The Other Side of Bad (The Tucker Novels) (24 page)

He too looked around the room and said, “Yes, I am in the marijuana business.”

“Well, we’ve got money and you’ve got marijuana.”

“Your fuckin’ with me, right?” Robby said.

I glanced over at Robby and said, “What do you want to do, Robby? Kill everybody and load up the trailer and go home? Then what? What about the next time your boss or whoever runs this operation wants you to make another run, what are you going to do then?”

He didn’t have anything to say about that.

Across the room, Phil said, “Let him talk, Robby.”

“What about the guys outside?” Robby asked. “What are we going to do about them?”   

I stared at Armando and said, “I think the men on the floor were his best guns, and I’ll bet the men outside would be perfect for loading the trailer.”

Armando chuckled and said, “Balls.”

Balls?

“I believe that’s how you say it in English, no?” Armando laughed.

I looked over at Teemo.

He reached down between his legs and held his hands like he was holding two softballs, heavy softballs.

“The next time we do business, we would like for it to be like before, you bring it to the hotel and we load it up . . . like tomatoes.”

Armando looked at Teemo. Teemo spat out some more rapid Spanish. When he was through, Armando looked back at me, then at Robby, nodded and said, “Si, muy grande balls.”

I wasn’t sure if he had agreed to what I’d asked, so I continued to stare at him.

“It will be as you say,” he said.

“For the same price,” I said.

He slapped the table with his right hand and laughed.

His quick movement almost got him shot. Robby was still holding his gun on them. He didn’t seem to notice, but I didn’t think he missed much.

“Next deal, same price, then we talk,” he said.

I said, “We left the Bronco running. Please have your men bring it around and they can load the trailer.”

Armando looked at Teemo and nodded.

Teemo started to move towards the back door on my right, stopped and looked at me.

I shook my head and pointed towards the front door.

“We’ll just sit here and chat with Armando and Tom’as.”

Teemo walked to the front door, said something, then walked outside.

Robby came over to stand close to me.

I looked over Armando’s shoulder and said, “If you want to help your wounded…go ahead.”

“They are no longer useful,” he said.

“I think I like this guy,” Robby said, with a wicked grin.

Armando looked at Robby, who was still holding his gun and said, “Senor Robby, the gun is no longer necessary. We all know each other…now.”

After a small hesitation, Robby put his gun in his pants. It didn’t go unnoticed that it was in easy reach.

There had only been two more Mexicans outside. They looked more like farmers than drug dealers. They loaded the trailer.

While they did, we learned that Armando and Tom’as’ surname was Miranda and they were from Mexico City. They had no problem revealing themselves in this way. They either trusted us, or they were going to kill us before we left Mexico. It was hard for me to decide which. Thirty minutes later the trailer was loaded, and we were ready to go.

It was unsettling that the wounded men were still laying on the floor unattended. The one that Robby had shot was groaning loudly. He was gut shot. If he didn’t get to a hospital soon, he would die. He might die anyway. No one seemed to care.

We were about ready to leave. Armando and I were standing alone, by the open back door on the left, the trailer just to the outside.

Armando was standing very close to me when he said in an intimate tone, “Teemo tells me you are a killer of men. You killed the men who dishonored your sister. The judge sends you to jail where you kill more men.”

To say anything at all would just add to the lie. So, I didn’t say anything.

“You are very quick with your pistol, a real pistolero, as we say in Mexico (it sounded like mayheeco). I find it odd you kill no one here today, Senor Tucker.”

“I’m pretty quick, but I’m a terrible shot,” I said.

He shook his head and said, “I think maybe you are a very good shot, and maybe you were not afraid for your life.”

I’d have to think about that.

“Is there anything else you require?” he asked.

I had been thinking about the men I had to shoot tonight, the man who Phil killed, and I felt the early stages of deep anger welling up. I had not signed on for this. It was supposed to be easy, a sure thing, no sweat and all that. I was supposed to help guard against hijackers, and they may still be out there, waiting.

“Yeah,” I said, “there is.”

He stood there waiting.

“Have one of your men load up 50 more kilos.”

He stiffened and said, “I beg your pardon.”

“I said, have your men load up fifty kilo’s.”

“And why would I do that?” he asked, with a small amount of amusement, very small.

“Let’s call it ‘an underestimating and troublesome fee’, and, it would make me feel better,” I said, then pointed at the men and body laying on the floor. “About the extra work I had to do.”

He never took his eyes off me.

“Chollo,” he yelled out the door. Then he spoke so fast, I barely heard the one word I was looking for, ‘cincuenta’, but hear it I did.

One of the farmers came in and after two more trips, the extra 50 kilos were loaded.

We were ready to leave. I felt confident we could find our way back, well, maybe not totally confident.

“Mister Tucker,” he said in flawless, accentless, English, “it is to my benefit that you get back to Texas (it sounded like Tehas) safely. I would not like you to be detained by the Mexican police, you know my name. I would also like to do more business with you. I believe you are a man of honor.”

I knew he was going somewhere, I just didn’t know the destination.

He looked at his watch and said, “I don’t know in what way you assured yourselves that you could get back, but , I must assure you that time is of the essence.”

I believed him.

“What are you suggesting, Mr. Miranda?”

This seemed to please him.

“I would like Teemo to go with you, to show you a faster way. You have my word that you have nothing to fear from me.

“I don’t fear anything from you,” I said. I needed to keep up the front of the bad ass.

He laughed and said, “Of course, but, please accept this gesture. It is to our mutual advantage.”

Robby, Tom’as and Teemo had come up beside the door as we had been talking.

Robby said, “What was that last two loads all about? I thought we were through.”

Armando Miranda
 and I looked at one another.

“A gift,” I said, “to us, from Mr. Miranda.”

Armando looked at the three newcomers and said, “A gift that Mr. Tucker negotiated for.”

Then he put his arm around Teemo and said, “But I have offered a gift of my own. Teemo, I would like you to ride with the gringos. Show them the shortcut. Make sure they make it to the river on time, comprende’?”

Teemo’s demeanor remained tranquil.

“Si, jefe,” he said.

“That’s not what we talked about, Tucker,” Robby said.

“Yeah, well, nothing about this night has been what we talked about, has it?” I said to him.

“Do you trust him?” Robby asked, pointing at Armando Miranda with his chin.

“No, I don’t trust him, but I believe him when he says we need to hurry. I think we can find our way back, but I think it will be slow going.”

“Why do we need to hurry?” Robby asked.

Teemo was looking at Armando for acquiescence.

Armando nodded.

“The reever,” Teemo said, “the reever is rising.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, feeling a hollow spot in the pit of my stomach.

Armando sighed and said, “They close the dam, the Falcon Dam. Every night when the weather cools, they close the dam. In the late morning when it gets hot, they open it. For the turbines. The air conditioners in the gringos’ homes uses much electricity.”

I believed him. They didn’t expect to have to go back tonight. And they probably figured we would go back through the regular border check, since we wouldn’t be carrying any marijuana back, so they thought.

I hadn’t the time nor the energy to get angry over this new-found knowledge.

“Let’s go!” I said, and turned to leave.

“Mister Tucker,” Armando said.

I turned back around and said, “Yes?”

“I would like to shake your hand.”

I put out my hand, and we shook. Then I turned and put out my hand to his quiet brother, Tom’as.

After all the respectful goodbyes were over, we left.

As we pulled away, I looked back and saw Chollo and the other Mexican farmer pulling a body out of the building. There was no sign of the Mirandas.

Phil drove and I sat shotgun. The old term for sitting next to the front seat window was fast taking on new meaning, or should I say, the old meaning. Robby sat behind Phil and Teemo behind me, a little to the center so he could lean over the back of the front seat and give directions.

We went only a few hundred yards when we came upon the first orange string of corks. They were very bright and easy to see.

“Wha’s that een the road?” Teemo said.

“That’s our way home,” Phil said with a delighted chuckle.

It gave me a feeling of well-being, to know we really weren’t lost. It was only a hundred yards or so when we came on the next string off to the right, our signpost to turn right and off the road. This would take us into the washout, I could see it all in my mind. We didn’t really need Teemo.

“You see it?” I said to Phil.

“Got it,” he said, slowing to turn.

“No, no, keeps going, no turn,” Teemo said quickly. “Eez mucho slow tha way. We have no time.”

Phil kept slowing, looking over to me.

“Do as he says,” I said. “Think about it, if we get busted by the Mexican police, so does he.”

In less than a minute, we had turned right onto a larger road and passed the strings of corks that we had dropped when we turned off the main road onto the desert. We had already made up ten minutes.

Teemo pointed to the corks and laughed.

“You some smart gringos,” he said, pounding me on the back. He sounded friendly and relieved.

We were pitched forward as Phil slammed on the brakes and said, “I’ve got to get out, I’m going to puke.”

The Bronco was barely stopped when he opened the door, holding on to the steering wheel with his right hand,
 he leaned over the road and threw up.

He may have just realized he killed someone tonight. As I thought about this, I wondered why I didn’t feel sick. I had never shot anyone before. Maybe because I had trained to do just that for most of my life. All those hours of practicing, I was practicing to shoot someone. Now that I had done it, it didn’t feel much different than shooting the pictured targets of bad guys pointing picture guns at me, so far.

When we came to the river crossing, the pile of corks I had dropped were hung on a bush, floating.

We stopped at the edge of the water and watched the current. There hadn’t been any when we came across earlier.

“What’a ya think, Teemo?” I said.

“I don know,” he said, leaning over my shoulder, his head stretched out towards the windshield.

There was that fluctuating accent again.

“Robby, look behind you and see if you can find that spot light,” I said, trying to make it sound like a suggestion.

I heard him rummaging, then he handed it over the seat. I plugged the 20 foot cord into the cigarette lighter hole and pushed the button to see if it worked.

“God damn,” Phil said, as we were almost blinded by the light that filled the cab. It was a very, very, bright light.

“Teemo,” I said, “come with me.”

I got out and went around to the front of the Bronco and stood on the front bumper, getting the light as high as I could by raising it over my head. Teemo stood next to me, and I shined it out towards Texas. We could see the island, it wasn’t completely submerged yet and I could see the string of corks still laying down in the middle, on dry ground.

“Si . . . Si!” Teemo yelled. “We go, rápido, rápido!” Then he jumped down, and ran around waving for me to hurry. He was a funny little guy. It made what we had just been through even more bizarre.

It was close. The water was dangerously close to drowning out the engine. We had to keep our forward motion so as not to allow water to go up the tail pipe.

We all had suggestions for Phil as he forded the first crossing. Robby and I were yelling instructions at him, and he was cussing and telling us all to shut up, the entire time Teemo was yelling in Spanish. At one point, the almost air-tight trailer, full of what the river considered wood, started floating and wanted to jackknife into the rear bumper of the Bronco. It was a comical circus, and we were all laughing by the time we touched Texas. But, touch Texas we did, and Texas was in the United States.