The Death and Life of Bobby Z

by Don Winslow

  Johnson doesn’t hear the gunshot, just the engine sputtering.

  Sees black smoke belching out of the ultralight and can just make out the Kraut about halfway out the cockpit like he’s looking for somewhere to jump.

  “He have a parachute?” he asks Brian.

  “Too low for a parachute,” Brian murmurs.

  Then the ultralights sputters, stops in midair for a second, then just drops from the sky.

  Like a shot bird, Johnson thinks.

  It falls on the far side of Split Rock so they can’t see it crash.

  “You think he could be still alive?” Brian asks.

  “Shit, he must’ve fell a hundred feet,” Johnson says.

  A second later they hear the explosion, then see a tower of red-and-orange flame shoot up.

  Johnson can’t help himself. “Your friend,” he says, “he wasn’t one of them rocket scientists, was he?”

  “Shut up.”

  “I mean, back in the old country?”

  Brian’s all red in the face. Looks like a tomato that’s about to go kablooey. He’s trying to sputter some words, but nothing’s coming out of his mouth but flecks of spit.

  Satisfying as it might be to see Brian expire from a massive coronary, Johnson figures the potential trouble outweighs the possible entertainment value so he decides he’d better say something.

  “I dunno, Commander,” Johnson drawls, “but I’d say it was about time to send in the infantry, wouldn’t you?”

  Unless, Johnson thinks, you got a speedboat or something you want to try out.

  35.

  Kit hears the crash, too.

  “What happened to Magneto?” he asks.

  “I guess he fell,” Tim says.

  Kit thinks about this for a few seconds, then says, “Like Icarus.”

  Tim’s impressed. “You read the book?”

  Kit shakes his head. “I saw the cartoon on TV.”

  “Oh.”

  Still, it’s a pretty good story, Tim thinks. With a practical lesson. You get too close to the muzzle end of an M-16, it’s very likely to melt your dumb-ass wings.

  “How old did you say you are?” he asks Kit.

  “Six,” the boy insists. “Elizabeth says, ‘Going on twenty-six.’ ”

  “I’ll bet.”

  “What’s she mean?”

  “She means you’re old for your age,” Tim says.

  “Oh.”

  Tim takes the entrenching tool off his belt, unscrews the blade, locks it back down and hands it to Kit.

  “In fact,” Tim says, “you’re so big you can start digging.”

  “Digging?”

  “A hole.”

  “Why?”

  “To sleep in,” Tim lies.

  What he’s really thinking—except he doesn’t want to scare the boy to death—is that unless Willy was out there playing von Richthofen all by himself, Johnson and the boys would be coming for them tonight.

  And while the split in the rock seemed like a good idea at the time—like a lot of things, Tim thought ruefully—it also meant that they were trapped.

  The smart thing for Brian and his boys to do would be to wait them out, but Brian didn’t have the discipline to do that. The next best thing would be to climb up on top of that rock and lob explosives down the split. But if they still wanted him alive they wouldn’t do that.

  So they’ll be coming in. And if the bad news is that there’s only two ways out of this rock, the good news is that there’s only two ways in.

  But only one of me.

  Because even if the kid could shoot—and Mister Magoo could hardly miss shooting down this crack—Tim isn’t going to ask a child to kill anybody.

  Kid probably has nightmares enough of his own already.

  So he’d dig the kid in nice and deep. Safe as he could be if the rounds start bouncing off the walls. Going to be like fighting in a hallway.

  Also, he has to figure out how to make himself be two troops.

  Isn’t going to be easy, he thinks, especially for a monumental fuck-up.

  “Keep digging,” Tim says. “I’m going to get some firewood.”

  “We’re going to have a fire?” Kit asks, enthused.

  “Yup,” Tim says.

  At least one fire.

  36.

  The kid gets tired of digging pretty quickly, so Tim takes over. Digs a foxhole Hulk Hogan could hide in. Then he weaves together some smoke-tree branches to make a lid and lays it on top of the hole.

  “What’s that for?” Kit asks.

  “To keep you warm.”

  “What about you?”

  “I’m warm-blooded.”

  Tim takes some of the mesquite he’s gathered and prepares a campfire. Then he piles dry brush across the split at the far end of the rock.

  Kit gets bored watching him do this and spends his time looking over the carvings in the walls.

  “Who do you think made these?” he asks.

  “Some old Indians!” Tim shouts.

  “How do you know?!”

  “They’re all over these deserts!” Tim answers. “They’re called pictographs!”

  “Oh.”

  “Indians made ’em!”

  “I’m going to get in my fort!”

  “Good idea!”

  He watches the kid lie down in the hole and pull the lid over himself. Hopes the kid’ll sleep, because there’s lots of work to do and he doesn’t really want the boy seeing it.

  He finds himself a forked branch and digs it into the ground. Then he takes the pistol and duct-tapes it into the fork so it’s as steady as it’s going to get. He digs the spool of wire out of the canvas bag, ties one end around the trigger, cocks the hammer and then carefully counterwraps and stretches the wire ankle-high across the split. He brings the wire back across and ties it tightly onto the branch.

  So there’s one shot, he thinks, I’ll get off at the back door without having to be there. Make the motherfucker jump through fire to get shot in the chest.

  He scoops the gunpowder out of three rounds and pours a line of cordite from the pile of brush back to the center of the split. Then he takes the entrenching tool and digs a shallow trench a little farther in. Not as deep as Kit’s hole, just deep enough for him to lie in and not necessarily be seen in the dark. Finishes that and then digs himself a narrow, shallow firing position at the other end of the rock.

  Tries to think of anything else he can do to give them a better chance and can’t.

  So he puts his mind to why old Don Huertero is so sweaty to have Bobby Z alive when it would be so much easier to have him dead. Decides that it must be because Bobby has something he wants, knows something he can’t tell if he’s dead.

  What had Elizabeth said? You took something from him?

  And Don Huertero wants it back.

  And if I ever want to live through this, I’d better find out what it is, locate it and give it back. World ain’t big enough to hide from a guy like Huertero forever.

  Then he hears Kit crying softly. Crying quietly, like a kid who’s used to crying so no one will hear.

  “You okay?” Tim asks.

  “I miss my mom.”

  “She’ll be out of the hospital soon,” Tim says. “I’ll see that you get to her.”

  Tim doesn’t have a fucking clue just how he’s going to do that but decides that he will.

  “She’s not my mom,” Kit says.

  “Sure she is.”

  “I heard Elizabeth say.”

  “That’s not what Elizabeth meant.”

  “What’s she mean?”

  “She meant that maybe Olivia isn’t always a great mom.”

  “Oh.”

  “Sorry.”

  “It’s okay.”

  Tim sits with this for minute, then says, “Why don’t you get up and we’ll cook some dinner? Yummy Q-rations.”

  “Like Marines eat?”

  ’Fraid so, kid.

  “Yeah.”

 
“Okay.”

  So Tim lights the fire and it has that great mesquite smell and they heat up some Q-rations that are turkey-something with rice and have the energy bars for dessert.

  They tell each other stories to pass the time and Kit’s better at it than Tim is. Kid has an imagination that just won’t quit and actually entertains Tim with a story about an island somewhere full of treasure and the pirate who hid it there.

  The pirate’s name is Bobby and Tim doesn’t know if he should be like flattered or freaked out.

  37.

  Johnson rolls a cigarette as he waits for the moon to come up. Sits up on the ridge looking down at Split Rock and thinks that Bobby Z has his dick stuck in the wringer this time.

  Johnson’s feeling pretty relaxed. For one thing, Brian got bored and went home, which is a damn good thing, because Johnson thinks Brian was gonna be more trouble than help in a fight. Also, Johnson thinks he’s about had it with this “take him alive” shit.

  Come to think of it, he’s had it with all Brian’s shit.

  Johnson spent forty years of his life doing real ranching. Which in the desert took some genuine skill, shifting cattle around the sparse foliage until the stupid damn beasts were fat enough to sell for enough money to keep the bankers off the ranch. Pulled that trick off for forty damn years, and never got rich, but had enough for beans, coffee, tobacco and whiskey. He had his land and his cattle and his damn self-respect, and then the government booted the ranchers off the federal land. No more grazing cattle lest they “ruin the pristine vegetation of the natural desert,” and that just kicked it for the small ranchers like Johnson.

  The bankers were on him like stink on shit.

  Took the ranch and everything on it, didn’t leave him with as much as a horse to ride away on.

  And, Johnson thinks, I end up renting myself out to this fat fag on his so-called ranch.

  Ranch, my callused ass.

  He finishes rolling his smoke, lights it up, and as he takes in that first relaxing draw he’s thinking that they’ll just take old Bobby about any way they can get him.

  And the boy … well, now.

  Rojas is sitting beside him like some mean old dog.

  Johnson rolls a smoke for Rojas and hands it to him. Lights it for him and says, “We’ll wait for the moon …”

  Rojas don’t say nothing.

  Rojas ain’t big on words, anyway. Tends to be a bit spare in the word department when he’s sober. Plus, Johnson thinks, I ain’t really said anything that needs responding to.

  And Rojas is sulking. Johnson can tell just sittin’ next to the man that the man is steaming. Doesn’t really blame him. Rojas has spent a whole hot day tracking the man and the boy and then the boss brings in some asshole in a toy airplane and fucks everything up.

  And Johnson’s thinking what Rojas is thinking: They should’ve just let Rojas run ’em down and kill ’em.

  It’s what you got yourself a Rojas for.

  Otherwise what’s the use of havin’ him; he’s such a pain in the ass to bail out of jail all the time.

  Just a goddamn danger to himself and others.

  Johnson says, “You know, I been thinking. I’m not so sure we need to take this old boy alive. I’m thinking if you have the chance you just might as well kill him.”

  But Johnson hasn’t reckoned on just how pissed off Rojas really is.

  Figures it out when Rojas says, “I take him alive.”

  “No, really, you don’t—”

  Rojas holds up that big knife and twists it in the starlight.

  “I stick this,” he says, “into his neck and the man feels nothing ever again.”

  Jesus shit, Johnson thinks.

  “The man is alive,” Rojas continues, “but when he shits himself he doesn’t know.”

  “That some old Indian thing?”

  “I think we take Bobby Z to Don Huertero that way,” Rojas says. “I think that will make Don Huertero happy.”

  “I expect.”

  “Me, too,” Rojas says.

  Johnson stares out to where the rising moon is turning Hapaha Flats into a silver bowl.

  “Well, you do what you want,” Johnson says. “Me, I’m telling the boys to go in shooting. To ‘wound,’ of course. If you get to Bobby before a bullet does, well, that’s your good luck.”

  “Luck,” Rojas spits. “I don’t need no airplane to fly.”

  Johnson doesn’t know what the hell he means by that but lets it go as some sort of mystical Indian shit. The Cahuillas’re always like that—turning themselves into coyotes and badgers and jackrabbits and shit.

  Least when they’ve been at the mescal.

  “Well, if you can take him alive,” Johnson says. He takes a few moments to get to the next part. “The boy, on the other hand …”

  Rojas, the mean son of a bitch, waits him out. Wants to make him say it.

  Johnson’s more stubborn. He sucks on his smoke and watches the moon rise.

  Finally Rojas laughs.

  “The boy,” he says.

  He takes the knife and draws it in front of his throat.

  “You want the boy’s head?” Rojas asks.

  Johnson can tell Rojas is fucking with him.

  “I don’t think that’ll be necessary,” Johnson says.

  He gets his nightscope out and looks down into the flat. Can see his boys getting in position around Split Rock.

  Give it another half hour or so and it’ll be time to finish this thing.

  38.

  Tim shoots the first guy the second he appears, like a green ghost in the nightscope. Knows he hits him because the guy drops in that awkward way guys do when they’ve taken a round.

  Tim’s shooting for the chest: It’s the broadest part of the target. None of this shoot-to-wound crap tonight. Tonight it’s the real deal.

  Khafji all over again.

  He hears the kid stir behind him.

  “You stay in that hole,” Tim orders. Voice like a sergeant, no bullshit, ’cause they’re returning fire now. Tim hears the rounds smack like drumbeats against the rock. One or two rounds come zooming in above his head.

  “You stay in that hole,” Tim repeats.

  Another figure dashes across his thin corridor of vision and Tim squeezes off a round. Hears the air go out of the guy when he hits the ground.

  Tries to listen over the sound of his pounding heart. Adrenaline rush and all that happy crap, but it’s important that he can hear them coming around the other side.

  Through the old backdoor.

  Sees another figure, shoots and misses.

  Can hear them out there, though, and they’ve hit the dirt. They have any brains they’ll crawl around the side and take some snap shots around the edge of the split.

  He listens for footsteps.

  Doesn’t hear any in front or in back.

  Then he hears the pistol shot.

  Shot, hell, it’s more like a fucking roar, echoing behind him in the narrow corridor of the rock, and he hears the guy yell, “Oh, shit!” like he’s heard guys yell before when they’re surprised they’re shot.

  Here we go, Tim thinks. It’s the fucking Alamo now, and he crawls backward out of his firing hole.

  “Stay in that hole,” he orders again as he belly-crawls past Kit toward the backdoor. Sees the guy sitting against the rock wall, can just make out the entry wound in the front of his chest. Doesn’t want to see the exit wound, not from a 9mm at that range, and the guy’s just sitting there with that glazed look in his eye and Tim yells, “Medic!” out of sheer habit and doesn’t even realize that he shouts it.

  Tim flicks a flame from the cigarette lighter and touches it to the line of gunpowder just as he hears feet running toward the opening in the rock. Watches the spark crackle and then the pile of brush ignites so bright it hurts his eyes.

  “What’s that?!” Kit yells.

  “Keep down!” Tim yells back.

  He doesn’t hear any footsteps now, isn’t sure
whether he could hear them through the fire’s roar, so he takes a gamble that the guys have stopped at the fire’s edge. Flips the lever on the M-16 to bush rake and lets loose.

  Even through the fire he can hear the pop-pop sound of rounds smacking into bodies.

  Tim throws himself down.

  Good fucking idea because rounds come winging back through the fire.

  Bullets and curses in Spanish and Tim realizes that the “take him alive” order is probably forgotten now that the blood is up and people are dead.

  He remembers that a lot of orders get forgotten when a buddy or two’s been hit and the fear and adrenaline and rage are screaming like his is now. But he makes himself wait and he crawls into the shallow trench he dug earlier.

  And reaches for the K-Bar at his belt and gathers his knees under him.

  Guy comes leaping through the fire—through the fucking fire—shit, he’s on fire, little flames licking out his sleeve and on his hat—he looks like some sort of comic book villain—the Human Torch or something—as Tim lunges up with the knife in both hands.

  Pushes the blade into the guy’s stomach, twists it sideways, straightens it, then kicks the guy’s body off the blade.

  Hits the dirt and listens.

  Tim decides to believe the backdoor attack is history. No choice anyway because he can hear someone coming in at the front. They must have brought an army and Tim figures he’s fucked anyway.

  Same old Tim Kearney, he thinks: Good at getting into places, fucking hopeless at getting out.

  He eases the rifle into the old supine firing position and looks through the scope. Sees another green ghost edging along the side of the rock wall. Not giving him much to shoot at but enough, and Tim has just about applied the requisite pressure on the trigger when he hears something above him and looks up just in time to see a body hurtling down the split from the top of the rock.

  Motherfucker just dropping from the sky like some kind of berserk bat.

  Crazy motherfucker, Tim thinks, as he tries to squeeze out of the way, but the crazy motherfucker lands square on him. Knocks the wind out of him. Tim can’t fucking breathe and the rifle’s pinned beneath him and so are his arms so he can’t reach the K-Bar.

  Feels a knife against the back of his neck.