Illegal

THIRTEEN

Waiting in the canyon near the border, Tino watched Rey answer his cell phone. El Tigre calling. Rey listened a few seconds. Stomped in a circle. Shouted, "?Chingalo!?Chingalo!"

Listened some more. "What am I supposed to do with them?"

Two more "chingalos."

"No time to babysit, Uncle. I got my own delivery to make."

"Where's mi mami?" Tino demanded when Rey hung up.

"Sucking a border agent's cock," Rey taunted him. "Now, shut up, chilito!"

All my fault, Tino thought for the hundredth time. Blaming himself, for who else could he blame? Because of him, they had to run. He wanted to race through the canyons all the way to the border. Desperate to find his mother. Wanting to feel her arms around him.

Rey wouldn't say what had happened. Just waved his pistol and screamed at Tino and the four men to get in the truck. They sped back to La Rumorosa along the same winding road, sliding through steep turns, Tino scraping his elbows in the cargo bed.

Once back at the stone house, Rey grabbed a submachine gun-a Mac-10 Tino recognized from TV shows-and herded the four men into the house, locking them in a back room.

"But you, chilito… " He waved the gun barrel toward Tino. "You are coming with us."

Before Tino could answer, Rey swung the gun toward a small tree and fired a burst, nearly cutting the trunk in half. Rey's two friends-the morons he called "Mundo" and "Chuco"-laughed like donkeys. They all rapped knuckles and passed around a bottle of wine. Rey offered Tino a sip, but he shook his head, and all three brayed some more, calling him "lambiscon."

"I'm no suck ass," Tino said, and they laughed some more.

After several minutes of shooting the gun and drinking the wine, Rey grabbed Tino's backpack and yanked it open. Three T-shirts, two pairs of jeans, some socks. "Nothing but shit here, cabron. "

Tino remained silent. Unwilling to show his fear, hoping they could not see his knees wobbling like a broken bicycle.

Rey pulled out Tino's prized baseball glove. A Vinny Castilla model. Soft brown leather with an aroma better than fresh-baked bread. He had bought the glove with the money he earned delivering lunch to workers at his mother's job site.

Rey smacked Tino across the face with the glove. Turned to his friends. "Ay! Mama's boy thinks he is a baseball player."

He tossed the glove to Mundo, who tossed it to Chuco. All of them seemed to be around the same age. Nineteen or twenty. Shaved heads. Dirty clothes. Stinky bodies. Scratchy facial hair like grass trying to grow out of sand. Now all three pawed through Tino's belongings, mangy dogs at a garbage can.

After finding nothing of interest other than the baseball glove, Rey ordered Tino to take off his shirt. Tino shook his head, and the two others grabbed him, stripped off the shirt, and pinned his arms behind his back.

Mundo grabbed the chain around Tino's neck. Attached to the end was a clear plastic envelope, and inside, a photo of his mother. "Look, chilito still sucks his mother's tit."

More laughs, all around.

Rey disappeared into the house, while Mundo and Chuco pushed Tino to the ground. Mundo ripped Tino's sweatpants down to his knees. Tino squirmed and yelled, fearing they were perverts. He got one arm free and flailed at them. He would die fighting before he would let the filthy maricons soil him.

Chuco pulled the sweatpants completely off, then took a knife to the material that enclosed the drawstring. When the cloth tore open, four twenty-dollar bills, rolled up tight, popped out. Tino had put the money there, just as El Tigre had advised, to keep it safe from thieves. Chuco grunted his pleasure and grabbed the bills. Mundo pinned Tino to the ground, the boy screaming, "Give it back! That's all I have!"

Rey returned, straddled Tino, and placed a plastic bag filled with white powder on his chest. It took Tino a moment to figure out what was going on.?Cocaina! They were not perverts. They were drug traffickers.

Rey wrapped a long strand of tape around Tino's chest, securing the bag in place. They flipped him and taped two more bags on his back.

And they're making me their mule!

Chuco and Mundo carried Tino, still struggling, onto the cargo bed of the truck, opened the toolbox, removed a false bottom, and placed him inside.

"Me and my carnales, we're Eme, " Rey said.

Mexican Mafia. Tino didn't believe it for a second. These guys were stupid peasants who sold drugs without kicking up a percentage to La Eme.

"You got some work to do for us, chilito, " Rey continued. "And if you fuck it up, you're gonna get tagged and bagged." He slammed a piece of plywood into a slot, sealing off Tino.

The plywood groaned above Tino's head, tools clattering into the upper half of the box to cover up the false bottom. Then, the click of a padlock. Silence. Tino was as alone as a corpse in a coffin. The only light seeped through tiny airholes drilled in the side of the box.

He felt the fear close tight around his heart, fought against it, could not conquer it. But then he came to a realization that startled him, made him feel the passage from boyhood to manhood in one moment of flaming brilliance, as if from a shooting star. He cared for another person more than for himself. So he was not afraid to die. But he could not stand the thought of his mother's heartache if tonight he vanished from the face of the earth.