tires chirp and the car speed toward the highway. The voices of the gunmen were close now as they came down the dirt road toward their three fallen comrades.
'Miguelito! Jorge?'
'Capitan? Capitan?'
Where the alley ended, the moonlight began, and into this the two men stepped. Ozburn crouched, peering at them around the flank of the drum. One of them glanced into the darkness but did not see him. When the third man joined his fellows on the open ground, Ozburn rose from behind his cover and cut them down in a long, steady, back-and-forth burst. He braced the gun against the muzzle rise with his left hand. There was the clatter of the weapon and the whack of the bullets into the men and the pinging of the brass on the alley dirt, and blood and arms and blood and hands and blood and gasps thrown up into the night. In a moment Ozburn had stepped past them and into the dark alley, where he traded out for a fresh magazine, then secured his weapon close to his chest again and snapped the windbreaker shut.
He walked to the main street and saw the people loping excitedly for the alleys that would lead them to the dead men. These people looked as if they were participants in some game they didn't quite understand but were told would be fun. He realized they had little idea what had happened or what they might find in the dirt road behind the buildings of their village. They were hopeful. They were innocent. They were who he was doing this for.
Ozburn walked the other way, stopped and set the duffel down and bought a pack of Chiclets from a vendor with a tray of confections and cigarettes slung over the back of his neck. He continued down the nearly empty street and back to Josefina's, where the taxi was waiting for him, as requested. Same driver, and a brief smile for the big payday of hours ago. Ozburn heard frantic yelling from the direction of the massacre. He held the door open while Daisy jumped in and then he climbed in beside her. Twenty minutes later he was in the air, Daisy beside him, the few and scattered lights of Puerto Nuevo opening before him as the little airplane roared into the sky. What sound, what tremendous, singular sound! Ozburn buzzed above the village and he could see the tiny figures down in the dirt road in a ring of light, and they seemed to be coming and going with a purpose indiscernible.
He guided Betty over the black Pacific and climbed the breeze as up a soft-runged ladder, higher and higher until he banked north by northeast and headed toward the border. Flying east, he could see jovial Ensenada to his left and the great, violent sprawl of Tijuana beyond it.
Ozburn listened to the musical whine of the Piper engine, finally giving himself over to the sound. Melodies within melodies. He looked down at the lights of coastal Baja diminishing into the un-lighted blackness of the desert. At night his vision seemed to come alive. He saw none of the steady glare and the sharp reflections of daylight. He felt tears running down his face, tears of relief, tears sent by God to clear his eyes for the work ahead. He felt the return of the pains that had beset him for the last four weeks. They came upon him suddenly, like pigeons returning to their roost. Substantial, undeniable pain-the arches of his feet, joints, muscles, glands, teeth, even skin. And the ferocious ache for sexual release. He breathed twice, deeply, then held in the third breath for a count of three. Twice more. Better. Maybe.
He steered north toward Lake Arrowhead in California. He circled three times, then landed Betty in a meadow between stands of lodgepole pine and spruce. He taxied under a metal cover and tied down the plane. His feet and knees quaked in pain but the air was cool and clean and smelled of conifers. He walked to the Red Squirrel Lodge, where he had stayed with Seliah last spring for a wonderful weekend. They had neat little cabins with Wi-Fi and a free breakfast.
He asked for cabin eight because that was where he had stayed with her. When he let himself in and turned on the light their stolen hours came surging back on him like a rogue wave. He steadied himself on the door frame. Daisy flew past him and jumped on the couch. Ozburn went back to the porch and got the duffel and lugged it inside. He found his health supplements and vitamins and shook out a stronger dose than usual. Unwilling to drink or even look at a glass of water, he saved up his spit and swallowed them down. He was amazed how much saliva he could produce in just a few seconds. He chased the pills with a good, big shot of tequila.
He kicked off his boots and set the Love 32 beside him on the bed while the e-mails downloaded to his laptop.
There it was: From: Seliah [[email protected]] Sent: Saturday, October 15, 2011 5:45 p.m. To: Gravas, Sean Subject: our plan My Dear Sean, Okay, I give up. I have to be with you. I have no choice. My body and soul demand you and I was not given this life to play some extended game with the man I love. I would go to the ends of the earth for you, Sean, to the gates of heaven or even hell. You cannot know the ache I am for you. More on that later.
I realize that you can't write me without all of ATF intercepting your words, often before I even get them. But I can make plans with you, dear one, and they don't know unless I tell them.
So here goes.
First, here's a way for you to know if my email to you has been ordered or doctored by your criminal enemies or not.
If my salutation reads 'Dear Sean,' you will know that the email has been compromised by them.
If my salutation reads 'My Dear Sean,' then you will know that I've written it in private and no one will see it, ever, but you.
As a back-up, if my closing ever reads 'Your Loving Wife,' then you will know that the email is somehow compromised.
Simple.
So here is my plan. Meet me in the main bar at Rancho Las Palmas in Palm Desert tomorrow evening at seven o'clock. If I'm wearing sunglasses propped up in my hair get out of there as quickly and casually as you can-I have been followed or otherwise found out. I'll have our suite waiting for us.
If you agree to this plan, mention Daisy in your next email to me but mis-spell her name as: Daisey. I expect to see that name mis-spelled, Sean. Oh, please mis-spell it!
Sean, we had such a good time at that hotel a couple of years back, before all of this. I will see you there and love you there as you have never been loved before. After that, you and Betty will have to make room for one more. (I assume you're with her!) I'll pack very lightly. I'll have just enough with me to follow you to the end of the earth. Sean, we tried. We tried to follow the rules and walk the straight and narrow and do the right thing and all that blind obedience they drill into your brain from the time you can focus your eyes. All it did was make us crazy. Enough. It's all a crock. We're lighting out for the territory ahead, Sean. Strange new worlds. Infinity and beyond. You and me and Daisy. I hereby close this book I'm writing, and begin another.
In love and passion and the absolute knowledge that we will be together again.
Your Forever-Insane-For-You-Lover, who is about to send then delete this message, Seliah
PS-When can I get baptized?
Ozburn read the e-mail three times. Sometimes it was hard to concentrate through the noise and the aches.
The plan seemed so good.
So simple and workable.
So much like something Blowdown would think up.
He forced himself off the bed and dug out kibble for Daisy and got her some water. He went outside and stood for a while as the moon hung in the treetops and the pine trees hissed in the wind.
Fifteen minutes later Ozburn got another e-mail from Seliah. It was seven pages long, impassioned, anguished, mostly logical. He could hear her voice. He read it three times, too.
Sounds like something I'd write to her, he thought. He addressed another note to her but he couldn't figure out what to say. He walked outside and looked at the mountains again. Daisy came with him, then seemed to forget why. She sat and watched Ozburn stare out.
He went back into the cabin and paced the little room for a few minutes, trying to unknot his thoughts. He wanted so badly to see her but he knew it was dangerous. Maybe perilous. He smelled Blowdown behind this, smelled them strongly. He decided his answer would have to be no.
But after walking a few more lengths of the cabin, he realized that with a simple yes he would be holding her close to him this time tomorrow, showering her with all the splendid gifts he had waiting for her. And after that, they would be on his mission together, husband and wife, for better or worse, for life. Seliah, Betty and Daisy. All he loved. How could he refuse her? And himself? After all this?
Finally he hit the reply command and wrote back. Dear Seliah, I just had a walk outside. Beautiful night. I
