South

by Lance Charnes

  The cop—Schertzer, unfortunately a monthly regular—leaned an elbow on the blue laminate countertop, chewed on his gum. “How’s it hanging, Ojeda?”

  “You’re two days early,” Luis growled as he stalked to the counter.

  Schertzer shrugged. “So call a fucking cop. You got it?”

  It wasn’t like this steroid-square cucaracha was a real policeman, just one of the contractors the city pretended was a police force. Dark-blue utilities, black tac vest, jump boots: all Luis saw was a school-crossing guard with a gun.

  “Yeah.” Luis opened the lockbox with his key, pulled out a white envelope, and slapped it into Schertzer’s outstretched hand. La mordida, El Norte style. “Now get out.”

  The cop waggled the envelope to get the feel of it. Apparently satisfied, he shoved it into the patch pocket on his right thigh. “The widows and orphans appreciate your money, Ojeda.” He smirked, then turned toward the doors and waved over his shoulder. “A-dios.” He stopped with his hand on the push bar, looked back. “By the way, a road crew’s coming through in a couple days. They’ll want their cut, too.”

  “They’re finally going to pave the street?”

  The cop shook his head, bottling up a laugh. “Shit, no. They’ll get their taste, you know how it goes. That’s why I’m early, make sure we get what’s coming to us. See you soon.”

  Luis watched Schertzer ooze off to the right, no doubt to collect his bite from the other garages and workshops along this light-industrial strip off Newport Boulevard. He’d bled money into these pendejos for years. He’d run across people like Schertzer in Mexico and the ‘Stan, but it burned his gut to see them in this county. It was easier for the kids; they weren’t old enough to remember when cops and fire marshals and road crews weren’t all on the take.

  He sighed. That was old-timer talk. “There goes the lowest bidder,” he said to himself.

  Luis glanced up from taking a customer’s payment to catch Ray’s face outside the window. Ray raised his hand; Luis nodded to him.

  The customer—a big-busted Newport Beach trophy blonde in tiny clothes—paid up and wiggled off with her bodyguard to claim her husband’s newly up-armored Range Rover. Ray turned to watch her go, then let out a long breath through pursed lips as he ambled through the front doors. He was a big, square outline against the morning sun. His thumbs hooked in the pockets of fashionably tight, white churidar slacks, their calves stacked just so over expensive new designer boots. Just like he’d stepped out of a vidboard ad, if those models had faces that looked more Aztec than conquistador. A long way from his old caballero style.

  Ray gave Luis his crooked smile. “Hey, hermano. All your customers look like that?”

  “Enough do.” He shook Ray’s hand, which felt like a brake drum. “Oye, compa. Long time. How’s it going?”

  Ray rocked his hand side-to-side. “About normal. How’s Bel?”

  Luis shrugged. “Fine. The usual.”

  “Nacho hanging in?”

  Nacho—Luis’ son Ignacio—was a Marine on his first deployment to Sudan. “Yeah, he’s okay. The stories he tells me, it’s like what we did in the ‘Stan.”

  “Never ends, does it?” Ray’s dark dataspecs scanned the office’s lights and corners. The gray that used to be in his hair was gone now. “Have any bug problems in here lately?”

  “Stopped getting it swept two years ago.” They weren’t talking about the six- or eight-legged kind. Luis used to have to worry about those things; no more, thank God. He peered closer at the corners of Ray’s nose and mouth. “Are you taking tighteners?”

  “A couple months now, yeah. Like it?” Ray turned his face to let the strip lights flash off his shiny, smoother skin. “You could do with some too, hermano.”

  First he’d lost his tattoos, now this. “Can’t afford them. Besides, I like looking like a grownup.”

  Ray shrugged. “Look, the boss wanted me to talk to you. He’s got a job for you.”

  Luis put up his hands. “Save it. I’m out, remember?”

  “I know, I know. He told me to ask, so I’m asking.” Ray leaned in, laid a hand on Luis’ shoulder. “This job, it’s a special one, you know? Some good coin. Check it out.” He tapped the phone pod on his left ear.

  A few moments later, the store slate peeped. Luis brought up the email, then the attached picture. A studio portrait: a dark-haired man and woman, two cute kids, nice clothes, healthy-looking. The guy could almost pass for Latino, but the woman had the sharp features of a high-caste Arab. After fifteen seconds, the picture dissolved into empty black, literally blown to bits.

  “Which one?” Luis asked. “The guy or gal?”

  “All four. Told you it was special.”

  That was strange. Back when he was in that business, Luis moved a lot of older people and young women, since the young men were usually dead or in a camp. Still, not even the money got his interest. “No way. Besides, I thought you guys had some new kid doing that.”

  “Federico? Yeah.” Ray planted his hands on the counter. “We did until he got dead a couple nights ago.” He leaned forward and dropped his volume. “The boss is pretty hot to move these people. He’ll make it worth your—”

  “I said no.” Luis heard the heat in his own voice, backed off. “Even if I survive it, Bel will kill me.”

  Ray smiled and straightened up. “Yeah, and probably me too right after.” He scratched the back of his neck. “Look, this puts me in a bind, you know? He asked for you specifically. Tavo trusts you. You maybe have some bargaining room here. At least say you’ll think about it.”

  “Bargain? With a cartel sub-boss? Are you crazy?”

  Luis noticed a gray Ford Santana parked across the street, screaming “surveillance.” Cops following Ray? Or were they after Luis because of Ray? Either way, he wasn’t going through all that again. He needed to care for his parents, help provide for his family. He’d already sacrificed enough for a lost cause.

  “I’m not thinking about this. No. Do I need to spell that?”

  Ray sighed, shook his head. “Tavo’s gonna be pissed.” He stuck out his hand. “Come down to the bar sometime. I never see you anymore. Salma misses you, too.”

  And Luis missed them. But every time he went to visit Ray and his long-time girlfriend, Bel’s temperature dropped thirty degrees and Luis got frostbite. “Sure, compa,” he said as he shook Ray’s hand. “Soon.”

  3

  Since the 10/19/19 terrorist attack, approximately 430,000 people have been imprisoned in over 220 known facilities associated with the Terrorist Detention Program (TDP)…an estimated 90% identify with one of the Islamic sects and approximately 75% are U.S. citizens …Only 27 are known to have faced charges in a court of law, and three have been convicted of any crime.

  — Introduction, Held Without Hope, Human Rights Watch

  FRIDAY, 30 APRIL

  McGinley lounged in his rain cloud-gray government sedan across the street from Coast Conversions, a gray, flat-roofed, cinder-block of a building with a faded green awning and half-dead flowers in a planter out front. Two Mercedes SUVs and a big Merc sedan sat outside with grease pencil on the windshields, next to a Maserati SUV, a Range Rover and one of those new Cadillac Olympias, big as a tank. All of them waiting to get armored up. Must be a lot of scared rich folk in these parts.

  Two weeks away from his home turf and McGinley was still doing basic legwork for the local law, the useless sacks of shit. This Luis Ojeda character would be the sixth ex-coyote he’d corralled in the past four days. The other five were tired old duffers who hadn’t crossed the border since gas was only five bucks a gallon.

  But this Ojeda was in his forties, not much older than McGinley according to his file, though McGinley couldn’t say he was real impressed with that file. And that big Mex who’d come out twenty minutes back was Ramiro Esquivel, what they used to call a plaza boss back in the day before the cartels got all corporate and started using titles like “area manager.” Maybe Ojeda was stil
l in the game. Worth a look-see, at least.

  How to play this? McGinley didn’t expect much this first meeting; this was rattling the cage to see what the animal would do. A badge wouldn’t ruffle Ojeda’s feathers, most likely. He was probably used to the local ICE crew, and McGinley reckoned most of them went native a long time back. Hell, if they’d been doing their jobs, the Joint Task Force boys wouldn’t have dragged him all the way out here to look into why they couldn’t keep their rags in the camps where they belonged.

  Something alien to Ojeda might rile him up. Back home in Texas, McGinley could dress up nice and lose most of his accent and go talk sense into some peckerhead CEO who’s busing in illegals instead of just paying good Americans the same shit wages. But here, in California? The big asshole redneck seemed to shake up everyone. That was easy; all McGinley had to do was be like his dad.

  McGinley ambled across the cracked asphalt and through the shop’s glass doors. Streaming news about the Presidential primaries scratched away in the empty front office. He skirted the counter, peered through the window set in the back wall, then pushed past the half-opened door into the workshop. Five service bays, all full of expensive cars being taken apart or put back together, loud music, louder tools. He felt eyes on him, none of them friendly, not that he gave a shit. McGinley strolled toward a familiar face next to a bronze Lincoln Discovery SUV in the second bay, its glass and doors all gone.

  He flashed his badge once he’d closed in. “Luis Ojeda? Jack McGinley, ICE.”

  “Yeah?” Ojeda looked up from the slate perched on his forearm. He’d aged since the file photo; his short, wiry black hair had a fair sprinkling of gray around the ears now. Five-ten or so, fit, decent-looking enough squarish face, respectable blue button-down shirt and chinos. The pistol on his belt hinted at something harder under the surface. He said, “I was born here,” then waved toward the young bucks working on the cars. “So were they.”

  McGinley shrugged like it didn’t matter, which it didn’t anymore. “Why, congratulations, amigo.”

  Ojeda frowned. The accent? Good.

  “What I’m looking for here is five rags. In your ‘hood four-five days ago, now they’re gone.” The runners hadn’t been seen anywhere since they broke out. “Y’all know anything about this?”

  Ojeda glared at him, working his jaw. “Why would I?”

  “Because you’re a coyote, Ojeda.” McGinley swayed in another pace, trying to crowd Ojeda, push him out of his comfort zone. No reaction. Harder with the Latins than with whites; they didn’t have the same personal-space issues. “Just like your daddy was. If anyone ‘round here knows how to get them rags over the border, it’s you.”

  Dark spots began to bloom under Ojeda’s armpits. Just what McGinley wanted to see. “Your intel’s shit if that’s what you’re hearing. I’m just a guy trying to make a living. Besides, it’s illegal to leave the country now? I thought you people wanted them out.”

  The air wrench behind McGinley had stopped screaming. He glanced back to catch a shaggy-headed wrench monkey staring at him over the hood of some fancy-ass four-door McGinley didn’t recognize. McGinley showed him how a stare was really done, and after a minute the kid stalked to the workbench behind him.

  “It’s illegal to skip on a camp,” McGinley told Ojeda. “These five came out of Barstow, two weeks or so ago? Got told these boys were headed this way. Sound familiar?”

  “Heard about it on the news. More people must’ve got out than they said.”

  “Well, don’t believe anything you hear on the news.” The engine was ticking over behind Ojeda’s eyes, but he was still way too cool; time to rile him up. McGinley half-turned and waved across the cars. “I reckon it’s way too loud in here for you to think right. How ‘bout I just shut this place down a spell, so me and you can talk private-like.”

  Ojeda’s neck flushed red. “That’s money out of my pocket, cabrón. This a shakedown?”

  Score. “Should it be?” McGinley read the sudden heat coming off Ojeda and dropped back a couple steps, resting his right wrist on the pistol butt in his belt holster. Casual, just a reminder. The file said Ojeda had been Army in Afghanistan back in the day, so he’d probably been carrying as long as McGinley and knew how to use that weapon of his—what was it, a Sig Sauer? Serious piece, nothing cheap. Ojeda looped a thumb over the belt in front of his holster. Casual, just a reminder.

  For a long few seconds, McGinley stared at Ojeda, waiting for a twitch. Well, the man had some balls. Would he really draw down on a Fed? Hard telling. These days, people did what they had to to protect their turf or their lives, and a badge didn’t carry the same weight it used to.

  Finally, McGinley smirked and dropped his hand. He’d rattled the cage enough. “Well, then, Ojeda. Y’all keep your eyes and ears open. If you hear anything about these Muslim former Americans, you let me know right quick.” He stepped forward and flipped a business card out of his shirt pocket up into Ojeda’s face. “Meantime, I reckon I’ll find out where you’ve been the past few nights. Just curious, you know. Your daddy smuggled a lot of people into this country back in the day, and, well, like father, like son, right?”

  The red crept into Ojeda’s hairline. He might look respectable, but hit the secret button and he spun up right nice. “That business is over. Nobody wants to come to this country anymore. People like you saw to that.”

  “That so? Say, your son’s a Marine, ain’t he? Damn good training for the family business. All them long marches—”

  “Leave my son out of this,” Ojeda snapped. “Yeah, Dad was a coyote. That’s long done. Nacho’s got nothing to do with this, and he never will.” He snatched the card out of McGinley’s fingers. “Watch the door on your way out.”

  McGinley snorted, shook his head, looked around. “Some place you got here. It yours?”

  “No. I’m the manager. A Chinese guy up in Sierra Madre owns the chain.”

  “You don’t say.” He had to poke one last time. “Just wondering. If we ran an ID check on your boys yonder, how many do y’all think you’d lose?”

  Ojeda’s eyes had turned black and ice-cold. “Have a shitty day, McGinley.”

  “I often do, amigo.” He slapped Ojeda’s shoulder, turned and strolled outside.

  This one might be worth watching.

  4

  United States: Citizens traveling to or in the United States should be aware that U.S. security forces and many citizens are suspicious of anyone they believe to be of the Islamic faith…Boarding trains, undergrounds or commercial aircraft may be a lengthy, difficult, or possibly unpleasant experience and should be avoided whenever possible.

  — “Traveler’s Advisory,” Republic of Turkey Ministry of Foreign Affairs

  FRIDAY, 30 APRIL

  “All right, now, take your clothes off,” the TSA agent drawled. A black woman, hard-faced, mouth downturned, “Lebow” according to her ID. “All of ‘em. Put ‘em on the table.”

  Nora Khaled’s sense of humiliation scorched her cheeks. She’d been furious when she and her husband Paul and the kids got pulled out of the Dulles Airport security line and dragged back here. Now her brainspace filled with embarrassment that was only going to get worse.

  “Look,” she said as calmly as she could, “I know you have procedures, I get that. But I’m an FBI agent.” She held up her ID folder for the zillionth time this morning, hoping the badge would finally do some good. “A Federal officer, like you. Can’t we—”

  “Don’t care who you are, lady.” Lebow folded her wiry arms across her chest. “System says you’re a threat, so we gonna check you out. Now get your clothes off. The girl, too.”

  Nora glanced at Hope. Her daughter clung to her jeans pocket, staring wide-eyed at the woman. “You’re going to strip-search a four-year-old? Is that really necessary?” She nearly choked on her tongue, trying to fight down her rising anger.

  “Gotta see what’s under her clothes, so there’s no bomb or nothing.”

  �
�She’s just a baby!” Nora stopped, gulped down a breath when Lebow slid her hand toward her sidearm. “Do you have kids?”

  “Yeah. And they ain’t gonna get blown up by no terrorists, not if I can help it.” Lebow slipped her telescoping metal baton off her belt and extended it with a flick of her wrist. Hope whimpered. “Now you get yourself naked or I’ll get a coupla guys out there to come help, understand?”

  If only she could’ve worked out getting into Canada. They could have driven, avoided all this. But everyone wanted to go to Canada, and the Canucks were really cracking down, so getting a guide across the border would have cost more than her family had. Mexico wasn’t so choosy. Unfortunately, driving from D.C. all the way to Paul’s parents in Southern California—the cover reason for this trip—wasn’t an option.

  Nora had expected to be stopped at the airport, questioned, scanned multiple times, maybe frisked. She hadn’t counted on ending up in a frigid, overlit, windowless room with the most obnoxious TSA agent ever, on the verge of having the last of her and her daughter’s dignity ripped away.

  Nora over-carefully set her ID folder on the table—once again, the badge had failed her—and struggled to put her game face on. More than anything, she couldn’t let Hope be hurt by this. “Get undressed, Cupcake,” she whispered to Hope. “Put your things on the table.”

  “But why? Are we in trouble?”

  “No, no. We haven’t done anything wrong. It’s just…the rules. Be a good girl, okay?”

  Nora stripped quickly, ignoring Lebow, relying on sheer momentum to get her through. Paul and Peter were going through the same thing somewhere beyond that closed door. Paul never got used to institutional dehumanization the way Nora did in the Army; this would be so humiliating for him. She remembered how devastated her father—a born-again American patriot if there ever was one—had been the first time this had happened to him.

  At least these idiots were playing it by the book. Some women at the mosque had told her of being searched by male TSA agents.