by Johnny Shaw
“I won’t let him do anything,” I said. “I give you my word. Tomás Morales will not harm you. Not if you tell me everything you know. Where is Alejandro?”
“No sé.”
“In English,” Tomás shouted. Seeing the big man cringe made me cringe.
He dropped his head, as if the weight of it was no longer bearable. “I no know.”
“You just said that you can help me find him. Why did you want to talk to me? How do you know my name?”
“Alejandro,” he said. “Alejandro, he say, nothing stop Tomás Morales from the killing. Alejandro in Mexicali, he know he es muerto. Tomás Morales, él ve todo. Alejandro say he cannot be Mexicali. He run. El Norte, no?”
“Okay. Alejandro wants to leave Mexicali. Where’s he going?”
“Sí, Alejandro go to Los Angeles, San Diego, yes?” the man said.
“Great, but where do I fit in?” I said.
“Dinero. He wants your money.”
“What?”
“He, Alejandro, is not to leave until you give his money.”
“What the fuck are you talking about? His money? I got news for him and you. I ain’t got no money. And if I did, I wouldn’t be giving Alejandro centavo uno.”
“This is all he talks about. Jimmy will give me the money. Jimmy have the money,” the man said. “The money to begin negocio en El Norte.”
Tomás looked at me. “There something you’re not telling me?”
I shook my head. “Okay, for the sake of argument, let’s say I have money. How is he going to get my money? Why does he think I’d give it to him?”
“Just before la policia come, Alejandro to go,” the man said. “Alejandro to go to get the boy.”
In an instant my stomach tightened into a fist, filling with gravel and snot.
“The boy?” I asked.
“Alejandro, he to go to La Ciudad Perdida.”
“Oh shit.”
“He was to go to get the boy.” The man began crying again, mumbling what might have been a prayer.
Now I understood. If he is to kill me, you will not find him. He wasn’t talking about Alejandro. He was talking about Juan. He was saying that I would never find Juan.
Tomás stepped in and said, “The boy? What does that mean? What boy? Jimmy?”
I heard Tomás talking, but the meaning didn’t sink in. All I could hear was the beaten man’s words.
He was to go to get the boy.
Get the boy.
Tomás called the officers back in the room and told them to send a squadron to La Ciudad Perdida. I told him about Mrs. Ruiz and Juan and where they were within the colonia. He remembered the directions he had given me the day before and repeated them to another couple of officers. The bustle of activity took less than a minute.
Tomás took me into an adjoining room. It was the same institutional gray-green with a desk, a couple of chairs, and a couch. He pointed to the couch. I sat down. The fabric felt damp and warm. I lit a cigarette with a quivering hand.
“Who is the boy? Who is he to you?” Tomás asked. “Why am I only hearing about this now?”
“He’s Yolanda’s son. The dead woman’s son.”
“What does that have to do with you, Jimmy?”
“He’s also my father’s child.”
“Your…?” He did the math in his head.
“I didn’t know he existed until yesterday. Fuck, that was yesterday. It wouldn’t’ve been difficult for Alejandro to figure out why we went down to the colonia. Find out who we talked to. Talk to them. A gringo in that slum gets looks. So does a shovel fight. Nobody but a few people know about Pop, but he could’ve figured that the kid was important to me. Probably thinks the kid is mine.”
“If he’s still at La Ciudad Perdida, my men will find him.”
“Why would he try to take him?”
“Money,” Tomás said. “There are no other reasons.”
“I don’t have any money.”
“A lot of Mexicans, especially poor Mexicans, believe that all white people, all Americans, are rich. And comparatively, they are. I doubt if Alejandro’s plan is overly structured or thought out. He’s not a deep thinker.”
“What the fuck is he going to do with Juan when he finds out I don’t have any money?”
He patted my shoulder and walked back into the interrogation room. He spoke softly to one of the remaining guards, who immediately left the room.
Tomás returned, standing over me. “If he is in Mexico, we will find them. If not, we have our new amigo.”
Four cigarettes and a stomach ulcer later, Tomás’s cell phone rang. He had a long conversation in Spanish that was too fast for me. I caught a few words, but no meaning. However, Tomás’s disappointment was clear.
Tomás hung up. “No Alejandro. No boy. They found the old woman. She had been beaten. She was, is unconscious. I have a doctor on his way. But even awake, I don’t think she’ll tell us anything important. Only confirm what we know. Alejandro has the boy. And they are gone.”
“Fuck,” I shouted, my head ringing from the volume.
Tomás continued. “They are gone, but close. He will have to contact you. If he wants your money, he will need to make arrangements to get it. The boy will be safe until then.”
“And Alejandro will be safe as long as he has the boy.”
“Now you see why they call it a Mexican standoff.”
The man was offering his terms. “Sé donde esta el chico. I will tell where he takes the boy. We were to, cómo se dice ‘encontrarlo.’ I know where he takes the boy. Pero no hablaré aquí. Debo ser libre. Tengo un primo en Calecia. My cousin in Calecia. Bring me to mi primo, I will tell you.”
I took Tomás to the side. “Can you get him over the border? Can you get him to his cousin?” My body surged with adrenaline. I could feel myself shaking and frantic, unable to completely control my nerves.
“I can get people over the border, yes. But we aren’t going to bring him to Calexico,” Tomás said calmly.
“But—” was all I got out.
“We will find them,” Tomás said. “Alejandro has not contacted you. He is most likely on the move. We have time.”
“Are we just going to wait for him to call? What about this guy? He has the information we need.”
“Exactly. And he is going to tell us. In this room. Right now. He is going to tell us where Alejandro took the boy. He was supposed to meet them. He knows and he will talk. He does not make the rules,” Tomás said. “I make the rules in Mexicali.”
Big Piwi walked into the room and set a case of mineral water down on the table. He took his place directly behind the shaking man.
I turned to Tomás. “You going to make Italian sodas? We’re wasting time. You need to stop being the big boss and do something to find them.”
Before Tomás answered, the man interrupted, emphatically chanting, “No, no, no.” His frightened eyes stared at the mineral water. His voice rose and dropped to the rhythm of his breathing. The volume arced in rolling waves with each desperate breath.
“He will tell us. Ten, fifteen minutes. He will tell us.”
“What are you going to do, Tomás?” I asked.
“Tehuacanazo.”
“What does that mean? I don’t know what that means.”
“There’s really no good translation,” he said, ominously playful.
Tomás picked up a bottle from the case and leaned toward the man. “Dónde está Alejandro? Dónde iría él? Dónde se ocultaría?”
“No. No. Mi primo en Calecia.”
Tomás turned to me, smiling. It was a smile that no man was meant to see. A smile that was supposed to be hidden beneath an executioner’s mask. Not sadistic, but implacable.
Tomás said, “He thinks he can get what he wants.”
“Maybe he doesn’t really know,” I said. “He’s trying to stay alive.”
“He knows.”
“He also knows that you aren’t going to let him live, whic
h gives him no incentive,” I said. “I don’t want Alejandro to do anything to that boy, but I don’t know if I can let you kill this guy. I mean, torture? He’s just this fucking guy, some lackey chump.”
“He understands that this is a part of his life.”
If I hadn’t been so disturbed, I would have laughed. “That’s not an argument, that’s insane.”
“He knows that today is his last day,” Tomás said. “When the sun rises tomorrow, he will no longer be. It’s fascinating to watch. Nobody knows how they will conduct themselves with that knowledge.”
“Then why doesn’t he just tell you? Get it over with? He’s obviously scared shitless of whatever you’re about to do.”
“It’s what you said. His knowledge keeps him alive. As long as he owns what he knows, he lives. Even if it’s only to buy a painful fifteen minutes. If he tells me his secrets, then he is a dead man. At least, that’s how he thinks. Nobody goes to their grave easy. They all cling to life by their fingernails.”
“I told him I wouldn’t let you kill him.”
“I heard you tell him that,” Tomás said. “When you came here, you wanted to make sure that you were safe from Alejandro. I wanted to make Alejandro cease to be. You now have a different problem. I don’t. I want to find Alejandro for the same reason. I intend to use the most effective methods regardless of your concerns.”
I wanted Tomás to get mad. I wanted him to yell. He was so calm. He showed no emotion. It scared the hell out of me.
“We’re friends, Tomás. As a friend, I need your help, yes. But as a, I don’t know, as a human being, I can’t let you kill a helpless man.”
“He is only helpless right now.”
“Killing him will not help the boy. I know that.”
Tomás looked down at the ground for a moment. “Why do you only call him ‘the boy’? Or your father’s child?”
“What do you mean? You’re changing the subject.”
“He is your brother, isn’t he?”
“Yeah. He is my brother.” And as I said it, I realized that was the first time I had used that word to describe him.
He is my brother.
“Are you willing to do anything to get your brother? Are you willing to do anything to protect your brother’s future?”
My mind raced. I barely heard the questions.
My brother.
“Are you willing to do whatever it takes?”
I stared silently, but I knew the answer.
“You’re going to find out,” Tomás said and gave Big Piwi a nod.
Big Piwi grabbed the man by the neck with one hand, his other hand on the front of the chair. He picked both the man and the chair off the ground and slammed them onto the table, crushing the man’s bound hands beneath him. The sound of grating bone on wood made me wince. The man screamed, bound and on his back. He tried to struggle, but had no leverage. Big Piwi slid the man’s head to the edge of the table by his hair and held him, one hand on the chest, the other on his forehead. The man’s body writhed, but Big Piwi’s grip was firm, the man’s head tilted back and still.
Tomás unscrewed the cap of the mineral water. It burped a little gas, bubbles rising to the rim. A little bit of water ran over the side and Tomás’s hand. He walked to the table and stood over the man, whose face and ears glowed bright red.
“Dígame,” Tomás said to him. Then he poured the mineral water into the man’s nostrils.
The man screamed, water and pink saliva spraying from his lips. The muscles in his neck tightened and clenched. The compressed violence of choking. Tomás let the water pour from the bottle, the man’s nose overflowing, his sinus cavity full of caustic water.
I turned away, but without the image the sound was more distressing. The man’s muffled, gurgling screams fighting for volume, but dying in liquid. The sound of a man drowning. Drowning in the desert.
“Dónde?” I heard Tomás ask.
The response was more smothered cries.
I walked out of the room, closed the door, and retreated down the hall until I could no longer hear the man. Except in my head.
I sat down on the ground, lit a cigarette, and inhaled deeply. It gave me no comfort, only a burning feeling in my chest and stomach. A part of me knew that I deserved the pain.
Fifteen minutes later, Tomás was standing over me. “The carbonated water has no lasting effect. It is only pain. More brutal people in the south use gasoline.”
I said nothing. Thinking about the man and the building I was in. This was all being done within the parameters of the “law.” My fear of Mexican jails had been reaffirmed.
“We must go. You must go. I will give you the information on the way. Alejandro is no longer in Mexicali. I know where he is, but I don’t know for how long.”
“I can’t go anywhere until I know that he’s going to be okay.”
“He? Who? Him?” Tomás asked, looking back over his shoulder.
“Yeah. What’s going to happen to him?”
“Let’s go. You have the advantage on Alejandro. Don’t squander it. Your brother’s life.”
“No, Tomás. I’m trying to hold onto something human here. This isn’t something I can walk away from.”
I took a couple of deep breaths.
“It’s not just about saving Juan. It’s about what happens next. If I’m going to take care of my brother, if I’m going to raise Juan, I can’t be the kind of man who lets an innocent man get killed.”
“Innocent?”
I held my stare at Tomás.
Finally Tomás shook his head. He gave me the same look you give to a child when you finally give in and buy them that ice cream cone.
“For you, Jimmy.”
He held out his hand and helped me to my feet. Tomás put his arm around my shoulder and walked me back to the interrogation room. Big Piwi had set the chair back on the ground. The man was slumped over and appeared to be semiconscious. Water, blood, and saliva dripped from his mouth and nose. Tomás nodded at Big Piwi. He grabbed the man by his wet hair and lifted his head up. The man opened his eyes to slits and stared vacantly at Tomás.
Tomás grabbed the man under the chin and spoke slowly and clearly. “Este hombre acaba de salvar tu vida. Tienes una hora para dejar Mexicali. Si oigo que usted ha vuelto, tú morirá después de mucho dolor.” He used Spanish that even I could understand. The man had an hour to leave Mexicali. He could never return or he would be killed.
Tomás turned to me. “Happy?”
“Not the word I would use,” I said. “Where is my brother?”
“The Oasis,” Tomás said. “That’s where Alejandro took the boy.”
Tomás and I sat in the back seat of his SUV. Big Piwi drove, his mass wedged behind the steering wheel. He barely slowed to give a nod to the Border Patrol officer working the crossing. Membership has its privileges.
“The Oasis,” Tomás repeated.
“What is that? Like a bar? A night club?”
“No. It’s a problem. It’s in Gordons Well.”
“That’s in the sand dunes on the way to Yuma, right?” I asked, remembering the name from my youth. “There’s nothing out there. How can he be there? The old plank road and a bunch of quads and dune buggies.”
I took out my pack of cigarettes. I could feel Tomás watching me as I fumbled with the torn opening at the top of the soft pack. As I dug my nails into the filter end of a smoke, I looked up at Tomás. He gave me a brief head shake. I put the cigarettes back in my pocket.
Tomás said, “It’s the south end of the Algodones Dunes. Runs close to the border. Right where the All-American turns north. A remote point of entry without the danger and inconvenience of crossing the canal. Some of the dunes are in Mexico. It’s a serviceable place to cross. But only for the well-equipped. Very dangerous for anyone else.”
“I know where you’re talking. It’s nothing but sand. There’s no shade, let alone anywhere to hide,” I said. “But I got a feeling if it’s got a nickname
like ‘the Oasis,’ I’m about to find out what’s what.”
“In the old days, Gordons Well might have had a well. Now it has a geothermal plant.”
“That’s right,” I said. “I went on a field trip out to one of them when I was in fourth grade.”
“And it’s not just any geothermal plant,” Tomás said. “But the crookedest little geothermal plant in the world.”
By the time Big Piwi had pulled into the parking lot of Morales Bar, Tomás had given me the lowdown on the Gordons Well Geothermal Power Plant Project (or the GWGPPP, if you can believe it).
Commissioned by the Department of the Interior in the early seventies and run by a joint effort between the state of California and Imperial County, the power plant ran quietly and efficiently for its first thirty years of operation. Until the last couple of years. It seems that three years ago, due to the power plant’s proximity to the All-American Canal and the San Andreas Fault line, there were concerns about the effect the plant was having on the Imperial County water supply. The EPA came in and in a surprising display of efficiency began their testing and issued a temporary delay of all energy production at the facility. That temporary delay became indeterminate when they found high mineral counts, particularly sulfur and phosphates. The engineers and employees of the GWGPPP were redistributed to the other power facilities in the area, leaving a skeleton crew of security guards to mind the plant.
The security staff proved to be both entrepreneurial and original. Nobody knew how it started, but those remaining men at Gordons Well went into business for themselves. And they didn’t open a lemonade stand.
Location, location, location. The men at Gordons Well realized that the forty-acre power plant could function as a welcome refuge for a select group navigating the desert. Its remoteness provided both privacy and convenience. Since the christening of “the Oasis,” drug traffickers, coyotes, and all variety of smuggler had used the facility as a safe haven from the desert and the authorities. For a price, of course.
The rules were simple. Pay the toll and you are welcome. By the day or by the hour, rates were adjustable. At congested times, four or five groups would use their services simultaneously. While they tried to keep rival groups apart, conflicts had been known to arise. Violence was discouraged; however, it was often difficult to avoid. The unwritten rule was that any troublemakers were banned from returning. At least the ones that weren’t buried somewhere in the dunes.