He replied, “Who?” maybe trying to buy some time as he tilted his face to see but also attempting to aim the Tec-9 upward without shooting himself in the chin.
Twice I shot Chapo: Once above the jaw hinge, although I had aimed at his temple. And once at the base of the skull.
A moment later, I heard Dedos’s frail voice call from inside the cab, saying, “ Amigo! I need a doctor, I’m hurt!”
I looked to confirm that Chapo wasn’t moving, then I knelt to peer through the shattered back window. The truck was a chaos of glass, debris and blood.
Dedos was staring at me from the front seat, his hands somehow free, maybe from broken glass or possibly Chapo had cut the tape. When the man realized who I was, he thrust one arm toward me, palm outstretched, a classic defensive response when a man sees a gun aimed at his face.
Dedos spoke again, saying, “It’s me, amigo. I helped you. Remember?” His voice had a pleading quality but also an edge of resignation that I have heard more than once.
Speaking to myself, not Dedos, I replied softly, “This is necessary-I’m sorry,” a phrase I have spoken many times under similar circumstances before squeezing a trigger or snapping a man’s neck.
We are a species that relies on ceremony to provide order, yet I have never allowed myself to explore or inspect my habit of apologizing before killing a man.
When I fired the Glock, the round severed a portion of Dedos’s hand before piercing his forehead. I shot him once more, then turned my attention to Calavero, whose body was splayed sideways between the front and back seats.
Through it all, the man hadn’t moved. Maybe Calavero had died more quickly because his mouth was taped. I didn’t know-or care. If Calavero was still alive, though, he would be able to identify me later. I couldn’t risk that.
Because I was aware that this would soon be a crime scene that demanded close inspection, I knelt, placed the Glock next to my feet, then took Calavero’s own. 357 derringer from my back pocket. When the medical examiner recovered slugs of different calibers from these bodies, it would suggest to police that there had been more than one shooter.
Recent headlines had inspired the crime scene I was now manipulating. Eighteen people killed, execution style, by a gang in Ensenada. A dozen in Chiapas forced to kneel, then shot in the back of the head. It was not something a respected marine biologist from Sanibel Island would be party to.
I had to lean through the back window to position myself closer to Calavero. I wanted to get a clean angle, close to the man’s left ear. Because the gun was so small and the caliber of the cartridge so large, I anticipated the terrible recoil. When I pulled the trigger, though, I was the one who felt as if he’d been shot.
It wasn’t because of the derringer’s recoil. Simultaneously, as I pulled the trigger, there was a thunderous explosion to my left. I was thrown sideways, the derringer still in my hand, aware there were flames boiling in the sky above me.
I landed hard on my shoulder but got quickly to my feet, holding the Glock again, unsure of what had happened. Nearby-close enough to feel the heat-what had once been a recreational vehicle was now a mushroom cloud of smoke and fire. Flames were radiating outward, toward where Squires’s truck had been parked, and also toward the wooden shack, traveling in a line like a lighted fuse.
Someone had poured a gas track, that was obvious. It was arson. But what had caused the explosion?
I remembered the tall woman standing at the door to the RV, a cigarette in her hand. RVs, like many oceangoing vessels, use propane. It was all the explanation I needed
Then, as if to confirm my theory, the women suddenly reappeared from the flames. She was screaming for help, slapping wildly at her clothing even though her clothes didn’t appear to be on fire. I watched her spin in a panicked circle, then sprint toward the cooling darkness that lay beyond the inferno. Soon, she disappeared into a veil of smoke that separated what was left of the RV and the wooden shack.
If Dedos hadn’t told me the woman had orchestrated the Guatemalan girl’s abduction, I might have gone after her. Instead, I tossed the derringer into the cab of the Dodge, then vaulted to the ground.
Running hard, I headed toward the flames, yelling Tula’s name.
To my right, the wooden structure hadn’t caught fire yet. It soon would, but I had to check the RV first because, as I had already decided, it was the most likely place to keep a captive girl.
There was a light breeze out of the northeast. It was enough to change the angle of the flames and channel the flow of smoke, so I had to circle to the back of the trailer before I could get a good look at what was left of the structure.
There wasn’t much. The westernmost section of the trailer, though, was still intact. I noticed two small windows there-bedroom windows, perhaps-that had been shattered by the explosion. The darkness within told me flames hadn’t reached one of the rooms yet, so I ran to take a look.
As I got closer, the heat was so intense that I had to get down on the ground and crawl. It seemed impossible that anyone inside could still be alive, but I had to make sure. I took a deep breath, put both gloved hands on the frame of the windows and pulled myself up to take a look.
Smoke was boiling from the plywood door, the floor was a scattered mess of photographs, some of them already curling from the heat. There was an oversized bed and so many shattered mirrors that I would have guessed the room had been used to film pornography even if I hadn’t noted the tiresome, repetitive content of the photos. A camera tripod lying on the floor was additional confirmation.
Tula had been in this room. I sensed it-a belief which, by definition, had no validity. Yet, I also knew intellectually that if the tall woman and her gangbanger accomplices had planned to rape the girl, this is the place they would have chosen.
I screamed Tula’s name. I tried to wedge my shoulders through the window and call for her again.
Tula!
The window was too small fit my body through, the heat suffocating, and I was finally forced to drop to the ground just to take another full breath.
I squatted there, breathing heavily, trying to decide what to do. I told myself the girl couldn’t possibly be alive, yet I pulled myself up to the window for a final look.
There was a closet, but the door was open wide enough to convince me the girl hadn’t taken refuge inside. I called Tula’s name over and over, but when I smelled the stink of my own burning hair I dropped to the ground, then jogged away in search of a fresh breath.
I was furious with myself. It was irrational anger, but to come so close to saving the girl’s life only to fall short and lose her to fire was maddening. I also couldn’t delude myself of the truth: I probably could have forced my shoulders through the window and made a more thorough search of the RV had I really tried.
The fact was, I was afraid.
Like the other primary elements wind, air and water, fire can assume an incorruptible momentum that is a reality-and a fear-hardwired into our genetic memories over fifty million years of trying to domesticate nature’s most indifferent killer.
That’s what I was thinking as I ran toward the wooden building, my attention focused on the building’s roof that was now ablaze, instead of noticing what was going on around me-a mistake. With my night vision system, I owned the darkness, yet instead of looping around through the shadows I stupidly sprinted straight toward the burning building-in plain sight of Victorino and his partner, I soon realized, as Squires’s truck skidded to a stop only thirty yards to my right.
Because of the fire’s combustive roar, I hadn’t heard the engine approaching. Nor had I been listening for it. My last memory of the two men was of them bogged in mud, trying to escape.
That all changed when I heard a gunshot, then the telltale sizzle of a bullet passing close to my ear. It was an electric sensation punctuated by a vacuum of awareness-a sound once heard, never forgotten.
I ducked and turned, seeing one of the gangbangers using an open door to steady
the gun he was holding. Thirty yards is a long distance for a revolver, but the man had come close. I was already diving toward the ground when he fired a second round.
I was shooting back at him with the Glock even before I hit the ground, squeezing the trigger rapid-fire, my rounds puckering the door’s sheet metal, then shattering the glass window.
I heard the man bellow as he ducked from view, but I kept firing, while my left hand searched for the Dazer that was in my back pocket. I didn’t aim, I shot instinctually, letting muscle memory control my right hand. Nor did I count the rounds-something I always do-because I had been taken so totally by surprise, and also because I had allowed myself to panic.
There was a valid reason to be afraid. I could see Victorino behind the diver’s-side door, slapping at the Tec-9, getting ready to open fire. Maybe he hadn’t seen me until his partner had drawn his weapon and fired. Or maybe the Tec-9 had jammed-they are notoriously undependable.
Whatever the reason, I knew that if he got the machine pistol working, I was dead.
When Victorino’s partner suddenly reappeared, he was beneath the passenger’s-side door on his back, chest pulsing a geyser of blood. At least one of my rounds had hit him.
Because there was no cover nearby, I got to my feet and charged the truck. I had the Dazer in my left hand, the Glock in my right. It seemed impossible that the gun’s magazine had more than one or two rounds left, and I was tempted to dump the weapon and reach for my Kahr 9mm-the pistol I had used to kill the gator. It was in my hip pocket, fully loaded.
Victorino was bringing the Tec-9 up to fire, though, his head and shoulders framed by the driver’s-side window. A wasted second would have killed me. I was pointing the Glock at the man, screaming, “Drop it! Drop it!” as I squeezed the trigger.
Instead of a gunshot, I heard Click.
Absurdly, I tried the trigger again. Click-Click-Click.
The Glock was empty.
Victorino had ducked involuntarily when he saw me sprinting toward him, aiming the pistol. But now that he realized I was out of ammunition, I watched the man appear to grow taller as he stepped away from the truck. He was taking his time now, grinning at me with what might have been gold teeth, the machine pistol held at chest level.
I had stopped running. The Glock was useless, so I dropped the thing at my feet, hoping the man was egocentric enough not to shoot me immediately, which is what a professional would have done. Maybe he would offer some smart-ass remark, provide me with a few seconds to think while he gloated over his triumph before killing me.
As if surrendering, I thrust my hands in the air, as Victorino took charge, his ego on display. He told me, “The flashlight, too. Drop the flashlight, jelly boy. Who the fuck you think you are, coming in here causing so much trouble? And take off that goddamn ski mask!”
I was holding the Dazer in my left hand, my thumb on the pressure switch. My heart was pounding. Even if I had the laser aimed accurately, even if I blinded him instantly, the man would still be able to fire twenty or thirty rounds in the space of a couple of seconds. It was my only hope, though. Drop the Dazer without at least trying, I would be dead.
Victorino took a step toward me and yelled, “Do it now, cabron!”
As I reached to remove my watch cap, I mashed the pressure switch and collapsed to my knees. My aim was off only slightly, and I saw a shock of green light pierce the man’s eyes. In sync with Victorino’s shriek of surprise, I rolled to the ground, anticipating a long volley of gunfire. Instead, a three-round burst kicked the sand nearby, then the gun the went silent while the man continued to howl, trying to shield his eyes with his left hand but still jabbing the machine pistol at me with his right.
The Tec-9 had jammed again, I realized.
I took a long, deep breath and got to my feet, still aiming the laser. Until the weapon’s fouled chamber had been cleared, the thing was probably harmless, yet there was also a possibility that Victorino had somehow activated the safety-a mistake he might correct at any moment.
Holding the laser in both hands, I kept it focused on Victorino’s face as I dodged out of his probable line of fire. I was yelling, “Drop the weapon, get down on your belly!” repeating the commands over and over as I approached. But the man was in such obvious pain, I doubted if my words registered.
When I was close enough, I slapped the machine pistol out of Victorino’s hands. When he tried to take a blind swing at me, I grabbed him by the collar, kicked his legs from beneath him, then pinned the man to the ground.
I had one knee on Victorino’s chest as I jammed the Dazer hard into the socket of his left eye. The laser’s megawattage was radiating heat through its aluminum casing that even I could feel despite my leather gloves.
I held the gang leader there for several seconds, ignoring his screaming pleas, his wild promises, until I was certain he had had enough. Then I switched off the laser, pressed my nose close to his and said, “Tula Choimha. The Guatemalan girl you abducted-where is she?”
Victorino started to tell me, “I don’t know nothing about no-” but I didn’t let him finish.
I speared the Dazer into the socket of the man’s right eye and held the pressure switch, full power, as he tried to wrestle away. Even when he had stopped fighting me and was screaming, “I’ll tell you anything! Anything!” I kept his head pinned to the ground. I held him there for another few seconds before switching off the laser, then I tried again.
“Where’s the girl?” I asked the man. “Did you kill her?”
In the stark light of the inferno, Victorino was crying now-perhaps an involuntary ocular response to the laser or because he was afraid. The teardrop tattoo beneath his left eye glistened with real tears. The irony might have struck me as vaguely amusing had I been in a different mood.
I placed a finger on Victorino’s Adam’s apple, my thumb on his carotid artery. As I squeezed, I said, “I’m not going to ask you again. Where is she?” and then I lifted until the gang leader was on his feet.
He didn’t try to fight me. “You blinded me, man,” he said. “I can’t see! How the hell you expect me to answer questions when I can’t see nothing?”
When I squeezed his throat harder, though, Victorino opened his eyes and blinked a few times before telling me, “Okay, okay. Everything’s real blurry, man. And my eyes fucking hurt, man. It’s like you stuck a knife in my brain. You got to give me a minute.”
I gave him a shake and said, “Tell me where you have her-the girl. And what happened to Harris Squires?”
I released the man long enough to confirm his partner was dead. Beside the body was a. 44 Smith amp; Wesson, a small cannon that caused my pants to sag when I stuck it in the back of my belt.
My attention had shifted to the wooden building, flames shooting out the door now. It caused Victorino to turn his head, and I felt myself cringe when he finally answered my question. “Last time I saw that little girl,” he said, “she was in there.”
I got behind the gang leader and shoved him toward the flames. If Tula Choimha was still alive, she wouldn’t last long.
We had to hurry.
I slapped Victorino in the back of the head, then pushed him harder toward the building, yelling, “The girl might still be alive. Run! Help me get her out, I won’t kill you!”
The man replied, “You serious?”
When I pulled my hand back to hit him again, Victorino took off running.
Together, we sprinted toward the wooden structure, the heat from the burning RV so intense that we had to circle away before angling toward the door of the shack. As we ran, I took the Kahr semiautomatic from my pocket, already aware that Victorino was faster than I and he might decide to keep running.
That’s exactly what he had decided to do-until I stopped him by skipping two rounds near his feet.
“Goddamn it, man!” he yelled. “I’m not escaping, I’m trying to get to the back side of this place. I think there might be a window there.”
Victori
no had long black hair. I grabbed a fistful, then used it like a leash to steer him, saying, “We check the door first. Get as close as you can and take a look.”
I gave the man a shove toward the opening as my brain scanned frantically for a better way to clear the building. For a moment, I considered the possibility of ramming one of the walls with Squires’s truck-but that might bring the blazing ceiling down on the girl, if she was still alive inside.
But Tula wasn’t alive. She couldn’t be. I knew it was impossible, as my eyes shifted from the truck to the building that was now a roaring conflagration of smoke and flames.
Twenty feet from the door, Victorino dropped to his belly because of the heat. He yelled, “There’s something you don’t know, man! This place”-he gestured toward the building-“it’s a cookshack for steroids. It’s got a bunch of propane tanks all lined up. Any second, they’re gonna start-”
There was no need for him to continue because that’s when the first propane canister exploded. Then three more followed in staccato succession, each shooting a fireworks tapestry of sparks into the night sky.
When Victorino got to his feet and tried to sprint to safety, I caught him by the hair again and yelled, “We check that window next. I’m not giving up until I’m sure.”
From the expression on the gang leader’s face, I knew there was no window. He had been lying. Even so, I herded him to the back of the building, where a small section of the wall had been blown outward. From a distance of thirty yards-that was as close as we could get-I could at least see inside the place.
I was positive then. No living thing could have survived that fire.
For several seconds, I stood there numbly, taking in the scene. Had I arrived a few minutes earlier, spent less time interrogating Dedos and Calavero, maybe I could have saved the girl. It wasn’t the first time my obsession for detail had thwarted a larger objective. But it was the first time an innocent person had died because I could not govern what secretly I have always known is a form of mania-or rage.
Obsession is rage, a Dinkin’s Bay neighbor had once told me-a man who also happens to be a Ph. D. expert on brain chemistry and human behavior.
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