the sicarios don’t know enough to fire and move.

  Flashback.

  Night ambushes in the Stan but

  He knows he’s fighting now for Ben and O

  They are

  His country.

  285

  Suddenly it’s quiet.

  Cautiously, Chon gets up to see

  Bathed in moonlight, Elena sits on the ground, her back against the grill of the Land Rover. Two dead sicarios, neatly shot through the forehead, lie beside her like sleeping guard dogs.

  Elena calls, “Magda! Magda!”

  Chon sees the girl stumble in the greasewood and brush, trying to get away from the scene.

  Thinks, there will be time for her later.

  He points his rifle at Elena’s head.

  She looks up at him and says, “Do it. You already killed my son.”

  O is standing at his shoulder.

  Blood—black in the silver light—runs down her tattooed arm like a jungle waterfall. It flows from the mermaid’s mouth and winds down the undersea vines.

  Chon tries to raise the gun but his wounded shoulder won’t let him. His arm goes numb and the rifle falls into the dirt.

  Says, “I can’t.”

  Elena smiles at O. And says, “You see, m’ija? You see what men are?”

  O picks up Chon’s fallen rifle.

  Says, “I’m not your fucking daughter.”

  And pulls the trigger.

  286

  Chon catches up with Magda, in shock, stumbling around the desert, and grabs her wrist.

  He knows what he needs to do, if they’re to get away. They all know it—if they let this girl live, they run tonight and can never come home again.

  Chon looks over.

  O shakes her head.

  Ben does the same.

  Chon rips the tape off the girl’s mouth, then her wrists. He shoves her toward the Suburban. “Get the fuck out of here. Get the fuck out of here now.”

  She staggers toward the car and gets in. A few seconds later the car rooster-tails out of the dirt and onto the highway.

  Chon walks over to Ben and O.

  Just as Ben

  Collapses.

  287

  Chon kneels beside them, rolls Ben over as gently as he can but Ben screams in pain.

  Opening Ben’s jacket, Chon sees and knows.

  Gets the morphine and the syringe from his own pocket.

  He finds a vein in Ben’s arm and shoots him up.

  288

  O asks,

  “He’s going to die anyway, isn’t he?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t want to leave him.”

  “No.”

  Chon breaks another ampoule and fills the syringe. O offers her arm. Chon finds a vein and shoots her up.

  Then he repeats the process on himself.

  289

  O lies down and wraps her arms around Ben.

  He presses his back against her warm stomach.

  “You’d like Indo,” he mutters.

  “I’ll bet.”

  O strokes his cheek. Warm, soft Ben. She says, “Tell me about it.”

  Dreamily, Ben tells her about golden beaches edged in emerald necklaces of jungle. About water so green and blue that only a stoned God could have dreamed up the colors. Tells her about crazy, motley birds doing Charlie Parker riffs at the incitement of sunrise, about small-framed brown men and delicate brown women with smiles as white and pure as winter and hearts to match. About sunsets of gentle fire, warm but not burning, satin black nights lit only by starshine.

  “It sounds like heaven,” she says. Then, “I’m cold.”

  Chon lies down behind O and presses close. The warmth of his body feels good to her. He reaches his arm over her and takes Ben’s hand.

  Ben grips it hard.

  290

  O listens to the sounds in her head.

  Waves gently breaking on pebbles.

  She hears her heartbeat, and her men’s.

  Strong, but slowing.

  Warm now in the womb of her two men.

  O.

  We’ll live on the beach and eat the fish that we catch. We’ll pick fresh fruit and climb trees for coconuts. We’ll sleep together on palm frond mats and make love.

  Like savages.

  Beautiful, beautiful savages.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I have a lot of people to thank—my agent, Richard Pine, to whom I now owe dinner and a lot more; my buddy Shane Salerno for telling me to drop everything else and write this book; David Rosenthal for liking the pages; my editor, Sarah Hochman, for making it so much better; Matthew Snyder for getting it out there; and, with gratitude, Oliver Stone for really seeing it. And, as always, my wife, Jean, for putting up with it and me.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Don Winslow, a former private investigator and consultant, is the author of twelve novels, including The Dawn Patrol, The Winter of Frankie Machine, The Power of the Dog, California Fire and Life, and The Death and Life of Bobby Z. He lives in Southern California.