by Paul Levine
"Jesus, Payne. Bad luck sticks to you like flies on shit." A fuzzy thought came to the judge, and he squinted like a sailor peering through the fog. "What I don't get, is why you think I'd tank a case."
"Not tank it, Your Honor. Just give me the identity of the C.I."
"That's even worse!" The judge was reddening, his tone growing angry. "I give up a confidential informant, your client will have him killed."
I messed it all up, Payne thought. Career. Marriage. Life.
I can't even bribe a crooked judge.
Payne's hands trembled, his fingers jerking like piano keys. He made a vow.
If I get out of this, I really will change.
"Your Honor. I gotta tell you the truth about what I'm doing here."
Judge Rollins waved the gun toward the stacks of hundred-dollar bills. "The money speaks for itself."
"That's the thing, Judge. Ramon Carollo-"
"Is scum. And so's Pedro Martinez. Fuck 'em both."
"Who?"
"Pedro Martinez, for Christ's sake. The C.I. I signed the warrants. I oughta know."
Payne wasn't sure he heard correctly. "You just gave me the informant's name."
"You paid for it, didn't you?" The judge lifted his robes and slipped the. 38 back into its shoulder holster. He swept the stacks of currency into a desk drawer like a croupier cleaning up chips. "Sorry I scared you. But with the Grand Jury running wild, I take precautions."
Payne moved robotically. One leg, and then the other, into his boxers. He had trouble believing what had just happened. He was going home, and the judge was going to jail.
"Martinez has a house on the beach in Rosarito, just south of the border," the judge said. "Plus a condo in La Jolla. He shouldn't be hard for your people to find."
My people, Payne thought, will be busting down your door and putting you in handcuffs. He finished dressing in silence and made for the door.
"Take care of yourself, Payne," the judge called after him. "And next time, make it the full fifty thousand."
SIX
An hour after fleeing the courthouse, Payne's hands were still shaking. Either that, or a 5.0 trembler had rocked the Chimney Sweep, a windowless tavern squeezed between a Lebanese restaurant and a discount dentist in a Sherman Oaks strip mall. Payne wrapped a hand around the leaded base of his glass, trying to steady it, but the Jack Daniel's swirled between the ice cubes like molten lava through porous rocks.
"Good work, Payne," Rigney had told him on the phone, minutes earlier.
A pimp high-fiving a hooker, Payne thought, cheerlessly.
"I knew you'd make a great bag man." Rigney's laugh jangled like steel handcuffs.
Bag man.
In Payne's mind, other names floated to the surface, like corpses afer a shipwreck.
Snitch.
Rat.
Shyster.
If word got out, no client would ever trust him. And word always got out. Gossip was the coin of the realm in the kingdom of justice.
He drained the sour-mash whiskey, slipped a small vinyl folder from inside his coat pocket, and removed a business card,
J. ATTICUS PAYNE, ESQUIRE
Rigney had nailed it. Not even the name was real.
Payne bummed a pack of matches from the bartender, set the card on fire, watched it disintegrate, ashes drifting into a bowl of peanuts. No ashtrays. You had to cross into Mexico to smoke legally these days. He lit a second card, stared into the orange flames. Why not burn them all?
The only other patron at the bar was a TV writer who had been unemployed since they canceled Gilligan's Island. Camped on his stool as if he had a long-term lease, the guy's faded T-shirt read: "Say It Loud. Say It Plowed."
Payne hoisted his glass, saluted the fellow, and took a long pull. The liquid gold delivered warmth without solace. He struck another match. Immolated another card, inhaled the acrid smoke, let the flame burn until it singed his fingertips.
Two hundred miles southeast of the tavern where Payne planned to drink the day far into the night, just outside a cantina in Mexicali, Mexico, a wiry twelve-year-old boy named Agustino Perez stood with his mother as city traffic clattered past. The boy had caramel skin and hair so black and thick that women on the street grabbed it by the handful and cooed like quail. Tino's eyes, though, were a startling green. A teacher once said he reminded her of verde y negro, a local dessert of mint ice cream topped with chocolate sauce. Boys at school started calling him "verde y negro" with a lip-smacking nastiness. It took a flurry of fists and a couple bloody noses to convince the boys that he was not a sweet confection.
Marisol, the boy's mother, was sometimes mistaken for his older sister. The same smile, the same hair with the sheen of black velvet. But the boy did not inherit his light, bright eyes from her. Set above wide cheekbones, her eyes were the color of hot tar.
Glancing from side to side as if someone might be spying on them, Marisol handed her son a business card. He ran a finger across the embossed lettering and read aloud, "J. Atticus Payne, Esquire. Van Nuys, California."
"That is Los Angeles. Mr. Payne is a very important man. One of the biggest lawyers in the city."
"So?"
"Put the card in your shoe, Tino."
The shoes were new-Reeboks-purchased that morning for the crossing.
"Why, Mami?"
"If anything bad happens and I am not there, go see Mr. Payne. Tell him that you are a friend of Fernando Rodriguez."
"But I am not his friend. I don't even like the cabron."
His mother raised an eyebrow, her way of demanding: "Do as I say." The stern look would carry more weight, Tino thought, if she weren't the prettiest woman in Caborca.
He was used to men complimenting his mother on her adorable son. He knew it was their way to get close to her, smiling wicked smiles, panting like overheated dogs.
"Fernando Rodriguez sits on a stool at La Faena, drinking tequila and bragging about things he has never done," Tino said.
"And what were you doing at La Faena, little boy?"
"?Mami!"
Why did she have to baby him? Maybe that's how it is when you're an only child, and you have no father to toughen you up, often at the end of a leather strap.
Tino decided not to tell his mother that the barman at La Faena was teaching him to mix drinks, and that blindfolded he could already identify several tequilas, both reposados and anejos. They were going to try some blancos next week, but then, Tino's life changed in an instant. What his mother called "nuestro problema."
Our problem.
Even though he caused the problem. It all happened yesterday, as quick as the chisel that drew the blood. Then, last night, they packed everything they could carry and ran for the bus, traveling north from Caborca to Mexicali.
As for Fernando Rodriguez, he was a campesino with bad teeth who returned from El Norte driving a shiny blue Dodge Ram with spinning wheel covers. Rodriguez claimed he bought the truck, almost new, in Arizona, after working a year in a dog-food processing plant. Tino was sure the cabron stole the Dodge, along with the ostrich-skin cowboy boots he liked to park on a table at the cantina.
Rodriguez boasted of one other thing that happened to be true. He did not die when he was crammed into the back of a sixteen-wheeler with thirty-five other mojados who crossed the border two summers earlier.
Tino could remember every detail, as Rodriguez told the story nearly every evening. The truck had stopped somewhere in the California desert, baking in the sun. The people tried to claw their way out of the locked metal doors, leaving patches of scorched skin and trails of blood. Rodriguez swore that he saw a woman's hair burst into flame. No one at the cantina believed that, but one thing was certain: Eleven Mexicans died inside that truck.
Still, Tino could not understand why Rodriguez would be acquainted with one of the most important lawyers in Los Angeles, or why he'd returned to Mexico, passing out the business cards of such an abogado brillante.
"When we get inside,
" his mother told him now, "if the coyote asks why we must cross over tonight, say nothing."
"Ay, Mami. I know what to do."
"I will do the talking. You will be quiet."
He let out a long sigh, like air from a balloon. No use arguing with his mother. No way to make her understand that he was the man of the house. Now he wondered if his actions back home-criminal, yet honorable-were somehow intended to prove his manhood to his mother.
Marisol turned toward the street. An army jeep snaked through traffic, a soldier manning a. 50 caliber machine gun. The drug wars, which were only stories on television in Caborca, were very real here. Yesterday, a local police station had been attacked with grenades and rocket launchers. When they had arrived after midnight, the army was sealing off the bus station.
Now Marisol placed an arm around her son's shoulders. "Let's go, Tino. Let's get out of this godforsaken country."
SEVEN
Marisol had never met the coyote, but she recognized him immediately.
Shiny, tight black pants, tucked into pointy boots. Wraparound reflecting sunglasses and black felt Tejano hat, he looked like a low-life gambler at a cockfight. His black shirt with pearl-colored buttons was open halfway to his waist, and a heavy gold crucifix dangled in front of his hairy chest. His face was pitted with acne scars shaped like tiny fishhooks.
The man called himself "El Tigre," although this tiger had a paunch pouring over his turquoise belt buckle. At the moment, he was using his fingers to dig into a platter of deep-fried anchovies.
When he saw Marisol and Tino approach, El Tigre wiped his mouth with the back of a hand. The other hand was wrapped around a bottle of Tecate. Nodding, he said, "Do you have the money?"
"We have two thousand, three hundred dollars cash," she answered, taking a seat. "All my savings."
He took a swig of the beer. "Not enough. It is three thousand dollars each. And no discount for the little one."
Tino bristled and started to speak, but his mother kicked him under the table.
"We will pay you the rest when we cross over and can borrow the money from my aunt," she said.
El Tigre's mouth creased into a smile, displaying an array of gold-lined teeth that had taken on a greenish hue, as if covered with algae. "Your aunt? Why does everyone have an aunt in El Norte? I bet she's a rich woman with a mansion in Phoenix."
"A nice house in Torrance, California. My uncle owns a gasoline station there."
Marisol was weaving her story out of threads plucked from the air. True, she had an aunt, a miserly woman who had married an American and refused to return to Mexico, even for her sister's funeral. The last Marisol knew, her aunt lived in Torrance, where she managed a trailer park. But that was ten years ago, and Marisol had no idea where the old crow lived now.
Marisol did not like to lie. Her father taught her the value of honesty and hard work, and she tried to live up to his standards. As a young girl in Hermosillo, how proud she had been of him. In his crisp, clean jumpsuit with the Ford Motor Company logo, he looked… well, like an Americano. Proud, too, when he told her how he had refused an Anglo supervisor's request to falsify inspection records on Lincoln Continentals.
"I told him I'll rot in hell before I lie to the company!" her father thundered.
Soon after that, the supervisor arranged for Edgardo Perez to be fired. Her father, Marisol knew, was a courageous and honorable man. And, ultimately, a tragic one.
"Sometimes, Papi, it is all right to lie."
"I promise I will pay you," she told the fat and sweaty coyote. "I swear on my father's grave." Neglecting to mention that her nonbelieving father never attended church and the only time Edgardo visited Mexico City, he spat curses in front of Catedral Metropolitana. On the other hand, Marisol's mother attended Mass every morning. It made for interesting discussions over dinner. Marisol's beliefs fell somewhere between the two. She knew her Bible but was not blind to the failings of the Church. She sensed a spirit greater than her own and prayed it would protect Tino and her. Especially now.
"I do not give credit," El Tigre said. "But maybe we can work something out."
He placed a plump hand on Marisol's bare arm. She wore a short-sleeve white peasant blouse with two buttons undone. The pig was studying the rise and fall of her breasts. Nothing new. Marisol was used to men pawing her on job sites. She had learned to accept this fact of life. Only when the abuse became intolerable-a hand slipped down her pants-did she retaliate. Her father had taught her how to throw a punch with a turn of the hips and a straight, quick arm. In her experience at construction sites, a balpeen hammer worked even better.
"Why the rush to leave Mexico?" El Tigre asked.
"Family matters." Keeping it vague.
"I cross tonight and come back tomorrow. Why not stay here a few days, and we can get to know each other better."
"We go when we want!" Tino piped up.
El Tigre scowled. "You go when I say."
"Maybe we cross by ourselves," Tino shot back.
"Tino, quiet," his mother ordered.
" Mami, I could build a raft, and we could float up the New River."
El Tigre burped a beer-and-anchovy laugh. "The river is full of shit, and so are you, chico."
Marisol winced but did not reply. There were times to kick a man in the kneecap and times to appeal to a slightly higher region. She softened her look and let her eyes water. "Your charges are so high."
El Tigre launched into a defense of his prices. He had expenses. Lookouts and guides and vehicles and drivers. Stash houses on both sides of the border. Bribes to the judicales and the federales. Protection money to the mafia de los coyotes because he was a freelancer. Then there were the risks.
"?Pinche rinche por todas partes!"
Fucking cops everywhere.
Marisol did not appreciate the profanity in front of her son, but for now she must try to get along with this foul and repulsive man.
"If you get caught, they just send you back," El Tigre said. "But for me, it's prison. Or I get shot by bandits. Or vigilantes. The Minutemen. Patriot Patrol. All those gabachos with guns. And now, the U.S. Army. The Border Patrol knows what they're doing. But the soldiers! Scared kids who think we're all drug runners."
"Instead of the humanitarians you are," Marisol said, evenly.
He did not catch the sarcasm, rambling on, boasting of his knowledge of the Border Patrol's motion detectors and TV cameras, infrared binoculars, and drone aircraft. How La Migra had beefed up patrols. Ford Expeditions, like always. But now on horseback, too, with Indian trackers from Arizona. Vaqueros y indios. Cowboys and Indians. Just like in the movies.
"If the wind is right, the Indians can smell your burlap sacks a mile away," he claimed. "You need someone who knows what they're doing. I don't lose people in the mountains or leave them to die in the desert."
Marisol leaned over the table, exposing even more decolletage, showing the line where the darker sun-burnished skin gave way to the softness of her creme de cacao complexion. She put a wistful note in her voice. "But if you are going tonight, and have room for two more, I promise to pay you later."
El Tigre wiped beads of sweat from his forehead, then drained the rest of his beer. He seemed to be weighing the options, using his limited brains and his even more limited morals.
"I won't disappoint you," she said, spicing her words like chiles in hot sauce.
He took a pen out of a shirt pocket and scribbled an address on a paper napkin. "The stash house. We leave at midnight. Bring the money you have. We will work out the rest."
He smiled a gold-capped grin, the contented look of a wolf contemplating a lamb.
EIGHT
Sleep. Dammit. Sleep!
Maybe it was the oysters, Payne thought.
From the Chimney Sweep, Payne had moved to the Oyster House, a neighborhood saloon in Studio City.
Dinner alone.
Sitting at the bar. A dozen oysters, a spicy cioppino stew, two Sam Adams d
rafts, and the complimentary peach schnapps the regulars receive.
Payne would have liked to have shared dinner with a woman. But who?
Maybe Carol, a former client who loved shopping at Saks on Wilshire, but skipping the inconvenience of paying. Was she out of jail yet?
Or Polly, a kosher caterer in Brentwood who specialized in festive circumcision brunches. Her business, Prelude to a Bris, was booming.
Or that woman who owned the cat condo in Rancho Cucamonga. Hair in a tabby-colored shag, big hoop earrings. Jeez, what was her name? Well, if he couldn't remember, it must not have gone that well. And now that he thought about it, hadn't Cat Lady had a funky smell?
What about Sharon?
Her scent was warm and sweet. A fresh peach from the tree. And they always had great sex, though it tapered off after she'd shot him. Not that he wasn't willing, once the anesthesia wore off.
Sharon had been aiming her nine millimeter at Lester Koenigsberg when she winged Payne. Unhappy with Payne's handling of his divorce case, Koenigsberg was holding a knife to his lawyer's neck, threatening to slice his jugular. Hardly the reaction Payne expected after disproving Mrs. Koenigsberg's allegations that Lester had a violent temper.
Payne was semi-grateful to Sharon for saving his life. But why a detective in Consumer Frauds even needed a gun was beyond him.
He listened to the paddle fan turn, clickety-clack ing.
C'mon, sleep!
He adjusted the pillow under his gimpy knee. Ever since the crash on the P.C.H., the leg wouldn't straighten completely.
Sleep, dammit, sleep!
The bed was just too damn big when you're alone. A cruise ship with one passenger.
The house was a one-story, two-bedroom California bungalow with a small porch devoid of furniture. The faded green stucco could use a fresh coat of paint. The dreary 1950s kitchen smelled of mildew, the low-pitched roof leaking during winter rains. The perfect home for the unhappily divorced man.
