The Hemingway Thief (23 page)

“That's my weed that I grow myself, or I get it from someone I know who grows their own,” Grady said. “The cartels don't get any of my money.”

“But you'll take some of theirs, is that it?” I said. Grady gave me a dirty look. I knew I had gone too far. I had no idea why I went after him like that. Just as he probably had no idea why he had laid into Elmo. Maybe we just hated hypocrisy. Maybe we were just fucking exhausted and a little cranky. I put my hand on my friend's shoulder and gave it a squeeze. I followed it with a nod and, thankfully, he returned it. I hoped too much damage hadn't been done.

“Look, Grady, it's not a perfect situation, I'll grant you that,” Elmo said. His pipe had gone cold and he took the time to relight it. When the bowl glowed, he pointed the stem at Grady. “If you were here forty years ago, you'd be saying different. The history of this camp is a dark one. I've pulled it by the neck against the current of evil waters. Considering where we started, this place is fucking Xanadu.”

“Yeah, we heard the story about your grandfather,” Grady said.

“Take it easy, Grady,” I said. He bit his lip and held up his hands.

“It's alright, Coop. Ignoring the past's the best way to make sure it comes around again,” Elmo said. He picked up a long stick and poked at the fire. Sparks popped into the air and swirled around us like fairy dust. “It's my great-great-grandfather you're talking about. My grandfather killed a lot of people too, but no presidents.”

“Digby told us the whole story,” Grady said, ignoring my stare. “Booth escapes the Union Army brigade sent to find him. White House covers it up with a stand-in body. Sounds like a lot of bullshit to me.”

“Sounds like bullshit to me, too,” Elmo said. “It's possible the John Wilkes Booth who founded this camp was just a good storyteller, and the story he liked to tell made people think he'd done something important, even if it was killing Lincoln. You have to understand though, a story like that, it carries a lot of water in these parts.” He took a pull on his pipe and let the smoke drift lazily past his lips. “There's another fable going around says I'm the reincarnation of Jesus Malverde, patron saint of desperados and bandits. I don't like it, but it's useful, so I use it. Legends have power here. There are grown men, tough men, killers, who won't sleep outside without gathering brush around them to keep El Chupacabra away. People don't respect much around here, Mr. Doyle. They certainly don't respect life—but they respect legends.”

“Sounds like a convenient excuse for bullshit,” Grady said.

“So you like stories,” I said, trying to salvage the situation. “We have that in common. Ebenezer too I bet, huh?”

“Oh yes,” Elmo said. “He did indeed. And he loved to talk about his time with Hemingway in Paris.”

“Where's the suitcase?” Milch said.

“Jesus, Milch,” I said. “How about some tact?”

“I've got no use for tact, Coop. I like a man who says what's on his mind,” Elmo said, and turned to Milch. “You think you have a claim on the suitcase?”

“I'm the last Milch. I think that makes it mine.”

“Perhaps,” Elmo said. I was having a hard time getting a read on him. At one moment he seemed like your typical rural macho man with his guns and cowboy hat. Then he would smirk and it would remind me of the look my dad always had after he said something particularly wry and witty. He was playing with us, but not like a cat with a mouse. It was different. He had the information we wanted, he knew it, and he wanted us to work for it. It was like a teacher forcing a student to use the encyclopedia rather than just handing out the answer. It was irritating.

“Did he have the suitcase when he came here?” Grady asked.

“Yes.”

“Where is it?” Milch said, and it sounded more like a demand than a request.

“I'm not going to tell you,” Elmo said. He leaned back and his eyes drifted to the stars.

“Why the fuck not?” Milch said, and pounded his fist on the arm of his chair.

Elmo sighed, but before he could answer, the walkie-talkie on Dutch's belt squawked and a few staticky words came through in Spanish. Dutch replied and tapped Elmo on the shoulder.

“Juan thinks you should see this,” he said. Elmo nodded and eased himself out of his chair. He wrapped his gun belts around his waist.

“You fellas should come along,” he said. “This concerns you too.”

If the top of the first mesa looked like a Texas Fourth of July, then the second one looked like a beachhead on D-Day. Wires were strewn across stump-like telephone poles. A small radio station was set up on a couple of overturned apple crates. A jerry-rigged shelter made up of sandbags, canvas, and tent poles housed a couple of men sitting over a boiling pot of coffee. They were dressed in fatigues, the sleeves crudely hacked off at the shoulders, and the legs at the knees. The coffee smelled of chicory.

Elmo nodded to the men and strode to the western edge of the mesa, his duster rolling and flapping in the wind coming in over the desert. A large black man in the same cutoff fatigues as the coffee drinkers was leaning against a platform constructed from plumbing pipes and plywood. The platform was covered with a dull, brown webbing, which I assumed was supposed to be camouflage. The man stood up when Elmo approached, and pulled back a flap of canvas so that we could see onto the platform. There was a pile of rags dumped over the length of it, and extending from the far end was what looked like a thin piece of pale-grey pipe. Elmo hunkered down into a squat and poked the rags with his binoculars.

“Juan,” he said. The rags moved almost imperceptibly, and I would have chalked it up to the wind if a voice had not followed it.

“Spotted the rooster tail from the truck about ten minutes ago, Elmo,” the pile of rags said in a squeaky voice that denoted neither gender nor age. “Just got to the rock. Black Ford Explorer.”

“How many?”

“Three outside the truck. Can't see inside. You got the bitch, you know, out in front. Some big fucker in shades. Old man standing next to the truck dressed like Jungle Jim.”

“That's Thandy,” Grady said.

I looked out into the inky black night and imagined the decrepit bastard and La Dónde out there. In my mind they were demons with black smoke for bodies and the heads of something so evil I couldn't put a name to it. I shivered.

“How close to the rock?” Elmo asked.

“Close, but she knows where it is. You can tell she's avoiding it. She's checking the tire tracks now. Pointing out where Sully went. Talking it over with the old man.”

“She knows the rules, Juan,” Elmo said. “She crosses the rock, put her down. Her first, then shades, then the old man. If the Explorer rolls out, let it go.”

“What are you talking about?” Grady said. “Just shoot her now.” Elmo stood up and stretched his back.

“Why would I do that?”

“Because she's here to kill us?” I offered. Elmo rubbed the tuft of hair under his bottom lip. The only light up there was the small fire at the other end of the mesa top, and I could barely see him. His face was not much more than a purple-black mass of inscrutable features.

“That's her job, though, isn't it?” he said. “Can't fault her for doing her job.”

“But . . .” I started, but I felt the old cowboy's hand on my shoulder. It was heavy, like a bear's paw.

“You're safe here. That's what I offered you. She steps over the line, she breaks the rules. She knows that, and then I can put her down. She stays on her side, there's nothing I can do.”

“You want money, is that it?” Milch said, pushing past me.

“She's right up to the rock, El,” Juan said from under his rags. “She's looking right at me. Fuck me. She's looking right fucking at me.” The pile of rags shook.

“Hey, Juan,” Milch called to him. “How much to take the shot.”

“You're out of line,” Elmo said, and placed his hand on Milch's chest.

Milch looked up at Elmo and offered him that soothing grin of his. “Didn't mean to box you out, Elmo,” he said. “You get your cut. How much?”

“You're out of line,” Elmo said, and his hand curled into a fist that gathered in a chunk of Milch's shirt.

“They're arguing now,” Juan said. “The old man is pointing at us. The bitch is just letting him talk. OK, now the old man is talking to Shades. Who the hell wears sunglasses at night? Shades is talking to the bitch. Shades is getting back in the truck now. He's the driver.”

“Take the shot,” Grady said. His voice broke over the last word and it sounded like pure panic.

“How 'bout just the old man,” Milch said. “A bullet through that silver hair of his would solve a lot of problems, know what I mean?”

When I heard the smack, I thought it was a gunshot, but then Milch was on the ground and Elmo's hand was flying up toward the sky with his follow-through. It was only a backhand. Nothing like a punch, but I felt for Milch. A punch would not have been nearly as humiliating. I couldn't blame him for what he did. I wanted Juan to take the shot as much as he did. I just didn't have the balls to ask for it. Milch stayed down, which I was grateful for.

“Old man is back in the car.”

“Where is she?” Elmo said, looking down at the chastised Milch.

“Behind the open door. I got her head.”

“Take the shot, please,” Grady said, but it was only a whisper. Maybe it was a prayer.

“Inside now,” Juan said. “Truck's leaving.”

“Following Sully?” Elmo asked.

Juan answered in the affirmative.

“Good.”

Grady sat down in the dirt and hung his head until his chin touched his chest. Milch's tongue flicked out of his mouth and tasted the blood at the corner of his lips. I felt a deep and intense ache begin to throb behind my eyes.

Elmo looked at the three of us, and when he spoke in his deep, gruff tenor, it sounded like the voice of God. “I'm sorry,” he said. “I can't help you here. There are rules.”

Chapter Twenty-Six

I was awake when Elmo Booth pushed open the door to my room without knocking. The room was a twelve-by-eight hole with an army cot and an electric lantern hanging from the ceiling. I had been lying there with my feet hanging off the end of the cot, smoking a cigarette and staring at the rock ceiling. When I saw the old man's shadow fall against the wall, I shoved the leather satchel under the cot. I hadn't thought much about the manuscript at all really. It had been so important and then it wasn't. I don't know why I even bothered to shelter it under my bunk. It was just paper with a little bit of ink.

“Saw your light was on,” Elmo said. I was as tired as I had ever been in my life, and I hadn't even bothered turning out the light. Sleep was not going to come.

“I thought I'd catch up on my reading,” I said. Elmo pushed my feet to the side and sat on the end of the cot. He pulled two books from the pockets of his duster. He held up the first. It was the
MacMerkin
novel Digby had given him.

“Quite a read,” he said. He tossed the book to me. It landed on my stomach and I let out a little “oof” sound.

“You don't seem like the romance type,” I said.

Elmo sat up straight, slapped his chest with both hands, and laughed.

“Fella dresses this way's either a romantic or an asshole,” he said. He took off his hat and propped it on his knee. “So what was the plan?”

“For what?”

“You got Pieta and this other gringo after you, right?” he said. “So you come here. Sully tells Dutch you're supposed to hide out, and look, I'm happy to have you.”

“Good,” I said.

“But then you go on about the Hemingway thief. You want me to tell you where the suitcase might be. Why, I says to myself. Why would they risk it?”

“We were going to trade it for our lives,” I said.

“To Thandy?”

“Yes.”

“Think that's a good plan?” Elmo said.

I could tell from the look on his face that he did not. Digby was inclined to agree with him, but I had convinced Grady with little effort. Milch had also been oddly receptive to the idea. My hope was that Thandy's ego would be sated with a show of tribute and that he would call off La Dónde. It may not have been a good plan, it was actually a pretty awful plan, but it was the only one we had. Now that Elmo refused to help us, we didn't even have that. We would be dead as soon as we left Elmo's protection. I was beginning to resign myself to the fact that we may have to start new lives there in his camp. I wondered what sort of pot farmer I would make.

My cigarette had burned down to the filter, and I stubbed it out on the floor. I patted my pockets and realized it was my last one. Elmo reached inside his jacket and came up with a thick, hand-rolled joint.

“I got a story to tell and I want your opinion,” he said.