Standoff: A Vin Cooper Novel (21 page)

Bambi rewarded both of us several times. I later woke as she was padding silently from the room, having gathered her things off the bed. It was well before dawn. She could have stayed. I wouldn’t have minded waking up beside her. With no one to play with, and unable to sleep, I rolled onto my back and thought about the incident at the fights. So Perez wasn’t convinced about me. I hoped “killing” Gomez had also turned him around and made the exercise worth it for Hector. There’d be a mock funeral and until this case was concluded he’d be kept in a safe house, away from spying cartel eyes, of which there were plenty in El Paso and even Austin.

While it was still dark, I got up and took another shower – a quick one – and then dressed for the coming day’s activities. There was an abrupt rap on the door. It was Apostles. “Come,” he said, equally abruptly when he saw I was dressed, “Arturo has something to show us.”

El Santo
was wearing heavyweight boots, and lightweight dun-colored pants and shirt. We were going somewhere. But that was later. Right at that moment we were going somewhere closer. As it turned out, it was the home theatre. Perez was already there, reclined in an armchair. His face was a mask but there was expectation in the air. Something was up. Whatever it was, it made me nervous.

“
Tenga,”
Perez snapped, wanting to get on with it.

A big screen covering one complete wall immediately lit up with a pretty blond anchorwoman, the CBS watermark occupying the lower right-hand corner of the screen. We were watching a news report of some kind. The anchorwoman had that concerned look on her face, the one that tells you bad shit is coming down the pipe: “… News just through about a shootout down in Austin, Texas, where an allegedly corrupt Sheriff’s deputy from El Paso, wanted in connection with the recent slaughter at Horizon Airport, has escaped from custody …”

I glanced at Perez who was now grinning straight at me, displaying those yellow rodent teeth of his. My collar felt tight around my throat.

“John Stevens is at the scene in Austin,” continued the newsreader. “What can you tell us, John?”

The camera panned to reveal a head and shoulder shot of John, a guy in his thirties with a reassuring square jaw, holding to his face a furry microphone about the size of a large squirrel. “Yes, Penny,” John began, “it’s believed the deputy, Kirk Matheson, formerly of the El Paso Sheriff’s Office, who, as you say, was being held in custody in connection with the recent horrific slaughter at Horizon Airport where twenty-seven civilians were gunned down in cold blood, somehow managed to escape as he was being transferred from El Paso to Austin.”

A mug shot of Matheson in his deputy uniform, standing in front of a flag with the Texas star, came up on screen as Stephens continued his live cross. “It’s the second time that the former Sheriff’s deputy has escaped lawful custody. He shot his way out of the hospital in El Paso the first time, killing one man and wounding another. In this latest escape, it’s believed Matheson got hold of a gun, which he used to shoot the driver of the police vehicle. The vehicle crashed and that’s when he shot a second law enforcement officer who was riding shotgun beside the driver. Matheson then carjacked another vehicle, but this was subsequently involved in a crash when the fugitive ran a red light.”

The screen showed a number of officers in black body armor and head protection, armed with assault rifles, walking quickly around a SWAT truck.

The reporter’s voice continued over this footage: “Matheson escaped the scene on foot and police have initiated a manhunt that will take in a large area of downtown Austin.”

Back to Stephens: “I should mention also at this point, that the Austin Police Department has asked me to stress that the man is armed and extremely dangerous and shouldn’t be approached for any reason, Penny.”

Cut to Penny. “Any truth in the rumor, that the fugitive is related to someone senior within the El Paso Sheriff’s Office, John?”

And back to Stephens. “Yes, that has been confirmed, Penny,” he said with the hint of a wry smile. “He’s related to one of the senior commanders, in fact. No doubt there’ll be a few red faces in El Paso tonight,” he concluded.

The screen on the wall went dark.

Apostles clapped. “
¡Excelente!
Let us hope Kirk makes it safely back across the border.”

“Or even just finds a phone,” said Perez, still looking at me. “When he calls us, we can help.”

While a few hundred butterflies hatched in my stomach and fluttered around bumping into things, I held Perez’s stare and told him, “And who says the news is always bad, huh?” This is what I get for playing by Chalmers’ rules. I should have fucking whacked Matheson when I had the chance.

“
Así que, vamos, ¿de acuerdo?”
said Apostles, now in a good mood.

He wanted us to get moving. He and Perez exchanged a few words that I couldn’t catch and half an hour later Apostles, Perez and a dozen lieutenants who ignored me completely were banging across the desert in a convoy of three beaten-up Nissan Patrol four-wheel drives, heading west. Only, as far as I knew, there was nothing in that direction other than desert and rattlers.

Whatever we were doing and wherever we were going, this was men’s business. The twins were left behind, as was Bambi. So to avoid uglier thoughts I whiled away some time placing the three women in bikinis and sitting them on the chairs in the perfect pool bar in my mind. But then the twins went and ordered chocolate martinis and spoiled it for me, and Matheson again hijacked my thoughts. For all I knew, having found a phone, he was speaking with Perez in one of the other vehicles at this very moment, blowing my cover wide open. My fate was in the hands of the gods and they were a notoriously feckless and vindictive lot, which caused me to sweat some more.

The first indication that we weren’t alone out here on the lunar landscape that is Mexico in these parts, were rooster tails of dirt, one on either side of our convoy that began to converge on us maybe an hour out of Juárez. Having chased Doctor Whelt across the desert, I had an idea that the cause of those rooster tails were dirt bikes long before I actually saw them. Eventually the riders became a close escort, riding in formation with the Nissans, making their Desert Storm-era BDUs clearly visible. They also wore full-face helmets and motocross armor like exo-skeletons protected their chests, shoulders and shins. The riders knew what they were doing, standing up on the footpegs mostly and taking occasional jumps that way, their legs working like shock absorbers. Watching them took my mind off Matheson.

Several other riders joined our escort, but not for long as the Nissans scribed a circle in the dirt and came to a choking, dusty stop. Looking out the window, I could see that we’d come to a halt among a collection of large hangar-like structures, all beneath desert camouflage netting. A few individuals in desert camos went about their duties.

I climbed out of the Nissan with the other passengers in time to see Perez and Apostles being led off toward different structures by some of those individuals. Not far from where the Nissans had stopped, a windsock on a pole flapping in the light breeze and evenly spaced portable lighting, in two parallel rows heading off to a vanishing point indicated the presence of a runway. So at least one of those buildings had to be an actual hangar. There was also a sizable communications tower with radio-wave dishes that I could happily disconnect. I took my phone out of my pocket and checked the screen. The words
No service
occupied the space usually reserved for bars indicating signal strength. Damn Verizon, my carrier, for not putting a tower out here in the middle of nowhere.

“
Perdone, Señor.”

It was a Mexican kid, a blue-head, his hair cropped so short his scalp showed blue.

“
Ven, por favor.
” He wanted me to come with him, all very polite. He wore a pistol on his belt, the securing strap still buttoned up. Good sign. He must figure we were cool here. He walked, I walked. We headed toward one of those hangars and entered through a side door. The interior was sectioned off into offices. But then, out the back, it turned into a cellblock. I wasn’t liking where this was going – where I was going – but I kept following the leader. We went through a series of heavy steel doors, down a narrow hall and past individual cells with solid steelplate doors and peepholes. We stopped outside one of these. The guy opened it and motioned me inside. I hesitated.

“
Por favor,”
he insisted.

From inside the room, I heard a familiar voice call my name. “Cooper!” It was Perez. I sucked in a breath, took it down deep and went on in. He was wearing a black rubber apron, with a surgical mask over his face and a clear plastic eye shield pushed up onto the crown of his bald head. Rubber boots encased his feet, and in his hand a thin blade was poised in the air like a conductor’s baton. He hadn’t wasted any time getting here. Beside him was a short, fat naked man, duct taped onto a gurney by his arms and lower legs. He was trussed that way, lying face up. Duct tape had also been wound around his head so that his mouth was securely covered. His eyes were wild.

Perez lifted the mask so I could better see the black holes in his face, the ones from which no light escaped.
“Señor
Cooper,” he said.
“Voy a explicar esto a usted.”
Let me explain this to you.

He didn’t need to. I think I got it.

“What language should I use?” he continued. “Which would you prefer?”

I didn’t need to think about it too hard. “Sign language,” I said.

It took him a few of seconds to respond. “Not funny, Cooper.”

Who was trying to be? Enough of this bullshit. “No, I mean it. Sign language because you’re gonna outline what you have in store for that man there, whose life means nothing to you, as a warning to me. So there’s nothing you’ve got to say that I wanna hear. You’re sick, Perez. You need help.”

Perez rolled the blade’s thin handle between his fingertips, its edge catching the light, sending a flare into my eyes. “No, Cooper, his life means
everything
. Without it, there would be nothing for me to take. Do not pity him. He is a spy, from a rival cartel. It’s important you see what we do to spies among us. And I think it is you who will need help.”

Perez replaced the shield over his eyes, bent over his victim and calmly made an incision with the knife across the top of the pectoral muscles, below the collarbones. A scream tore through the duct tape as the man thrashed and struggled, arching his back against the restraints like a few thousand volts were being passed through him. The gurney rattled ferociously as it moved around a little, its wheels locked off. Perez cut again and the thrashing went to the next level. I checked behind me, looking for the way out. A couple of Perez’s men had moved to cover the only exit, assault rifles in hand. One of them adjusted an earplug.

The air was full of the rattling of the gurney, the man’s breaths snorting through the mucous bubbles bursting from his nostrils, and still Perez cut as if undisturbed by any of it. He took forceps from the line-up of surgical tools, attached them to one side of the incision he’d made, and pulled the skin back. He fed the long thin blade under the skin, working it back and forth, making smaller cuts as if filleting a large fish, separating skin from muscle. He then lifted a large flap of tissue away, grey-brown on one side and red with layers of yellow fat on the other. The victim was now mercifully unconscious. My stomach convulsed. I just wanted to get the hell out, a hot ball of bile rising in my gorge.

I heard the door open, the hinges squealing, tortured like everything around here. It was Apostles and a couple of the men from hereabouts in Desert Storm get-up. “Arturo!” Apostles called out. “I need Cooper. Can you spare him?”

Perez made a dismissive action with his hand, the one holding the blade. A drop of blood flew from its point and landed on my boot.

“Bueno,”
Apostles said.

I never thought I’d be pleased to see
El Santo
. Though I wanted to run, get away from there, the smell of blood, shit, sweat and fear, as fast as possible, I walked to the doorway nice and slow. I wasn’t going to give Perez and his team that satisfaction. But I’ll admit, I was in shock. The calm cruelty of the monster was outside my experience. I thought of the twenty-seven lonely bodies under those tents, curled up on the scorching asphalt. And now the guy on the gurney. No one deserved what he was getting, except maybe the monster holding the blade. I’d already made a promise to Gail Sorwick. It was time to get specific about it. I stopped at the door. “Hey, Tears of Chihuahua. One day I’m gonna give you something to cry about. I’m gonna pop those black wormholes out of your face and stuff them down your throat. That’s a promise.”

Perez held his knife, rolling the handle delicately back and forth in his fingertips. His yellow teeth revealed themselves as his lips slid back from them. “You see, Cooper,” he replied, “how quickly you have become one of us?”

The guards had their fingers inside the trigger guards. This wasn’t the time or the place. I walked out. Slow.

Once out in the hallway, Apostles said, “You and I – we have trust. This you have yet to earn with Arturo. He doesn’t believe your story. He thinks you had something to do with our friend’s disappearance.” I supposed he meant rogue Deputy Matheson. I had nothing to say.

Exiting the building, the clean dry heat of the desert hit us. Apostles stopped and looked me in the face. “Cooper, it would be a mistake for you to think that Arturo and I are different. We are as one on many things, even though we differ on what should be done with you. If it happens that his suspicions about you are justified, you must know that I will let him practice his hobby on you. And he will take the skin from your body, your hands, your feet and your face. He will hang it in his closet like a suit.” He put his arm around my shoulders and, with a broad grin, said, “Come, there is something I want you to show you.”

I hoped it wasn’t another hobby.