36: A Novel

by Dirk Patton

  Twelve packages, neatly wrapped in plastic and thoroughly taped, were crammed in to the small space. After counting, I replaced them and hammered the panels back into place.

  Fishing my cell phone from my pocket, I pulled out the slip of paper with the number the cops had given me. Punching it in, I held the phone to my ear and listened to it ring.

  “You’d better be calling with good news, Bob-O.”

  I recognized the voice as belonging to the talker from the previous evening.

  “I’ve got it. Still down south. Where do you want it?”

  “Chuichu. Few miles south of Casa Grande. South of Interstate 8. Can you find that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Get on Indian Route 15 heading south. One mile after you pass the turn off for Indian Route 53 you’ll see a pair of hills on the right, about a mile from the pavement. There’s a dirt track leading to them. We’ll be on the back side in four hours. Don’t be late.”

  He hung up without saying anything else and I shoved the phone and paper back in my pocket.

  9

  The truck drove as well as any vehicle I had ever driven. Not that I’ve had many cars, but none of them had looked as bad as this one did. The brakes were solid and quiet and the clutch was crisp. It shifted easily as I drove out of the parking lot and onto the road back into town. I slowed for the first of hundreds of pot holes, but the suspension had apparently been worked over as I barely felt the bump.

  Both windows were down, and I was seriously considering smashing out the rear glass just to get more air flow. Whatever they’d done to cause the smell was a stroke of genius. If someone did decide the battered hulk was worth stealing, they’d certainly change their mind as soon as they got the first whiff of the interior.

  Glad that Monica and I hadn’t stopped for breakfast, I drove slowly across Nogales. Nearer the center of town, in what passed for a commercial district, the roads were paved. At least I think that’s what they were. There was something covering the powdery desert soil that resembled asphalt, but it was so rutted and crumbled that I wouldn’t have bet on it. Outside that couple of square miles, I didn’t drive on anything that wasn’t just a bladed track.

  Fortunately, the truck handled it well. The engine was strong and other than the odor, it wasn’t bad to drive. Soon I left the main area of town. Now I was on a perfectly straight and level track of dirt that was lined on both sides by shacks. Many appeared to be nothing more than heavy cardboard cobbled together around a few boards. Just like the other side of town leading to the whorehouse, women and children were everywhere. The few men I saw were old, sitting in whatever shade they could find.

  As I passed, the dust kicked up by the tires hung in thick clouds in the air and slowly drifted across the residents of the area. I felt bad, knowing what it’s like to get dusted by a passing vehicle, but none of them paid any attention. In fact, as I continued to pass through the area I began to realize that they were making an effort to not notice me.

  To not notice the truck, I realized. They probably knew who it belonged to, or at least what it was used for, and none of them wanted to even see where it was going. That was perfectly fine with me.

  I was nervous as hell. Even though I’m used to working outside in the Arizona summer, sweat was pouring off of me from the thoughts going through my head. I was carrying enough drugs to get twenty years in an American prison. In Mexico? A gringo driving around with a load of whatever drugs were hidden behind the seat? I’d never see the light of day again if the Federales or Narcos took an interest in me.

  Continuing on, I left the outermost edge of the shantytown behind. If I was remembering right from hunting trips, there was a deep canyon coming up in about ten or fifteen miles. I’d never been on the Mexican side of the border through it, but knew it did cut deeply across the line. My plan was to follow it north into the US and pick up some of the lightly traveled roads that would take me to my meeting.

  I just hoped the Border Patrol was either chasing some illegals or visiting their girlfriends. Anything other than sitting there bored, waiting for some idiot to come driving along. If I was spotted, I was fucked. These guys have some serious desert vehicles, as well as helicopters. I wouldn’t be slipping away if they spotted me.

  The terrain remained perfectly flat for several miles, then suddenly descended sharply. I drove through a series of switchbacks and braked to a halt when I reached the bottom. Looking out the driver side window, to the north, I hoped the truck could negotiate the rugged terrain and soft sand that defined the canyon floor.

  Shifting into neutral, I set the parking brake and hopped out. The Ranger had four-wheel drive, but it was old and required the driver to manually lock the system. No automatic switches here. The hubs engaged easily, again showing the care that was taken with the vehicle’s mechanicals. Back behind the wheel, I shifted into gear and made a left turn.

  I worked my way through soft sand that had been deposited by run off from rain storms. This only lasted a few hundred yards, then I had to slow and carefully crawl over jumbled rocks. The Ford never missed a beat, and I made slow but steady progress.

  An hour later, I reached the northern mouth of the canyon and came to a stop before exiting into the open desert of Arizona. Shutting the engine down, I stepped out and walked fifty yards to crouch behind some boulders. If I was the Border Patrol, I’d be sitting right here waiting.

  On the stretches of sand I’d navigated, there had been dozens, if not hundreds, of footprints. All heading north. No tire tracks, but this was obviously a heavily traveled corridor for illegal immigrants to sneak into the country. The men and women of the Border Patrol would certainly know this, but I was hoping they weren’t watching too closely in the daytime.

  Most illegal crossings are done under the cover of darkness. I was counting on the day shift being lightly staffed and focusing on other border problems, leaving the cat and mouse games for the guys who worked at night. Peering around the rocks, I was relieved to not see any of them lying in wait.

  I took my time, slowly scanning across the horizon. Each stand of creosote bushes and palo verde trees were carefully examined. I looked for dust plumes from vehicles in motion. Nothing. At the moment it looked wide open.

  Dashing back to the truck, I jumped in and started driving. I wanted speed, but knew that the faster I went the more visible I’d be. Clouds of dust hanging in the air behind a vehicle can be seen from a very long distance.

  Following one of the well worn paths made by human feet, I was starting to congratulate myself when I remembered a news report about the Border Patrol using electronic sensors to monitor the vast open stretches of desert. If an alarm was tripped, they’d dispatch a helicopter to get eyes on what had set it off.

  With a mental image of a bunch of guys hunched over monitors in a dark room, watching me drive across the sand, my right foot pressed harder on the accelerator. My stomach was in knots and my palms were sweaty on the steering wheel. As I drove, I kept leaning forward to peer at the sky through the windshield. Not that I could do anything if I spotted an aircraft, but I couldn’t help myself.

  Finally, I made it to pavement without incident. Checking my watch, I wasn’t happy to see that it had taken me two hours to get this far. I only had two left before I was supposed to meet the cops.

  The road wasn’t marked and was barely wide enough for two vehicles to pass without driving onto the sandy shoulder. Turning north, I accelerated to 60, happy to be making progress. Fishing my phone out I checked for signal, sighing when it showed no service. Not surprising, considering I was in the middle of fucking nowhere.

  I needed to call Monica and tell her to head for Casa Grande. I debated the wisdom of calling the cops and telling them I was behind schedule. Would that piss them off and cause them to do something rash? Or would showing up late without having given them a heads up be worse?

  The road wound its way through desolate countryside. Nothing but sand and cactus with the occ
asional palo verde tree. And it was noon and hot as hell. The wind blowing through the open windows felt like the breath from a blast furnace.

  There wasn’t air conditioning to turn on, and even if there had been there was no way I was going to seal myself in with Ralph. Ralph was what I had decided to call the odor. It was so vile and intense it was like a physical presence, so I’d given it a name.

  The pavement changed from level to rolling as I continued to make my way north. I was checking my phone for signal as I climbed a low hill, looking up when I crested and nearly soiling myself. A few hundred yards ahead, neatly hidden in a low spot between two hills, sat a pair of green and white Border Patrol vehicles.

  One was the commonly seen Chevy Tahoe, the other, one of the Ford Raptor trucks they were using. Built for high speed driving across open desert, there wasn’t much they couldn’t catch. I’d seen a segment on one of the local Phoenix TV stations where a reporter had gone on a ride along with one of the agents who drove a Raptor. She’d had a great time as he pushed the truck to 90, over terrain that most vehicles would be hard pressed to navigate at 20 miles an hour.

  They were sitting on the sandy shoulder at a ninety-degree angle to the pavement. I could see two figures standing at the rear of the Tahoe, one of them watching me approach through a pair of binoculars. My first instinct had been to lift my right foot and slow down, but these weren’t traffic cops. They didn’t give a shit if I was speeding or not. All they cared about was who I was and what I might have in the truck with me.

  Heart pounding and a lump in my throat, I forced myself to maintain my speed. I knew if I deviated, after having obviously seen them, it would be like waving a red flag that they made me nervous. Glancing at the speedometer, I saw I was up to 65, but didn’t dare slow.

  Inside a hundred yards I could see the one with the glasses lower them and turn his head to speak to the other. What the fuck was he saying? Stop this one? I had no way of knowing, and I was committed. If they wanted me, there wasn’t a damn thing I could do.

  At fifty yards I could see that both of them had rifles slung on the side of their bodies opposite holstered pistols. The only positive news was the rifles were hanging down and not being pointed at me.

  At thirty yards the road flattened out. My heart stopped when the one with the binoculars raised his right hand. But it was just a wave. A fucking wave! Somehow, I had the presence of mind to return the wave as I flashed past where they were parked.

  Immediately, as I started climbing the next hill, I focused my attention on the rearview mirror. Certain I would see the Raptor spitting sand and gravel as it pulled out to pursue, I couldn’t believe my luck when neither of the vehicles moved. I watched them until I crested the rise, but they weren’t coming after me.

  When they were out of sight, I let out a huge breath that I hadn’t even realized I was holding. Then the shakes hit so bad I wanted to pull over for fear of crashing. I was considering doing just that in another mile or two when something suddenly vibrated against my hip. I let out an involuntary shout and very nearly drove off the road.

  10

  It was my goddamn phone! Monica. Relief flooded through me when I saw the caller ID.

  “Hi,” I said, my voice shaky.

  “Are you OK?” She asked, the concern clear in her question.

  “I’m good,” I breathed, steadying my nerves.

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m back,” I said, wanting to be careful with what I said over the phone. “On a road that I have no fucking clue where it is or where it goes. Where are you?”

  “I’m in a hotel in Nogales. On the Arizona side of the border. Everything go OK?”

  “Yes. I’m on my way to meet them. Can you head for Casa Grande?”

  “Is that where you’re going?”

  “Close to there,” I said, not wanting to broadcast specifics about the location of the meet. “Close enough I can find my way into town. There’s a truck stop just east of where I-8 and I-10 meet. Can you go there and wait for me?”

  She was silent for a moment before speaking again in a cautious tone.

  “Listen. I’ve been thinking, and I’m scared. Do you really think they’re going to just let you walk away once they get what they want? You’ve seen their faces. You can identify them.”

  The knot in my stomach that had loosened when I heard her voice returned with a vengeance, threatening to double me over in pain.

  “What are you saying?” I asked.

  “Maybe you should go to the police. Tell them everything.”

  “These are the police, Monica,” I said, trying to hide the frustration in my tone.

  “The FBI, then. Or the DEA.”

  “No,” I said after a very long pause to think about what she was saying. “I’m already running late. If I don’t show up, they’re going to have Tim killed. There’s no time to convince anyone I’m telling the truth. It would be a bunch of bullshit, and if I could convince them it would be days before they’d do anything. Tim would be dead by dinner.”

  She was quiet for a long time. I’m sure she was trying to think of an argument that would change my mind, but apparently she couldn’t.

  “Then you need to take a gun with you,” she finally said with absolute conviction.

  “I don’t have one,” I said. “Didn’t want to risk taking one across the border.”

  “I have them. Remember? I’m leaving now. Meet me at the truck stop before you go see them. Get your gun.”

  I thought about what she was saying, liking the idea of having a weapon to defend myself. Things had been such a whirlwind that I hadn’t thought through all of the potential pitfalls of meeting these guys in the middle of the desert. I wished I had the rifle I’d carried in the infantry. Hell, I wished I had my whole platoon with me. But I didn’t have either of those.

  “OK,” I said. “Good idea. I’ll meet you there as soon as I can. Be careful. Don’t get pulled over because you’re in a hurry. That shotgun is illegal and if your car is searched you’ll be in trouble.”

  “I already ditched it,” she said in a quiet voice.

  “You did what?” I shouted. “Why the hell did you do that?”

  “You told me it was illegal,” she said, anger in her voice. “I already told you. I’m a mother and I’m not going to fuck that up for any man. I’m not taking that chance.”

  I let out a sigh, realizing she was right. I’d had no right to put her in that position.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “You’re right. But you still have the pistol?”

  “Si. I still have the pistola.”

  As she came under stress I’d noted that her accent thickened and she fell back on the use of words in her native language. I actually thought that was kind of sexy. Maybe if I survived this I could get her to start speaking Spanish in the bedroom.

  “Are you still there?”

  I’d been quiet too long, retreating into a daydream about her lying naked on my bed and talking to me in Spanish.

  “I’m here,” I said. “I need to go. Need to call them and let them know I’m running late. I’ll see you in Casa Grande.”

  “Roberto?”

  “Yes?”

  “Be careful,” she said after a very long pause, then the call was ended.

  I don’t know if it was just wishful thinking or not, but I was almost certain she’d wanted to say I Love You. Had to be just what I wanted to hear. Right? What the hell did I have to offer a woman like her? But then, why the hell was she helping me?

  Dismissing thoughts of Monica, I thumbed through the phone’s memory and found the number I’d dialed before leaving Nogales. The call was answered after two rings.

  “Bobby Boy, where are you?”

  “I’m on my way. North of the border,” I said. “But I’m running late. Took longer than expected to cross.”

  “Not what I want to hear, Bob-O. Not what I want to hear at all. Late isn’t good. Late gets the Timster a shiv for dinner
. Understand what I’m saying?”

  “Look, I’m coming as fast as I can, and I’ve got your shit. OK? Just fucking relax. I’m still south of Tucson. There’s no way I can be there in,” I paused to look at my watch. “Eighty minutes.”

  He was quiet for over a minute, probably with his hand over the phone as he consulted with his partner. When he came back on his voice was low and dangerous.

  “Two hours, Bob. Two. Fucking. Hours. That’s all. If you’re not here in two hours, I make a call and your baby brother is on a slab. No more extensions, no more excuses.”

  “If that happens, I’ll drive this shit right into the closest DEA office, you motherfucker. See how you like that shit, cocksucker!”

  I was taken aback when he chuckled and his tone reverted to the overly friendly, condescending asshole I’d gotten used to.

  “Bobberino, that would be the second biggest mistake of your life. Tell me if you recognize this address.”

  He read off a street address in Scottsdale. Before he finished speaking I was gripping the phone so hard my hand was cramping.

  “If you fucking touch them…” I started to say before he cut me off.

  “Mom and Dad will be just fine as long as you do what you’re told. Two hours, or Timmy is toast. Fuck with me and Mommy and Daddy will join him. So you see, Booby Boy, all you have to do is get here in two hours and everyone is fine. It’s all up to you.”

  He hung up when he finished speaking and it took all my self control to not smash the phone against one of the exposed metal braces where the dash used to be. My parents! Dragged into this by more of Tim’s bad choices. When was the little shit ever going to grow up?

  Setting my anger aside, I focused on my driving. I pushed the little truck as fast as I dared on the narrow road. Foolish, I know. I could top a rise and be surprised by a cop waiting for a speeder, just like the Border Patrol had suddenly appeared. But the stakes were higher.

  I finally figured out where I was when I reached the Patagonia Highway. It ran in the wrong directions, so I continued on the small road, heading due north. The pavement wasn’t smooth, but the small Ford handled it without fanfare and soon I began seeing signs of civilization.