The Deputy by Victor Gischler

too.
    “Give me my gun,” said the Mexican from her cell. “I want to shoot him in the belly.” “Shut your yap, bitch,” Karl said. “You’re the one fucked all this up in the first place.”
    “I told you it wasn’t my fault,” she said. “This cowboy deputy took the keys from Luke Jordan and threw everything off.”
    Karl went through my pockets, found Jordan’s keys. He took his cuffs, slapped one bracelet around my wrist, and cuffed the other to one of the cell bars. “I’ll be right back.”
    The hellcat shook the bars. “Let me out of here.”
    “Nobody goes anywhere until I get a lid on this. Now shut up and sit tight.”
    Karl left through the front door. I tugged on the cuffs just for the heck of it, but I knew it was no use. I slumped in the chair. A ragged sigh leaked out of me.
    “You are dead, cowboy. You are sitting there dead.”
    I didn’t have anything to say to that. She was probably right.
    “You should just have kept your nose out of it,” she said. “You had to be a stupid hero cowboy cop.”
    “Hey, at least I didn’t jam a bunch of people into the back of a truck. They could suffocate back there. And it’s hot as hell.”
    “Spoken like a typical stupid gringo . The fact that these people are willing to risk death to come to your country should tell you something. The poorest man or woman living in one of your ghettos is far better off than thousands just on the other side of the river. You people know nothing of real poverty.”
    “I don’t have any political answers for you,” I said. “Maybe you folks need to work on getting your own country together. That’s not my concern. What happens in this town is. What happens to Luke Jordan is my concern.”
    “In a few minutes, nothing will be your concern anymore.”
    I jerked on the cuffs again. “Shit.”
    Karl had left me my Winstons and my Bic. I lit one, tried to puff myself an escape plan.
    The hellcat came to the front of her cell. “Give me one of those.”
    “Go to hell.”
    She went back to cursing me in Spanish.
    Karl came back through the front door. He was so red, I thought cartoon steam might shoot out of his ears. He loomed over me, and I felt the hate vibes radiating off him.
    “What the fuck did you do over there?”
    “I don’t know what you mean.”
    His backhand spun my head around, little colored lights in front of my eyes. My teeth hummed with the impact. I tasted blood, spit, and it dribbled down my chin. For a split-second I thought he’d broken my jaw. I felt along my back teeth with my tongue.
    “I don’t want any more bullshit, you little turd.” Karl flicked my forehead with a thick finger. “You get me?”
    I nodded and massaged my jaw. It would be okay, but it would be sore for a while.
    “What happened?” asked the hellcat.
    “Billy Banks is lying over there with an axe in his neck. All our cargo is gone.”
    Cargo. That’s what they called human beings.
    “Where?” she asked.
    “How the hell would I know?” Karl jabbed my chest with a finger. Hard. “You’d better start talking, kid.”
    Kid. The son of a bitch was only eight years older than I was.
    The hellcat shook the bars again, belted out some kind of desperate animal frustration growl. “Will you please open this fucking cell?”
    “Just simmer, missy.” Karl rubbed his face, blew out an exasperated sigh. “This ain’t gonna work, man. It’s all fucked up. No way we can hide all this. The town’s going to wake up soon and start asking questions and Billy’s over there drawing flies. Somebody’s going to have to take the fall on this.”
    The hellcat’s eyes narrowed. “You’d better not be looking at me, big man.”
    “No, you’re not believable,” Karl said. “Christ, what’s Krueger going to do? Where is he anyway?”
    “The cowboy,” the hellcat said.
    “The what?”
    “Him,” she said. “Pin it on the kid.”
    That woke me up a little. “What?”
    “Hey, that’s not bad,” Karl