The Rules of Wolfe, page 9
If the kid looks for a guide in either place, Tiburón says, we’ll have him.
The Boss agrees with Tiburón’s assessment of Porter’s intentions and approves of the actions he has taken to try to intercept him. But the assessment is full of “ifs” and it’s clear enough that despite Tiburón’s efforts to nail the kid at the frontier, the fucker may still get away.
Keep me posted, the Boss says. His tone a cool veneer over his anger.
p
He deliberates briefly after the report from Tiburón and then taps a number into his phone.
A recorded voice says, “Digame.”
The dealership has a new truck in stock, says the Boss. Very good price. Give him a call. And presses the “off” button.
Not a minute later his phone rings and he says “Bueno” and a man asks, What is it?
Are you free to accept it immediately?
I am as always free to do as I please. Tell me what it is and I’ll tell you if I want it.
They have done business with each other a few times before, the Boss and this man—whose name is Humberto Xinalma, although most have heard of him only as El Martillo. A large man of great strength, he is a former member of a band of Mexican Special Forces deserters known as Los Zetas, an organization of enforcers for the Gulf cartel—though the Zetas have recently formed their own drug operation as well as begun vending their enforcement services to other organizations besides the Gulf people. More than a year ago, however, El Martillo went into business for himself and has fared well as an independent contractor. It is said that he could have been an excellent police detective, that he misses no detail, that he can know your next move before you do. He works with a partner named José Sarasate, known as El Pico, tall and lean and clean-shaven, with an almond-shaped head, and he too is a former Zeta. They are natives of Nogales and thoroughly familiar with the desert, and both can speak English. On their most recent assignment for the Boss, they put a stop to the snooping of a pair of nettlesome newspaper reporters from Aguascalientes, leaving the heads on the front seat of their editor’s car.
After the Boss gives him a summary of the situation with Porter, Martillo says, You did not say how he killed your brother.
Strangled. From behind.
He’s that good? This kid?
He’s been that lucky.
He offers Martillo the usual fee if he kills him and can prove he did. Should the proof consist of Porter’s head, he gets a bonus of twenty-five percent. Should he deliver Porter to him alive, his fee will be doubled. Should someone else get Porter first, Martillo may keep one-third of the advance.
If necessary, do I go over the line to complete the job? Martillo asks.
The Boss understands it’s riskier over there and he agrees to Martillo’s price if he has to cross the border to get him. I don’t care if you have to chase him to fucking Chicago, he says.
Understood, Martillo says. You say he’s now around Guaymas?
That’s the latest information.
One moment, Martillo says. And a few seconds later says, I’ll take it. Payment by the usual arrangement.
Of course, the Boss says.
Send the information to Mamá García’s, Martillo says, referring to a backstreet diner in Hermosillo, one of many Sonora venues he uses as message centers.
It’s on the way, the Boss says. Will you give me periodic reports?
He already knows the answer, and Martillo knows he knows, and says nothing.
Others do, Boss says.
Am I others? Martillo says.
The Boss checks his irritation. All right, I’ll hear from you when I do.
Correct, Martillo says.
10
Alberto Desmayo
Alberto Desmayo is having a late-morning coffee at a restaurant near the Plazuela Rosales and ogling a happy group of chattering teenage girls in miniskirts at a nearby table when Mono Vásquez comes rushing in and sits down beside him. In a breathless whisper Mono gives him the news of Porter’s killing of El Segundo the night before and his escape with Segundo’s bitch. The story has been racing through the Company. Vásquez is a member of Desmayo’s arms pickup crew and well remembers the Porter kid and the shooting exhibition he put on at Patria Chica.
They say the Boss had Morales brought to the office and chewed his ass for hiring the fucker, Vásquez whispers. The guys were taking bets if Morales would come out alive but he was lucky. Anyway, the word is, they got Porter cut off every way but by car. They say he’s headed north and gonna try crossing the frontier on foot. Fucker’s gotta be crazy. The Boss has promised a fat reward to the guy who brings him the kid’s head. Man, wouldn’t I like to collect that!
Why don’t you try?
Give me the time off with pay and I will.
Go fuck yourself, Desmayo says. He stands up and brushes crumbs from his shirtfront. While you’re doing that, I’ll be fucking a little cutie I got waiting for me across town.
He ambles out of the restaurant. And as soon as he’s out of Vásquez’s sight he hurries to his car and then speeds for home. He has worked for the Company for almost four years and he well knows how unforgiving the Boss can be toward underlings who make serious mistakes. He cannot be sure the Boss will regard his recommendation of Porter to Morales as a serious mistake but neither can he be sure that he won’t. Better to disappear in his own way than in the Boss’s.
An hour later—with all the money from his closed-out bank accounts and only a pair of suitcases, accompanied by his young wife and baby daughter—he is on a train bound for Tenango, Guatemala, where his brother-in-law owns a lumber mill and will be glad to have him as an affluent partner.
If they had not had to wait at the station for twenty minutes for their train to arrive, Desmayo would not have made the telephone call. But standing in the waiting room and seeing a station phone booth so nearby and available, he felt a tug of obligation. The Littles had held to their side of the arrangement and made the deposits into his bank every week. They did not deserve to go uninformed. He went into the booth and made the call and quickly told the person at the other end all that he had heard, but did not give the man a chance to ask any questions before wishing them luck and hanging up.
11
Eddie and Miranda
Eddie parks the Durango under a shade tree on a side street and gets out. She slides behind the wheel and watches him walk to a used car lot a block away. In his pocket is the Mexican currency they took from Segundo. A half hour later he drives out in a battered 1989 Ford F-150 pickup of pale green with a rusty white camper top. Its odometer shows 156,000 miles, but its V-6 engine is sound, its air conditioner functional, and its backcountry tires show ample tread. A fifteen-year-old vehicle of good disguise, beat-up and homely but tough as a tractor.
She follows him to a shopping plaza parking lot where they abandon the Durango. He asks directions to the nearest secondhand clothing store and they go there and buy faded pants and shirts, field shoes, a small army backpack of waterproof canvas. She assures him her tote is waterproof and she doesn’t need a hardier bag. They next go to a shopping mall and buy a Guaymas map and supplies to clean and freshly bandage his wound, buy beach shorts, T-shirts, sneakers, bandannas, straw hats, snazzy black-and-orange Hermosillo Naranjeros baseball caps, a guayabera shirt for him and sandals for her. While he waits in line to pay at the register, she seeks out a large comb and a pair of barber scissors and, to keep these items a secret from him, pays for them at another counter.
They sip Cokes at the mall food court and he studies the Guaymas map, and then goes to a telephone stand and leafs through the chain-attached directory. He had at first thought to get clear of the city as soon as they could and then sleep in the truck somewhere out in open country. But now he thinks it is safer to rest a few hours in one of the old seaside motels a few miles west of the city. He doubts the Sinas will even try to distribute their descriptions to every single hotel and motel in town, but even if they should, if he keeps his blue eyes and facial scar covered and she hides her shiner, there will be nothing about their appearance to make them stand out from any other of the many young couples enjoying a weekend at the beach.
p
He pulls into the gravel driveway of Vista del Mar, a weathered assemblage of single-story units on a two-lane road fronting a beach of gravel and dark sand. He does not take off his sunglasses in the office, where he registers as Juan Castelos and wife, of Hermosillo. He then parks the truck in front of their room and detaches the M-16 into its two basic parts so it will fit in the backpack without jutting out and puts the MAC in there too. He locks the truck and wedges a matchbook cover into the bottom seam of the driver’s door.
The room has a strong odor of disinfectant that does not entirely suppress the smells of wood rot and mold and of the numberless other people who have passed through here. There’s a window air conditioner but when she turns it on it produces such a clatter he tells her to switch it off and open the window to admit the sea breeze and let them hear what goes on outside.
He takes off his shirt and the money belt and she removes the rolled scarf from his waist and sees that the wound has begun to scab. The wadded sock is stuck to it, and he winces when she snatches it off. She cleans the burn with peroxide and coats it lightly with salve and bandages it with gauze pads and adhesive tape.
He empties the money belt and counts the American currency, which amounts to twenty-two thousand dollars. Holy Mary, she says. We’re rich. He smiles at her notion of rich and replaces the cash in the belt.
He feels they’re safe here but still thinks they should take turns sleeping and keeping watch. He volunteers for the first turn and sits in a plastic chair by the window, the MAC on his lap, while she naps, stripped to her panties against the heat.
Their truck is in clear view from the windows but his gaze keeps returning to her, and despite his fatigue he is roused repeatedly. When he wakes her after two hours, he has taken off his clothes. She smiles at his readiness and draws him down to her. It is a swift and urgent mating, and on its completion she says, Jesus, I know some people around here who can really use a shower.
They cram themselves into the tiny stall, the MAC within reach in the sink. They soap each other to a lather and fuck standing up and climax with water cascading on their heads, her face against his neck.
I don’t know what it is, she says in low gasps. It’s like I’m . . . starving. Do I sound crazy?
Yeah. But I know what you mean.
She looks up at him, blinking against the spattering water.
It’s good to be alive, he says.
She grins and kisses him.
His bandage is soaked and has begun to peel away, and after they dry themselves she applies a fresh one. Then she puts on a T-shirt and shorts and sneakers and takes over at the lookout chair, armed with the Glock. He puts the MAC under the other pillow and flops naked on the bed and is asleep in seconds.
She lets him sleep for an hour longer than she slept. When she wakes him the swollen red sun is almost down to the sea. And he sees that she has scissored her hair to a ragged crop that bares her ears and nape.
She sits on the edge of the bed and turns her head from one side to the other. Surprise, she says.
Sure is.
You don’t like it.
I don’t know. Give me a chance to wake up. He reaches up and runs a hand over her head. Then grins. I like it.
Really?
Makes you look like a nice sweet girl.
She hits him in the chest. I am a nice sweet girl, you dickhead. Tomorrow I’ll tie down my tits. We’ll be a couple of guys in a truck.
He pulls her down on top of him and runs his hand through her hair again. So you’re a guy, huh? Oh God, I must be turning queer.
She laughs and gently bites his lip.
p
Wearing shorts and T-shirts, sneakers and baseball caps, they walk with their arms around each other past the garish lights of the roadside motels and a few loud cantinas to a small eatery about a half mile down the beach. The Taurus and the money belt are under his guayabera, the Glock is in her little shoulder tote. Eddie’s made a tally of their ammunition and found that the M-16 still holds twenty-one rounds, the MAC eleven, the Glock nine. The Taurus is fully loaded with seventeen, plus one in the chamber. Always know how many bullets you’ve got left. Stone rule. He has shown her how to handle the Taurus and told her of the cop’s fatal mistake, and she has practiced working the safety lever with the thumb of her shooting hand.
The thatch-roofed dining area is open-air, without walls on three sides, lighted by low-watt yellow bulbs strung along the ceiling. Ranchero music issues from scratchy speakers on the wall. There are few patrons at this early evening hour.
They sit at a dim corner table next to the railing that faces the beach road and the black Gulf beyond. The horizon is barely defined between the black sky and blacker sea, the darkness pierced only by the stars and the lights of scattered fishing boats. Since boyhood Eddie has been ever aware of the lunar phases and he knows a new moon is but a night away and tonight’s thin crescent won’t appear until shortly before dawn. He tells her so and she says she knows it. Her father was a fisherman, she reminds him. The moon was always of importance.
The seafood stew they order comes in large steaming bowls and is thick with shrimp, oysters, crab, white chunks of fish, seasoned with tomatoes and garlic and peppers. They mop sweat from their faces as they eat. Then both have a second bowl with another stack of tortillas hot from the griddle and another round of icy bottles of Bohemia.
They converse just loud enough to hear each other over the music. His plan had been to rest up until full dark, then drive through the night and make it to the Arizona border before sunrise. But he has changed his mind. The roads through the desert will probably be tough enough to negotiate in daylight, never mind in the dark. They would risk getting lost. And on the wild chance that they get spotted by a Sinas lookout roving around out there, they would be less apt to raise suspicion if they’re poking along in their heap of a truck in broad daylight than if they’re only a pair of headlights in the dead of night. Better to stay in the motel till morning before moving on. If nothing goes wrong, if they don’t break down or get lost, they’ll still make it to the border before dark.
Nothing will go wrong, she says. It is a good plan.
Glad to hear it, he says. But then everything sounds like a good plan to you.
Because any plan is better than no plan.
They buy two more Bohemias to take with them. As they stroll along the beach she takes off her cap and folds it into her back pocket and ruffles her cropped hair, then slips off her sneakers and carries them in one hand and runs splashing into the foamy sheets rushing up from the breakers.
It feels so wonderful! she says. She kicks water at him and spins in a circle like a happy child.
He has an urge to take off his shoes too, but you don’t want to be barefoot if you might at any moment have to run or fight.
She comes and stands beside him and they stare out at the dark water. He says it is the first time in months that he has been to the seaside. He loves the sea and has missed it very much.
Ah yes, she says, the other gulf.
She says she has always lived near the sea and cannot imagine being away from it for very long. In childhood she often used to fish with a hand line in a brackish inlet of Mazatlán, and one afternoon she caught a fish three feet long with a long snout full of sharp teeth. Someone told her it was a gar, a trash fish and poisonous to eat, so she threw it aside, thinking she would later cut it up for bait, but she forgot about it. The next morning when she went back to do more fishing the gar was still lying next to the seawall. She kicked it into the water and watched it slowly sink. Then it suddenly twitched and stopped sinking. Then waggled its tail and swam away. She was astonished. How could any fish have lived out of water for so long? It must have held very tight to the last breath it took, she says. Think of the will that required.
She had not thought of that gar in years until the first time she went to Rancho del Sol. I had never before been so far from the sea, she says, and I felt a little bit like I was holding my breath until I could get back to where I belonged. But of course I am not so tough as that fish. I could never live on one breath for so long.
Alligator gars, we call them, he says. Plenty of them where I come from. They’re survivors from way the hell back before there were people on the earth, and they sure look it. Saw one over five feet long in the river one time, swimming along the surface like they do. One of the guys in the boat shot it in the head with a twenty-two and it just turned aside and swam off.
