The Dogs of Mexico

by John J. Asher

  “This is lies! I am called Cardenas only because General Walker gave to my great-grandmother a muchacha, a girl.”

  “You said we’d take the money and leave, but now you want to diddle this slut.” Jinx marched back and forth, gesturing with one hand, waving the Beretta in the other. “This ain’t what I agreed to. No way José!”

  “He’s gonna kill you!” Robert shouted. “Shoot him while you have the chance!”

  Geraldo threw his hands up at Robert in a gesture of contempt. “Listen to this estúpido trying to make trouble for two old friends. Hah! You hear him? So, okay, Jinx, my friend, you want we should take the money, then we take the money, but— Look!” Geraldo pointed toward Valdez in alarm. Jinx turned. In the same instant, Geraldo grabbed Jinx’s wrist, stabbed the knife into his hand and twisted the Beretta from his grasp, all in one continuous motion.

  A strangled noise escaped Jinx. “Geraldo!” he squealed, lurching in pain. He began to weep, clutching his bleeding hand, trembling as Geraldo took him by the elbow, ushering him away from the guns on the chair. “My dear friend,” Jinx blubbered. “My only friend that I have loved like no other…”

  The old woman clambered to her feet. “Hola! Hola!” she shouted, hobbling across the yard, flapping her shawl at the goat that had slipped in through the gate. The dog began to bark.

  “Hey…what is this!” Geraldo yelled.

  “Hola! Hola!”

  The goat leaped nimbly through the debris in the yard, the dog yapping at its heels.

  Geraldo turned on Jinx. “Maricón estúpido! You leave the gate open! Maricón estúpido!”

  Jinx’s eyes swelled roundly in their mascara-blackened, tear-streaked sockets. Geraldo grunted with surprise as Jinx charged into him, driving him to the ground. Jinx snatched the Uzi off the aluminum case with his good hand and leaped to his feet. The machine-pistol shook his body, the ruffles on the scoop-necked blouse trembling as bullets hammered around the yard in a roar of noise. Pieces of tin and bark flew off the arbor. The dog whirled, snapping at its hind leg. Marigolds, sugar skulls and chunks of mango rained down. Black pottery exploded along the walls in clouds of dust. Squawking chickens ran about in confusion.

  Robert instinctively fell over on his side. “Ana!” he shouted. She sat straight up, dumbstruck.

  A flat bam sounded above the clattering roar of the machine-pistol. Jinx slammed sideways, took two off-balanced steps and pitched forward in the rubble. He lay still, a look of shock struck in his face. Slowly he pushed himself to a sitting position, legs folded under, his wig bunched in the rubble like road kill.

  Geraldo knelt, holding the Beretta trained on Jinx in trembling hands.

  Jinx looked down at his chest. He touched a seep of blood blooming on the orange blouse. He looked up at Geraldo in astonishment. “You…you killed me,” he whispered.

  “Jinx…”

  “Killed me…” A pink bubble popped on his lips. “You’ve killed me…you with your madness! A curse on you!”

  “No…”

  “A curse on you from the grave!”

  Geraldo shot him again. Jinx lurched, fell over backward, struggled briefly, then quivered and lay still. Geraldo scrambled to his feet. He crept around Jinx, the gun trained on him.

  Robert’s own breath came quick and shallow, a hoarse whistling noise from Ana. Helmut rocked mindlessly against the ropes binding him to the chair. Valdez lay torn and still under the arbor.

  Geraldo nudged Jinx with his boot, then knelt and snatched up the Uzi. He caught the gold chain around Jinx’s neck and jerked. Jinx’s chin jutted up. Geraldo leaped back. He nudged Jinx again, and then slipped the clasps around front. Cautiously, he unhooked the chain and stuffed it with Mickey’s gold halo into his pocket. He took Robert’s watch from Jinx’s wrist and put it on, but it hung loose and he shoved it in his pocket with the chain. He took the car keys from Jinx and put them in his pocket also.

  So this is what it all comes down to, Robert thought—trussed up like a pig for slaughter in some godforsaken hole in Mexico.

  A tremulous wail rose over the yard. The old woman sat cross-legged on the ground, rocking the dead goat in her arms

  “Shut up your mouth!” Geraldo screamed.

  The wail trailed off and then rose to an even higher pitch as she thrashed back and forth, cradling the goat to her bosom.

  The Uzi hammered a short burst. The old woman jerked brokenly, then lay still in the settling dust. Geraldo crouched. His trousers quivered with the jittering motion of his legs as he gazed about. He recoiled as a bantam hen hopped up into the glassless window from inside the room with the chicken roost. The hen flapped down into the yard, blinked, took a high stiff step, paused, blinked, took another.

  “Eh, cocky chicken! I’m Jesus’s own little humming bird! Ayee–yi–yi–yi!” Geraldo lifted the Uzi but the cocking knob was locked back, the magazine empty. Geraldo looked at the Uzi, momentarily bewildered. Then he lifted the Beretta. The hen cartwheeled like a rag, viscera and feathers spattered the wall beneath the window.

  Robert stared in shock as Geraldo stepped into the second room and returned, snapping a fresh clip into the Uzi. He stood still a moment, the light in his eyes skewed. His gaze wandered before it came to focus on Ana again.

  She turned on her knees, watching as he eased around her in a semicircle. Grinning his blackened grin, Geraldo placed the Beretta and the Uzi on the ground, then he shouted and lurched and stomped one boot at Ana in a fake attack. She flinched and cried out. Geraldo wheezed in red-faced delight. He picked his knife out of the dirt.

  Robert strained against the ropes binding him. “You sorry son of a bitch!”

  Geraldo pointed the knife at him, sighting down the blade. “First, I let you watch. Then I have something special I do for you.”

  “What kind of man are you that you can only take a woman by force!”

  “This one, I think she don’ give herself to me freely, eh?”

  A dry sob escaped Ana, a small convulsion.

  Geraldo grabbed her shirtfront and swung her around, plowing her into the dirt. She tried to roll away but her hands were tied behind, and he fell on her, forcing his elbow under her chin. Buttons popped as he tore her shirt open. He forced the knife between her breasts and slashed upward, severing her bra between the cups. Ana cried out as he crushed one nipple between his fingers. Geraldo jerked the zipper down on her jeans then cut the rope binding her ankles. She tried to roll away, but he grabbed her cuffs and yanked and her jeans slipped over her hips. She bent her knees but he jerked again and they snapped off. He fell on her, breathing hard.

  Robert struggled against the ropes, cursing under his breath, eyes scalding over.

  Ana drew her shoulders in, rigid, as Geraldo pried her knees apart and slashed her underpants off at the crotch. “A real tigre!” he shouted, laughing triumphantly.

  Helmut lunged up, dragging the chair by a length of rope tied to one wrist. He fell across the table and crashed to the ground, clumsily grabbing at the guns on the chair opposite. He rolled over and swung around, cocking the .45, all in one lubberly motion.

  In the same moment, Geraldo rolled onto his back and pulled Ana on top, hunching through the rubble toward the Uzi.

  “Shoot him!” Ana screamed. “Shoot him!” She sprawled over Geraldo, kicking with both feet, whipping her body against his. Helmut took aim, wavered before the tangled muddle of arms and legs, then heaved himself up and plunged across the yard, the chair on its leash, bucking through the dirt after him.

  Geraldo snatched the Uzi off the aluminum case. Ana kicked and tried to bite him, but he knocked the Uzi against her head and she crumpled down at his side.

  The iron headboard whanged in a roaring pop pop pop of gunfire. Helmut fell, rolling through the gate as dust and chunks of cinderblock spurted off the wall. Robert heard Helmut beyond, crashing through the brush.

  Geraldo leaped up screaming in Spanish, but tripped and fell. He scrambled to his feet, je
rked his pants up, and charged across the yard waving the Uzi overhead. “Te voy a matar!” he cried, plunging through the gate. I kill you dead! Dead!

  36

  Run

  A HUSH FELL over the yard. Silence but for the clicking whir of insects.

  “Ana…” Robert whispered. “Get over here! Hurry!”

  She half turned, kneeling in the dirt, a vague unfocused stare before looking back toward the gate.

  “Ana? Listen to me”—he followed her gaze, expecting Geraldo at any moment—“Ana…”

  She registered another incoherent look in his direction, then began duck-walking on her knees toward him in trancelike obedience.

  “Good! Turn around, your back to my back so I can reach your hands! Hurry!”

  She scrabbled around, looking vacantly at him over her shoulder.

  With numb and trembling fingers, he picked at the rope binding her wrists. His spirits soared as he loosened a knot and then another. He began pulling half hitches from her wrists.

  “Ana, you’re free! Untie me! Get his knife!”

  She scrambled to her feet, stumbling, staring at her hands, working her fingers. Her shirt hung open, the two cups of her severed bra dangling to either side of her breasts, the flap of her severed underpants like an inadequate breechcloth. She turned, took a wobbly step toward the gate.

  “Ana! No! Wait!”

  She paused, frowning, vaguely inspecting her body—naked, dirty, bruised. She snatched up her jeans and tried to cover herself.

  “Ana, his knife! Get his knife!”

  She stared at him, at the gate.

  A short burst of gunfire sounded in the distance, the pop pop pop of the Uzi.

  Ana’s eyes refocused. She barely hesitated before hurrying into her jeans, shakily pulling them on over her butchered underpants. She snatched Geraldo’s knife from the dirt and fell on her knees at Robert’s back.

  “Yes! Yes! That’s great, Ana. Great!”

  Seconds dragged. Her breathing came hard and fast as she sawed at the rope. He wondered that she might accidentally cut his wrists in her eagerness. Then his wrists felt suddenly cool, his hands free. With a surge of exhilaration he dragged himself through the rubble and scooped up the Beretta. Ana knelt and cut the ropes binding his ankles as he knocked dirt out of the gun muzzle and cocked it.

  “Ana,” he whispered, “you’re doing all the good!” With tingling fingers, he fumbled the .22 and the .380 out of the debris. “Here,” he said, trying to hand her the .22. But she grabbed one of her new shirts up from the dirt where Helmut had tossed it and hurried into the room with the chicken roost.

  Though Robert’s feet were numb, he managed to stand, keeping one eye on the gate, straining to hear outside the rush of blood in his head any sound beyond the walled yard. He tucked both the .380 and the .22 in his belt, took up the aluminum case with the money and limped backward into the room where Ana was tucking in her shirttail. Her wrecked bra and the remnants of her briefs lay on the crusty floor along with her soiled shirt, its buttons missing. Her lips were broken, a small gash high on her forehead, face streaked with sweat and grit. She bent and shook her hair out, ran her fingers through the dirty tangles.

  “Here,” he said and held the .22 out to her again. She looked at it, then, eyes burning fiercely, snatched it from him, cocked it and held it gripped in both hands, the muzzle pointed safely at the roof.

  “Good! Good!”

  They stood on either side of the doorway watching the open gate. Robert rested his weight on one foot and then the other, clenching his toes until the tingling eased. He felt a sudden sense of invincibility—against all odds they were still alive, no longer captive, and they had three guns. He held the Beretta, cocked.

  “We’ll wait right here,” he whispered. “Shoot that son of a bitch deader’n hell!” He reached to lay a reassuring hand on her shoulder, but she flinched back in alarm. “Hey,” he said gently, “just take it easy. We’re gonna get out of this.”

  The sun blazed down, reducing the bodies of Valdez and Jinx and the old woman in the yard to simple masses of light and dark. Robert’s adrenaline slacked and he began to feel weak and shaky. It was the look in Ana’s eyes, the vexed childlike stare that helped him keep his own wits.

  The Uzi hammered in the distance.

  Robert barely hesitated. He grabbed the canister, shoved it into the aluminum case with the money, then rushed Ana through the doorway and across the yard past a scattering of sugar skulls, flowers, and fruit—past the bodies of Valdez and Jinx and the old woman with her arms slack around the dead goat. Robert smelled the blood, tasted it, metallic, like raw liver on the back of his tongue.

  The Plymouth stood just outside the walled yard, Helmut’s chair with its length of rope nearby. Robert looked each way but there was only the road crossing the creek in one direction and the bus in the other. He considered hot-wiring the car but every second counted. He turned to Ana. “How’re you doing?”

  She nodded, lips drawn tight to her teeth, resolute.

  “We’re going for the bus. Anything happens, fall on the ground and cover your head. Be careful with that pistol.”

  She followed him along the wall to the corner. The bus was a good hundred yards out, its chassis resting on cinderblocks under the corrugated tin awning. The windows looked whitewashed, or maybe there were curtains. Robert weighed the possibility that either Helmut or Geraldo could be hiding in the bus, though the shots had come from the opposite direction, toward the sugarcane field.

  They ran.

  He tried to watch everything—the bus ahead, the wall behind, the brush on either side. Ana did a good job of keeping up. He slid down on his knees near the bi-fold door and dropped the aluminum case. She slid down close behind, huffing for breath. He swung the bus door open, the Beretta ready.

  The specter of the old woman in the courtyard loomed within the shadowy interior. In the same moment he was awash in the smell of filth and untended old age. He slammed the door shut and fell back. Ana shrank down close behind.

  Robert glanced toward the creek. “Come on,” he whispered. He picked up the case and they raced across the broken terrain for another hundred yards to the tree line where they plunged into the undergrowth and fell to the ground, breathing hard. Running water made light tinkling sounds in the shallow stream behind. Robert covered the case beneath the weedy brush so it didn’t reflect the sun. He laid the .380 on the ground before him, then cocked the Beretta and held it ready. Ana laid the .22 down, cupped her face in her hands.

  Robert gave her a quick look. “Still with me?”

  With a tremulous intake of breath, she took the .22 again in both hands, squinting through the brush toward the bus.

  Robert’s mental vision reverberated with the mummified image of the old woman inside the bus—a dried cocoon of old age, but there had been a glimmer of life, of terror, in the depths of those rheumy eyes. He could only guess that she was a relative of the old woman lying dead in the courtyard, a sister perhaps. He suffered a moment of profound regret for them—for all the poor people of the world who were struggling just to survive, innocents murdered indiscriminately by greed and madness. He didn’t exempt himself.

  He snapped alert, seeing Geraldo scuttling along the courtyard wall, coming toward the gate from the opposite direction. Geraldo paused at the entrance, peered inside, then gazed toward the bus.

  “He doesn’t know where we are,” Robert whispered. “He thinks we might be in the bus. He’s in a bind.”

  Ana lifted the .22.

  Robert slapped his hand over hers. “No, no! We’d never hit him at this distance, not with handguns.”

  “Both of us, we can kill him,” she whispered savagely.

  “We’d just give ourselves away.”

  “Three guns… We have three guns…”

  “He could level this brush to the ground while we’re trying to get off a few shots. He’ll check out the bus, then if he comes this way we’ll let him
walk right up on us and nail him good.”

  “I want to do it!”

  He stole a look at her. Nothing childlike in her expression now—eyes hard and bright as flint.

  Geraldo plunged through the gate, disappearing behind the courtyard wall. The Uzi clattered several short bursts inside the compound.

  “I don’t know what the hell he’s shooting at,” Robert whispered. “There’s nothing in there.”

  Geraldo reappeared, peeked around the wall toward the bus. Then he made a break for it—a small, wiry animal loping across the clearing in cowboy boots. He brought the Uzi up and began to fire. The bus went polka dotted, glass and dust shaking out. Geraldo dove, rolled and came up on his knees alongside the door in a crouch. He jerked the magazine out, snatched a fresh one from his belt and then threw the door open and plunged inside, Uzi hammering. The shooting stopped. Geraldo staggered back out through the doorway, shoulders hunched.

  A sharp bang sounded next to Robert. A spent cartridge arced out of the .22 into the weeds. The bullet hit the bus a hundred yards away with a faint tink. In the moment it took to register, another bang and a puff of dust jumped up fifteen feet short of Geraldo.

  Robert slapped his hand over the Walther as Geraldo dove into the weeds and rolled behind the bus.

  “Dammit, Ana—!”

  The Uzi opened up. Bullets cut through the brush to their right, rattling toward them, hammering through the foliage like hail. They hugged the ground as limbs snapped and rattled overhead. Twigs and leafy debris dribbled down.

  Silence.

  Seconds passed.

  The insects had begun their mono-music again when Geraldo raked the brush to their left. Then he made a break for the compound.

  Though the distance was too great for a handgun, Robert took aim with the Beretta, leading high and out front—Bam Bam. A puff of dust jumped up beyond Geraldo. He stumbled and almost fell. Bam Bam. Dust showered off the courtyard wall as Geraldo regained his balance and ran limping toward the gate. Bam Bam. Geraldo lunged inside, the last bullet whining into the distance.