Border Son

by Samuel Parker

  Ed stood and walked over to his truck, got in, and fired up the engine. He needed to drive as a cathartic exercise. To feel the physical acceleration in order to keep pace with his racing thoughts.

  8

  Ed drove down the dirt drive until he hit asphalt. He accelerated on the road as the late summer wheat fields whipped past his open window. He drifted out on the back roads of the high prairie, driving to the barely audible sounds of Johnny Cash on the radio, the hot air blowing against his face.

  He drove on.

  Finally, after calming his nerves and driving for nearly an hour, he turned around and headed back. He pulled into the gas station on the eastern edge of Jennison. The town was a small farming community that was slowly receding into history. Most of the other family farms had been sold off to agribusinesses, kids never came back from college, and no new blood ever considered planting roots.

  He got out of his truck, put the gas hose in his tank, and went in the store to pay for the fill-up. The old rust bucket could probably make it to New Mexico as long as he topped off the radiator more often than not. It still drove smooth. He would just have to baby it a bit.

  Ed caught himself mid-thought.

  Why was he even considering it?

  Why was the feasibility of a drive to New Mexico even crossing his mind? A couple years ago Ed received a phone call from the El Paso jail. Tyler said he needed bail. Ed simply hung up the phone. And that was it. There was no grand fight, no huge come-to-Jesus meeting when each had said words too strong to take back. They had simply walked in separate directions, and as men do, stubbornly refused to look back.

  So why now? Why bother to think about Tyler now?

  Ed paid the clerk and walked out of the store back toward his vehicle. The local sheriff pulled in beside him. A hand waved out of the open driver’s window. Ed nodded in reply.

  “Hey, Tom,” Ed said as he went to pump the gas.

  “Ed. Glad I saw you. I was about ready to head over to your place.”

  The sheriff got out of his car and the two men talked casually over the truck bed.

  “What you need?”

  “I got a phone call today from a fed. He was asking about you.”

  “About me?”

  “Rather, about your boy.”

  Ed could feel his hand tremor on the gas pump. He wanted to go back before the phone call, before his wandering thoughts about Tyler. Before all the past was hauled to the present.

  “Tyler?” Ed said. “Why would they be asking about Tyler?”

  “Didn’t say. Just asked if your number was current, seems like they been trying to get ahold of you this afternoon.”

  “Yeah, I’ve just been out driving.”

  “No need to give me an excuse,” Tom said with a smile. “I wouldn’t answer them either if I could avoid it.”

  “What do you think they want?”

  “No idea. But I assume if they are looking for Tyler, well, it can’t be anything you’d want to hear about.”

  Ed nodded. The pump quit at twenty bucks and he put the hose back up and sealed the cap. Tom had been the sheriff in Jennison for decades, and it was usually him who brought Tyler home in the back of his cruiser, or called Ed when Tyler was at the police station for whatever stupid situation he had got himself into. Ed always thanked Tom for keeping Tyler out of the courthouse, and Tom always felt sorry for Ed having to deal with a miscreant child.

  “So what did you tell them?”

  “Just that I’d find you, give you the message,” Tom said, handing over a piece of notepaper with a name and number on it. Ed looked at it. “Probably best to call him back before they send the black helicopters out for you.”

  Tom opened the door of his patrol car and put a foot in, then looked back at Ed. “Call him collect. You know . . . just because.” He got in the car and drove off.

  Ed followed suit and headed back home, his life having gotten incredibly more complicated in just the past couple of hours.

  9

  Ed pulled into the gravel drive, parked, and went inside. He fished a beer out of the fridge, pulled the phone off the wall, and sat at the kitchen table. He took out the paper that Tom had given him and looked at the number, punching it into the keypad.

  It rang several times and then was answered by a switchboard operator.

  “Agent Lomas, please.”

  “One minute, sir.”

  He waited on hold until the interminable music was silenced.

  “This is Agent Lomas,” a voice said.

  “Yes, this is Ed Kazmierski. I was given a message that you’ve been trying to reach me.”

  “Yes, yes,” Lomas said. Ed imagined the agent on the other end of the line suddenly straightening up at his desk and shuffling papers. “I have some questions I hope you can answer for me.”

  “I’ll do what I can.” Ed took a sip of beer.

  “I’m afraid it’s a pretty urgent matter.”

  “It’s about Tyler, isn’t it?”

  “Uh, yes. Yes it is,” Lomas said.

  Ed closed his eyes and exhaled slowly. He could feel the weight begin to descend onto his shoulders. The sucking-down feeling that he felt when his life was slipping into chaos. When his wife had left. When he was a single parent dealing with Tyler’s hooliganism. He took for granted how easy life was without these burdens, and now it was back. It was returning, against all his efforts over the years to detach himself from it. He could feel the pull.

  “So, what’d he do?” Ed said, more defeated than inquisitive.

  “I’m afraid I’m not allowed to divulge too many details of an ongoing investigation, Mr. Kazmierski, but I’ll be straight with you.”

  “I’d appreciate that.”

  “Your son has been involved in some major drug-running operations through Nuevo Negaldo into New Mexico. The DEA was tracking him for several years. He wasn’t a main concern for us. Just a hired mule for the Cartel. A couple weeks ago, we got word that a major shipment was being planned. Your son was part of that shipment. But then everything went black. Simply disappeared.”

  “Disappeared?”

  “Disappeared. Tyler, along with another man he was working with. They left Nuevo Negaldo with the shipment. No one has seen them since. They simply dropped off the grid. Word coming from Mexico is that the shipment was dumped, and the mules were removed from their positions.”

  “Removed?”

  “I apologize for my insensitivity, Mr. Kazmierski.” Lomas paused on the line. “It’s possible that Tyler went back to Nuevo Negaldo. When it comes to a shipment as large as this one is rumored to have been, the Cartel doesn’t leave room for mistakes. If he did go back, it more than likely would not have ended well for him.”

  Ed’s hand began to tremble and the sensation ran up his arm to his throat, his face, his eyes. “When?”

  “The shipment went missing five days ago.”

  “Five?”

  “Yes.”

  The phone call this morning. “Your son, Tyler. He needs you.” Was he alive? He felt his guts turning, the feeling growing along with another. Worry? Concern? His head swam. It was a split-second decision not to bring up the phone call. Something the woman said had stuck in his subconscious and kept poking at a part of his mind that he had buried.

  “So . . . what do you want from me?” Ed said.

  “Were you in contact with your son? Any letters, email, phone calls over the past year?”

  “I’m afraid not.” It wasn’t really a lie. “We had sort of a falling out a ways back. Once he first got into this drug mess. Started stealing money from me, pawning some things. I kicked him out.”

  “How long ago was that?”

  “About six years, I guess. I know he got arrested in El Paso a couple years ago. He called me from jail. Wanted me to post bail for him. I refused. That was the last time I heard from him.”

  “Nothing since then?”

  Ed sipped his beer again. “No, nothing.”


  “All right then, Mr. Kazmierski. Please give me a call if you should think of anything that might be useful. Anything at all. Even small details help in these types of investigations.”

  “Sure thing, Agent Lomas.” He jotted down the number Lomas read off. “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Shoot,” Lomas said.

  “Are you looking for Tyler or are you looking for the shipment?”

  “Both. Tyler is a US citizen, of course . . . but that shipment is valuable not only to keep off the streets, but we don’t want the Cartel up here looking for it. We prefer to keep their war south of the border.”

  “Thanks.”

  “For what?”

  “Being honest,” Ed said.

  “Remember, if there is anything at all that comes to mind, no matter how insignificant, please call me.”

  “I will,” Ed said and hung up the phone.

  He breathed out as if the pressure of the world had built up inside his chest.

  He brought the bottle up to his lips and finished it off, then ran his hands through his hair. “Good Lord, Tyler,” he whispered, “what did you do?”

  10

  Lomas placed the receiver back in the cradle on his desk and let out a long sigh. He could feel the tension in his neck constricting down his spine. Looking for answers in dead ends, because the dead held all the answers.

  He stood and walked to the window of his office that overlooked downtown El Paso. From the ninth floor of the building, he could see the border crossing into Juarez with its long train of vehicles backed up waiting to enter America. So much flowing back and forth, day in and day out, not only at this crossing but the almost fifty such checkpoints running from Brownsville to San Diego. He didn’t need this headache. Loads got seized, dumped, skimmed every day. Salazar should know this. He should have contingencies and remedies on his side of the border. He should be using his enforcers to handle it. Not him. He didn’t like sticking his neck out in these sorts of situations, and wanted nothing more than to tell him where to go, but he knew he couldn’t.

  He had made that deal a long time ago. Back when he needed money for the important things in life. The new wife, the new house, the new car. Now all three were gone, along with most of the money. But the hooks in him would never loosen.

  He wanted a drink and a cigarette, but the office administrator would come down harder on him than the Cartel if they even caught a whiff of tobacco burning in his government-owned office.

  He pulled the cell phone from his pants pocket and pushed a button. The speed dial worked quickly.

  “Yeah, it’s Lomas.”

  He waited a minute as if on hold.

  Finally, a deep voice came on. “Yes?”

  “No word on this side. No seizures of the size you’re looking for.”

  “You’d know?” Salazar said.

  “Yeah, I’d know. They wouldn’t hide it, they couldn’t keep the news quiet about it.”

  “What about the family?”

  “Tyler’s old man doesn’t know anything. Hasn’t spoken to him in years. Mother’s in California, not involved.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah. Mental health ward the past five years.”

  “The father. Jennison, Kansas?”

  Lomas took another deep breath. The Cartel knew everything, but it still struck him cold when he was reminded of that fact. “Yes.”

  “Very well. I’ll send someone up to double-check. Just to be thorough.”

  “I told you I’d handle this.”

  “Agent Lomas. You must understand. I always plan for any technicality. Consider them as just the contingency plan. As you might say . . . your backup.”

  “I don’t need any backup. And you are taking unnecessary risks having your guys running around up here. It isn’t safe for any of us.”

  “Are you lecturing me on how to run my business?”

  “No . . . just saying that your boys aren’t exactly subtle in how they handle things. Podunk, Kansas, isn’t Nuevo Negaldo. You can’t solve problems by spraying bullets into people.”

  Salazar’s silence on the other end was deafening.

  “I’ll get a tap on Kazmierski’s phone. Other than that, the guy is cold. A waste of time.”

  “I am sure that will be confirmed.”

  Lomas gritted his teeth as he covered the microphone with his hand. He wanted to punch the wall. Salazar sending people north was a stupid move. “Normally, if you want a piece of information, it’s best not to kill the only people who have it.”

  The phone went dead.

  Lomas pocketed the phone and his frustration boiled over. He had little remorse for being in the pocket of the Cartel. Life was expensive and the government pay was almost insulting. What he hated was that his fortunes were tied to a person like Salazar. Salazar was impulsive. He didn’t use his head and it was rumored that was causing issues with the Cartel boss. Salazar was going to get them all killed if he kept messing up. The lost load was his responsibility. Killing Tyler and Ignacio before he recovered the goods was an idiotic move.

  He needed fresh air. He felt like he would suffocate in his office.

  Lomas took the elevator down to street level and walked down the block. He lit up and the nicotine calmed his nerves while his feet took him to a pub for a drink. Something in his gut was telling him things were going to get so much worse.

  11

  It would be a night of little sleep and fitful dreams on both sides of the border.

  In Nuevo Negaldo, in two different locations of the city, two wayward sons drifted between the living and the dying.

  Roberto had holed himself up all day at his mother’s house. Miguel had been by before lunch and asked what was going on.

  “Just sick,” Roberto said.

  “You need a doctor? You look awful.”

  “No, I’m fine.”

  “Seriously, bro, you look like you’re having a heart attack.”

  “I said I’m fine, pendejo. Just leave me alone.”

  Miguel held up his hands and walked to the Spartan kitchen area, got himself a drink of Roberto’s tequila, then headed out the front door. He came back around five and the two had the same conversation. The shadows on the walls had just shifted location.

  “I’ll swing by in the morning. Salazar wants us to drive over to Corralito tomorrow.”

  Corralito was an airstrip about forty miles south of Nuevo Negaldo. It was also a great place for someone to execute a hit. The airstrip was isolated from all civilization, a redundant feature, as there were few in Mexico who would willingly pry into Salazar’s business. Roberto felt his guts tighten and the cold sweat return to his forehead.

  “Why does he want us down there?”

  “He has everyone going. I guess some político from Mexico City is flying in and Salazar wants to flex some muscle.”

  It made sense. But even so, he would never know if Salazar was aware of his double-cross right up to the moment that they blew his head off.

  “Okay,” Roberto said, steeling himself, “I’ll be ready to go.”

  Roberto paced the house until after midnight when his mother finally arrived home. She walked in and went to kiss his cheek, but he stepped aside.

  “So did you make the call?”

  “Yes, this afternoon.”

  “And?”

  “And what?”

  “Is he coming down?”

  “He didn’t say. But I gave the message.”

  Roberto paced faster. His patience had always been scarce, but now he felt like he was ready to claw out of his own skin.

  “What’s going on, Roberto? Tell me.”

  “Nothing, Mama, nothing.”

  “Roberto, tell me,” Camilla said sternly.

  “The less you know, the better. If the man you called comes to see you, send him on to Felipe as soon as possible and do not ask questions.”

  “Felipe? Why is Felipe involved in this?”

  “Sto
p asking questions, Mama. Please! Just stop.”

  Camilla looked dumbfounded, her face growing pale as the worry slowly started setting into her features. “Okay. Okay, Roberto. I will do as you say.”

  12

  Time had become untraceable for Tyler as he drifted in and out of consciousness. He could still taste the dirt in his mouth from the desert floor, the sticky residue binding his eyes, though the tape had been removed by the priest when he rolled him over in the desert. There were times that Tyler felt like he was back there. Bleeding out in the wasteland.

  He lay naked in the dark. He could feel his shoulder burning as if he were lying on a pile of coals. He didn’t have the energy to move, not even to shoo the flies away from his face as they would land lightly on his cheek, then on his nose.

  He remembered waking in a fit of convulsion, nausea. The cold sweats despite the intolerable heat. He clawed at the hand that held a washcloth to his forehead, scratching at it, begging for it to go away.

  He had dreamt of death, just as he had dreamt of a hit of something to make him float away from life, the lack of a fix driving his weakened mind rabid.

  There had been a man, a light in his hand, washing the wound, pumping pills in his mouth, but they were not the type of pills that made him soar.

  Through the hours of oblivion, Tyler had thought he heard the tolling of church bells, as if his soul was being pulled toward the gates of heaven. He thought he was going mad. There was only one place he knew his soul would drift, and it certainly wasn’t up to meet St. Peter.

  Tyler didn’t know how many days it had been since he was taken out into the desert. It could have been yesterday. It could have been years ago.

  In that state of bewilderment, he opened his eyes and gazed at the ceiling. His fever was gone, but he still lay in sweat-soaked sheets. His eyes tried to adjust to the dim light coming from a pane of glass high on the stone wall, and the room slowly came into focus. A brick closet, silent except for the flies. He was lying on a cot that creaked with each movement. His back was wet, and he wondered if he had bled through all the way to the floor. Sitting across from him near the door was a small Mexican. The man just stared at him with sympathy in his eyes.