“Was she going to L.A.?” he says again.
“Maybe,” the woman finally says. “My sister lives there.”
“Your sister?”
“Yes.”
“Give me an address or a phone number for her.”
The woman fights back with an angry glare. “You’ll go to hell for this, for making a mother betray her child,” she says.
“You’ll go to hell right now if you don’t tell me what I need to know,” Jerónimo says.
The woman walks to a cluttered shelf, opens a Bible lying there, and removes an envelope stashed between its pages. She hands the envelope to Jerónimo.
“This is the last letter I got from my sister, six years ago,” she says.
Jerónimo tears the return address off the envelope and gives the letter back. The cheap perfume the woman has sprayed to cover the stink of the house is giving him a headache. He offers her the money again, and she slaps his hand away, one of her fingernails nicking him, drawing blood.
“You’re going to kill her, aren’t you?” she says.
“I’m going to find her,” Jerónimo says. “What happens after that isn’t up to me.”
“She has a daughter there,” the woman says. “She only wants to be with her. Don’t you have someone you love?”
Jerónimo ignores her. What kind of question is that from a whore? He walks out the door and down the steps to the Explorer. Lalo stares at the woman watching them from the porch as the truck pulls away. Jerónimo snaps at him to mind his own business and tell him how to get to the body shop.
They pass a burning car on their way out of Taurinas. A small crowd has gathered, a sullen, silent bunch transfixed by the hunger of the flames and the smoke rising blackly into the night sky to blot out the stars.
“Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ!”
The fat man, Goyo, presses one hand to the bloody gash below his eye and raises the other for mercy. He was reluctant to call this Freddy, so Jerónimo smacked him with the nine to encourage him. He’s had enough of fucking around after scaling the locked gate of the body shop in order to sneak up on the fat man, who was asleep on a cot in his office.
“Dial the number and hand me the phone,” Jerónimo says.
Goyo obeys quickly this time, then uses his filthy bedsheet to stanch the bleeding from the cut, which looks like an evil red smile on his cheek.
“What the fuck are you calling me so late for?” Freddy says.
“I’m at the shop,” Jerónimo says. “Goyo is about to tell me where you live. I can come there and wake your family or you can come here.”
“Who is this?”
“I have some questions about the woman who came to see you today.”
“What woman?”
“Do you think I’m playing around?”
“I don’t know what the fuck you’re doing.”
“Do you think I’m playing?”
There’s a pause, then Freddy mutters, “I’m on my way.”
Fifteen minutes later a Nissan truck pulls up in front of the shop and honks twice. Goyo opens the gate, and the truck drives onto the lot and parks next to the Explorer. Freddy flies out of the truck before the engine even dies, a whirlwind of exasperated energy.
“What’s this about?” he says.
Jerónimo plays it cool, rising slowly from the couch where he and Lalo have been waiting and casually positioning the gun in his waistband so Freddy can see it.
“Thanks for coming so quickly,” he says as he extends his hand.
Freddy reaches out to shake, confused. “So who was she?” he says. “Your wife? Your sister?”
“That’s not important,” Jerónimo says.
“Oh, I get it,” Freddy says. “You’re working for somebody.”
“She came to see you about going to the U.S.,” Jerónimo says.
“Did she?” Freddy says.
“Where did you send her?” Jerónimo says.
“Let me explain something to you,” Freddy says. “I’m a businessman, and part of what people pay me—”
Jerónimo shoots out his hand and pinches Freddy’s Adam’s apple between his thumb and forefinger. He shoves him backward until he’s against a wall, then runs his other hand around the guy’s waist to see if he’s carrying a gun. Freddy glares at him, eyes bulging, cheeks puffed. The jagged scars on his forehead stand out like lightning.
“Maybe we should go to your house,” Jerónimo says.
“One of my men, a gringo, took her to Tecate,” Freddy gasps. “A border inspector there, who also works for me, is going to pass them through in the morning.”
“Call the gringo and tell him to bring the girl back,” Jerónimo says.
“I don’t think it’s gonna be that easy,” Freddy says. “She’s desperate to get out of Mexico, and she has a gun. If the gringo tries anything, I think she’ll use it and then find some other way across.”
“Call him,” Jerónimo says in the coldest voice he has.
Freddy swipes at his nose and thrusts out his chest, a rooster used to being in charge. Too fucking bad. He takes his phone from the clip on his belt and keys in a number.
“Who’s this?” he says when someone answers, then, “Where the fuck is Kevin?”
A second later, he shrugs and holds out the phone. “Some crazy bitch said I had the wrong number and hung up on me.”
“Luz?” Jerónimo says.
“Some other crazy bitch.”
“Try again.”
Freddy hits redial and starts screaming into the phone as soon as the girl picks up.
“Listen, cunt, put Kevin on now.”
Jerónimo reaches out and takes the phone from him.
“What’s your name?” he says.
“Angelina Jolie,” the girl says.
“Let me talk to Kevin. It’s an emergency.”
“Talk to my fucking asshole, puto. And you better not call back unless you want my man to turn you out like the faggot you are.”
The phone goes dead.
“If this is some kind of joke—” Jerónimo says to Freddy.
“You’re the fucking joker,” Freddy says. “You bust Goyo’s head open, you put your fucking hands on me, and still I do everything I can to help you. In truth, I should get a piece of whatever you’re getting for tracking this bitch down.”
Jerónimo takes the money out of his pocket. He hands Freddy two hundred dollars and drops another hundred on the ground in front of Goyo.
“And there’ll be more in it for you if I find her,” he says to Freddy. “So tell me, partner, how do I catch this Luz?”
Freddy hisses and shakes his head. “Partner,” he says. “You guys are hilarious.”
An hour later, after paying off Lalo and dropping him back at the taco stand, Jerónimo is speeding down the toll road to Tecate. It’s almost two a.m., and the chaparral, iced by the moon, glows silver and pale blue, so that the surrounding hills sparkle like the ocean frozen in mid-swell.
Jerónimo is unimpressed. All this open space makes him nervous. A city boy, a convict, he’s at his most comfortable when his existence is circumscribed by four walls and a roof overhead. He dreams sometimes of his ancestors. They come to him as yipping ghosts thundering across an endless plain on their war ponies, and the vision always agitates him, because out there in the open is where your enemies can get to you, where they can sneak up and put a knife in your back or drive by and shoot you full of holes. Without cover, you’re an easy target.
His reverie is interrupted by a rabbit darting across the road in front of the truck, a flash in the headlights. He instinctively mashes on the brakes, sending the Explorer into a tire-screeching skid, but it’s too late. The rabbit bounces against the undercarriage two or three times as the truck passes over it, and Jerónimo glimpses the carcass in the rearview mirror as he drives away. A thing like that is a bad omen. He crosses himself, mutters a prayer, and wishes for an instant, crazy as it is, that he was back in his cell.
11
THE FENCE SEPARATING MEXICO AND THE U.S. STANDS TEN FEET high in this section between Tecate and Campo and is constructed of rusty panels of corrugated steel laid end to end and supported by steel beams sunk deep into the hard-packed earth. It’s a symbol more than a barrier, however—a joke, really—because an industrious man with a sharp stick could carve out a passage beneath it in half an hour, a trench deep enough to squirm through. Then it’s just a five-minute walk down one of the trails cutting through the brush to the nearest paved road, where cousin Juanito waits in his car.
Lead Agent Mike Thacker of the U.S. Border Patrol long ago accepted the absurdity of the situation, twenty years of Navy bullshit having been excellent preparation for this second career executing orders issued by idiots and futilely attempting to hold back the tireless hordes determined to cross the line in the sand he’s been charged with defending. He rests his elbows on a boulder crowning a hill fifty yards from la linea and watches through a night-vision scope as a ghostly figure squeezes under the fence and crouches on the dirt access road to sniff for trouble.
“One,” he whispers into his radio, alerting Brown and Vasquez, who are waiting in their truck at a curve in the road that puts them out of sight of the crossing point. The three of them have been staking out this spot for hours now, after an air unit spied a group of fifteen bodies who looked like they might be thinking of going for broke.
Thacker used to get a kick out of sneaking around the desert in the dark and swooping down on wetbacks like an owl pouncing on a kangaroo rat. He knew he and his fellow agents weren’t making a bit of difference in the long run, that for every illegal they apprehended and shipped back to TJ, twenty more got across, but he liked wearing a uniform, and he liked carrying a gun, and, okay, he liked seeing the fear in the eyes of the wets when he pinned them down with his spotlight and ordered them to halt. He’ll admit that.
He even dug it when things got hairy, when they encountered armed smugglers or took fire from snipers working with the coyotes. Nothing clears your head like rounds flying past so close that they sound like the devil snapping his fingers in your ear.
Lately, though, with all the gambling and all the trouble with Marla and Lupita—he spits a stream of tobacco juice into the sand and feels his guts pulse—the job he once enjoyed has become just another block of hours to be endured, another load he used to bear effortlessly that now threatens to bring him to his knees. Truthfully, all the fun’s gone out of it.
A second ghost emerges from under the fence, then a third and fourth. Thacker whispers into his radio again—“On my ‘Go’”—and adjusts the focus on the scope. When the last of the pollos have crossed, so many bodies are massed in front of the fence that they meld together into a glowing green blob. The coyote huddles with everyone and reminds them to keep quiet and stay together.
Thacker gives the order to move and watches through the scope as the truck whips around the bend, lights blazing, and comes to a stop in a swirl of dust. Brown and Vasquez hop out with guns drawn and sprint toward the illegals. Their shouts of “Alto! Alto!” and “Sit down! Sit your ass down!” carry all the way up the hill.
Most of the group comply immediately, but two bodies break away and make a run for it. They plunge into the thick chaparral and pick up a trail that circles the hill where Thacker is stationed. He stows the scope, pulls his P2000, and sidesteps down the back of the hill to intercept them. The stars and a bit of moon give him enough light, and he reaches the trail in plenty of time to conceal himself in a thicket of manzanita.
Breaking branches and the thud of footsteps herald the approach of the runners. Pistol in hand, Thacker waits. He’ll be able to see them, but they won’t see him. When the first wet reaches his hiding place, Thacker launches himself, leading with his shoulder, and the pollo flies ass over tits off the trail. The second shadow tries to stop but can’t and runs right into a blow from Thacker’s flashlight. It’s a young girl. Thacker catches a glimpse of her before she goes down.
“Stay there,” he says, showing her his gun.
He drags the first pollo, a kid about the same age as the girl, out of the bushes and drops him next to her, shines his light in both their faces. The girl, near tears, is rubbing a bump on her forehead. The guy stares down at the ground. They’re scared, real scared, and that’s good.
“Money,” he says. “Dinero.” The words come out in labored gasps. He’s sucking wind after his trip down the hill and the ambush.
When he started with Customs and Border Patrol he heard rumors of agents shaking down illegals for cash and was disgusted. It wasn’t that he was above a good scam—in the Navy he made a killing selling merchandise lifted from the PX warehouse to stores near the base—but stealing from poor people didn’t sit right with him.
The ground gets slippery when it rains, however. Marla lost her job but kept spending like she had one, the boys were in private school, and he had a long run of bad luck at the tables. All of a sudden he wasn’t just not getting ahead, he was falling farther and farther behind every month, a fifty-year-old man about to hit the skids. And so.
The first time he forced some terrified wetback to hand over the $300 he had stashed in his shoe, he felt like shit. The second time was a little easier. Now, it barely causes a ripple in his soul. He thinks of it as an entry tax, something to teach the little fuckers how it works up here.
“Money,” he says again. “I know you got some.”
“No money,” the guy says. “No money.”
“No money?” Thacker says. “Okay.”
He steps back and unzips his pants.
“You,” he points at the girl. “Chúpame. Suck me.”
What was that old bumper sticker? Ass, cash, or gas, no one rides for free? The demand for sex usually frightens the pollos into coughing up their money, but if it doesn’t, Thacker will gladly take a blow job instead. He’s come across some real pros out here, chicas who definitely knew what they were doing. And this one’s cute. He shines his light into her face again. Cute enough.
“Wait,” the guy says. “Wait.” He gestures at his stomach. “She baby. Baby.”
Thacker moves the flashlight beam to the girl’s belly and sees that she’s pregnant. The hard-on he had going disappears, but he senses these kids are about to crack, so he keeps up the pressure.
“Come on, mamacita,” he says to the girl and reaches into his pants like he’s going to pull out his cock. “Chupa, chupa.”
“No,” the guy says. “Stop.”
He opens his jacket and claws at the lining, tearing a hole in it. Sticking his fingers inside, he pulls out a wad of cash and offers it to Thacker. Thacker flips through it. Five hundred dollars. He pockets the money and gestures at the trail with his pistol.
“Go on,” he says. “Ándale.”
The guy helps the girl to her feet, and they set off at a trot, disappearing into the night. If they’re caught farther down the line, no big deal. Thacker’s not worried about them talking. They’re terrified of uniforms, and all they’ll want to do is get back to Mexico as soon as possible so they can try to cross again.
He wipes the sweat off his face with his sleeve. His uniform shirt is soaked through. A breeze comes up and rattles leaves all around him, a nerve-racking sound out here. He keys his radio.
“I’m on the backside of the hill,” he says. “I thought I had the two that got away, but they were too fast.”
They’ll get a laugh out of that, the old man and his beer belly trying to chase down a couple of kids. “You better be careful,” someone’ll say, one of the young punks. “You’re gonna break a hip.” That’s okay. Let them have their fun. There’s nothing wrong with playing a part as long as you know what you’re really all about.
Thacker, Vasquez, and Brown do the field paperwork for the detainees, then call for a van to transport them to Campo for further processing. Ten Mexicans, two El Sals, and a Guatemalan. Not a bad haul.
Thacker leaves the station a
t three a.m., changes out of his uniform, and heads over to the Indian casino in Alpine. He waves at the agents manning the freeway checkpoint as he passes through. The road is almost deserted at this hour, and he drives for miles with no taillights in front of him, no headlights behind. It makes him lonely.
If he had somewhere decent to go besides the casino, he would. But all he’s got is the motel he’s living in, which is a dump. The bedspread depresses him, the carpet, the bars on the windows. And the animals who stay there, if they’re not fucking, they’re fighting, their threats and promises passing through the thin walls to dirty his dreams.
He’s been crashing there for three months now, ever since Marla decided he shouldn’t live in the house that his hard work paid for. It was a hell of a deal. Their marriage died years ago, but they kept it going for the boys. When Brady enlisted in the Army last year and Mike Jr. left for college, they finally agreed to live separate lives, sharing the house as roommates, the smart play financially. No sense giving money to a bunch of lawyers. Thacker moved downstairs into Brady’s old room, sleeping on a twin bed surrounded by dusty basketball trophies and posters of snowboarders.
The arrangement worked out great until Marla found some texts from Lupita, a Mexican chick Thacker had been banging, a twenty-year-old gas station cashier with a fantastic ass even after two kids. Marla hadn’t fucked Thacker in years, yet she still blew her top. All of a sudden she couldn’t live with him anymore. All of a sudden they were going to sell the house and split the money. All of a sudden she wanted a divorce.
Thacker did not hit her when she laid all this on him, only maybe bumped her on his way downstairs to pack. But the cop who responded was a woman, and the shrink was a woman, and the judge was a woman, so now he’s living in Motel Hell with an order of protection against him and neither of his boys even called to wish him a happy birthday last week.
The casino is empty except for a few meth heads and elderly insomniacs scattered among the slots and poker machines. A Chinese guy in sunglasses plays by himself at a $25 blackjack table. Thacker buys a USA Today and carries it into the coffee shop, where he sits at the counter. It’s one of those fifties-style places, burgers and shakes and Buddy Holly, the staff in white aprons and paper hats. Yoli is on this morning. She pours Thacker a cup of coffee without even asking and calls out his usual breakfast to the cook: scrambled, bacon crisp, sourdough.
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