Fifty Grand

BOOM.

Down. Hard. Nose cracking off the surface.

“Missed her!”

“I’ll try!”

Triage. Everything seems-BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM. Briggs, a gun in each hand. The right firing at the parking lot, the left shooting at me.

I lie flat on the ice, a tough shot for both men, as long as my friend keeps them pinned and I don’t stand up again.

They’re going to have to get lucky-but they need to be lucky only once and I need to be lucky all the time.

Use your brain, Mercado. Do something smart. Work ’em. Jack is the weak link. Work him while you make your way toward the backpack, six meters to the left, on the edge of a hole in the ice.

“I’m a federal agent! We’ve got you surrounded. Drop your guns and surrender and we’ll all get out of this in one piece,” I yell.

“You’re no fucking cop!” Briggs says.

“I’m an agent. Sheriff, this is crazy. You covered up a vehicular homicide. That’s not a huge crime in the big scheme of things. You’ll lose your job and get probation. You won’t do a day,” I yell, switching from the formal English we learned in school to the Yuma English of the movies and TV.

“If you’re the feds, where’s the SWAT team, where’s the fucking helicopters?” Briggs yells. He’s no dummy.

“They’re on the way, believe me. Now cease firing and let’s all get out of this alive,” I shout.

Briggs takes aim at me and pulls the trigger. The bullet whizzes over my head. Close, but he’s gotta stand to get the kill shot.

Work the others. “Crawford, you’re a veteran, you won’t do a night in prison. Jack, if you plea-bargain you’re looking at thirty days. We don’t need to lose our lives for this. I’m the one that’s fucked anyway.”

“What do you mean you’re fucked?” Crawford asks.

Another puff of ice, another rifle crack.

“I’m fucked because I didn’t have the authority to bring Youkilis up here,” I say. “I screwed this whole operation up.”

I slide slowly toward the backpack; its shoulder strap is in the water, the ice cracking around it. Please don’t fall, please don’t sink.

“You hear what she says, Briggs?” Crawford yells.

“You’ve done nothing wrong, Crawford, not a thing. If you kill me, a federal agent, it’s the death penalty,” I tell him.

“If you’re a fed, tell your buddy to stop shooting,” Briggs demands.

“My radio’s at the bottom of the lake. Just cease fire and drop your weapons,” I yell at him.

“What do you think, Sheriff?” Crawford asks.

“She’s fucking lying!” Briggs says.

Five meters from the backpack. Freezing water. Ice burns all over my fingertips.

“Let me show you my ID. We’ll see who’s fucking lying,” I shout. “Cease fire! That’s an order.”

“Yeah, you’ll all be fucking ok, but I’ll go to jail for manslaughter. My career will be finished,” Jack says.

“You’ll be fine. Vehicular manslaughter ain’t jail time, look at your buddy Matthew Broderick. I say we stop this madness right now,” Crawford says.

But the sheriff isn’t falling for any of this bullshit. He looks at me, smiles, and shakes his head. “She’s no fed. She’s got one friend. Two of them. Take ’em out one at a time. That’s the way we do it.”

“How?” Crawford wonders.

“Get a bead on the trees. Look for the muzzle flash and unload a fucking clip, pin him down. I’ll take her. And when she’s dead we’ll get across to the other side, away from our lone gunman and before all this fucking ice cracks.”

“Don’t listen to him, Crawford! It’s a death sentence!” I yell.

“She’s fucking lying,” Briggs says.

Two meters from the backpack. It’s sitting on top of a seven-centimeter fissure somehow defying gravity. Don’t fall. Don’t fall. I keep it from plunging to the lake bottom by sheer force of will.

“What do you want me to do, Sheriff?” Crawford asks.

“Don’t listen to him, Crawford. You’ve done nothing wrong at this point. I’m the only one in real trouble here! Jack, if they kill me, you’ll be accessory to a murder, you’ll get life in prison for that.”

“We’ve got to do what she says,” Jack yells desperately.

The crack widens, the backpack starts to tilt. I spread my weight and try to touch it.

“Like fuck we do! She’s a lying cunt,” Briggs says.

“We can’t just kill her. We’ll get-”

Closer… closer… closer.

“We’ll get nothing. She’s some dumb Mex on a fucking trip. Never find her. Crawford, you ready?”

I touch the backpack, grab it, start to unzip it.

“I’m ready,” Crawford says.

“Pin the rifleman, I’ll take her,” Briggs says.

Rifle shot. Muzzle flash.

Crawford gets up on one knee, bites through the pain of his wound, stands, and starts firing at the trees. But Briggs doesn’t keep his side of the bargain. He’s too chicken. He’s still trying to shoot me lying down. BOOM, BOOM, BOOM. All misses. Get up and kill me, asshole. Where’s your huevos? Thought you were a fucking war hero.

“Did you get her?” Crawford asks.

“Angle’s wrong,” Briggs replies. “Don’t worry, I’ll fucking kill the bitch. Keep plugging at that shooter.”

“Rifleman’s reloading,” Crawford says. “We got ten clicks.”

And now Briggs does stand up. All six foot five of him and still somehow wearing his fucking cowboy hat. He flinches, bracing himself for a bullet in the brain.

I rummage through the stuff in the backpack: pepper spray, ski mask, rope, duct tape, finally the loaded 9mm Stechkin APS pistol that hadn’t been cleaned or fired in years.

Briggs walks toward me, striding over the ice fissures, holding his.45 in both hands. Six meters away. Impossible to miss. He beads me, lifts the gun. “No more chances now, whore,” he says. His eyes narrow, focused, concentrating, his grin wide.

“None necessary,” I reply, sliding up my father’s pistol and shooting him in the neck.

Briggs falls to his knees, drops his weapon.

Hands at his throat, blood seeping between his fingers.

Ssssfff! The rifleman in the trees has evidently reloaded. Crawford hits the deck.

“Did you get her?” Crawford says.

The ice cracks beneath me as I walk to Briggs’s.45 and kick it into the water.

“Damn it, man, did you get her?” Crawford says, firing the last of his clip at the marksman in the woods.

The sun breaks over the tree line. New-born photons bisecting the lake into a world of shadow and a world of light. Water seeps into my shoes, I lose my balance, put my arms out, regain it, step over a widening fracture, and come up behind Crawford.

He turns.

“Cocksucker,” he says and slams home a fresh clip but can’t get off a round before I put one in his groin, one in his thorax above his body armor, and one in his mouth.

I wave at the man in the parking lot.

He stands up, waves back.

It’s too skinny to be Esteban. It has to be Paco.

I wave my hands over my head. “Stop! Stop! That’s enough! They’re dead.”

Silence and then a distant voice. “Are you ok?”