“Snakebite,” Tangerine called again. The orderly took the cigarette from his mouth, plunged it into Tangerine’s neck. She cried out in pain. The orderly spasmed, clutching the back of the chair.
“Mi madre,” he gasped. The muscles in his neck looked like grotesque steel springs.
And then it was over. The cigarette butt dropped from his fingers, slid down between Tangerine’s breasts, came to rest on her belly. The orderly pulled up his pants and walked back into the house. Sayer Burdon continued with his video game, unaware, or in spite of, the activities that had just taken place on the patio.
Tangerine reached down and picked up the cigarette. She blew on the ashes, took a drag, touched her neck again with the burning end, winced.
“Snakebite,” she said, under her breath, then flicked the cigarette butt into the pool. She stood up, put on her robe and went into the house.
Rolly sat down in the dirt, checked his photos, put his camera away. He stared up the canyon, feeling soiled and vaguely nauseous. He turned around, took another peek through the gap in the rocks. Inside the house, Tangerine stood behind the living room sofa, gently caressing the top of Sayer Burdon’s head while he blasted away at alien monsters.
Somewhere an automobile engine cranked over and died. Rolly heard it again - a coughing engine, silence. He knew that rhythm, those notes. It was his Volvo. He scrambled down from behind the boulders, squinted his eyes. Down at the end of the canyon, the driver’s side door of the Volvo sat open. The engine sputtered again. It caught sparks. He took two more steps towards the road.
“Hey there,” he said. “That’s my car.”
The driver’s side door slammed shut. The Volvo jumped forward and turned up the canyon. Behind the steering wheel sat the little orderly, grinning his sick little smile. He spun the steering wheel, turning the car towards Rolly.
Rolly didn’t know what the orderly had in mind, but it wasn’t valet service. He turned and ran up the canyon. The fluttering in his stomach expanded, filling his chest like a flock of screaming seagulls. The sound of the Volvo grew closer behind him, its engine torqued into a high, whining note. The tires scratched across the canyon’s dirt floor, digging harsh grooves like a pissed-off club DJ.
He spotted a crumbling section of canyon wall to his left, a low cliff where hundred-year rivulets had opened cracks in the slope, tight grooves leading up to a ledge where the car couldn’t go. The roar of the engine grew louder. He swerved to his left, leapt over a downed tree trunk, heard a dull thump of crumpled steel from behind. He ducked into one of the fissures, scrambled up onto the ledge. The Volvo’s horn blared, protesting his getaway. He turned to look back down the hill. The car had come to a stop against the downed tree, its front grill snubbed underneath. The wheels spun against loose dirt. From inside the cab the little orderly glared at him, his smile transformed into a scowl. Otherwise, he appeared unscathed.
Rolly continued up the hill, anxious to put more distance between himself and the orderly. He climbed onto a wider ledge where the hill flattened out, paused and turned to look back again. The Volvo looked smaller now, a safe distance away. The horn had gone silent. The little orderly leaned against the side of the car, smoking one of his special cigarettes. He spotted Rolly staring down at him, raised his hand as if to wave goodbye, and dangled the key from one finger. Taunting complete, he stamped out his cigarette, climbed back in the car, and drove back down to Monument Road, disappearing from view.
Rolly leaned over, resting his hands on his knees as he inhaled great gouts of air. The seagulls inside him had talons now. They felt like hawks clawing at his lungs, stabbing at his sternum with sharp beaks. He coughed, cleared his throat, spit out a hunk of phlegm.
After a few minutes, the pain in his chest subsided, diffusing into his shoulders. A cold ache spread into his legs. His breathing settled. It became slower, less labored. He lifted his head, looked around to get his bearings. Without realizing it, he’d managed to climb all the way to the border. A rusty fence stood twenty feet away, on the other side of the dusty ridge road.
They hadn’t replaced this section of fence yet. Down the line you could see where the new one ended, two lines running parallel out to the bullring, painted an almost painful white. Curls of barbed wire ran along the top of the new fence. The wire was painted white, too. The fence across from him, the old one, looked like a piece of junk in comparison, flimsy sheets of corrugated metal, ten feet tall, bolted together and rusted to the point of translucence, like the discarded skin of a monstrous rattlesnake. He walked across the road and inspected it, pressing his hand against the rough skin. He wondered how much force it would take to break through.
A bolt popped. The metal skin groaned and the rusted sheet fell away. Rolly tumbled down into the empty space.
La Frontera
(The Border)
Rolly crashed into Mexico, blundering into the land on the other side of the fence, which, when he managed to raise himself up and take in the scenery, didn’t look all that different from the side on which he’d started. Four men sat around a fire pit fashioned from a discarded tire. The men stared at him, frozen in place like cautious naturalists assessing the appearance of a new species: the Black-Shirted-American-Idiot, native to dark urban bars, not often found in the chaparral hills of Northern Baja. Rolly smiled at the men, hoped they weren’t dangerous.
“Buenos Dias,” he said.
“Buenos Dias,” they replied.
The oldest-looking man walked over to him, offered his hand, and helped Rolly up. As an overall genus, Americans might be hard to classify, but the black-shirted idiot wasn’t predacious.
“Gracias,” Rolly said, dusting himself off.
“De nada.” The man nodded.
Rolly checked for injuries, found a long scratch of blood on his left forearm, tried to remember when he’d had his last tetanus shot. The older man inspected the damaged fence, wiggled the loose piece of rusted metal, then grabbed it with both hands and gave it a yank, ripping the entire sheet off its rivets, creating a space you could drive a Jeep through. The man poked his head across the invisible line, testing the air on the other side of the equation. The other men watched him.
“¿Los ve?” one of them asked.
“No los veo,” replied the man at the fence. He turned back to Rolly.
“La Migra? Ha visto?” he said, waving his hand to indicate the area on the other side of the fence.
“No. No La Migra.” said Rolly, shaking his head. He hadn’t seen any sign of the Border Patrol. He wondered if he’d broken any laws by telling the men.
“Vayamos,” said the older man, waving his hands at the group. They followed him through the gap in the fence. Rolly brought up the rear.
“Aqui, pronto, pronto, aqui,” urged the group’s leader, pointing into the shadows of Smuggler’s Canyon. The men hurried down the trail, slipping and sliding along the narrow dirt path, away from the sunlit crest of the hill.
“Adios, amigos,” Rolly said, seating himself on a flat-topped boulder near the top of the trail. The last of the border crossers disappeared into the shade of the canyon. For all he knew, La Migra had tracked the men already, using some sort of high-tech spy gear, triangulating data so they could trap the men when they reached the bottom. He didn’t want to be picked up along with them. The Border Patrol would assume he was a coyote, paid by the men to bring them across. They wouldn’t need more than that to arrest him.
His phone rang. He took the phone out of his pocket, checked the caller name. It was his father’s home number, probably Alicia wondering when he would stop by. He didn’t have an answer for her. If it was his father, his father was probably drunk. That was a conversation he didn’t need at the moment. He let the call ring through to his voicemail.
He scrolled through his contact list, wondered how much the roaming charges would be if he connected to a Mexican tower, found Bonnie’s number, punched the keypad and waited. Calling 911 seemed excessive. He wasn
’t in any immediate danger. The phone line transferred to Bonnie’s voicemail. He left a message telling her where he was. He told her about the hearse and the house, about Burdon and Tangerine and the little orderly who’d tried to kill him.
He put the phone back in his pocket, surveyed the scenery. Autumn, such as it was, had come to the border. Along the edge of the dirt road, dried-up stands of wild daisies had shriveled to rope in the September heat, their flowers depleted, petals dropped and ground into the dirt. The sun on the horizon cast its dying warmth against the side of his face. A pair of vultures drifted along on the ridge, looking for carrion, their dark profiles outlined against the darkening blue canopy. He wondered if the vultures had followed him, if they could smell hints of death in his sweat-covered body and dry, labored breathing. Were they watching, waiting for him to falter?
Someone yelled. He heard a thump of footsteps from the trail below. A man appeared, one of the border crossers. He ran up the trail, towards Rolly’s lookout.
“¡Ayúdame! ¡Ayúdame!” the man yelled in warning. He pointed back down the trail. “La Migra.”
Rolly stood up, looked back down the trail. Two men appeared from out of the shadows. They wore camouflage suits and protective visors. The men raised their guns. Rolly’s compatriot turned to run. Rolly hit the dirt, covered his head. He heard the pop of the guns from below, the whizzing sound of projectiles passing over him, a yelp of pain. Someone laughed.
“Did you see that?” the voice said from below. “I nailed him right in the ear.”
“That’s one well-painted beaner.”
“He’ll think twice before coming through here again.”
Footsteps moved towards him, then stopped. Rolly looked up. The two shooters stood over him, with their guns at the ready. They didn’t look like La Migra.
“Who the hell’re you?” one of them asked.
“I’m an American,” Rolly said.
“What’re you doing up here?”
“I’m an American,” Rolly said. “I live here in this country.”
“He don’t look like a beaner,” said the other man. “Some of those Mexicans look kinda regular-like, though.”
“You got some I.D.?” said the first man.
Rolly rolled up onto his knees, reached into the back pocket of his jeans, pulled out his wallet.
“Well, Mr. Rock’n’Roll Dick,” said the first man, reading the license. “I thought that was you. What’re you doing up here?”
“Hiking.”
“Funny place for a hike.”
“I started down at Border Field Park.”
“You got a serious problem with reading signs.”
“What’s that?”
“You’re not supposed to be up here.”
“I got lost.”
The second man walked over to the gap in the fence, gestured with his gun towards Tijuana.
“You seen that beaner before?” he asked.
“No,” Rolly lied.
“Sounded to me like he was talking to you, en Español.”
“I don’t know what he said.”
The man walked over to Rolly, waved his gun.
“You know what I hate more than Mexicans?” he said. “It’s fag-ass bleeding hearts who come down here to aid and abet ‘em. You one of those?”
“No,” Rolly said. “I’m not helping anyone.”
“Just out for a hike, huh?”
“Yes.”
“I think you’re a coyote. Whattya think, Nuge?”
The other man took off his helmet.
“You remember me?” he said, dropping the gun to his side.
“You’re the guy in the truck,” Rolly replied. “From yesterday.”
“I suppose you got an explanation for this?”
“Sure. It’s part of my case.”
“You mean that thing with the birds?”
“Yes.”
“You got a bad habit of showing up places you’re not supposed to be.”
“Someone tried to kill me.”
“Who?”
“He’s a doctor or something. You might have seen him down in the canyon.”
“You seen any doctors down there?” Nuge asked his friend.
“Can’t say as I have.”
“I think you better come back with us,” Nuge said, returning to Rolly. “We got a nice little roundup of illegals down by the road. We’ll see what they have to say about you.”
“Let’s go, amigo,” the other man said.
“You can’t arrest me.”
“Why not?”
“You don’t have the authority.”
“We got a right to defend our country. You’re breaking the law just by being here.”
“I’m a U.S. Citizen, out for a hike in the country air.”
“Yeah, I know. It’s nature’s paradise out here.”
It was a waste of time arguing with the men. What had Hector called them – Asshole Fucking Anglos? An image of his camouflaged captors sodomizing each other flashed through Rolly’s head. He grinned.
“Something funny to you?” said Nuge.
“Nothing.”
“Well, consider yourself under arrest. Citizen’s arrest.”
“Why?”
“I knew you were bad news. I shoulda capped your ass yesterday.”
“I’m a private detective.”
“Anybody can get a card made.”
“I’m working with the police now.”
“Like hell,” said the other man. ”Whattya think, Nuge?”
Nuge scratched his late afternoon stubble.
“Maybe we should call in BP,” he said.
“There’s one on the way now,” said the other man, looking past Rolly’s shoulder. Rolly turned. A border patrol truck popped over the hill, headed along the road towards them. It pulled to a stop thirty feet away. A border patrolman climbed out, and approached them on foot. He paused ten feet away from them, put his hands on his hips.
“What’s up fellas?” he asked.
“We caught some illegals down in the canyon.”
“You’re not allowed on the road.”
“This guy was with ‘em.”
“You know the rules. Step off.”
“He’s a coyote. Look at that hole in the fence.”
“Step off or I’ll arrest all of you.”
Nuge and his partner took a couple of steps back down the trail, away from the road.
“OK?” said Nuge.
The patrolman nodded. He looked over at Rolly.
“All right sir, what’s your story?”
“I’m a private detective, helping with a police case.”
“You have approval to be up here?”
“I guess not. Not officially.”
“He’s a coyote, I’m telling ya’,” said Nuge. “Or maybe a drug dealer.”
“It’s a stolen car case,” Rolly continued. “San Diego Police. I can put you in touch with the case officer.”
“We grabbed three illegals just now, in the canyon,” said Nuge. “Chased another one back up here. Caught him talking to this guy.”
“Is that true?” the patrolman asked Rolly.
“The guy yelled at me as he ran by,” said Rolly. “He tried to warn me, I guess. These guys were shooting at him.”
“What about this?” the patrolman asked, indicating the hole in the fence.
“It’s been like that since I got here,” said Rolly, hoping the patrolman wouldn’t press him for details.
“How’d you get up here?”
“I walked up,” Rolly said, pointing down Smuggler’s Canyon. “From down there.”
“He’s lying,” said Nuge. “You told us you hiked over from the park.”
“Is that what you told them?” said the patrolman.
“I did say that. Yes. I... Somebody down there tried to kill me. I ran away from him.”
“Who tried to kill you?”
“This doctor, a little Mexican guy. He ran
my car into a tree.”
“He’s making shit up now,” said Nuge.
“It’s an old Volvo wagon. White.”
“I didn’t see any cars down there,” said Nuge.
“He stole it.”
“Officer,” said Nuge. “We got these illegals tied up down there by the road. Why don’t we bring him down, see what they have to say.”
“How about it?” the patrolman asked Rolly.
“I’m not going with these guys.”
“You’ll have to go with me then. In the back.”
The patrolman pulled a pair of handcuffs off his belt. Rolly nodded, extended his hands. The patrolman cuffed him, walked him back to the truck, and opened the back door. Rolly slid in behind the wire cage that separated him from the front seat. He sighed. At least he’d disappointed the vultures.
El Camino
(The Road)
Rolly watched in the truck’s rearview mirror as another Border Patrol truck arrived on the scene, followed soon after by two patrolmen on motorcycles. They inspected the hole in the fence. After some discussion, the man in the second truck parked it next to the fence, temporarily spanning the gap. The men on the dirt bikes sped off. Nuge and his buddy headed back down the trail the way they’d come up. Rolly’s captor returned to his truck, put it in gear. They drove along the edge of the fence towards the bullring.
“You really a P.I.?” the patrolman asked, glancing back at Rolly in the rear view mirror.
“Yeah.”
“How long you been doing that?”
“Ten years.”
“You like it?”
“Not at the moment.”
“We’ll get this taken care of. You got somebody who can vouch for you at SDPD?”
“Bonnie Hammond. She’s the case officer.”
The patrolman turned down a steep dirt road, clearly marked with a ‘No Trespassing – Federal Government’ sign.
“Did you work there? SDPD, I mean, before?”
“No. I was a musician.”
“A musician?”
“Yeah.”
“Whattya play?”
“Guitar.”
Border Field Blues Page 11
