He let out a scream and turned on the dog, whose jaw was locked on his calf, and swung down the hammer with all his strength, hitting the dog on the left side of its muscle-thick neck, but though it yelped through its clenched teeth, it didn’t let go. It only whipped its head back and forth harder, trying to do serious damage, trying to incapacitate him by tearing away the muscle. Even as his leg screamed with pain—even as he swung back the hammer again to strike another blow—he was thinking about where he could strike in order to stop the attack without killing the thing. Its owner had been attacked in his home. The dog was only protecting its territory.
But before he had a chance to swing again he heard the crack of a small-caliber pistol being discharged and a red dot appeared in the dog’s head, just below the right eye. The dog yelped once and went limp, its jaw still clamped on Normal’s calf.
Normal looked from the dog to Bogart, who stood with a duffel bag strapped over his left shoulder, gun barrels jutting from it, and a .22 in his right hand.
“You didn’t have to kill it,” Normal said.
“A thank-you would be nice.”
“You didn’t have to kill it,” he said again, but the truth was, shooting it in the head—killing it quickly—was probably more humane than anything he’d have done. He reached down and pried the dog’s jaw off his leg. Blood, hot and viscid, poured down his leg and soaked into his sock. He looked up at Bogart. “Thank you.”
Coop stepped through the door, saw the man on the floor, and tossed aside an electric guitar he’d been carrying.
The alarm was still screaming but in the space between the wails, Normal thought he could hear police sirens in the distance—but drawing nearer.
“Let’s get the fuck out of here,” he said, took two steps, and fell to his knees.
* * *
Coop and Bogart, each with a hand hooked under one of Normal’s arms, dragged him out into the alley and toward the car as blood dripped from his leg and spattered to the ground behind them. Once they were outside, it became obvious just how close the police were. Six or seven blocks at the most and approaching at eighty miles per hour.
When they reached the car, Coop pulled open the front passenger door and they shoved Normal toward it. Bogart yanked open the rear passenger door and slid in. Coop followed.
Before he could even reach right and grab the door handle to yank it shut, Pilar had slammed the transmission into gear and gassed the car. They rolled toward the opposite end of the alley in darkness. Coop noticed that Pilar hadn’t turned on the headlights.
As they reached the end of the alley and turned right, toward the main road, three La Paz police cruisers flew by from the left, lights flashing and sirens wailing. Pilar waited for them to pass and then turned onto the street, driving away from the pawnshop even as another police car drove by them.
Coop kept expecting one of the cop cars to burn a U-turn and come after them, but none of them did. He looked over his shoulder to the rear window and saw them screeching to a smoking-tire stop in front of the pawnshop.
After about a quarter mile, Pilar flipped on the headlights.
29
George Rankin stood outside his car, which was parked on the shoulder of the road, and emptied a clip toward a chain-linked lot where nothing had been built, angling his gun downward so the bullets would hit the dirt thirty or forty feet away. This was the middle of the city, and while he wanted to make sure the neighbors heard both gunfire and the sound of the crash, he didn’t want wild rounds to strike random people or buildings. He reached down and picked up the empty shells, counting them as he did. Walked back to his car, pulling his cell phone from his pocket, and slid in behind the wheel.
He dialed Horace Ellison. “I’m here, shots fired, about to call the local police.”
“All right. Our guys will be on the way soon.”
George glanced in the rearview mirror. Francis was looking back at him, face spattered with blood. Diego Blanco, being dead, was sitting with slumped shoulders and blank eyes.
George started the engine, slid the car into gear, and drove into a telephone pole at about fifteen miles per hour. He whipped forward but the seat belt locked and held him in place. He pulled the airbag from the steering column so it looked as though it had just deployed. After taking a brief moment to collect himself, readying himself for what came next, he said, “Okay,” and made his second call.
“El Paso Police Department. What is your emergency?”
“My name is Special Agent George Rankin. I’m with the DEA, Intelligence Division, and I just shot and killed a suspect in my custody. I spoke with my superior and he instructed me to call the local police. He’s also sending men down here to conduct an internal investigation.”
* * *
The ambulance arrived before the police. It swerved down the street, lights flashing, and came to a stop behind the sedan. Two EMTs stepped from the vehicle and walked toward him. He was leaning against his car, hands in pockets.
“I already told the police, the guy’s dead.”
One of the EMTs put on latex gloves, pulled open the back door, and checked the pulse. After less than fifteen seconds he said:
“Dead as dead gets.”
The first police car arrived five minutes later, pulling to a stop left of the sedan. Two beat cops—one in his thirties with a relaxed demeanor, the other in his early twenties and wound up with tension—stepped from the car. The older cop took the lead, walked over to George, and asked him what happened. George explained the situation and the guy looked into the sedan to confirm there was a dead guy inside. Once it was confirmed, he grabbed the radio from his shoulder, thumbed the button, and spoke into it, saying they had a corpse.
“Detective should be here soon. Mind if I get a statement from your witness?”
“No, go ahead, do your business.”
“Thanks,” he said. He started walking around the back of the car, paused, and looked over his shoulder at George. “He’s not dangerous, is he?”
“He should be fine.”
About the time the first responders finished cordoning off the area, the homicide detective, the meat wagon, and the DEA boys, including Horace Ellison, arrived on the scene, pulling their cars to the shoulder of the road.
George was sitting on the back of the ambulance holding an ice pack on his neck while one of the EMTs took his pulse.
The detective, a guy of about fifty in an ill-fitting department-store suit, walked to the sedan, looked inside at Diego, and then wandered over to George.
“What the hell happened?”
“My agent placated an angry suspect is what happened.” Horace Ellison walked over, introduced himself to the detective, whose name was Winton Smith, and said he was going to listen in if the man didn’t mind.
“No problem.”
George gave his statement.
“Can I see your neck?”
George removed the ice pack.
“Jesus, that guy did a number on you.”
“I’m just glad I walked away.”
“Looks to me like a justified shooting. Don’t see no need to get up your ass about it after the night you’ve had. I might have you come down to the station tomorrow to help me dot the tangos and cross the Indias, but that’ll be about it, yeah?” He looked to Horace Ellison. “You’re not gonna give this guy a hard time about saving his own life, are you?”
“Probably give him a medal, shooting a motherfucker like that.”
The detective laughed. “Mind if I get a statement from the witness?”
“No, go ahead, but then I gotta get him into an interrogation room. We need to find out how much more he’s revealed to the cartel, make sure our man is safe.”
“I understand.”
“Also, please make sure nobody leaks any information to the media. If this guy’s identity is revealed, it’ll put a good man in serious danger.”
“I’ll seal lips with a needle and thread if I have to.”
* * *
Detective Winton Smith shouted, “Cover that corpse. News crew can’t get a shot of the face,” even as a cameraman was stepping from the van. Smith walked over and met both the cameraman and the reporter, a blond woman in a low-cut blouse, and said, “We have no comment. Do not talk to my officers.”
* * *
Horace drove George home. They sat silently in the car for the first half of the journey, George looking out the passenger window into the dark night, at the shadow-covered buildings streaking by. He was tired.
Finally, Ellison spoke: “Don’t think that could have gone much better.”
“I hate to let Waters off the hook for what he did.”
“He’s not off the hook for anything, George.”
“He won’t be charged. He can’t be.”
“There’s other ways to make a man pay for his crimes. We know what he is.”
Ellison pulled the car into George’s driveway.
“Put some more ice on that neck and get some sleep. I think you should see a doctor tomorrow. Don’t be a tough guy. Your neck looks like a boa constrictor that swallowed a goat.”
“Okay.”
George pushed open the passenger door and stepped outside. He waved at Ellison as the man backed his car out of the driveway, then stood and watched as the taillights receded. Finally he walked to his front door, unlocked it, and stepped inside.
30
Pilar woke to the sound of her wailing alarm clock, opened her eyes, and stared at the dark ceiling. For a moment, she only lay there, unmoving. Finally she reached over and slapped it silent. She sat up, knuckled her eyes, and picked at the rheum in the corners. It was four o’clock in the morning—she’d gotten three hours’ sleep—and the window was still dark. A pain behind her left eye throbbed. Today was the day they got James out. Or failed to get James out. She turned, put her feet over the edge of the bed, and stepped onto the carpet.
She padded to the bathroom and washed her face.
When that was done, she got dressed, putting on 501s, a tank top from Express that said MAS AMOR POR FAVOR, and red Vans Gumsole sneakers. She gazed at herself in the mirror. She looked tired, with bags under her eyes, but she supposed that was to be expected under the circumstances. No need to bother with makeup. The day’s activities didn’t require it.
She pushed out into the hallway and took the three steps left to Normal’s room. She tapped her knuckles on the wood.
Normal pulled open the door from the other side.
He was already dressed and ready to go, wearing cutoff shorts and a T-shirt that said I LIKE TO PARTY AND BY PARTY I MEAN TAKE NAPS. The front of the shirt was dotted with small holes. He used his shirts to twist open bottles of beer and the bottle caps inevitably damaged the cotton. Almost all of his shirts—all the ones Pilar had seen—looked moth-eaten.
His left calf was gauzed and taped, the gauze dotted with a dozen dots of burgundy where blood had seeped through. Pilar had treated the wound last night, after stopping at a drugstore and picking up supplies. She’d poured Listerine over the bite, used Super Glue to seal the deepest, longest rips in the flesh—the dog had really gone at him—and wrapped it. He’d taken ibuprofen, a shot of NyQuil, and gone to bed. She’d been worried the NyQuil would keep him asleep even after his alarm sounded, but he’d obviously been up for a while. She’d seen him just out of bed, and sleep still clung to him for half an hour afterward as he wandered around bleary-eyed and incoherent.
Normal was a self-contradictory person, which was one of the things she liked about him. He’d pick his nose, wipe boogers on his shorts, laugh at idiotic jokes, and burp in nice restaurants. But when he had to take things seriously, he did, and he often displayed a competency that was surprising when juxtaposed with his day-to-day personality.
“How you feeling, Pilar?”
“Nervous.”
Normal nodded. “Me too.”
She looked at his blue eyes to see if he was teasing her, but saw only tension flittering behind them.
He leaned forward, hugged her, and said, “It’ll be okay. I know I’ve been the squeaky wheel on this shopping cart, but that doesn’t mean I don’t care about you and James. I consider you both friends. I love you guys. We’re gonna get him out today.”
For a moment Pilar only stood stiff, but this was the first time since James was arrested that somebody’d acknowledged what she must be going through, and the emotions she’d kept locked away rushed out of her. She wrapped her arms around him and cried into his shoulder.
“Do you think we will?”
“I do. Now let’s get out of here.”
Pilar pulled away, wiped at her eyes, and said, “Thank you.”
“You’re the first woman who ever thanked me for making her cry.”
* * *
Pilar drove them through the dark morning, the eastern horizon ahead of them fading to purple, the sun not yet visible but bleaching the black night with its illumination. Normal had put Swordfishtrombones into the CD player, and “16 Shells from a Thirty-Ought-Six” was thumping through the speakers. Normal cracked his window, sipped the paper cup of coffee he’d gotten from the machine in Hotel Amigo’s lobby before they left, and though he grimaced at the taste, took a second sip.
It was a forty-minute drive, but neither of them spoke.
* * *
Pilar parked the car in front of a brick building in Juarez, the sign above the door only three letters long, A.T.C., a chain-linked lot next to the building holding about twenty armored trucks. She killed the engine and turned the knob to shut off the headlights. She pushed open the driver’s-side door and stepped out into the cool morning.
Though the sun had now breached the horizon, the streetlamps still glowed, halos of light hanging around them.
She walked around the car as Normal pushed out the front passenger door. They met on the sidewalk and together made their way up the concrete path to the front of the building. There were lights on inside, but no one visible at the front desk. Pilar knocked on the glass door.
The inside remained still and empty.
She knocked again and her uncle Arturo pushed out of a room that opened onto the hallway behind the lobby—probably a bathroom—and looked toward the front door. He saw her through the glass, smiled, and raised his hand in greeting before waddling over. When he reached the front door, he unlocked it and pushed it open. He held out his arms and said in Spanish, “Maria, you look beautiful. How long has it been?”
“Almost nine years.”
“Nine years!”
He wrapped her in a tight hug, held her there a long moment, and then pushed her away again, holding her shoulders in his thick-fingered hands. He looked her up and down. “You’re a woman now, aren’t you? My God.”
“How was your flight from Mexico City?”
“I don’t know. I had three cocktails before takeoff and slept through it.”
“This is my friend, Normal,” Pilar said, waving her arm toward him.
Uncle Arturo stuck out his hand and said in English, “Any friend of Maria’s is a friend of Arturo’s. It is good to meet you, Normal.”
Normal shook his hand and said, “Good to meet you too, sir.”
“Sir! No, please—Arturo.”
After a few more minutes of conversation, Arturo walked them out to the lot where the trucks were parked. They were much more intimidating close up than they were from the street. Hulking beasts. He showed them the vehicle he’d arranged for them to use, a large black-and-white BATT-XL with A.T.C. on each side door above an image of the company’s security-badge logo.
“Let me show you everything.” He swung open the rear doors.
The inside was lined with two bench seats, between which two safes and a hydraulic lift—a sniper step—sat bolted to the floor. Above the seats, in each wall, were three small windows. Below ea
ch window was a hatch through which one could stick the barrel of a rifle. In the center of the roof was another hatch. A man—or woman—could stand on the sniper step, open the hatch, and shoot with a 360-degree view. At the front of the truck were two bucket seats that faced the double-paned windshield.
“This beast,” Uncle Arturo said, “offers fifty-caliber protection, an armored firewall at the front end, a rear deployment bumper, front and rear door lockout ability, flip-out running boards, gun ports, a blast mitigating floor to protect against ricochets, four-by-four capabilities, a sniper step and roof hatch, and a three hundred and sixty-two horsepower engine that takes regular unleaded fuel. You could drive this son of a bitch into hell and beat the devil.”
“Yeah—but what’s the gas mileage?” Normal said.
Uncle Arturo laughed. “Eight miles per gallon, give or take.”
“Can’t have everything, I guess.”
“I will ask that you cover anything that can identify the vehicle and remove the license plate before you do what you need to do.”
Pilar, who’d been very nervous about what they were going to attempt today, felt much better than she had before seeing the truck. They might still fail—failure was always a possibility—but if the breakout could be done, this armored truck would do it.
She hugged her uncle tightly in her arms and said, “Thank you so much. You don’t know what this means to me.”
“We’re family, Maria.”
* * *
Pilar drove the Toyota while Normal followed her in the armored truck. It was five thirty when they left Juarez and ten minutes past six when they reached La Paz. If Coop’s information from yesterday was correct, they had almost five hours to wait until James was in the yard, in a place they could get to him.
She hoped he wasn’t killed before then.
31
George Rankin parked his car in front of the house and killed the engine. He looked through the passenger window. It was a two-story white stucco place in the generic suburb style of the mid-1990s with a river-stone front yard and a shrub garden in front of the porch.
The Breakout Page 20
