“Listen to you.” It was Nico, leaning back in his chair while Zipicana rose to his feet with a stagy air of menace. He doffed his suit jacket, then began unbuttoning the silver shirt, cuffs first, then the collar, then on down. “Who vouches for me?” He stripped the shirt off with a flourish, then lifted his welterweight arms, turning slowly to display the tattoos no laser had touched, his torso a billboard. A spiderweb covered his left shoulder, a black widow dangling on a thread, the number 13 on its back in a red hourglass, while from below a devil’s claw emerged from flames to clutch his heart. Two masks appeared on his right shoulder, one happy, one sad-Smile Now, Cry Later- with fist-size letters and numerals in chainwork down that side of his chest: M-S-1-3. The name Mara Salvatrucha scrolled in a vine down one arm, while down the other you could read amid florid decoration: Sleep with the maggots,
Happy glanced over at Vasco and gauged from his expression that he was thinking: Who vouches for this guy? The madhouse. The street. The devil.
“Let me tell you something,” Zipicana said, reaching for his shirt. “We don’t need you, am I right? What we got to sell, we can find a buyer. No problem. And whoever steps up, he gets more than five hundred kilos and a bunch of fucking bananas. He gets the crown, understand? So what you want to ask yourself”-he slipped on the shimmery silk shirt, fussed the collar into place-“is this: Do I want to rule or be ruled? Who do I want for partners? Who do I want for enemies? Because the storm is coming,
Out in the warehouse, a pallet crashed to the floor, followed by echoing curses. Vasco sat there fuming. “I ask for some sort of proof this is more than just wind,” he said, “you make threats. I’m supposed to sit here and take that. It’s a lot to ask, especially considering the other angle to this we still haven’t discussed.”
Zipicana, tucking in his shirttail: “You’re talking about the extra cargo coming up by separate carrier.”
“I’m talking about the fucking Osama you guys are bringing across the border.”
There, Happy thought, feeling both a flash of dread and a wave of relief. Please God, he thought, no foul-ups, no tech glitches. Meanwhile, Vasco ragged on. “You want me to front thirty grand, stick out my neck on something I want no part of, and in return you offer me take-it-or-leave-it, with a threat for good measure. I’m getting screwed three ways here with nothing but a promise for my trouble.”
Zipicana made a face like he understood. But. “Remember, we don’t know you.”
“You said I was vouched for.”
“We’re talking terms here. You want the plum job, you gotta go the extra mile. You don’t want to, don’t bitch about what you missed. Don’t come to me begging for your chance back.”
With his thumbs Vasco tapped out a furious rat-a-tat on the arms of his chair. One of the workers came up to the office window, pushed back his blue hard hat and knocked softly on the glass to get Nico’s attention. Nico held up five fingers. The guy shook his head, ambled off. Happy wondered if he was undercover too. Or the real owner, wanting his office back.
Zipicana sat down on the edge of Nico’s desk. “You say you want no part of this other thing, our lonesome friend who’s coming up to visit. What’s that about? You got some feeling for this shitbag country? You know what happened to Happy’s family here. I won’t bore you with my story. I’ll bet, though, your own family has a tale or two, am I right?”
Vasco met Zipicana’s eyes and, after a moment, nodded.
“Like they give a rat’s ass about us. Fuck us in a heartbeat and play to the cameras. You seen what I seen. You hear what I hear. To hell with this country. Nothing but fat fucks and loudmouths. Somebody wants to bring down Disneyland, Dodger Stadium, Golden Gate Bridge, Candlestick Park-
HOURS LATER, DURING DEBRIEFING, HAPPY ASKED LATTIMORE ABOUT Zipicana: Where did he come from? How did he know how to pinball Vasco so well?
“Liked his shtick, did you?” Lattimore sat at his cluttered desk, slogging through paper. Short-tempered from the monotony, he slammed his desk drawers, glared at the phone if it interrupted. “Yeah, Ol’ Zippy-hana, as we like to call him, sure knows how to put on a show.”
Happy could sense the shortness of temper cycling his direction. “I don’t get it. He pretty much said the same thing I-”
“Correct. And I ran through all that with Zippy, told him the weak spots in your improv, so to speak. Thought we had ourselves a meaningful chat. Turns out I should’ve saved my goddamn breath.”
“I don’t-”
“The point is to persuade him, Mr. Orantes, seduce him into the scheme, not box him in so bad he’s got no way out. Christ, Vasco, the dumb cluck, he doesn’t go along, what’s he looking at? Slavery, basically. Looking up at a woeful dipshit like Sancho Perata running his life. I’d call that hell on earth.” He began peeking under files, looking for his pen. “His real name is Chimo, by the way. Chimo Trujillo. Used to be a shot caller for the Normandie Locos till we got him on a carjacking beef.”
Happy wanted to get away from Lattimore’s resentment, but where would he go? They were all trapped now, caged together in the same machine, this lie.
“And of course Vasco sits there, ready for his close-up, and basically says, ‘You’re threatening me. What else can I do but agree to whatever you say?’ Lawyer’s gotta be brain-dead not to make hay with that.”
Happy’s stomach was roiling again. He would’ve popped out for a quick smoke if he hadn’t already ripped through his pack. “But Pitcavage said they always say that.” The weakness in his voice, the wishful thinking, even he could hear it. “And they always lose.”
“Yeah, and I’ve heard a lot of other things he’s said, right around the time things turn real.” Lattimore found his pen, opened a folder, fingered through the 305 reports already filed, searching out some forgotten detail like it was the most thankless chore of his life. “But ol’ Chimo, yeah. Guy could sell eggs to a goddamn chicken, I’ll grant him that.”
Fifteen
THEY GOT OUT OF THE CAR AND SMELLED THE POND FIRST, THE water foamy with scum. Chato made an ignorant crack, something about farmers and pigs, secrets of the barnyard. He’d been holding court the whole drive, a barky crank-fueled mania that only got worse when he fired up a blunt, sailing off into high bake: I’ll put in a good turd for you. Let me give you a turd of advice. Honest, dude, I give you my turd of honor. On and on and on-he must’ve said “turd of honor” a hundred times-to the point Godo had to resist the urge as the trunk popped open to grab the first gun he saw, shoot the little fucker right there, put him out of everyone else’s misery.
Luckily, the other two had grown sick of him too-Puchi, who’d driven, and a third guy Godo hadn’t met before, Efraim. They jumped on the kid and he shut up finally, at least as long as it took to unload the weapons: a Mossberg shotgun, a Glock with the ungainly eighteen-round mag, a more manageable Sig Sauer 9mm and three M16s, bought in pieces over the Internet and at gun shows, assembled by Efraim, who had quickly become Godo’s favorite of the bunch: quiet, capable and just a little haunted. By what, Godo wasn’t sure, but it made him feel a kinship.
Happy had pushed him into this. It’s for the family, he’d said, think of Tio Faustino. Vasco was a dick but they were all dicks. He was paying the freight, end of story. This is how the devil hands back your soul, Godo thought. It’s not a gift.
He’d mustered the foresight to push for an outdoor venue, not an indoor shooting range. Secretly, he’d feared the extra compression, the echo, all those weapons firing at once. He gave himself credit for not losing it on the
