Nothing But Trouble Read online

  “Where are Joe and Bessie?”

  “Off at their cabin in Ruidoso for the duration, and I’m glad they’re gone. The last thing I need is to have the old man bitching at me about how much he dislikes seeing his ranch turned into a movie set. He’s getting a chuck of money out of it, plus some improvements to the ranch, which you’d think would make him happy.”

  “I guess,” Kerney said noncommittally, thinking back to Julia’s comment about all the money Johnny had borrowed from Joe over the years and never repaid.

  Johnny got to his feet and flashed one of his patented smiles. “Gotta go.”

  Prepared to give full value for his consultant services, Kerney spent the morning on location at the ranch and soon realized that he had little to do. At sunrise the shot of the police cruisers speeding down the ranch road, with emergency lights flashing through a haze of dust and a brilliant dawn breaking over the mountains, was captured on film in one take. At the ranch headquarters Usher got the initial confrontation between the rancher and the police out of the way and then ordered multiple takes of emotional interactions between the leads.

  Kerney had sometimes seen military or law-enforcement technical advisors listed in movie credits and had wondered why the films were so inaccurate. Now he knew. In moviemaking action and drama trumped authenticity every time.

  After a catering truck arrived with lunch, Kerney sought out Susan Berman and asked if there was anything she needed him to do for the rest of the day.

  Berman flipped through some papers in a three-ring binder. “Not really. You’ll be a cowboy in the cattle-drive sequence, but we don’t start filming at the Shugart cabin until the day after tomorrow. I do know Malcolm wants you nearby when we’re shooting at the smelter, and he may have some technical questions for you during the courthouse sequence scheduled for next week.”

  As if she’d read his mind, she said, “If you’d like to spend some time with your son, I can always reach you on your cell phone in case you’re needed.”

  “I’d like that very much,” Kerney replied.

  When Kerney arrived to pick up Patrick, he found the door to the house open and the playroom empty. He called out for Libby and Patrick and got no response. Through the kitchen window he spotted Libby reading a book to the other four children as they sat on the backyard lawn under a shade tree, but there was no sign of his son.

  “Where’s Patrick?” Kerney asked as he stepped onto the patio.

  Libby got to her feet. “He went to use the bathroom just a few minutes ago.”

  Kerney searched the bathrooms, found them empty, and went through every other room of the sprawling house looking for Patrick. By the time he’d finished, Libby and the children were inside.

  “How long has he been gone?” he demanded.

  “No more than three or four minutes.”

  Kerney circled the house. Behind the backyard it was all desert. Cactus, creosote, and fluff grass peppered the chaparral slope of the low hills, and rock-strewn, sandy arroyos flowed down from brushy mountain hogbacks. How far could a three-year-old wander in five minutes?

  Driving up, he hadn’t seen Patrick on the street, but he checked around the adjacent houses anyway, yelling his son’s name as he ran, his heart pounding in his chest. He entered the chaparral, zigzagging to cut Patrick’s trail, hedgehog cactus thorns biting at his legs. A startled Gambel’s quail rose up from the underbrush, sounded a sharp quit quit in alarm, and fluttered away. He cut across an arroyo, looking for a sign. There were the distinctive four-point-star tracks of roadrunners everywhere, and long, thin lines of snake trails etched in the sand, but no footprints.

  Kerney stopped, gathered his breath, bellowed Patrick’s name, listened, and took a long look around before running with his head down, eyes scanning the ground, until he reached the wide mouth of another arroyo that curved toward the valley floor. There, two hundred yards from the house, he found tiny shoe prints in the sand. Up ahead he saw Patrick sitting on a boulder with tears streaming down his face.

  “Are you all right?” Kerney asked as he reached his son and pulled him into his arms.

  Patrick sniffled and nodded.

  “Did you hear me calling for you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why didn’t you answer, sport?”

  Patrick rubbed his nose. “ ’Cause you sounded mad at me.”

  It kicked Kerney in the gut that Patrick didn’t know every tone of his voice. “I’m not mad,” he said. “I was worried about you. What are you doing out here?”

  “I was looking for you,” Patrick replied.

  “Well, here I am, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  With Patrick in his arms Kerney turned to see a half-dozen men fanned out behind the row of houses, coming in his direction. He whistled, waved, and held Patrick above his head for all to see. The men stopped and waved back.

  “What are they doing?” Patrick asked.

  Kerney lowered Patrick to his chest, kissed him on the cheek, and started back toward the house. “Looking for you.”

  “I wasn’t lost, Daddy,” Patrick said.

  “I know you weren’t. But no more of this, champ. You stay with Libby and the other children. Okay?”

  Patrick nodded. “I saw a big snake. It curled up and rattled its tail.” Kerney’s legs turned to stone and he stopped in his tracks. “Did it bite you?”

  Patrick shook his head. “Nope.”

  Back at the house Kerney thanked the men who had started to search for his son and accepted Libby’s apology. She promised that Patrick would never be out of her sight again.

  He told Libby that Patrick would be with him for the rest of the day, put him in his car seat, and drove away. “How about some ice cream?” he asked.

  Patrick’s face lit up and he kicked his feet. “Ice cream,” he echoed, apparently without the slightest inkling that he’d panicked his father almost beyond belief.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Surrounded by a windswept desert broken only by the silhouette of the Florida Mountains to the east and the Tres Hermanas to the south, Deming sat sun blistered under a yellow, dust-filled morning sky. A town of modest homes ringed with patches of grass, house trailers on scrub acreage, and a main commercial strip that paralleled the interstate and the railroad tracks, Deming drew its lifeblood from travelers and truckers, and blue-collar retirees seeking the sun and affordable housing.

  Billboards cluttered the sides of the highway, advertising lodging, fuel, and food. Warning signs advised travelers that the interstate would be closed during severe dust storms. Not at all an uncommon event, Kerney figured, given the amount of grit from a stiff breeze that covered the windshield of his truck.

  He drove the main strip to get his bearings. There were a few older buildings that harkened back to the town’s founding as a railroad stop in the late-nineteenth century, but for the most part the strip consisted of stand-alone gas stations, automotive repair shops, mom-and-pop businesses, eateries, and moderately priced motels.

  Kerney had left Patrick behind in the care of the nanny, and he didn’t feel good about it. But he was determined to find out what he could about Agent Fidel’s undercover operation. Maybe he’d learn enough to let him step aside from it completely and give Patrick more attention.

  Following Officer Flavio Sapian’s directions, he took the main street east toward the Florida Mountains and followed the road that led to Rockhound State Park. He made a hard right at an intersection and bumped down a gravel road to a 1960s ranch-style house, where Sapian’s state police cruiser was parked under a tin-roofed carport.

  He pulled into the driveway and stopped in front of the house, shaded to the south by a row of tall poplars. Under the trees a trampoline and a swing set occupied a swath of green grass. Beyond the trees stood an old railroad boxcar that probably served as a storage shed.

  Kerney tooted his horn and Sapian stepped out the front door. Off duty, he wore jeans, boots, a long-sleeved Western shirt, and
a faded, sweat-streaked baseball cap. He got into Kerney’s truck and the two men drove away.

  “Your phone call took me by surprise,” Flavio said. “I thought the Border Patrol was handling the death of that Mexican you found on the highway. Why are you still involved?”

  Kerney ran it down for him, leaving nothing out. He concluded with his misgivings about Fidel’s undercover operation. “I just want to know if things really are as they seem,” he said.

  “So that’s why you asked me to set up a meeting with the agent in charge of the Deming Border Patrol Station.”

  “Exactly. How well do you know him?”

  “His name is Steve Hazen and he’s good people,” Sapian answered. “Been here five, maybe six years. If he can tell you anything, he’ll play it straight.”

  “That’s what I like to hear.”

  The station, located just outside of Deming on the highway to the border town of Columbus, was a modern brick building with a sloping metal portal that covered the entrance. Shrubs and trees planted along the front of the building softened the monotonous façade, and an American flag waved from the top of a pole that towered over the building.

  Inside, Steve Hazen invited them into his office. A heavyset man in his forties with wide shoulders and a thick neck, he had a military-style hair-cut that showed the bumps and ridges of his deeply tanned skull in full relief. His shipshape office contained all the personal and professional memorabilia some cops loved to display. Framed family pictures, official citations, university degrees, and recognition and award plaques from civic organizations lined shelves and filled walls.

  Highly arched eyebrows gave Hazen’s face a persistent quizzical expression. He held up a coffee mug that read # 1 DAD in big red letters. “Can I get you some?” he asked.

  “No, thanks,” Kerney answered.

  “Not for me,” Sapian said.

  “Flavio said you have some questions.” Hazen motioned to a table next to a tall bookcase that held volumes of government documents. “Take a load off and fire away.”

  The men pulled out chairs and sat. “What can you tell me about the undercover operation at Playas?” Kerney asked.

  Hazen smiled. “Domingo Fidel’s little feint. He said you might not fall for it.”

  “Feint?”

  “Yep,” Hazen replied. “Eight months ago we got a contingent of National Guard soldiers from a Lordsburg unit assigned to assist us apprehend illegals crossing the border from Columbus west to Antelope Wells. Soon after that human trafficking volume picked up in the Bootheel, especially in those areas manned by the troops. We believe some of the soldiers have been taking bribes from the coyotes. The undercover agent you found dying on the highway was supposed to make his maiden run north of the border to a safe house, which we think is located outside of Lordsburg. Somebody ratted him out and he was killed.”

  “Are you saying Officer Mendoza is clean?” Kerney asked.

  “He is,” Hazen replied. “But Fidel has put the word out that he’s dirty and is using you and Bratton to convince our target suspects that we’re looking for the wrong people in the wrong place. By now every National Guard trooper on the line has heard scuttlebutt about the Playas operation.”

  “Why the charade?” Flavio asked.

  “Since we’ve tightened up the corridor crossings in El Paso, the smuggling networks have shifted west to the more dangerous desert and mountain zones. We’re not just after coyotes and soldiers on the pad. We want to shut down this operation on both sides of the border before the Bootheel turns into a sieve like southern Arizona.”

  “Why did you keep the undercover agent’s identity secret?” Flavio asked.

  “Because we think he was only suspected of being a cop,” Hazen replied. “Confirming it would have blown the operation completely.”

  “What about the van I saw on the highway?” Kerney asked.

  “Found abandoned in Phoenix. We matched the tires on it to tracks in the desert.”

  “Agent Bratton is in over his head,” Kerney said. “I suppose Fidel wants it that way. Put the rookie out there with no training or guidance, give him a lot of misinformation, and let him flounder around for all to see. But why drag me in on it?”

  Hazen smiled. “You and Sapian were doing too good of a job. Fidel had to coopt you, so he borrowed Mendoza as a target and fed you a line of bull to get you to back off.”

  “He could have just leveled with me.”

  Hazen smiled and shrugged. “It was his call.”

  Kerney didn’t smile back. Although he’d been played by Fidel for a good cause, he still didn’t like being used as a patsy. “Okay, enough history. What’s the status of the investigation?”

  “Sorry, I can’t tell you that.”

  “Do you or any other federal agency have any other interdiction operations under way I should know about? ATF? DEA?” Kerney asked.

  Hazen shook his head. “Nope. Why do you ask?”

  Feeling unnecessarily exploited, Kerney decided not to voice his suspicions about Walter Shaw. “Just curious.”

  “Can I tell Agent Fidel that you’ll continue to assist him?”

  Kerney pushed back his chair. “I’ll play along. What was the dead agent’s name?”

  “Roberto Sisneros.”

  Kerney stood and shook Hazen’s hand. “Thanks for your candor. Tell Fidel that he can expect to hear from me about his little game playing the next time we meet.”

  Hazen laughed. “I’ll pass it along.”

  Johnny Jordan stood at the barricade to the Playas access road. Traffic had been closed so an aerial camera could film an overhead master shot of the town. A few steps away Susan Berman was talking to the second unit director and his cameraman. When the plane passed overhead, cars on the streets had to be moving, pedestrians had to be walking about, and kids had to be playing in the ball field or riding their bikes on the sidewalks.

  Up at the village dozens of extras were standing by, waiting for their cue. Johnny was astonished at the effort it took to get a fifteen-second bird’s-eye view of townspeople going about their normal lives.

  He glanced over at Susan Berman. Last night she’d turned down his invitation to drive to Deming for dinner at a Mexican restaurant, but he hadn’t given up on her. Three weeks in Playas without a woman just wouldn’t cut it.

  After the plane took off from the Playas airstrip, the pilot made a few practice runs before the actual shooting began. Then it was all over in a matter of minutes. Johnny turned to see his sister’s car approaching the barricade. He walked to her, and she stopped on the pavement.

  “I hear you’re playing house with Barry Hingle,” he said with a grin and shake of his head.

  “Have you seen Kerney?” Julia asked.

  Johnny hunkered down at the side of the car. “Not since yesterday. What’s up?”

  “I just heard his wife got sent to Iraq.”

  “No shit? He didn’t mention it to me. Have you come to comfort him?”

  “Is that all you can think about?”

  Johnny laughed. “Don’t kid a kidder, Sis. I was there when you first started twitching your hips at all the boys.”

  “And you were the first to take advantage of it.”

  “Those were the days,” Johnny replied.

  Julia stuck her tongue out. “Do you know where Kerney is?”

  Johnny shook his head. “Did he have a run-in with Shaw?”

  “If he did, Walt didn’t say anything about it to me. Why do you ask?”

  “Kerney pumped me for information about him. Except for telling him that Shaw was once your lover, I really didn’t have much to say.”

  Julia put the car in gear. “You’re such a jerk, Johnny.”

  Johnny leaned in and kissed Julia on the lips. “Are you ready for the cattle drive? We start shooting it tomorrow.”

  “It should be fun.”

  Men removed the barricade from the road. Julia waved ta-ta with her fingers, smiled, and drove away
.

  During the next three days Kerney had little time to think of anything other than herding cattle back and forth for the cameras along a ten-mile stretch of the Jordan ranch. Johnny’s rodeo cowboys, and the character actor who played the rancher bedeviled by the BLM officials, all knew how to sit a horse, as did Johnny, Julia, and the locals hired as extras. But the ingenue was a complete disaster on horseback. Although she’d taken riding lessons in preparation for her role, she bounced in the saddle like a raggedy doll whenever her mount broke into a canter.

  When her stunt double took over, things went fine. However, several scenes with dialogue required the young woman to be mounted. She had a hard time controlling her horse and jerked the reins every time it moved, making it shy and turn away from the camera. After several failed attempts Usher shot the scenes with her dismounted.

  As a circle rider Kerney ate dust on the perimeter of the herd. He wondered if he’d feel self-conscious when cameras started rolling, but he was far too busy prodding cattle back into the fold to pay any attention to them. Fortunately, he had a sound cutting horse with a good mouth named Lucky who did most of the work.

  On the second and third mornings there were predawn calls for wardrobe and makeup. All the working hands, stuntmen, and actors exchanged their costumes for identical outfits that were a bit more grungy, and then had their faces smudged and dirtied to make it look like they’d been driving cattle for days. The real cowboys from the area ranches who’d hired on for the movie got a big kick out of it.

  Two of the cowboys were Kent Vogt and Alberto “Buster” Martinez, who worked full-time at the Jordan outfit. Vogt, a cheerful, talkative man in his late thirties, loved movie trivia.

  During one break Vogt reined in his mount next to Kerney and said, “Did you know Steve McQueen filmed most of Tom Horn just across the state line in the Coronado National Forest?”

  “I didn’t know that,” Kerney replied.

  Vogt pushed back his cowboy hat to reveal a white forehead above a rosy brown, tan face. “Did you see that movie?”