The Chevy climbed a gentle rise, then took a sandy right turn and stopped. Nick followed and got out. Stood on the bluff top in the middle of the dead brown grass. Ocean across the highway, no clouds in the October sky. Burnt smell in the air.
Cortazar was dark and heavy. Mustache, nice smile, dark dome of head beaded with sweat. Big revolver on a thick belt, pants too big, cuffs dragging in the sand as he followed Lobdell to the back of the Red Rocket. His partner was Marcello. Young and thin and hardly spoke.
Nick swung open the door, flipped up the two small seats Willie and Stevie loved to use. Even with plenty of room up with Katherine, they’d sit back there and make faces at the motorists until Nick made them crawl back over and sit still and act like human beings. He missed the kids extra now, out here in the middle of this eternally burning nowhere.
Nick let Lobdell pull up the first burlap bag. Lobdell lifted it and looked around quickly. Cortazar chuckled but Marcello didn’t. Lobdell untied the top, took the bottom and emptied it onto one of the little red vinyl seats. Two.22 automatic handguns, six.38 revolvers, two.357 magnum revolvers, and four.45 autos.
Cortazar whistled. Marcello stared.
Nick and Lobdell had gotten them out of the property room. It was a verbal transaction, “approved” but deniable. The weapons had been confiscated from criminals. Not material to any pending cases. Not salable. Not useful. These would be listed as destroyed. One hundred seventy-four more where they came from and more coming every week. Most of them ended up in the ocean. Lobdell had said that these were destined for “undersupplied Mexican law enforcement personnel” in return for “information on an American beauty queen killer now residing out-of-country.” He told the property room sergeant they had enough on the guy to send him to the gas chamber twice. The property room sergeant had helped load them into Nick’s take-home. The truth was the Mexican cops would keep most of them for themselves because the cops in Mexico had trouble getting permits for personal firearms. And they could always use a good throw-down gun. Made Nick think of the Mexico charity runs that David’s church always made.
Nick had felt like a gunrunner bagging the weapons, then transferring the heavy, bulging bags into the family wagon under the bright lights of his garage last night. Katy had helped. And said for heaven’s sake don’t scratch my car and please be careful down there, there’s no way I can raise these kids alone. It was late after the dinner at David and Barb’s. The kids were asleep when Nick and Katy were done loading in the rifles and Katy switched off the garage light and pushed him onto the front seat of the Red Rocket and made love to him. Wouldn’t let him up until she showed him how she felt. Cried when it was over, just a little. Said please be really careful down there ’cause if you don’t come back I’ll wanna die but won’t be able to. Nick still couldn’t figure what had gotten into Katy since the Orange Sunshine extravaganza but he liked it. Miraculous, like they were eighteen again.
The second bag contained ammunition. It was good factory stuff, new and boxed. Courtesy of OCSD, said Lobdell as Cortazar smiled and nodded.
The rifles and shotguns were under the folded backseats. Nick pulled out the cases one at a time and handed them to Lucky. A Remington 12-gauge automatic, a Winchester 12-gauge pump, two Marlin.22 automatics, two old Springfields, and a nice bolt-action.30-06 with a custom stock and a good Weaver scope. And two surplus ammunition boxes, incredibly heavy as Nick yanked them up off the floorboards and carried them to the rear of the wagon.
“For ducks, coyotes, and deer,” said Lobdell.
“But of course,” said Cortazar with a chipper grin.
Marcello smiled slightly and Nick looked down into the rear bed of the Red Rocket and the twenty-one firearms and ammunition that lay there in the bright Baja sun.
“We can use these,” said Cortazar.
“You got them,” said Lobdell.
“We can use Bonnett,” said Nick.
“You’ll get him,” said Cortazar. “He will never remove another head.”
THEY BACKTRACKED to Rosarito and spent the night at the big hotel. They’d meet Cortazar the next morning and go get Bonnett. Cortazar didn’t say exactly how. But he didn’t want Bonnett’s people making two gringo cops in Ensenada. At the hotel they just looked like a couple of surfers down for the waves.
Kind of, thought Nick. They ate in the hotel dining room. Quiet on a Monday in fall. Nice view of the long flat beach. Horses and riders up and down the sand. Waves small and no surfers out. A gang of vultures and a gang of seagulls battled over a large black lump that had washed up. Seagulls seemed to be winning until the incoming tide rolled it loose and pulled it away.
Lobdell went to his room and Nick stayed in the cantina. He sipped a couple of shots of good tequila recommended by the bartender. Nick thought about Katy and the kids, then Clay, then Sharon. Couldn’t shake the feeling that the family would never be together again like the night before. Worried about David. Pale and quiet and peaceful like someone going into shock.
NEITHER NICK nor Lobdell could sleep long so they drank coffee, had breakfast, and waited for Cortazar. The Ensenada cop said there was no reason to do this early. In Mexico good things never happen early. No, go late and be relaxed.
Just before noon Cortazar’s beaten Chevy appeared behind the cantina. Cortazar waved. Marcello sat beside him, thin as a switchblade. Behind the Chevy was a low-slung black Mercury with big rust spots and mismatched wheel covers. Four more men, staring straight ahead like you might overlook them. Nick looked at each face, notched them into memory.
He fell in behind the Mercury and picked up Highway 1 south. Cortazar had explained that Bonnett would talk to him because the men in the Mercury had vouched for him. The men were not cops. They were marijuana businessmen from Nayarit. “Friends” of Bonnett. Actually, they were cops, it was just that Bonnett didn’t know this. The purpose of this meeting was for Cortazar to present himself to Bonnett as an agreeable Ensenada policeman eager to discuss a private airstrip owned by business-minded friends. Marcello was with him to establish Cortazar’s “seriousness.” Cortazar said that the six cops would control the situation and return to Nick and Lobdell with a handcuffed Señor Bonnett. Simple.
When Nick had asked him how many people were inside Bonnett’s compound, Cortazar had shrugged and frowned as if Nick had missed a crucial point.
Cortazar’s Chevy pulled off the highway at a signal, followed by the black Merc. Nick fell in behind and the caravan headed east. The road was dirt and wide and Nick clipped along at forty in a traveling cloud of dust. Saw a rock-pile memorial with plastic flowers faded by the sun. Then the road turned to washboard and Nick saw the camp gear jump into the air in the rearview and heard the shudder of shocks and the chatter of the dashboard like every nut and bolt was coming loose.
“Knock the fillings out of your teeth,” said Lobdell. “But they got good dentists down here. Cheap.”
Nick couldn’t see much through the dust. Just scrub and brown grass hills. Some skinny cattle behind a fence of barbed wire and twisted branches. A post with a hubcap nailed on top to mark someone’s driveway. A heavy old woman with her hair in a bun squinting at them as they went past.