Walker and Thompson thoroughly searched the van, finding a handwritten note under the driver’s seat that read Moncho 12 Vieja. There was a Vieja Street in Sonrisa, and a man named Ramón who lived in the unhappy town. “Moncho” was a nickname for Ramón. Neither Walker nor Thompson knew if Ramón lived at 12 Vieja.
When Bobby came back with the others, he was pissed off about the burial. It was clear to Thompson that he wasn’t sure what to do about it. Before, when they’d been a simple motorcycle gang, they’d left all the patrolling to a local group of Minutemen. Those guys were long gone. Thompson wasn’t sure what had happened to them. But when Bobby decided to take on the gig, the O.M.s had formed an alliance with the official Border Patrol, agreeing to return any live illegals they apprehended, and to report deaths like this one. As far as Thompson could tell, two factors had shattered that alliance: the execution of the Mendozas and the increased chaos in the world. Thompson wasn’t even certain there were any Border Patrol agents in their territory anymore. The O.M.s were the law now.
Which could be bad luck for Moncho of 12 Vega.
As the club got on their bikes and resumed the ride back to Sonrisa, the buzzards spiraled down again and landed on the mound. Some broken-down mining equipment signaled the outskirts of the town, along with the ruins of a boxy, nondescript stucco building minus its roof and windows. About a thousand people still lived there, and about a hundred kids went to the elementary school. There was a bus for both the middle school and the high school — a forty-minute commute — but the number of students was dwindling as the world got scarier. The O.M.s escorted the bus every school day morning and afternoon. At first the gesture had generated enormous goodwill. Now folks were not so sure. Armed escort, armed guard? Were the kids passengers or hostages?
The insect buzz of the bikes reverberated off the ramshackle wood and stucco houses. No one had a lawn, but nearly everyone had an American flag. There were also a lot of statues of the Virgin of Guadalupe or Jesus or St. Francis in the sand beside porches and mailboxes. The Catholic Church was a busy place. The curly-haired black priest, Father Patrick, was nice to the O.M.s. He was grateful that they’d put a stop to the desecrations of the graveyard. He never said a word about the double grave where the Mendoza parents lay. There had been no witnesses except O.M.s when Bobby shot the Mendozas. There was a long, detailed police report describing how the tragedy had occurred — Bobby had thought they were home invaders, vampires — and no one ever said any different.
Shortly after that, the police department had already shuttered their storefront next to Sonrisa Liquor. They said they were being transferred to the storefront in Alameda del Sud, the next dusty town over. But that was crap. Their main street was even more boarded up than Sonrisa’s.
Wind blew, sending a tumbleweed down the road. A few faces appeared in windows as the club roared into town. The O.M.s kept the townspeople safe while at the same time scaring the shit out of them. Thompson was sure they’d had discussions about which were worse, vampires or the O.M.s. The O.M.s had only killed two people. And maybe the cows and sheep, too. But maybe not.
The club lived in a compound of double-wides and one permanent building — Bobby and Walker’s house, which was freshly painted a soft turquoise, with a large wrought iron cross on the front door and a painted shield of the O.M. colors hanging over the garage. Little Sister and Manuel had their own rooms. Thompson rented a nearby apartment, very ratty. Hang arounds didn’t rate O.M. housing.
Walker and Monster took the kids inside the house. That left Bobby and four soldiers in the sandy front yard. Thompson knew they were headed for 12 Vega.
It took less than three minutes to reach the front door of 12. Bobby pulled out his .38, then surprised Thompson by pulling out another. All this time, Thompson hadn’t detected the extra weapon on Bobby’s person. Bobby held it out to Thompson.
“Time to earn your keep,” Bobby said.
Sun and necessity had baked any vestiges of second-guessing out of Thompson. He took the gun with a steady hand.
“Maybe,” he said, and Bobby scowled. “Maybe it’s time.”
“Ex-fucking ’scuse me?” Bobby said, narrowing his eyes.
“There may be nothing to do here,” Thompson replied, cool, unfazed. Or at least acting that way. “It’s 12 Vega, but we don’t know what that means.”
Bobby looked at him for a second or two. “I know that’s bullshit,” he said finally. Then he gestured at Thompson toward the door. “Kick it down.”
“Better if I knock,” Thompson said, “but I’ll kick it down if you want me to.”
“I don’t give orders twice,” Bobby said.
Then he looked past Thompson’s shoulder with widening eyes. His mouth went slack. Looking at him, Thompson whirled around and dropped to one knee, aiming the .38 at whatever had startled his captain. The three remaining O.M.s stood behind Thompson, and they reacted, too, drawing weapons and turning, scanning for whatever was on Bobby’s radar.
Sunshine, broken-down houses, the caw of a bird. “What?” Fugly said. “What’s wrong, Bobby?”
Bobby spat on the porch, huffed out a deep breath and wiped sweat and grime from his forehead. “Fug, you and Johnny Rocket go around to the back. Just in case.”
What the hell did he see? Thompson thought.
“Shit,” Bobby muttered. “Screw it. Knock, Gingersnatch.”
— 3 —
Turned out, yes, there were people inside who knew the dead man in the desert. Two men, two women. Moncho was their contact — someone’s cousin — but Moncho was not there. They vagued it up about where he was, but Thompson understood their murmured Spanish, and knew Moncho had left to pick up another two folks who had been following the van in a Chevy.
In the living room, clean, loaded with religious statues and pictures of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the four refugees sat on a worn blue velvet couch and a couple of dining room chairs — a girl about Little Sister’s age, a teenaged boy, an old guy, and an older woman, all looking haggard, scared, and miserable. The four were holding big glasses of water and eating peanut butter sandwiches. They had come from some shithole border town Thompson had never heard of. Mexico was bad and getting worse — companies shutting down, stores closing, police officers joining the military. And vampires moving in.
“We see a vampiro yesterday,” the girl said, through tears. The man in the desert had been her novio, her fiancé. But Thompson got the distinct impression that she was relieved that he was dead.
“So you brought your stink here?” Bobby shouted, grabbing her by her wrist and dragging her to her feet.
The two Mexican men jumped up, too. Thompson knew this was his cue to let them see the .38. Poison did, too, but all they did was present arms. Thompson could see that Poison was troubled about the fact that Bobby was rapidly losing his cool again. He and Poison traded glances that said that something was wrong with him. Thompson wondered if the others had found something in the desert that they weren’t telling him about. Or if the contents of the post office box had finally somehow come into play.
“We’re killing you. We’re killing you now,” Bobby said, as he dragged the shrieking girl across the room.
The older woman flung herself at Bobby and Fugly pushed her back. She tottered backwards, then fell against the couch. Thompson learned more. The girl was named Maria. The woman hadn’t known her until they’d met at the rendezvous point and paid the human trafficker, the coyote to drive them across. The dead man under the mound had been the coyote. The boy and the old man also were not related to Maria or the old woman, whose name Thompson did not yet know.
Thompson stayed steady as he, Poison, and Monster brandished weapons. The older woman was screaming. The two Mexican men got ready to rush the O.M.s, which would be suicidal.
“We shoot them, we may upset people,” Thompson said.
“Who the fuck cares? This is our town,” Bobby said. Then, “We should move anyway. This is a shit hole.”
How far would you go, to save your own life?
This was not the world Thompson had signed up for.
The Mexican men started speaking in rapid Spanish, protesting that they were not vampires. Look, look, they couldn’t turn their feet backwards. They could jump over spilled salt. Weird folklore, all of it. But with so many different kinds of vampires being discovered, who was to say what the right tests were to prove that these muchachos weren’t fangholes?
Thompson knew Bobby couldn’t understand what the Mexicans were saying, but he also knew none of their assurances would impress him. Moncho was going to drive them to Phoenix to find work. They were leaving soon.
The old man and the teenager also discussed the switchblades in their boots; there was a gun under one of the couch cushions and they were trying to formulate a plan to grab it and blow the bikers away. Thompson still didn’t want Bobby to know he spoke Spanish, so he gave the teenaged boy a hard look, dropped his gaze to the couch cushion, and very discreetly shook his head.
The boy blanched, told the older man that the gringo with the red hair understood Spanish; and the older man said loudly in Spanish, as if to make sure Thompson heard every syllable, “We’re clean. I swear we’re clean.”
“You need to leave,” Bobby said in English, the only language he knew. “If you don’t leave, we’ll kill you.”
The old man started to glance at Thompson, but the teenager told him not to. So he kept his eyes on Bobby and said, “We’ll leave when Moncho comes back. I swear it.”
“They’re planning something,” Bobby said. “They’re going to jump us.”
“Then we’ll have cause,” Monster said. “Self-defense.”
Bobby smirked as he kept hold of the girl, who was weeping. The older woman was telling her to stay calm.
“We don’t need cause ever again.” Bobby gestured with his gun. “Everyone sit down.”
