Mules:: A Novel Read online

  She didn’t scream when she saw them. It was as if at first her mind refused to believe what she was looking at was real. And by the time she could grasp what she was seeing, a veil of shock had fallen over her leaving only a morbid curiosity.

  There were three of them, all face down, huddled in a corner with their hands zip tied behind their backs. A man, woman, and a little child, Neesha couldn’t tell if it was a boy or a girl, the head was nearly disintegrated. They had all been shot close range with a shotgun. The shot had torn gaping holes in their heads and the walls were splashed with pieces of skull and bloody chunks of their brains. This was done recently, too, the blood was still wet, shimmering in the fluorescent glow of the overhead light.

  The car! The gray car that had peeled out of the lot as they pulled up. They robbed the place and killed these people. The two men she had seen. Fuck! They had seen her seeing them. What if they decided to come back?

  She backed out of the room, through the door, her face a perfect grimace of fear. She couldn’t take her eyes of the cruel exhibition. An entire family forced cowering into a corner, bound and executed for a drawer full of pesos. What kind of person could do that to a child? She backed into the counter. Run. Go, now, or you’ll find out what kind of people could do this. Go! A voice screamed inside her head, but she lingered for another second, looking at the bodies, slumped forward with their knees beneath them and their hands behind them, lifeless fingers hanging open, reaching for nothing in the open air. They almost seemed as if they were praying or assuming some bizarre posture of repentance.

  And then whatever spell they held over her was broken, and she turned and ran.

  Els, standing by the rear of the car, waiting for the pump to come on, watched Neesha sprint out of the doorway toward her.

  “Get in the car!”

  Els stood, dumbly, unable to react. She only muttered, “Wha?”

  “Get in the fucking car. We have to Go!” Neesha screamed, reaching the handle and throwing the door open.

  Els took two quick steps, lifting her feet over the gas hose and scrambled into the passenger seat.

  “What’s wrong? What happened?”

  Neesha, breathless, panicked, trying to fit the key in the ignition, “They’re all dead. Everyone in the store was dead. The people that just left here robbed and killed them.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Neesha twisted the key forward in the ignition and the car started. “I’m pretty fucking sure. We gotta get the hell out of here. They could come back.”

  Neesha threw the car into gear, and just before her foot came down on the accelerator she saw the headlights in her rear view mirror.

  ELEVEN

  Neesha stared into the Ford’s headlights as they grew brighter in her rear view for one paralyzed second before she slammed her foot down on the gas pedal, mashing it all the way to the floor. The Jetta’s front tires spun out, digging into the gravel before they found purchase. And then they were off, tearing across the parking lot. She swung the car out onto the road and it drifted sidelong across the loose dirt as smoothly as black ice. Neesha fought the wheel to get back control of the car, it jerked in her hand and locked, she thought she would lose it, but she wrestled the wheel back and the car was under her command again. They were on the road, going steady, Neesha hadn’t let the accelerator raise so much as a millimeter from the floor. The RPM needle was climbing toward the red, and Neesha dared a quick look back. The car was raising a thick cloud of dust behind it, but she could clearly see dual orbs of light cutting through the night and the whorling particles of dirt. The Ford was gaining on them. Sliding around on the road had cost them precious seconds.

  Els sat in the passenger seat wearing her seatbelt, both hands clenched around the shoulder strap, knuckles white. A continuous moan passed her lips. She kept her body rigid, as if she expected impact at any moment.

  The road curved toward the right up ahead. Neesha instinctively tapped the brakes and spun the wheel. The car turned much too sharply and went into another skid. The back of the car slid across the gravel, and this time Neesha wasn’t able to get control back. The car continued to spin and she panicked and came down hard on the brake. The car came to a stop in the middle of the road at a forty-five degree angle across both narrow lanes.

  Both girls’ heads turned to watch the headlights of the Ford barrel down on the from the passenger side window. In less than a second it would collide with them in a wreck of twisted metal and shattered glass.

  Els’ eyes were held open in terror, pupils wide in the glare of the oncoming headlights.

  At the last second the car veered off sharply and went around them, scraping the back bumper, leaving the road completely and driving into the desert.

  The car spun around in the sand, expertly, kicking up a cloud of dust that obscured it for a brief moment before it passed over. It came to rest with its front bumper pointed at them, waiting.

  “What the fuck are they doing?” Neesha asked.

  “I don’t know. It’s like they want to chase us, they want us to run. It’s like a game for them.”

  And as if to answer Els, the car flashed its high beams at them and revved its engine.

  “Fucking psychos.” Neesha threw the car into reverse and turned the car around in a three-point turn. “God, I don’t want to die out here like this.” She said, throwing the car into drive and once again mashing the gas pedal down to the floor.

  The Ford crept back up onto the road and started to follow them.

  It closed the distance fast, riding their bumper, flashed the high beams at them again and gave them a nudge.

  Inside the Jetta, their heads snapped when the bumpers banged together. “What if I just slammed on the brakes?” Neesha wondered aloud as the speedometer passed 70.

  “Don’t,” Els warned. “These guys are just messing with us now, I don’t want to see them when they’re angry. Just drive.”

  “Just drive where? There’s nowhere to go.”

  “Just drive.”

  They felt shock vibrate up their spines as the car slammed into them again. Part of their bumper fell off and rolled under the wheels of the

  Ford.

  There was another severe turn coming up. The Ford was inches away from them and Neesha knew that if she turned, the other car would keep straight and T-bone the Jetta, ending the chase once and for all.

  “Hang on,” said Neesha as they left the road and drove through the turn, plowing ahead into the desert.

  They bounced around on the uneven terrain like a sack of marbles shaken by a child. Els felt like her organs were bouncing off of one another inside her body.

  Els turned her head around as best she could against the tightened safety restraints to look out the back windshield. “They stopped.”

  The car was parked, headlights splashing over the place where the girls had abandoned the road, waiting, watching.

  “Why did they stop?”

  “I don’t know, but you should be careful, you don’t know what’s-”

  The car came to a sudden bone-jarring stop. There was a loud bang of metal colliding with earth and giving in. It was a sound like a giant soda can being crushed flat in a split second. At the same instant, the airbags deployed from the dash and the steering wheel, exploding outward and connecting with the girls like a punch to the face.

  They sat dazed, with the dust settling around them. Els was distantly aware that the car was sitting at the wrong angle. She smelled an acrid smell of burning chemical and dirt, and reached out to push the deflating airbag out of her face.

  “All you all right?” she asked Neesha.

  “O-Oh my knee. I banged it on the dash. I think I really hurt it.”

  Els unclasped her seatbelt and swung her door open. She climbed out awkwardly, the seat and front end of the car were slanted at a downward angle. When she was outside the car she saw that they had run into a shallow ditch, probably for irrigation. The front end was resting i
n the bottom of the ditch with the rear wheels off the ground, one still spinning slowly.

  Els went around to the driver side, opened the door and helped Neesha out. She was only able to stand if she leaned against Els for support. Els wanted to examine her knee, but it was too dark.

  “Can you put any weight on it?”

  ‘I don’t know. I’ll try.” Neesha let go of Els and took a short, staggering step forward.

  They looked up at approaching headlights. The Ford had decided to stop waiting for them. It was coming now, creeping slowly across the desert, taking its time.

  “We have to go,” said Els. “We can run if we get across the ditch, they won’t be able to follow us.”

  “I can’t. My knee, it’s starting to swell, it won’t let me bend my leg. I could walk but, I’m not going to make it away from them fast enough. I can’t run.”

  The car was getting closer, moving at a leaden pace, wheels grinding into the loose desert sand.

  “Okay, if you can’t run, we’ll get down in the ditch. Use the car for cover. If they get close enough maybe I can. . . I don’t know. We can think of something.”

  “Help me, then. We’ll hide. Just don’t leave me, okay? Don’t leave me alone.” Neesha begged.

  “I won’t,” Els said earnestly.

  They climbed down into the ditch, squatting against the cover of the wrecked car. When Els had gotten Neesha situated, she hurried around and opened the passenger door as wide as it would go, giving them a little extra cover. She came over where Neesha was sitting and crouched back down, wishing she had time to get her survival knife out of her bag. As it was now, there was no way they could get to the girls without climbing into the ditch, and if one of them did he would be at a disadvantage as he lowered himself down. Els planned to move fast, take him by surprise. Somewhere in her mind, she could hear her father’s voice. Could almost see her own reflection in his black glasses. He urged her to strike at the back of the knee as soon as he touched down. Be quick, and go for his eyes while he’s too surprised by pain to react. He won’t be able to hold a gun while he climbs down. You can take it from him.

  The car crept closer and Els felt the coil of her leg muscles beneath her, ready to spring like a cheap mouse trap as soon as she saw the opportunity.

  The car dragged a few feet closer and Els squinted her eyes against the headlights. Something was wrong.

  “The car at the gas station was gray, right?” she said to Neesha.

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, this one’s black. Maybe blue. It’s hard to see.”

  “A different car? Then why were they chasing us?”

  Els shook her head, “I don’t know, but I don’t think these are the same guys who robbed the gas station.”

  Els stood and watched as the car pulled up parallel to the ditch. It was not a gray Ford, it was a blue Pontiac from the mid ‘90s.

  The driver’s and back passenger’s windows began to slide down. Neesha rose, favoring her knee, and both girls stood at the bottom of the ditch looking up, more curious than afraid now.

  The windows descended and the dome light clicked on, lighting up the interior. There were five of them, two in the front and three in the back. They were young. Real young. The kid behind the wheel smiled at them showing several gaps where his adult teeth had yet to grow in. They were all showing teeth, five Mexican boys, grinning and laughing at them. The one behind the wheel said something to them in Spanish.

  Although they could speak no more than a few words of the language, neither girl needed a translator to understand what the boy said.

  The car turned and spun out as it left them, throwing a cascade of rocks and dirt down into the ditch.

  “What now?” Neesha asked Els after she had helped to pull her up.

  “Now we walk, I guess. Find a town, find a tow to pull the car out. Can you walk?”

  “Well I can’t fucking fly.”

  They got their bags out of the trunk and walked back to the road.

  TWELVE

  They were sitting in the dead man’s car, Leon’s Volvo. Gusano had joked to Primo about how Leon had gone out like a lamb. Primo didn’t get it, he just sat in the passenger seat noisily chewing on an ear of roasted corn he had bought off a vendor on the side of the street they were parked on. It wasn’t that funny, but it was just rude not to acknowledge the attempt.

  Primo rolled the window down and dropped the cob into the street.“We should have a van. They have vans for this kind of shit on the movies. White vans without windows.”

  “I don’t know anybody with a white van with no windows, do you?”

  Primo shook his head. “They have em on the movies though.Coulda got one, I bet.”

  “So you’ve said. But this isn’t a movie. You ever see a movie where somebody sits in a car and eats an ear of corn before?”

  “People eat in movies. They bring coffee and donuts on a stakeout.”

  “We’re not on a stakeout. We’ve been here for twenty minutes. We’ll probably be here for another ten, tops. That’s not a stakeout.”

  “If it’s not a stakeout then what are we doing?”

  “You know what we’re doing. The girl goes into that building every Tuesday for voice lessons. She comes out, we follow her till she goes someplace quiet and then we grab her and put her in the car.”

  “That sounds like a stakeout to me. Right now we’re staking out the building she’s in. Piano lessons, anyway.”

  “Yeah, it’s a stakeout then. Whatever you have to tell yourself to make it interesting. Just keep your eyes open.”

  “They’re open.” Primo fiddled with the controls on his side of the car, rolling the window up and down and pushing the button that adjusts his side view mirror. He pulled a CD in a jewel case out of his jacket pocket.

  “You like music? I just got this.”

  Gusano shrugged. “Who is it?”

  “This guy, he calls himself Craneo. He sings the narcocorridos.”

  Gusano rolled his eyes. “That shit where phony gangsters pay somebody like three grand to write a shitty song about the convenience stores they robbed, or the whores they shot in the back? Why would you want to listen to that?”

  Primo slid the disk into the CD player. “Cause, this one’s about me.”

  Gusano felt his ears perk up like a dog’s and he tried not to laugh, listening to the opening lines.

  Primo’s hand is the shadow of a fist

  It spreads over Colzorona!

  He stands victorious in a circle of the dead

  He’s killed a dozen men with his Uzi!

  Gusano, wildly amused, turned the volume down and looked at Primo. “When have you killed a dozen men with your Uzi?”

  Primo thought hard for a moment. “It’s not like all at one time. But I’ve probably killed that many people. Pretty close anyway. You got to be poetic to sound good. Like the beginning, Primo’s hand is the shadow of a fist, that’s fucking cool, man.”

  “Yeah,” Gusano nodded. “It’s really, uh, poetic like you said. So your hand is just the shadow of some else’s fist? Or is it your other hand’s shadow?”

  “You’re fucking over-thinking it. They’re sort of like bragging when they say shit like that. It just sounds cooler.”

  “Yeah. I guess it’s better than the truth.” He burst into song, imitating the narcocorrida:

  Primo sucks down corn like a starving dog!

  But his manners aren’t as good

  He farts like death with the car windows up

  And wears a black suit like a gay funeral director!

  Primo gave him an annoyed look. “You just don’t know anything about music. That song’s cool. This suit looks fucking cool.”

  “Yeah you look real cool with corn all down the front of you. You look like if Scarface had Alzheimer's and forgot the food was supposed to go in his mouth.”

  Primo brushed the stray kernels off the front of his suit and into the floor. Gusano made a mental note
to have the car detailed.

  “Yeah, but I’m not sick, though,” said Primo.

  “I was. Watching you eat. I’m surprised you still have fingers left. You’re like a fucking buzzsaw.”

  “But it’s corn,” he protested.

  Gusano couldn’t argue with that. They sat watching the door.

  “You feeling alright about this? What we’re doing?” Primo asked.

  “You mean the girl?”

  “Yeah.”

  Gusano shrugged. “You gotta pay your debts. Leon owed that $350,000 and he can’t pay it off. Debt doesn’t just disappear, it gets transferred. Your family still owes it. That’s how it is. She’s his daughter. She should be grateful to have a chance to clear her father’s name amongst his business associates. She’d probably do the thing if we explained it to her.”

  “Not the way Calisto wants it done.”

  “No. Not the way Calisto wants it. The day I see people volunteering for that is the day you see me pushing the roasted corn cart up and down the street, because then I’ll know that I’m the last sane person left and I’d be better off handing corn to the maniacs than pointing guns at them.”

  “You’d never see me selling corn.”

  “Yeah, cause you’re not qualified for the job.”

  “You can say that again.”

  Gusano sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Listen, while you’re here, I want to know if you’re coming to my game night Friday.”

  “I don’t know. You get so mad at those things.”

  “When people don’t follow the rules I do. Is that what everyone is saying? I get too upset? I’m not fun to be around? There’s gonna be girls there, you know.”

  Primo snorted. “What kind of girls? The kind that want to play Monopoly on a Friday night? No thanks.”

  “I don’t fucking play Monopoly. Monopoly is for fucking kids, okay? And you know what? I don’t even want you there now. I’m serious. You show up at my place Friday night, I’ll put a bullet in you.” Gusano sneered at the big man beside him and shook his head. “Primo’s hand is a fucking shadow of a fist.”