Fugitive Nights

by Joseph Wambaugh

  The fugitive hurried downstairs and took a bold gamble. He stopped the first Mexican waiter he saw, and said, in Spanish, “Tell Señor Sierra to come upstairs. There’s a small problem.”

  “Señor Sierra?” the waiter said.

  “Yes, Señor Sierra!” he said. “He works for Señor Lugo. Find him, and ask him to come upstairs. There’s a lady who has had too much to drink.”

  The waiter nodded and hurried toward the kitchen, while the fugitive went back upstairs and waited.

  Lynn, Breda and Nelson were by then about midway through the queue of people on the dimly lit patio. The mariachis were playing “La Paloma.”

  “Hope there’s gonna be something left,” Nelson said.

  “I wouldn’t worry about that,” Breda said. “Whatever else John Lugo is, he does nothing on the cheap.”

  Lynn spotted Bino Sierra talking to one of the bartenders at the service bar by the kitchen. A Mexican waiter ran up to Sierra and said something. Then the waiter followed Sierra across the flagstone patio and into the house.

  “That’s Lugo’s man,” Lynn said to Breda.

  “The guy with the white streak in his ponytail?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Good looking guy,” she said. “Striking hair.”

  “Sure,” Lynn said, “if you like a tango dancer with hair like a skunk. I saw better ponytails in Gidget Goes Hawaiian.”

  “I guess I like clean-shaven, slim guys,” Breda said, with a glance at Lynn’s stomach. “Wonder if they’ve got any pork left?”

  His heart sank. He hadn’t planned on the waiter coming back with Sierra! Couldn’t anything go his way? The fugitive quickly picked up the two margaritas. He didn’t know whether to speak English or Spanish. Sierra was a coconut, brown on the outside, white on the inside. He’d speak English to this coconut. He hated to hear their pocho Spanish.

  The fugitive said to him, “Sir, I am sorry. The lady is gone.”

  “What’re you doing up here?” Bino Sierra was furious. “I told Henry I didn’t want any drinks served upstairs!”

  The waiter who’d delivered the message didn’t want any part of the ass-chewing and got out. And somehow it all fell into place. The fugitive now knew it was going to work, against all odds.

  The fugitive studied that haughty lineless handsome face, and said, “I am sorry, sir, but the lady told me I had to bring them. She was in there.” He pointed to the guest dressing room and bath. “Could she still be there?”

  Bino Sierra turned his back and stalked across the bedroom to the dressing area. The fugitive closed and locked the bedroom door. When Bino Sierra came back out, the fugitive was bending over the love-seat bench, framed by one of the most spectacular views in all of California, the nighttime lights and silhouetted mountains of Palm Springs.

  “What the fuck’re you doing over there?” Bino Sierra asked, and then he saw what.

  The fugitive pointed the Beretta with his left hand, holding his right hand down behind his leg. He said in English, “If you cry out, if you try to run, I will shoot you. Come here.”

  Bino Sierra automatically raised his hands to shoulder height and said, “Hey, man, what the fuck? WHAT THE FUCK?”

  “Keep your voice quiet,” the fugitive said, “and sit down over here. Just sit down and look from the window at the vista.”

  He stepped back to allow Bino Sierra to pass, noting the inky-blue silk shirt, like a guayabera shirt with epaulets, but finer than any guayabera the fugitive had ever seen. And Sierra wore perfectly tailored gray trousers, with a knife crease, perhaps linen trousers. But the shoes were ugly white Palm Springs shoes like the ones he’d bought for himself.

  “Are you the guy?” Bino Sierra asked, his hand nervously touching his hair where the white slashed through.

  “Don’t touch your white stripe,” the fugitive said. “Don’t touch anything. Keep your hands away from your body, and look out at your city.”

  “Are you the guy that wrecked the mortuary?” Bino Sierra asked. “What’s it about? The tombstone for Lugo’s mother? What the fuck’s it all about, man?”

  “You are the one who arranged for ten kilos of cocaine to go to Los Angeles on day thirteen of last September,” the fugitive said.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Bino Sierra said.

  “All three of your couriers were killed by Mexican police, and you never got delivery. One of them identified you.”

  “Man, you’re crazy! You trying to say somebody gave you my name?”

  The fugitive thought he was standing a little too close to the back of Bino Sierra’s head, so he retreated a step. There, that was better.

  “No, he did not know your name. You received a telephone call. The man told you of an unexpected problem. A Mexican policeman had interrupted their plans. You told them what to do with that policeman. Strangling is a cruel way to die.”

  “Just a minute!” Bino Sierra said.

  And now the fugitive could see that the back of the man’s shirt was already showing wet. That lovely silk would be slimy against his body, the fugitive thought.

  Bino Sierra said, “If these guys got killed by the cops, who mentioned me?”

  “One of them died later, during interrogation. He did not lie. He could not.”

  “Who are you?” Bino Sierra demanded. “Are you a cop? Are you DEA? If you are, whaddaya want me to say? I’ll say it. I’ll say anything! Arrest me!”

  “I am not a DEA agent,” the fugitive said. “I am a citizen of Mexico.”

  “Well, whaddaya want from me?”

  “Javier Rosas was a good policeman and a good man,” the fugitive said.

  “Wait … a … fucking minute!” Bino Sierra said, and the fugitive could see rivulets running from the black hair at the nape of his neck. “You can’t tell me that somebody claims Bino Sierra arranged a drug shipment and ordered some Mexican cop to be killed!”

  “The man who spoke to you on the phone told us what you said on that night, September thirteen. You said, ’I just ordered a tombstone carved with orchids for an old dead woman. I can order another one for the cop. What is his favorite flower?’ You see, it meant nothing to you, that little joke. You have forgotten it. Or perhaps you were enjoying too much of your own cocaine when you said it? Cocaine makes a man forget, sometimes.”

  Bino Sierra’s voice was trembling when he said, “This is a mistake!”

  “It is all we had,” the fugitive said. “Tombstone and orchids. But in Mexico we don’t expect much. We learn to work with very little in so many ways.”

  Bino Sierra sounded like he might cry when he said, “Maybe it was my boss! Maybe John Lugo talked to the guy! He didn’t make all his money with vending machines!”

  “He would not refer to his mother as an old dead woman. Also, the document from the tombstone company showed that the stone was ordered by Lieberman Brothers Mortuary, but payment was guaranteed by Mister Sierra, personal secretary to Mister Lugo. A note on the-invoice said, ‘Mister S. wants two orchids, one on each side of name.’”

  “Look, man, you ain’t being rational here. Siddown and let’s talk!”

  “You see, sir, if only the invoice had shown your address I would not have gone to the mortuary at all. And if not for the mortuary problem, I would not need to be here so soon, because I would not be so afraid of the policeman with curly hair.”

  “What policeman with curly hair? Man, you’re fucking crazy! You want money? I’ll give you more money than you ever seen!”

  “I have no wish to torment you, Mister Sierra,” the fugitive said. “But I had to be more than sure about you. And now I am.”

  The Beretta moved toward the left side of the head of Bino Sierra, who turned ever so slightly to watch the steel muzzle.

  And as he did the fugitive’s right hand shot up and cut his throat.

  It was a sawing slicing slash, first left, then right. Coming back it scraped on gristle, but the fugitive pulled and ripped with all hi
s strength.

  The fugitive dashed to the door then, shoving the bloody knife and gun inside his belt under his vest. As he opened the door he heard a sound, like radio static underwater. He turned and saw Bino Sierra with two gaping mouths, one above the other. Coming for him!

  The fugitive ran in panic but stumbled and fell down in the hallway. Bino Sierra kept lunging past, to the landing, tumbling down the staircase, rolling to the bottom. There was blood smeared along the wall and carpet and it looked like a hog had been slaughtered on his chest. And yet Bino Sierra got up and ran, his hands paddling like a man treading water, thinking he was screaming and breathing, but doing neither. Outside, he plunged into the black-bottom swimming pool, and against that lighted black bottom, his blood swirled up black. And with one last incredible effort, he pulled himself onto the pool steps, onto his back, half in and half out of the water. While people screamed.

  Breda had her plate heaped with roast pork, and had said to Nelson, “The hell with the calories,” when the screaming started. Then, riot.

  Plates were flying, glass was breaking as warming platters crashed to the flagstone. One of the buffet tables was overturned by the panicking hordes. Some ran toward the body, then realized what they were doing and scurried away from it, crashing into others. Yelps of pain joined screams of panic.

  Nelson plowed his way through, followed by Breda. They stopped at the pool, at the body of Bino Sierra, still oozing, staring up at one of the most beautiful skies in the world. Every star in the dipper was glittering.

  The fugitive ran through the entry doors, colliding with the people running inside, almost getting knocked off his feet. Even valet parking attendants, along with the hired security people, stormed through the house toward the rear patio, toward the screams. The fugitive finally got outside and ran across the lawn to the banana trees. He plunged into them, groping for the bag, cutting his hand slightly with the bloody knife when he jammed it inside. Then with the Beretta still tucked inside his waistband he started to dash toward the street. Until he spotted the policeman with curly hair.

  As soon as the screaming had started, Lynn dropped his drink and headed, not with Nelson and Breda toward the screams, but around the kitchen, across the lawn, straight toward the front of the house, to the only plausible escape route. He passed a clump of banana trees, then stopped in the shadow of the trees to watch who might be rushing outside to the street.

  Lynn thought he was still too close to the light from the entry doors, and retreated even farther into the darkness. With his right hand on the Colt under his shirt, he backed up toward the banana trees, failing to see an elongated shadow move. It wasn’t dark enough so he kept backing up.

  Until a voice said: “No.”

  That was all the voice said. Then Lynn felt the steel muzzle press against his neck, and a strong hand gripped his own, the hand he had under his shirt.

  The fugitive kept the pressure on both places, but it was the pressure against his neck that Lynn felt. Lynn relaxed his right hand and felt the fugitive slide the Colt from his holster. The gun flashed across the sconce lights and clattered into the banana leaves.

  Then Lynn was forcibly moved by the fugitive, who slid the steel muzzle down into the center of Lynn’s back and propelled him forward holding onto the collar of his aloha shirt.

  The fugitive never said another word, and Lynn waited for a crash, for his head to explode. He knew he’d never hear the shot. The house was a crescendo of sounds, shouts and screams. The building was swelling and heaving, ready to burst like the belly of a dead horse. When it did it would cascade out of the entry doors, a writhing swarm in full panic. No one would hear the shot!

  He waited forever, perhaps ten seconds. Then he turned slowly to look death in the face. He was alone.

  An elderly couple who’d found the party far too tiring were at the door of their Lincoln when the screaming began. They’d started toward the patio along with everybody else, but changed their minds, realizing that whatever it was, it couldn’t be good. They were trying to get into their car when the fugitive grabbed the valet parking girl and tossed her into the street. Then he shoved the man out of the way, and both old people, worrying more about hips than Lincolns, cried out in terror and scuttled away from the car thief.

  By the time Lynn found his gun and ran out to the front street there was nothing to do but watch helplessly as the taillights disappeared. The guard in the kiosk, even if he’d known what had happened, wouldn’t have left his little room when that Lincoln roared past.

  The fugitive pounded the steering wheel in frustration when he got stopped by traffic at Highway 111. Saturday evening traffic was horrendous because of the Bob Hope tournament and the unseasonably hot weather.

  He kept expecting headlights behind him. He knew he should’ve shot the policeman with curly hair in order to guarantee his escape. But he could not bring himself to shoot a policeman. When he found a break in the traffic flow he stomped on it, crossing the highway faster than he wished. What if he was stopped for a traffic citation? he thought. After all this!

  His Buick was where he’d left it. He parked the Lincoln behind it, and when he got out he removed his black vest and wiped the steering wheel and anything else he might have touched. Then he realized that he had no fingerprints on file in this country. What was he doing? Just the reflex action of a policeman, he thought. No matter what he had done, he was still a policeman.

  Leo Grishman was the first person at the party to grasp how to handle the horrifying event. He located his very shaken client and led him into the study, off the master bedroom suite on the lower floor. He looked in vain for Lynn, but gathered Nelson and Breda and brought them into the study too.

  “Okay, now we know,” the lawyer said to them all. “Bino was free-lancing. Once a druggie always a druggie. I told you not to hire him, John!”

  “I trusted him. He was like a nephew.” John Lugo was built like a block of concrete but had a flutey voice.

  “Well, you shouldn’t have. He was free-lancing with drug dealers.” The lawyer pointed to Breda and Nelson and said, “These people’re the ones I told you about. It’s apparent that one of Bino’s drug-dealing associates knew something about your mother’s funeral, but nothing else about him. And that’s the information they used to find him. There’s nothing anybody can do about it now, John. Bino burned some dealers and they made him pay for it tonight. Period.”

  “What should we tell the cops?” John Lugo wanted to know.

  “What can you tell them?”

  “Nothing. I don’t know anything,” John Lugo said. “Except that Bino was free-lancing. I got nothing to do with drugs, and never have. This is what happens, you get involved with drugs. Crap like this!”

  The door opened and Lynn Cutter walked in. He looked different somehow, but Nelson couldn’t decide why. He remained somber and silent when Leo Grishman said to John Lugo, “This is the police officer that almost got the guy at the mortuary.”

  Leo Grishman turned to Lynn, and said, “Do you have any idea who the guy was or how to find him?”

  “Not a clue,” Lynn said gravely. “He had to’ve been a drug smuggler who came to pay a debt.”

  “Then why do you wanna stick around and muddy up the water?” Leo Grishman said. “There’s no need to talk about your part in the mortuary business. Let’s leave Mrs. Lugo’s funeral out of all this, why don’t we? What good would it do? Let the dead bury the dead, as they say.”

  Lynn turned to Breda and Nelson and said, “Let’s go to The Furnace Room. I never did get that Scotch.”

  “Anything I can ever do for you!” John Lugo said to them as they were leaving.

  They found themselves among a crush of people scrambling down the steep street after the shuttles were overrun. Three Palm Springs police units were trying to get through, but the road was jammed with pedestrians.

  Nelson said to Breda, “Do you think that tan Palm Springs uniform’ll look good on me?”


  Lynn said to both of them: “Why? Why didn’t he shoot me? Why didn’t he cut my throat?”

  The fugitive set the cruise control at fifty-five miles per hour during the drive out Highway 10. Thirty minutes later he was back on Highway 111, but at a very different part of the valley highway. He was heading southeast, past the Salton Sea, past the place where he’d slept in a stolen car hidden by a stand of tamarisk trees. It seemed like a month ago. He thought about those poor campesinos who’d taken the stolen car, those poor little boys. He found a good place to stop and bury the gun, the knife, the bag. It wasn’t the first time that the desert had concealed bloody deeds. After that was done and he was back on the road, he finally stopped trembling.

  He didn’t want to think about it anymore until he got home. Then he could talk it over with his wife, his comrades, his priest. Instead he thought about what was in the trunk of the car, where the blood-stained bag had been. There was a Ninja Turtle Party Van in there for his youngest. The van had wheels like little pizzas. His baby wanted one desperately. They still called him a baby, but he was five years old. And there was a small computer for his daughter. It had cost $400, but all that dirty money needed a clean use. And there was a wristwatch for his older son, a Japanese watch, stainless steel, with a diving bezel.

  Finally, there was a green leather jacket and matching skirt he’d found in the Palm Springs department store where he’d bought his waiter’s clothes. It was double breasted with gold buttons, and the skirt was very slim. He’d measured the size against a salesgirl who was short and slender like his wife, whose favorite color was green. It had cost $500, but he didn’t care. She’d never get a present like that again, not in her lifetime.

  His comrades wouldn’t be getting back much of the money that they’d taken from drug smugglers and U.S. insurance companies, but that was all right. He was sure that the family of Javier Rosas would say it was all right.