Mistletoe Man - China Bayles 09 (26 page)

I blinked against the bright light. Ruby sucked in
her breath and let it out again in a long hiss. "Wow," she whispered.
"I thought we might find a few plants, but this is— It's—" She gave
up trying to find words. "The mind boggles," she said, and fell
silent.

"Yeah," I
agreed, and did a rapid-fire calculation. There were maybe eight hundred to a
thousand plants in front of us. What was the street value? A million dollars?
Two million? My stomach lurched. My lower lip was hung up between my teeth.
No wonder Swenson could afford to shop for a Rio condo. Hell, if he'd been
doing this for a while, he could probably buy the whole damn condo complex.
With pocket change.

Beside me, Ruby was
taking very deep breaths. "Do you know what this means, China?" she
asked in a threadlike voice. "It means that—"

I put my hand on her shoulder. "It means that
you were right. It also means that we'd better get to that phone, on the
double. Blackie is going to have one hell of a drug bust on his hands, and
he'll want—"

The lights went out.
All
the
lights. The dark was immediate and stifling, a thick, warm, earthy blanket. I
froze in place. It was hard to hear anything over the sudden pounding of my
heart. I didn't have time to guess who, or why, or what was going to happen
next—I was too busy kicking myself for letting us get into this mess.

"Don't panic,
Ruby," I whispered. "We'll let our eyes get accustomed to the dark,
then we'll turn around and walk toward the double doors." We had left them
open, so there'd be a strip of light down one side. "Then we'll get in the
car and drive like hell to Corinne's. We can borrow her phone."

It was a reasonable
plan, under the circumstances. But before we could put it into operation, we
were assaulted by a brilliant spotlight, as sharp and penetrating as a dagger,
that pinned us to the spot where we stood.

I threw up my arm,
shielding my eyes against the blinding light. Beside me, Ruby was suddenly and
violently wrenched away. Then I heard the sharp
hssst
of
Ruby's pepper spray, and then somebody—a man—howling in furious pain. Then
there was the sound of a scuffle, and sharp pantings and gaspings, and a
shrill, despairing cry. "Help, China!"

But I couldn't help
her. I couldn't even help myself. At the instant Ruby sprayed her attacker,
somebody had thrown a burly arm tight around my neck and thrust the business
end of a gun against my neck, just behind my ear.

Chapter
Twelve

In Sweden mistletoe
is diligently sought after on St. John's Eve, the people believing it to be, in
a high degree, possessed of mystic qualities; and if a sprig of it be attached
to the ceiling of the dwelling-house, the horse's stall or the cow's crib, the
Troll will then be powerless to injure either man or beast.

Sir James George Frazer
The Golden Bough

The man who was
holding me was a head taller and had a wrestler's grip. He smelled of old sweat
and wet wool and strong tobacco. "One wrong move," he rasped in an
ugly tone, "and I'll blow your stupid head off."

"I'm not moving," I choked, pulling at
his arm. "Loosen up. I
...
can't
breathe." I was struggling to break the stranglehold, but his arm was
clamped tight across my windpipe. "Please, loosen up!"

"Shut up and
stand still," Ugly Voice said, but he relaxed his grip just enough for me
to take a breath, compensating for his generosity by shoving the gun even
harder against my neck.

Somewhere nearby, the man Ruby had sprayed was
choking and hacking, still moaning in pain. I could hear

Ruby whimpering, a
hurt little-girl whimper, then more scuffles, a sharp curse, and a muttered,
incredulous, "The goddamn bitch
bit
me!" There was a
sharp slap, and another whimper.

"Ruby!" I
cried. But I couldn't get enough air to make the word audible. I tried to turn
my head to see what was happening to her, but my ski mask was twisted across my
face, cutting off my vision.

"Stop fuckin'
around, you guys," another man yelled. "Hit the lights!"

I felt, rather than
saw, the spotlight go off. I made another effort to call to Ruby, but all I
could manage was a mouselike squeak.

"Shut
up, I said," Ugly Voice snarled. "Come on."

He tightened his hold
again, yanking me against his chest, pulling me off my feet, half-carrying,
half-dragging me across the floor. I hung onto his arm with both hands, trying
to take some of the pressure off my windpipe. My insides had turned to a
quivering, cowardly, self-reproachful jelly. We'd been so stupid! We'd
blundered into the biggest pot farm in Texas and gotten ourselves nabbed by
Swenson's nefarious cronies. And not a single soul on earth—not McQuaid, not
Blackie,
nobody
—knew where we were. These guys could kill us and
bury our bodies somewhere in this desolate stretch of Hill Country, and we'd
never be found.

Ugly Voice dumped me
onto the floor like a sack of garbage. On my knees, I sucked in air in huge
gulps. My nose was running. I couldn't swallow and the saliva pooled in my
mouth. I was going to throw up. Somebody reached into my pocket and pulled out
my gun, then yanked off my ski mask, getting a handful of my hair in the
bargain.

"Shit,"
Ugly Voice said, full of surprised disgust. "Who the bloody hell is
she?"
He
was standing in front of me. In the light of the overhead bulbs I could see his
black running shoes and the blue knees of his coveralls. I managed to lift my
head and saw him holstering his gun, a wicked-looking magnum .357. Over the
coveralls, he was wearing a dark blue jacket, zipped. He was brown-skinned,
with a droopy Zapata mustache and a couple days' worth of patchy black beard.
On his head was a dark blue baseball cap with the bill turned backward.
"Somebody go see if Marvin needs any help," he said. "The other
one sprayed him good."

I was sweating and
shivering at the same time. So Marvin was in on this, after all. Well, it
figured. You don't pay for a Camaro out of your aunt's cookie jar. But it
didn't explain Aunt Velda's truck.

Ugly Voice kicked my
knee with his foot, and I gasped at the pain. "Who the fuck are you?"
he demanded. "What are you doing here?"

"We'll find out
soon enough," somebody else said, behind me, clipping the words. He was
firm, authoritative, in command. "Take her to the kitchen, Jose. Zacho,
you take the other one. Search them both. I'll interrogate them when we've got
the area secured."

I was still doing
deep breathing, trying to keep from throwing up, but that got my attention.
Interrogate them? Got the area secured?
Who the devil
were
these
guys anyway?

"Yessir,
Cap'n," Jose growled, and yanked me roughly to my feet. He shoved the gun
into my ribs with an enthusiastic zeal and pushed me forward. "Don't try
anything, babe. It'd be real easy for my finger to slip."

"Be cool," I said. I lifted
my arms. "I'm just wondering who you are, that's all."

"Forget
it," Jose said. "You're the one who's gonna be answerin' the
questions, not me."

But at that moment,
another man—also wearing blue coveralls and jacket—crossed my field of vision.
As he turned, I caught sight of the red letters on the back of his jacket.

South Texas Regional
Narcotics Unit.

When Zacho brought
Ruby into the kitchen, she looked sick and scared, and there was a bloody
scratch down one side of her face. Her eyes were red and her nose was dripping,
but she was trying not to cry. "I'm sorry, China," she said
dejectedly. "This was a lousy idea."

"Who could've
guessed we'd walk into the middle of a drug bust?" I said. "Have you
seen Marvin? Wonder what he looks like."

If these were feds,
then Marvin must be a narc. I hoped he wasn't hurt too badly. I couldn't
remember the penalty for assaulting a federal agent, but it was probably something
on the order of ten years at hard labor.

Zacho left. Jose
brandished his gun and instructed us to line up facing the kitchen wall, legs
splayed, arms braced against the wall over our heads. He took his time patting
us down, familiarly and ungently, then shoved us onto chairs and cuffed our
hands in front of us. I could have protested against being searched by a male,
but under the circumstances, it seemed politic not to. Especially when, going
through Ruby's canvas tote, he found the bag of white powder, the two joints,
the wad of money, and the rest of Ruby's stage props. At that point I offered
to explain, but he was too busy gloating to listen. He told me to shut up.

A few minutes later,
Zacho came back into the kitchen with Ruby's bolt cutters, my shoulder bag, and
the black plastic garbage sack full of leafy stuff that he'd found in my trunk—Swenson's
mistletoe, which I'd stashed in the car the night before, planning to take it
to the shop. The bag was securely tied. It rustled.

Jose's eyes widened at the sight of
the bag. "Man, these chicks don't mess around. They got enough stuff to supply
half the kids in San Antonio."

Ruby
coughed. "Honestly, it's not—"

"Shut
your face," Jose said sternly. "Marvin okay?"

Zacho dropped the bag
on the floor and everything else on the kitchen counter. "Burned the shit
out of his eyes," he said gruffly. "He's still blind as a bat and in
a lot of pain. Must've been allergic to whatever was in that can." He
glared at Ruby and went out again.

"If you'll take these handcuffs off,"
Ruby said after a few minutes, "I'll make you some coffee."

Stroking his black mustache,
Jose considered this suggestion more carefully than my offer of an
explanation. But in the end he refused it too, although his "Shut up"
was a bit more regretful.

Not having anything better to do, I
looked around. The kitchen was nicely arranged, flooded with natural light, and
furnished with new appliances. Through an open door, I could see a large
pine-paneled dining area and a living area with a massive stone fireplace in
one wall, plush rugs on polished oak floors, and expensive-looking leather
furniture. The house might be sixty or seventy years old, but it was well
maintained and Swenson had put a substantial amount of money into it fairly
recently. I could guess where the money had come from.

We sat for a while in silence while I
considered various options for action or negotiation, none of which seemed very
satisfactory. I no longer feared that Ruby and I would be dismembered and our
body parts distributed among the prickly pear but it was clear that we were in
for a long and tedious round of embarrassing explanations which would probably
culminate in my losing my law license. The Ethics Committee of the Texas State
Bar would not be amused by our oregano joints and confectioners' sugar cocaine.

At last, Ruby began
to squirm. "I have to go to the bathroom," she said.

Jose
frowned. "Hold it," he ordered.

Five minutes later, Ruby made a whimpering noise.
"I really have to go, sir. It hurts."

Jose was about to say
"Hold it" again when I spoke up. "You'd better let her go pee, Jose.
She's got cancer. She could get really sick."

"Cancer!"

I gave Ruby a look that said,
I'm sorry.
She
gave me back a tiny smile.

"I'm scheduled
for surgery two days after Christmas," she said to Jose. "If you
don't believe me, I'll give you my doctor's number and you can call him."

Jose's nostrils flared and he gave his
head an I'm-not-believing-this shake. After a moment of sour deliberation, he
stood up, holding the gun on us.

"Okay," he said curtly.
"Both of you, down the hall. No funny business."

We stood up and he
pushed us ahead of him. When we got to the bathroom at the end of the hall, he
made us face the wall. With one eye on us, his gun held shoulder-high, he
opened the bathroom door and glanced in—checking, I supposed, for a means of
escape. Satisfied, he motioned with his head.