Illegal

FIFTY-TWO

Racing up the dirt road toward the car, Payne discovered something new about Tino. The kid was fast. A blazer. Fluid, head still. No flying elbows or herky-jerky knees. A born sprinter, he'd be a hell of a base stealer.

Payne ran like a lame horse, his mended leg throbbing. Tino reached the Mustang first and vaulted over the door and into the passenger seat. Payne stutter-stepped into the driver's seat. Seconds later, the Mustang kicked up dirt as they roared out of the canyon.

They had tied Chitwood with a coil of rope to a structural beam in the barn. Tino took the wire cutters, while Payne broke down the carbine and tossed the parts into the woods. He used the pitchfork to puncture the tires of the Harley chopper and all three cargo vans. If Chitwood tried to catch up with them, Payne thought, he was going to do it as a pissed-off pedestrian with a bloody foot.

"You're a dead man, Payne!" Chitwood had called out, as the pair ran from the barn. "If I don't getcha, Zaga will, and he don't give a shit about the warf and woop of Ellis Island."

Payne floored the accelerator, heading up the narrow dirt road toward the Salton Sea Highway.

Less than a minute went by before a car appeared, coming straight at them. Flicking its high beams in the daylight.

A big car.

An SUV, maybe.

Then Payne saw it was a black Cadillac Escalade EXT, the combo SUV and pickup, a gas-guzzling monster.

It could be a local rancher. Or a lost tourist. Or… Zaga.

The Escalade's horn bleated. If it could talk, it would be saying, "Back up, asshole!" Two horses could have passed each other on the dirt road. Maybe even two Mini Coopers. But not the wide-hipped Escalade and the Mustang.

A hand came out the window and waved at Payne, delivering the same message as the horn. It made sense. It would be a shorter drive for Payne to back up to the stash house than for the Escalade to back up to the paved road. But no way Payne was going toward the stash house. Maybe Chitwood had gotten loose. Maybe he called for help. Maybe he had another firearm.

The Escalade door opened, and the driver stepped out. A bantamweight in a Western shirt with piping. A wide Western belt with a turquoise-and-silver buckle. A weathered face with Hispanic features. His age difficult to determine. Fifty? Sixty? Older?

Tight black pants tucked into fancy cowboy boots made of a green hide that might have been rattlesnake. And on his hip, in a Western holster, a handgun that looked as big as a cannon, way outsize on the trim little man.

A revolver. Maybe. 50 caliber. Bigger even than Dirty Harry's. 44 Magnum.

The man had a fine head of long hair, somewhere between gray and white, the color of spit. The hair was parted in the middle and fell to his shoulders, Wild Bill Hickok style.

"You fellows lost?" the man called out.

Payne kept his right hand on the gearshift and didn't answer.

The big man's right hand rested on his hip, inches from the gun. "I'm asking you nicely to back up. There's a turnoff not far behind you."

Payne depressed the clutch, slipped the gearshift into first, and revved the engine. The throaty roar had a rattle in it.

The man's hand wrapped around the gun butt. "You deaf? Someone's got to back up, and it's you, fellow."

Like two gunslingers.

"Not asking you again."

Payne leaned out the car window and shouted, "Why don't you kiss my sister's black cat's ass?" Not a great line, but Bo Hopkins said it in The Wild Bunch.

The question seemed to startle the little man with the big gun. "There something wrong with your brain, son?"

Payne took a stab at it. "Nope. Something wrong with yours, Zaga?"

The man froze at the mention of the name. Still as a boulder, he seemed to size up the situation. "You a dope fiend? One of Chitwood's asshole friends?"

Yep. Zaga, all right.

" 'Cause I warned that tweaker to get off the meth. If you're supplying him, I'll bury you without a second thought."

"Brace yourself, Tino," Payne whispered.

Payne let out the clutch and put the pedal to the rusty metal. Dirt spun from the rear wheels. The Mustang rocketed forward, right at Zaga, who vaulted to one side, drawing the handgun in a smooth motion.

The Mustang flew by, sheering off the Escalade's side-view mirror.

On its passenger side, the Mustang scraped the roadside boulders with metallic shrieks of dying soldiers.

Payne barely heard the first gunshot.

The second bullet clanged into the Mustang's trunk.

"Get down, Tino! On the floor!"

But the boy was propped on his knees, looking back at the man with the gun.

"Tino!" Payne tried to shove him down into his seat.

"In a second, vato."

Two more gunshots sounded.

When they slid around a bend in the road and Zaga was no longer in sight, Tino dropped into his seat.

"Jesus! What the hell's wrong with you, kid? You could have been killed."

"I memorized the pistolero 's license plate."

"Oh."

Tino rattled off the numbers and letters.

"Okay," Payne said. "Good. Very good. How'd you think of that?"

"It's what Rockford would have done," Tino said.