by Rex Burns
“Shit, Dev, look out!”
Behind me, with a single deep bark, the German shepherd bounded from the darkness around the barn and raced through the steely gleam of the farm light. I ran from the window and sprinted hard toward Bunch, who threw a stick at the dog and then sprayed a cloud of repellent toward its open mouth. I heard a voice shout something, and a door banged open to the sound of running boots.
“This way, Dev.”
I dashed toward Bunch’s voice, the dog barking crazily now and whining and trying to run after me even as it stumbled to rub its eyes and muzzle and writhe in the dirt. Behind its contorted shadow, a smaller one zipped fast along the ground, legs blurred with speed.
“Watch it, Bunch!”
“Oh, shit—” He held the spray can out behind him as he ran, knees lifting high to pull his legs away from the almost silent lunge of jaws. “Oh God, I hate dogs!”
I grabbed the monopod and night scope and raced up the ridge. Bunch labored behind with the power pack and cameras. The can sputtered into an empty hiss, and he swore and threw it hard at the feinting shadow at his heels and swung the battery case by its strap, trying to hit the dog. From the porch of the farmhouse, the heavy boom of a shotgun spurted flame our way, and I heard something angry whistle overhead. I ducked and plunged across the ridge and then down and up the gully on the other side, scarcely aware that Bunch was cursing and struggling after me.
On the other side, I paused and saw him dragging one leg as he ran. From that leg hung a small form almost horizontal to the ground, flopping with each long stride.
“Bunch, you have a passenger!”
“Laugh, damn you, Kirk! Just keep laughing, goddamn you!”
“Kick him loose.”
“I can’t—it’s a pit bull!”
“Hold it, Bunch—hold up.” I kicked the dog hard in its ribs, and it coughed twice and chewed deeper.
“Owww! Quit it—you’re making him mad!”
“Hold still!” Jamming the leg of the monopod at the back of its jaws, I twisted the animal’s mouth open, and Bunch yanked his leg away. The dog growled and swung after me, the teeth a rip of white against the black earth.
“Bunch, where the hell are you going?”
“I ain’t staying here!”
He was gone, leaving me to back away from the snarling dog, which sprayed saliva and blood as it rushed to get past the sharp monopod leg and make acquaintance with my own. “Bunch!” I jabbed at the dog’s chest and it yelped, pulling back, and I charged after it. The animal turned into the dark and I did too, running under the weight of the equipment and hearing a growling breath circle around me. Wheeling once more, I held the dog at bay as I stumbled backward and dueled with its teeth. “Bunch, you son of a bitch, help me with the goddamn fence!”
“Nobody helped me.”
“I’ll dump this crap. So help me God, I’ll leave all this stuff!”
In the distance behind one of the long, dark ridges, I heard the snarl of motorcycles like hornets swarming from a nest. Bunch pulled the Bronco down into the ditch and up close to the fence and leaned out the window to grab the gear.
“Not the monopod—not yet!”
“Christ, I hate dogs.”
I jumped on the aluminum running board and made a last savage jab at the rabid-looking beast, feeling the metal leg hit something that resulted in a very satisfying yelp. “Go—goddamn!”
He did, the vehicle rocking up on one side as he floored the gas and surged across the ditch and onto the gravel road. Behind, blinded by dust and falling farther and farther back into hazy darkness, the pit bull tried for one last bite of me or the tire or anything else it could sink those jaws into.
“Stop a minute, Bunch! Let me get in—hold up, goddamn it!”
He slammed on the brakes and I scrambled in, tossing equipment and looking back for the snap of teeth. “Okay—go!”
“Did you get the battery pack?”
“No—you had it.”
“I put it on the hood. Damn thing must have fallen off.”
A line of bobbing headlights crested a ridge in the black far behind us and dropped out of sight. “Can’t go back, Bunch. Here come the boys.”
“Shit.” He lurched the Bronco forward, and we drove without lights and peered through the dark for the next section road that would lead back toward I-25.
“That goddamn dog still chasing us?” Bunch used the gears rather than the brakes to slow for the hard turn.
“Yes,” I said without looking. I didn’t have to look.
“Dogs!” He reached down and groped around at something below the dash.
“Will you watch the road, Bunch! You’re doing sixty miles an hour without lights!”
“I’m watching. My goddamn leg’s chewed halfway to the bone and hurts like a bastard.”
“I hope the dog wasn’t rabid.”
“He wasn’t. Just high on crack. Damn, that hurts. Goddamn dog bites really hurt.”
We scratched from the gravel onto pavement, and Bunch flicked on the headlights and stepped harder on the gas. At the next intersection, we turned onto a county highway and slowed to blend with the occasional car or pickup truck. A few minutes later, a pair of motorcycles came up fast, and we watched in the rearview mirrors as they rode beside each car for a few seconds to check it out and then speeded up to the next.
“Duck down—they’re looking for two people.”
I slid into the darkness beneath the dash, my knees tight against my chest. The rattle of engines pulled up to the driver’s side and hung there for a long time. I saw Bunch glance toward them, and his hand hovered over the Python Magnum slung in its holster riveted beside the steering column. Then the engines revved and the bikes pulled away.
“Two of them,” he said. “They split up to go both ways on the highway.”
“You’re getting blood all over the floor mats.”
“Like to have that dog’s guts all over the mats.” He muttered something else.
“What?”
“I said it’s too bad about the battery pack.”
“I’m not going to complain about the cost, Bunch.”
“That’s not the problem.”
“What’s that?”
“It has our name on it.”
CHAPTER 4
THE REASON THE battery pack had our name on it was that Bunch couldn’t bear the thought of losing one of his toys. When I reminded him that we were on an operation and it wasn’t wise to have traceable goodies, he reminded me that I’d said there was only one dog. “I mean we weren’t exactly planning to haul ass like that, were we?” Maybe they wouldn’t find it, he said. If they did, maybe they wouldn’t associate it with the snoop on the farmhouse, he said. I said maybe we could go back and get it. There were a lot of maybes but, he said, that wasn’t one of them—not in the dark, not with that pit bull waiting, and not as sore as his leg was. In fact, the doctor at the hospital’s emergency room wanted to start rabies shots immediately.
“No way!” Bunch pulled himself to a sitting position on the examining table and started fumbling at the hospital gown. “No way are you going to stick me in the belly with a goddamn needle!”
The doctor, eyes wide behind thick glasses, looked up at the towering man and backed out of reach. “It doesn’t have to be right away—we can wait a little. Can you bring in the dog? You won’t need the shots if we know the dog’s not rabid.”
“He wasn’t rabid, just pissed off. Tell him, Dev.”
“He looked rabid to me.” I smiled at the doctor. “Of course, it was real dark.”
“Dev—”
“Mr. Bunchcroft, rabies is a very serious disease and it can be fatal. The health department will need to observe the animal for ten days to be certain it wasn’t rabid.” He pulled off his rubber gloves and tossed them in a can. “If the dog isn’t available, you should start postexposure treatment as soon as possible, for your own safety.”
“How soon you need that damn
dog?”
“Certainly within the next twenty-four hours.”
He was still limping the next morning, but a night’s rest and a long soak in Epsom salts had taken the infection from the leg and even a lot of the soreness. Now he felt ready to do a little work. His first chore was to show Drayton Coe the plans for installing the cheapest alarm system in the Hally building. He would also show Coe the more expensive alternatives, advising a central reporting system that used long-range radio. The combination of a local alarm and a radio-based central reporting system would give the best, if most expensive, security. And perhaps Coe might like such options as emergency call buttons installed at strategic locations to provide backup for the night watchmen.
“While I’m out, I’ll swing by and talk to some of Mrs. Chiquichano’s friends and neighbors.”
“What for?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know why she lied to us about Serafina’s disappearance?”
A whiff of mendacity was usually the odor of something hidden, and Bunch was right to follow established procedures to investigate the woman. But other things were more important. “You’re going to do that after you see Coe, right?”
“Right, Dev—absolutely right. Always money before pleasure.” He limped out, a satchel of equipment bumping against the door frame.
I turned to my morning’s business—running the initial report on Taylor through the word processor. I left out the most exciting—if embarrassing—elements and was doing the printout when I had a telephone call from an Agent Roybal of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service. He verified who I was and said, “Just a moment please.”
“Senor Kirk? It’s me—Felix Frentanes. You remember me?”
“Sure. Have they picked you up, Felix?”
“Yes. They let me make use of the teléfono. You can come now, yes?”
“Yes, certainly. Where are you?”
“Momentito, por favor.”
Agent Roybal’s voice came back and told me the address of the INS detention facility. It was in Aurora, just east of Stapleton Airport. “Are you his employer, Mr. Kirk?”
“No. Just a friend.”
“If you want to visit him, better hurry. We’ll be shipping him to Texas this afternoon.”
“I’m on my way.”
Felix was very apologetic when I saw him, but—more—he was worried. His anxiety made his Spanish rattle faster than I could understand, and I had to keep telling him to slow down, until he finally settled into a mixture of languages. We sat in an interview room, institutionally bleak and stripped of anything that might be used as a weapon or a tool. The decorations were Justice Department signs warning in Spanish and English that damaging government property would result in fines or imprisonment or both. The man smoked nervously and flicked the ashes into the small cardboard dish serving as a tray. “My wife, Senor Kirk—have you found anything?”
“Not yet. We’re still looking and asking questions, Felix.” I reminded him, “It’s only been a day, and these things can take a long time.”
He nodded, eyes sad and focused on the tip of his cigarette. From the compound outside came a garbled squawk of loudspeakers, and from a boom box somewhere down a corridor the bouncing jangle of ranchera music. “I don’t know … I don’t know … .” He sucked hard enough to make the tobacco crackle and flicked the ash again.
“Don’t know what, Felix?”
“Maybe I should not have asked you for help, Senor Kirk. These people will maybe send me to Mexico.” He shrugged and smiled. “They think I’m Mexican. But the Mexicans will know I’m not.” He inhaled again. “Maybe they’ll just let me go. Maybe they’ll send me back to El Salvador.” He rubbed thumb and forefinger together. “It depends on how much they want.”
“Do you need—?”
“No, senor, muchas gracias. It’s just it could be a long time before I can get back. My wife … the baby … .”
“Give me an address in El Salvador, Felix. If they do send you all the way down, at least I can write you if we find out something.”
He smiled ruefully. “You have to write it for me—I don’t know how.”
I copied the name of his village and a priest’s name to send letters to. Felix said the village was in a war zone and he hoped it was still there, and he hoped he wouldn’t be sent there—young men were arrested and put in the army as soon as they stepped off the plane in San Salvador. But it was the best we could come up with. That and my business card, which he carefully tucked into a worn cloth wallet. “Can’t you petition to stay, Felix? Claim refugee status?”
Another small smile. “It wouldn’t do any good—and besides, I don’t have money for the lawyer. This way, they don’t know I’m Salvadoran. Maybe I’ll be lucky. Maybe they’ll just take me across the line and let me go.”
“Does your wife know anyone at all in Denver that she might get in touch with? Any names at all?”
“No one. Just Senora Chiquichano. But that woman is why I’m here.”
“What’s that?”
“How else does la migra know? They come to the plant, they ask for me by name and for my green card. Now my employer, he must pay many dollars in fines because I don’t have the permission. If I get back here, he will not hire me again.”
Frentanes shook his head. “How else do they know about me? Who else would tell them?”
I thought that over. “Was it because I asked about Serafina?”
“Yes, of course.” He picked at the crumpled cigarette butt. “But she will pay too—that woman. A little, anyway.”
“La patrona?”
“Sí. No more … .” He shrugged, unable to find the American word. “Mordida.”
“Graft? Take?”
“Take—sí. She takes from my pay fifteen percent for finding me the job. Now no more fifteen percent.”
“Every month?”
He nodded. “And maybe no propina from the boss for the one who replaces me.” He saw my puzzlement and explained. “I think the boss pays la patrona for getting us. She’s a … cazadora de cabezas, you understand?”
“Headhunter? She brings in workers for other employers?”
A tilt of the head. “I think so, yes. She told me the job waited for me. That’s why we came here, Serafina and me. The apartment, the job, the medical approval—all in order for when I get here.”
“What’s the medical approval?”
“El doctor. The examination for working with food, you know?” He fished in that frayed wallet to show me a carefully folded form that certified Felix Frentanes was medically qualified to work in food processing. An illegible signature rode over an inked stamp that said “Associated Medical Pavilion” and bore a date several months old.
“Did you work at the Apple Valley Turkeys plant with Nestor Calamaro?”
The man looked a bit shamefaced as he nodded. “But we don’t know each other real good—la patrona doesn’t want us to know each other. She said it’s best that way if la migra gets somebody, then they can’t tell about the others.”
“Mrs. Chiquichano arranged for the medical exam?”
“Yes.”
“But nothing for Serafina?”
“No. La patrona knows una partera … a … .”
“Midwife?”
“Sí. But it wasn’t time to call her yet.” He stared down and shook his head. “I want to find my wife. I need your help to find her. Now, maybe, I might never find her. If she was sent to Mexico … .” He looked up and wiped quickly at a wet spot that had dropped onto the oily compound of the tabletop. “The Mexican police—what they do to us foreigners from the south! Especially the women.”
“Do you think immigration picked her up already?”
“I can’t ask. What if they haven’t? Then they know she’s here, and they look for her.” He inhaled deeply again and stubbed out another butt. “Just like she would not telephone me if she had been caught. She would protect me too.”
“You didn’t tell la migra a
bout Senora Chiquichano?”
“No! The others at the apartment, they would be picked up—if immigration learns about la patrona, she will tell them about all the others. You must not tell them either!”
The law, which was supposed to protect citizens, was, for someone who wasn’t a citizen, simply another avenue of extortion. But Felix didn’t need to be told that. We wished each other good luck, and the black warden led him down the pale green hallway toward the security fence that closed off the distance. Tall and broad shouldered in a tailored khaki uniform, the warden dwarfed the smaller figure whose bowed legs moved rapidly to keep up with the long strides of his guard.
Agent Roybal waited for me in the receiving room. “Step into my office, Mr. Kirk.” I did, and it wasn’t coffee and doughnuts he offered but my Miranda rights. “Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.”
“What the hell for?”
“Aiding and abetting an illegal foreign national. You’re looking at five years in the pokey, mister. And a twenty-thousand-dollar fine.”
“Wait a minute—he didn’t tell me he was here illegally. And just what kind of aiding and abetting am I supposed to be doing?”
“I think you’re a coyote, Mr. Kirk. I think you’re one of these people who make their living providing illegal workers to employers. And I think Felix Frentanes can be convinced to tell us all about you if we don’t send him back to El Salvador.”
“How do you know he’s not Mexican?”
Roybal didn’t hide his disgust at the question. “I’ve been in this business for fifteen years, Mr. Kirk.” Then he smiled, the whiteness of his teeth contrasting with the glossy black of a thick mustache. But there was little cheer in the sight. “And, Mr. Kirk, I think I’ve got you by the balls.”
