by Simon Toyne
She had always been a sucker for horror stories, enjoying the thrill of being scared while wrapped in the comfort and safety of her own life. Now she doubted she would ever read one again. No imagined horror could possibly compare to what her life had become. And if this was an earthquake, then let it come. Let it tear up the ground and level the town and crack open the earth to spill the dead from their graves so they could witness the end of the cursed place they had helped build.
The sound grew, huge and raw like her anger, then something rose from the valley with a noise like the sky ripping open. The propeller wash from the tanker struck her hard, nearly knocking her from her feet, and she closed her eyes and turned away from the grit-filled air and felt something wet and warm patter down from the sky. She glanced down and saw red spots on her arms, as if blood had fallen from a clear blue sky.
Blood was what had tipped the girl in the story over the edge, raining down on her at the high school prom. Holly wondered if she was imagining all this—the plane, the blood, the trembling ground—her brain throwing up phantoms born from thirst and tiredness and drenched in all the dark emotions that came with grief.
She stuck the shovel back in the ground and leaned heavily on it, imagining what she must look like, standing by the grave, her black dress torn and flapping in the hot breeze, her skin streaked with sweat and dirt and dotted with spots of what appeared to be blood. She looked like an insane person, that’s what, like a black-lined etching from the pages of a Victorian Gothic novel—the grieving wife with a broken mind, a Miss Havisham figure dressed in black instead of wedding white. Was that the future that awaited her—the tragic bride in a house where all the clocks had stopped?
She rubbed at one of the spots on her arm and felt the wetness of it as it smeared red across her skin. She had not imagined it; blood had dripped from the sky. She had not imagined any of it. It was all real. She was stuck in the middle of her own horror story. She knew that people in horror stories generally stuck around long after they should have fled. Not her. Once she had buried Jim and fulfilled her promise to him, she would leave this place and never come back.
The ground started to tremble again and the air began to shake, but this time she knew it was not some terrible energy born of her pain that she could unleash on the town. The only thing her pain would turn into was anger, then tears, and ultimately back to pain again. And the only way out of this cycle was to break it.
She picked up the shovel and drove it into the earth, continuing her act of remembrance for her dead husband, savoring the pain in her arms and shoulders as she slowly buried him beneath the dry Arizona ground.
A second plane roared overhead, rending the sky with its noise and dripping more drops of red onto the tattered widow laboring by the grave, and the dry rocky ground, and the white-painted grave markers that spoke of all the other cycles of pain that had ended here by gunshot, and hanging, and suicide.
25
“YOU SEEN THE NEWS?” PAPA TíO’S VOICE WAS ODDLY CALM, WHICH MADE Mulcahy feel the exact opposite.
“Yeah, I saw it. It said someone survived the crash.”
“That’s what they’re saying.”
“Listen, if it’s Ramon, I can get him out, but I’ll need to move fast. I’m less than half an hour away and—”
“It’s not Ramon.”
“It’s . . . are you sure?”
“A local source sent me a picture. The guy who walked away from the crash is a six-foot albino. That sound like Ramon to you?”
Mulcahy gripped the steering wheel hard, releasing some of his energy, his mind casting around for a new angle to try.
“You got any kids?” Tío asked, like they were just two guys in a bar, shooting the breeze over a beer.
“No. No I don’t.”
“Course you don’t. If you did I would have some of my men babysitting them right now—just like your father. You two close?”
“Close enough that I would like to sort out this situation.”
“That’s good. It’s good that you care about your father. Shows you got values. If you don’t have family values, then what have you got? You should have yourself some kids, you feel that way; man’s not a man until he becomes a father. You know I had two daughters, as well as Ramon?”
Mulcahy knew. Everybody knew. He knew what had happened to them too.
“Beautiful girls,” Tío said, a smile lighting up his voice. “Smart too, smarter than Ramon, that’s for sure—smarter than me even. They wanted to help run the business, but I told them no one’s going to take me seriously if I put women in charge—just the way it is.” He chuckled. “They got real pissed about that, wouldn’t talk to me for weeks, stopped telling me where they were going, slipping their guards so they couldn’t tell me neither. That’s when they got kidnapped. Someone called me up, said my daughters would be returned untouched and unharmed if I backed away from certain areas I had been expanding my business into. I’d recently taken over Lázaro Cárdenas—you know how much cargo that port ships each year?”
Mulcahy’s fingers drummed on the steering wheel, releasing his nervous energy as the clock continued to tick. “A lot.”
“Thirty-six million tons last year: cars, clothes, toys, building materials—all kinds of things. Thirty-six million tons of opportunity for someone like me. I told them no one tells me how to do business. I vowed that I would find the people responsible and anyone they had ever loved and I would nail them to a wall and eat the hearts of their children in front of them. I didn’t plead for my daughters’ lives. I knew they were already dead. If I had caved, it would show I was weak and they would have killed them anyway to prove they didn’t fear me no more. But they do still fear me. Everybody fears me. So my daughters did help me in the business after all. They helped show everyone how strong I was. I never loved anyone like I loved those two girls.”
Mulcahy heard the anger in Tío’s voice and sensed the glimmer of an opportunity in it. “You ever find out who killed them?”
“It was the Saints. The Latin Saints did it.”
“The Saints killed Ramon too,” Mulcahy said. “They sent a killing crew to my rendezvous point.” He picked up his phone, found the photos he had taken in the motel, and attached them to a secure e-mail address he had for Tío. “Carlos was a rat. He sold out your son to the Saints. But I don’t figure him for some kind of mastermind. Someone else must have given the order and I can find out who. I can do that for you, Tío. I can get you a name.”
“How do you know it was the Saints?”
“I’ve sent you some pictures. See for yourself.”
There was a long, long pause as the message left his phone and wormed its way through some complicated, encrypted network. Mulcahy’s fingers drummed on the steering wheel in time with his heartbeat. Before circumstance had led him down a different path, he had been a trained police interviewer, skilled in the art of drawing people out and building trust. He was trying to do it now with Tío, drip-feeding him information to get him to engage and make him realize he was worth more to him alive than dead. So far, Tío wasn’t biting.
“You got them?” Mulcahy asked.
“Yeah, I got them.” He heard the contained fury in Tío’s voice and it made him feel hopeful.
“The survivor,” Tío said at last, “my source says he’s got a tag too. A Roman numeral burned onto his arm.”
“I can get to him,” Mulcahy said, pouncing on this fresh information. “Right now we have chaos on our side, but it won’t last. I can use that confusion, swing through, flash some ID, take him right out of their hands. Hell, they’ll be glad for one less thing to worry about, what with the fire and all. I can take this guy and find out everything he knows. You know I can do that, better than anyone.”
Tío went quiet again. Mulcahy checked the clock on the dashboard. His ten minutes were almost up. He imagined his father, sitting with his captors, probably trying to strike up a conversation with them, get them to play a hand of car
ds while they waited, calming himself by behaving as if everything was normal. He was a pretty charming guy, a guy’s guy; Mulcahy had learned a lot from his father, like how to win a hand with weak cards or even no cards at all.
“The people who killed your daughters,” he said, playing the only card he had, “did you ever get a name?”
“I got a whole list of names. My men get a bonus for every Saint they deliver to me alive. I got a special place I go to work on them, my own place of worship and remembrance. I got pictures of my daughters hanging on the walls and I do to those pigs exactly what they did to them. First I rape them with a metal bar, then I break a few bones, then I start with the questions—who killed my daughters? Who gave the order? Tell me and I’ll end your pain. Only torture and pain break men’s minds, make them tell you anything you want to hear.”
“Not if you do it right.”
“You telling me my business?”
“No. I think you’re a very loving father, but your emotions are getting in the way here. I bet they tell you all kinds of other things too, vile things that make you so mad you hurt them more, am I right?” Tío said nothing. “They’re using your rage against you. They know you’re going to kill them, so they’ve got nothing to lose and nothing to gain by telling you what you want to hear. You need a middleman, someone they can place trust in. The survival instinct is strong and you can use it to get at the truth.”
“And would that middleman be you?”
“It could be.” Mulcahy thought about his next step. He had no more cards, so there was no point in pretending he did. “Listen, Tío, I know it’s unlikely I’ll see my way through to the end of this, I know that. I’m one of the few people who knew about the flight and I can see how that looks. There’s also a bunch of bodies in a motel room, and I walked away. I know how that looks too. But I didn’t sell out your son. I can’t make you believe that, but it’s the truth. Maybe the plane crash was an accident, maybe it wasn’t. But I bet I’m not the only person still breathing who knew about it.”
“I got things under control.”
“I’m sure you do, I don’t doubt it. But will any of those people give you the name you want, the name of whoever was really behind all this? I can. If you give me the chance, I can get that name for you. Tell me who else knew about the flight and I’ll find out what they know. I’ll get this survivor too. You know I can do this better than anyone. I’ll do whatever it takes and then I’m yours to do what you want with. Like I said, I don’t expect to get through this. All I ask is that you let my father go.”
There was a long pause and Mulcahy let it stretch. There was nothing more he could say, nothing else he could offer.
“It’s a credit to you,” Tío said at length, “this thing you do for your father. You think Ramon would have done the same for me?”
Mulcahy considered the question. Ramon was a well-known, grade-A scumbag who lived in the protective shadow of a father he hated. “I’m sure he would have done exactly the same,” he said, figuring right now was not the time for honesty.
“It’s nice you think that. Shows you’re a good son who respects his father. Truth is, Ramon would not have crossed the road to piss on me if I was on fire. You know what that piece of shit son of mine did that forced me to stick him on that plane in the first place? He raped a general’s daughter. A two-star generale who also happens to be in charge of the border divisions. You think that’s good for business? He couldn’t just keep to the coked-up putas with the big asses and the plastic titties. No, he had to go and fuck everything up, leaving me to clean up his mess again. And how do you think a thing like this makes me look when it’s my own son that’s done it? Makes me seem weak, like I can’t even control my own kids.”
He went silent again and Mulcahy let the silence stretch as he stared ahead at the slow-moving river of evening traffic, ordinary people heading home to their ordinary uncomplicated lives. He could see a sign up ahead—right to Tucson, left to Redemption. He still didn’t know which turn he would take. His ten minutes were up. If he ended up turning right to Tucson, time would be up for his father too.
“Step out of line here or fuck it up and your father dies hard, understand? And when I catch up with you, I’ll show you that room I told you about with my daughters’ pictures on the wall.”
“Thank you,” Mulcahy said, more breath than words.
“Go get this guy, this survivor. Squeeze him hard to find out what he knows. Make him suffer. And I want you to go to the crash site too. If my son is dead, I want to see a body.”
Mulcahy frowned. Getting access to the crash site would be risky. “What about your local guys? Couldn’t they . . .”
“I don’t trust them. Some of them knew about the plane. I don’t want them to even know you’re there. I might need you to talk to them too. And use this phone to keep me informed. It’s safe.” Then the phone clicked and Tío was gone.
Mulcahy blew out a long stream of air. He swapped Javier’s phone for his own and tapped to call his father back, his hand trembling as the adrenaline in his system started to curdle.
The same voice answered. “That weren’t no ten minutes, motherfucker.”
“Go tell it to your boss, that’s who kept me talking. Put my dad on, would you?”
There was a pause, then his father came on the line.
“What the hell’s going on?” He sounded more rattled than before. “You coming over here to straighten things out or what?”
Mulcahy thought about the deal he had just done with Tío and how unlikely it was that he would ever see his father again. He swallowed hard against a tightness in his throat. “I’m coming, Pop,” he said, “but I got to square away a couple of things first. You hang in there and remember not to take all their money if they get the cards out, it’ll only piss them off and they sound like vindictive types.”
“They don’t look like they got much to take,” his father replied, his voice low.
Mulcahy smiled. Even with a gun to his head, his old man still had the instincts of a born hustler.
“I’ll see you soon, Pop,” he lied. Then he hung up before his voice betrayed him, hit the turn signal, and turned left toward the town of Redemption.
26
MORGAN STOOD AT THE EDGE OF TOWN INSPECTING THE RED LINE THE tankers had painted. The ash was falling thickly around him now. He turned to the crowd and held up a megaphone so everyone could hear. “Okay, everyone, we have a line to hold here. The tankers will be back soon as they can, but we need to do our part and split you up into pairs.”
Solomon sat at the back of the pickup, studying the women in the crowd, wondering if one of them was James Coronado’s widow.
“Once you’re in a pair,” Morgan continued, “come see me and you will be assigned an area.” He held up a tourist map that had been roughly gridded with a Sharpie. “Soon as you have your area, go there and make it safe. Knock on doors to check that no one’s inside, then commandeer as many containers as you can, fill them with water, and soak everything that’s flammable, shift any woodpiles and anything else that looks like a bonfire waiting to happen, and keep your eyes open for the first sign of smoke in your area. If you see smoke, call out and put it out before it becomes anything worse. Shovel dirt, use a garden hose, roll on it if you have to, but do not let a fire take hold in your area, you understand?”
There were nods and murmurs. Everyone was subdued now that the tankers had gone and the fire was roaring closer, pushed by winds that seemed angered by the town’s attempts to defend itself.
“The fire trucks are spraying down the area immediately behind the control line and will act as frontline defense. Most of the fires are going to start here anyhow, so we’ll cover those. Your job is to watch our backs. We need you to stop any small fires from becoming big ones. If we can hold the fire here, it will have nowhere else to go and it will eventually burn itself out or the tankers will come back and put it out. We just gotta hold on here. Y’all think you can
do that?”
A small chorus of “Yeah” rumbled up from the crowd.
“Come on,” Cassidy said, stepping forward with his campaign smile. “Don’t let me be the mayor who let the whole dang town burn down. Can we beat this thing?”
“YEAH!” the crowd hollered back.
“All right.” Cassidy turned to Solomon. “You got anything you want to add, Mr. Creed?”
Solomon stood up, regarded the assembled faces, and leaned into the megaphone. “You’re all going to die,” he said, and watched every expression shift from hope to fear. “But when and where you die is up to you. The tankers won’t save you; this will all be over by the time they make it back. Only you can save you. So stay lively, stay alive—and pray for rain.”
He stepped back and smiled at Morgan, who raised the megaphone to his mouth, looking at Solomon like he couldn’t make head nor tail of him. “Well, I guess prayer never hurt at that,” he said. “All right then, get yourself into pairs and get busy.”
The crowd quickly split and formed a line in their new pairs in front of the truck. Morgan pointed to sections of the map, marking each one off once it was assigned.
“I don’t think that was a particularly smart trick to pull, Mr. Creed, frightening everybody like that.”
“Fear is powerful fuel,” Solomon replied, studying the faces of the women as they filed past.
“So is hope.”
“Yes, but they’re already frightened, look at them. Might as well use what we have. James Coronado’s widow, she wouldn’t be here, would she?”
“No, she would not.”
“Pity.” The wind blew again, a deep roar carrying more ash that stung Solomon’s face. He tilted his head back and sniffed the air. He had lost the scent of the rain, the smell of smoke far too strong now. “If we make it through the next hour, I would like to talk to her, if I may.”
