Two Steps Forward, One Step Back
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Rating: PG-13 for violence and language
Summary: Sands is learning what it's like to be human. But what will he do when he finds out what has happened to El?
Author's Note: I have a phone and Internet again! Hooray! Now I can get back to a regular updating schedule. Please note this chapter is being posted without the help of my wonderful beta reader Melody, because I feel so bad about making you all wait so long for an update. So if you find any errors, they are entirely my fault.
****
Sands was pissed. He had gone to a lot of trouble to arrange this gunfight, and only two guys had showed up.
He knew what that meant. They weren't there to kill him. They were there to check him out, and see if the rumors were really true. Then they were supposed to report back to their boss. Then Carlos Alvarado would make plans, and the next time they met, it would be for real.
This, then, was his cue to act pale and tired. Shuffle as he walked, cough a little. Make them think he was less of a threat than he was. But he had never been one to play by the rules.
He was kneeling in the second pew, in front of the confessional booth. He had been in Culiacan for just over a month now, and for the past two weeks he had been coming regularly to confession. Today the priest was prudently nowhere in sight, but the men standing just inside the church didn't know that.
He remembered the church well. He remembered donning a priest's robe and chasuble over his clothing, giggling as he arranged the purple cloth oh-so-carefully. And El Mariachi had never even known. When he had walked out of the confessional booth, the last thing El had said to him was, "Padre?" He still laughed to think about it.
He rested his clasped hands on the back of the pew in front of him. He bowed his head and let his shoulders shake. Was he laughing? Crying? From the back it was hard to tell. Predictably, the two men came forward a little.
Concealed in his hands was a .22 pistol.
He stood up. He moved out into the aisle, genuflected before the altar and crossed himself. Behind him, the men went very still. It was too little, too late, however. He had heard their footsteps quite clearly; he knew exactly where they were.
He spun around and fired twice.
The men dropped. No guns clattered to the floor. They had stood there watching him for fifteen minutes, and they had not even drawn a gun. His lip curled. Pathetic.
****
After pulling the weeds in Jorge's yard, Sands had slept for twenty-four hours. He would have slept longer, but Jorge had woken him. The FBI agent had shaken his shoulder and called his name until he had grudgingly acknowledged that he was no longer asleep. He had mumbled something fuzzy and indignant, and Jorge had said, "You were still for so long. I thought something might be wrong."
He had promptly fallen asleep again, but later he had remembered those words. No, nothing was wrong. In fact, the past month had been arguably the most pleasant one Sands had ever known. He had slept for an entire day because he felt safe here, safe enough to lower his defenses and let the fear and exhaustion of four years finally catch up to him.
During the first week he slept a lot. He sat on the porch with Jorge and they talked about things like the weather and Broadway shows they had seen (Sands, six. Jorge, one.) Jorge told him about the cartel and he listened carefully. He had been running on empty all those weeks he had been with El, but now he had found his strength again. The cartel had to be eliminated in this area, or everything he had here would be taken away.
So he began to prepare. He made Jorge walk into town and count the steps. Then he did it himself, early the next morning before dawn. It was important that no one connect his presence to Jorge. Or the kid. Chiclet was an invaluable source of information during those days. He went anywhere and everywhere, and he hurried to do whatever the adults told him to do. And he never complained.
Sands began showing up for confession. Not confess his sins, although there were plenty to confess. On the fourth visit he told the priest his plan. The old man hugged him and blessed him. He bore the embrace stoically but when the priest blessed him, he couldn't help laughing. "Save your breath, padre."
At night he sat outside, smoking under the stars. He knew he should leave, just pack up his few belongings and sneak away, but he could not bring himself to do it. Always two things kept him there.
The first was Jorge saying, "I thought something was wrong." Jorge had been worried about him.
The second was Chiclet saying, "I'm sorry for what they did to you."
He could sneer at himself all he wanted, and he could call them weak for caring and himself weaker for caring that they cared, but in the end he could not lie to himself. It was somethng he had never been able to do. He made his living by telling lies, but he had always been honest with himself. And the truth was that he liked it here.
So he stayed.
And now, the church. He had come here loaded to the gills, guns stashed and hidden in several places throughout the building. Warned in advance, the priest had quietly canceled confession services, so no one would be in the church when the shit hit the fan. But after all that planning, only two men had showed up, and now they were both dead.
Well, he supposed when those two guys didn't come back, Carlos Alvarado would have his answer. Yes, the blind gunfighter was in town, and oh yeah, he meant business.
He started to collect his guns from where he had hidden them, and then stopped. One of the men had groaned. Still alive.
Swiftly he ran down the aisle, using one hand to count off the pews. In the other hand he held out the .22. "Don't even think it." Keeping the gun aimed at the man, he knelt down and removed the man's weapon. "You should have used it when you had the chance."
The man groaned again. "Fuck you."
Sands smiled. "Not today, thank you." His finger tightened on the trigger.
"It doesn't matter," the man panted. "We'll get you. Sooner or later. You guys thought you could hide forever, but we got him and we'll get you next."
Him? Who him? For a moment fear grabbed his heart, unwanted and very unwelcome. So they had discovered his connection to Jorge after all. Shit.
The man groaned again. The smell of blood was very strong. Sands leaned down. "What did you do to him?"
"The same thing we're going to do to you," the man said. He tried to laugh. "By the time we're done with you, you'll be begging us to give you to the Colombians. Just like your buddy."
Now he was really confused. What did the Colombians want with Jorge Ramirez?
And then suddenly he knew. This man wasn't talking about Jorge. The man was talking about El. The cartel headed by Carlos Alvarado had finally succeeded in capturing the great El Mariachi.
Wait a second. El was begging? El was begging? Now he had heard it all.
"Where is he?" he asked. He jammed the muzzle of the gun under the man's chin. "You can die slow, or you can tell me what I want to know, and you can die quick. What's it gonna be?"
"I don't know," the man said.
Sands shot him in the arm. Not a fatal wound, but a painful one. The man screeched. "I don't know! Honest! They don't tell us." He was practically sobbing
"You really do want to do this hard way, don't you?" Sands mused. He pressed the gun to the man's other arm.
"No! I don't know!" the man screamed. "Alvarado doesn't tell us shit! They took him someplace so no one would decide to turn him in and take the reward for themselves. The Colombians are supposed to be here next week. That's all I know. I swear it." The man's voice was fading. He was dying from blood loss. Time was running out to get answers from him.
"They took him someplace," Sands repeated. "Someplace where?"
"Please, I don't know," the man said. "But I think--"
"You think? Really?" Sands asked. "Because you sure don't act like it."
"Somewhere in town," the man said. "Alvarado's been coming here a lot lately."
This gave Sands a nasty jolt. Carlos Alvarado was here in town? A lot? Shit, he could have passed the man on the street and never even known it. That was not good, not good at all. He was supposed to be the one arranging the meetings. He was supposed to be the one with all the information and all the advantages. It made him very uneasy to think of something like an encounter with the cartel boss being out of his hands.
Then something occurred to him. "If you don't know where he is, how do you know that he's been begging?"
"We hear stories," the man said faintly. "They say he screams real good." He was almost unconscious.
Sands shot him in the head. The man's heels drummed on the ground briefly, then he went still.
He stood up. Well, shit. Now what did he do?
****
Pressed hard enough, Jorge admitted that Carlos Alvarado had been seen in town. Sands was furious. But he didn't yell. He never yelled when he was angry. Instead, he talked softly. "And you didn't think that was important enough to tell me?"
It was late morning, not quite lunchtime. They were sitting in the living room. A mindless talk show was droning away on the TV. Jorge had been watching TV while waiting for him to come back from the church.
"I thought it was important," Jorge said.
"So important you hurried to tell me. Making especially sure that I knew it before I went off to face them," Sands offered. He finished rolling a cigarette and brushed the leftover tobacco off his lap and onto the floor. He knew Jorge hated it when he did that.
"Important enough to wait," Jorge said, "until I was sure."
"Sure of what?" Sands asked. He was still pissed, but getting less so. Jorge always had a reason for doing what he did, so he was willing to hear the man out.
"Sure of his intentions. He could have been baiting you."
So that was it. "Why, Jorge, I didn't know you cared so much," he simpered.
Ramirez said nothing to this, but the temperature in the room suddenly dropped ten degrees, and Sands knew he had just made a mistake.
He backpedaled rapidly. Maybe Ramirez was only pretending to care, but it was still nice. Nice, but strange. It was still hard to get used to though – the concept that someone might care.
"Well, of course you care," he said. "But why should you?" He lit the cigarette and smiled. "I'm a big boy. I can handle myself."
Ramirez said nothing.
"Oh, by the way," he said, "I heard something today that might interest you.
"And what might that be?" Ramirez asked. He sounded very bored. And was it his imagination or was the volume on the TV louder?
"Did you know that Carlos Alvarado and his cartel have captured El Mariachi?" Sands said. He tried, really he did, but he could not prevent himself from breaking out into a smile.
"And where did you hear that?" Ramirez asked. He sounded a lot more interested now.
"Well it was a very boring party at the church," Sands said. "Only two guests showed up. One of them had to leave right away, but the other one and I had quite a fascinating talk."
"He told you that?" Now Ramirez sounded disgusted. "And you believed it? He probably said that so you would go charging in and rescue the mariachi." His voice went flat. "They're setting a trap for you."
Sands laughed. It was hard to remember sometimes that not everyone was as good at figuring people out as he was. He had been living here for a month, and Jorge still did not know him at all.
"Why is that funny?" Ramirez demanded. Now he was using his "I'm-officially-not-liking-this" voice. It was the same voice that had said, Why are we talking? at that long-ago lunch when Sands had dangled Dr. Guevara in front of the FBI agent like a golden plum.
He exhaled twin streams of smoke. "Do you really think I'm going to rescue the great El Mariachi?"
Ramirez was silent for a long moment. Then he said. "Why wouldn't you?"
Sands truly thought about his answer before replying. This too was something new he was learning. Thoughtless words still sprang easily to his lips, but being around the kid had begun to make him see the wisdom of pausing before he spoke. Chiclet was surprisingly sensitive; Sands never knew when something he said would upset the kid. And when the kid got upset, there were tears and accusations and the necessary empty motions of comforting, and annoyingly enough, guilt. All in all, Sands had decided it was better not to upset the kid; the momentary pleasure he derived from getting off a zinger just wasn't worth the resulting emotional bloodbath.
So he thought about it. What reasons were there for rescuing El?
He shrugged. "I'm coming up empty, Jorge." Another one of those completely inappropriate smiles crossed his face. He didn't try too hard to stop this one.
"Then let me help you," Jorge said. "Carlos Alvarado is a sick man. He will torture the mariachi to death, and he will make that death as slow and painful as possible."
Sands thought about what the man in the church had said. Something about El begging. He found it hard to believe that El would debase himself like that, but then again, men would do a lot of strange things when they were being tortured. He ought to know.
He shifted in his chair. "All right. That's one reason. But the guy in the church said they were giving El to the Colombians, so they aren't going to torture him to death after all. Give me another reason."
"Whatever he's done," Jorge said, "he does not deserve what is happening to him. No man does."
"Don't you believe in justice?" Sands asked. He took a long drag on his cigarette. Not because he wanted to, but because he needed the extra time to compose himself. "An eye for an eye, for example?"
Ramirez did not answer right away. When he finally spoke, his voice was low, as though he was staring at the floor. "I thought you would ask me before this. No, I do not think you deserved what happened to you." He took a deep breath. "You are not a good person," Ramirez said. "But I do know you are not the same man who manipulated me into killing Barillo and Dr. Guevara."
Sands sat very still. He was torn between fury at Ramirez, and a desperate desire to hear more.
"I knew it right away," Ramirez continued. "In the church, when I saw you sitting there with a child at your side. You were willing to die rather than hurt that child. The Officer Sands I knew would not have done such a thing."
Don't be so quick to thank me, Jorge. You see, I'm not sure El really meant for me to kill that kid. I still don't know what the fuck happened that day, but I'm not sure it was supposed to end in murder.
"So I brought you here, and I have let you stay. You can call that justice, if you want."
He swallowed hard. "What do you call it?"
"Restitution," Jorge said dryly.
"For what?" Sands asked. He wondered suddenly what skeletons lay hidden in Jorge's closet. How many bodies.
Ramirez actually started to answer, and then he stopped talking. They both heard it. The clear sound of a bell.
Chiclet was here.
The kid's interruption could not have come at a worse time. Jorge had been about to spill his guts, and secrets were always useful. Sands was CIA – secrets were his livelihood. So he was annoyed that he would not get to hear those secrets. Instead they sat in silence, waiting for the kid to walk in. Chiclet was a welcome guest in Ramirez's house, and he came and went with impunity. He let himself in the front door now.
Sands knew immediately that something wasn't right. Usually the kid chirped a greeting right as he walked in the door. But today the kid's step was slow, and there was no greeting at all.
"What's wrong?" Jorge asked.
"A man came to the house," Chiclet said dully. "He said someone would come by next week and give me my first order. They want me to start selling."
Sands clenched his jaw. It pissed him off to think of the cartel making the kid sell drugs. He was the only one who could give orders to Chiclet. No one else. Besides, the kid was too good to be out there on the streets selling crack.
"What did you say to this guy?" he asked. He spoke in Spanish. Chiclet understood English, but did not speak it very well.
"I said okay," Chiclet said. He sounded miserable, but there was a hint of accusation in his tone too. What else could I say, asshole? he seemed to be saying.
Sands could dig it. "All right," he said. "Listen to me. You just nod and smile and do what they tell you. But you are not going to have to peddle their shit, you hear me?"
Chiclet brightened. "Are you going to kill them?"
Sands gave him a small smile. "Oh yeah."
"And El Mariachi?" asked Ramirez.
Crap. He'd forgotten about El. He sighed. "Sure, El too." He realized what he had just said, and quickly corrected himself. "Sure, I'll save him. Although I gotta tell you, Jorge, I really do fail to see the benefit. This is, after all, the man who held me hostage for three months and tried to make me kill the kid that is, in fact, standing right here in your living room."
"Why does he need saving?" asked Chiclet. He never spoke El Mariachi's name. Completely on his own one day he had volunteered the information that he still had nightmares about that day in the alley, hearing El give the order to have him killed. And just two days ago he had asked Sands to teach him how to shoot.
"Apparently," Sands said cheerfully, "because he is a dumbass who got himself captured by Carlos Alvarado."
He expected Chiclet to say he was glad. Or at the least, say nothing. But the boy surprised him. "Then we need to help him."
Sands sighed. Sure, everybody wanted to help El. They all conveniently forgot the things El had done, and the fact that El had lost his mind.
Ramirez said, "Have you seen or heard anything in town lately? They say he is here."
"No," Chiclet said. "But I can find out."
Sands did not doubt he would. If there was anything to be heard about El Mariachi's presence in town, Chiclet would hear it. Maybe it was the bicycle, or his disarming smile. Whatever the reason, the kid was amazingly good at ferreting out information. Once Sands had told him that he would have made one hell of a CIA officer, and the kid had been so delighted he had giggled.
"I'll go now," Chiclet said. He started toward the door.
Sands waited for Ramirez to say it, the thing Ramirez always said. But this time Ramirez did not, so it fell to him to say it, just as the kid went out the door.
"Be careful," he said.
****
Chiclet came back that night. In hindsight, his news was not terribly surprising, but Sands was still affected by it.
"He is here. I followed one of them. They are keeping him in the center of town. It is the same building where they hurt you, Señor Sands."
He was stupidly unprepared for the jolt that went through him. A flash of memory, sharp steel and red blood, and beyond, the face of the doctor. Stark terror overwhelming his rational brain. no please don't no please i'll be good just please don't!
"Sands!" Ramirez spoke his name sharply, forcing him back to the present. He realized he was sweating, trembling all over.
I can't, he thought. No way. Tough break, El. But I'm not going back there. No way. No fucking way.
"Tell us about it," Jorge said. "How many men did you see? What is the security like?"
Chiclet talked. He had seen two men in front, he said. Probably more inside, but he hadn't gotten close enough to be sure. None in back but that meant nothing. A single light had burned in one window. Silence from within.
Hearing such dry details made Sands feel better. He liked to have something to think about besides the day he had been blinded. He had strategy to formulate now, and plans to lay. That was good. Keeping his mind occupied was good.
And then he suddenly realized what was happening. "Wait a minute." He turned to face Jorge. "You're really going to do this?"
"Yes," Jorge said simply. "You do not have to. I know it will be hard for you to go back there."
For a full minute Sands did not respond. He couldn't decide whether he should laugh or fly into a rage. He knew why Ramirez had said that – so he would get pissed and declare that he wasn't afraid, that he was going along and screw you, Jorge. But there was a fundamental flaw in that logic. Because he was afraid, and he didn't want to go. And Ramirez's words, while meant to provoke him into going, also gave him an out. He could agree and say he really wanted to sit this one out and there would be no loss of face.
Well, no more than he had already lost, that was.
His pride warred with the fear of going back. If he didn't go, Ramirez would not rub it in his face, but he would never be allowed to forget. Chiclet would not think so highly of him, and even though it was stupid, he cared what the kid thought. He wanted Chiclet to respect him.
Why, oh why did it have to be El? Why couldn't it have been Jorge, or the kid? Anyone besides El Mariachi. It would be so much easier to make this decision if he had a clearer motivation for making it.
"All right?" Jorge was saying. "You understand?"
"Yes," Chiclet said. He sounded disappointed. Jorge must have told him to stay away from the building and not get involved.
He wanted me to kill you, kid. Why do you want to help him so badly?
But he knew the reason why. Chiclet was a good person. And he was not. Jorge had told him as much, but it was nothing he didn't already know. He was psychotic and an asshole. Pure and simple.
He lifted his chin. "All right. I'm in," he said.
*****
Author's Note: I always wondered whether El realized Sands was the priest. But listening to Robert Rodriguez's commentary on the DVD, it became clear that the two sides of that scene were shot separately and that someone else was supposed to play the priest, not Johnny. So rather than ruin the simplicity of El's final words to Sands, I thought I would make it that El just never realized that was Sands. After all, they had only met once before, and it was dark, so El can be forgiven for not knowing who he was talking to.
