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Johnny enjoyed himself, “You need your mommy, little tittie-baby?”
“John, knock it off now, this ain’t funny.” Johnny was almost gleeful, because Jesse never called him John unless he was scared to death or major-league pissed off. Either way, he’d gotten to him.
“All right,” Johnny said, “Reach up above your head. There’s some rebar you can hang on to and make your way through that stuff.”
Jesse raised his hand and gripped the rebar so tight his knuckles were white. He moved through the dangling mass and Johnny could see shiny tracks of sweat on Jesse’s face as his brother stepped clear.
Johnny turned sideways on the beam and saw a good place to climb onto the roof. He tested the foot and hand holds as he went and emerged on top. Jesse’s head popped up right behind him. They both looked over the roof. There was nothing. No place to hide, not even a heater pipe or vent pipe. The girl was gone. Jesse clambered out to stand beside his brother. “Maybe she’s a bruja, a witch, turned herself into a bird and flew away.”
Johnny saw the thin line of cloth at the far end of the roof. “Nah,” he said, “Looks like she found a rope or something. Let’s go look.”
They walked the length of the roof and looked at the makeshift rope. “That out of her dress?” asked Jesse.
“That would be my guess.”
They looked at the surrounding desert and at the cattle pens a half-mile away and saw no movement, no people. Not even a dog. Jesse said, “I bet she went into town. Be the best place for her to hide.”
Johnny looked at the dirty skyline and outskirts of Ojinaga two miles away. “Yeah, makes sense.”
Godoy’s faint voice came to them. “Do you have her?”
Jesse looked at his brother and said, “Whyn’t you climb down that rope and see if she’s hiding inside the door there?”
“That thing won’t hold me.”
“Sure it will. Look at how it’s plaited. Good strong stuff, Indian made. It’d hold an elephant.” Jesse leaned toward him, confidential, “Look, you do that, and I’ll go back and tell Shithead that she got away. I’ll take the heat for both of us, give you a chance to find her tracks, be the hero.”
Johnny looked doubtful, but said, “Okay.”
Jesse trotted to the hole and started down into the room. He smiled when he heard Johnny yell, followed by a thump.
Felipe and Jesse waited in the slaughterhouse killroom by the bodies as Johnny limped down the hallway toward them. Johnny said, “Liked to have killed me when that thing broke.”
Jesse said, “It looked strong enough. I’m surprised.”
Godoy said, “There’s no need to chase her. I know where she’s going.”
“Where’s that?”
“Outlaw Road. I heard Mata tell her.”
Jesse said, “Man, I wouldn’t think there. Little girl like that, she won’t last any time.”
Johnny said, “Yeah, there won’t be anything left for us by the time those others get through.”
Godoy said, “We’re going there to wait for her. Then we finish it.”
“Have you ever been there?” asked Jesse.
“No, but that doesn’t matter. I have a contact there, and besides, I’m a Colonel in the Mexican Army. I go where I please.”
“Not there, you don’t. Not in that uniform. No law or military goes there.”
“Then I will get my men and we’ll go in force.”
Johnny sneered and said, “No you won’t. Your men help you with the drugs because of the money. They won’t go in a place they have a good chance of getting killed just because you tell them to.”
“They’re following my orders in El Paso and that isn’t about drugs.”
