When Ozburn finally settled behind a boulder for a concealed look he could see that the enforcer's SUV was still parked where it had been. He could hear music spilling out from the building, then laughter. When he had caught his breath Ozburn picked his way down the hill on a game trail and soon he was pressed up against the back of the building, Daisy at his feet, a machine pistol ready in each hand.
He quietly picked his way along the perimeter. The music was a narcocorrido and the voices were of three men. He heard a beer can spit open. When he came to a window he motioned Daisy to stay, then ducked beneath it and sidled past. Rising to a crouch he hustled around the corner, then snuck beneath another window and stopped just short of the open front doorway. Laughter and an accordion. Laughter and profanities. Another can popping open. Daisy had broken her stay and now came crawling around the corner on her stomach, ears down in penance and an apologetic look on her face. Repentance, thought Ozburn. You want repentance-watch this.
Ozburn motioned her again to stay; then, guns up, he burst through the door for the second time that day.
All three men stared at him in disbelief. Two had beers in their hands instead of weapons. El Gigante sat hugely on one of the battered old couches and Ozburn knew that he could shoot both of the beer-drinking bad guys before their leader could get off the couch, and he saw that Teodoro knew it, too.
He ordered the two men to their knees and they took their positions with doomed expressions on their faces. One bowed his head and prayed. Ozburn ordered Teodoro to join them and he tracked the big man's slow movements with one of the Love 32s. Teodoro finally righted himself and lumbered toward Ozburn. When the big man came abreast of his comrades he did not kneel but instead lunged forward at Ozburn. Ozburn stepped aside deftly and let the gun in his right hand swing free on the shoulder sling. He hit Teodoro's jaw with an uppercut so hard the big man stopped and straightened, then dropped to the floor. When Teodoro managed to get to his knees Ozburn leveled a machine pistol at his forehead.
Daisy sat in the doorway wagging her tail.
– Do you repent, Ozburn asked in Spanish.
– I repent.
– I repent.
– I'll find you in hell and kill you, said Teodoro.
Ozburn looked down at the big man's quivering face, the dark, searching eyes, the jagged edge where the ear had been.
– Who has the vehicle keys?
Teodoro nodded toward the TV and Ozburn saw the fob and keys sitting beside the rabbit-ear antenna. He retrieved the keys and stuffed them into a vest pocket without taking his eyes off the men.
– Touch your faces to the floor, all of you.
ATF training was to never get on the ground on orders from an armed opponent: You will almost certainly be executed. Stay on your feet. Stay on your feet. Ozburn knew that trained or not, the cartel men understood this. The two smaller men lowered their heads to the concrete. One began to sob. He offered five thousand U.S. dollars for his life. Then ten thousand. Then ten million. Teodoro stared down at the floor muttering words that Ozburn couldn't understand. He caught the word Malverde, patron saint of the narcos, and that was all.
– I've bet the life of my wife on this moment. Her name is Seliah.
With that, Ozburn let go of the left gun and brought the last three crucifixes from his vest pocket. He moved from man to man, left to right, working the leather necklaces over their heads with his left hand and the barrel of the machine pistol he held in his right. Teodoro's head was too big so Ozburn dropped the crucifix to the floor in front of him where it landed with a clear tap.
– The god I no longer know has asked me to spare your lives. He says he can save Seliah. We'll see about that, won't we? Stay where you are until I'm safely away or I'll certainly kill you all. Ozburn drove back to his car and shot flat the tires of the SUV, then took the Mercury to the spring near Atil and stayed in the wilderness three days. He ate the bread and pastries and forced himself to drink the water he'd bought at the panaderia. There was a blanket and a heavy jacket in his duffel on top of the bricks of tightly wrapped cash. He had enough kibble in the bag for Daisy, who seemed perfectly content to sleep under the stars, her back to him for warmth. Ozburn's body was alternatingly numb or pain-riddled. Hours were minutes and seconds stretched to days. He hallucinated and wailed and sobbed when the pain was upon him, and he slept through the numbness. He slept for what seemed like a lifetime. He awakened to music, terrifying music so loud his eardrums pounded in pain. His visions were of violence and beasts that he knew did not exist, then of Seliah, whose beauty burst away the ugliness but when he could no longer hold her image the terrors returned and were worse.
The evening of his second day he lit a fire against the chill and just before dusk he saw the black SUV roll to a stop in the distance and Teodoro and his two associates climb out of it. Ozburn and Daisy sat side by side on a hillock and watched them come across the desert toward them. They carried weapons and made no effort to conceal themselves. When they were a few hundred yards away Ozburn saw the three men in the hooded sweatshirts walking across the moraine toward them. Ozburn watched the Mexicans slow down their steady march and the hooded men approach. Teodoro and his narcos stopped uncertainly but the men continued toward them. When they were a hundred feet apart Ozburn heard the distant boom of Teodoro's voice and the softer reply of the tall man in the middle. The conversation lasted a full minute but Ozburn couldn't make out the words. Then the gunmen unleashed a fusillade of fire. Ozburn saw the bullets lifting little wisps of rock dust all around him like raindrops and then he heard the reports. A bullet whined overhead in ricochet, trailing off with diminishing volume. Daisy stood and wagged her tail. Ten seconds later the shooting was over and the hooded men had not moved and the Mexican men were running back toward their vehicle with all the speed they could muster. Ozburn saw Teodoro look back and fall down and when Ozburn looked again at the three hooded strangers, they had disappeared, but Teodoro was up and running just the same. Then Ozburn was lying on his back near the spring, his mind blank, his body sweating and his heart pounding as if from a dream he couldn't remember. Early on Monday Ozburn drove the Mercury into the Mexican side of Buenavista and took a room at the Gran Sueno Hotel. Mateo called him on the room phone just after three o'clock and told him where he was to go. Ozburn knew that part of L.A. County so he didn't have to marshal his trembling hands to write down the address.
– I hope you are rested and feeling well, pendejo. You will have to leave Buenavista soon or you will have no deal.
– I'll be there on time, old man.
Mateo gave him a number to call for last-minute instructions. Ozburn shaved, then showered with the duffel propped against the outside of the shower door. Daisy lay on the thin floor rug and licked the water off his ankles when he got out. Ozburn swallowed a handful of vitamins and fed the dog and changed into clean clothes and looked at himself in the mirror. His face was green and his pupils were just dots in the iris. He slipped his sunglasses on and carried his duffel into the clean light of the border afternoon.
Ten minutes later he was speeding east on Interstate 8 in Father Joe Leftwich's beater Mercury. Daisy sat upright in the passenger seat and looked out the window.
34
Bradley Jones walked briskly across the barnyard toward his Cayenne. Mateo had just called and Gravas was on his way north. The afternoon was warm and the huge oak tree was filled with doves that whimpered and flitted and cooed. Jones wore cowboy boots and old dungarees and an oversize Nat Nast shirt. He sported a brown Stetson that Erin had given him on his eighteenth birthday and a matching suede vest he'd stolen from a saddlery in Calabasas the very next day. Tonight she was playing the Halloween party at the Troubadour, sold out of course. The nightclub was a small venue with a history of great music, and she'd driven up earlier in the day for an interview and photo shoot with the Los Angeles Times.