Illegal

THIRTY-NINE

What a shithole, Eugene Rigney thought.

One hundred four degrees, shirt sticking like flypaper to the Chrysler's seat back, a blazing wind that seared your throat. Rigney had vowed to follow Jimmy Payne to hell and back. Now the detective thought he'd made it halfway.

Rigney had grown up near Hermosa Beach, surfed as a kid, and thought of California as an endless expanse of ocean. Foggy mornings and chilly waves. God, how he loved to walk barefoot through the shore-break, foamy as a margarita.

And Christ, how I hate the desert.

Endless miles of dirt, baked hard as concrete. Thorny plants that could rip your eyes out. Minutes earlier, the New River had announced its presence with the sulferous aroma of floating turds. Flowing north from Mexico, sizzling in the heat, the brown snake of a river was a steaming current of raw sewage and industrial runoff. Rocky shallows were decorated with shredded Styrofoam coolers, rusted bicycles, and tree limbs bleached the color of skeletons.

A deflated Zodiac was stuck on the rocks. The mode of transport for some illegals, risking hepatitis, flesh-eating bacteria, even polio, the poor bastards. Rigney shot a look at a nearby tract of land. Concrete-block stucco houses, a few trailers. How the hell could people live here?

He watched a dead animal float by, either a dog or a coyote, its limbs stiffened. Earlier, he'd run over an animal on Route 86. The damn thing crunch ed under his tires. Armadillo, maybe?

Wishing he could run over Jimmy Payne, hear the music of his bones breaking. But at the moment, Rigney knew he was the one up to his ass in armadillos.

Internal Affairs was investigating. He had failed to follow procedures and couldn't prove he gave Payne $50,000 instead of the $45,000 they recovered. His commander had never signed off on using Payne as the bag man. Judge Rollins's suicide had compromised the investigation and inspired the Los Angeles Times to crow about the L.A.P.D.'s "illegal entrapment" and "lethal harassment" of public officials. The preliminary I.A. report called Rigney a "reckless cowboy" and his superior suggested he should retain counsel for a disciplinary hearing.

Shit, I could end up working security at Trader Joe's, collecting shopping carts in the parking lot.

He wanted to kill J. Atticus Payne, Esquire. But only after inflicting a world of pain on the shyster. Now, just outside the shitkicker town of Calexico, Rigney was on his trail. An Imperial County sheriff's deputy had arrested Payne, then let him escape. What's with this Payne-as-Houdini shit? First he gets away from his ex-wife, and now an armed cop? Not that Rigney believed Sharon Payne's story. The woman still had a soft spot for that loser scumbag.

Maybe I can blame her for this whole goat fuck. Tell Internal Affairs she vouched for her ex as the bag man.

Not that it was true. But desperate times call for shitty measures.

He drove past a yellow sign with the silhouettes of a man, a woman, and a little girl running. "CAUTION" printed across the top. Warning motorists to avoid turning wetbacks into roadkill on the melting asphalt. Bullet holes peppered the sign, a welcome-to-California from the local yokels.

Ten minutes later, Rigney was sitting in front of Deputy Howard Dixon's desk in a trailer adjacent to a bone-dry drainage ditch. The trailer was a sorry excuse for a sheriff's substation, situated within sight of the Mexican border as part of the futile attempt to keep mules-the human variety-from carrying drugs north. Rigney could barely hear the deputy over the whine of a window air conditioner that dripped rusty water but did nothing to cool the place. He was dying for a beer.

Next to a poster was the taxidermied head of a wild boar. Damn thing stank. Wide-eyed, as if surprised to be decorating a cop shop, the boar stared into the face of Governor Schwarzenegger, whose photo hung on the trailer's opposite wall, a measly six feet away.

"I thought Payne might give me trouble," the deputy was saying, "but not the little beaner. I guess I lost track of him."

On a video monitor, they watched the tape from the cruiser's camera. There was Payne, handcuffed and blabbering a mile a minute to the deputy, the Mexican boy ducking out of the picture.

"The kid said he had to pee," the deputy explained.

Violating Traffic Stops 101, Rigney thought. Letting one of the subjects out of your sight.

"The kid has this innocent look," the deputy continued. "Speaks good English. Neatly groomed. If he'd been the typical beaner, I'd have been more careful. You think that's prejudiced, Detective?"

No, but it's fucking stupid, you sunburned hick.

"Don't sweat it," Rigney said. "Could happen to anyone."

On the monitor, the image jumped and so did Payne. Rigney squinted at the screen. The first shotgun blast had blown out a front tire. The second blast knocked out the picture for a moment. When the grainy image returned, Dixon was giving up his gun.

"Why didn't you shoot Payne when you had the chance?" Rigney asked.

"He wasn't armed."

"Neither was that five hundred pounds of bacon on your wall, but you blasted him." Gesturing toward the boar.

"I wasn't in fear of great bodily harm from Mr. Payne," the deputy said, as if practicing for the sergeant's exam.

"You have any idea what Payne was doing in this godforsaken place?"

"Said he was looking for the kid's mother. She disappeared or something."

"Bullshit. Royal Payne doesn't do diddly-squat for anyone else unless there's an angle."

The deputy's phone rang. He picked it up, said "Yup" a couple times, hung up. "Five hours ago, cameras picked up Payne's Lexus crossing the border into Mexico at the Mexicali station. That'd be about thirty minutes before our bulletins went out."

"Great. Just great." Sweating a river, seething with anger.

"Not to worry, Detective. He'll come back, sooner or later. When he does, we'll grab him."

"You're pretty confident for a guy who lost his gun to a half-pint wetback."

"I want Payne as much as you do. The way I see it, Payne's the cricket, and I'm the spider."

"Actually, Payne is more like a cockroach," Rigney said. "Just when you have the bastard cornered, you learn he can fly."