Savages (27 page)

The northbound Metrolink is coming up from Oceanside. The train where you can see dolphins and whales from the seaside windows.

He walks over to the track.

Ben jumps out of the car.

Too late.

Dennis steps onto the rails.

“She has to live somewhere,” Chon says.

She does.

They go through Steve’s real estate list again.

An apartment in Irvine.

MapQuest.

Three blocks from campus.

Truism.

Cliché.

You become what you hate.

Ben says, “You know what we have to do.”

Chon knows.

Lado’s man gets out of the car in the parking lot of Magda’s apartment building.

Pop-pop.

Chon puts two silenced rounds in the back of his head and then puts him back in the car.

The drug war comes to Irvine.

Magda fixes herself a cup of green tea.

She wants a little boost but she’s coffee’d out and, anyway, the tea is healthier. Antioxidants and all that.

The doorbell rings.

She doesn’t know who it could be and she’s a little annoyed because what she wants right now is to put her feet up, drink her tea, and read a hundred pages of Insoll for her arch and religion course.

Probably Leslie, the lazy slut, coming over to borrow her notes. If the
puta
could get up in the morning to get to class—

“Leslie … God …”

Magda opens the door and the guy is on her like that, one hand over her mouth, the other behind her neck pushing her back down and onto the sofa. She hears the door shut and sees a second guy come in and he puts a gun to the side of her head.

She shakes her head, like, take anything you want,
do
anything you want. Thank God the guy puts the gun back in his belt, but then he has a syringe and he grabs her arm, rolls up the sleeve of her black silk blouse, and jabs the needle in her vein.

Then she’s out.

Lado pulls up outside the house and gets out.

Esteban opens the door.

The
mierdita
looks like he’s been crying.

Lado moves past him into the room where they keep the little blonde
puta.
She sees his face and knows. Knows and starts to run but he cuffs her across the face, grabs her by the wrist, and pulls her into the other room. Shoves her little ass down into the chair, takes off his belt, and straps her hands behind it.

She’s kicking her feet and screaming.

Lado yells, “Help me,
pendejo.
Hold her fucking legs.”

Esteban keeps crying but he does what he’s told. He grabs her by the feet and holds on while Lado gets the duct tape and forces it onto her mouth. Then he squats down and wraps a length around her ankles and the chair legs.

“Don’t worry,
chucha
,” he says. “Your legs will be wide open later. You can count on that.”

He goes to straighten up and Esteban has a gun out, pointed at him.

When Magda comes to, still groggy, they have her strapped up with duct tape.

She’s in some kind of cheap motel room.

A laptop computer is set on the coffee table in front of her, the little camera eye red and blinking, and she thinks this is some kind of twisted Internet porno rape and if it is she wants them to just get it over with and not kill her.

But neither of the men takes his clothes off or even unzips his jeans.

One starts typing on the keyboard, the other

Pulls the gun out again and jacks a round into the chamber.

“What are you going to do with that?” Lado asks.

Esteban, the little ball of shit, his hands are shaking. Reminds Lado of the old car they had out back as a kid. When you started the engine the whole car would quiver and rattle and that’s what Esteban’s hands look like now.

“Let her go,” Esteban says

and then Lado knows he’s in no danger because this kid didn’t listen to him when he told him you pull a gun you pull the trigger you don’t threaten or talk you

pull the trigger

“Log on,” Ben says.

Log the fuck on, Lado.

The bullet misses.

Not by much, but life, like baseball, is a game of inches.

Lado steps in, knocks the pistol from the boy’s hand, grabs him by the head, and twists.

Esteban’s neck snaps.

Like kindling.

Lado turns on the camera and aims it at the girl. Then he turns on the computer and types in the address.

Then he picks up the chain saw.

Skype.

Ben and Chon see

A rerun

O strapped to the chair

Lado standing with the chain saw.

O’s eyes wide with terror.

Fresh dialogue, though.

“Maybe I fuck her before I kill her,” Lado says. He turns toward O. “You like that, little whore? One last dick?”

Elena forces herself to sit down at the computer.

She logs on and sees

Magda

With a gun to her head.

Fuck you.

Love makes you strong.

Love makes you weak.

Elena asks, “What do you want?”

CUT TO:


INT. SPLIT SCREEN – MOTEL ROOM/ELENA’S COMPOUND/DESERT SAFE HOUSE


BEN


You know what we want.


ELENA


Don’t do this. I’m begging you.


BEN


We want the girl back. Unharmed.


ELENA


Do what they say, Lado.


LADO


Of course. (To Ben) Take it easy.


BEN


We will kill her. We’ll do it.


ELENA


I believe you. We can work this out. We’ll set a time and place for the exchange. Please don’t do anything rash.


Lado sets the time and place.

Because why the fuck not? Lado thinks.

Why the fuck not.

Lado is a cake-and-eat-it-too kind of guy.

So maybe he doesn’t cut the
puta
’s head off. No big loss. He will kill her, only a little later, and he’ll kill them, too.

As for Elena’s stuck-up bitch of a daughter

Who gives a fuck?

“You know what’s going to happen,” Chon says.

Ben knows.

They’ll go to exchange their hostages—

—
fuck
Ben hates that word,
hates
that he has a hostage—

Elena will show up with an army.

Their chances of getting out alive are

How many ways are there to say zero?

Nothing.

Empty

No

hope, no

faith, no

values, no

future, no

past.

Nothingness.

The e-mail arrived after they took O from the compound, so she didn’t read:

My darling girl
,

I am so sorry that I’ve been out of touch. It is from no lack of love for you, my darling darling, but for the love of the Lord. I have been on a retreat to contemplate the state of my soul, and we were allowed no communications with the outside world.

This world is corrupt, Ophelia. The flesh is weak.

Only the soul survives.

Ophelia, I have met a man!

I know you have heard this before—too many times—but this time it’s the real thing. John knows and loves the Lord, too, and now that we are back from the retreat we intend to marry and start a jewelry business—bracelets and necklaces that will proclaim the wearer’s faith. With my sense of style and John’s business acumen—he’s a self-made real estate multimillionaire—I know it will be a big success. The Lord wants His people to live abundantly.

I will miss you, but Indiana isn’t that far away, and that’s why the Lord made airplanes.

Your loving, mother
,

“Paqu”

We had for a brief time a civilization that clung to a thin strip of land between the ocean and the desert.

Water was our problem, too much of it on one side, too little on the other, but it didn’t stop us. We built houses, highways, hotels, shopping malls, condo complexes, parking lots, parking structures, schools, and stadiums.

We proclaimed the freedom of the individual, bought and drove millions of cars to prove it, built more roads for the cars to drive on so we could go the everywhere that was nowhere. We watered our lawns, we washed our cars, we gulped plastic bottles of water to stay hydrated in our dehydrated land, we put up water parks.

We built temples to our fantasies—film studios, amusement parks, crystal cathedrals, megachurches—and flocked to them.

We went to the beach, rode the waves, and poured our waste into the water we said we loved.

We reinvented ourselves every day, remade our culture, locked ourselves in gated communities, we ate healthy food, we gave up smoking, we lifted our faces while avoiding the sun, we had our skin peeled, our lines removed, our fat sucked away like our unwanted babies, we defied aging and death.

We made gods of wealth and health.

A religion of narcissism.

In the end, we worshipped only ourselves.

In the end, it wasn’t enough.

A crossroads out in the desert.

Because why not?

There’s a convenient pullover where the cars can pull up and make the trade.

And Elena’s troops can gun them all down and be gone long before the sheriffs or the INS can get there.

They all know this.

Lado knows it.

His men sure as hell know it.

Any reader of Western fiction or fan of Western movies knows it.

Ben and Chon know it.

And go anyway.

Because it has to happen.

They take the pony, of course.

Loaded with two shotguns, two pistols, and two AR-15s.

If they’re going out, they’re going out blazing.

Shoot Magdalena up with just enough junk to keep her docile and walk her out of her motel arm-in-arm-in-arm. Put her in the backseat, tape her mouth shut and her wrists in front of her.

Long quiet drive out to the desert.

What’s there to talk about and what do you put on the radio as a soundtrack to kidnapping and killing?

Silence is better.

Nothing to say anyway.

For the first time in her life, Elena feels sheer terror.

A nausea deep in her stomach.

And the time just … will … not … pass.

She jumps at the knock on her bedroom door.

Lado’s wife, Delores.

She’s on the verge of tears and Elena is strangely touched by her simpatico.

“Elena,” she says. “I know you have … so much … on your mind, but—”

Her voice quivers and then she starts to cry.

“My dear friend,” Elena says. “Whatever is so wrong?”

She puts her arm around the woman’s shoulder, leads her into the room, and shuts the door behind them.

Delores tells Elena all about her husband, what he did, what he’s done.

Short ride for O.

She’s out for most of it on Ambien.

Pharmaceutical duct tape.

Wakes up shivering in the cold desert night.

“We’re close,” Lado says.

So close, he thinks, to winning it all.

His men left an hour early and are in position around the pull-off.

Delores sobs and sobs.

Elena understands but tires of it quickly.

She pats her hand one more time, sits her up, and says, “You did the right thing. You did what any woman would, to protect her children.”

Men teach us how to treat them.

Ben and Chon find the pull-off by the junction.

They pull over and blink their lights twice.

An answering signal comes out of the darkness and then a black SUV comes forward and stops about ten yards in front of them.

Chon can smell a night ambush and he smells it now, along with the creosote bush and Indian tobacco, the soft desert scents even on this chill night.

“They here?” Ben asks.

“Oh yeah,” Chon says. “Both sides.”

Doubtless they’re lying in the brush next to the pull-off and on the other side of the road.

“The second you get O,” Chon repeats, “hit the ground and stay flat.”

“Yup.”

“Ben?”

“Yeah?”

“It’s been a ride.”

“Yes, it has.”

Ben tucks a pistol into the back of his belt, takes Magda, and leads her out of the car.

Chon reaches in back and grabs the two ARs.

Lado sticks a pistol in his own belt, walks around to the passenger side, and pulls O out of the car.

The little cunt is still out of it.