Ballistic

FORTY-TWO

Diego Gamboa Fuentes sat on the park bench, three hundred yards from the border crossing into the United States. His eyes darted to everyone around over the age of ten. He was terrified of being seen by the wrong people, and he was certain the wrong people were crawling all over the place.

This was the third day he had sat here in this spot, and each day he became more and more certain that Jose and tía Laura were not going to appear, and more and more certain that the men walking around the park were working for the Black Suits. The air was only seventy degrees, but sweat dripped from Diego’s big dark sunglasses and from the scalp of his nearly shaved head.

He’d followed Joe’s instructions to alter his appearance, as had tía Elena and his abuela. They remained at the hotel, a few miles south of here, in hiding, because they just knew the Black Suits were close by.

They’d had a bit of luck the day before. Members of the Tijuana Cartel had spotted some new men in the area, thought them to be a rival cartel up here muscling in on their plaza, and they reacted accordingly, responding in the only way they ever responded to threats to their bottom line — they opened fire. No civilians had been hurt or killed, miraculously, but the daily machine-gun fire in the streets of TJ had picked up considerably since, as more guerreros for the Tijuana Cartel had been sent out to find and scare away the new visitors to this lucrative crossing point.

Diego and his family had heard the shooting, but they learned the reasons behind the cartel-on-cartel street battle the evening before on the news. They hoped this meant the TJ narcos were, although unwittingly, providing a level of protection for them, giving Los Trajes Negros a little something to worry about while up here in the north.

Diego did not want to come out today, to wait at the park for the three p.m. meeting time. He did not expect to see his aunt or the gringo, and he did not like leaving the hotel. He knew he would have to be the one, eventually, to leave cover and make contact with the local coyote to try and find some transportation over the border, but he was more than willing to wait a few days before attempting this. They had little money, no connections, and a palpable fear of the men of the Black Suits.

Getting over the border on their own was going to be tough.

A man walked past the bench; Diego had not even noticed him approach. His hair was razor short; Diego could tell even though the man wore a ball cap. His goatee and mustache were full but trimmed close to his face; his eyes were hidden behind mirrored lenses. He wore a long-sleeved cotton shirt and baggy jeans, the typical attire of a laborer, not the nicer clothes of a cartelero. But when he slowed in front of Diego, the young Mexican stiffened in fear.

“Follow me,” the man said softly in Spanish.

Diego recognized the accent. The voice.

It was Jose. The American.

He had changed his appearance so completely Diego hesitated, even when the man crossed the park, sat down on a small Vespa scooter, and turned back to him. The boy on the bench rose tentatively; he wondered how Joe had pulled up on the scooter and then crossed the park without Diego noticing. It was like he had just materialized out of thin air.

When Diego arrived at the Vespa, Joe started the engine, motioned for Diego to climb on back, and then they drove off down the street without a word between them.

Court returned the scooter to the shop where Jerry had rented it that afternoon, then took a taxi with Diego back to the hotel where Luz and Elena were staying. The two women were floored by the American’s change of appearance. They both agreed that, with the right clothes, he looked like he could actually be a member of Los Trajes Negros.

Like Diego, the women had made an attempt at a transformation. Luz had dyed her hair red; it did not look natural, but neither did it look out of place for a woman of her age. Elena Gamboa Gonzalez wore a white floral dress that looked new; she’d cut her hair short, into a bob not unlike her sister-in-law Laura’s. She wore big sunglasses and high heels.

But Elena was still pregnant. Court appreciated her going to the trouble to try and disguise herself, but he could not imagine the hit men for the Black Suits ignoring a pregnant lady just because her hair was shorter than that of their target.

Diego and Court collected the two women and had a new taxi take them to a supermarket, where they all climbed into yet another cab that drove them south to a local transit bus stop. When the cab drove away, Gentry led the family up the street a hundred yards, then they turned left down a narrow callejón and arrived at a horridlooking hourly motel.

Sickly prostitutes stood out front, but Gentry led the Gamboas past them and then up a single flight of stairs in the back. He slipped his key in the lock of a tiny room with no windows.

Inside it was dark. Court had forbade talking on the trip through town, so as soon as he closed the door, Elena said, “Why are we here?”

As a response Court flipped on the light to the room. A single bed that sagged in the middle, a threadbare comforter, a backpack lying on top. With his eyes Gentry directed the families to look in the bathroom.

Jerry was tied with telephone cord and strapping tape to the plumbing in the tiny and filthy bathroom; his head on the shit-stained porcelain, and his wounded foot positioned high on the rim of the dingy bathtub.

“What took you so long?” he asked as Gentry looked in on him past the three Mexicans in the doorway.

Court addressed the Gamboas. “We’ve been compromised.”

“Where is Laura?” Elena asked.

He sighed. “The Black Suits have her.” He said it in Spanish so Luz and Diego would understand.

Luz cried out, sat down on the bed, and began to wail.

Elena herself cried. “How?”

“Thank this asshole right here.” He pointed towards the American tied to the toilet.

Elena looked at Pfleger, and Pfleger just turned away from her, gazed at a long centipede crawling across the grimy fake-tile flooring.

“What… what are we going to do now?” asked Diego.

“We’re going to get you all into the United States. And then I’ll go and get her back.”

“No! No, I am not leaving without Laura,” said Elena.

“Yes, you are. I need you and the family out of the way.”

“How are we going to get my tía back?” asked Diego.

Court sat on the bed next to Luz. He said, “I am going to make de la Rocha give her back. I am going to make de la Rocha’s life miserable, and I will not stop making his life miserable until he releases Laura. And then when he does… I take her, and I leave.”

“You will leave him alive?” asked Diego.

“My only objective is to save Lorita.”

“De la Rocha killed Eduardo,” said Elena.

“I know that, and I would love to make him pay. But I don’t expect that will be possible, so I am going to concentrate on rescuing Laura.”

Elena Gamboa stared long and hard at Court. He did not understand the look she was giving him at first, but slowly it dawned on him. He had said something, conveyed something, given off some sort of emotion about Laura that Elena recognized.

He turned away, but she came to him, took both of his hands, and squeezed them tightly. He kept his eyes on the wall, then down on Pfleger, who was writhing on the tile next to the toilet.

He heard Eddie’s wife sniff back tears. She understood that this was personal now; she had read into Court’s words and actions.

Elena must have recognized she was making him uncomfortable, so she turned away without speaking, sat with her mother-in-law, hugged her deeply; tears dripped down both of their faces. Luz looked up at the man she knew as Jose. “Thank you, Jose. Thank you so much.”

In Spanish he said, “I haven’t even started yet.”

Jerry had spent literally the entire twenty-four-hour bus ride and the next morning in Tijuana working on his plan to get the Gamboas into the United States. He hadn’t quite solidified his scheme before the American killer had taken Pfleger to rent a scooter, then returned him to the motel, tied him to the shitter, and left him alone for hours.

Heartless bastard.

The evening before, on the bus north, Jerry had arranged for a criminal contact in Tijuana to vouch for him to a veteran coyote. The cayote told him he was arranging for a large group of forty pot smugglers to cross into the U.S. near Tecate late in the evening in two days’ time. Jerry was told his group could tag along if they would haul packs of marijuana wrapped in hemp cord during the hike, and Jerry readily agreed. He was then given the exact time and place of the crossing.

Next he used an acquaintance in Nogales who owed him a favor. The man put him in touch with a drug ring working the plaza there. He was told of a tunnel that ran from Nogales over the border into Arizona, and the entire morning in Tijuana he worked his new mobile phone to make contact with the right people in the right places. Finally, after the Gamboas were collected and he was cut free from the toilet by the Gray Man, Jerry Pfleger completed the arrangements with more calls to Nogales and Tucson, and promises to everyone he spoke with.

Promises that were mostly lies.

The lies Jerry Pfleger had told in the past twenty-four hours would have a lot of people out to kill him, of this the American embassy officer had no doubt. His plan would fuck over some of the scummiest, most vengeful, and most dangerous men in northern Mexico, a region known for dangerous men. All these men knew his real name, knew his business associates, and knew where he worked. There would be no going back to business as usual when this ordeal was over.

But Jerry Pfleger was more terrified of the Gray Man. If he somehow survived this ordeal, he would deal with whatever came after. For now he had a job to do.