Sailor & Lula (26 page)

The Fist fell backward, his gigantic fingers still gripping the agent's arms, so that when Woody again opened his eyes he saw that he was lying on top of a huge man without a nose. The gun had discharged point blank into The Fist's face and the Glazer safety slug had ripped apart his nostrils, leaving an ugly, large red hole above his upper lip and between his two bloodshot eyes, both of which were wide open and staring up emptily at Woody.

A vision of Salty Dog came immediately to Woody's mind, and he closed his eyes and rolled off The Fist onto his back. Salty was chasing an old woman who was wearing a black raincoat, the tail of which the bounding Airedale held tightly in his teeth.

“Get her, Salty,” Woody said. “Get her, boy!”

Mona came up for air and Santos barked at her, “No, no,
cara mia
, don't stop! I'm almost there!”

“I need a break, Marcello, please. My mouth gets tired, and besides, look, it's
fiacco
.”

Santos groaned heavily. “Everything is difficult these days. Life is
una pioggia continua.
”

Mona got up off her knees and went over to the bar, put a teaspoonful of sugar in a glass, half-filled it with Bombay Sapphire, stirred it with a red swizzle stick that had the words RIZZO'S SOCIAL CLUB • NEW ORLEANS lettered on it in gold, and took a healthy swallow.

“Relax, Marcello,” she said. “I'm gonna take a bath.”

Crazy Eyes Santos watched his mistress of ten years, Mona Costatroppo, walk out of the room. He listened to the water run into the bathtub. Mona was thirty-one years old, still beautiful, Santos thought, but no longer slim-figured. When he'd first seen her, working as a teller in Grimaldi's bank in Gretna, she looked like Claudia Cardinale, only skinnier. The big dark-brown eyes, long mouth with thick red lips, perfect uptilted breasts. Mona ate too many syrup-filled chocolates now, and drank too much of that fancy gin. Two more years of this, Santos figured, and she'd look exactly like his wife, Lina. At least Lina had provided him with four children.

“Marcello,” Mona called from the bathroom. “Be a
costata di agnello
and bring me another drink, would you?”

Santos stood, stuffed his penis inside his pants, and zipped them up. He walked out of the apartment and closed the door softly behind him.

“Marcello!” Mona shouted. “Marcello, are you coming? And don't forget the sugar!”

A few miles east of Tucson, Romeo turned south off the interstate. He checked his sideview to make sure that Perdita had made the unexpected turnoff in the twilight. “One thing about our little Apache princess there, Duane boy,” Romeo said, “she can handle a vehicle good as any man, better than most.”

“Why we takin' this two-lane all of a sudden?”

“There's an
hombre
I'd like to see in Nogales, on the Mexico side, long as we're so close by. Man owes me. Name's Amaury ‘Big Chief' Catalina. Calls himself Big Chief because he claims he's a direct descendant of some Aztec king. Hell, we're all descendants of one kind of king or other. Runs a restaurant called La Florida. Pretty sure he'll be there, unless he's dead, which he should be. Man shouldn't get used to owin', Duane. It's unhealthy.”

In the Cherokee, Perdita pulled on the lights.

“What's our hero up to now?” she asked herself, following the large white refrigeration truck down Arizona State Highway 82.

“What did you say?” said Estrellita, who was about half awake.

Perdita looked quickly at her, then fastened her eyes back on the narrow, darkening road. She hated the girl's bright blond hair.

“Sonoita? Patagonia? Where are we?” Estrellita asked, reading a distance sign.

Perdita punched in the dash lighter, put a cigarette between her teeth, and as soon as the lighter popped back pulled it out and lit up.

“You sure smoke a hell of a lot,” Estrellita said.

“Won't be botherin' you too much longer, I got anything to say about it. Don't you worry.”

They rode in silence until Romeo rolled through the crossroads that was Sonoita and headed for Patagonia. Perdita had no choice but to follow the white truck.

“Must be he's goin' to see someone owes him money,” she said. “Just another detour on our way to nowhere.”

At Patagonia, a one-street town about twenty miles north of the
border, Romeo pulled the truck over and stopped. Perdita slid the Cherokee to a halt right behind him. Romeo hopped down and came over to Perdita's window, which she lowered all the way.

“Bet you're wonderin' what I'm up to, huh, ladies? Well, there's a kind of spooky gentleman in Nogales, on the Mex side, I mean to pay a quick call on, see if I can shake some of what he owes me out of his jeans. We'll be on our way to L.A. again in no time. Perdita, sweet thing, in Nogales I'll park this rig on the U.S. side, in the Safeway foodstore lot. We'll leave both vehicles there and walk across the border. I think Estrellita, here, and our good buddy Duane will behave proper, don't you? Now I'm just gonna make a phone call from the booth over there next to the old railway depot. Shouldn't take long.”

In the telephone booth Romeo opened the manila envelope Dede Peralta had given him. He found the sheet of paper he was looking for and held it up to read the number as he dialed. Romeo dropped in the necessary coins, and after the third ring someone answered.

A man's voice said, very softly, “Bayou Enterprises.”

“This is Romeo Dolorosa. I'd like to speak with Mr. Santos, please.”

“Mr. Santos is out of town. What's this about?”

“I just wanted to tell him that I'll be a little late to the party. I'm having car trouble, but it's being fixed. Can you please convey this information to Mr. Santos when you speak to him?”

“Sure, he keeps in touch. That it?”

“Yes, that's all. Tell him I'll be there as soon as I can.”

“I'm sure you will,” the man said, and hung up.

Romeo hung up on his end and walked back over to Perdita. He smiled at her and leaned forward with one hand on either side of the door.

“Santos isn't a man to fuck with, Romeo,” she said. “I hope you're not fucking with him.”

“I can handle it, Perdita, darlin'. You know me.”

Her eyebrows twitched, the snakes coiling, but Perdita said nothing as she watched Romeo walk to the truck and climb back in.

“Bet you wish sometimes you didn't,” said Estrellita.

Perdita started up the Cherokee and followed along. A half hour later she parked behind Romeo in the Safeway lot in Nogales. All of them got out.

“You kids do what I say and you'll be all right,” Romeo told Duane and Estrellita. “If either of you say anything to the customs, I'll shoot you both on the spot, and the customs officer, too. Okay,
vamonos.
”

The four of them filed through the turnstile into Mexico. Romeo led them past rows of beggars and through a maze of hustlers and shills, down a comparatively deserted sidestreet and into a courtyard. A white neon sign that said BILLARES blinked and sputtered over one of two doors. Over the other was a dull yellow globe with LA FLORIDA painted on it in black script.

“My memory's not so bad,” laughed Romeo. “It's been four or five years since I've been here. Come on, let's go in.”

There was a long bar to the right of the entrance, and perhaps a dozen tables to the left in front of a small stage. Several men sat at the bar; none of them were well-dressed. Only two of the tables were occupied. A man in a shabby black tuxedo with a red cummerbund came up to Romeo and asked if the four of them were there for dinner.

“Possibly,” said Romeo. “We'll see.”

The host smiled and showed them to a table.

“Señor Catalina esta aqui?”
asked Romeo, as they were seated.

“He will arrive in perhaps ten minutes,” said the host, who gave each of them a menu. “Are you a friend of his?”

“Oh yes,” said Romeo, “a very old one.”

“I will tell him you are here when he comes in. What is your name?”

“Dolorosa. Just say Dolorosa.”

The host kept his smile and said, “As you wish. Your waiter will be with you in a moment.”

When the waiter came, Romeo ordered margarita all around. He'd drunk half of his when he saw Amaury Catalina approaching, weaving sharklike through the other tables. The Big Chief was not smiling.

“Romeo,
amigo! Que tal?
What a marvelous surprise to see you!” Catalina exclaimed, smiling now with every part of his round brown face except the eyes, which were hard and dull, motionless black pellets.

Romeo rose and embraced him.

“I thought it might be,” Romeo said, also smiling a smile without mirth.

Big Chief Catalina was topheavy, carrying well over two hundred
pounds on his medium-large five-foot ten-inch frame. With his caterpillar mustache and thinning black hair greased straight back on his wide, flat head, Catalina looked ten years older than his thirty-four.

“Say, Chief, why don't we go someplace and talk?”

“Of course, of course. We can use my office.”

“Be back shortly, Perdita,” said Romeo. “You keep an eye on the kids. Make sure they eat their vegetables.”

Catalina signaled to the waiter, who came over immediately.

“See that these people have anything they want,” said the Big Chief, “without charge.”

Catalina's office was an eight-by-eight windowless box, with a desk, two chairs, and a filing cabinet. On the wall to one side of the desk was a postcard photo of Pancho Villa on his horse in front of his army in 1914. Catalina took a bottle of Gusano Rojo mezcal and two glasses from a drawer and put them on top of the desk, then poured double doses for Romeo and himself.

“Before you ask me about the money,
amigo,
we have a drink, yes? This is good mezcal, from Oaxaca.”

“To your health!”

They swallowed the shots of mezcal and set the glasses back on the desk.

“Now, Señor Pain, you can ask me about the money.”

“Do you have it?”

“No. I have money, but not for you, unfortunately.”

“Do you mean that you do not have it for me now, or that you will never have it for me?”

Catalina laughed abruptly but did not smile.

“This is a choice you are welcome to make. Choose the answer that makes you most comfortable.”

“May I have another drink?”

“Of course, help yourself.”

Romeo stood, picked up the bottle of Gusano Rojo and pushed it with all of his strength into the Big Chief's face. The glass shattered and cut into Catalina's nose, cheeks, and chin. Romeo picked up the largest piece and stabbed both of the man's eyes, then jammed the jagged edge
into his throat and tore it open. Blood gushed out of the Big Chief's face and neck, but he made no noise other than a slight gurgle before collapsing to the floor behind his desk. Romeo leaned over him and saw the mezcal worm lying on the floor. He picked up the worm and dropped it into Catalina's mouth.

“There you go,
macho,
” Romeo said. “You've proved your manhood now.”

“We're not staying for dinner,” Romeo said as he took Estrellita's arm and lifted her to her feet. “Come on, Perdita, Duane. I just heard the food here's not so good.”

Due to the powder burns, Woody Dumas had most of the left side of his head covered with a gauze bandage. Firing the gun so close to his face had left him at least temporarily deaf in his left ear. Woody was on a plane to Los Angeles, slumped in a window seat sipping orange juice, thinking about his life, which had almost been squeezed out of him by Provino “The Fist” Momo in a Dallas alley.

It wasn't really so terrible, he figured. Look at the situation in Eastern Europe, where so many people are desperate to escape to the West, leaving behind them possessions, parents, even children in their feverish rush to freedom. Or in China, with the soldiers shooting students down like dogs in Tiananmen Square. The government here had done that, too, of course, back in the sixties, and the Mexicans murdered dozens in '68 before the Olympics. Person-to-person violence is never as horrifying as faceless, wholesale slaughter, Woody decided, not ultimately. As gruesome and senseless as some individual murders are, he thought, the impersonality of mass maiming and killing is sordid and perverse beyond belief.

Woody remembered an old guy named Buzzard who used to hang around the neighborhood when Woody was a kid. Buzzard was almost a bum, but not quite. He fixed zippers and did some sewing for people, so Woody figured he must have been a tailor at one time in his life. Buzzard always had about ten days' growth of whiskers sticking out of his long, mule-like face, and he walked around flapping his arms as if they were wings, which was why everyone called him Buzzard. He wore a red-and-black-checkered lumberjack coat that obviously had never been cleaned, and a blue peaked cap with earmuff flaps tied together on top. His eyes, Woody recalled, were clear green with black specks in them. Nobody knew where Buzzard slept until he was found poisoned to death in an unused trash bin behind the public library. He'd been drinking black liquid Shinola shoe polish, using a slice of Wonder bread as a filter, pouring the Shinola through the bread into a coffee can. The only other thing in the trash bin with Buzzard's body was a dog-eared hardcover
copy of the 1914 A. L. Burt Company edition of
Tarzan of the Apes
by Edgar Rice Burroughs, which was tucked like a pillow under Buzzard's head.