For some reason, Calhoun had a hallucination / dream that he was a rat and that he was running down the street on four legs. It was very bizarre, but since he’d gotten the shot he’d had interludes that weren’t right. He saw things that just weren’t right.”Pussy, pot or pills?” a kid whispered his offer in a doorway. Calhoun ignored him and kept walking down the brightly lit Avenida Revolución, part of the multitude on Tijuana’s main drag where the action never stopped. Tonight, because of the big holiday, the street was packed with tourists. The wide boulevard was full of car headlights, lit shop windows and all manner of human beings looking for entertainment, victims, or escape to America. Calhoun climbed one of the shoeshine stands that lined the sidewalk. He’d undone his tie. His hands were moving all the time now, and it felt like the skin on his fingers and toes was too tight. He could hear his heart pounding against his chest like he was running a race. He gave orders to the shoeshine man in Spanish and tried to settle back to wait for Slaughter to show. He tried to relax but it was impossible. His foot started to shake and he started to sing softly to himself in a kind of whispered monotone.

“I’m gonna tell you how it’s a-gonna be…” He beat out the rhythm on his knees. “One of my professors at UCLA told me rats from the same colony won’t attack each other,” Calhoun said to the shoeshine man. He spit, leaning out over the stand. “He claimed there was a kind of group solidarity. Human beings on the other hand – we’re an entirely different story. Aren’t we?” Calhoun told the shoeshine man. “Put two of us in the same room, drop in the money and the biggest ass-kicking rat comes out on top… Fuck everybody and get out of my way is our motto. It should be written on all currencies,” he said, looking down at the shoeshine man. People on the street were looking at him as they passed.

Hustlers on the street measured Calhoun as they passed, their faces pale, colored from the ugly electric lights of the Avenida. Their eyes said: in a week where will you be? In a week you’ll be lower still. And a week after that? You’ll be our bitch, our bidding, ours to feed on. Not yet, he thought, glaring back at them. Not quite yet. I’m still strong, I’m still strong – can fight if I have to. God damn right. He watched the other rats pass from his perch on the shoeshine stand. A pop song was playing in a bar down the street…loud. “You’re so pretty the way you are. You’re so pretty the way you are.”

I got rat insides. Most of me has turned to rat. That’s what I am, you know. A rat, hairy and greasy and afraid of the daylight. I’d do anything, anything, for money now. They’re coming, coming with the rat poison and putting it out for me, he told himself. Then he realized that he was talking to himself and stopped it. He took his cell phone out and dialed the Amigo Hotel; he asked for Celeste’s room.

“It’s me, it’s Vincent.”

“I wondered when you were getting back to me,” she said.

I’ll be there in an hour. Sorry. We’re leaving tonight. I love you. I love you. Did you hear me? I’m better now. I had some medicine. Better now,” he said into the phone, looking out into the street.

“Vincent?”

“Yeah.”

“Vincent, no matter what happens…I want you to know…”

“Don’t talk like that, we’re leaving tonight for Mexico City. Okay?”

“Sure…” she said.

“I’ll see you in an hour. I have the tickets. I have two tickets for Mexico City.

Tomorrow morning we’ll be gone,” he said. “Did you hear me?”

“I heard you.”

“I love you. Nothing matters but that.” He closed the phone and looked down the Avenida and then at his shaking feet.

The assortment of lights on Tijuana’s main strip created more shadows, hiding more than it illuminated. Calhoun watched the crowds stream past. There was a heat to them. It was a gross collection of eyes and mouths gaping and wanting and being in harsh electric light. Ghastly isn’t the word for it. Dead frightening, when you got a good look at it, he thought. At them, at this awful collision of humanity. It makes you want to take drugs. They might as well be walking around naked. Liberté …Égalité, Fraternité, amigos!

Calhoun watched the nameless faces pass, big gringos, Guatemalans, Serbs, whores of all colors, sexes, catamites. Asians in cheap suits, gang-bangers in Hush Puppies, all of them glistening, inhuman, in the harsh electric light like some bad science fiction movie. Night Of The Living Fuck-ups, he told himself. Every pock mark and dimple, crease, panty-line and tattoo caught in the light seemed to dwell on the obvious and the garish in full black and white hysteria. It was people’s desperate faces that had begun to bother him – having to see them like this – raw human faces, a stream of face sewage. “Well, it ain’t opening night at the opera,” Calhoun reminded himself, saying it out loud. “It’s Tijuana at seven o’clock. Pussy, pot or pills is the order of the day!” He felt a chill go through him and grabbed the arm of the stand and smiled at no one.

He tried to remember what it had been like before all this, before it went bad. Before he’d started losing. In April he’d been on top of the game. It seemed he couldn’t lose. It had been a Sunday at the Winners’ Circle at Caliente, the beginning of April. That was the first gate he’d run through that he shouldn’t have.

“There’s money in wogs, Serbs, you just have to choose,” Slaughter had told him. Money was the word Calhoun remembered hearing so well. He’d been looking down at the familiar scene: trainers and their greyhounds on the track, a plastic cup of Dos XX’s in his hand. “You could get some of that. Good money in cargo right now,” Slaughter had said. Slaughter used the slang expression that was popular: People had become cargo, merchandise.

“It sounds illegal,” Calhoun had said. But the M-word had been used and he was all ears.

“I’m in it up to my ass,” Slaughter had told him. He had a beautiful English accent. It made everything Slaughter said sound righteous and clean despite his trendy grunge look. He could have said corn-hole the Pope to a priest and made it sound good. “Could get you wogs, for example. If you wanted to do wogs…” he offered again. Slaughter turned around and faced him. “The wogs trust white people. And they are splendid about paying. Believe me. Like clockwork, old man… Money in the bank. My service is different. First Class. Only people with money. We bring them from the capital ourselves,” Slaughter said.

“How much?” Calhoun had asked.

“Five thousand dollars per head on the U.S. side. And I’ll pay in any currency you’d like: guilders, deutschmarks, whatever you want. You just get them across. However you like. I’ve heard about you,” Slaughter said. “You grew up around here. You know the desert.” His girl, a petite Mexican girl, came from the bar and put her hands around Slaughter’s waist.

“Fuck!” Calhoun had said, looking at her ass wrapped in a leather mini skirt, and not the cheap kind. This was beautiful black leather that fit. If he can afford that kind of pussy looking the way he does, I’m in.

“Yes, well, as I said. I can get you the work if you want it. I’ve heard that you could use it.” Slaughter turned back around and faced the track, full of himself.

That’s where it started. Calhoun had called Slaughter the following day from his office. They’d had lunch at the Hotel del Coronado in San Diego, in the old wood- paneled dining room, and it was on. He’d been doing cargo since. After Slaughter, he’d found others. He’d grown up on the border, knew the hundreds of desert arroyos to the east intimately. And then there was his ace in the hole, as he called Castro. That had been six months ago. Now it had all changed. He was just one of the rats now waiting for them to put out the poison. It’s just a question of which plate I eat from. He felt the sick feeling in his stomach. He touched his face; it was warm and wet. The shoeshine man was looking at him. It was obvious now. People could see he was sick.

Calhoun searched the faces in the crowd. He was scared and pretended that he wasn’t. Of course I’m scared.

Calhoun looked down the street and saw Castro. He pretended to be waiting for a bus, his foot on the bench, smoking, watching the women pass. Calhoun looked away toward the bright lights of the jai alai palace, headlights stared back at him, metal animals, moving in through the warm, greasy night.

“¿Señor?” The shoeshine guy was staring up at Calhoun, finished. His shoes were clean. Calhoun handed the shoeshine guy five dollars and looked down the street, watching for Slaughter.

“Otra vez,” Calhoun said. “Clean ‘em up again.” He rubbed his hands together. The shoeshine man went back to work, got out his jar and carefully daubed shoe polish over Calhoun’s left shoe. Calhoun bent over and admired them, a two hundred dollar pair of Kenneth Coles. Mighty fine. A drop of sweat hit one of the shoes.

You’ve got… He did a quick calculation. Almost a thousand in cash left for emergencies. That’s enough to break for it, isn’t it? Calhoun spit on the ground. The problem was he owed thirty grand to Slaughter. And more to El Cojo. And where could they go on a thousand dollars? I want to leave with her. I want to be in love with her.

A cockroach skittered out from under the shoeshine stand onto the sidewalk. The thing’s shell was big and glossy-dark. It skittered up the stand, then changed direction and dashed back to its hiding place.

If he tried to leave town and El Cojo or Slaughter found him? They’d cut everything but the bottom of his feet. He’d be one of those corpses they find in the Tijuana dump with radio antennas sticking out of his asshole and eye balls. The message received by everyone loud and clear: Don’t fuck with the boys.

The shoeshine man looked up at him – his face blurred, then reformed as the sepia visage of Pancho Villa. “Cucaracha,” he said, grinning, nodding at the big one that had climbed all the way up the stand and stood on the tip of Calhoun’s left shoe, almost the same color. The shoeshine man tried to brush it off. The bug raced up his arm and sat on the man’s shoulder. Calhoun could see its antennae moving, the fever intensifying it. Calhoun reached over and got the shell between his ring finger and thumb and pressed until the shell caved in and the bug danced-died, scratching him softly, staining his hand.

“Don’t encourage them,” Calhoun said. “They’ll take over. I know. They’re like Nazis.”

 

Slaughter stood out. Maybe it was the whiteness of his skin. Calhoun watched him go into the cafe across the street. The place had no front doors, all open air so you could see all the way through to the back. Calhoun watched Castro come up through the crowd, the Mexican’s face anonymous at night. Castro climbed up in the chair next to him.

“He’s not alone…he’s got two people with him in a car down the street. How are you feeling?”

“Better. I feel better.”

“Good.”

“Can anything else go wrong today?” Calhoun asked. He looked at Castro. The man’s eyes glowed at night, or at least looked that way. He seemed like some kind of nocturnal animal. “I don’t think I’d do very well in jail,” Calhoun said for some reason.

“Amigo. You have to be like Paul Newman in Hud,” Castro joked. “You go in there and you act like you are the biggest cock in this town. Just like Paul Newman in Hud.”

“He wants his money,” Calhoun said. “And I don’t have it.”

Calhoun climbed down from the shoeshine stand and crossed the street to the cafe. Calhoun saw Slaughter sitting in the back corner of the place. He’d never seen Slaughter completely sober. Not once. He sat down across from him. He fished into his pocket for a cigarette. Slaughter had a coffee and brandy in front of him. He looked very young. You could have mistaken him for a fraternity kid.

Calhoun ordered from the waiter, who looked like he’d rather be any place else in the world.

“Do you know why I like Mexico, old man?” Slaughter said, leaning close.

“No, why?”

“Because everyone is crazy and they know it. They expect you to be crazy, too. And you are crazy for trying what you managed tonight. I admire that in a man.” Slaughter had a square jaw and a flat nose. His hair was covered with the same blue do- rag from the afternoon. His lips were moist as he watched the passersby. He glanced at Calhoun for a moment then back out onto the street. A good-looking whore went by and gave Slaughter the eye.

“You lied to us… I said no drugs, ever,” Calhoun said. “She was full of them.”

“I didn’t lie in the beginning. Things change. That’s capitalism. It’s fluid, dynamic. People in China wanted to maximize their ROI. It was their idea. We had to accept. Return on investment. I try to be on the cutting edge, old man.”

“Fuck you. What do you want?” Calhoun said. He started to sweat. He took the paper napkin off the table and ran it around his face. The drinks came. Slaughter waited for the waiter to leave. “I say, you don’t look well, old man.”

“No past, only future,” Calhoun said.

Slaughter eyed him and smiled. “How did the shot work for you?”

“Yeah, thanks. I appreciate your concern for my health.”

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you had dengue fever.”

“Fuck you. Now, what is it?”

The waiter came to the table with Calhoun’s mescal. “Time to pay up.”

“I have a problem,” Calhoun said.

“Everybody in Casablanca has problems.” Slaughter smiled. “Frank Guzman, cross him and we’re even. He’s here in Tijuana; I told him you could get him out.”

“No,” Calhoun said. “He’s too big. He’s wanted for being behind the assassination of Asturias. I read the papers. His picture’s everywhere. No way. The police will shoot him on sight and anyone with him when they catch him. And they’ll catch him. He went against his pals in the PRI. They don’t like that,” Calhoun said.

“You owe me a great deal of money, isn’t that correct?”

“Yes, I owe you money. But I’m not dying for you.”

“How much?”

“Two hundred thousand pesos. You owe El Cojo a hundred thousand pesos now, plus interest. He’s looking for you already, I could take you to him right now. I have people outside.”

“So do I,” Calhoun said. “I’ll have it for you tomorrow,”

“You’re lying. I doubt you have a thousand. I know. I’ve heard. You owe everybody in town… You’re finished… Do this and I’ll take care of El Cojo, too. You don’t want to end up with an irreversible medical problem.” Calhoun took a drink and thought about it.

“Tonight, you said.”

“Yes. It has to be tonight.”

“Okay, I’ll do it,” he said. “Then it’s over. You and me canceled out. And you pay Cojo, too.”

“Fine,” Slaughter said. “It’s over then. Here’s his number.” He slid a paper over to him. “He’s at the Empresa in a penthouse. He’s waiting for your call. Get him to Palmdale. My people will pick him up on the other side. You get him to Palmdale and and you don’t owe me anything,” Slaughter said.

“Do you know what it is, Calhoun? What the Mexicans are getting so excited out there on the streets tonight?”

“Yeah…Día de los Muertos.” Calhoun wiped his face with the paper napkin again and it started to come apart.

“That’s correct, Day of the Dead. A celebration of death. Thanatos…as my Classics teacher at Eton used to call it. They’re celebrating Thanatos.” Slaughter put his elbows on the table and reached for Calhoun’s collar. He touched it gingerly. “If you don’t do this for us…I suggest you put on your very best suit and start celebrating, too.” He let go of his collar and smiled. “You know the best thing about an English public school education, Calhoun?”

“No.”

“It builds character. And it’s character that allows us to succeed in this miserable life. We public school boys built an empire…people forget that now. As far as I’m concerned, you’re just another bloody wog who might be standing in my way. Have I made myself clear?”

“Perfectly.”

“Excellent…I’ve heard that dengue fever makes you fuck like a rhino,” Slaughter said. “Is it true?”

“Yeah. Ask your girlfriend. She knows,” Calhoun said.

“You manage to make everyone hate you. You’re good at that. That’s a talent,” Slaughter said. “Very good at it. Why weren’t we friends?”

“Well, amigo…” Calhoun said, getting up. “I ain’t running for mayor. So I don’t have to be nice to assholes.”

Mousy, timid, and shy to the point of agoraphobic, Em Moore is the writing half of a celebrity biography team. Her charismatic partner, Teddy, does the interviewing, the negotiating, the public schmoozing. But Em’s dependence on Teddy runs deeper than just the job—Teddy is her bridge to the world and the only source of love in her life. So when Teddy dies in a car accident, Em is devastated, alone in a world she doesn’t understand. The only way she can honor his memory and cope with his loss is to finish the interviews for their current book—an “autobiography” of renowned and reclusive film director Garrett Malcolm.

Ensconced in a small cottage near Malcolm’s Cape Cod home, Em slowly builds the courage and strength to interview Malcolm the way Teddy would have. She finds Malcolm at once friendlier, more intimidating, and far sexier than she had imagined. But Em soon senses trouble between Malcolm and one of his former stars, the washed-up Brooklyn Pierce, and she hears whispers of skeletons in the Malcolm family closet. And then the police begin looking into the accident that killed Teddy, and Em’s control on her life—tenuous at best—is threatened.

In this stunning breakout novel from the beloved author of the Carlotta Carlyle mystery series, Linda Barnes slowly winds the strings tighter and tighter, leading the reader ever more deeply into the complex lives of her characters with pitch-perfect pacing and mesmerizing prose.

Linda Barnes wrote 16 mystery novels, 12 featuring her 6’1” redheaded private eye Carlotta Carlyle, and four featuring actor/detective Michael Spraggue, an amateur sleuth. In addition to best-selling mysteries, she has also written award-winning plays and short stories.

Among her many honors, Barnes won the Anthony Award for Best Short Story (“Lucky Penny,” 1986) and the American Mystery Award for Best Private Eye Novel (A Trouble of Fools 1987). She has been nominated for both the Shamus and the Edgar. The Snake Tattoo was named one of the outstanding books of 1990 by The London Times and Lie Down With the Devil was named one of the Best Mysteries of 2008 by Publisher’s Weekly.

She lives near Boston with her husband.

To be entered in the drawing shoot an email over to Jon?@crimespreemag.com (remove the question mark) And put CONTEST in the subject line. Also please put your address in the body of the email

We will pick the winners on May 31st.

When we do the drawing we will be sending an extra something for one lucky winner to be picked from the comments section of the Friday Reads face book page, so after you enter, go leave a comment!

Southern Films that have influenced my Quinn Colson books by Ace Aktins

 

Calhoun made a call from the Hotel Arizona’s front desk up to their room. The lobby was crowded with American men in for the weekend. Middle manager types with girlfriends. It was that kind of hotel. For some reason, the sight of them made Calhoun nervous. He put the phone down and walked back outside to the street. The vet’s shot was working; he felt better.The evening was warm and close-feeling. He crossed the street to the hotel parking lot and got into the jeep. He took stock, checked the back seat, made sure it was orderly. The customs police would notice things like that. Something felt wrong. He saw the greyhound dying on the track, closed his eyes and grabbed the wheel. Soon I’ll be finished with all this. He started the engine.

He pulled the jeep out of the lot and pulled into the hotel’s loading zone. Be nice. Be nice to the girls. Be nice to them. It’s important they relax. Calhoun watched Castro lead the girls down to the street from the hotel lobby. The Chinese girls lined up by the car door on the sidewalk. Calhoun nodded to the pretty one. The rest of the girls stood stoop-shouldered, like they were about to disappear. Not her. There was something different about her. “How are you doing this evening, ladies?” he said. He opened the back door of the jeep for them and waved them in. The pretty one went in last. Miguel had bought her a Coke in the lobby. She had it in her hand. Calhoun could see the cheap fabric of her worn dirty pants hugging her ass when she bent over. He slammed the car door behind her.

He waited for a moment and looked down the street. Nothing special, just a busy Tijuana street in the evening. He had a feeling then that it wasn’t going to go right. It was just a feeling. He felt the sweat suddenly roll down his arm. He almost had them get out of the car right then but stopped himself. It was ridiculous, he told himself. He’d been doing this for months and nothing untoward had ever happened, but he’d never done it like this. Never tried to use his credentials at the line. He looked at Castro on the stairs of the hotel. They looked at each other. They had never been forced to go on blind chance before. Calhoun nodded and Castro turned around and disappeared back into the lobby. This time everything has gone wrong. Everything.

Calhoun could feel the sweat start up like he had a radiator under his shirt. He felt it start to trickle down his arms before he got into the jeep. He took his coat off at the last minute. It was better if he wore it. But it was too hot. He glanced at the front of the Hotel Arizona through the open doors of the lobby. He had a feeling, something…today. He looked at the girls. Get in the car, he told himself. Get in the fucking car… No time now. They’re waiting. He saw Castro watching, waiting for him to leave.

Calhoun threw his coat onto the seat and slid in. He could smell the girls, the city, the jeep’s interior. He adjusted the rearview mirror, brought it down for a moment to look at the girls. They were all looking at him. They didn’t know what the hell was going on. He adjusted the mirror back, forced himself to move the shifter into first gear.

The jeep’s plates said U.S. Government. Calhoun had stolen them from the motor pool at the consulate. He’d been saving them for this kind of emergency.

 

It got crowded as they approached the crossing. They had to queue up like everybody else and wait in the broad sixteen lanes of traffic under the halogen lights. The street hawkers worked the stopped cars waiting to cross into the U.S. Calhoun inched the jeep forward. He fished for his DEA credentials and laid them on the dash. He was a wanted man, the credentials might not even work, now. You have no choice, he thought. He glanced back at the girls. He caught the pretty one’s eye.

The hawkers worked the lines of stopped cars with piñatas and cowboy hats, plaster Madonna dolls and plaster SS helmets, shoving the stuff up against the windows of the jeep. An old woman lifted one of the Madonna dolls with silver painted conical tits up to Calhoun’s window. He shook his head, mouthed ‘No thanks.’ Another vendor was holding up a donkey piñata, the colored bunting raggedy and soiled-looking. The man held up their progress, walking across the front of the jeep, stopping Calhoun from moving up in line. Better ones in town, Calhoun thought. Other vendors took advantage and suddenly the jeep was surrounded – piñatas, newspapers, puppets, Madonna dolls, everybody’s mouth moving. He couldn’t see the car in front of him anymore. Calhoun honked his horn.

“Get the fuck out of the way. U.S. government business.” He nudged the jeep against Mr. Piñata. Out of the way, Mr. Piñata. The man slammed the hood of the jeep with his open palm. BANG. Pissed. Fuck you. Calhoun rolled down his window, tried to wave them out of the way. The vendors, angry now because he’d run into Mr. Piñata, didn’t want to move. All their faces had turned ugly. He leaned on the horn, gunning the engine, popped the clutch and the jeep pushed through the mob.

Calhoun heard a loud cough. He glanced into the mirror. The pretty one held her hand to her mouth. She coughed again. From somewhere deep in her, a guttural rip. Not normal, too short. It stopped just as suddenly. Calhoun, surprised, glanced in the rearview…the pretty one. He nudged the brake, his eyes fixed on the girl, now. Her face was waiting for something bad – she had gone ash-colored. She was staring at nothing, her eyes big in her pretty face.

The sound came again, out of nowhere, deep retching. Guts loosed suddenly. Liquid blasted out of her mouth. The pretty one heaved a stream of vomit, glutinous- white, like bad milk. She grabbed the head rest in front of her with both hands, tried to stand up, spilling and spraying hard enough to hit the dashboard across the front seat.

Calhoun had to grab his DEA credentials as she sat up and shot more vomit onto the dashboard, like some kind of machine gone haywire. He looked in the rearview mirror, saw the girl’s tongue, the way it was hanging over her teeth, the color of the tip.

He looked up in time to slam on the brakes, knocking the girl back into the other girls. The horrible sound went with her. There was no way he could back up out of the traffic now. He was caught. The line was straight up ahead. He saw the green lights of the customs booth. We’ll be caught now.

“Ahhhhhh yhaaa… Ahhhhhhh yhaaaa!” The girl screamed something.

“Hey! Can’t you get her to… Jesus… Shut up. Jesus.” Calhoun let go of the wheel. People from the other cars were looking in at the girl. She stopped screaming, was coughing, asking for help. The other girls tried to move away from her. Then she stopped; there was quiet in the car suddenly. She said something to the others, scared, waiting for the coughing to come back. One of the other girls opened the back door for her, started to help her out of the car

“No…no…lock the fucking door!” Calhoun tried to reach over the seat, his seat belt stopping him. Two girls, somehow understanding him, began to hold her back. Calhoun hit the seat belt button, felt it pop. The car behind him began to honk, wanting him to pull up. Honking now, honking at me. Can’t let her out.

“Keep her in the fucking car!”

She was going for the open door, the horrible coughing sound scaring the other girls, making them back away. The coughing girl put her hands up to her throat, tried to stop it, tried to control the coughing.

Calhoun hung over the front seat, grabbed her by the pants. He felt her fleshy soft ass. He managed to get a hand on her ponytail and yanked her backwards all the way back into the car. The girl turned on him, threw the Coke in his eyes. A horn honking, the traffic behind him somewhere, honking. Suddenly everything had gone dark, the Coke in his eyes making it impossible to see, burning him.

He could hear her moving out of the door. Calhoun lunged over the seat again, tried to grab her again, blind, unable to see her, trying to keep driving, too. He got hold of her shirttail in his hand. His hand slipped down to her kicking knees, his eyes stinging. The traffic in front of him came back into view. He began to see again.

“God damn it. Grab her, for fuck’s sake! What the fuck is wrong with her?”

He let go of the wheel and turned around completely. The other girls screamed, seeing the jeep go slowly out of control. Calhoun tried to grab her ankles with both hands. She was getting away. She pulled herself through the open door, almost free. For one more second he held her by an ankle. His shoe slipped off the brake pedal. He managed to keep hold of the ankle. The jeep headed for the car in front of them. She broke for it, out the door, falling first on the pavement, shoes in the air, kicking one of the other girls in the eye.

Free. Calhoun watched her in disbelief. He pushed an hysterical girl back from him so he could watch where she went. He could feel the jeep free-wheeling then. They crashed into something. HONKING HONKING HONKING. He continued to watch the girl. His vision was still clouded. He rubbed his eyes with his fingers. “Grab her!”

The girl was kneeling by the jeep, holding her throat, trying to breathe. She staggered off, moving between the cars, crying out in Chinese, heading toward the customs booths.

Calhoun twisted back around. The jeep had stalled against the rear end of a van. He stared at the girl as she stumbled toward the line. The van’s driver got out, a white guy with a beard. Calhoun ignored the man yelling at him, watched the girl, wiped his eyes. Calhoun heard a horn again, LOUD. Stunned, he watched the girl walking between the lanes of traffic, wiping her mouth, stumbling toward the customs booths, shoulders forward, hands slapping her chest between gags.

He threw the jeep into park and opened his door all at once. Outside, hundreds of people stared at him across lanes of stopped traffic. He moved around the back of the jeep. He heard the van’s driver yelling at him. He started to run after her.

For a moment Calhoun wondered if he were dreaming, if it was some kind of nightmare. In the red blur from his burning eyes he saw the girl zigzagging between stopped cars – someone reached out and pushed her away from their window. She stumbled, got up, the cars closed up. Calhoun couldn’t reach her. He jumped up on the hood of a station wagon, over that, then over a VW. He fell, a woman, not the girl, screaming somewhere close to him. He tried to focus, his eyes coming back now, better, but burning. Everything behind a red-gray film. The next car over, a fat Mexican lady, mouth open, yelling at him. He wiped his eyes. He could see normally again.

They still weren’t in the same lane. The girl was trying to run, hands at her sides, pathetic. She was trotting toward the border in front of her, slowing. She was one more lane over to his right. Calhoun jumped on the hood of a truck and realized there were dozens of people getting out of their cars to look now. He jumped down, slipped, got up. He was in her lane now, a few yards away. She turned around and looked at him. She was saying something to him in Chinese. She stopped. She was trying to say something, holding her throat, coughing quietly, as if she were just someone at a restaurant that suddenly had swallowed something too big and needed help. He stepped toward her, hands out in the I’ll help you sign.

“Stop, please stop. Let me help you. For Christ sake, let me help you… We have to get back in…” She started walking backwards away from him, stopped, tried to catch her breath. A women nearby screamed at Calhoun to help the girl.

He tried to get her to stop walking, made a stop motion with palms held out. Then she just stopped, like a switch had been thrown. She crumpled onto her knees. She was turning blue.

Surprised, she looked up at him, then collapsed completely. Calhoun rushed her. She was kicking on the ground, supine. He looked up. The U.S. Customs people were coming out of their booths. She turned over, began crawling toward the U.S. One of the U.S. Customs men stepped into Mexico toward her.

“Don’t touch her,” Calhoun ordered. The customs guy stopped in mid-stride, confused. “I’m a doctor, don’t touch her,” he screamed.

Calhoun knelt down, pinned her with his knee, tried to clean her air passage with his finger, but it kept being blocked.

“Hey, buddy, you better do something quick.” The customs guard was looking down at them.

Calhoun reached into her mouth. His fingers touched something plastic, there was something plastic in her throat. He poked it with his fingers. Her air stopped. He tore at the object with his index finger, the capsule thing broke apart. The girl immedíately started breathing again, then just stopped in mid-breath. People were crowding around them now, watching. He looked up, holding the girl down at the same time, afraid she would stand up and run.

“I’m a doctor…she’s sick,” he said. “I’m a doctor.” He bent down and blew into her mouth, the taste of vomit on his lips. She was still trying to crawl toward the U.S. side. He had to put a knee on her chest to keep her from struggling. A chunk of something blew into his mouth. He spit it away, tried again to blow air into her lungs, but there was too much in the way.

He lifted his head up. It was doing no good, she was going purple from lack of air. She was dying. They were only a few yards from the border. She seemed to understand that she was close to the U.S. She put her head down on the black asphalt and closed her eyes. One of her hands reached frantically up toward the border guard.

Don’t die…please don’t die on me. Calhoun picked her up and tried the Heimlich maneuver twice, his fist deep into her gut. It popped. A balloon of heroin rolled out of her mouth and fell onto the street, and then another. He felt her chest expand against his fist and let go. She sucked air frantically. He stepped back, waited. He saw her do it again. Calhoun bent down and picked up the balloons. She was breathing normally, standing there looking at the crowd. He walked her back all the way to the jeep. He crushed the balloons on the asphalt before he got in. When they drove up to the booth she was fine.

“What’s the story with the girl?” the man said.

Calhoun flashed his DEA credential and didn’t answer. The man looked at him for a moment, hesitated, then waved them through.

Calhoun stepped out of the shower. Castro had brought him in the jeep back to the Arizona. Castro, smoking, waited in the bedroom. Calhoun looked at his watch. It was only seven o’clock. He wiped the steam off the mirror. The mirror had some kind of black chips on it. He saw his face. He looked tired. He heard a knock on the bathroom door.

“Amigo? ¿Qué dices? Bad day. Just like the movies. Like Asphalt Jungle. You saved the girl’s life. You should be proud of yourself.” Calhoun opened the door to the bathroom.

He walked into the room, a towel around his hips. He saw his suit on the bed, stained with vomit and asphalt. He didn’t want to look at it. Castro followed him into the room.

“What happened, amigo?” Castro sat down in one of the chairs by the bed and lit a cigarette.

“I can’t wear this shit. Look at it. Look at this shit. How the fuck do I know what happened? She nearly died.” Calhoun heard his own petulant voice. It sounded strange to him. Not the same now, something changed. The hot shower had just made him feel sick, not clean. Calhoun threw his suit pants on the floor; they were splattered with vomit, still wet. Castro just looked at him.

“Amigo. He still wants to see you tonight. I think you better get dressed.” Calhoun looked at Castro a moment.

“Here,” Castro extended his big brown hand. “Take this. It will calm you down. You saved a life. It’s a good thing.” He handed him a new pint of Presidente brandy.

Calhoun closed his eyes, saw the way she’d struggled, sucked for air, eyes open big.

“Take it, amigo.” Castro was dressed in a blue silk shirt and jeans. He had his service auto stuck in the belt of his pants in one of those hand-tooled holsters the Mexican police used, a spare clip next to it.

“Fuck Slaughter,” Calhoun said. He meant it now. He’d had enough. “Fuck him.”

“I have to get back to the station,” Castro said. “I’ll meet you at ten on the plaza. Drink this. I promise you it will make you feel better.” Castro pushed the bottle at him. Calhoun pushed it away.

“Take it, Vincente.” Miguel went to the bathroom and unwrapped a paper- covered glass and poured him a drink.

“I want to know why he doesn’t leave me the fuck alone,” Calhoun said.

“There are so many things people want to find out in this town… You know, it’s like they tell Nicholson in that movie: ‘It’s Chinatown, Jake,’ you know.”

Calhoun picked his pants up off the floor. “You go tell Slaughter I’m through. All right?”

“I tell him that and you’re a dead man, amigo. Do you want to be a dead man?”

“Yeah, I do. Tell him I’ll try to pay him somehow.”

“Vincente, I like you, okay?” Castro came up behind him and gave him the glass. “You are my amigo. I think you should reconsider. He’ll tell me to come back and kill you. That’s a predicamento,” Castro said.

Calhoun opened his dirty pants and put them on. “That’s a predicamento,” he said, agreeing. “How would you do it?” Castro walked to the door and turned around.

“I’ll see you later then… I’ll leave this.” He put the bottle on a table.

“I asked you a fucking question. How you going to do it?” Calhoun said.

Castro stopped and thought about it. “That’s not funny.” he said.