Houston Attack

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Houston Attack

Randy Wayne White writing as Carl Ramm

one

The bar was on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande. It was built of concrete block on a concrete slab in a border town where the desert pressed hard against the slum housing and tequila joints.

The bar had once been painted a fluorescent green. But the Mexican sun had leached the color from it, and now, beneath its red neon sigh, the building looked gray in the summer darkness.

Las Almas Desconocidas
.

A fitting name for such a bar, thought James Hawker.

The Bar of the Unknown Souls.

Hawker pulled the hat down low over his eyes and went inside.

The bar was crowded. No one seemed to notice the tall one-armed stranger. He stumbled and tottered his way to the bar, obviously drunk.

Anywhere else the serape and the sweat-ruined cattleman's hat he wore would have looked ludicrous.

But not here.

The place was crammed with Mexican ranch hands and a few Texas cowboys who had crossed the border to blow their month's pay on whores and tequila.

The bartender was a hugely fat Latin with black hair that came to his shoulders. He wore a soiled apron, and there was a tattoo on the back of his hand.

He looked at the stranger expectantly.

“Mescal,” the stranger said, as if through numb lips.
“Una botella.”

The bartender slid the bottle in front of him. “Save your bad Spanish.” He said with a sneer. “The mescal is two hundred pesos. The entertainment is another hundred.”

At the front of the bar was a low stage. The two speakers above the stage blasted out a Mexican version of “The Stripper.” There was a chair in the middle of the stage, and a lanky Anglo woman was bent naked over it.

She wore a blond wig, and her breasts were thin and tubular, scarred by stretch marks.

A very muscular black man slathered oil over her buttocks, occasionally burying his fist inside her. Beside the black man was tied a gigantic male Great Dane.

The woman's expression was worn and vacant, her eyes glazed by drugs.

As the black man untied the dog, the stranger turned away.

He emptied the glass of mescal and said to the bartender, “I was told that a man who wanted to get back into the United States should come here.”

The bartender eyed him carefully and moved closer.

“You're drunk,” he said.

The stranger swallowed the second glass of mescal. “I have money. I'm not asking for any favors. I can pay.”

“You're a gringo. Why should a gringo need help getting into the United States?”

The stranger carefully reached across with his left hand and pulled out the empty right shirt-sleeve from beneath the serape. “I have made enemies of the police there. They have taken this much of me. I wish to give them no more.”

The bartender nodded thoughtfully, then disappeared through a door behind the bar into the next room.

The stranger waited. He pretended to gulp another glass of mescal. He wobbled on his stool as if about to pass out.

The bartender returned in a few minutes. The stranger knew that other men had studied him carefully through the two-way mirror behind the rows of liquor bottles.

The bartender leaned close to him. “This thing you ask, it can be done. But it is only at great risk to certain friends of mine. They must be paid for their risks.”

The stranger belched and nodded. “I was told ten thousand pesos.”

“You were told wrong,” the bartender snapped. “It is twenty thousand, plus a thousand pesos for me.” He smiled for the very first time, an ugly cigarette-stained smile. “I, too, run risks—as the
intermediaro
.”

The stranger shook his head. He knew that if he agreed immediately to the price, they might suspect him of being an undercover agent. “Far too much,” he said. “I do not have that kind of money.” He got down off the barstool carefully. “I am sorry. I was given the wrong information. I have come to the wrong place.” He picked up the bottle of mescal as if to take it with him.

“Wait,” the bartender said quickly. When the stranger turned to listen, he added, “These things can be negotiated. You leave too easily.”

The stranger leaned his weight against the bar. “I was told ten thousand pesos.”

“Too little, too little, amigo. Have another drink and we will discuss—”

“I will give you fifteen hundred pesos for your help, and another ten thousand for your friends who take the great risks.”

The ugly smile returned to the bartender's face. He leaned, whispering. “When do you wish to leave?”

“As soon as possible.”

“Tonight?”

The stranger nodded. “Yes. Tonight.”

“There is a truck with a long trailer behind the bar,” the bartender whispered. “Go down the hall to the
cuarto de baño
—the bathroom. A man will meet you there. You will leave in the truck.” The bartender held out his hand. “But first, you pay.”

The stranger stabbed his hand into his pocket and brought out a roll of bills. “I will pay you your fifteen hundred now. The rest I will pay to the man with the truck.”

The bartender sighed, disgusted. The stranger was drunk, but he was no fool.

Behind them the roomful of men suddenly broke into loud hoots and whistles of approval at something they saw on the stage.

The bartender thought it odd that the stranger did not even turn to look.

The restroom of the Mexican bar stank of urine and sour beer.

The stranger waited outside, slumped in his serape, trying to look smaller than he was.

A door at the back of the building opened, and two men came toward him.

“You pay us,” the bigger of the two said. “You give us the money, and we put you on the truck.” He held out his hand impatiently.

The stranger eyed them warily. “When I'm on the truck—that's when I'll pay you.”

The two Mexican men looked at each other and broke into wolfish chuckles. They found the defiance of this drunken American laughable. There was really no need for him to pay them the money, for they planned to take all his money, anyway.

“As you wish,” said the largest Mexican. “You pay us when we put you on the truck.”

The stranger considered the mescal bottle for a moment, holding it up to the bare light bulb that protruded from the ceiling. There was just a little left, and he emptied the bottle with one gulp before dropping it on the floor.

The glass shattered across the concrete.

The two Mexicans, still smiling, looked at each other and nodded knowingly.

The stranger took two wobbly steps toward the door before collapsing. He knew that pretending to pass out was less painful than being knocked out by the blackjack the smaller Mexican was doing a bad job of hiding.

He felt them go through his pockets and take the money.

He was thankful they didn't search beneath the serape. The roll of peso notes had been enough to convince them he carried no hidden stash. But money wasn't what he was afraid of their finding.

They dragged him by the feet through the doorway and across the back lot. There was the metallic sound of a deadbolt being opened, and then he was pulled roughly up onto the sheet-metal bedding of a semi-tractor-trailer truck. There was the sound of cardboard boxes being moved away, and then the stranger felt his left hand being handcuffed to the wall of the truck, as he'd known it would be.

The big Mexican made a joke about his having only one arm, and where they might latch the other handcuff.

Before they left, they gave rough orders in rapid Spanish. The stranger heard the meek replies of voices he had not heard before.

He was not the only one chained in the truck.

Finally the trailer's door slammed closed, and James Hawker opened his eyes.

Out of some unexpected courtesy they had left a small battery-operated lamp burning. The soft golden light made the trailer seem cavernlike. Hawker studied the men and women with him. There were about twenty—all handcuffed to the trailer wall. They sat uncomfortably on the floor, watching him. Except for him, they were all Latins or Indios. Their ages varied, but none were old. They all looked to be younger than fifty and in good health.

It made sense.

The Texas land barons who were behind this organization didn't want any old slaves.

Like the livestock on their massive ranches, they wanted the people they kidnapped into slavery to be young and sleek and fit.

Hawker sat up and pushed his western hat back. He scanned the faces staring at him.

“Does anyone here speak English?” he asked calmly.

There was a long silence. It was obvious that none of them had expected to see an Anglo among them.

“It's okay,” he said gently. “I'd like to help you, if I can.”

A girl who sat across from him hesitated, then said in perfect English, “How could you possibly help? You are chained just as we are.” She made a face of distaste. “And you smell like … like you've taken a bath in tequila.”

Hawker smiled and threaded his right arm back through his shirt-sleeve and brought it from beneath his serape. “Mescal,” he said as he reached down into his sock and fished out a ring of handcuff master keys. “It was mescal I took a bath in, not tequila.” He looked at her and winked. “I guess it's to your credit that you can't tell the difference.”

Her cheeks flushed as Hawker began to try the keys one by one on the single cuff that held him. She had one of those ageless Mayan faces. High cheek-bones. Nut-colored skin. Onyx-black hair that hung down over the surprisingly ripe bosom swell. Hawker guessed her to be about eighteen, though she could have been thirty just as easily. But Indio women tend to get chubby and domestic when they hit their mid-twenties, and there was nothing chubby about this one. She was long and lithe, and Hawker could see that she had been crying.