“Let me guess,” the black one said and made an exaggerated pantomime of looking around the squad car and at Davenport’s deputy’s uniform. The man reached out and jiggled Davenport’s badge.

  “You’re a bad cop,” the black one continued. “You’re the only one who I.D.ed us. You’re the only one who could have made a connection to us from Tucson to Phoenix. You followed up on our car and set us up for them in exchange for a payout.”

  “You reached out to the Pecadores Diez,” the white one said and yanked Davenport’s chin around so their eyes met. The man’s eyes were black wells of indifference. This was a man who really didn’t give a shit. Not about what happened to Davenport. Not about himself. “You handed us up to them. That means you know how to contact them.”

  “It’s not that easy,” Davenport said. He fought to keep the quaver from his voice and failed.

  “It’s not that hard either.”

  “What if I can’t do it?”

  “I think you already know the answer to that.”

  The deputy didn’t know the answer but his imagination flitted over likely scenarios, each one less pleasant than the last. He didn’t know who they were or who they were affiliated with or where they fit into the narco scene. And not knowing was the worst of all.

  “What do you need me to do?” he asked at last in a very small voice.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Lost Pines was a post-millennium ghost town.

  Broad concrete avenues serpentined through a maze of artfully graded lots, now overgrown with thistles and cogongrass. Here and there sat the skeletons of partly completed mini-mansions. The bare framework gone gray in the sun. Tattered insulation hung rotting. A few were nearer completion with windows and doors in place and roofs tiled in rows of orange clay. There were decorative mailboxes leaning at the curbs.

  That night, under the light of a sliver moon, it looked like some kind of imaginary land of promise. The shadows hid the stacks of unused lumber, the rusting cement mixer, stacks of drywall turning to powder, the overturned port-a-johns. In the dark it looked like it was all resting, waiting. It was as though the dawn would bring the trucks and workmen who would complete the dreams of the developers and homeowners.

  The black Escalade sat purring outside the entrance to Lost Pines by a tattered and faded billboard that read: Find Your Dream In The High Desert. Pulled up behind it was a tricked out ’63 Impala low-rider and a stolen Toyota Sienna that was beat as the Impala was glossy. The Toyota looked like it had been rolled a few times. The three cars sat idling. A cloud of exhaust glowed blue in the clear dry night air. The cars had to run to keep the interiors heated against the dropping temperature outside.

  Cuchillo drummed the steering wheel of the Escalade. Ash from a Marlboro jiggered between his fingers and spilled onto the steering column.

  “Well?” Gordo said beside him.

  “This is fucked, ese,” Cuchillo growled.

  “The deputy’s last call was righteous,” Hector said from the back seat. He was cradling an AK-47.

  “And Calaca and Feo got killed behind that call, pendejo,” Cuchillo said, eyefucking the younger banger in the rearview.

  “Calaca and Feo were fucking morons,” Gordo said. “That’s why we brought an army, bro.”

  Cuchillo eyed the road beyond the stucco columns topped with lanterns that made them look like a row of scaled down lighthouses set either side of the entrance. This was to be a gated community for rich white fuckers. But the gates were never installed. The road stretched away from them and turned between hillocks beyond which he could see the rooftops of half-finished homes.

  “He said he’d be at the model,” Gordo said. “We roll up fast and scope it out. We don’t like what we see then we haul ass.”

  “I look like a pussy to you?” Cuchillo turned to glare at Gordo.

  “Or we stay and go to war,” Gordo shrugged. “Who gives a fuck so long as we do something, ese?”

  Cuchillo put the big SUV into gear and roared forward with the low-rider keeping close behind. The Toyota minivan swung out in front. The bay door slid open as it rolled. A hermano sat there in a swing seat in the open side with a big belt fed Bravo poking out.

  The Toyota made the turn ahead of the Escalade and came to a roundabout where the county sheriff’s cruiser sat parked in front of the development’s model home.

  The model home for the development looked out of place. It was a massive five bedroom French provincial finished in brick and stucco. Polished brass lamp fixtures were set each side of a hand-carved front door and over the opening to the three car garage which was fronted by a fieldstone driveway. There was a faux observation tower with a wrought iron widow’s walk and, in the back, a pool and spa inside a screened enclosure. The interior was steel and granite and Italian marble with just a hint of rose. It was a castle without a lord and a kingdom without a future. The entire two hundred acre planned community died before it was born when the housing bubble burst.

  The Toyota pulled up on the overgrown yard before the house with the gunner in the bay door covering the cruiser. The Escalade moved around the circular drive to come to a halt two car lengths behind the cruiser. The low rider stopped idling at the entry road. The doors opened and gunmen stepped out and spread out warily with AKs and shotguns held up. The low rider’s driver stayed behind the wheel, boxing in the county car.

  The cruiser was dark. There was no movement and they couldn’t see through the tinted windows to see if Deputy Davenport was inside.

  “Go tell the cop to step out of the car,” Gordo said and met Hector’s eyes in the rearview.

  “Why me?” Hector said.

  “Because I told you to,” Gordo said.

  Cuchillo turned in the seat to squint at Hector who shrugged and reached for the door handle.

  “Leave the gun,” Cuchillo hissed. “We’re supposed to be all friendly.”

  Hector was going to protest but dropped the AK to the bench seat and climbed from the rear of the Escalade. He walked toward the county car with hands held before him at waist level like a man walking cautiously over an uncertain surface. Hector reached behind his back with a failed attempt at nonchalance to free his t-shirt from the butt of the nine milli secured in the waistband of his jeans at the small of his back.

  The quartet of gunmen from the low-rider watched transfixed as Hector practically tip-toed along the driver’s side of the county car. The Pecadore in the bay door of the Toyota followed his progress with the long barrel of his Bravo.

  Hector tapped the flat of his hand on the driver side glass and then bent to try and see into the dark interior through the tinted glass.

  Two popping sounds echoed flat over the roundabout. They came so close together they were almost one. The first resulted in a powdered hole through the windshield of the low rider at the level of the driver’s head. A foot-wide hole was punched through the rear glass. The rest of the windows misted over red. The second pop took the driver of the Toyota through the temple and sprayed everyone inside with blood and brain matter as the right side of his skull exploded in an audible burst like a dropped melon.

  The quartet of gunmen began firing high and wide all around. They didn’t know who was doing the shooting or where they were firing from. But the sudden sniper fire startled them and they reacted from a mix of fear and anger. Two peppered the front of the model home with semi auto fire. The other two blasted at humps of dirt that remained all around from where foundations had been dug and been allowed to grow over with weeds.

  The foot of the near headless driver slipped off the brake allowing the low rider to roll backwards and come to rest on the opposite curb where it blocked the entrance into the turnaround drive of the model home and bottled up the other vehicles.

  The gunner in the bay door of the stalled Toyota opened up on the parked county car for no reason other than panic. A hundred rounds swept the cruiser from back to front inside of a few seconds. Glass went flying. Big silver-ringed holes appeared in the body. On the other side of the car, Hector was crouched and walking on all fours in an attempt to flee for the refuge of the Escalade. Unlike in movies, cop cars provide uncertain cover. The slugs from the Bravo ripped through the cruiser side to side and slammed into Hector who tumbled to the asphalt with legs jerking spasmodically.

  Cuchillo threw the Escalade into reverse and roared backwards to hop a curb and slam hard into rotting stacks of sod piled there. Gordo looked out the windshield with widening eyes as a hole as fat around as his thumb appeared in the hood. A second hole appeared next to it.

  One of the gunners from the low rider saw a momentary flash of light from the upper story of the model home and trained his AK at the source, letting off a long burst that chopped the window frame and the stucco of the dormer to bits. He felt a force strike him low in the back that dropped him to his knees. His AK clattered to the street. A second gunner. Somewhere behind them. On his knees, he tried to call out a warning. A new muzzle flash from a different window in the home and a heavy round punched a hole where his collar bones met and rocked him back on his knees where he remained unmoving in the posture of a supplicant beseeching God.

  The cousin in the passenger seat of the Toyota was crying like a little bitch as he tried to free the driver from behind the wheel. A round blew in the glass on his door and shoved him forward. A gout of bright blood exploded from his mouth and he rasped with the effort to clear his lungs of the blood that was now drowning him where he sat.

  The gunner in the bay door bailed out of the Toyota with the man who was sharing the rear seat rolling out close behind him. They crawled away, keeping the minivan between them and the house. The Bravo gunner glanced back as he heard a grunt from his seatmate. He turned in time to see the man, already bleeding out from a shot to his abdomen, take a second shot higher in the chest and drop with staring eyes against the rear wheel of the van. The gunner was up on his feet and running before he realized it. He pounded for a tall hump of dirt with a round wicketing past close behind his head.

  Growling like an animal, Cuchillo tromped the gas, threw the heavy Escalade into drive and bounced back onto the roadway. Gordo was making sounds of his own that sounded like prayer but was simply the word “please” murmured over and over like a pitiable chant. The remaining free-range gunners trotted forward, expecting Cuchillo to stop for them. But he sped by to race toward the low rider blocking the driveway entrance.

  The Escalade struck a t-bone blow to the Impala that simply served to drive the low slung car sideways a few feet with a rising spray of sparks. Despite the sudden inflation of the airbags, Gordo’s head slammed into the dash and opened a gash across the bridge of his nose that sprayed blood. Cuchillo was thrust against the steering wheel with enough force to knock the breath from him. He’d replaced the standard wheel of the SUV with a custom job in the shape of linked chrome chains. No airbag protection for him.

  The Bravo gunner made the cover of a pile of fill dirt, throwing himself prone as a round raised a gout of dirt near his head. Chest heaving, he raised himself enough to brace the Bravo over the crest of the pile and blind spray a long burst at the model home. Tracers walked up the decorative stone pathway to the front doors that shuddered in their frames as the high cyclic rate of the weapon turned them to flinders. The long thunderous volley left his unprotected ears filled with a wavering shushing that sounded like surf. He felt rather than heard the movement of something behind him and flipped on his back in time to see a big mayate with a raised shotgun emerging from the gloom at a quick stride. The first load of buck removed the gunner’s arm at the shoulder. The Bravo slid down the slope of dirt with the severed limb still firmly gripping the weapon. The gunner watched in helpless fascination as the big black man pumped a new round into the Remington and leveled the barrel at his head.

  “Adios, motherfucker,” the black man said before the night turned white and red.

  The airbag in the Escalade burst with enough force to throw Gordo back in his seat and saved his life as a second round came through the escalade roof above his head. It punched a hole in the center console with an explosion of plastic. Cuchillo threw himself against his door and rolled out onto the roadway, an automatic chambered for .45 in his fist. Cuchillo sheltered in the rough L-shape made by the two-car collision. He looked to see the three remaining gunmen firing at Christ-knows-what and bobbing and weaving like they were on a basketball court. One by one they were thrown down by deliberate rifle fire coming from the house and shotgun blasts from the dark somewhere beyond the roundabout.

  Gordo humped and stumbled and finally crawled away from the stricken Escalade. He was gasping from both terror and exertion. His sweaty fingers were wrapped around a revolver, the only weapon he managed to bring with him when he rolled out of the car. He was making the best speed he could for the cover of tall weeds in the middle of the roundabout. For all his frantic effort it wasn’t fast enough. He cried out at a lancing pain from his leg that dropped him onto his side. He looked down to see that his right knee was blown away leaving a clump of raw meat in its place. The pain was overwhelming enough that he bit off the tip of his tongue and didn’t notice. Rather than surrender to the agony, he levered himself up on his chubby fingers to hop on his remaining leg for the weeds before him. Another boom, closer this time, and his good leg went out from under him. Gordo crashed with all his bulk to the asphalt striking his forehead a concussive blow. A new torment kept him from losing consciousness. He turned his head to catch the surrealistic sight of his own left leg, from the knee down, lying an impossible six feet away from him against the curb. A warm pool was spreading under him even as the frigid grip of shock rose over him.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  TERCIO DEL MUERTE

  Leaning low against the rear quarter panel of the Escalade, Cuchillo looked across the roundabout at Gordo pathetically trying to pull himself away from danger by the strength of his fingers alone. The fat man humped his gut and clawed at the roadway leaving a black trail of blood in his wake. He reminded Cuchillo of a fat fish lying gasping for air on a river bank, flopping this way and that in search of life-giving water. He felt no sympathy for his cousin. He was concerned only with his own survival.

  A yellowish haze of gun smoke dropped low over the ground. All was quiet now except for the mewling of Gordo has he made his sad progress toward the weeds. Then even that died away to wheezing and Gordo was still. Cuchillo was alone.

  He crouched against the Escalade, the steel cool against his cheek. He held the .45 close to his chest.

  “You want money?” he called out. It echoed over the embattled turnaround unanswered.

  “You ain’t sicarios,” he hollered. “You’re sure badass hombres. But you ain’t el narco and you ain’t cops.”

  Nothing.

  “The nigger and the pirate, right?” The two Nando told him about. The two Calaca and Feo went to see.

  No answer. He shifted his grip to hold the pistol two-handed and sweep the dark.

  “So, what do you want? What can we do to end this right here?”

  “Throw down your gun.”

  It came from the dark near the house. Cuchillo crooked his hand around the rear panel of the Escalade and let go three rounds in the direction of the voice. He was answered by two shots from a rifle. One sprayed glass over him from above. The second ripped a hole in the tire nearest him. A shotgun from an unseen source and sent a long strip of chrome trim flying into the sky end over end. Cuchillo covered his head with his arms and crouched to make himself as tiny as he could.

  “One way out, fucker.” A different voice. The mayate. “Throw the gun down.”

  Cuchillo sent the .45 spinning across the roadway from curiosity more than anything else. One way out? What did the nigger mean by that?

  He rose to his feet slowly, hands held open before him. A pirate-looking Anglo was walking toward him, some kind of deer rifle raised in his arms. The pirate was sighting on Cuchillo’s head. From the dark to his right the black man walked easy with a shotgun held at hip level. The black one pumped a round into Gordo as he stepped past him. The pirate kicked the .45 away as he closed the distance.

  “Cuchillo,” the black one said.

  Cuchillo said nothing. He just met the nigger’s eyes. What he saw there was cold appraisal. They might have been two predators meeting on some savannah.

  “That means ‘blade,’ right?” the black one said.

  “Knife or blade, si,” Cuchillo said.

  “That mean you’re good with a blade?”

  “I am good.”

  “Then maybe you want a chance to prove it.”

  Cuchillo smiled and reached a hand slowly, very slowly and with eyes locked on the black man, to the deer antler handle of the six-inch knife secured in a leather sheath at the small of his back. He brought the hand back and the slim blade shone silver in the light.

  The black man pumped his shotgun empty of shells. He lowered the butt to the ground and let it fall. He then reached behind his back and drew a broad-bladed bowie-style knife.

  “I got this,” the black one said and the pirate lowered his rifle and backed away. The black man released the buckles on his armored vest and gun belt and let them drop to the street.

  “You know me?” Cuchillo said.

  “I know enough,” the black one said.

  “You saw me. You saw what I did.”

  The black one said nothing. He dropped into a ready crouch.

  “I am a soldier. An insurrecto. I do what I must.”

  The black one said nothing. He wasn’t going to be drawn out like that.

  This nigger picked the wrong game to play with him. Cuchillo did not come by his name by chance. Eyes locked on the mayate, he stripped off his shirt. His chest and arms were hatched over with a pattern of raised scar tissue his tats could not hide. They were long scars from many knife fights. From the schoolyard when he was a kid to prison yards when he became a man, these were his bona fides. He bore the scars but walked away. There were many who challenged him who did not. Many more who never saw it coming. He long understood the first rule of knife fighting: You’re going to get cut.