Border Crossings: A Catherine James Thriller (4 page)

Taylor, Kendra, and Jamie were dressed to kill.  Taylor stood in front of the mirror in the hotel room curling her hair.  She wore a white skirt that showed off her freshly tanned legs, black flip-flops, and a black sequined top.  Kendra wore tight shorts that accentuated her petite figure.  She was busying herself by trying to adjust a padded bra.  “I so need some boobs,” she said.

“No, you don’t,” said Jamie, who was currently struggling against her endowments in the mirror.  “They can be a real pain in the ass.”  She was retesting the straps of her tank top to make sure her breasts, which looked like they were clamoring to escape, wouldn’t snap free.

“Whatever,” said Kendra.  “You can give me some of yours any day.”

They caught a taxi around seven and headed north along Kukulcan Boulevard to
Noche Salvaje
which sat amongst other hot spots such as the Hard Rock Café, Dady’O’s, and Forum by the Sea, a mini-plaza of restaurants and night clubs.  There was a huge line outside, but when Taylor walked towards the line Jamie grabbed her by the hand and said, “We’re supposed to be V.I.P., remember?  V.I.P.’s don’t wait in line,” and she pulled Taylor to the front of the line with Kendra in tow, pushing people out of the way while flashing her cutest smile as though it were a hall pass that allowed her to cut in front of whomever she pleased.  “Sorry, excuse us.  Sorry, thanks.”

When they got to the doorman, he held up his hand and said, “Line’s back there, ladies.”

“Yeah,” said a terribly sunburned girl with a scowl on her face standing next to them.  “We’ve been waiting half an hour.  You need to go to the back,” she told them snootily, pointing the way in case they weren’t sure where it was.

Jamie pulled out her flier from the back pocket of her jeans.  “Here,” she said, shoving it into the doorman’s hand.

He looked at the handwriting on the flier and then stood aside to let the girls pass.

“Hey!” said the other girl in the line.  “How come they get to go in?  I’ve been waiting for freaking ever.  Oh, screw this, let’s go!” she told her friends, and they stomped off in a huff.  “This place isn’t all that, anyway.”

Jamie gave a wave over her shoulder, “Byeee,” as they disappeared into the club.

The dance club was enormous.  Shakira was blaring from that million dollar sound system the flier had advertised, “If my hips don’t lie then I’m startin’ to feel ya, boy . . .” drifted h
er voice, accompanied by Wyclef Jean and enough bass to mimic an earthquake.

“I love this song!” yelled Kendra.

The center of the dance floor was a sea of half-naked bodies.  Lasers and lights lit up the club like a techno alien invasion.  Bare-chested guys were groping girls who still wore their bikini tops; compressed air was shot out of various openings cooling tanned bodies slick with sweat everywhere they looked.  And large though it was, the club was packed full.  Everywhere they looked, people were screaming, dancing, and drinking, drinking, drinking.

“It looks like an orgy in here,” said Taylor apprehensively.

“Oh, come on.  Let’s get this party started!” said Jamie.  She grabbed Kendra and Taylor by the hand and headed for the closest bar where a bartender stood atop it like king of the mountain with a funnel and beer.  A patron was knelt at the bottom of the bar, connected to the funnel above by a tube than ran down straight into his mouth.  He sucked at the tube like a suckling piglet while his buddies shouted, “Chug!  Chug!  Chug!”  The beer disappeared in seconds and his friends cheered.

“Three tequila shots,” Jamie shouted over the chaos.  Without even looking at her, another bartender whipped three tequila shots towards her.  “Three Dollars!  Open bar or cash?” He shouted.  Jamie handed him a five.

“Hey, weren’t you supposed to get the first one free?” asked Taylor.

“Screw it!” She handed Taylor and Kendra both a shot, raised her glass, and said, “Here’s to spring break in paradise!”

Taylor looked at Kendra, who merely shrugged her shoulders with a smile.  “Spring break!” they echoed, and they whipped the tequila down their throats, licked the salt, and bit the lime.

“Oh,” said Kendra with a wince.  “That’s strong stuff.”

“Top shelf,” said Jamie.  “They know their tequila down here,” she laughed.

Two hours later they were all sloshed and having a ball.  Kendra had disappeared back to the dance floor for the tenth time with another guy who had nicer abs than the guy before him.  Jamie had temporarily lost her mind and was at the end of the bar letting guys put shot glasses in her cleavage and then shooting them with no hands while she laughed.  Taylor shook her head disapprovingly, yet couldn’t help laughing at the scene.  Jamie had four guys eating out of the palm of her hand.  They hadn’t paid for any drinks since the first round of tequila.  The moment any of their glasses got halfway empty, someone was offering to buy them another drink.

Taylor had retreated some feet away from Jamie’s new entourage, as she didn’t feel like being mistaken for a salt lick in a stag party.  So she sat back a bit and enjoyed the spectacle while Kendra was off bumping and grinding.

She saw him coming out of the corner of her eye and thought to herself,
Oh, boy, here’s a winner. 
Khaki slacks, white, crocodile leather shoes no less, one of the lamest looking shirts she’d ever seen on anyone other than Disco Stew on the Simpsons and perhaps Mr. Furley from the old re-runs of Three’s Company, and a thick gold necklace complete with a gold medallion for good measure. 
Oh, good Lord,
she thought
. 
She wondered if Steve Martin was about to jump out next to the man and exclaim,
We are two wild and crazy guys!

“Hello,” said the man when he reached the bar, his black hair gelled back and a goatee trimmed neatly on his face, his lips opening into a thin smile revealing a gold molar glinting in the corner of his mouth.

Sexy,
she thought.  “Yeah, um, hi.  I’m waiting for someone,” she said automatically.

The man’s face became taut, “Oh, really?  Because I’ve been watching you from over there,” he pointed, “and I haven’t seen you with anyone.”

“I’m here with my friends,” she said, pointing to Jamie down the bar.

“Well, I’m here with my friends,” said the man “So if you wait for your friends here at the bar, may I not also wait for my friends here with you?”

Taylor wanted to be polite but she just really wasn’t in the mood for this kind of guy.  “Free country, I guess.”

“Is it?” said the man with a smile.  “I don’t know about that.”  Taylor shrugged. 
Weird one. 
“Can I buy you a drink?”

“No, thanks, I’ve got one,” Taylor said, holding her drink up.

She turned her back a bit to him and pretended to be very interested in what Jamie was doing, but she could feel the guy standing directly behind her watching her.  “What’s your name?” he asked.

She turned back to him.  “Taylor.  Look, I don’t mean to be rude or anything, but I’m just here with my friends.”

“Well, as I said, I’m just here with my friends as well.  I’m Martin,” he said, holding out his hand.  He’d stressed the
tin
in his name so it sounded like ‘teen’.

She shook his hand automatically although her thoughts were saying,
Guy, take a hint. 
“Well, nice to meet you, Mar
teen
.”  She then turned back around and did her best to ignore Mart
een
as best she could, hoping he’d buzz away like the annoying fly he was becoming.

But he didn’t.  Instead she could sense him still standing behind her and it made her uneasy.  She took her drink and sucked on the straw, then set it back down. “That’s a nice ring,” he said, reaching around and trying to point at the cheap silver ring she wore on her right hand.  In doing so he spilled her drink and it sloshed against the front of her shirt and down her legs and she jumped backwards.  The man quickly apologized, “Oh, damn, I’m so sorry,” he said.  He reached for a stack of napkins and handed them to her, “It was an accident, really, I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” she said, exasperated, taking the napkins and cleaning the icy pina colada from her shorts.

The man called out to the waiter, “Pina
colada, por favor.”

“No, it’s fine,” said Taylor, realizing he was ordering her another drink.

“Please, I insist,
señorita
.  I’ve made a fool of myself and the least I can do is replace your drink.”

She was tempted to just turn and walk away but he seemed genuinely embarrassed so she did the politically correct thing to do and smiled half-heartedly and said, “Ok, then.  You don’t need to, though.  It’s no big deal.”

“Ok, then,” said the man, taking the drink from the bartender.  “Again, I’m so sorry,” he said.  “I’m going to just go back to my friends.  I’m sorry if I bothered you.  And I can see you probably need to watch your friend over there,” he said with a smile, pointing at Jamie.

Taylor turned and looked to see what Jamie was up to now; nothing terribly unusual.  She had a blond boy’s face nestled in her cleavage, probably licking salt from somewhere naughty.

“Hey, what the fuck are you doing!!?”

Taylor turned back around to see Kendra behind her yelling at Martin.  “What?” she asked Kendra, wondering what on earth had her friend so upset.

“Is this your drink?” Kendra asked Taylor, pointing to the pina colada in Martin’s hand.

“Yeah,” said Taylor.  “Why?”

“Because he was just putting some shit in your drink,” Kendra said loudly, staring Martin down with fuming anger.  She thrust a finger at him and said, even more loudly, “You were trying to put something in her drink!”  Her voice rose loud enough for Jamie to hear, and she immediately separated from the boys and pushed her way to her friends, who she could now see were in a confrontational stance with some tacky looking guy.

“Hey, I think you’re mistaken,” he said with his hands up slightly in a peace offering.

“Bullshit!” Kendra yelled.  “I saw you pull a little plastic bag out of your pocket and dump it in her drink.”  She snatched Taylor’s drink away from him and held it in front of his nose.  “What’s in here!?  What kind of shit are you trying to pull?!”

Jamie leaned over the bar and started yelling loudly at the bartender, “Hey!  Hey!  This guy just tried to drug my friend!  Call the cops or something.”

The bartender walked over and Martin scowled at Jamie and quickly turned and started walking away.  “Hey!” yelled Jamie.  “Hey, where do you think you’re going?  Hey, someone stop this guy!” she started yelling.  “He tried to drug my friend!  This guy is spiking drinks!” she yelled, pointing at him.  “This guy is trying to put stuff in girls’ drinks!”  She didn’t let up on him.

He kept walking through the crowd with the three girls trailing behind him, Jamie still yelling at the top of her lungs that he was trying to slip a Mickey to girls in the club.  He had almost reached the door when Jamie’s new entourage, who had noticed something amiss, appeared and one of them reached out and grabbed the man by the shoulder, “I think you better hold on there, pal.”

Nobody really saw where they popped up from, but in an instant two other Hispanic men were at Martin’s side and one punched the would-be Good Samaritan.  One of the victim’s friends started for the man who’d hit his friend, but he lifted his shirt to reveal a gun and the young man stopped in his tracks, throwing his hands up and fear draining the color from his cheeks, “Easy, bro.”

“Oh, shit, he’s got a gun,” said Jamie.

She grabbed both Taylor and Kendra and pulled them back the way they came.  Taylor had time for only a brief look over her shoulder to see the Hispanic men exiting the bar.

“Let’s get the hell out of here,” said Jamie.  They went back to the bartender and explained what had happened and he disappeared to call security which was currently spread out in the bar.  The three girls decided they didn’t want to hang around to explain it all again for the cops.  Right now, all they wanted was to get back to the hotel.  Jamie asked some of her new friends if they’d walk with them outside to hail a taxi.  They readily agreed and escorted the three chivalrously to a taxi and the trio headed back to the hotel.

The uncomfortable silence in the car was broken by Kendra.  “Well, that was scary as hell.”

Yesenia felt ill.  She was disoriented in the darkness, her equilibrium under constant attack with the rolling motion and pulling sensation every time the truck rounded a bend, and she was struck with the onset of motion sickness.  Unfortunately, she was not the only one.  Someone in the truck had already vomited and the smell was making everyone else nauseated.  Someone, presumably the offender, had tried to clean it up and put the shirt they’d used in the corner, but the smell was still wafting around the enclosed space.  They’d been in the truck 2½ hours so far.  “I have to go to the bathroom,” said Silvia.

“Me, too,” Yesenia confessed.

“How much longer are we going to be in here?”

“I don’t know.”

“About three more hours,” someone offered, having heard the girls talking.

“I can’t go more than another hour without peeing,” said Silvia.  It was a shared sentiment with others in the truck.

Another two hours slipped by.  The morning sun was up and the truck was beginning to heat up.  It was only in the low 80s outside, but inside the metal confinement it was in the 90s and rising.  People were sweating, the vomit was stewing, at least one person, probably more, had urinated, and no air was being ventilated.  The stench that was accruing was unbearable, and no matter what she did, cup her hand over her nose or pull her shirt up over her face, Yesenia couldn’t avoid it.  She sat with her back against the wall and her legs pulled to her chest, trying not to think about it, though it was impossible not to.

Finally, she gasped.  “God, the smell is horrible,” she told Silvia.

“I know.  I’m trying not to throw up.”

“Here,” said a woman, who leaned over in the darkness and handed Yesenia a small tube.  “Spray some of my perfume under your nose.  It doesn’t get rid of the smell, but it helps.”  Yesenia took the perfume and sprayed a little, as did Silvia.  The fumes actually made her feel worse for a moment, but as it dissipated she realized it did cover up the smell a little bit.

“Thank you,” she told the woman, handing back the perfume.

Occasionally the woman would point the tube upward and let out a spray before finally someone said, “Please, no more perfume.  I know it stinks in here, but it’s making me sick.  Please, no more.”  And so for the rest of the trip they were stuck with the stench.

“Aren’t they going to stop to give us a break?” asked someone.  “I’m thirsty and my body aches.”

“I can’t believe they haven’t pulled over for us to use the bathroom,” said another.

“Sometimes they stop, sometimes they don’t,” said another voice.  “This is my third trip from the border, but I’ve never been put in the back of a big truck like this.  They’ll have to stop for gas, but I don’t think they’ll open the truck.  It’s too dangerous for them with all the drugs.”

The man was correct.  The morning wore on and the situation in the truck worsened.  People began to feel dizzy from the smell and the heat.  The sweat had no place to
go when evaporated, so a haze seemed to drift about inside the truck, its humidity making people sweat worse.  The truck did stop once for gas as the man predicted, and some of the immigrants debated about banging on the walls to get them to open up, but having figured they were nearing Houston, decided to tough it out and bear it.

“It’s only a little further,” said one.

“This hell is almost over,” assured another.

Finally, at around 10:00 in the morning, the truck began making frequent turns, having apparently left the highway and now working its way along smaller streets.  The mood in the truck lightened as they realized their long trip was nearing an end.  The truck paused a moment and they thought they heard the sound of a garage door opening, then the truck moved forward again and they suddenly heard the sound of gravel beneath the tires.

After seven of the worst hours of Yesenia’s life, the truck stopped and the engine was shut off.  The handle of the doors rocked back and forth and then the doors opened.

The sudden burst of light blinded the occupants for a mome
nt.  They’d spent the last seven hours in complete darkness, and as the sunlight spilled over them many had to raise their arms for a moment as their eyes adjusted.

“God,” said the man who had opened the door.  “What’s that smell?”  He looked over the passengers as though they were dogs that’d just crapped on the carpet.  “Come on, out of there, all of you.”

Yesenia climbed out and the blast of fresh air was like slipping into a cold pool after walking across the desert, parched and weary, for untold days.  She breathed deeply and her body rejoiced in the stench-free oxygen.  She raised her hands over her head to stretch and couldn’t suppress a smile.  It felt so wonderful to be out of the truck.  She felt like kicking off her sandals and skipping about, but of course didn’t.  The smugglers were still around and they hadn’t put away their guns.

As she looked around, she saw they had pulled into the back of a small auto repair shop in a town called Rosenberg, Texas, just south of Houston.  There was a privacy fence around the lot where cars sat waiting to be worked on and it afforded the immigrants secrecy as they climbed down from the back of the truck, some practically crawling with their cramped muscles and aching joints.

The smugglers told their passengers to unload the truck first and the fifty bales of marijuana were taken inside the shop and stacked neatly in a little pit normally used by mechanics when doing oil changes.  Only then were they allowed to stretch their legs, use the bathroom inside the shop, and get a drink from the water hose, which was then used to clean out the inside of the truck, urine and vomit splashing out onto the ground.

Over the next few hours, cars began pulling up to the front of the shop and ringing a little buzzer.  The garage door facing the street would open and the cars would drive through and out the rear garage door into the yard where they happily met the family members they were there to pick up.  Husbands and wives, siblings, parents and children, all reunited with hugs and kisses.  “
Papi
, you smell,” said one little girl as she hugged her father.

“It was a rough trip,” he told his wife, who also hugged him tightly but squinched her nose.

Yesenia and Silvia watched with a bit of envy, happy they at least had each other, but somewhat frightened to be in this new country with no family to greet them.  They were even more frightened as the rest of the travelers left, leaving the girls alone with the smugglers, one of whom eyed them both hungrily.

The afternoon wore on into the evening and they began to wonder if anyone was coming for them.  They were given some chips and soda by the men at the shop but it did little to fill their stomachs.  Both could tell the men in the shop were becoming frustrated.  Whoever was supposed to pick them up was running late and the one who had been eyeing the girls most of the day was sending shivers up Yesenia’s spine.

If he had intentions of taking advantage of the girls, he was thwarted by an older model black GMC Suburban that pulled into the yard.  Its windows were tinted almost limo black and the girls couldn’t see who was inside, but when its doors opened two Hispanic men got out.  They both looked to be in their twenties and they met the other smugglers like old friends.  They walked over and looked at the two girls.

“I’m Jose,” said one.  “That’s Hector.”  He pointed to the other man.  “You’ll be riding with us from here.”

Yesenia and Silvia introduced themselves, but the men didn’t seem overly interested.  “Got the other stuff?” Jose asked the smuggler with the strange eyes.

“Of course.  Ten each, right?”

“Yeah, fifteen loads.”  Each packed load they’d been carrying was twenty pounds of pot, and with an estimated street value of $300 an ounce, that was a potential $96,000 worth of pot per pack, or just under a 1.3 million dollars total profit if purchased at $10,000 a pack and then sold by the ounce all over the country.  Jose and Hector weren’t street pushers, but they’d still earn a nice cut just for their part.  The cartels weren’t likely to cease business any time soon with that kind of profit margin to be had.

The two men were led inside the shop and shown the bales down in the pit.  Then they backed their
Suburban up to the rear garage doors and put fifteen bales inside.  They handed the man with the wild eyes a bag full of money.  “A hundred fifty-five.  The five is for the girls.”

The man flipped through the cash and handed the bag to a man next to him to be counted, “You want a beer?”

“Sure,” responded the man.

After drinking a couple of beers and smoking a few cigarettes with the other men, the money was announced counted and correct.  So Jose and Hector shook hands with the others and told Yesenia and Silvia to get in the
Suburban.

“Where are we going?” asked Silvia.

“Dallas,” said Jose.

“Is it a long drive?” asked Yesenia, scooting into the back seat with Silvia.

“A few hours, but you’ll be more comfortable than you were in the truck.”

“Can we stop to eat?” asked Silvia.

“What, are you two hungry?” asked Hector.

“Starving,” said Silvia.  “We haven’t eaten anything except chips since yesterday.”

“You wouldn’t believe the trip we had.  They didn’t even let us use the bathroom.  People were peeing in the truck.  It was disgusting.”

“Hey, rest stops are the easiest way to get caught.”  The men drove through a McDonalds and handed the girls cheeseburgers with fries and cokes, which the girls devoured with relish.  Afterward, with full stomachs, the two leaned
in opposite directions on the bench seat, and it was not long until both girls fell fast asleep.

Jose looked back at them and told his friend, “You want to have some fun before we get there?”

“No,” said Hector.  “She might let you get away with it, but not me.”

“How’s she going to know?” asked Jose.  “We can make sure they stay quiet.”

“She’d know.  Nothing gets by her.”