Zero Saints (10 page)

18

Popping oxies

Chilaquilitos – Torta de jamón y pollo – Agua fresca de melón

Bathing bullets

Pslam 83

The trip from Dallas to Austin can take anywhere from two and a half hours to five hours, depending on your luck and the kind of crap you run into on I-35. I prayed El Príncipe didn’t run into any trouble. I decided to get some breakfast and then fix up a little something special I’d had in mind since visiting Isaac.

I got dressed, popped two oxies, and grabbed my gun. Then I drove to Arandas, one of my favorite nearby Mexican restaurants, and feasted like it was my last meal. Me pedí unos chilaquilitos, una torta de jamón y pollo, y un agua fresca de melón. Si este resultaba ser el ultimo jalón, por lo menos me iba a agarrar con la panza llena.

After the meal I went home and prepared something special.

I placed my Santa Muerte statue on a big plate and poured water over it. Then I collected that holy water, took the quince balas out of the mag, and dropped them into the water. I went to my room and got my bible, which I rarely used. Psalm 83 was what my abuela told me to pray the first time I came home with a bloody nose. I’d read it a few times since then, and now that I was asking Santa Muerte, San Lázaro, and Changó to protect me, I figured praying to my abuela’s god one more time couldn’t hurt. In front of the soaking balas, I read the last part of el salmo, which was the portion that really interested me:

Oh Dios mío, ponlos como polvo en remolino;

como paja ante el viento.

Como fuego que consume el bosque,

y como llama que incendia las montañas,

así persíguelos con tu tempestad,

y aterrorízalos con tu torbellino.

Cubre sus rostros de ignominia,

para que busquen tu nombre, oh Señor.

Sean avergonzados y turbados para siempre;

sean humillados y perezcan,

para que sepan que sólo tú, que te llamas el Señor,

eres el Altísimo sobre toda la tierra.

The essence of Santa Muerte would make those balas reach their target, and if that failed, maybe God would be there to pick up the slack. It was time to dry the balas and stick them back in the mag. The next time they left that place, it would be with deadly purpose. All I had to do was sit down, enjoy the softness the two oxies were giving everything around me, and wait for El Príncipe. Then I remembered something else. I went to the room, took my shirt off, and put on Niño Fidencio’s shirt.

19

Gold cannon

La Barbie – CPS – Leyva

Five pounds of death

Killing a demon

El Príncipe arrived when the sun was starting to cast sombras.

White shirt. Designer jeans that probably were worth at least half my rent. Gorra plana. A thick gold chain around his neck. A throne pendant that must have weighed at least two pounds. White sneakers that looked like he’d pulled them out of the box before getting in his car. I wondered what he thought of my abuelo shirt. He didn’t say anything about it.

He looked happy, free of worries. He hugged me and told me he was really sorry about Consuelo. He didn’t say shit about Guillermo. For a man so obsessed with putting bullets in people and buying expensive clothes and jewelry, this motherfucker was mucho más observador than what I thought.

He came into the house with a lot of energy, talking about the drive down to Austin. Anyone who talked to him then would have guessed he was going to a picnic by the river and not to try to kill men I wasn’t entirely sure could be killed by regular means.

Between Dallas and Austin, he’d lost the all-Spanish thing and switched to the weird Spanglish he used when he was around his boss. Normally I would have interpreted something like that as being induced by nerves, but his face pushed that thought away from me.

“I’m here, man,” he said from my sofa, his eyes dancing between mine and the altar. What he thought of the strange offerings in front of it was beyond me. “Tell me how you want to do this shit, papi, que vine ready pa’ jalar gatillo. Chequea.”

Without letting me reply to his question first, he pulled his oversized white shirt up and pulled out a blocky gun that should have been peeking out of a hole in a war boat instead of his hands. It was plated in gold.

“Eso no es una pistol, güey, eso es un pinche cañon.”

He held it up, looking proud.

“Papi, tu sabes cómo nosotros lo hacemos. This baby right here is a gold-plated Desert Eagle. Shoots fifty caliber bullets. First day I shot this thing, I used one hand and this thing casi me arranca el brazo. Haven’t seen what it can do to a body yet, but my guess is it won’t be nice.”

“Where did you get a fucking gold-plated gun?”

“La Barbie gave it to me. Raúl sent me down to Morelos a couple of weeks ago. The CPS needed some fresh faces to help them deal with a few folks that still don’t have things clear in their heads because they went nuts after the Mexican Marines killed Leyva. She’s fucking hot, man! We kinda had a thing for a day or two. She showed me a few guns she has that are all pink and shit. Then, on our last day there, she gave me this,” he said, moving the gun up and down.

My world at the club was so far removed from the nasty stuff going down in Mexico that I didn’t even know Los Zetas were helping out the CPS or that La Barbie had acquired enough power to get folks like Raúl to send her some extra muscle now and then. In more than one way, I was glad I didn’t know any of that. My world was here, and I liked it that way. Good money, tacos sabrosos, todas las pastillas que quiero, Consuelo, and few deaths. I knew it would never be the same, but hoped that what I was about to do would help me keep the unbroken parts of what I once had.

I walked over to the sofa and signaled for the cañón. El Príncipe turned it around and placed it on my outstretched hand. The damn thing must have weighed at least five pounds.

“No me digas que esta cosa lleva quince balas…”

“No, tipo, siete,” he said.

Seven bullets. That meant he had enough firepower to put down seven rhinos.

“Is this the only thing you’re bringing? You might need more than seven balas, güey.”

“Tengo una Uzi en el carro, papi,” he said, his smile like that of a kid talking about his new bike.

“Una Uzi rosita?”

“Nah, that one’s black.”

For some reason, he looked at the Santa Muerte statue after he said that. I did the same. I returned the gun and sat down next to him.

The light was coming through the window slanted. It got broken by the blinds and seemed to be cutting into my kitchen, making the fridge look like a zebra from another dimension. The sun drops fast in Texas. It was almost, as the gringos say, show time.

“What are you packing?”

I pulled out my gun and showed it to him.

“Una Beretta,” he said. “Nueve milímetros. Classic.”

“It’s full of hollow points.”

“Balas huecas. Nice. That means this shit is serious, papi.”

“It is.”

“Good. I didn’t come here to see your ugly face and your weird fucking shrine over there,” he said.

“We should be on the road soon. These guys like to hit the streets and operate at night, so my guess is they will be home when the sun goes down, getting ready. If we get there too late, they’ll probably be gone, but if we get there soon after nightfall, I think we’re gonna catch them. We’ll take your car because they know mine. The pinches mareros are in a house on Webberville, right behind T.B.’s Lounge. He’s not in on it. I had Manny check for me. The old bastard is clean. Anyway, we’ll drive by a few times. I hope they’re there. If they are, we get down. If not, we’ll hide somewhere and wait.”

“How many dudes are we talking about?”

“Creo que cuatro.”

“Four? You made me drive all the way here for four dudes? Nando, you could just walk up to their window and spray them yourself with…”

“No, te necesito.”

“Why? Are they all packing AKs or something?”

“If there are four, then there are three of them I more or less don’t care about, pero el jefe es un tipo raro. I don’t know how shit’s going to go down and I feel much better with some backup. ¿Me entiendes?”

“Suenas asustado, tipo.”

His voice occupied a strange space between a joke and a very judgmental comment. And he was right. I was scared. Very scared. Más asustado que nunca. Being cuates with a man is one thing, but the relationship you have with someone who’s not your friend but seems to be willing to put his culo en la línea de fuego for you is a very different animal. Maybe it was time to come clean and tell El Príncipe a bit more, even though I knew my words could make him leave. Maybe telling him that we were going to kill some men and then maybe try to kill a demon was the honest thing to do.

Maybe not.

La omisión es un pecado liviano.

20

Driving to oblivion

Un pase de perico – Chaos – Red mists

The plan that wasn’t really a plan

Into the arms of Santa Muerte

El Príncipe’s ride was a huge white Escalade. Against all odds, he didn’t have that monster sitting on 22s or shooting lights from underneath like he had run over an entire club.

He hit the alarm and then looked around. Instead of opening the driver’s door, he walked to the back of the car and opened the trunk. He looked around the parking lot again and then took off his shirt. He wore a white camisilla underneath. He reached into the trunk and pulled out a back bulletproof vest.

“Got this off a cop who owes me a few favors. You got one?”

“No.”

“Puñeta, brother, tu eres el tipo más bravo que conozco o el más pendejo.”

I was sure it was the latter.

He strapped the vest on and then put his shirt back on.

We climbed into the massive vehicle and the radio exploded to life the second he turned the key in the ignition. Reggaetón. The bass was so loud it made my chest shake. He turned it off. I looked at him.

“They’d hear us coming from a mile away, papi.”

I was so worried about what we were going to do that I wasn’t thinking straight. Suddenly having El Príncipe conmigo made me feel like that ángel guardián had finally come down from heaven to watch over me. The white shirt and clean face were helping.

El Príncipe knew Webberville. He left my apartment and got on North Loop. We drove straight to Airport and got on it. The moment we passed underneath I-35, my heart skipped a beat. The last time I’d been there, I’d been riding in a trunk. The Escalade’s passenger seat was much more comfortable.

The silence around us was not uncomfortable. We more or less knew what we were doing, and discussing anything else struck me as stupid. Judging by El Príncipe’s face, he thought the same thing.

We stayed on Airport for a while and eventually turned left on Webberville. We quickly approached the first light there. Taking a left would lead us to T.B.’s Lounge.

“You said they’re at the house behind T.B.’s?”

“Yeah, that’s what I heard.”

“Cool. Keep your head down. I’ll drive by it with my phone in my hand like I’m looking for an address or something. If they’re around, we don’t want these motherfuckers to see you before we get a chance to surprise them.”

Not seeing anything the first time we drove by was not what I had in mind, but El Príncipe’s logic was solid. I moved the seat back a bit and then bent forward as much as I could. I looked at the two new dogs on my wrist and prayed for strength.

El Príncipe dug his phone out of his pocket and started messing with it and looking at both sides of the street.

“We’re almost at T.B.’s now.”

The car slowed down a bit more. I closed my eyes and prayed in silence.

“There’s only one small house behind the place. There’s no one outside, but there are lights on inside.”

El Príncipe kept driving slowly and glancing at his phone. The man was a professional. It almost made me feel bad for criticizing his style. Still, this was only the beginning. I’d heard way too many stories about him kicking doors down and shooting people out in the open in the middle of the day to start thinking he was going to act like a ninja instead of a drunk cowboy the second that cañón he was carrying around came out.

“You can sit up now,” he said. “I’m gonna get to the end of the street and turn around. Keep your eyes on the house. See if you can spot anyone inside. Maybe they’re not there and just left the lights on.”

We turned around. I placed my elbow on the windowsill and covered the lower half of my face with it just in case.

The house was a small brown structure that would look abandoned if you broke one of its windows. The front lawn was a sad mix of dry dirt and yellow grass. The garage door was crooked and missing large chunks of white paint. There were two windows facing the street, both to the left of the garage door. A dark brown door sat between them.

There were no people moving inside the house, but that didn’t mean the place was empty.

“Let’s park a block or so from T.B.’s and walk back here. We can cut across T.B.’s backyard. There’s no fence.”

El Príncipe did what I told him.

He turned the lights off and then killed the engine. I looked forward. The few cars in front of T.B.s Lounge meant there wasn’t much going on in there. I liked it that way. Less curious assholes once shots started ringing. I hoped that the music inside would be too loud for them to hear and that, if they did, they did the east Austin thing and looked the other way.

“You ready to do this?”

His question came at me like a runaway train and thinking about my answer destroyed that invisible thing that had been holding me together.

The answer was a very loud no, a no yelled at the top of my lungs while running in the opposite direction.

El Príncipe dug into his pocket and pulled out a small vial of blow. He held it in his left hand and unscrewed the top. He dumped some of the white powder on his clenched right fist and snorted it. He passed the vial to me. It’d been a very long time since I’d filled my sinuses with the white fire that comes from la caspa del Diablo.

“Date un pase, cabrón,” he said. “Este perico te va a sacar pelo en el pecho y va a hacer que te crezcan los cojones.”

The motherfucker smiled at me.

He was wrong. The blow wouldn’t make me braver. It wouldn’t give me more cojones. However, I knew it would kick whatever Oxy-induced slowness there could be hanging around in my system, so I shook a small mountain onto my fist and snorted it into my right nostril.

Two seconds went by and nothing happened. Then my head exploded.

Snorting shit that’s been cut into by greedy hands is one thing, but slapping your brain with pure snow is like dumping your head in cold water and then using jumper cables attached to a car battery as earrings.

“Tengo miedo, güey.”

It just came out. El Príncipe looked at me.

“We already talked about this, tipo. We’re gonna go see if these motherfuckers are there and take care of business. Vinimos a jalar gatillo y eso es lo que vamos a hacer. You’ll be home soon and you’ll sleep better knowing no one will be coming for you.”

“We’re gonna try to use normal bullets to try to kill a man who’s really a demonio, carnal. It can’t be done.”

“Los demonios no existen, papi, sólo están en tu cabeza.”

“No, this man is a demonio, he…”

El Príncipe turned to me and slapped my chest with the back of his hand.

“Pull out your gun.”

“What? I…”

“Pull out your fucking gun, sácala!” he screamed.

I pulled out my gun. He took it from me and hit me in the head with it. It hurt. A lot.

“You feel that, papi? That’s a fucking gun con balas huecas adentro. That’s real. Your pain is real. This ain’t the time for your religious bullshit. No demons, no saints, no gods, no nothing. We go in there and we kill us some motherfuckers for popping Guillermo and Consuelo. You feel me? This, this shit’s real. Get that other nonsense out of your head.”

He threw the gun in my lap and got out of the car. I picked up the piece and did the same.

Suddenly we found ourselves standing on the sidewalk, silent and looking at each other.

“Vamos a darle a esto, cabrón.”

El Príncipe started walking toward T.B.’s. I followed him. Between his confidence and the blow in my head, I was feeling slightly more confident.

“Vamos a cortar por aquí.”

The back of T.B.s was an open space surrounded by trees and dry bamboo. We walked next to the building. Someone was playing blues inside. There was no one smoking out back. We sprinted through the open area and went into the trees.

We approached the back of the small brown house sideways to use the cover provided by the trees and bamboo.

There was a window on the left side. Small. Lights were on behind white blinds.

“Let’s walk up to that window, see if we can spot someone or hear anything.”

A car drove by. A big brown thing that looked as old as the house. It slowed down. I pulled out my gun. The car kept going down the street. I inhaled.

The window was only about ten feet from us when we heard a laugh coming from somewhere behind it. It was all we needed to hear.

El Príncipe crouched a bit. I did the same. He looked at me.

“These motherfuckers don’t know me. We’ll go around and I’ll knock on the door. You hide next to me. Stay low. I’ll pop whoever answers in the face and start shooting at anyone else inside. You’ll come in behind me. Try to get next to me if it’s clear. Don’t shoot from behind me. If you fucking shoot, te juro que te mato.”

The plan was crap. It was a suicide mission. It was exactly why I’d told Guillermo not to put El Príncipe on it from the start. Knocking on a door and shooting everyone inside once the door opened didn’t even deserve to be called a plan. Not even if I had been smart enough to score a vest. However, I had nothing better, so I went with it and nodded because I was too scared to talk.

We walked slowly, our bodies almost brushing against the side of the house. We were both listening for any kind of sounds coming from the other side of the wall. When we reached the corner of the house, El Príncipe looked at me and nodded. No words. No encouragement. Absolutamente nada.

He walked past the first window without crouching. At some point, he had taken out his massive gun and was now holding it behind his back. We reached the edge of the house and he turned, looked at me with a smile on his face, and nodded. He moved casually forward. I followed at an uncomfortable crouch, staying about five or six feet from him. He reached the door and used his left hand to knock. His knocks sounded like explosions to me.

My breathing was fast and shallow. I was getting dizzy. El miedo me estaba volviendo pendejo. I heard voices inside, one of them approaching the door. There was a click.

The door opened.

El Príncipe raised his gun and fired.

It sounded like the end of the world.

I blinked and he was gone. I stood up and ran to the door.

The guy on the floor only had half a face. The half he still had was covered in tattoos. The puddle of blood was growing fast.

El Príncipe was aiming at a hallway. He squeezed off a second shot. His right arm flew up like the gun wanted to take flight. He held it with both hands. Another explosion rocked the house.

Screams were coming from the rooms in the back of the house.

A figure popped up from behind a ratty brown sofa to the right of the hallway’s entrance. Brown dude. Shirtless. Covered in ink. Our guns moved to him simultaneously. My shot got off first, turned into an explosion of dust and plaster. The guy ducked, threw his hands up to cover his head. The second shot came. El Príncipe had actually aimed. The guy’s shoulder erupted. Red splattered the wall. The guy looked like a football player had pushed him against the wall. The arm covering his head went down. He kept moving. I squeezed my trigger again. The top of his head vaporized into a cloud of red mist.

Two down. Judging from the voices inside the house, there were more than two to go.

Then someone was shooting at us from the hallway. I dropped to the floor. El Príncipe grabbed his cañón with two hands and squeezed the trigger twice. I could feel each shot deep in my chest the way you feel the bass when the music is too loud at a club.

I half-ran, half-crawled my way to the wall where the dead guy was. My plan was to shoot those pinches culeros from a low angle. Maybe that way would they wouldn’t see me coming. I looked at El Príncipe. Bullets were flying out of the darkened hallway like bees from just-kicked nest, but the guy stood there, aiming his gun like he couldn’t be touched by bullets. Boom. His cannon exploded again and his arms kicked up. Then a bullet caught him in the chest and he stumbled back. He fired again with one hand. The gun bucked like a pissed off mule. A second later his head snapped back. He dropped back. Didn’t move.

I realized I’d have to use my left hand if I wanted to sneak my gun into the hallway and get a few shots off without getting shot in the face.

I’d never shot a gun lefthanded. It felt weird. I pulled the trigger four times. No screams, but the shooting stopped for a few seconds.

A man came running out with something long and black in his arms. He made the mistake of looking right first the second he left the hallway. I lifted my gun and pulled the trigger. He bent over and screamed. He looked at me. From his bent position, he moved the rifle in my direction. I squeezed off two more shots. I don’t know where one of them went, but the second turned the left side of his neck into a red mush. La sangre salió disparada como en las películas de Tarantino.

My ears were ringing from the shots and the smell of cordite was raping my nose.

No shots came from the rooms. I sat there and waited, feeling like my heart was trying to kick his way out of my chest.

Then I heard feet.

They were moving away from me. Then there was another sound I didn’t recognize. It took every ounce of will I possessed to flatten myself against the floor and take a peek at the hallway.