The Rules of Wolfe (21 page)

“Like I told you,” Félix says, “they probably took him down already.”

We call it a night and I go up to my room and hit the shower. When I come out my prepaid is tweedling on the dresser top.

It's Frank. “Check your phone mail and then get over here.”

There's a message from Aunt Cat, saying Eddie called her and left his own message for us. She recites it in a carefully measured tone, then adds, “I presume this information is something that can help you to find him. Do it.”

There's a pause, as if she's about to say something more . . . but she doesn't.

When I get to Frank's room he's just getting off the phone with Aunt Laurel. She was irked at being awakened at this hour—it's close to midnight in Brownsville—but when he said he had an urgent need for whatever information she could give him about a device called a Buddha, her tone changed and she asked why he wanted to know about that. He told her it had to do with a project we were working on and that was all he could say for now. She explained what the thing is and how it works. She said any pair of receivers would do, and that it was a good thing he knew the kind of phone the Buddha was in, but she had to go out to Delta to look up the tuning code for it. Frank gave her his cell number and she said she'd call him from the shop.

While Frank checks the local directory for a nearby electronics store and gives it a call, I phone Félix and tell him something's come up and for him to get over here.

The first place Frank tries has the receivers we need and is open till midnight. Then Félix shows up and I repeat La Gata's message for him.

“He
made
it to the border? And he's gonna cross
tonight
?” Félix says. It peeves him that Eddie didn't tell Aunt Catalina where he was calling from. “It'd be pretty fucking helpful to know that. Is this kid slow in the head or what?”

“I told you he isn't,” Frank says in a tone that makes it clear he's had enough of Felix bad-mouthing Eddie. It's one thing for us to do it, something else for him to. Félix holds Frank's stare long enough to convey he isn't intimidated, and they both let it drop.

But I can see Frank's as irked as I am by Eddie's remark that we can do whatever we want with the information. Not too subtle in letting us know he's not asking for our help, even though he obviously wants it and damn well needs it. Stupid kid. There oughta be a rule against underage pride, at least until you learn how to keep it in check with regard to your own family. Then again, I have to admit our family's not always a model of tribal harmony.

While we wait for Aunt Laurel's call it occurs to me it would be useful to have a topographical map of the area. Félix says he can take care of that and seems glad of the chance to be of help. He makes a call and fifteen minutes later a guy shows up at the door with an excellent topo.

25

Eddie and Miranda

With its load of crossers the Suburban heads out on the main highway under a clear moonless sky of gathering stars. The traffic sparse. Envisioning the road map he has consulted many times in the past two days, Eddie recalls that the highway through Caborca runs northwestward all the way to Sonoyta. They are going the other way. Toward a small town called Altar twenty to twenty-five miles east of town, where a dirt road branches north to Sasabe.

They pass a road sign reading “Altar 5 km” and pull over at an isolate wayside café. There are only two vehicles parked in front, and Beto directs the driver, whom he calls Cisco, around to the rear of the building. Waiting there is a dark Ford Excursion. They stop alongside it, and by the light over the café's back door they can see that it is packed with people. A man gets out of it and Beto gets out too and they walk off behind the vehicles to talk.

Who are they? somebody asks in low voice.

More of you, Cisco says.

Eddie sees the other man give Beto something that he puts in his pocket—money, no doubt. The man then taps a number into a cell phone, says something into it, and passes the phone to Beto. Beto speaks, listens for a while, then says something more and returns the phone. The two men return to their vehicles and Beto gets in and says, Let's go.

They pull out onto the highway, the Excursion following.

How many more? Cisco says.

Nine, Beto says.

What's the report on—

“Lingo, man,” Beto says, jerking his head rearward. “Little chickens got big ears.”

“What's the scout word on the gate?” Cisco says.

Eddie smiles at their switch to English. He knows “gate” means a crossing point, but the guides obviously want to keep the chickens from knowing what they're talking about. It's why Canales tested his knowledge of the language—probably tested all of them. Beto and Cisco's facility with the language and their Texas accents make him wonder if they might be American-born.

“The Border Patrol got extra guys all over the number one gate tonight,” Beto says. “Our scout can run decoys in there but he don't reckon they'll draw off enough of the Greenies to help us get by, not with all that backup they got.”

“What about farther out? Number two gate?”

“Same thing. We gotta go to three.”

“Oh man, that's in mule road country,” Cisco says. “The big dicks been going at each other over who owns it.”

“It's nobody's yet,” Beto says. “We'll be okay.”

Cisco mutters something more but doesn't argue.

Beto turns around to face the migrants and says, Listen, my friends. They say it might rain tonight. Let's hope so. The Border Patrol hates working in the rain, even in a little drizzle. Bunch of pussies.

Nervous laughter from the chickens.

p

At Altar they cut north on the dirt road, but only a few miles later they turn off onto a narrower road, hardly more than a trail, that takes them west a short way before curving back northward. It's slower going here than on the Sasabe road, but Eddie figures they assume there's less chance of running into any of the big gangs' smugglers. They're anyway probably headed for a crossing somewhere west of Sasabe.

Now the night is entirely black but for the forward reach of the headlights and the lustrous mass of stars. Even in the flatlands of south Texas Eddie has never before seen such starlight. But on this moonless night the sky will get no brighter. Behind them the Excursion has switched off its lights and is almost invisible in the darkness and the Suburban's trailing dust. Most smuggler vehicles along the lower Rio have a cutoff switch for brake lights and taillights, and Eddie would bet these do too.

The darkness inhibits conversation. The main sounds in the Suburban are of its rumbling wheels and the assorted creaks of its chassis. In the side glow of the headlights, passing saguaros look otherworldly. Occasionally there appear distant headlights off to their right, bearing south on the Sasabe road, and then they're gone. At times they see the feeble lights of a village. A breeze has kicked up and tumbleweeds skitter across the road. Eddie can hardly make out Miranda's form in front of him. He strokes her ankle and she puts her foot to his crotch and presses lightly. He cannot see her face but knows she's grinning. Some girl.

p

They've been driving more than an hour when Beto says, There it is. All Eddie sees that Beto could be referring to is the derelict remains of an overturned minivan on the roadside ahead. As they come abreast of it Cisco turns left into scrub brush that slaps and scratches against the Suburban as it pitches and yaws like a boat on a restless sea. They proceed like this for a time before the ground smoothes out and they're on one of the multitude of backcountry trails in this region.

Beto turns and says, Only a few minutes more, my friends, and you will be crossing into the promised land.

Much excited whispering.

Then for a startling instant the Suburban is flooded with light as the Excursion flicks its headlamps on and off.

What's he want? Cisco says, glancing at the rearview.

All they can see is the dark shape of the Excursion close behind them. And then the road bends and they can see the distant headlights behind the Excursion and advancing on it.

Oh fuck, Cisco says.

“No cop lights,” Beto says, reverting to English. “Not yet anyway.”

The chickens in alarmed chatter. What is it? What's happening?

Be quiet, all of you, Beto says.

“Better cops than big dicks,” Cisco says. “We run for it or what?”

“Can't outrun that thing. Look how it's coming. Hold your speed. Maybe they're not after us. Maybe they'll pass us.”

“Yeah, right,” Cisco says. “Maybe they'll give us a friendly little beep as they go by.” He nods to their right. “There's the gate.”

“Keep going. Nice and steady.”

The headlights come at furious speed, growing harshly
brighter. They vanish when the Suburban goes over a rising curve, but then the headlights clear the rise too and come faster yet. They are closing so swiftly that Eddie is sure they're going to ram the rear of the Excursion. Then the lights swing out from behind it and a dark SUV goes roaring by in a swirl of dust and cuts in front of the Suburban, its brake lights flashing intermittently as the driver taps the brakes. And all three vehicles slow to a stop.

The breeze clears the dust, and a Lincoln Navigator stands ten yards forward of them in the Suburban's lights, its rear window impenetrable, its own headlight beams bright on the trail before it. Now a rear door opens and a man steps out with a pistol in his hand and motions for the Suburban driver to roll down his window.

Cisco does it, and the man orders him to turn off the motor and switch to his parking lights, and Cisco does that too.

The Navigator is now but a dark form against the forward cast of its own headlights. All its doors open and more men materialize.

“Oh man, are we fucked,” Cisco says.

“Maybe not,” Beto says. “Maybe they'll settle for taking the bunch.”

Eddie hopes their assumption is correct, that the interlopers are wetback smugglers pissed off at independents for cutting in on their trade. Better that than Sinas. He has the Taurus in his hand and hears the zipper of Miranda's tote as she goes for the Glock. He puts a foot against her leg and she places a hand on it and squeezes.

The men spread out but stay forward of the Suburban, giving themselves an angle of fire at the vehicles from both sides without risk of hitting one another. Eddie counts six of them, for sure, maybe two more, hard to tell. A flashlight abruptly shines on the Excursion and then two others play over the Suburban.

Someone orders, Go see.

Miranda's hold tightens on his foot as one of the lights comes over to Beto's window and he rolls it down. The light moves from Beto's face to the boy's to Cisco's.

And Eddie knows.

Sinas. Looking for him.

The man at the window begins to pan the light slowly over others, pausing briefly on each face.

Somebody ratted. Ernesto or Canales, probably both. The Sinas at the Caborca station spotted Ernesto and grabbed him, gave him some pain, questioned him, showed him pictures, went to Canales. Had to be that way. Or some other way. Or simple goddamn luck. However it was, here they are. Nothing to do now but play it as it comes.

The Martínez woman turns her face from the light's dazzle and the man says, Look over here, cunt! And next shines it on the Panama guy and tells him to take off his hat.

Now the light fixes on Eddie and holds on him and he squints against it. He waits for the man to tell him to remove his cap, but then the light shifts to Miranda and holds on her. And seeing her so starkly lighted in her orange-and-black baseball cap, Eddie thinks, The caps! Ernesto and Canales would have mentioned them.

The light comes back to him and he can almost hear the smile in the man's voice as he says, You two back there, get out.

But then various of the Sinas start yelling and the flashlight flicks away from Eddie to join the other two lights aiming up the curve behind the Excursion. There's a rising rumbling of engines and a vehicle comes bounding over the rise with another one behind it, all headlights blazing.

They come down the road and fishtail to a stop behind the Excursion in billows of dust. A dozen or more men rush out of the vehicles and spread out in a line of shadowy figures to either side, and one man steps up close to a headlight that reveals the machine pistol in his hand. He says something Eddie doesn't hear clearly, and another man says “Sí, jefe,” and heads toward the Excursion. All the Sinas but one are sidestepping out of the headlight glare.

The Sina standing fast shouts, Who the hell are
you
assholes?

We told you chicken-runners to stay off our roads, says the one by the headlight.

Chicken-runners?
the Sina says. Fuck you, prick! You don't know who you're—

A crackling burst from the machine pistol staggers the Sina backward in an antic dance, and at the same time the man at the Excursion opens fire into its windows with an automatic weapon at point-blank range.

And then they're all shooting—the darkness detonating in a flaring rage of gunfire and screams. The chickens duck below the windows and Eddie yanks Miranda down beside him as stray rounds punch the Suburban and pop through its glass and Beto yells,
Go
!

The motor cranks up and revs wildly and the wheels spin under them for a second before gaining traction and the Suburban springs forward. Eddie peeks over the seat and sees Cisco hunched low at the wheel and veering around the Navigator just as a man with both hands against his stomach lurches into his path and is batted into the blackness.

They speed away with headlights off, churning a haze of dust between themselves and the Navigator's headlights and the flashings of the gunfight.