Illegal

SEVENTY-TWO

As he burst through the fallen door, Payne scanned the dimly lit trailer, his heightened senses taking in a stained leopard carpet, the glow of a small television screen, and a short, chunky woman washing dishes at a small sink.

The woman dropped a plate and screamed. A piercing sound, made sharper by the aluminum walls. Something stirred behind her, a lump rising from a quilt on a gaucho bed.

The form of a man. Boxer shorts, bare feet, and a dirty wife-beater tee.

Manuel Garcia.

Shorter than Payne thought. Square head. Round body. A fifty-five gallon drum with arms and thick-fingered hands.

"Hey, asshole!" Payne wailed. "Remember me?" He stepped toward the bed and cocked the bat, yelling a phrase he'd practiced just for this occasion."?Te acuerdas de mi, pendejo?"

Garcia grunted and dug a small revolver from under a pillow. Turned toward Payne, fumbling with the gun. Fredo in The Godfather, hapless under pressure.

Payne's backswing clipped the curved wall. Shit. His timing fouled up, he swung and missed Garcia.

The woman still screaming.

The gun shaking in Garcia's hand. A shot. A cherry bomb exploding in a tin can, the bullet punched a hole in the metal roof.

Payne swung again. Garcia danced a step backward and the bat caught him just above the knee. Garcia howled and fell, the gun flying into the tangle of quilts.

"?No tenemos dinero!" the woman wailed.

"Don't want your money!" Payne hoisted Garcia back onto the bed, pressed the bat crosswise under his chin, bore down with two hands. "Tell her why I'm here, you piece of shit!"

Garcia choked and sputtered. Confused and terrified.

"You don't remember? You forget that easy!" Payne was enraged, seeing the man up close. The leathery face, the smell of tobacco and sweat. Everything came back.

Payne jammed up against the car door, his leg broken, forehead gashed, eyes filling with blood.

"My son. Can you see him? Is he okay?"

The man leaning through the open window. The frozen look of cold, stark fear.

Garcia's plaintive cry. "El chico. El chico.?Dios me perdone!"

Forcing the bat into Garcia's Adam's apple, Payne heard a wet, burbling sound. He could break the cartilage so easily, could crush his trachea, watch him die.

"You don't remember me? You don't remember my boy? Ten years old! You worthless piece of garbage!"

Garcia's eyes registered. His fear taking on meaning.

"That's right! I'm not here to rob you. I'm here to kill you."

Garcia stammered something. Payne eased the pressure just a bit.

"Sorry. Sorry, I never meant to…"

"Fuck that. You killed my son. You killed me."

Behind him, the woman had dropped to her knees. Crossed herself, ticked off prayers in Spanish at high speed.

Payne grabbed Garcia by the front of his T-shirt. Yanked him to his feet. Drew back the bat, measured the distance to the man's temple, anticipated the delicious crack of metal on bone.

A child coughed.

From the darkness at the rear of the trailer, a girl of about four walked toward them, cradling a tattered stuffed animal in her arms. Bugs Bunny maybe, but with an ear missing. She coughed again, a parched hack.

"Daddy? Why did you fire the gun?" Her voice small and scratchy.

"Lourdes," the woman wailed."?Metete en la cama!" Ordering her daughter back to bed.

The girl focused on Payne. "Is that man hurting Daddy?" she asked her mother.

"Not here," Garcia begged. "Please. Not here."

Payne let the bat fall to his side. "Fine. Outside. In the trees."

Payne grabbed the handgun from the bed, a. 22 revolver, stuck it in his pants, and dragged Garcia out the door. The man didn't head for the trees and he didn't try to run. He just dropped to his knees in front of the Lady of Guadalupe statue, and began mumbling, "Padre nuestro, que estas en los cielos…"

Payne scanned the dirt road. No cars. If Garcia screamed-and Payne doubted he would-there would be no one to hear.

"Santificado sea tu Nombre…"

"Why'd you come back?" Payne snarled.

Garcia stopped praying. Sucking in air, he said, "Your police contacted police in Oaxaca. Instead of sending me back, the judicales took my money. When I had nothing more to give, they threatened my family. They would have…"

He didn't have to finish. It was safer for Manuel Garcia to sneak into the country where he was wanted for homicide than to stay home. He talked softly in accented but decent English. He knew people working in the cotton fields near Tulare, and he knew how to drive a tractor, so he came across with his family and got a job.

"What's wrong with your daughter?"

"Asthma." He looked skyward. "The dust and pesticides. Very bad after spraying."

Payne felt something drain out of him. "That job of yours. You get medical insurance?"

Still on his knees, Garcia shook his head.

"Asthma's not hard to treat. Medication. Inhalers."

Garcia looked up at him, puzzled.

"What I'm saying, you gotta get your daughter to a doctor."

Garcia stared at the ground. "I still owe the coyote three thousand dollars for the crossing."

Payne took out his wallet. Four hundred-dollar bills, three twenties, a couple tens, a few ones. He thrust the money to Garcia, their hands briefly touching.

Then Payne dropped Garcia's gun on the ground, slung the bat onto his shoulder, and headed back to his car.