Joseph Wambaugh - Finnegan's week

He heard the sound of Mexican music from a boom box far off to the left. He heard voices chattering and laughing off to the right. But there were no lights, none at all, only an occasional dagger of moonlight.

Shelby looked for the boy but couldn’t find him. Then he tripped and fell, rolling down a dusty hillside. When he got up, he couldn’t run anymore. His legs wouldn’t obey him, and he heard a sawing sound, realizing it was coming from himself. His breathing sounded like a hacksaw cutting through steel pipe; a screeching raspy saw-blade was buried deep in his chest. Shelby Pate was sure he would die then, there in the devil’s gorge.

An English-accented voice said, “ Arriba las manos !”

Shelby dropped to his knees. In a way, he wanted to die, to get it over with. A flashlight beam struck him like a club. He was blinded. He put his hands up to his face.

A voice said, “Hey, Phil! This guy’s an American !”

Five minutes later, Shelby Pate was handcuffed and sitting in the back of a Bronco, heading toward the Chula Vista Station of the U.S. Border Patrol.

It was nearly 11:00 P.M. by the time Nell’s car arrived back at the main gate of NAS North Island.

Before she parked, Fin said, “I was thinking about stopping someplace in Coronado for a nightcap. Anyone wanna join me?”

“Not me,” Nell said. “I’ve had enough for one evening.” She didn’t say enough of what .

“I’m a little tired,” Bobbie said.

“Okay, guess I’ll have to go it alone,” Fin said.

Almost in unison, both women started to indicate he shouldn’t drink alone. They both stopped, and Nell said, “You go ahead, Bobbie. I’ve really gotta run along.”

Bobbie said, “No, I just didn’t want Fin to have to be by himself. Why don’t you join him? I gotta wash my hair and do some ironing.”

“Well, I won’t be stopping,” Nell said.

“I gotta run along home,” Bobbie said.

Fin said, “All this indecision makes me wanna just go home and improve my mind. Maybe I’ll stop and buy that new book by our country’s greatest living naked author, Madonna.”

When Fin and Bobbie got out, Fin said, “We’ll all team up right here at noon on Monday, right? I’m sure we got enough to arrest Durazo and Pate based on the navy shoe on the severed foot. But I think somebody should positively identify that shoe as being from the stolen shipment. Okay, Bobbie?”

“That’ll be done first thing Monday morning,” Bobbie said. “I’ll go to the morgue myself.”

“After seeing Pate in action tonight, I’m more convinced than ever he’ll spill his guts,” Nell said. “The guy’s a complete psycho in addition to being a doper.”

“I can’t wait till Monday!” Bobbie said.

“But you will , won’t you?” Fin said.

“I’m not gonna go off and do something stupid,” Bobbie said, mischievously. “Like moseying back down to T.J. and staking out Durazo’s car to see what the gang was up to.”

“That’d be about as smart as Julius Caesar moseying on down to the Senate to see what Brutus and the gang was up to,” Fin said.

Bobbie said, “Don’t worry. I’m going straight home, Sherlock.”

“Okay, Watson,” Fin said. “See you Monday.”

Bobbie kissed Fin on the cheek and said, “I wanna be just like you when I grow up.”

He stood watching her drive off, when Nell interrupted his thoughts, saying, “Good night … Sherlock.”

“Give her a break, will ya?” Fin said. “She’s just a kid.”

Before she could stop herself, Nell blurted, “Why don’t you give her a break. She’s obviously ga-ga over the big-city detective. Or is it goo-goo at her age? Kee-rist, you’re old enough to be her …”

“Big brother.”

“Father.”

“I’m only … seventeen years older.”

“Like I said: father .”

Fin didn’t say anything for a moment. Then he said, “Forty-five is a real tough time for an actor, Nell. She just allows me to pretend I’m not over-the-hill. That’s all she does for me.”

While he was walking away, Nell said, “Still wanna have that drink?”

Four separate Border Patrol agents had a crack at Shelby Pate that night. Their questions varied slightly. His answers not at all, usually delivered in a monotone. The chase through the darkness had sobered him a lot, but he was still twitching and perspiring as he sat in the interrogation room.

The last agent to question him was almost as big as Shelby. He gave Shelby a can of Pepsi and said, “We’ve checked your record. You’ve been in jail a few times.”

“Not for running drugs over the border,” Shelby said. He tried to focus on his questioner’s eyes, but his own eyes kept leaping away of their own volition.

“That’s a nice watch you got.”

“My mother gave it to me.”

“You’re loaded on something, aren’t you?”

“Did some drinking early in the evening.”

“You’re loaded on something else .”

Shelby said, “I already told the other guys, a taxi driver offered to take me to a whorehouse up in the hills somewheres. And when I got there three Mexicans tried to mug me. See these cuts on my hands and legs? I was lucky to get away. I was lucky you guys found me.”

“And how’d you know where to get through the fence?”

“I jist followed the shadow.”

“What shadow?”

“Jist a little shadow that went through the tunnel.”

“What tunnel?”

“It turned out to be a hole in the fence. A little boy jist went through it.”

“And what happened to the little boy?”

“He got lost, I think.”

“Did you ever see him again?”

“I never did. I hope he found his way home, is all.”

“We think you were carrying a load of drugs and got ripped off passing through Deadman’s Canyon. That’s what we think.”

“Is that what you call that place?”

“It’s what the Mexicans call it. The Canyon of the Dead.”

“Then maybe it was a ghost that took me in the tunnel,” Shelby said, and his eyes popped wide. “I think maybe it was .”

“What tunnel? You mean the hole in the fence?”

“Yeah. I thought I was going into hell when I went in that tunnel.”

“Then why did you go?”

Shelby Pate said, “I thought I belonged in hell.”

The Border Patrol agent left him alone then, and later said to his supervisor, “The guy’s whacked out on drugs, but I don’t think we really have anything. He probably got burned trying to make a drug buy, and did have to run for his life. What’ll we do with him?”

“He’s sober enough now,” the supervisor said. “May as well cut him loose. He’s obviously a nut-case as well.”

Shelby Pate called a cab to pick him up at the Border Patrol station. When he was delivered by taxi to Hogs Wild, he was mildly surprised that nobody had stolen the helmet off his bike, a common occurrence at that time of night.

There were still a few bikers in the bar, and two mommas having last call. He recognized one of the bikers, a little guy with a scraggly fringe of red hair down to his shoulders. The biker was trying to persuade one of the mommas to ride home with him.

Shelby interrupted them by tossing a gold Rolex onto the bar. “Gimme an eightball and five hunnerd bucks and it’s yours,” he said.

The biker picked up the Rolex and took it over to the broken sconce next to a jukebox rocking with the thud of heavy metal. The biker examined the gold bracelet more carefully than he did the watch itself, then said, “It’s genuine.”

“Good call,” Shelby said. “Deal?”