Savages

his white shirt.
    Chon keeps the shotgun on the driver while Ben gets into the van and quickly finds the money. He also finds the GPS tracking device stuck in there with the cash and tosses it on the ground.
    Says,
“Vamanos
.
”
    Chon shoots twice, into the front and back tires of the van.
    Then they get into the Lincoln and take off.

150
     
    “That was so
cool
!”
    Ben is lit freaking up.
    Adrenaline high. Endorphins bouncing off the cell walls like a schizophrenic playing racquetball against himself. Like nothing he’s ever experienced.
    “Count it,” Chon says.
    $765,500.
    A start.

151
     
    “We found the Lincoln,” Hector tells Lado.
    Lado shrugs. “Where?”
    “Parking lot at the San Juan train station,” Hector answers. “It’s registered to a Floyd Hendrickson. He’s eighty-three years old and reported it stolen this morning.”
    They go to talk to the driver and the
pendejo
who was riding shotgun.
    Lado and Hector take them to a big date farm out near Indio and put them in a shed where they keep tractors and shit. The two sit on the dirt floor leaning against the corrugated-tin wall and they develop verbal diarrhea. Keep shitting on and on about how there were two of them, a shotgun and two pistols, real pros …
    Lado already knows they were pros—they knew when, where, and what, and they knew to look for the GPS.
    “Two of them? You sure?” Lado asks.
    They’re really sure.
    Two tall guys.
    Lado thinks that’s interesting.
    Wearing masks.
    “What kind of masks?”
    Yanqui
television hosts.
    Jay Leno and …
    “Letterman,” the driver says.
    The other one got the car make and license plate.
    “It’s a wonder,” Lado says, “that neither of you two got hurt at all.”
    Very fortunate, they agree.
    Yeah, well,
that
ain’t gonna last.

152
     
    Lado is pretty sure they’re telling the truth and had nothing to do with it.
    Other than being stupid, lazy cowards and letting it happen.
    These
cabróns
have families down in Mexico, SOP for anyone working for the BC on this side of the border—you have to have family where the BC can reach out and touch them.
    Fuck job references—you want to guarantee good performance and loyalty you keep parents, brothers and sisters, even cousins in your pocket. Men who think nothing of risking their own lives would never think of risking their families’.
    He tosses the bullwhip to the ground.
    Two tall guys …
    No, it’s not likely. How would the two
gueros
know the location of the stash house, the route the drivers take?
    They couldn’t.
    No, a
tombe
like this has to be an inside job. Maybe not these two
pendejos
, but someone inside.
    “Cut them down,” he snaps.

153
     
    Designer coffee joint on Ritz-Carlton Drive.
    And the PCH, coast side.
    Chon refers to the place as Yummy Mummy Heaven.
    Useta park himself at one of the outdoor tables, sip cappuccinos, andwatch the parade of rich young mommies jog past pushing their three-wheeled running strollers. Tight bodies in T-shirts (or designer hoodies, in colder weather) and sweatpants.
    “That’s the early shift,” he explained to Ben.
    The later shift involves the exclusive day care just up the street. The slightly older YMs would drop the brats off and then come in for their lattes and, maybe, post-latte sex with Chon.
    “Bored and resentful,” Chon observed to Ben. “Perfect in bed.”
    “Adulterer.”
    “I’m not married.”
    “What ever happened to morality?” Ben sighed.
    “Same thing that happened to CDs.”
    Replaced by a newer, faster, easier technology.
    Ben asked, “What would O think about these squalid escapades?”
    “You kidding?” Chon answered. “She talent-spots for me.”
    “Shut up.”
    No, it’s truth. O, when she can get up that early, has spent many happy hours handicapping Chon’s odds. That one’s hot, that one’s horny, that one is happy at home, forget her, check out that ass, I’d do
that
one …
    “Did she ever …”
    “Nah.”
    They’re not thinking about O’s barely latent lesbian tendencies or Yummy Mummys this morning. They’re thinking about O, however, as
    Alex and Jaime walk in—
    “Siamese beaners.”
    “Easy.”
    —stand at the counter and order coffee to go.
    Ben and Chon follow them out to the parking lot and get in the backseat of Alex’s Mercedes.
    “What?” Ben asks.
    Alex turns around to look at Ben. “One of our cars was hijackedlast night.”
    Ben is stone. The son of two incessantly probing shrinks, he knows