Above The Law

CHAPTER 40

THE COP BEHIND CASEY SNATCHED THE PHONE FROM HER HAND and dropped it to the ground before he stomped and ground it, crackling, beneath his heel. Jose had his hands in the air and Casey did the same. Jose talked calmly to the cop pointing a gun at him.

"Jose?" Casey said, her voice frantic.

"Relax," he said. "Get out slow and keep your hands up."

Jose stepped out of the jeep and away with his hands in the air. Casey did the same and Isodora climbed out, too.

"Where's your ID?" Jose asked.

"My purse," Casey said, nodding. "It's on the floor."

Jose spoke to the cops. The second cop fished Casey's purse from the floor of the jeep while the first kept his gun trained on Jose. Isodora stood beside Casey with the baby in the gritty roadside dust. The cop threw the purse on the hood and rifled through it, finding Casey's passport as well as Isodora's visa. He found Casey's wallet and extracted the cash, holding it up for his partner, who offered only a stony nod. The second cop then removed Jose's wallet and passport from the front pocket of his jeans, studied the picture, and took his cash as well.

The cops patted them down, then Jose went back and forth with them for several minutes as they examined the documents. At one point the first cop looked Isodora's way and barked a question at her. Startled, she replied in barely audible Spanish. They turned their attention back to Jose and their conversation got heated before eventually cooling. Finally Jose lowered his hands and stepped toward the jeep.

"Come on," he said to Casey. "Come on, Isodora. Get in the jeep."

"Didn't you tell them you were a cop?" Casey asked in a low voice as they climbed aboard the jeep. Some of her hair had escaped and the hot wind whisked it across her face until she tucked it back.

"That's why they were so nice about it," Jose said, reaching back to give Isodora's leg a reassuring pat before he started the engine.

"What? Not shooting us?" she asked.

"They let us go," Jose said, looking back. "That's what counts."

"Swell."

"Said that's a military facility," Jose said. "No stopping. No pictures. They saw your phone."

"Military, my ass," she said. "Making what? Biological weapons? They're burning off something and it isn't gunmetal."

Jose put the jeep in gear and said, "They wanted to know about Isodora."

"What did you say?"

"The truth," Jose said. "Her husband died and we're taking her back to testify in a lawsuit."

"That's all you said?" Casey asked.

"No, I told them we were out to destroy a US senator," Jose said, flashing her a look. "Come on."

"They gave me the creeps," Casey said. "And that place? That place is something bad."

Jose glanced to his right, then returned his attention to the road.

"Looks like we're going to beat the storm," he said. "It's still a ways off."

Fifteen minutes later the Nuevo Laredo traffic got heavy. That's when Jose pointed out the helicopter.

"What? You think it's following us?" Casey said.

"It's not a traffic copter," Jose said. "It's not TV. It's police, or some kind of government job."

"Because I took a picture that I now don't even have? Come on."

Jose shrugged. "Maybe nothing to do with us. I've been watching it for about the last five minutes, though. It hasn't gone very far."

By the time they got through the heavy traffic in town, the helicopter had disappeared.

"Big Brother went home," Casey said.

"Guess so."

"Better to be aware than not," Casey said.

"That's what I thought."

The customs agent barely looked at their papers before swigging her Diet Coke and waving them through, one small segment in the snake of trucks and cars waiting to enter the United States. The wind had picked up enough for them to find a branch of their rental company just off Route 35 at Laredo Airport, drop off the jeep, and pick up a four-door sedan with air-conditioning that they could drop off in Dallas. No sooner had they pulled back onto the highway than the sky opened up, dousing the windshield with buckets and lighting up the darkened sky all around them with flashes of chain lightning.

Jose drove while the rest of them dozed. He took them to Casey's place, where they all had eggs and bacon, even the baby. Then Isodora and the baby disappeared into Casey's guest room, and Casey took two longneck bottles of Budweiser from the fridge and sat down on the couch next to Jose.

"Long day," he said.

"Longer for you. Thanks for driving."

They swigged their beer.

"What was all that back there?" Casey asked.

Jose shrugged. "Nothing to do with us."

"Soap we buy," Casey said. "Beer bottles. Drugs. They make the same stuff they used to make here, only over there they don't have the EPA to worry about."

"Or the unions," Jose said.

"Jesus, the air and the water," she said. "I keep thinking about that little boy's arms. The one at the chicken stand. The whole thing feels like it's right back at our doorstep. Isodora. Her husband. Chase. Those factories. All the people who kill themselves to get here. But mostly that little boy."

"Things happen," Jose said. "You're tired."

"Did you think they were going to kill us?" she asked. "Those cops."

Jose shook his head. "Didn't feel like it. If it did, I would have made a stand."

"What do you mean?"

He gave a quick frown. "You sense it's going down, you don't cooperate. You take a stand. Give it your best. I'll be damned if someone's ever going to put a bullet in the back of my head."

"And you think you'd get a feeling?" she asked.

"I know."

"You know my feeling?" she asked.

He shook his head.

"I feel like that storm we saw moving in, nasty."

"It got us, but not the worst of it," he said.

"I know, but I still feel like that," she said. "Like it's coming. Something."

She looked at him for a while and they drank their beer.

"Let's go to bed," she said.

"'Let's' as in let us?" he said. "As in us?"

"Let us."