“No,” the Guide said. “Nobody leaves the group.”
So they got C.C. in the van and gunned the accelerator, made it to the highway. They drove north into the dark plains of Oklahoma, listening for sirens that never came.
C.C.’s breath smelled like raw meat. The wound oozed.
They’d just passed the city limits sign when C.C. spat up blood, tried to wipe his chin and shuddered for the last time.
They dug C.C. a shallow grave in the red earth of a creek bed. They shoveled dirt on his open eyes. A little sneer traced his mouth, like he was going to tell Satan a thing or two.
The Guide took it in stride. He kept the same calm expression as when faced with police roadblocks, or WANTED signs in grocery stores, or the hotel night manager who had the fugitives’ faces on the television as they checked in for the night. The Guide was a Freon-blooded son-of-a-bitch, just like his boss, Will Stirman.
Third day together, now, and Luis still didn’t know the Guide’s name. Luis didn’t trust him any more than when they’d first met in the Floresville Wal-Mart parking lot, when the Guide had given them all fresh clothes and guns, cell phones with clean numbers-Luis and Pablo exchanging looks, silently promising they would keep in touch.
Stirman had said, “Take these folks to Canada. Get ’em set with paperwork and cash. Anything they want.”
Luis had never trusted that promise. He tried to believe it would happen, because he had nothing else. He’d never really cared about going home to El Paso. And there was no chance he or Elroy could have made it so far on their own. The Guide had saved their asses a dozen times already.
Luis knew the Canada trip was a diversion. It was a false flare to make the police think Stirman was going north. Luis just hoped he and Elroy wouldn’t end up like C.C.
“Least we take some heat off you, cuz,” he told Pablo. “Hope you get back to Angelina. Brother Stirman treating you right?”
Pablo stared out the warehouse windows, over miles of San Antonio railways.
Angelina. All he wanted was to see her.
Pablo didn’t have the heart to tell Luis what he and Stirman had been doing-how C.C.’s death sounded like a joyride compared to his last two days.
I own you, amigo, Stirman had told him. You are my new right-hand man.
Pablo remembered yesterday morning, in this room, holding a video camera for hours as Will Stirman interrogated the former owner of this warehouse, who used to be Stirman’s right-hand man.
“I’m cool,” Pablo told Luis. “Just be careful. I keep thinking, maybe me and Angelina-”
“Guide’s coming, man,” Luis whispered. “I got to go.”
The line went dead.
Pablo kept his eyes on the rain. He didn’t want to turn and see the work that was waiting for him.
He thought about the night four and a half years ago in El Paso when he’d lost everything, drinking straight tequila in a bar on Airway Boulevard while a so-called good neighbor stoked his worst fears into anger. He was over there again last night while you were at work, ese. I hate to tell you this, but there ain’t no doubt. If I was you…
Pablo remembered very little about loading his shotgun, driving home.
He rubbed his eyes to get rid of the memory.
Stirman had promised a chartered plane from Stinson Field. There was a drug runners’ airstrip near Calabras, in the mountains south of Juarez, only a few miles from El Paso. Pablo would be able to contact his wife from there. All he had to do was a few more days of service for Stirman.
Pablo mastered his nerves.
He turned. Behind him, waiting patiently in their metal chairs, were two corpses-a pair of fucking nobodies he had to dispose of before Stirman got back. Stirman hadn’t even hated these guys. They just happened to have some information he wanted. They’d recently seen some people Stirman was looking for. So after their heartfelt conversation, Stirman had let them die pretty easy, which was why you could still sort of recognize Lalu and Kiko Ortiz’s faces through the burn marks.
Will Stirman focused on the boy.
Fred Barrow’s widow was in the drop-off line for the school summer camp. There were nine cars in front of her.
The boy had his arm out the passenger’s window. He was drumming his fingers against the Audi’s door. He had a mop of black hair, a coffee complexion that was nothing like his mother’s.
The people Will had questioned didn’t know much about the kid. He was adopted, they thought. From somewhere overseas. Not Fred Barrow’s blood, anyway. They looked at Stirman through their pain, as if wondering why the hell he cared. What was one more kid to a monster like him?
Will pulled out of line and parked on the side of the traffic circle. He didn’t have much time to think. He had misjudged the kind of place Erainya Manos would be going to. He had tailed her right into this wooded campus for the ultra-rich, the parking lot full of Hummers and Cadillac Escalades. His stolen Honda Civic stuck out like a skinhead in a Juneteenth parade. Soon, the uniformed security guard directing traffic would wonder what Will was doing.
It pissed him off that a place like this could make him feel so nervous.
Maximum security prison was no problem. But a bunch of moms dropping their kids off at soccer camp-that made Will’s palms sweat. It pissed him off that Barrow’s widow sent her son to this school. No way could she afford it. It rubbed Will’s failure in his face, flaunted what Fred Barrow had done to him.
Seven cars before Erainya Manos reached the drop-off point.
Will thought about the first time he’d met Soledad, in the burning fields.
It had been one of Dimebox Ortiz’s stupider ideas. He’d decided to let this group of illegals out of the truck just before the Border Patrol checkpoint, let them walk a few miles through the sugarcane fields, then pick them up on the other side. He forgot it was March-burning season.
Next thing, he was calling Will in a panic. Dimebox was at the rendezvous point and the illegals weren’t there. He saw smoke-the whole area where the group was supposed to walk was on fire. Farmers were burning their crops as part of the yearly harvest.
Fortunately, Will had been working a deal down in Harlingen, only a couple of miles away. He dropped what he was doing and got there in under ten minutes.
By that time, he could hear the screaming. And if he could hear it, he figured the farmers and the Border Patrol could, too.
He ran into the fields, toward the fire, and a young woman burst through the sugarcane. She was coughing, smoke rising from her clothes. She smelled like burnt syrup.
She crashed right into his arms and said in Spanish, “There are two more! Right in there!”
Will heard a megaphone in the distance. Border Patrol: instructions in Spanish, warning the illegals to get out of the fields.
“No tiempo,” Stirman told the woman. “La Migra.”
He started to pull her toward the truck, but she fought him. Her strength surprised him.
“You will get them!” she ordered.
Will looked at her seriously for the first time. She could have been a special order. She was that beautiful. Maybe seventeen. Mayan complexion, large eyes, long black hair. She wore a man’s denim work shirt and tattered jeans. She was barefoot. But Will could imagine her cleaned up, in a nice dress. Getting her north would be enough to turn a profit from this disaster.
“All right,” he said. “Wait here.”
He plunged into the fields. The Border Patrol megaphone was getting louder. If La Migra found Will, or Dimebox Ortiz waiting in his truck up the road, they would start asking questions. Will would be screwed.
He found two older women collapsed in the smoke, and managed to get them to stand. They leaned on him, coughing and stumbling, and together they got away from the fire. The younger woman helped him get them to the truck.
“What about all the others?” the girl asked.
Will looked at her, ready to hit her, but he restrained himself. “They are dead, or taken. If we don’t leave now, you will be, too.”
He could tell she didn’t like it, but she let him put her in the back of the truck. Will got in back, too. He wasn’t sure why. He let Ortiz do the driving.
As they were heading north, the two older women collapsed in the corner, the girl asked him, “Are you really going to let us go in San Antonio?”
Will was about to give his standard lie, but her eyes stopped him. He wasn’t used to seeing such fight. Usually the young women were placid. They did what they were told. They were too terrified not to.
He said, “What’s your name?”
“Soledad.”
Loneliness. He liked that name.
She had a single piece of jewelry-a silver Saint Anthony charm hanging on a necklace between her breasts. Will’s cargo rarely wore jewelry. They rarely had any left to wear, after they’d paid him. The medallion must have been important to her.
“You’re going to have to work in San Antonio,” he told her. “Work for men. Do you understand?”
Her eyes bored into him. He started to feel uncomfortable.
“No, I’m not,” she said. “You’re not going to let me.”
“Why is that?”
“Because of the fields,” she said. “You owe me a debt.”
“Sorry,” he said.
She slapped him across the face.
He was too surprised to react.
They sat there in silence, sweating in the heat and the smell of burnt sugar. Soledad ignored him, but Will kept looking at her, and the more he looked, the more he couldn’t stop looking.
In San Antonio, he let Dimebox Ortiz take the women to get cleaned up. Dimebox agreed that Soledad would fetch a good price. Will didn’t like the way Dimebox looked at her.
After three sleepless nights, Will showed up at the auction and paid Soledad’s price himself. He outbid his own clients. Five thousand dollars.
Something in her eyes told him that Soledad wasn’t surprised. She knew he would come. She grabbed his hand and started pulling him toward the door, as if he was the one who had been purchased.
When he hesitated, she said, “Well? Are you scared of me?”
Will had paid for a lifetime with her. Soledad had lived just over a year.
For that, someone owed Will a debt.
There were now three cars in front of Erainya Manos.
Will could step outside, calmly walk over to her Audi. He could get in the back seat, press his gun against the kid’s spine, tell Erainya Manos to pull out of line and drive. That would work-simple and clean.
Two cars in front of her.
Will hated that Fred Barrow was dead. The fact this woman had shot Barrow didn’t make Will fond of her. On the contrary, she had cheated him. She had messed up his revenge.
The other PI, Sam Barrera-Will knew how to handle him. Barrera was a dealmaker. He would’ve gotten the video by now. He would follow instructions. He’d think he could control the situation without going to the police, and his overconfidence would kill him.
But Fred Barrow’s widow-she was a wild card. Will didn’t know her well enough. He couldn’t kill her until he was sure he would get what he needed.
One car left in the drop-off line.
He had sworn on Soledad’s memory that he would not hurt women or children. Never again. He would not become like his enemies.
He imagined Fred Barrow grinning from his little corner of hell, mocking Will’s resolve: Think you’re better than me, asshole? Walk away.
Will watched Erainya’s boy get out of the Audi with his soccer gear.
The carpool attendant clapped the boy on the back. The boy went jogging off toward the building. Fred Barrow’s widow pulled away and was gone.
A security guard appeared at Will’s car window. Will hadn’t even seen him coming.
“Can I help you, sir?”
Will wanted to drive a switchblade into the young man’s throat.
Instead he said, “Supposed to get my son. I must’ve got it wrong. When’s pickup for soccer?”
“It hasn’t even started yet, sir. You probably read the drop-off time.”
“I probably did.”
“Pickup time is two o’clock.”
“Oh, hell. Two. Sure.”
Will pulled out, waving his thanks, and took the school exit at a leisurely ten miles an hour.
Two o’clock. Time to oil his gun and make plans about the boy.
No more indecision.
Erainya Manos would cooperate. Hell, yes, she would.