Bogart hoped so.
They could cross the border and pick up some rifles at Walmart, but he didn’t want any of their names attached to weapons used in a prison break. What they were doing was risky enough without autographing their crime.
The cab pulled into the cracked-asphalt parking lot.
Bogart asked the driver to keep the meter running while they were inside. He and Pilar stepped out of the car. He looked toward the two-story building with its crumbling stucco walls and a sun-faded asphalt-shingle roof. It had been painted gray. The stucco in the corners of the building was gone, revealing the chicken wire it was supposed to cling to. Graffiti had been spray painted across the walls. The dust-filmed windows were filled with throwaway garage-sale items: cheap beginner guitars with bent necks, old boom boxes with broken tape decks, used vacuum cleaners with missing belts, ancient TVs, stacks of paperback novels and CDs from the 1980s, old Motorola cell phones, a few lamps with stained or torn shades, chipped plate sets, rusting flatware, a leather chair with a duct-taped tear in the seat cushion.
Bogart and Pilar walked toward the front door. He pulled on the handle, but the door was locked. He thumbed the buzzer.
The door unlocked with a hum and a click as the electric dead bolt retracted.
He pulled it open and stepped inside. Pilar followed.
The floor was covered in ancient green carpet leopard-spotted with stains. Metal garage shelves lined the floor, filled with various cheap items. A drum kit sat in the corner. Guitars, electric and acoustic, bass and six-string, sat on stands to the right. A five-gallon bucket filled with fishing rods and umbrellas. Glass display counters about three feet off the back walls, lining the northwest corner, each filled with bracelets, cuff links, earrings, necklaces, and watches, none of which looked to be worth much.
A Mexican man, maybe five six, a hundred and fifty pounds, stood at the back of the shop with both palms flat on one of the glass cases. He watched them enter with tired eyes, but didn’t so much as nod a greeting.
After picking up a few random items and putting them down again—a tackle box, a windup flashlight/radio, a banjo with two missing strings—Bogart wandered toward the man, looking into the glass cases as if interested in something within them.
In heavily accented, throaty English, the man said: “Can I help you find something?”
“I’m not sure,” Bogart said.
“Why is that?”
“Well, I’m looking for something specific.”
“Then be specific, I might have exactly what you want.”
“My girlfriend and I bought a house on the east end of town and we come across rattlesnakes sometimes. Other desert animals too.”
“So…”
“I’m looking for something that’ll let me take care of the snakes without getting too close. Don’t wanna get bit—or even risk getting bit.”
“I see. What kind of money are you willing to spend?”
“Let me see,” Bogart said. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the cash he and the others had contributed to the gun fund, about eighteen hundred dollars, but because several of the bills were fives and tens, and because the cash was a rubber-banded fold, it looked like more. He held up the wad of cash and said, “I’ll spend this.”
The man looked from Bogart to the money in his right hand. Bogart could see the thoughts passing like shadows behind his eyes. He was asking himself if he should trust this stranger who walked through his front door with a wad of cash in his hand. Bogart knew better than to say anything. Anything he said at this point would be as likely to get them kicked out of the store as it was to get them what they wanted. He had to wait, let the man come to his own decision, and hope it was the right one.
Finally, the man’s eyes shifted from the money to Bogart. “I think I might have something could help you.”
“Yeah?”
The man nodded. “But I keep such items in the back.”
He led them through a narrow wooden door to the stockroom, which held shelves full of tagged and dated items. They walked through an aisle between shelves to the back of the stockroom where a locked metal cabinet stood to the right of a door leading outside. The back door was gray. There was a small box on the hinge-side of the door frame, about the size of a cigarette lighter, probably part of an alarm system. The cabinet itself was green, dented in several places, rusted where the paint had chipped away. Its doors were held shut by a padlock. The pawnbroker pulled his keys from his pocket and let them hang from his finger while he turned to face them. He hesitated a moment, then said:
“Before I unlock the cabinet, I need to be certain—are you looking for what I think you are looking for?”
“I’m almost certain I am.”
“Okay.” He turned back to the cabinet, flipped through the keys on his ring, keyed open the padlock, and pulled open the doors. The rusty hinges squeaked.
Inside, resting on their butts, stood about a dozen rifles and shotguns, as well as several boxes of ammunition. A few pistols and revolvers lay on a shelf at the top of the cabinet.
“For your needs,” the man said, “I would suggest a long-barrel shotgun, which will keep the pattern relatively tight for a good distance. This way you don’t have to get too close to your snakes in order to take care of them—but you also don’t have to be a sharpshooter. Take this weapon, for instance.” The man picked up a Mossberg with a thirty-inch barrel. “Pump-action. Five-shot tube. Good at up to fifty meters.” He pumped the weapon and lowered the barrel, aiming it at Bogart’s chest. “At this range, it would put a hole through you the size of a tea saucer.” He smiled. His right eyetooth was capped in gold. “Drop your money and walk away.”
“Now, wait a minute.”
“I can shoot you right now and say you tried to rob me. Shoot you both, put guns in your hands, and call the police. You make up your own minds, though, lose a little money or lose your lives and your money. It doesn’t matter to me.”
Bogart held out the money and took a step forward.
“Don’t move. Just drop it on the floor.”
Bogart dropped it.
“Now walk away.”
“I was just looking to—”
“You come into my store as a stranger, tell me lies about rattlesnakes, and think I’ll sell you a gun? You’re lucky to be walking away with your life. Get out of here.”
Bogart and Pilar backed away—now without any money and still no guns.
19
Gael Morales stepped out of the car and into the sun. The heat seemed to have weight to it, so thick and heavy it was pushing down on him. He looked over his shoulder. Diego got out of the passenger side, aiming his gun over the roof of the BMW, and keeping his barrel trained, walked around the trunk. Gael watched him approach, asking himself how he might get out of this mess, but he had no answer.
“Put your hands in the air and keep them there.”
Gael did as he was told.
“Turn around. Don’t fucking look at me.”
Gael straightened his head. Found himself squinting at the department store in front of him, and the sea of cars that lay between him and the building, this aluminum and steel and fiberglass ocean of red and blue and yellow and black. It was midday. People were around. He watched a woman glance toward him and then hurry to her car. Diego would have no hesitation about shooting him here. He could put a bullet in the back of Gael’s head, throw his body into the bed of his truck, and drive away, and even if there were witnesses, they would remain silent. No one would speak against Rocha or his men for fear of losing their own lives, and truth was, they were wise to remain silent. Talking would do nothing but get them killed too.
“Get on your knees.”
Gael dropped to his knees, which popped simultaneously as they hit the ground. The asphalt was hot through the fabric of his Levi’s. Loose pebbles poking through the fabric, digging into his skin. The barrel of Diego’s gun pushed against the back of Gael’s head. He could fe
el it against the base of his skull. When Diego squeezed his trigger, the bullet would sever Gael’s spinal column.
He was going to die and there was nothing he could do about it. Sarah, after less than a year of marriage, was going to be a widow, and she wouldn’t even know it. He’d simply vanish. She’d hold out hope, for months or years living in a state of paralysis, her life on pause, unable to move on because there was no body, and if there wasn’t a body, maybe he was still out there somewhere.
Only he wouldn’t be out there somewhere.
He’d be three or four feet beneath the surface of the desert sand.
Coyotes might discover his body, scatter his bones across the desert floor, but that didn’t mean he’d be discovered anytime soon. Diego would take him deep into the desert, thirty or so miles southwest of La Paz, and the next closest town, Ascension, was still another twenty or more miles away. He’d be buried in the emptiness between those towns, surrounded by nothing.
Even if his body or part of his body—a femur or his left hand or part of his skull—was discovered, it was likely to be discovered by drug traffickers. Ascension was controlled by the Sinaloa cartel and La Paz by Rocha.
Several years back, the entire police force in Ascension quit for fear of being murdered by the cartel, leaving the town of five thousand without any law enforcement, and it was now patrolled by soldiers who might or might not be getting paid by the cartel to look the other way, but even if they weren’t, it didn’t matter. La Paz sat in the desert between Ascension and Juarez, and the road connecting the three cities was used to move drugs.
Drug traffickers weren’t likely to go to the police if they discovered his body.
He was going to die here and Sarah wouldn’t know she was a widow for years. If ever.
Thinking of her alive but in stasis was worse, to his mind, than his own death. This was his job and he knew the risks, knew death might happen, but he loved Sarah and wanted her to be happy—with or without him—and it was impossible to find happiness when your life consisted of waiting, waiting for your husband to return from the field, waiting to find out whether he was alive or dead.
“Just get it over with,” he said.
“I trusted you.”
“You sound betrayed.”
“I feel betrayed.”
“It was my job to make you trust me. It wasn’t personal.”
“It was personal to me.”
Gael closed his eyes and waited for the bullet.
But the bullet didn’t come. Instead he heard George Rankin’s voice: “Diego, you drop the fucking gun and turn around or I’ll shoot you in the back right here.”
* * *
Danielle Preston ran west along a two-lane strip of faded asphalt. She glanced over her shoulder and saw Francis Waters coming after her. He shouted at her to stop, damn you, but stopping would only ensure she died a little bit sooner than if she continued to run.
After about a quarter mile, pain already knifing into her side, she reached Avenida Hidalgo, and chest heaving, came to a brief stop. She didn’t know where to go or what to do. For a moment, she considered giving up, succumbing to her fate—at least then it would be over—but she pushed that thought away. She didn’t want to die, she wanted out of this situation, and death wasn’t an escape but a result of the mess she was in.
She thought about the church at the north end of town, the tunnel beneath it that led to the United States. If she could cross the border, she might be able to hitchhike into El Paso, go to the police there, tell them who and what she was and hope they’d protect her. Or she could hitchhike west, make her way to California, and hide out in Fresno for a year or two.
Either way, the tunnel was her only option at this point.
She turned right, heading north, and ran toward the church at the end of the road. She saw it up ahead, freshly painted white, the large crucified Jesus at the top of the spire backed by clear blue sky.
She glanced over her shoulder again and saw Francis Waters running after her, the distance between them cut in half, and because his legs were longer, he was gaining on her with every step he took.
Finally she reached the gravel parking lot, the stones grinding beneath her feet as she ran across it, and headed up the stairs to the large double doors.
She grabbed one of the door handles, thumbed the paddle, and as she pulled open the door, she could hear feet crunching into the gravel behind her. She stepped inside, shut the door, and turned the dead bolt.
The handle rattled behind her.
“Unlock this door, you fucking bitch.”
“Fuck you,” she said, lungs aching. She turned to face the room even as the man who would kill her slammed his shoulder against the door. Colored light beamed in through the stained-glass windows, projecting biblical images on the walls.
There was a tunnel under the church, a tunnel that would take her to safety, but she had no idea where it was. Nor did she know how long she had to find it before Francis Waters made his way inside. Sooner or later, he’d find a way in. She only hoped she was gone when he did.
* * *
Gael Morales heard Diego’s pistol clack against the faded asphalt.
“Turn around and pick it up, Gael. You put your fucking hands in the air, Blanco, and keep them there. If you even fucking twitch, you’re dead.”
Gael turned around and for a moment found himself looking directly into Diego’s eyes. They glared back with hatred. Part of him felt a strange, unexpected sadness. Diego was a drug smuggler and a murderer but that wasn’t all he was. He was a father, had three daughters, and until today, he’d been a friend.
Gael had eaten meals at Diego’s apartment, his daughters sitting with them, and they’d discussed the difficulty of being a single working father. How Diego had gone through half a dozen babysitters over the last few years. How his work schedule and his schedule as a parent often contradicted one another, making him miss soccer practice or band recital. Though their friendship had been based on a lie, Gael hadn’t pretended to be Diego’s friend. He’d been his friend.
In order to work undercover, you had to become the person you were pretending to be. You had to find those aspects of your personality that would make that person real and push them to the front while simultaneously forcing everything else back.
It made you realize that you were no better than the people you were trying to imprison. You were capable of everything they did. The only difference was that you’d repressed those dark parts of your personality while they had—for whatever reason—embraced them.
Gael leaned down and picked up the pistol, a Smith & Wesson M&P. He stepped back, taking himself out of Diego’s reach, and raised the weapon, aiming it at the man’s face. Over Diego’s shoulder, he watched as George Rankin holstered his own weapon and pulled out a pair of handcuffs. He walked up behind Diego, snapped one of the cuffs around his right wrist, and yanked his arm behind his back, twisting it hard.
“You’re not killing anybody today, motherfucker.”
George pulled the left arm back and cuffed it.
Diego smiled a malevolent smile. “There’s always tomorrow, Gael Castillo Jimenez. You’ll get yours. I’m a patient man.”
20
Francis Waters walked the perimeter of the church, feet moving from gravel to sand as he left the driveway and headed around to the back, shoes kicking up clouds of dust that swirled around his ankles. A rattlesnake lay stretched across a boulder jutting from the earth some ten yards to his right. Brown shrubs dotted the landscape between here and the tar-papered border fences. If Danielle Preston found the tunnel and made it stateside, he was fucked. He might be able to convince whoever she talked to that she was a lying junkie bitch but what he needed to do was make sure she was incapable of talking at all.
The stained-glass windows were out of reach. The back door rattled it in its frame but refused to open. When he reached the front of the building again, he walked up the stairs and banged on the front door.<
br />
“Let me in, you stupid bitch, or I’ll fucking kill you twice.”
No answer.
He reached into his pocket, pulled out his disposable cell phone. He called Diego, put the phone to his ear, and listened to it ring. The call went to voice mail. Francis waited for the beep, and when it came he said:
“Danielle’s at the fucking church and she’s locked me out. If she finds her way down, we’re fucked. Get over here.”
He thumbed the red button, slid the phone into the right hip pocket of his slacks.
He banged on the door with the side of his fist, slammed his shoulder against it.
* * *
George Rankin was walking a handcuffed Diego Blanco to his car when the cell phone in Blanco’s pocket began to ring. George yanked back on the other man’s shirt collar like a horse’s reins, stopping him, and retrieved the phone. He looked at the display: an El Paso number but no name. He shoved the phone into his own pocket and continued to guide Blanco toward the street where his car was parked. By the time they reached it, the cell phone chimed with a new voice mail. George pulled open the back door of the car and shoved Diego into it.
“I hope you like prison food.”
He slammed the car door shut, pulled the cell phone from his pocket, and listened to the voice mail. “Danielle’s at the fucking church and she’s locked me out. If she finds her way down, we’re fucked. Get over here.”
George looked toward Gael Castillo Jimenez. He’d followed them down toward the street and stood now, smoking a cigarette, watching them from the department store driveway.
George held up the cell phone. “You need to hear this.”
* * *
Francis Waters heard the car approaching and looked over his shoulder. A black sedan came tearing down the street toward the church and for a brief moment Francis felt relief. Diego was on the way. They’d get inside and kill this bitch and …
The Breakout Page 15
