Coop drove his rented Toyota toward the jail, the desert sun floating just over the eastern horizon behind him, its light shining into the rear window and bouncing off the mirrors. Normal sat in the passenger seat, looking out at the desert, eating jalapeño pork rinds. He had a plastic grocery bag filled with snacks sitting on the floorboard by his feet. The sound of his chewing was already irritating Coop and they’d only left the convenience store five minutes ago.
“How long you think we’re gonna have to sit out here?”
“Until we get the information we need.”
“How long you think that’ll be?”
“I don’t know, Normal. If I knew enough to tell you that, we wouldn’t need to come out here in the first place.”
As they approached a road sign telling them the jail was five kilometers away, Normal rolled his window down, hawked up a loogie, and spat. Coop heard the mucus thwack against the sign. Normal said, “Got it,” put another pork rind into his mouth, and rolled up the window.
They continued west, driving into the wavering distance. As the road curved around the low crescent of brown hills that surrounded the jail, the buildings, fences, and guard towers came into view, gray and forbidding. But that might have been Coop’s mind. He knew what they were planning, knew the dangers involved, which meant he knew the likelihood of something going wrong was greater than the likelihood of things going well.
He cut the car right, turning the wheel hand over hand, leaving the asphalt for the bumpy desert sands. Weaved his way around any rocks or boulders he saw, but let the car rumble over desert shrubbery, listening to the push-broom sweep they made as they brushed against the vehicle’s undercarriage.
Normal squinted toward the hills and when Coop brought the car to a stop, he said, “I’m gonna go for a walk.”
“Reconnoiter?”
“Yeah. I also need to piss.”
“All right. I’ll do my thing here.”
Normal shoved his pork rinds into the grocery bag, pushed open the passenger door, and stepped out into the sun. He slammed the door shut. Coop watched him as he walked toward the hills, then turned his attention to the jail. The yard was quiet, empty of people, the guard towers uninhabited hunting blinds, but already friends and relatives of the imprisoned were arriving and parking outside the fences, walking to the yard and looking in, waiting to see those inside.
The presence of vehicles besides theirs, and of people besides them, would make their own presence less noticeable, less worrisome, which was a good thing. If theirs was the only vehicle out here it would be suspicious, so Coop was glad for their presence, but he was also concerned. If there were too many cars here tomorrow, they might be an issue, might stand as a wall between James and escape.
Unfortunately, there was nothing to be done about it. The situation would be what it would be. They’d have to assess, act in the moment, and hope things turned out okay.
Given their current plan, Coop figured they had maybe a 50 percent chance of success, which wasn’t terrible. But he didn’t want to think about the consequences of failure. Neither for James nor for the rest of them.
He picked up a bottle of Pepsi from his cup holder, unscrewed the cap, and took a swallow. He squinted toward the empty jailhouse yard.
* * *
Normal walked along the base of the hills, looking back and forth between those great mounds of dirt and the jailhouse yard, gauging distance and angle. He squinted toward the sun and tried to envision its movement throughout the day. Its arc across the blue. If they were going to do anything from this side of the jail, it’d be best to do it before the sun reached its apex, with it behind them, blinding the guards in their towers. Anything after three o’clock in the afternoon and shooters on the hill would be looking into the sun, which—while also being dangerous—would make them damn near useless. Their scopes would reflect the sun for the towered guards, making targets of them.
It should be done before noon, if at all possible.
He stopped at a desert shrub and unzipped his fly. Pissed into the sand behind it, trying to write his name, but he only managed NORM before he ran out of liquid. He continued walking, looking between the jail and the hills.
When he reached a hill he liked he began hiking his way up, kicking sand even as it slid out from under his Emericas, using rocks as footholds whenever possible.
There were two large boulders in the side of the hill near its crest and he squatted behind each of them to be sure they’d work. The view was good from each. They didn’t offer ideal protection, but this hill was almost a thousand yards from any of the guard towers and he doubted the guys who manned them would be able to make thousand-yard shots on anything even approaching a regular basis. They weren’t sharpshooters; they were used to watching inmates within a hundred-yard radius and the last time they’d fired their weapons was almost certainly on the range. But sometimes it didn’t matter who was squeezing the trigger; the more bullets you fired in a general direction, the better your chances of getting lucky once, and a guard getting lucky meant either Bogart or Normal getting dead.
Still, these were the best positions available, and they’d probably suffice. Getting back down would be the real danger—at least it would be if they descended the front of the hill. They wouldn’t be exposed for long, but if someone was shooting at them, it would feel like an eternity. He walked to the top of the hill and looked down the backside.
After a moment’s consideration, he decided it wouldn’t work. Things needed to happen fast if they expected to get away. Going down the back of the hill would eat up a lot of time. The descent itself wouldn’t be much slower. It was the pickup that concerned him. Their position would be inconvenient, the getaway vehicle having to hook around the hills to reach them, adding at least a quarter mile to the distance it must travel, and the time that took might be the difference between a clean getaway and being caught.
They needed to get in and out in a hurry.
He and Bogart would just have to risk going down the front of the hill and hope that the sun blinded the motherfuckers who might otherwise kill them.
* * *
For the next several hours, Coop and Normal sat in the rented Toyota and watched the jail. Coop with a notepad resting on his leg and a ballpoint pen in hand, making note of when the guards went to the towers, how many guards were stationed in the yard, when prisoners were let out, and how many at a time.
Though the car was parked some distance from the jail, he thought he saw James standing near the fences at one point, around eleven o’clock, talking to another man, a dark-skinned Hispanic guy maybe six inches shorter than James himself.
The sun moved across the sky.
Wispy clouds like masses of cotton balls drifted through the blue.
Normal talked and pulled snacks from the grocery bag and pissed two more times outside the car. It was like being on a road trip with a child.
But finally the time came when Coop believed they’d gathered as much information as they could. He put down his notepad and his pen. He grabbed the shifter, thumbed the button, and shoved the car into gear. He pulled his foot off the brake pedal and pressed it against the gas. The tires spun, kicking up dirt, and they turned toward the road.
“Thank God,” Normal said.
“I hope Bogart and Pilar have good news for us when we get back to the hotel.”
“They’d better,” Normal said, “or James is dead for sure.”