Invasion USA (20 page)

Nogales . . . That was the key, Buddy thought as Lauren went back out, leaving the reports on his desk.

And he believed he had a key of his own that just might break things wide open.

 

 

Every law enforcement officer, even the most straight arrow, bent the rules a little every now and then, for the simple reason that no law could be truly universal and cover every case. Bad cops crossed that line for their own benefit, but good ones ventured over it only for a good reason, usually to help somebody else.

In Buddy's case, he had let Diego Vasquez off the hook on a possession rap because Diego was just a kid and because his father, Jaime Vasquez, had been one of the starting guards on the Little Tucson High School basketball team at the same time Buddy and Tom Brannon had been the starting forwards. Buddy had truly believed that Diego was a good kid who would get straightened out if he just had a chance.

He had been wrong, at least partially. Diego wasn't a good kid, and he hadn't straightened out. He had run off to Nogales and fallen in with an even worse crowd than the one that had given him the joint Buddy could have busted him for. But Diego hadn't completely forgotten the favor Buddy had done for him, and on several occasions during the past five years, Buddy had gotten a phone call from Diego, tipping him off to something bad that was about to go down in Sierrita County. It was kind of like having a deal with the devil and it made Buddy a little uncomfortable, but every cop had his sources and had to make use of them, even the unsavory ones.

Now Buddy used his cell phone to call the number he had written on a piece of paper he took from his wallet. A man's voice grunted in answer, “Flora's Café.”

“Tell Diego his dry cleaning is done,” Buddy said, feeling foolish as he always did when he got in touch with Diego this way. He understood that codes and passwords helped keep Diego safe, though.

The man on the other end of the phone grunted, and then a few moments of silence went by. The next voice Buddy heard belonged to Diego, who said, “What is it?”

“I'm coming to Nogales,” Buddy said. “Tell me where to meet you.”

“Oh, man,” Diego responded quickly, “that ain't a good idea. You can't—”

“I can,” Buddy said. “Come on, Diego, you owe me, and you know it.”

Diego sighed. “All right. There's a place just this side of the border called Ochoa's, sells cigars and candy and magazines. Tell me when. But I don't like this, Buddy.”

“Neither do I,” Buddy said. “I'll be there tonight. Eight o'clock.”

“Don't come dressed in your sheriff suit, okay?”

Buddy just grinned and said, “I'll see you then, Diego.”

20

There were towns called Nogales on both sides of the border, or if you preferred to think of it that way, you could consider it one town split down the middle by the international boundary line. Either way, it was a dusty, ugly, heat-blasted place, a typical pair of bordertowns with plenty of cantinas and whorehouses and seedy little shops.

One of which Buddy Gorman found himself standing in that evening, leafing through a pornographic magazine that contained some of the filthiest pictures he had ever seen.

He didn't look like a sheriff now. He wore a gaudy shirt and light-colored trousers, and anyone glancing at him would take him for an American tourist out to wallow in the squalor found south of the border. He had seen plenty of guys who really fit that description, so it hadn't been much of a challenge to duplicate their appearance. His jaws worked as he chewed gum and flipped through the pages of the skin mag.

Diego sidled up beside him and said quietly, “Man, you are one fuckin' crazy gringo.”

Buddy grinned sideways at him. “You don't know the half of it, amigo. Is there some place around here we can talk?”

“Talk right here,” Diego said. He was a handsome young man, well-dressed without being gaudy about it. Buddy wasn't sure exactly what sort of things Diego was mixed up in down here—drugs almost surely, prostitution probably, maybe swindling a few lonely American women who came here on vacation, although there wouldn't be many of those—but his crimes were on a small scale, the sort that wouldn't bring him to the attention of the big-shots like
Mara Salvatrucha
. “Tell me what you want,” Diego went on, “and then get back on the other side of the border where you belong.”

Still holding the magazine, Buddy said without looking at the young man, “I want M-15.”

Diego started to turn away. “You crazy, all right. Get outta here. I can't help you.”

“Just give me a name or a place to go,” Buddy said quickly. “A place to start.”

Diego sighed. “This is about what happened up there in your town, that SavMart Massacre?”

“Some of it, yeah. And it's about a couple of old people who were slaughtered like animals in their own home. They were the parents of a good friend of mine. My best friend.”

“Yeah, that sounds like somethin' M-15 would do. But I can't help you, Buddy. I don't have nothin' to do with those hombres. They're loco.”

“I know that. But I want to get my hands on one of them, anyway. Somebody I can take back to Little Tucson to testify about what happened to Tom Brannon's folks.”

Diego's eyes narrowed. “M-15 don't testify. You can't get 'em to talk, man. Especially not with all the rules you gringos got to follow.”

“Maybe I'm getting tired of following all the rules,” Buddy said softly.

For a long moment Diego studied him intently, and then the young man sighed again and nodded. “You gonna be stubborn about this, ain'tcha?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Gimme a minute. I'll make some calls, see what I can find out.”

Diego took a cell phone out of the pocket of his expensive jacket and sauntered toward the rear of the store. Buddy glanced over at the elderly proprietor, who was the only other person in the place. The old man didn't look at him, just stared straight ahead as if Buddy and Diego weren't there. Buddy put the magazine back in the rack and started to pick up another one, then stopped when he saw the Great Dane and the girl on the cover. Maybe he would just wait without looking at any more magazines.

Diego rejoined him in a few minutes. “There's a guy named Ortiz,” he said. “A real bad-ass hombre. He's been braggin' about how he and some other guys killed a couple of old gringos.”

Buddy stiffened. “Then he's the guy I want to talk to.”

“He's supposed to be payin' a visit to a girl I know in a little while. If you want . . .” Diego grimaced and shook his head. “Man, I don't know why I'm doin' this. You gonna wind up gettin' me killed. But if you want, you could be there when Ortiz comes in.”

Buddy nodded. “That's exactly what I want. Thanks, Diego.
Muchas gracias
.”

“Save it,” Diego snapped. “Tell me again in an hour . . . if we both ain't dead by then.”

 

 

If the girl in the sleazy hotel room was a day over fifteen, Buddy would be surprised. She wore a thin slip that clung to the lines of her slender body, and her dark nipples showed through it. She sat at a dressing table running a brush through her long dark hair while Diego talked to her in Spanish, and when he finished she said, “Hokay.”

Diego turned to Buddy and said, “When Ortiz comes in, you'll be in the closet. Wait until they start fuckin', then you can take him. Be quick about it, though. After you knock him out, bring him into the hall. I'll be waiting, and we can take him down the back stairs and into the alley where you left your car.”

“The car will still be there, right?”

“My muchachos got strict orders not to touch it, man.”

Buddy nodded. “All right, sounds good.”

He took a deep breath. Yeah, assault and kidnapping sounded like good things for a lawman to do. Something inside him cringed at the very idea. But he reminded himself of why he was doing this and of the sort of man this Ortiz was. Even if this was a step over the line from which he could never fully return, he was prepared to go ahead with it. He owed that to Tom Brannon. Hell, he owed that to the citizens of Little Tucson who had elected him. If he could put together a solid case against a member of M-15, he might be able to force the government to step in and actually
do
something. That was his hope, anyway.

He glanced at the girl and added, “Uh, you think maybe I ought to jump him before they start . . . you know . . .”

Diego waved a hand and smiled. “Don't worry about that, man. It ain't like she's sacrificin' her virginity or anything like that. Is it,
chica?
”

The girl just laughed and shook her head.

“Well, all right,” Buddy said. “I guess it would be better if Ortiz was, uh, distracted . . .”

“Now you're talkin',” Diego said.

He left the room. Buddy went to the tiny closet and opened the door. Before he could step inside, the girl said, “Jefe?”

He looked back and saw that she had taken a joint from a box on the dressing table. She held it up and smiled, offering it to him. Buddy shook his head and said, “No, thanks.”

The girl shrugged, reached down, and pulled the slip most of the way up her sleek brown thighs. She looked at Buddy and raised her eyebrows quizzically. “No,
gracias
,” he said, refusing that offer as well.

“Plenny of time,” the girl said.

Buddy put his hands up in front of him and moved them back and forth slightly. “No, but
muchas gracias
.”

The girl shrugged her bare shoulders, and Buddy retreated gratefully into the closet, pulling the door behind him until only a small gap remained. He blew out his breath, thinking about his wife and feeling very glad right now that he was a faithful husband.

It was hot in there. Sweat beaded on his forehead and rolled down into his eyebrows. His shirt was damp. He reached down and touched the gun in his trousers pocket. The serial number was filed off it, and it had never been registered anyway. It was a flat little .32 automatic, deadly enough at close range. Nestled beside it in Buddy's pocket was an old-fashioned sap that had belonged to his uncle, who had carried it when he worked in the Cook County Jail back in Chicago, in the fifties. Buddy supposed that made the sap an antique, but it still worked just fine.

Long minutes dragged by. Buddy began to wonder if Ortiz was even going to show up. But then footsteps sounded in the hallway outside, and the door to the room creaked open. Buddy couldn't see the girl, but he heard her greeting the man who had stepped into the room.

Buddy could see their shadows through the narrow gap, but that was all. He heard moaning and figured that they were kissing. The girl was carrying on like she was aroused. Typical whore behavior. Then Buddy smelled marijuana smoke. Ortiz hadn't declined the offer of a joint.

A few minutes later Buddy heard the bedsprings squeak. The sound got louder and faster. He slipped the gun out of his pocket and put it in his left hand. Then he clutched the sap in his right hand. He pushed the door open with his foot.

The bed was only about five feet away. Two fast steps would bring him next to it. Ortiz was on top of the girl, still wearing his shirt, pumping away at her. Buddy took the first of those two steps and lifted the sap.

From the corner of his eye he saw movement and jerked his head in that direction to see the door to the hall opening. A man stepped through it, a big grin on his face as he said something in Spanish about Ortiz hurrying up so somebody else could get some. Then he froze as he spotted Buddy.

Buddy had stopped in midstride. He pivoted as the second man suddenly bellowed a warning to Ortiz and clawed at the gun in his belt. Buddy swung the sap and felt as much as heard the satisfying crunch as it landed on the man's nose. The man went backward, blood spurting from the crushed nose. Buddy hoped that enough shards of bone had gone up into his brain to kill him.

He tried to turn back toward the bed, but as he did Ortiz came up with a yell and slammed a fist into Buddy's chest. The blow knocked Buddy back a step. He slashed at Ortiz's head with the sap but missed. The sap landed on Ortiz's right shoulder instead, and that was almost as good because the man's face contorted in agony and he fell to a knee, clutching his right shoulder with his left hand. Buddy figured the blow had numbed Ortiz's whole right arm.

A gun roared behind him and Buddy's left ear felt like somebody had pinched it. A part of his brain knew that a bullet had just grazed him, but for the most part he was operating purely on instinct now. He twisted around and saw that Ortiz's friend wasn't dead after all. He had a busted nose and blood all over his chest and the lower half of his face, but he was definitely still alive and about to take another shot at Buddy.

Buddy brought up the .32 in his left hand and triggered three shots before the man looming in the doorway could fire again with the old-fashioned revolver he held. The bullets caught the man in the chest and threw him backward. He hit the wall on the other side of the corridor with a crash and bounced off, pitching forward to land face-down on the threadbare carpet runner.

People started shouting. This was a cheap, squalid hotel used almost solely by prostitutes and their customers, and the patrons had to be accustomed to some trouble now and then. But a pitched gun battle would attract attention even in a place like this.

Everything was screwed, but Buddy thought he might still be able to salvage the situation if he acted fast enough. When he turned back toward the bed, he saw that Ortiz was struggling to get up from the floor. Buddy kicked him in the face and sent him sprawling. He leaned over the man and rapped him on the skull with the sap just for good measure.

Then he looked at the bed and almost threw up. The bullet that had clipped his ear had gone on past him and caught the girl in the head just as she jumped up from the stained mattress. Her nude body was sprawled across the foot of the bed now, her wide eyes staring sightlessly at the ceiling with its peeling paper. The black hole in the center of her forehead hadn't bled much, but there was a pool of crimson on the mattress under her head.

Buddy swallowed the bile that tried to well up his throat and jammed the sap back in his pocket. Still holding the gun, he bent to grab Ortiz. He hoisted the man's senseless form, grunting from the effort as he draped Ortiz over his shoulder. Then he staggered out in the hall, stepping over the body of the man he had killed. Where the hell was Diego?

The young man appeared at the top of the rear stairs, holding a bloody handkerchief to his head. “Buddy!” he called. “
Andale! Andale!
”

Buddy hurried, all right, stumbling toward the stairs with his limp burden. “What the hell happened?” he gasped as he and Diego started down.

“I saw Juan start to go up after Ortiz and tried to stop him. He hit me, knocked me half loco for a few minutes. Then I heard the shooting . . . You killed him?”

Buddy nodded as they continued to clatter down the stairs. “I'm pretty sure I did.”

“He was with Ortiz, when those old people were killed.”

Buddy felt a throb of fierce satisfaction go through him. At least one of the murderers of Herb and Mildred Brannon had received justice.

They reached the bottom of the stairs. Diego pushed out through the door that led to the alley. Buddy was right behind him. The way things had been going, Buddy was a little surprised that his car was there and seemingly untouched, just as Diego had promised. He supposed he had to have some good luck sometime.

Sirens wailed somewhere close by. The Nogales police responding to the shooting. They might actually investigate the matter, since the dead man was a member of M-15 and Buddy figured that the cops were probably in the gang's back pocket. But it was only a few blocks to the border, and he intended to be back across before anyone could stop him.

Balancing the unconscious Ortiz on his shoulder, Buddy fished his keys out of his pocket and handed them to Diego, who popped the trunk lid. Buddy lowered Ortiz into the trunk and slammed it closed.

“
Gracias
, amigo,” he said to Diego as he took the keys back. “I can't thank you enough.”

“You can thank me by not ever comin' down here again,” Diego said. “Not only that, but don't expect to be hearin' from me again, either. We're square, man. I don't owe you nothin' no more.”