Cliff Ryder - Aim And Fire

A tattooed, bare-chested group of Mexicans relaxed on the porch of the house, a rambling, two-story, white stucco building with a bare patch of dirt in front of it. The young men, along with a few women, had been passing bottles around and laughing among themselves. Gang tattoos were visible everywhere.

As Nate approached, the group fell completely silent.

A barrel-chested Mexican in a tank top and baggy, wide-legged denim shorts and black horns tattooed on his forehead lounged on the front steps. He looked at the lanky Texan as he approached, one eyebrow raised. “ Bolillo, you better pray you’re not lost. ¿Que chingados quieres? ”

Under the circumstances, the last part, “What the fuck do you want?” was as polite a greeting as Nate could have hoped for. “I need to see Lopez. Tell him Nate is outside,” he answered in fluent Spanish.

The large Mexican rose from his seat, but instead of sending someone inside, he lumbered toward the border agent, who stood his ground, returning the gangbanger’s stare full on. “You should be more careful, cabrón. Coming down here by yourself, this time of night, all sorts of bad things can happen to el rulacho stickin’ his nose where it don’t belong.” As he spoke, the other gang members slowly formed a loose semicircle around the two men. The worst part was that Nate didn’t recognize any of them.

Jesus Christ, just what I need, a guy probably just out of the pen trying to score points, he thought. If I flash my badge here, I’ll never make it out alive. Nate wiped his nose with the back of his hand, then hooked both thumbs into his jeans, his right hand only inches away from the butt of his pistol. “Just tell Lopez that Nate Spencer is here to see him.”

A flash of recognition crossed one of the girl’s faces, and she leaned close to the giant Mexican, whispering rapidly. Nate caught the words “Border Patrol” and “in his pocket,” or words to that effect.

The man-mountain grunted and waved her into the house. “Hold on,” she said.

Nate just stood there, surrounded by members of the most powerful Mexican gang in El Paso. The one overwhelming thought running through his mind was that even though he’d done a lifetime of crazy acts, this had to be the craziest stunt he’d pulled yet. The seconds ticked by with agonizing slowness. At last the screen door slammed, and the girl came back out and whispered in the big guy’s ear. He nodded, then slowly moved aside. “Go right in, pendejo. ”

The others snickered, but Nate didn’t rise to the bait, knowing that even though he had permission to pass, dis-respecting the guy by insulting him back would just get him beaten or maybe killed. Instead, he pretended that he didn’t hear the slur, and walked up to the house, opened the door and entered.

The air inside was thick with blunt smoke and the smell of frying meat. A slow-turning fan in the kitchen did little to clear the haze, just pushed it around. A plump girl was busy at the old stove, and she nodded him toward the next room, where Nate heard the sounds of cursing and laughter, accompanied by the clink of bottles. He strode toward the doorway, steeling himself to take more shit from these lowlifes if it got him the information he was looking for.

A half-dozen men played out a hand of poker around a battered, felt-covered table with a pile of cash and gold jewelry in the middle. There were also two pistols on the green felt, and most likely a half-dozen more were hidden on the various players. Nate swept the table with his gaze, his eyes falling on the man directly across from him. He was covered in tattoos across most of his body, including his entire face, his eyes masked in black. On his bare chest above his heart was a stylized Aztec chief with two feathers in his headdress, signifying his rank—a gang lieutenant.

Everyone else froze when they saw the gringo in the doorway, and the tattooed indio frowned when his eyes rose to see Nate across from him. One of the other members moved his hand toward one of the guns on the table, but their leader held up his hand, stilling the movement.

“ Hola, chingado, you got some balls coming in here.

You looking to get shot or what?” Enrique Lopez had risen from a street soldier to a lieutenant in the gang hierarchy after serving most of a dime sentence for armed robbery.

Nate had met him while investigating a human-smuggling ring across the border a year earlier, and had cultivated him as an informant on the activity going on among the various gangs in El Paso. Lopez had a brain, and preferred to solve problems without resorting to violence, but he was just as cold-blooded as the rest of his vatos, and wouldn’t hesitate to cap anyone who crossed him.

“Just need a minute of your time, Lopez, then I’ll be outta your hair,” Nate said.

The wiry gang leader looked at his cards again, then slapped them on the table. “Shit, cards suck tonight anyway. Deal me outta this round, I’ll be right back.” He nodded at Nate to accompany him into a narrow hallway.

“You must have a death wish to stroll in here like you owned the place,” he snarled as soon as they were out of earshot of the others.

“You know I got better things to do that mess with your business right now.” Like most cops, Nate knew cultivat-ing the street was the best way to get the inside score on anything going down. The only problem was that the street always extracted its own price in return.

“ Sí, that you do. Hey, any news on that injunction getting renewed?”

A few years earlier, the El Paso Police Department had gotten an injunction taken out on the entire Segundo Barrio neighborhood, making it nearly impossible for gang members to meet, conduct business or even be seen together in public. Although it had been successful during its two-year term, it had been allowed to expire, and the gang had re-consolidated its hold over the barrio afterward. However, there was always talk at city hall and in the police department of renewing it, something the Aztecas worried about as much as the rival gangs they were currently fighting.

“I haven’t heard anything recently. It’s probably stalled in committee right now anyway, so I doubt you got anything to worry about. Look, you hear about that slaughter near the border?” Nate asked.

“Sure, who hasn’t? Everyone’s talkin’ about that mess.”

“Anyone owning up to it? You hear about any of the other gangs with itchy trigger fingers?”

“Shit, homes, you know how this works. I do you a favor—you do me a favor.”

This was the part Nate hated. “What did you have in mind?” he asked.

“Don’t worry, this’ll even make you look good. There’s a house on the edge of the barrio, corner of Overland and Paisano. It’s owned by some Alices, and they’re making cheese for the schools right next to us. We want them gone.”

Nate knew “cheese” was the latest drug variant to hit the streets, a combination of heroin and over-the-counter cold medicines. Popular among middle-school kids, it was all too prevalent in El Paso and other cities throughout the Southwest. The reference to “Alice” was the Aztecas’ de-rogatory term for the Aryan Brotherhood, a neo-Nazi gang they were fighting with for control of several neighborhoods in the area.

“And you know how it rolls, too—I’ll check it out, and if it’s confirmed, we’ll take them down. Now, what you got for me?”

“Well, I haven’t heard about any bangers shooting their mouths or their thumpers off, definitely not any of chucos around here. Now the peckerwoods might be a different story, but I don’t know nothin’ about that.”

“Jesus, Lopez, this is what you want me to hit a drug-store for? You gotta do better than that,” Nate said.