Head Games (The Hector Lassiter Series) (4 page)
Alicia: "He was going to betray Pancho Villa? After just executing another traitor?"
"It was money, honey," Holmdahl said. He ran his hand back through his thick, white shock of hair. "A lot of money. Rodolfo, he was no fool, you know. A stone killer, yes, but not stupid by any stretch. He could see the writing on the wall. The American government's fascination with Villa was wavering, due largely in part to Fierro's viciousness --- all those mass shootings he had staged. And the politics were very ... fluid. Do you know that saying the goddamned towel heads have? 'My enemy's enemy is my friend.' You know? Well, allegiances change ... national agendas shift. It wasn't even a year later that it all got shot out from under Pancho by that stroke-enfeebled imbecile Woodrow Wilson. Wilson was choking off Villa's guns. So Pancho Villa seemingly retaliated against Wilson's and America's betrayal. On March 2, the raid on Columbus happened. A short time later, me and your beau and a bunch of others streamed across the border behind Black Jack Pershing to bring Villa back, 'dead or alive,' as the dumbass saying goes. An Army of ten thousand; five hundred vehicles; eight biplanes; even George S. Patton, bossing us. Eleven months, four hundred miles, and squat."
Fiske lit a cigarette. By Christ, I'd addicted the poor scrawny bastard. My tyro poet lit his cigarette with a hammered-nickel Zippo he'd seemingly picked up sometime in the last day or so. It looked as if it was engraved on one side. When Bud sat it down by his right hand, I scooped it up and tilted it until the light fell right. I read the opening line of my novel
Border Town
: "Whores Die Hard." Underneath, he'd had my name engraved.
Bud said, "I'm confused," as he reached over and took his lighter back from me. "Fierro stayed alive --- we now know that's true --- he knew where in Durango the treasure was hidden, but he didn't go back and get it. Why the hell didn't Fierro do that? Vengeful as he was, after you stole Pancho's head and tried to make off with the gold, why didn't Fierro come for you?"
Holmdahl smiled at Bud. "That's good listening, son --- well, better'n I'd have given you credit for at first flush. And you're thinking, too. How'd this come to be you ask me --- Fierro knowing where to find the gold and silver, and yet not claiming it? Problem was, Fierro was too good a teacher ... well, in the sense that he ruled by absolute fear. He demanded excellence in a way no other son of a bitch, probably, ever has or will again. So, one of Rudy's own lieutenants --- a young man of pride and conscience --- spotted Fierro when he surfaced a ways downstream. He saw Rudy break surface and slide behind a stand of weed and willow there at the banks. That smart and sharp-eyed flunky of Fierro's correctly intuited what Rudy --- The Butcher --- was planning. The flunky dispatched several men to ride out and overtake Villa. Plan was for them to inform Pancho that Fierro had turned on Villa and the Revolution --- tell Pancho that Fierro was angling to rob
el Jefe
just like Urbina had. Then that old boy and another passionate and loyal young Villista rode out in pursuit of Rodolfo Fierro."
"So way back then, Pancho, too, knew that Fierro survived," I said. "Guess he kept that sad-ass fact secret because two men that close to Villa trying to fuck him would smack of weakening leadership."
Emil gave me a nasty look and then jerked his head in Alicia's direction. "Watch your foul mouth around the lady, boy," he said.
Boy
? "Sure," I said. "Sorry to offend
your
sensibilities.
Sir
."
Emil said, "Exactly. That's exactly what it would have looked like. Loss of control. One lieutenant straying off the res'? Well, that can be dismissed as bad judgment. But two? In a week? That's an authority-threatening mudslide."
"Sure," Bud said. "That all makes sense. But here's the central thing: what kept Fierro from the treasure?"
"The initial pursuit, for one thing," Holmdahl said. "Rodolfo may have been packing guns after his faked drowning --- hell, I suspect we can trust that he was. But the bloodthirsty bastard was still on foot --- his horse having drowned in that damned bog.
"But Villa knew Rudy too well. When the larger body of men caught up with Pancho, and told him what Fierro was apparently trying to do, well, Pancho knew that a mere two men chasing Fierro didn't bode well. Villa sent ten men in as reinforcements to support the two poor bastards already chasing Fierro. The support crew rode maybe ten miles before they found the two dead Villistas. The sons of bitches had been stripped naked and staked out belly-down over maguey plants --- impaled --- and what was left half-eaten by coyotes and ants."
Alicia arched a dark eyebrow. "How do you know this, sir? In such ... vivid detail?"
Holmdahl jacked a thumb in my direction. "Ask Lassiter. You heard things along the sweltering trail. We didn't have TV, didn't have radio ... hell, not even newspapers.
Hell
, we didn't even have shortdogs --- those funny-looking short and wide paperbacks they printed for the Grunts during World War II and Korea. We had gossip.
Corridos
. We had stories. You
heard
things out there in the alkali."
Okay
. It was something like true. But you didn't hear things like
this
. Not with this level of novelistic detail. Two dead Villa loyalists; some other Villa faithful who rode out. That old bastard Homldahl was either embroidering, or obscuring. Or there was another, more chilling prospect --- Holmdahl had heard it from one of the central players. But which one?
"Fierro had eaten one horse and rode off on the other," Emil continued. " For months, the reinforcement Villistas chased Fierro, or so the legends, which I credit, say. They drove the Butcher deeper into southern Mexico --- back toward Sinaloa, where the monster was born. Try as he might, old Fierro just couldn't get back to Durango for months. Then Villa allegedly raided Columbus, apparently killed all those innocents --- and the troops. And we all invaded Mexico --- the so-called 'Punitive Expedition.' Nobody, but nobody, could move around in Mexico once we made the scene. Least of all Rodolfo Fierro, who had met Black Jack Pershing and who had appeared in some pretty famous photos with Villa and Pershing. And Fierro was well-known to all of us horse soldiers from wanted posters and such. You have to understand," Holmdahl said, speaking to Alicia and Bud now, "word of Fierro's 'death' in the quicksand bog got back to us well after the raid on New Mexico. And that raid was so brutal --- so craven and so brazen --- well, we all at first assumed Fierro probably master-minded the goddamned thing."
"Yeah, yeah," Bud said, clearly getting impatient. "But after you all left --- after you were shipped off to Europe for the Great War --- why didn't Fierro go back then? Go back and get that treasure?"
Emil smiled, rueful and proud, all at once. "Well," he said, "I got there first, boy."
Holmdahl took a couple of forkfuls of scrambled eggs, then asked me, "You ever hear of a fella name of Al Jennings?"
"Heh, sure," I said. "Grifter, actor, religious scam artist. 'The Last of the Great Train Robbers,' according to himself."
Alicia smiled. "Was he? The last of the great train Rrobbers, I mean?"
"Naw, what he was is a horse's ass," I said. "First-class screw-up. He and his band once tried to stop a train they had targeted. They tried to stop it by piling these jumbo-sized discarded tires on the tracks. The engineer flipped them the bird and opened up the throttle. When the train hit the tires, it tossed them thirty or forty feet in the air. When those big heavy rubber suckers started raining back down, well, Jennings and his crew nearly got killed by those damned tires."
"Right," Holmdahl said. "Then he hooked up with Bill Porter --- William Sydney Porter --- you know, the short story writer, O. Henry? Jennings and Porter bungled some other crimes together and finally ended up in the penitentiary in Columbus --- that's the city in Ohio, not the one in New Mexico that Villa attacked, by the way."
Bud tipped his chair back on two legs. "Are you saying you chose to hook up with this guy ... even knowing what a joke he was?"
"Even a stopped clock is right twice a day," Holmdahl said. "Once in a while, Al'd get a line on something that held real promise. He and me and this other fella, a Texan named Jake Chrisman, well, we decided to form a partnership and go for Urbina's --- Villa's --- treasure. We had all heard the same stories and kind of tripped over one another's mutual preparations to go hunting the treasure. At that point, it seemed better to throw in together than to try and dick one another in order to get there first. Or, at least it seemed politic to give the pretense of doing so.
"The fucking
federales
fell on us about four miles from Urbina's ranch." Emil suddenly blushed and smiled sheepishly at Alicia. "Now
I'm
talking dirty in front of you,
señorita
." The old man jerked his head at me and then grimaced. "I personally blame Lassiter's bad influence."
I glanced at Bud. My "interviewer" was on his third cigarette. Hard to argue with Holmdahl's assessment of the nasty and self-destructive effect I have on those closest to me.
"Anyways, the Mexican authorities killed three of our Mexican guards/guides," Holmdahl said. "The rest of us just barely escaped with our lives," he said, staring at the ceiling but clearly not seeing it. I sensed that Holmdahl was living in the back then, now. "Jennings went on back to Texas," Emil said. "Al was yellow to the core. But me and Chrisman, well, we figured two careful gringos on horseback would be a lot less conspicuous than that crew we went down there with the first time. So just the two of us returned to Urbina's ranch."
I thought of Al Jennings and said, "And a two-way split beats hell out of splitting three or four ways."
Bud smiled and said, "Or eight or nine ways --- once your praetorian guard figured out what was up if you'd reached the ranch that first time."
Emil Holmdahl shrugged. "Plan that time was to try and do it under their noses. We'd get the treasure, then move it to a safe place of our choosing, away from those characters' eyes and ears. Then, later, we'd come back and claim it. Or, if it seemed a better prospect, we'd have just killed them all once we had the treasure. We'd murder them without a second thought, knowing they'd do the same to us, tables turned. They were nasty pieces of work. And because of that, they wouldn't have been missed, let alone mourned. Probably wouldn't have prompted an investigation."
Alicia blinked in disbelief at Holmdahl's casual confession. Her cheeks reddening, she said, "I'm surprised you could sleep at night. I mean, in that I'd think you'd be looking for ways to off one another ... have the gold without having to split with anyone else. How could you trust your associates? How could they trust you not to kill them, too?"
"I'd be a liar if I said the thought of taking them out didn't cross my mind, and many times, at that," Holmdahl said with bland sincerity. "And I'd be a fool to think that Al and Jake didn't suspect me of having thoughts about killing them. I sure figured they aimed to screw me in the end, so yes, Missy, at some point, before we abandoned our first foray, it was looking to turn into some replay of
Treasure of Sierra Madre
--- all of us looking over our shoulders at one another.
"But anyway, me and Jake lingered, then we went back and we found the treasure. It wasn't really at Urbina's old ranch. It was a property or two over --- a little hacienda Urbina had built for his mistress. The gold and silver was at the bottom of a false well that Urbina had built in which to stash weapons for the Revolution."
"So you found the treasure," I said. "But then you lost it. How?"
"Well, getting back to the lady's implicit point about subterfuge and betrayal, I took advantage of the fact that Jake was a city boy, a real tenderfoot. He relied on me as guide, cook. I cinched his saddles so he didn't fall off and break his neck; I saw to his horse's feeding and care. Jake was along as muscle and an extra gun. He was a good shot, though I never saw him fire under the stress of mortal combat. Those
federales
that killed our guards? We ran from them. Hard to know how he'd have shot with bullets flying back at him. But you know how that is."
"Sure." You never wanted to learn in the field --- though Bud, backshooting aside, acquitted himself well enough. "You got him lost out there in the desert," I said. "So he wouldn't really know where the treasure was."
"That's right," Emil said. "But then, even Jake started to pick up some familiar landmarks out there as I led him in circles. He started to catch on. Jake correctly accused me of trying to get him lost and confused. Thing was, I wasn't as sharp about doing it as I'd hoped to be. Wasn't thinking too clearly. Then I realized I was getting ill. We found the gold and silver; gathered it. And then I realized I was deathly ill. Really thought I might die. I'd come down with amoebic dysentery. I won't go into great detail, on account of we're eating and the lady's here."
Alicia shook her head. "I've had some nurse's training. I know about it."
A few years before our split, Hemingway had come down with the same thing in Africa. It plagued him for months. I said, "A former friend of mine had a case of that. Nasty stuff."
Emil grimaced and shook his head. "I began to hallucinate. To talk ... and Jake exploited that cursed loose tongue of mine. He drew me out and soon knew I meant to lose him out there in the desert --- to eventually abandon him or kill him. Bad position he was in. And me too. Real 'Mexican standoff.' But Jake was alone out there with me and all that treasure. He didn't stand a chance of finding his way back home alone. And he spoke little Spanish. If he did find his way to a town, he'd be robbed and killed by some Mexican. He knew that.
"We managed our way back to Urbina's mistress' house. Jake, he started nursing to me. While I slept, Jake, he took that gold and that silver, pieces at a time, and he rode up into the hills somewhere, or something --- hid it all. Maybe put it in an
arroyo
or something. Whatever the case, he'd later tell me it was very confusing and involved at least 10 landmarks and some very specific numbers of paces between each marker. I didn't have a chance of finding the treasure on my own, he swore. And I believed Jake. So he was in a position to dictate terms. He said he'd get me through the stomach thing, and in return I had to get him back to civilization --- get him to some place civilized and crowded, where my hand would be staid. Then we would come to terms about recovering the treasure. I'd get him back to that little mysterious ranch, and he would go out there in the desert and lead me to the place he'd hidden it. Well, lead
us
, 'cause I figured we'd each go back to Durango with our mutual mercenaries. We'd proven we couldn't trust one another, and I'd already made it clear I'd go to mortal lengths to screw him."
Alicia couldn't help herself. She said, "And here we sit, getting ready to negotiate with you."
"We're in Los Angeles," Emil said to Alicia, as if that abrogated decades of duplicity.
"But the treasure is still down there in my country," she persisted. "And we have to trust you to recover it and give us a cut."
"Don't sweat that," I said. "That's my territory. There'll be no double-crosses along those lines on my watch." I turned back to Holmdahl. "So, apparently, Jake Chrisman pulled you through and you both got back up to the border."
"Close to it," Emil said. "Very close. But it was getting dicey. The strain and the distrust started to accumulate on Jake. He started bleeding rectally --- ulcers. Started drinking heavily. We both became afraid he might forget the map he had in his head. I was afraid he might die before he shared his secret. But he couldn't quite bring himself to write it down. He knew once it was out of his head, I'd redouble my efforts to get that treasure for myself. He just knew me too well."
Fiske nodded and closed his Zippo, blowing smoke through his nostrils from another Pall Mall. "So what happened? How'd we get to the point we're sitting here negotiating for a severed head?"
"That's exactly what happened," Holmdahl said. "That fucking head of Pancho Villa's. That's where I finally lost the treasure. Or so I thought."
"I needed cash," Holmdahl said. "As I often did in those days. I was still weak and half out of my head from the sickness. Some old associates caught up with me across the border from El Paso as Jake and me were dancing around our dilemma. I was offered twenty-five grand to go in and cut off Pancho's head. You know that part of the story --- or at least you know it close enough to the probable truth of the events. So we'll gloss that. Suffice it to say that I stole the fucking head --- me and another old crony, Alberto Corral. I tried to talk Jake into doing it with me. But he refused. He tagged along though ... I'd insisted he stay close. And he needed me alive to provide that starting point in order for his goddamn map to make any sense.
"Me and Alberto got the head," Holmdahl said. "But the resulting heat on us was terrible. Biblical. Seems I'd been graceless doing my recon' before we dug up Pancho and hacked off his head. Again, I chalk it up to my sickness. My brain was soup. Anyhow, it quickly became clear to me that I was the prime suspect in the theft of Pancho Villa's head. So, in a kind of epic desperation, I entrusted Jake with the bandit's head. Jake knew most of my plan. He knew I was to hit an airfield that night and pass the head off to a pilot and get my money. Well, then I got arrested for robbing Villa's grave. I was put in jail and told I'd be shot by a firing squad for stealing Villa's head."
"But Jake Chrisman really had the head," Alicia said.
"That's right," Emil said. "Jake bought himself some magician's flash paper in a novelty store. That paper explodes when it's exposed to any kind of heat. Then he bought himself some books on codes and invisible ink and the like. Jake came up with the gimmick of using ammonia and red cabbage water. He then emptied his head of his remembered map. Got it all down on that fragile magician's paper and hid it in Pancho's head. Then he went out to the airport and handed over the head and got my twenty-five grand, the cocksucker."
Bud smiled at me. I said aloud the words I knew we were all thinking. "Honor among thieves.
Yeah
."
"Yeah," Emil agreed. "What a crock. But I was in a fix, make no mistake about it. Jake said he was my attorney and visited me in the Parral jail. Said he'd act as an intermediary and get word back to some people in high places back in El Paso about my plight. They had helped set up the deal with Pancho's head and they had ties to Skull and Bones. They couldn't afford the embarrassment of me potentially finger-pointing at them to the press. But Jake, he'd only do this if I gave him the location of the farm where we'd found the treasure. He had me by the short hairs and we both knew it. He was so confident of his plan, he told me about the clever little map he'd hidden in Pancho's head. He smiled smugly and said he figured he'd remember the directions, and if he didn't, he could always go to Yale and steal the map back. But either way, he meant to have the treasure before I got out."
"So you lied to him," I guessed. "Gave him a false starting point."
"Fuck yes," Emil said, grinning. "I lied through my teeth. And the dumb cocksucker believed it. I could tell. Me? I know when I'm being lied to. Like I warned you."
Emil was getting passionate now. He'd apparently forgotten all about Alicia and her delicate sensibilities, just spewing that profanity now.
"Way I figured it, when I got sprung, I'd go steal to Yale and steal that fucking head a second time. Then I'd go down to Urbina's whore's ranch and take that treasure for myself while Jake and his crew dug dry holes in Dogdick, Durango."
Bud asked, "So what went wrong?"
"Well, I knew something went south on me when Prescott Bush called me up at the jail; well, one of Prescott's flunkies called, to be strictly accurate. He wanted to know why I'd 'screwed Bush.' Why I had 'taken' the Bush money and not 'supplied' the head. Well, it became clear to me that the pilot who'd taken the head from Jake Chrisman had cut his own deal with some previously unknown and scheming cocksucker. Never really knew who the mystery man was, or where Villa's head finally ended up, but suffice it to say that Pancho's skull never got to Yale. Some say the pilot was bought off by Brigadier General Francisco R. Durango, who drilled holes in the skull to use it as a caddy for his fountain pens. Others say it was Alvaro Obregón. Some say it was sold to a medical institution in Cleveland to some quack sawbones obsessed with severed heads. Either way, the skull was lost, and the treasure map with it."
Alicia sipped some iced tea. She said, "But Jake Chrisman knew the path to the gold, presumably."
"Right," Holmdahl said. "Presumably he did. But like I said, you gotta know where to start. He was provisioning in El Paso, I heard, for a 'prospecting' job. He was going to go to that bogus locale I'd given him. But as Jake left the hardware store, probably distracted by dreams of all the treasures he envisioned having to himself, he was run over by a beer truck. The driver's side tire flattened Jake's head --- squeezed his brains and all those precious memories out his ears. And, so, poor put-upon and long-suffering Emil was fucked up the ass by the fates ...
again
."
"Sometimes luck runs that way," I said, rolling my eyes. "Well, now we're all up to speed and know the lay of the land. And we've pretty firmly established you're not to be trusted, Emil, and, well, let's be frank --- I just can't be trusted, either. We're both just old and greedy campaigners who mean to dick one another."
Emil smiled. "About how I read it, too. So what do you suggest?"
I tapped the table with my fingers. "I suggest you buy me out right now. Well, me and my two young associates. I can't trust you to go and get that gold and give me an honest cut. The young lady here has already pointed that sad fact out. And, you know, I have no interest whatsoever in going down to hell and living that
Treasure of the Sierra Madre
motif you alluded to earlier. I'm too old and happy in my air conditioning. I ain't gonna bust my hump over a shovel in Durango ... all the while waiting for you to put a bullet behind my ear. Fuck that. You give me a hundred grand --- 'cause I'm cheap --- and we give you your map and we all walk away happy."
The mercenary snorted. "Where in fuck would I get a hundred grand?"
"Get it from some of your real estate cronies ... from Texas Republicans. Maybe you can sell a replica Villa head back to the Mexican government for some recovery fee. That's not my problem. I want to do this tomorrow. Get it over with. Your homework is to find that money. And don't use the next few hours to try and fuck-over me and mine by stealing the head or sending hired guns after us to take it. The head is in safety deposit box. I have one key. An hour before we sat down to eat here with you, I dropped the key in a mailbox. I mailed it to someone somewhere here in Los Angeles, who'll have it delivered somewhere special in time for our exchange."
"I can't get that kind of money," Emil said.
"Don't insult me. I'm convinced you can. It's your problem to solve, either way."
The old soldier of fortune licked his lips. He said, floating a compromise, "Maybe half that I could do."
"Negotiations were never opened. One hundred grand." I handed Emil a slip of paper. "You call there with questions or comments. It's my answering service. Failing word to the contrary from you, before ten in the morning tomorrow, you're going to contact the bank on the flip side of that piece of paper and you're going to make a deposit. The account information you'll need is all there. You'll do this by ten a.m. At ten-thirty tomorrow morning, I'll call and confirm the deposit has been made. When I know it has, I'll meet you in front of Grauman's Chinese Theatre. High noon. I'll give you what's in the head there and then we're quits for keeps."
The mercenary shook his head. "Unacceptable. The risk is all on my end. You might take my money and run."
"Might. But it's the deal I'm offering. Simple."
"I don't think we're through figuring this one out," Emil Holmdahl said.
"I do."
"I'll think about it," the old man said bitterly.
"Sure. You do that if it helps you feel better about yourself. But it makes no difference in the end. We're going to do this my way. That's it."
I settled the bill. Alicia unnecessarily wanted to touch up her lipstick. Bud had gone to take a piss, or maybe shoot up some insulin.
Alone with Holmdahl, I said, "While back, Bud asked a question you never answered, Emil. How'd you avoid getting yourself killed by Fierro all these years?"
"We had a run-in a time back --- pretty ugly. But we reached a kind of stalemate."
"What? Made a 'separate peace'?" I couldn't quite buy that.
"No," Emil said. "More like mutually assured destruction. I don't fear that cocksucker."
Emil and me walked out front. It was raining and we stood under the awning, looking out at the palm-tree-lined streets of Los Angeles in the softly falling rain. "I never thought I'd end up here," Holmdahl said.
I nodded as I lit my cigarette. "I was surprised to find you here. Figured you'd be in some border town around El Paso, one side of the river or the other."
"Ain't much of any account left anywhere, you know? Used to be a man could make his way in this world ... make his money and live a good life doing it. But now? The world's gone to hell. Apart from this thing we're partnering on, well, I'm reduced to doing real estate finagling. What the fuck is that?"
"I hear you."
Emil spat. "It's a bitch to outlive your world, ain't it?"
"It surely is."
Emil looked at me and then gave me a nasty smirk as he gestured at my cigarette. "Well, at least I've had the good sense to take care of myself. I won't end up old
and
a cripple." The "like you will" was implied.
Christ, but the old bastard knew how to go for the jugular.
"
Mañana
,"
I said as I headed to my Chevy to wait for my young friends.
Holmdahl climbed in a cab. Through the rain-smeared windshield of my Chevrolet, I watched him leave.
Across the street sat another blue Chevy. There was an old Mexican in a Stetson behind the wheel. I got this strange feeling ... muttered to myself, "Fucking Fierro." I climbed out and locked my Chevy and trotted through the now-harder rain back to the Aero Squadron. Alicia and Bud met me at the door. My lady squeezed my arm. "That man --- Holmdahl --- he is not to be trusted," Alicia said. "He's truly evil."
"Yeah," I said. "Go to the bar, Alic. We all need to kill a few moments."
Bud's eyes narrowed: "What's up?"
"There's an old Mexican running surveillance from a car out front."
"Fierro, you think," Alicia said.
"
Sí
. I think. Go get yourself a drink, honey. We'll join you in a moment." I turned to Bud. "You're with me, poet. While I call the cops, you check the yellow pages for a magic supply shop."
"Flash paper?" Bud said.
"Flash paper," I confirmed.
As Fiske thumbed through the Yellow Pages, I called the cops. Breathless and strident, I told them I saw "some old Mexican pervert" sitting in his car, masturbating and trying to entice children into his Chevy. I gave the location and hung up.
We collected Alicia. When the squad car pulled up behind Fierro, the three of us walked to my Chevy and drove away.
Of course I figured that we had other tails.
Maybe frat boys.
Certainly federal agents.
The good, the corrupt ... and Christ only knew what other kinds.
There was a bookstore next to Gibson Walter's Magic Shop. Alicia and me roamed the bookshop while Bud bought that flammable novelty paper.
As she browsed in the fiction section, I picked up a final edition of the day's
L.A. Times
and leafed through it. There was a small but shrill late-breaking item in the rag regarding a mysterious and brutal attack against the newspaper's book reviewer. The police blotter item indicated that the reviewer, Lee G. Todd, might permanently lose the use of his right hand. I felt a slight thrill, but I also felt slightly sick inside.
I studiously folded up the paper and replaced it and joined Alicia.
The store stocked seven or eight of my novels. There seemed to me to be a few too many copies on the shelf of
The Land of Dread and Fear
, my newest novel. Only one or two copies of each of my other titles were stocked. But there were perhaps nine copies of my new novel.
Hmm
. I felt a little less guilty about Lee G. Todd, suddenly.
"Which should I read?" Alicia fanned paperback copies of four of my novels that she apparently hadn't got to yet. I selected my Florida crime novel,
Last Key
. It is my most autobiographical. She smiled and nodded. While she paid, I checked a table up front where the bestsellers were laid out. I thumbed through a few, here and there:
Peyton Place
by Grace Metalious Messner;
Compulsion
by Meyer Levin;
Rally Round The Flag Boys
by Max Shulman; Nevil Shute's
On the Beach
and this fucking phone book-thick mess by Ayn Rand dubbed
Atlas Shrugged
. (Probably did so because he couldn't support the weight of this undisciplined and self-indulgent mess of words.)
Sweet Jesus.
We walked back outside and waited under the awning in the drizzle for Fiske.
"Your grandmother is in town," I said to Alicia. "This could be a good time to visit your little girl. I'd love to meet her."
She shook her head. "No, Héctor. It is too risky. Too many people are maybe watching us now. Our danger is probably greatest about now, don't you think? I don't want to put my baby or anyone else I love at risk. And it would also be cruel to visit her, and then to leave right away again. I can't do that to either of us. I'll wait until this business is over. It's only one more day, yes?"
There was something more, I could tell. So I blundered ahead and said it. "You're also not sure you want her to know me. Not yet anyway. Yes?"
Alicia searched my eyes. She said, "Yes. That's right. I'm not sure yet."
The rain was picking up when we got back to our rental.
I searched our "home," then let Alicia come in after I found nobody lurking in closets or under the beds.
We unloaded the real Pancho head and the good fake head with the underbite that we would foist on Emil Holmdahl. We also pulled out two of the back up heads.
We'd prep them, too, just in case.
We took out the little slip of paper we'd cut to match the original map and used it as a template to cut down the magic store flash paper to the right dimensions. Alicia searched the back yard and found a crow's feather we could use as a quill. I sat Bud down at the table and we concocted a Byzantine set of instructions involving trees that credibly might have been cut down or fallen over in the intervening twenty years, creek beds that might have run dry, boulders and swales. With any luck, the greedy bastards following the instructions would waste years of their lives in fruitless pursuit. Leave us all the hell alone.
The tough part for Bud seemed to be getting started. So I said, "There had to be a front door at the place Urbina built for his whore. Instruct them to walk one hundred paces straight out from the front step." We built our false map from that starting point.
Then I directed Bud to fill three more identical slips of paper with similar though slightly varying directions.
I privately relished the image of that bent federal agent and Holmdahl and maybe Fierro or Prescott Bush's lackeys all suddenly bumping into one another somewhere in the wastelands of Durango, all of them clutching identical slips of flash paper and counting their wasted footsteps.
Bud started to complain about writer's cramp. I shook my head and said, "At least you're not writing in your own piss. Soldier on, son."
"Yeah, about that," Bud said. "I just can't stand the thought of all that treasure lost out there at that ranch. Think there's any chance at all we could find it sans the real map?"
"None. Don't torture yourself, friend. It'd be impossible. And for all anyone knows, some Mexican bandits or peasants may have found it long ago."
We finished rigging the maps to the skulls. We did a good and credible job. It looked close enough to the same strange bump I'd found on Villa's real skull --- just before I had stupidly torched that real fucking treasure map.
Afterward, I made a phone call. Eighty-thousand American dollars had been deposited in my offshore account. That would be Prescott Bush's deposit for Pancho's head. I spent a few additional moments on the phone and had the funds transferred to yet another Swiss account. Soon, Alicia and her grandmother would begin receiving their too-lavish monthly support checks.
If Holmdahl kicked in his hundred grand, I'd pocket ten for expenses and split the rest between Bud and Alicia.
Alicia was in the bedroom, reading my Key West novel. I packed up Pancho's real head and drove to the post office. I boxed up the carpetbag nice and safe and covered it with lots and lots of tape. Then I mailed the bandit's head to myself care of the hardware store in La Mesillia.
If I didn't die in the next twenty-four hours, I'd catch the head at the other end.
I had special, sentimental plans for that rotting skull.
When I returned, Bud was sitting out on the back porch, drinking a beer and scrawling away in a notebook. I said, "Sorry," and moved to leave.
"No, it's okay," he said. "It's not the real stuff. I'm just playing around with notes about you --- for the article about you for
True
."
"Well then that I
will
interrupt," I said. I'd grabbed my own beer. What could just one hurt?
We propped up our feet and watched the rain patter down as we sipped our Tecate.
Bud said, "What do you see yourself doing after all this?"
"I get the feeling what I want isn't in the cards," I said.
"Maybe," Bud admitted. "Maybe not right away, anyway. But if you get this behind you, get your health straightened out and stay away from the hooch and the blood, just do your work and be a square-john ... well, she might come around. It could really happen for you, you know."
I smiled and bit my lip. "What odds would you really give me on that?"
Bud thought a moment, then said, "Sober and staid? I think sixty-forty."
"No shit?"
"I may be an optimist," he said.
"Yeah, just like me." It was quiet a while, then I said, "You ever hear of the Tarahumara Indians, Bud?"
"No, sir."
"They call themselves the
Rarámuri
. They live in the Sierras, in and around Copper Canyon. The Spanish chased them up into the Sierras ages ago. What they mostly do is run --- all day and all night. A few have entered races north of the border. They nearly always win --- even running, as they do, in sandals made of rope and discarded tire treads. The Indians themselves don't really even call what they do 'running.' They call it 'foot throwing.' They have a game they play with a wooden ball called
Rarjíparo
. I reckon it's a little like soccer. But these games go on for days at a time. One day, I'd like to maybe take a train and see them; watch 'em play that game. Try and figure out how they can run so hard for so long."
There was thunder now, lightning.
"I'll leave you to your article." I was proud of myself --- I was walking away from a half-a-bottle of beer.
Bud was starting to light up another cigarette. I said, "You should quit, before you really get hooked. Especially with your sugar problems."
"Probably."
"Really. I'm thinking of quitting myself. I've got morning phlegm issues you don't want for yourself. And lung cancer? I've seen three friends go that way. That fucking disease is why God invented guns and hard palates."
"I'll think about it," Bud said.
"That Zippo lighter you bought yourself... that inscription from my book ... you being ironic, Bud, or what exactly?"
"Just a reminder and warning. I don't ever want to whore."
Hell, me either
.
"I'll see you later," I said.
"Where are you going?"
"I'm going to go pick up my new eyeglasses," I said.
I did that. I hated them. But damn --- now I could remember what it was like to really see. And Holy Christ --- things looked even worse than I remembered.
Then I went to a tavern and borrowed a phone. I shared the rough outlines of my plan for the day to Agent Brown. I secured a promise that in exchange for helping Brown to "nail" his "partner" for J. Edgar, the fed would do what he could to keep the IRS off my back. I think in time he came to believe what was the gospel truth --- that I wouldn't be keeping all that blood money coming my way in the morning.
Agent Brown also confirmed that Fierro had been questioned and released after I fingered him for being some kid-raping monster.
Seemed the old man was now going under the name of "Jésus Martínez."
He was under surveillance, Brown said.
Emil Holmdahl was under surveillance.
My new house was under surveillance.
So I said, "Anyone watching Prescott Bush?"
I could hear Brown's rueful smile in his voice: "Sure. Sure." Then, "One more thing, Hector. Mark that skull you give Holmdahl in some way, would you? So we can know if somebody tries to swap heads later, yes?" We agreed I'd scratch an "x" in the right, remaining rear-most molar.
He paused, then said, "It's a shame, but I don't think you're going to get yourself a novel out of this one, partner."
"Not and not get indicted," I agreed.
I returned to the wonderful little tavern I'd found near our new place.
Some of my luck was running good. Buddy Loy Burke, my new favorite singer-songwriter, was back up there again, doing a wrenching version of "Canción Mixteca" --- surely one of the most moving ballads of homesickness ever written. That guitarist by his side was just as brilliant as he had been the previous night.
For two hours I listened and applauded and expanded on my story about Alicia. I knew now it would be my next novel. Perhaps my last really good one. I was tying it all around the head of a famous Mexican bandit.
Three hours in, I again felt this hand brush across the back of my neck. Her timing, again, was perfect --- I'd nearly emptied the well. I closed my notebook and stuck the pen in my sports jacket.
She was holding a Tequila Sunrise she had ordered for herself. I ordered a double shot of tequila, a tall glass of water and some fish tacos to split with her. She gestured at the stage. "That song "Canción Mixteca," it's my favorite. He does it wonderfully, and with such soul. My grandmother used to sing me to sleep with that song."
"I think it's my favorite, too, now. I love it."
Buddy Burke and his partner ended their set and took a break. Alicia sang to me the lyrics of "our" song:
¡Qué lejos estoy del suelo donde he nacido!
inmensa nostalgia invade mi pensamiento
y al verme tan solo y triste cual hoja al viento
quisiera llorar, quisiera morir
de sentimiento.
¡Oh tierra del sol,
suspiro por verte!
ahora que lejos
yo vivo sin luz, sin amor
y al verme tan solo y triste cual hoja al viento
quisiera llorar, quisiera morir
de sentimiento.
She finished and smiled and shrugged.
"You could make a living doing that," I said.
"Only for undiscerning gringos like you," she said, chucking under my chin. Alicia was already slightly drunk. That bothered me, somehow.
"Your Key West book, you bastard," she said, "it broke my fucking heart."
I frowned. "You don't talk like that. You don't use those words."
"You do. Your women, in your books, often do."
"But
you
don't," I said. "Don't start now."
"Maybe it's time I did."
I pushed her drink away from her. "No, it isn't."
"You're going to try and die on me tomorrow, Héctor. I can tell. All your men die."
"You're wrong. I don't want to die. I have no choice about getting old. But I do about dying. This isn't one of my books. I still have ... a few plans."
She looked up at me from under long black lashes. "I know that you do. We both know you do. But talking about your plans is the surest way to hear God laugh."
Alicia looked at her drink. She looked at the empty stage. She squeezed my hand. "Bud has found his own bar. He's writing poetry there. He said not to wait up for him. So let's go home. I know it bothers you, but tonight, I feel like feeling like one of those women you've written so much about."
Alicia was twitching in her sleep ... lost in the throes of some semi-gentle nightmare, I reckoned.
I shook her just enough to shift the patterns of her dreams, then I pulled the sheet up around her and slipped from our bed and showered and shaved and started coffee.
This morning, this one time, I vowed not to write anything.
Bud had been up for hours --- already showered and shaved and revising his early morning's work.
As Alicia bathed, I called my Swiss bank. The hundred-thousand dollars had been deposited by Emil Holmdahl or his associates. Probably the latter. Part of me suspected that Emil had his own car trunk filled with heads. Soon the blackest of black markets would be flooded with Pancho Villa skulls. Either way, it worked for me, or more precisely, for
mine
--- the cash was safely in hand. I again transferred the funds, then closed out the account into which Prescott Bush and Emil Holmdahl had made their deposits.
I loaded my Peacemaker. I also had a derringer in the cuff of my right boot. That last wouldn't do much, but you never know when even a dainty holdout might give you an edge.
Bud had his inherited .45 tucked down in his waistband at his back. He was learning.
Alicia was not feeling well. Probably her first bad hangover --- a result of my exerting more bad influence. She also complained of a sore throat. I suggested she stay home. She resisted and it was just as well --- I wanted her in sight, where I could look after her. As a "compromise," she brewed a thermos of chamomile tea. Bud ran to the corner to buy her a little bottle shaped like a bear and filled with honey that she could take along to mix with the tea.
While they finished packing, I told them we'd likely not be in position to return to this place; told them just in case to pack everything they couldn't bear to abandon. Then I went into the garage and I opened the trunk of my Chevy and went about preparing the arsenal that Bud and me had amassed over the past several days. Afterward, I arranged the heads in their respective bags in a very deliberate sequence.
Once all that was prepared, I walked to the corner liquor store and bought a silver flask and a bottle of single malt Scotch. I filled the flask and tossed the rest of the bottle. I tucked the flask into the cuff of my left boot, just in case.
We loaded into the car and we drove to Hollywood Boulevard. I palmed into a space in front of Grauman's Chinese Theatre.
Emil Holmdahl was already loitering there, his bony ass parked on the rear fender of his '56 Rambler station wagon. To all appearances, he was alone.
I climbed out, smiling. "I got your deposit," I said. "Thanks so much for that."
As I'd instructed, Alicia and Bud remained in my Bel Air. But Bud had one of the Tommy guns resting at his feet. I opened the trunk and pulled out the first carpet bag in the line. I quickly closed the trunk and moved around to the front of my car. I rested the bag on the hood of my Chevy and opened it. "Here it is," I said to Emil Holmdahl. "Your fucking map is in the right eye. But you know that." I offered him a pair of tweezers. He smiled and accepted them. Then he did what I had always expected him to do --- the cocksucker pulled a gun on me. Two Mexicans had also stepped up, either side of my car. They had on long coats but each pulled those back to give us all glimpses of the sawed-off shotguns they were hiding under those conspicuous black dusters.
Then this other old Mexican came stroding out of the theatre. He grinned at me like a mustachioed death's head.
"Hey, Fierro," I said, trying to steady my quaking knees. "How's tricks,
hombre
?"
He spat on my boot.
I said to Holmdahl, "You said you and Fierro had reached a Mexican standoff so to speak...looks more like a rapprochement. Hell, a partnership."
Emil smiled. "Like I told you, Lassiter, my enemy's enemy...."
I shook my head. "Jesus, the two of you working together...there really is nothing you won't do for money, is there, Emil?"
"Look at you, Lassiter," Emil said. "Trying to act tough and cool, like one of your characters. But you ain't fooling me. You look more dejected than a four-dollar whore on nickel night." Emil Holmdahl handed the old Mexican the bag with the head. The soldier of fortune said, "Little feller, he's got the big underbite. Looks real to me. What do you think?"
The Butcher grunted. "One can never be truly sure after so many years," he said. Try as I might, I couldn't
truly
read that old bastard Fierro's expression. I couldn't be certain that he'd bought our deception. "So much rot. But, yes, I concur." As he said this, he reached under my coat and took my Peacemaker. He smiled and held it up. "No," Emil said to him. "You can't keep it. That ain't cricket. That's his gun. You know how that is. Empty it and give it back to him."
Fierro sneered at the mercenary. "Fuck you, gringo. This gun looks worth much money."
Emil turned his gun on Fierro. "Some things aren't done, asshole. Never a man's horse, or his gun. Empty the bullets out and give him the Colt back."
Fierro opened my gun...spun the cylinder. He threw the bullets at Emil's feet. He shoved the gun down my waistband, the site scraping my thigh.
Cocksucker
.
"So you're going to sell the skull to Bush after you take the map out," I said to Holmdahl. "I should have seen it coming." I looked back and forth between Fierro and Holmdahl. "But then, in the nearer-term, I'd hate to be either one of you sons of bitches. Hard to say which of you is the bigger snake. I don't see this as a steady partnership. Don't envy either of you the next hour or two."
Both old men winked at me. My skin crawled.
One of the younger Mexicans reached into my Chevy and pulled my car keys from the ignition. He tossed them into traffic.
"
Vaya con Dios
, you sorry asshole," Emil said, backing toward his Rambler.
Fierro smiled and tipped his Stetson. He was backing back toward the theatre.
Emil waved at The Butcher and said, "See you at the rendezvous."
When they and their buddies were gone, holding up a hand to stop traffic, I walked out and retrieved my car keys. Then I swung behind the wheel of my Chevy.
"Well, that all went to hell," Bud said.
"Did it?" I smiled. "We all knew Emil would try to screw us. But we have Prescott Bush's money. We have Emil's hundred grand. Emil and Rudy will try to dick one another of course. Frankly, I'd hate to make book on who comes out ahead there. But really, it's academic. Because before those cocksuckers turn guns on one another, Agent Duane David is going to intercept Emil.
"Duane is a bent FBI agent," I continued. "A Yale grad. And a Skull and Bones member. He has his own designs on that treasure. And he sees himself currying favor with the Bush family, down the road. He'll give them the skull so Prescott will be appeased. But there's more. Agent David's partner, Kenneth Brown, is going to move on David for betraying the FBI, for secretly working for the CIA on American soil. That's one big no-no. And worse, he was betraying the agency and wicked J. Edgar. So Duane's just bought himself an Old Testament-style ass fucking. So, it all balances out in the end. Except maybe for Fierro. Him, I may have to track down later ... personally put him down."
Alicia squeezed some honey into the tea she had poured into the lid of her thermos. "Can it really all play like this? As you've plotted it?"
"Sure. It could. It should. Why the hell wouldn't it?"
We returned to our Tom Mix bungalow a last time.
Bud borrowed my car and headed out to a tavern to write. I told him about my favorite new singer and L.A. tavern and he headed over there.
Alicia and I pulled the shades and went to bed. We were both sober and it was sad and slow this time. I could tell she was torn. Had me this sense that maybe young Bud was right --- I might actually have a shot at finessing this lady into my life. Afterwards, hearts pounding against one another, I found her hand and squeezed. I said, "In the book, I get the girl."
She brushed the damp hair back from my forehead and said softly, "The men in your books never get the girl."
"I'm thinking about turning over a new leaf, so to speak."
"If that is so, then you would have to write very different books."
I nodded. "I know. But it's maybe getting to be that time of life."
She smiled and hugged me hard.
We showered together, then sat out on the back porch. At my request, she began to sing an
a cappella
version of "Canción Mixteca." She sang it like a torch song this time, in that smoky voice she had.
I heard three gunshots --- fired out front.
"Get in the bedroom, my Colt is there," I said, rising. "I've reloaded it. Lie down under the bed. Anyone looks under the bed, you shoot the fucker in the face." Then, unarmed, I vaulted the back porch railing. That was slick --- didn't know I still had such gymnastics in me. Pumped, I hurdled the chainlink fence that surrounded the bungalow's backyard. When I hit the ground, I wrenched my ankle --- pain all the way up to my right knee.
Half-limping, half-running, I edged around to the front of our place. Two Mexicans were beating on Bud Fiske. Several cars were approaching. The Mexicans threw Bud into my Chevy and tore off. Behind my Bel Air was a second Chevy. Rodolfo Fierro was behind the wheel and another Mexican was with him. A third car, a Buick, pulled out behind that. Didn't get a look at those guys, but there seemed to be at least five in the car.
I screamed and pounded the wall of the bungalow.
Jesus Fucking Christ
! Poor Bud, goddamn him, in the hands of that sadistic bloodthirsty motherfucker.
Jesus
.
Then I heard a single shot and watched as the back window of Fierro's Chevy exploded. Alicia had ignored my warning --- retrieved my gun and put a bullet through the back of the car. I doubted she hit anyone, but maybe she'd at least give the old cocksucker a heart attack --- stroke him out before he could hurt poor Bud.
Neighbors were peering through their windows, mouths open.
Let in one pulp writer and there goes the neighborhood.
I limped around the corner. Alicia was wild-eyed, waving my Colt. "We'll stop someone driving by, take their car and chase them," she said, breathless.
"No. They have us outgunned. And they have too big a headstart."
Alicia's eyes implored me. "I'll call the police," she said, "report your car stolen."
"No, it would take too much time. By the time we got those cops on our side, Bud..." I didn't have to finish that.
Carefully, I pulled my Colt from her hands. "Try to flag down a taxi while I make a phone call."
"Not the police?"
"No, someone better."
He was deep into paperwork spinning out from the detention of his "partner," so it took a full five minutes for him to answer. I laid out the situation for Agent Kenneth Brown and said, "You can still track my car electronically, yeah?"
"Yeah. I can. But I think the agency's interest in this matter---"
"Stop," I said. "Don't even say it. I know where too many bodies are buried. I'm a writer with a lot of connections. It would be bad for all of us if I turned whistle-blower. Move now and you can maybe be back in time for dinner with time to spare to continue putting it to Agent Duane David."
I could tell he'd cupped a palm around the receiver. Then Agent Brown said, "Okay. The Director has agreed." Jesus --- J. Edgar was personally there? He must really have a hard-on for Duane. "Get a cab or something and get yourself over to MacArthur Park," Brown told me. "Do it now."
"Why there?"
"Because we can land a helicopter there."
We had to shout over the chop of the blades above us. I'd tried to talk Alicia into staying, or into accepting Agent Brown's offer of an armed escort to a safe place until we had recovered Bud --- or what was left of him --- but she refused.
It had been several hours since Bud was snatched. For too long, we had been chasing the faint echoes of the signal from my car. But only echoes; no firm fix.
Agent Brown had explained the limitations of the tracking device. Essentially, we could stay within a ten-mile range of the transmitter in my car and still read a signal, but there would be no variability in signal strength in populated areas --- nothing to indicate we were getting hotter or colder "in terms of acquiring a sight target." There would be too much interference from other signal sources in greater Los Angeles --- problems caused by radio and television signals, HAM radio operators and the possibility of other FBI tracking devices being employed in the area that could send us off target. "I mean, it's Los Angeles for Christ's sake," Brown said, "...so many goddamn communists working in Hollywood..."
I shook my head. "Really? That's still true? What was HUAC for?"
"I'll ignore that," Brown said. "Only place worse than greater Los Angeles to try and follow somebody would be New York City. But we can be sure they are headed south. When they get out a ways from the major cities, it will be easier to zero in on them, eyeball them. And if he gets into the boonies, then we can land this son of a bitch on the roof of your Bel Air, I think. We've got a handheld tracker, if we get close enough, that will give us signal strength, but we'll really have to be in the sticks to use that."
Now we were hovering over San Diego, and our fix was no firmer.
For now, the only hopeful thing was that there was still an indication of movement --- that motion would make it harder to be too inventive in terms of torturing my poor young poet. But we had no line of sight on my fleeing Chevy --- no hard target.
And if Bud had been moved from my Chevy to another vehicle? Well, the likely results were too terrible and tragic to contemplate. Didn't stop me from trying, of course.
As we'd flown south, we'd gotten a bit of a fill on the aftermath of the head exchange.
Holmdahl had somehow succeeded in switching heads on Agent Duane David. That seemed to surprise to Agent Brown. But not me --- it was impossible to overestimate Emil. The switch had been confirmed because the head David had when he was captured had no "x" carved into its right rear molar. Although it
did
boast its own hidden map written on flash paper.
Crafty Emil.
And he walked away clean --- nothing really on Holmdahl that could be used.
Their respective tails had reported no rendezvous between Emil and Fierro. I could only assume Fierro hadn't been convinced by the phony skull that I'd allowed Emil to steal. It would explain why Fierro came looking for me and mine to try and recover the real head and accompanying treasure map.
Brown said, "What kind of firepower do you think they have?"
I swallowed hard, thinking. I really didn't want to go into trying to explain that arsenal in the trunk of my Bel Air that they might have found by now. "Can't say for sure," I said. "At the head exchange on Hollywood Boulevard, there were a couple of sawed-offs, some handguns. But a while back, they actually fired a couple of Thompsons at me."
"And you're still standing?" Brown's eyebrows arched. "You're better than you look. Or they're inept."
"Let's hope both are true."
The pilot signaled to Brown and he moved forward in a crouch to the cockpit to consult.
I reached into my boot cuff for the flask. I was unscrewing the lid when Alicia snatched it from me. She poured the contents on the floor. "How dare you?"
A shrug. "I'm trying to steady my nerves."
"And dull your reflexes ... slow your mind," she said.
I sighed. "You're right, of course. Use the adrenaline."
Right
.
"We have a problem," a voice said behind me. I turned. Brown leaned in close to my ear. "We're getting a better fix now. Thing is, they may now be outside my reach."
The fucking border. They'd crossed into Mexico and right outside FBI jurisdiction.
"Christ, I knew I should have thrown in with Duane," I said. "At least the CIA is extra-territorial. You're of no fucking use to me now."
Agent Brown got his finger up in my face. "Hey, fuck you! I'm amazed we've come this far together. I'm frankly shocked you've been given this level of agency support and access to resources by the Director. So fuck you, Lassiter."
I could feel the heat of Alicia's angry gaze on me. I needed to tamp down my anger ...try and play ball for Bud's sake. "I'm sorry, Brown," I said. "I know you can't risk it --- doing something in Mexico that could make news. All I have on me now is an antique Colt. Give me a little more firepower and take me in as close as you can, please? Enough for a short walk, but not so close they'll hear this fucker coming in at them."
Brown thought this through. "I should consult with Mr. Hoover. But --- in a circumstance like this --- well, maybe it's better to ask forgiveness than permission." He looked at Alicia and then back at me. "How many do you think there are?"
"At least four." I thought of that third car. "But maybe eight or nine."
"Nine on one?" Brown said. "I sure don't like your odds."
"Me either."
Alicia shook her head. "Nine on two."
I grabbed her arms and squeezed. "Oh, fuck that! For Christ's sake --- you've got a little girl. And you've never really fired a gun."
She shook her head. "But Bud..."
Brown was shaking his head, too. "This was all a mistake."
"Then send for help," Alicia said, pleading.
"Wouldn't reach us in time," I said.
"Wouldn't matter, either way," Brown said. "That pilot up there would have to give coordinates --- in fucking Mexico. There'd be no help granted and we'd be ordered back. And I've got kids, too ... a mortgage. I'm too-many years in the bureau to fuck up my pension now --- or to start a second career."
"So we're back to my original proposition," I said. "Give me some good guns, then drop me close by them. I'll go in alone and I'll bring back Bud."
Agent Brown didn't like it. Alicia didn't like it. Hell, I didn't like it; not because of me, but because of poor Bud. It was a suicide run --- like that hopeless fucking task Emil Holmdahl had described of trying to assassinate Villa in his homeland and then living to tell the tale later.
"They've stopped," the pilot said.
"Where?" Agent Brown and I asked simultaneously.
"Somewhere near Tijuana. Not as remote as we'd want. It's going to be hard to know exactly where. And if we fly-over to verify..."
Grand
.
We hovered around a bit --- perhaps another twenty minutes, trying to get a firmer fix on the location of my Chevy. Twenty long minutes ... I doubted that Fierro had taken more than ten minutes to dissect Urbina with bullets so many years ago. But I'd wager good money those ten minutes were an eternity of agony for the Butcher's victim.
"This is as good as it gets, people," the chopper pilot said. We lofted down and he cut the engines. As the dust settled, I checked my Colt. Brown gave me a pair of .45s, clips and a sniper's rifle. "You need instruction on any of these?"
I took them with a shaking hand. I hoped nobody noticed. Not fear --- blood sugar. Adrenaline and the fact that I couldn't remember my last meal ... well, it was bad news. My vision was blurring and I was thirsty as hell. Felt vaguely nauseous.
Brown handed me a knapsack and I shrugged it over my shoulder. I said, "What's this?"
"A canteen and grenades. I trust you know how to use those, too. The grenades I mean."
"You can trust." I smiled at Alicia. "Back in a jiff."
She shook her head. "I'm coming."
"No way."
"I'm coming," she said. "Alone, you don't stand a chance."
Brown shook his head. "Goddamn it!" He grabbed a rifle and two extra .45s. He handed a walkie-talkie to Alicia. He said, "I'm going to come. But strictly as an observer. Consultant, only. I think we're at least a mile, maybe two miles out from these cocksuckers. Alicia will come the first mile with us. Then we go on ahead. I'll carry another radio. These things tend to get screwy out here in desert with the bandit radio stations and shortwaves and weather conditions. This way, we stay in touch with the chopper so we can get out,
muy pronto
, if needed."
I checked my watch. In theory, once we reached them, Fierro might already have had 45 minutes with Bud. I thought,
No more words
. "Let's go," I said. My mind was heavy with images of all the atrocities I'd ever heard attributed to Fierro --- sliced-off soles of feet, ant trails, crucifixion and disembowelment.
Jesus Christ. Poor, poor, Bud
.
Brown toted a little handheld version of the tracking device in the helicopter. The thing had a little dial for adjustments and a needle that tracked signal strength, kind of like a Geiger counter. But it was still inexact stuff.
We walked perhaps a mile when we began to hear voices. Seems we were closer to them than we ever would have guessed. We edged along a nearly dried-up
arroyo
, staying close to the crisped scrub that lined the banks. On the opposite bank, there was a small cabin. Four Mexicans were gathered around something, looking down and laughing. Pointing. Occasionally they would stoop down and then stand up again.
I pulled out the sniper's rifle and began fiddling --- my focus was very poor now. Brown seemed to confuse my loss of vision with ineptitude. "Here," he said. "Gimme."
He fiddled then said, "Okay, there's four of them. Three young fellows, and one old man. He let Alicia look through the scope.
"It's him," she said. "It's Fierro."
"Any sign of Bud?" My voice sounded strange to me. And I was dying of thirst. I pulled out the canteen and took a deep drink. It didn't touch my thirst.
I pulled on my new glasses and took the gun from Alicia. I could see a little better now, but I wouldn't want to pull the trigger on a target that really mattered. I scoped around, trying to see what they were all gathered around ... what they were dipping over.
Still couldn't see well, but I soon saw enough.
Bud had been stripped to the waist and lashed to some flimsy wooden framework. He was spread-eagled, face down, over a massive maguey plant. It was reputed to be a favorite torture tactic of Fierro's. They say Emiliano Zapata invented it. To help the process along, the cocksuckers were incrementally piling stones on Bud's bony back, forcing him down on the spikes. Wouldn't surprise me if they had already dislocated both of his arms at the shoulders with the weight of those rocks. I couldn't tell how far those goddamned spikes had already drilled into Bud's gut, but I could see blood on the plant.
And now we could hear Bud's terrible screams.
I said, "Alicia, get down as close to the ground as possible."
Brown said, "Lassiter, what are you---"
One of the young Mexicans was about to drop another rock on Bud's back. I aimed for his head. There was a blast furnace wind cutting west to east across the scrub. I tried to compensate for that wind and its effects across perhaps 150-yards of desert. I pulled the trigger.
Like I said, my vision was bad. And, like I said, I aimed for that bloodthirsty bastard's head. I saw him drop the rock --- I prayed not upon Bud --- and clutch at his neck as blood sprayed from his throat. I'd missed my target by nearly a foot. But I'd killed that son of a bitch.
The leaves and stalks above our heads were cut by the first sweep of one of Fierro's flunkey's machine guns. I sighted in on another of the younger Mexicans. I was going for the center of his torso --- an easier target --- and hit that bad bastard in the head.
Then my vision completely fogged. I got down close to the ground.
"Brilliant," Brown said. "You stupid cocksucker."
"There are only two left," I said. "Even odds."
"You said there might be nine. Maybe the rest are in that cabin."
"Or maybe I was wrong."
Brown inched up between volleys and sighted in on the last of the young Mexicans. He fired.
I smiled hopefully and said, "You hit the cocksucker?"
"He has a third eye," Brown said, trying to sound angry but not quite getting there. I could tell he was impressed with his own marksmanship. And he was exhilarated in that way we get with bullets flying. He was positioning to fire on Fierro when his head snapped back. He grabbed himself between his throat and shoulder, low down on the neck. Arterial blood sprayed across my new glasses.
I fired twice with my Colt at Fierro and saw him fall --- or dive. My vision was too faulty to distinguish between the two.
Brown was trying to speak, but going into shock. Alicia pressed her hand to his neck wound.
After I wiped the blood from my glasses, I picked up the sniper rifle and scoped around.
Fierro was in a crouch behind Bud, now. I could just get a glimpse at the top of his head. I tried to sight in, but my vision kept fuzzing. The odds of me hitting Bud --- and hitting him in the heart or the head at this angle instead of hitting Fierro --- were too high, even for a reckless bastard like me. If I were to pull the trigger, I'd have to conclude that Bud was likely to end up a dead man.
I squeezed the bridge of my nose and rubbed my eyes and tried looking through that goddamn scope again. My vision was even worse.
Now I could only really see motion and light through the scope.
Alicia said, frenzied now, "Shoot him, Héctor! End it! We have to help Bud and get help for the Agent."
I shook my head. "I --- I can't
see
. The diabetes ... I can't see enough to take the shot. I'll kill Bud if I do. I know I'll kill him."
Her hands were pressed tightly to Brown's neck wound. Her brown skin was slick with Brown's blood. Alicia said, "You want me to try and kill him? That's what you're going to say, isn't it?"