Crossing the Line (12 page)

Aside from that, the food, and the guest, Rebecca managed to make the meal agreeable. She did it by just being there for me to watch. And touch, as under the table she’d put one bare foot between my legs. With my left hand I rolled around and around the gold ring she wore on one toe. I barely said a word as she answered McGee’s questions about what stories she was working on.

One story had me concerned—she was looking into hazardous chemicals at Shattuck, the chemical company’s dumping ground outside Denver. This was a place that was allegedly brimming with chemical and radioactive leftovers. I didn’t want her nosing around there, especially not with the child in her belly, and said so.

Rebecca responded by giving me a direct look and a half-smile.

“And what do you do for work and fun, Ant? Are you out there playing it safe?”

McGee snorted into his napkin.

“You’ve got more than just you to worry about,” I said, giving the ring another gentle turn.

“And you don’t?”

I kept myself from responding. But I wanted to say,
Not really, not when you won’t talk about wedding plans. Not when you’re out buying that ridiculous two-seater car. Not when you won’t even give a clue as to where we’re going.
Instead I smiled and let it pass.

“What do you plan on naming the spawn?” McGee asked, enjoying the show.

“Ross. Master Ross Hersh-Burns,” Rebecca said with an alarmingly straight face.

“Sounds like heartburn,” Ross said. His satyr’s grin grew broader.

“Over my dead body.”

McGee eyed me and stroked his beard. “That can be arranged, lad. That
certainly
can be arranged.”

“Anyway, it’s going to be a girl,” I said.

Mom’s tarot cards combined with Roberto’s dedication of his strange story to
“mi sobrina”
made it seem like a safe bet. Besides, I thought, Fate wouldn’t be so cruel as to give me a boy to take after his father the way Roberto and I had taken after ours.

“It’s going to be one screwed-up kid, that’s for sure,” McGee mused. “Mom is smart and pretty and Dad is slobbering mad. She likes museums and ballet and he likes rocks and guns—”

“I don’t like guns—” I tried to interrupt, but he was on a roll.

“—her job is to tell the truth and he’s a professional liar.” The litany continued. McGee finally wound down, shaking his big head and saying, “The poor kid’s going to need me around to keep her straightened out.”

Rebecca was watching him and smiling with what I guessed was fondness or amusement. I was watching him, too, not smiling at all.

“How much you had to drink, boss?” I asked.

“Not nearly enough, Burns. Something like this happens to your goddaughter and it keeps you stone sober.”

“Good. Then you shouldn’t have any trouble driving yourself home. Come on. I’ll walk you out.”

“So where’s your lunatic brother?” McGee demanded when we were out on the street. “If he’s in there, you’re going to have a hell of a time getting him out.”

“That’s why you can’t shut it down. Not yet. Not until I make sure he’s safe.”

McGee hobbled in silence for half a block, leaning heavily on his cane. There were fewer people on the street now. Those that were seemed to be mostly drunk fraternity boys. A couple of them howled at Mungo. Car tires squealed around corners, sirens sounded in the distance, and in an alley nearby someone was pouring a trash can full of bottles into a broken Dumpster. I wasn’t sure I could ever get used to this. And there wasn’t much hope of getting Rebecca to move to Wyoming.

McGee’s car was in a lot only a block away, but it took us almost fifteen minutes to get there. We were silent for a while as my boss limped along and my wolf-dog sniffed at anything that protruded from the ground.

Finally McGee asked, “Well? Is he in there?”

“No. Not yet. But he’s on his way. If I leave early enough in the morning I might be able to head him off.” There wasn’t any signal to abort, but I thought I might be able to catch him as he came down out of the mountains.

“Do it,” he said.

“And Jesús Hidalgo’s going to walk again.” I shook my head. “He offed that Fed, you know. That guy in Mexicali that was in the news about two months ago? He was a friend of Mary Chang’s and this guy Tom Cochran who works with her.”

McGee grunted and stabbed the sidewalk with his cane.

“Not our job, QuickDraw.”

“Why are you so sure they’re freelancing? Maybe she has someone high up behind her. Maybe they’re just keeping it quiet.”

McGee stopped and looked at me as if I were an idiot.

“Because the Hoover Building would never approve it. The State Department would have conniptions. Don’t you read the papers, Burns? This animal Hidalgo’s seriously connected and Mexico’s our best friend. Our little buddy to the south. No one’s going to do anything to embarrass the administration there. It would make every politician from the President on down look like they were sanctioning a drug empire, which they are, by the way. But that’s the best-kept secret in foreign policy and they’re going to keep it that way.”

“I can’t believe they’d let him get away with killing a U.S. agent.”

McGee chuckled. “They won’t. I can guarantee you that pressure’s being applied to get the Mexes to clean up their own mess. They don’t want him arrested up here where he can get a deal by threatening to flap his lips about who he’s been paying and how much. He or his lawyer will talk to the media if the Feds don’t offer him one, and they’ll embarrass a lot of people in our government.”

We were at his car, a Chrysler New Yorker. McGee opened the door and flopped down onto the seat. He continued to talk as he fought to get the seat belt around his waist.

“Most likely they’re pressuring the Mexes to set him up for a hit by another cartel. All those big narcos use cops anyway, so it won’t be a problem. Like when Ramon Arellano got whacked in Mazatlán by cops who probably worked for Hidalgo. Served three purposes: The Mexes got to claim they took down a big boy, Hidalgo got to knock off a competitor, and we got to claim all our antidrug money really is doing some good. But like I said, it’s not our job. Thank God. It’s a filthy business down there. Just like in Washington.”

What I didn’t understand was, if it was true that Mary and Tom were freelancing, what did they hope to accomplish. My best guess was that if they managed to arrest Hidalgo, and make it public, then the FBI and the U.S. Attorneys who prosecuted their cases would have no choice but to go along at that point. Hidalgo was too well known—too much had been written about him and his bloody dealings with the Arellanos just a hundred miles south of Los Angeles— for anything to be hushed up.

“Get your brother out of it,” McGee said, finally getting the belt to lock. He was breathing hard from the struggle and glaring up at me with his fierce eyes. “And call me within the next twenty-four hours. I’ll hold off on doing anything until then. And tell Ms. Chang I want to meet her in person before the Feds can her ass. Maybe I’ll hire her. That woman, she’s got balls.”

When I went back into the apartment, Rebecca was standing across the room by the bedroom doorway. The room was lit only by a fire. She was smiling slightly, not saying a word. The jazz on the stereo had been replaced by Big Head Todd and the Monsters. It had a lot of bass and a slow, seductive beat. I think the song was “Turn the Light Out.” She’d turned it up very loud.

I unleashed Mungo, who lapped at her bowl then lay down by the gas fire. I sat in one of the big chairs and, smiling, too, motioned Rebecca toward me. The music was too loud in the room for talk. But she didn’t come.

Instead she lifted her thin arms and began unbuttoning the blouse. All thought about what was going on in Potash, Wyoming, disappeared by the time a black lace bra was exposed.
Roberto’s going to be fine, right?
The world receded even further and the shirt was pulled off. She reached behind her, arching her back, and unzipped her skirt and slowly let it drop to her ankles. Her underwear was black lace, too. When she turned to the side I could see a slight roundness to her belly but the rest of her was as taut and supple as ever.

Leaning forward, she let her hair spill over her face and hide her smile as she slid her underwear off. Then she unhooked and lifted off her bra. Her breasts were definitely larger than when I’d last seen them. I motioned her toward me again, but still she wouldn’t come. Instead she began to move to the music. You could see why she’d once been an aspiring ballerina as a young girl—she still had the moves.

I felt something like what my brother must feel when he pushes the needle’s plunger with his thumb. It was a narcotic trance, heavy and thick. Just when I thought my worries about Roberto and Potash might overwhelm me, I lay back in the chair and let my legs fall open. Probably my mouth, too.

Rebecca moved farther into the bedroom doorway. She began to slowly writhe out of sight. I didn’t know if I could move. All that was visible was her shoulder and arm. Then her index finger cocked at me and drew me in.

Later, in bed and once our mutual panting had slowed, she said to me, “You’ve been away for a while, Ant.”

“How could you tell?”

She chuckled from down deep in her throat. It sounded like it came from another person. She was like that in bed.

“Wow. We haven’t done it like that in a while. You must have had some venting to do.”

I nodded, saying, “Yeah, I just hope it was safe. For our little girl.”

She laughed now.

“You’re afraid of hurting the baby? You don’t know much about female anatomy, Ant.”

That reassured me, but still, I couldn’t help worrying. We’d been going at it pretty hard. Feeling stoned in the afterglow, I now worried about having poked her in the head. Maybe even taking an eye out. Or making the baby’s head look like a golf ball.

When I mentioned this to Rebecca she laughed again and wrapped her hand around me. She slid her head down my stomach and said to it, “You’ve got nothing to worry about, my little friend.”

“Hey, what do you mean by that?”

She didn’t answer but I could sense the vibrations of more laughter.

When Rebecca was feeling hot for me, she was on fire. It almost made me forget about the cold times. As far as I was concerned, she only had two faults. One was that she didn’t like my brother—he absolutely scared the shit out of her. Not because of who he was or what he might do, she said, but because of what I felt for him. The other fault was a total inability to understand the thrill that came with getting your heels a thousand feet off the deck. She claimed to be utterly mystified by my addiction to it. She disliked my profession, too, of course, but that was okay—I was getting pretty ambivalent about it myself.

I clawed my fingers through her hair and thought that I should tell her that
this
was what climbing was about. This feeling of absolute rapture. But I kept my mouth shut. I didn’t want to ruin the moment.

But my cell phone did just that.

It flashed a green light from the nightstand. My first thought was that it was McGee, calling from his car on the way to Cheyenne. Not with some new question or order, but just because he’d known what Rebecca and I might be doing right about now.

The phone stopped beeping, then started again. It seemed even louder this time. When it stopped, the message indicator chimed. I couldn’t stop myself from gently lifting a hand from Rebecca’s head and tilting the phone toward me. There was a text message on the digital display. It said FEDS, meaning the incoming call was from the number I’d programmed for Mary’s satellite phone. After that it said 911 911 911.

“What are you doing, Ant?” Rebecca asked, lifting her head. Her voice was no longer low and seductive.

“Shit. Something’s happened.”

The phone started beeping all over again.

“I’m sorry,” I said, closing my eyes hard and feeling a cold little rush of fear run through my overheated limbs.

Rebecca rolled off me and walked out of the room. Her back was stiff. She didn’t look back. Out in the living room the music was cut off instead of just being turned down.

I hit the recall button, calling up the number for Mary’s encrypted satellite phone. She spoke before I could even say hello.

“You need to come back. Now.”

“Why? What’s happened?”

“He went in.”

“No. He’s staying out tonight. He’s not going in until tomorrow night.”

“That’s what he was supposed to do. But he went in early.”

No, he’s climbing,
I told myself.
Up on East Temple Peak. Soloing that big gray wall with the glacier hanging over it
. But now I remembered the way Roberto had seemed unusually stressed the last few days. How he hadn’t been quite himself. I’d been around narcotics long enough to easily recognize the signs of withdrawal. Why hadn’t I been able to notice the obvious about him? Hidalgo would have drugs—that was certain. It was still hard to believe, though, that Roberto would put one addiction ahead of the other—getting high over
getting high.

“What happened?” I asked again.

“I don’t want to talk about it over the phone. This end’s secure, but yours isn’t.”

“Is it critical?” I made myself ask. I felt like someone had kicked me in the stomach.

“Call it
intensive,
” she said.

TEN

T
he quality of the digital tape wasn’t very good. The image twitched around a lot and the super-high magnification caused the night being filmed to appear grainy, as if a summer snowstorm had dropped down out of the Winds. Low-light enhancing gave everything a greenish hue. A counter ran in the lower-right corner of the screen. It recorded the time when the video was made, which it showed as a little after 0300 hours. Steam rising in spurts and leaps off the green glow of the swimming pool was the only other indication that this was a moving image. Then a light blinked on from a room on one wing that overlooked the pool. I knew from having seen the ranch blueprints that it was the master bedroom.

“¿Sí?”
came a man’s voice from the computer’s speakers, startling me.

“Someone has come to see you,”
another voice said in Spanish. I recognized the voice. It was Zafado, the grinning monkey with the broken teeth.

There was a long silence as I stared at the screen and the light blooming out of the master bedroom. Tom Cochran, who was playing the tape for me, filled it by saying, “I’ve run the video together with some communications we picked up on the digital scanner.”

“Pause it, Tom,” Mary ordered from where she was sitting next to me on the bench.

I looked at her. She was looking at her partner.

“I didn’t ask you to do that.”

“You didn’t ask me not to.”

“You need to destroy it as soon as we’re done.” Then she fixed me with her narrow gaze. “We’ll keep watching, Anton, but forget what you hear. All right?”

“What are you talking about? Why?”

I didn’t really care what they were bickering about. I only wanted the tape to continue. I had to know what had happened.

“We were testing the equipment,” she explained slowly, giving her words emphasis. Very much a lawyer now. “Making sure that it worked at this range. We were
not
intentionally intercepting telephonic communications. We don’t have a warrant for that. Not yet.”

She looked back at Tom. “Destroy the audio after this playback. Go on.”

As Tom pressed a button on a remote and started things rolling again, I understood that Mary had intended to exclude me from their extralegal activities, that she didn’t fully trust me. I also understood that she wasn’t quite the stickler for legalities I’d believed she was.

“Who is it?”

“We should not use names, Doctor
.
”

A pause. Then,
“I see.”

“You met him on a mountain long ago. He is an old friend. He has done some work for us over the years. Work that I helped arrange
.
”

Another pause.
“Yes. I believe I know the man. Where did he come from?”

“From the mountains to the east. At least that is what this guy says. He approached where Barco watches. Barco pointed a banana at him and sent José to get me
.
”

“I see.”

Hidalgo’s voice was odd—this was the first time I’d heard it. It was crude in tone and accent, but he spoke with meticulous precision.

“Do you want me to bring him to the house?”

“Please. The man was a friend, but I do not know if that remains the truth. I seem to recall that he is supposed to be in prison. And that he has a brother who is a policeman in this state. Please take necessary precautions.”

“You do not need to tell me, Doctor. That is what you pay me for.”

The crackle over the stereo speakers went dead. A few seconds later another light went on next to the bedroom.

“The bathroom,” Tom said. He clicked a button to speed up the tape.

More lights popped on in various rooms as the tape was fast-forwarded. Sometimes passing shadows could be seen speeding around inside the house. I watched the time clock reel off fifteen more minutes before Tom returned it to normal speed. He slowed it down just as a pair of headlights came bumping over the hill behind the house. The lights disappeared then emerged again on the far side of the big U-shaped house.

A new sound came over the speakers. Not the crackle of a cell phone, but a low, continuous moan. Barely discernible beneath it was the sound of an engine. I remembered seeing the long-range directional microphone stored under a tarp up on the ridge. It had looked like a science-fiction ray gun mounted on a tripod.

“This wasn’t an intercept,” Tom confirmed. “We used the mike. You can’t hear anything for a while. It took a few minutes to get it zeroed in. Then the wind messes it up.”

On the bench seat next to me Mary said, without taking her eyes off the screen, “Without a warrant. Again, obliterate and forget.”

A flatbed truck parked near the house. Three dark figures could be seen getting out of the cab. The camera zoomed in.

“The second one is your brother,” Mary commented needlessly.

The way my brother moved was familiar to me. Utterly easy, smooth, and unself-conscious, even with his hands cuffed behind his back.

The other two I also recognized from their shapes and the rhythm of their movements. One, getting out of the truck with lumbering menace, was the Baja state-police sergeant known as Bruto. The other, hopping quickly out from the driver’s door, was another cop, albeit a former one—Zafado. I said as much to Mary and Tom.

Next to me Mary nodded. “His security
jefes.
Barco must be one of the bangers. One of the guys at the camper by the gate. That was where Roberto was supposed to go in.”

Zafado led the way around the wing of the house. Bruto followed behind my brother, pushing him roughly past the pool to where a small, open cabana stood at the apex of the U.

Another one of Hidalgo’s men—a boy I didn’t recognize—joined them. He was carrying one of the short, ugly rifles. An AK-47. The faces were clearer now in the dim light emanating from the pool. A chrome-plated pistol was evident in Zafado’s hand, pointing at the ground. His weapon and the other’s automatic rifle didn’t worry me nearly as much as the blade Bruto flicked open. The moan from the speakers began to sound like a scream to me.

The big man was standing behind my brother. He raised the knife high, and it appeared he was going to stab Roberto in the back of the neck. Slam down his fist and bury the blade to the hilt between my brother’s vertebrae. I could almost hear the sound of metal scraping bone, the spine parting with stringy toughness like an old climbing rope.

But all Bruto did was slash the shirt off my brother’s back. Then the pants. It was done with short, downward strokes as his free hand grasped Roberto’s shoulder to hold him in place. My brother appeared to be struggling, but not very much. He twisted his head around, straining to say something up into the face of the man with the knife.

The microphone finally found its mark.

“Pendejo.
This turning you on, cocksucker?”

If Bruto responded, the microphone didn’t catch it. But there was a new level of viciousness in the way he hacked.

When my brother’s clothes lay in tatters on the pool’s deck, the big man grabbed one of Roberto’s ankles and twisted it up and back, like he was shoeing a horse, and tore off the motorcycle boot and the sock. He did the same thing with my brother’s other foot. This was smart, because if he tried to take off Roberto’s boots from the front, I had no doubt that, handcuffed or not, and as big as Bruto was, my brother would kick his head in.

Now my brother stood handcuffed and naked in the digitally enhanced green light spilling out from the pool. Zafado played a flashlight over my brother’s skin, probing and examining with the beam. It looked like they were arguing—my brother’s mouth continued to move—but the sound of voices had been lost to the wind’s amplified moaning. The boy with the automatic rifle suddenly reversed the weapon and slammed the butt into my brother’s stomach.

I felt the blow deep in my gut. My legs went weak, my mouth dry, and my bowels heaved.

Roberto doubled over, then lunged forward as if to spear the young gangbanger with his head. But the boy was too quick. He stepped back and to the side and brought the rifle butt down again, this time onto the back of Roberto’s head. His hair seem to splash upward from the force of the blow. He crashed to the ground, hitting first with his face and one knee. Like a bull following the final cut. He was struggling to get up when Bruto kicked his legs out from under him.

“Now this is my favorite part,” Tom said. “Anyone want me to make some popcorn?”

“Shut up, Tom,” Mary told him.

I looked at her and saw that her face was as white as mine probably was even though she’d undoubtedly seen the video several times already. The dark irises half-concealed by her narrow eyes looked hard and sharp. Unseen, under the table, her hand gripped my wrist.

I didn’t fling it off.
Wait,
I told myself.
Just wait
.

What I felt, more than the rush of rage Tom’s words stoked in me, was something approaching complete panic. I’d never seen my brother so helpless before. I’d never seen him powerless to strike back and wreak even greater havoc. Even when I’d seen him in prison, it was as if he were still in control, still dangerous. But on the tape Bruto was sitting on his prostrate form while Zafado went through the contents of his pack.

Then the screen lit up as the outdoor lights around the pool came on. The scene retracted as the camera lens pulled back. Jesús Hidalgo came walking out from the house. He was dressed in a flannel shirt and blue jeans. The shirt was tucked in. His hair was wet and looked as though he’d just finished combing it.

The
narcotraficante
made a great show of marching up and exhibiting complete surprise at what his men were doing. He seemed to be demanding an explanation. My brother managed to roll onto his back and, scissoring his body, began to get his feet beneath him. Seeing my brother’s face, Hidalgo’s jaw dropped open in mock surprise.

Then he was gesturing wildly, waving the men off and away from Roberto. With my brother still handcuffed, Hidalgo pulled him to his feet then hugged him. He kissed both my brother’s cheeks. Roberto appeared oddly rigid, like a branch about to snap back with the force of a whip.

Hidalgo must have noticed, because he didn’t tell his
sicarios
right away to take off the handcuffs.

“Return to this man his clothes,”
he said instead, the microphone again finding its mark.

Roberto nodded toward Bruto and appeared to spit.
“Fat-ass there cut them up
.
”

“Then give him your clothes
,
”
Hidalgo ordered Bruto.

“No thanks,”
said ’Berto.
“That fucker stinks like a pig
.
”

“Then you can wear my clothes, old friend. We will go inside and you will choose some. A refreshment, too. Whatever you wish. I recall that you always had some specific tastes. Take off those restraints,”
Hidalgo now commanded, apparently having decided Roberto wasn’t a physical threat anymore. Not to him, anyway.

The handcuffs were removed by Zafado. While he was taking them off, my brother stared at Bruto, then the boy with the rifle. He stared at them for a long time until Hidalgo called to him. Then he followed the narco into the house.

“That was the bad news. Here’s the good news,” Mary told me, letting go of my wrist.

She’d been gripping my arm under the table ever since the ugly part of the tape began, with her fingertips on the inside as if she were taking my pulse. I didn’t know if it had been her intention to restrain me or to offer compassion.

Tom began fast-forwarding again, speeding through the departure of the three
sicarios
. Bruto and Zafado disappeared into the wing of the house where Hidalgo’s chosen slept. The skinny gangbanger moved off to some unseen guard post in the shadows near the front of the house.

The good news was far briefer and far less dramatic than the bad news had been. It was only a minute or so of tape. As the lights finally went off throughout the rest of the house, they came on in one room in the wing Hidalgo kept for himself. It wasn’t directly visible from the camera because the window was on the far side of the house, but you could see a dim glow reflected on the flagstone by the pool. It came on for fifteen seconds, then disappeared for fifteen, and then came on again for a final fifteen before going out for good.

“That’s the signal,” Tom said. “Everything’s peachy.” He shut down the video.

I didn’t feel much relief despite the signal, and despite the fact that, for the moment at least, my brother was safe.

For some reason I was reminded of a photo of him that had been published as a poster in a climbing magazine almost ten years ago. Roberto had been sitting on a ledge no wider than a bookshelf. Below him was more than two thousand feet of space. There was no rope or gear attaching my brother to the wall. He wasn’t wearing a harness, either. Yet his posture was relaxed, like he might have been sitting on a park bench. All he wore was a pair of cutoff jeans, and his muscles looked like they’d been carved on him with a knife. The wind was blowing dirty black hair halfway across his face. He was slumped, feet crossed at the ankles, holding up his hands as if examining the bloodstained athletic tape that was wrapped around them. His blue eyes, though, had fixed on the camera. There was definitely something unworldly about his eyes—the color and the heat in them. The guy who took the picture once told me he’d been accused of touching it up. I knew, though, the source of my brother’s rapturous gaze. It was all the space beneath him. And, if you looked close enough, you could see the pinpricks on the inside of one lean arm.

He was most alive when he was on the edge. That’s where he was now. It scared me. And it sickened me a little, because I knew the feeling all too well. Also, because I had helped these fucking people put him there.

I stood up, pushing back the bench and Mary’s slight weight on it.

Turning, I looked at Tom, who stood behind us now. He was leaning against another table and sipping from a coffee mug. It took me only three steps to reach him. I grabbed a handful of his shirt and threw him toward the door.