Paul Levine - Illegal

Rutledge had taken off his cowboy hat, as gentlemen do indoors, revealing a forehead half pale and half sunburned. Tall, and thick through the chest, with a leathery face and a brushy mustache. In his cowboy duds, he reminded Sharon of someone. Who was it?

Ah, right. Give him a lariat, trim that brush into a pencil mustache, and he's Clark Gable in The Misfits.

Jimmy had made her watch the damn movie three times, even though she didn't like it. Jimmy, of course, loved everything about it, from the title to Marilyn Monroe's ass. Give Jimmy a story about the struggle for personal freedom and load it with alienation, loneliness, and grief, and he's there. The only part Sharon liked was Thelma Ritter saying that men were as reliable as jackrabbits.

Sharon told Rutledge to help himself to donuts and the latte machine. He smiled at the word "latte," thanked her kindly, saying "Ma'am," sat down, and drew a small silver flask from a buttoned shirt pocket. Jack Daniel's, she guessed, from the aroma.

The Rutledge family had created a dynasty in the San Joaquin Valley. But not without a firestorm of controversy. Simeon Rutledge had been the target of several law enforcement investigations, she knew. Immigration. Taxes. Pollution. Recently, there'd been rumors about a Grand Jury poking around the Rutledge operation. But that was federal, and she didn't know any details.

There were two other men in the Green Room, both members of the Patriot Patrol, the militia group that guarded the border, though no one asked them to. One man, a pudgeball wearing a "Send 'Em Back" T-shirt, slouched on the vinyl sofa, snoring, a ball cap pulled down over his eyes. The other man, a wiry, sunburned critter with Willie Nelson pigtails, squinted at a Superman comic book, moving his lips as he read. Both men wore camo fatigues bloused into combat boots.

"You're Rutledge, ain't you?" Pigtails said. He didn't sound like he wanted an autograph.

"Yep," Rutledge allowed. "And you're one of those dumb-ass crackers got nothing better to do than harass poor people looking for work."

"I'm a patriot."

"Pissant is more like it."

Pigtails made a move as if to get up, seemed to think better of it, and dropped down again.

"C'mon, fellow," Rutledge taunted. "Let's see how tough you are."

"All right, boys. Settle down," Sharon ordered. "I'll arrest anyone causing trouble."

Rutledge shot her an inquisitive look.

" Detective Sharon Payne," she said.

Rutledge sized her up in her business suit and pumps. "A detective working security?"

"Actually, I'm…"

Just what am I, anyway?

"I'm with Cullen."

Rutledge gave her a sly smile. "Well, Quinn's taste in women can't be faulted, even if he doesn't know diddly about immigration."

"All of you better mind your manners or I'll cuff you right here."

"I don't mean no harm," Pigtails said. "But I got a right to tell Mr. Big Shot that he's taking food out of the mouths of real Americans, giving away all them jobs to the beaners."

"Tell you what, fellow," Rutledge said. "If you want to crawl through the dirt picking artichokes when the thermometer pops a hundred, I got a job for you. But you couldn't do half the work of a campesina who's seven months pregnant."

"Them Mexi-cants don't feel the heat the way white people do. Anyhow, I ain't gonna work on my hands and knees, beaners farting in my face."

Rutledge shook his head sadly. No use trying to reason with a mule. "Detective Payne, what do you think?"

"I think there ought to be a civil way for people to discuss their differences."

"I'll drink to that." Rutledge took a hit on his flask, his pale eyes wandering off into the distance. "My old man hired braceros back in the sixties. One of their kids is chief of police now. Javier Cardenas. I've known him since we played pitch-and-catch with pomegranates. When I was growing up, my best friends were the wild-ass pachucos. The first girl I ever… " He paused, as if it might not be chivalrous to continue.

"I wouldn't fuck one of them greasy little tacos," Pigtails said.

"You ought not to talk that way in front of a lady," Rutledge warned.

"That's all right," Sharon said. "I've heard worse."

"I respect the people who work for me. I got Guatemalan women five feet tall who can carry a watermelon in each hand. I got Hondurans who pick peaches so damn gracefully you'd think you were watching a conductor at a symphony. Once, an Indio from Chiapas chopped off his toe with a machete. He just tied it off at the knuckle and kept on working. When I found out, I drove him to the hospital myself. I wouldn't trade any one of them for a dozen of these losers, blaming everyone else for their own laziness and stupidity."

Pigtails flushed. "Ain't no wonder white people talk about you the way they do."

"You mean white trash, don't you?"

"Maybe you don't know it, Rutledge, but someone posted a note on our website. Twenty thousand bucks to anyone who'll put a bullet in your big, fat head."

Rutledge slipped the flask back into his shirt pocket. "Only twenty grand? Hell, I'm insulted. But you better tell whoever wants that money to shoot me in the back. 'Cause if I see him first, I'll rip his heart out and feed it to my pigs."

It was going to be a damn long night, Sharon thought.

Payne wondered if Cullen Quinn dyed his hair. The guy was in his mid-forties, and his hair was still blond. Except tonight, on the cheap TV in the motel room, it had taken on the hue of an Orange Crush. All-American looks, a high-paying job, and engaged to the woman Payne still loved. He hated the guy.

Jimmy and Tino had driven north from the border to El Centro, then west on I-8 through the West Mesa Desert. The only traffic was the occasional trailer truck blasting past them, with illustrations of curvaceous women on the mud flaps. The world a velvet black, except for the stars and the Mustang's headlight beams. The tires sang against the pavement, a hypnotic drone. Tino's head fell to his chest, then popped up.

" Buenos noches, Himmy," he said, dozing off for good.

Payne had strained to stay alert. He'd driven all last night and hadn't slept in two days. Fearing he'd run off the road and into a ravine, he took the Coyote Wells exit and pulled into the first motel that didn't look like a haven for meth dealers.

A few hours of sleep, and they could find Wanda the Whale's stash house after sunrise. With luck, Marisol Perez would still be there. If not, she would be en route to a job somewhere, and they could pick up the trail.

Payne's thoughts turned to his ex-wife. Was his obsession with finding Marisol a subconscious attempt to win back Sharon? She was the one who sent him on this mission. Would proving himself a valiente also prove he was husband material?

Payne had carried Tino to the motel room, stepping around a fat-tailed scorpion scurrying across the sandy parking lot. The room smelled of disinfectants and cigarettes. A place where they changed the sheets every third day, but the cockroaches stayed forever. He eased Tino into one of the twin beds and covered him with a blanket.

Payne splashed water on his face and examined himself in the mirror. He needed a shave. He needed a haircut. He needed a life.

He plopped down on the second bed and turned on the TV. He'd let the drone of the talking box put him to sleep. He clicked through the channels, declining to buy a zirconium ring or send money to a Southern drawling minister. He hit the remote and there was Paul Newman, a down-and-out lawyer, pleading with a jury. The Verdict, a personal favorite.

"So much of the time we're just lost. We say, 'Please God, tell us what is right; tell us what is true.' And there is no justice. The rich win, the poor are powerless."