Chapter 6
In Which War Breaks Out, and a Truce is Declared
Disclaimer: Again with the not mine.
Rating: R again for language and violence. Are you sensing a pattern here?
Summary: El Mariachi and Sands reach an understanding, and stop trying to kill each other.
Author's Note: A million thanks to my reviewers. Erin, Shad, Merrie, gypsy, Queen of the Damned, jackfan2, raquedan, shoelacedreamer, and anyone else I might have missed (sorry!!) -- you guys make my day with your kind words.
Author's Note Part 2: As I was writing this, it dawned on me that suddenly even a basic knowledge of the geography of Mexico would be useful. So I used my handy atlas and learned that Culiacan is on the western coast of Mexico, in the north of the country. Mexico City is further south, and east. Beyond that, I know little, and so my apologies to anyone who knows the country, and who knows I am obviously making this up.
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El didn't like going in circles. And for days now, that was all he had been doing. Driving in circles all day on the same dusty roads, leaving dusty small towns just to come back at night and check into the same dusty motels. For every two days they spent on the road, only one actually involved any progress. The other was spent pretending to move forward.
He wasn't quite sure why he had fallen into such an elaborate deception. It had started from a sly desire to keep Sands ignorant of their location, but somehow, somewhere along the way, that initial motivation had disappeared. By now, El realized, the sad truth was that he was driving in circles in order to buy time -- and he didn't even know why.
Time for Sands to heal, he supposed. Time for himself. Time for the cartel to regroup under new leadership. Time for the new hunt to begin, for himself to become the hunted yet again.
He should have done it right away, he saw that now. The day after the botched coup, the day after everything had fallen apart. He should have taken Lorenzo and Fideo and gone after the remains of the cartel with everything he had. Smashed them before they could reform.
Instead he had let his own basically romantic nature intervene, and so now here he was, hundreds of miles from anyplace familiar, and his only companion was a blind CIA agent who hated him only slightly less than he hated himself.
El sighed as he pulled the car into the parking lot. The same town, the same motel as yesterday. They were making their way southeast, into the heart of Mexico, but with excruciating slowness. It had been almost two weeks since they had left Ramirez's.
El went to check in and when the woman at the desk recognized him, he gave the old abuela such a dark glower that she crossed herself and practically threw the key at him. He wondered what kind of talk was following them, these mysterious men who stayed in the same place twice, and who went into dirty bars to ask questions about the old Barillo cartel. Sooner or later word was going to reach the right ears, and then things would start to get interesting.
He crossed the dusty parking lot, back to the car. Sands was leaning against the passenger door, smoking one of his hand-rolled cigarettes. El slowed down, taking advantage of the fact that Sands couldn't see him, and just stared.
Two weeks on the road had restored Sands' wiry strength, his wry humor. He still walked with a limp, but even that was fading. The pain from his missing eyes was receding too; he could turn his head to catch a sound and not wince anymore. Dressed in black, instead of a stupid T-shirt and a big hat, he looked exactly as dangerous as he was.
"Are you going to just stand there, or are you going to unlock the door?"
El shook his head. The jingling accessories on his outfit notwithstanding, he had no doubt that Sands had always known where he was, from the moment he had stepped out of the motel lobby. The man's hearing was that good.
Across town, the church bells rang. El unlocked the door to the motel and shoved it open. As he went back to the car to take the beaten bags and his guitar case from the trunk, Sands crushed his cigarette under his heel and made his way toward the door, one hand held in front of him. He stumbled on the curb and cursed and nearly fell, but managed to stay upright.
El nodded to himself. Lorenzo had said he was crazy when he had outlined his plan, but Lorenzo could not see Sands. Lorenzo, if he had been the one blinded, would have fallen prey to the cartel within five minutes of being set loose on the street.
He tossed the bags over his shoulder, slammed the trunk shut, picked up the guitar case with his free hand, and walked toward the door.
The instant he set foot inside the motel room he knew something was wrong. He dropped the guitar case and started to turn, but Sands was on him before he could even begin to bring his free arm up in self-defense. A sharp blow on his jaw sent him reeling, and a fist clubbed him on the back of the neck, sending him to his knees.
Then the assault stopped, as quickly as it had begun. Sands backed away, until he stood with the back of one knee touching the sagging bed in the middle of the room. In his right hand he held El's pistol, the one El had been carrying at his hip ever since leaving Ramirez's.
"Fuck," El swore.
The single word dropped into the silence. Sands corrected his aim, using the sound to judge where El knelt on the hideously patterned carpet.
"What are you going to do? Shoot me?" he asked.
"Well, that is the question, isn't it?" Sands said. "How's this? I've got another question for you. How stupid do you think I am?"
El shook his head. He touched his jaw gingerly and winced. "I do not think you are stupid."
"No? Because it sure seems that way to me. And let me tell you something, friend. I might be blind, but I am not stupid. Did you think I wouldn't know we were in the same town?"
The fucking church bells. That was how Sands had known. El bit back a heavy sigh. "What do you want me to say?" He heaved himself to his feet.
Sands pulled the trigger, sending a bullet into the floor right where El's left knee had been. "Get back down."
El did as he was told, but not before sliding forward and to the left a little. Now the gun, which had been pointing at his head, was aimed at the wall behind him, just over his shoulder.
"Where are you taking me?" Sands said. "I have tried asking you nicely, but you won't tell me. Now I want some answers, and I am not going to let you get up until I have them." He sounded like he was ordering a beer in a bar, perfectly calm and natural.
Slowly, slowly, El lifted one knee from the carpet and prepared to slide forward again. For the first time it struck him that the chains on his pants would always give him away. As long as he wore them, he would never be able to hide from Sands.
"Let me ask you a question," he said. "Where would you go, if I was not stopping you?"
Sands seemed to consider the question. Although it was hard to tell. The sunglasses hid much of his face, and El had only the set of the man's mouth to go by.
"Puerto Vallarta," Sands finally said. "Nice people, nice bars. Excellent pork, although not good enough to shoot the cook over. Beautiful countryside." He stopped, and his jaw clenched. He gave El that smile that was nothing more than a quick thinning of his lips. "Well, at least I've got the memories, right?"
The gun never wavered. El laid his knee down and prepared to move the left one. He leaned back, so his voice would continue to come from the spot Sands thought he was in. "I have never been there."
"All the more reason for me to go, then," Sands said. His voice remained light, conversational. "And don't think I don't know what you're doing. Move again, and you're dead."
El froze. He glanced about the motel room, noting the bed with its pronounced arc in the middle, the cheap lamp on the table beside the bed, the position of the phone. He thought of his guitar case laying behind him, and knew he would never have enough time to open it and remove his own weapons. Sands would gun him down before he even got close.
There was no other choice. El nodded, although he knew Sands couldn't see him. "Okay then," he said.
He leapt forward, staying as low as he could. The first bullet parted the hair on his head, and the second whined just over his shoulder. Then he had hold of Sands, and they were both falling backward onto the bed.
Sands tried to bring the gun around again, and El seized his wrist and twisted as hard as he could. He half-expected to hear the snap of bone, but Sands had the sense to let go of the gun before that could happen. El released his wrist, and instead of cradling the injured limb, as most men would have done, Sands socked him in the eye.
El fell backward off the bed into a heap. The side of his face flamed with pain. He rolled to his feet, trying to shake off the hurt. He saw the gun on the carpet, saw Sands' groping hands reach for it, and kicked the firearm away. It skidded across the carpet and fetched up against the wall beside the door, which was still standing open.
Without thinking, he stomped down on Sands' fingers. This time he did hear the brittle sounds of breaking bone. The CIA agent shouted with pain, then with his other hand he grabbed El's ankle and pulled. Off-balance, El toppled over and landed heavily on his back.
All the breath whooshed out of his lungs. He couldn't move. He just lay there, gasping stupidly for air. He could hear Sands panting, cursing, and he knew he had to get up and prevent the man from getting the gun, but his body refused to obey him.
Get up, a voice urged in his mind. You have to get up. Now!
He knew that voice. It was Carolina's voice.
El rolled onto his side, and from there onto his knees. His lungs finally cooperated and allowed him to draw in a single, burning breath. He gripped the side of the bed and used it to push himself to his feet. He turned toward the open door and the gun, thinking he would have to act fast to beat Sands to the weapon, and then he stopped, because Sands was not there.
He turned around. The CIA agent was crawling on his hands and knees, ignoring his broken fingers. He had his shoulder against the wall, using it to guide him forward. Except Sands had gotten turned around in the melee, and instead of heading for the door, he was only going further into the room. And in another step, he was going to realize it himself.
The thud as Sands' head struck the wall made El wince. Sands stopped and raised his hand and immediately found the corner he had crawled into. He splayed his fingers on the wall. For a moment he just knelt there. Then he lowered his forehead to the carpet in defeat, his hand still touching the wall. A soft sound escaped him.
El felt a strange tug in his chest, and knew it to be pity. I'm sorry, he wanted to say, but that was ridiculous, because it was Sands who had created this mess, and it was Sands' own fault that he was moaning on the floor in the corner of a strange motel room.
But El still felt sorry for him. And he remembered that he had thought he was meant to be Sands' second chance, and suddenly all the lies of the past two weeks seemed petty and mean.
He started forward, and Sands froze. In a flash the CIA agent turned so his back was pressed into the corner. His injured hand was close to his chest, the other held out in a gesture of forbidding. He looked ready to spring at a moment's notice, ready to fight to the death.
El was not interested in fighting. He sat on the bed and clasped his hands in his lap. His right eye was slowly swelling shut, and he could feel a lump forming on his jaw. "Mexico City," he said. "I have contacts there. We need information if we are to take on the cartel."
Sands let his head fall back against the wall. "Why?" he asked. The bored nonchalance was gone; he sounded genuinely confused. "Why do you want me with you? Is this your idea of revenge? Or is it a twisted joke, sending the blind man to face the evil drug cartel?"
"No," El said. He shook his head. "I want you with me because you are a gunfighter." He stood up and got no pleasure from seeing Sands flinch. He was through fighting. He was tired of having to be on his guard all the time around this man. If they were going to defeat the cartel, they were going to have to work together. Starting now.
He crossed the room and retrieved the gun from the floor. He shut the door and drew the security chain. He drew the curtains and moved his guitar case atop the plastic table beside the tiny TV. The housekeeping done, he went back to the bed and sat down again.
Sands had regained his composure. Although he still sat in the corner, it was obvious that he was there by his choice now. "Why are you doing this?" he asked.
"Why don't you want to?" El asked back. "The cartels are full of dangerous men. They corrupt the youth of this country. They took your eyes. Can you really tell me you don't want to get back at them? Vengeance is not always a bad thing, Agent Sands."
"Bullshit," Sands said.
El felt like he had been slapped. "What?"
"This isn't vengeance. You only think it is. Destroying the cartels won't give me my sight back. It won't bring your Carolina back, or your daughter."
El dropped his head. Everything was black for Sands now, but he had seen right through El, effortlessly. And despite himself, El had to admit that Sands was brilliant at what he did. No wonder he had virtually run all of Mexico from his cell phone.
Sands looked right at El, the dark sunglasses giving him an unnerving, penetrating stare. "So now tell me the truth. Why are you doing this?"
El pursed his lips. He hated those sunglasses. From the moment he had met the man, he had realized that Sands had an uncanny ability to see right through people, but at least when he had been sighted, his intense stare had been easier to take. Now, with those blank sunglasses, it was almost impossible to look at him for any length of time.
Still, the question hung in the air between them. He could lie, or make up a story, but he lacked the heart to do such a thing. He was tired, more tired than he could ever remember being before. Tired of running, of hunting, of playing the game. Once upon a time he had tried to settle down, and live a normal life with Carolina, but God had decided that this kind of life was not for him. God had apparently decided that his life was meant to consist of strange hotel rooms and dusty towns and guns. Lots of guns.
And he could accept that -- he could -- although it was hard. But it was an acceptance built on his own terms. If he was going to have to live that kind of life, he was taking Sands with him, and nothing the other man said or did was going to change that.
"Because," he said, "I have nothing else in my life. So I will take my meaning where I can, and hope it is enough."
Sands was silent for a long time. Maybe he too was finally coming to realize that sometimes the stakes were too high, and the consequences too dear – that sometimes the game just wasn't worth it. He nodded. "All right," he said. "I can accept that."
"And you?" asked El.
The corner of Sands' mouth quirked. "Well," he drawled, "someone has to be sure there is balance in this country. Right now that means erasing one powerful drug cartel from the face of this earth and giving the others a chance." He paused, and when he spoke again, he sounded a little less cynical, a little more sincere. "In other words, El, like you, I will take my meaning wherever I can find it."
El looked at him thoughtfully. He probed the sore spot on his jaw with his fingers. Then he stood up and walked over to the guitar case on the table. He opened it, opened the guitar resting within, and pulled out a small pistol. "Take this." He walked over to Sands and held out the gun.
Sands reached up, and El moved the gun so he could find it. When the CIA agent's fingers touched the barrel, he grabbed it quickly and snatched it back, as though he expected El to pull it out of his reach and taunt him. "This is mine," he said.
"I know," El said.
Sands held the gun loosely, one finger curled about the trigger. He did not bother to check if it was loaded. "Aren't you afraid I'm going to shoot you?"
El stood up and turned around, presenting his back to Sands. "No," he said.
He walked over to the door and picked up his worn bag. He unzipped it, and began rummaging through the items within.
Outside, the church bells rang.
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