Paul Levine - Illegal

He snapped digital photos of both of them and said the documents would be ready by eleven that night. Moments later, Payne's cell phone rang. The man who called himself "Stingray," asking about the Lexus Payne wanted to trade.

Stingray claimed to have several cars that wouldn't set off alarms going through the border checkpoints. Payne said they were headed to a bowling alley named "Bola." Why not meet there?

Jimmy and Tino found Bola without getting lost. They were an hour early for the meeting with El Tigre and right on time for Stingray.

The place was ninety percent bar and ten percent bowling alley. Just two warped lanes that looked as if they'd suffered water damage when the Colorado River flooded a hundred years ago. Four men bowled on one lane, waving fistfuls of pesos over their heads, shouting insults at one another as they bet on each frame. Their balls rattled down the lane like cars with bad shocks, clattering into faded yellow pins that showed nicks and hairline fractures from stem to stern.

And then there were the pin-boys.

Payne had never seen a bowling alley with real, live boys working the pit, hand-dropping pins into the setter and rolling the ball down a wooden track that looked like a split-log sluice at an old gold mine.

There were no molded plastic chairs, no video scoreboards, no rock music, no pulsating strobes for "rock 'n bowl." There was a single rack of house balls and a cardboard box of smelly shoes of indeterminate size.

Stingray wasn't hard to find. He sat at the bar wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with a red Corvette Stingray. He was a stocky man in his forties with a thick nose, coppery skin, and black hair pulled back into a ponytail. Cradling a chilled Negra Modelo, he said, "I got a couple things in my inventory you might like. A three-yearold Mini Cooper, very clean."

"My Lexus is worth two Mini Coopers," Payne replied.

Stingray shrugged. "Maybe the Mini's not for you, anyway. A real pussy car. You want wheels with machismo, eh?"

"Something that'll blend in but can outrun a cop if we have to."

Stingray grinned. He'd lost a front tooth and never found it. "How about something with a Cobra V-8 on a big block, 428 cubic inches, throws out 335 horsepower?"

"Holy shit. What is it?"

"Mustang convertible, 1969. Acapulco blue."

"That'll be inconspicuous."

"A real classic. Original paint job."

"What about the engine? That original, too?"

"Reconditioned in the nineties. Goes like hell. I had it up to 135 before it started to shimmy. But watch the steering. It pulls right."

"That's all you've got?"

"Special orders take a week."

Payne was beaten. "Bring the Mustang around."

"What license plate you want? I got most of the states, plus Puerto Rico. New Mexico's nice. 'Land of Enchantment.' "

"It should match my new driver's license. Make it Illinois."

" 'Land of Lincoln.' You got it."

Stingray asked for the keys to the Lexus, saying he'd bring the Mustang back within an hour. He promised to transfer their belongings, including the metal baseball bat in the backseat. They would meet later in the alley behind the bowling alley.

It had scam written all over it, Payne thought. But he shot a look at Tino, who nodded his approval. The kid was supposed to know the territory. Payne tossed the keys to someone he knew virtually nothing about. Not even his real name. All Payne knew was the man's occupation: car thief.

"What do we do while we wait for El Tigre?" Tino asked.

Not knowing whether Stingray would return with the Mustang or the police, or even if he would return at all, Payne sighed and said, "We bowl."

Payne checked out Bola's rack of balls, all cratered moonscapes. He chose a black sixteen-pounder, whose brand name had worn off over time. Trying not to inhale, he picked up a couple of mismatched bowling shoes that nearly fit. Tino grabbed an orange eleven-pound ball, and decided to bowl in his socks.

The lane was impossible, the ball hooking on the dry spots and skidding on the oil. Ignoring the scoring, Payne worked with Tino on his form. No one had ever taught the boy the four-step approach or the proper follow-through. But he was a natural. Within a few minutes, he was starting to look smooth, even if the ball hopscotched over the warped boards on the way to the pins.

As he bowled, Payne planned what he would say to El Tigre. It shouldn't be difficult, right? All he needed was a scrap of information.

Where did you take Marisol Perez, you bastard?

If Marisol was okay, there would be nothing to hide.

In the adjacent lane, a man who'd been winning his bets called over to Payne. "Ey, gringo. You want to bowl against me? Twenty dollars a frame."

An image of the Paul Newman movie The Hustler flashed through Payne's mind. Local thugs breaking his thumbs after he took their money.

"Sure," Payne said. "Let's roll."

"Himmy. Not such a good idea." Tino shook his head hard, as if trying to get water out of his ears.

The man, in a T-shirt advertising a local strip club, belly protruding over his jeans, carried his ball to their lane. Payne rolled first. If it had been a tee shot in golf, it would have hooked into the woods. The ball lunged toward the left gutter, hitting only the seven pin. The pin-boy rolled Payne's ball back, and this time he released underhanded and hard, rolling it straight for the pocket. Pins clattered, but the six skipped around the ten, leaving it standing.

"Nine pins," his opponent said. He took a strange three-step approach, threw off the wrong foot, and sent a bouncing ball on the Brooklyn side of the headpin. After a decent mix, the two-seven baby split was left standing… until the pin-boy swept out a leg and knocked them both over.

"Strike!" the man yelled. "Twenty bucks."

Payne shook his head at the brazenness of the scam and forked over a twenty. He picked up his ball for the second frame. As he settled into his stance, the ball resting comfortably just above his right hip, Tino called to him. "Himmy!"

Payne turned and saw a large man with a fleshy, pockmarked face. He wore wraparound sunglasses, and his jeans were held up by a belt with a huge buckle engraved with a tiger. Expensive cowboy boots. Soft leather-ostrich, maybe. His unbuttoned shirt revealed a chest gone to flab and a heavy gold crucifix. On his head, a thick mass of black hair was lacquered into place with shiny brilliantine.

The man gaped, his eyes darting from Tino to Payne and back again. He was expecting to meet a rich American who wanted to bring whores across the border. Instead, here was the boy he had left behind on his last crossing.

"You?" he asked, his befuddlement turning to anger. "The bastard son of a worthless whore! My nephew gives you a free ride to the U.S.A. and you come back to Mexico? You are one stupid chilito."

"Where's my mother!" Tino shouted.

"Chinga tu madre!"

"No. Fuck you!"

"Your whore mother owes me money."

"Don't talk to the boy like that." Payne still cradled the sixteen-pound ball.

El Tigre slid his sunglasses down his nose and peered at Payne. "What's your deal, gabacho?"

"I'm helping Tino find his mother. The two got separated when you botched the crossing."

"Lies!?Pinche puto pendejo baboso! "

From having been cursed at by cops, clients, and bondsmen, Payne thought he'd just been called a fucking stupid faggot asshole. "Just tell us where she is," he demanded.

"Where I took her is como se dice, un secreto profesional."

"A trade secret?" Tino sneered.

"What's your trade, kidnapping women?" Payne taunted the man.

"?Vete a la chingada!" El Tigre reached down and drew a knife from inside his left boot. Flicked his wrist, and a silver blade shot out. Held it in his left hand. A southpaw.