Emily Kimelman - Sydney Rye 03 - Insatiable (29 page)

I felt the same fear gripping my chest that was paralyzing Malina’s vocal cords. “Dan,” I said.

“Hold on,” he waved me away. “That’s it, yup,” he said into the mic. He banged his fist onto the table. “You got it. Izel I could kiss you.” He looked up at me and the smile fell off his face. His eyes flicked to Malina’s monitor. It showed two uniformed men staring into the camera.

Standing up I grabbed the mic off the table. Clicking down on the talk button I said, “Izel get up now. Get to the door. Malina don’t say anything. OK. On the count of three Izel you are going to get out of that trailer. Malina when I say three you drop, faint, fall. If you understand move the camera.” It moved. I looked back at Izel’s monitor. She was by the door. “Izel turn the lights out.” Her monitor went black. “OK.” I tried to look at both monitors as I counted. “1, 2, 3!”

Malina’s camera swung wildly. The two uniformed men were replaced by the sky, overexposed into a white blur. It curved passed the heavens and flew by the distant buildings before settling with half the screen pavement and the other half a view down the block.

Izel’s monitor turned all white as the camera struggled to fix its exposure. Labored breathing and the swish of fabric against the microphone came through the speakers. The camera adjusted and we could see that she was hurrying toward the metal gate.

I was gripping the microphone, my eyes racing from one scene to the other.

A pair of black boots almost filled Malina’s screen. One of the men was asking if she was OK. She mumbled something unintelligible. Izel’s monitor showed her approaching the metal gate. I saw her swing over it in Malina’s. She was a tiny distant figure behind the boots. Izel’s camera stopped jerking as she slowed to a walk.

I dropped the microphone back onto the table. “That was too close,” I said. “Way too close.” My hands shook, I rubbed them together and felt a thin layer of sweat between my palms. “I should not have let them do that.” I sat down on the couch, tipping the monitor on its side. I cupped my hands over my eyes and watched the darkness behind my lids explode with dots of light as I pressed into my eyeballs. “I should have just sent the tape to the police.”

Laughter. I opened my eyes. Laughter was coming out of the speakers. I dropped my hands and turned to the flat screen lying next to me. Malina’s monitor showed Izel’s smiling face. “I did it,” Izel told Malina. Malina’s laughter echoed through both their microphones.

“We did it.”

BEGINNINGS

The RV was starting to smell like a sock. A sock worn by a sweaty man with suspect hygiene. I noticed it when Blue and I came back from a walk. We’d been wandering for 45 minutes in fresh air. Stepping back into the RV after that kind of freedom made it clear not only that the thing stunk but that it was also filled to comedic proportions.

“I feel like I’m in a Marx Brothers’ film,” I said, as I pushed past Izel who was pouring a glass of water.

“What?” Malina asked, as I shimmied by her. She was perched on the edge of the table. Dan sat in one of the benches. Mulberry was in the other. I stepped over a cord to get to my bunk. Blue hopped up next to the monitor on the couch and it tilted over. Mulberry reached across and straightened it back up. I took off my shoes and put them up in my bunk then sat down in the passenger seat, twisting my body to face the group.

“How much longer?”

Dan looked at his watch. “Two hours.”

“Everything all set to go?”

“As much as it was before you left.”

I sighed and faced forward. There was nothing to look at, nothing to do. I sighed again. “Jesus, Sydney,” Mulberry said. “Stop it with the sighing.”

“Sorry, sorry. I’m just bored.”

“We’re all bored, doesn’t mean we go around sighing.”

“You’re right.” I turned to look at him. He was playing a game of solitaire.

“You want to play a card game?”

He shrugged. “Gin?”

“Sounds good.”

“Can I play?” Malina asked.

“We could play Hearts,” Dan suggested. “That way we can all play.”

“Great,” Izel said.

An hour into the game I got up, climbed over the monitor cord, squeezed passed Izel’s legs and got myself a beer. During the second beer I ended up with the queen of spades (a really bad thing in Hearts unless you’re trying to shoot the moon) and decided to try and shoot the moon (get all the hearts and the queen of spades). And I would have got away with it too if that pesky Malina hadn’t managed to get the last heart.

I opened a third beer in an attempt to console myself. As I stood in the kitchen taking my first sip I glanced at the microwave clock for the thousandth time that day. The show started in fifteen minutes. Dan turned on the computer, all the monitors glowed to life. A local TV station played on the monitor on the couch so we could all see it. The other three monitors were broken up into lots of small squares each showing a different camera in the theater.

“I need some fresh air,” I said, stepping out of the RV. Blue followed. He took a piss and I stretched my hands over my head. Scanning the barren landscape of the motel’s parking lot, I was surprised to see a parked SUV with two men hunched into their seats. I let my eyes rove past them. Then calling Blue, I got us both back into the RV.

Everyone was watching the TV as graphics for the benefit played across the screen. “We’ve got company,” I said. Izel and Malina turned to me with a curious glance. Dan was typing on his computer and hadn’t listened. “Outside, black SUV, two men,” I said to Mulberry. He turned his head slowly.

“Yup.”

And as I looked straight through the windshield I saw two more men coming our way. “They’re getting out.” he said. One of the men in the front raised a big gun.

“Duck!” I yelled before dropping to the ground. Blue laid down next to me. Malina flopped off the bench onto the floor, Dan slid under the table and Mulberry flattened himself into the bench. Izel looked at us all dumbly.

“What?” she said before the first bullets started. They were coming through the windshield and from our right side, the windows exploded and the walls dimpled. I grabbed Izel’s elbow and pulled her down, as she came toward me a bullet hit her in the shoulder. It splattered blood all over my face, it was in my eyes and then her body was on top of me, moaning. I couldn’t see and the smell of blood was so strong in my nose and mouth that I thought I might puke.

Instead I pushed myself from under her. She was crying. Using my shirt I tried to rub the blood off my face. It helped. The RV was shaking, a monitor exploded in a flash of sparks. It was fascinating and for a moment I just watched it burnout, the screen a blackened hole.

Regaining myself I pulled a kitchen rag down off the counter and pushed it into Izel’s wound. She screamed. “Hold it there,” I said. Then I opened the cabinet under the sink. Reaching into the small space I pulled out the guns Mulberry had stashed there. I scooted till I was between the bathroom and the shower. I checked the clip of the first, found it full, pushed it back into place and then leaning across the floor, handed it to Izel. “Pass this down to Mulberry,” I yelled over the deafening banging that rocked our little home.

With a grimace on her face and shards of glass in her hair Izel took the gun. She turned to the body next to her and passed it down the line. I checked the second clip, and then crawled into the back bedroom. The bullets stopped. The only sound in the RV was the TV. A commercial featuring a monkey eating a banana. Glass bit into my forearms. Blue followed me.

“We are the police,” a voice announced from outside in English. I peeked out the destroyed window and saw a man wearing a leather jacket and jeans. A bang came from the other end of the RV and the man dropped to one knee. I dove back to the ground as the hail of bullets started again. The gunmen were circling the vehicle, I could tell by the way the dimples in the walls moved. A piece of wood exploded out of the closet door. He was moving around, he would be in front of my window in a minute.

When the wall right in front of me started to dent I raised my gun over my head and depressed the trigger. The sound of guns quieted to only me and someone near the front. I released the trigger and lowered my gun, careful not to touch the burning hot barrel. The other guns stopped, too. I could hear Izel crying and a man outside moaning.

The benefit was starting. I heard applause coming from the speakers. I looked into the other room and saw through the smoke that Ana Maria was mounting the stage wearing a long green gown. I watched the screen mesmerized by her big smile, her delicate throat, her sad eyes.

“Come out with your hands up!” A man yelled from outside. “We won’t hurt you.” Izel looked over at me, her face pale and her whole left arm drenched in blood. “We will give you two minutes.”

Ana Maria started to speak: “Thank you all for coming,” she said. I opened my clip and saw that I had two bullets left.

“Mulberry, how many bullets do you have?” I whisper/shouted.

“There are more under the sink,” he whisper/shouted back.

“The situation in Juarez is unacceptable,” Ana Maria told the crowd.

I found the box of extra bullets, poured out a bunch for me and then passed the rest down the line to Mulberry. “How many are out there?” I asked while pushing bullets into my clip. Blue came over to me and sniffed at my gun. I pushed him back. “Down, boy,” I said. He laid down, protected between the shower and bathroom.

“One minute!” a voice warned.

“I saw four men before,” Mulberry whispered. “Two with the big guns and then two with hand guns. I think you got one of the guys with the machine guns and I got the guy who was doing the talking. They still have guns though. They’re not helpless.”

I looked around at the destroyed RV. The air filled with an acrid smoke, the filling spilling out of the cushions, not an intact pane of glass anywhere. Izel was the only one shot, I couldn’t see Dan because he was under the table. Malina was holding Izel’s hand, her eyes squeezed shut. “Everyone alive?” I asked.

“Thirty seconds!”

Malina and Izel both nodded. “Yeah,” Dan’s voice came out from under the table.

“I would like to close with a poem,” Ana Maria said. “One of my mother’s favorites,” I looked at the screen and saw that Ana Maria was crying.

“It will play, right, Dan?” I asked.

“It should.”

“Good. Mulberry, I’ll go out first, cover me.” I heard him moving around, glass crushing under his weight, then I saw his gun prop up against the passenger seat.

“Ten seconds.” Looking out a hole in the front door I saw that the men were hiding behind the doors of their SUVs. They were scared. They should be, I thought, as I cocked my gun.

I stood up and as I reached for the handle, I heard Ana Maria’s voice: “History is a funny thing,” she said as I kicked the door open and dove for the ground.

A FIRE FIGHT

The sound of bullets whizzing by barely fazed me as I rolled under the RV. Mulberry was shooting at the men, taking most of their fire. From where I lay I had the perfect angle to shoot the men’s feet. The first one fell on his side, his head exposed. I shot out the other one’s feet and he fell into the SUV. They were both screaming. I rolled until I could see the SUV in front of the RV. Mulberry had turned his fire onto it already. Its windshield exploded.

The engine started. Mulberry fired at the hood. I smelled gas, turning I saw that our tank was leaking. “Get out!” I yelled. “Move, move!”

The men who still had use of their feet were peeling out. I rolled out from under the RV. Aimed my gun but decided to save my bullets. Malina was helping Izel out of the RV. Blue ran to my side.

I approached the other SUV with the two injured men. They’d both managed to climb inside but neither of them could drive. It’s hard without feet. I approached at a crouch. They didn’t have toes but they had guns.

Blue was behind my left leg. I turned back for a second just to make sure everyone was out of the RV. I didn’t know what happened, I just fell forward.
 
I saw a man’s face, peeking over the door, his grin showed off yellowed, crooked teeth. Blue didn’t wait for a command. He launched himself at the gunman. His smile turned into a scream. Mulberry was right behind Blue. He pulled the other man out of the SUV, wrenched his gun out of his hand and then turned to the guy who shot me. I looked down at my leg. Blood oozed in a streak along my right thigh.

I swallowed. There was grit and dust lining my mouth. I looked up and saw Malina standing over me. Bits of sand clung to my eyelashes, they looked like huge boulders separating me from Malina. She looked down at my leg. Crouching down Malina reach a hand toward it but paused a foot away from the wound, her arm hung in the air for a moment and then reached over and picked up my gun. Standing, she headed toward the SUV, her legs wide and head low she looked like a tornado. I was glad she was on my side. Malina strode to where Blue had my shooter pinned to the ground and put the gun right against his forehead.

“Malina!” Mulberry yelled.

“You deserve to die,” she told the man in Spanish. “I should gut you like the pig you are.” I looked at her hand and saw that she was pressing on the trigger.

“Malina, No!” I yelled. The burst of sound was somehow louder than any of the others that day. I closed my eyes. When I opened them again the man was still alive. Malina was standing over him. Tears running down her face. She walked away, the gun held loosely in her hand.