Paul Levine - Illegal

"?No tenemos dinero!" the woman wailed.

"Don't want your money!" Payne hoisted Garcia back onto the bed, pressed the bat crosswise under his chin, bore down with two hands. "Tell her why I'm here, you piece of shit!"

Garcia choked and sputtered. Confused and terrified.

"You don't remember? You forget that easy!" Payne was enraged, seeing the man up close. The leathery face, the smell of tobacco and sweat. Everything came back.

Payne jammed up against the car door, his leg broken, forehead gashed, eyes filling with blood.

"My son. Can you see him? Is he okay?"

The man leaning through the open window. The frozen look of cold, stark fear.

Garcia's plaintive cry. "El chico. El chico.?Dios me perdone!"

Forcing the bat into Garcia's Adam's apple, Payne heard a wet, burbling sound. He could break the cartilage so easily, could crush his trachea, watch him die.

"You don't remember me? You don't remember my boy? Ten years old! You worthless piece of garbage!"

Garcia's eyes registered. His fear taking on meaning.

"That's right! I'm not here to rob you. I'm here to kill you."

Garcia stammered something. Payne eased the pressure just a bit.

"Sorry. Sorry, I never meant to…"

"Fuck that. You killed my son. You killed me."

Behind him, the woman had dropped to her knees. Crossed herself, ticked off prayers in Spanish at high speed.

Payne grabbed Garcia by the front of his T-shirt. Yanked him to his feet. Drew back the bat, measured the distance to the man's temple, anticipated the delicious crack of metal on bone.

A child coughed.

From the darkness at the rear of the trailer, a girl of about four walked toward them, cradling a tattered stuffed animal in her arms. Bugs Bunny maybe, but with an ear missing. She coughed again, a parched hack.

"Daddy? Why did you fire the gun?" Her voice small and scratchy.

"Lourdes," the woman wailed."?Metete en la cama!" Ordering her daughter back to bed.

The girl focused on Payne. "Is that man hurting Daddy?" she asked her mother.

"Not here," Garcia begged. "Please. Not here."

Payne let the bat fall to his side. "Fine. Outside. In the trees."

Payne grabbed the handgun from the bed, a. 22 revolver, stuck it in his pants, and dragged Garcia out the door. The man didn't head for the trees and he didn't try to run. He just dropped to his knees in front of the Lady of Guadalupe statue, and began mumbling, "Padre nuestro, que estas en los cielos…"

Payne scanned the dirt road. No cars. If Garcia screamed-and Payne doubted he would-there would be no one to hear.

"Santificado sea tu Nombre…"

"Why'd you come back?" Payne snarled.

Garcia stopped praying. Sucking in air, he said, "Your police contacted police in Oaxaca. Instead of sending me back, the judicales took my money. When I had nothing more to give, they threatened my family. They would have…"

He didn't have to finish. It was safer for Manuel Garcia to sneak into the country where he was wanted for homicide than to stay home. He talked softly in accented but decent English. He knew people working in the cotton fields near Tulare, and he knew how to drive a tractor, so he came across with his family and got a job.

"What's wrong with your daughter?"

"Asthma." He looked skyward. "The dust and pesticides. Very bad after spraying."

Payne felt something drain out of him. "That job of yours. You get medical insurance?"

Still on his knees, Garcia shook his head.

"Asthma's not hard to treat. Medication. Inhalers."

Garcia looked up at him, puzzled.

"What I'm saying, you gotta get your daughter to a doctor."

Garcia stared at the ground. "I still owe the coyote three thousand dollars for the crossing."

Payne took out his wallet. Four hundred-dollar bills, three twenties, a couple tens, a few ones. He thrust the money to Garcia, their hands briefly touching.

Then Payne dropped Garcia's gun on the ground, slung the bat onto his shoulder, and headed back to his car.

Javier Cardenas watched the surreal scene alongside the trailer.

Way to go, Jimmy Payne. You plan to kill a man, and instead you pay him.

Cardenas pictured the Mossberg shotgun he'd just won. Could feel the smooth walnut stock, could see the polished silver receiver with the gold inlay.

He would wait until morning to tell Simeon to deliver the gun. It would take a few hours more to determine if Jimmy Payne kept his promise to get the hell out of town.

Cardenas waited until Payne drove off, leaving Garcia kneeling in front of the trailer, staring after him. Probably wondering what the hell just happened.

Cardenas thought he knew.

Some men can kill. Some can't. Simple as that.

Cardenas had seen it in Payne's eyes. Not a softness exactly. But a weakness by another name.

Humanity.

Payne cared for his fellow man. Especially for those in worse shape than himself. How else to explain taking to the road in pursuit of the Mexican boy's mother? Payne could have been killed in Hellhole Canyon. Still, he drove on to Rutledge, a place even more dangerous.

Hey, Uncle Sim. You whiffed. You spent more time with Payne than I did, but you completely misjudged him.

Simeon was getting old. Losing his edge, getting careless. That's what Whitehurst had meant with his little parable about rats who can't vomit. No wonder Simeon got himself indicted. The investigation posed major problems for Cardenas, too. The records and bank accounts of Rutledge Ranch and Farms, Inc., were fair game for a U.S. Attorney. Cardenas knew his name would crop up in places where no police chief's ought to be.

If Simeon takes a fall, he'll take me with him.

For years, Cardenas had known about the stash houses, the human trafficking, the thousands of undocumented workers who'd come through Kings County, thanks to Rutledge livery. Cardenas also knew about the Hot Springs Gentleman's Club, a place that had been off-limits to him as a young man.

"You stay away from that pussy ranch, Javie. It ain't for you."

There were other evils Simeon never talked about and Cardenas chose to ignore. He knew that Simeon could be kind and generous one day and ornery and violent the next. When the old man talked about burying bodies along levees and orchards, it was neither a boast nor a threat. It was reality.

So, get the hell out of town, Jimmy Payne, or Simeon will add your carcass to the compost heap.

Murder seemed so much easier to get away with than the vices that left paper trails. Another thought came to Cardenas as he eased his cruiser out of its hiding spot and onto the dirt road. The government might offer a deal to a police chief with an excellent memory for times, places, and amounts of money. Maybe he could get immunity for flipping.

No, I couldn't do that. I could no more testify against Tio Sim than I could turn the shotgun on him.

Cardenas clicked his iPod back on, found the Desperado soundtrack again, and slowly drove away, listening to Tito amp; Tarantula wailing "Strange Face of Love."

Just after eight A.M. on a day that simmered with a dry, baking heat, Simeon Rutledge swung his right arm over his head, and with a smooth motion snapped the bullwhip. The cr-ack sounded eerily like a gunshot.

Another forward toss, the circus throw of a lion tamer.

Cr-ack.

Standing in his corral with the sun rising over his cornfields, Rutledge kept his arm moving. Three different throws, without stopping. The backward, the overhead, the circus throw.

Cr-ack. Cr-ack. Cr-ack.

The popper at the end of the whip snapping so fast it created a miniature sonic boom.

The solid feel of the whip in his hand calmed him. He breathed in the scent of the soil and the crops, even the sweetness of the manure. This was his land, and he belonged to it, as much as it belonged to him.