Bordersnakes

by James Crumley

  I got in a single right hook somewhere near his kidney before I blocked his sweeping kick with my left arm. Even blocked, the kick seemed to crush most of my remaining unbroken ribs. Crashing into the bar took care of the rest of them.

  “Eddie!” came a shout. Out of the corner of my eye I saw that Connie had snatched a small stainless steel automatic pistol out of her purse.

  But Forsyth ignored it, grinned more broadly, and came after me. I lifted a bar stool between us, feet aimed at him, but Forsyth chopped the rungs out of it without effort, leaving me holding a bundle of kindling, which I tossed into the air, then tried to kick him in the crotch. He twisted slightly and caught my foot on the rock-hard slab of his thigh, then came on, knocking me to the floor with another leg sweep.

  “Eddie!” Connie screamed.

  “Fuck you, bitch,” he answered half-turning, still grinning at me.

  Perhaps if he hadn’t called her “bitch” Connie might have fired a warning shot over his head. As it was, she fired the whole clip at him. Mostly she missed. But one of the rounds caught him right in the side of his cheek and blew his toothy grin all over me as I scrambled once again to my feet.

  Losing most of his teeth distracted Forsyth long enough for me to brain him with a heavy silver ice bucket.

  “Are you all right, Montana?” Connie asked, her voice shaking as she sat down on the floor, legs akimbo.

  “Fine,” I said, not really believing it. “What about you? You ever shot anybody before?”

  “No, but I knew I wouldn’t have any trouble pulling the trigger.”

  “Good thinking,” I said, trying to draw a breath without bone splinters stabbing my lungs.

  “Is he dead?” she asked.

  “Probably not,” I said, “but he’s sure fucked up.”

  One of the Chicanos showed up before the echoes of the gunshots rattled out the broken plate-glass window.

  “Get that chingadero out of here, please,” Connie said, slipping the .25 back into her purse and standing up. “He’s bleeding on a thirty-five-thousand-dollar rug. And call an ambulance.”

  “Do all the women in Texas carry guns?” I asked.

  “Just the ones who count,” she answered. “What the hell did you want with Eddie?”

  “I just wanted to talk to him,” I said, “but I don’t…”

  “I think I’ve got enough clout in this town to make a good case for an accidental shooting,” Connie said, more to herself than me, or to the two kids dragging Forsyth off the rug. She grinned broadly when she saw his ruined mouth. “And he’ll probably be ready to talk when he gets out of the hospital.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said. “I think I know almost everything I need to know.” Which was true. Somehow kneeling there in that cloud of blood and dental dust, the key fell into place and the lock turned as if oiled with money. “Except for one thing. Did Ray Lara ever work for your husband?”

  “First job out of the Army,” she said. “Rincon Norte State Bank in El Paso.”

  “Hey, Connie, many thanks,” I said by way of goodbye. “And even more thanks for taking Eddie off my back.”

  “Anytime,” she said with a casual wave, as if this had been all in a day’s work. And perhaps for Consuela Navarro of Del Rio, Texas, it was.

  A couple of hours later with my new knowledge and sore old body, I eased into Austin, rented a cellular telephone, then checked into the Hyatt again. The telephone was important. It allowed me to sit in the Jacuzzi and make dozens of telephone calls while the hot, swirling waters worked the aches and pains. At least the ones on the outside. It had taken too many telephone calls before Betty Porterfield returned one, and our conversation had been heartbreakingly brief. But once that was done, the rest was easy, except for two quick trips—one back to Meriwether, where the weather was anything but, and another down to sultry, sandy Port Arkansas—and I worked out a way to jerk Emilio Kaufmann across the border, keep Sughrue out of prison, and maybe put some of my own money back in my pocket.

  PART SIX

  Milo & Sughrue

  Sughrue

  “Milo,” I say, “this is fucking crazy. Will you tell me what’s going on?”

  “The perimeter’s secure,” he says, ignoring my question, “so you just circulate among the guests. Keep the peace quietly. And keep your ears open.”

  “What the hell am I listening for?” I ask.

  “I’ll know it when you hear it,” Milo says, then turns to leave.

  “Okay,” I said, “what if some asshole wants me to get them a drink?”

  “Get it,” he says quietly. Even behind his dark glasses his eyes are basalt hard. Just as they’ve been since he returned from Austin. And told me that we were going into the security business. It’s as if I made an angry joke over dinner, and fucking Milo made it come true. Without telling me why. His eyes just saying, Do it, Sonny, or get the fuck out.

  “What the fuck, I’ll get the drink…” I start to say.

  But Milo limps away from me, leaning heavily on a cane, a result of the Eddie Forsyth interrogation, he says, but he looks solid and official in khaki gabardine and a banker’s Stetson, the brand-new tooled-leather pistol belt and cowboy boots creaking as he parts the crowd of partygoers watching the vaqueros sweating over the barbecue pit.

  —

  Before it died, the sharp edge of the northwest wind scrubbed the West Texas sky to a pellucid pastel blue wash and left the air so clear that the rocky peaks to the south on the Mexican horizon seem as close as the lower mountains just on the edge of the Kehoe ranch. Although it hadn’t been visible from the front of the ranch house, a greensward half the size of a football field—the smooth sweep of grass broken here and there by rock and cactus gardens worked into the folds of the lawn like fairway traps—stretches behind the house all the way to the barns, stables, and corrals. Around the edges of the huge lawn the General has erected a party tent, dozens of rented tables, staffed bars, and a barbecue pit as large as a small house trailer.

  It looks as if the Kehoes have gathered more people in expensive cowboy leather than I ever knew existed. It’s as if they drew a line from Dallas to Santa Fe and invited every rich phony south of there to the ranch for fajitas, a dish invented by vaqueros because the skirt steak was the only scrap of beef left for them when the patrons butchered. Now it has become southwestern yuppie food. America the beautiful gobbling up low-rent Mexican beef.

  The General isn’t just a general and a large landholder, he’s also a big West Texas Republican, so his highfalutin buddies are here, along with a fine showing of northern Mexican ranchers, senior officers from the Mexican military, and retired smugglers; fascists to a man, I suspect. Also the General seems to have invited a dozen or more local peace officers decked out in dress uniforms and fancy sidearms.

  As I drift through the throng Kate slips up to take my arm, shakes her head, smiling in a happy stone, and informs me about the Hollywood part of the crowd. Since Suzanne is directing her first movie and her film experience is limited to a couple of bit parts and three short workshops, she is leaning heavily on the shaky old legs of a supposedly dry Sam Dunston to produce. Suzanne has also gathered the experience of a bevy of aging ingenues with tight-skinned faces and desperate eyes to fill the leading roles and a pantheon of character actors to give it the illusion of character. All the faces are familiar in a frightfully vague way, but the names completely escape me.

  Of course, the film crew, who buffed and decked out might have passed for actors themselves, gather at some distance from the actors, and closer to Kate, who seems to have good connections among the West Texas drug and music trade, and she leaves my side to stand surrounded by long hair, runny noses, and the demon stink of primo mota. That’s the crowd I might have joined. Along with Whitney and Lester. If Milo hadn’t forced us into these idiot uniforms and this silly job. I feel like a fraud with my ponytail stuffed under the Stetson and dressed like an expensive rent-a-ranger.

  —
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  Even Lester looks at me oddly as we drive, earlier, to the highway from the trailer. “Daddy,” he asks as we rattle past the miniature horses, “have you ever eaten a horse?”

  “Not that I know of,” I admit. “But the Apache ate them all the time. You know what they used to say out here: a white man would ride a horse until it foundered, then leave it there; a Mexican would come along and ride it another twenty miles, then steal the saddle; an Apache would come along, ride the horse to where he was going, then eat it.”

  I glance at Lester while I’m chuckling at the story. From the look on his face it’s clear that I’ve answered the wrong question. It happens, I’ve learned, with children. Whitney is choking on stifled laughter. “What?” I say.

  “Could you eat one of those little horses?” he asks solemnly as we drive past the tinytown ranch.

  “With enough hot sauce, sure,” I say. “But it might piss off our neighbors. Why?”

  “Just wondering,” he says. Just like Whitney when she doesn’t want to tell me why she wants to know something.

  “What the hell is going on?” I ask, but Lester’s admiring the new cowboy boots we’ve bought him for the barbecue.

  “He’s worried about the uniform,” Whitney says quietly.

  “Why?”

  “He thinks you took this job because we need the money,” she says between giggles, “and wonders if we can eat the little horses when we run out of food…”

  Whitney fluffs Lester’s long blond hair hanging free, smiling. The faint blush of the port wine stain is nearly invisible after the laser surgery and under the deep tan. His face is as clear as my memory of his mother’s eyes, as clear as the love in Whitney’s face.

  “That’s crazy,” I say.

  Whitney says, “Don’t blame me. He was crazy when I got here.”

  “Who?” Lester wants to know. “Who’s crazy?”

  “Your daddy,” Whitney says.

  “No. He’s not crazy,” Lester says quietly. “He’s funny.”

  “Sometimes,” Whitney says calmly as we turn onto the highway.

  —

  Suzanne seems to be the only person drifting freely between the various groups. She’s resplendent in a black fringed suede jacket dripping with silver conchos, the rodeo queen from hell, the only sparks of color a glint of hard green eyes below the brim of her black cowboy hat, a snicker of a silver hatband above, the blood-red slash of her smile, and a faint but dark blush rising from her cleavage to her slender neck. In the hard desert light I can see that what looked like Irish cream skin in the shade has a distinct duskiness glowing through. But I still can’t place her in my memory.

  Milo sneaks up on me while I’m watching her.

  “Keep away from her, Sughrue,” he whispers. “She’s mine.”

  “You’re welcome to her, cowboy,” I whisper. “When I look at her she reminds me of grief and misery, heartache, pain, and cocaine, lies and dying young. I just don’t know why.”

  “It’s your guilty conscience,” Milo chuckles, then slips back into the crowd. This is supposed to be my part of the world. But something about the party makes me as jumpy as a domestic cat stalked by coyotes, while Milo seems perfectly at ease. Maybe it’s the uniform. It makes him look like the law. Before we left the trailer, standing in front of the bedroom mirror, I told Whitney that the uniform made me look like a burned-out hippie dressed up for Halloween. She told me I looked good, good enough to eat. Which she suggested and did before we left for the party. The depth of her love amazes me, comforts me. So I shouldn’t be quite so much on the edge. But I am. Right from the beginning.

  When Kate greets us, almost demure in this crowd in a burgundy wool suit and a short blond wig, greets us with wild, happy laughter and enthusiastic hugs, she charms Lester and Whitney with a smile and takes them away, saying, “Stick around, boys, the real party begins after dark.”

  —

  After the Mexican waiters have passed through the crowd with pitchers of frozen margaritas, shots of Herradura tequila, bottles of Mexican beers, and trays of nachos, the separate groups mingle a bit more, the conversations become a bit more interesting, and the peace a bit harder to keep quietly.

  One of the young Mexicans—dressed by Rodeo Drive but probably the son of a rancher—accuses the East LA Chicano hairdresser on the film of being a maricón because he doesn’t want a shot of tequila. Without hesitation, the hairdresser kicks the Mexican in the balls, shouting, “Maricón that, you fucking greaser!”

  So much for La Raza that afternoon.

  Milo escorts the Chicano to the crew van, leaving me to convince the young Mexican that he can’t beg, borrow, or buy the Browning Hi-Power I’m carrying as I assist him into the house. By the time he’s convinced, two shots of tequila and a snootful of coke later, he wants me to party with him. It takes a little longer to convince him that duty calls. So I’ll just indulge him. A short shot and a smaller line. He’s placated, we’re compañeros, and the hairdresser is history.

  By the time I’m back outside, Milo is moving toward a wild-eyed musician who looks as if he’s been shooting crank into the corners of his eyes and who is shouting something about politics at a Republican state senator, a rawboned old fart who is just about to knock the kid back to the sixties. But Milo catches the old man’s punch and takes the musician away with a wristlock that’s so painful the kid almost comes back to reason.

  Then there’s the rattlesnake. Maybe eighteen inches long. Nobody knows where it came from. Maybe out of one of the small rock gardens. Or why it chose that moment to awake and flee. Maybe strolling musicians woke it. Whatever, one of the women spots the serpent snaking through the grass. She screams, right, just as you might expect; screams, then jerks an S&W Ladysmith-Auto out of her purse and pops the rattlesnake’s head off. Close range, right, but moving, too. At the sound of the gunfire, pistols appear in everybody’s hand. The whole crowd is packing. Then the pieces disappear and everybody laughs. I seem to remember why I left Texas in the first place.

  But for the most part Milo catches the trouble before it begins. When the voices elevate, he’s there to soothe the hackles before they begin to rise. I notice several of the law officers look him over with a professional eye. But Milo’s on the job and will not be engaged in nostalgia. Thankfully, after the crowd settles down to their plates and the sun cools toward the horizon and the wind falls, peace reigns supreme. Milo tells me to grab a plate and sit down with Whitney and Baby Lester.

  “You’re the boss, boss,” I say.

  “Not for long now,” he answers.

  “Captain-fucking-Cryptic,” I say to his retreating back.

  While we’re eating, a black Suburban with Mexican Frontera plates pulls beside the house. Three bodyguards step out of it, flanking a tall Mexican, slim and elegant in a dark tailored suit, who steps lightly out of the rig. The bodyguards, who look as if they have been trained by the American Secret Service, gather about him as if protecting royalty. The General insinuates himself into the group and exchanges a formal abrazo with the Mexican gentleman, who’s obviously looking over the General’s shoulder for somebody else. Then he sees Suzanne, brushes off the General, and heads toward her. She acts surprised in that phony, Hollywood way, then quickly bored, as the Mexican gentleman tries to pull her aside by the elbow. Suzanne jerks her arm out of his hand, then stalks into the crowd, leaving the Mexican gentleman pissed.

  “Who’s that?” I ask Kate as she kneels to offer Lester a honey-filled sopapilla.

  “Don Emilio Kaufmann,” she answers. “He’s the big cheese across the border, the Baron of Enojada.” Somehow I’m not surprised. Then I am. “He’s my uncle,” Kate adds.

  Fucking Milo. He’s conveniently disappeared.

  —

  By sundown most of the crowd has retreated. El Ricos back to their side of the border. Don Emilio’s visit was as brief as his retreat was showy. The Republicans, of course, head back under their rocks. The actors, except for a large,
villainous-looking heavy who remains at Sam Dunston’s side, have fled back to their lonely trailers to drink or drug or twelve-step among their scurvy sycophants. And the rich trash in their gaudy cowboy duds have run back to whatever holes they profane. Except for one blowsy blonde in red and white leather who claims to be the junk queen of West Texas and who drunkenly wants to know when the fucking party is going to start.

  The General draws Milo and me aside to tell us that our jobs are over and since we’re Kate’s friends that we should join her party, laughing and drinking in the tiki lamps flickering in the hazy dusk.

  “Actually, sir,” Milo says, “we’re working for the movie company.”

  “Fuck the movie company,” the General says softly. I realize that the old boy, although erect and eloquent, is as drunk as a dancing pig.

  “Thanks for the invite, General,” Milo says. “But Sughrue has to take his family home. The real job starts tomorrow, you know. But I’ll be happy to have a drink with you. Just as soon as I walk Sughrue to his truck.”

  At this, Milo takes me by the arm, leads me to Whitney and Lester, then to the truck. After they are in the cab, I pull Milo behind the pickup bed.

  “Okay, man,” I say. “What the fuck is going on?”

  “Just trust me,” he says. “And work the job.”

  Before I can ask him what the hell the job is, Milo limps into the shadows toward the table where Suzanne stands over Sam Dunston. Even at this distance I can hear the icy wind of her words.

  “Haven’t you had quite enough to drink?”

  Dunston’s deep, rumbling voice answers: “It’s in my contract, Ms. Kehoe. Saturday nights I can drink all I want. The rest of the week I’m pure, clean, dry, and yours. But Saturday night, honey, I belong to myself.”

  “No. No. You belong to the whiskey.”

  I’ve heard that tone of voice myself. Then Suzanne turns and marches into the house as I climb into the truck, where Lester is already sleeping with his head in Whitney’s lap.