Chapter 22
Leaving
Disclaimer: I do not own El, Sands, Chiclet, or anything related to OUATIM except a wildly overactive imagination.
Rating: Strong R for language and violence
Summary: Time to get the hell out of Dodge.
Author's Note: Many thanks to Melody, beta reader extraordinaire, and finder of very pretty videos and pictures on the web. You're the greatest, girl.
****
Diego Sanchez. With a gun. Nothing else in this world made such a distinctive sound as a gun being cocked.
Oh fuck.
Fuckfuckfuck.
On any other day, Sands might have chanced shooting Sanchez first. Not today. He could barely hold the gun, let alone raise it fast enough to fire and hit Sanchez.
"Drop your weapons," Sanchez said.
And El, to Sands' utter shock, said, "No."
"No?" Diego Sanchez laughed shortly. Not with amusement, but with surprise. "I am standing here aiming a gun at your head, and you tell me no?"
"I do," El said. "And I will tell you why. Because you could shoot me. I do not doubt that. But in the time it took you to do it, Sands would kill you."
Sands lifted his chin a little, trying to look the part. It wasn't a lie – normally. But today was not a normal day. Today he was having trouble just staying conscious.
Sanchez had kept his end of the bargain, all right. Since arriving at the house, Sands had become quite well acquainted with pain. He had no idea how long he had been here, or what time of day (night?) it was.
Sanchez and his goons were very good at dispensing pain. Make a hurt, and then keep worrying at it. Break a finger, and spend half an hour tapping it and wiggling it back and forth. Hammer a fist on a kidney, not once, but a dozen times. All very simple, but effective.
He wondered how long he had before he passed out.
Diego Sanchez cleared his throat. "So it would seem we are at an impasse."
"No," El said coldly, "we are not. Put down your gun."
"And let you shoot me? I think not."
Sands kept his hands down low, but he tilted the pistol upward, aiming at Sanchez's head. "We could shoot you anyway," he offered, then winced. His throat hurt from all the screaming. He wanted a nice shot of booze right now, something warm and silky that would coat the lining of his throat and burn all the way down to his stomach.
"You do not leave me with many options," Diego Sanchez said. "Either way it seems I am going to die."
"There is one way you can live," El said. "Do you wish to hear it?"
Sands said nothing. He hoped his surprise didn't show on his face. They weren't going to kill Sanchez? What the fuck?
"It seems I have no choice," Sanchez said.
"No," El agreed. "You do not. First, how long until your men come back?"
"Half an hour at least," said Diego Sanchez. "It will take them some time to find the courage to return with the news that you escaped."
Sands smiled darkly. "Honed your torture techniques on your own guys, didn't you? I like it."
El ignored this, but he swayed a bit to his right, bumping Sands' left shoulder. Whether it was meant as a show of support or a warning, Sands didn't know. He did know he was grateful for the physical contact. When they had been hiding in that small space, enclosed in El's arms, he had felt safe. When El had been holding him, he had barely been able to hear the voice laughing in his head. Not so now.
"Now," El said, "we put away our guns, and we talk." It was a reasonable statement, but he sounded anything other than reasonable.
El sounded like he couldn't wait to start shooting.
And Sands didn't know about anyone else, but he wasn't about to give up his gun.
"I think I will hold onto mine," said Diego Sanchez. "If you wish to talk to me, you can do so with my gun aimed at your head."
Surreptitiously, hoping Sanchez wouldn't see it, Sands corrected his aim a little, using the sound of the man's voice to guide him. His damn hands were trembling, and he kept losing his target.
"How is it," El asked, "that you escaped the massacre at Escalante's hacienda?"
Massacre. Despite the pain of his battered body, Sands smiled. He liked that word. He liked the memories it recalled. Gunshots and blood and smoke, and the screams of dying men. Good stuff.
"I was in Juarez that day," said Diego Sanchez. "Running an errand for my brother."
"You mean Escalante," Sands said, remembering that El did not know of the connection between Sanchez and Escalante. Brothers through marriage. He wondered suddenly who had the wife.
"Yes," said Diego Sanchez.
"But you came back, and saw what we did," El said.
"I saw what you did," Sanchez said, his voice tight with fury. And suddenly Sands wasn't so sure this trip down memory lane was such a good idea.
"Then you know," El said, "what we can do to you, your men, your house."
Sands knew what El was up to then, and he had to fight hard to keep from smiling.
A long, long silence stretched out, further proof that Diego Sanchez was smarter than his predecessors. "You would not have the chance," he finally said. "My men--"
"Your men would be dead," El interrupted. Sands had never heard him speak so coldly. "You think I came here alone? You think there aren't half a dozen of my friends surrounding this house right now?"
He went on for a while, spinning lies. Sands tuned him out. He had a sinking feeling they were going to be standing here talking for some time. Which was not good. He didn't know how much longer he could stand up. His knees kept wanting to buckle, and every breath hurt. The entire right side of his body screamed with pain from his cracked ribs and the slow bleeding going on under the skin from the beating concentrated in one area. He just wanted to lie down. Maybe moan a little.
Yet if he passed out now, he was going to get them both killed. With an effort he focused his will, intent on staying alert and conscious.
"Very well," said Diego Sanchez. "What do you propose?"
"Let us go," El said.
Diego Sanchez laughed. "You know I cannot do that."
"No one else is around," said El. "No one needs to know how we left your estate."
"What do you mean?" Now Sanchez sounded intrigued.
"Tell your men we were hiding under the stairs. You knew this, so you waited for us. When we came out, you killed us."
Sands nearly choked. This was either the worst idea he had ever heard, or the most brilliant.
"You save face," El said. "In fact, your prestige grows, because now you have killed El Mariachi and the American spy. And by letting us live, you ensure the survival of your cartel, and yourself. We will not trouble you again. We will simply disappear."
Sands corrected his aim on the gun. He sure hoped El wasn't saying what he thought El was saying. Because no way was he letting Diego Sanchez live. Not after what Sanchez had done to him. Furthermore, there was no way he was going into hiding. His home was in Culiacan. He was never going to leave it.
Incredibly, Diego Sanchez seemed to think this idea was worth pursuing. "What if I let you go, but then I set a trap for you a month from now and kill you both?"
"It won't happen," El said. "Any trap you set will close upon those who set it, and we will be the ones doing the killing."
Sands liked the sound of that.
"You sound awfully confident of yourself," said Sanchez.
"I ought to be. I have been keeping away from men such as yourself for over ten years."
"I see. Well. What if I agree to let you walk free, but not Agent Sands?"
The silence that followed this question, before El responded, was a short one, but Sands died a little inside during every moment of it. I hope he says yes! cried the voice in his head.
"That is unacceptable," El said, and Sands slumped a little in relief. The voice in his head shrieked with scorn and laughter.
"I paid a very large sum of money for Agent Sands," said Diego Sanchez. "I cannot just let him walk out of here."
"Fucker," Sands snarled. "You don't own me."
"I beg to differ," said Sanchez.
"You will get your money back," El said.
"What?" Horrified, he half-turned toward El, fully intending to argue this one. Bad move. The world tilted. Voices blurred and deepened. He was going to faint, he just knew it.
In desperation, he did the only thing he could think of. He slammed the pistol in his right hand down onto his left hand.
The pain was scarlet and shocking. He caught his breath, but managed not to scream. His hand throbbed sickly, but he was alert again, standing erect.
El and Sanchez were working out the details of the payment. Automatically Sands used Sanchez's voice to correct his aim. He couldn't believe what he was hearing. Just what the fuck was going on here? They were supposed to believe that Diego Sanchez would let them walk out of here? They were supposed to just walk out of here?
They didn't even have one hundred thousand pesos – not unless El had a mystery bank account somewhere that Sands knew nothing about. And it pissed him off that El was willing to buy him back from Sanchez, like he was nothing more than a...well, a thing, not a flesh and blood person. Yet there they were, talking about him as if he wasn't even there, as if he couldn't hear every word they said. He had paid little attention to the auction in the casino, but he was alert and listening now – and every word they said made his soul shrivel a little more.
The voice in his head loved it. It was still quiet, no words yet but it didn't need to speak. He knew what it would say. Well look at that. Guess I was wrong all this time. You really are worth something after all. About one hundred thousand pesos worth. How about that?
"Fuck you all," Sands muttered under his breath, and corrected his aim yet again. For a moment he was sorely tempted to turn the gun on El, but then he remembered El was his ticket out of here, so he refrained.
"Very well," Sanchez finally said. "We have a deal."
"A deal," El repeated.
Diego Sanchez chuckled. "I must admit, you are a surprise to me. You are not what I expected."
"That is because you expected a killer," El said. "But I am only a mariachi. I have killed when I had to, but I have never liked it."
Sands had heard enough. They had tortured him repeatedly. They had fucked up his hand so bad he would be crippled for the rest of his life. And now this final humiliation, of being bought and sold, yet again. It was just too much.
Fuck this.
He said, "Yeah? Well, I'm CIA, and I've never had a problem with killing."
He pulled the trigger.
In the stillness of the room, the sound of the bullet entering Diego Sanchez's skull was quite clear. The cartel leader fired his own gun, but it was a reflexive motion only as his body spasmed, and his finger tightened about the trigger -- the bullet dug harmlessly into one wall.
A long silence followed the sound of Sanchez's body hitting the floor. Then El said, "He only missed me by a foot, you know."
"Yeah, but he did miss you," Sands said. His knees buckled, and he fell.
****
El managed to catch him before he hit the floor, but this turned out to be not such a good thing. The jolt that went through him as El's hands brought him up short wrung a sharp, unasked-for scream from his throat. Fire sheeted up his right side, and he twisted in El's hands until El let him drop to the floor where he could curl up around the hurt and just moan.
"What is it?" El asked, a strange note in his voice. "Where does it hurt?"
"My side," he gasped. All the while wondering just how long before some of Sanchez's men came running at the sound of the gunshot. El's pistol had been silenced – Sanchez's had not.
El's fingers gathered the fabric of his shirt, lifting it, revealing the damage. He tensed, breathing shallowly. He probably looked like a fucking sunset down there. Sanchez and his men were brilliant at hitting the same area over and over again, always finding the same spot. What was down there? Kidney, liver, appendix maybe? All of them shaken, not stirred. He was probably bleeding to death inside, and didn't even know it.
"We need to get you to a hospital," El said, lowering his shirt.
"No," he said. "Just--" He let go of El's pistol. "Unlock me. And get the dagger."
"What?" El asked, genuine confusion in his voice.
"Your dagger. The scorpion dagger. Sanchez has it. The casino gave it to him when he bought me." He couldn't keep the bitter anger from his voice. "I guess they were having a buy-one-get-one-free deal."
"How do you know that?"
Jesus, but El could be so thick sometimes. "How do you think I know it?" he asked.
"Christ," El muttered. The mariachi moved away, and Sands heard the sounds of Sanchez's pockets being turned out. He turned his head so he could press his forehead against the stone of the floor. The coolness seeped into his skin and helped a little with the pounding pain behind his brow.
El came back. The cuffs were unlocked, and he smothered a groan as the metal rings were removed from his wrists. Then El's hand moved down, over his leg and to his foot. The scorpion dagger and its sheath were slid into his boot. "Now it is yours again," El said.
"Actually, it belongs to you," Sands said. "It always has."
"It is yours," El said. His voice changed, and became cool again. "Can you sit up? We cannot stay here."
"Yeah," he lied. "But answer me one thing first. Who's out there?"
"What do you mean?" El asked.
"You said you had men outside, watching the house. I didn't know you had any friends left."
El was silent for a moment. Then he said, "I don't."
Sands considered this. He was still pissed at El for attempting to buy him back, but the loneliness in El's voice went a long way toward making him feel better. He nodded. "All right. Help me up."
****
After that, things got crazy. Wild and strange crazy, not insane crazy. Thank Christ for small favors, right?
Consciousness faded in and out. He found himself on the ground a few times, in El's arms other times. Once he screamed, when his left hand struck something hard and unyielding, and when he was awake he could not stop swearing, just a steady stream of curses rolling unchecked from his lips.
There was a lot of shooting, he knew that much. He killed a shitload of guys. El killed even more. Yet somehow, they remained unhurt themselves. Something – or someone – was looking out for them. Maybe it was fate. Maybe it was Carolina.
Whatever it was, when they stepped outside and Sands felt the night breeze on his cheek, and knew it was finally over, he found himself untouched. Bullets had droned past his face, splintering into walls right beside him, but none had hit him. For once, life, instead of shitting on him like it usually did, had decided to take pity on him. It was the only explanation he could think of. For sure it was the first time he had ever been involved in a gunfight without himself or any of his partners getting shot.
"Now," El said. "Smile, and wave."
"What?" He was leaning heavily on El's right arm, his head drooping. "What for?"
"Because someone out there is watching you right now, and he is very worried about you."
What? Someone was out there? Worried about him? Who? What the fuck was El talking about?
He was about to ask these questions out loud when he realized he already knew the answers. "Oh Christ, El, you didn't," he groaned.
"He wanted to come," El said. "I couldn't stop him."
"He's a fucking kid!" Sands snapped, anger giving him the strength to push away from El's supporting bulk and stand up straight. "You expect me to believe you couldn't make him stay at home where he belongs?"
"I do," El said calmly. "And you know why."
Yeah, he did know why. "Shit," he breathed. "You sure do like to live dangerously, don't you?"
"I was taking a chance," El agreed. "But I felt it was worth it."
"Worth what?" he demanded. "Getting Chiclet killed?"
"What secrets do you think I have been keeping from you?" El asked.
He was thrown for a moment by the change in subject. Then he shook his head. "No. Not now. I just want to get out of here."
"Later then," El said.
The mariachi's arm slid about his shoulders again. They started walking forward. Sands concentrated on staying upright. Every step was an agony, but he forced himself to go on. He could not faint, and let Chiclet see him that way. Maybe he didn't have much dignity left, but he refused to let the boy see El carrying him like a fucking baby.
"Sands."
"What?"
"Do you know where we are?"
"Diego Sanchez's house," he said with weary sarcasm.
"Yes. And you have been here before."
"I have? When?" His life was divided now into two very distinct eras. W.E. and W.O.E. With Eyes, and Without Eyes. Sometimes the days of W.E. felt like ancient history, events and people and important dates turned into dusty artifacts of someone else's life. The blank, black hole of W.O.E. was much clearer.
"We came here when we were hunting Escalante. This house belonged to Ajedrez."
Sands laughed shortly. "What are the odds?"
"Here," El said. They stopped walking. Sands felt his knees try to buckle again, and with a snarl, pushed himself upright. "This is the end of the driveway. Chiclet will come pick us up."
"You let him drive? Goddamn, El." A crystal clear image of the kid driving right off the side of a cliff sprang into his head.
"Why not?" asked the mariachi. "I let you drive."
"That's real funny," he panted. Christ it was cold out here.
"Wait." El's arm left his shoulders, just enough for him to realize El was stretching to one side in order to reach something. He heard a rustling. Leaves? Then the welcome weight of El's arm returned. "Do you remember the first time we came here?"
"Yeah," he said. He was going to faint in another minute; he could feel it.
El's hand brushed the hair back from his face. Something was placed behind his ear. "You had a flower in your hair that night."
A flower. He was standing here dying, and El had just put a fucking flower in his hair. He wanted to laugh, but he didn't have the strength for it.
"You told me your name that night," El said. In the distance, a car's engine swelled, and grew louder. Chiclet, otherwise known as the fucking cavalry, coming to their rescue.
"Biggest mistake I ever made," Sands sighed.
"No," El said, and he sounded very serious. "Your biggest mistake was thinking you meant nothing to me, and giving yourself up to Sanchez."
That was nice. He knew he should say something in response, something suitably warm and fuzzy, but suddenly speech was impossible. A dim roaring filled his ears, and then there was nothing.
****
He woke up to find himself lying across the backseat of the car. Something soft was beneath his head as a pillow. It smelled like El and the edge of a button dug into his cheek, so he guessed it was one of El's shirts. More fabric bound his right wrist tightly, easing some of the pain there.
Silence from the front seat. He imagined Chiclet sitting twisted around to stare at him, watching him carefully for signs of distress. El would be checking the rearview mirror often, his mouth pressed into a grim line.
He wondered if the flower was still in his hair. What color was it?
"You know," he said, and was shocked at how slurred his voice was, "we really gotta stop doing this."
"Señor," Chiclet said urgently. He could have been talking to either of them.
"Stop doing what?" El asked over his shoulder.
"This," Sands said. "You driving away from the scene of our latest disaster, with me sitting here feeling like shit. Next time, I'll drive, and you can be the one groaning."
El grinned. "All right. It's a deal."
Chiclet, however, was not amused. "Next time? There isn't going to be a next time!"
Silence filled the car for a long moment, then El Mariachi and Sands began to laugh.
Chiclet made a few bewildered sounds, then subsided into silence.
Sands did not laugh long. It hurt too goddamn much. Behind the wheel, El stopped laughing too. "We will be at the hospital in a few minutes."
"No," he said. "No hospital. We'll be sitting ducks there. Just find a doctor who keeps late hours and pay him in cash."
"No, my friend," El said. "That will not work this time."
"Well you better find a way to make it work," Sands snapped. "Because if you try and make me go to a hospital, I'll fucking gut you." He had no intention of submitting himself to the will of doctors dressed in white, with their antiseptic smells and their falsely solicitous voices. No way. No fucking way.
He remembered himself, age seven, hesitantly approaching his mother. He barely knew her, this strange woman who was not home often, and who sniffled all the time like she had a cold. Mama, I think I need to see a doctor. My stomach hurts a lot. Hands pressed to his belly. Hoping, desperately. When Doctor Peterson asked him what was wrong, he could tell, and then Doctor Peterson would call the cops and they would come take Uncle Tommy away, they would take him away too, and let him live with another family, a family where the parents cared and nobody made you do things you didn't want to do.
His mother had told him to go outside and play.
No, no more doctors. Not for him. Dr. Guevara was just the icing on the cake, the final warning. Doctors are not to be trusted, fuckmook. Don't you get it yet?
"We can be back home by morning," Chiclet said in a low voice to El.
"I don't think he has that long," El whispered back.
"Oh, he might surprise you yet," Sands said. God, how he hated it when they talked about him like he wasn't there. He was blind, not deaf.
"There are doctors in Sinaloa de Leyva," El said. "We will find one of them." The car slowed down, and made a left turn. He raised his voice slightly. "Not a hospital."
"Damn straight," Sands sighed. He was fading again. Unconsciousness beckoned.
What the hell. Why not? He gave himself up to it, and sank.
******