Bad to the Bones(43)
Ziggy finally got ahold of himself, straightening up. He had laughter tears in the corners of his eyes. “Hoo-wee. You gonna be okay down in Nogales by yourself?”
Knoxie shrugged. “It’s no big deal. I’ll get the location of the trap house from my CI who’s meeting us in a few. It’s a nice ride down there. I’ll peep out the house before making a move.”
Ziggy made a skeptical sound. “Isn’t that guy a nethead? You sure you trust him? Doesn’t he work for the Presencións?”
“He does. But his main interest is seeing them go down. Ah. Sounds like them.”
The bike, followed by the cage, appeared at the top of the rise on the Bihari side of the gate. To Knoxie’s surprise, it was the girl who rode the Sporty. She wore no brain bucket, probably unable to find Bellamy’s. Virginia had that pale, almost transparent skin of her sister, and the eyes lined like an Egyptian hieroglyph. Her hair was wild, long, loose. She waved at them, having cut her engine. She now coasted down past the guard house as though she rode an electric scoot, Rafael in some kind of quiet Prius following.
Almost wordlessly, Ziggy took over from Virginia while Knoxie pumped her for intel. Ziggy was walking the bike up the hill behind them before Knoxie could say,
“How are you, Virginia? Are you safe since they kicked Bellamy out?”
“We have to get back now,” Rafael was already saying, halfway in and halfway out of his cage, waving.
“Espera. Virginia, are you okay? Bellamy told me you’re pregnant. It’s all right. Here. We got you a burner phone so you can talk to Bellamy. Don’t let anyone see it.”
“Put it in your brassiere,” said Rafael.
The girl did so. “I’m all right. They make me shovel shit instead of serve food, and they’ve moved me out of Wang Cho House and into some kind of dormitory with a bunch of other women who do menial jobs. I know they’ll take the baby away. At least this way I won’t get penetrated by The Blessed One anymore. I know it’s wrong to say it, but I just don’t like it!”
“Yeah,” Knoxie spat with anger, “and see where it got you. I should’ve brought you a carton of rubbers too. Listen, we’re going to get you out of here. Just not today. We need to strategize. These f*cktards are going down, I promise you that. Just hang tight. Get into Rafael’s car.”
Rafael was already securely back in his driver’s seat. The distant buzz of Ziggy starting the Sporty’s engine came from a couple of hills away, and relief coursed through Knoxie. They were home free. He just needed some intel from Rafael.
Rafael said, “I’ll text you coordinates to Riker’s trap house in Nogales. I have to tell you, Knoxie. I’m just a courier with a US passport. I was born in Nogales. The Presencións are holding my sister hostage in Sonora as insurance if I try to run. They sent me her little finger as proof.”
Knoxie frowned. He wasn’t sure he’d just heard right. “What? They sent you her finger?”
“Si, su dedo me?ique. They cut it off and wrapped it and left it on my doorstep in Nogales.”
“Jesus Roosevelt Christ.”
“What?”
“You get back in there now. You’re helping us immensely, Rafael. Don’t worry. We’ll get this all sorted out. And thanks for the puta in the guard’s shed. Oh, one more thing. Keep a lookout for anything that looks like a laboratory, like they’re testing some kind of virus. Grab any test tubes you might see, vials, any slides, any drugs.”
Rafael smiled at that, showing his gold teeth. Knoxie didn’t know how he could smile, having just told him what he did about his sister. “There are some good perras inside that manicomio. Listen. They want me to go back and get some more A-1 soon, so I keep pretending to be excited about their religion so I can stay.”
Knoxie banged twice on the car’s roof, the universal sign for “you’re good to go.”
Rafael turned and drove silently back up the hill. Knoxie felt no tension, no fearful presence, nothing ominous about to happen. It was a clear November day in the high desert and he would have been feeling pretty good about his Nogales mission if it weren’t for what his wife—ex-wife—Nicole had just told him.
His sixteen-year-old son Cameron had just been busted at his Flagstaff school holding what sounded like a few dime’s worth of heroin. Worse, though, it was cheese heroin, the sort he’d been fighting against the past week. Knoxie hadn’t had time to attempt to call the boy and yell at him, so that was weighing heavily on his mind.
Other than that, though, Knoxie felt good about the Nogales job. The sun was setting behind a cloudless bluff, so crisp and still it seemed encased in glass, like a museum display case. He could ride all night for about five hours, get some crap motel, then go find Riker’s shitty trap house. He could pay some stupid cluck, some f*cking hopeless fiend, to go score and comeback with intel whether there were women or babies there, how stocked they seemed to be on hardware. He couldn’t risk being recognized by Riker, but he could watch with field glasses from a safe distance.
Knoxie was just walking his ride back up the hill when what sounded like a shot rang out behind him.
He froze. He figured he wasn’t shot. After a brief pause, he couldn’t resist the intuition to turn around, see what had made the sound.
The daimyo stood at the guard shack’s door, his AR-15 assault rifle aimed at the sky. He’d shot at the sky? Gripping his bike with one hand, Knoxie whipped his Glock from where it was wedged in the small of his back and pointed the barrel at the guard.