Nothing Short of Dying (6 page)

CHAPTER TEN

T
wenty minutes later we were navigating through Rifle with me at the wheel, the wind roaring in through the mangled passenger-side door. Allie's hair whipped in the wind as I looked warily out my side window. Some part of me felt as though I was in enemy territory. We pulled into a housing complex north of the King's Crown trailer park and stopped in an underused lot littered with fast food wrappers and aluminum cans.

I could see the grassy park to the south that Allie had told me about. It was empty, save for two plump women speaking Spanish and pushing strollers around the cracked concrete walking path. The three-story apartment buildings were well behind us, angled in such a way that only a few had windows overlooking the park. This seemed the best spot to observe the grass unnoticed. I hopped onto the hood. Allie joined me. We went over our small plan again.

“Whoever Spike recruits from Little Dick's crew to ‘collect you'—or whatever their real intention is—will be at this park in a few hours. You'll go to the junkyard that one of Juan's cousins owns and park my truck. Stay there, get our bags ready. Things may get nasty here. I'll take a car from
whoever shows up at the park and pick you up after this is over. Hopefully by then I'll have gotten one of these errand boys to give us Little Dick's address. Chopo should be meeting me here soon to provide backup. If those Feds somehow get involved again, I'll walk back to the junkyard. Anything I forgot?”

“Why are we leaving the truck at the yard?”

“It needs to be fixed. And the Feds have my plates. Juan said his cousin has a car we can use. I'll trade him the car I'll be taking from Little Dick's crew. While we're gone Juan said someone would fix my truck. Make sense?”

Allie nodded. We hopped off the truck. As I watched her settle into the front seat, she turned and called out through the open window. “Hey, Barr.”

“Yeah.”

“I know this is just business as usual for you, but don't get yourself killed and leave me alone in a junkyard, okay?”

“I'll see you soon,” I said confidently.

My smile faded when the truck rumbled out of sight. I didn't like this situation. And the incident with the elk had rattled me. It was getting harder and harder to run headlong into violent, potentially illegal situations. When people were being spit on, I could separate the work from myself, like I had in Africa and South America. When people killed others for no reason, it was easy to side with the underdog and help. That was simple. But in those situations I hadn't been
personally
involved. Sure, the outcomes of those little tussles could have put me in the ground, but I'd never worried about that.

But now I had a legitimate reason to care about the outcome. I had a family member who was counting on me—a sister who, when we were little, had been my best friend and confidant. A sister who'd been in trouble before when I was
the only one around to help. I thought back to the week after Ski had knocked me out and Jen had told me he was starting to touch her.

SHE'D GONE MUTE FOR THE
week. Mom must have known why, on some level, but she wouldn't admit that either she or Ski had anything to do with it. I knew better. And I was going to make sure it never happened again.

Two days after I was knocked unconscious, Ski and Mom had a rowdy night and were still in bed, both snoring with hangovers at 10:00 a.m. That morning, I soaked a rag in gasoline, sneaked out to Ski's Trans Am, and jammed it into the gas tank. Then I went back inside and washed my hands, listening to make sure Ski and Mom weren't awake. No change in the buzz saws. I checked Jen's room, but the door wouldn't open. I found out later that she'd pushed her dresser against the door.

Hurrying, I stole a Pall Mall from Ski's pants in the broken kitchen, grabbed a pack of firecrackers, and went back outside. Carefully, I cut a small hole in the rag and made a foot-long string of fuse pulled from the firecrackers. I wrapped one end around the cigarette and one end through the hole and around the rag, making sure it would stay, and put a Bic to the Pall Mall. The breeze was light, and puffed the red end enough to keep it lit. I went back inside.

I'd practiced using this type of fuse with Juan, blazing gas cans when we were up in the hills the summer before, and I knew that I had about ten minutes. So I used anger to push away the fear and opened Mom's door. I ignored the naked bodies on the bed, and said, loud enough to wake them, “Mom, I'm hungry.”

Ski came off the bed first, threw a right into my teeth that sent me into the closet door, kicked me when I fell, then threw his pants on and left. Over his shoulder he yelled, “You need to control your shitty brats. I'm out.” Mom cried, but was either too drunk or too broken to come to my aid. I was a fast healer, and I wasn't too worried about the beating. I was, however, worried about my miscalculation.

I'd planned for Ski to stay awhile, see his car on fire, wonder how I could do it when I was still inside, and run away scared. Instead, I read in the paper the next day that a man with a hard-to-pronounce last name had suffered severe burns on half his body when his Pontiac had burst into flames while slowing for a speed bump in a trailer park. Ski never returned, and Jen and I thought that our troubles were over.

That's when Mom started seeing a man named Jimmy Paxton. And things got much, much worse.

A CAR CRUNCHED TO A
stop next to me, shaking me out of my reminiscing. It was a black Camaro—according to the writing on the side—with a big trunk and a bigger engine, made in a time when vehicles were built with steel. I put my hand in my jacket pocket, my fingers curling around the pistol, as a very muscled man unfolded himself from the car.

He had black bushy hair and a thin mustache and wore a crisp polo shirt and jeans. Tattoos ran from his hands, up his large arms, and into the short sleeves. His boots were ostrich or something else fancy. He moved lightly for a man his size, waltzing up to me. The strong scent of cologne waltzed up with him.

“Hey, Chopo,” I said, taking my hand out of the coat.

“
Qué pasó
, Barr?” He spread his feet wide and folded his
arms, showing off his massive biceps. Chopo worked as a freelance shooter and fixer for the cartels. He had a reputation for carrying out assignments without complications, so he was usually busy on the border. “Juan called. Said you might need a hand with some punks.”

“I appreciate it.”

“No problem, man, I owe you,” he said, calmly scanning left to right. I'd ridden with him down to Mexico once, a simple matter of moving his mom from her little thatched house out in the country to a bigger, brick one in the city. He wanted her closer so he could take care of her. It wasn't dangerous work, but helping family meant a lot to Chopo.

“Rifle boys are coming, huh?” Chopo asked.

I nodded, said, “They think they're picking up a bartender from the Cellar—a woman on their shit list. I need them to lead me to their boss, a guy named the Little Dick.”

“Jefe?”

“Same guy?”

“Yeah, his
real
name is Jeff. He just calls himself Jefe because he thinks he's one of us bangers.”

“Jefe might know where the number one guy, Lance Alvis, is cooking. My sister's with him.”

Chopo spit on the ground. “Hell, man, everyone's looking for Mr. Alvis. He cut off the cheap local stuff. You want my advice, I'd steer clear of him. The dude had three dealers nailed up on crosses in Albuquerque. Just like Jesus.”

“Damn,” I said. This was the second indication that I might have underestimated Lance. “Well, it's not like I've got choices here, you know. I've got to get my sister away from him. And I may not have much time.” I told Chopo the rest of my plan.

“I got my end, bro,” he said. He pointed at a .50-caliber
Desert Eagle wedged into his belt. Most people couldn't
hold
one of those, let alone shoot it more than once with any accuracy. In Chopo's hands, however, it looked as small as my own .40.

Chopo noticed my interest. “Like it?” he said. “I found it on the ground.” Then he gave me that type of sinister grin that told me I really didn't want to know where he'd found it.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

W
e sat in the car and watched the park. The sun was warm and the air smelled of dry grass and Dumpster garbage. Families came and ate small lunches in the gazebo, their little kids playing in the clumpy brown grass. More mothers came and went, some walking fast and swinging flabby arms for exercise, others slowly shuffling with strollers. Ravens came and searched the sidewalks for food.

Finally, at about six o'clock, the park cleared out. The neighborhood must have an unwritten schedule stating that toward dark, it's gang business hours. A newly washed and waxed red Mustang slowly drove past, then swung back around and drove by us again before disappearing down the street. “Little Dick's fetch-it boys are here,” Chopo said.

“Okay, so let's do what we discussed. You tell 'em you're from another crew. Say you've got the girl and want to get paid a few bucks to hand her over. Point them around the corner to that alley. Once they're there, I'll put my pistol to the driver's head and force them out of the car. You really have to sell your offer, though. Let them know you're not greedy, just looking to make a little green.”

Chopo nodded. “I'll make it easy for them.”

The Mustang cruised at a walking pace into the main parking lot and stopped. Two men got out and leaned against the car. Tall, dirty white boys with long hair, wearing leather jackets and black jeans.

As Chopo began sauntering in their direction, I positioned myself next to a Dumpster in the alley and kept my pistol's safety off. I scanned up and down the street, occasionally checking the buildings behind me. I couldn't hear what Chopo was saying; the traffic noise was starting to get loud and was interspersed with sirens. The two men appeared to be laughing. Chopo wasn't. He took a step back, his hand twitching by his side.

Three pairs of hands flew and three pistols appeared. Two shots rang out. Chopo was already on the move, running back toward me as the other men's bodies crumpled to the ground. I had my pistol aimed at the bodies, watching Chopo crouch and run below my sights.
Bad. This
is bad.

It got worse. “Get in the damned car, Barr!” Chopo yelled as he ran past me and yanked the driver's door open. “Your plan was shit.”

I reached for my door as a second car roared around the corner toward the park. A man in the passenger seat pointed a shotgun out the window. A shot boomed and steel pellets rang off our hood, shredding paint and cracking glass. I squeezed the trigger three times, aiming at the receding taillights of the shotgun car.

The back window shattered, then the car was out of sight. I wallowed in the passenger side as Chopo slammed his car in reverse and tore off, wheels spitting rocks and trash. Chopo yanked the wheel, the front end spinning 180 degrees, before he threw it into drive and headed east through town.

Son of a bitch
. My hands shook as I put the pistol on my
lap. The barrel was warm and the car reeked of burnt powder. “What the hell just happened?”

“Word came down from Mr. Alvis. You and the bartender are dead. They couldn't figure my angle at first; then one of them recognized me and put me with Alejandro. They drew down, saying that us Mexicans will never get it back. I dropped them.”

“The second car?”

“Who knows? You sure as hell aren't very popular, Barr.” I could tell he was mad at the situation, but other than that he didn't seem fazed at all. Another day at work.

“If Alvis is gunning for us, then we need to get Allie. Now.”

“For sure. My cousin's junkyard on Antlers Lane?”

“Yeah.”

We headed east out of town, driving a reasonable speed on back roads. Once we got on US 6 we picked up speed, watching for cops. Our car was missing a lot of paint and would be pulled over on sight. Horses and cows stood listlessly in fields to our left, nibbling on the short, sweet green grass. Chopo's car smelled strongly of a different kind of grass and expensive cologne. It was clean though, not a piece of typical car trash anywhere.

How I could be so stupid?
All along I'd underestimated Alvis. It made sense that once I told Brent I was in Rifle, the troops would be called in. Somehow in a matter of days, I'd gotten involved with multiple drug-dealing gangs, Feds, and a girl who was starting to mean something. To me and everyone else. So much for the quiet life in the Yukon.

A train rumbled down the tracks on our right, a long one carrying heaping piles of coal. It belched gray smoke as it clanked away in the opposite direction. Up ahead lay the junkyard; I could already see the tall wooden privacy fence
that from here looked like a thin brown line, seeming to stretch forever. As we got closer, however, I began to see smoke. Thick black columns swirled steadily into the dimming blue sky.

“See that?” Chopo asked. He was steady and professional now; his right hand relaxed on the wheel while his chiseled left arm pointed out the window toward the junkyard. He aimed the car toward it and picked up speed.

I nodded. The smoke came from the center of the yard, where the office should be. I could make out some of the flames in the diminishing light, dancing like dervishes above the fence. Allie was in there.

As we pulled into the yard it became abundantly clear that everything was wrong. Cars spewed flames from their shattered windows, the gate sprawled in a splintered wreck, and bodies lay on the ground near the burning office. I jumped out, pulled my pistol from my jacket, and sprinted toward the flames. Chopo hopped out and covered me, his pistol resting on the office's open door. No shots. The bodies didn't move, and I prayed that none belonged to Allie. I reached the office and stopped, crouching near the bodies. Then I waved Chopo over. There were three men: two facedown in bloody pools on blackened soil, and one moaning in the fetal position near an oversize truck tire.

“You know any of these guys?” I asked Chopo when he came huffing over.

He walked slowly by each one, then knelt next to one of the dead men. “This is my cousin.” He ran his large hand down the bloody cheek. “The other dead guy was a shooter, by the look of his threads. For Jefe or Alvis, most likely. And the
güero
crying must be the new guy my cousin hired. He must have ratted us out to Jefe or Alvis.”

Holding my pistol toward the ground, I marched over to the white boy. “Chopo,” I called back, “my truck's junky, white, with a camper shell. Find it and look for Allie. See if she packed a couple bags. They should be near the truck, out of sight.” Chopo patted his dead cousin's shoulder, then stood up, his eyes cold slits, and nodded. He walked off, fists clenching, and I was alone with the man by the tire.

The man—a young boy, really; not yet out of his teens—had caught lead in his stomach. His blue denim shirt had turned dark black, and he held both hands tightly against it, eyes screwed shut, moaning. I stood over him and stomped a booted foot down on his messy guts. He screamed and opened his eyes. I crouched beside him.

“Where is she?” I asked.

“I . . . who . . . ?” His words gurgled out, accompanied by little rivulets of blood.

“I don't have time for this,” I said. “There was a girl here. Brunette. Ponytail. Drove a white truck. Where is she? Did you call Jefe?”

He didn't answer fast enough, so I put the muzzle of my pistol into the dark, round bullet hole in his belly. Then twisted.

He shouted in tongues, writhing underneath me.

I pushed deeper into the hole. “Where
is
she?”

“Okay . . . make it stop!”

I eased the pistol out. It dripped blood out of the muzzle. “Where?”

“Okay, okay,” he said, spitting up red. “Jefe—Jeff—he's my girlfriend's dad. He sells the good stuff. He said you were trying to wreck the business, said you were running with some bitch. I was supposed to call him if either of you showed up. César fought back, though.” More blood trickled from his
mouth. “Come on, dude, am I gonna die here?” His skin had turned ashen.

“You're
not
answering my question. Where's the girl? Does Jefe have her?”

The boy coughed up more blood. “Yeah . . . they took her to him. Help me out, please . . .”

“Where is Jefe?”

“You gotta help—”

I said, “
Where
is Jefe? Where does he live?”

The boy was fading now. I turned his head back toward me, got close to his face, almost eyeball to eyeball.
“Where?”

“Big house . . . on Fir Court . . .” He coughed out an address.

I stood up and scanned for Chopo. When I looked back down, I saw that the boy's eyes had closed and his body was limp.