Illegal (21 page)

The cars inched forward, plumes of black exhaust hovering in the night air. When the Mustang reached the front of the line, a male agent in his fifties sidled up to the driver's door. His name tag read "Lopez," and he looked both tired and bored.

"Evening, Agent Lopez," Payne boomed, with gusto. "Long day, huh?"

"Pulled a double shift 'cause we're short tonight."

Good sign, Payne thought. The guy wouldn't want any hassles.

A helicopter droned overhead, its searchlight raking the ten-foot-high border fence.

"We'll be out of your hair and on our way in no time," Payne promised, putting on what he thought was an open, Midwestern smile. "Just a midnight crossing to the Promised Land."

"Nice wheels."

"Indeed," Payne said, employing a word he never used. But then, this wasn't him. This was some educator from Northwestern University, a guy who restored old cars in his spare time. Payne had prepared an entire persona in the last few minutes.

"V-8 under the hood?"

"Four-twenty-eight," Payne bragged.

"Love that pony on the grille. Never understood why they put it off center, though."

Agent Lopez scrutinized Payne's Illinois driver's license and passport and didn't start screaming for reinforcements. He spent more time with Tino's visa, squinting a bit, then holding a flashlight to it.

The agent slipped the visa into his shirt pocket and studied Tino. "You're a student at Temple Emanuel Academy Day School in Beverly Hills?" His tone would have worked for
"You just landed here from Mars?"

"Exchange program," Payne added.

"I'm talking to the boy now, Mr. Hamilton."

Payne clammed up and Agent Lopez said, "How long you going to school there?"

"I start next month, but they asked me to come early and get myself all orientated."

"Uh-huh."

"Then I'm gonna go to Beverly Hills High. Lil' Romeo went there."

"So did Erik Menendez," the agent said, referring to one of the brothers who shotgunned his parents twenty years earlier. "Let's take a look at your luggage."

"Except for a gym bag and baseball bat, we shipped everything," Payne contributed.

Agent Lopez sighed, as if this was going to be too much trouble for this time of night. He leaned over the side of the convertible, a puzzled look on his face. "Are those bowling shoes you're wearing, Mr. Hamilton?"

"There's a story behind that," Payne said.

"Don't wanna hear it. But tell me, just what's your connection with the boy?"

"I'm associate director of Worldwide Student Exchange."

"Never heard of it."

"We're an ecumenical rainbow coalition headquartered at Northwestern University. We encourage diversity in private schools, and this lucky little fellow was chosen, after vigorous competition, to go to Temple Emanuel for intensive study."

"I love
Americanos,
" Tino said. "Especially Jews."

"Let me get this straight," the agent said. "You're a religious do-gooder from Illinois. You drive all the way to Mexico and come back with this boy who you claim to be taking to some Jewish school in Beverly Hills."

"In time for Rosh Hashanah," Payne added, helpfully.

The agent took a moment to think things over. In an adjacent lane, under a sign reading
Secondary Inspections,
agents pulled a Lincoln apart, fender by fender, the border equivalent of a body cavity search.

Agent Lopez snatched a radio from his belt. "I need a P-2 check on a Mr. Alexander Hamilton of Evanston, Illinois."

"P-2 check?" Payne said, puzzled.

"Predators and pedophiles."

"What are you talking about?"

"Registered sex offenders. Ex-cons with records of assaulting children."

Not again, Payne thought. Another guy in uniform who suspected him of being a freak. Through a window of the office kiosk, he saw Rodriguez, the cute female officer, now working at a computer. "I assure you that I'm not—"

"You buy this boy in Mexicali?"

"No! Of course not."

"Tijuana, then."

"Never been to Tijuana."

Rodriguez sashayed out of the office, a feminine swing to her hips. She held a computer printout.

Despite his best efforts to appear relaxed, Payne was holding his breath. Looking guilty.
Feeling
guilty. He shot a look at Tino. The boy had one hand on the door handle. The kid was ready to run, Payne wondering if he'd go north or south.

Rodriguez gave Payne a long look, then turned to Lopez. "Car's clean. Mr. Hamilton has no record in Illinois or in the federal database. Nothing in the P-2 file."

Payne let out a long whistling breath, like a punctured bicycle tire.

"And I know for a fact that Mr. Hamilton is heterosexual."

"How?" the male agent said.

"When I read his plate, he checked out my ass like he wanted to pet it."

"Busted," Payne conceded.

"I'm too tired and too old for this shit," Lopez grumbled. "Mr. Hamilton, take this kid to Beverly Hills. Or Tel Aviv, for all I care."

Payne pushed the clutch to the floor, turned the ignition, and put the Mustang in gear. He tried not to burn rubber as they passed the sign welcoming them to the United States of America.

Shortly after midnight, Sharon sat on a sofa in the Green Room of a Burbank television studio. On a TV monitor, Cullen's face took on the color of the setting sun from an overdose of bronze makeup. Her fiancé was happily hosting his "Close the Border Marathon," but Sharon wasn't paying attention.

Her thoughts were of Jimmy. So many emotions. Worry. Fear. Guilt. Blaming herself for the ton of crap that was about to fall on his head. He was like a dog that dug its way out of the yard. The longer he was gone, the more mischief he would get into.

The boy. Tino.

She'd done it because of the boy. She didn't need a shrink to tell her about the subconscious connection between a boy looking for his mother and a mother missing her dead son.

Gossip had raced through the Parker Center like an August brushfire. A dead judge, stolen sting money, a fleeing bag man. To the delight of the donut-munchers, Detective Rigney was rumored to be chasing J. Atticus Payne from Rancho Cucamonga to Mexicali.

The rumor mill was churning overtime. Payne was into heroin trafficking. Or human trafficking. Or child slavery. The term "international fugitive" floated around. The F.B.I. and the D.E.A. had formed a task force to go after him. Homeland Security, too. Someone matching Payne's description was spotted in a Tijuana cantina drinking beer with a terror suspect. Another report had Payne catching a flight to Cali, Colombia. Sharon wouldn't be surprised if he turned up on a bin Laden videotape.

Still, she was able to confirm part of the story. The shooting. The fleeing. And Mexico.

Did Jimmy abandon the search for Tino's mother and take off after Manuel Garcia in Oaxaca? Had he lied to her?

After Adam's death, Sharon had insisted they attend grief counseling. She remembered their last session. A gentle man in his fifties, the psychologist explained the five stages of coping with loss—denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance—and added one of his own, hope. The more the man talked, the more upset Jimmy became.

Jimmy stormed out, and in that moment, Sharon knew her marriage would not survive. She didn't want it to end, but Jimmy was too obsessed to address his own problems, much less their marriage.

Earlier today, she had tried calling his cell phone. No answer. He'd been listed as a fugitive, armed and dangerous. She pictured him squaring off with a SWAT team, dying in a fusillade of gunfire. Maybe he even wanted it to happen. Suicide by cop.

Sharon still had strong feelings for Jimmy, ranging from anger to empathy to a warmth that defied easy description. Mostly anger. The emotional tie was there, but what did it mean?

She turned her attention back to Cullen on the monitor, his broad shoulders filling the screen. Under the hot lights, perched on a bar stool, he looked like a Sequoia planted in a pot. Still talking, he removed his suit coat and loosened his tie. Still another four hours in the marathon. Like a fighter trained to go the distance, Cullen had phenomenal stamina.

She admired many things about him, including his ability to overcome setbacks. He had run for local office as a Republican and been defeated. He'd been a self-help motivational speaker, but his books and tapes never sold. He'd bought television time for get-rich-in-realestate infomericals that didn't pan out. Still, Cullen never lost his optimism. Maybe that's what attracted her to him. He could take a punch. Then there was Jimmy.

Jimmy's vow, but something Cullen had actually done. He kept reinventing himself and seemed happy with each reincarnation. Sharon disagreed with his political views, but she respected him for never giving up.

There was another side to him, too. Maybe it didn't come through on television. But he was a compassionate man. He had stepped forward at the worst time in her life and comforted her. When she'd told Jimmy that, he barked his cynical laugh.

She shot another glance at the flat-screen monitor. Cullen, his square anchorman's chin tilted toward the camera, was deep into his stock speech about the fall of the Roman Empire.

Cullen had been lining up guests for months. A congressman from Colorado opposed to open borders. A spokesman for La Raza, a vocal supporter of immigrants' rights. A professor from Pepperdine with charts and graphs about how Caucasians will soon be the minority in thirty-five of the country's largest cities. A couple of desert rats from the Patriot Patrol, pleading for donations for camo gear, binoculars, flashlights, and probably cases of Budweiser. City and county commissioners, mayors, a Catholic priest, a Border Patrol agent, a spokesman for United Farm Workers, reporters from the Los Angeles and San Diego newspapers, even a couple illegals hanging around a Home Depot, looking for work. Bill O'Reilly and Lou Dobbs would appear by satellite.

Executives at Fox—the suits who could give him a network gig—would be watching. Celebrity guests were the key, Cullen had told her. He was most excited about Simeon Rutledge. The multimillionaire farmer rarely gave interviews. But astonishingly, Rutledge had called Cullen personally, just hours earlier.

"I'd like to have my say on that dog-and-pony show of yours," Rutledge said.

"I didn't think you had the balls," Quinn replied.

"Talking into a camera don't take balls. You know what courage is? Crossing deserts and mountains carrying your kids and a jug of water. But you wouldn't know squat about that, would you, candy ass?"

"Anytime you want to step into the ring, Rutledge, I'm there. Eight-ounce gloves. Sixteen-ounce. Headgear or bare head. You name it."

"Forget the gloves. Just give me a pool cue and a broken beer bottle."

Quinn laughed. A hearty rumble like distant thunder. "This is gonna be great TV. We'll go at it toe-to-toe."

"Ain't gonna be a dance," Simeon Rutledge said.

Just before one A.M., Sharon watched the Marlboro Man strut into the Green Room. An aging cowboy. Scuffed boots, faded jeans, a silver belt buckle. Neatly groomed, but she could almost smell straw and horses.

Rutledge had taken off his cowboy hat, as gentlemen do indoors, revealing a forehead half pale and half sunburned. Tall, and thick through the chest, with a leathery face and a brushy mustache. In his cowboy duds, he reminded Sharon of someone. Who was it?

Ah, right. Give him a lariat, trim that brush into a pencil mustache, and he's Clark Gable in
The Misfits.

Jimmy had made her watch the damn movie three times, even though she didn't like it. Jimmy, of course, loved everything about it, from the title to Marilyn Monroe's ass. Give Jimmy a story about the struggle for personal freedom and load it with alienation, loneliness, and grief, and he's there. The only part Sharon liked was Thelma Ritter saying that men were as reliable as jackrabbits.