Kage (31 page)

alternatives were now that Xochi had disappeared. Daley never

paused and I hurried after him as he turned right, heading past

Ike’s coffee shop toward the parking garage.

“He’s dropped out of sight,” Daley continued. If he sensed

my distress, he didn’t show it. “From what I hear, there are any

number of people looking for him.” Now it was his turn to

pause. He stopped for a moment and looked directly at me.

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“Angry people, Burke.”

But I was beyond the point where someone was going to

scare me. “Any idea where he could be?”

Daley gestured toward the glass doors we were approach-

ing. “Lots of space out there to get lost in. He could be up in

the Santa Catalina Mountains. He could’ve high-tailed it down

to the Papago Indian reservation. Then again, we’re only sixty

miles from Mexico. Take your pick. But if I were him, I’d be

burrowed somewhere way under the surface, waiting until all

this blows over.”

“All this?” We moved out into the bright white light, across

the blinding expanse of concrete, to the parking garage. His car

was a dusty black Chevy Blazer. It had oversized tires and rust

was eating away at the wheel wells. The interior was hot and

stuffy; it smelled of dust, stale coffee, and old apples.

We settled into the car. My seat was lumpy and I could feel

springs trying to sprout up through the fabric.

“You read the papers, Burke? We got quite a circus goin’

on down here. The drug cartels are at war with the Mexican

government. The local gangs are at war with each other, trying

to get control of the cross border trade. And the U.S. is on the

losing end of a war on so many things I sort o’ have a hard time

keeping track: a war on illegal immigration, a war on drugs,

a war on terror… It’s mess. But it does keep us all busy one

way or the other.” We left the airport and headed north toward

Tucson.

“My brother said you had retired.”

Daley’s head turned slightly toward me. He was wearing

wraparound sunglasses with dark lenses that shimmered blue

and bronze and green; it was impossible to see his eyes, and I

think he liked it like that.

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“Partner,” he instructed me, “I worked long and hard to get

as good as I am. It’s true that I left government employ. But the

situation down here is so fluid that there are ample opportuni-

ties for someone like me to make a little side cash.”

“How entrepreneurial,” I said.

He grinned at that; his teeth were yellow and long. “That’s

me,” he said happily. “An en-tre-pre-neur.” He spaced the word

out like he was savoring the sound.

That was when we went looking for some junkies to

question.

Mercifully, the sun was setting and Daley was done with his

informants. We sat in the Blazer, parked in the shade of a Wal-

Mart. I could feel the skin on my face, tight from the light and

heat of the desert. Daley watched me for a minute.

“You reach on into the back seat, Burke. I got a few jugs of

water stashed. You get some of that into you right now. The

weather out here’ll kill you.” I realized how dry my mouth was.

I twisted around to get the jug.

“Here’s what I think you got,” Daley told me as I got the

jug. He waived the proffered water away with a hand. “Inter-

esting situation. The street people say that the smack supply

is—sporadic. Some dealers are scrambling to supply product,

others have so much they’re discounting it.”

“What’s it mean?”

Daley reached into a sack and pulled out an apple. He sunk

his ivory teeth into the fruit and I could hear the sucking sound

as he pulled the juice out before he completed the bite. He

chewed for a minute, then continued. “If I were still writing

reports for our government I’d say that there’s a shift in distri-

bution taking place. But that doesn’t really get to the meat of it.

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John Donohue

There’s a turf war taking place, Burke. Coupla different groups

fighting to control the trade. Old gangs being pushed aside or

rolling over. New ones coming in. It’ll be a mess for a while.”

“TM-7?” I asked.

Daley nodded, biting the apple. “That’s one crazy bunch

of inked-up motherfuckers,” he said. “Your brother likes them

for the attempted hit in New York.” He lowered his sunglasses

and peered over them at me. “Hard to believe you walked away

from that one.”

“The world is full of surprises,” I told him. Not that I really

walked away.

Daley snorted in amusement. “Border’s always been a crazy

place, Burke. Dangerous enough as it was. But now we got

various cartels working hard at controlling a huge expanse of

highly profitable activities. And the greater the money to be

made, the crazier they all get. You’re a case in point. Why in

God’s name did they put a hit out on someone like you?”

“I stumbled on a manuscript with some pretty detailed

descriptions of old trails that crossed the border…”

He snorted again. “Lots o’ ways across the border, my man.

Every
chollo
with some ambition and a connection knows that.”

“These are ancient Indian trails,” I explained. “Long forgot-

ten. They’re not used very often…”

“So theoretically they’re off the Border Patrol’s radar,” Daley

commented, although he sounded skeptical. “Nice, if it’s true. I

suppose that fraud Xochi was involved in this?”

“What do you know about him?”

Daley slid his sunglasses down the bridge of his nose and

peered at me. “I made some inquiries. He’s a man on the

make, my friend. Workin’ more than a few angles. He’s push-

ing all that Native American desert mysticism bullshit with the

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Kage

tourists. Though I hear his backcountry skills are real enough.

He’s also been known to help out with a special border crossing

now and then. And lately, he’s been trying to peddle his alleged

knowledge of secret trails to the highest bidder…”

“TM-7?”

Daley pushed his shades back into place and stared out

through the windshield. “He was originally talking with some

other group, but I guess the negotiations got …” he licked his

lips, “co-opted by our friends from
Todos Muertos
. I don’t think

he knew what he was getting into. If he’s snowing them…” He

shrugged. “My guess is that Xochi promised that he could pro-

vide them with some cherry routes across the desert. And the

kicker is that supposedly he’s the only one who knows. ‘Knowl-

edge of the ancient ones’ and all that horseshit. I don’t know

how he conned them, but he did.”

Daley sat for a while, pausing in admiration of Xochi’s

accomplishment or appalled at his stupidity. Then he stirred

and tapped me on the thigh. “Then you come along and com-

plicate things. Ha! TM-7 are a bunch of lunatics, Burke, but

they like a nice tidy package as much as anyone. You, roaming

around with a manuscript that contains info on their allegedly

secret trails, most certainly would have pissed them off. They

thought our man Xochi had a monopoly on that knowledge.”

He grinned tightly, an unpleasant wrinkling of leather skin and

teeth like old bone. “Imagine their—disappointment. So they

went looking for you in the wilds of New York. Obviously,

from what your brother tells me, complications ensued. Xochi

realized he was probably next on their list and did a fast fade.”

“Do you know who he was dealing with?” I asked. Ulti-

mately I had to get to whoever was directing the hits.

He shook his head slowly, ruminating. “Nooo,” he said,

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drawing the word out as he pondered. “There are a few likely

suspects. Guy known as El Carnicero is a big man with the

local TM-7. He’s a bit of a freak. Enjoys working on people

with a blade. Hence the nickname: the Butcher. Likes to keep

things personal, ya know? But if you’re going into harm’s way, it

would be wise to make sure that it’s gonna solve your problem

and not just piss off a new set of gang bangers. This particular

circus is filled with freaks. It could take some time to narrow

down the list to anything actionable.”

“Be quicker to just find Xochi,” I said. “Ask him.”

He nodded. “I agree. Quick is good, Burke,” Daley said. “I

got this feelin’ that you’re running out of time…”

I felt a spasm of alarm. “Did you hear something from my

brother?”

Daley looked at me. “Huh? No. That’s not what I mean.

You got bigger issues to deal with.”

I sat there, saying nothing. Waiting. The daylight was going,

and the line of mountains in the distance was a black, jagged

mass, backlit by the orange flare of the sun as it burned its way

across the rocky expanse of the Southwest and into the distant

Pacific Ocean. I worked my way through Daley’s information

so far, weighing it, seeing how pieces fit together. I didn’t try

to force a solution; the effort of doing so would probably just

push it away.

I had few, if any, options. I knew that. But that made what-

ever I did that much more important. It was like the intensity

of a sword duel with live blades: each slight twitch of muscle

pulsed into the ether, an expanding ring of possibility that

opened a path to some gambits at the same time that it closed

off others. Each step held within it the potential for victory or

the seeds of your own destruction. So you push that awareness

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Kage

down deep, smother it so that the animal pleading for deliver-

ance doesn’t echo in the back of your head. There’s no time for

that; it’s a fatal luxury, because if you succumb you’ll be a split

second too slow when the blade is arcing toward you for the

decisive cut.

I sat in Daley’s car and slowed my breathing. I tried to con-

centrate on nothing, let go of intention, of urgency, and to be

in the moment. All that Zen stuff. But, of course, it was futile.

Yamashita’s students try to set themselves as still, empty vessels,

but life pushes at us and fills us as it will. I was no exception. A

lifetime of training hasn’t made me invulnerable; sometimes it

just makes me resigned.

So I sat, simply waiting for the other shoe to drop, and

determined not to let Daley enjoy the experience.

“Here’s the kicker,” he finally said. “You got the different

cartels all jockeying for dominance: Tijuana, Sonoma, Juarez.

They got local offshoots all along the border. Xochi probably

had feelers out to the local families, then TM-7 dropped by and

rewrote the rules. But now someone else is pushing at
them
.”

“Who?”

“You heard of the Alphas, Burke?” Daley took off his sun-

glasses. His eyes were a pale, haggard blue. “Alphas take this to

a whole new level.”

I was getting impatient with Daley’s act: the world-weary

expert sent to keep tabs on me, the local informant with a

wealth of knowledge that he was doling out drop by drop, the

Old Scout squinting out along the ridge line, searching for

hostiles.

“Daley,” I said. “Lose the drama. I don’t need the color on

your play-by-play. I need some concrete leads and an accurate

assessment of what I’m going to face. That’s it.”

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John Donohue

It seemed to me at that moment that I spent my life among

men who never gave you the complete picture. Maybe it was

because they somehow didn’t take you completely seriously,

like my brother Mickey. Or they harbored some secret kernel

of doubt that you’d ultimately be unable to meet the coming

test. I used to think Yamashita eyed me skeptically, scanning

me for the telltale signs of the germinal flaw that slumbered

deep within me. Over the years those feelings had faded, but

the experience still left old wounds that could flare into life.

Daley didn’t flinch. He stared off into the distance and just

started talking.

“The Alphas are renegades, Burke. Anti-drug commandos

trained in Mexico who realized they could make more money

working for the drug cartels than against them. They’ve been

involved with killings and kidnappings all over the place,

although until recently they were concentrating their activi-

ties on this side of the fence to Texas.” He snorted. “There are

mayors of Mexican border towns down there scared so bad that

they hide out in the U.S. The Alphas protect the drug cor-

ridors. And anyone who gets in the way,” his head swiveled to

look at me “and I mean anyone, gets taken out. Cops, Border

Patrol agents, you name it. These guys are killing machines.

The freaks from TM-7 are psychos. They like the rush of power

they get from scaring people or hacking them up with a blade.

Alphas could care less about that shit. They’re pros. Some of

them have been at Benning at the School of the Americas. You

know what that means?”