Michael McGarrity - Tularosa

"What will you do with me, Don Enrique?" De Leon sighed and prodded the body with the toe of his shoe.

"Duffy is no great loss. He was not going to be with us much longer anyway. I do not tolerate those who lie or steal from me. Duffy did both. Have you lied to me, Eduardo?"

"No, Don Enrique."

"Very well. I will accept your story for now and pay for your care."

"I will work for you tonight," Eddie proposed. He had to get unchained.

"I will work with one arm, if necessary, patron. I will repay your kindness with loyalty and labor." De Leon chuckled in amazement.

"Were you a whole man, Eduardo, I would have much better work for you to do. Your tenacity is strong. If the doctor agrees, you may work tonight."

"Thank you."

De Leon gave him one last searching look and left. The subservient expression on Eddie's face vanished. He was getting tired of kissing De Leon ass. The man was nothing but a gangster. More than ever, Eddie wanted to get back to the United States. Carlos dragged Duffy's body away, and the cooks brought clean bed linens. They moved Eddie to Duffy's cot, secured him with the leg iron, and changed the bloodstained sheets, muttering to each other about the loss of Duffy's help in the kitchen and the unfair burden it placed upon them. The doctor arrived promptly. He was a harried looking man about thirty who talked to himself during the examination.

Round-shouldered, wearing a rumpled suit, he had a narrow face, and his nostrils flared above a wide upper lip. He asked no questions about the knifing and deferred to Eddie's request to stay fully clothed. He cut the shirt sleeve away, studied the wound, and pronounced it nonlethal. He told Eddie he might lose some mobility in the arm if it wasn't quickly repaired. Eddie asked how long he could wait for the surgery.

"I would be reluctant to see you delay for more than two days," the doctor answered.

"It would be best to fix the damage now so that the scarring will be minimized."

"How long would it take?"

"One night in the hospital." Eddie could not risk going to the hospital.

"I have promised Don Enrique I will work tonight. It is a matter of honor that I do so."

"Carlos said you were a tough jorobado." He raised a finger and shook it under Eddie's nose.

"Do not use the arm. I will disinfect and tape the gash, bind it, and give you a painkiller. I will fashion a sling for you and tell Carlos to bring you to the hospital tomorrow morning." He opened his bag and began removing his medical supplies.

"Thank you."

"Do you fear the hospital?" the doctor asked, swabbing away the coagulated blood. So often, especially with the poor, it was hard to overcome a patient's apprehension of modern medicine.

"No. I wish to show the patron that I am trustworthy."

The doctor nodded his head. "That is an important quality if you wish to work for Senor De Leon. Prove yourself and he will reward you well." He worked quickly to close the gash.

"The wound is away from the arteries. You are lucky."

"So far," Eddie allowed, wincing.

Armed with a list of low-grade snitches grudgingly provided by a customs agent who wasn't about to turn over his most valuable confidential informants to a cop he didn't know, Kerney got to work. El Paso filled barren hills stubbed up against the Rio Grande, and spread like a bloated octopus into the Chihuahuan desert north of Mexico. The city was hot, the traffic miserable, and the jumble of housing developments, barrios, and miles of strip malls depressing. Kerney found Cruz Abeyta in his pawnshop, a seedy establishment filled mostly with stolen televisions, stereos, power tools, and weapons. Abeyta wore a Grateful Dead T-shirt, and a bandanna around his head to hold back his long hair.

About forty years old, Cruz sported a two-day beard and had prison tattoos on both arms. Abeyta smiled at the fifty-dollar bill, and a gold front tooth with a star flashed at Kerney. He picked the money from Kerney's fingers.

"What do you need, man?"

"Information. I need to find someone to move some merchandise south."

"Ain't my specialty, man," Cruz replied.

"You must have friends in the trade," Kerney prodded.

"For fifty dollars, I'll give you a name."

"Fair enough." With the name and address of Eduardo Lopez in his shirt pocket, Kerney left and drove to a barrio on the outskirts of the city. A fronterizo enclave of illegal Mexican and Central American refugees, the barrio was a string of tar-paper shacks along a dirt road, with no electricity, no sewers, and one community well. The place teemed with barefoot children, mangy dogs, and women with malnourished faces. Few young men were in sight. Kerney found his way to Lopez's shanty, conspicuous by the presence of a half-ton Chevy truck adorned with running lights. Lopez was buff-waxing the truck by hand under a tattered picnic canopy held up by scrap lumber. Fifty dollars made him stop for a chat.

"I can deliver anything you want," he told Kerney. Lopez was short, about five feet five, and had jet black hair greased down and combed straight back.

"In or out of Mexico," he added.

"That's good to know," Kerney said. "But I need a buyer first."

"What kind of merchandise?" Lopez asked, licking his lips.

"Artifacts."

"Indian pots? That sort of stuff?"

"Close enough." Lopez gave him a cunning look.

"That kind of information is worth more than fifty bucks."

"If I make a deal, you can make the delivery," Kerney proposed.

"That's cool. Talk to Miguel Amal. He owns a curio shop downtown." By eight o'clock at night, Kerney was dejected, hungry, and tired. His attempt to move up the smuggler's food chain had resulted in being passed from one small fish to another, at a total cost of four hundred dollars. And he was no closer to getting the name of a major player than he had been when he started out. On a boulevard driving back into the core of the city, Kerney stopped at a Mexican diner for something to eat. There were enough working-class cars in the parking lot to predict the food would be at least decent. Outside the building, an old adobe home painted white, was a row of newspaper vending machines. He popped some coins in a slot, pulled out the El Paso paper, and glanced at the adjacent machine.

The headline story, in Spanish, was about the Zapatista revolutionaries in the Mexican state of Chiapas. He bought a copy just for the hell of it. Over dinner, he skimmed the El Paso paper and set it aside. The Spanish paper, a left-wing weekly, was published in Juarez. The article on rebels in the state of Chiapas was well written and sympathetic to the cause. The featured columnist, a woman named Rose Moya, presented the third in a series of articles on government corruption and the Mafiosios in Juarez. With a lot of bite, facts, and allegations the lady tore into the Juarez drug lords, smugglers, and malfeasant city officials. Maybe Rose Moya was somebody he should talk to, Kerney thought. He tucked the paper under his arm and paid the bill. It would have to wait until the morning. It was midmorning when Kerney stood at the bridge that connected El Paso to Juarez. He had five thousand dollars of his own money, wired from the bank in Santa Fe, in his pocket. It was the sum total of his wealth.

The Rio Grande, a sluggish brown stream, smelled of effluent and industrial waste. On each side of the river, chain-link fences defined the border. Vehicles on the bridge were backed up at the checkpoints, and pedestrians moving in both directions pushed through the gates along the walkways. Kerney entered the procession and joined the tangled stream of people and cars along Juarez's Lerdo Street. The boulevard, lined with dental clinics, cut-rate pharmacies, bars, liquor stores, and tourist shops, was a conduit for day-trippers from the north looking for bargains or entertainment. The sidewalks were congested with hookers, street vendors, and musicians mixed in with tourists. A large plastic tooth hung suspended over the door of a dental office and neon signs blinked furiously along the strip. Cars in the street, jammed bumper to bumper in both directions, lurched in and out of traffic lanes, horns blaring and drivers cursing. Kerney got a taxi and gave the driver the address for the newspaper.