I did a quick accounting and found a hundred and forty-two dollars, a SIG.380 with five rounds in the mag and nothing else. My duffle, extra cash and guns had gone down with the Scout. I was eighty miles from the border in Tecate, some mad fucker was hunting me and it wouldn’t be long before the local cops started looking for the killer of three thugs in an alley and three more out at the hacienda. Even in these Wild West days, that many bodies would surely put them high on their list of crimes to solve. I was caked in sweat, dust and blood. I needed a doctor, a bath, a drink and a long night’s sleep but it didn’t look like I was going to be getting any of them any time soon.
Adolpho was sitting on his stool in front of Anthony’s when I stumbled up. “Chingalo! You look bad, compadre.”
“You think?” I tried to smile, but failed miserably.
“Are they looking for you?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“Then come, rapido!” He led me around the side of the club to a small parking lot. Laying back the front seat of his Toyota, he placed a rough woven blanket over me and promised to come back as soon as his shift was over at four. He was afraid to draw attention to himself by leaving early.
In the dark car I closed my eyes, I couldn’t shake the fear in Nika’s face when I mounted her. The feel of her downy hair against my cock. My hand brushed across my erection. The faint scent of her sex was on me. I hadn’t been laid in months and it had taken its toll. I started to stroke myself, anything to escape the reality of my situation. My stomach started to tumble. I was jerking off to thoughts of a child. Opening the car door I puked onto the asphalt. I was trembling with the blanket up over my head when sleep finally took me.
In the soft predawn light, Teyo sat in the park down by the bay. The massive Mexican flag flying overhead slapped in the morning breeze. One of the other tip boys passed him the fat joint. He had spent the night this way. After the shootout with the Russians, he had run deeper into the barrio. He used the cash the foreigners had fronted him to buy a bag of bud, the good shit, not the rag he normally smoked. This was the kind of weed he usually reserved to impress a girl. But he needed to chill, hang with his friends and blot out the ugliness.
None of the boys heard Xlmen approach, he seemed to appear standing before them. “You are called Teyo?” He pointed one of his gnarled fingers at the boy. Teyo nodded nervously. “Leave us.” Xlmen looked at the others, who were quick to comply. One of them gave Teyo a sorry expression, but what could they do?
“Do you know who I am?” Xlmen asked once they were alone in the plaza.
“Si, senor, you are Santiago’s hunter.”
“Are you frightened?”
“No,” Teyo lied.
“Then you are an idiot. I have killed more men than you have met.”
“Are going to kill me?” Even in the cold, Teyo had started to sweat.
“Most likely, yes. You have been working for the Russians.”
“Just the one time, I swear on my mother’s grave, I was going to tell Senor Santiago.”
“You’re a liar, I don’t blame you. Truth has lost all value in these troubled times. Did you take a woman to meet with them?”
“No, only the two gringos, I swear.”
“I know, on your mother’s grave. Who was a toothless whore, I’m sure. Describe the gringos.”
“The short one had glasses, skinny, I think he liked the coca, and glasses, he had glasses,” Teyo started to relax. This was a task he was up to and maybe there would be some cash in it if he could help Santiago find the gringos.
“The other?”
“Big, very tall, and strong. Red hair and beard, I’m sure he has done time before, you can tell. His eyes, they were flat and he carried a huge gun. See my head, this lump he gave me.” He parted his dirty black hair, turning around to show where his head had hit the wall. Xlmen drove his hunting knife into the boy’s back, passing between the ribs and into the heart. A small gasp was the only sound Teyo made before he died.
Dreams, if they have any logic, it is lost on me. I’m standing in the living room of a wealthy home. Kittens are running around the floor, many kittens, maybe hundreds, it’s hard to tell, they keep running back and forth. Something is wrong with them, some birth defect. They will never grow up to be happy, life will only get worse and worse for them. It is my job to kill these kittens, it is the only humane thing to do. In my hand is a hatchet. I bring it down, severing the first little creature’s head. She is a small tabby, she could have fit in my hand with room to spare and now she is lifeless. I know I should feel bad, but I’m doing what must be done. Sometimes life isn’t a pretty field of flowers, sometimes we have to do ugly acts to hold back worse ugliness. I take three more small heads quickly and easily, none struggle or cry out. They seem resigned to their fate. The blade of the hatchet comes down on an orange little fluff ball’s neck, but it doesn’t sever the head. The kitten screeches in pain. I swing down again, bones crunch but the crippled kitten isn’t dead. She tries to crawl away from me. I keep chopping. My stomach turns sour. The kitten shrieks in an almost human voice.
A happy six year old brown-skinned boy stared down at me. The dream faded away, leaving me unsettled. I was in bed in Adolpho’s house. I vaguely remembered him driving me, he had washed me in a large tub, gently as any mother had ever washed their child. A sticky mud paste covered my shoulder where the dog had bit me. My mouth tasted like a gym sock. When the boy noticed I was awake, he smiled and started asking me a string of questions in Spanish.
“No habla Espanol,” I told him.
“No? I know Spanish, English and some French. Don’t you go to school?”
“I went, but I wasn’t much good at it.”
“I’m first in my class.”
“Smart kid.”
“I know. Popi says you have a good heart, but bad judgment.”
“Your popi said that?”
“Si, was he right?”
“Yes, he was right.”
“Jaquene!” A short sturdy woman leaned in the door, she spoke in harsh Spanish. The boy rolled his eyes at me and then walked out. The woman leaned down, inspecting my shoulder. She prodded the tender flesh and sniffed it.
“Will I live?” I asked her.
“No, but this wound will not be your death.” Her accent was thick, her voice was soft with an edge of steel resting just below the surface.
“You are Adolpho’s woman?”
“His wife. I am not the innocent mountain girl he thinks I am. I know bad men when I see them. You repay kindness with death. I have fixed you as good as any hospital, now I want you gone from my house.”
Adolpho snapped something in Spanish. She looked at her husband, shaking her head sadly, then left us alone.
“She’s right, you know,” I told him.
“No, Lorda sees the world in black and white, si? You are a malo hombre with bueno corazon, si? Gray is the color of our lives.”
“If you say so.” I didn’t want to argue the point, but I was pretty sure I was a bad man with a bad heart. The list of evidence was growing longer every day.
Over a bowl of spicy stew, Adolpho told me that both the police and Santiago, a local crime boss, were looking for me. Apparently my good amigo the tip boy had sold me out. I told Adolpho I had to get to Tecate.
“La policia are watching the highway. Better you go south, get lost in Baja.”
“I can’t, people are counting on me, people I don’t want to let down.”
“The nina?”
“Yes.”
“Through the mountains, muy peligroso, but possible.”
“Can you draw me a map?”
“Oh hermano, it is dirt roads, trails, no map. I will take you.”
“I don’t want to put you in danger.”
“Then don’t tell Lorda.” His mind was made up, nothing I could say would change it.
Santiago sat drinking an espresso while Xlmen gave his report. The roads were sealed, the Mercedes found in town
, but there had been no sign of the big gringo or the tarot card killer. “The puta is dead, but doesn’t know it yet. They are here somewhere, I will find them.”
“Certainly,” Santiago said, “but how many of our people will die before that day comes? The Russians paid us a lot for protection, now they are dead. This is not good. Someone is hiding these people. Find out who and you will find them.” Ensenada was in many ways a small town, Santiago knew if he pressed hard enough, someone would talk. And who was better at pressing than Xlmen?
On the outskirts of Ensenada, we stopped at a small, one pit garage. Adolpho’s cousin climbed out from under a rusted Chevy truck. His coveralls were streaked with black grease stains, and when he shook my hand it felt rough and calloused from years behind a wrench.
“You not so big,” he said looking me over.
“Excuse me?”
“I heard the gringo they were looking for was a giant.”
“Must be someone else, I’m here on vacation.”
“Ok, sure, whatever you say.” His grin told me he wasn’t buying it. Adolpho traded his Toyota to his cousin for an older 4x4 pickup. When asked where we were going, he said vaguely, “The hills.”
Heading into the eastern mountains, the pot-holed pavement became rutted dirt. Buoyant banda music floated out of the truck’s radio, Adolpho sang along as if he hadn’t a care in the world. I rolled a poncho he had given me and rested my head against the window and tried to sleep. My head wouldn’t shut up. I kept seeing ugly images of dead Russians and a naked young girl. The fear in her eyes, the pain as I entered her. I needed a drink, I needed oblivion.
“What will you do with the ninas once you get to the States?” Adolpho asked.
“Take them to LA, figure it out from there.”
“Better not to worry about the end, at the beginning of the journey?”
“Something like that.” In a life where tomorrow wasn’t even close to guaranteed, it seemed wise not to get too far ahead of myself. I didn’t have any idea how we were going to get them across, let alone what we would do with them then. But if I wound up in a Mexican jail behind a murder rap, any time spent planning for the girls would be wasted.
The sun was setting when we dropped down out of the mountains and found our way onto pavement again. One of the more striking aspects of Tecate was its lack of gringos. It was a border town without the corruption and sin that Americans bring or come for. Parking by the large open plaza, Adolpho started to get out. I told him he had to go home, my future was fucked, his didn’t have to be. I thanked him for all he had done and took his address and promised to write. As I stepped away, he clasped my hand, pressing a small wad of pesos on me.
“Take it, no mucho, but maybe it helps.” Before I could refuse, he drove away. Why had he risked so much for a stranger? Did he have a daughter or sister who had been taken? Maybe he was one of those good men who do right, simply because it’s right. In the joint we called guys like him chumps, soft touches without the brains it took to see the angles.
Before going to look for the others, I went to a barbershop. A jolly Spanish-speaking gent gave me a shave and a haircut for slightly more than two bits. Twelve bucks more bought me a white straw cowboy hat and a pair of Ray-Ban knock offs. Adolpho’s poncho completed the transformation. I didn’t look like a Mexican, but I also didn’t look like an LA hood. If my description was on the wire, I hoped this would be enough to keep me from being nabbed.
A band was playing bouncy Spanish music in the center of the plaza. From benches, husbands and wives watched their kids running on the grass. Vendors lined up to sell leather goods, trinkets and food. Teenagers clustered under spreading tree branches to smoke and laugh. The whole scene had the feeling of Main Street USA in the fifties, as if the American small town dream hadn’t been lost, it just moved south.
I walked past a young man in a denim work coat, his CAT trucker’s hat pulled down over his eyes. It wasn’t until she called my name that I recognized it was Mikayla.
I sat on the bench a few feet from her and spoke without looking in her direction, “Did everyone make it?”
“Yes, the girls are in a motel, not far.” Her eyes scanned the plaza for any sign of trouble.
“Peter?” I asked.
“Left to make arrangements for transportation. Were you followed?”
“I doubt it. We really pissed off some Mexican crime boss, Santiago?”
“Good, the man is a pimp, deserves a slow death.” She rose and walked away. I let her get a hundred yard lead then set out after her. If either of us had a shadow, this was our best chance of discovering it. She took us on a circuitous walking tour of Tecate, only after she was good and sure we had no tail did she go to the Motel Rosa. It was an old fashioned motor court; low single story buildings ringing a parking lot. The girls were in room 13, the number might have bothered me if I thought my luck could get any worse. As it stood, any luck would be good luck.
The girls were dressed in matching blue running suits, their makeup had been scrubbed off and their hair was tied back. They looked more like a high school track team than the baby hookers we had rescued the night before. Mikayla told me it had been Peter’s idea, he had crossed the border and bought the outfits at a Target. I was starting to like this guy, or at least recognize he wasn’t totally useless. The girls were focused on the TV, watching me from the corners of their eyes. At their feet lay the remnants of a McDonald’s feast, another of Peter’s gifts I was sure.
Nika rested in one of the two double beds. Her foot had been bandaged. Her color had gone from gray to a more natural shade of pale. I was ashamed to look at her. She looked up at me, wanting to say something, but what could be said? The uncomfortable silence was broken by the sound of a key turning in the lock. Peter stepped in, he was in a blue tracksuit that matched the girls’, it had COACH stitched over his heart, a silver whistle hung around his neck.
“You are full of surprises,” I grinned, looking over his disguise.
“McGuire. Figured you for road kill when I saw that truck take out after you.”
“Almost was, would it have been better for the story if I had died?”
“Yes, more dramatic, a real tearjerker. ‘Brave American vigilante going down in flames to protect beautiful Russian girls.’ Brief bio on you, leaving out the jail time, of course. Yeah, it smells of Peabody.”
“I could go back and let him kill me if you want.”
“No, by now it would just be gratuitous. Besides, I’ve got a feeling you may have a few more story twists in you.”
“We’ll see. So Coach, what’s the plan?”
It was simple and clean, Peter had rented a GMC Yukon, as vanilla a ride as any on the road. He was going to drive across the border like any other American returning from a day trip to good old Mexico. Homeland Security and the President’s “Arm the Border” plan mandated passport checks, but the feds hadn’t funded any extra help, so here in the frontier, the border patrol only looked for illegals of the brown skin type or drug smugglers. Coach and his girls didn’t fit either profile.
Mikayla and I on the other hand, vibed trouble and all the costumes in the world wouldn’t change that.
Peter agreed to take the girls across, if they got caught, his position with the press could help keep them out of jail. Maybe even get them refugee status. If he made it, he would take them to Helen’s Silver Lake home and wait for us.
As they drove away, Nika looked out the back window. She reminded me of Anya; I had seen those same scared, resigned eyes looking at me out the back of a Mercedes before. What crime had these sisters ever done to bring the world down on them? The only one I could see was their desire for a better life, that and the crime of being born beautiful.
From across the street, Mikayla and I watched the Yukon move with a line of cars toward the border. Hawkers moved between the cars offering one last chance to buy crap trinkets. Three cars in front of them, a mobile home was motioned by the man in a khaki un
iform to pull into the search lane. Two more border guards moved around the huge camper, looking under it with mirrors. Two clean cut grandparents stepped down, the man was saying something that didn’t look like pleasantries. Apparently, he was not real happy at being chosen for the search.
Two cars were waved through and then it was Peter’s turn. He rolled down the window at the gate. Leaning out, he said something. He was smiling like an idiot. The officer looked in the back at the girls, then at Peter. I held my breath. The officer waved Peter though. The Yukon’s brake lights went out and they drove into America.
“Now comes the hard part,” I said, looking at Mikayla.
“Not so hard, you have papers?”
“The federales are looking for us.”
“And you decided not to tell me until now?”
“Thought if Peter knew, he might not go.” I told her about the tip boy and the Ensenada police. We agreed walking across legally was out of the question. If the Mexicans didn’t grab us, the US customs would. We were wanted for a string of murders, and even though they all deserved to die, I didn’t really want to try and explain that to a Mexican judge.
CHAPTER 16
In the plaza we bought dinner from a pushcart, tamales, fresh steamed corn sprinkled with chili powder, and a couple Fanta’s. “You’ve got clean papers, no one knows what you look like,” I told Mikayla. “I think it’s best if you cross over and I’ll meet you in LA.”
“What makes you think I’m going to LA?” She was picking corn from her teeth with her pinky nail.
“It’s going to be hot for you down here, I figured you might want to head north.”
“It’s hot wherever I go.”
“Yeah, you do seem to leave a bloody trail.”
“I am going to LA. Those things we killed in Ensenada, their boss is in LA. I’m tired of hacking at the snake’s tail.”
“I’ll give you Gregor’s address, he’ll give you what we know.”
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