Cut to the Bone

by Shane Gericke

  “Better than lying awake horny,” he tried.

  She smiled. “Find yourself a real woman,” she said softly. “Not a rent-a-hole like me. There’re tons of nice gals out there who’ll fall for your good looks and personality.”

  He looked at her and started to snarl a curse. But he couldn’t get it out of his mouth.

  She patted his arm and hopped out to the sidewalk. He roared off, passing a knot of hotties not called “whores” because they slept with men for benefits, not cash. That he didn’t even glance at them reinforced her feeling that John would be all right.

  A minute later, a blue car desperately in need of washing pulled to the curb. Superstition walked over, bumping her hips for effect.

  Nogales, Arizona

  “Superstition’s a vice cop,” Derek said calmly. “She trolls streets and hotels for johns, and her team’s out working tonight.”

  Charvat stared, then burst out laughing at the gotcha. “I’m gonna deeply regret having you in my command, aren’t I?” he said, punching Davis’s arm.

  “Probably.”

  “No probably about it. I take it she’s the bodacious decoy?”

  “Yup.” Davis grinned slyly. “Really good at it, too.”

  Charvat groaned. “Peckerwood like you don’t deserve anything that fine.”

  “Don’t I know it.”

  “She been on the job awhile?”

  Davis nodded. “More than a decade. Before vice she worked patrol, tactical, and robbery. She’s a crack shot, and plans to compete in the Bianchi Cup next year.”

  Charvat whistled, knowing Bianchi was the Super Bowl of national pistol competitions. “My kinda woman. Let’s drink to her health.” He pointed at a track shooting east from the main drag. It was narrow, dusty, and humped as a camel’s back.

  “You want to toast her with . . . dirt?” Davis said doubtfully.

  Charvat flung his hands like the devil had burped a blasphemy. “Imagine, if you will, a cantina. But not just any cantina, no sir. One with an old-fashioned jukebox, filled with Petty and Cash and Frank. Pretty waitresses who call you ‘Hon.’ All the beer you can drink, at only a buck a throw.” He flicked the bee on the rearview. “Then imagine it sits at the other end of that yellow brick road you so dismissively call ‘dirt,’ and that only the Killer Bee knows the password to get you in.”

  Davis managed to look duly chastened, though it was hard through his choking laughter. “I stand corrected, O Kind and Worshipful Bee-ness,” he said, salaaming as best he could in the cramped Jeep. “And I’m happy to give alms to your innkeeper. But are you allowed to drink on duty?”

  Charvat looked at his Tag-Heuer, which his own wife, Deloris, had given him for his promotion to chief of Nogales Sector. “One of the perks of being the cheese is I decide when I’m on duty. As of this moment . . .”

  “It’s good to be king,” Davis said.

  “They are . . . turning our . . . way,” Ortega said, his words coming in gasps as adrenaline flooded his body. “Accelerating . . . quickly.”

  Garcia glanced at the sky. No helicopters. He looked at the landscape. No other dust clouds. He reacquired the speeding Jeep on his night scope. The headlights were pointed his way, the dust wake billowing straight back. “It appears I was mistaken,” he said. “Fortunately, they seem to be alone. Grenade, Manuel.”

  The narco shoved a rifle-propelled grenade into the AK’s launcher.

  “Don’t shoot until my order,” Garcia said as the rest of his men flipped fire selectors from SAFE to AUTO. “And for the love of God, don’t miss. We must destroy them immediately so they cannot radio for their drones.”

  “We will not fail you, Jefe!” they shouted as one. Garcia grinned. They were good men who enjoyed the down-and-dirty. This was going to be fun . . .

  “Fire!” he shouted.

  The stubby grenade blasted from the launcher, propellant blooming like a fireworks display. The warhead accelerated to the speed of an Indy car. The narcos hugged the backs of their boulders. The grenade corkscrewed into the Jeep’s front bumper.

  And exploded as ten AKs opened up.

  Charvat and Davis clawed thin air as the Jeep flipped over, engine compartment roaring with flames and smoke. It slammed off a boulder, skidded into a gully, and crashed through a cactus-choked embankment, windows shattering, tires blowing. Bullets grazed the windshield. “Get outta here before she blows!” Charvat yelled.

  Davis yanked at his belt, hardly able to hear over the thwock-thwock-thwock of bullet strikes. The buckle wouldn’t unlock. He dug a Strider combat knife from his pocket, flicked it open. “You free, Chief?” he said, hacking through the restraint.

  “I’m good,” Charvat said, pumping out rounds with his Heckler & Koch, the forty-caliber pistol rounds deafening in the closed quarters. The front doors were jammed, so he turned around to scuttle over the broken driver’s seat. “There’s a cluster of tall boulders fifty yards back of us,” he said, unlocking his rifle from the carrier. “We’ll make our stand there. Hand me your rifle and I’ll - ahhhh.” Meat exploded from the backs of his legs as AK-47 rounds hit home. “Jesus, that hurts,” Charvat wheezed as he flumped unceremoniously into the backseat.

  Davis snatched up the radio mike. The cord dangled in pieces. The radio face spalled from the engine fire boiling behind it.

  We’re on our own.

  He scooped up his own AR-15 and shoveled it to Charvat, who chucked both out the window then squirmed through, ignoring the cactus punching needles into his face and the flames searing his arms medium rare. “C’mon, son, we got a war to fight,” Charvat said, loosing rifle rounds as Davis squirmed free. They crabbed backwards toward the boulders, firing at what seemed like a billion muzzle flashes.

  “Don’t let them escape,” Garcia said. Manuel nodded and stuffed in another round. The explosion shook the landscape like an earthquake.

  “Goddammit,” Davis groaned as rock shards peppered their flesh. “That’s a grenade launcher.”

  “Narcos protecting a big shipment,” Charvat wheezed, having abandoned the crawl for a full-out sprint. “Gotta be, carrying that kind of firepower.”

  “We need to even the odds, Chief,” Davis said, vibrating like a guitar string as SWAT brain kicked in. “Once we’re secure, you put out covering fire. Pistol and rifle both, make it sound like we’re both there.” He pointed at the saw-tooth hills overlooking the dirt path. “I’m gonna sneak up that ridge, pick them off from high ground. Sound like a plan?”

  No answer.

  “Brian? Bee?” Davis said, skidding and turning to see that Charvat had collapsed, blood spitting from the leg holes. He ran back, bullets pinging like hailstones around him. He slung Charvat’s rifle around his neck, hefted the fallen Border Patrol supervisor like a sack of potatoes, and headed for the rocks, firing behind him as he ran, every step a Taser jolt of pain.

  “I can’t see them,” Garcia said, crouching to avoid the gringos’ return fire. That they had survived two grenade blasts was a very dark omen. “The flames from the Jeep make the night scope useless.”

  “I think they’re heading there,” Ortega said, pointing at the boulders behind the disintegrating Jeep. “If their phones still work . . .”

  Garcia snapped out orders. The men started toward the boulders, firing then dropping flat to the ground then firing again, moving from tree to cactus to rock.

  Charvat’s eyes flickered open as he coughed up blood.

  “Welcome back, Jefe,” Davis said between trigger bursts. “Thought you were gonna make me do all the work.”

  “Did I pass out?”

  “A few minutes. You were bleeding like a stuck pig.” He nodded at the shirts he’d knotted around the chief’s thighs. “We’re behind the boulders now.”

  Charvat sized up the terrain, nodded. “You saved my life. Thanks.”

  Davis answered with a rifle burst.

  “Won’t last, though. Them boys’ll be coming over quick enough,” Charvat said,
struggling to sit up. “We gotta bring the fight to them.”

  “‘We?’ ” Davis said.

  Charvat looked at his legs, which were sticking out at odd angles. “Aw, hell. Just position me face-out so I can slow them down.”

  Davis moved the broken agent. Charvat blanched, then rallied. Davis handed him three spare magazines, ninety rounds in all. “All right, I’m heading out,” he said.

  “Screw this up, I won’t hire you,” Charvat said.

  “Now you tell me?” Davis said.

  Charvat grinned. The movement welled fresh blood over his lips. “Go get ’em, Capone.” He pushed his AR through a crack between two boulders and launched a bullet stream. The killers responded in kind. It sounded like a machine gun festival.

  Davis slapped Charvat’s shoulder twice and charged up the goat path as narcos pockmarked the boulders with hundreds of high-powered bullets. The stocky desert fortress kept the American rifles from being silenced.

  “Can you aim your grenades into the sky?” Garcia said, curving his hand to show the arc. “And drop one right behind those rocks?”

  “Sí, Jefe,” Manuel said, working out the angles in his head.

  Davis spotted a narco racing down the path from the other end. He slipped into a hollow in one of the high rock ridges and pulled out his knife, not wanting to tip his location with gunfire. He forced his breathing shallow and waited, waited, waited . . .

  He leaped from the hollow and wrapped his arm around the gunman’s upper neck, squeezing like an anaconda. The narco kicked and gurgled, slamming them both against the sharp rocks. Davis, however, had size and leverage, and drove the blade into the side of the lower neck. A second later he ripped it straight out the front, the honed steel severing both windpipe and jugular. Blood spurted as if carbonated. The gunman’s AK clattered to the rocks.

  Davis shoved the corpse into the underbrush, then looked for a good sniping position. Heard the whoomp of the launcher pouring rockets at Killer Bee. He found a decent spot and dug in prone behind his gun, praying Brian’s rock shields held.

  Charvat’s eardrums popped as rock knives carved new divots from his back. But he was still alive. He peered through the crack and saw several bandits creeping his way. He stayed silent, letting them draw closer. He slowly laid his sights on the closest man.

  “Fill yer hand, you son of a bitch,” he growled, channeling his best John Wayne.

  “Get down!” Garcia barked as his compatriot’s blood wetted the ground like a summer squall. The sharp crack of an AR-15 sounded a microsecond later. “They’ve got us in range!”

  “This is the Border Patrol,” he heard a hard voice bark. “Drop your weapons and put your hands in the air. If you do not, my men will kill you. This is your final warning.”

  Garcia laughed, impressed. “That one has balls the size of grapefruits,” he said to Manuel. “Blast them off.” Manuel nodded and reloaded. He’d spotted the rifle flash that killed his amigo, and knew exactly where to lay his next grenade-

  The right side of his head exploded.

  “Vaya con dios, asshole,” Davis muttered as he moved to the next target.

  “Sniper at three o’clock, Jefe!” Ortega shouted, whipping his bullet stream to his right. Rock chips flew as if chain-sawed. “They split up! One is in the hills to our-”

  Davis watched his bullet rip out the mustached killer’s throat. He moved the muzzle to the tall, rangy Mexican wearing crossed ammo belts, the one the dead man just called “Boss,” and fired. Garcia darted sideways, escaping death by millimeters.

  Davis scooted to a fresh location as bandit bullets thumped where he’d just been. He aimed carefully, put another gunman in the spin cycle, hunted for the next-

  “Phone,” he muttered, astonished he hadn’t thought of it already. He reached for the cell strapped to his belt . . .

  . . . and slapped shredded nylon.

  He looked around frantically and spotted a small moonlit object on the goat path, halfway back to Charvat. There’s my cell, he realized. It ripped off my belt during the knife fight, when we scraped against that rock.

  He bit back his disappointment and got back to work.

  “Ayyyy!” a narco bleated as he twisted into the ground. A compatriot joined him a moment later, brains splattering on a nearby cactus.

  A battered Land Rover bounced into view. “The transport!” Garcia shouted. “Load the cargo!” The surviving gunmen fired as they retreated from rock to rock, hauling the narcotics backpacks to the SUV, trying their best to save the white powder draining from bullet holes.

  “Faster, damn you, faster!” Garcia shouted, his voice a braided whip.

  “Derek! Ground that Rover!” Charvat hollered.

  “Working on it!” Davis yelled back.

  The knob of a saguaro disintegrated inches from his elbow. He speed-crawled to the next protective outcrop and risked a quick peek. Gunmen were ignoring him momentarily to pitch overstuffed packs into the back of a vehicle bearing Texas plates. He memorized the number. Put his sights on the closest narco. Stroked the trigger.

  Click.

  Davis tossed the jammed rifle in disgust and grabbed the dead man’s AK-47. A splintery piece of skull was wedged inside the trigger guard. He poked it clear, wiped the gore from his trigger finger, reinserted, aimed, and squeezed, praying the sights hadn’t been knocked adrift . . .

  A gunman spun screaming. The next one flopped atop him, forming a bloody cross.

  “Rosito. Grenade that bastard or we’re all dead,” Garcia ordered, whirling and firing at the scorpion in the rocks. But his man was hugging the rear tire, whimpering. He’d never been in a firefight this extreme and was scared to death.

  “Next time, wear a skirt,” Garcia cursed, knocking Rosito aside. He picked up the launcher and swung it toward the rocks. Prayed the Yankee rifle stayed silent long enough . . .

  The rocket grenade leapt like a bee-stung horse. It covered the distance in less than two seconds and exploded in a fiery crump.

  “Uhnnnnhn,” Davis grunted as a big hand bounced him off a tree. Disoriented, he staggered like a drunken ballerina into a clearing between the rocks.

  Narco guns roared like lawn mowers. One AK bullet entered Davis’s chest, below the right nipple. It deflected off a rib and exited through his armpit. Another ripped a deep, U-shaped groove across the left side of his head, creating the shock wave of a ball-peen hammer. Other bullets laid crimson his belly, feet, and legs.

  “I got him! The bastard is down!” Garcia crowed when he saw the agent collapse.

  “Guhh,” Davis said.

  Then faded to the pinpoint of grandpa’s old TV.

  Chicago

  “What are you, Dudley Do-Right?” Chicago Police Lieutenant Robert Hanrahan growled through the window of his unmarked car, his craggy Irish face pulled into a horseshoe of annoyance. “We don’t do catch and release. We fry our fish.”

  “He was a nice guy,” Superstition said.

  “So was Ted Bundy.”

  “Tommy Bahama wasn’t a serial killer,” she said. “His wife dumped him. He was lonely, so he dolled up and came out here. He’s human, Robbie, and he made a mistake.”

  “Yeah, by asking you for a ‘date,’” Hanrahan said as the remainder of the vice team pulled to the curb. Four men with quarter-inch crew cuts scrambled out of their unmarked car and walked her way, limbs loose and jangly. “Just like he was supposed to, considering how glammed up you are.”

  She touched her Creamsicle skirt. “What, this old thing?”

  Hanrahan cursed in Gaelic, then sighed. “All right, you felt sorry for the guy,” he said. “No harm, no foul. But next time, remember your job isn’t to judge these creeps, it’s to arrest-”

  “He wasn’t a creep, and I’d let him go again,” Superstition said, crossing her arms. She was the one wearing the Crayola-colored happy sack to reel in the men who hunted prostitutes. The rest of the team shadowed her on the street or waited in the adjoining hotel
room, ready to pounce when the unlucky john said any approximation of Here’s plenty, let’s party. “I’m the girl on the griddle, so it’s my decision.”

  “That’s right, Loot,” the tallest of the squad hooted as the others clapped and cheered. “Girl on the griddle makes the call, that’s what you always say.”

  “My own people, using my very own words against me,” Hanrahan said, shaking his head in mock sorrow. “What would poor Mother Hanrahan say if she wasn’t already in the clouds rocking sweet baby Jesus?”

  “‘Gonna kick yer hairy asses for making poor Robbie cry’?” the cop suggested.

  “Amen,” Hanrahan said, steepling his hands as if in prayer. “Now let’s get on with the mope hunt.”

  Superstition winced theatrically. “I need to stop at Bubbles first.”

  “Why?”

  “Icky girl stuff you don’t want to hear about,” she said.

  “Oh, well, then, shoo,” he said, motioning her away with both hands. “We’ll set up down the block and await your tangerine presence.”

  She ran for the lounge as her team headed south.

  Nogales, Arizona

  Derek Davis blinked.

  Looked at his hands.

  Saw twenty fingers.

  Shook his head.

  Saw thirty.

  “Oh, man,” he groaned.

  He tried to stand, but his legs wouldn’t work. His arms did, a little. He clawed out of the blast hole and onto the hard-packed flat, panting like hundred-meter gold.

  Where am I?

  He slapped himself a couple times to wake his memory. Examined his palms.

  Slippery with blood.

  He spit. More blood. He saw holes in his flesh, round and puckered and burning like arc welders. There was a constellation of cuts, scrapes, and gouges, plus a raw furrow on the side of his head. He slipped a finger into the trough. His nail tapped something hard.

  Skull bone.

  He blew out his breath. He wasn’t dead, but it had been close. “World of hurt, cowboy,” he muttered. The cobwebs cleared a little. He looked around. “Bee,” he yelled in a phlegmy voice that sounded like nobody he knew. “You out there?”