Savages (28 page)

Her legs wobbly.

They should be, Lado thinks, after what I gave her.

He walks toward the
gueros’
car.

Elena gets out of the Land Rover.

Hernan at her side.

She sees one of the bastards walking with Magda in front of him.

Thank God, thank God, thank God.

As soon as he releases her, the men know to open up.

“Let her go!” Lado shouts. “Send her my way!”

“You, too!” Ben answers.

He gives Magda a gentle push toward Lado.

Lado does the same with O.

As soon as Magda is out of Ben’s reach, Elena nods her head.

The night lights up.

Bright red muzzle flashes from twelve guns, all trained on

Lado.

As Elena shouts,
“Dido!”

Informer.

What Delores told her.

Lado does a Wicked Witch of the West.

Melts in front of Dorothy O as

Ben rushes forward, tackles her, and presses her to the ground and they watch

Lado dance a funny little jig

Light on his feet, as they say, for a big man, he tiptoes back toward his car like he still thinks he can get in and drive away from this, but then he trips on himself and falls face-first on the hood then slides down, his blood leaving a smear on the shiny black paint.

A shooter comes out of the darkness, grabs him by the hair, and jerks his neck back.

The machete is a silver flash in the moonlight.

Then it’s quiet.

Save for Magda, screaming under her gag, stumbling into her mother’s arms.

Who says

“Kill them.”

The world erupts in fire.

Ben presses O deeper into the ground but she squirms out from under him and

Scrambles across the desert floor, grabs Lado’s pistol from the ground, and starts to fire and so Ben

Starts shooting as

One rifle cradled in front of him, the other looped over his back, Chon belly-crawls toward Ben and O, shooting as he moves. He aims at each muzzle flash and the
sicarios
don’t know enough to fire and move.

Flashback.

Night ambushes in the Stan but

He knows he’s fighting now for Ben and O

They are

His country.

Suddenly it’s quiet.

Cautiously, Chon gets up to see

Bathed in moonlight, Elena sits on the ground, her back against the grill of the Land Rover. Two dead
sicarios
, neatly shot through the forehead, lie beside her like sleeping guard dogs.

Elena calls, “Magda! Magda!”

Chon sees the girl stumble in the greasewood and brush, trying to get away from the scene.

Thinks, there will be time for her later.

He points his rifle at Elena’s head.

She looks up at him and says, “Do it. You already killed my son.”

O is standing at his shoulder.

Blood—black in the silver light—runs down her tattooed arm like a jungle waterfall. It flows from the mermaid’s mouth and winds down the undersea vines.

Chon tries to raise the gun but his wounded shoulder won’t let him. His arm goes numb and the rifle falls into the dirt.

Says, “I can’t.”

Elena smiles at O. And says, “You see,
m’ija
? You see what men are?”

O picks up Chon’s fallen rifle.

Says, “I’m not your fucking daughter.”

And pulls the trigger.

Chon catches up with Magda, in shock, stumbling around the desert, and grabs her wrist.

He knows what he needs to do, if they’re to get away. They all know
it—if they let this girl live, they run tonight and can never come home again.

Chon looks over.

O shakes her head.

Ben does the same.

Chon rips the tape off the girl’s mouth, then her wrists. He shoves her toward the Suburban. “Get the fuck out of here. Get the fuck out of here now.”

She staggers toward the car and gets in. A few seconds later the car rooster-tails out of the dirt and onto the highway.

Chon walks over to Ben and O.

Just as Ben

Collapses.

Chon kneels beside them, rolls Ben over as gently as he can but Ben screams in pain.

Opening Ben’s jacket, Chon sees and knows.

Gets the morphine and the syringe from his own pocket.

He finds a vein in Ben’s arm and shoots him up.

O asks,

“He’s going to die anyway, isn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t want to leave him.”

“No.”

Chon breaks another ampoule and fills the syringe. O offers her arm. Chon finds a vein and shoots her up.

Then he repeats the process on himself.

O lies down and wraps her arms around Ben.

He presses his back against her warm stomach.

“You’d like Indo,” he mutters.

“I’ll bet.”

O strokes his cheek. Warm, soft Ben. She says, “Tell me about it.”

Dreamily, Ben tells her about golden beaches edged in emerald necklaces of jungle. About water so green and blue that only a stoned God could have dreamed up the colors. Tells her about crazy, motley birds doing Charlie Parker riffs at the incitement of sunrise, about small-framed brown men and delicate brown women with smiles as white and pure as winter and hearts to match. About sunsets of gentle fire, warm but not burning, satin black nights lit only by starshine.

“It sounds like heaven,” she says. Then, “I’m cold.”

Chon lies down behind O and presses close. The warmth of his body
feels good to her. He reaches his arm over her and takes Ben’s hand.

Ben grips it hard.

O listens to the sounds in her head.

Waves gently breaking on pebbles.

She hears her heartbeat, and her men’s.

Strong, but slowing.

Warm now in the womb of her two men.

O.

We’ll live on the beach and eat the fish that we catch. We’ll pick fresh fruit and climb trees for coconuts. We’ll sleep together on palm frond mats and make love.

Like savages.

Beautiful, beautiful savages.

I have a lot of people to thank—my agent, Richard Pine, to whom I now owe dinner and a lot more; my buddy Shane Salerno for telling me to drop everything else and write this book; David Rosenthal for liking the pages; my editor, Sarah Hochman, for making it so much better; Matthew Snyder for getting it out there; and, with gratitude, Oliver Stone for really seeing it. And, as always, my wife, Jean, for putting up with it and me.

Don Winslow, a former private investigator and consultant, is the author of twelve novels, including
The
Dawn Patrol, The Winter of Frankie Machine, The Power of the Dog, California Fire and Life
, and
The Death and Life of Bobby Z
. He lives in Southern California.