Authors: Derek Blass
A border patrolman with an assault rifle walked out and stepped in front of the Chief's car. He held his hand up and the Chief came to a stop. “What the hell are you doing?” the patrolman asked in broken English. The Chief flashed his police badge to which the patrolman responded, “
Tu no mandas aqu
í
jefe
. This isn't your jurisdiction.”
“
I know,” the Chief responded. “I've got to get across due to an emergency.”
“
Next time you wait in line like the other
gringos
, okay?”
“
Sure.” The patrolman stepped aside and the Chief headed into Mexico. After a few minutes he stopped in front of a pharmacy fronted by two old dogs. They were both females, the same brown as the street, whose teats hung low off their mangy undersides. He rolled his window down and asked a passerby where Calle Roblado was. The man looked at the Chief warily and said, “
Dos quadras para all
í
y te das la izquierda—eso es Roblado.”
“
Any chance of getting that in English?” The man just shook his head and went on walking. The Chief headed to where the man had pointed and eventually found the street. He drove a while before seeing the house. It was set back a good hundred yards from the road, fronted by a waist-high stucco wall. The Chief kept driving down the street which eventually doubled back and started to go up the side of a large hill. After about ten minutes of going up switchbacks, he stopped on the side of the road where he had a good view of the house and pulled out binoculars.
Cars whizzed past him and sent up clouds of dust. An hour passed when he saw some movement at the front and back of the house. A man came out of the back of the house with a shotgun in his hand. He walked the perimeter of the backyard which was hemmed in by the natural flora. Two women came out of the front of the house and cautiously approached the top of the driveway. They looked both directions as they moved. The Chief zoomed in on the women and recognized one of them. It was the wife of the cop that had died. He didn't recognize the other woman, but judged it to be Martinez's wife.
The Chief watched the people move around the house before the women finally went back inside. The man in the backyard made his way to the front and sat down on the front porch, his shotgun draped across his lap. The Chief tapped his fingers slowly on the steering wheel as time passed. He faced a dilemma. Move in on the house now, when the occupants were clearly alert and it was full daylight, or wait until night fell but when Martinez was sure to have arrived. The Chief picked up his phone, figuring it would be best to make a move before Martinez and whoever he decided to bring arrived.
“
Hey, I need a favor.”
“
Now what,” answered the gruff voice of a man.
“
I need you and another gun to help me secure a hostage. They're located in a house not that far from where you're usually at.”
“
You're down here,
cabron
?”
“
Sure am. I've been watching the house where the hostage is located for a while and it looks like the occupants are on guard.”
“
Listen, before you start with your shit, my debt to you is gone. This,
te va a costar
. You're going to pay.” The Chief winced at the answer but knew he was in no position to drive a hard bargain. The man on the other end of the line was Jorge “El Tiburon” Lopez, a notorious drug dealer and human trafficker. Jorge escaped charges in the United States thanks to the Chief. He was another in the long list of criminals the Chief brought onto the books.
That was how the Chief built his list of connections over the last twenty-five years—a debt collector of criminals. These exchanges undoubtedly corrupted his soul, but it wasn't like he fought it off. The Chief was always bent the wrong way. As a child he recalled torturing his family's dog for pleasure, for the feeling of control. Growing up he would manipulate the dumber children in his classes to do things like steal money for him from other kids. It was a natural transition to manipulating the generally dumb confederacy of criminals.
None of that mattered to Jorge. A person unafraid to kill or be killed was not easily manipulated, and the Chief did not have time to work him over right now.
“
How much is it gonna cost?” the Chief asked.
“
Five grand a person.”
“
Come on! It's only an hour. Two grand a piece is more than fair.”
Jorge laughed, “You are funny
jefe
. You are on
my
home court and you must be desperate to come to the barrio desert. Five thousand each or you can die in this
pinche hell hole
of Mexico. Plus, I'm good company and you know it.”
“
Bastard,” the Chief said, only because he knew both statements were true. “I've got the money.”
“
Where do you want me to meet you?”
“
I've gone a little beyond the end of Calle Roblado, up a hill overlooking the house.”
“
Exciting! You sound like James Bond,
jefe
. There is a small bar up the hill. I will meet you there in twenty minutes.”
The Chief threw his cell phone onto the passenger seat and picked up his binoculars again. The man sitting in front of the house was still there, but close to sleeping. The Chief studied his tiny face through the binoculars, grunted and set the binoculars down. A short time later a black pickup truck tore up the road behind him and passed, sending rocks clanging into the side of his car. The Chief pulled out onto the road and followed up to the meeting place.
It was a very old, small bar. The kind a movie director would kill to find. A triangular sign hung from two cords over the door, “Lookout Saloon.” Boards were missing from the steps leading up to the front door. The Chief avoided the rotted handrail for fear of toppling over.
“
You like it?!” Jorge bellowed.
“
Fancy.”
“
It's been here for ninety-seven years.”
“
Looks like two hundred.”
The Chief stepped past Jorge's broad frame into the bar. “A whiskey,” he called out. The barman looked at him and then at Jorge who nodded his head.
“
El dinero
first.”
“
Here,” the Chief said while handing Jorge a thick, white envelope. Jorge stared at the Chief as he put the envelope in his jacket pocket.
“
So what the hell is this about?”
“
Is it just you? There's ten thousand in there. You said that would buy you and someone else.”
Jorge flung his head back in the direction of the barman. “Chico will come too.” The barman lifted his head up when he heard his name, but went back to his work when they didn't call for him. “What's it about?”
“
A kidnapping.”
“
Oh shit, I thought this was serious,
hombre
!”
“
It's a cop's wife. Some unfortunate things took place over the last week and it's time to burn the loose ends.”
“
A fellow officer? Another member of the blue crew? Cold
hombre
. Must be some serious shit for you to fuck over one of your own like this.”
“
Serious enough. I expect there to be several men defending the place...”
“
What place?”
“
The home of some Raul Dominguez...”
“
Ay chingao
! Raul? You crazy shit!”
“
You said five thousand a person,” the Chief said, cutting off the impending renegotiation.
“
But you didn't say Raul's place.”
The Chief moved his glass of whiskey around in his hand. “What's the big deal?”
“
Shit—you can expect more than several men defending Raul's place. He usually has a bunch of people just chillin', 'specially if he knows he's gotta defend.”
“
I've only seen one guy working the perimeter.”
“
You don't know how many are inside.”
“
I haven't seen a ton of movement inside, even after watching for a while,” the Chief responded.
Jorge leaned across the narrow table, “Look
hombre
, you can wish or you can believe. I am telling you what the fuck exists in that place.” Jorge paused and then sat back in his chair. “What about the husband, he gonna be there?”
“
By the time we get moving, I expect so.”
“
Good cop?”
“
Morally?”
“
What the hell do I care about morals? No. Is he a good fighter.”
“
One of our best. Morally and the other way.”
“
Damn
jefe
, even if you get out of this you know you're fucked.”
The Chief gave Jorge a long look. “Been fucked for a while, you know, Jorge?” Jorge looked away and called for Chico.
“
How about one of these j
efe
. Take that edge off,” he said handing the Chief a pack of Marlboro Reds.
“
I can't inhale that crap.” Jorge kept his hand extended and nodded his head at the pack. Two years since the Chief had quit, cold turkey, after seventeen years of smoking. Finely rolled cigarette, brown tobacco leaves puckering their sweet, brown lips at him. He grabbed the pack, pulled one out, lit it using a worn candle on the table and vomited up a lung coughing. Jorge roared. “Fucking Reds.”
* * * *
Cruz sat in the back of Martinez's vehicle, speeding through time. Staring at Sandra who quivered when they hit large bumps. He brushed her forehead with the back of his hand.
“
How's she doing?” Martinez asked.
“
Same.”
“
We're about to cross the border. If they ask, she's sleeping.”
“
She is.”
“
You know what I mean.” Cruz did know what he meant and wondered why he chose to be semantic. Stress like this turned him into a demon. He looked up from Sandra and saw the border checkpoint ahead. There was no line and they flowed on through. The only mark of their passage into Mexico were two thumps.
Sandra stirred and opened her brown eyes, currently blood red and searching.
“
Where are we?”
“
Mexico,” Cruz answered. Alfonso peered around from the front seat to see what was going on.
“
Who's that?” Sandra asked while clamping onto Cruz's arm.
The question unnerved Cruz a bit. He reassured himself that the shock affected her memory. “That's Diego's son, Alfonso. Remember?”
“
The traitor's son?”
“
Yes.” Alfonso shifted uneasily in his seat.
“
My head is killing me. Does my face look that bad?” Sandra asked, finding a moment to be a woman.
Cruz paused, experienced enough to carefully word his response. “Those blisters will heal.”
“
My eyes still aren't adjusted from that light,” she said as she repositioned herself on Cruz. With that, she was back asleep. Cruz looked out the window at the just-inside-the-border mess around them. Men in straw hats and tired sandals pushing little carts around with bells on the handle. Calling out “
helado”
every few steps. Women in pressed white shirts and red skirts riding up their thick thighs stood on street corners. Every other store was a pharmacy. The delicious irony of a Mexican border town providing life support to the first world. They arrived a few minutes later.
The house was set back in the lot. A man sat solemnly on the front porch. His face was a series of hems, time strewn across his face. Brown skin hardened and sheened from the sun. A pristine, white hat, pulled down just above his eyes.
The front door sprung open and a woman came running out. She went straight to Martinez and jumped on his hips, straddling his waist and deluging him with kisses. A tall, stout man came out next. He stood in the doorway and smiled at Martinez.
“
C
ó
mo estas hermano
?”
“
Man, it's been a long time Raul,” Martinez said while returning the smile. So this was Raul, Cruz thought to himself. Martinez told Cruz a bit about his brother-in-law during the car ride. He grew up in the Chicano Movement during the late 60s. Father—a revolutionary and leader in the movement. Mother—educator and medic to the warriors. Martinez said—and it was all conjecture—that he worked with revolutionary groups in Mexico like the Zapatistas. Wooden stairs creaked as he made his way off of the porch and came down to shake Martinez's hand.
Martinez set his wife down and turned to Cruz and Sandra, who had just edged past the open car door.
“
Carmen and Raul, this is Cruz, Sandra and Alfonso there in the front seat.” Martinez gestured for Alfonso to come out of the car.
“
Who are they?” Raul asked. He looked at them guardedly. A black cowboy hat with a red insignia on the front was in his hand. He wore a black, western-style shirt neatly tucked into his blue jeans. Cruz saw the same insignia on Raul's belt buckle, which was reflecting the setting sun.