Dove Season (A Jimmy Veeder Fiasco) (26 page)

It didn’t take long for the firefight to commence. It was a hell of a thing to hear. The Mexicans had obviously pursued us and ran smack-dab into the South Americans. As everyone’s gun was cocked and ready, all it took was one itchy trigger finger and war was declared. Not enough time for it to occur to anyone to use their shared language to ask where the gringos hightailed it to. From under the pipes, it sounded like the end of the world. The blast of arms and the tenor ping of ricocheting lead.

I had no sense of direction under the pipes, putting my complete faith in Bobby. With the volume and echoes, for all I knew, we could have been going toward the gunfight. It was like all my senses had been stripped away.

Bobby led us right to the office door.

With the gunfire at our backs, we tore out of the building and ran across the length of the loading dock toward the north edge of the building. As we turned the corner of the warehouse, we literally ran into Buck Buck and Snout. We almost knocked each other down and shot each other simultaneously.

“What the fuck is going on in there?” Buck Buck loud-whispered.

“Not now,” Bobby said.

He motioned for us to follow and took off toward the first warehouse. We stayed along the north edge of the building. Back at the loading dock, we jumped into the truck ramp and quickly found the safety of darkness. We all sat with our backs to the concrete, breathing hard.

I had a good view of the double-wide and saw the light go on in the office. We were deep enough in the shadows that I had little concern of being detected. Nobody would be looking in our direction anyway with the violent popping of gunfire in the distance.

“Who the fuck is doing all that shooting?” Buck Buck asked.

“Fucking drug smuggler convention in there,” Bobby said.

“We’re here. Who they shooting at?”

“Each other,” Bobby said.

“Nobody in the back warehouse,” Snout chimed in. “Sorry, Jimmy. Didn’t see no kid.”

“Could be more people in the middle one. These are big buildings. We didn’t exactly get the complete tour,” I said.

“We can’t go back there now,” Bobby said.

“How many you talking about?” Buck Buck asked.

“Enough. Like a half dozen on each side. That is, if there are only two sides and some other group of scumbags didn’t feel left out and join in,” Bobby said.

“Probably a few less by now,” Buck Buck said.

“We can take ’em,” Snout said.

The door of the double-wide flew open. While we were well out of sight, we all still ducked out of instinct. An impressively fat man buttoned his shirt as he stepped out of the office. His red face and peeling bald head telegraphed his time in the desert sun. He shouted into a walkie-talkie.

It didn’t take long for two other guards to show. A heated discussion with a lot of pointing and shouting followed. With the gunfire continuing in the middle warehouse, the three men stood in a close huddle and discussed their plan of attack. Baldy was in charge.

One of the men went into the double-wide for a minute and came back with three serious guns. I don’t know firearms well enough to say what kind, but they were action movie serious.

Even with the guns, they made no move. Why would they? Whatever was happening in that warehouse wasn’t their fight. It looked like the plan was to wait it out, assess the damage, and take it from there. These guys were smarter than they looked.

With the guards standing there listening to the show, we were trapped in the darkness of that truck ramp. We were safe and out of sight, but the floodlights between us and the fence were too bright to allow any escape. And we hadn’t found Juan yet. I couldn’t speak for the other guys, but I had no plans to leave until I found him.

The men lifted their rifles toward the warehouse. Someone approached out of view. There was yelling back and forth. While the guards kept their guns aimed, they let the man approach.

It was Alejandro. He was carrying Juan. He held his hands out as much as he could with Juan in his arms. He approached cautiously, even doing a pirouette to show them he wasn’t armed. They lowered their rifles, but their body language never relaxed. Drug smugglers shooting at each other in the distance will do that.

Baldy motioned for Alejandro to go into the double-wide. Alejandro asked a few questions, but only received shrugs and curt responses in return. Visibly frustrated, Alejandro and Juan entered the trailer. The door slammed shut. The three guards remained outside, still in discussion.

Like popcorn in a microwave, the gunfire slowed to sporadic bursts. Then stopped. Nothing for a minute. Then one quick shot. And again. After fifteen minutes of complete silence, the guards huddled again. They came to some kind of agreement and walked very cautiously, guns at the ready, toward the far warehouse.

I gave Bobby a look. He nodded. Buck Buck woke up Snout. I counted to thirty and then lifted myself out of the truck ramp. Glancing in the direction the guards had gone, I saw nothing. I motioned for the guys to follow. We walked quickly but quietly to the double-wide, stopping just below the window.

I crept up to look, but Bobby pulled me back down. I threw him a glare, but he shook his head and nodded to the door. Keeping low, Bobby and I crab-walked to the door. Bobby pounded on the door, saying nothing.

“This is bullshit,” Alejandro said through the door. His voice grew louder. “I ain’t paying no full price.
Lo jodiste. Chingadas
shooting, not what I paid for. Wanted to get shot, I would’ve stayed in
La República
. You better have some discount…”

The moment Alejandro opened the door, Bobby and I had him by his shirt. We pulled hard. He landed face-first on the ground, immediately attempting to scurry to his feet. I put my foot on his back, and Bobby stepped on one of his hands. Alejandro yelped, flailing his arms and bucking his body.

Buck Buck didn’t need to be told what to do. He ran quickly up the steps into the double-wide.

Alejandro yelled loudly. Bobby kicked him in the head, and I dropped to one knee onto the middle of his back. He arched and moaned, the wind knocked out of him. Gasps took the place of volume.

Buck Buck came out holding Juan in his arms. He wasn’t overly gentle, obviously not accustomed to carrying a child. Luckily Juan was subdued. His eyes were huge. But after this recent adventure with Alejandro, he seemed like he was just going to go along with whatever happened.

“Get him out of here,” I said. “Take one quad, one bike. Don’t wait for us. Get the kid as far away from here as you can. Bring him to Angie. Don’t tell her nothing. Just tell her to look after him. Go!”

“What about him? You?”

“I got it. Go,” I said.

Buck Buck and Snout took off toward the hole in the fence. Juan looked confused, but stayed silent. Buck Buck made fart noises into Juan’s ear until he started laughing. It took them less than a minute to be completely out of sight.

“You should go too,” I said to Bobby.

“The fuck,” he said, ending the debate.

Bobby pulled Alejandro’s hands behind his back, running a zip tie around his wrists. I took off my boot, pulled off my sock, and shoved the sweat-soaked sock into Alejandro’s mouth.

By the time we hefted Alejandro to his feet, I could hear the sound of the quad in the distance. Alejandro struggled and threw elbows, but three short punches to his ribs pacified him.

Voices rose in the distance. I closed the door of the double-wide. Bobby and I dragged Alejandro around to the back, out of sight. We threw Alejandro to the ground. I sat on his hamstrings, holding his ankles down with both hands. Bobby sat on his lower back, his back to mine, one hand pushing Alejandro’s face in the dirt, the other lifting his arms to the point of pain. The voices of the guards grew louder as they approached.

“Knew something like that would happen. I been telling Bub. When we got Colombians, we got to keep them apart. Motherfuckers are serial-killer crazy,” one guard said. “Not like there was a clear winner. What a mess. Wonder what the fuck started it.”

“You hear engines? Like bikes or quads? Out that way.”

“Fucking cares? Unless they ride in here, let them have their fun. Too hot to ride in the day—probably just a couple jackasses getting stupid.”

“They might have heard the shots.”

“You ever been on a quad? Can’t hear shit above the motor.”

“What the fuck we going to do now?”

“Grab the fucking mops and buckets like Bub told us to.”

With the sound of the office door opening, Bobby gave me an elbow to the back. After a moment the voices returned.

“You take the mops and that cleaning shit. I got to find some rubber gloves. I ain’t going near none of that blood. Who knows what disease those fuckers carrying?”

“Where you think the Mex with the kid went? They was just here.”

“Who the fuck cares? He paid up front.”

Alejandro started to kick with his legs, but I had him pinned. Bobby pushed his face harder into the rocky ground. He stopped struggling.

“Found ’em,” the guard exclaimed. And we listened to them talking bullshit as their voices receded and they returned to the warehouse.

Bobby and I rose. Alejandro squirmed like a fish on a ditch bank.

I took a look around the side of the double-wide. The guards were gone.

With a foot in each hand, Bobby and I dragged Alejandro facedown across the pavement and hardpack to the hole in the fence.

Bobby slipped through the chain-link and then grabbed both of Alejandro’s heels and roughly pulled him through. I followed and we dragged him to the cover of the tamarisk.

“Now you can take off,” I said to Bobby.

“What?”

“I can’t ask you to do this,” I said.

“You don’t even know what you’re going to do.”

He was right. I didn’t.

“Exactly why I should be here,” Bobby said. “I started this with you. Whatever happens, we’re doing it together. You can fuck yourself if you think different.”

It took some doing, but we got Alejandro on the back of the quad. Luckily he wasn’t a big man and comfort wasn’t a concern. With enough baling wire and duct tape, anything is possible. We treated him as cargo, laying him over the back above the rear axle. He would have to flex his neck slightly during the ride or his face would scrape against the tire.

I took the quad, Bobby took the bike, and we headed back toward the lot and Bobby’s Ranchero. We followed the stars, or at least tried to. I tried to attack the situation and figure out my next move. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get a fix on it.

At what I assumed to be the halfway point, I rode into a gulley and stopped the quad. After about fifty yards, Bobby turned and saw that I had stopped. He rode the dirt bike back to me and killed the engine. The silence of the desert was a sharp contrast to the Oasis and the bikes.

“You trying to ditch me?” he said.

“Wasn’t thinking about you. I’m just not sure what happens now,” I said.

“Slapdash, but not half-ass, brother.” Bobby tried a smile.

“The Veeder promise,” I said with little joy.

We undid all the tape and wire that held Alejandro in place. One cheek was black from where it had grazed the back tire. Bobby and I dragged him off the quad. I didn’t see any more need for the gag. There wasn’t a living thing within earshot that could hear us or give a shit. I took my sock out of his mouth. It was saturated pink.

On his knees with his hands still zip-tied behind his back, Alejandro looked up at me and Bobby. His face was scraped and bloody, sand sticking to the dark red wetness. The front of his shirt was shredded, revealing his abraded chest.

If it was anyone else, I would have felt sympathy. But Alejandro wasn’t the kind of guy who brought that out in a person.

“Motherfuckers. You’re dead, motherfuckers,” Alejandro spat, proving my point. I kicked him in the stomach. He bent over, heaving a mouthful of yellow liquid.

I leaned down. “That’s the best you can do? Threaten us? Fucking idiot, this isn’t a movie. There’s no one to impress out here. We’re going to talk.”

“Fuck you,” he countered. I kicked him in the stomach again.

I looked over to Bobby.

He shrugged. “You’re doing fine.”

I said, “We’re going to let you go. But I set the terms.”

Bobby gave me a look.

Alejandro spit on the ground and opened his mouth to speak, but said nothing. That was a start.

I laid it out for him. “You can’t go back to Mexicali. You know that. Hell, you can’t stay anywhere near here with Tomás looking for you. That works for me because it looks like I’m staying down here. After tonight I don’t want to see you again. I’m taking the Imperial Valley. You can have anywhere else. The fucking whole rest of the world, for all I care.

“I’m trying to unfuck this situation. If Tomás wants, he’ll find you and kill you. Matter of time, you know it. Who knows how far his reach goes? I can tell him to let it go. He’ll listen to me. If he’s convinced you’re no longer a threat, he’ll listen. Right here, right now, one-time offer. I’m giving you an out. All I got to know is that this bullshit is over.”

Alejandro rolled his neck around, cracking it. “I can go?”

“Yeah.”

Alejandro turned to Bobby. “Like that? I walk out this desert,
soy libre
.”

“Whatever Jimmy says.” Bobby nodded.

“Where the fuck I’m going to go?” Alejandro spat.

“You were heading to LA,” I said. “Go there.”

“You get that from Rocio? Tomás get him to talk? Gave me up,” Alejandro said with a hint of regret.

“It’s not like you got options. You see where we’re at, right? What’s out there? Tomás wants you dead.”

“Fuck that
pocho cabrón
.”

“Don’t start that shit again. Easy solution. Go to LA.”

“What I’m going to do there? Wash dishes in a
pinche taqueria
? Rather you fucking shoot me. I ain’t starting over. All the money I had is gone. I ain’t got shit. Used it all with them fucking Oasis
pendejos
.”

“That’s why you grabbed Juan? For money? You grab a fucking kid?”