No Way Back: Part 1 of 3. Andrew Gross

And his badge. Which sent the message You do not fuck with the Z’s. Or we’ll paste you. Now, nervously, Lupe manned his own crew for the first time.

      The white SUV would come down the road into town at a little after 10:00 A.M., he was told. Two Anglos would be inside. A man and a woman. Do it in the open, he was instructed. Let the whole world see.

      Lupe didn’t like killing people. He would rather play football and impress the girls. With his sandy-colored hair and bright blue eyes, he was always popular. Except he knew this was the way to climb up the ladder. And they were all part of the same corrupt game, no matter which side they were on. Govermentales, politicians, the police. Even the priests. No one was innocent. Even he knew that much.

      Someone shouted, one of the lookouts from the rooftops up ahead. “They are coming!” Then: “Hay dos!” he heard. There are two.

      “Dos persones?” Lupe called. Just as told.

      “No. Dos coches.” Two cars.

      No one had told Lupe that.

      He quickly radioed back. His uncle, who was having coffee at his hacienda, asked him, “Are you sure?’

      “Sí. Two white wagons. Anglos. They are passing the school now.”

      That meant they would be in the square in a matter of seconds. Lupe gave the signal to the old man, who brought the cart across the narrow stone street, instructing the burro to stop. Coming down the hill, Lupe did see two white vehicles making their way down Calle Lachrimas, named for the Holy Mother’s tears.

      “There are two!” he radioed Oscar, and looked up to the verandah across the square. “Both Anglos. Which one is it? Do you know the plate number?”

      His uncle’s voice came back. “No. Let me check.”

      The front car honked at the cart. The old man appeared to do his best, moving as slowly as possible, but he couldn’t block the road all day. The joke was, he’d probably had a hand in more killings than all of them!

      “What do you want me to do?” Lupe asked again, as the old man cleared the road. “It must be done now?”

      “Kill them all,” his uncle’s voice came back. “Let God decide.”

      The old man gave the burro a whack, and the cart seemed to magically clear the road.

      By that time, Ned was going over the map. Ana had pulled out her Nikon and was snapping away at a little girl who waved back at her, going. “Oh, man, this is great!”

      Sam put the car back in gear. “We’re rolling!”

      All of a sudden several men in jeans with white kerchiefs around their faces stepped out from the buildings. From the square itself. Some were even on the rooftops.

      The one in front of Sam seemed no older than himself, maybe even younger, looking at him with a dull indifference in his eyes.

      They were all aiming automatic weapons.

      No! Sam wanted to tell them, No, wait … You’ve made some mistake! but the next thing he heard was a scream—Ana’s, he was sure—as the car’s front and side windows exploded virtually at once, ironlike fists slugging him all over like the hardest lacrosse balls he had ever felt, and then the explosions seem to just go on and on, no matter how much he begged them to stop. On and on, until the boy pulling the trigger in front of him was no longer in his sight.

WENDY

       CHAPTER ONE

      He was handsome.

      Not that I was really checking anyone out, or that I even looked at guys in that way anymore—married going on ten years now, and Neil, my youngest, my stepson actually, just off to college. I glanced away, pretending I hadn’t even noticed him. Especially in a bar by myself, no matter how stylish this one was. But in truth I guess I had. Noticed him. Just a little. Out of the corner of my eye …

      Longish black hair and kind of dark, smoky eyes. A white V-neck T-shirt under a stylish blazer. Late thirties maybe, around my age, but seemed younger. I would’ve chalked him up as being just a shade too cool—too cool for my type anyway—if it wasn’t that something about him just seemed, I don’t know … natural. He sat down a few seats from me at the bar and ordered a Belvedere on the rocks, never looking my way. His watch was a rose-gold chronometer and looked expensive. When he finally did turn my way, shifting his stool to listen to the jazz pianist, his smile was pleasant, not too forward, just enough to acknowledge that there were three empty seats between us, and seemed to say nothing more than How are you tonight?

      Actually the guy was pretty damn hot!

      Truth was, it had been years since I’d been at a bar by myself at night, other than maybe waiting for a girlfriend to come back from the ladies’ room as part of a gals’ night out. And the only reason I even happened to be here was that I’d been in the city all day at this self-publishing seminar, a day after Dave and I had about the biggest fight of our married lives. Which had started out as nothing, of course, as these things usually did: whether or not you had to salt the steaks so heavily—twice, in fact—before putting them on the grill—he having read about it in Food & Wine magazine or something—which somehow managed to morph into how I felt he was always spoiling the kids, who were from Dave’s first marriage: Amy, who was in Barcelona on her junior year abroad, and Neil, who had taken his car with him as a freshman up at Bates. Which was actually all just a kind of code, I now realized, for some issues I had with his ex-wife, Joanie. How I felt she was always belittling me; always putting out there that she was the kids’ mother, even though I’d pretty much raised them since they were in grade school, and how I always felt Dave never fully supported me on this.

      “She is their mother!” Dave said, pushing away from the table. “Maybe you should just butt out on this, Wendy. Maybe you just should.”

      Then we both said some things I’m sure we regretted.

      The rest of the night we barely exchanged a word—Dave shutting himself in the TV room with a hockey game, and me hiding out in the bedroom with my book. In the morning he was in his car at the crack of dawn, and I had my seminar in New York. We hadn’t spoken a word all day, which was rare, so I asked my buddy Pam to meet me for a drink and maybe something to eat, just to talk it all through before heading home.

      Home was about the last place I wanted to be right now.

      And here it was, ten after seven, and Pam was texting me that she was running twenty min late: the usual kid crisis—meaning Steve, her hedge-fund-honcho husband, still hadn’t left the office as promised, and her nanny was with April at dance practice …

      And me, at the Hotel Kitano bar, a couple of blocks from Grand Central. Taking in the last, relaxing sips of a Patrón Gold margarita—another thing I rarely did!—one eye on the TV screen above me, which had a muted baseball game or something on, the other doing its best to avoid the eye of Mr. Cutie at the end of the bar. Maybe not looking my 100 percent, knockout best—I mean, it was just a self-publishing seminar and all—but still not exactly half-bad in an orange cashmere sweater, a black leather skirt, my Prada boots, and my wavy, dark brown hair pulled back in a ponytail. Looking decently toned from the hot-yoga classes I’d been taking, texting back to Pam with a mischievous smile: BETTER HURRY. V. SEXY GUY @ BAR AND THINK HE’S ABT TO MAKE CONTACT. *GRIN*

      And giggling inside when she wrote me back: HANDS OFF, HON! ORDERED HIM ESP FOR ME!

      THEN BETTER GET YOUR ASS HERE PRONTO :-) I texted back.

      “Yanks or Red Sox?” I heard someone say.

      “Sorry?” I looked up and it was you