“Valentine,” Esparza said. “My favorite loose cannon.”
Esparza’s L.A. lilt always had a calming effect on Pescatore, even when Esparza was chewing him out. Esparza had a furry mustache and a solid gut beneath his bulky green jacket.
“How’s it going?” Esparza said. “You’re looking run-down and ragged tonight.”
“Yeah, well, you know. Garrison keeps us hopping.”
Esparza’s face got less jolly.
“That fucker. Hey, you hear about the sniper sightings at Brown Field? They’re sending out some guys from BORTAC with M-16s to ride shotgun.”
“Must be dopers, huh?”
“Ever since the holidays. I never saw anything like it. Snipers. Dope all over the place. Comandantes and politicians getting smoked in Mexico, left and right. And all these OTMs: Chinese and Brazilians and Somalians, people from places I never heard of.”
“We been breaking OTM records,” Pescatore said.
“I caught me a bunch of Bo-livians last night, for Christ’s sake. I was doing paperwork till three in the morning. Fuckin’ OTM Central.”
OTM meant “Other Than Mexican”: non-Mexican aliens who could not simply be sent back to Tijuana. The surge in OTMs had started around Christmas, a few months after a crisis had hit Mexico hard and generated action border-wide. Numbers were up in every category: apprehensions of Mexican and non-Mexican border-crossers; busts of coke, methamphetamine and marijuana loads; assaults, rockings and shootings. The onslaught had put the San Diego sector on the brink of reclaiming the title from the Tucson sector as the busiest in The Patrol.
OTM meant lawyers, interpreters, headaches, paperwork. An especially burned-out journeyman had once advised Pescatore to simply turn and flee if he caught an alien who spoke funny Spanish or none at all. But Esparza ran from nobody.
“You know some federales or somebody are making money off those Chinese in TJ,” Pescatore said. “Every Chinese alien pays fifty grand, right? That’s a lot for the polleros to spread around.”
Esparza controlled the horse with easy, powerful tugs of the reins, stroking its ears, letting it step in place. He took off his cowboy hat and wiped his forehead with a sleeve. He was thirty-five and had seven years on the job. With the revolving-door turnover of the Imperial Beach station, he was an old-timer. He leaned forward in the saddle and peered at Pescatore, who knew what was coming.
“Garrison got you guys playing that game again?” Esparza asked quietly.
“Yep.” Pescatore had one elbow propped on the roof of the vehicle and one on top of the open door. A moving cluster of lights flashed in the fog: a Patrol helicopter on the hunt. He heard the distant thump of rotors.
“Tell him you don’t play that shit.”
“Vince, he’s my supervisor.”
“Then switch to the day shift. You need to learn how to wake up in the morning anyway. That pendejo is gonna get indicted and bring you down with him.” Passing headlights illuminated the journeyman’s glare beneath the brim of the hat.
“For thumping aliens? No way. Garrison told me they been allegating him for years. Never laid a glove on him.”
“Not just thumping. The FBI and OIG got a big-time investigation going. He’s at the top of the list. He thinks he’s some big operator. Treats you young guys like pets, his little walking group, prowling around the canyons. Buying all the drinks. Pool parties at his house, chicks from TJ. You ever wonder where all that money comes from?”
Pescatore recalled the start of his training period, the scathing Conduct and Efficiency report Esparza had written up on him. Pescatore had been convinced that Esparza was on a personal mission to kick him out of The Patrol. Instead, the reports got better and his trainer had put in a good word for him at the end of his probation.
As if reading his mind, Esparza said: “Valentine, I told you a thousand times: You’re a borderline case. You could be a fine PA if you work at it. But Garrison is a criminal. He is a disgrace to The Patrol. He is bad news. Especially for a kid that’s easily led.”
Esparza’s tone was making Pescatore depressed. He managed a sickly laugh.
“I appreciate the concern, Vince. I’m gonna be OK.”
Pescatore ducked into the vehicle to respond to the radio; Garrison wanted him back on the levee. Esparza’s mouth turned down to match the corners of his mustache, the disappointed parent, the voice of doom on horseback.
“You take care, Valentine. Watch yourself.”
“Alright then.”
Midnight approached. Things were getting out of hand. Aliens sprouted out of the brush, flashed across roads, disappeared behind ridges. He captured some farmworkers from Oaxaca, short dignified campesinos who spoke to each other in an indigenous language and crouched automatically at the roadside, familiar with the drill. He watched, too captivated by the sight to give chase, as a group of illegal-alien musicians in charro attire hurried along a hilltop lugging instrument cases. Two of the mariachis carried the bass fiddle together, no doubt late for a gig.
Garrison kept him speeding back and forth, changing directions. The Wrangler shuddered across rough terrain, rattling as if it were going to break apart. A volley of rocks clattered on the roof. The throwers were nowhere to be seen in the fog; maybe the rocks threw themselves. Garrison yelled at the top of his lungs on the radio. Pescatore heard a plaintive chorus of voices in the background.
We’re in the hands of a lunatic, Pescatore told himself. Esparza was right. Something terrible is going to happen. He floored the accelerator, the Wrangler hurtling alongside the rusted-brown metal border fence.
Two silhouettes materialized in the dirt road in front of him. Dangerously close. Moving in terrified underwater slow motion, Pescatore tromped the brake. The Wrangler went into a long dirt-spraying skid. When it finally came to a stop, the two migrants cowered unhurt in the blaze of the headlights. They held their hands over their heads. They were women.
“No problem,” Pescatore whispered, clinging to the wheel. “Almost ran you over, killed you dead. No problem.”
He got out. The women shrank against the fence. Loopy with relief, he found himself affecting the jovial authoritative tone that good-ol’-boy Tejano journeymen used.
“Welcome to the United States, ladies. You are under arrest.”
They were apparently sisters, late teens or early twenties. Piles of curls around striking, Caribbean-looking faces. He shined his flashlight at the top of the fence, mindful of rock throwers, then back at the women. Taller than average, long-legged in tight jeans. Maybe Honduran, Venezuelan? They reminded him of a teenage girl he had once arrested in a load van, a pouty Venezuelan sporting sunglasses and platform heels that were completely inappropriate for border-crossing. OTMs for sure. A lot of forms to fill out, but he could get the hell off The Line for the rest of the shift. One of the women wore two sweaters under a cheap leather jacket. Her hands were still raised over her head. As gently as he could, he asked her where she was from.
“Veracruz,” she said, heavy-lidded eyes on the ground.
That part of Mexico could account for their looks, but a smuggler could have also coached them. Pescatore ushered them into the vehicle.
“Valentine.” Garrison’s voice on the radio startled him. “Where you at, buddy?”
“Got two OTMs. Gonna take ’em back to the station and start processing.”
“Negative. Need you here at my location. Hurry it up.”
“Yessir.”
The dirt road wound up and around a hill. Crickets buzzed in the darkness. The tires crunched over rocks. In a clearing at the top of the hill, Pescatore found Garrison, Dillard and an agent named Macías. They stood around a parked Wrangler in the middle of the clearing. They examined it with folded arms, like researchers in a laboratory. The Wrangler was illuminated by the headlights of other vehicles.