Monkey on a Chain (26 page)

“Did Roy say how it happened?” I asked.

“It was just the war.” He pulled himself together. “Anna, I want you to bring the whiskey bottle for my friend and me. Please. Juanito, Tonio, put away the weapons. These are my friends. Juan, you will go get the truck and Rainbow’s car and bring them to the yard. And Tony, if you could return to your watch, I would be very grateful.”

He had developed authority over the years. They all moved, Anna wiping her eyes and young Juan dragging his feet. “Pull your chair closer, Rainbow, and tell me the story of Toker’s death. It seems our problem is now bigger than just hiding from Max Corvin.”

I did as he asked and began the tale with April’s appearance on my doorstep. He listened carefully as I spoke and did not interrupt me with questions. Midway through the story, his wife returned with a bottle, two glasses, and a Coke. She stood quietly, out of Sissy’s sight, and listened as I finished describing the ambush on Luzon and what I’d learned about Corvin. Then she set the drinks on the table and went to stand behind her husband.

Sissy poured two bourbon and Cokes. I made a face at him and took a hit directly from the bottle. April took the second mixed drink, tasted it, and pushed it away from her.

“You haven’t changed,” I told him. “Good taste in women, terrible taste in booze.”

“I’ve changed,” he said. “The leg changed me. Anna changed me. Little Juan changed me. Twenty years on the ranch changed me. Don’t say I haven’t changed, Rainbow. Back in the old days, I couldn’t keep it in my pants. You remember.”

“I remember. That’s why I don’t know how you can be so sure. About April.”

He shot a glance at his wife that I didn’t understand. She had her hand back on his shoulder. She tightened it and her lips parted, but in the end she didn’t speak. I didn’t think it would do any good to pursue it. I decided to see if he could answer the big question. “Tell me about Toker, then. Why did you go to him?”

“I couldn’t go to Roy. After he lied to me about taking care of Phoung? And who else was there? Johnny Walker had a new wife. And there’d be too many other problems there because of the color thing. You? Roy told me about you. He said you were…” He stopped.

“What did he say?”

“He said you were outside the perimeter. Out in the jungle somewhere. Not crazy, exactly, but not normal. I’m sorry, Rainbow. That’s what he said. So it had to be Toker. I arranged to meet him. He took a ski trip and we connected at Angel Fire. I told him about Phoung and he agreed to try to find the child. Take care of her.”

“Why not you?”

“I was dead. How does a dead man sign the papers to adopt a kid? Besides, there was Anna. And she wasn’t really mine. I got Toker to take her in, and I gave him the whole payoff for her.”

“You what?”

“Sure. The whole bag. All those pretty little rocks. What did I want with them? I had my fair share. I couldn’t take any trips around the world, you know.”

That explained one of the things that had bothered me. Toker’s house had been searched for the gems. But it still didn’t explain why the search took place after Toker was killed. “It wasn’t in Toker’s house, Sissy. And it wasn’t in his will. He cut April out completely.”

“Son of a bitch!” He stared at me angrily. “You think the bastard got it?”

“Looks like it,” I said. “Why don’t you give me a name. Who do you think the bastard is?”

“Corvin knows bombs,” he said thoughtfully. “And he has contacts in the Philippines. Your neighbor told you those guys looked like Filipinos.”

“The detective in El Paso?”

“Maybe Roy is holed up like me. Maybe Corvin wanted to get to him one jump ahead of you.”

“Corvin getting the jump on Roy,” I said. “Now, there’s a concept.”

“He did once. He got the jump on all of us.”

“Twice,” I said.

Sissy rubbed his leg. “Yeah. Twice.”

We looked at each other in silence. “We’re agreed, then?” I asked.

His chin rose and fell a reluctant quarter-inch. “We take him out, but where?”

“Here.”

“Why here?”

“You’ve got the privacy.”

He looked around the room. His wife sat, frozen. She didn’t seem to see any of us. His son fingered his rifle nervously. “What about Roy?” Sissy asked.

“I’ll go to Juarez. Talk to him. He has to be brought in. You know that. Besides, there are still some questions. He may have the answers.”

“What questions?”

“What started all this crap?” I said. “The status quo held for twenty years. What happened to it?”

“We may never know, compadre.”

“But we have to ask. I’ll leave in the morning. Can you put us up for the night?”

Anna rose and headed for the door. This was something she could do. “Of course. You come with me.”

I stood up. April didn’t move. “I have questions too,” she said. “About my mother. Please?”

Sissy nodded. “You help with the bags,” he told his son. “I will talk to the girl for a few minutes.”

I shrugged and followed the woman. The boy tagged along behind. When we reached the hall, Anna told him to go on to bed. “There will be things to do tomorrow,” she told him. “Tonight, you need your sleep.”

“But I want to help.”

“Tomorrow.” She said firmly. “The rest of this is not for you.”

He wanted to protest, but he obeyed her. She led me out to the car to get our bags. When we were back in the house, she turned to me. “We have only one guest room.”

“That’s okay.”

“I thought it might be.” She led me to the bedroom. It was comfortable, homey. Her furniture was in the heavy wooden style of northern New Mexico. A hand-carved crucifix stood on the dark dresser, next to a porcelain Madonna. I dropped the bags. Anna sat on the bed and patted the mattress beside her. “Sit,” she said. “There are things I have to say to you.” I sat.

She hesitated, looking for words. “You don’t understand why the girl can’t be Juan’s daughter.”

I waited.

“It is difficult for him to talk about. It would hurt his pride. But I think you need to know.” She hooked off into space. “You see, when I met Juan, I was pregnant.”

“The boy? Juanito?”

“Yes. It was a mistake. I was foolish, and I found I was going to have a baby. The boy wouldn’t marry me. The situation was very bad. But my sister knew Juan. They went to high school together in Santa Fe. She knew he was alone and didn’t have much opportunity to…to meet girls. So my mother talked to his mother, and they arranged for us to meet at a church dance. He liked me, and I liked him. It was a solution for both of us. So we married. He gave my baby his name. He treats him just as a son.”

I nodded. She transferred her gaze to my eyes. “He is a good man,” she said. “I came to love him very deeply. The other, the boy’s father, was nothing compared to Juan. And he came to love me, too.” Again, she hesitated. “We are Catholics,” she said. “You know that birth control is forbidden. For some, it is just a matter of going to confession every week, but not for us. We wanted to have children between us, so we never used the pill or anything. For eighteen years, we have never used anything. And nothing. No babies.”

“So you think it has to be Juan,” I said.

“I already had a baby,” she said quietly. “That is why he is so sure.”

“Okay,” I said. “But there is still another question. Why did he go to Toker? Why did he give Toker the jewels, if it wasn’t because April was his daughter?”

“It is really just as he said. Because of that woman in Saigon. April’s mother. I always sensed that there had been someone else. That is why I became so jealous the time he tried to tell me about her. Of course, I didn’t know she was dead then. But he didn’t know she was dead, either. She was between us in my mind, perhaps long after she was out of his mind. I think he felt that, and so he couldn’t tell me what he did with the jewels.”

“You knew about them?”

“I saw them once or twice, long ago. They were very impressive. Very beautiful. But I didn’t want anything to do with them. They were part of the other world, the other woman. I wouldn’t let him sell the stones. We didn’t need the money. And I wouldn’t have wanted it even if we did.”

I believed her. The man she described didn’t sound like the one I had known in Saigon, but as he said, he had changed. And maybe I hadn’t known him as well as I thought back then. Maybe I hadn’t understood Miss Phoung, either. When Sissy returned from his tour in the Philippines, she had gone back to him. It is possible she had never left him in her heart. Her relationship with Roy had puzzled me even then. But there was April. If she wasn’t Sissy’s, Miss Phoung had had a choice to make that I hadn’t been aware of.

“One other thing,” Anna said. “About this Max.”

“What about him?”

“He has kept my husband here on our land for a long time. Like a prisoner. I can see that Juan must deal with him to be free, but this is my home too. If there is any other way…any other place…?”

“You don’t want it to be here.” I asked.

“I’m afraid it would spoil my home.”

“I understand.”

Anna had said all she had to say. “I’m going to bed,” she told me. “Perhaps you should too. Let Sissy talk to the girl. It will be good for him.”

I agreed and turned in after she left. April didn’t join me for a long time. When she came, she was very quiet. I rested my hand on her hip and we lay together like that until we slept.

I went outside very early in the morning. The boy was saddling a horse. I joined him and he cut out a mare for me. We rode through the chill morning air. The shadow of the ridge behind the house fell over a mile across the Chama River valley to the west. The sky was pure turquoise and the air was clean, scented with sage and pine. Far to the northwest I could make out a piece of Heron Lake and, above it, the thin dark line of Tecolote Mesa.

Young Juan rode in silence, breaking away now and then to head some cattle down toward their pasture. I left him alone and enjoyed the morning. As I rode, I saw that April’s aunt had told the truth, assuming Phoung claimed Sissy for her baby’s father. He had been a cowboy after all. At least his family had come from cattle country.

We turned our horses back toward the house about eight o’clock. Anna was making breakfast. Chorizo and scrambled eggs. We ate and then Sissy led me outside. We walked to the corral and watched the horses while we talked ways and means. Then I went in and packed my bags. April came in and began packing hers.

“I want you to stay here,” I told her.

She shook her head firmly. “That isn’t our deal. Besides, now we know who is doing the killing. Roy isn’t the danger. It’s Corvin.” She continued packing.

I tried again. “We don’t know where Corvin is.”

“He’s trying to find Sissy. If you’re worried about me, I’ll be safer with you than here.”

“I’m just one man,” I told her. “Sissy has an army of family and friends here.”

“I’ll feel safer with you,” she said.

The real reason, of course, was that she now thought Roy was her father and wanted to see him. Without using force, there was no way I could keep her here. Well, force was an option, but she had a right, and it was her life.

Chapter 9

LAS COLONIAS

We drove down to El Paso because I wanted to keep the items in the trunk close to hand. The drive took nine hours, counting a stop for lunch at the Palace, just off the plaza in Santa Fe. It’s one of my favorite restaurants, and I wanted to eat there, just in case.

April said very little as we drove. She was working on some problem of her own. Halfway through lunch, she let me know what was on her mind. “Why do we have to do it this way?” she asked. “Why can’t we call the police or something?”

“Get the government involved?” I asked. “They don’t want to be involved. The Philippine operation is still too sensitive. You heard Pauley in Washington. He practically begged me to kill Corvin for him. They don’t want him involved in the legal system. They want him silenced, but they sure as hell don’t want him in jail, talking to lawyers, maybe even to the press.”

“But killing him is…don’t you think it’s wrong?”

“He has to be stopped. Otherwise, he’s going to come after Sissy, after Roy, Walker, me, you. He has a plan for the future, April. We aren’t included.”

“But if he were in prison…?”

“For how long? Forget about the damage a trial would cause us. Forget that you’d be sent back to Hong Kong, what the publicity could do to Sissy and his wife, Walker’s family, Roy, and me. It might not even be possible to convict Corvin, but suppose that it is. He’d do a couple years before the system kicked him out to free up a cell. And the shit would start all over again.” I shrugged. “He’s not the sort of man to let things slide, April. He’ll come after us. And when he does, I’ll be planning the same sort of operation, but without you.”

I shook my head. “That isn’t any kind of a solution. This has to be done the hard way. It has to be done now.”

“Are you sure you aren’t just thinking of yourself? Trying to stay out of jail?”

I was surprised. “What could I be sent to jail for?”

“For the operation. For what you did in Saigon.”

“Not a chance, April. I have enough money to buy some really good lawyers. And where is the evidence against me? You think a prosecutor could subpoena anybody in Ho Chi Minh City? Hell, there isn’t even a court that would have jurisdiction over that. The only way the government could act against me now is by claiming I owe taxes, and I don’t. I paid taxes on every dime I have, and I can prove it. No, the only one who could move against me, the only one who would even want to try, is Max Corvin. And I’m going to see that he never moves against anyone again. I’m going to send that boy to hell.”

She was quiet for a few minutes, then asked, “Do you believe in that? Hell?”

“Do you?”

“My aunt raised me Catholic. Lots of Vietnamese are Catholic. So I guess I believe. I used to, anyway.”

“I used to believe, too,” I admitted. “Now, I don’t know. I’m sure there isn’t a heaven, but there might be a hell. I’ll find out, eventually. It’ll give me a chance to see my old friends.”

April ignored my little joke. “I still don’t think it’s right,” she said quietly.

“It doesn’t have to be right, April. It just has to be a little righter than the alternative.”

“And you decide?”

“If I want to come out of this alive, I have to decide.” I smiled. “Corvin would probably make the wrong choice. From my point of view.”

She apparently saw that my purpose was fixed. She dropped the subject. We got on the road again and didn’t stop until supper in Las Cruces. It’s a pleasant little town, but if I have to die in Las Cruces, I’ll forgo my last meal.

A room was available at the Executive Suites in El Paso. After we carried our bags up, I dialed the Juarez number. The old woman came on and told me, “
Señor Rodgers no esta aqui
.”

“Tell him to call me.” I gave her the number.

The phone woke me at midnight. Roy’s tone was sharp, impatient. “What is it now, Rainbow?”

“I’ve been to Luzon,” I told him.

“So?”

“I met Freddy. He told me about the last delivery. You shorted us.”

He didn’t say anything for a long time. Then he asked, “So? Do you care?”

“He also told me about Sissy.”

There was another long wait. Eventually I ended it. “I found him,” I said. “He’s in a place called Tierra Amarilla. We spent the night there.”

“We who?”

“April and I.”

“I see.” He didn’t sound very interested.

“Look, we’ve got to talk.”

“What about?”

“About Corvin, damn it! He has to be the one who killed Toker. He’s the only one it could have been.”

“That’s obvious. I just don’t know why.”

“Well, maybe it doesn’t matter why, Roy. You know what we have to do.”

“As long as Sissy stays in Tierra Amarilla, that isn’t necessary.”

“You know it is. Things are falling apart.”

He sighed. “Okay,” he said. “We’ll talk about it.”

“Where?”

“You remember where we met the last time?”

“Yes.”

“Ten tomorrow morning. Gringo time.”

“We’ll be there.”

“You. Come alone.”

“April’s coming. She wants to meet you.”

He hung up.

She had gotten up when he called and was sitting at the table. I told her we would meet him in the morning. She nodded. I turned off the light and lay down. She didn’t come back to bed.

“What?” I asked the dark.

“Sissy told me about my mother. We talked for a long time last night.”

“What did he say?”

“He said she knew how you felt about her.”

I stared at the ceiling I couldn’t see. I blinked several times. I was grateful for the dark. “I see. And he knew?”

“Yes.” Her voice was soft, barely a whisper. “He knew. But only later.”

“He was out of the country when I tied up with Roy,” I said. “He’d been gone for months. He didn’t come back until later. In March of ’seventy. I could see there was something wrong between Miss Phoung and Roy, but I didn’t know what it was. I just hung around as much as I could. But then Sissy came back and Roy moved out and he moved in… You say she knew how I felt?”

“Yes. She told him.”

“I didn’t think I ever had a chance with her,” I said.

“He thought you did. He said that was one of the reasons he could leave. Because he knew you would be there.”

“No.”

“He said he thought you were my father. When he had Toker find me. That was another reason he went to Toker instead of you. He thought you knew and didn’t do anything.”

“I didn’t know, April. If I had known, I would have done something. I would even have gone back.”

She moved in the dark. I heard the whisper of her legs and then the bed sank under her weight. Her hand was on my chest. “I believe you, Rainbow.” I put my hand over hers.

“Tell me what happened,” she said. “Tell me about the last days, after Sissy didn’t come back and when she was pregnant. Because if Sissy thought you had a chance, then you did. He knew her. Very well. He still thought you were my father, even last night. He didn’t believe you weren’t until I told him that we were sleeping together, that we were lovers in Luzon.”

She was right. That did put a different light on it. But it took April to see it. I was too close.

“The Celestina arrived in Saigon mid-morning on July twenty-seventh,” I told her. “As soon as we docked, I headed for Tu Do Street. Miss Phoung had to be told and I had to do it, but I was afraid. I didn’t know how she’d take it.

“She was sitting on the terrace, drinking her morning coffee in the sun. There were pots full of red and yellow flowers all over the place, plants she groomed and watered every day. And when I told her that Sissy was dead, she started breaking them. I tried to hold her, to comfort her. But she called me a name and told me to get the hell away from her. She hit me and scratched my face. I let go of her and she went back to breaking the pots and cursing. She cursed Max and me and Roy and Johnny Walker. Mostly Max. Then she went into her room and lay on the bed and cried. I sat with her for hours. Just sat beside her, waiting for her to stop, in case she needed me for anything. When she cried herself out, I told her I would help her. I guess I told her I loved her. It was the wrong thing to say. Or the wrong time. I was stupid. But I couldn’t think of anything else to say to her. She told me to get out of her sight, to go away and never come back.”

April squeezed my hand. “Did you?”

“I left then. But I went back the next day. I had to know that she was all right.”

“Was she?”

“She acted as if it had never happened. She treated me just the same as she always had. There was no difference. But she wouldn’t talk about Sissy, and she wouldn’t let me do anything for her. She said she didn’t need anything from me.”

“Where was Roy when this happened?”

“He stayed in Manila when the Celestina sailed. I suppose he was making arrangements for the final delivery, the one he made in December. Anyway, he didn’t get back until two days after we docked. He flew in. I didn’t see him until the next day, at the house. He’d spent the night there, but he was packing his things. Miss Phoung acted very cold to him. And he was about as mad as I’ve ever seen a man. At Max, though. Not at her. He took off to see Max, and I didn’t see him again for a couple of days.”

“Did he ever move back in with my mother?”

“No. Well, yes. He moved in and out a couple of times. Mostly, she stayed in the house alone. We kept meeting there for a few months, but things were different. Walker rotated out and was discharged, and it was only Roy and Toker and me. Toker had never spent a lot of time at the house. It didn’t mean anything to him. Miss Phoung didn’t tell us to stay away, but she was never happy to see us. Then Roy took his discharge in-country, and I just didn’t go by very often. I told you about the last time I saw her.”

“The time Max was there?”

“Yes.”

“How was that? How did she treat him?”

“She ignored him. And he acted angry. Like he didn’t want to be there.”

“What did you think?”

“About Max? I still wanted to kill him. But he had something on me and I had something on him. It was a standoff.”

“I mean about why he was there.”

“I assumed she was using him. It was his men moving her out. I thought she had figured a way to get a knife into him and was twisting it a little.”

“I see.” We waited in the dark for a while. Then she asked, “About that last time. You were alone with her, weren’t you?”

“Yes. For a little while.”

“And you didn’t know she was pregnant?”

“No. I couldn’t tell.”

“And you kissed her?”

“I tried to. She told me to go.”

“And you went.” She sighed and kissed my hand, then slipped down onto the bed beside me. My hand was wet from her face. We held each other with no thought of sex until sleep came.

The next morning, we walked over the Juarez bridge. The American Bar was down the street on the left, just a few blocks from the border. It is called a bar, but it’s mostly a restaurant. There was still a suspicion I hadn’t resolved. I stopped outside the bar and told April to look at Roy carefully.

“If you recognize him, don’t say anything. Order a Bohemia beer. If you don’t recognize him, order a Carta Blanca.”

She looked puzzled, but nodded.

Roy was waiting at a table in the back. He didn’t stand when we came in. He looked at April curiously. I introduced them and we sat down. “Rainbow.” he said. “April.”

“Long time, Roy.”

He hadn’t changed much in the last seventeen years. He was a little heavier and there was a touch of gray in his close-cropped brown hair. He’d picked up a new mannerism. He rubbed his chin almost constantly. I assumed he was nervous. That was curious.

April looked at him intently during the introduction. When the waiter came over, she ordered a Carta Blanca. I had a Dos Equis. Roy was drinking gin and tonics.

He spoke to her first. “So you’re Phoung’s girl?”

She nodded and cut directly to the chase. “Are you my father?”

“No.” He didn’t act like he cared one way or the other.

“But you lived with my mother?”

“For a while,” he said, “back in ’sixty-nine. She went back to Sissy when he got back from Manila.”

“Why?”

Roy cleared his throat. “He was the only one for her, I guess. She didn’t think he’d come back. But when he did, she kicked me out and stuck to him.”

“Didn’t he care? That she had lived with you?”

“Sissy understood how things were. You can’t understand. You weren’t there.”

She shot me a quick, questioning glance.

“That’s the way things were,” I said.

“Even love?”

“Life was more important than love.”

“This is all history,” Roy said. “Let’s talk about Corvin.”

I agreed. The history was getting to me. “He killed Toker,” I said. “It had to be him.” I listed the reasons. Roy paid close attention. “The only thing I don’t understand is why it started up again now.”

“Maybe Corvin had no choice,” Roy suggested. “If April was going to hunt up her daddy, a lot of things were bound to come out. Including Corvin’s little game in the Philippines.”

“So you think he got rid of Toker to cover himself?”

Roy grimaced. “I think it would be very convenient for Corvin if we all died. As long as he couldn’t find Sissy and we didn’t stir things up, we were all safe. But April threatened to stir the pot. So Corvin took Toker out and tried for her, and he probably hoped the rest of us wouldn’t find out, or that we’d see he had no choice and ignore the situation. Our understanding had held for twenty years. I think he was hoping for another twenty. That would be as good as forever.”

“But how could he know about April?”

“There’s only one way. The phone in El Paso.”

“You think he has a tap on it?”

Roy shrugged. “How else?”

“That means Toker called you when April told him she wanted to find her father.”

He rubbed his chin. “He called me,” he admitted. “That was the first I’d heard about her. That she was in the states and living with Toker.”

“Why did he call you? Why not Sissy? He was the one who got Toker to find her.”

“What could Sissy do?” Roy asked levelly. “He was locked away in the mountains somewhere. He couldn’t do a damned thing.”