The Border Lords Read online

  He backed off the woman and handcuffed her to the refrigerator door. Then he took up his autoloader and followed Caroline Vega as she burst into the first bedroom, then the next. There on the floor they found him, his mouth gagged and taped and his eyes looking up at them in terror and his hands bound behind him with plastic ties.

  “Hi, Stevie,” said Bradley. “ ’Sup? You’re okay now, little man.”

  They cut the cuffs and unwrapped the tape and Stevie Carrasco cried without making a sound. Tough as Rocky, thought Bradley.

  “That’s bad, Bradley,” said Vega, inspecting the potato peeler. “It’s almost to the handle. Those sharp edges are cutting you up.”

  “Feels like a cherry bomb went off in there. Let’s get him out of here.”

  “You don’t move until I get paramedics.” She called dispatch for medics and the coroner team.

  Bradley stood the boy up and he and Caroline Vega walked him onto the front porch. It took just a few seconds for Theresa Brewer and Erik to arrive, Erik already shooting away with the shoulder camera and Theresa stepping in with her microphone raised. Clovis and Klotz came from the backyard. Bradley hefted the boy up into the crook of his right arm and smiled at Theresa. When he looked down, there was more blood than he thought there was. He handed the boy over to Caroline and tried to understand Theresa Brewer’s question but it made no sense to him at all. He smiled at the camera again and sat down on the porch with his feet on the steps and sighed and listened to the approaching sirens. Theresa Brewer pressed the mike toward him, an uncertain expression on her face. He sensed the world letting go of him, and then it did.

  9

  Ozburn circled the landing strip south of Puertecitos for his lucky third time, then tipped Betty into her descent. He looked out at her yellow wing afloat in the blue morning sky. Poetry in motion, he thought with a smile.

  Betty was a 1947 J3 Piper Cub and Oz had bought her nearly eight years ago, swept up every dollar he could find and borrowed the rest from his father. She’d run him $26,750, and he had felt guilty buying the gifts of flight and freedom for so little.

  Betty had been a pampered little princess of a plane. She still was. She was delightful and loyal and calm. She was a prop-start, and to Ozburn there was nothing like that transfer of power from his body to hers when he threw her prop and the engine buzzed to life. Like she was taking his energy and his passion, and would soon turn them into flight. Her modified, updated engine put out seventy-five wild horses, could cruise at eighty miles an hour for almost two hundred eighty miles on a tank. She could take off from a nickel and land on a dime.

  Her tires bit the gravel and bounced twice, then settled as Ozburn eased the tail to the ground. Ozburn loved tail-draggers, as had his father and grandfather. You fly these planes, they don’t fly you, his father liked to say. Oz liked to see how quickly he could stop her, and, of course, how quickly he could get her into the air. He glanced down and smiled at the billowing tan cloud of dust rising alongside him. The cardón cactus that grew tall in this heat-blasted desert flashed past his windows in the evening light. The strip was a private runway owned by Carlos Herredia of the North Baja Cartel, nothing like the busy and clamorous turista facility up in San Felipe.

  He taxied to the end of the runway where a small metal building squatted in the dirt. He steered to the side of the building where the tie-downs waited; then he shut down the aircraft and climbed out. He breathed in the warm October air and walked around to the passenger door and let Daisy out.

  She leaped down, a thin-bodied, long-legged dog, all black except for a white splash on her chest. She had the high, upright ears topped with short out-flaps common in border mongrels, which gave her a daft expression. The understanding between man and dog was deep and felt to Ozburn like something remembered. Lately, he felt that a lot, that he was remembering things—feelings, ideas, even physical sensations—that he had known and forgotten. For instance, he loved the dog unconditionally but wondered how she’d taste roasted, though he had no intention of cooking her. Where had that thought come from? Daisy bounced high around him as he tied down the plane. A car came toward them from the west, dragging a cloud of dust, Joe Leftwich at the wheel.

  An hour later Ozburn sat on the patio of a small restaurant built into the cliffside overlooking the Gulf of California. Daisy lay at his feet. Across from him sat Mateo, dispatched by Carlos Herredia to collect answers from Sean Gravas, whose safe house in Buenavista had proven extremely unsafe. But Ozburn had come here for reasons of his own.

  Mateo looked at Ozburn as if he were made of dog shit. One of his gunmen leaned against a new Suburban in the parking area outside; two more loitered near the big beer cooler that stood near the entrance to the indoor dining room and cantina.

  Sean explained in good Spanish that, first of all, he wasn’t too happy about having his house shot up. He’d heard that there were brains in the kitchen and blood on the living room floor, and that was expensive stuff, that floor, real travertine for fuck’s sake. Sorry about the boys, he added. Mateo asked him why such a thing happened in his house, on his property, and didn’t happen somewhere else? Mateo spoke in a soft, accusatory rasp. Sean said it was pretty damned obvious why—someone had smelled out the safe house and sent better killers than Herredia’s sicarios. In spite of their fancy and expensive Love 32s, the victims were very young for killers, yes? The Gulf Cartel was probably behind it. Gulf Cartel killers are not boys but highly trained military deserters. Zetas. They want Buenavista because TJ is now too hot again. Same with Juarez. Buenavista is three hours from L.A. The Gulf men could have gotten a tip about the house from neighbors. They could have recognized a Herredia hit boy and tailed him home. They could have an informant inside your organization, yes? Maybe it was the conveniently missing Oscar.

  Mateo listened, his face hard and blank. He had the chiseled ranchero features and wiry body of the mountain-dwelling Sinaloans, from whom the current crop of cartel heavyweights so often came. Mateo was somewhere in his late forties—old in his profession. At the mention of a leak within his North Baja Cartel, Mateo’s dark eyes took on a sleepy peacefulness that Sean recognized as pre-homicidal. Pride ran deep in these men, he thought. Savages all.

  Ozburn finished another Pacifico and banged the bottle on the tabletop for more. The German who ran the place looked at him and nodded.

  “Y carne para de perro!” he called.

  And meat for the dog.

  The German brought two more beers and a tortilla topped with machaca scraps for Daisy. She stood wagging her tail and waited for Ozburn to set the tortilla on the floor before snorting up the food. The owner disappeared into the darker confines of the dining room and came back a moment later with dinner.

  They talked of fútbol and the Mexican soap operas they both enjoyed, of Calderón and Obama. They drank three beers each and most of a bottle of good reposado. Mateo wore one of the short-sleeved plaid shirts of the mountain vaqueros, and a belt with a large oval slab of silver for a buckle, which made him look more like a cowboy than a narco. His hair was cut short and artlessly. But his boots were ostrich and he wore a Rolex with diamonds and a snazzy GPS unit clipped on his belt next to the gigantic buckle, and his sidearm was a gold-plated .45 with etchings of the narco saint Malverde on the grips.

  When the dishes were cleared Mateo lit an American Camel and spoke in Spanish.

  —Carlos is worried about his houses in San Ysidro and Yuma, Mateo hissed softly.

  —My houses.

  —He is worried that there was no message from the Zetas. No warning to abandon our hold on Buenavista. No mutilation. Why would the Gulf Cartel assassinate three of our sicarios and not take credit for it?

  —Now I am supposed to answer for the Zetas?

  —You answer me.

  —I’ll answer you: The Gulf Cartel has someone inside your organization. That’s the only explanation. It’s the trouble with any organization. That’s why I wasn’t so sure about this whole thing w
hen you people first came after me.

  Mateo’s face was a dark, angular mask, too fixed to read. Ozburn knew that Mateo “El Gordo” Leya had just last week made the United States’s Kingpins list, which put a government price on his head. This of course was a matter of pride among the higher narcos. Maybe it’s gone to his head, thought Ozburn: Mateo did seem a bit more scornful than usual.

  —We need to know that your houses are safe for our people.

  —I need to know that your people are safe for my houses. I paid over two hundred grand each for those dumps!

  —Carlos needs to know.

  —Mateo, you guys figure it out. And I’ll tell you both this: If my houses in San Ysidro or Yuma get hit, I’m out of this business. And you guys have one bigass problem.

  —We are not the problem, Mateo said with a tone of finality. He sat back and gave Ozburn that sleepy look again.

  Ozburn’s anger spiked fast. He’d always had a temper, but for the last couple of months it had been growing steadily worse. The more he tried to contain it, the faster and harder it hit. And the more fun it was to just let it rip.

  He looked out at the heaving, gray Pacific and waited for the anger to pass before he spoke again. He had bigger fish to fry than three dead sicarios and a re-grout job on the bloody travertine.

  —I want to buy some of those Love 32s your people carry.

  Mateo gave him a glassy smile.

  —Only Carlos has the Love 32s, he said.

  —You told me he’d think about selling me some. Tell him I’m ready. I want one hundred of them.

  —Very expensive.

  —I’ve got a lot of money.

  —Only Carlos has those guns.

  —I heard that he has them made right here in Mexico.

  Mateo stared at him blankly.

  —By an American gunmaker. Can you imagine that, Mateo? An American gunmaker operating a secret factory south of the border? A factory protected by the North Baja Cartel? I’m in the business of guns. I hear these things, Mateo. I don’t make them up.

  Ozburn grinned. In fact, he was making part of it up. He knew for a fact that Blowdown had come that close to busting Ron Pace, a young California gunmaker, last year. Sean had worked that operation. But Pace had gotten lucky and his thousand pistols had made their way south to Mexico and into the hands of Herredia’s sicarios. He knew also that Pace and his pretty partner in crime had vanished from the U.S.A. So Ozburn wondered if Pace might be under the wing of Herredia, possibly even making guns for him. Guns were more valuable than gold in Mexico because you couldn’t get them legally. The fact that Mateo would have this conversation about the possible sale of Love 32s told Ozburn that such a thing was very, very possible.

  Mateo cracked a rare smile. His teeth were large and dilapidated and the bicuspids were rimmed with gold.

  —They are made by the devil in hell, just for us.

  —See, I was right.

  —Maybe some truth.

  —Tell Carlos I want to buy a hundred of them and I don’t expect them to be free. I can move them and make some good bucks if the price is right. Because I’ll tell you something, Mateo—at the rate your killers are getting themselves killed in my houses, I need a new profit center.

  Mateo’s smile brought another quick ripple of fury to Ozburn’s brain. He’d benched three hundred seventy pounds in the gym a week ago and he wondered how it would feel to strangle bare-handed the sinewy Sinaloan. Good indeed. But he’d have to settle for less right at the moment.

  So he leveled his pale blue eyes on Mateo and growled at him. It was a short, supple snarl. His lips were back and his teeth were sudsed with saliva.

  Mateo smiled sleepily but looked toward his gunmen near the beer cooler. They ambled over. From under the table unfurled Daisy, her back bristling, her head down and teeth bared at them.

  One of them swung his coat back to draw his sidearm, and Ozburn launched. He was six feet four and weighed two hundred forty pounds but he was fast as a thought. He had his autoloader pressed to the man’s forehead before the sicario could get his gun up, and his free hand placed around the throat of the gunman beside him.

  Ozburn growled again, this time at Daisy, and she dropped her tail and hung her head and slunk back under the table. Then Ozburn lowered his gun and took his hand off the man’s neck.

  —You guys sure get jumpy after a few beers. Sorry about the safe house shoot-up but that’s your problem, amigos, not mine. I’m not taking the rap for that or anything else the North Baja Cartel brings upon itself. Tell Carlos I won’t charge him a cleaning fee for my messed-up home. Tell Carlos anytime he wants to pull his boys out of San Ysidro and Yuma, that’s fine with me. I’ll get more rent on the open market, and no brains in my nice clean kitchens. And tell Carlos I want to buy a hundred of those Love 32s.

  He growled again, just a quick one, just a snarl, then clicked his tongue, and Daisy bounded out from under the table and led the way to the waiting car and Leftwich.

  Ozburn watched the rugged hills bounce past. He felt jacked up and itching for Seliah, no surprise there. Leftwich offered him the ancient, battered silver flask and Ozburn took a gulp of the powerful blend. Leftwich claimed to have invented it at seminary.

  “How did it go, Sean?”

  “Mateo’s suspicious but he can’t put me at the safe house. And he’ll have to tell Herredia I want the guns.”

  “Perfect.”

  Ozburn felt the drink melt down into him. It tasted of smoky tequila with a soft undertone that reminded him of honeydew melon. Woody and clean and just a little sweet. It was always cool, which was odd, considering the flask rode in the priest’s jacket pocket pretty much twenty-four/seven. Ozburn suspected cucumbers because of their unique thermal properties. Leftwich told him there were eight ingredients in it but wouldn’t tell him what they were.

  “My bones ache. My balls ache. I feel like biting people. I still hear mice walking two rooms away and I can hardly gag down a glass of clean water. Ever since I met you I’ve been falling apart, Joe.”

  Leftwich nipped, then offered the flask, and Sean drank again. “But coming together, too, wouldn’t you say? Strong as a horse and your eyesight is keen and you’re accomplishing something meaningful in your life. And I’ll bet you and Seliah are making some very powerful love.”

  “You don’t talk about her.”

  “I happen to be very fond of her.”

  “She wasn’t too happy about you drinking me under the table in Costa Rica.”

  “You drank you under the table in Costa Rica.”

  Ozburn glanced at the padre. Joe wore his usual black shirt and the stiff white collar. He wondered how the man could stay comfortable in those clothes all day, every day, in the border heat and dust. “You coming to Mulege or not?”

  “No, thank you, Sean. The Lord’s work awaits me in L.A.”

  Five hours later Ozburn climbed the stairs to the Mulege apartment with one young gunman ahead of him and one behind. The narcos seem to get younger every year, he thought. He carried a briefcase that had already been inspected by the lead boy, who had also thoroughly searched him for weapons. Ozburn was giddy with anticipation as he took the next step on his dark journey. Just a few days ago he had sent word out through one of his best informants to Benjamin Armenta, word that there were to be new machine pistols for sale, machine pistols with very special powers. And the Gulf Cartel had responded quickly to the news.

  The gunman knocked, and the door opened a moment later and Ozburn stepped inside. The apartment was poorly lit and smelled of cigarette smoke and chorizo and coffee. Ozburn thought it wasn’t much of a place for a powerful crime clan. Hard times in the narco trade.

  Seated at a small kitchen table was a large man wearing a white guayabera shirt, jeans, boots and sunglasses. His face was pitted.

  “My name is Paco.”

  “Gravas.”

  The gunmen joined a third young man and now the three of them stood with their backs
to the door. Kids, thought Ozburn. Sixty years of life between them. This is their future.

  Paco motioned to him. Ozburn set the briefcase on the table and opened it and turned it to face the big man like a jeweler displaying a watch in a case. Paco appeared to be staring at the Love 32, though Ozburn couldn’t see his eyes. Ozburn had already converted it to full automatic fire, inserted the fifty-shot magazine, extended the telescoping butt rods and screwed the noise suppressor onto the end of the barrel. You only get to make one first impression, he thought.

  “This is the Love Thirty-two, Paco.”

  The man lifted the gun in his big dark hand. His finger looked tight within the trigger guard and Ozburn wondered why they had to send a bear to test-fire a handgun.

  “You won’t be disappointed. Those four boxes of ACP ammo are my gift to you. If you decide not to buy these guns, I trust that you’ll get this one back to me. They run seventeen fifty a copy. Seventeen fifty.”

  “We are not thieves.”