Feast Day of Fools

by James Lee Burke

  “I need something to eat with,” Krill said.

  “This isn’t a hotel,” the man said.

  “We cannot eat our food with our fingers.”

  “Eat out of the bowl. Just tip it up and you can eat.”

  “Hombre, we are not animals. You must give us utensils to eat.”

  “I’ll see what I can find,” the man said.

  “Bring me a spoon. I cannot eat rice with a fork. Bring us water, too.”

  “Want anything else?”

  “Yes, to use a real toilet, one that flushes with water. Using a chemical toilet is unsanitary and degrading.”

  When the man had gone upstairs, Krill lowered his voice and said, “Magdalena, can you hear me?”

  “Yes,” the woman said.

  “Did they hurt you?”

  “No.”

  “Where is Dowling?”

  “I think he’s dead.”

  “Did they mutilate him?”

  “Yes, very badly.”

  “Listen to me. I must say this in a hurry. I have killed many men. I have also killed a Jesuit priest. I tortured and murdered a DEA informant. I need your absolution for these sins and others that are too many to name.”

  “I don’t have that power. Only God does. If you’re sorry for what you did and you renounce your violent ways, your sins are forgiven. God doesn’t forgive incrementally or partially. He forgives absolutely, Antonio. That’s what ‘absolution’ means. God makes all things new.”

  “You remembered my name.”

  “Of course. Why wouldn’t I?”

  “Because everyone calls me Krill.”

  “It’s a name you earned in war. You shouldn’t go by that name anymore.”

  “Maybe I’ll stop using it later, Magdalena. But right now I got to get us out of here. We need a fork from the man who brought us our bowls.”

  “Why?”

  “There are only two ways we’re going to get out of here. I have to open the lock on my door or get a man in my cell. We need a fork.”

  “I heard you ask for a spoon.”

  “This man is stubborn and slow in the head. He will do the opposite of what he is asked.”

  The upstairs door opened, and the man with the duckbilled mouth came down the stairs. There were two dull metallic objects in his right hand. “I got you what you wanted,” he said. “Put your bowls outside the door when you’re finished.”

  Krill stuck his hand through the bars and curved his palm around the utensil the man gave him. A spoon, he thought bitterly.

  “Disappointed? I was jailing when I was sixteen,” the man said. “Better eat up. You got a rough day ahead of you.”

  THE SINGLE-ENGINE DEPARTMENT plane dropped down over a ridge and followed a milky-brown river that had spread out onto the floodplain and was dotted with sandy islands that had willow trees on them. Above the plane, Hackberry could see the long blue-black layer of clouds that seemed to extend like curds of industrial smoke from the Big Bend all the way across northern Mexico. Down below, the willow trees stiffened in the wind, the surface of the river wrinkling in jagged V-shaped lines. On the southern horizon, the cloud layer seemed to end and looked like strips of torn black cotton churning against a band of perfectly blue sky.

  The wings of the plane yawed suddenly, the airframe shuddering. “We’re fine,” the pilot said above the engine noise. He was a crop duster named Toad Fowler who worked on and off for the sheriff’s department. “Those are just updrafts.”

  Nonetheless, he kept tapping the glass on his instruments.

  “What’s the problem?” Hackberry asked.

  “The oil pressure is a little low,” the pilot said. “We’re okay. We’ll be there in ten minutes.”

  “How low?” Hackberry said.

  “It’s probably not a line, just a leaky gasket,” the pilot said. “I’ll check everything out after we get down. Hang on. We might bounce around a little bit.”

  “You didn’t check everything out before we left?” Hackberry asked.

  “It’s an old plane. What do you want? Shit happens,” the pilot said.

  When the plane dipped down toward the river, Hackberry felt Pam place her hand on top of his shoulder, her breath coming hard against the back of his neck.

  “We’re okay,” Hackberry said.

  “How do you know?” she asked.

  “Toad just told me.”

  “Tell him I’m going to shoot him after we land.”

  Down below, Hackberry could see great squares of both cultivated and pasture land and bare hills that looked molded out of white clay that had hardened and cracked. The pilot made a wide turn, the wings buffeting, and came in low over the river, the islands sweeping by, then Hackberry saw a feeder lot and hog farm whose holding pens were churned a chocolate color and buildings with tin roofs and houses constructed of cinder block and then a short pale green landing strip that had been recently mowed out of a field, a red wind sock straining against its tether at the far end. They landed hard, rainwater splashing under the tires. A flatbed truck with two men lounging near it was parked by the side of the strip.

  “You ever see them before?” Pam said.

  “No,” Hackberry replied. “You okay?”

  She didn’t reply until Toad had cut the engine and gotten out of the plane and lit a cigarette by the wing. “I’m backing your play, Hack, but the idea of getting involved with Jack Collins makes my stomach churn,” she said.

  “I wouldn’t blame you if you stayed with Toad. I can handle it by myself.”

  “That’s not going to happen,” she said.

  “I have to get Miss Anton back, Pam. If I don’t, I’ll never rest.”

  “We’re making a deal with the devil, and you know it.”

  “That’s the breaks.”

  “You mean after this is over, you’re going to let that bastard slide?”

  “Jack Collins isn’t planning to leave Mexico,” he said.

  Her eyes went back and forth. “How do you know that?”

  “Collins brought us here as his executioners,” he said.

  “Or maybe he plans on being ours,” she said.

  Hackberry and Pam pulled a duffel bag and a backpack off the plane and walked toward the flatbed truck. The Mexicans standing next to it introduced themselves as Eladio and Jaime. They were unshaved and wore slouch-brim straw hats and unpressed long-sleeve cotton shirts buttoned at the wrists. Their eyes wandered over Pam’s body without seeming to see her, the laziness in their expressions as much mask as indicator of their thoughts.

  “Where’s Collins?” Hackberry said.

  “He ain’t here,” Jaime said.

  “That’s why I asked you where he is,” Hackberry said.

  “We’ll take you where he’s at,” Jaime said. “You two can ride in front with Eladio. I’ll ride in back.”

  “Where are we going?” Pam asked.

  “You’ll know when we get there, chica,” Jaime said.

  “Call me that again and see what happens,” she said.

  “We are sorry. We do not mean to offend,” Eladio said. “Can we look in your canvas bag and your pack? It would be good if we can look at your cell phones, too.”

  “Why would you want to do that?” Pam said.

  “Among friends, there is no need of GPS locators,” Eladio said. “It is good to have things of that nature out of our discussions about the liberation of your friend. That is the only reason I raise this question.”

  “Look all you want,” Hackberry said.

  “Thank you,” Eladio said. “What fine guns you have in your bag. What is in this metal box?”

  “Cookies and fruitcake,” Hackberry said.

  “You carry such items with you when you go on a serious mission?” Eladio said.

  “I have a sugar deficiency. I also thought you might like some. Take them if you like,” Hackberry said.

  “That is very kind of you,” Eladio said. “I have children who will love these.”
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  “When do we see Preacher?” Hackberry asked.

  “Very soon. He looks forward to seeing you with great anticipation,” Eladio said.

  “You come all the way down here ‘cause of la china?” Jaime said.

  “You could say that,” Hackberry replied.

  “She must be some broad, hombre,” Jaime said. “It’s true what they say about Chinese women?”

  “Do not speak further,” Eladio said, raising his finger to his cousin’s lips.

  “It’s just a question. I do not need to be censored,” Jaime said. “These are gringos in our country. We do not suppress ourselves to please gringos in our own country.”

  “It’s time for us to see Mr. Collins,” Hackberry said.

  He and Pam rode in the cab while Eladio drove and Jaime sat on the flatbed. They proceeded in a southerly direction down dirt roads through irrigated farmland for almost an hour. The colors and configuration and flora in the land were like none that Hack could remember. Wild grapefruit and hibiscus and pink camellias and palm trees with long, slender trunks grew in the turn rows. The soil was loamy and tinted a reddish-brown, as though it had been mixed with rust, but the hills were white and bare and gray-backed, like sea creatures that had died and fossilized. The topography made Hack think of imaginative paintings of ancient Egypt that depicted an era when the earth was still recovering from the Flood and deserts bloomed and gatherers filled date baskets with their hands. Why would a man like Josef Sholokoff locate himself in such a place? To re-create the introduction of the serpent into Eden?

  No, nothing so grandiose, Hackberry thought. For Sholokoff, Mexico was probably nothing more than a good tax dodge.

  The truck rolled down a long embanked road made of crushed stone, the rocks tinging steadily under the fenders, the wind stream warm and sultry, the sky lidded with clouds that emitted no sunlight. Ahead, at a crossroads, Hackberry could see a small, paintless wood-frame store with a single gas pump in front and a screened side porch. Behind the store, the terrain seemed to stretch away endlessly, glazed with salt, cracked and sunken in places, as though a lake had once covered the area but had drained through a hole in its center. Eladio parked the truck and cut the engine. “Señor Collins awaits you on the porch,” he said. “Do not take your guns inside. That would cause alarm for the owner of the store. Also, it is a very serious offense to bring guns into Mexico.”

  “That’s like saying it’s a serious offense to bring insanity into a lunatic asylum,” Pam said.

  “I am not educated and do not understand the comparisons you make, señorita,” Eladio said.

  Hackberry looked through the back window of the cab. “Your cousin is eating the cookies you were going to give your children,” he said.

  “Jaime, what are you doin’, man?” Eladio yelled out the window.

  Jaime replaced the tin lid on the container and wiped the crumbs off his fingers. Pam and Hackberry got out of the cab and followed Eladio to the screen door on the store’s side porch. She glanced over her shoulder at Jaime, who had remained on the truck bed. “I don’t guess these guys are students of Homer,” she said.

  “Shut up,” Hackberry said under his breath. He opened the screen door and stepped inside, removing his Stetson hat. Inside the gloom, against the back wall, he saw a man eating refried beans and strips of steak and sliced peppers from a tin plate with a fork. The man wore a blocked hat and a seersucker coat and a gray dress shirt with no buttons on the collar and trousers that were tucked into the tops of his boots. A guitar case was propped on its side against the wall behind him. For Hackberry, Jack Collins was like a figure out of a dream, not quite flesh and blood, vaporous in its dimensions, waiting like an incubus to attach itself to the fear in its victim, in the way a leech attaches itself to living tissue in order to survive.

  “Have a good flight?” Collins said.

  “Not really,” Hackberry said.

  “Sit down. You, too, Deputy Tibbs.”

  “I think I’ll stand. You don’t mind, do you?” Pam said.

  “I owe you an apology,” Collins said, chewing while he spoke.

  “For trying to kill me?” she said.

  “If y’all had your way, you would have split me open and salted my innards and tacked me to a fence post. I figure what I did was just fair play.”

  “We didn’t come here to talk past history, Mr. Collins. How far are we from our target?” Hackberry said.

  Collins pushed two chairs out from the table with his boot. He was wearing a holstered thumb-buster revolver, the bluing rubbed bare around the cylinder, the cartridge loops stuffed with copperjacketed .45 rounds. “Sit down. Have a Pepsi. The beans and meat aren’t bad. We go in at sunset. Once inside that compound, we don’t negotiate.”

  “Listen to me, Collins. You don’t make the rules. I do,” Hackberry said. “We’re down here for one reason only, and that’s to save the life of an innocent woman. We don’t turn people into wallpaper. If you want to settle a personal score with Sholokoff, you find another time and place to do it.”

  Collins motioned at the waiter, then looked up at Hackberry. “I bought a big bottle of Pepsi and had him put it in the icebox for y’all. Now sit down and take your nose out of the air. You, too, Deputy Tibbs.” He placed his fork on his plate and removed a folded piece of paper from inside his coat. “I’ve drawn a diagram of the compound and the entrances to it. Are y’all going to sit down or not?”

  Pam Tibbs pulled back a chair and sat down, her eyes on his.

  “You want to tell me something?” he asked.

  “I’d like to park one in your brisket, you arrogant white trash,” she replied.

  Collins looked across the table at Hackberry. “I’m not going to have this, Sheriff.”

  “Show us the entrances to the compound,” Hackberry said.

  “No, you need to correct the mouth on this woman.”

  The waiter brought a tall plastic bottle of Pepsi and two glasses, then went away.

  “We came a long way, Jack,” Hackberry said. “You’ve done a lot of harm to a lot of people, some of them friends of ours. Don’t expect too much of us.”

  “You say I’ve done harm? Right now the Asian woman and the fellow named Krill are learning what harm is all about. Josef Sholokoff doesn’t know Noie is on the street. He thinks he’s still in your jail, and he’s mad as hell and sweating Ms. Ling and the half-breed because of it.”

  “You’ve got someone inside?” Hackberry said.

  “What do you think?” Collins asked. “They started in on Krill about four hours ago. If I know Josef, he’ll take a special interest in the woman. Why do you think he crucified Cody Daniels and set fire to his church with him hanging on the cross?”

  “You tell me.”

  “It wasn’t for money. It wasn’t for sheer meanness, either.”

  Hackberry remained silent.

  “Josef was born with the brain of a rodent and the face of a ferret, and he blames God for the pitiful little toothpick that he is,” Collins said. “For formally educated people, neither of y’all seems real bright, Mr. Holland. But I guess overestimating the intelligence of my fellow man has always been my greatest character defect.” He pushed the diagram toward Hackberry and resumed eating, his fork scraping in the grease at the bottom of the plate, his eyes as empty as glass.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  THEY HAD BEATEN Krill in his cell and hung him from a rafter in the center of the cellar, where the Asian woman could see him hanging, and then had beaten him again. When they dropped him to the floor, his wrists roped together behind him, he had begun to slip in and out of consciousness and into a place where his children were waiting for him. They were standing outside a traveling carnival, their cheeks smeared with Popsicle juice, the carved wooden horses of a merry-go-round spinning behind them, the music of the calliope rising into the evening sky.

  Frank or the man standing next to Frank poured water from a canteen on Krill’s face. Josef Sholoko
ff was sitting on a chair two feet away, one knee folded over the other, smoking a perfumed cigarette that was gold-tipped and wrapped with lavender paper. “Noie Barnum remained for weeks in your custody, but you never made him draw the design of the drone? You’re a businessman who kidnaps and sells valuable people, but you never try to extract information from them? You think I’m a stupid man, Mr. Krill?”

  “My name is Antonio.”

  “You came to see the woman for religious reasons? You didn’t know she helped transport arms to your country? It’s just coincidence that we found you at her house while you were on a spiritual mission? You are a very entertaining man, I think.”

  “My women have always told me that.”

  “You worked for the Americans in your country?”

  “Of course. Everyone does.”

  “But you planned to help Al Qaeda?”

  “An American helicopter killed my children. But I know now that I am responsible for their deaths, not others.”

  “Oh, I see. Because you have discovered you are powerless against the killers of your children, you blame yourself and, in so doing, become a saint. So, in our way, we are helping you with your saintliness?”

  “You taunt an uneducated man whose hands are bound after you have tortured him?” the Asian woman said from her cell. “You are a very small man, Mr. Sholokoff.”

  “Frank, take care of that,” Sholokoff said.

  “Sir?” Frank said.

  “Ms. Ling. Take care of her.”

  “The only way to shut her up is to pour concrete in her mouth,” Frank said.

  “Then do it,” Sholokoff said.

  “Sir, we need to finish with the greaser one way or another,” Frank said.

  “All I get from you are admonitions but never results. In the last forty-eight hours, we have had in our possession a defense contractor, a notorious kidnapper and coyote, and an ex–CIA operative who flew with Air America. We get nothing out of any of them. Are you successful only with a worthless man like Cody Daniels? You certainly seemed to rise to the occasion when you turned him into a living passion play. I wonder about you, Frank.”