The Bones of Wolfe

by James Carlos Blake

  Halfway to the bed, Mateo pauses and taps his gun against the wall, and Negro clicks on the lights. The girls let out short shrieks, and we dart out from the wall to form a firing line facing the bed as they all jerk around to gape big-eyed at the row of us pointing pistols at them. The girls are nicely hootered, and there’s no mistaking Miguel Soto with that mouth scar. He says, What the fuck—but Mateo tells him to shut up and orders them all to put their hands on top of their heads and they do. Julio looks as scared as the girls. Frank goes to the TV wall and yanks out a plug, and the screen goes dark and silent. If you’re curious about the ending, he says to the couples on the bed, the cop kills the robber.

  Mateo tells the girls to push the covers and all the pillows to the floor, and they do it. He stirs the bedclothes with his foot to assure there are no weapons in them, then asks Soto if there are any firearms in the room and he says in the closet. Negro opens it and collects the two shoulder holsters hanging on door hooks, each one holding a large revolver. Mateo opens the window and sticks his head out and looks down, then tells Negro to drop the guns into the bushes below.

  We flex-cuff the four of them with their hands at their backs, then gag and blindfold the girls and Julio with duct tape, but not Soto. We place Julio in an easy chair and tape his ankles to the forelegs. Mateo tells Negro to take the girls into the adjoining bedroom, put them on the bed, and tape their hands and feet to the bedposts. Negro hustles them away.

  Mateo walks around the room, looking it over like he’s thinking of buying the place. He picks up a wad of currency from atop the dresser, seems to weigh it with his hand, then puts it back. He holsters his pistol and takes out a switchblade and snicks out the blade. Where’s the Boca Larga shipment? he says. If I have to ask you again, it’ll be after your dick’s on the floor.

  Soto stares at him. Then at me and Frank. He looks like he’s considering every possible lie as fast as he can and not finding any of them propitious. Corona ratted, huh? he says. I shoulda shot the whoreson.

  Mateo starts toward him with the blade brandished.

  In the Suburban in the garage, Soto blurts out.

  What garage? Where?

  My garage. Soto juts his chin toward the rear of the house.

  We look around at each other and smile. Sometimes it’s this easy.

  Mateo puts away the knife. You and your brother and who else did the hijack? he asks.

  Oh, hell . . . Cheto and Gaspar.

  Frank casually looks at Mateo and strokes his mustache, his sign that he thinks Soto’s lying about the names. He’s the best I know at perceiving a lie. The best Mateo knows, too. Calls him a human polygraph.

  Where are they? Mateo asks. Cheto and Gaspar.

  Across the river in El Paso somewhere. I don’t know where they live, exactly. They don’t want me to know. Those fuckers don’t trust anybody, not even their own chief.

  Another mustache stroke from Frank. Soto’s protecting his other two guys. He’s a loyal chief. There’s that to say for him.

  El Negro returns, and Mateo takes him aside and whispers to him and they take out their phones. Mateo taps a button on his phone and Negro’s buzzes and he swipes the screen and nods. Keep it open, Mateo tells him, and they pocket the phones. Negro remains in the room with Julio as Mateo, Frank, and I take Soto, still cuffed and in his underwear, downstairs and out the back door.

  We cross the high-walled rear patio to the garage, and Soto tells us the numbers to tap into the garage door lock. We go in and turn on the interior light to reveal a mud-smeared black Suburban with dusty black glass. Been driven hard over rough country and not cleaned up. We go around to its rear and I open the lift gate and there it all is—the unopened crates of carbines, machine guns, ammo. Plus a pair of loose M4s. I eject the magazine from one of them, make sure there’s no round in the chamber, take a whiff of its muzzle, and nod at Mateo that it’s recently been fired. Then I give the other one the nose test and say, “This one, too.” There’s also a small package, a carton wrapped in brown paper and sealed with packing tape and without any markings on it. It’s of a size to hold a few trade paperback books but feels lighter than that.

  Mateo asks what’s in it and Soto says, Movies. DVDs. The chief likes movies. I was gonna give them to him.

  Chief? Mateo says. I thought you were the chief of this bunch.

  I am. I meant the chief of the Sinas. You know. El Chubasco.

  We all trade looks again, and Soto shows a little smile at our response. “Sinas” is a common nickname for the Sinaloa crime cartel. It dominates most of Mexico west and south of Juárez to a point about halfway down the Pacific coast, though control of some of the area’s prime smuggling routes into the U.S.—a span of border ranging from El Paso to Tijuana—is in chronic contention. And as everybody knows, the chief of the Sinaloa organization is Jaime Montón Delacruz, more widely known as El Chubasco. The Stormy One. By way of the extensive media attention he’s received over the years, everybody knows of his impoverished childhood on the backstreets of Culiacán, his admission to the Sina cartel when he was a teenager, his early reputation as one of its most proficient killers, and his rapid ascension through the ranks. And that six years ago he took over the organization after engineering the assassination of the previous Sina chieftain—a badass called La Navaja—by way of a rocket grenade ambush in downtown Culiacán that obliterated Navaja’s vehicle and everybody in it. Made front pages and TV screens everywhere. The Jaguaros have been selling guns—most of them procured through Charlie Fortune—to the Sinaloa outfit since before Chubasco became its chief. But they’ve always made the deals and deliveries through Sina subchiefs or intermediaries, and no Wolfe has ever met Chubasco himself.

  Mateo asks what the Sinaloa chief has to do with any of this.

  That’s kind of a story, Soto says. But, hey, man, my hands are getting numb. Can you—?

  No, Mateo says. What about Chubasco?

  Well . . . I stole your guns because I needed to arm some new guys I wanted to recruit. Then when I saw that two of the crates had machine guns, I thought I hit the jackpot. And then I thought, hey, I’ll make a present of them to Chubasco, show him what the Sangreros are capable of getting for him, you see? I figured he might appreciate it so much he’d take us into the Sinas as a subgang. Big step up, no? I was gonna take the guns to him next week, surprise him. And, believe me, there was a good chance he’d take us in. He likes me.

  Likes you? Mateo says. You know him?

  Oh, yeah. Well, I mean . . . I met him once. At a party in Ensenada two, three months ago. He’s got a big fancy ranch just outside town where he likes to throw parties for his border chiefs and some of their guys. They say he’s got a big meth factory somewhere around there, too, but I can’t swear to that. A good pal of mine told me. Tico Ruíz. He’s the subchief of a Sina gang in Hermosillo. Well, I mean, he was. His girlfriend found out he was fucking around on her and she cut his throat while he was asleep. Pretty low-down, huh? Kill a guy while he’s sleeping? She told some of her friends she—

  Back to Chubasco, Mateo says.

  Yeah, right. So Tico, he’s the one invited me to the Ensenada fiesta and introduced me to him. It was great. He’s a really good guy, the chief. Said he was glad to meet me. Told me he could use all the friends he can get in Juárez, especially if they come up with some good smuggling routes around there. Asked me did I deal in guns, and I said yeah, I got some good connections. He wanted to know could I get submachine guns and I said sometimes but they can be hard to come by. He said he was interested in only the best and from now on whenever I got some good submachines to sell I should offer them to him ahead of anybody else. He tells his segundo, a big dude called El Puño, tells him to give me his number so I could call whenever I had machine guns for sale. He’s a good guy, too, Puño.

  Frank’s glance says he can’t tell if the kid’s lying. But Mateo’s told us about El Puño—the Fist—Chubasco’s second in command. All the gun deals Mateo makes with the
Sinas he arranges through Puño. He’s never met the man in person, but the Jaguaros who’ve made deliveries to him say he’s a big bald dude with fists the size of grapefruits.

  Soto’s been talking faster and faster. He’s hoping he might luck out and hit on something that’ll interest us enough to let him live a little longer, even if it’s just another day or two, just another few minutes. They all get like this when they know it’s the end.

  Now his expression brightens and he says, Hey, hey listen, I got a really great idea. I can introduce you to him! To Chubasco! What do you say to that? Could mean a lot of really good business for you, right? You could probably make some pretty good deals with him, no? I mean, if—

  What’s any of this got to do with the fucking movies? Mateo says.

  Hey, man, it’s funny you call them fucking movies, because that’s what they are. They’re fuck movies. Porno. At this party I’m talking about, a big downstairs room was showing them one after another on this big screen, and the chief kept going in there for a look. I heard him telling some of the guys they were the best he’d ever seen, way better than most stuff on the internet. Kinda funny, though, going in a room to look at fuck movies when all over the place are all these fine-looking women who are there to be fucked. I had two of them myself that night, no lie. Really great-looking girls. I mean, I’ve had some nice stuff before, but these—

  The movies, Mateo says.

  Yeah, right. Well, like I said, at this party the chief kept going in there, in the room showing the movies. Even after I saw him go upstairs with a girl, as soon as he came back down he went into the movie room again. So I got kinda curious and went in for a look, and, man, I gotta admit, what was showing was really damn good. It was in English, but who cares what they’re saying, right? Then I get this idea. I go to the guy who’s running the DVD player from the back of the room and ask him can I write down the names of some of the movies he’s showing. You see, I know this guy in Saltillo runs a business that deals in nothing but sex DVDs, the best stuff, gets it from everywhere, and I thought he might have some as good as the ones on my list. But I didn’t get a chance to go to Saltillo for a while, not till day before yesterday, when I was on my way back from, ah, you know . . . Laguna Madre. So anyway, I go to the store in Saltillo and I showed the guy my list and asked did he have any movies as good as them but even newer—I didn’t want to give the chief any movies he already had, right?—and my pal said, yeah, sure, he has the best ones on the market and some of them just a few months old. So I bought six or seven of his newest and he packed them in that little box. I thought the chief might like them, you see. Together with . . . you know . . . the machine guns. Be a nice little extra for him and, who knows, maybe give us a boost up the ladder.

  He’s almost breathless now, and the mention of Laguna Madre and the machine guns has brought him back to square one. There’s nothing left to tell. Nothing left to stretch out with more talk. His eyes move from Mateo’s to mine to Frank’s, searching for some sign of hope, no matter how small. He won’t find it. He killed Mateo’s crew. He killed Alberto. He was good as dead as soon as we set out for him. He could ask for mercy, but he knows he won’t get it. My bet is he won’t ask. Despite his fear, I peg him for a tough kid who won’t piss on his pride by begging.

  But he does say, Hey, man, the girls upstairs, they don’t have nothing to do with this. They don’t know anything, they really don’t. You don’t have to, you know . . . worry about them.

  They know what we look like, Mateo says. He takes out his phone, its connection still open to Negro’s, and says into it, Do it, and then get Gancho and Conejo out to the vehicles. He turns off the phone and puts it in his jacket.

  I think the kid’s telling the truth about the girls and I want to say something to Mateo, talk him out of popping them. But I don’t. It’s his show.

  From the second-floor window comes the suppressed discharge of Negro’s Beretta. That’s it for brother Julio. I can tell by Soto’s face he’s waiting for another shot. Two more. So am I and Frank.

  Mateo chuckles and says, Quit worrying, guys. The girls are all right. Negro’s cutting them loose and giving them money to get out of town. Yeah, they know what we look like, but so what? You think they want to talk to the cops about keeping company with gangsters? About the bodies the maid’s gonna report in the morning? And even if they did talk to cops, what could they give them? Descriptions? There’s a million guys look like us except for El Negro, and black is all the description they can give of him. They don’t even know any part of our names. By sunup they’ll be long gone with a wad of cash in their purse.

  Thanks, man, Soto says.

  Mateo nods and unholsters his pistol. Face the wall, he says.

  Soto does it. I’m standing off to one side of him, Frank on the other. Mateo raises the gun, holding the suppressor muzzle a few inches from the back of Soto’s head. The muffled shot is fairly loud in the close confines of the garage but not enough to carry to neighboring homes. It jars Soto’s head and he crumples to the floor, a bloody splatter of brain and skull fragments oozing down the wall.

  Mateo phones Rodrigo and says, We got it. All of it. And got rid of the prick who took it. He listens, then says, Yeah, sure, go ahead.

  Keeping the phone to his ear, he tells us in English, “Rigo’s calling the Zetas. Those guys are gonna love this. Major points for us with them. A reminder that nobody fucks with us or our clients and gets away with it.”

  A long couple of minutes pass, then Mateo says, Yeah, into the phone. He listens intently. Okay, give it to me . . . Got it, he says. Call you when it’s done.

  “We’re taking the load to Nuevo Laredo,” he tells us. “To number thirty-two on Calle Rio Montez. Don’t forget that address, in case I do.”

  Nuevo Laredo is the Zetas’ home base.

  With Frank driving and Mateo in the shotgun seat, the Suburban leads the way to the border bridge. Negro and I are behind them with me at the wheel of one of the Durangos, and Conejo and Gancho trail us in the other. We cross into El Paso and get on I-10 East. At Fort Stockton we gas up, take a piss, grab some snacks and six-packs, then cut south for Del Rio. Traffic is meager. The moon’s a low sliver in the west, and we’re enclosed in the immensity of desert darkness under what looks like an arrested explosion of stars. Only way the hell out at sea are the stars as spectacular as in the desert. In Del Rio we refuel again, then cross back into Mexico.

  We get to Nuevo Laredo not long after sunrise. Our windows are down and the air’s heavy with the wet-dust smell of freshly hosed sidewalks and the aromas of coffee, chorizo sausage, corn tortillas.

  The address turns out to be that of an auto junkyard that takes up the whole block on one side of a rutted one-way street fronted by narrow broken sidewalks. The yard gate is unchained and wide open, and Frank pulls into the short driveway in front of it and stops. I park against the curb and Conejo pulls in behind me.

  A dapper mustached man wearing aviator shades and a very much out-of-place white suit comes out through a door marked OFICINA that flanks the vehicle gate. He talks to Mateo, then takes a look in the back of the Suburban, then peers over at us. A Zeta. They have a certain manner, those guys—like they’re always assessing the threat level of everybody in view. He again says something, and Mateo gets out and Frank drives into the junkyard and out of sight. Mateo and the white suit go in the office.

  A short while later, Frank drives partway out of the yard gate and summons me with a head motion. Negro and I say so long, and I slide out and head for the Suburban just as Mateo exits the office. He tells me he’s called Rodrigo and informed him the Zetas are pleased with the shipment and, of course, there’s no late-delivery fee. We embrace and he says it was good working with me again. Until next time, I say. He gets in the Durango, Negro now in the driver’s seat, and the two SUVs depart.

  I climb into the Suburban and Frank tells me Mateo said we could have it. “Flip you for it,” I say, and take a nickel out of
my pocket. I flip it, catch it, smack it on the back of my hand. He calls heads, and heads it is. He laughs and says he doesn’t want the damn thing, I can have it. But I’m no fan of SUVs, either—I love my stick-and-Hemi Challenger—and we decide to let Charlie have it. The shade trade can always use another big set of wheels.

  We’re in no hurry and both of us ravenous, so we stop at a café and order platters of huevos rancheros—refried beans layered with shredded white cheese, topped with fried eggs, doused with a tomato salsa thick with minced peppers and cilantro, and served with a stack of corn tortillas. Delectable. But if I had to choose I’d go with the huevos rancheros Charlie Fortune makes. His salsa is unsurpassable and its recipe a tightly guarded secret.

  We get back to Wolfe Landing in late afternoon. We turn off into Riverside Motors & Garage, go past the double row of vehicles for sale in the front lot, park behind the garage, and go in to talk to Jesus McGee, the owner and manager. Jesus is a first-rate mechanic and does a steady business with customers who drive out from Brownsville for his tune-up and repair service. But his real profit comes from the sale of stolen vehicles, almost all of them taken from the hubs of Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, or Houston. He pays low cash for them, works up new papers and tags—he’s got contacts in a half dozen DMV offices in South Texas—and sells them to Mexican buyers as far south as Monterrey, to American car lots as far up the coast as Port O’Connor, and to dealers on both sides of the river all the way up to the two Laredos. He tells us that by the day after tomorrow he can have a title for the Suburban in Charlie’s name, with a new VIN, registration, and tag to match.