by Peter Corris
I ran down the alley, emerged into the street that ran parallel to Coahuila, walked a block and took up a position behind a stand of scruffy palm trees in a patchy garden opposite the hotel. I wanted to see which species of enemy was on my trail. After a few minutes two men emerged. They weren't the two who'd escorted Luciano, Stompanato and me to the border, but they might just as well have been. Good suits, if a little warm for the day, clean shoes, fresh haircuts — polished gorillas. They conferred for a few minutes on the pavement, letting the swirl of Mexican humanity move around them as if it wasn't there. They were, as the sports players say nowadays, focussed.
One of them leaned into the Ford tourer that was parked at the kerb and spoke briefly to someone inside. The door opened and the brunette in the white suit stepped out. She crossed the street, seeming to glide through the traffic, took a seat under an umbrella at a pavement cafe not far from where I was hiding and lit a cigarette. One of the gorillas went back into the hotel and the other walked down a side street, headed for the rear of the building. They were going to have a lengthy and fruitless wait. I took a long look at the woman in the white suit. With the survival instinct working against every other one, I fervently hoped that I'd never see her again. I stepped back into the shadows and faded away in the direction of the bus station.
12
MEXICAN bus drivers are a special breed, which is not surprising, I suppose, because Mexican roads are unlike roads anywhere else in my experience. The bus was about half full when we pulled out of the depot in the mid-afternoon and I was reasonably comfortable with a three-person seat behind the driver to myself. An hour later, having made several stops around the city and in the outlying districts, it was crammed to the gills. And not all the passengers were humans; there were squawking chickens tied up by the legs, snakes in a basket and a live goat. The central aisle and the luggage racks were filled with bundles and packages and boxes and there was at least as much cargo loaded on the top of the bus as inside. A few kids sat up on the roof as well.
I was now sharing my seat with a fat woman and a fat girl who ate constantly — cold tortillas, bananas, sticky sugar cakes and hard candy. Every time the bus went around a sharp bend I was thrown against the woman and felt myself cannon off her soft, mushy flesh like a pool ball. She didn't speak to me or the kid, she was too busy eating. For the first ten or fifteen miles the ride was bedlam, with the passengers shouting and the chooks cackling and the driver keeping up a running stream of chatter with his assistant who squatted on the steps. The door didn't quite close and dust entered through the gap, swished around and seemed to settle in my throat. Once we'd got beyond the city the road became a corrugated dirt track with six inch potholes and randomly distributed rocks the size of footballs.
After an hour or so the racket settled down to a steady, low-pitched hum made up of noise from the bus's engine and chassis, the snoring of a lot of the passengers and the steady chomping of my neighbour's jaws. Most of the men smoked and I did too, to pass the time, and the interior of the bus was cloudy with the dust and smoke. The day was cooling fast, but the temperature inside was going up with the press of bodies. With that went an increase in the smells of humanity and livestock. Wealthy Mexicans travel by car or rail. Poorer people travel by bus and poor Mexicans, like poor people everywhere, don't wash much. Also beans make up a good part of the diet of working Mexicans, and everyone knows what that means. After three hours I'd have given a lot for one of the heavy, awkward gas masks they'd issued us with in the trenches in France in 1918.
At a market stall near the depot I'd bought a raffia basket and a few supplies — some dried fruit, fried bean cakes, bread, a couple of handsful of nuts wrapped in newspaper spills, cigarettes and a bottle of tequila. All I had was what I carried and stood up in and not a single weapon. Although I had almost six hundred dollars in my shirt pocket, probably enough to buy the bus, I looked as if I'd have had trouble raising ten. That was the way I wanted it. Several of my fellow passengers looked as if they'd disembowel their mothers for fifty bucks, let alone six hundred.
A hundred miles isn't far in a good car on a good road, but it felt like five times the distance in that bus on the narrow, winding road. The going never got so bad that the bus had to back up the way I've seen them do in some parts of the country, but there were plenty of times when we stopped to allow other vehicles to edge past and for herds of goats and mobs of sheep. People were set down and others taken on at places that looked like nothing more than a bend in the road. I waited until the sun was almost down behind the blue hills in the west before uncorking the tequila and taking a few quiet sips. The firewater washed away the dust and raised my spirits. I ate some bread and fruit, watched by the fat woman out of the corner of her eye.
My Spanish had picked up considerably since I'd been south of the border and I had no difficulty understanding her when she stopped chewing long enough to speak.
'Give me some tequila, gringo.'
'No,' I said. 'It would make you fat and it would be a pity to spoil your wonderful figure.'
She hooted with laughter and repeated the exchange to the people sitting behind us. They broke up too and passed it on. Sometimes it's easy to get a laugh. They spoke much too quickly for me to understand and I had a feeling I might have used the wrong word. Maybe I'd made her some kind of proposition. Eventually she and her gluttonous brat fell asleep. My money was securely buttoned into my shirt pocket. I took another few sips, folded my arms across my chest and tilted my hat forward. The road kept climbing and winding and didn't get any less rough, but I had a warm soft cushion beside me and after the day I'd had no power on earth could have kept me awake.
It was dark when we chugged into Mexicali, no time to go crossing the border unless you were a wetback hoping to earn fifty cents a day on a truck farm.24 I checked into the cheapest hotel I could find that would provide me with a private bath. I bought soap and toothpaste and a toothbrush at an all-night drugstore down the street as well as a day-old issue of the Calexico paper, the Border Post. I soaked in the bath for over an hour, reading the paper, sipping tequila and eating nuts. The room also boasted a radio and a telephone, putting it quite a few notches up on the place I'd skipped out of at Tijuana. After the bath I listened to the news on a California station.
It was very unusual to hear a British accent on American radio and I pricked up my ears when I heard the tones of Oxbridge intermixed with the static. It was Roger Bannister who'd broken the four minute mile a few days earlier in a time trial specially arranged to do the job with pacers and other advantages. Never seemed quite the fair way to go about it to me, but it was a terrific run.25 It's a remarkable fact, but I remember two other things about listening to the radio that night — it was the first time I ever heard the word Vietnam mentioned. The Vietnamese communists had beaten the French army in a battle at a place called Dien Bien Phu. And right after the news the station played a record by Bill Haley and the Comets called 'Rock around the Clock'. It sounded to me as if the drummer and saxophonist and guitarists were beating each other around the head with their instruments. Rock 'n' Roll and Vietnam and I forgot about them instantly. It took only a few bars of Doris Day, more my sort of thing, to wipe that noise from my mind completely.26
Relaxed and refreshed with my still wet body cooling nicely under the ceiling fan, I rang Louise.
'Sherman House, Louise Browning speaking.'
The married name had never tripped off Louise's tongue easily in the past. Now it sounded as if she'd been using it for years.
'Louise, this is Dick.'
'Dick, my god. I've been wondering when you'd call. Is everything all right? Where are you? You're not in gaol? They haven't got you?'
I started to sweat and the room felt stuffy. 'What d'you mean, got me? Of course I'm not in gaol. I'm still in Mexico.'
'Thank god. Dick, those FBI men have been very persistent. They've been around asking questions, turning the place upside down. Threatening me, almos
t. Quite different from the way they were before.'
I poured a generous shot of tequila and lit a cigarette. 'Different?'
'Yes. Much more… aggressive. They really want to catch you but… but…'
She sounded very distressed and I tried to keep my voice calm. 'But what, Louise? Take it easy, honey. I'm safe. Nothing's changed. Tell me what's going on.'
'Mr Silkstein says the FBI didn't seem to be trying too hard to catch the gangster but they seem to be trying bloody hard to catch you. He wouldn't say anything more, but I think I know what he means. Are you some kind of undercover agent, Dick? I know so little about you, really. Are you working for the FBI? Or were you? I'm so confused, I don't know what to think.'
She was confused, what about me? I've been a lot of things in my time — wine salesman, actor, soldier, aviator, private eye, but I've never been a policeman, unless you count a brief spell in the Mounties, and that was really just a case of mistaken identity.27 And as for being an undercover agent, the idea was ridiculous — way too dangerous a game for Dick. I was dumbfounded, couldn't think of anything to say, and just automatically hung up the phone. I took a deep drag on my cigarette and drank some tequila while my head filled with nightmare visions of mobsters and cops and G-men, all gunning for me.
One thing Bobby Silk had said rang true. It was difficult to believe that the authorities had tried really hard to stop Luciano. Why hadn't they posted men at the other exits from Sherman House? Why hadn't they radioed ahead to San Diego or other points south? There had been rumours that Luciano had done a deal with the Feds that had got him his parole and deportation. Was the deal still in operation and did someone in Washington not want yours truly floating around talking about how easily he skipped the country with Charley Lucky? I was willing to take any kind of oath of silence they liked, but that wouldn't satisfy anyone.
About then I realised that I'd hung up on my wife without offering her any kind of explanation or comfort. What else could she think but that I was some kind of cloak and dagger merchant? The ease and confidence I'd been feeling completely vanished. I felt that every man's hand was turned against me. Here I was, a completely innocent American citizen, a tax-paying veteran, hiding out in a two-bit hotel in a foreign country. I needed money, a lawyer, a friend and constitutional rights and the only place I had a hope of getting them was about a mile away in the United States of America.
13
THERE was no song in my heart when I inspected the border crossing the next day. It looked simple enough — a bridge over the river, a walkway beside it, plenty of coming and going of motor traffic. A few minutes' study was sufficient to reveal my problem. Not a single gringo crossed into the US on foot. They were all in cars, mostly with Californian plates, but a scattering of Texan and Arizonan. The guards waved them through with scarcely a look, but if I was to stroll along that walkway with my raffia bag in my hand I'd stand out like a camel in a horserace. The Mexicans who were crossing on foot — presumably to day jobs in Calexico — were either known to the guards or showed some kind of pass. No hope of buying a sombrero and passing myself off as a Mex.
I mooched back towards the town, discouraged but not defeated. If I could hitch a ride with some other Americans I'd be fine. Failing that I'd have to dip into my slender capital and buy a car. I gave the second idea up at once. There were several used-car dealers in Mexicali, but not one of them had a vehicle with US plates. I enquired about this at one place and the proprietor misunderstood me.
'Yes, Senor? You have some American plates for sale? I can get you top price. Which state? California, yes?'
'No, I'm asking about cars with American plates. You don't have any for sale?'
He burst out laughing. 'Senor, you are joking. For a set of American plates I would trade you any three cars on this lot. No, any four cars!'
The cars were cheap, but I got the idea. My next move was to hang around a few of the hotels in the hope of scrounging a lift. Again, no luck. Most of the American car drivers were either family men with full loads or heading further into Mexico. The few possibles, some college kids who'd crossed the border for purposes better not dwelt on, and a pair of female anthropologists who'd been working in a village to the south, were much too wary to offer their services to a seedy-looking individual like me. I took a walk along the river, vaguely thinking that I might cross it at some point downstream. Along that stretch the Rio Grande is nothing like the way it appears in the Westerns when the outlaws gallop across it and the posse turns back except for Gregory Peck.28 Here the river wasn't wide, nor deep or fast moving, but it had fifty yards of treacherous-looking muddy bank on either side. On the American side the bank was steep and rugged. There was no way to get through those two mud flats, the water and the wilderness and still look like a solid citizen.
I wandered on a bit but nothing changed. I was now a mile or so out of town and I came to an outdoor market beside the road where villagers were selling their produce. Behind the market a circus had set up. Not much of a circus; just a big tent and a few countrified sideshow attractions like horseshoe-throwing, a coconut shy and a clay pigeon shoot. The animals, an elderly lion, a quiet tiger and a couple of bored bears, were asleep in their cages. I took a look inside the tent where a not-very-high wire was set up over the sawdust with a couple of trapezes and a slightly sagging and much-mended safety net. The whole show evidently could be folded up and put inside a big Dodge truck that hauled the animal cages and a couple of trailers attached to a Ford pickup. I heard a few shots and went over to the clay-pigeon shoot where the deal was that if you could outshoot the celebrated marksman, Hartley Grattan, you could win yourself a thousand pesos. Cost you a hundred to try. Grattan was a Frank Butler29 type, with the sideburns, Stetson, fringed buckskin jacket and all.
I watched him take a few practice shots and wasn't wildly impressed. He seemed to me to swing a trifle slow and to take the target a bit below the desirable point — at the top of its arc. Still, he only missed once in three shots. When he broke the shotgun to shake out the shells I thought his hand trembled just a fraction. The guy working the target firer lined up several discs and straightened up, stretching his back. He was about sixty years old with a folded-in face and hooded dark eyes that had seen it all. He took out a tobacco pouch and stuffed a pipe. Grattan just stood staring out over the firing range with slightly bloodshot eyes.
'Have a shot, mister?' The pipe was alight and he pointed the stem at a rack of three shotguns.
'Maybe.' I inspected the guns. Two had bent barrels and the third, although straight, had a cracked stock and bad balance. I shook my head. 'Not with this junk. Couldn't hit a barn door with them at twenty feet. How about I use his gun and he uses one of these?'
The pipe-smoker looked me over carefully before sticking out his hand. 'I'm Barney Slocum and this is my circus. You look like a sporting gentleman. Things are slow. You interested in a sporting wager?'
I shook his hand and pointed at the hand-painted sign. 'It says a hundred a shot.'
'That's for the rubes. I can tell from the way you handled them guns that you know shooting. Hartley here's a mite bored. A proper bet might get his spirits up some.'
My spirits could have used some raising too but I wasn't looking to be conned and I passed another uncomplimentary remark about the shotguns. Slocum brushed this aside and told Grattan to go fetch his spare gun. The shooter wandered off without commenting.
'What's the matter with him?' I asked. 'Is he a deaf mute or something?'
Slocum took off his greasy fedora and scratched at a balding head. 'He's a moody guy. I've known him go weeks without talking. Then he drinks some and you can't shut him up. Strange man, but he sure can shoot. Been with me a year or more and I've never seen him beat.'
It was hot and dusty and we were in a two-bit circus outside a crummy Mexican border town. Slocum must have known what I was thinking because he waved everything we could see away with a majestic flick of the hand. 'I'm not talking
about this. I'm talking about cities — 'Frisco, Los Angeles, Mexico City — real shooters in some of them places.'
Before I could ask Slocum what he was doing slumming in Mexicali, Grattan came back carrying a Purdey shotgun that looked like a slightly older version of the one he'd been shooting. He handed it to me and I checked it over. It was a fine weapon, well-maintained, and it had a good, comfortable feel.
'Hartley won the Purdey he uses now in a big competition in New York,' Slocum said. 'And how much cash money, Hartley?'
'Thousand dollars.'
A few people had wandered up, apparently curious about the appearance of another gun and at the serious conversation the gringos were having. I swung and sighted with the Purdey a few times and felt confident I could shoot pretty well with it. As long as your eyes hold out, shooting ability is something you never lose, and I still had the eyesight of a young man. I took off my sunglasses, blinked a few times and let my eyes adjust to the bright light.
'What've you got in mind, Mr Slocum?'
'Straight two-man shoot. Toss for first gun. Ten shots. Twenty dollars a side. Winner take all.'
I took two tens from my roll, taking care not to let Slocum get a good look at it, and placed them in the box where he was keeping the expended shells. Then I loaded the shotgun from a box of Remingtons. There was another box containing home-loaded shells. They're fine if the loader knows what he's doing, but I preferred to trust the factory product.
'Two sighting shots,' I said.
Slocum nodded and put a twenty in the box. The Mexicans gathered around were displaying real interest now. Twenty dollars US was a lot of money. Slocum crouched by the target-firer with his pipe in his mouth.
I took my stance, breathed in and out a few times. 'Pull!'