Loaded Dice

the highway.

“Take that,” he said.

Gerry drove down the road in a cloud of dust. Soon a gas station came into view. The building was abandoned and sagged drunkenly to one side. Nailed to its rusted tin roof was a crude, hand-painted sign. BOULDER AUTO RESTORERS. NO JOB TOO SMALL.

Behind the gas station was another tin-roofed structure. Pointing at it, Amin said, “I’m meeting my friends there.”

Gerry spun the wheel, no longer feeling good about things. Friends met at bars and restaurants, not behind abandoned buildings in the desert. Something bad was going down. He drove around back to an auto graveyard filled with car skeletons and pyramids of empty lacquer cans. The air was chemically ripe, and he crushed his cigarette in the ashtray.

A beat-up station wagon was parked in the lot’s center. Two stern-faced Mexican men stood beside it. In their thirties, with jet-black hair and complexions the color of pencil erasers. Gerry glanced sideways at Amin. “These your friends?”

“Yes,” Amin said.

He parked a hundred feet from where the Mexicans stood. Then glanced at the paper bag sitting on the floor between Amin’s feet. He’d assumed it was food that Amin had brought for the trip. Now he knew otherwise.

“You packing?” Gerry asked him.

Amin ignored the remark. Grabbing the paper bag, he climbed out of the car. He started walking toward the two Mexicans and waved. The Mexicans waved back.

Pash leaned between the two front seats. “Is something wrong?”

“You bet there is.”

Pash’s face begged for an explanation.

“They’re border rats. Smugglers. Your brother set me up.”

“Set you up how?”

“He asked me to come as backup. In case these guys got any funny ideas.”

“You do not trust these men?”

Gerry shook his head. Back when he’d run a bookmaking operation in Brooklyn, a local hoodlum had brought two Mexicans by and tried to talk him into bankrolling a cocaine run out of Mexico. Gerry had listened because he was interested in how these things worked, then said no thanks.

What he’d learned was that border rats had become popular in the smuggling world since 9/11. Bribing border guards to ignore a truckload of cocaine was a thing of the past. Contraband was having to take different routes, and border rats were cheap alternatives. They carried the drugs on their backs, entering the country with illegal immigrants in southern New Mexico’s boot heel.

Amin’s friends looked menacing. Short and broad-shouldered, with steely glints for eyes and sweatshirts that hung over their belts. Gerry guessed they were packing heat. The Mexicans he’d met in Brooklyn had been.

“How well does Amin know them?” he asked.

“They’ve met once before,” Pash replied.

Gerry spun around in his seat and stared at him. “And Amin is about to give them a bag of money? Is he crazy?”

“You think they’ll kill him?”

“Of course they’ll kill him.”

“But they come highly recommended.”

“By who? Pablo Escobar?”

Pash’s eyes turned as big as silver dollars. “Oh, no,” he muttered under his breath. “Something is wrong.”

Gerry stared out the windshield. One of the Mexicans was holding stacks of money in his hands. His partner was pointing at the money and shouting. Gerry didn’t have to understand Spanish to get the argument’s drift. Amin had delivered less than he’d promised. That happened a lot in drug deals.

Only Amin wasn’t apologizing. He needed to fall on his sword and let the Mexicans have their pride restored. Amin was just standing there, talking calmly.

“He’s asking for trouble,” Gerry said.

Amin took something from his pocket. It looked like a casino chip. He offered it to the Mexicans, finally extending the olive branch. The shouting Mexican knocked it out of his hand, then went for his gun.

Amin lifted his shirt and drew his own piece. He was lightning-fast, and shot the Mexican three times in the chest. The Mexican’s gun discharged into the ground. He staggered backward and fell against the skeleton of a car.

The Mexican holding the money was helpless, and looked at Amin as if to say Now what? The guy was cool, Gerry thought. Telling Amin with a shrug that he’d settle for less, no harm done. A real businessman.

Amin lowered his gun. He reached for the battered briefcase the Mexicans had brought. Had his fingers on the handle when the Mexican leaning against the car came to life and started shooting. There were bullet holes in his sweatshirt, but no bloodstains. He’s wearing a vest, Gerry thought.

His partner ran for cover. The Mexican doing the shooting hid behind the pyramid of lacquer cans and kept letting off rounds. He was a crummy shot, but Gerry knew he was eventually going to hit Amin, who was standing in the open. Then the Mexican would come after him and Pash, and get rid of his witnesses.

“The car,” Pash said. “Drive it between them.”

Gerry shook his head. That would only get them shot. He looked out his window at the cans lying nearby. The labels said PAINT REMOVER. He jumped out and started shaking them. Finding one half-filled, he unscrewed the lid, pulled a snot rag out of his pocket, and made a Molotov cocktail.

“I need a light,” he told Pash.

Pash found his cigarette lighter and jumped out of the car. He made a flame appear, and turned the snot rag bright orange.

Gerry came around the car with the burning can in his outstretched hand. Running three steps, he threw the flaming can over his head with all his might. As it soared through the air, Amin, who was crouching on the ground, craned his neck to watch.

The flaming can landed on the pyramid and toppled it. There was a loud pop! as everything that was flammable caught fire at once. An orange wall rose up around the Mexican, and he screamed. Gerry could feel the heat from where he was standing. The Mexican ran out from his hiding place covered in flames.

Pash appeared at his side. “The human torch,” he mumbled.

They watched the Mexican run into a nearby field, his clothes throwing off black smoke. His partner ran in the opposite direction, the stacks of money clutched to his chest. They got in the car, and Gerry floored it. He jammed the brakes a few yards from where Amin stood. He saw Amin pick up a brown casino chip from the ground. He wondered if the Mexican had realized that it was worth five thousand dollars.

Amin dragged the briefcase across the dirt and got in. Smoke began to pour out of the ground, and Gerry stared at flames that seemed to rise an inch every second. Their motion was sensuous, almost taunting.

“Hold on,” he said.

He was doing seventy down the dirt road leading back to Highway 93 when he heard a muffled explosion. Slowing down, he turned in his seat. Everything behind them was on fire: the abandoned gas station, the auto graveyard, even the adjacent field. Had he not known better, he would have sworn that a giant bomb had just been set off.

Amin touched his sleeve. “Thank you for saving my life.”

“You’re a lying son-of-a-bitch,” Gerry said. “You know that?”

27

You realize that I’m ruined,” Nick said as they rode downstairs in the elevator.