Houston Attack

by Randy Wayne White

  Hawker slid the panties down as his lips traced the heat of her thighs. Andrea’s fists knotted in Hawker’s hair as his tongue found the inner depths of her, tasting the sweet mixture of sweat and salt as he lowered her once again to the carpet.

  Her back arched, and her face grew flushed as she escaped into that timeless world of physical pleasure; a world that knew no pain or loss, only the inexorable drive to join, to complete, to rebuild and prevail.

  Then, with a growl, she rolled away and pounced on top of him, her eyes feverish.

  Her breasts hung heavily over his face, and he touched her nipples with his tongue.

  “Your turn,” she purred.

  “But I’m not done with you,” he protested.

  “You’re damn right you’re not.”

  Her hands shook as she found the zipper on his jeans and pulled his pants off. Eagerly she took him in both small hands and guided him toward her hungry mouth.

  For a time she was like an animal who was starving. And Hawker could do nothing but lay there, fighting for control as the woman both used him and gave him pleasure.

  “Oh, James,” she moaned as the two of them approached their third—or fourth—climax. “Oh, James. Why did we ever split up?”

  Hawker stopped what he was doing for a moment and kissed her belly button. “Because,” he said, trying hard not to smile, “we couldn’t stay in bed twenty-four hours a day.”

  “We could have tried,” she growled. “Why in the hell didn’t we try?”

  four

  So Hawker waited on the road in the desert night. He held the Ingram submachine gun poised at hip level.

  There were about a dozen of them, running toward him in the night. One of them had a rifle, and the slugs were beginning to vector in on Hawker, gouging chunks of asphalt from the road.

  He knew that to run was to die.

  All that lay between the little border town and Texas was fifty miles of cactus prairie. If he didn’t kill them all tonight, they would hunt him come first light. And there was no place to hide on the prairie.

  Hawker pulled out the Ingram’s metal stock. With the stock in, the little weapon was less than a foot long. The stock doubled the length.

  He had used the Ingram many times and trusted it. Even so, the weapon had its limitations. It fired 9mm shorts at the astounding rate of twelve hundred rounds per minute—if you could feed it that quickly. The long box clip in the weapon held thirty-two rounds, and Hawker had three more clips hidden beneath the serape.

  But its effective killing range was only fifty meters. So he would have to wait for them to step into his killing radius. He would have to stand helplessly by while they took potshots on the run. He would have to stand and hope the frail light of the new moon wasn’t enough for them to draw a bead and pray that maybe, just maybe, they might guess him to be unarmed and try to take him alive.

  But he had worked too hard, come too far, to be hunted.

  It had not been an easy investigation.

  That gray morning in April with Andrea had turned into twenty-four hours of love. Sometimes she was as rough and hungry as a lioness. Other times she was gentle and a little sad and would break into soft tears after their lovemaking.

  She had been close to her brother. She had loved him dearly, and it was her first experience with a family death.

  Hawker had enough experience with it to draw on, and he helped her through the tough moments.

  They never left his apartment. They would love, fall into light sleep, then awake to shower and eat and love again. In those twenty-four hours, Hawker sensed Andrea had chosen this time as her period of mourning and her period of healing. He felt a strange pride that after all these years it was still he whom she chose to be with at her most uncertain hour.

  But finally it ended. The woman dressed herself, gave him a sisterly peck on the cheek, and walked back down the stairs toward the Mercedes and the fast and glittery existence that was her world.

  And Hawker remained alone. Alone with his commitment to help. Alone with his promise to track down the goons who had murdered her brother.

  The first thing he did was call Jake Hayes. He didn’t have to clear his vigilante plans with Hayes, but he did want to touch base. Hayes had grown up in Texas, and he would no doubt have some powerful connections that might be of use.

  Hendricks, the English butler who had spent the war working under cover for Great Britain’s MI-5, answered the phone.

  “Hank!” Hawker had exclaimed. “Is the boss in?”

  The Englishman’s dry wit was like a razor. “Chubby? Is that you? Taken a break from the fats and sweets long enough to contact old friends, have we?”

  Hawker laughed. “I’ve trimmed down to a lean one ninety-five, you mean old man. And I’m running seven-minute miles.”

  “My, that sort of speed will come in handy in a fight. The French used it quite effectively at the beginning of the war when they ran from the Germans.”

  Still laughing, Hawker pressed, “Now that you’ve called me a fat coward, can I talk to Jake?”

  Hawker could imagine the stoic, sober face breaking into a grin. “Of course, dear boy. No one the two of us would rather hear from.”

  Jacob Hayes was immediately sympathetic as Hawker repeated Andrea’s story. Of course he would provide the backing. Yes, he would help in any way he could.

  “But I should warn you, James,” Hayes added. “You haven’t spent much time in south Texas. And I suspect it’s like no place you’ve ever seen before. As big as it is, there’s still a small-town mentality there. They’re a tight-knit group. They don’t like outsiders. Some of those millionaire ranchers quite literally are like feudal lords. Whole villages depend on them for survival. Their jobs, their homes, their cars—everything. And most of them run their towns with an iron fist. Because of their wealth and because of their power, the law—quite literally—doesn’t apply to them. The townspeople know that, so don’t be surprised if they’re reluctant to help.”

  “I’ve run into walls before, Jake.”

  “I know that, James. And I also know that no one is better at going through walls than you. It’s just a word of warning. Most of the people you’ll find there are good people. Damn good people. If they like you. But if they don’t like you … well, just be careful, that’s all.”

  “I will, Jake. And you’ll have my equipment delivered?”

  “By a personal courier—the moment you call with an address. And I’ll also have a list of men in Houston, San Antonio, and Corpus Christi you can contact if you need help. Old friends of mine.”

  “Great, Jacob. I’ll stay in touch.”

  So James Hawker dropped from the canned air and nonsmoking section of thirty-seven thousand feet into the steel and glass glare of Houston. Dropped from the friendly skies of United into the dry heat of the West’s Big Apple with its Lone Star billboards and tooled-leather Cadillacs and its Willie Nelson savvy.

  Caught a cab through the rush and glitter of the city built by cowpokes, oil barons, sheikhs, rednecks, and millionaire good ol’ boys. Rented a private apartment and cabled Jake Hayes his address. Ate a surprisingly satisfying hamburger with barbecue sauce at a place called Rio Bravo Burger. Then went out for a long run to get the feel of the city.

  Beneath the glitter, Houston had an atmosphere all its own. An energy of regionalism and independence. There were more western-wear shops than K-Marts. More Rio Bravo Burger franchises than McDonald’s.

  Hawker knew he was there for a long stay.

  It took him a week just to get an appointment with the Houston D.A.—and then only through the pressure brought to bear by one of Jake Hayes’s powerful friends.

  The D.A. was an older, powerfully built man who wore his western three-piece suit as comfortably as the farmer he looked like might wear overalls. His name was Gas Blakely. “Gas” short for Gasteau according to the brass nameplate on his desk.

  He had a hard, meaty handshake, thin blond hair, and a
flushed, corpulent face that hid its weariness behind a big grin of welcome. The office was leather and fine wood, and the plush red carpet was a gigantic Navajo weave.

  As Hawker took a seat, Blakely propped his expensive ostrich-skin boots on the desk and fired up a cigar. “Mr. Hawker,” he began, “no one feels worse about the death of Jonathan Flischmann than I do. He was my boy. I hired him, brought him down here and turned him loose. He was my responsibility and I fucked up.” He shot a plume of smoke into the air, and his expression was a mixture of anger and self-reproach. “I don’t think I can put it any plainer than that.”

  Hawker nodded at his frankness. “As you know, I’m a friend of Jonathan’s family, and they thought if I came down—”

  “Let’s cut the bullshit, Mr. Hawker,” Blakely interrupted, swinging his feet off the desk and leaning forward. “You obviously have some powerful friends—that’s how you got in here to see me. Right from your first call, I had you marked as some half-assed private eye that Jonathan’s people sent down to give us slow-thinking, slow-talking good ol’ boys a kick in the ass. They want to see justice done, so they hired their own man—that’s the way I had it figured.”

  Hawker’s eyes narrowed. “And how do you have it figured now, Mr. Blakely?”

  The big District Attorney smiled for the first time. “You rile quick, don’t you? That’s the way it is with you redheads. Hell, I ought to know. I married one! And from the look in your eyes, Mr. Hawker, I wouldn’t want to get on your bad side. No siree.” He laughed, and for the first time Hawker realized that he wasn’t getting the quick brush-off as he had thought he would.

  “I’m licensed as a private investigator, but that’s not why I’m here,” Hawker said mildly.

  The smile vanished from Blakely’s face, and once again Hawker could see the weariness in the man. “I know exactly why you’re here, Mr. Hawker. I’ve checked your background thoroughly—and a very impressive background it is. But that’s not how I found out why you’re here. Word of mouth, Mr. Hawker. That’s how I learned. Rumors here, stories told in back rooms there. Yesterday, it suddenly dawned on me. A red-haired ex-cop. You’re becoming something of a legend among the law enforcement agencies around this country. Los Angeles was your last stop, wasn’t it? Or was it New York?” Blakely let the silence build for a moment before adding, “No one will speak openly about you and what you do. But the word’s out just the same.”

  Hawker’s expression didn’t change. “You must be mistaking me for someone else, Mr. Blakely. Like I said—I’m just a friend of the family’s.”

  “Right. Like Patton was a friend of the queen.” The big D.A. wiped his palm across his face as if trying to wipe away the responsibilities of his position. “Do you know what really pisses me off about Jonathan’s death, Mr. Hawker? What really pisses me off is that it was such a professional job. We don’t have a damn thing to go on—and won’t. So now we’re going to have to bring in someone else to take Jonathan’s position. And he’s going to put in eight more months of hard work tracking these bastards down—if he lives, that is. And then we’re going to spend two years in the courts trying to prosecute them and even then probably only end up with the small fry. And do you know why, Mr. Hawker? The reason is, we’ve got to follow every tiny little letter of the law. We’ve not only got to touch all the bases, we’ve got to touch them twice. And do you know what the people responsible for Jonathan’s death are going to be doing while we’re touching all the bases? They’re going to be laughing their asses off while they hide their tracks.”

  “Is that the news you want me to take back to Jonathan’s family, Mr. Blakely?” Hawker asked.

  “Officially? You’re damn right it is—because that’s the way it has to be.” His eyes locked onto Hawker’s. “But unofficially, I almost wish you were the guy I thought you were. Because, if you were”—he reached into his drawer and slapped a thin folder onto the desk—“I’d give you this list of names. It’s the same list I gave Jonathan eight and a half months ago. It was his starting point. And to uncover this slave ring and to find Jonathan’s killers, a man would have to jump right back into his footprints.”

  “I understand Jonathan called you just before he died.”

  “Yes. That’s right.”

  “Did he give you any indication who was involved in the slave ring?”

  Blakely shook his head. “That’s the unfortunate thing. No names. No specifics. He wanted to save all that until I read his report. But he did say one curious thing. He said that he had uncovered a hell of a lot more than just a slavery ring. He said Texas wouldn’t be the same once his report came out.”

  “He had found something much bigger?”

  “That was the implication.”

  “Any idea what it might be?”

  Blakely shook his head. “Jonathan was smart. He played his cards pretty close to the chest. Too close in this instance.” The big man smiled. “And you’re asking an awful lot of questions for just a friend of the family.”

  As Hawker stood to leave, Gas Blakely added, “There are a few other things I’d tell this red-haired vigilante, Mr. Hawker. I’d tell him that if he needed some advice or more information to call the number on the inside leaf of that folder. It’s my private line, and I have it checked once a week to make sure it’s clean.” Blakely stood to face him. He reached into his jacket pocket and took a large pinch of snuff from a can of Copenhagen. “And there’s something else I’d tell him,” he went on. “I’d tell him not to get caught, Mr. Hawker. I’d tell him not to get caught in Texas because, if he does, we’d put him in jail and throw away the key. Do you understand my meaning, Mr. Hawker?”

  James Hawker reached and picked up the file. As he left the room he said, “I understand you totally, Mr. Blakely. And if I see this mysterious red-haired guy, I’ll pass it along.”

  five

  So Hawker took the list of names Gas Blakely gave him and went to work.

  As Jake Hayes had warned, it was not easy work.

  Texans would not open up around a stranger from Chicago. And despite what Hawker told them, he still looked like an ex-pro running back or, at worst, a cop. Clothes are simply labels—labels that tell strangers who we are, what we do, what niche we fit in in the social order.

  Hawker learned that in order to get anywhere in his investigation he would have to change roles as readily as a chameleon changes its colors.

  Hawker’s first role was that of the wealthy pseudo-cowboy. With Hayes’s financial backing, the props were no problem. Big rented Cadillac with full bar and driver. Five-hudred-dollar boots and western suit. But there was no way he could pass himself off as a Texan because, as Hayes had pointed out, the nation’s largest state still operated very much like a small town. Hawker didn’t know the code words: the names of the friends of friends; the stories about who played quarterback for the high school state champions way back when.

  The men of Houston’s back-room power structure would have marked him as a fake in a minute.

  So Hawker chose the role of the millionaire from Chicago who had always had a little bit of Texas in his heart. One of Hayes’s friends fixed him up with passes to half a dozen exclusive men’s clubs in Houston. So Hawker spent the week playing high stakes paddleball, talking big business, eating inch-thick porterhouses, and drinking aged bourbon with men who accepted him as a power structure member—but still an outsider.

  Hawker surprised himself by how easily he fell into the role. His cover story was that he was putting together acreage for the western dream house his new wife had always wanted. He also let it be known that he liked the idea of getting into the cattle and oil business. To talk about it convincingly he had to read up on the language of big money: options, buy-backs, fliers, rollover investments, and a dozen other terms that took the glamour out of money and made it just another commodity, like soybeans.

  Hawker had never been particularly interested in money, so it was all new to him. Oddly, he found himself am
used at the realization that to enter the world of big business you didn’t need money. You just needed the trappings of the current power structure—and credit.

  The Texans were free with their advice about business. But to his discreet inquiries about where he could buy some dependable full-time help for the mythical ranch he was buying, he still got vague replies and empty stares.

  That’s when Hawker invented the one-armed ranch hand character.

  He bought the serape, jeans, boots, and hat at the Salvation Army store in downtown Houston. The serape gave him the camouflage he needed for his weaponry. Even so, he had a local seamstress make him a modified chest protector to go under the serape and his western shirt. The chest protector would hide his right arm and the bulge of weapons from an unprofessional frisk. And the missing arm would make him seem harmless to the men he now hunted. After all, what was there to fear from a man with one arm?

  Before he left Houston, he bought an ancient pickup truck, had a few options built for it, then tossed an equally old saddle and bags into the back and headed south with the list of contacts that the late Jonathan Flischmann had traced only nine months earlier.

  It was in this role that Hawker began to make headway. He spent two weeks traveling the dusty, hot back roads seeking contacts, and finally, on a desolate stretch of State Route 16, well south of Seven Sisters, Texas, Hawker located Sancho Rigera, one of the names on the list.

  Sancho was a small Mexican man with a big grin and a bigger family: five sons; seven daughters; and a chubby, overworked, but happy, wife. Sancho lived in a neat three-room adobe cottage that had a 1930 vintage telephone but no plumbing. Rigera had come to the attention of the Houston D.A.’s office when he complained that certain men were trying to force him and several others in his little village to turn over the mineral rights to his farmed-out hundred-acre ranch.

  It was suspected by the D.A.’s office that these same men were involved with the slavery ring.