“Sally, gather the staff,” the man says to a pert woman in a pink dress.
A minute later three uniformed cops are scoping us. Note the badges. A. J. Klein, M. Episco, J. Crawford. All of them around forty. Crawford, a brown-haired skinny cop with a scar on his lip, is probably the oldest, probably the second in command, for I realize now that the man who drove us here must be the sheriff or the chief of police.
“Get a good look, boys. These are the newbies. Couple of Mexes. This one’s called María, from the Yucatán, the other one’s called… What’s your name again, son?”
“Francisco.”
“Francisco-from Juárez, he says. She won’t be whoring, so if she is, I want to know about it. Both of them will be living with Esteban and he’s responsible for them. If either of them fuck up, you tell me.”
“Yes, Sheriff,” the men respond.
The sheriff turns to us. “You two, these are my deputies. You do everything they tell you to do, always. First step out of line and it’s the fucking federal detention center in Denver. Get me?”
“Sí, señor,” we say in unison.
“My name is Sheriff Briggs. This is my town. It’s a peaceful little spot. We got our problems but we ain’t had a murder in five years and if it wasn’t for teen suicide we wouldn’t ever make the papers. That’s the way I want it. Either of you step out of line, cause me the slightest fucking headache, you’re history. Understand?”
I nod and Paco says, “Yes, sir.”
“We got a sweet deal and it’s only going to get sweeter if we play our cards right. I ain’t telling no secrets if I let you all know that certain parties are eyeing Fairview as the Clearwater of the Rockies. And if the Scientologists do move in en masse we’re all going to make a lot of money. That’s why we don’t want any trouble from anyone.”
“No, señor.”
The sheriff turns to his deputies. “Burn them into your retinas, boys, I don’t want you relying on no crib sheet, I want you to know instantly who belongs and who doesn’t in my patch.”
The deputies examine the pair of us. Crawford winks at me.
Yes. Look hard. Do you know what you’re seeing? Ask your boss, he saw it too.
“Did you get a good gander, boys?” the sheriff asks.
They nod.
“Good, then get the fuck back to work.”
They scatter. Briggs smiles and then clouds as he spots an empty Starbucks cup lying there in broad daylight next to, but not in, the trash can. He grabs the unsuspecting cup from off the pristine floor tiles and throttles it into a paper tube.
He tosses it in the trash can and shakes his head.
“Oh, one last thing,” he says, and he takes a quick photograph of us with a digital camera.
The sheriff leads us outside to the Escalade. The sun has set behind the mountains and I notice that the streetlamps on Pearl Street are ornate wrought-iron affairs like the ones you used to see in the Vieja. These are fake old, though. Brand-new fake old.
“How do you like my sheriff’s station?” Briggs asks us.
“Very beautiful.”
“Proud of it. Special bond issue to get it built. I hope that’s the last time you’ll ever be inside it.”
“Sí, señor.”
We drive back along Pearl Street. Hermès, Brooks Brothers, Calvin Klein, another Versace. A Scientology drop-in center with a golf cart parked outside. Small dogs, a few more men, but still mainly women. Stick women, pipe-cleaner women, women with great heads on rail-thin frames. If this were Havana they’d be tranny whores. But in Fairview they’re überblondes and trophy wives with money. Here and there a dark-skinned man is emptying the trash bins or a very young foreign girl is pushing someone else’s child in a stroller. The dark-skinned men step onto the road to let the whites pass; step into the gutter while the tall ladies talking on cell phones keep their straight line. Cuba is no racial paradise-the Communist Party is 1 percent black while the prison population is 80 percent black-but even so, I’ve never seen anything like that before.
It makes me feel good.
Good because I’m going to need anger to carry out this plan of ours.
“Ok, busy day, next stop Wetback Mountain,” Briggs says as we turn left at the traffic light.
Five-minute drive out of town. More trees, narrower road. We stop at a shit-color two-story building not far from what is obviously a major highway. Before the sheriff pulls into the parking lot a large man with wild salt-and-pepper hair and a black beard waves him down.
Sheriff Briggs double-clutches the Escalade and the man gets into the front passenger’s seat.
“Drive,” the man says.
“What?”
“Drive. Away from here.”
“What’s going on?” the sheriff asks.
“INS.”
“Christ.”
“Yeah, but we’re lucky they came now. Everyone’s still working.”
“You get a tip-off?”
“Hell, no. We just got lucky. Did you listen to the radio? Raids in Denver, Vail, Boulder, Aurora, the Springs.”
Sheriff Briggs accelerates out of the lot and drives down to the highway.
“Where to?” he asks.
“Just drive. It’s finishing. Two INS guys and a couple of FBI to back them up. Bastards. They got three of my girls and that kid from Cabo. I hope to God they didn’t make it to the construction site.”
Sheriff Briggs nods at us. “Well, I got two replacements for you, Esteban.”
So this is Esteban. Ricky’s sheet: Mexican parents but born here. University-educated. Big guy but athletic. Plays soccer in a Denver Mexican league and even rugby-a violent game I only have vague notions about.
Esteban turns. “What are you talking about? Where are the others?” he asks in perfect English with no trace of an accent at all.
“I just took these, the others didn’t look good,” the sheriff says.
“Are you fucking crazy? We’re shorthanded as it is, we need every hand we can get. There was supposed to be five coming in. We need them all.”
“I said I didn’t like the look of them.”
“You didn’t like the… Shit, you fucked up, Briggs, the INS has grabbed God knows how many of my men and now you-”
But before he can finish the sentence, Sheriff Briggs takes a 9mm out of his pocket.
He doesn’t point the gun at Esteban. Drawing it is enough, and face red with fury, he can barely speak. “Listen to me, you wetback motherfucker. This is my town. You’re here on fucking sufferance. I can fucking disappear you anytime I fucking want. Never talk to me like that again. Do you fucking understand, bitch?”
“I’m an American, Briggs, I’m a citizen just like you, you can’t-”
“I can do anything I damn well fucking please,” the sheriff says. Veins throbbing. Knuckles white.
Esteban looks at the sheriff and the gun. He doesn’t flinch. Makes me think that Briggs has pulled this one before or else Esteban is made of sterner stuff. Hasn’t been a murder in five years, he said. I wonder if that includes dead Mexicans?
Finally Esteban smiles. “You want an apology? Of course. I apologize. We’re friends. We work together.” He even forces a laugh. “Oh, Sheriff, why do you have to be so dramatic?”
Briggs puts the gun back in his coat pocket, satisfied. “Good. Now take a look at what I got ya at the auction block.”
Esteban turns and smiles at the pair of us. “Two hard workers, I can tell,” he says.
“We’ll see. They better work hard. I make this a tough town for slackers. Now let’s circle back to your motel and deal with these fucking feds and see what’s going on,” Briggs mutters.
“Welcome to Fairview,” Esteban says, and adds with a grin, “Don’t worry, it’s not always this exciting. It’s normally very dull.”
Yeah, I’ll bet, but I’ll do my best to change that.
5 WETBACK MOUNTAIN