Raked Over

by Linda Seals

After many miles of driving we passed over a set of railroad tracks and Barry Correda had me pull off the dirt road into a graveled yard next to a white metal building. I couldn’t see much in the dark, just shapes looming out of the deep shadows cast by the security light.

  Phil Binder’s Mercedes pulled in shortly after us, and Eddie got out and grabbed Louie in the back seat. Barry hopped out of my car and crossed in front of the hood, his gun on me the whole time through the windshield. But he couldn’t see me reaching for the phone on the floor and cramming it in my jacket pocket before he reached the side of the car.

  Barry reached in for the keys, and then pulled me out. I struggled into my jacket as he shouted profanities at me and then pushed me toward a door on the side of the building that Phil Binder was unlocking. Phil turned on a set of arc lights inside and Barry roughly shoved Louie and me in the door and across a stained concrete floor. I was getting tired of being shoved.

  The building looked liked it hadn’t been used in a while, with dirty junk piled up in corners and boxes stacked in haphazard groups, some knocked over with their contents spilling out onto the floor. Workbenches were piled with rusty tools, heaps of rags, discarded parts. The windows, high up on the walls, had been boarded up. In the dim, unlit part of the open space I could make out more cobwebby junk strewn about with 50-gallon drums lining the far walls. The air still had the sharp scent of oily dust. Louie Burzachiello and I stood close together by some wooden crates while Barry Correda, Eddie Scumbag, and Phil Binder stood by the back wall, talking and smoking.

  “What are we gonna do?” asked Louie in a whisper.

  “I don’t know,” I answered truthfully. “Are you okay? They didn’t hurt you?”

  “Those jackasses! No, I’m okay. But I was getting a little car sick from having to sit on the floor of the car, and from having to smell that Eddie jerk! Gag! And the Metallica crap they were playing at ear splitting levels was enough to make me—”

  “Louie!” I interrupted. “We gotta focus. The plan I have right now is to stall. We need time. Time to figure out how to get us out of here.” I desperately needed to believe that I could do that. But Louie nodded, so I continued, “Let them do the talking. The less they think we know, the better chance we have. Don’t respond to anything, okay?” She nodded again and we leaned back on one of the rough crates behind us, watching Barry and Eddie strut over to us. Phil Binder stayed next to the benches, trying to light a cigarette with nervous hands.

  Eddie slid up to Louie and flipped her ball cap off her head. “I shoulda fuckin’ messed you up the last time I saw you in town, bitch!” he sneered to impress the others as he thrust his face into hers.

  Knowing he meant the threat for her twin, Louie, in the protector role, lunged at him, arms flailing. “Ya fawkin’ aszhole!” she screamed, her Jersey accent rising with her fury.

  Eddie backhanded her and knocked her down. “Shut up!” He reached for a roll of duct tape on a bench and tore off a piece. “Now you’re gonna shut the fuck up! I had to listen to you all the fuckin’ way down here, bitch!” He roughly pushed some of the tape over her mouth, and then haphazardly wrapped a piece around her wrists.

  He held up the roll to Barry and asked, “Wanna tie up the old hag, too?”

  “That fat old lady ain’t goin’ nowhere! Her ass is too big!” Barry said, and he and Eddie sniggered through their noses like school boys at Barry’s clever observation. I was getting tired of the fat jokes. I was no longer a Skinny Jenny, but I wasn’t a Ima Lardeaux either.

  “But throw me the fuckin’ tape. I might hafta—”

  The lock on the side door clunked, and the door flew open. Cowboy Binder stumbled in, wearing a rumpled suit, no tie, and cowboy boots with low slung riding heels. He looked first at Phil, then at our group, and back to Phil. “What the hell is goin’ on, Philly boy?” he yelled. Phil Binder looked stunned to see his father.

  I was even more stunned to see Ernesto Mondragón appear in the doorway behind Cowboy Binder. Ernesto shoved him farther in the space. “Get over there, old man!

  “I brought him as insurance, Phillip. To make sure you and I have a deal. You wouldn’t want anything to happen to your poor old dada, now would you?” Ernesto Mondragón said with an imperious smile. He was in all black, even to his smooth ponytail, which contrasted with his colorless face. He looked just like the photo I’d seen at Andrea Brubaker’s minus the spray-on tan.

  Turning around he said, “Now where is Lily Raffenport?” but he stopped when he saw Barry Correda. He turned back to Phil Binder and said in a dead calm voice, “Ah. Phillip. Didn’t you tell me. Correda. Was. Dead?”

  Phil Binder looked like he was about to come unstrung. Even from across the room, I could see that he was heavily sweating and red in the face. “Well, yeah, Ernesto—uh—I wanted to talk to you about that. You know, he has those numbers and—well—uh—I know what I said but—you know—”

  “No, I don’t know, Phillip,” Ernesto said, and pulled an automatic from his coat pocket.

  Barry raised his gun, but Ernesto Mondragón was quicker, and pointed his gun at Barry Correda’s head. Barry’s assault weapon clattered to the floor, and Eddie took a step away from him.

  Ernesto kicked the gun toward Phil and said, “Do it now. Kill him.”

  “’Nesto, wait, man! I’m yer home boy, not him! He’s gonna fuckin’ scam you, man, not me! I got me proof, I got the fuckin’ texts on my phone! I’ll prove it!” Barry Correda screamed.

  “First of all, you’re an idiot, Correda. You messed up,” Ernesto said, smiling. Only the corners of his mouth turned up; the rest of his face didn’t chime in. “Secondly, you tried to rip me off, and I really don’t like that, bro. Didn’t think I’d find out about the mountain lab, did you? Your friend Phil here told me the whole thing. Now he’s going to see what happens when someone tries to screw me.”

  Ernesto Mondragón turned and gestured to the gun Phil Binder had awkwardly picked up in his hands. “Kill him. Or I shoot your daddy. You choose.”

  Phil fumbled with the gun, and I saw that he had wet himself.

  Ernesto saw it, too, and sighed, “Christ!” He calmly turned and shot Barry Correda in the nuts. Barry screamed, grabbing his crotch and crumpling into a heap on the floor.

  Ernesto turned his gun on the cretin Eddie and asked, “You got a problem with that?”

  “No, man, no, I don’t, no problem, you’re the boss, always have been, I’m with you, Ernesto,” Eddie sputtered out, giving Barry Correda, lying in a pool of blood, a kick just to show his allegiance.

  Cowboy Binder howled at his son Phil, “You let these vermin into my company? What have you done? What is going on?”

  Phil Binder didn’t know who to be more afraid of, Ernesto or his father. Gathering up false courage he spat out, “Deal with it, old man! Yes, Ernesto and I have some business deals!” He glanced at Ernesto Mondragón who now looked bored.

  Phil Binder rushed on. “You had it easy! The economy tanked! It wasn’t my fault!” He sounded almost petulant. “You pushed me for profit, and there is no profit out there, damn it! Did you hear me? No! You just wanted to hear how much money we were making! You always gotta be the big deal! The big friggin’ deal!”

  Cowboy Binder looked furious. “What are you talking about? You said you had big plans about how to sell properties! What about your big ideas?”

  “Yeah, I do have big ideas! You haven’t had a good idea since the Nixon administration! I’m bringing money in! I’m keeping Binder going!”

  “Oh, but Phillip. You are remiss in telling your father your full role,” Ernesto Mondragón smiled that fake smile. His flat black pupils looked dilated and empty, like a shark’s. “You see, old man, your son has an affinity for, say, certain vices, and now he owes me quite a lot of money. I’m here to collect.”

  He smiled cruelly at Cowboy Binder. “Get used to it, old man. Your boy will give me controlling interest in Binder Enterprises. I’ll use it as long as I need
it, and then it’ll be gone! Poof!”

  Screaming, Cowboy Binder lunged at Ernesto, and Ernesto shot him. Cowboy staggered back into a pile of boxes holding his upper thigh. He turned pale and jerkily slid down to the floor in front of the boxes, slowly bleeding from his leg.

  I turned to help him and Ernesto Mondragón said, “Stay where you are! I’m dealing with you next.”

  He walked over to where Barry Correda was lying curled up in a ball. Ernesto tapped him with his foot a couple of times, like a coyote playing with prey. Barry groaned and muttered something I couldn’t hear. Ernesto Mondragón kicked him in reply, and turned back to me.

  “I’m getting really tired of hearing about your interference in my affairs, bitch. Tired of hearing about you sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong. Tired of the extra work your nosiness is causing me. Tired of it, Lily. Tired of you.”

  He slowly paced in front of me, tapping his gun on his leg. “I had just arrived in Colorado when I got Phillip’s call, letting me know that you had magically appeared at his doorstep. I was delighted! This makes it so easy.” He smiled cordially, and he looked like he was truly delighted. I forgot for one-half second that he was there to kill me.

  “Of course I’m getting you out of my way. But I want you to suffer first. That would please me, to have you suffer, and to watch it. What’s the point otherwise, eh?” He smiled again. “Usually I destroy the things a person loves most right in front of his eyes,” he said and jutted his chin toward Cowboy Binder and Barry Correda. “But you—you I have to be more creative with. Because you don’t have anything. You don’t have any money. Just some podunk business going nowhere in a nowhere town, or that hulk of a building you live in. So let’s start with, say, your loved ones.”

  I started to open my mouth, and he slapped me. “You get to say nothing. Just listen to what’s going to happen, and think about it in that wondrously imaginative, creative brain of yours. Don’t you brag about it—your imagination—on your website? That was such valuable information. The very thing you’re proud of will make you suffer. You’ll be able to imagine every detail of pain. You’ll be able to imagine the suffering, the deaths you’ll cause.” Ernesto Mondragón smiled with self-satisfaction. “Everyone in your life will revile your very memory. I want you to know that before you die.”

  “Look, whatever it is you want—” I said.

  “Shut up. The show has begun. Shall I start with her?” he said as he turned his gun on Louie.

  “No!”

  He turned the gun back on me and said in an agreeable voice, “You’re right. I’ll use her later, as a bonus for Eddie over there.”

  Eddie leered at Louie, grabbed his crotch, and called out to Ernesto, “El Jefe!”

  I started angrily toward Ernesto Mondragón, and he shoved me back with his gun. “Oh, don’t try to be a hero. Don’t make me hurt her now. That would spoil things, and it would be all your fault.

  “No, I think I’ll start with your dogs.” He turned to Eddie. “You know where she lives. Go kill her dogs. Take that jug of antifreeze over there on the floor and poison them. It’ll cause a lot of suffering before they die. If they’re not there, go out to that Griffin bitch’s ranch, and get them all.”

  I lunged at Ernesto, but he was ready and waiting for it. He shoved me hard back into wooden crates by the wall, and I heard boards crack as I hit. I almost blacked out from the pain. As I lay on the floor in a haze, Ernesto leaned down into my face and hissed, “I want you to hear this part, too. Eddie! Be sure to take a video of it on your phone, all the good parts, all the pain. I want her to watch it. Get going. It’ll take you a while to get back into town, and I want this started now.” Eddie headed out the door.

  From the floor, I tried to kick the bastard Ernesto Mondragón, but he slapped me hard and kicked me away onto my injured side. A wave of pain reddened my vision. Louie tried to scream something behind her tape and Ernesto kicked her, too. Louie’s eyes flashed hatred at him.

  “Ernesto! Hey, man, I’m just gonna go now! I don’t need to be here,” Phil Binder called out as he slid toward the side door.

  “Stay where you are. You’re going to be using that gun, whether you like it or not, you coward,” Ernesto growled.

  “You’re no son of mine!” Cowboy Binder screamed at Phil. “You’re going to leave me here? You asshole! I knew you weren’t good enough! I knew you were weak!” He pointed at Ernesto Mondragón and sneered, “What is he, a Frenchy? A foreigner? Or an A-rab? You dealing with an A-rab, Philly boy?”

  “Shut up, you pitiful old man, or I’ll shoot you again,” Ernesto snarled, his voice full of hate. And then he crooned in a little boy’s voice, “Besides, before you die, I want you to hear how you lost your company, and I got it. So let’s start with you. Won’t that be fun?” The change in tone sent chills down my back.

  Cowboy Binder sat on the bloody floor breathing loudly, and glared at Phil who nervously watched Ernesto. Ernesto hitched up his black jeans slightly and sucked in his stomach, as if preparing to go on stage, before he started slowly pacing in front of us.

  “You see, Mister Binder, I realize now that your boy is an idiot, too. But I trusted that Judas idiot over there who said he was gold.” Ernesto strolled over to Barry Correda lying on the floor, and shot him in the leg this time. Barry screamed, and Phil flinched and ducked behind a crate.

  “No one fucks with me, get it?” Ernesto said. I could only see Phillip Binder’s sweating face, contorted with panic, peering around his box.

  “But let me start at the beginning.” He turned to smile at me. “This will interest you, too, bitch. What a fool you are, trying to rescue poor Shannon’s integrity.” He spit out that last word. “Shannon helped us all along.”

  He couldn’t make me believe that. I imagined that he could lie in all sorts of ways to make innocent people look bad, and deflect the attention away from his own misdeeds. Instead, I needed to concentrate on how to get us out of there. But how?

  Ernesto Mondragón continued to slowly pace across the floor in front of us. My injured arm ached, so I put my hand into my jacket pocket as a kind of support for it, and felt my phone. Waiting until he was at the far end of the area, poking at boxes with his gun, I slipped the phone out of my pocket and peeped at it. No reception. I switched screens, turned on the video to record, put the phone on the floor beside me, tucked close to my leg out of sight. Ernesto turned back to us and continued in a proud and pompous voice.

  “Real estate can be risky, can’t it, Cowboy? Hadn’t really tried it until I moved my business to New Mexico. Moved there for a variety of reasons, but the most lucrative one was the situation of your friend, Andrea Brubaker. Oh, what a ripe peach to pick. Poor Andrea desperately needed a lot of money; you wouldn’t know anything about that, would you, Cowboy? I just happened to have a lot of money and I needed a way to, shall we say, clean it up before I could use it to make even more. A match, wouldn’t you say?” he said pleasantly, sounding like a courtly gentleman explaining an afternoon at the polo grounds.

  “Andrea Brubaker is very gullible once you bed her, right, Cowboy?” Ernesto’s nostrils flared in disgust. “Well, she was grateful, too, the old cow, and ultimately gave me complete access to Brubaker. Real estate was what I needed to expand my operations.”

  This was what I wanted to record on my phone. Hoping he would step nearer and tell all, I asked in what I hoped was a meek and pitiful voice, “What operations?”

  “Do you need me to explain it to you?” he sneered in unobscured contempt. I hoped he would, and he did.

  Ernesto Mondragón arrived in New Mexico looking for a central place to store and distribute the Central American drugs he was bringing up from Mexico. He soon hooked up with Andrea Brubaker, who was looking for a savior, and was willing to look the other way, to save herself. Brubaker Properties had multiple large estates on the market with owners desperate to sell, and Andrea didn’t ask questions about where Ernesto found “buyers” out of
nowhere; she was making thousands in commissions. Ernesto learned that if the sellers had trouble with the “buyer’s” very low-ball price, there were ways to get them to come around. Anglo owners were easily intimidated by senseless violence perpetrated on something they loved, especially if Mexican gang overtones were mixed in for effect. Ernesto Mondragón boasted that animals, children, and old people were easy targets, and found that with one little display of atrocity, the hold-outs sold quickly. He got the properties.

  With several rural properties at his disposal, he got into the production of meth—where the money was—and needed a disposable labor force. Unwittingly, Shannon gave Barry the connections for it; she talked about the immigrant groups she’d worked with in southern New Mexico, and from there, Barry made contacts of his own across the border. Ernesto Mondragón was ready to expand.

  He stopped his pacing in front of a grimy mirror over a rusty sink, and bent forward to check his reflection and dab at an eyebrow and sideburn. Satisfied, he turned back to us.

  “Enter Phillip. Phillip loves our New Mexico casinos, old man! That’s where he met Correda. He was in a jam, and needed a boatload of money to get him out of a situation with the cartel, who owned his markers. Poor boy. I loaned him the money to pay them back, but then, he couldn’t pay me back a boatload of money either, so he became my boy. Didn’t you, Phillip? And Binder Enterprises comes with you. Because you’re in this up to your cowardly neck.” He smiled at Phillip. Cowboy Binder howled in anger beside me.

  “Why did you involve Shannon?” I asked, hoping he was on a self-satisfied roll and would continue. I wanted to record as much as I could.

  “As a cover for Correda, idiot. Correda had to work at Binder, but our boy Phillip had disappointed his daddy with previous hires of his cronies, so I had Andrea approach the old man to hire Shannon and Correda as a favor to her, leaving Phillip out of it. Andrea she thought she’d get a spy in Binder with Shannon. And I knew that you, Cowboy, couldn’t resist a chance to have Andrea Brubaker owe you a favor. You two deserve each other.” He pointed his gun at Cowboy Binder, and I thought he was going to shoot him again, but he didn’t. He spit on him instead.

  Ernesto Mondragón turned back to me. “But Shannon got too involved in Nueva. She was only supposed to be a figurehead. She got too nosy, found things she shouldn’t have found. And she had to talk about it—you cows always have to talk about it! She couldn’t keep her mouth shut, so she had to be silenced. Easy enough to do—she was a nothing.”

  Ernesto leaned closer and whispered, “A nothing like you, bitch. And you’ll be gotten rid of just as easily. You should have just let her die in obscurity. You have no idea what you’ve gotten yourself into.” He stood erect and walked along the workbenches on the wall, gingerly picking up a few pieces of junk before wiping his hand on his jeans. His foot slipped on something on the floor, and he jerked backwards. One hand flew to the top of his head, and he grabbed the table with the other. But he righted himself and concentrated his search among the castoffs on the bench.

  On the floor next to me, Cowboy Binder bumped my foot and hissed in a low whisper, “Girlie! See that box on the wall behind you? Get over there.” He slanted his eyes toward a book-sized square grey metal box affixed about four feet up on the wall. “It’s a—”

  “Ernesto! They’re talking!” cried Phil from his safe surround of crates.

  Ernesto looked at Phil Binder along the far wall, and shook his head. “God, you are such a wimp. What are you doing now, tattling?” Phil, hoping for a gold star from Ernesto Mondragón, looked humiliated instead. Phil had tied a jacket around his waist like an apron to hide his incontinence, and he looked ridiculous. Ernesto said, “Get over there and keep an eye on those two while I deal with the stupid dyke. If she tries anything, shoot her friend in the face.”

  Ernesto unearthed a dirty cup from the bench, grabbed a small sack he’d dropped by the side door, and strolled back over to me. I struggled to stand up and lean on the crates behind me because I wanted to face him eye to eye; I was tired of looking up at him. Behind me was the box on the wall, but I didn’t know what to do about it.

  He put the cup and sack on the box beside me, and from the sack pulled out a plastic baggie half-filled with what looked like dirty ice chunks, a bottle of water, and a syringe. “You’ve talked to too many people about what you know, so you have to be discredited before you die, just like Shannon. So discredited that no one will believe anything you might have told them.” He dumped some water into the cup, swirled it around, and dumped it out. He dribbled some more water in the cup, and looked over at me.

  “Those close to you will suffer too, just because they knew you. This stupid helper of yours. Betty Huckleston and her kids. Friends. Your niece,” he said, smiling in enthusiasm. How did he know all these people in my life? “You’re going to sell them all out. You saw the scenario we created for Shannon. The mess we’ve created for you will be even better!” He almost clapped his hands together, but instead reached in the bag for a small chunk of the ice-like stuff, and dropped it in the cup.

  “All the relationships you love the most are going to be shattered. They’ll find out that you’ve lied to them all these years—you’re still a drunk and an addict.” What was he talking about? “And after your hideous behavior, everyone will believe what will be found on your home computer, and what they see you doing.” Ernesto Mondragón looked at me with eyes that were beginning to show emotion: the glint of enjoyment of cruelty. “That you’re a cheat. A liar. A fraud. A thief. A deviate. A drunk. A traitor—”

  “Go to hell, asshole! Anybody who knows me—”

  “That’s just it, idiot. They’ll think they don’t know you, because now you’re not just a drunk, you’re a meth addict.” He stuck the syringe into the dirty cup, pulled up some solution, and squirted a little out of the tip. No, he’s not going to do this! I looked around for anything I could use as a weapon. On a crate behind me was a metal can that looked heavy enough to do some damage.

  Ernesto Mondragón watched me, reached for the can, and threw it across the room. “Don’t try it. Unless you want me to carve her up first,” he said, motioning at Louie. “Her time will come soon enough.” She tried to kick out at him but hit the half-conscious Cowboy Binder on the floor beside her instead. Ernesto Mondragón laughed. “And that old man? I think I’ll just drop him off at a crack house in Denver, and let him bleed to death there. That’ll make a nice headline for him.”

  Ernesto Mondragón grabbed my left arm, and I struggled to free myself. He seized my throat in a death hold with his other hand. I couldn’t breathe. My free hand clawed at the killing vise grip in vain. “Don’t fight it, Lily. Hey, soon you’ll be begging for it! Begging!” He laughed, but released my throat. As I gasped for breath, I saw a slip of white behind his ear, just under his hair.

  Ernesto picked up the syringe and prepped the needle. “We kept Shannon out of sight for a month, but we can’t do that with you. You know too many people. So you’re going to stay here a few days. How many times do you think we’ll need to shoot you up before your brain cooks? Your organs boil from the inside, and I get to watch! You’ll get to watch videos of your loved ones dying in all sorts of other ways. Yes, we’ll have time for that. Who do you want to go first, Betty Huckleston? Or your niece?” He laughed, and seized my left arm again; it went numb in his painful grip.

  “Then Eddie’ll dump you in town, and you can live out your final depraved hours in front of everybody. We’ll put you on YouTube. Your Facebook page will be quite explicit. Will you OD, or will you just be a schizophrenic who kills herself and others? That would be fun.” He leaned in with the needle ready for a vein.

  I yanked him closer with my arm in his grip, and with my other hand, grabbed his hair, and pulled off the wig of Ernesto Mondragón.

  He screamed and both hands flew to his head. His bald pate was covered with a wig cap, and thus exposed, I could see he had on makeup and theatrical face strips
behind his temples.

  “You’re nothing but an old woman!” Phil Binder crowed. “A faggy old woman!”

  “Shut the fuck up!” Ernesto Mondragón grabbed the wig on the floor, and came up firing at Phil Binder.

  Phil fell behind a table and shot at Ernesto. Ernesto clutched at me as he ducked and returned fire, but I yanked away and crashed into the wall behind me, and into the square box.

  All hell broke loose.

  Ear-splitting noise blasted from outside speakers that were loud enough to stun us inside, and I instinctively ducked down behind a crate, while Ernesto Mondragón and Phil Binder took pot shots at each other. A round of bullets started a sooty fire on the side wall that instantly filled the space with opaque, greasy smoke. The noise abruptly stopped.

  Ernesto Mondragón and Phil Binder screamed at each other from opposite corners, ordering the other to put down his gun, give up, get out, go to hell. Under cover from the smoke, I grabbed Louie by the collar and spun her around so I could get her hands untied and the tape off her mouth. The blast of noise from the speakers started again.

  We scootched between boxes along the wall toward the side door. Watching in case Ernesto or Phil appeared out of the smoke, I had Louie go first. Just as I got in the doorway I sensed something behind me. It was Cowboy Binder, who had tried to crawl on the floor toward us, but his injured leg was too much of a hindrance. I could see that he couldn’t go any farther by himself. “Please! Help me,” I could barely hear him plead over the noise.

  Even though he was a bigot, I couldn’t leave him. So, with the help of Louie, I dragged him on the floor toward the steel door, and then we propped him up and pulled him into the bright arc of the security lights outside. I knew we had to get into the darkness so we wouldn’t be seen, and I looked around to get my bearings.

  There wasn’t much in the yard except a series of huge wooden containers lined up at the edge of the gravel area, just out of the arc of light, with the railroad tracks just beyond. My car was on the other side of the building, and Barry had taken the keys. Phil’s car was over there, too; but he had used his keys to get in the building. I saw a battered pickup truck pulled up on the side of one of the containers, haphazardly parked, and pointed to it. Cowboy Binder said, “Yeah, it’s mine. No keys in it. That bastard took ‘em.” That was about all he could get out as he gasped for breath. I could see that his leg wound had started bleeding again.

  “Come on, Louie, help me with him. Cowboy, can you walk a little? Let’s get over and hide behind one of those crates.” Louie and I helped Cowboy Binder down the side of the building in the deep cold shadows toward the row of shipping containers.

  The screeching overhead sirens suddenly stopped, and very loud polka music started gushing out of the speakers, washing over the whole area. I didn’t really know what to think.

  The door behind us banged open and Phil Binder bolted out, randomly firing an assault weapon into the building behind him. He screamed something incomprehensible over his shoulder and raced around the far side of the building. He hadn’t seen us, or if he had, he wasn’t stopping to lend a hand. I heard gunshots from the other side of the building, and then a car started up with a howling engine, spun out on the gravel, and screeched onto the road. Then silence. The polka music blared out again.

  Louie and I helped Cowboy Binder through the shadows to the first container. I hoped we could hide until I could send Louie to find a farmhouse to call for help. My original plan was that we both could make a run for it, but I knew I needed to get Cowboy, who couldn’t walk more than a few yards at a time, to a safe hiding place first. As we moved stealthily from container to container, there were two rounds of gunfire from within the building, and the polka music abruptly halted. The side door swung open, but no one came out. In the silence, time seemed to stop.

  We crouched down on the side of a container. “Thank god that noise stopped!” Louie hissed as she shivered in the cold. “What the hell was that?”

  “My last good idea from the Nixon administration!” Cowboy softly coughed with a touch of humor. “Vietnam … damn hippies thought we had napalm stored in that building. They were gonna blockade the road, stop trucks. Only legal way I had to get rid of them, keep ‘em off my property, was with this here music deterrent. Experts especially advised the polka music. Turn it on and nobody wants to stick around.”

  Cowboy Binder continued in a low voice, “When you bumped that box on the wall, girlie, that was the switch to turn it on. All you had to do was hit it to make a lot of noise. Never had to use it before, but those damn hippies—”

  Louie Burzachiello opened her mouth to argue the liberal point of view, I was sure, with Cowboy Binder, but I grabbed her arm to keep her quiet. Besides, I had a feeling that I could have been one of those Vietnam-era hippie protesters myself, but I kept my mouth shut, too. This was not the time to debate politics.

  A round of random automatic fire spewed out of the open door of the building, and as I peeked around the rough wooden side of the crate, I saw Ernesto slide out of the opening and clumsily jump behind an old engine on blocks set up next to the building. Damn, I would have preferred the inept Phil Binder still here, with Ernesto Mondragón fleeing in the car we heard, but it was the other way around.

  Ernesto Mondragón fired into the huge shipping containers at the far end, saturating each with multiple rounds that shattered the wood into small sharp bits. I realized that he knew these were the only hiding places close by, at least close enough for Cowboy to get to with his wounds. And I realized that he was going to go down the row, ripping bullets into each one until he found us.

  He stopped firing, and I heard him call out in the incongruous, eerily cheerful little boy voice, “Come on, you campers! Are we ready for a fun time? I’m coming to find you!”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN