Tequila Sunset (6 page)

Matías tucked himself in behind one of the assault team members and watched the lockpicking progress. He was still sweating, this time from his brow, and he paused a moment to wipe his face with his shirtsleeve. The bass was powerful enough to be felt through
the wall he leaned against, insistently thumping away.

He did not hear the click of the lock, but the man working the door stepped away and the entryway was unbarred. He was replaced by yet another member of the team, this one carrying a one-man battering ram made of steel pipe filled with concrete, handles welded on. Matías tensed.

Muñoz muttered something into his radio. From behind the house came a sharp blasting sound, a flash-bang going off. At the same time the battering ram smashed against the front door and tore the twin deadbolts out of the frame. A grenade was tossed into the room beyond. Another flat explosion and then the team poured in, man over man, with Matías behind them.

“
¡Policía! ¡Al suelo!
” came the shouts.

Matías plunged through the open door into a maelstrom of noise. Electronic music blared from big speakers on the far end of a large front room. Assault team members screamed to be heard. Matías saw three shirtless young men pushed to the floor, their protests swallowed up by the throbbing bass.

Federal police crashed through the open doorways leading from the room, returned with more young men and a pair of girls, all of them partially undressed. They were thrown to the ground. Muñoz kicked in the front of the stereo system and the music stopped abruptly. Everything was yelling and smashing as furniture was upended and loose pictures fell from the walls. Matías stood aside and let it all happen, his gun in his hand but not necessary.

They took control of the house in less than a minute, clearing the upstairs and downstairs. In the end they had ten men and six women in custody, lying on the floor of the main room with their hands behind their backs. Assault team members shoved furniture out of the way to make room for them all.

Muñoz vanished upstairs and returned after a short while. He signaled Matías over. “Come and see,” he said.

Matías followed Muñoz up the stairs to a back room. It was
meant to be a small bedroom, but it had been converted into an armory. He saw shotguns, automatic rifles, pistols and boxes of ammunition.

“Three of them were armed,” Muñoz told Matías. “The rest could have gotten to this and we’d be in a fight for sure. We win today.”

The two men returned downstairs. The prisoners’ wrists were secured with plastic zip ties. There was the noise of breaking glass from the kitchen as the cabinets were opened and cleared. A pair of assault team members kept watch over the prisoners, though they were not going anywhere.

“Right here!” someone called. A member of the team entered from another door carrying a gallon plastic bag half-full of white powder. He held it up for Muñoz and the others to see. “There’s more in back.”

Muñoz nudged one of the prisoners with his boot. “Guns and drugs, eh? You bunch know how to fuck up, don’t you? I’ll be right back.”

Matías looked over the men and women on the floor. All of them were extensively tattooed, even the girls. He saw Indians and feathers, a full-back representation of the Aztec calendar, and another with the large numbers 21 marked on the back of his neck where no one could fail to see them. Another was less subtle, with a lower-back rocker that spelled out AZTECA. He guessed that not one of the prisoners was over twenty-three.

He knelt down by the first man in line and poked him in the shoulder. “Hey,” he said, “you know something about a shooting this morning? Six Salvadorans dead? You know anything about that?”

“
Vete a la chingada
,” the Azteca said.

Matías went to the next. “How about you? Feel like talking?”

“I got nothing to say.”

“Okay,” Matías said. He stood up. “You don’t talk now, you talk
later. Don’t say I didn’t try to make it easy on you.”

Muñoz returned. “Anything?”

“They’re going to be tough,” Matías said.

“We’ll see how tough they are. We have a wagon coming for them.”

“I’ll call ahead and make sure things are ready.”

TWELVE

T
HE SUN WENT DOWN OVER
E
L
P
ASO AND
the night came on. Cristina parked their car across from a row of houses and killed the engine. She rolled down the window and let the cooling air in. Across the street and one door down there was a party going on, with lights out on the covered porch and rap music playing. The lyrics drifted her way, all in Spanish. Cristina thought she recognized it as a track from South Park Mexican.

“Friday night’s all right,” Robinson said.

“You know you didn’t have to come.”

“Naw, Penny’s fine with me staying out. You’re the one who has to pay a sitter.”

Cristina shook her head. “She knows Fridays are late nights. I pay extra.”

“You should spend more time with Freddie.”

“We’ll go to the park tomorrow. He’ll like that.”

“How’s he doing?”

“Fine. Some rough days at school, but we get through it.”

“He’s a good kid.”

“Thanks.”

Robinson fished on the floor between his legs and produced a digital camera in a case. He handed it over. “Your turn to take the snaps.”

The curb in front of the party house was lined with cars. The angle wasn’t good for photographing license plates. They would
have to crawl by, or approach on foot. Cristina didn’t like the latter option; there were people crowded on the patio drinking beer and talking loudly over the music. A barbecue grill was going.

Cristina readied the camera and raised it up so it was just visible above the line of the open window. She used the zoom and watched the screen. When she had a clear face, she snapped a shot. Some she recognized, others she didn’t. A new car approached slowly from the far end of the street. She got its license plate. It parked and two more faces joined the party.

“This is, what? His third party in a month?”

“Fourth, I think. There was that one a couple weeks ago.”

“Right. He must go through a fortune in beer.”

“He can afford it.”

The neighborhood was working class, the houses all old, but they had decent-sized front lawns, or in the case of José Martinez’s house, an extended patio. Cristina and Robinson had come to know the features of the neighborhood, who came and who went. Most of the people here were regular folks earning a wage. If they knew their neighbor, they didn’t let on.

They sat. Robinson cracked a can of Full Throttle and sipped it slowly. Their main goal was to notice anything different – new people, new cars – and maybe catch a glimpse of the man himself. The photos they took were almost always of him at the grill. They had many, many pictures like that.

“I wish we could get in the house right across the street,” Cristina said.

“What, you don’t like parking with me?”

Cristina caught another girl she didn’t know by sight. There were always girls at these things, sometimes more girls than men. Martinez brought them in to socialize, drink and eat with his boys. Sometimes they went home with them.

“You know, we could just bust the whole lot of them for congregating,” Cristina said. “Book ’em and sort it out at the house.”

“And then he’d never throw another party again.”

Cristina sighed. She took more pictures.

“I figure a dozen Aztecas up there tonight,” Robinson said after a while. “That sound right to you?”

“Yeah. I see Acosta, Solis, Ochoa. A couple I don’t know. Might be new blood.”

They watched as one of Martinez’s boys came down to the street with a girl hanging from his arm. The both of them were unsteady and it took two tries for the Azteca to get his key in the door of his car. When the car pulled away from the curb, its headlights washed over Cristina and Robinson. Cristina made a note of the license plate. “Call in a drunk driver,” she told Robinson. “We can put one of them in jail tonight.”

She looked back to the party. A couple of the men were staring back.

“Oh, shit,” Cristina said.

“What?”

“We’ve been made.”

The pair came down to the street and advanced up the sidewalk, still carrying their beers. One of them called out, “What you doing? What you doing over there?”

Cristina started the engine. The two of them were halfway across the street, blocking her way. One of the men threw his beer down in their path, casting up foam. “Get out of the car!” he yelled.

She eased off the curb into the street, but the two didn’t move out of the way. The one who threw his beer slammed his hands down on the hood of the car. The other came around the driver’s side as Cristina put up the window. “Why don’t you get out of the car?” he said. “Huh? Get out of the car!”

“
Pendejo,
” Cristina said under her breath. She put on some gas, and made to bump the man in front of the car. He skipped backward.

His partner banged his open palm on the driver’s side window.
Cristina ignored him. She goosed the gas pedal again and a second time the man in front gave way. There was just enough room to move. “Punch it,” Robinson said.

Cristina accelerated and left the two men behind. They whipped past the party house, saw others watching, then made the far corner. Cristina made the turn without slowing and the tires squealed. Then they were gone.

“That could have gone better,” Robinson said.

“So much for using this car again.”

“So much for using that
spot
again.”

Cristina banged the heel of her palm on the steering wheel. “Fuck!”

“Just breathe.”

“I’m telling you, we just bust the whole lot of them.”

“Another time.”

A light turned red and Cristina slowed to a stop. “I’m so sick of this shit,” she said.

“You and me both, but it’s one step at a time. You got some good shots?”

“Yeah.”

“Then it wasn’t a total waste. Take us back to the house. We’ll pull the pictures, punch out and get home a little early tonight.”

“We should bust ’em, Bob.”

“I know.”

The light turned green. They went.

THIRTEEN

F
LIP SLEPT IN.
I
N
C
OFFIELD IT WAS UP AT SIX
o’clock after a lights out at ten the night before. No one was allowed to stay in their cell when it was time for chow. There was no snooze button. This morning when Flip stirred at the habitual hour he just turned over and put a pillow over his head.

The heat from the sun hitting the sheets finally stirred him. He wandered to the bathroom, took a piss and had a shower. He brushed his teeth with the same toothbrush he used at Coffield; he’d brought it with him.

It was windy outside. He could hear the gusts buffeting the walls of the house. His mother wasn’t home and he remembered she had a Saturday morning coffee klatch with some friends of hers. That hadn’t changed. Breakfast was cold cereal with milk and a glass of orange juice.

He put on a sweatshirt, found his basketball in his closet and brought it out onto the driveway. First he dribbled a bit, just warming up, but then he took to shooting. He made standing shots at first, then lay-ups. He wasn’t tall enough or strong enough to spring for a dunk. The wind made long shots difficult.

When he checked his watch it was about eleven. He thought about going inside, watching some TV, when he saw the blue car creeping up the street. The driver leaned over the steering wheel, peering at each house number. The car coasted to a stop in front of the house and the driver put it in park. The man put down the passenger side
window and leaned over. “Hey,” he said, “are you Flip?”

“Who wants to know?”

“My name’s Emilio. Come on over here.”

Flip came down to the curb with his ball. If he had to, he could throw it in the guy’s face and run the other way. He measured things that way because that was how it was done inside: what can he do to me, what can I do to him?

“You’re Flip? Flip Morales?”

“Yeah, I’m Flip.”

“There’s somebody who wants to meet you. Why don’t you come on with me?”

“Who am I supposed to meet?”

“Come on, don’t be dumb. I come from José. You know José?”

“All right, give me a minute.”

Flip brought the basketball inside and then locked up the house. He thought about leaving his mother a note, but he didn’t. When he came back to the car, Emilio unlocked the door for him. “Get in,” he said.

Emilio put the window back up. For some reason, he had the heater going, so it was hot and stuffy in the car. They pulled away from the curb and cruised to the end of the block before making a left-hand turn. Emilio seemed to know his way a little better now. “So you were inside?” he asked.

“That’s right.”

“How long?”

“Four years.”

Emilio looked sidelong at Flip and Flip tried to guess his age. He was younger than Flip and he had a wispy mustache that reminded Flip of a teenager. Emilio was tattooed on his arm, just below the cuff of his short-sleeved shirt, with the pattern of a beaded armband, Indian-style.

“How was it? Inside, I mean.”

“It was inside,” Flip replied. “It’s the same everywhere.”

“I only got county jail time,” Emilio said. “That’s got to be different.”

“I guess you’re right. Where are we going?”

“You hungry?”

“Maybe a little.”

“Good.”

They drove out of Flip’s neighborhood north until they were nearly out of Segundo Barrio, then made a sharp turn onto a street lined with businesses. Just past a used car lot was a taquería called El Cihualteco. Emilio pulled into the parking lot.

The taquería had a big, open patio with wooden picnic tables lined up underneath a long awning. There were a few people eating already, men in work shirts and uniforms. Another man sat apart from them, his white-collared sky-blue shirt standing out. He looked up from his basket as they arrived, lifted a hand in greeting.