Chapter 9
Ashes,
Ashes, We All Fall Down
Disclaimer: The characters and situations in this story are the property of Robert Rodriguez and Troublemaker Studios. I'm only borrowing them. I'll put them back when I'm done. I promise.
Author's Note part 1: I may be evacuating for Hurricane Wilma later today or tomorrow. Either way, if I stay or go, I expect to lose my power when the storm goes through, so I will be out of touch for a while. Responses to reviews may be delayed, but as always I promise I will get back to you – it just might take me a while, depending on how things go with the hurricane.
Author's Note part 2: Lots of bad language in this chapter. And violence. And unhappy things. Please, please consider yourselves warned.
"Nice to see you could finally join us, El."
It was the explosion in the cantina all over again. He felt like he was watching that fireball rising into the night for the second time, too stunned to react. He could not move, or speak. He could only stare. The tiny part of his brain that still seemed capable of coherent thought whispered snidely that this was twice now that Sands had done this to him, but he barely noticed.
"So what do you think of my performance?" Sands asked. "All that screaming? It was pretty good, wouldn't you say? But would you call it Oscar-worthy?"
When had the lie begun? The moment Sands had set foot in that van? When the gunshot had sounded, so close to the phone even El could hear it?
No one else moved. The men with the guns might have been statutes carved from flesh-colored stone. Juan Garcia gazed at El with mild interest, nothing more.
Sands set his cigarette down in an ashtray, feeling for it first with his free hand. "I only wish I could see the look on your face right now. Chiclet?"
El's head turned to the left, despite the lack of any conscious command to do so. He felt the heat of Chiclet's dispassionate gaze. The boy was not nervous anymore. His shoulders were lower. The lines of tension had been erased from around his eyes. Chiclet, El realized in shock, had come home.
"Betrayed," Chiclet said. "He looks betrayed."
Sands smiled a slow, predatory smile. "Good."
El opened his mouth, wanting to say something, knowing he should say something. But his brain was still not in control. No words came.
It had all been a lie. A set-up. A trap. And he had fallen for it.
None of it had been true. Nor had it even been necessary. Sands could have handed him over to the cartel on the night it had all started. There had been no reason to gun down five of his own allies. No reason to make El think they were in this together.
No reason, except to feed Sands' twisted need for manipulation. Even without a failed coup to orchestrate, he still had to be pulling the strings, making everyone around him dance to his own strange rhythm. It was not enough to take down El Mariachi. First he had to gain El's reluctant cooperation. And why not? Betrayal only worked if the person being betrayed had no clue it was coming.
Strangely, what hurt the most was the knowledge that Chiclet had been in on the plan the entire time. He could understand Sands' actions, but he had never done anything to Chiclet. It made no sense that the boy was willing to turn him in and play a role in this charade without even blinking. Chiclet too was deserving of an award for his performance; his anxiety and fear for Sands had been entirely convincing.
Everything was a lie. Had he not known for certain that it was physically impossible, he would have been willing to believe that Sands was not really blind, but only pretending, just to add one more layer of confusion to the mix.
"I have to say, I'm a little disappointed in you. You made it too easy. No challenge." Sands smirked, a man trying to hold in his delighted laughter.
El finally managed to make his brain function. "You assume you have won," he said. It wasn't much, but it was a start. The longer he could delay the inevitable, the greater his chances of getting out of this alive.
"I never assume anything," Sands said, and some of his good cheer disappeared. "Not since the woman I thought I knew turned on me and made me lose a perfectly good pair of eyeballs."
El could not hide his surprise. A woman had blinded Sands? He had figured it was Barillo's cartel, or maybe Cucuy, but he had not known for sure. The mystery surrounding Sands would never be solved, he realized. At least, not by him.
His mind raced frantically, searching for a way out. He tried to remember how he and Carolina had escaped the slaughter at Cesar's villa, when the odds had been similarly stacked against him, but the only thing he could remember was the way his brother had embraced him.
Juan Garcia sipped his iced tea, then set the glass down. He studied El, his dark eyes unreadable. "So this is the famous El Mariachi." He did not sound impressed.
"He's not much to look at," Sands said, sounding almost apologetic. "The first time I met him, I could barely keep from laughing out loud. He was so sulky. Like a teenage boy full of angst."
El ground his teeth together, fighting to keep his temper. He could not stop them from killing him, but he could at least die with some dignity.
Garcia sniffed. "Hmm."
"El." Sands turned his name into a hearty greeting. "I'm surprised at you! All this time, and you still don't recognize your host? I thought you considered yourself a patriot. For you to not recognize one of Mexico's premier – albeit retired – generals, is really just downright insulting. What do you have to say for yourself?"
A retired general. Running a cartel. It was almost laughable. No wonder his country was in such a sorry state, if this was the way things were. El gazed at Juan Garcia, trying to understand what could make a former patriot turn against his own countrymen like this.
"I am awfully sorry about the whole cartel thing," Sands said. "But I figured it was the best way to get your attention."
Slowly El looked over at Sands. The former CIA officer was still lounging at ease in his chair. He was still smirking. But he was telling the truth, for perhaps the first time since they had met that night in the cantina.
"General Garcia here isn't cartel." Sands waved a hand, indicating the garden and the bodyguards strategically placed throughout the flowers. "None of these fine men are. Nor were the ones we killed, including Ramón the knife fighter. They were all soldiers working with the good General."
Dull roaring filled the lower ranges of El's hearing. Angry haze seeped into the corners of his vision. He became aware that his fists were clenched with rage.
"I told you, back in the hotel," Sands said. "The new El Presidente wants all connections to the failed coup erased. And that means you. So he put his head together with the famous General Garcia and they put their soldier boys in action. Of course, it was my idea to let you think they were cartel, and I don't mind saying, it took a lot of convincing to get them to agree to it."
"Erased," El said. It sounded like an epithet.
Sands gave him a tight-lipped smile. "Don't worry. I'm on the list, too. I just get to stick around until the bitter end, because I'm so useful."
It was no comfort knowing that Sands was going to die, too. "Then I suppose I will see you in hell," he growled.
"One can only hope," Sands sighed, and El realized with a jolt that Sands had taken his words literally.
"Well." Sands took one last drag of his cigarette, then ground it out in the ashtray. "How many men are on him? Did you do what I said?"
"Three," Garcia said shortly. His upper lip lifted in a sneer, although his voice remained impassive. Apparently he did not like taking orders from Sands.
"Good." Sands picked up the gun that had been lying innocently next to the ashtray all this time. He turned it in his hand a few times as though he had never held it before, then he rose to his feet. "Step away from him. Chiclet, you come here."
Two of the bodyguards looked to Garcia, who nodded imperceptibly. They moved back and to either side. Now El stood alone. Three feet separated him from the nearest man. Not a great distance, but enough. If he lunged for the guard's gun, he would be dead before he even hit the ground.
Chiclet walked over to stand at Sands' right hand. He was relaxed now, in a way El had not seen in him before. Chiclet, he realized with a sinking heart, belonged here. No wonder they hadn't frisked the boy.
The last of his hope died. He had thought maybe Chiclet might have had a change of heart about the plan, that he would speak out and try to save the great El Mariachi.
He knew now that wasn't going to happen.
"I did it," Chiclet said proudly. He looked at Garcia with distaste, an expression he could only have learned from Sands. No other teenage boy would glare so boldly at the man who had once commanded Mexico's army. "You said I couldn't."
Sands clapped Chiclet on the shoulder, although he missed on his first try and merely smacked the boy's upper arm. "I knew you could."
Chiclet stood a little straighter, his eyes glowing with pride. El wondered if he ever thought about his family back in Culiacán, about the father he had given up in order to accept his new, American father.
"Marco, to me," said Juan Garcia. The man who had been standing behind El stepped away and took up a stance behind Garcia's chair. He stood there easily, obviously reclaiming his usual post. And now that he thought about it, El thought he had seen Marco yesterday at the bank, through the rifle sight.
"Well, El, it's been fun," Sands said. "But all good things must come to an end, right?" He lifted his gun and took careful aim.
El stood very still. He had made the mistake of responding to Sands' taunts, and that meant Sands knew exactly where he was standing. There was no way Sands would miss. If he took even a single step, Sands would hear it and know, just like he had heard the three guards moving away, knowing that they had obeyed his command without needing to ask Chiclet for visual confirmation of the fact.
Sands made as if to squeeze the trigger, then stopped. "You know what your problem is, El? You've always been too short-sighted." His voice was light. "It's a major failing, especially in a mariachi. You really need to start seeing the big picture."
El frowned. Sands had said that to him once before, in the car on that first night, just before taking out the men he had actually been in league with.
He thought, Is it possible?
And then things started to happen.
The gun moved. Not much. Just enough.
Sands fired twice. The guard on El's right reeled backward, already dead.
The gun moved again as Sands swept his arm to his right. As it flowed across El's field of vision, he stared into the cold eye of the muzzle, and his heart stopped.
Sands fired two more shots. The guard on El's left collapsed.
Calmly, Sands finished turning to his right. He emptied his clip into Juan Garcia's chest. A few of his shots went wild, and one caught Marco high in the chest, whether intentionally or not, El could not say.
Marco staggered backward and managed to get off a single shot before he went down.
At such close range, it should have been impossible for him to miss. But he did. It was not Sands who fell, but Chiclet.
It all took about five seconds.
El was rooted to the spot at first. His shocked brain could not absorb anything more. But when Chiclet hit the ground, the paralysis that had locked his body fell away, and he was finally free to move.
Nor was he the only one.
Sands dropped to the ground, knocking over the patio table as he went. He grabbed the round edge and spun the table about, using it for cover.
With not a moment to spare. The six men who had been standing like stone statues in the garden had suddenly come to life. And they were pissed.
El flung himself to the ground. He slithered over the cobblestones, cutting his elbows on the shards of glass that were all that remained of Juan Garcia's iced tea. "I need a weapon!" he panted.
Sands kicked the yellow and white striped umbrella in his direction. "Help yourself!" He fired wildly over the protection of the table. The tabletop was made of bulletproof glass, El saw with detachment. He hadn't even known such things existed.
He fumbled to open the umbrella. Inside it were an assortment of guns and rifles. He did not doubt that all of them were fully loaded. He wondered how Sands had managed to get the guns out there without anyone knowing, then decided it did not matter. He seized the first one he laid his hands on, and came up shooting.
It seemed to last forever, the way all gunfights did. And at the same time, it happened so fast he could never really recall it later.
He did remember dragging Chiclet behind the table, ignoring the boy's moans of protest. He remembered spinning around on one knee and picking off the men who came running around the corner of the house. He remembered the sound of glass splintering under a relentless onslaught of bullets, and realizing that even bulletproof glass had its breaking point.
He thought, He could have killed me. But he didn't. Why?
He pulled the trigger. Over and over. He burned his fingers on hot metal. He killed men, and he could not even stop to watch them fall, because always there was another man who needed killing.
And when it was all over, when the grounds of the villa had become a charnel house and only he and Sands still moved, he could not stop shaking. He could not uncurl his hands from their guns. He could not look away from the fallen bodies or stop smelling the blood and cordite.
"Is it over? Did we win?" Sands was crouched down, broken glass in his hair. He was smiling.
El lifted the gun in his right hand and pointed it at Sands. "Yes," he said. He pulled the trigger.
Click of an empty chamber.
Sands laughed. "Tough luck, El."
He could have killed me, El thought again. It would have been so easy. Sands had shot the first guard. And for just a fraction of a second, while the gun passed over the space where El stood, he had held back. Then a heartbeat later, he had shot the second guard. For unfathomable reasons, Sands had spared him.
He felt no similar charity. He tossed the gun aside and drew another. He checked the clip, then rammed it into his belt. "We are going."
Sands stood up. He hissed under his breath, and El saw without surprise that a bullet had found him. His left sleeve was soaked with blood. "Lead on."
El struck him. Sands went sprawling on the cobblestones, his sunglasses landing in his lap. El winced away from the sight of the hollows where his eyes had been, but refused to let pity melt away any of his anger.
"Don't you even care about Chiclet?"
Sands fumbled to put his sunglasses back on. He raised his head. "Chiclet?" He did not direct the question to El, but to the thin air, expecting a reply.
It was easier to stay angry, he thought. Easier than giving in to other, more treacherous emotions. "He was shot," he said bluntly. He reached down and yanked Sands to his feet. "Now help me get him out of here."
He drove away from the villa, not in the battered Chevy, but a brand-new SUV that someone had been stupid enough to leave the keys inside.
Sands sat in the backseat, Chiclet lying across his legs. The boy was too pale, and he was unconscious. Unfamiliar with this area, El sped through the streets, wondering if it would be quicker to return to Guadalajara or try to find a hospital in one of the towns along the lakeshore.
They did not speak. El concentrated grimly on driving. The adrenaline of the fight was wearing off, and he could feel the various aches and pains of his body now. His elbows hurt where he had cut them on the broken glass, and he felt bruised all over. But he had not been shot, and that was good. He was sick of being shot.
At a likely intersection, he turned left, forcing the SUV to take the turn faster than it wanted. For a scary moment he felt the right-hand wheels want to lift from the road, and Sands cursed angrily. "Think you could get us to the hospital in one piece, fucker?"
"Be quiet," El snarled. He did not dare speak in anything louder than that controlled tone. If he did, he would start shouting. And then he would start shooting.
They were going west now, toward Ajijic. There would be a hospital there, El prayed. A good hospital.
"How did you do it?" he asked. "How did you become involved with such men?"
"I told you," Sands said. "After the coup, I decided I wasn't going to run. So I offered my services to the people running the show."
"Not cartel," El said. More and more of the picture was becoming clear now, and his anger was growing with every revelation. "You have been working for the government all this time."
"Bingo," Sands said. El glanced in the rearview mirror and saw him grin.
"The president you wanted to kill has been paying you to work for him." He gripped the steering wheel so hard his hands hurt.
"Funny how things work out sometimes," Sands drawled. "Of course, he just thought I was some unlucky CIA spook who'd gotten on the wrong side of the Barillo cartel. He felt sorry for me. Plus I could give him all kinds of useful information, like the location of certain drug lords."
"Of course," El said through gritted teeth.
"Then the elections came and your presidente went out, and mine came in. And then instead of using my contacts to find drug lords, suddenly I was asked to find everyone involved with the coup. And that's when it all began," Sands said. "Last summer." His voice trailed off, as if he no longer found his own story very interesting.
The waters of Lake Chapala flashed by on the left. El spared them not a glance. He pressed harder on the accelerator, sending the needle on the speedometer soaring upward.
From the moment Sands had spoken to him in the cantina, he had been played. He had fallen for every trick, believed every lie. His anger seemed to have no limit. He ached to lash out, to find a way to turn the tables and make Sands do his bidding. He wanted to be the one in control, for a change.
"Stop," Sands said.
El glared at him through the rearview mirror, but did not speak.
"Stop," Sands repeated, louder this time.
El looked up, really seeing him this time, and all the strength left his limbs.
He let the car coast to a stop on the side of the road and turned off the engine. There was no traffic. Nothing disturbed the silence.
"No." He flung open the door and scrambled out of the car, fighting briefly with his seat belt before subduing it. He marched back to the passenger door and threw it open. "No."
Sands remained seated. He bared his teeth. "Don't even think it, fuckmook."
El reached in and took Chiclet's body. He swept the boy up into his arms and whirled away from the car. He staggered over the grass with his burden, heading for the lake.
"Get back here!" Sands got out of the car and came after him, his right hand held in front of him. On unfamiliar ground, with no one to guide him and no prior knowledge of where he was going, most of his grace deserted him, and he truly looked like a blind man. "El!"
On a quiet patch of grass, El knelt. He set Chiclet's body down. Except for the blood staining his shirt, the boy looked like he was only sleeping. His lashes made pale shadows on his cheeks. His hair was askew on his brow, needing only a careless hand to push it back. The sunglasses he had worn in imitation of his hero were gone, left back at the villa.
Sands stumbled across the grass. "El!" He would miss his quarry by several feet, if he kept on his current course.
"He is dead," El said coldly. "And you killed him."
Sands spun around, locating him through the sound of his voice. "What?"
"You killed him!" El shouted. "He was only there because of you. He should never have been there!"
"Fuck you!" Sands shouted. Forgetting he wore two guns, he launched himself at El. "Fuck you!"
El punched him in the face. He had never felt so angry in all his life.
Sands staggered and nearly went down, then recovered. In a silence more scary than any curse would have been, he attacked.
El was ready for him. He had not been in a fight like this for years; his scuffles during his stint as a bouncer were as nothing compared to this. This was not just a fistfight. This was brutal combat, and nothing would satisfy him except total victory. He fought with his fists and his feet, and when he could no longer use those, he flailed with every ounce of his strength, crashing his forehead onto Sands', sending them both reeling.
He fell back on his butt in the grass. Blood ran from his nose and mouth. One eye was already swelling shut. His hand felt like he had smashed it against a brick wall. He could barely bend his fingers.
Sands looked little better. He had lost his sunglasses again. He was bleeding from a cut on his lip and another over his forehead. Thin runners of crimson snaked down his face, as though he had only today lost his eyes. His chest heaved as he fought for air, and for control. "Fuck you," he muttered.
El said nothing.
"Fuck you," Sands said again. "Fuck you!" He threw his head back and screamed it into the morning sky. "Fuck you!"
El closed his eyes.
Sands began to laugh. It was the laugh of a madman. "You're right, El. For once, you got it right."
He did not want to answer, but he could not stay silent in the face of that laughter. "What am I right about?"
"This is my fault." Abruptly Sands stopped laughing.
"He couldn't stay in Culiacán. He had helped me on the Day of the Dead, and people had seen him do it. He was marked. If he had stayed, the cartel would have come after him and his family. To save them, he left when I did."
El opened his eyes. Sands had turned away so he faced the lake. His voice was utterly emotionless. "So yes, I killed Chiclet."
Fury stampeded through El's veins. The boy's death was horrible enough, but now Sands sat there and calmly accepted the blame. It was all too much.
He saw now what he had to do. And he was glad to do it. It would all be worth it in the end, just to see the look on Sands' face.
"You deserve to die," he said coldly. He stood up, groaning as every pain in his body shouted in outrage. "But first I want you to suffer."
He threw everything he had into the punch. Sands collapsed into the grass, unconscious.
El bent down and carefully lifted Chiclet into his arms. The boy's head lolled back and his hands dangled loosely. Taking care not to disturb him any more than was necessary, El walked back to the car.
It was an eight-hour drive to Culiacán. If he hurried, he could be there by sunset.