Ken Kuhlken_Hickey Family Mystery 01 (7 page)

Hickey got up, went to the bar and stood beside the cop, a big, pale, stubble-faced guy with sour breath. When the bartender came over, Hickey ordered a mescal, a beer for Clifford. Then he laid a handbill on the bar, and motioned toward Clifford. “That’s her youngest brother. She’s got seven more. They’re all Marines, and they got friends, and they’re gonna ride through this town like Zapata unless the girl’s back in San Diego tonight.”

The cop growled in Spanish to the Indian bartender, who squinted at the handbill and finally said, “I going to get el Señor Zarp.”

“Bring the drinks first,” Hickey said.

While the Indian poured, Tito came in and sat alone near the stage. The whores moved to sit with Clifford. The Dutch girl touched his arm. He brushed her hand away. She laughed brashly but cut her laugh short when the patrón stepped into the room. He was a big man, dark in a nordic way—a hulking, brooding fellow—he reminded Hickey of something he’d read about the ancient Celts, that only in battle could their spirits, besieged on all sides by demons, find a sort of repose. He wore a soiled, rumpled white shirt, chino pants, the sandals of a campesino, and, on a leather thong around his neck, a cameo or something; Hickey couldn’t make out the face, but it shone bright as its golden frame. His black hair, eyebrows, and mustache grew bushy and wild. His eyes were quick, small, dark green. He walked straight at Hickey, and his voice rumbled, “You are?”

With a scowl, Hickey reached for his wallet, passed a business card that the man looked over. Then Hickey motioned toward Clifford. “That guy’s La Rosa’s brother.” He pointed to the handbill on the bar, and started talking—hoping the big man would take his side and use some of the power you could see he had on these Mexicans. Hickey spilled everything he could think of about Wendy Rose’s mind, about how a rat named George had got to her, muscled her, scared her, hooked her into some kind of slavery at the Club de Paris, and maybe got himself killed. Hickey talked too much and knew it. When he stopped and gazed around, there was Tito watching from a dim corner by the stage. And Clifford, with his eyes fixed on Hickey, hands set to push off from the arms of his chair. The whores had stopped their business and stared at Hickey too. Then somebody came in from the street. The cowboy Mexican who’d met the German on Revolución stopped near the doorway, staring like the others.

Señor Zarp brought a big open hand down on the bar. He gave a contemptuous smile and seemed to expand until he looked like a dark god hovering over them. Then he roared, “You better do what el Jefe told you. Perhaps you think Mexicans are liars, Mr. Hickey? You don’t believe there was a murder, the girl is a suspect, she can’t leave Mexico now?”

“Naw. Sure don’t,” Hickey said.

“Someone must put you in jail then. El Jefe tells you don’t come back till a week.”

Clifford sprang up. But nobody argued when the cop opened Hickey’s coat and took the automatic. When the cowboy moved on Clifford, Hickey told the kid to give his pistol over. He walked ahead of the cop and the cowboy, beside Clifford, out to the sidewalk and down around the corner to a police car.

The cop drove, the cowboy rode shotgun with his eye on Hickey and the kid all the way. They crashed downhill, turned and sped on the dirt road that ran along the river and passed above the shantytown, where Indians and children dashed off the road ahead. Some boys threw stones at the police car, while Clifford sat tight-lipped as though holding back a shout, and Hickey thought about the patrón.

That one could rape his mother and make tough guys squirm. His eyes had flashed a surety that you only look for in saints or madmen. For a minute Hickey thought how you’d find men like Zarp at the heart of all rottenness, pestilence, and war. Even when he quit simplifying, he hated the man. And wanted to fight him. Because every word Zarp had said came out like a challenge.

Hickey didn’t crave power or victory. He liked equality best, until somebody threw him a boast or challenge. When he used to box, he couldn’t get sparked until the other guy whopped him, then he caught fire, like with this desire he felt now. To floor Señor Zarp.

They zoomed across the bridge, swerved around cars and taxis approaching the border, pulled to the east side, and stopped at the walk-through gate. The cowboy jumped out, threw open Hickey’s door. He made a bow and a pass with his straw hat, toward the line.

Hickey said, “Thanks for the lift.” He took the kid’s arm and led him toward the gate, where Boyle stood shaking his head nastily, picking his teeth.

As they crossed the line, Hickey turned to watch the Mexicans, and Clifford burst out, “Pop, that girl told me something. The blonde one, I think she told me where Wendy is, only she don’t talk English.”

Hickey grabbed the kid’s shoulders to calm him down and lead him out of Boyle’s hearing range. “What’d she say?”

“
Arriba
, she said.
Arriba con los ricos
, she said. What’s it mean. Think you can figure it out?”

“Yeah,” Hickey muttered. “It’ll take me a minute, that’s all.”

Chapter Ten

As they walked to the office shack, Hickey turned far enough to see the Chevy still there. He led Clifford inside and looked out the window. He watched the Mexican cop get out of the Chevy and say something to Boyle. Then they stepped closer and money changed hands.

Hickey flopped down on the couch next to Clifford, pinched his eyes closed to block the lightheadedness that was spreading. When he opened his eyes, the room was a reddish blur.

“What the heck, Pop?” Clifford asked. “You okay?”

“Sometimes I drink too much sugar. Go get some peanuts.”

“You get it figured out yet, where Wendy is?”

“Go on,” Hickey growled.

The kid gave a grudging nod and walked out. Hickey dragged himself off the couch, over to the desk, and poured a cup of syrupy coffee out of the percolator. He sat in the desk chair and sipped and let those Spanish words loop through his mind.
Arriba
. Rosa.
Ricos
. Rosa.
Arriba
. Rosa.
Ricos
. Rosa.

Before long, Clifford was back with two nickel bags of salted peanuts. He opened one for Hickey, gave over both, and asked intently, “You figure it out?”

“Yeah. I think they got her up,
arriba
, where the
ricos
, big shots live. In the Lomas. Now I’m gonna doze. After Lefty comes at four, we’ll go back down. But we need a driver we can trust and Tito’s all we got. You go hang around Coco’s. See if he shows.”

The kid sighed in relief. “You got darn strange for a minute. Like this.” He hung his jaw open and let his neck wobble.

“So let me sleep. Get moving.”

When the kid left, Hickey gobbled one sack of peanuts, then sprawled on the couch and pulled his hat over his eyes, figuring Metzger’s curse, wishing Hickey to hell, must’ve been fright and liquor talking, no message. Unless there was a connection between Zarp and the ricos, Zarp and the Lomas. Between Zarp and Cárdenas?

He mused, could Lázaro Cárdenas, called the greatest, least corruptible presidente, a reformer, the guy who axed gangs of crooks from office and shut down the Agua Caliente Casino, calling for an upright Mexico—could the same man be tight with these Germans and del Montes? “Yeah, sure,” he muttered. Anything was possible in TJ.

Arriba con los ricos
, he thought. There must be a nightclub up in the Lomas, where the
ricos
lived. The big shots always get the best of everything, liquor, music, all the luxuries, women. Wendy Rose had to be there.

At last Hickey faded, slept for a second, it felt like, then snapped awake. He checked his watch. 4:10. Clifford stood over him. Hickey rubbed his eyes and sat up. “What’s new?”

Clifford said, “That cabbie’s waiting for us. They beat the tarnation out of him, Pop.”

“Who did?”

“Some guys at that Hell place.”

Hickey shook his leg that’d stayed asleep, straightened his clothes. He got out a comb and ran it straight through his patches of hair. He went to the bathroom and washed his face and hands. As he stepped back into the office he took a key from his pocket and opened the cabinet where he’d left the guns they’d snatched off del Monte’s thugs. He and Clifford each grabbed an extra gun. They stepped outside and marched to the gate. Lefty and Boyle stood watching their approach. When Hickey glared, the fink looked nervously both ways then turned his back. Hickey pulled Lefty aside.

“Forget it, Pop. I’m not going down there anymore.”

“Sure, I know. You got my note?”

“Yeah. I’ll do that stuff. But I ain’t going to TJ anymore. When do you give me the twenty for last night?”

Hickey passed the money over. “There’s a couple more things.”

“Nope.”

“Just cover for me. Anybody shows up, calls, asks why I’m not on duty, tell ’em I got the runs, locked myself in the john, or something. And keep an eye on this creep for me.” He pointed a hidden finger toward Boyle. “He’s ratting on us to the Mexicans. I saw the payoff. Just let me know if he asks you anything, who he talks to, if he makes any phone calls.”

Lefty gave him a surly okay. Then Hickey and the kid crossed the line, through Boyle’s lane. They walked up the cracking mud road to the coffee and taco stand where the limo waited and Tito sat on the fender with his head folded into his hands. As they neared, he didn’t move but his single eye glanced up and he said sorrowfully, “You should give me a few dollars, man. Maybe then I feel better.”

Finally he showed his face. The whole right side was bluish and swollen, the socket of the good eye puffed out in a ring. A bloody wound showed through the torn front of his Hawaiian shirt. He took the sunglasses from his pocket and slipped them on.

Hickey got out a ten. “Look, amigo, I can’t do right by you now. But I will. That’s a promise.”

“No, man, I don’t go crazy no more. Not here in TJ. I got enough money I’m going to see my uncle in Matamoros.”

Hickey peeled a few bills from his wallet, counted them. “Thirty-five bucks,” he said. “All you gotta do is show us a nightclub in Las Lomas, someplace they got dancers and Wendy might be. I’m looking for some joint Zarp might own, where the
ricos
hang out?”

Tito stared at the money for a long time, then grabbed it. “Sure. I know that place. Casa de Oro. Señor Zarp, he’s not the owner, but I think he lives there. Hey, the girls cost a thousand pesos, that’s the cheapest. Indios can’t go there, don’t matter how much money you got, what kind of suit you wear. Gambling too, they got. Good idea, boss. You bet that’s where she’s gonna be.”

“Take us there?”

“I can drive by, show you where it is. After that, no more.”

The kid rode in back, Hickey up front, staring across the river through an open window. The warm breeze had picked up. A boy in the shantytown was flying a kite and a hundred children stared into the sky. Down near the bridge pilings, some Indians were building a statue out of mud. It looked like a horse or cow.

Hickey decided to take the road to Las Playas, bypassing downtown so they weren’t as likely to be seen, to approach the Lomas from the west, maybe visit Juan Metzger on the way. He kept watch for police cars, for the Model A the cowboy drove and the red Chevy of the slick German. And he asked Tito to say all he knew about Señor Zarp.

Driving slowly, leaning forward to squint with his swollen eye, the cabbie said, “He comes up from the Capital, maybe about last year. He buys that bar and calls it Hell. You tell me, why does somebody go in a place called Hell, man? I don’t know that. And I think it’s him owns the jewelry store at Las Playas. They are buying jewels cheap from the refugees. I hear a lot of talk, but one thing sure—anybody wants peyote, I take him to that Zarp. He can get you the hard stuff too, if you want plenty, but peyote, what makes the Indios talk to el Diablo, he’s the man.”

By now, they had crossed Revolución and started bouncing up Calle Tres to the west mesa and the sea. On their left was a cemetery, the front gate guarded by a giant bronze Virgin with arms opened wide.

Then something made Hickey look behind them and he saw the red Chevy, with the German driving and another fellow he knew leaning out the window. El Mofeto. He saw the pistol rise. He yelled at Clifford, lunged for Tito, and the shot zinged through two rolled-down windows and shattered the glass front of a hardware store.

Through a riot of shouts and noises, Hickey felt sure he heard the car speed away. He waited for another shot that didn’t come, then raised up slowly and looked, first behind, and out front. The Chevy screeched a U turn at the end of the block.

“
Ya vamonos?
” Tito yelped.

“You know it!” The big motor roared, and the limo wheeled out, hard left. “Other way,” Hickey shouted, throwing his arm up the hill, from where the Chevy came speeding at them. “
Derecho, derecho!
”

But the cabbie shouted, “Ay, this road don’t go noplace.” He cranked the wheels full left and gunned the motor—the limo headed straight for the cemetery, and crunched into the giant bronze Virgin. She toppled partway onto the hood, one of her hands pointing through the windshield. Tito muttered a frantic prayer, let go the wheel, and crossed himself with one hand while he slammed into reverse. He backed up a few feet. The Virgin fell onto her face. And the Chevy, which had veered left toward the hardware, crashed their rear hard enough to jar Hickey’s brain loose and throw Clifford over the middle seat onto the floor. At the same time, two more shots cracked. Tito banged into first. Leaned on the wheel. He stomped the gas, and ran over the Virgin’s higher arm. Then they went blazing down the hill.

Hickey and the kid looked back, and Clifford shouted, “They broke down—whoa—here they come.”

At least the Chevy had fallen a block behind, and Tito kept pulling farther ahead as he neared the intersection of Revolución—where straight in front of them, like bowling pins, waited a jam of cars, taxis, two buses. So Tito gripped tight, pushed his swollen eye open wide as a cyclops’, and zoomed into the maze. In a flash, he swerved right, left, right, bounced off a green Plymouth, cut a corner on the sidewalk, took out a road sign and the pushcart of a taco vendor.

Clifford lay on the floor, facedown, hands folded across the back of his head. Over the noise of horns, motors, smashing metal, Hickey’s pulse beat on his ear drums. They zoomed past the bus station, down to the plain. When they made the bridge, Tito yelled, “Are they coming, man?”

“They must’ve got stuck back there!”

They flew over one last rut and the brakes ground and screeched as the limo slowed to sixty mph and made the bridge. They kept slowing as they climbed, until at the top Hickey spotted the red Chevy. It had gone a different route. Now it sped toward the bridge on the high river road above the shantytown.

“Step on it! All the way over the line!”

The limo roared, and Tito snarled, “Maybe tonight I kill that pinche Mofeto.” He crossed himself once more, as they zoomed off the bridge. Squealing the turn past Coco’s Licores, they saw the lines—a dozen cars stacked at each gate. Hickey groaned, the cabbie yelled a curse, and the kid sprang up from the floor, yelping, “What’s wrong?”

“Go that way,” Hickey shouted.

Tito wheeled a quick left. They crashed into a field and flew over rocks and rivulets alongside the line of cars, up to the gate, and pulled in tight, diagonal to the line, roadblocked by tourists.

Clifford wailed, “Here they come.”

The red Chevy bounded past Coco’s and onto the field, hitting puddles and mud, spraying a red tail behind.

At the gate stood Lefty and Boyle with hands in the air. Even when the limo knocked the fat green Olds that blocked their way, it wouldn’t budge. The man in a white Lincoln convertible, next in line, stood up, shouting, “C’mon, monkey, wait your turn.”

Hickey pointed at the car in the gateway and hollered, “Ram it through.”

When Tito smashed the Olds’ left rear fender and half the trunk into its backseat, and raced his motor, in low gear, the limo’s back left wheel spun, broke the hard crust, and stuck deep in mud.

The Chevy came burning at them. El Mofeto fired three times before the German wheeled a U turn, showering the gate with red mud, and sped back toward the bridge.

One shot just missed Tito, slammed through the dash and firewall into the motor. Another slug spent itself in the air. The last one got Lefty.