Finnegan's week

CHAPTER 24

The traffic on Revolutión was nearly bumper-locked. Young Americans hanging out of car windows were whistling, clapping, yelling, thumping on car doors, flipping the bird at pedestrians, cutting off cars, mooning any female older than twelve, and spewing the contents of their stomachs onto the streets of a country they considered third rate and Third World.

In short, it was a scene that might be replayed in just about any U.S. city if the police were underpaid, underfunded, undermanned, undermined, and as desperately corrupt as the police of Tijuana.

At the corner of Calle 5, two U.S. servicemen in civilian clothes with telltale whitewall haircuts were involved in a punch-out with three students wearing UCLA sweatshirts. Fin stopped to watch for a few seconds, then turned to Nell and Bobbie and said, “That’s a mismatch. UCLA students’re for Clinton, and everyone knows that white Democrats can’t fight.”

“Who’re you voting for?” Bobbie wanted to know.

“Perot, of course,” Fin said. “He’s not a professional politician.”

“Neither was that other nut, Rasputin,” Nell said, “but he still managed to wreck his government.”

“Perot’s not a bad choice,” Bobbie said. “He was a navy man.”

“Puh-leeze!” said Nell, but then she spotted trouble, and said, “Uh-oh. One of our boys needs to call nine-one-one. Or nueve-once, as they might say down here.”

Shelby Pate had just become one of the hundred or so Americans who would throw up on the streets of Tijuana that evening.

“Gross!” Bobbie said. “He’s hunkin all over the sidewalk!”

“Let that be a lesson,” Fin said. “Stick to high-grade tequila. And none of that stuff with a worm in it, even if you’re sure the worm’s dead.”

Nell said, “Wonder if he’s puking up live animal parts, or what?”

After Shelby got finished vomiting, he and Abel continued to weave their way along Revolución, pausing only for Shelby to terrorize a bunch of college kids. They were blocking the sidewalk and encouraging a frat brother to do a semi-striptease for the benefit of a coed hanging out the window of a restaurant overhead. The stripteaser danced to heavy-metal sounds coming from a boom box that could knock the fillings right out of your mouth.

Bobbie said, “They’re all trying not to notice Pate.”

Fin said, “Only reason anyone ever risks eye contact with a guy like that is so they can describe him later to a police artist.”

Nell said, “I hope little Juliet dumps her chamber pot on Romeo while he’s boogeying.”

The investigators watched as Shelby Pate staggered up to the striptease kid, grabbed him by the neck, and sailed him like a Frisbee into the traffic lane, where another carload of college types had to brake to keep from running him down.

While Abel pleaded with Shelby to move on, the ox planted his size 13 EEE’s and glared at all the other students. They took a gander at this blazing destroyer in his nightmare costume of biker black, and suddenly started to get extremely interested in shop items, such as silver buckles, Mexican blankets, and velvet paintings of Michael Jackson’s gloved hand.

Nell said, “Before the night’s over I bet he just about wrecks any chance of ever getting elected to public office.”

Bobbie said, “Wonder what’s it like for Durazo, being on the town with that nonevolved mammal?”

“About like being circumcised with draft beer as an anesthetic,” Fin said. “He’s doing his best to get killed.”

“Not quite his best yet,” Nell said. “But he’ll flat-line before he’s much older.”

Bobbie said, “Dudes like him’ll violate any law, including gravity. A walking reign of terror.”

Fin said, “I bet he’s never changed those jeans. Just puts on a different rocker T-shirt and away he goes.”

“He’d be easy to buy for,” Nell said.

The truckers stood looking in the window of a pharmacy where a line of worried, hopeful, or frightened Americans were buying Retin-A, minoxidil, and AZT over the counter. Then they moseyed around the corner and vanished.

The three investigators ran to the next corner but Abel and Shelby were nowhere in sight.

Nell crossed the street and discovered a narrow passageway. Ten feet inside the dark passageway was an arch lit by a pencil of neon. It said, SOMBRAS.

“Find something?” Fin called out.

Nell yelled, “This must be a nightclub or restaurant. Let’s try it.”

“Are you two packing?” Bobbie asked, when they stood at the mouth of the passage.

“No way,” Nell said.

“Not on your life,” Fin said. “If we got caught down here carrying concealed weapons, they’d just say: Badge? I don’t want to see no steenking badge! And we’d end up in the Tijuana jail. They don’t want any foreigners being armed.”

“I’m packing,” Bobbie said, looping the purse strap over her shoulder. “And I’m glad.”

She led the way down the corridor between two windowless concrete walls of neighboring buildings. They walked perhaps thirty feet before they heard music. The closer they got, the louder it got. Not the heavy metal blaring on Revolución, this was Mexican folk music.

Then they found themselves in a small open patio with a fountain in the center and a pepper tree in a tile planter off to one side. Double wooden doors with huge iron pulls separated them from the festive music inside.

Fin opened the door and Nell took a peek. A white-haired proprietor in a dark blue suit and a pale blue necktie said, “Welcome to Sombras. How many een your party?”

Nell turned to Fin, who said, “If they’re not here, we’ve lost them anyway. Might as well go on in.”

Nell said to the proprietor, “Did a large man in a black leather jacket just come in with a small Mexican gentleman?”

“Yes,” the proprietor said. “They are een the back at Señor Soltero’s table. Shall I take you there?”

“No, he’s just a person I used to know,” Nell said. “We’d prefer a table in the front.”

“Very well,” the proprietor said. “Follow me, please.”

The restaurant seated about eighty people. There was a second fountain inside, constructed of multicolored Mexican tiles. All the tables were solid walnut, as were the chairs, high-backed with tasseled yellow seat cushions. The tables were covered with yellow tablecloths except for those where patrons were just having cocktails. Each table was lit by a huge candle inside an onion-shaped, emerald-colored glass bowl. Three guitar players strolled among the tables singing old favorites.

But the restaurant was not a quiet place to dine in that the bare floor was made of twelve-inch squares of tile with a patina and color of old saddle leather. The wiring inside the low ceiling was concealed by thin reeds lashed together, and lanterns dangled throughout, low enough to make tall men duck their heads.

The patrons, both Mexican and American, were not ordinary tourists, and all were very presentable, with the exception of Shelby Pate, who may as well have been wearing light bulbs.

The investigators spotted the truckers with three other men in a tiny alcove toward the rear of the room.

“We’re okay here in front,” Bobbie said. “It’s too dark for them to make us.”

Fin excused himself after saying to Nell, “Order me whatever you’re having, and a Mexican beer.”

After he had gone to the rest room, Nell ordered three of the house special plates, consisting of a chile relleno, a tamale and a chicken taco.

The waitress was a stunning girl, perhaps eighteen years old, wearing an off-the-shoulder, lace-topped cotton blouse and a red full skirt. Her red shoes were fastened with ankle straps, suggesting that she probably doubled as a dancer.

“That order’s safe enough for everyone,” Nell said.

“Don’t worry about me,” Bobbie said. “I haven’t had much Mexican food, but what I’ve had I really like. I’m experimental in everything.”

“You must be,” Nell said.

“Whaddaya mean by that?”

“Fin,” Nell said.

“Look, this is only the second time I’ve been with him!” Bobbie said.

“Me too,” said Nell.

“Really? I don’t believe it.”

“Now whadda you mean by that?”

“It’s easy to see you got feelings for him, big-time.”

“What?”

“One woman to another,” Bobbie said. “It’s easy to see.”

“Me? Fin?”

“I don’t blame you,” Bobbie said. “He’s cute, and he’s so nice. A real gentleman, in a way. I can see how you might feel. But honest, we’re just friends, is all.”

Nell wanted to deny it, but the words wouldn’t come out. This child was in-furiating! Calmly, she said, “Bobbie, I don’t know what to say about that except that I would rather spend my life arranging flowers and pouring tea in a geisha house than be hooked up with that neurotic cop!”

“I know,” Bobbie said, sympathetically, “but we can’t really follow our heads, can we? Not when our hearts’re pulling us in another direction. Toing-and-froing, right? I know how it is, Nell.”

Nell didn’t get a chance to respond in that Fin returned to the table just as the waitress brought the beer and margaritas. They were hand-shaken margaritas, not gringo slush.

“Salud, as they say in these parts,” Fin said, raising his beer bottle to each woman, with a lingering look at Bobbie.

The strolling guitar players came closer to their table, singing “Guadalajara.” When Bobbie turned to look at the musicians, Nell whispered to Fin, “Did you tell her about your very low sperm count?”

“Nell!” Fin said, shooting a quick glance at Bobbie, but she wasn’t paying attention to them.

“And that you give blood regularly?”

“Nell, what’s wrong with you?” Fin whispered. “She’s a sweet kid!”

“They all are,” Nell said. “Sweet. When they’re kids.”

Fin whispered, “Do you have some sort of … problem with her?”

Nell smiled, but only with her mouth, and said, “Not at all. It’s very predictable.”

“What is?”

“Life is,” she said.

“My whole life’s been a failed effort to please women!” Fin blurted to a strolling guitar player, who didn’t understand a word. “Is this a smoke-free zone or can I just set fire to myself?”

They’d already had two drinks, yet nothing had been said about the money they were owed. Before they’d entered, Abel had tried to warn the ox not to be pushy by telling him that Mexicans were patient, and that Soltero had chosen an elegant restaurant, so he might be playing the gentleman. And that Soltero would talk about money only when he was good and ready.

But after his second double tequila, Shelby wanted action. He only had one more bindle of meth and was needing it. He slipped it out of his boot and put it in the pocket of his Grateful Dead T-shirt, then watched the guitar players and twitched.

One of Soltero’s companions was the man who’d approached them in the Bongo Room. The other was short but very burly, with a mustache so long he could’ve used it for a chin strap. He had a deep scar on the side of his neck, and a piece of his left earlobe was missing. From time to time, Shelby glared at this scarred mustachioed Mexican, but the man kept his eyes on Soltero or on his drink.

Soltero wore a double-breasted suit of gray silk and a charcoal shirt buttoned at the throat, with no necktie. In fact, Abel thought he dressed a lot like their boss, Jules Temple, but he was several years older. Soltero’s ponytail was pulled back more severely than Shelby’s, and was gray-flecked.

Soltero asked dozens of questions, both in Spanish and English, about the business climate in San Diego, and the politics of the presidential election, and if Abel would be interested in hauling other loads from San Diego to Tijuana and sometimes in the other direction. His English was only slightly accented, and his hands gestured gracefully.

Just when Shelby thought Soltero was going to talk about money, he said, “And now it is time to eat.”

He had preordered two kilos of carnitas-marinated pork roasted on a spit. The waiter brought another large plate that held homemade flour tortillas wrapped inside a red tasseled napkin, a bowl heaped with cilantro and onion, and yet another brimming with guacamole. Finally, a bowl of homemade salsa arrived.

“I believe our American guest will not be disappointed,” Soltero said, smiling at Shelby. “The salsa is made special for me.”

The food looked, smelled, and tasted delicious. Abel bolted it down, but when Shelby was on a methamphetamine rampage like this, he didn’t want to wreck his edge. Shelby picked at his food, but drank two more tequilas. Then he got up and lurched toward the rest room to snort the last of his meth.

Fin said to the women, “Oh oh, Pate’s heading for the John. The men’s room’s about as wide as a Cuban cigar, and he’s listing to starboard. It’ll be like docking the U.S.S. Ranger in a car wash. Listen for a collision.”

Bobbie said, “My twenty-fifteen eyesight tells me that if that guy with the slick suit and the ponytail doesn’t like you, instant emigration is in order. What’re we gonna do if they all leave together?”

Nell looked at Fin and said, “You’re of the hunter-gatherer gender. Whadda we do?”

“I think we try to get their license number and call the Mexican state judicial police on Monday. That’s all.”

“For what?” Nell asked.

“To ask if they’ll search his house for shoes,” Fin said.

“Fat chance,” said Nell. “He probably has a brother or a nephew or a cousin running the state police. Or else he owns a few of them.”

“No matter what happens, I’ve really enjoyed this day,” Bobbie said. “It’s the most fun I’ve ever had as a detective.” When she said it she put her hand on Fin’s forearm, as was her habit by now.

“I’ve had a great time too,” Fin said softly. “You’re as good a partner as I’ve ever had. You’re a smart little detective.”

Nell mumbled, “Me, I’m so dumb I better run home and memorize the encyclopedia. Well, maybe just A through G tonight.”

When Nell turned toward the singers, Bobbie whispered to Fin, “She has an attitude.”

Fin whispered back, “It’s her age. They’re all about as easy to understand as black holes in the galaxy, light-years away.”

When Shelby got back from the rest room, he was barely able to sit in his chair. He’d done the last of the meth and was turbocharged and getting paranoid. He kept looking from one to the other. The little Mexican glanced at him with amused detachment. The burly one with the Zapata mustache continued to watch Soltero as though Abel and Shelby weren’t even there. He’d nursed a beer for an hour, but had eaten more than his share of carnitas.

Abel peeked at his watch more than once, but Soltero was in no hurry at all. The tequila and salsa heated them up and Soltero unbuttoned the first two buttons of his shirt.

Shelby’s body temperature had shot up like a Patriot missile, but he didn’t seem to notice the flow of sweat. He was too busy fiddling with the fork, folding and unfolding the napkin, looking from one man to the other, checking inside his boot for meth that wasn’t there anymore. If there’d been a television in the place, he’d have taken it apart and put it back together by now.

When the coffee was served, Shelby ordered what would be his final tequila of the evening. Abel had given up counting, but was certain that the ox’s tequila intake could only be measured by the liter. Moreover, Shelby was blinking so hard you could almost hear it. That was when the mariachis appeared.

There were seven of them in black waistcoats, black trousers, red string ties: two trumpets, two violins, two guitars and one bass guitar. They did not play the traditional mariachi tunes that American tourists loved. Instead, they began by playing an old Mexican piece.

The music had a haunting quality; Fin thought so at once. So did Bobbie. They put down their coffee cups and listened. The restaurant din quieted and the crowd became subdued.

Bobbie said, “There’s a sadness about that.”

Nell said, “I’ve heard it before. It’s about death, I think. No, wait. It’s about a lost soul.”

Soltero smiled at Shelby Pate, who had suddenly become enraptured by the music. All the mariachis were facing the far side of the room where there was a dark alcove near the kitchen. They played and seemed to be looking for something in the darkness. And then from that black alcove came the answering sound of a muted trumpet. And a small boy, attired in the same costume as the men, stepped into a little blue spotlight.

The proprietor came to the table when Nell signaled, and he said, “Yes, señora, you have a question?”

“What’s the name of this piece?” she asked. “I can’t remember.”

“Ah!” he said. “Ees beautiful, no? Ees called ‘Niño Perdido.’”

Soltero leaned over the table when Shelby Pate asked, “Why’s that kid all alone over there in the dark?”

Soltero whispered, “The music is called ‘The Lost Child.’ You see, the boy is trying to answer the other trumpet voice that calls for him.”

As the music played, the little trumpeter moved slowly through the darkness, toward the other trumpet’s call, followed by the blue spotlight. The Lost Child wanted to be found, but could not find his way. The muted sound of his trumpet would sometimes grow faint as he moved in the wrong direction, away from the searchers.

Suddenly, Shelby Pate shouted, “Gud-damnit! Why don’t somebody jist go git him? He wants to come home! He wants his momma!”

Heads jerked toward Shelby Pate. Diners were stunned. Even the burly man with the Zapata mustache turned to gape.

Abel said, “Eet ees only music, Buey!”

But Shelby Pate stood up and knocked the heavy walnut chair crashing to the tile floor. Everyone in the restaurant turned toward him. Some diners stood to see what was happening, but it was so dark now they could only see a towering shadow figure inside the alcove.

“He’s movin away!” Shelby cried. “They gotta git him! They gotta show him the way home to his momma!”

The proprietor ran toward the disturbance, but the mariachis kept playing. The lead trumpet kept calling for The Lost Child, but The Lost Child was wandering, and his trumpet grew more muted.

The proprietor stepped into the alcove and said, “Señor Soltero! Por favor!” Then he put his hand on Shelby’s arm and said, “Please, sir, you are frightening everyone!”

But Shelby looked at him with eyes full of terror and grief, and said, “He came home for the Day of the Dead! Don’t you git it?”

The burly man with the Zapata mustache got a nod from Soltero, and for the first time that evening he spoke in English.

He said to Shelby, “Joo dreenk too much, amigo! Le’s go out to the fresh air!”

Shelby shoved him so hard he took the platter of carnitas with him crashing onto the floor.

Then Abel leaped up, yelling, “Buey! Buey! Ees okay! Outside! We go outside!”

By now most of the diners were on their feet. People were whispering, gesturing. Several men came forward.

The mariachis, including the boy, had stopped playing. The lights remained dim, but Abel Durazo, with his arm crooked through the arm of Shelby Pate, led the ox toward the door.

“We can’t follow yet,” Fin said. “Give them a few minutes.”

He and Nell kept putting money on the table to pay for the food and drinks until Nell said, “That’s enough.”

“Lemme go alone!” Bobbie said. “He’s so tanked he won’t recognize me.”

“Watch yourself!” Fin said. “Durazo isn’t drunk. He might make you.”

Bobbie nodded, and put her purse strap over her shoulder on the way out.

“Should I have let her go alone?” he asked Nell. “Can she handle it?”

“Of course not,” Nell said. “Women don’t have testicles, we have ovaries. We keep forgetting that.”

After the disturbance was over, the diners went back to eating, and the mariachis stopped searching for The Lost Child. The musical interlude had ended for the time being.

Abel Durazo led Shelby Pate back through the passageway toward the busy street, with Shelby bouncing from one wall to the other as he tried to negotiate the narrow corridor. Soltero and his companions stood in the small patio for a moment, whispering in Spanish, paying no attention to Bobbie when she walked past them on her way out of Sombras.

When she emerged onto the street the traffic from pedestrians and cars had totally clogged Revolutión. Most of the deafening noise came from young Americans screaming at the top of their lungs. Not at anything in particular, just screaming. Bobbie saw Shelby Pate leaning against a wall, rubbing his face as though he couldn’t feel it. Abel Durazo stood in front of him gesturing wildly and yelling things she couldn’t make out.

Bobbie walked directly behind Abel and when she was nearly at the corner, she ducked into a doorway to observe them unseen. She was startled by a whimper and looked down at a bony, mangy, flea-bitten mongrel dog, chewing on a sandwich wrapper and looking at her fearfully.

The three Mexicans emerged from the passageway and joined Abel Durazo and Shelby Pate. Then all five men crossed the street and got into a Ford Explorer. By the time Bobbie could cross, the car was already into the traffic and gone. She was sure that it had California license plates.

Abel and Shelby sat in the back seat with the mustachioed Mexican. Soltero sat in the passenger seat, and the small one drove. Abel was crushed between the burly Mexican and the ox. He couldn’t move either arm until he managed to squeeze his body forward. They drove for ten minutes without talking.

Shelby was very still now, and Soltero said soothingly to him, “The drugs and the tequila do not go well together.”

Abel wasn’t sure that the ox even understood what was happening, and he said in English to Soltero, “I theenk my compañero would feel better eef we get our money now and go home to San Diego. Yes, I theenk that would be the bes’ theeng.”

“Of course,” Soltero said. “But I had to get you away from Sombras. The proprietor was going to call the police.”

“Yes,” Abel said. “But now eef joo can drive us to my car and geev us our money, please?”

“Of course,” Soltero said.

But the little Mexican kept driving away from downtown and oncoming headlights were becoming infrequent.

Abel said, “Señor Soltero. We wan’ our money now!”

“Stop,” Soltero said to the driver, who pulled to the side of the road.

Shelby looked around. They weren’t in the city center anymore. It was quiet out here. There were some houses nearby that looked as though they might be lit by kerosene lamps rather than electricity.

Soltero said, “I want us to do business in the future, but I do not want you to create any further disturbance tonight. That is why I have brought you out here. In case your friend makes a disturbance there will not be a problem.”

For the first time in twenty minutes, Shelby Pate spoke. He said, “Why the fuck would I make a disturbance? You intend to pay us our money, right?”

“Certainly,” Soltero said. “But there is a problem.”

Shelby looked at Abel and said, “What kinda problem?”

Soltero withdrew an envelope from the pocket of his jacket. He handed it to Abel Durazo, and said, “There are eighty fifty-dollar notes. I hope you are pleased.”

Shelby said, “Four grand? You owe us six grand!”

Abel could smell the ox. His body odor was powerful, and when Abel’s hand brushed against Shelby’s, the ox’s hand was clammy.

Abel was terrified. He said, “Ees okay, Buey!”

“No!” Shelby said. “Fuck, no! We got six grand comin!”

“I thought I could sell them to my contact for several dollars a pair, but I could not,” Soltero said, reasonably.

Shelby said, “And you got no profit for yourself, right?”

“Not very much,” Soltero said. “I spent most of my profit on your food tonight.”

“Okay,” Abel said. “Okay. Ees okay, Buey!”

“Sure,” Shelby said, very quietly. “Sometimes things don’t work out.”

Abel had heard that tone once before, when the ox had smashed the bottle of beer across the eyes of the bearded biker. Abel was petrified.

Then Soltero yelped! Shelby had grabbed his ponytail with his left hand and jammed the derringer against the bone behind Soltero’s right ear, saying, “Tell your pals to get outta the car or I’ll put one right between your runnin lights!”

The driver reached under his jacket, but Soltero yelled, “No!”

Then Soltero said something in Spanish that Shelby didn’t understand, and his friends opened the doors and got out slowly.

“Buey! Don’ do eet, Buey!” Abel pleaded. He was afraid to even touch the ox for fear he might pull the trigger.

“Get out, dude!” Shelby said to Abel. “You’re drivin!”

“Where?” Abel cried.

“Back to our car,” Shelby said. Then he released Soltero’s hair, but reached inside Soltero’s coat pocket, removing his wallet. Then he said, “Take that fuckin watch off!”

Soltero removed his gold wristwatch and handed it to Shelby Pate, who put it in the pocket of his leather jacket. Shelby said, “We’re gonna take Señor Soltero with us and make sure he ain’t got some hideout money. Then we’re goin home. If this’s a real Rolex maybe it’ll make up for what he owes us.”

“Crazy!” Abel whispered. “Crazy!”

But now there was nothing Abel Durazo could do except go along. He stepped out and started to open the front door. Soltero’s men stood in the headlight beam, whispering.

Then the small one moved out of the light and came toward Abel, saying in Spanish, “The keys. I have the car keys.”

Shelby said to Soltero, “Jist relax and this’ll be over before ya …”

“Aaaaaaahhhhhh!”

A loud sigh. It sounded to Shelby like Flaco was taking a badly needed piss. Then Abel looked in at him through the side window of the car.

His eyes were white in the moonlight. “Buey!” he cried. “Buey!” Abel’s right hand came up to the window and smeared it with blood.

Soltero hit the door handle and fell out onto the roadside. Shelby heaved himself out just before three explosions shattered the bloody glass!

Abel staggered around the car toward Shelby, clutching the steel that protruded from his belly. Then his hands relaxed and he toppled onto the road.

Shelby bellowed and stood over Soltero, who held his palms up to ward off the bullet. Soltero was silent when Shelby kept his promise and fired the derringer point-blank, right between his running lights.

Then an orange fireball exploded at Shelby from the other side of the car.… The explosion revived him.… The fireball seemed to blow him down.… He lost the derringer.… He got up and ran!

The two Mexicans screamed to each other in Spanish and Shelby heard footsteps padding after him. He kept going, running up the hillside, plunging into the mesquite, plowing through it! In a few minutes the Mexicans’ voices grew fainter.

There were two rows of houses on the hillside, and an open field off to the right. There were no streetlights on that hardpan road, not one. Shelby started for that open area but stopped in horror!

Through the darkness, strange shapes loomed up from the earth.… Crypts and gravestones … Figures moving among them … Flickering candles floating as though through the air … It was a graveyard! Shelby screamed and ran the other way.

He doubled back again and scrambled up a desolate hill, away from houses and cars, away from tombstones and flickering candles. Shelby ran into the blackness of the night, which was not nearly as terrifying as those flickering floating candles.

When Fin and Nell had left the restaurant they’d found Bobbie waiting at the mouth of the passageway. She’d described the Ford Explorer and told them she didn’t get the license number, but was sure it was a California plate. Then, with nothing further they could do, the three investigators had headed for Nell’s car in the parking lot of the Frontón.

The traffic leaving Tijuana was unusually busy for early evening. The vendors were out in force, and they walked between the traffic lanes hoping to interest the tourists in pottery, leather belts, blankets and plaster figurines.

An old woman in a shawl shuffled among the throng of vendors. She had nothing to sell. She was bony and stooped and so badly wrinkled it would be difficult to say she was a woman were it not for her shawl and long dress. On her feet she wore the remnants of a man’s shoes.

Bobbie thought of the mangy starving dog in the doorway, of how the dog had whimpered in fear. She reached into her purse and handed the old woman a twenty-dollar bill.

* * *

Shelby Pate was hopelessly lost and there was no one to light his way. No one to call him with a golden trumpet. No mother to await him on the Day of the Dead. He was exhausted, panicked, battling wave after wave of hysteria. He’d sometimes hallucinated when he’d snorted this much methamphetamine, and he thought he might be hallucinating now. He wasn’t sure that any of this was real.

He was lying on a dusty hilltop in the darkness and could hear dogs barking, and children shouting in the distance. Out in front of him he saw a road traversing a lonely ridge. A vehicle moved slowly along the road and someone was searching from the vehicle with a flashlight. He was certain it was Soltero’s men hunting him. To kill him with a knife the way they’d killed Abel Durazo. Or to belly-shoot him and let him writhe in agony.

Then he saw a silhouette of a boy coming his way out of the darkness! It was all he could do to keep from screaming! Shelby pressed his face into the earth. When he raised up the child was still there. The child moved without a light, seeming to float through the night. Then the phantom boy vanished into a small tunnel, into the darkness.

Shelby heard a voice down the hillside behind him. It sounded like the Mexican with the Zapata mustache. He got up and ran, staggered, after the boy. Toward the fearful tunnel, and whatever lay beyond!

When Shelby got close he could see that it was not a tunnel but a hole in a tall metal barrier. There was an opening chopped clear through, but he was so fat he almost couldn’t follow the small boy through the hole. He ripped his jacket and cut his hands on the rusty metal. He got stuck for a moment and began to weep, but kept wriggling, finally getting his hips through, tearing his jeans, bloodying his legs. Then Shelby got up and limped across a desolate plateau in the moonlight.

He heard the sound of Mexican music from a boom box far off to the left. He heard voices chattering and laughing off to the right. But there were no lights, none at all, only an occasional dagger of moonlight.

Shelby looked for the boy but couldn’t find him. Then he tripped and fell, rolling down a dusty hillside. When he got up, he couldn’t run anymore. His legs wouldn’t obey him, and he heard a sawing sound, realizing it was coming from himself. His breathing sounded like a hacksaw cutting through steel pipe; a screeching raspy saw-blade was buried deep in his chest. Shelby Pate was sure he would die then, there in the devil’s gorge.

An English-accented voice said, “Arriba las manos!”

Shelby dropped to his knees. In a way, he wanted to die, to get it over with. A flashlight beam struck him like a club. He was blinded. He put his hands up to his face.

A voice said, “Hey, Phil! This guy’s an American!”

Five minutes later, Shelby Pate was handcuffed and sitting in the back of a Bronco, heading toward the Chula Vista Station of the U.S. Border Patrol.