Illegal

FORTY-SEVEN

Once Wanda the Whale was convinced that Payne didn't intend to kidnap her pollos, she put down her machete. When she started talking to Tino, she relaxed even more, calling him the "cutest little burrito west of the Pecos."

She took them to her cabin, the one with the Office sign, advising them not to pet the dog. As if anyone would try. Chained to the porch railing was a bull mastiff with watery eyes, drooping jowls, and a chest that resembled an iron breastplate. Payne guessed the dog could have boxed middleweight, about 160 pounds.

Once inside, Wanda opened a small fridge and handed them Cokes that could have been cooler. Like a newly christened ship easing down the slipway, she settled her giant buttocks into a sagging plaid recliner. Pleased to have guests who "spoke American," she spent several minutes talking about herself. Her real name was Wanda Baker from Arkadelphia, Arkansas. At eighteen, she'd been an exotic dancer in a bar near the Pine Bluff Arsenal, an army base where she collected sweaty dollar bills from soldiers who liked their women plump and jiggly. She ran off with a corporal, "a cute little bugger," who went AWOL to marry her.

"The smaller the man, the meaner the drunk," she told them, recounting a maxim of married life.

Her husband had read a magazine article about this big lake down by the Mexican border. The Salton Sea. He figured he could earn a living pulling mullet from the water, so they headed west. His business ended when he caught more truck tires than fish. The marriage ended when he started washing down meth with cactus wine. One night, he came after Wanda with a tire iron. She whisked him off his feet and bear-hugged him until she heard his ribs snap like stalks of celery.

Wanda started up a low-rent whorehouse in the cabins, servicing the dust-covered, phlegm-hacking men who worked at the gypsum quarry just down the road. The "Sugarloaf Spa," she called it, in a triumph of marketing over reality. A small operation, with a few Mexican women, a few runaways from the Midwest. Wanda avoided arrest by providing freebies for local cops and town bigwigs. She'd probably still be "Madame Wanda," but for a judge from Ocotillo who picked up a dose of the clap. Cops shut her down but let her open the stash house in return for monthly bundles of cash.

Now, beached in her recliner, Wanda the Whale tried to cool herself with a handheld Japanese silk fan, as rivulets of sweat tracked down her cleavage. She explained that the No Vacancy sign was posted because she never rented any cabins. The Sugarloaf was a way station, providing a night or two of housing for the flood of Mexicans, Guatemalans, Hondurans, and Salvadorans who crossed La Frontera without papers.

After a couple good years, things had slowed down. Upstate, strawberries and citrus got hammered in a winter freeze. Farmers with only half a crop needed half the workers. The slowdown in home construction killed jobs for laborers. And the feds had scared off a lot of businesses who needed workers.

"A perfect shitstorm," she informed them. "Getting so a woman can't make a semi-honest living." She shifted her weight in the chair, and the cabin may have tilted a little more out of plumb. "So who's this gal you're looking for?"

"Mi mami," Tino said. "Marisol Perez."

The woman's face brightened. "The pretty one. Ah should have known. She told me she got separated from her boy."

"That's her! Is she here?"

"I can see the resemblance now. You got the same shape face, the same complexion. But those green eyes of yours threw me off."

"Where is she?" Payne said. "Is she okay?"

"Ah never would have sent her to the slaughterhouse, except to get her away from that douche bag El Tigre."

"She's working?"

"Where?" Tino pleaded.

Wanda sighed, her breasts heaving under the cropped tee. "Let me tell you what happened."

Tino's eyes filled with tears as Wanda repeated what her driver had told her. Marisol fighting off a foreman at the plant, hurting him real bad. Hell, maybe even killing him.

"Ah couldn't bring her back here. Cops would be banging on my door. If not them, then the cousins of that asshole foreman. Had my driver take her to a stash house in Hellhole Canyon."

"Is she still there?" Payne asked.

Wanda shrugged. "Hard to tell. Place is run by a tweaker named Dickie Chitwood. Real trailer trash. Rumor is, the place is owned by some rich guy upstate."

"We'll need directions."

"Ain't far, as the crow flies. About three hours if you don't get lost. Or three days if you do."

"We'll find it."

"That's what I'm afraid of."

Payne's look shot her a question.

"Chitwood's partial to a Ruger carbine. Damn good shot for someone stoked on crystal meth. And he don't have a kind heart like me, so you take care."