Fifty Grand

4 SLAVE SOUK

The warehouse bakes. Outside, snow. Snow I have never seen. I looked for it in Mexico City on top of Popocatépetl. Saw nothing but ozonic haze.

“The fuck is this?” the man asks, folding his hands behind his back, looking at us skeptically.

He points his finger at Paco.

“What the fuck are you supposed to be?” he asks.

Paco shrugs. The man towers over him, could pulverize him, but somehow Paco’s slouch and silence is all insolence, as if he has the power, not the tall American.

The man turns to Pedro. “I mean, seriously. Two boys, two women, and a fucking old man. This is gotta be a joke. Where’s the real merchandise?”

Merchandise. That’s what we are.

“I just bring them in,” Pedro says.

“Yeah, that’s right, you just fucking bring ’em in.”

“At considerable risk,” Pedro adds, and he can’t help but give me half a glance.

“How old are you?” the man asks Paco.

Pedro translates the question. “Twenty-eight,” Paco says.

“Like hell, and the other one’s even younger. Hold out your hands, both of you,” he says.

Pedro translates again.

Paco and the Guatemalan kid hold out their hands. He examines them for scar tissue and blisters and shakes his head.

“These are town boys. Juárez trash. Neither’s done a hard day’s work in their fucking lives. Christ… This is really pathetic. I need strong guys for construction. Not fucking children, women, and old-timers.”

He takes off his hat, a peaked cap that says DON’T TREAD ON ME, whatever that’s supposed to mean.

Without the hat he seems even taller. Six foot six. Two hundred and fifty pounds. About forty-five. I give him a cop’s look and memorize the details. Lines on his face, scar below his ear. He dyes his crew-cut hair a chestnut brown, but lets his goatee keep the flecks of gray. His voice is harsh but not strained. He’s used to having authority, to being in command. Likes it. His back is straight and his belly fat is contained. Not like the Americans of The Simpsons or the Yuma flicks. Athletic. Strong. Jaw like an axe head. He’s the type that landed on the moon when Jefe was boasting about a 10 percent increase in sugarcane production.

“You. What’s your name?”

“María.”

“María. Course it is. You know what the problem with your fucking culture is? No fucking originality. Indian blood. Fucking ten thousand years and no one invents the wheel. Shee-it.”

“María, Elizabeth,” I improvise.

“Where are you from?” he asks.

“Yucatán.”

“The Yucatán. I know it. Ever been to Chicxulub?”

I shake my head.

“Fuck no. Why would you? That’s where the comet hit the Earth that wiped out the dinosaurs. Why would you want to go there? Jesus, no fucking curiosity either.”

I nod and our eyes meet and I look down at the concrete floor.

“And what do you do María, Elizabeth?” he says, coming close, his sternum an inch from my nose.

He’s wearing cowboy boots, boot-cut black jeans, and a long wool overcoat. On another man it would be a costume in lieu of a personality, but not him. This is his attire. And you couldn’t see it unless you were looking, but I am looking, and the bulge is a gun in his coat pocket.

He puts his finger under my chin and tilts my head.

His eyes are blue-gray, distant, like ash.

“I was a maid,” I say. “I worked in many of the Western hotels in Cancún.”

“This ain’t Cancún,” he says.

Pedro senses trouble. The others think I’m lucky, but Pedro knows I’m good. He’s never seen moves like that before. I’m not a cop or a federale otherwise I’d have called it in. But I am something. And the sooner he’s shut of me, the better.

“She has worked also as a nurse and she is strong and she is good with children,” Pedro says.

The man sniffs me like a bear. “Whored before?” he asks in Spanish.

I shake my head.

“Well, if you’re gonna start, you better start now. Getting too old as it is.”

He turns to Pedro. “Is she a breeder or what?”

Pedro shrugs.

“You got kids?” the man asks me.

“No.”

“A hundred a week, domestic. Hard fucking labor. But five times that giving working guys a little R-and-R. Think about it. Esteban will give you the lowdown,” he says.

He touches my cheek with his forefinger. Paco flinches, but I look at him to show that it’s all right. The man smiles and strokes my hair. I decide that-despite the plan-if he touches my breasts I’m going to kick him in the ballsack and when he’s down I’ll attempt to break his nose with the bottom of my shoe.

He looks at me for a long ten seconds.

What do you see there, friend?

Do you see the future? Or the past? The dead men in the desert, one with his head blown off, bodies black with egg-laying flies.

And what do I see when I look at you?

A hint.

A glimpse.

Before New Mexico I hadn’t so much as killed a fish. But now I know there will be more.

I’m shaking.

Maybe it should be you, Ricky. I don’t think I can do this either.

The man parts my hair to look for lice.

No, if this gets worse I won’t kick him. I’ll just go home. I’ll quit the game and go.

“She ain’t lousy,” he says.

“They are all clean,” Pedro insists.

He opens my mouth with two fingers. The smell of tobacco, leather. He nods to himself.

“You could make a lot of money… Yeah, I like this one. She could pass for white if she weren’t so dumb. Ok, you’ll do, step over here.”

I walk behind him. Away from the others. The gap between me and them no longer merely metaphorical, but now delineated in geography. Paco twitches, looks at me, looks away. He wants to be on my side of the invisible line.

The American lights a cigarette.

Silence.

Smoke.

Snow.

The air in the warehouse perfumed with diesel and Marlboros.

“You are taking one?” Pedro asks, outraged.

The American nods.

“Now you are making the joke,” Pedro says.

“I don’t see anybody laughing,” the man replies.

“This is, uh, madness,” Pedro insists. “Do you know the risks that we run?”

“I don’t like what you brought me. Whatcha gonna do about it? Tell me, little man, whatcha gonna do?”

Pedro spits on the concrete. “You are right,” Pedro says. “I am nothing. You must not have to worry about me. But the people I work for-”

The American cuts him off. “Before you say something you’ll regret, let me stop you right there, friend. The people you work for would never try to fuck with me in my town. Now that bullshit might play in fucking El Paso or Juárez but it don’t work here. This is Fairview, Colorado. This is my city. I’ll give you five hundred bucks for the girl. Take it or leave it.”

“Five hundred dollars!” Pedro says.

The man nods, throws down the cigarette, clenches and unclenches a fist. His hands are huge. Bigger than my whole head. Meat axes. Hold a basketball upside down with his fingertips. And they say a lot. Tan line where a ring used to be, but no wedding band. Divorced. Knuckle scars. Hint of a tattoo running up his wrist. The bottom of an anchor. Navy. Marines. Something like that. A bruiser whose wife left him when he blew his last chance and beat the shit out of her.

“Take it or leave it. Take ’em all back, for all I care,” he says.

“I take them all to Denver. I take them to Kansas City!” Pedro protests.

“Do that,” the American snaps.

“This would not happen in L.A.,” Pedro seethes.

“We’re not in L.A.,” the American says.

Pedro plays the angles, dreaming cartels and professional icemen who’ll deal with this Yankee fuckface.

“Where is Esteban? I want to talk to Esteban,” Pedro says.

Esteban, one of the guys on Ricky’s secondary list-the guy with the dent in his Range Rover.

“Esteban’s busy, but it doesn’t matter, you ain’t been listening, this is my town. I say who stays here and who goes.” His voice a rasp. Metal grinding on metal-grinding on us. He’s the vise and the plane and we’re the thing in the jaws to be scraped clean.

“I do not do fieldwork, but I do construction. I lay down bricks. I am skills, my hands are, uh, mis manos… no son asperas, uh, because, bricks are skilled. I am waiter in restaurant, I am clean sewers. In Managua I work as house painter in morning and in laundry at night. Eighteen-hour day. I work hard,” Paco says.

“And you speak English,” the man replies.

“I speak English, good,” Paco agrees.

“Yeah, ok. You sold me. You come over here too.”

Paco crosses to our side of the invisible line.

When he’s beside me he touches me on the small of the back. It’s comforting, not irritating. I smile at him. Nicaraguan bullshit artist, I want to whisper in his ear but I don’t.

“For him?” Pedro asks.

The man walks behind us and this I don’t like. Him behind me. Hairs on my neck. He stands there for a beat. Comes around the front. He looks at me and Paco. He reaches into his pocket and feels the money in the billfold.

“You know how to work a nail gun?” he asks Paco in Spanish.

“Of course, señor,” Paco says.

“Sure you do. What’s your name, boy?”

“Francisco.”

“Ok, good, I’ll take Miss America here,” he says, putting his big right hand on my head. He claps his left on Paco. “And if for any reason Miss America is unable to fulfill her duties, you, Francisco, the first runner-up, will step into her shoes.”

Paco doesn’t seem to catch any of it but smiles uncomfortably.

He turns to Pedro. “Seven-fifty for him. Twelve-fifty for both.”

Pedro nods. That figure is a bit more reasonable. “Seventeen hundred and fifty and you will have a deal,” he says.

The American yawns. “I’ll tell you what, I’m feeling generous. Let’s call it fourteen hundred even.”

“Fifteen hundred and we will shake on it.”

“Fifteen it is,” the American says.

“And the others?” Pedro asks.

“You can take the others to Denver.”

Pedro shakes his head, but you can tell he’s going to take the deal. Fifteen hundred dollars in all those big bills. And there’s something about the American. I can’t quite put my finger on it but it’s something to do with his height and the way he carries himself. His authority is absolute. Once he’s decided, the conversation, the negotiation, the interaction are all over.

“I do not know,” Pedro says.

“Take a second to think on it.”

The American goes to the warehouse door, trundles it open. He sucks in air as if he’s getting more than just oxygen from it. As if nature’s rejuvenating him like one of my mother’s voodoo gods.

Wind blowing around our ankles.

Pedro pretending to mull it over.

Time counting out the moments before the grave.

“Well?” the American asks finally, without turning.

“Take the other boy,” Pedro says. “He is from Guatemala. He will work hard. Three hundred dollars.”

“Can’t do it. Too young. Stick out like a sore thumb. This is Tancredo’s district. Motherfucker’s running for president. Immigration’s his bête fucking noir. INS breathing down our necks. Raided the ski resort preseason. Fucking decimated it. Dumb bastards.”

Pedro nods, looks at the pair of us, gives us a look. We’re both happy to go.

“Ok, a deal. You will have these and I will take the rest to Denver.”

“Made a wise choice, friend,” the American says.

In a dizzying two minutes we’re bought and paid for and led outside to a new black Cadillac Escalade.

We get in the back.

The old lady and the Guatemalan kid wave.

Blub, blub. Never see them again. Have a good life.

Paco puts his hand up to the window.

“Get your greasy paws from the goddamn glass,” the American says from the front seat. “Should have put the fucking sheet down. Forgot. Esteban normally does this.”

Paco’s hand falls.

We drive away from the warehouse and down a gravel slope to the highway.

The American flips the stations on the radio until he finds seventies rock.

We join the highway and head west into a sinking sun.

More mountains. Light snow. Dry air. Paco’s jittery. Not talking. Nervous. Jesus, what about? The worst that can happen to you is the INS and a one-way back to Juárez. I’m the mark who’s all in.

The snow comes on wetter and changes to rain.

“Ach,” the man says and doubles the wiper speed.

The window shows Rockies. Never seen mountains before. Unreal. Hypercubed. Landscape by Henri Rousseau. Absurdly overblown. Too much. Aspens, firs, pine. Jagged peaks, crazy high.

Paco starts biting his nails. Fidgeting. But not for long. His eyes are drooping and soon he’s dozing next to me like a big dead bird. I wonder how old he really is. Certainly a lot younger than I am. Kids need more sleep.

We follow the highway for an hour and then turn off on a two-lane road winding its way deep into the mountains.

The spine of America.

The same mountains that run from the Arctic Ocean all the way to southern Mexico. “Rockies” is a juvenile name. Doesn’t do them justice. In Spanish they’re called the Montanas Rocosas, which is much more dignified.

Paco starts whimpering. Hair over his eyes. Lips pouting. Bad dreams. I look away. Trouble, that boy. Corrupter of nuns and babysitters.

The rain stops and the sun comes out.

“Are you ok back there?” the American asks.

“Yes, we are fine.”

“Not far now, look around, useful to learn a few landmarks.”

Power lines. Telegraph poles. The occasional house between trees. And then the outskirts of the town.

“That’ll do us,” the man says.

The Escalade slows.

I nudge Paco. “We’re here,” I tell him.

We stare through the tinted glass.

A long street with huge sidewalks on either side. A lot of wealthy-looking people walking, talking on cell phones, window shopping. White, tall, healthy. Blond wives, older guys, but mostly women at this time of day. The stores are names from magazines: Gucci, DKNY, Versace, Dior, Prada. The restaurants are black, minimalist affairs with big windows. There are a few ski apparel shops but no fast-food restaurants, no bars, no lottery vendors, nothing messy. It looks different from Ricky’s photographs. Smaller. Much smaller than Havana or even Santiago. It’s not much bigger than a village. The main street, a few side streets, parking lots, and then trees. Five thousand people in the town and outlying districts, Ricky says. But he also pointed out that Fairview has doubled its population in just three years and it’s supposed to double again in another three. Huge tracts of forest have been zoned for condos and a new ski resort.

We turn at a large bookstore and park outside a police station.

Panic. What is this? Have we been turned in to the feds already? Who is this guy?

“Out,” the American says.

“Señor, what-”

“Get the fuck out!”

We unclick the seat belts and open the door. The sunshine is deceptive. It’s very cold.

“Follow me, don’t say a fucking word, just do as I tell ya,” the American mutters, and then, with a sympathetic shake of the head, “It’s going to be ok.”

He leads us up marble steps into what a sign says is the Pearl Street Sheriff’s Station.

Inside. Computers, laptops, fax machines, phones-and it’s painted white. No one would paint a police station white in Havana. Wouldn’t last five minutes.

“Sally, gather the staff,” the man says to a pert woman in a pink dress.

A minute later three uniformed cops are scoping us. Note the badges. A. J. Klein, M. Episco, J. Crawford. All of them around forty. Crawford, a brown-haired skinny cop with a scar on his lip, is probably the oldest, probably the second in command, for I realize now that the man who drove us here must be the sheriff or the chief of police.

“Get a good look, boys. These are the newbies. Couple of Mexes. This one’s called María, from the Yucatán, the other one’s called… What’s your name again, son?”

“Francisco.”

“Francisco-from Juárez, he says. She won’t be whoring, so if she is, I want to know about it. Both of them will be living with Esteban and he’s responsible for them. If either of them fuck up, you tell me.”

“Yes, Sheriff,” the men respond.

The sheriff turns to us. “You two, these are my deputies. You do everything they tell you to do, always. First step out of line and it’s the fucking federal detention center in Denver. Get me?”

“Sí, señor,” we say in unison.

“My name is Sheriff Briggs. This is my town. It’s a peaceful little spot. We got our problems but we ain’t had a murder in five years and if it wasn’t for teen suicide we wouldn’t ever make the papers. That’s the way I want it. Either of you step out of line, cause me the slightest fucking headache, you’re history. Understand?”

I nod and Paco says, “Yes, sir.”

“We got a sweet deal and it’s only going to get sweeter if we play our cards right. I ain’t telling no secrets if I let you all know that certain parties are eyeing Fairview as the Clearwater of the Rockies. And if the Scientologists do move in en masse we’re all going to make a lot of money. That’s why we don’t want any trouble from anyone.”

“No, señor.”

The sheriff turns to his deputies. “Burn them into your retinas, boys, I don’t want you relying on no crib sheet, I want you to know instantly who belongs and who doesn’t in my patch.”

The deputies examine the pair of us. Crawford winks at me.

Yes. Look hard. Do you know what you’re seeing? Ask your boss, he saw it too.

“Did you get a good gander, boys?” the sheriff asks.

They nod.

“Good, then get the fuck back to work.”

They scatter. Briggs smiles and then clouds as he spots an empty Starbucks cup lying there in broad daylight next to, but not in, the trash can. He grabs the unsuspecting cup from off the pristine floor tiles and throttles it into a paper tube.

He tosses it in the trash can and shakes his head.

“Oh, one last thing,” he says, and he takes a quick photograph of us with a digital camera.

The sheriff leads us outside to the Escalade. The sun has set behind the mountains and I notice that the streetlamps on Pearl Street are ornate wrought-iron affairs like the ones you used to see in the Vieja. These are fake old, though. Brand-new fake old.

“How do you like my sheriff’s station?” Briggs asks us.

“Very beautiful.”

“Proud of it. Special bond issue to get it built. I hope that’s the last time you’ll ever be inside it.”

“Sí, señor.”

We drive back along Pearl Street. Hermès, Brooks Brothers, Calvin Klein, another Versace. A Scientology drop-in center with a golf cart parked outside. Small dogs, a few more men, but still mainly women. Stick women, pipe-cleaner women, women with great heads on rail-thin frames. If this were Havana they’d be tranny whores. But in Fairview they’re überblondes and trophy wives with money. Here and there a dark-skinned man is emptying the trash bins or a very young foreign girl is pushing someone else’s child in a stroller. The dark-skinned men step onto the road to let the whites pass; step into the gutter while the tall ladies talking on cell phones keep their straight line. Cuba is no racial paradise-the Communist Party is 1 percent black while the prison population is 80 percent black-but even so, I’ve never seen anything like that before.

It makes me feel good.

Good because I’m going to need anger to carry out this plan of ours.

“Ok, busy day, next stop Wetback Mountain,” Briggs says as we turn left at the traffic light.

Five-minute drive out of town. More trees, narrower road. We stop at a shit-color two-story building not far from what is obviously a major highway. Before the sheriff pulls into the parking lot a large man with wild salt-and-pepper hair and a black beard waves him down.

Sheriff Briggs double-clutches the Escalade and the man gets into the front passenger’s seat.

“Drive,” the man says.

“What?”

“Drive. Away from here.”

“What’s going on?” the sheriff asks.

“INS.”

“Christ.”

“Yeah, but we’re lucky they came now. Everyone’s still working.”

“You get a tip-off?”

“Hell, no. We just got lucky. Did you listen to the radio? Raids in Denver, Vail, Boulder, Aurora, the Springs.”

Sheriff Briggs accelerates out of the lot and drives down to the highway.

“Where to?” he asks.

“Just drive. It’s finishing. Two INS guys and a couple of FBI to back them up. Bastards. They got three of my girls and that kid from Cabo. I hope to God they didn’t make it to the construction site.”

Sheriff Briggs nods at us. “Well, I got two replacements for you, Esteban.”

So this is Esteban. Ricky’s sheet: Mexican parents but born here. University-educated. Big guy but athletic. Plays soccer in a Denver Mexican league and even rugby-a violent game I only have vague notions about.

Esteban turns. “What are you talking about? Where are the others?” he asks in perfect English with no trace of an accent at all.

“I just took these, the others didn’t look good,” the sheriff says.

“Are you fucking crazy? We’re shorthanded as it is, we need every hand we can get. There was supposed to be five coming in. We need them all.”

“I said I didn’t like the look of them.”

“You didn’t like the… Shit, you fucked up, Briggs, the INS has grabbed God knows how many of my men and now you-”

But before he can finish the sentence, Sheriff Briggs takes a 9mm out of his pocket.

He doesn’t point the gun at Esteban. Drawing it is enough, and face red with fury, he can barely speak. “Listen to me, you wetback motherfucker. This is my town. You’re here on fucking sufferance. I can fucking disappear you anytime I fucking want. Never talk to me like that again. Do you fucking understand, bitch?”

“I’m an American, Briggs, I’m a citizen just like you, you can’t-”

“I can do anything I damn well fucking please,” the sheriff says. Veins throbbing. Knuckles white.

Esteban looks at the sheriff and the gun. He doesn’t flinch. Makes me think that Briggs has pulled this one before or else Esteban is made of sterner stuff. Hasn’t been a murder in five years, he said. I wonder if that includes dead Mexicans?

Finally Esteban smiles. “You want an apology? Of course. I apologize. We’re friends. We work together.” He even forces a laugh. “Oh, Sheriff, why do you have to be so dramatic?”

Briggs puts the gun back in his coat pocket, satisfied. “Good. Now take a look at what I got ya at the auction block.”

Esteban turns and smiles at the pair of us. “Two hard workers, I can tell,” he says.

“We’ll see. They better work hard. I make this a tough town for slackers. Now let’s circle back to your motel and deal with these fucking feds and see what’s going on,” Briggs mutters.

“Welcome to Fairview,” Esteban says, and adds with a grin, “Don’t worry, it’s not always this exciting. It’s normally very dull.”

Yeah, I’ll bet, but I’ll do my best to change that.