Bordersnakes

by James Crumley

  On the way back to West Texas to pick up Sughrue I cut over the mountains down into Palm Springs and found the windmill fields, the white windmills. Graceful, peaceful technology creating electricity out of air, something out of nothing. Perfect twentieth-century machine. And living proof that efficient beauty replicated is fucking ugly. But fascinating, nonetheless.

  As the Beast rolled past them heading east that day, I had a sudden impulse to stop, to listen, I think, to the sweep of the great blades, a whole field of them—whoosh, whoosh, whoosh in the hot breeze—and perhaps sleep as if in a gentle black wind.

  But I didn’t stop then, and if I stopped now, fucking Sughrue would think I was crazy and start worrying about me again. Christ, it was like taking your grandmother on a bank robbery. But when he wasn’t indulging himself in his mother-hen act, he was still great company. We hadn’t become friends by accident. And in a bad situation his friendship might be the difference between life and death. Not that I gave much of a shit. Not now. I just wanted to recover my father’s money and take my revenge as quietly as possible, perhaps just cut their fucking heads off with a shovel as I would a run-over rattlesnake or a Mexican drug dealer’s hand, and feel completely justified, then go somewhere where nobody knew my name and become a town drunk—the one who studies baseball encyclopedias and can give a passing stranger the roster of the 1924 Giants or the ’54 Indians—then drink until I died in my sleep, peacefully strangled by my own vomit.

  What I didn’t want was Sughrue hurt. Not even a little bit. I didn’t want to face Whitney and Baby Lester with his blood on my hands. And I didn’t want him to face them with blood on his hands, not blood or bone chips or gray matter. After what happened to me, I was damn sure of that. I guess there’s something to be said for hitting the hard-rock bottom of your life; a certain clarity of mind forms from the muck, forms and rises like life itself.

  If I could have dumped him, I would have. But not only did he stick to my tail like a bad hound, he knew where we were going. And if I had told him what I had in mind, he’d ask, “Who’s the fucking grandma now?” I wondered what sort of favor he had done for Nancy to make her come up with the O’Bannion name. Probably fun, I suspected.

  I almost laughed. Still, I looked at the windmills with something akin to longing, thought of swimming with the whales, sleeping wrapped in Nancy’s silver hair, sleeping without dreams.

  —

  O’Bannion’s place looked as if it had been moved from the fifties and dropped against a rocky hillside among the cactus and Joshua trees, a pool shimmering blue in the center of a circle of rooms set over covered parking places, with a rambling faux adobe behind a steel fence and a locked gate about a hundred yards up the slope.

  When I checked in, I found the rooms were clean and bright and shining with scrubbed formica and glowing chrome and white asphalt floor tiles. The walls seemed made of windows as clear as a mountain stream, and when I flopped on the large bed, I felt as if I had fallen into a god’s perfect pocket.

  Poor Sughrue. He had lodged in a motel down by the highway, one of those two, four, six, eight, we don’t masturbate, much, establishments that didn’t even have a bar. It did have a rough and wonderful empty space between it and O’Bannion’s where we could set up an observation post.

  O’Bannion’s, on the other hand, had a great bar off the restaurant, dark and cool and secret, with red plush booths and stools, the only hints of light the cool glow of real candles in smoked glass holders, the flickering reflections on the chromed stool legs, and the soft whiskey-flavored glow from the back bar.

  After waiting moments for my eyes to adjust from the blazing sundown to the dim space of the empty bar, I spotted a bald older guy with the size and grace of an Alaskan brown bear leaning his great back against the bar as he watched a football game on the color television in the corner.

  “What can I do you for?” he said as he dropped a coaster in front of me.

  “I always like an empty Sunday night bar,” I said as I climbed on the stool. “No amateurs.” O’Bannion smiled politely. “Coors,” I said, “no glass.”

  “Colorado Kool-Aid,” he said, then turned to the cooler.

  “A thin bitter beer for the end of a hot afternoon,” I said, then nodded toward the television. “I’d’ve guessed black and white,” I added.

  O’Bannion smiled, ran his hand over his barren pate, then said, “Don’t make ’em much anymore. Not big enough to see, anyway. You staying at the motel?” I nodded. “First one’s on me, sir. How about a knock to hold that thin beer down?”

  “Jameson’s,” I said, and the large grin widened across his face. “Thanks.”

  “How’d you find this place?” O’Bannion said as he poured both of us a shot of the Irish whiskey. “I don’t advertise.”

  “On my way to Twenty-Nine Palms,” I said, “and turned off the road looking for a beer. Saw this place, sir, like a dream out of my youth. Ought to be a museum. It’s fucking beautiful.”

  “Thanks,” he said. “Built the place with my own hands.”

  “Damn good job,” I said.

  “What’s in Twenty-Nine Palms?” he asked.

  “Looking for a warm place to retire.”

  “Jesus, friend. You an ex-Marine?”

  “Army,” I said, “but I’m a retired deputy sheriff from North Dakota.”

  O’Bannion laughed, raised his glass, and said, “Well, here’s a go, partner.” After we drank, he said, “No offense, but I think you can find a better place to retire. And cheaper. And warmer. And more fun than hanging out with a bunch of jar-heads.”

  “Where’s that?” I asked.

  “Mexico.”

  Lord knows what I expected after hearing that magic word again—hell, I hadn’t even crossed the border yet—but what I didn’t expect was a long discourse on the American retirement communities of Mexico, the value of the American dollar against the Mexican peso, the youth and beauty of Mexican whores, and the joys of warm afternoons on the square in Chihuahua conversing with ancient, sun-wrinkled cowboys retired from all over the American West, all of this punctuated by endless shots of Jameson’s, a whiskey I’d never liked that much, laughs, jokes, and stories of our misspent youths, his spent as a stunt double in Hollywood, and mine as a lawman in an almost mythical Grand Forks, North Dakota, a city I had visited only once many years ago to set up a false identity.

  I finally walked into the chilly desert night before I became hopelessly drunk and lost track of my lies. And, taking as a commandment that you shouldn’t shoot your friends, before O’Bannion and I became new best friends.

  After he saw the light in my window, Sughrue came in from the night, dressed in the desert camo fatigues we had picked up before leaving LA.

  “Working hard, old man?” he said as he grabbed a beer from the cooler.

  “Irish whiskey is a fucking chore,” I said.

  “What’d you get?”

  “Drunk.”

  “And?”

  “A long lecture on the benefits and joys of a Mexican retirement,” I said. “And the distinct impression that the big son of a bitch is the toughest and the most criminal of all the bent bunch we’ve seen in the past few weeks…”

  “But you liked him?” Sughrue said as he cracked another beer.

  “He wanted to kiss me when I left.”

  “Nothing solid, though?” he said.

  “Just a drunken impression,” I admitted, “that Tipton is here, O’Bannion is nervous, and we’re in a slippery load of goose shit.”

  “He’s not in the house or the motel,” Sughrue said. “How you want to work it?”

  “If he doesn’t lead us to Tipton by tomorrow afternoon,” I said, “I think I’ll just be straight with him. We don’t have much time to play cute before the cops show up.” Sughrue considered that, shook his head once, then nodded. “Leave me a map so I can find where you’re set up,” I said, “and I’ll order some room service, pass out for three hours, then relieve
you till daylight.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “Leave me a little bump,” I said, “so I’ll at least be awake for part of my watch.”

  Sughrue stared at me for a long moment. “You all right?”

  My grin didn’t quite fit my face, but I answered, “Just try me, kiddo.”

  “Don’t forget your long johns, old man,” Sughrue said. “It’s cold out there.”

  —

  Thanks to slow room service and the snooze-alarm, I didn’t relieve Sughrue until almost two A.M., but he didn’t complain, just smiled and nodded.

  “Mr. O’Bannion lumbered up to the house about midnight,” he said, “and nothing’s moved since then. I’ll see you in three.”

  “Take six,” I suggested. “I’m hungover and wired. So I’ll be awake anyway.”

  Sughrue grinned, then slipped into the desert shadows as I slid between the two crinkly camo space blankets. Of course, I’d forgotten my long johns and nearly froze to death crouched over the spotting scope in the light of the three-quarter moon. But it’s no more than I deserved.

  At nine the next morning when Sughrue showed up with a thermos of coffee, I’d already stuffed the space blankets back into their sacks and I was glad I’d forgotten my long johns. The sun had come up like a flamethrower, chasing the night chill into the shadows behind the rocks, and the desert smog began to form, spreading across the depression of Palm Springs like a guilty conscience. But not mine.

  “You’re bright-eyed and bushy-tailed,” Sughrue said, “and not visible from the highway.” He jerked his chin downhill to the highway where an endless line of traffic snaked through the rough hills. “Nothing happened?”

  “Quiet as a graveyard,” I admitted.

  “And from the looks of the smog,” he said, “it’ll be one before long. How do you want to work this?”

  “Shit, Sonny,” I said, “I don’t exactly know. Can you see the turnoff from your room? Without the scope?” Sughrue nodded. “Why don’t you set up there? He’s got a green Toyota Land Cruiser and a red and white 1952 Buick—he showed me pictures yesterday—so tag him if he leaves. If he doesn’t, I’ll meet you in the bar at, say, three-thirty, and I’ll lay it out for him.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” he said, then laughed.

  But not a great plan, I thought, maybe not even a good plan.

  —

  After I’d finished my story, O’Bannion sighed, cleared the bar with an exterminator story, then brought me another Coors. Sughrue had ducked into the john instead of out the front door. O’Bannion shook his head, said, “Goddammit, I hate liars,” then reached into a stack of towels and pulled out a gigantic horse pistol. “Colt’s Dragoon,” he said, talking to the pistol, “1848 model. Forty-four caliber. Percussion conversion to black powder cartridges. Fucker weighs more than an M-1 carbine, kicks like a ten-gauge single shot, and it will put you down. For good.”

  “Fuck you,” I said quietly.

  O’Bannion took a step backward, then leveled the horse pistol at my chest with both hands. “Finish your shitty beer, buddy,” he said, “and don’t even bother checking out of the motel—I’ll take the loss—then I don’t want to ever see you again, because if I do, you’re…”

  “Hey, excuse me,” I interrupted. “Do I look like the kind of jerk who’ll do whatever some asshole says just because he’s got the gun? That ain’t my style.” He considered that a moment. “Besides, it ain’t even cocked.” So he cocked it. “To hell with it,” I said again, then kicked the bar with the pointed toe of my boot. “You’ve got a gun, I’ve got a gun, and he’s got a gun…”

  O’Bannion glanced into the corner where I knew Sughrue had the Browning dead center on him.

  “…so let’s all get a gun and we can all be cowboys. Fuck it. That hand-loaded cannon could misfire, my forty-caliber Glock might not make it through the bar, but my man over there ain’t going to miss. So if you’re going to do it, man, do it. Or put it up.”

  O’Bannion smiled, slid the horse pistol back under the towels, and picked up the Jameson’s and three shot glasses, then started to walk around the bar.

  “I’ll have a schnapps,” I said.

  “Make mine tequila,” Sughrue said. “The Herradura.”

  “Next thing you know,” O’Bannion said, laughing, “I’ll be dragging out the blender for you pussy tourists…”

  We gathered at the corner of the bar, drinking silently for long moments. “Did you know Rita?” I asked to break the silence. “I know there was some sort of bond between Tipton and Rita but I never had the pleasure of meeting the woman.”

  “Meeting Aaron Tipton wasn’t exactly pleasure?” Sughrue asked.

  O’Bannion gave Sughrue a long, hard look, then started talking. He had been taking care of Aaron Tipton for twenty years, ever since the afternoon the awkward teenager showed up on the Coast Range location of a horse opera where O’Bannion was doubling for a faggot movie star who couldn’t stay in the saddle. Except with a key grip.

  “The kid wanted to be a stunt man. For some fucking reason,” O’Bannion mused over an empty shot glass. “I told him to come back when he grew up, put some meat on his bones. That’s when he started lifting weights and gobbling ’roids. For some fucking idiot reason, I gave the kid my address and telephone number.”

  We had sipped several shots at the corner of the bar, which O’Bannion had locked after all the firearms had been put away.

  “Six months later he shows up on my front porch pumped to the gills, crazy as a loon, and looking for work in ‘the industry,’ ” O’Bannion said, his bartender instincts filling our glasses again, freshening our chasers. “Fucking ‘industry,’ my ass. I got him some work standing around coke whores in beach-bunny flicks. But the poor fucking kid couldn’t stand still and chew gum at the same time. Strong as an ox, but not nearly as graceful.” He paused, then said sadly, “So Aaron went from steroids to cocaine to crank in about three years. The next step was working muscle for a Texas bookie…”

  “Remember his name?” I asked.

  “Not offhand, but I’ve got it somewhere,” he said. “It was only another quick step to cooking crank, then knocking crank labs over, burning guys on coke deals, stretches in the can…” O’Bannion gunned his shot. “I’ve spent a fortune on detox doctors and criminal lawyers.”

  “Where’s he now?”

  “Up to his ass in deep shit,” O’Bannion said, pouring again. “Even if he cops a miracle plea on the sheriff’s cousin, he’s going in for a long time. So I got him stashed in an old shack I own up toward Barstow. Maybe I can get him out of the country, get him in a hospital in France or someplace…” Nobody believed that.

  “You think he’ll talk to us?”

  “On the telephone, maybe,” O’Bannion said, “but I wouldn’t try it in person. He can be pretty touchy.”

  “No shit,” I said, “we were there—with the sheriff’s permission—and we heard that the sheriff is going to make it and Tipton’s sister isn’t going to press charges. We could make it sound like an accidental discharge. If he’s willing to help us…”

  “I’ll give him a call,” O’Bannion said, lifting a tiny cellular telephone out of his shirt pocket, “give it a try.”

  “I could even help with the defense fund,” I said.

  O’Bannion waved his meaty hand at me. “Money’s no problem, buddy. I made my first million smuggling grass thirty years ago, when it was still almost a million dollars. I just stayed with the stunt work because I liked being around movies, man.” He laughed. “Just like the dumb-ass kid.” He punched in the number. “Damn, it’s busy.” Then he thought about it. “Let’s drive up that way. Maybe he’s been taking his Prozac.”

  “Let’s hope so,” Sughrue said.

  O’Bannion told us to fill up a cooler behind the bar with beer and ice while he walked up the hill for his Land Cruiser. As we were doing it, Sughrue asked me if I thought the old man was straight.

  “He could be c
arrying us into a trap, Milo.”

  “We could always shoot him,” I said.

  “Several times, man,” he said, then slipped the Browning and a spare clip out of the back of his jeans where it had been hidden by his Hawaiian shirt. “You’re not supposed to tell the bad guys that you’ve got a piece when you don’t,” he said as he handed it to me.

  “I can’t tell the bad guys from the good anymore, Sonny,” I said.

  “Well, I still can,” he said, then slammed the lid of the cooler shut.

  —

  Other times, it might have been a pleasant late-afternoon ride with slow beers and fast conversation. But every time O’Bannion tried the shack’s number, he got a busy signal, which clearly made him more nervous each time. Then as sunset drifted into its daily desert theatrics, he found that his combination didn’t work on the locked chain around the steel gate at the turn off Highway 247. “Shit, this ain’t my lock,” he muttered, and began to climb the gate. “You guys still carrying?”

  “Yeah,” I said as we joined him. “How far is it?”

  “Two miles of deep sand and rock,” O’Bannion said, then struck off up the track toward the stone-crested ridge to the west.

  “Let’s don’t walk in this sand,” I said, pointing toward the fresh tire tracks. Going in and coming out. O’Bannion looked at me. “I didn’t lie about being a lawman once,” I said. “Whatever has happened has already happened.” I convinced him to dig a flashlight out of his rig first, then we moved into the rougher traveling off the track, circling toward O’Bannion’s cabin.

  The weathered board-and-batten shack might have once provided a shaded refuge for a desert rat or a religious hermit, but when we topped the last shallow rise, it looked as if it had been hit by a tornado. Or a bulldozer. Large portions of the wall had been punched out, the flimsy roof tilted crazily, and a large naked body lay in the front doorway. Even in the swiftly fading light, the black bloody smears were visible. O’Bannion sobbed, then started to trot down the ridge. I stepped in front of him, but not hard enough. He brushed me away like a gnat. I held on to the thick, sodden arm, waving in the cool air like a child. Sughrue grabbed the other arm, and for a few steps the old man carried us downhill, until his already tired legs gave out and we tumbled into the rocks, sand, and cactus.