The Rule of Thirds

by Matt Phillips

  Billy paused mid-bite. He set his fork down and crossed his arms. “It was Rachel who convinced me to—”

  “Let’s get something else on the record,” Sam interrupted. “Me and Rachel are the same. We’re one unit.” He didn’t blink. “If Rachel does something, it’s me doing it. I do something, it’s Rachel doing it. You look at yourself, where you are right now, and know this: You got an opportunity right now, and I’m in control of that opportunity. None of this is personal, but I need you to understand it. Otherwise, somebody gets dead—I don’t want that. I don’t want to be dead.”

  Billy didn’t know what to say, so he took another bite and chewed for an obscene amount of time. With Sam still not blinking at him, Billy finally said, “I get it, man. I get what this is. You say it, and I’m going to do it.”

  Sam looked past him at the street and, despite what he said, Billy was thinking that he needed to keep his eye on Sam. And his camera—keep the camera on him. He leaned toward the table, made sure his camera was still recording. Nervous about it like some kind of amateur. Perfect, he thought, I got all that. I got to keep getting all this because maybe that’s who this film is about—the gringo working for the cartel.

  Block after block of rundown warehouses. The Fiat rattled across numerous potholes, Sam trying to whip in and out of knee-deep obstacles. He kept muttering cuss words under his breath and peering down at his smartphone. Billy Jake had the camera on his lap, pointed at Sam. Thinking now that this was the ticket—focus in on the gringo. The Fiat slammed into a pothole, threw Billy into the dashboard. He saved the camera, but smacked his bottom lip. Tasted some blood.

  “Fuck, man.”

  Sam said, “Sorry—fucking streets are worse than Detroit.” He made a hard right, slowed to scan the buildings. “I’m trying to find this place. Never been here.”

  “We picking up more cash?”

  “Not this time,” Sam said. “There it is.” He pulled the Fiat into a parking lot enclosed by a cinder-block wall, accelerated around the large, green building. He turned right and parked outside a closed loading dock entry. “This is the other side of things.” Sam honked the horn twice and the loading dock door lurched upward to reveal a broad-shouldered man in his late twenties. He had a balaclava covering most of his head and face, and an Uzi hung from a strap off one shoulder. He nodded at Sam, walked backwards into the darkness of the warehouse. “Get your camera, buddy. This one should be fun.”

  They got out of the car and walked into the darkness, Billy behind Sam, the camera seeing more than the human eye ever could. The bulky shapes of military-grade vehicles. Slim, armed figures standing against a far wall. A loaded forklift moving in the distance. As Sam and Billy approached, a volley of Spanish came at them and Sam answered with a two-fingered wave. He followed the instructions into a dark passageway, moved with caution toward a lighted office. The shot was perfect, a light at the end of the tunnel scene with Sam’s dark body moving toward it. Billy wanted to smile, but knew he should keep a straight face for whatever was ahead of them. A hint of laughter filtered out of the office followed by a hacking cough. Sam paused, put a hand to his back, under his coat. He removed his hand, nothing in it. Touching his piece, Billy thought. Making sure it’s still there. He hung back a bit, got Sam full in the frame, a dark shadow moving toward bright light—like a line from a poem. When Sam reached the light, Billy closed in, filled the frame until the light bleached everything, cleared up as they turned and entered the office.

  “Like this?” The big man was adjusting his face shield, the smiling clown with the fat red nose. “Is my face on straight?” He laughed.

  Sam looked at Billy Jake.

  “Looks good,” Billy said as he pulled focus on the guy sitting there behind his desk, a big mural of Pancho Villa on the wall behind him. Crazy look, the clown face out front of Pancho with the ammo crossing his chest. He almost got the guy’s face when he first entered the office, but Sam turned and put his grimy hands over the camera, asked the guy if he wanted to get famous. Billy tried to hide his anger, how mad he was that Sam killed his shot—but he got to thinking that even that shot—Sam’s hand and dialog—would make the final cut. Real-life drama and danger for the filmmaker. Billy knew now that he was getting pulled into the film, the lines between filmmaker and story blurring.

  Sam said, “You sure you don’t mind giving the kid an interview?”

  The big guy shook his head, crossed his arms.

  Sam, leaning against the wall with a smirk on his face, nodded at Billy Jake—go ahead.

  He moved in on the big guy, filled the frame with the clown face and his massive shoulders. “Can you start by stating your name and position in the cartel?”

  “Cartel?” He laughed again, hacked a few smoker’s coughs and got himself under control. “They call me Javy. My position in the cartel,” he chuckled, “is logistics.”

  “Logistics. Can you describe what that is?”

  “Logistics is—”

  “No. No.” Billy interrupted.

  The clown looked sidelong at Sam who shrugged and raised his eyebrows.

  Billy saw the interaction, figured he should apologize. “I’m sorry. Shoot. I shouldn’t have—it’s just I need you to restate the question after I give it to you. It’s like—”

  “Hollywood,” Javy said. “I get it. Let’s try it again.” He cleared his throat. “I handle logistics. My boss says I need to get some product into the US. I make sure it happens. I get the product into the US.”

  “What’s the most common way to traffic product?”

  “The most common way?” He gave Sam another look, shook his head. “This fucking kid.”

  “I’m telling you,” Sam said.

  “The most common way is we use a car. Somebody drives. And they get through.”

  “So, it’s luck?”

  “It’s not luck to get product across the border. It’s a matter of calculated risk. A matter of intelligence.”

  Billy moved back a couple steps, got a wide shot with Pancho Villa looming. “You hide it in the car then?”

  “To move the product,” Javy rubbed his hands together, “we mask the smell. We hide it in the vehicle, and then we hire a foolish man to drive it across the border.”

  “Tell me more about the drivers.”

  Javy tilted his head, thought for a second. “Americans. But Mexican, too. But maybe more Mexican, I don’t know. Either way, they are American citizens. They can answer questions—they belong in America. You may be friends with some of our drivers.”

  “Why do they do it?”

  “The money is good—fifteen hundred dollars each trip.”

  “Or maybe a prison sentence?”

  “These drivers are in it for easy money,” Javy said. “There is no easy way to make money. It’s a matter of work or risk. You don’t work, or put yourself at risk, and you don’t get paid. That’s how the world is.”

  “What about you? How did you get involved with this?”

  The clown mask moved and it was clear that Javy was smiling beneath the fabric. “How else does one take up a trade? I followed in the footsteps of my father. There is no other way.”

  Dancing to the music of a restaurant Mariachi band, Rachel tossed her head, let her hair swing across her bare shoulders. Sam’s grip tightened on her hips and she felt herself pulled into him. The music had a way of getting into your spine, working its way to your heart. They weaved through two other couples on the dance floor, Sam giving her a concentrated smile. For him, dancing took effort. Especially with his limp, although the dance—if it was right—could hide the limp too. But Rachel knew—since she was a girl—how to let music enter her body, dictate the precise movements of her feet and legs and head. For a few weeks after the business in Detroit she got headaches when she heard music. A concussion, Sam told her. But she loved to dance and she was glad when the headaches gradually subsided.

  As the song ended,
Sam pulled her in, let her spin out toward the tables near the dance floor. Her hair spun around her eyes like a halo. An older American couple gave a startled gasp, smiled at Rachel and Sam as they made their way back to the bar.

  Sam drank from his beer and said, “You got something inside you, lady.” He leaned on the bar, poured his gaze over the dining room and band on stage. The band members wore smart charro suits and played more for each other than for the crowd.

  Rachel took a long drink from a margarita, watched the bartenders as they twisted around each other to mix drinks and take orders. The light hum of conversation lingered under the music, but the restaurant opened onto a second-floor veranda that let the sound pour out and dissipate. Without looking at Sam, she said, “I’m restless, you know.”

  “I should have figured.”

  “After Detroit. And now this—I guess I want something that makes me feel like we’re headed somewhere. But not down into a hole.”

  Sam nodded, made a motion with his head that signaled disappointment. “We need to be on the move soon anyhow. Somewhere we can vanish for a while, take it easy and focus on us—you and me. I make okay money with Chito, but he has ties back home, even if they aren’t mob ties. They can always get to him. Or get to his people.”

  “We were talking about me.”

  That got Sam to look at her, got a touch from his callused fingers. “I’m sorry. I know. I’m not saying it always has to be like this, but—”

  “I’m not talking to you about settling down.”

  “I know that, but what then?” Sam’s eyes were still on her.

  Rachel squinted at him, put a hand behind her head. Conscious of how her bare neck must have made him want her. “Getting out of Tijuana. Out of Mexico.” She shook her head, looked away and drained her margarita. “How’s our kid doing?”

  An uncertain nod as Sam said, “Billy Jake is too ambitious for his own good. He’s got some talent though.”

  “Find somebody with talent, they get blind about it pretty quick.”

  “You’re right,” Sam said. “And he’s as blind as it gets. Wants to make a real movie, win some awards.”

  Rachel glanced at Sam, handsome in the darkness of the bar. The band started a ballad, the crooner giving his all to a song about two lonesome lovers. “He’s getting what he wants?”

  “I think so.”

  “And he wants more?”

  “If he doesn’t now, he will pretty soon.”

  Rachel said, “I want to make this happen.”

  Sam finished his beer, nodded at the bartender for another. He watched the singer belt out a long verse before saying, “I need another week with him, get him to want himself in it. I need to orchestrate that desire somehow, pull him into the story.”

  “Maybe I can help.”

  “You already helped, Rachel. You teed him up for me.” Sam’s beer landed on the bar and he swigged.

  “And you’re going to bring Chito in on it?”

  Sam put his beer down, grabbed Rachel’s hand, pulled her from the bar. “You want to get out of here, let me whisk you away on a dance.”

  “But tell me if—”

  Sam spun her onto the floor as the band started an uptempo piece. He said, “Yes—I’ll bring Chito in. And you. And then we’ll hit the road, like we always do. Now come on, Rachel—fucking dance with me.”

  She laughed at him and put her hands around his neck. They started spinning together and it was a long, long time before they stopped.

  “Last night, I was thinking.”

  Sam rolled his eyes, took a sip of his coffee. He studied Billy Jake across the cafe table, tried to see through his eyes and into his head—the fuck must go on inside that kid’s brain? “You? You were thinking?”

  “Don’t fuck with me, man. You can think what you want, but I’m serious about my craft.” He paused and crossed his arms. “I need to go with one of the drivers. I need to cross the—”

  “Excuse me?”

  “One of the drivers. I need to go with him. Film it. Get it all in the can. I thought about doing a reenactment, but that’s not going to get it. What I noticed about the greats, the Sayles brothers, Herzog, even Scorsese, they make everything seem hyper-real. I mean, it’s real, but…Like, it’s above the real. And that’s even when they do reenactments, okay? I have a chance here to get real footage, to pull myself into this thing. And it makes sense because I’ve got something on the line, too.”

  Sam drank more coffee, looked out to the busy street. White taxi cabs flitted down the street. Teenagers weaved through traffic on scooters. He thought about Saigon for some reason, the frenetic energy of Vietnam running through him from across the world. Maybe he and Rachel would get away to Southeast Asia. Or maybe she wanted something nicer for them—Paris or Greece or London. He didn’t know why, but this time he couldn’t read her. Back to the states, maybe?

  “Are you hearing me, man?”

  Sam looked again at Billy, saw him for the mark he was. Not the ambitious kid just trying to make it. But the mark—faceless and vulnerable and there for the taking. “You really want to be in this?”

  “Yes.”

  Sam shook his head and sighed. He finished his coffee, picked at a last piece of tortilla. Dipped it in black beans, shoved it into his mouth and chewed. He sucked air through his teeth and said, “You want to be in this, I got a better idea than you go with a driver.”

  “Shit. Like what?” Billy leaned over the table, a greedy gleam in his big shiny eyes.

  “How about you do a run yourself?”

  Billy’s jaw dropped. “I’m sorry?”

  “How about you do a run yourself? I can set it up with Chito. You get all the risk, all the footage, and all the glory.”

  “I don’t know, man. I mean, shit…”

  “What? I thought all the great ones did it so it was hyper-real. Like, beyond real. Isn’t that what you said? Imagine this: You stand in front of the world, thanking the Academy, and the DEA strolls in to take you in for questioning. Now that’s a fucking story. You call yourself a filmmaker and you don’t take this opportunity?”

  Billy licked his lips, furrowed his brow. He looked out at the busy street and raised his eyebrows. “What are the chances I get caught?”

  Sam gave him a bored look. “You think I’m going to take the chance you get caught? Do I look like I want my head chopped off?”

  They caught Chito after they did two pickups—Sam taking money from some skinny teenagers out in Tijuana Beach. Chito was at a nightclub on Avenida Revolución, The Safari Club it was called.

  Billy Jake got some establishing shots outside, nice movement and sound with all the tourists walking past him. He followed Sam inside and got a shot of him slapping a couple envelopes of cash into Chito’s hand. Shot from across the club—closed at this mid-morning hour—as Sam and Chito huddled together, Chito giving Billy the eye treatment every few minutes. After talking for about half an hour, Sam turned and waved Billy over to the booth. He walked across the club, the camera dangling from his right hand like a suitcase. Billy planned to set the camera on the table, center it on his own moving arms and chest. But he’d catch the sound with the onboard mic, enhance it in post—splice it together and walk away with a real holy shit kind of scene. He got the camera on the table, nodded at Sam and Chito.

  Chito said, “Sam tells me you want to make a movie about crossing the border with some product.”

  “It’s part of the movie, this whole thing. One scene is all.”

  Chito bounced his head from shoulder to shoulder. It was easy to see he was contemplating how to respond. He squinted at Billy and said, “When Sam came to me, I wondered if you were serious about this…About making a movie.”

  “It’s what I want to do with my life. Fuck yeah, I’m serious.” Billy felt Sam’s eyes on him, knew that convincing Chito was his own job, something he had to do. “The way I see it, how does the audience know I
did everything so I could tell this story? I need to prove that I’m in it, that I took the risks.”

  “When it comes to this game, people are killed every day.” Chito leaned back in the booth, crossed his arms. His look was calm and serious and matter of fact. “Every single day.”

  Billy nodded with his whole upper torso. “I know that. I’m not trying to diminish what you do, your profession. What I want to do is bring some light to it, show people how it’s not just some scumbag bringing dope into the US. I want to show that it’s a craft, man. The last thing I want, man, is my head hanging from a bridge. Believe that, okay? I’m just here to tell the story, to give it to the people.”

  Chito sighed. “I remember making a choice that changed my life. I was nineteen—my father wanted me to learn a trade. He was a welder himself, and well-paid when he had work. I have to tell you, I do not come from a poor family.”

  Holy shit, Billy thought, I’m getting some great stuff here.

  “I have two brothers and we never suffered. We were not rich, but we never suffered. There was a man who came to our home—he wore a nice suit and carried a pistol. When he came to speak with my father, a man waited outside our home. Another man, a driver, waited for him in a black Mercedes. I had never seen these people. I only knew they wanted to talk with my father. The conversation did not last long. I heard a scream from inside the house. I heard my mother crying. The man in the suit came outside and lowered his sunglasses. He nodded at me, but did not smile. They got in the Mercedes and drove away. When I went in to see what happened, my father was on the floor—he was missing two fingers on his right hand. As you can imagine, there was blood and my mother was doing her best.”

  “Damn,” Billy said.

  “It turns out that all this time my father had been borrowing money from this man. At first, to pay for my brothers and myself to attend school. To live a little beyond his means, you understand? Later, my father gambled on fútbol and boxing. He was not a knowledgeable gambler. He was also not lucky. My father spent the whole of his life in debt. And he had his fingers taken as a symbol, as a warning to other men. And still, he had to pay his debts. By working. By his sweat. And so I was presented with a choice—follow the journey of my father, or try to find the man in the Mercedes. What do you think I did?”