'Hands on top of the car, and spread your legs.'
Payne did as he was told, and Dixon patted him down, dealing out a painful smack on the scrotum.
'Hands behind your back.'
Payne followed orders meekly, and the deputy cuffed him.
Dixon picked up the revolver, sniffed the barrel, rotated the cylinder. 'I'm gonna call this in, Payne. You stay right where you are.'
When the deputy was out of earshot, Payne said, 'Where'd you get the gun, you little shitbird?'
'That cabron 's underwear drawer.'
'Quinn? You stole Cullen Quinn's gun!'
'I thought we might need some firepower, vato.' Tino gave Payne a sheepish look. 'Sorry, Himmy.'
Dixon strode back to the Lexus, moving quicker now. 'There's a warrant out for your arrest, Mr. Payne. Grand Larceny.'
'I gotta pee,' Tino said, moving toward the berm.
'I'll level with you,' Payne told Dixon. 'I'm not the boy's father.'
'No shit.'
'We're looking for his mother.'
'Uh-huh.'
'God's honest truth. She came over the border with a coyote and disappeared.'
'That's a shame.'
'C'mon, Deputy. It's a missing persons case. Your job, right?'
'My job's taking you in and turning the boy over to I.C.E. They got something called 'Return to Sender.' A one-way ticket back to Mexico.' Pronouncing it mehee-ko and grinning.
'Have a heart. The boy has no father. His mother is missing.'
'I got all that. But why are you looking for her?'
'Because I'm trying to change my life.'
'You just did. You're under arrest, Payne. You have the right to remain stupid. Any shit you say can be used against you in a court of law. If you cannot afford a shyster, the state will provide one.'
'I should warn you I'm very close to Governor Schwarzenegger.' In truth, the closest Payne ever got was sitting in the third row of Terminator 2.
'Didn't vote for him. Now take a seat in the back of my cruiser.'
Boom!
Startled, Dixon wheeled around.
'Jesus!' Payne yelled.
Tino stood in front of the police car, 12-gauge shotgun in hand. He'd sneaked into the police car and grabbed the gun from its rack. Now the front right tire of the car was shredded, aflame, and reeking of burnt rubber. Tino racked the shotgun and swung it toward the deputy.
'Hands up, gabacho.'
'Mr. Payne, tell the boy to put down the gun.'
'Tino, chill out,' Payne ordered.
'He takes you in, Himmy, they'll send me back.'
'Better than prison,' Dixon said. 'They'll whack your skinny ass like a pinata.'
'I'm a juvie,' Tino said. 'A shrink will give me some pills.'
'Tino,' Payne pleaded. 'Trust me. You're doing this all wrong.'
' Mami needs me. I got no time to fuck around.' Tino motioned toward the deputy with the barrel of the shotgun. 'Drop your gunbelt.'
'Nope. Not gonna do it.'
Tino swung the barrel into the open window of the police car and fired. The blast shattered the radio, reducing it to a smoking mass of melting plastic and metal. He pumped the shotgun again and whirled it back toward the deputy.
No one moved. Tino's narrow shoulders were pinched tight, his face slick with sweat. The gun barrel unsteady in his hands.
Payne pictured a horrific accident, the cop's head blown off. 'Tino, you're scaring the shit out of me. Please put that gun down.'
The boy ignored him and kept his eyes on Dixon. 'The gunbelt, senor. I have killed many men for less.'
'No you haven't, Tino,' Payne said.
'Okay, let's do it your way, chico.' Dixon lowered his heavy belt to the sandy soil and kicked it away.
Tino's shoulders relaxed.
It took only a second. The cop dropped to the ground, tucked, and rolled into a gulley behind a creosote bush at the edge of the road. Still moving, he snatched a small pistol from an ankle holster, got to one knee, and aimed at Tino through the leafy plant.
The boy ducked behind the cruiser, then turkey-peeked over the hood.
The cop fired, the shot shattering a side window.
Tino lifted the shotgun over the hood and aimed toward the bush.
'Tino. No!' Payne yelled.
The boy ducked as a second pistol shot echoed over the hood of the car.
Payne circled the Lexus and belly-crawled off the road. It would have been easier if his hands weren't cuffed, but he managed to wriggle, face-first, into the gulley. Twenty feet away, the deputy was obscured behind creosote bushes and a jumping cholla cactus.
'Throw down the shotgun, kid!' Dixon hollered.
'No way!' Tino was still crouched behind the cruiser.
'I don't want to shoot you.'
Payne struggled to his feet and waited. If the cop fired again, his ears would ring for a few seconds. He would never hear Payne tearing through the bushes.
'Kid, you listening to me? I don't care if you're still wearing diapers, I'll put a hole in you.' Dixon fired over the top of his cruiser.
Payne raced through the creosote bushes. Took a breath. Inhaled the scent of coal tar. Planted a foot just in front of the cholla and leapt. If his bum leg didn't hold, he would be impaled by hundreds of deadly spines.
He barely cleared the cactus. Dixon never looked up, and Payne's shoulder caught him squarely in the back, flattening him. Dixon's breath exploded with a whoosh, and his pistol slid across the sand. He was facedown, eating dirt, as Payne slid off him.
'Mo-ther-fuck-er,' the deputy snarled, leaking blood from a split lip.
Tino jogged over, shotgun still pointed at Dixon. 'Way to go, Himmy.'
'You two assholes are both cooked.'
'Handcuff key,' the little gangster ordered.
The cop tossed him the key. Tino held the shotgun in one hand, unlocked Payne's cuffs with the other.
Adrenaline pumping, heart racing, Payne scanned the road. A trailer truck roared past, heading north, the driver oblivious.
Now what?
Payne knew all about the fight-or-flight response. They had just fought. Now it was time to flee. But to where? All he could see was prison. Beatings, boredom, starchy food.
'Himmy, we got to get going.'
'Right.'
Payne ordered Dixon back into his cruiser and cuffed him to his steering wheel. The deputy unleashed a string of curses.
Tino was already back in the Lexus. Payne got in, sat there a moment, both hands resting on the steering wheel.
'Himmy, go!'
Payne gunned it, burning rubber, heading south on State Route 86. Then Tino, a kid full of surprises, did something Payne never expected. He burst into tears.
