Crossing the Line (28 page)

Finally it was over.

I found myself standing up as Hidalgo and his attorneys and the rest of the court rose for the judge’s departure. Three marshals approached Hidalgo to take custody of him. As he turned to meet them, his eyes finally met mine. He had never seen me before, but I knew he knew who I was. It had to be written all over my face.

We stared, his black eyes seeming to grow nearer, and I waited for the smile to flinch. It did.

Then I was suddenly being shoved backward. Two elderly but beefy marshals had taken hold of my arms and were dragging me back. I hadn’t realized how close I’d gotten to Hidalgo. I hadn’t realized I was moving at all. His face was just three feet away when I was propelled away from him. His smile bounced back. It actually grew wider.

I was out on the street, where I’d been deposited by the marshals after stern talking-tos by the judge, the Assistant U.S. Attorney, and the marshals themselves. I was told I wouldn’t be allowed back in the courthouse without a subpoena to testify.

Great, Ant. Brilliant move.

I was standing in the late-day summer heat with my back to the glass-and-steel courthouse. I was looking out on downtown Denver. Cars were going past, as were bicycle messengers with enormous chain locks over their shoulders. The other pedestrians were dressed for summer and they all seemed to be smiling and laughing. I was trying to remember where I’d left the Pig. Or had I walked from Rebecca’s loft? And where was Mungo? In the truck, in the loft, or tied to a pole somewhere?

Tom approached me then. He must have been waiting for me.

“What the hell was that?” Tom asked. “You’re going to go for the guy in the middle of a federal courtroom? You want to make sure he doesn’t forget about you and your family?”

My family,
I thought.
Mom and Dad. Shit.

“What did you think you were doing in there?” he demanded again when I didn’t answer fast enough.

“I don’t know. I just lost it,” I tried to explain.

“Christ, Burns. Your timing sucks. You could have taken the guy out in Wyoming anytime you wanted. Stopped him for good. But no, you’ve got to wait until you’re in a federal courthouse and he’s surrounded by lawyers and marshals before making your move. It’s a wonder you’re still around, QuickDraw. They should call you
SlowDraw
.”

I didn’t get mad. I was too tired. Too sick. And maybe I was getting used to Tom. Maybe this whole butthead show he put on was simply who he was.

“What did you think? How did it go?” I asked.

I only wanted his perspective because I didn’t trust my own. And he was the only one who’d been there that I could ask, after pissing off Davadou, the Assistant U.S. Attorney.

He shrugged then smirked.

“A total whitewash. What’d you expect?”

“A whitewash? How?”
What was he talking about?

“You think this is going to go to trial, QuickDraw? Don’t be stupid. This was all a show for the press. Make it look like they’re really going to nail the guy. But the charges are going to be quietly dismissed for lack of evidence or some such bullshit. Then they’re going to announce they’re sending him back to Mexico to face those supposed charges there, which will also be quietly dismissed. Or maybe just allowed to linger for years and years while everyone fills their pockets. Hidalgo owns the courts down there. Has for years. He wants to get extradited, you dumb-ass. So everyone will be happy. Everyone who isn’t happy will have forgotten about it by then. And he won’t be opening up his mouth about the people in the Mexican government who’ve been signing treaties with us.”

“Bullshit.”

Now he laughed.

“Wait and see, my friend. Wait and see.”

THIRTY

T
ubes, sensors, cords, and cables festooned my brother’s wrecked body. He was plugged into at least a dozen bags and machines. Either the fluids that were pumping into him or the injuries themselves had bloated his face to such a degree that his features were unrecognizable beneath all the swelling and yellowed bruises. His cracked skull had been shaved, bolted, shunted, and bandaged with bloody gauze. There wasn’t a trace of life in the half-opened eyes—the once spectacular irises were watery and faded. There was no brightness left. Nothing.

A particularly fat tube was rammed down his throat. It clicked and huffed as it shoved air into his chest. I followed the wires from his temples to a machine with a computer monitor and saw a flat line on the screen.

“He’ll be all right once he wakes up,”
I heard a voice say.
“The outlook for a full recovery is quite good.”

This was my imagination, not a real doctor’s words.

“He took quite a fall, and that gunshot wound to the abdomen didn’t help. But he’s young and strong. He’ll be fine in a couple of weeks.”

Reality intruded. I made myself face it and turn away from the fantasy I’d been working so hard to construct.

He won’t be all right. Not when he wakes up. Not ever.

The catalog of injuries was enormous. The doctors and nurses I’d spoken to said they’d never seen anything like it. Nearly every bone in his body was broken. Three disks in his neck had exploded. There was a bullet hole through his stomach and one kidney. His skin had been almost entirely lacerated by the sharp edges of rock that had made climbing up so easy. He had a fractured skull, a burst spleen, and a burst appendix from landing on the roof of the pickup. Flailed chest, as well, the ribs having perforated the lungs. His legs and arms and hips were broken in every conceivable way. They estimated he’d lost two-thirds of his blood. Infection was already setting in.

If he wasn’t already in a coma they would have induced one. He was hanging by a thread, they’d said, and that had almost made me smile. My brother the soloist always liked hanging by a lot less.

The worst wound—the one that made breathing for me an act of will and caused all the blood to rush into my head when I considered it—had been deliberate. Not that the bullet hole was not, or the injuries from tumbling down the shaft, or the impact of landing on the pickup. But this wound had been inflicted post-fall.

What was thought to be the dull blade of a machete had been dragged across his throat. Somehow the arteries had not been severed—either the muscles of his neck or perhaps the turquoise stone had protected the twin hoses there. His tongue had not been yanked through the gaping wound, either. They’d probably figured there was no point, since Roberto wasn’t going to be dumped along a road somewhere to serve as an example. Even they wouldn’t dare do that in the United States. So he’d just been dumped in that exploratory tunnel along with Bruto’s corpse and left to die.

He’d been all but gone when Mungo found him. A Flight For Life had helicoptered him to Denver, pumping fluids and oxygen, Roberto dangling by that proverbial thread.

I’d been allowed ten whole minutes this time. I stood next to the bed—there were no chairs here so that visitors wouldn’t be tempted to hang around too long—and stared at him blankly. I couldn’t seem to feel anything but the rush of blood to my head and the difficulty with breathing. I looked through blurry eyes. I didn’t want to see. Or hear. Or feel.

I tried to again become that block of ice. I wanted to be academic, philosophical, to coldly assess the circumstances and outcomes instead of having my heart burn like a blowtorch in my chest and melt everything around it faster than I could freeze it.

I needed to sort through all my conflicting hopes and dreads. The hopes were few. Besides Hidalgo getting convicted and sentenced to a long prison sentence, then shanked sometime during his stay, I hoped Roberto would open his eyes and wake up for just a single minute. Just long enough for me to tell him that I was sorry. That I loved him.

Then I hoped that he would hurry up and die.

There would be no more climbing. No more shooting up. No more making love to confused women like Mary Chang who were drawn to him because he was the opposite of everything they’d wanted to believe in.

Just die, ’Berto. Spare yourself. Spare me. Don’t make me pull the plug. I don’t know if I have the balls to do that.

I was ashamed of that, of being so weak. And I was ashamed of a lot more.

I hadn’t told my parents that their wayward firstborn was going to die.

I’d dialed the ranch, not sure what I was going to say or if I’d even be able to say it. The phone was answered by their cook, who finally recognized my gagging and throat-clearing, and managed to get the ranch manager on the line. He was a guy who had been running the ranch even in my grandfather’s time, long before my father was court-martialed out of the United States Air Force and went into exile in my mother’s country. Bronco, we called the ranch manager, because even though he usually wore a fancy suit, he would still break new horses on the ranch. I suspected he’d broken a lot of people, too, working for Grandpapa during the Dirty War.

My parents had taken mules—the four-legged kind—on a camping trip, I was told. They weren’t expected to return for a week. Should he send someone after them? I told him no. I even made myself sound a little like my dad, making it into a command. Did I have a message for them that would wait for their return? Here I managed to deliver half of my message. I told him that some guys Roberto had messed around with might come by looking to cause trouble, but that it was unlikely they really would. I was assured that if anyone was that foolish, Bronco and the other cowboys on the ranch would set them straight.

I’d at least managed to deliver—or set in motion the delivery of—half the message. Guilt washed over me about the other half. I couldn’t convince myself that it would be better for them not to see Roberto this way. Even though they’d known something like this had been coming for a long time. For years, in fact. But they wouldn’t expect that
I
would be the one to do it to him.

In a week I would call again. Or maybe I would simply take my brother’s body home.

I took a shaky, stuttering breath. My eyes were blurry when I gazed one last time at the disfigured carcass on the bed. Then I walked out of the room.

In the hallway Mary Chang lay on a yellow vinyl couch. That was something else I was ashamed of. I’d come in only three times over the last forty-eight hours, staying for only a few minutes each visit—it was all I could bear. But she’d been here, it seemed, the entire time.

“Protecting our star witness,” she’d said.

But I knew different. She had another reason for being there. Guilt—the same as mine, but probably nowhere near as intense. And maybe also a sense of loss.

She was asleep. The nurses had covered her with a thin hospital sheet. In a chair across from her was a U.S. Marshal who looked a couple of decades beyond retirement age. He was Roberto’s official protection—Mary was here on her own. The marshal was asleep, too, showing just how seriously the government was taking things.

I stood on the linoleum for a minute and watched her, forcing away the image of her and Roberto making love, all green and blurry in the starlight scope.

Mary opened her eyes, rubbed them, and sat up. I noticed that she was back to dressing in her professional clothes—a severe skirt and blouse. The last time I’d seen her here, she’d still been wearing her khaki shorts and a pullover sweatshirt. Her legs and hair had been dusty with dirt from the mine.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hey yourself.”

“You look good in a suit. Not so much like a dirtbag rock jock.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I think.”

“How’s Roberto looking?”

“Like shit.”

She smiled, as if I’d made a joke.

“I always thought he was too handsome. The hair, the eyes, the body. It was too much, you know?”

I didn’t say anything but made myself smile back. She didn’t sound anything like the uptight Fed I’d met in Salt Lake.
Could that really have been less than two weeks ago?

“I heard you caused a disturbance at the arraignment this afternoon.”

“It wasn’t much of a disturbance.”

“Tom called and said that you went for Hidalgo. And that you really freaked everyone out even before that, staring at him the whole time. The lawyer, Horton, has asked the judge to exclude you from the courtroom, unless you’re giving testimony. And the marshals have seconded it. Even Davadou, the A.U.S.A., agreed.”

“I know.”

I sat down where her legs had been on the short couch. I leaned back until my head thumped on the wall and then I closed my eyes.

“Sorry,” I said. “Going there was a mistake. Davadou has enough to worry about.”

“More than you think, Anton. Everyone’s a little worried about this case. A lot—maybe all—of the evidence could be suppressed due to the illegal entry. I’ve heard the DOJ already has some PR flacks looking into who’s going to get the blame. And the State Department’s screaming for us to kick him loose. They’re afraid if he’s convicted, Hidalgo will talk about all the people in Mexico City who are on his regular payroll. People will start to wonder why Congress keeps certifying what’s essentially a narcocracy.”

“Money,” I said dully. “Trade.”

“The corporations that make the big campaign contributions rely on Mexico for cheap labor and to buy our products—”

I cut her off.

“I know, Mary. You’ve told me.”

“Okay. But you really shouldn’t have gone for Hidalgo. He’s already got you in his sights, Anton. Your parents probably, too. That’s the way he works. That’s why he is so successful. Have you warned them?”

I nodded, banging my aching head on the wall.

“There’s a lot of his people still in Mexico and the States other than those we arrested two days ago. He’s got soldiers everywhere. There’s a chance some of them might remain loyal. I hope you’re watching your back, too.”

I hadn’t been. I hadn’t been watching anything at all.

“Do you still have a job?” I asked.

She laughed. It was sad and short.

“For the time being. With Hidalgo in custody, they can’t fire us. Not, anyway, until the case is resolved one way or another. The only thing that’s certain is that we aren’t going to be getting any promotions. No one’s saying I’m going to be the youngest Special Agent in Charge in a major city anymore. Right now Tom and I are pariahs. You know what that’s like, don’t you?”

I felt another sad smile directed my way but I couldn’t open my eyes or force my mouth to return it.

Things really couldn’t have been worse. Or maybe they could.

It was night already, but when I got off the elevator on her floor I knew that Rebecca wouldn’t be home for hours. She often worked late, trying to meet a deadline. Right then, though, I suspected she didn’t have a deadline. I was pretty sure she was avoiding me.

Two days earlier, she’d met me at the hospital in the middle of the night. The Flight For Life wouldn’t take me on board, so I’d red-lined my shuddering old truck four hundred miles to the south and east. Rebecca got there long before I did, and was the first “family” to see Roberto when he was brought in. It hadn’t been a good look, but it had been more than enough.

Rebecca had been sympathetic. She’d said all the right things. She even trembled and cried in my arms when I told her what happened to my brother, whom she’d never liked. But there was a coldness lurking beneath the compassion. A hard anger. I’d done what I’d promised her I would never do again. I’d taken chances and risked costs that were greater than I could pay. Uncharitably, I could almost hear the thoughts that must have been going through her head.
What kind of husband will he make? What kind of father? If he’s taken those kinds of chances with himself, with the brother he’s always worshiped, what kinds of chances will he take with his child?

And I didn’t cry with her. I don’t know why. I tried but I couldn’t. Even when she held me and she let her own tears run over my chest. I had the feeling she wasn’t just crying for Roberto. She was crying for me. She was crying for us.

Later, the next night, she’d wanted to know why I hadn’t cried with her. When I didn’t answer, she took my face in her hands. She stared up at me from inches away with brown eyes that up close had all those flecks of color, and said, “I’ll be here when you want me, Ant. Whenever you’re ready to stop acting like a zombie. Let me know and I’ll be here.”

Then she’d gone back to work.

Now, as I put my key into the door, I was surprised to get the feeling that someone was on the other side. Not Rebecca. Not just Mungo—who I’d finally figured out I’d left in the loft. Someone else.

It was in the air. I sniffed it, the way Mungo would. What I smelled was a cheap cigar odor invading the hallway. I touched my hip for the butt of my gun, but of course it wasn’t there. It was in an evidence locker somewhere. Crouching, I took the spare out of the ankle holster. The little Beretta .22 was ridiculous, but so was what I was doing. I realized it as soon as I palmed the little gun and stood. I knew that smell. I knew those cheap cigars.

Gun still in hand, I turned the key and pushed hard.

It slammed against a bumper on the inside wall. I stopped the rebound with a foot while pointing the little gun in a ready position at the floor.

“QuickDraw!” Ross McGee said from the couch that faced the door. He was wide-eyed, and his cigar was arcing in the air just over his head.

I moved fast, pinching the wet cigar off the hardwood floor just seconds after it bounced, spewing ash and burning embers. I pinched those up, too, and ran for the sink.

“What the hell are you trying to do to me? Make me an old man before my time?”

My fingertips were too callused to blister, but the same wasn’t true for the floor. I scrubbed at it with a sponge while ignoring my boss.

Mungo came out from the bedroom, where she’d been hiding from either the man or the stench. She was peering around the corner of the doorjamb. Her yellow eyes were narrow, her ears laid back, and her lips pulled up in what was something more than her usual nervous smile. Her expression wasn’t entirely McGee’s fault. I’d been neglecting her lately.