Paul Levine - Illegal

"And I can tell Mexican shit from white man's shit. It's all those beans and peppers and gristle."

"My mother!" Tino blurted, unable to take it any longer. "You said you knew where she is."

"Relax, chico. You stay here tonight, help with chores while your lawyer friend goes back home. Like I said, I'll send you off to your mama tomorrow."

Chitwood was looking at Tino the way a dieter looks at a chocolate eclair.

"Won't work that way," Payne said. Trying not to show his fear.

"Shut up! I need you gone. Zaga's gonna be pissed enough. I ain't gonna start explaining what some lawyer's doing poking around."

"That your boss? Zaga? Why not let me talk to him?" Payne thinking that someone sane and sober- anyone-would be preferable to dealing with this nut job.

"You ain't got a vote on this."

"I just want to tell him that the boy and I are a team. Where I go, he goes."

Chitwood pointed the carbine at Payne's chest. "Keep talking and my chickens will be pecking out your eyes by suppertime. You're gonna git, and the boy's gonna stay."

Payne took inventory. Wire cutters on a Peg-Board. A hammer, a saw, a coil of rope, assorted tools. All too far away. Chitwood would drop him with a single shot just like one of his chickens. On the floor was the can of black paint and the open jar of turpentine. Out of the corner of his eye, Payne saw Tino following his gaze.

"I gotta pee," Tino said.

His cue, Payne thought. The Tino Perez distraction, just like in Quinn's house and with the deputy on the highway.

"Piss over there, chico." Chitwood gestured to a pile of straw thick with horse dung. Nearby, leaning against a post, a long-handled pitchfork.

Tino shot Payne a quick sideways glance before walking toward the straw pile. The two of them were beginning to communicate wordlessly.

As he neared the closest cargo van, Tino stumbled and fell. One foot kicked the paint can, which overturned, splattering black paint onto the driver's door.

"Shit!" Chitwood grabbed a rag and hustled toward the van. "Stupid little fuck!"

Payne sprang to his feet.

Sensing movement, Chitwood wheeled around and swung the carbine toward Payne.

Tino grabbed the glass jar, yelled, "Pinche puto," and splashed turpentine into Chitwood's eyes.

Chitwood's scream was high-pitched and shrill. Payne barreled into him, knocking him into the cargo van. They bounced off a side panel, and Payne got both hands on the carbine, wrestling it free. The gun flew across the barn. Howling, Chitwood grabbed the wire cutters and slashed at Payne, who took a step backward and slipped in the wet paint. As he fell, Chitwood came at Payne, wheeling the blade left and right.

Payne was on his rump as Chitwood advanced, changing his grip on the wire cutters, prepared to plunge downward. Then the Nazi Low Rider grunted and looked down in disbelief. Stuck into the top of his dusty cowboy boot and pinning his foot to the paint-slicked wood floor was a pitchfork. Hanging on to the handle, his feet airborne like a pole vaulter, was Tino, who shouted, "I'm nobody's teddy bear, cabron!"

Racing up the dirt road toward the car, Payne discovered something new about Tino. The kid was fast. A blazer. Fluid, head still. No flying elbows or herky-jerky knees. A born sprinter, he'd be a hell of a base stealer.

Payne ran like a lame horse, his mended leg throbbing. Tino reached the Mustang first and vaulted over the door and into the passenger seat. Payne stutter-stepped into the driver's seat. Seconds later, the Mustang kicked up dirt as they roared out of the canyon.

They had tied Chitwood with a coil of rope to a structural beam in the barn. Tino took the wire cutters, while Payne broke down the carbine and tossed the parts into the woods. He used the pitchfork to puncture the tires of the Harley chopper and all three cargo vans. If Chitwood tried to catch up with them, Payne thought, he was going to do it as a pissed-off pedestrian with a bloody foot.

"You're a dead man, Payne!" Chitwood had called out, as the pair ran from the barn. "If I don't getcha, Zaga will, and he don't give a shit about the warf and woop of Ellis Island."

Payne floored the accelerator, heading up the narrow dirt road toward the Salton Sea Highway.

Less than a minute went by before a car appeared, coming straight at them. Flicking its high beams in the daylight.

A big car.

An SUV, maybe.

Then Payne saw it was a black Cadillac Escalade EXT, the combo SUV and pickup, a gas-guzzling monster.

It could be a local rancher. Or a lost tourist. Or… Zaga.

The Escalade's horn bleated. If it could talk, it would be saying, "Back up, asshole!" Two horses could have passed each other on the dirt road. Maybe even two Mini Coopers. But not the wide-hipped Escalade and the Mustang.

A hand came out the window and waved at Payne, delivering the same message as the horn. It made sense. It would be a shorter drive for Payne to back up to the stash house than for the Escalade to back up to the paved road. But no way Payne was going toward the stash house. Maybe Chitwood had gotten loose. Maybe he called for help. Maybe he had another firearm.

The Escalade door opened, and the driver stepped out. A bantamweight in a Western shirt with piping. A wide Western belt with a turquoise-and-silver buckle. A weathered face with Hispanic features. His age difficult to determine. Fifty? Sixty? Older?

Tight black pants tucked into fancy cowboy boots made of a green hide that might have been rattlesnake. And on his hip, in a Western holster, a handgun that looked as big as a cannon, way outsize on the trim little man.

A revolver. Maybe. 50 caliber. Bigger even than Dirty Harry's. 44 Magnum.

The man had a fine head of long hair, somewhere between gray and white, the color of spit. The hair was parted in the middle and fell to his shoulders, Wild Bill Hickok style.

"You fellows lost?" the man called out.

Payne kept his right hand on the gearshift and didn't answer.

The big man's right hand rested on his hip, inches from the gun. "I'm asking you nicely to back up. There's a turnoff not far behind you."

Payne depressed the clutch, slipped the gearshift into first, and revved the engine. The throaty roar had a rattle in it.

The man's hand wrapped around the gun butt. "You deaf? Someone's got to back up, and it's you, fellow."

Like two gunslingers.

"Not asking you again."

Payne leaned out the car window and shouted, "Why don't you kiss my sister's black cat's ass?" Not a great line, but Bo Hopkins said it in The Wild Bunch.

The question seemed to startle the little man with the big gun. "There something wrong with your brain, son?"

Payne took a stab at it. "Nope. Something wrong with yours, Zaga?"

The man froze at the mention of the name. Still as a boulder, he seemed to size up the situation. "You a dope fiend? One of Chitwood's asshole friends?"

Yep. Zaga, all right.

" 'Cause I warned that tweaker to get off the meth. If you're supplying him, I'll bury you without a second thought."

"Brace yourself, Tino," Payne whispered.

Payne let out the clutch and put the pedal to the rusty metal. Dirt spun from the rear wheels. The Mustang rocketed forward, right at Zaga, who vaulted to one side, drawing the handgun in a smooth motion.

The Mustang flew by, sheering off the Escalade's side-view mirror.

On its passenger side, the Mustang scraped the roadside boulders with metallic shrieks of dying soldiers.

Payne barely heard the first gunshot.

The second bullet clanged into the Mustang's trunk.

"Get down, Tino! On the floor!"

But the boy was propped on his knees, looking back at the man with the gun.

"Tino!" Payne tried to shove him down into his seat.