Bordersnakes

by James Crumley

  But I couldn’t imagine what made Sughrue go into her trailer. Of course, he’d nearly married the woman. Or would have married her, I remembered, if she would have had him. Hell, I might have married her myself, if I’d had any hope of gracing her bed more often. At least Sughrue’s out of it, I told myself. Whatever happens.

  As we bounced through the rocky potholes around the zócalo, Suzanne told me to turn onto a thread of rough pavement that led out of town and upriver and to the small canyon where the Rio Estigma flowed into the Rio Grande.

  “You don’t know the way,” she said as she shut her briefcase, “do you?”

  “Quite frankly, my dear,” I said, reaching into the cooler in the backseat for a beer—the drinks I’d had with Dunston had been washed out by the single blow of Sughrue’s betrayal—“I’ve never crossed the border before…”

  “I should have guessed.”

  “…and I don’t plan on coming back.”

  “I would think you would fit perfectly in this culture,” she said, not meaning it as a compliment, I was sure. And the insult began the uncoiling of the razor wire in my chest.

  “Can I ask you a couple of things?” I said.

  “You know me: I can’t promise to answer,” she said.

  “Can’t? Or won’t?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “I don’t guess so,” I said, almost laughing. “Why did you bring me along?”

  “You look good in a uniform,” she said. “And although my uncle loves me, he is a businessman and a Mexican. If I didn’t bring anyone, he would not treat me with proper respect. What was the other thing?”

  “If you don’t like me, Suzanne, why the fuck do you sleep with me?”

  She smiled coldly, saying, “I suppose it’s your facility with the language.”

  “And I suppose they pulled your polite gene out with your ovaries…”

  “How did you…”

  “Just a lucky guess,” I said, really laughing this time. “How much money does your father have in the movie?”

  “My father?” she said, surprised.

  “Yeah. Kate suggested he might have put up some of the money.”

  “Listen, you bastard,” she said sharply, “I raised every fucking penny myself.”

  “Sorry,” I said, thinking, I should know. “You’re cute with your dander up, honey,” I added, “waving gently in the air.”

  “Now you’re just trying to be offensive,” she said, ignoring me.

  Now that I had the enemy where they wanted me, I truly had nothing to lose, so I drank beer and chuckled to myself as we wound up the canyon, out of the chaparral, and into the thin mountain pines, Emilio Kaufmann’s mansion rising like a bad moon over the ridges above us, its white walls lung-blood-pink in the fading afternoon light. Suzanne sulked in silence beside me. Often it seemed that she hated to see anybody have any fun. Even herself. Maybe that’s why she was such a bitch after an orgasm. I finished the beer and tossed the empty can into the backseat.

  “Would you get me another beer, please?” I said.

  “What?” She acted as if this were the most insulting thing ever asked her. “What?”

  “Get me a fucking beer. Please.”

  “Kiss my ass!”

  “Do we have time?” I asked. “Please don’t act as if I haven’t kissed it before, from the hairy hole to the shit hole and everything in between,” I said politely. “And please don’t forget the beer, either.”

  “As soon as we get back to the location, buster,” she fumed, “your ass is fired.”

  “Why wait?” I said, then slammed on the brakes. Her briefcase flew off her lap, and she barely had time to get her hands up to keep her face off the dashboard. “Why fucking wait?” I bluffed, knowing that what she needed at her uncle’s, she needed badly enough to put up with this.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Get out,” I said, reaching over to open her door. “This is my rig, lady, and I don’t fucking work for you anymore.”

  Suzanne started to protest, saying she’d get the goddamned beer, but I jerked the emergency brake, shouting “Walk or fuck!” and bulled her out the open door, grabbed her flailing fists at the wrist, dodged a flying nutcracker knee, turned her around, gathered a fistful of thick hair, bent her over the seat, and wrestled the tight leather pants down her slim hips.

  “You wouldn’t, you son of a bitch…” she muttered against the seat covers as I popped the string of her thong bikini.

  “Oh, but I will, lady,” I said. Then planted a long, wet kiss at the crack of her lovely ass, laughed, and let her go. I jumped back behind the wheel before she jerked her pants up. As she started to climb back into the rig, I held up my hand. “I thought you were going to get me a beer, honey.”

  Suzanne got the beer before she settled into her seat, but from the look on her face, anger firing a flushed glaze across the high cheekbones, I suspected she thought she might have preferred rape to the humiliation of getting me a beer. At least I didn’t make her open it.

  But as I drove away, I reminded myself that this wasn’t any fucking John Wayne movie where Maureen O’Hara’s just been waiting for this moment of physical domination to fall back in love with me. Nope, pilgrim. If I turned my back, this woman would fancy nothing more than burying an axe between my shoulder blades. Or nestling a sawed-off 12-gauge at the nape of my neck. But, hell, I’d always known that about her. And the sorry truth—sorry for both of us—was in that angry moment we’d never been closer, never been more of a single mind.

  —

  Suzanne was perfectly composed by the time we reached the gate. Dunston was right—she could have been a great actress. She even smiled when Kaufmann’s guards, dressed like guys who had seen too many Peckinpah movies, waved us through, then aside to a turnout to let a black Suburban pass us on its way out. Then they went over the Blazer with mirrors, bomb-sniffing dogs, and a finely toothed cock’s comb. Just in case they’d missed something, they drove us up to the casa in an electric cart, one guard carrying Suzanne’s briefcase, another my cane, and a third a Benelli M-3 12-gauge shotgun.

  At the front door we had to pass through a metal detector, Suzanne’s briefcase and my cane through an X-ray machine, and a more serious set of guards who looked like Secret Service agents. Emilio Kaufmann stood smiling, thirty yards away across the tiled foyer, safe behind a portable Plexiglas shield. Suzanne’s briefcase was restored to her, but the tall guy who seemed to be in charge held on to my cane as he conferred with his shorter partner. Then they X-rayed the cane again, conferred, and that tall guy stepped over to whisper to Kaufmann. After a moment, Kaufmann spread his arms and his smile.

  “Forgive me, my dear sobrina,” he said pleasantly, his English without accent, “for these foolish precautions. But your call came so suddenly…”

  “Please forgive me, tío, but a matter of considerable importance has arisen.”

  “Of course, of course,” he said, even more pleasant, “whatever it is we will take care of it directly…but it seems that your employee…something is not right about his cane…”

  “Milodragovitch,” I said. “That’s my name, Señor Kaufmann, and my cane’s just a stick with a flask in the handle. Unscrew it. There’s a couple of large shots of tequila in there. Herradura anejo.”

  The shorter guy started to unscrew the handle, but before he could there was a shout—“Cuidado!”—from the tall one. Once again Kaufmann begged forgiveness. From me this time. And suggested that I step outside the double doors and do the honors myself.

  “No problem,” I said, then limped through the still open doorway, followed by the shorter guy with my cane. He handed it to me, told the guy with the shotgun to cover me, then stepped back inside. The double doors closed heavily, thumping with a weight more like steel than oak. Two closed-circuit television cameras over the doors buzzed like angry insects as they focused on me as I unscrewed the handle of the cane and took a sip.

  “Nothing but the be
st,” I said, raising the cane to the camera. “Perhaps you’ll join me, Señor Kaufmann…”

  “Drink it all, gringo,” came a metallic voice. So I did. Then held the flask upside down so they could see the last few drops splatter darkly on the stone steps. Then replaced the handle.

  “Please, sir,” came Kaufmann’s voice over the intercom, “you will join me in a copita…I have some tequila that will make your Herradura taste like horse piss.”

  “My pleasure, Señor Kaufmann,” I said. “I have been told that business affairs in Mexico proceed at a more deliberate and polite pace. But no one mentioned that I would have to drink horse piss.”

  Kaufmann’s laughter seemed honestly amused, if slightly tinny. But when the doors opened, the metal detector, X-ray machine, and Plexiglas shield had been moved aside. Suzanne and I were conducted into a large office off the main hall where Kaufmann sat behind a desk worthy of a pope, a narrow, pristine expanse of ancient Spanish oak broken only by a cellular telephone, a Toshiba laptop, and a silver tray containing a black bottle, a silver dish of cut limes, and three silver shot glasses. Suzanne and I were seated in bishop’s chairs, and Kaufmann poured the tequila and dismissed his guards with a wave of his soft hand, then picked up a shot glass. “Salute,” he said, then we drank. Finished, Kaufmann leaned forward, elbows resting lightly on the dark oak, his manicured fingers steepled.

  I set the cane in my lap and twisted the handle counterclockwise until I felt the tiny trigger nestle against my finger.

  “Now, my dear Suzanne,” he said, “what service may I perform for you?”

  Suzanne opened the briefcase, slipped a folder across the dark oak, and said, “This is the fax I received this afternoon when I attempted to transfer funds into my production account.”

  Kaufmann opened the folder, glanced at the single sheet, then frowned. “But how can this be?” he said, then turned to his laptop.

  “That’s my question,” Suzanne said.

  Kaufmann’s fingers flew over the computer keys, then waited as the machine buzzed, then beeped as it connected him to his bank in Panama. After a moment, his fingers flew again. Whatever he saw on the screen, Kaufmann obviously didn’t like. He reached for the telephone, saying, “I’ll call the bank personally, and we’ll…”

  “It was my fucking money anyway,” I said quietly, then slapped my cane on the expensive desktop and pointed it directly at his face.

  Kaufmann rose from his chair suddenly, his light hand held in front of his face as if he could ward off the cane.

  “No, you stupid sons of bitches,” Suzanne grunted. But we were too busy to be insulted.

  And I pulled the tiny trigger.

  Quick as a striking snake the coiled wisp of carbon fiber spit from the ferrule of the cane, and a loop made of wire almost as tiny as a spider’s strand and even stronger than steel cable settled gracefully over Kaufmann’s head. I released the trigger and let the spring ratchet just long enough to tighten the loop. The fingers of Kaufmann’s right hand clawed at the scant fiber as it tightened nicely into the soft flesh of his neck.

  “Gotcha, motherfucker,” I said.

  Behind me I heard the scurry of feet, the racking of semiautomatic pistol slides, and the snicker of safeties moving to the off position.

  “Shoot the woman,” Kaufmann said without hesitation.

  “Loan me a piece,” I said, laughing, “and I’ll shoot the bitch myself. But if you want to live another ten seconds, Kaufmann, you best keep those fuckers off my back.”

  Kaufmann held up his free hand. The noises behind me stopped.

  “This is how it is,” I said. “If my finger slips off this little trigger, nothing you can do will stop the spring. And nothing you have will cut the carbon wire. First, the ends of your fingers will pop off and scatter like grapes across this lovely desk. Then the blood to your brain will cease. But the spring is so quick and so strong that chances are you’ll still be conscious when it cuts off your head.”

  “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Suzanne asked, confused.

  “Did you think it would be funny to have me watch my fucking money move around on a computer screen?”

  “I don’t know,” she said in a small voice that sounded almost sincere.

  “And if you want to walk out of here alive and well and with any chance to finish your movie, you better keep your ass in the chair, honey, and your mouth shut,” I said. “For a change.”

  “But I would have put the money back…” she blathered.

  “I told you to shut up,” I said, easing around the desk to shove Kaufmann back into his chair and stand behind him. If I was going to be shot, I wanted to see it coming. “Tell your men to unload their weapons and take off their clothes. Pile them on that couch over there. Except for one loaded Glock. Which I want right here by my left hand. Then tell them to stretch out on the floor, facedown, with their fingers laced behind their heads.”

  I had to give him this—Kaufmann didn’t shit his pants or start weeping. He took a deep breath, then said calmly, “Should I speak to them in English or Spanish, Mr. Milodragovitch?”

  “Hey, you’re the one with your nuts in the wringer, Señor Kaufmann,” I said. “Tell them in Urdu if you want to.” Then I let the spring slip a notch. When the ratchet clicked into place, everybody jumped. And Kaufmann rattled Spanish at his men.

  The men complained. But not for long. Another burst of Spanish stopped that. Suzanne looked up once as the tall guy placed his pistol on the desk between us, then, as he joined the pile of naked guards, she sighed as if it were her last breath.

  “Movie business too tough for you, kid?” I said. “Or is it embezzlement that makes you sigh?”

  She had no answer, except for her trembling fingers clattering against the hard leather of the open briefcase.

  “All right, Mr. Milodragovitch,” Kaufmann said, a slight quaver in his voice now. “What can I do for you? It seems you already have your money back, plus a considerable amount of mine. Surely we can negotiate some sort of deal…”

  “This ain’t about money, asshole,” I said, “and dead men don’t make deals.” Then I picked up his cellular telephone, dialed the number the DEA agent had given me. He answered almost immediately.

  “I got him,” I said, “but you need to clear me through the U.S. Customs and Immigration at the border. Okay? White Blazer. Sawyer Security Service logo on the doors. Black-headed bitch driving. Kaufmann in the front seat beside her. And me behind him.”

  “You got it,” came his quick answer.

  As I clicked off the phone and set it down, Suzanne suddenly stood up as if she’d gone mad.

  “Listen, Milo,” she said hotly, “I’m really sorry about your money, and even sorry about Sughrue, but I don’t think I’m really involved here. And even though this piece of shit was going to have me shot to save his rotten life, I’m sure as hell not going to help you get him across the border. In fact, I’m out of here right…”

  I picked up the Glock with my left hand. “There was a time, honey,” I said, “when I was nearly as good with my left hand as my right. But that was a long time ago. I might not be able to put a round in a nonvital part of your lovely ass.”

  Suzanne stared at me. Maybe she wondered if I would actually shoot her.

  “You owe me a pound of flesh,” I said.

  “I hope you take a long fucking time to die,” Suzanne said as she sat down.

  Kaufmann cleared his throat. “May I ask who you called?”

  “Some fucking DEA jerk in El Paso,” I said, unable to think of a reason to lie.

  “I’m afraid you’ve made a terrible mistake,” Kaufmann said, visibly relaxed. “The DEA is not interested in me. We have a deal…”

  “I don’t think this guy is interested in a deal, either,” I said. “I think he wants to fly you to Costa Rica…”

  “Puntarenas…” Suzanne said.

  “That fucking Dickerson,” Kaufmann said.

  �
�Hey, I’ve seen the tape,” Suzanne said quickly, “and my uncle had nothing to do with his daughter’s death…”

  “You have the tape?” Kaufmann said, amazed.

  “Her ace in the hole,” I said.

  “It’s in a safety deposit box in LA,” Suzanne admitted.

  “What do you bet it’s setting next to a copy of your lab files and the formula for the wonder drug?” I asked Kaufmann.

  “My God, is there no loyalty anymore…” he said, then turned to me. “Dickerson killed his own daughter,” Kaufmann said. “It was an accident, I am quite sure. But still, he pulled the trigger. Not me.”

  “What does Dickerson have to do with you?” Suzanne asked me.

  Once again, thinking I had the upper hand, I told the truth. “He promised to bury the evidence of a murder and keep Sughrue out of prison,” I said.

  “Oh, no,” Suzanne said. “You fucking fool…”

  “Xavier!” Kaufmann shouted.

  Xavier Kaufmann, who didn’t seem to recognize me in my sunglasses, Stetson, and different name, stepped smartly through a side door into the office, smiling and very much alive, wearing a state-of-the-art prosthesis very much like a real hand and holding a small automatic pistol in his other. Eddie Forsyth, with his metallic smile and bandaged cheek, followed him, pushing a bound and gagged Kate in front of him, a large automatic pistol dangling insolently from his hand.

  “Now let’s see whose nuts are in the wringer, asshole,” he hissed through wired teeth.