Illegal

THIRTY-TWO

Payne pulled the Lexus to the berm, and the Imperial County sheriff's cruiser pulled up behind him.

"It's the dude from the diner," Payne said, looking into his side mirror.

"We ain't done nothing wrong," Tino said.

"Maybe so, but let me do the talking."

Payne watched as Deputy Dixon spoke into his radio, then stepped out of the cruiser. He walked slowly toward them, a purposeful, heavyset young man in reflective sunglasses.

Payne zipped the window down and sang out, cheerfully, "Hey, there, Officer. We meet again."

For a moment, no one spoke as an open-bed truck trundled north, a dozen Hispanic men in work clothes huddled in the back. A cyclone of dust swirled across the highway, oily fumes in its wake. Watching the truck pass, Dixon said, "Temporary work permits. Otherwise, the beaners would be hiding under tarps."

Beaners, Payne thought. Not a good sign.

"Where exactly you folks headed?" the deputy asked.

"Just a little vacation," Payne said. "Thought we'd look around Imperial."

"Little bitty town, not much to see unless you like sand dunes."

"Love sand dunes," Payne avowed. " Lawrence of Arabia is one of my favorite movies."

"Uh-huh." The deputy peeled a stick of gum and popped it into his mouth. He turned to Tino and said, "Want a stick, Harry Potter?"

Tino shook his head.

"Please step out of the vehicle. Both of you."

They got out of the air-conditioned metal box. A wave of desert heat rolled over them. Sand blew across the highway.

"Gonna ask you again, kid," the cop said. "What's your name? Tu nombre? "

"Tino," the boy said, just as Payne said, "Adam."

The deputy cocked his head. "Which is it, Adam or Tino?"

"Adam Tino Payne," Payne said. "He likes his middle name better."

"Sure he does." The cop flicked his gum wrapper toward a staghorn cactus. "Got some I.D. for Master Adam Tino Payne?"

"I don't need no stinking I.D.," Tino spat out, with an overcooked Mexican accent.

"Can it, kid." Payne turned to the deputy. "My name's James Payne. I'm a lawyer. Like I said, this is my son, Adam. School's out, so we're touring the desert."

The cop took off his sunglasses and gave Tino a long, hard look. "Boy doesn't favor you, does he?"

Beads of sweat tracked down Payne's forehead and stung the corners of his eyes. "If it's any of your business, his mother's Hispanic. My wife. Juanita."

"Okay, husband of Juanita. What's going on here?"

"Like I said, vacation. Father and son bonding. Maybe head over to Phoenix, watch the Diamondbacks play." Winging it now.

"Not buying what you're selling. Now, what are you and your little mestizo up to?"

"You asking because my son has brown skin? This some kind of racial profiling?"

"More like pedophile profiling."

"What!"

"We got a problem with guys coming down to the border, buying Mexican kids for lustful purposes."

Lustful purposes?

It was such a ludicrous phrase that Payne laughed.

"What about it, chico?" the deputy asked. "This guy try anything funny with you?"

"What you think, I'm some sort of mayate? Anybody try that with me, I chop off his aguacates."

Using the word for avocados. It occurred to Payne that the Spanish language had an abundance of synonyms for testicles.

"Just asking if the guy tried," Dixon said.

"No, man. He's my vato."

"Your bud? So, he's not your father?"

Tino clammed up, and the cop turned to Payne. "You got some I.D., Mr. Payne?"

"It's in the car."

The deputy followed Payne, who opened the passenger door, then clicked open the glove compartment. A blue-steel, short-barreled revolver fell to the floor with a thud.

"What the hell!" Payne said.

The deputy grabbed Payne by the shoulder and spun him around. "You got a concealed firearms permit?"

"That's not mine! I don't know how it got there."

"Hands on top of the car, and spread your legs."

Payne did as he was told, and Dixon patted him down, dealing out a painful smack on the scrotum.

"Hands behind your back."

Payne followed orders meekly, and the deputy cuffed him.

Dixon picked up the revolver, sniffed the barrel, rotated the cylinder. "I'm gonna call this in, Payne. You stay right where you are."

When the deputy was out of earshot, Payne said, "Where'd you get the gun, you little shitbird?"

"That cabron 's underwear drawer."

"Quinn? You stole Cullen Quinn's gun!"

"I thought we might need some firepower, vato." Tino gave Payne a sheepish look. "Sorry, Himmy."

Dixon strode back to the Lexus, moving quicker now. "There's a warrant out for your arrest, Mr. Payne. Grand Larceny."

"I gotta pee," Tino said, moving toward the berm.

"I'll level with you," Payne told Dixon. "I'm not the boy's father."

"No shit."

"We're looking for his mother."

"Uh-huh."

"God's honest truth. She came over the border with a coyote and disappeared."

"That's a shame."

"C'mon, Deputy. It's a missing persons case. Your job, right?"

"My job's taking you in and turning the boy over to I.C.E. They got something called 'Return to Sender.' A one-way ticket back to Mexico." Pronouncing it mehee-ko and grinning.

"Have a heart. The boy has no father. His mother is missing."

"I got all that. But why are you looking for her?"

"Because I'm trying to change my life."

"You just did. You're under arrest, Payne. You have the right to remain stupid. Any shit you say can be used against you in a court of law. If you cannot afford a shyster, the state will provide one."

"I should warn you I'm very close to Governor Schwarzenegger." In truth, the closest Payne ever got was sitting in the third row of Terminator 2.

"Didn't vote for him. Now take a seat in the back of my cruiser."

Boom!

Startled, Dixon wheeled around.

"Jesus!" Payne yelled.

Tino stood in front of the police car, 12-gauge shotgun in hand. He'd sneaked into the police car and grabbed the gun from its rack. Now the front right tire of the car was shredded, aflame, and reeking of burnt rubber. Tino racked the shotgun and swung it toward the deputy.

"Hands up, gabacho."

"Mr. Payne, tell the boy to put down the gun."

"Tino, chill out," Payne ordered.

"He takes you in, Himmy, they'll send me back."

"Better than prison," Dixon said. "They'll whack your skinny ass like a pinata."

"I'm a juvie," Tino said. "A shrink will give me some pills."

"Tino," Payne pleaded. "Trust me. You're doing this all wrong."

" Mami needs me. I got no time to fuck around." Tino motioned toward the deputy with the barrel of the shotgun. "Drop your gunbelt."

"Nope. Not gonna do it."

Tino swung the barrel into the open window of the police car and fired. The blast shattered the radio, reducing it to a smoking mass of melting plastic and metal. He pumped the shotgun again and whirled it back toward the deputy.

No one moved. Tino's narrow shoulders were pinched tight, his face slick with sweat. The gun barrel unsteady in his hands.

Payne pictured a horrific accident, the cop's head blown off. "Tino, you're scaring the shit out of me. Please put that gun down."

The boy ignored him and kept his eyes on Dixon. "The gunbelt, senor. I have killed many men for less."

"No you haven't, Tino," Payne said.

"Okay, let's do it your way, chico." Dixon lowered his heavy belt to the sandy soil and kicked it away.

Tino's shoulders relaxed.

It took only a second. The cop dropped to the ground, tucked, and rolled into a gulley behind a creosote bush at the edge of the road. Still moving, he snatched a small pistol from an ankle holster, got to one knee, and aimed at Tino through the leafy plant.

The boy ducked behind the cruiser, then turkey-peeked over the hood.

The cop fired, the shot shattering a side window.

Tino lifted the shotgun over the hood and aimed toward the bush.

"Tino. No!" Payne yelled.

The boy ducked as a second pistol shot echoed over the hood of the car.

Payne circled the Lexus and belly-crawled off the road. It would have been easier if his hands weren't cuffed, but he managed to wriggle, face-first, into the gulley. Twenty feet away, the deputy was obscured behind creosote bushes and a jumping cholla cactus.

"Throw down the shotgun, kid!" Dixon hollered.

"No way!" Tino was still crouched behind the cruiser.

"I don't want to shoot you."

Payne struggled to his feet and waited. If the cop fired again, his ears would ring for a few seconds. He would never hear Payne tearing through the bushes.

"Kid, you listening to me? I don't care if you're still wearing diapers, I'll put a hole in you." Dixon fired over the top of his cruiser.

Payne raced through the creosote bushes. Took a breath. Inhaled the scent of coal tar. Planted a foot just in front of the cholla and leapt. If his bum leg didn't hold, he would be impaled by hundreds of deadly spines.

He barely cleared the cactus. Dixon never looked up, and Payne's shoulder caught him squarely in the back, flattening him. Dixon's breath exploded with a whoosh, and his pistol slid across the sand. He was facedown, eating dirt, as Payne slid off him.

"Mo-ther-fuck-er," the deputy snarled, leaking blood from a split lip.

Tino jogged over, shotgun still pointed at Dixon. "Way to go, Himmy."

"You two assholes are both cooked."

"Handcuff key," the little gangster ordered.

The cop tossed him the key. Tino held the shotgun in one hand, unlocked Payne's cuffs with the other.

Adrenaline pumping, heart racing, Payne scanned the road. A trailer truck roared past, heading north, the driver oblivious.

Now what?

Payne knew all about the fight-or-flight response. They had just fought. Now it was time to flee. But to where? All he could see was prison. Beatings, boredom, starchy food.

"Himmy, we got to get going."

"Right."

Payne ordered Dixon back into his cruiser and cuffed him to his steering wheel. The deputy unleashed a string of curses.

Tino was already back in the Lexus. Payne got in, sat there a moment, both hands resting on the steering wheel.

"Himmy, go!"

Payne gunned it, burning rubber, heading south on State Route 86. Then Tino, a kid full of surprises, did something Payne never expected. He burst into tears.

The gun-toting, tough-talking, maybe-motherless boy finally looked and acted his age. Payne slung an arm around him.

"It's okay, slugger. Let it out."

The boy spoke between sobs. "You'll still help me find my mother, vato?"

"I made a promise, didn't I?"

"People break promises all the time."

It came to Payne then. The boy's desperation. The kid had said he'd do anything to find his mother. And he'd just proved it.

"Listen to me, Tino. You're a great kid. No matter what happens, I won't leave you, and I won't let you down. You got that?"

Tino sniffled and nodded. "Back there, you were a real valiente."

"Only if a valiente can be scared shitless."

"He can, if he still acts with valor."

The boy stopped crying. Payne tousled his hair and gave the Lexus more gas. He smiled and said, "Hey kid. You my vato?"

Tino wiped away a tear, and they rapped knuckles.

Now what? The question still hung there. They were heading south, but soon-maybe within minutes-some trucker or another cop would stop and set the deputy free. Every uniform in Imperial County would be looking for them. The deputy had Payne's name, his license plate, and the whole episode would be recorded on the cruiser's video camera. Hell, they'd all probably end up on some cable program: America's Dumbest Criminals.

What were their options? If they turned back north, they'd never get as far as San Berdoo. If they headed west, there'd be an A.P.B. for them in San Diego. East, they'd be stopped before they got to the Arizona border. But there was one other choice. A place they'd be safe. A place where Payne could think. Could plan. Could retrace Marisol's steps. Payne floored the accelerator.

"Where we going, Himmy?"

"Mexico," Payne said.