Agent Gonzales shook his head.
'That says it all about our immigration policies.'
A WHUMP WHUMP WHUMP sound came from beyond the tree line and then over the trees came a half dozen helicopters, like a scene out of Apocalypse Now.
'Who the hell are they?' Agent Gonzales said.
'Network and cable TV,' Jim Bob said.
'Who called them?'
'I did.'
The DEA agent stared at Jim Bob as if he were nuts then walked off just as Mandy arrived and said, 'Shit.'
'What's wrong?'
She grabbed Bode's shoulder to steady herself then lifted her foot.
'I stepped in shit.'
Bode turned to his political strategist but pointed up at the helicopters.
'Why'd you call the media?'
'Because this is it.'
'This is what?'
'Your one big play. Your game changer. You wanted it-you got it.'
'What the hell are you talking about?'
The Professor aimed a finger in the direction of the three men Bode had killed.
'Those dead Mexicans… they're your ticket to the White House.'
Jesse held the dead rattlesnake high as they entered the small cafe.
'Luis! Look what I have brought for you.'
Luis Escalera, the proprietor, came around from behind the bar.
'Jesse! Mi amigo. What have you there?'
Jesse gave the snake to Luis. He would fry the rattlesnake meat and make a fine belt from the skin. Jesse had brought his nurse into town on her first day for lunch at his favorite cafe, a small colorful place with good food and a large television on the wall above the bar showing the Houston Astros baseball game on cable. They sat at a table near the bar. Pancho lay at their feet.
'This afternoon,' Jesse said, 'I will take you around the colonia and introduce you to the residents. And perhaps this evening you would like to go to a restaurant, a place with music?' He lowered his voice. 'We will leave Pancho at home.'
She smiled, and it was a nice smile.
'I would like that very much.'
The governor's wife gazed at him from across the table, but Jesse saw the governor's face. On the TV behind her.
'Look.'
She turned in her chair to see the screen. 'Breaking News' ran below the image of the governor standing in front of a clump of microphones and surrounded by Latino children. Lindsay stood and walked over to the bar. Jesse followed.
'Luis, please turn up the volume.'
Luis did, and they heard the governor speaking.
'I was sighting in a feral hog from up on that ridge when a young girl ran from this tree line, chased by three men on dirt bikes. I could see through the scope that she was just a kid. They ran her down, slapped her, pointed guns at her. I figured they were gonna kill her, so I shot them before they could shoot her.'
'He shot someone?' the governor's wife said.
The camera caught three other people standing off to one side of the governor: a bald pudgy man, a big Texas Ranger, and a young blonde woman. She was very pretty. The governor's wife pointed at the woman's image on the screen.
'That's Mandy. He's having an affair with her.'
Mandy Morgan gazed upon the governor of Texas. She had loved Bode Bonner from the first moment she had met him, in his office the day she hired on. He was tall, he was handsome, and he was twenty years older than her. All of her affairs had been with older men.
Was she seeking a father-figure, as her therapist had suggested?
Her father had died when she was only seven. He was not there when she was crowned homecoming queen or prom queen. He was not there when she graduated high school or college. He would not be there to give her away at her wedding. She could not remember a father's love or his arms around her.
She felt safe in Bode Bonner's arms.
She loved him, and he loved her. He hadn't said it, but she knew it. She wanted to be his wife, but he had a wife. But his wife had moved out of their bedroom, so Mandy had moved in-at least when his wife was out of town or they were. The governor's wife refused him sex, so she had stepped in to give the governor what he needed. She thought of it as her civic duty.
The satellite phone she was holding rang. She answered.
'This is the governor's wife. Put Bode on.'
'Mrs. Bonner, he's giving a press conference. I'll have him call you back.'
'I'll hold.'
'Yes, ma'am.'
Lindsay covered the phone with her hand.
' Ma'am. She calls me ma'am, like I'm old enough to be her mother.' Lindsay sighed. 'Maybe I am.'
She turned back to the television. 'DEA Agent Gonzales' now spoke into the microphones.
'These dead Mexicans, they were just teenagers, throwaways south of the border. The cartels recruit them off the streets because they've got nowhere else to go, train them as smugglers and assassins. No one's gonna miss these boys.'
The camera captured close-up images of three bodies spread out on the ground like dead gunslingers in those old Western photos. They were young with tattoos on their arms. The camera panned slowly over their vacant faces. The last face seemed vaguely familiar, as did the LM tattoo in fancy script on his left arm. Lindsay pointed at the screen.
'Oh, my God! Jesse, is that-'
Jesus.
Enrique de la Garza reached up to the big television screen on the wall of his Nuevo Laredo office and gently touched his dead son's image. He had sent his first-born son to Tejas to become a man-but not a dead man. Not a man shot down like an animal in a big-game hunt by the governor of Texas. To be stuffed and displayed on a wall. No, that was not what he had intended when he sent his son across the Rio Bravo del Norte. Yet… there his son lay. Dead. Shot in the back. Twice. Like an animal. By the governor of Texas. Whose Anglo image now filled the screen. Who smiled broadly and held the rifle that he had used to murder Enrique's son. Who stood over the dead body of Jesus de la Garza for the cameras like a proud hunter showing off his trophy kill.
'I would very much like him dead,' Enrique said.
Hector Garcia rose from the sofa and came over to Enrique.
'You want to kill the governor of Texas?'
'Yes. Very much.'
'But, jefe, we have never before killed an American politician.'
'We have killed Mexican politicians. We have dispensed justice to corrupt mayors, governors, police chiefs, federales… Why can we not kill an American governor? Why can we not dispense justice north of the river?'
'Oh, we can kill him. That will be easy. But the gringos, they will send troops to the border. They will seek venganza. They will demand justice.'
'It is I who seek revenge. It is I who demand justice. They killed my wife, Hector, but I did not seek revenge then because it was a mistake. I did not kill the gringos then because that would not have been justice. But this… this was no mistake. He murdered my son.'
Enrique de la Garza now addressed the governor of Texas on the television.
