Crimes in Southern Indiana (18 page)

In El Salvador it was about belonging to survive. Here in the States it was about separation by the language you didn't speak, clothes you didn't wear, and cars you couldn't aff ord. Trafficking drugs gave you all of that until you realized you were a number waiting to be replaced by a new one.

Angel was granite-hard. “Me, I am
primera palabra
. You were
segunda palabra
.” Angel was the first word,
Mara, and Crazy had been the second word, Salvatrucha. The first and second in charge of their MS set, the Crazy Blades. Angel told Crazy, “But now you are
el ladrón
.” The thief. “Filch from the hand that accepted and nourished you. You know how we deal with a thief.”

Ladrón
. They were just here about the money. They didn't know about his deal. From his pocket came the echo of a tiny voice,
“Felix? Felix?” Crazy's alias.

Angel glanced at Crazy's hand in his pocket. Could hear the voice. Watched Crazy pulling the phone from his pocket. Who did this bitch have to call?

Angel's face was a rumpled hide as he gritted his teeth and said, “You been green-lit by big homies. You're dead.”

Into the phone Crazy shouted, “Chicken plant!” and pivoted to get his back against the wall.

Shank,
Flame, and Hyena swarmed Crazy like sharks to a raw slab of beef. Flame feinted right and double-jabbed a point into Crazy's right shoulder. Pain ran red. Crazy grunted, dropped the phone, reached and gripped Flame's ear, pulled him face-to-face, let his teeth taste the cartilage of his nose. Flame screamed like a bitch. Crazy wrestled the blade from Flame's hand, sliced across Flame's eyes, halved
them into a permanent state of blindness. Flame's knees dropped onto the floor, with both his hands patting the moisture that poured from his chewed nose and cleaved sight.

Shank lunged. Crazy twisted and dug the serrated piece of steel he'd pulled from Flame into the meat of Shank's left hip. Pulled it free. Shank winced, and Crazy swiped his edge across Shank's elbow flexer. Vein, tendon, and
ligaments ruptured. Shank jerked, stepped back into Angel. Dropped his blade to the tile, palmed his wound.

From behind, Hyena roped a piece of braided cable over Crazy's head, noosed it tight across his throat. Lifted Crazy to the balls of his feet. Ripe-faced and gagging, Crazy staked his knife into Hyena's right thigh, over and over, tenderizing the muscle. Hyena released the cable, dropped
backwards onto the tiled floor. The knife stuck in the flank of his leg. He chewed on the sting and burn, ripped the knife free.

Angel came with a jagged blade, divided Crazy's jaw just below the ink of a double teardrop, and said, “In the hospital.” Crazy staggered backwards, shoulder burning, and fingered the wet from his face. Angel parted Crazy's chest and said, “In the jailhouse.” Crazy
pressed both hands to his chest. Angel's eyes branded Crazy's as he pressed forward. Crazy caught movement on his periphery, and a smudged body of brown came from his left, rooted a jagged piece of steel up into Angel's kidney, twisted it from side to side until it broke from the handle. Hyena said, “Or in the grave.” The three destinations of an MS member's life.

Angel winced in surprise, dropped
his blade, and glanced down in horror at Hyena, mouthing, “Why?” Hyena said, “'Cause I want to be the first word. Not the second if I ever get released. I want my schooling on the inside, no county time, state time.”

Crazy glanced at the bag of cash, what started all of this, grabbed it, and moved to the restroom's opening. Hyena looked up at Crazy, knowing he couldn't stand up and stop him from
having something he'd never get, a chance at freedom, but he knew if they ever crossed again, he'd kill him. Hyena was ready to graduate to the next level, prison, where he'd get his stripes from the higher-ups, and if he ever got out he'd be a god on the streets. He pulled Angel to the tiled floor, looked to Shank, and said, “We finish him.” They swarmed Angel.

Crazy stood in the doorway holding
the money, his body floured by the moisture of his wounds, his heart still pumping with shock, watching Hyena's fingers dig into Angel's head, listening to the repetitive crack and give of Angel's skull slamming into the bathroom ceramic. Crazy remembered that in El Salvador, after the jumping-in he had to seal his initiation, spill someone else's blood. He remembered watching a rival clique
member steal a hen from a villager. Holding it upside down by its yellow-clawing hinds, he ran. Unseen, Crazy followed the rival to a yard knotted by cinder and soil, where he heaved and smashed the chicken's head against the earth, stomped a foot down on its head, ripped it off like a rubber Halloween mask, and tossed it into the dirt. Crazy pulled his knife free, came up behind the rival, slashed
through the cartilage of his Adam's apple. Watched him wobble and stumble to the ground like the bird with its bloody knob of bone in place of its face, thrashing the earth until it bled out.

And these men weren't even rivals. Just more numbers.

Flame lay on the floor, moaning, the whites of his eyes divided and saucy. Before Crazy turned his back, he traced the four points of an imaginary crucifix
over his body, bowed his head and asked forgiveness from La Santa Muerte. Then he stepped out of the restroom. Into the chaos of men and women who looked like him but were nothing close. Down in the distance he saw a man running toward him, T-shirt, black ball cap with bold white letters that spelled police, his weapon drawn. An aging face of worry. It was Mitchell. Crazy lowered his head,
blending in with the other workers who were fleeing to the parking lot, where he'd find his sovereignty.

In the restroom, red rivered from the bodies of Shank, Hyena, Angel, and Flame. The only chest that wasn't rising was Angel's.

The bell rang. The break was over. The men who survived knew their working alongside the other immigrants would no longer camouflage who they were, the Mara Salvatrucha.
That they would go to the second stage toward their destination in this life, the state prison, where they would become initiated with new rituals and rules that differed from those in the county lockup. On the outside more numbers would step up and take their place in this unending ecosystem of violence. But one would get a second chance, a fresh start with a sack of cash, while Mitchell
stood in the bathroom, realizing he'd fucked up.

 

Iris had reviewed it a thousand times. He rested one hand at his waist, beneath his untucked flannel, gripped the .40-caliber H&K, wanting to right his wrongs.

Standing in Chancellor's barn, a red-and-silver gas can lay upturned. The wood floor creaked beneath the weight of his boots. Strong hints of fuel mixed with the sour scents from the
shapes and the weeks of their training. Each dog lay within the steel cages, muscles etched and carved like stone beneath their hides of white and black, as they waited to take their turn. Being muzzled and leashed for another day of training. Iris shook his head, wishing there was another way.

He pressed the pistol into the cage closest to the barn door, having calculated the outcome. Five dogs.
Caged. Men at least a hundred feet away down in the house. Some sleeping, some hungover. Behind him was a hay floor and the horse stalls. The route he'd taken into the barn this morning. Parked his truck out back just in case he got that far. His ears would be ringing after the first shot. Whether he'd live or die mattered little to him, only that he righted what he'd wronged with this Chancellor,
who was more savage than human.

Iris had always been a man of his word but his word didn't carry much weight anymore. He pointed the pistol at the first dog, Archie. Said, “Forgive me.” Looked into the carnage-filled brown eyes with a cold nose. Iris pulled the trigger. The other dogs jerked and growled. Skull and brain pasted through the cage onto the neighboring hound. He moved to the next,
trembling, pointing the pistol and pulling the trigger. He did this until he'd reached the last one, Spade. His hearing full of static, he felt a man enter the barn. Iris took in the profile, unlaced boots and blanched jeans, shirtless with an eagle atop the circular world and an anchor behind it inked upon his chest, a pistol in his right hand. Chancellor's face cringed the shade of mashed cherries,
seeing his dogs splayed about the cages, one after the next. He lifted the Glock at Iris, screaming, “The shit you done, you ol'—” Iris lined up his pistol with Chancellor's chest, tugged the trigger, and ended the world that had branded his heart with inhumane ways. Chancellor breathed his last breath and dropped to the wood floor.

Shaking, Iris tucked the pistol into his pants. Grabbed the
leash that hung from Spade's cage, opened the door, hooked the leash into the dog's collar. The tongue came soft against his knuckles and Iris said, “I make it outta this, you might be salvageable.” Iris hurried to the rear of the barn, where the stalls lined three openings for horses. He led Spade through an opening, reached into his pocket and pulled from it a book of matches, scratched one against
the sandy strike pad, and threw it into the hay. Watched flame ignite the fuel he'd emptied onto it earlier.

Spade sat next to Iris on the front seat of the Chevy Silverado. Iris fired the engine, shifted into drive. Stomped the gas, throwing soil and rock, navigating down the gravel drive, the barn lit up behind him, he passed the pit on his right. Out in the distance to his left sat the old
Dutch Colonial brick house where men stumbled out through the back screen door half dressed. Iris kept driving. Turned onto the county road, glanced over the field and acres of cedar, saw the smoke rising above the land. He reached over and rubbed Spade between his black ears, not knowing where he was headed, but knowing he wouldn't stop until he was several states shy of the crimes in southern Indiana.

I'd like to thank my mother, Alice Weaver, and my father, Frank Bill Sr., for filling my upbringing with stories and a wealth of life experiences. Greg Ledford, who told me, “You got talent, don't quit.” The night shift friends: John, George, Larry, Kirk, Tim, and my chief, Greg. Randy, Daryl, and Ted from the warehouse. Glen, Gary, John, and Harvey from maintenance, and all
of my other union brothers. Denny and Matt Faith, you've been there from the start. The Law Dog Donnie Ross for all of the support and friendship over the years and for answering questions about police procedures: you're like a big brother and always will be. Zack Windell, friend since birth.

The families: Gayle and Israel Byrd, Jamie and Amy Pellman, Terry Crayden, Sharon Crayden, Brandon Crayden,
Jessica Chanley, the Trindeitmars, the Muncys, my aunt Trudy, Aunt Becky and Uncle Dennis, Uncle Jack and cousin John. Marly Thevenot Howard. Julie Bill. Allison and Marisa Faith. Pete and Suzie Hardsaw. And Myrtle Bill, you made it to 101 years young, you are dearly missed by all. Thank you all for your support.

Allison (Lady D) and Todd (Big Daddy Thug) Robinson at
Thuglit
for those first-time
edits. Anthony Neil Smith, a true friend and the editor of
Plots with Guns
, who has published many of my stories when nobody else would. David Cranmer and Elaine Ash of
Beat to a Pulp
, thanks for giving me the time of day. Aldo Calcagno, thanks for everything, Crime Dog. Gary Lovisi for putting my words to print. Tony Black at
Pulp Pusher
. Jedidiah Ayres and Scott Phillips for inviting me to the
first Noir at the Bar: thanks, guys. Kyle Minor for all the advice and late-night support. Other writers and friends: Keith Rawson, Kieran Shea, Greg Bardsley, John Rector, Steve Weddle, John Hornor Jacobs, Dan O'Shea, Joelle Charbonnean, Victor Gischler, Christa Faust, Roger Smith, Craig Clevenger, Rod Wiethop, Anonymous-9, Rhonda Abbott, Stephanie Stickels, Thad and Dana Holton. Mary Cunnigham,
still an aunt at heart. The Griffee family. Kjell Kristiansen. The Reed family. And everyone who follows me on Twitter, Facebook, and Frank Bill's House of Grit.

Donald Ray Pollock, thanks for all the advice, friendship, and support. And to my super-talented agent, Stacia J. N. Decker, and the best editors this side of the United States, Sean McDonald and Emily Bell: no one works harder, you've
made my prose that much stronger. To my publisher, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, thank you for taking a risk on me.