by Krane, Kasey
“Well, ma’am, I can answer the Doctors Without Borders question,” Lopez said. “The Mexican police questioned the staff, and they said that a bus matching the description of the hijacked bus pulled up in front of the clinic, you came rolling out of the door, and the bus took off again.”
“Hold on, where was Martinez found?” Judge asked.
“On the side of the road on the way to the camp. It’s where we believe the hijacking took place.”
“Then the bus driver was in on it!” Bishop said.
“That’s our suspicion,” Lopez confirmed.
“Miguel?!” I protested. “No way. He was a very nice man. He would come and chat with me about how much he missed his family - he’s an immigrant from Peru and he had to leave his family behind when he moved to Mexico. He’s been working hard on saving up money so he could bring his family to Mexico and then they could all cross together to the US. He loved the students, too. There’s no way he’d hurt any of us.”
But as I was saying the words, I remembered the look in Miguel’s eyes as he’d made eye contact with me in the rear view mirror. At the time, I’d taken it as panic, because I was panicked. But now, as I thought about it, I realized it’d been worry, sure, but also regret. Regret that he’d agreed to do this.
Oh God, Miguel, how could you?!
I had both hands buried in Turbo’s fur then, clinging to him. He pushed his body against mine, practically sitting on top of me, his tail thumping against the back of the couch. Judge ran his hand over my hair comfortingly. I leaned into his hand, trying hard not to cry.
I was such an idiot - I never saw it. I should’ve known.
“We have to find the bus driver,” Judge said. “Maybe he knows something - where they’re going or what their plans were.”
“Well, he chose the wrong kidnappings to participate in,” Davis said drily, speaking for the first time since we had all sat down. “I doubt anyone realized what a huge international story this would become. He currently has every police officer in the southwest, the FBI, and the Mexican police all looking for him. And, no doubt, the Sangre. He’d better hope he found a great place to hide out.”
“He’s at Lago Santa Teresa,” I said dully. “He called it lugar feliz - his happy place. It’s where he went during school breaks, because he couldn’t afford to travel back to Peru to see his family. He would tell me about spending his days in the sun, fishing. I don’t think he told many other people - he talked to me more than anyone else. I can’t believe he was a part of this…” I couldn’t finish the sentence. I wanted to curl up into a ball and hide from the world and this pain but I knew I had to stay focused. Just a little longer. For Maggie. Then I could cry. After these men left. But not before then.
“Well…” Lopez said, drawing the word out suggestively, “we have no jurisdiction down there, and I keep hearing rumors that the Mexican police have been bought off by the Sangre so I’d hate to trust them…” He stared hard at Bishop.
Bishop answered without missing a beat, “As a businessman in both countries, I’m sure that a little trip down there to scope out the area for new trucking clients isn’t out of line, right?”
“Keep us posted on any new…clients that you get while you’re there,” Lopez said. “We’ll keep the El Paso police in the dark as much as possible because they feel obligated to share what they know with the FBI and US Border Patrol, and they feel obligated to share what they know with the Mexican police. I think it’s best if we get our hands on the driver first.”
“Well, if you want to give the El Paso police a bone, tell them to check the supply closet opposite Carmen’s room,” Judge said. “I haven’t heard it come out in the news yet, so I’m guessing no one has spotted the Sangre I left under a pile of dirty laundry in the corner.”
“Oh fuck!” Lopez exclaimed and then with an apologetic glance towards me, “I mean, darn! We better get the El Paso guys right on that. I imagine finding one of those bastards - I mean, ass—jerks,” he finally stumbled into, “without any warning would give a nurse a heart attack.”
I hid my smile against Turbo’s fur. It felt good to have something to smile about.
“I hadn’t thought about that,” Judge said apologetically. “I just wanted him out of the way while I got Carmen out of there.”
“Speaking of, I didn’t believe Mr. Williams’s story for a moment,” Lopez said, with another apologetic glance at me. “Not to call him a liar, but what the hell really happened last night?”
Judge quickly ran through the night’s activities, and Lopez shook his head in disgust. “The whole El Paso police department oughta be lined up and shot for not thinking to protect Carmen from Sangre retaliation.”
“That was my thought, too,” Judge said drily. “Someone’s head ought to roll for that decision.”
Lopez and Davis stood up, shaking hands with Judge and Bishop, but I slipped back into my funk, unable to move. Goddamn Miguel, you almost got me killed! And Maggie…you may have actually killed her. May you rot in hell, you bastard.
Judge left with the two policemen, escorting them outside, leaving Bishop and I alone in the living room. It was awkward, to say the least, and so I did what I’d been brought up to do - have good manners. I forced myself to sit up, rather than slump against Turbo’s welcoming presence, and make eye contact with Bishop. “Thank you for all of your help with this. I know you’re not my biggest fan, and having you help with this search for the little girls just because of me is way above and beyond what I’d ever expect you to do.”
Bishop looked at me, the puzzled look on his face again, but as he opened up his mouth to reply, Judge jumped in smoothly. “It’s the least we can do, Carmen.” I jumped, surprised he’d come back - I hadn’t heard him close the front door. “Bishop, shouldn’t we let her rest?” They exchanged glances and then Bishop gave a jerky nod of the head.
“Absolutely.” He left, shutting the front door behind him quietly. I heard that door closing, I thought to myself crossly.
“Judge,” I said aloud, a don’t-fuck-with-me tone in my voice, “what was that all about?” I glared at him, trying to figure out what the hell was going on.
“You know Bishop,” Judge said dismissively. “I didn’t want to give him a chance to yell at you.” I stared at him. What the hell? Bishop was confused, not angry. He was not just about to yell at me. I opened up my mouth to ask him what the fuck he was talking about when there was a rap on the front door and then it opened.
“The guys must be here,” Judge said, heading back out into the foyer. “I’m going to walk with them around the grounds and show them what areas I want them guarding. I’ll be right back.” I heard the men chat and then the front door closed and the sound disappeared with them.
“Turbo, what am I going to do?” I asked the old, wizened dog. He thumped his tail at his name and reached his nose up beseechingly. I obliged and put my head down by his face and he bathed it, his tongue even swiping through my ear. “Ack! Turbo!!” I laughed, pulling away. He thumped his tail harder against the couch cushions, and I swore I saw him smile. “You’d love Maggie,” I told him as I petted him. “She was abandoned as a baby at an orphanage - she’s a huérfana, you know - and I don’t know how she’s stayed so sweet in the intervening years. She was so damn trusting of me - she knew I’d protect her.
“But Turbo, I didn’t. I didn’t protect her. The Sangre took her and all I did was manage to get shot in the head. I failed her.”
And I buried my face in his fur and felt him nuzzle my head and swore to myself that if I got Maggie back, I was never going to let her go.
12
Judge
I stood in shock in the doorway and listened to Carmen’s broken-hearted confession to Turbo.
She has no idea how brave she was that day on the bus. She thinks she failed? She was trying to stand up to bastards and assholes that think that kidnapping little girls is an acceptable Sunday evening activity and were armed with goddamn as
sault rifles to boot. How can she think what she did was anything less than heroic??
I opened up my mouth to say something, to ease the pain off her face, but realized that words weren’t going to mean anything to Carmen. She’d heard it ever since she’d woken up - what a hero she was. It was all the news broadcasters could talk about, and the headlines of the newspapers could say. Me telling her this yet again wouldn’t mean a damn thing.
Right now, though, I needed to take care of her. She’d been trying to take care of others for long enough; it was time for me to take over.
I shuffled my feet on the hardwood floor, intentionally stepping on a board that creaked, and then walked into the room. “Hey Carmen!” I said, too cheerfully. Dial it back…
“So,” I started again, a tad less enthusiastically, “I was thinking that you’d probably appreciate a shower, and I think we should maybe take a look at your wound on your head. While I was tying up the Sangre in the closet, I may or may not have helped myself to a few bandages. Where’s your purse?”
“My purse?” she echoed, confused. “I think I saw it in your bedroom. Why?”
“Well, I couldn’t exactly shove the bandages down my leather chaps, could I?” I asked with a naughty grin. “That would make all the tongues wag. So I put them into that giant sack you call a purse.”
“Hey, that purse has a lot of uses!” she called out after me as I walked towards my bedroom. “Like, sometimes, I use it to whack motorcycle gang members upside the head, so I can knock some sense into them.”
I grinned to myself at her response. Yup, she was definitely feeling better already. I pulled the bandages and the syringe out of her purse carefully, placing the syringe into the nightstand drawer next to the bed, and then I brought the bandages and gauze with me back to the living room.
“I…borrowed enough to hopefully get you through,” I said, dumping the bandages on the coffee table. Her eyes widened at the pile in front of her. Large pile in front of her.
Okay, so maybe I’d…borrowed enough for three head injuries. Whatever. At least Carmen would be taken care of.
“But I really think you should go take a shower. I think that’d make you feel a hundred times better. Then I can patch you back up again.”
With a final pat to Turbo, she stood up.
“That sounds like a good plan. We should probably also go clothes shopping sometime soon, because I didn’t exactly pack for this trip to the US, and although I appreciate my father bringing me some clothes, they’re not exactly in fashion now. Thank God I haven’t gained too much weight since high school.”
I looked down at what she was wearing, which looked perfectly fine to me, and gave a mental shrug. Chicks worry about weird shit. Don’t try to talk her into believing anything else, ‘cause she won’t. And anyway, if I could convince her to try on some bathing suits for me, that’d make the whole shopping trip worthwhile.
“Whatever you want, Carmen,” I said aloud, doing my best to sound…supportive, like a real boyfriend would.
She laughed.
“That almost sounded believable,” she said drily. I grinned back at her. Damn, she knew me a little too well.
I walked her back to the master bath, pulling out fresh towels for her - thank God Mary helps me out with this kind of shit or I’d have beach towels for my bathroom and nothing else - and then left her to it.
Leaving Turbo at the door of the master bath to stand guard - goddamn dog switched loyalties awful fast - I wandered out to the garage to pound nails again out of boards from an old barn. The boards were going to look great as wainscoting - really give the old feel to the house that he was going for.
As I swung the hammer, my mind drifted back to Mary and James Miller, the only adults I considered to be “real” parents to me. I’d always been insanely jealous of Bishop’s family - to have parents who actually gave a shit about you, rather than only caring what you could do for the family legacy…it was a foreign idea to me for the longest time, but as I began spending more and more time at the Miller household during my childhood, Bishop’s parents began to take me under their wing.
In a piece of trivia I wasn’t even sure Carmen knew, it was James who gave me my nickname of “Judge,” saying that I was always in a Judge to go do something exciting. Hell, I was just a boy - of course I was.
As I pounded nails and stacked boards, I thought back to the first time I’d done something as a “real” Carmen.
“Dad says he’ll pay us to help him load trucks today, if we want to.” Bishop’s voice came through the phone line, excited and bursting with enthusiasm. Of course I would want to help load trucks and make money! I ran through the house, yelling at the nanny as I passed the living room that I was going to Bishop’s house and would be back later. The nanny wouldn’t care - she’d probably be relieved. Now she could watch her soaps without me bothering her.
I jumped on my bike and tore down the street, letting the slight hill give me a boost in speed that had the hot summer air whistling past my ears. Bishop and I had never been allowed to work at the clubhouse before. I imagined one of the Dead Legion letting me try on their cut.
I skittered to a halt at the clubhouse and hid my bike in the shade, then walked in. The cool air washed over my sweaty, skinny body, and I closed my eyes in appreciation for a moment. Gosh, that felt good!
“Hey, Judge!” James called out and my eyes popped open.
“Hi, Mr. Miller,” I said. I’d started calling him James at James’s urging, until Dad had heard about it. I hadn’t been able to sit down properly for a couple of days after that. I was careful to not make that mistake again.
“Let’s go out to the warehouse - Bishop is out there already,” James said warmly and gave me a one-armed hug that allowed me to maintain my cool status - really, what kind of guy hugs other people? At age 11, I couldn’t go around just hugging everyone - but the gesture still told me that James cared about me.
James was a giant bear of a man, or at least he seemed like it to me. He could lift anything with his burly arms, and he had a grizzly beard that he loved to rub on my and Bishop’s stomachs to tickle them with. I was getting too old to get tickled, of course, but secretly I loved it. I tried to imagine my dad tickling me, or growing a beard, or hugging me, and drew a blank. There was no imagination in the world that could come up with something that nuts.
We got to work loading boxes into semis out in the warehouse but even with the swamp coolers working overtime, I was soaked with sweat when we were done. I’d worked right next to the super cool Dead Legion, listening as they ribbed each other about being wimps or snail bastards. Snail bastard…I rolled that phrase around in my head, tucking it away for future use when I beat Bishop at a race.
Finally, we were done, and James paid us each $20, which I carefully tucked away in my back pocket. That was a king’s fortune that I could use to buy a lot of baseball cards, if I was careful.
The Dead Legion roared away on their Harleys, their engines making it impossible to speak, and I felt a thrill go through me.
Someday, I would have my own Harley, I vowed to myself. Suddenly, the money in my back pocket morphed from saving for baseball cards to saving for my own bike. A real bike. Getting my own cut. Growing my own grizzly beard.
Bishop and I rode our bikes back to the Miller’s and James tailed along behind us on his Harley, riding slow, his motor thrumming, making us feel like we were on a real ride with the Dead Legion. We pumped our legs on our bikes as fast as they could go, eager to go fast, like a Dead Legion would.
When we got there, Mary fed us giant ham sandwiches and cold milk and as many chocolate chip cookies as we could stuff in, and for a moment, sitting at that table, listening to the chatter of the Miller family, I pretended that I was James and Mary’s son. That Bishop was my brother. That I belonged here and would never have to leave.
Mary patted me on the shoulder as she passed by and said, “I’m sure proud of how hard you worked today, Judge. Y
ou’re putting all of that height to good use.” She winked at me and I grinned back, embarrassed but a little proud. It was true - I was the tallest kid in my class and the next older class. Bishop was built like James - sturdy, strong - while I could already tell I was destined to tower over everyone I ever met.
Finally, horribly, it was growing dark outside and Mary reminded me in a gentle voice that my family was going to be missing me if I didn’t go home soon.
Family…I didn’t want to be a Michaelson anymore. I considered throwing myself at Mary and James and begging them to adopt me, but I couldn’t. That’s what an eight-year-old little boy would do, not a grown-up 11-year-old. So I stood up and thanked them for dinner and let Mary give me a two-armed hug, because it felt nice, and high fived Bishop and let James give me a one-armed hug, because James knew I was a man, and then peddled my bike home, up the slight hill, into the growing twilight.
And it was just as I thought - when I got there, no one even asked me where I’d been or how my day went. I cleaned up and sat at the dinner table and ate more food - I was never full - and ignored my father’s rambling monologue about the deal he’d made that day at work in favor of imagining a Harley. My Harley. And I’d pull up in front of the clubhouse, so cool and awesome that all of the guys would invite me to ride with them.
“—which someday Timmy will take over,” Dad said, cutting into my thoughts. I looked up from my plate with a panicked look in my eyes. I had no idea what my dad had been talking about. Favoring muteness as a way of getting out of trouble, I just nodded and gave a half-hearted smile. Samuel, my younger brother, shot me a deadly look and I knew that Samuel knew that I didn’t want it. I didn’t want any of it. Just because I was the oldest in the family didn’t mean I gave a damn - that’s right, a damn! I can swear in my head - about financial deals.
Dad should just turn everything over to Samuel. He does give a damn.
I’m gonna grow up to be a Dead Legion!
