Start Shooting (43 page)

We cross into Texas in the Rita Blanca and the radio plays Joe Ely’s “Row of Dominoes.” Arleen pushes back in her seat, winces at the hole in her side, and looks at me. Her green eyes show age that wasn’t
there two days ago, clouded with what she knows and what the drugs cover.

She motions for the water bottle on my lap, takes a sip, blinking at a vast prairie that could be another planet. She scoots to mid-seat, leans her head gently on my shoulder, says, “All things considered, you may be Peter Pan after all,” and goes back to sleep.

U.S.-MEXICAN BORDER
           
Santa Elena, Texas

Texas is low and hot and withered where it meets the Chihuahuan Desert.
Meets
is the wrong word;
collides
is what the two nations actually do. At the western tip of the Big Bend, Mexico isn’t twitch-eyed and subservient. Here the favored destination of most U.S. fugitives on a budget is a massive fourteen-hundred-foot, raw-limestone escarpment cleaved by a narrow canyon river. The river empties into our southern border, the oddly named Rio Grande—a thick, bubbly trickle of mostly fertilizer washed down from the desert above. The river separates third world from first. It has a certain smell a Chicago kid would recognize; our river’s like that, too, flows backward so what we put in it doesn’t come back to poison us.

Same as a lot of things.

In the moonlight, Arleen sits the same heavy wooden bench as me, leaning her bandaged back against a chalk-stained adobe wall that’s supported many a weary traveler in its two hundred years. Her knees are pulled to her chest. She sips a Shiner beer and balances the bottle on her knees. There’s an awful lot of dark between us. In us. All around us.

Arleen nods toward the border. “Think we’ll make it?”

I stare at the only girl I ever really wanted, dreamed about her so hard she came back to life. “You mean us? Arleen and Bobby?”

She sips the Shiner again.

“Do you want to?”

Arleen nods. “Think so. Could be the drugs, though.”

I squint at my watch, try not to grin. “If we’re gonna beat the posse, my boys have to get here before sunup.”

Arleen searches the vast starlit horizon for the riders coming to hunt us down. “How much money do Bobby and Arleen have for happily ever after?”

I show her six fingers.

“Six
what
? My purse had my wallet; the red bag’s in the Chevy. I’ll need clothes for our first date.”

“Million. Hahn wanted to give me three, but I explained you’d need money to build a theater.”

The beer drops out of her hand. “You have six
million
?”

“
We
. Arleen and Bobby.” I nod at our car. “In there.”

Arleen blinks, exhales, and almost smiles. “Hadn’t thought of building my own theater. And you could have the blues club next door.”

“Yep. Plan to buy a studio soundboard; Ed Cherney will visit; show me how to use it. We’ll be the new Buena Vista, like in Havana.” I sit up straight. “Call it the Seven Spanish Angels.”

Arleen’s eyes add a bit of sparkle, war-torn but it’s there. “If you were nice, I might wait tables for you, teach your crew how to run it.”

“But you’d still open the theater. You have to.”

Arleen shrugs. “Those days may be past me.”

“No. No. You believed in you for twenty years. I believe in you now. We’ll build the theater first; I’ll run the bar at halftime.”

“Intermission.”

“Yeah. See, we’re already halfway through opening night.”

She actually laughs, then winces. “
Jesus
. Don’t want to get shot again.” She inspects her side. “Will I be all right?”

I smile twenty-nine years at her. “Already are.”

She reaches to the floor, wincing again, grabs a handful of sandy dirt, kisses it, and throws it across the hood of our car. “Pixie dust. Everyone believes in something, might as well be us.”

I kiss her on the mouth; start to tell her—She puts a finger gently on my lips.

“Don’t talk. Show me.”

Maybe Masters and Johnson could describe it as sex. But I can’t. I’ve never experienced the absolute electric shock of book-and-movie passion before; the five-senses, all-consuming, drown-yourself-in-happiness epiphany. If that was sex, there’d be no time for eating or drinking. It’s all anyone would do. They’d be here in the moonlight, on the border, on the run with Arleen Brennan, the Rosetta stone of delirious, skin-on-skin, don’t-ever-let-go, first-time, prom-night, best-girl-ever loves me
and
wants to prove it. Bobby Vargas stands corrected, there is a God. And she’s a woman. No guy could put that together.

Arleen nuzzles against me on our bench. Her bandaged back rests on my stomach, her strawberry blond hair and its scent on my chest, both of us watching the ceiling fan’s slow rotation. She listens to my iPod. I’m planning our dazzling future once we’re smuggled out of the United States.

Any minute, with a last bit of luck, we’ll be headed to the state of Michoacán, the city of Villamar, and my mother’s family. I never met my mother’s family and I never met Mexico, the land of my ancestors. Mexico and Mexicans will save us—no irony in that. The family doesn’t don’t know I shot Ruben, just that their favorite nephew is dead.

My phone rings; the number is Tracy Moens. I answer, not sure why, maybe because she’s called fifty times in the last three days and her “life/death” text messages deserve at least one comment before this phone goes in the river. I pat Arleen’s strawberry blond hair, say, “Our taxi,” loud to her earphones, then button green.

Moens says, “Don’t hang up. First, thanks for the vial, the Hokkaido package tip, and the warning. Made quite an impression.”

“Thought you’d see a story there somewhere. Spell Jewboy’s name right.”

“I will. Bad news is, so will the U.S. attorney. In nine hours, Jo Ann Merica says she will charge and prosecute
someone
for terrorism under the Patriot Act—nationwide, hell,
worldwide
media coverage of a major World Trade Center attack that she and a federal undercover agent kept from happening.”

“Merica wants to be governor. Wish her luck.”

“Yes, she does, maybe president when she also rights the wrongs of the Coleen Brennan murder and Dupree execution.”

“Like I said, wish her luck.”

“She needs someone to charge, Bobby. And it won’t be Robbie Steffen. Two Koreans shot him yesterday. He died this morning.” Pause. “That leaves you and Arleen Brennan.”

Eyes shut. The dark never stops. Eyes open. “Two things that might matter: we don’t live in America anymore, and the facts don’t fit.”

“They fit well enough. Ask Dupree. Add Robbie to the eight dead at St. Dominick’s and Chicago’s chances of being selected the 2016 Olympic City dim to candle power. Lot of angry movers and shakers, including the mayor and the superintendent. Someone has to hang and it’s not going to be them.”

“How about the actual bad guys?”

“All dead, other than Dr. Ota—Chicago’s esteemed benefactor. Merica and the feds will cleanse Furukawa’s CEO as a quid pro quo to the mayor’s political weight in D.C. and Furukawa’s Wall Street bankers—both carry a lot of water on Pennsylvania Avenue. Merica will cast Dr. Hitoshi Ota as the victim/target of a ‘racist lie and blackmail plot’ perpetrated by rogue Chicago cops and serial child molesters/murderers long involved with the Twenty-Trey Gangsters. Merica intends to make you her centerpiece in the crime, partners from the beginning with your brother, Robbie Steffen, and the Twenty-Treys.”

I don’t answer. Thinking instead about my parents, immigrants Vargas and Ruiz who loved America every day they were alive. Now their names and Ruben’s, and mine, will be one comma from Gacy and Speck.

Moens says, “Coleen Brennan was exhumed yesterday morning. In the casket was a diary written by her and Arleen. Other than the parts about you, the entries I’ve seen aren’t pretty.” Pause. “The U.S. attorney will leak her ‘interpretation’ to garner maximum public support pretrial, and by the time the public understands what Arleen and Coleen really meant, they’ll have lynched you as a serial child molester/murderer who also planned to turn the plague loose in the city.”

“Does Arleen get a part in … this?” Arleen bends her neck to look at me. I wink
No problem
.

“If you surrender, Merica will not indict, nor arrest, Arleen Brennan. And as a bonus, Merica will drop your gang team from any federal investigation.”

“Buff, my sergeant?”

“He made it out of ICU, beyond that I don’t know. I
do
know that if you
don’t
surrender today,
now
, U.S. Attorney Merica will immediately initiate a worldwide manhunt for terrorists Arleen Brennan and Roberto Vargas. By lunchtime a federal grand jury will indict Arleen and you as coconspirators on the terrorism charge and anything else CPD can dig up. Merica also promises to use her federal budget to go after everyone in Gang Team 1269 whether she and her undercover agent can put them at St. Dominick’s or not—charging them with terrorism and/or conspiracy to commit. All anyone on your team had to do was help you once in the last six days and they’re in Marion or Leavenworth for life.”

“Merica making me the devil doesn’t mean I know anything about St. Dom’s other than the address.”

Silence, then: “Odd mix, Bobby, even for the Four Corners—a cop, three newly minted Twenty-Trey gangsters, a Vietnamese woman missing since 1982, a nun, and three employees of Furukawa Industries, two of them in Tyvek suits.”

“What’s that to me?”

“The cop was your brother.”

“Yeah.” Exhale. “So I hear.”

“Tania Hahn says you were inside St. Dom’s and heard it all.”

“She’s mistaken.”

“Hahn says she’ll do what she told you she would do if you leave her out of it.”

“You and Tania pals now?”

“She has her reasons.” Pause. “I can help you—
I think
. It’ll be risky as hell, but you have to come back, turn yourself in, and stand trial, maybe trials.” Pause. “I have some of the story of the Brennan sisters and the Vargas brothers—you give me the rest on the record. Then you tell me everything you know about the Hokkaido package and the massacre at St. Dom’s—on the record. I’ll make sure Jo Ann can’t spin you into a noose or convict you without a trial.”

“Geez, that’s all? Helluva deal.”

Moens says, “I think we can beat her heads up, win an acquittal, but there’ll be no bond and it’ll take a while.” Moens lays out a plan that three days ago I would’ve laughed at. But three days ago I wasn’t a fugitive, wanted for murder and child molestation, and about to be charged with terrorism under the Patriot Act. I tighten my hold Arleen. She won’t do well in jail.

Moens closes with “If you come back, Merica and CPD will leave Arleen alone. I can get that in writing in the form of full immunity—that’s how bad Merica wants you to stand trial for your brother’s … enterprise.” Pause. “Carve this last advice in stone: If you don’t surrender, there is absolutely nowhere either of you can hide from a terrorism charge in the age of 9/11. Period. Unless you’re Osama bin Laden … and they probably know where he is anyway.”

“Call you back.” I flip my phone shut.

Arleen pops out her earphones. “We okay? Everything set?”

“Pixie-dust express is on the way. Had to clear up a few things.”

My hand and pistol rest on Arleen’s flat stomach. She snuggles her shoulders into my chest. “I was thinking two hundred seats, but maybe one-fifty is better. Three sections, no center aisle, a balcony—”

“Duh? How else would they throw the roses?”

She cants her head up and cuts those green eyes toward mine. “You’ve never been in a theater, have you?”

“A drive-in. And, ah—”

She rolls back to flat. “We’ll let you usher, work security. In no time at all, you’ll be crew, then who knows, a bit part, the chorus …”

“Don’t I own part of the theater?”

“Yes.” She pats at my hand, avoiding the pistol. “But where we’re headed, it’s talent and effort only. No plastic surgeons or
American Idol
auditions. The Lost Boys Theater Company is the province of hopes and dreams, not crocodiles.”

“Thespians … I’ll be next door at the Seven Spanish Angels. Build three or four apartments; play the blues with the old guys rap doesn’t care about. You can come over after the show.”

Arleen turns all the way over, mouth tight against the pain, and pulls herself up to my face. She flutters eyes that would stop traffic in Ireland,
then kisses me just once. “I’d whore to keep you in microphones.” She kisses me again, this time with her hands in my hair. “We’ll build your bar first. I’ll train the waitresses.”

“Who trains the owner?”

“Is he handsome? Does he have a
really
big thing for me?”

I stare, soaking it in for as long as I can. “Yeah, he does. Always has.”

She smiles like she has for twenty-nine years on those nights I’d let it go that far, like Jenny did in
Forrest Gump
when she finally came home for good.