The Hemingway Thief

by Shaun Harris

  I stepped onto the ledge and immediately regretted wearing cowboy boots for this adventure. I placed the treadless soles on the weather-worn wood, slick with mold and morning dew, and said a silent prayer that I wouldn’t die as a result of my flare for costuming. I turned to move back through the window, but Digby was already halfway out and my only choice was to keep moving. As I sidled down, the ledge creaked in protest or maybe warning, but I was able to get to the corner and grab the rusted tin drainpipe for balance.

  The broken window in the building across the alley reflected the room we’d just left, and we could see a Mexican dressed in a fine suit and Ray-Bans enter the room alone, just as Digby brought his second foot through. Digby put a finger to his lips and I shot him the bird. I didn’t need to be told to be quiet.

  “Dónde?” the Mexican said to Levi, who was still sitting in his chair with the whiskey bottle in his hand.

  “I know who sent you, asshole,” Levi said. The cool amiability he had showed us was gone, replaced by a baleful serenity. Even though the Mexican was holding a gratuitously large handgun, Levi was the one in control.

  “No, dónde está el hombre,” the Mexican repeated, but this time it was less demanding.

  “Where you think, motherfucker?” Levi said. “They went out the window.” I would have toppled off the ledge onto the rusty shards below if Digby hadn’t reached out and righted me again. In the window’s reflection, the Mexican cocked his head and shrugged. Levi sighed and translated. “La ventana.”

  The Mexican nodded, racked the slide on his gun, and marched to the window. He shot his head out, looking first down at the scrapyard and then at the window across the way. He noticed us in the reflection and, in the moment it took him to realize we were right next to him, Digby brought his leg up and his heel down on the Mexican’s jaw. There was a sickening crack, like breaking crockery, and the Mexican, who had been leaning precariously out the window, tumbled out. He did a half-gainer and landed on top of a pair of discarded lawn-mower blades.

  The brittle ledge under Digby gave out, and he nearly followed the Mexican down to his ignominious end. He grabbed the windowsill and hung there, one arm waving behind him, still holding his gun, dangling over broken metal and a dead Mexican.

  “A little help,” Digby said with a calm tone. I stepped over the piece of broken ledge and dove headfirst back into the room. I reached back through the window and helped Digby inside. Levi watched the whole thing with an amused grin.

  “I forgot to tell you,” he said. “I’ve been letting Miguel use the alley to store some junk. It’s a little dicey down there.”

  “No shit,” Digby said. He moved to the open door and peeked out. “The other two are still downstairs. I guess we’ll just have to shoot our way out.”

  “Fuck that,” I said, walking over to the soiled mattress. “There may be two down there and fifty outside. We go out the window.”

  “Fifty sounds excessive,” Levi said. I grabbed the mattress, ignoring the fouler stains, and dragged it over to the window.

  “I would describe everything you two do as excessive,” I said. The mattress was a twin and old enough that it bent in the middle considerably. I folded it onto itself and got the end through the open window. Digby, catching on to my plan, helped me shove it through. It landed on top of the Mexican, adding another gruesome layer of cushioning.

  “After you,” I said, and Digby shook his head.

  “What if they come up here after I jump?” he said.

  “You’re just chickenshit,” Levi kidded him.

  “You may be right,” Digby replied. I climbed outside without further comment. I hung down from the sill as far as my arms would allow and kicked out my legs, turning in the air. My ass landed on the mattress with the sound of creaking metal and the squelch of the dead man underneath. I kicked a few auto parts aside and gingerly slid off the mattress. I was barely on solid ground when I heard Digby hit the mattress behind me. I didn’t wait for him. Winding through the debris and picking my way through the junk, I was very glad now to have my boots.

  I nosed around the corner to survey the situation out front. The street was deserted. Apparently, the people on this end of Tequilero—the playing-card enthusiasts in the bar notwithstanding—slept late. Digby crept up behind me and put his hand on my shoulder.

  “You cool if we just run for it?” he said. I looked over my shoulder. He was grinning and his eyebrows were raised sardonically.

  “Are you enjoying this?” I asked.

  “I’m enjoying you enjoying it,” he said, and pointed across the street. The RV was still tucked between two buildings. The windshield was obscured by shadow, and it was impossible to tell if Grady and Milch were waiting for us inside. “You run like hell and I’ll keep you covered. I’ll be right behind you.”

  “You’ll be right behind me or you’ll keep me covered,” I said.

  “I can do both.”

  “I guess we’ll find out.”

  Digby snorted a laugh and prodded me in the back. I took a tentative step away from the building’s relative cover. My left foot joined my right and I moved forward in a stuttered shuffle, keeping my eye on the front door of the bar. The Rottweiler stared at me until something inside the tavern caught his attention. He spun around on his haunches, growling at the batwing doors, one of which was swinging more swiftly than just the wind would allow.

  “Faster than that, Toulouse,” Digby said. He stepped out behind me, turned on his heel with the same animal precision as the dog, and raised his gun. Several things happened in unison, or close enough that they have melted into one event in my memory. Digby fired into the darkened doorway. A tall Mexican, dressed in the same dark suit as the one upstairs, pushed through the batwings and raised a sawed-off shotgun. Digby’s bullet caught him in the throat before the shotgun could clear the door. He fired back through reflex and the door exploded. A chair burst through the large plate-glass window. Another suited gunman, standing in the now-empty frame, raised his own sawed-off. The cacophony of gunshots, exploding doors, and shattered glass shocked my senses, and my muscles turned to pure instinct. My legs pumped without my permission, and my arms flailed with unconscious abandon. I heard the shotgun fire, I heard Digby fire twice. I could not say in what order these things occurred, but the chronology must have been in Digby’s favor because when I slammed into the RV’s grille and turned around, he was striding, maybe even strutting, across the street without pursuit.

  I scrambled around to the driver’s side and pulled open the door. Milch was sitting in the passenger seat. He had one of my books in his hands, but his focus was on the street in front of him. His mouth hung open and his eyes were glazed like a stoner watching SpongeBob. I climbed in behind the wheel and smacked him hard on the shoulder.

  “Jesus,” he said, and I couldn’t tell if the blasphemy was directed at the slap or what had just happened across the street.

  “Where’s Grady?” I asked. Milch jerked a thumb over his shoulder.

  “Taking a leak,” he said, and tossed the book onto the dashboard. Digby climbed into the backseat and leaned in between us.

  “Let’s go,” he said, as if he had just finished picking up his dry cleaning.

  “Grady,” I said. “We’re waiting for Grady.”

  “Like hell we are,” Milch sputtered. “People are shooting at us, he’s taking a leak. That’s his tough luck.”

  I looked at Digby, hoping for a cue to take, but his eyes were on the street. When he did glance at me, there was only a vague curiosity. The decision, it appeared, was mine, if only by virtue of the fact that I was sitting in the driver’s seat.

  “We’re waiting,” I said, dismayed at how weak it sounded on the way out. Milch reached for the keys, and I pulled them out of the ignition, holding them over my head while I pushed at Milch with my other hand. We were locked in this struggle when Grady opened the back door and plopped inside.

  “Goddamn it,” he said, looking down
at his crotch. He was furiously rubbing the fabric of his pants. “I caught my balls in my zipper and pissed all over myself. Was that gunfire?”

  I put the key in the ignition, turned it, and the engine came on with a mechanical belch. I pulled out onto the street and pressed the accelerator as far as the old beast would allow. The bar receded in the rearview mirror. No one was coming out, and I heard no sirens. Apparently the cops in Tequilero didn’t get up that early either.

  “I take it the meeting didn’t go well?” Milch said.

  “As well as I expected,” Digby said. He climbed halfway into the front seat and grabbed my novel off the dashboard. He settled back onto the floor, licked his finger, and flipped through to find his place. “Take the next left and then keep going until the road starts to rise. Then I’ll take over.”

  “We heading further into the Monte?” Grady asked.

  Digby nodded and hunkered down to catch the sun on the page.

  Chapter Seventeen

  We ate the last of Digby’s sandwiches a half mile off the road, under a copse of juniper trees. The ice in the cooler had melted and the beer was warm, but the plastic wrap had held firm and the sandwiches were not soggy. I was grateful for that small miracle. I went with the ham on rye. Digby had cut the crusts off.

  “I want to get it on the record that I am not comfortable with the number of dead bodies I’ve come in contact with recently,” I said over the wad of pork and dairy in my mouth. “For that matter, I’m not entirely on board with the method in which the bodies are being produced.”

  “The fuck you talking about?” Milch said. He was finishing his second can of warm beer. I hadn’t seen him eat a sandwich.

  “It’s new to him,” Grady translated. “What did you expect, Coop?”

  “I wasn’t expecting this,” I said. I wadded up my plastic wrap and threw it into the empty cooler, where it joined the rest of the garbage.

  “Yeah, no shit,” Milch said. He had finished his beer and tossed it in the dirt next to the junipers. His back was against the RV, pressed into the slim sliver of shade it provided. He leaned against it with his hands in his pockets, like a punk staring down a patrol car as it cruised by. “Why didn’t you tell us you had a contract out on you, Digby?”

  “I didn’t think it would come up,” Digby said. He was sitting on the bottom step of the RV, his arms resting on his knees. He had a strange, nervous look that seemed wrong on him, like formal wear on a hobo. “It’s been a long time.”

  “Yeah, you know the cartels,” Milch said. “They usually let things slide over time.”

  “Not the cartels,” Digby said. “Just a woman.”

  “Apparently, though,” I said, “she’s some kind of super-assassin. Best in the world.”

  “Come again?” Grady said.

  “Second-best, sorry,” I said. “There’s talk of a guy in Ireland who may or may not be better. This is all from Levi, mind you.” I shook my finger at the humped-over shape of Digby. “Your friend, whom I only just met, but he seemed to know what he was talking about. Of course, he also completely fucked us over.”

  “I already explained that,” Digby said. He had. Over the several-hour drive from Tequilero, Digby had tried to explain the various coteries, confederacies, and connections to which Levi was beholden and that motivated his apparent betrayal. The Sierra Madres’ underworld network was a byzantine system of alliances and blood oaths that reminded me of Europe circa 1914, and just like the Industrial Age empires it could erupt in war at any given moment.

  A hitter, such as La Dónde, needs clients. Levi’s job was to arrange the meeting with the client for a percentage of the hitter’s fee. La Dónde was one of his clients, and a profitable one at that. Once the meeting was made and the percentage taken, however, the casamentero was under no obligation to see the job done. Levi was free to pursue his best interests or succumb to fealty for an old friend. By screwing over both La Dónde and Digby he had not, in the twisted logic of the Monte, done either of them a disservice.

  “What the hell kind of name is La Dónde?” Grady said. He had been quiet since Tequilero, which I hoped was due to the embarrassment of catching his balls in his zipper during a gunfight, but I feared something else was seething inside him.

  “It means ‘the where,’” Digby said. “I called her that because you never knew where she was until it was too late.”

  “You called her that?” I said.

  “Back when we were partners.”

  “Partners?” Grady said. He fished a piece of his sandwich from his cheek with his tongue. Somehow he made this disgusting move look menacing. “What kind of partners?”

  Digby pulled his pack of cigarettes out of his shirt pocket and dragged one out with dry lips. He slipped his lighter from his jeans and leaned forward into his hands to shield the flame from the wind.

  “We were lovers,” he said.

  “What does that mean?” Grady asked.

  “It means they fucked in the nineteenth century,” I said.

  “It ended badly,” Digby said, his eyes squinting from the cigarette smoke.

  “You cheat on her?” Grady asked.

  “Something like that,” he said.

  “I’m no expert by any stretch,” Milch said, “but it seems to me that you don’t cheat on the deadliest killer in the world.”

  “Second-deadliest,” Digby corrected him, “but no, you don’t do that.”

  “You want to just tell us what happened instead of mumbling like a mopey fucking character in a Nicholas Sparks book?” I said. I had lost patience with the demureness of my fellow travelers. Their secrets, as well as their unsatisfying explanations, had begun to weigh on me. I wanted answers instead of the mandala of half-truths, heavy silences, and knowing looks I had been getting.

  “Were you a hitter, too?” Grady said.

  “Not for a long time,” Digby said. He dropped his cigarette in the dirt and crushed it out with the heel of his boot. “It’s irrelevant. I made a mistake, but it doesn’t matter. She doesn’t know where we’re going.”

  “How do you know that?” Milch asked. “How do you know Levi didn’t tell her where we’re going?”

  “Where are we going?” Grady said.

  “Some place called Los Ojos,” I said.

  Grady shook his head like a wet dog. “Never heard of it.”

  “Wherever we’re going,” Milch said, “how do we know Levi didn’t tell this bitch all about it?”

  “I don’t, but we’re not going there,” Digby said. “I’m taking you guys south to the closest airport.”

  “Well, isn’t that just fucking special,” Milch cried, throwing up his hands. The RV rocked and swayed as he pushed himself off of it. He stood over Digby with his hands on his hips like a parent discovering his son doing something he shouldn’t in the bathroom.

  Digby looked back at Milch, squinting in the sun. “Are you, of all people, upset I didn’t tell you who I used to be?”

  “I get it,” Milch spat. “That’s supposed to be you being clever, right? You know what, though? At least when I misrepresent myself, it’s in the interest of my profession.” He turned and kicked the dirt. A rooster tail of dust sputtered into the air and a gust of wind blew it back into the grifter’s face. He sputtered and swiped at the air in comical frustration. He took a deep breath and waved his hand at Digby and Grady. “And here I was thinking I was rolling with Josey Wales and Denzel Fucking Washington.”

  “Who’s Denzel Washington?” I said.

  “The actor,” Grady answered. He was wiping his hands on his jeans.

  “No, I mean which one of you is supposed to be Denzel?”

  “Grady,” Milch said. “Told me he was like Denzel Washington in that movie.”

  “Crimson Tide?” I said.

  “Time to go,” Grady said as he stood up and backhanded Milch all in one motion. Milch spun from the blow and fell into the RV. He put his arm out to stop himself, but it went through the weak and c
racked fiberglass, and he slid through until his face struck the wall. The impact snapped his head back and he fell onto his ass in the dirt.

  “What the fuck was that for?” Milch said, rubbing his wrist. A small, red welt was forming under his eye, and a thin rivulet of blood trickled from his nostril. He looked up at Grady with more bewilderment than anger.

  “You were out of control,” Grady said. His back was to me as he stood over Milch. His hands were unclenched at his sides and he spoke calmly. Milch’s eyes flicked to me and then back to Grady’s face. He saw something there that made him raise his eyebrows and laugh.

  “Maybe I was,” he said.

  “Yeah,” Grady said. “The question is, what do we do now?”

  Milch licked the blood from his lip and shrugged. “There’s no fucking question,” he said, and spat a bloody hunk on the ground. “We go to this Chavez’s place.”

  “Digby,” Grady said, keeping his eyes on Milch. “Those guys at the bar. They work for La Dónde, or were they contracted?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t seen her in years. I don’t know what kind of organization she has now.”

  “But they were after you, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Would Levi tell her where we’re going?”

  “I doubt it, but I can’t be certain.”

  “So Digby stays in the RV while we talk with this Chavez guy,” Grady said, offering his hand to Milch. Milch took it and Grady helped him to his feet.

  “Exactly,” Milch said. “We’ve got nothing to worry about.”

  “You want to weigh in here, Digby?” Grady said.

  “They’re after me, not you,” Digby said. “I think we can assume we’re safe.”

  “‘Assume’?” Grady said. “But I thought you were the guy who says the wise man never assumes anything.”

  “We’re already out here,” Digby replied. “None of this fits under the category of wise.”

  “Good enough for me,” Grady said. He picked up his garbage, dropped it in the cooler, closed it up, and slid it back into the rear of the RV. “We got a fortune in a suitcase out there, boys.” He climbed inside. After a moment, the engine came to life and a small, steady stream of grey smoke puffed from the muffler. Milch climbed into the front seat, patting me on the back as he passed. Digby entered through the back door and held it open for me.