by Chuck Dixon
“Excuse me, miss. I am looking for my daughter,” the heavy man said.
“Here?” Jessie said. She stopped on the walk, hands deep in the pockets of her sheep-shearing barn coat. Five paces between her and the men. Not far enough. Levon had told her about the ten-paces rule, but she recalled it too late. He also told her to always heed that little whispering voice. He said it was their Neanderthal ancestors deep down in our shared psyche offering a warning across the eons. The voice was deafening now. These men were all wrong.
“Not here. But someone here might know where she is,” the man said.
“Really.” Not a question.
The man reached into a pocket of his coat. Jessie’s hand tightened on the pritchel she held in her pocket. It was a slender forged-steel spike used to punch nail holes into horseshoes, a farrier’s tool that she was fully ready to plunge into the man’s smiling face if he stepped too close.
Tesoro stayed where he was, sensing her reticence, understanding that there was a gulf between them he could not cross. They were off to a bad start, and there was no going back to being friendly strangers. The woman made no effort to hide her suspicion or defiance. She was gripping something deep in her coat pocket. It could very well be a gun, and she could very well be good with it. He and Buey would back off for now, and play it cool.
“My daughter, you see. She run away from home. We think someone here might have seen her.”
“Where’s home?”
“¿Que?”
“You said she ran away from home. Where is home?”
Tesoro blinked before answering, “Chattanooga.” Shat-ah-newdge-uh.
“Uh-huh. So why do you think your daughter is here?”
Tesoro unfolded a piece of paper and held it out to her. A photograph of some kind.
“This car. The license plate. It is a car from this place, this address.”
The Kia. The car she let Sandy drive.
“I haven’t seen your daughter.”
“Maybe it was not you driving. This is Huntsville. At a mall. This is my daughter getting into this car.”
What the hell did you do, Sandy?
“The car’s not here right now,” she said.
“I see that. Where is it?”
Jessie realized they had probably already looked for it before she arrived. How long had they been waiting for someone to come home?
“It’s at a garage in Haley. It’s been there all week. Transmission trouble.”
The heavy man did not acknowledge her answer. He kept her fixed in his gaze through the tinted lenses. The other man turned his head to look around, weighing a decision, making an assessment. Jessie leaned back on her right foot, her mind racing. Fight or flight. Where to land on that question? She knew, in the end, it was her body, not her mind, that would make that choice.
“I think someone borrow your car. Take it for a ride. Claro?” The heavy man’s smile returned.
“That must be what happened.”
“Sí. Yes. We go now. Thank you for your time.”
Jessie offered no reply.
He grunted something to the younger man, and both of them backed away before returning to their van. The van ground into gear and drove around the circle and down the driveway toward the county road.
Jessie walked to the house, conscious that they would be watching her as they pulled away. Because of that, she fought down the urge to run into the house for the telephone.
16
The gravel gave way to rough grass at the back of the camp. A football pitch was set up, its goals draped with sagging nets at either end.
Levon joined men walking out to either watch or play. A few men were stripped to their shorts to kick and head a ball around while waiting for enough players to start a game. Some took up seats on benches made from wood planks and stacked bricks. Others stood in clutches smoking and talking. The sickly-sweet tang of hashish joined the smell of tobacco smoke. A pair of indifferent guards watched from a corner of the field. There were rules and there were rules, and they were applied with discretion here.
Arabs and Turks eyeballed Levon but did not approach or address him directly. He regarded them as well, sizing up the quilted denim jackets a few of them wore. Most had keffiyehs secured around their necks against the cold breeze coming through the fence. Levon stood watching, hands in his armpits.
There were enough men on the field now for sides, but still the game did not start, just squats and stretches and grab-ass. A few ran around doing practice kicks. Levon noticed the ball for the first time, weakly inflated and patched with duct tape. Its once-colorful skin was faded and scuffed.
Some of the conversations stopped. The men on the benches turned their heads. The teams stood looking back toward the barracks. Levon turned to see a trio of men coming toward them. Most noticeable was a man in a white fedora, wearing a North Face parka in bright red. Walking to one side of him was a smaller man carrying a net sack filled with balls. To the other side of the fedora was a man as tall as Levon, but even broader across the chest and shoulders, and he had a thick neck as wide across as his too-small head. His shaved scalp exaggerated the effect. This man carried a folded lawn chair.
The players trotted to the edge of the field to accept the sack of balls. All looked new, bright, and free of patches. The big man unfolded the lawn chair and took great care to make sure it was secure and level at the edge of the pitch. The fedora settled into the chair, and the ball boy lit the end of a black cigar for him. He then removed a thermos from a pocket inside his coat and poured a cup of something steaming that the fedora took without acknowledgment. The ball boy set the thermos down before taking a seat on the grass like a dog might by its master. The big guy with the little head remained standing, huge arms crossed and eyes dull. The fedora waved a hand, and the game began. Half the men on the field stripped down to bare chests, and the play was on.
Levon waited until the break at half-time to make his approach. He stopped far enough away so as not to pose a threat, but close enough to be heard. The muscle with the small head tensed and locked Levon in a death stare.
“I am looking for work,” Levon said in Russian.
The Chechen took a mouthful of cigar smoke and glanced at Levon from under the brim of his fedora. In his own language, he spoke to the ball boy, who snickered.
“I am not a Russian,” Levon said.
The Chechen tipped the brim of hat back to give Levon a fresh appraisal.
“I see you have met dlora borsza.” He pointed the cigar at the scabbed-over gash on Levon’s jaw. He’d switched to Russian. Dlora borsza loosely translated to “that prick” in Chechen.
“Do you have work for me?” Levon asked.
“You are not that pretty.” That made the ball boy giggle.
“You know the kind of work I mean.”
“Let me see your hands.”
Levon stepped closer, holding his hands out to the Chechen.
“Those are good hands. Those are hands for a certain brand of work.”
“I want a blanket. A coat and a phone.”
“You do not want a bed?”
“I can get that on my own.”
The Chechen snapped the brim of his fedora back in place. He blew a stream of creamy smoke at the back of his own hand. He took a sip of tea.
“I have a man for that kind of work,” he said finally.
Levon took two steps closer and drove his flexed hand deep into the broad throat of the man with a too-small head. The big man expelled a fine mist of blood-flecked spittle and made to step away, but Levon had him by the ears. The American used this double grip to yank the big man’s face down to meet his rising knee, which cannoned into the big man’s face. A wet crunch and the big man dropped to the grass, hands twitching. His nose was smeared across his face in a bloody mass of torn flesh. His dumb eyes stared up sightlessly.
“You could do better,” Levon said.
Ball Boy leapt to his feet, a hand snaking beneat
h his coat. The Chechen waved him away.
“Are you dead, Yuri?” the Chechen asked. He poked a toe at the big man.
The big man answered with a keening, bubbling moan.
“Looks to me like you have an opening,” Levon said.
“I will get you a blanket and a coat. A phone must wait until you’ve earned it.”
“When do I start?”
“When I give you a name.”
Levon nodded once and turned to go. The lawn chair creaked as the Chechen spoke after him.
“What is your name?”
“Bill Hogue.”
“Do not do anything like that again without my permission, Beel.” The chair creaked again as game play began.
Levon returned to the barracks area. The two guards at the edge of the pitch watched him until he was out of sight.
17
Jessie opened the liquor cabinet in the den for the first time in seven years. Since the day a nervous Army Reserve lieutenant was sent over from Anniston to tell her Gary wasn’t coming home from Iraq. The layer of dust atop the cabinet was evidence that she stayed out of this room. The only dust-free object in the room was the framed shadowbox that hung over the bar. It held Gary’s commendations and his master sergeant’s stripes. Sandy must come in here and wipe it down now and then. Funny that Jessie never noticed that before.
She blew the dust from a tumbler and poured herself three fingers of Dewar’s before taking the phone from her pocket. How to play this? What would she say to Sandy? What questions would she ask her daughter, and would she learn the truth?
Her questions answered versus her child’s safety. Whatever else happened, she wanted that Kia kept as far from this house as possible for as long as possible. That cleared things up as far as priorities went. She tapped Sandy’s picture on the screen. The glass was empty, but she didn’t remember drinking it. The smoky taste on her tongue confirmed that she had. Disgusting. Scotch tasted better with a cigarette, but she’d left both habits far behind her.
“Mom?” Sandy’s voice was fresh from laughing.
“Hey, honey.” Jessie kept her tone light, she hoped. “Tell you what, you think you could stay at Merry’s tonight?”
“I’m sure it would be okay. Why?” There was the noise of a television in the background. Music and voices. Girls talking.
“Oh, the water heater busted. No hot water until I can get a plumber out here.”
“Ooh. Sure. I’ll run over and get some clothes, and—”
“No! You don’t want to come back here. There’s water everywhere. The hall carpet and your bedroom are soaking.”
“Oh.”
“It’s gonna take me most of the evening to wet-vac it up.”
“Maybe I should come back and help?” Her dear daughter was offering her services as a question. Jessie gave her the answer she was praying for.
“You stay. I can manage. It’s just a pain in the ass, is all.”
“Okay. All right. You sure you’re gonna be okay?”
“Yes, honey. Thanks for offering. You and Merry have a good time. Love you.”
“Love you.” The call ended on Sandy’s end.
That was tonight. But what about tomorrow, and all the days after that? Those two men wouldn’t give up. She knew her visceral reaction to them had been correct. They were bad news, and it had nothing to do with them being Hispanic. Not unusual to see Mexicans in the county, but not this time of year. Plenty of farms hired migrants during the growing and harvesting seasons. Some of the horse farms she did work for hired workers, probably illegals, to load hay and put up fencing. There was enough of a transient population around that even the few businesses in Colby had bilingual signs.
No, it was an aura or something in the way the pair moved. Especially the younger one. His constantly searching predator eyes belied his air of studied indifference. The heavier, older man wore a smile that hid an air of threat, of dire consequences if he were to encounter any kind of disappointment. The story about his daughter was pure bullshit. He didn’t start by asking Jessie if he’d seen her little girl. He didn’t offer to show Jessie a picture. It was the car, the Kia, that interested him.
And that van. It was creepy as shit. A rolling horror movie.
Jessie sat down on one of the padded stools at the bar with the phone still in her hand. She debated calling the police but was reluctant to do so. Blame mountain pride. Blame her mulish stubborn streak. But the Cades had had more than their share of trouble with the law, and she was not about to allow that camel to stick its nose in their tent again. Not without a lot more cause.
The car, and Sandy, were safe for the night, parked way up a lonely holler at Fern Cade’s farm. They were all safe from the two amigos for tonight.
Her daughter, Merry Cade, and that third girl she had heard speaking Spanish between snorts of laughter.
18
“I’m gonna have to charge you deer-season rates,” Lonnie Childs said from behind the counter at the Hill ’n’ Dale Motel.
“What other rate is there?” Tesoro asked.
“Well, April to October, we rent to Mexicans. Rooms by the month for planters, packers, and pickers. Cheaper rate, y’know? But come November it’s all deer hunters, and they pay more, and by the night.”
“We are hunters,” Tesoro said.
Buey hissed through his teeth at that from where he lounged on a sagging sofa, leafing through an ancient copy of Hoy! he found on a stack of magazines piled on a chipped coffee table.
“Oh, sorry. No offense. Didn’t mean to assume,” Lonnie said.
“De nada.”
“Sure, sure. A double, okay? Two full-sized beds.”
“Yes. We will take that.”
“Hundred for the night. Five hundred for the week.”
“We will take the week.” Tesoro thumbed bills from a roll onto the counter.
“Cash. Okay. Sure. Cash is king.”
Lonnie put aside the clipboard with forms that the state required for occupancy and scooped up the fifties and hundreds. He got the pair of amigos their key and wished them a good night. They exited to move their van down to a space in front of their room, farther along the L-shaped single-story structure.
As he slipped the bills under the cash tray and closed the drawer, he realized he hadn’t asked them what they hunted.
They were, in fact, cousins, not amigos.
Tesoro lay back atop the stiff covers of the bed nearest the window, smoking and tabbing the TV remote until he found a woman with big tits reading the news on Univision.
Buey had stripped to his tighty-whiteys and was halfway through his twice-a-day regimen of one hundred push-ups.
“You make me tired.” Tesoro sighed.
“It was the only good habit I picked up in prison,” Buey said, back rising and falling between the beds.
“You are not in prison now, ese.”
“I have to stay hard in case I ever go back.”
Tesoro pursed his lips and blew twin streams of smoke from his nostrils. It was a conversation they’d had many times before. It served as an entrée to more immediate concerns. Buey leapt to his feet to roll atop the second bed, chest and arms shiny with fresh sweat. He lay back, resting his head on folded arms. Tesoro flipped channels until he found a show with a grown man dressed only in a diaper and baby bonnet waving an out-sized rattle. The audience was howling, but to Tesoro, it looked stupid. He was about to switch channels when a big-breasted redhead in a tight baby-doll outfit curvetting onto the screen.
“What is the plan here, vato?” Buey asked.
“We find the car. We find the girl.”
“The mother. She was lying. I know.”
“The car will be impossible to find in these mountains.”
“Umm.” Tesoro nodded in agreement.
Both he and Buey had grown up in Sinaloa, a folded land of canyons much like the hollers here in Alabama. The trees were different, but the land was the same. They knew that people a
nd things could vanish in country like this, never to be seen again. Their first job with the family had been digging graves in the cholla-choked hillsides back home. They graduated, through achievement and attrition, to join their uncle’s plaza here in the USA.
“So how we find the girl?” Buey asked. He’d bounced off the bed and was running a towel over his arms and legs.
“The car. The girl is with the car.” Tesoro’s eyes danced as the woman on the screen bent to show much of her bare ass as she spanked the overgrown baby with a paddle.
“How do we find the car?”
“We watch the house. The woman’s house. The car will come back.”
“And if it does not come back?”
“We will have to call Tio Honesto.”
“He will not be happy,” Buey said and entered the bathroom to start the shower.
“I know.”
Tesoro considered this with profound concern. Their uncle’s happiness was paramount, far more important to them than their own happiness. Or comfort. Or futures.
“He paid two thousand for that girl,” Buey called through the open bathroom door over the sound of the shower.
“I know.”
“Dollars.”
“I know. I know this.”
“She has only begun to repay him.”
“This also, I know.”
In addition to the two thousand American Honesto gave to the girl’s parents, there was the expense of transporting her from Guatemala to the border crossing, then into Texas and along and along until she reached Huntsville. Every step of the way was a cabron with his hand out. A twenty here, a hundred pesos there. The girl had only just started working for them and had barely earned back any of the costs of bringing her here. Weigh that deficit against the girl’s future potential when she was a few years older and working in a burdel, and the loss was in the hundreds of thousands. And Tesoro and Buey knew that their uncle would do that math to the last centavo.