The Lost Ones (18 page)

“She’d come at me,” Mara said. “She’d hit me in the face. Take a belt to me. Said I was a worthless piece of shit. A fat nothing. She said she’d kill me. Just like she said last night.”

“Where are those kids, Mara?” Lillie asked.

“I swear to Jesus, I don’t know.”

Quinn looked to her attorney and held up the flat of his hand. The attorney looked at Quinn with an open mouth but stayed silent. “If you were going to take a guess, where would you guess they are?”

Mara shook her head and watched Quinn with flat eyes. “They’re in Mexico. Things got rough, that’s where Momma said she’d head. Don’t ask me where in Mexico, ’cause I don’t know. But Ramón’s people were there. Momma said they controlled the law.”

22

JOHNNY STAGG HAD LOANED DONNIE A ’99 KENWORTH WITH A 455-HORSE
engine and a big condo sleeper in back. The rig was powder blue with a lot of chrome and an airbrushed Mississippi flag on the door that read
Heritage Not Hate
. The cab had a comfortable seat, still slick from a rubdown with Armor All, and a knicked and worn gear shifter that felt solid and smooth in his palm. Donnie wound the gears down, brakes hissing with a step on the pedal, as he took the exit off Highway 78 and onto Bratton Road, looking for the road Luz had told him about. He hadn’t been out of Tibbehah County long enough for his coffee to grow cold in his Rebel Truck Stop travel mug. He wished maybe the trip was longer.

“How much farther?” Shane asked. He and Tiny were seated in the back condo cab, watching a movie where Nicolas Cage rides a motorcycle and turns into a demon.

“About a quarter mile,” Donnie said. “Why don’t y’all drop your dicks and come on and pay attention.”

Donnie missed driving a truck, liking the freedom of it. Before the Guard had called him back, he’d worked for a company out of Tupelo that took him all across America. He could stay up for days, jacked up on pills and bad coffee, living off truck stop T-bones and fried chicken, with a soundtrack playing Waylon, Merle, and Johnny Cash. A man didn’t have to answer to no one besides the dispatcher. You could do it alone without a couple numbnuts taking up your air.

Tiny’s fat shaved head leaned through the seats as he stared down the country road. “You should see this movie, man. His goddamn head turns into a burning skull.”

“Turn that shit off,” Donnie said. “Here we go.”

Donnie crushed out a cigarette and squinted at the roadside, seeing the sign for the freewill baptist church and a livestock arena, the county road coming up fast on the left. He’d hoped Luz’s people had enough sense to know he couldn’t take the trailer up onto mud or gravel or under a bunch of low branches. He was glad to see it was nothing but pavement up to the cattle gate, where that little Mex boy from the carnival sat perched, talking on a cell phone. As Donnie tapped the brakes again and waited for him, the boy jumped off the gate and swung it open wide.

“That the same kid?” Shane asked.

“He could shoot your asshole out at a hunnard yards.”

“Bullshit,” Tiny said. “He wadn’t that good.”

“Turn your backside and fart,” Donnie said.

The boy motioned the big truck forward with his straw cowboy hat in his hand. Donnie took a deep breath, jacking her into gear and forward down a long dirt road cutting through bare grassy hills dotted with Black Angus. The trailer bumped a bit in his rearview, and he felt the shudder in the cab.

The big red barn was maybe a quarter mile from the road, a good place to unload far away from state troopers. Donnie also figured it was also a good place to get shot in the back of the head and buried maybe ten feet down with a backhoe. Wasn’t much, but Shane and Tiny were something.

“I don’t like this,” Tiny said. “None at all.”

“Just step out and look mean,” Donnie said. “Let ’em see your guns. And don’t play with yourself.”

“You worried?” Shane asked.

“If I was worried,” Donnie said, “would my ass be here?”

Donnie couldn’t see Shane, only hear his lazy ass lounging in the bed back there, the sounds of breaking glass and bullets coming from the television. He spotted Luz at the mouth of the barn, looking better every time. She didn’t have to do much, wearing a man’s flannel shirt tied up at the waist of her jeans and those Mexican cowboy boots. Her brown eyes looked as big as silver dollars. And, man, those lips.

She motioned him up and into the barn, another large door to exit on the other side, the place some kind of livestock arena, reminding him of that place where they had rodeos just outside Jericho. Sunlight cut in from the open slats on the side of the barn to let the animals breathe; the ground hard-packed, smooth dirt, smoother than the road cutting off the highway.

Alejandro and the three boys he’d met stood by him. He couldn’t tell one from the other, all three stout with Indian faces and drooping mustaches. They wore boots and belt buckles the size of dinner plates. Alejandro didn’t wear a shirt or shoes, the tattoos from his face and neck stretching down on his chest and veiny arms.

“Descarguen las armas de la camioneta ahora,”
Luz said.
“Tiene hombres con él Tengan cuidado.”

She watched him as he crawled out from the cab and stretched. Tiny and Shane got out on the other side, both of them holding M4s like when they were in the AFG. They didn’t seem to like this situation one damn bit.

“Who are they?” Luz asked.

“Just my boys,” Donnie said. “You got your boys, I got mine. Don’t let ’em spook you. They’re uglier than they are mean.”

“Alejandro has your money,” she said.

“And I got his guns.”

“They’re not his.”

“Who runs this show, then?”

“We all do.”

Donnie nodded and wandered to the back of the trailer, finding a key on his ring and fitting it into a Master Lock, opening up the two doors. Light spilled in on all the crates and boxes made for coffins. Alejandro bumped right on by him, bigger than shit, without even saying excuse me. He had a box cutter in hand and tore into the first plastic band and box. Didn’t take him long before he found the first M4s and began piecing one together from the smaller box.

Alejandro walked out to the edge of the trailer, looking for some better light, and studied the fine American craftsmanship. He nodded to Luz and wandered back into the truck. He had the face of Jesus wearing a crown of thorns inked between his shoulder blades.

She handed Donnie a fat rucksack.

Donnie opened it up and found hundred-dollar bills bound in rolls by rubber bands, a hundred bills in each roll. There were a lot of rolls, more money than he’d ever seen, and he counted out every one. Tiny and Shane were hanging out by the tailgate, walking up and around the truck as he’d asked. They’d study the front and rear entrance to the barn, that big open mouth of light.

The boys exchanged glances with the mustached men, dog looks, nobody giving an inch.

“I don’t like these guys,” Shane said, whispering as much as Shane could whisper. “They smell like tacos.”

“Shut up,” Donnie said, placing the money back in the bag and watching Luz’s boys take the smaller boxes out from the coffin boxes and stack them.

Luz had walked away and helped them arrange the boxes in neat rows. He tossed the rucksack over his shoulder and found her sweating, counting the guns. “Want some help?”

She shook her head.

“I’m gonna take a leak and stretch my legs,” he said, hand on her shoulder. “Will I see you again?”

“This shipment goes without me.”

“This one,” Donnie said. “Y’all want another?”

Luz shrugged. “Perhaps.”

“I’d like to see you soon,” Donnie said. “I sure miss you, darlin’.”

Luz didn’t answer, only continued to pack.

Donnie smiled and walked away, catching Tiny’s and Shane’s eyes and winking at them before walking out the back entrance, a two-acre bass pond stretching out in the distance. The ground was dusty and uneven, big clumps of earth picked up and chewed up by the cows. He had to step around piles of shit as he walked to the edge of the pond by an old oak, the lone tree left on the land, where he took a leak.

Three trailers had been situated up on the far hill. Rusted and busted-up and on blocks. Someone had gotten a grill going, and he could smell the meat cooking from where he stood. A long line of laundry was strung from a couple metal crosses, blowing in the wind. Not much but some kids’ clothes, and some drawers that looked bigger than flags.

Donnie lit up and twisted his head back to the barn. He looked back over the pond and up on the hill.

A woman was pulling pins from the laundry and stuffing them into a sack. Two small kids in diapers wandered after her. Donnie couldn’t see much about the kids, other than them toddling around. But the woman, she was hard to miss.

She ripped down the big drawers off the line and snatched up the children toward the house. One tried to squirm from her arms, but she grabbed the child by the neck until it settled down. Donnie could hear her screaming voice all across the way.

Janet Torres wandered back into the trailer and slammed the door shut.

“God damn it all to hell,” Donnie Varner said.

23

“IF THEY’RE IN MEXICO,” DINAH BRAND SAID, “WE’RE ALL SCREWED. WE
won’t ever get them. Ramón Torres’s brother is high up in the cartel, right under
el jefe
. He can do whatever the hell he wants. They could be anywhere.”

“That’s terrific news,” Quinn said. “What about the Mexican police or
Federales
?”

“Don’t you read the papers?” Dinah said. “The cartels own the police. They own the Army. Most of Los Zetas is made up of guys like you. Special Forces guys who decided to ditch the Army and run drugs.”

“I wasn’t Special Forces,” Quinn said. “Just a Ranger.”

“These guys have military training, and then they train the younger guys,” Dinah said. “You have military-style operations in major cities, guys in black fatigues kicking in doors and executing top cartel members. Right now, Los Zetas is making a play against the boys in Sinaloa. Whoever wins will run the whole damn country.”

“And that’s why they need a shitload of guns.”

“It’s beyond drugs,” Dinah said. “It’s a war. Last summer, they took out the leaders of another cartel and had their heads dumped on the floor of a disco. Isn’t much of a stretch to see this thing headed out of the borderlands.”

Quinn sat on the edge of his desk. Dinah Brand stood, wearing a navy V-neck sweater and gray pencil skirt that hit her just at the knee. She wore brown riding boots that didn’t look like they would fare too well in a pasture. Her red hair had been brushed straight back and tucked behind her ears. She looked freshly scrubbed.

“You want to talk to Mara again?” Quinn asked.

“You think it would do any good?”

Quinn shook his head. “The girl is tapped out. Can y’all help us with the phone trace?”

“If it’s a throwaway, it won’t tell us much.”

“What about location?”

“Cheap ones don’t have GPS.”

“I’m sorry you drove all this way for nothing,” Quinn said. He took a deep breath, sheriff’s office ball cap in hand, crushing the brim into a tight curve. “I guess we could have talked about all this shit on the phone.”

“You had promised me dinner,” Dinah said, smiling.

Quinn looked up from the floor. “I know a good place.”

“The Sonic?”

“I can do a little better than that,” Quinn said, grinning. He walked to the coatrack and snatched up his uncle’s old leather rancher. “How do you feel about catfish?”

PAP’S PLACE OCCUPIED
a brick building in downtown Jericho that had once been a five-and-dime. The interior was a long, straight shot filled with tables covered in red-and-white-checked oilcloth, a tin stamped ceiling, and replicas of stuffed catfish hanging from wires. Icons of Elvis Presley—the owner a great pal and kindred spirit of Quinn’s mom—and Jesus Christ hung on the walls. A framed advertisement for mississippi farm-raised catfish stood side by side with a cardboard tablet of the Ten Commandments. Everything was buffet style, steam and good smells rising from trays of fried catfish, French fries, hush puppies, macaroni and cheese, and collard greens. Sweet tea came in quart-sized plastic cups, with a pitcher left on your table. No alcohol of any kind was served or allowed, according to the sign by the door.

“You ever wonder why Mississippi is the fattest state in the nation?” Quinn asked.

“Not anymore,” Dinah said, cutting into the catfish with a knife and fork instead of picking it up and eating it like a regular person.

“My family has always eaten like this,” Quinn said and reached for a bottle of Tabasco. “This is the same stuff they ate fifty years ago, but back then, you’d spend all day tending to your crop and cattle. Now most people only walk from their couch to their cars or maybe their mailbox. One of my friends from high school weighs more than four hundred pounds.”

“Maybe I should have gotten a salad.”

“You see one on the menu?”

Dinah smiled and helped herself to another bite. The catfish was crispy, spicy, and very hot.

“I eat like this maybe once a week,” Quinn said. “But I run. I try and run every day. I have hills up around my place. One of my deputies runs with me sometimes, too.”

“Lillie?”

“Yep.”

“I don’t think she cares for me.”

“Lillie doesn’t care for most people,” Quinn said. “Don’t take offense.”

“I don’t think she’s said two words to me.”

“She knows you’re looking for leads to the guns,” Quinn said. “She only cares about those kids. She thinks your investigation is going to get in our way.”

“Isn’t it the same thing?” Dinah asked, taking another bite of catfish. “I get the guns, you guys get the kids. I have resources you don’t have.”