“We have to get rid of the money,” said Curtis.
“How is the story?”
“It’s fine. We can’t pull up to the border with twenty million dollars cash and you with an extra hole in your body and no explanation for the money. They’ll take it on the spot and they’ll never give it back.”
“Is it worth dying for?” Virgil asked.
Curtis saw what he was asking. He wasn’t asking if Curtis would die for this money. He was asking if Curtis would let him die for this money. It wasn’t the question that bothered Curtis. It was his own hesitation.
“No,” he finally said.
“Look out!” Virgil screamed.
They crashed.
***
His ribs hurt, and the world was fractured before him. Then Curtis sat back in his seat and breathed. The windshield was cracked from top to bottom in two places. Rain still pounded the roof, and from the crack closest to Curtis droplets of water began to trickle down the inside of the glass.
Virgil moaned. He was on his side and rolled to his back.
“What did we hit?” he asked.
Curtis peered through the broken glass. Ten feet ahead was a small black beaten sedan. Its rear bumper was on the ground, and the trunk was popped open wide.
“Some shitbox.”
“How did you hit it?”
“I don’t know. It was just there.”
Virgil sat up and looked for himself. He was clutching his side. He looked at the wreck and then looked at his hand. He wiped his hand on his shirt and ran it over the wound again.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m bleeding again.”
“Worse than before?”
“I think so.”
Curtis could tell he was worried. He wasn’t complaining, and he wasn’t asking for help. He opened the door.
“Where are you going?” Virgil asked.
“To see what we hit.”
“Has anyone come out of the car yet?”
No one had. There was no movement inside the car. Rain pelted the roof and was now pouring into the trunk. No one had come out to stop it.
“You say this car came out of nowhere?” Virgil asked. He stared at the car. Then he scanned the night. There was no visibility.
“It’s like it was parked there,” said Curtis, starting to realize what Virgil was implying. He took his gun out of the holster and kept it tucked under his shirt. He opened the door and rain hit him in the face. He looked back to see Virgil trying to slide out of the door on his side. It was slow, awkward, and painful.
The flashlight showed an almost empty trunk. There were tools and some pipes. Water was collecting in a puddle. He looked into the backseat. There was a large dark shape. It was just a bag. The front seat was empty as well.
Curtis looked up and down the big road. He could see one hundred feet in either direction. There were no cars or trucks or people moving in this weather. He had been out of the truck for sixty seconds and his shirt and pants were already soaked through. There was no one coming at the moment, but that would change. He walked over to where Virgil was to help him back in the truck.
“We need to be moving,” he said.
Virgil reached out and stopped him. A jut of the chin to the side of the road cut him off immediately. A lone figure stood in the dark, watching them.
He stood not ten feet away, covered from the head to knees in a poncho. His hands were invisible. If he had a face, it could not be seen.
Curtis remembered that he had a gun in his hand. He thought about ordering the stranger to show his hands.
“Hola,” he said instead.
The poncho nodded ever so slightly.
Beyond the figure in the poncho was rain and darkness. There could have been a hundred men out there waiting for them. They would never know until it was too late. If they were there, then it was already too late.
“Como se llama?” he said.
Rain bounced off the poncho. His feet had sunk into the mud. His hands were invisible.
“Rodrigo,” said the man in the poncho.
“Esta tu coche?” Curtis asked.
“Si,” said the man very simply. It was his car.
Curtis began to doubt that there were hordes of men in the dark. Curtis asked him what was wrong with his car. He saw the man’s eyes fall to the gun.
The man removed his hood and immediately winced as the rain struck his face. He was an exceedingly average middle-aged Mexican. His face was fleshy and heavy. Curtis motioned for him to put the hood back on. Rodrigo nodded.
Curtis moved to put the gun back into the holster. He turned his body, but he saw Rodrigo’s eyes move to Virgil’s waist. Virgil’s big forty-five stuck way out on his belt, his bloody, torn shirt unable to hide it. Rodrigo didn’t react.
“El coche no esta funcionando,” he said simply. Rodrigo was also exceedingly calm.
“Que esta roto?”
Rodrigo shrugged. He said it never works in the rain.
“What are we going to do with this guy?”
Curtis looked at the car. It was fifteen years old and didn’t run when wet. Rust crept up the base and along the wheels. There were no hub caps, and the brand emblems had been stolen long ago.
“We’re going to over pay and hope he forgets us,” said Curtis.
He walked around to the car side where Rodrigo could not see what he was doing and reached up under the tarp. When he came back, he handed Rodrigo ten one hundred dollar bills. They were wet by the time they changed hands.
A horrid cough sounded and Virgil threw up on the street.
“Terminado?” asked Curtis.
Rodrigo shrugged. His hands had disappeared into his poncho again. “Si,” he said in the same simple manner he had said everything else. He seemed to understand Curtis’ meaning, and he stepped back to his original perch, ankle deep in the mud.
As Curtis helped Virgil to his feet, he could feel him shaking. He didn’t climb into the truck so much as he fell upward into it.
He didn’t look at Rodrigo again and started back to his side of the truck. He kept his head down from the rain. Then he stopped. He looked at what Virgil had retched. There was blood in it.
“Senor,” he called to Rodrigo. “Donde esta el medico?”
“No hay un medico aqui,” Rodrigo replied. There is no doctor here. Curtis asked him where he would go if he were sick.
***
Juan had only been to the hospital as a police officer, and he had never liked it. He especially hadn’t liked it when he was there with Jefe and they were visiting people who had been put there by Jefe. People in the hospital were sometimes given a syringe full of drugs. Juan wondered if he had his own plunger, just as Jefe’s face appeared over him. Jefe stared and worked a dip around his mouth until Juan counted four tiny brown drops that left his lips in slow motion, hung in the air, and landed somewhere on his face. He never felt them land.
“I found out something about you, Juan Two Saints.”
Juan Two Saints didn’t answer.
“Something you didn’t want anyone else to know. I had a conversation with your doctor before I came in here. Funny guy, this doctor. He asked me if you were a brawler. I said absolutely not. He’s a gentleman, I said. Then this doctor told me a secret. Something you’ve never told anyone about. He said, underneath your clean, pressed uniform, you have scars and marks and burns all over your body. Some very new. Some very old. Doctor says, this man, he’s endured some real punishment.
“Real punishment,” Jefe said again. Brown juice worked its way out of his mouth and down his chin. Normally, Jefe would have wiped it away with the back of his hand, but not tonight. Tonight, he just left it there.
Jefe took a few steps and reached out his giant arm. The lights dimmed, and he pulled a curtain behind him.
“Where are they?” Jefe asked. He didn’t say who.
Juan realized then that he couldn’t speak. So he shrugged. Through the haze of the drugs and t
he impact of the beating, he didn’t know if he was moving enough to be noticed, but he tried.
Jefe noticed.
“Did they say where they were going?”
They didn’t.
“What did they take with them? Did they take anything?”
He told his fingers to make the shape of a gun.
“Did they take anything else?”
He thought about it. He thought about lying. He also thought about the look on Jefe’s face and that brown juice drying on his chin and the curtain pulled tight and keeping them out of view. He knew Jefe. Jefe already knew.
“Radio,” he said. It was a whisper.
“They got your radio? What do you suppose they’re going to do with that?”
It wasn’t a real question. Sit in a car with a man night after night, and you’ll learn his inflections. Juan shrugged, because it was faster.
“I misjudged you. Now, I don’t know what happened in those cells. But I do know this: those boys aren’t leaving Mexico. And while they are here, they might have plenty of talking to do, and some of it might be about you.”
Jefe sniffed. It was a huge, fluid, phlegmatic readjustment. It should have gagged him.
“It goes without saying that any conversations these two boys have are going to be persuasive.”
Juan Two Saints whispered. He was trying to shout. He wanted Jefe to know. The whisper was all he had. Jefe bent over him and held close to his mouth, stinking of sweat and onions and smoke and chew.
“What was that?” he said. “Say it again.” He sounded almost gentle.
“I told them to run,” Juan said as loud as he could.
“You did?” Jefe whispered back.
Juan nodded. At least he thought he did.
“Do you think they listened?” Jefe asked, trying his hardest to sound like a co-conspirator.
Juan moved his head. Jefe imitated him. Then Jefe stopped and began shaking.
“They didn’t,” he said, still in a whisper, still terribly close. “Here is how they repaid your kindness. They went back to that ranch out in the country, and they shot the hell out of it. Then they chopped up two people and left them there. But you want to know the best part?”
Juan did want to know. Even though one of his eyes was swollen shut, Jefe could see it plain in the one that wasn’t.
“After they killed everyone, your amigos took something out of the ground. Something that had been buried and hidden that no one was supposed to know about.“
“What was it?” Juan croaked. He said it suddenly and it hurt.
“That’s what I want to know, Juan Two Saints.”
“I don’t know.”
“Why did you let them out?”
Juan didn’t answer.
“What did they promise you?”
“Nothing.”
“Why were you at the station?”
Juan opened his mouth, and even that hurt. Nothing that came out of it would make either of them feel any better. He remembered the plunger and wondered if he had one.
“We stopped by your house,” Jefe said.
His thoughts raced to Jefe in the desert stopping cars after midnight.
“Your family is very worried about you.”
He should have killed Jefe. He should have shot him in the face one morning and been done with it.
“Know what I told them?”
He found his arm. It was useless. Jefe was still close. He was still whispering. He was still vile. Juan began flapping his hand open and shut, trying to hold on to whatever he could.
“I said, Don’t worry, Senora. We think they stole a radio, and we’re using it to make them think we have all the other roads closed, when in fact, we’re driving them right up 85, into the desert. We’ve already got men at the border waiting to take them. They’re trapped. And you know what she said, this nice girl of yours? She said to me, Good, Jefe. I hope you kill them.”
Jefe snorted. He cleared his throat.
“Now that’s my kind of woman,” said Jefe.
***
Through the rain and mud and dark, Curtis was surprised to find the old stone wall where he had been told it would be. He had run out of Spanish, and in the groggy haze of sleeplessness and the realization that Virgil might be dying, his capability of locating words in his mind came to an end.
They pieced it together in single bits, one off ramp, and one street at a time, until Curtis found himself driving on a long dark road that had only been paved once, Virgil sleeping beside him, and convinced that he was lost in the rain in Mexico until the old stone wall rose up before him. He damn near drove into it.
Rodrigo had pointed, though Curtis still knew left from right, and he gestured, waving with his arms like a third base coach, that Curtis should keep driving.
“Arbol,” said Rodrigo.
It was obvious that Curtis had no Spanish left in him. Rodrigo stretched out his arms and stood on his toes, cranked his neck to the side, and drew wide his fingers.
“Arbol,” he said.
They found the old dead tree just where he said it would be. It had two long branches and not one leaf. Curtis turned right.
Before them was a ranch house. It was only one floor, and the windows were dark. There was a squat barn behind them that led out to a field.
“Listen to me. I think this is a vet. It’s not as good as a doctor, but it will have to do. We’ll get you fixed up and we’ll get back on the road.”
He waited for a reaction, but none came. Virgil was unconscious.
He stepped out of the truck into the rain and looked at the dark house. He thought of his broken Spanish and pantomimed directions. Like a doctor, he had said. He thought about who could be inside this house.
Curtis took off his glasses, folded them, and put them in the pocket of his yellow shirt. He opened the truck and pulled out the shotgun. It was the double barrel that they found on the floor of the barn. He popped it open, put a slug in each chamber, and closed it up again.
He pulled Virgil out and felt his weight land on him. Curtis took one last look at the tarp covered pile of money and started the slow walk to the porch.
He saw a tiny shovel, a pail filling with rain water, and a little wagon, painted red, white, and green, only large enough for a child.
When they stood on the porch under the overhang, finally out of the rain, Curtis breathed, turned the shotgun in his hand, and used the butt to loudly knock on the door.
He gave it a moment, and then knocked again. This time, he heard the sounds of the house. There was the soft creaking of wood and bare feet on floors. He saw a dull glow in the windows, and a light went on in the back of the house. He heard metal touch metal from inside the door. A woman’s face appeared.
It was a stern and suspicious face that opened the door, and opened it just a crack. Her hair was cut short and from what he could see, her build was not feminine. She wore a long nightgown that went to her shins. He came back to her face. There was anger in it. But he saw intelligence too. If this woman were some kind of doctor, she would be educated. He took a chance.
“Do you speak English?” he asked.
Virgil grunted in his ear and said yes. Curtis ignored him. The woman did too. He said it again, this time with less patience.
“Little,” she said. She had an accent, but not a heavy one. From one word, he could tell she spoke English just fine.
“Are you a doctor?”
She began to say no, but he saw the lie on her face, and she knew that he saw it. They hadn’t come here by accident.
“I cannot help you,” she said.
“My friend needs help,” Curtis said.
“I will call the police,” she said, and with that, she began to close the door. Curtis pushed the shotgun into the door jam so it could not close. He could see one of her eyes.
“No, you won’t,” he said.
They stared at one another. Curtis was soaking wet from head to toe, unshaven, his hair matted to
his head, and he hadn’t slept in two days. His t-shirt was brown with blood and his nose rumpled under his skin. His glasses, which normally made him look bookish, were safely tucked away in his pocket. He imagined that he looked like a dangerous man.
His mind was finished with Spanish, but he sank back into his memory and found an old speech from a drunken Marc Virgil. It was one he’d often repeated, because it was exciting, and because it was so completely foreign to the life Curtis had actually lived. He also remembered the little car in the yard. He pushed the door open just enough to see her whole face.
“Listen to me,” Curtis began. “My friend needs help, and he needs it now. You can help him. Once you do, we will leave. I’m not a psychopath. I’m not a sex offender. I have no desire to hurt you or your children, but so help me God, if you don’t do exactly what I say, I will visit evil on this family tonight.”
He liked to think that thunder might strike in the distance after he said it, but all he heard was the rain coming down on the roof. He liked to think that he would have felt like a hero as the door opened and the stern woman stepped back, allowing him to enter, but all he felt was disgust.
Chapter Twelve
Curtis – Nuevo Leon, MX
The stern woman had hard hands. They were rough and callous with nails worn short. Her knuckles protruded, and the backs of her hands were tan. Curtis thought he would have been proud to have hands such as these.
He caught her looking at him. Her eyes were as hard as her hands.
“Let go of him,” Senora Uto said. It was an order. She said it again, impatiently, when he didn’t move fast enough. “You are in my way.”
He pulled his hands away from Virgil’s arms. The flesh burned white where his grip had been, though only for a second.
“He has lost too much blood,” she said aloud, though not to Curtis.
“Is he going to die?”
She didn’t answer. She moved to the side with a sharp cutting tool in her hand. Curtis had never seen this tool before and didn’t know what it was. It was too small for a garden tool, and too large for a medical instrument. But this wasn’t a place to ask questions.
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