The City of Rocks

by Don Travis

  Chapter 34

  ALTHOUGH MARIA usually spoke for the pair, she was almost incoherent. Luis finally had enough. “¡Cállate!” Maria hiccupped and fell silent. “Señor Vinson, Paco wishes to speak with you. Now, please.”

  “Me? Why?”

  “I do not know. When he brought us here, he told us to ask Doña Millicent to find you and have you to meet him. It is very important.”

  “Where does he want me to meet him?”

  “At the City of Rocks. He is waiting for us to call him.” Luis turned to Millicent, his head held high. “Doña, I beg you to allow us to stay here. Please consider it for my wife’s sake.”

  “Of course, you may stay. This is your home.”

  “Luis, what happened?” I asked. “Why did you walk across the desert instead of driving here in your own truck? What’s going on?”

  “Bad things.” His throat seemed to close up. “Paco will tell you everything.”

  “Bert, see if you can reach him on his cell,” I said.

  He yanked his cell phone out and punched up the number. “Paco? What the hell’s going on?” He narrowed his eyes and listened for a moment. Then he handed the phone to me.

  “Mr. Vinson. Thank Dios you’re here. I need to see you. Now!”

  “You can say whatever you need to say over the phone.”

  “I gotta show you something. Then everything will make sense to you. I know you have no reason to trust me, but I swear before God, I don’t intend to harm you.”

  “Why this change of heart? Your parents are frightened out of their minds.”

  “They’re afraid for their lives. And mine too. Some things have happened. My Madelena is dead. My son too. Don Hector is cleaning house.”

  “All right, Paco. Leave any weapon you have behind and come to the house. We’ll hear what you have to say.”

  “No!” His voice rose. “You have to come to me. To the City.”

  “All right, we’ll pick you up in the helicopter.”

  “No! If the helicopter comes, I’ll disappear. I don’t want Bert here. He knows I shot at him. When Bert gets mad, he does things he’s sorry for later. I’ll face him when the time comes, but first I need you to understand what is going on.”

  I pressed him further, but he stubbornly refused to say more over the telephone. When I heard the anxiety level in his voice rising, I acquiesced. “All right, I’ll come in the pickup. But first I’m calling the authorities. And I’ll be armed.”

  “Call them if you wish, but don’t wait for them. Come now. I don’t know how much time we have left.”

  I hung up and asked Bert for his pickup.

  “You can’t go out there. It’s a trick.”

  “Maybe, but it doesn’t feel like it. These people are frightened for their son. Anyway, why would he want to harm me?”

  “Payback, maybe. Remember Hammond. Poking around in Acosta’s affairs has stirred things up.”

  “If that’s what he had in mind, he’d insist you come along so he could take care of both of us.”

  “All right,” Bert said. “The rifle’s still in the pickup, and it’s loaded. There’s a round in the chamber. Just pull back the hammer.”

  “If I don’t like the look of things, I’ll turn around and come straight back. Is O’Brien on his way, Millicent?”

  “He’s out on a call. They’ll try to reach him as soon as they can.”

  Maria whimpered. I touched her shoulder. “Paco told me I could call them before I came.” I turned to her husband. “Luis, when we returned to the ranch a while ago, I saw a pickup driving toward the border. Was that you?”

  “Yes. Please go, Señor. Paco will explain everything.”

  Bert tossed me a key ring, and I headed for the front door. The temptation to call Paul and speak to him one last time pressed me, but I shook it off. If I believed that, I’d be a fool to go out there. But I was going, and I wasn’t a fool. What the hell kind of logic was that?

  The engine stuttered before catching. An omen? I threw the truck into low gear, popped the clutch, and prayed I still remembered how to operate a manual shift. I made it to the back gate without much trouble. Bert sprinted out back to open it for me. He left it ajar to expedite my return, and I was grateful for that note of optimism.

  Within half a mile, I saw fresh tire tracks. They came from the southeast, did a U-turn, and headed back. Paco had driven his parents as close to the ranch house as he dared before dropping them off. He must have cut the fence and driven across the border. I followed his tracks to the Lazy M’s City of Rocks.

  I slowed to a crawl and glanced around, alert for danger. My right thigh cramped. Damned thing always acted up at the wrong time. I thumped my leg with a fist.

  I hit the clutch and the brakes when a sudden flash of light from atop the stone pile startled me. Binoculars or telescopic rifle sight? Probably Paco letting me know he was there. Otherwise he was terribly inept, because the sun hovered just above the Hachitas on the western horizon. Forgetting to shift into low, I stalled the truck when I eased off the clutch and fed gas. The motor ground again but caught. I eased forward, my leg throbbing fiercely.

  Feeling increasingly vulnerable as the tall gray walls of the City neared, I reached behind me and pulled Bert’s rifle from its rack. The slightly oily feel of the metal restored some of my confidence. He took good care of his weapons. Still traveling slowly, I passed through the gate to the City. Disoriented by the sudden shade, I blinked until I could see again. I eased to a halt. The brakes squealed—sand in the linings, no doubt. Cautiously I opened the door and got out of the vehicle, cradling the rifle against my chest, one thumb on the hammer.

  “Paco?” My voice floated across the silent plaza. Somewhere in the distance, I heard the caw of a crow.

  “Up here.”

  He stood atop the jailhouse with an AK-47 held loosely in his right hand. I fingered the switch to the recorder on my belt.

  “I wasn’t sure you’d come,” he said.

  “I guess we both have trust issues. Why am I here?”

  “Head down the avenue toward the back of the City.” He moved out of sight.

  “I don’t like that idea. I’d rather stay close to the truck.”

  He reappeared and climbed down from the rock, favoring his left side. “I can’t bring it to you, so I have to bring you to it.”

  As he stood in front of me, I asked if his bullet wound still bothered him. He hesitated a moment and then admitted it did.

  “Is that why you wanted me out here alone, because I shot you?”

  “No, you didn’t ambush me or anything. You gave fair warning before the lead started flying.”

  “Let’s get this over with.” I motioned for him to precede me down that strange avenue.

  He set his hat more firmly on his head and began walking in a graceful, confident stride that ate up the distance rapidly for a man no taller than five eight. The farther we walked, the deeper the shadows became. I figured we were almost at the rear of the City when I noticed something wrong. I glanced up. A sand-colored tarpaulin spanned the space overhead.

  He must have heard my steps falter. He turned. “Neat, huh? From the air it looks just like solid rock. We’re almost there.”

  In another fifty paces, I realized the wall to my left was no longer a rock wall. It had been replaced by another natural-looking heavy canvas tarp. He faced me again.

  “This would eventually be metal cargo doors plastered with adobe to blend in with the real rock. Anybody walking by wouldn’t have noticed a thing.”

  “Son of a bitch! It’s a tunnel.”

  “Better than that, it’s a highway. It has everything except traffic lights.” He swept the canvas aside, revealing a massive ramp rising out of a deeper tunnel. A distant glow let me know it was lighted, probably from one end to the other.

  “So this is why Acosta wanted the ranch.”

  “Needed the ranch. Last year, when Don Hector got wind of the bet Mud made with
Hammond, he started planning this. He was sure he could get her ranch because he could make her lose the bet by stealing Quacky. He’s put fifteen million dollars of the cartels’ money into a rush job on a paved, lighted, five-mile tunnel capable of handling semis. Neat, huh?”

  I shook my head. “Unbelievable. He can simply drive his drugs and his illegals right across the border any time of the day or night.”

  “Not immigrants. If he started driving workers across, too many people would know about it. This was for his drugs. But he fucked up. This isn’t just for his organization. He made deals with other cartels to bring their good across too. When the idea caught on, he had to start showing some results. Instead of waiting until he got the ranch, he started building the tunnel… with the cartels’ money.

  “Everything was fine until you showed up and tried to talk Millicent out of paying up, or at least into stalling. He could handle that, but when you scared Hammond out of going through with the race, he got desperate.”

  “So he tried to kill Hammond, steal his racer, and show up at the race,” I said. “How do you know so much about his affairs?”

  “I was his number two, at least at this end. I mean, I wasn’t number two in the cartel. Just in his part of it.”

  “Are you saying Acosta isn’t the top man in his organization?”

  “No. He’s number two. And number two has to try harder, no? He tried so hard he got his dink caught in the door.”

  “So he’s in trouble with the cartels?”

  “If doesn’t get his hands on the Lazy M, he is. And they’re not happy about the hit on Hammond either.”

  “Why did you try to kill Bert the day Millicent came to meet you out here? Things hadn’t started falling apart at that point.”

  “She wasn’t meeting me. I was just a guide. Acosta had some gran queso from the home office come for the meeting. You know, to give him some cover.”

  My limited Spanish told me gran queso meant big cheese. “Millicent waited well past noon, but nobody showed up.”

  “Yeah, Don… uh, the guy stayed on the Mexican side of the border until he was ready to go meet her, but we kept hearing Bert’s helicopter buzzing around, and that made him nervous. When Bert landed, he figured he’d been double-crossed, so he gave me instructions over the walkie-talkie to shoot the pilot. I couldn’t refuse, and I had to make it look good. Bert almost fucked himself when he stopped dead in his tracks.”

  That explained why Buck and the Lazy M hands had found only one set of footprints, but I wasn’t certain I bought that glib business about missing the shot on purpose. It seemed more logical Bert would have walked into the bullet if he hadn’t stopped. But even a good marksman’s aim can be off.

  “Paco, why are you betraying Acosta by telling me this?”

  Paco’s eyes went to slits, and he tightened his grip on the weapon in his hand. Then he slumped against the rock wall and told me his story.

  Acosta used to be a good man. At least, according to Paco and his family. He took care of the people who worked for him. But money and power changed him. When he overreached and things started to go wrong, he handled it like the rest of the drug lords. He settled his problems by killing. He had Paco arrange for Liver Lips to steal Mud’s duck, but when I told Liver the law had a warrant out for him, he’d called Acosta for help. Instead of helping, Liver’s patrón sent Latido Corazón to run him off the road.

  “Was that Madelena I saw at Liver’s place?”

  He nodded. “We needed to make sure Liver hadn’t left anything behind that would tie Acosta to the duck’s kidnapping. Madelena wasn’t well-known in Deming, so Acosta sent her.”

  “How did they know Liver talked to me at the hospital?”

  “They didn’t until he called after he gave you the slip. You must have given Liver some big ideas. He demanded money.”

  “Why kill Lopez?”

  “That was Latido too. Liver and Lopez used to party together. Acosta didn’t know how much Liver had blabbed, so he couldn’t take a chance.”

  When Latido and his sister showed up at the Rayo one step ahead of the law, Acosta handled that loose end personally. He shot Latido with his own pistol. Killed him right in front of his sister and Paco and Madelena. Elena went crazy, so he shot her too. Madelena tried to stop him and got a bullet as well.

  Paco drew a deep breath and pushed away from the wall. “Then Acosta turned his pistol on me and asked if I was going to be a problem. I said I was cool. He did what he had to do. But he saw something in my eyes. Just as I saw something in his. He’d take care of me too, after I’d disposed of the bodies for him. I… I had to carry away the corpse of my fiancée and my niño, my son. At that point I didn’t much care if he shot me or not. But I realized that once Acosta killed me, he’d have to take care of my parents too. I couldn’t let that happen.”

  “And now what?”

  “Now that you know what happened, I am walking back to my truck in the middle of the tunnel and returning to the Rayo.”

  “That’s suicide. Come with me and tell the authorities what you’ve told me.”

  “That will accomplish nothing.”

  “It will save your life.”

  He shrugged. “For today. And perhaps tomorrow. But he won’t forgive my treachery. I will be the son who turned on him, and he’ll hunt me down on either side of the border.”

  “That may be so, but why voluntarily return for the slaughter? He probably already knows you and your parents have disappeared. You’ll walk right into a bullet when you go back.”

  He shook his head again. “He’s not at the ranch. He’s in Mexico City getting a dressing down from the cartel bosses. He’ll be distracted for a while. Maybe long enough.”

  “Won’t the others at the ranch have missed you by now?”

  “I told them I needed to take my mother and father to visit family in Guadalajara.”

  “Why didn’t you just come through the tunnel and drive your parents to the ranch house?”

  “Mud and Bert were expecting trouble, and I didn’t want to risk my folks’ lives if shooting started. Bert has a hair trigger. It was safer to let them walk in.”

  I regarded the determined man standing in front of me. “Paco, I know what you’re thinking. You can’t just shoot Acosta down in cold blood.”

  “Mr. Vinson, you’re holding a rifle in your arms. If a rabid dog ran at you, what would you do? Shoot it, no?”

  “What do I tell your folks?”

  “Never to return to Mexico again. No matter what, they never set foot over that border. And you can tell them I love them.” He gave a wan smile. “You’ve got that recorder going, haven’t you? Mamacita. Papacito. Te amo. Te amo mucho.”

  Chapter 35

  I DROVE away in a quandary. What was my moral obligation? I knew one man planned the cold-blooded assassination of another. Some might argue it was justified, but that didn’t fit my code of ethics. On the other hand, if I tried to prevent the killing by warning Acosta, the playing field would tilt, and Paco would be on the receiving end of a bullet. I hit the brakes, stalling the truck when I forgot to use the clutch. I fumbled in my pocket, came up with Paco’s cell phone number I’d written down for Garza, and dialed it.

  No answer. I hung up and tried again. He’d said the tunnel ran five miles long, and he had to walk back to his truck, so he was likely still underground, where his cell wasn’t receiving a signal. I waited five minutes before trying again with the same results. Suddenly feeling very tired, I put the pickup in neutral and turned the draggy ignition. It caught. Remembering to use the clutch this time, I threw it in gear and headed back to the ranch house.

  Bert met me at the gate, locked it behind me, and hopped into the truck bed. I parked near the duck pens and hit the Redial button on my phone as I got out.

  “¿Quién es?”

  “Paco, it’s B. J. Vinson. I can’t let you do this. This is suicide. Throwing your life away for nothing.”

  “You can’t
stop me.”

  “I’ll tell you exactly how I’m going to stop you. There’s a PI in El Paso I work with who’s very connected in Mexico. I’m going to call him and have him alert the authorities. You told me Acosta is in Mexico City, so you won’t be able to get to him.”

  “Why didn’t you just shoot me when we were in the City?”

  “I don’t want you dead. I want you healthy enough to help put that bastard in prison.”

  “Won’t happen.”

  “It won’t if we don’t try. Turn around now, Paco, or I make the call.”

  He didn’t answer, but the road noises lessened. He had stopped and was thinking it over. “What do you have in mind?”

  “Come to the Lazy M so we can brainstorm the situation. When is Acosta due back?”

  “Later tonight.”

  “What’s it to be?”

  “I will come. Perhaps Bert will shoot me and end all of this mess.”

  I had to laugh. A nervous laugh, but a laugh nonetheless. “Good.”

  “But first I have to do something.”

  “Now, Paco—”

  “Listen to me, gringo. I know where he put his pistol. The pistol he shot my… my friends with. It still has his fingerprints on it. I know where their bodies are. When I get that revolver, then you can call your friend in El Paso.”

  “The pistol means nothing. Even if the authorities can match bullets from the bodies to the weapon, they still couldn’t prove Acosta did the shooting. Hell, the gun will be in your possession, not his.”

  “But it does not have my fingerprints on it. No, I know Don Hector. He will consider the pistol a weapon against him. If nothing else, it will be enough to keep him off my family’s backs.”

  “Can you get it and still get away?”

  I could almost hear him shrug. “I can try.”

  “You’ve got two hours, Paco. Then I make the call. Do you have my cell phone number?”

  “I do now. It’s stored in my phone.”

  “Put it on speed dial. If you get in trouble, call.”

  “If I get in trouble, any call will be to say adios, Mr. Vinson.”