"I'm going to find a phone," she told him.
"Okay," he said without looking up.
She needed to hear Asia's voice.
CHAPTER 13
Ellen was exhausted, hungover, and pissed off. Her feet hurt. She had two hundred dollars in her pocket, and she was hungry. She needed to find a phone, food, and something for her hangover. Not necessarily in that order.
She rubbed her burning eyes and thought about the terror she had felt when Raleigh and Victor climbed up that hill.
"Where have you been?" Raleigh had asked, no, he'd demanded—the son of a bitch. Like who died and made him King Kong? His lips were a tight line as he waited for her answer. Victor's mouth had hung open, like he had nothing left to pump up his jaw. Victor's gaze was unfocused at first, but then when it came to rest on the area just above her forehead, he seemed to come back to life. It was then she became aware of the emptiness there.
She reached up and felt the top of her head. It was naked, exposed, empty. Her wig was gone. All that was left was the knob of her own dishwater blond hair, tied up in a cheap red rubber band. She spread her fingers, but the gesture was useless. There was no hiding. All she could think to do was cover her eyes. She felt the heat of her face. God, what did I do to deserve this night?
"We've been looking all over for you," Raleigh said.
She uncovered her eyes and looked at him. Should she ask them why they were wet? If she didn't notice, wouldn't they think that odd? Something tickled her arm. Thinking it was an insect, she swatted it. Then she looked down and realized that what she had felt was a knotted thread dangling from the embroidery of her shirt. Well, the shirt she was wearing anyway. It wasn't the same one she'd begun the day with.
"Drink," she said, passing Victor the bottle. He tipped the tequila back and took a long slug. She watched the worm float down to the neck of the bottle, wincing as it drifted closer to his open mouth. "Hey, hey," she said. "Leave a little for the rest of us."
She took the bottle back and passed it to Raleigh. He had not moved or smiled since asking his questions. She saw a hardness to his eyes that hadn't been there before. She leered at him. "Hey, baby, looks like we saved you the worm." He took the bottle from her and tilted it back, letting the final contents drain down his throat. The big fat white worm—big as a potato slug—was the last to go. She watched, fascinated, as it funneled down into his waiting mouth.
"Oh, my God," she said. This had to rank with one of the most disgusting acts she'd ever witnessed.
Raleigh threw aside the empty bottle. Grinning, he swallowed.
They were parked next to a field of some sort of grain that had been allowed to run wild. She slid down from the hood, lifting her arms above her head and howling at the moon as if she hadn't a care in the world. She landed in a furrowed row and stepped into the moonlit meadow. The loam gave way easily beneath her shoes. She saw dried puddles of cow shit, and thought about bullfights. She remembered how Victor's eyes had glowed when he spoke of them—of that immortal contest between good and evil. And she had said something dumb about how sometimes the bull wins. Oh, Lordy, but she'd fixed herself good this time.
Fuck the wig where are the keys? How am I going to get back to civilization and away from these crazy assholes and those bodies floating down the muddy river? And speaking of murder; Munch is going to kill me when she sees the limo. Ellen reached down and ran her fingers over the indentation in the driver's door. Had that dent always been there? And what had happened to the hood ornament and the antennae?
"We need more booze," she said. "If no one's got the keys, it looks like we're walking." She headed off toward the faint yellow light she saw winking in the distance.
"I've got the keys," Raleigh said, dangling them from his fingertips. "You left them in the ignition."
She stopped. She had no reason not to stop, to turn around, to head back toward them, even though that was the last thing she wanted to do.
"I'll drive," he said.
She thought about the barbiturates already at work in his bloodstream. "No, darling, 'fraid not," she said. "It's against company policy."
"Company policy?" Victor asked. He slugged Raleigh's arm with the back of his knuckles. "She is company?"
Raleigh looked from them to the keys to the limo. He never looked at the river, none of them did. Will they notice, she wondered, that I'm not looking at the river? What she needed was a distraction. She turned her back to the men and peeled off the borrowed shirt, giving them a quick flash of her white breasts in the moonlight.
"Let's go swimming," she said, heading for the riverbank.
"No," Raleigh said. "You're right. We're out of booze. Let's head back to town."
She kept her sigh of relief silent and pulled the shirt back on. "But I drive," she said, holding out her hand for the keys. Victor spoke up, "Yes, by all means, give her the keys. You and I will stretch out in the back. "
Raleigh seemed to see the sense of this suggestion and dropped the keys onto her waiting palm. She quickly unlocked the driver's door and flipped the master lock control. Resuming her role as chauffeurette, she held the door open for them as they clambered back into the car, then took her place behind the wheel.
How long before the effects of the Mickey take hold? she wondered. She found herself praying, that same hopeful, close-your-eyes-rea1-tight-and-wish kind of praying she'd learned as a child.
She hoped, as she had hoped then, that wanting something really bad would make the difference. But wishing never changed things. Not then, not with her mother's new husband. He had always come back. As soon as Mama slipped into her nightly Valium-induced stupor, old Dwayne baby would come to Ellen's door. Finally, she'd screwed up the courage to take action. She spent her salary from the coffee shop and a whole afternoon installing a hasp and lock on her bedroom door, sneaking drills and screwdrivers from Dwayne's store of tools in the garage. The man at the hardware store said the case-hardened padlock offered the best security. The next day she came home from school and found her door resting against the hallway wall. Dwayne had even removed the hinges. Later her mother had confronted her in the kitchen. She'd grabbed Ellen's arms just below the shoulders with her sweaty hands. Mama's bleary eyes—darting right to left, twitching in their sockets—had searched her own.
"You'd never run away, would you?" Mama asked.
That was the closest thing to an answer Ellen had ever gotten from God. If you wanted something in this life, she knew, you had to make it happen.
"Y'all set back there," she asked through the rearview mirror.
"Let's go," Victor answered. His words came out as if he were speaking from underwater. His lips had to be getting numb.
She started the car. The privacy partition went up. How rude, she thought. Not that she wanted to keep looking at them. But who did they think they were to shut her out like that?
She grew aware of her hair again, how flat it was, how dirty and thin and awful. she wondered. What difference does it make what these two assholes see and think? What any of them think?
She rewed the engine and popped the car into reverse. The sudden shift sent a jolt through the long car, and then the engine stalled.
"Shit," she muttered, and turned the key again. Nothing happened. She switched it off and tried again. Nothing. A list hammered against the privacy partition followed by muffled complaints. Do they think I'm doing this on purpose? She looked down and saw that she was still in reverse. She shifted back to neutral, and this time the car started immediately She took a deep breath and then noticed the gas gauge. The indicator was on empty. Great. How far will a car this size run on empty?
She goosed the accelerator carefully this time and cranked the wheel to the right. The narrow, rutted road was more dirt than asphalt. Working the gas, brakes, and steering wheel, she maneuvered a three-point U-turn. The tires sank into the soft ground and spun uselessly for an endless second before finally taking hold. She allowed herself a thin wedge of hope.
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The light up ahead looked like it came from a small house. Another ten minutes of driving brought her close enough to make out the details of a darkened gas station with a small store attached. The sign in the window announced, CERRADO, "closed." But what really caught her attention was the pay phone. She had told Munch in her note that she would call. Hopefully, Munch wasn't too worried.
Victor and Raleigh had to be out by now. On the control panel over her head were two toggle switches. One was labeled PRIVACY PARTITION. She toggled, and the panel separating them slid down. Victor and Raleigh were slumped against each other sound asleep. She put the partition back up, pulled up to the gas island, parked, and came around to the back.
She opened the door. Raleigh was closest and snoring. She clapped her hands next to his ear. His eyes never flickered. The same was true with Victor when she poked him. Gently she pushed them apart from each other and went through their pockets. She took the cash first, then continued to search. When she found the white surgical tape, she wondered what the hell he was doing with that. Strapped to the same guy's shin was some kind of short, weird knife in a black scabbard. The angle of his leg prevented her from unbuckling it, not that she wanted it bad enough to keep trying.
Raleigh's wallet was difficult to pry out of his back pocket. She pushed his deadweight, rolling him more on his stomach. Victor slid into the spot Raleigh vacated, but she still managed to wedge her hand down between the two of them and slide the wallet out. He didn't have much cash, and only one credit card, which she wasn't interested in. Using one of the limo napkins so as not to leave her fingerprints, she took his gun and threw it into the bushes. Then she dragged the two men one at a time out of the car and left them faceup by the side of the road.
Change spilled out of Raleigh's pocket. Ellen was reminded once more of the phone booth. She picked quarters and dimes out of the dirt. She had every intention of calling Munch and letting her know what was going on, but then one of the men groaned. The hell with it, she thought. Munch had waited this long; no point in waking her up just to deliver bad news.
Ellen pocketed the money, climbed back into the limo, and pointed the car for the good old U.S. of A. With any luck, she'd be explaining the whole situation in person in a couple of hours. Five miles later, the fumes in the gas tank played out, forcing her to coast to a stop by the side of the dark highway. She searched the trunk, hoping that Munch kept some spare gas there, but all she found was more minibar supplies, the spare tire, some tools, and a blanket. She grabbed the blanket and a screwdriver with a long blade. Before she hiked off into the darkness, she realized she still had the mysterious roll of surgical tape. Yau never knout she thought to herself. Something like this might come in real handy. She tucked the tape into her waistband, next to the screwdriver.
The moon was long gone. It was dark, and she was tired. She hoped that the light of day would bring some solutions. As she dropped off to sleep, cuddled in a small cave, she resolved to call Munch at the First opportunity.
* * *
Now it was morning. She hiked all the way back to the gas station, hoping that when Raleigh and Victor had come to that they headed back for town on a different road. just in case, she stayed off the open road, clutching her screwdriver like a dagger. When she finally reached the Pemex station, her heart fell. Not only were her customers still there, but they were talking to the Mexican police. She hid in the bushes and watched. The voices of the men carried to her.
She heard Victor demand to be taken to the Romanian embassy, heard him say, "Fucking bitch," as he pulled on the white fabric of his inside-out pants pocket. The "fucking bitch" would, of course, be herself.
The one who worried her was Raleigh. She watched as he walked up the road, studying the ground. He pulled one of the federales over, showed him something, and then pointed exactly the way she had left. Shit, she thought. That Raleigh is on to my scent.
lf she hadn't looked so raggedy-ass, she might have just tried walking on out there and taken her chances. But you never knew which direction those federales would fall. Only fools believed that the truth alone protected you.
CHAPTER 14
Munch and Mace walked the short distance from the funeral home to the police station. The relief Munch had felt at the morgue was short-lived when she learned that Ellen still hadn't checked in. She was still mulling that over when Mace asked, "So what's the deal with your friend and her wigs? Something wrong with her real hair? "
"No, that's not it," she said.
He waited for her to elaborate.
"It's more like she needs the extra layer between who she really is and what you get to see. She puts up a lot of fronts. It's all part of the life, makes her feel more protected."
"Wearing a wig makes her feel safer?" he asked.
"Or different, like she's playing a part."
"Why does she need to be somebody else?"
Munch shook her head and decided on a different approach. "You've worn a uniform before, right?"
'°Yeah," he said, "but how is that the same?"
"It gives you an identity. You go out and be a cop or a soldier or whatever all day. You talk and walk and do things, but it's the soldier doing his thing. You go home at night and take off the outfit, who are you?Just another guy trying to crack his nut. But when you're out there in the war zone, you want to feel bigger than life."
"So she puts on her wigs to go on patrol."
"Yeah," Munch said. "That's about right. I've been trying to get through to her that the war is over. We were just about there, and then all this shit had to happen."
"This is it," Mace said, stopping before a building sporting the Mexican flag. 'just let me do the talking."
"Fine," she said.
The Tijuana headquarters for the judicial Police of Mexico was a two-story building in the center of town. The walls of the ground floor were brick and painted an orangey shade of red. An air-conditioning unit hung out a window on the second floor, supported by an unpainted two-by-four. Munch and Mace entered the smoke-filled reception area. Flies circled in lazy formations. A potted palm sat dying by the door. They walked up to the counter and stood under a sign that read: ACCIDENT REPORTS.
Mace waited for the woman seated on the stool across from him to acknowledge his presence. She finally turned tired eyes on him.
"Do you speak English?" he asked. She slid him a form printed in English. "My friend's car was stolen," he said.
"Aiii," she said, "robar." She pointed at an adjacent room.
Mace thanked her and gestured for Munch to follow him. They entered a whitewashed room where four desks were spaced haphazardly. Old-fashioned black rotary phones sat on each desk next to stacks of yellowed paperwork. Munch saw no typewriters, teletype machines, or even radio equipment. At a table in the corner four federales played dominoes.
The pearl handles of their holstered pistols peeked out from beneath the square edges of their embroidered shirts. One of the federales said something and looked at Munch. If she had been wearing a button-down blouse, she would have secured the top button. She resisted the urge to cross her arms across her chest.
One of the telephones began ringing. No one jumped up to answer it. Finally, after some discussion, the cop nearest the phone slid his chair back, stood, and ambled over to the offending instrument.
"Bueno," he said. Munch could see the glint of his gold dental work.
"Who's in charge here?" Mace asked.
The stares that turned on him were blank, giving away nothing. A yellow, short-haired mongrel ran into the room. Like most of the dogs they'd seen on the drive through town, this one had no collar. The dog ran over to one of the desks, lifted his leg, and let out a stream of urine.
The seated federales rose in unison, shouting at the dog and clapping their hands.
Munch leaned over to Mace, and said out of the side of her mouth, "I guess you know what you have to do around here to get some attention."
Mace cracked a sma
ll smile. Munch was amazed at the transformation that the small shift of his lips brought to his face. She could see how other females found him attractive. He had that tough but tragic air about him that a lot of women went for. Derek had cured her of that wanting-to-be-needed syndrome. Now she was only interested in men who needed nothing, which narrowed the field considerably.
"Amigo," Mace said, addressing the cop who'd just hung up the phone. He'd shed his pissed-off look and now wore a broad smile. Munch fought to rein in her surprise at this second metamorphosis. Mace walked over to the federale and extended his hand. "Mace St. John," he said.
The Mexican cop accepted the handshake. "Gilbert Ruiz," he said. "What can I do for you, Senor?"
"My lady friend here is looking for her car," Mace said. Munch nodded in agreement, keeping her expression neutral.
"What kind of car?" Ruiz asked.
"A limousine," Mace said. "Silver Cadillac. Came across the border yesterday but never returned."
The other federales stopped their play and looked up.
They smell money, Munch thought.
"We have such a car in impound," Ruiz said.
"Where is it?" Munch asked. "And the lady driver?"
They were interrupted by a woman who entered the police station, crying hysterically. She went at Ruiz with clenched fists, screaming in Spanish. The federale deflected her blows, but managed to do so gently. The woman sank to her knees, beating her chest and sobbing.
"What's wrong?" Munch asked.
Ruiz pulled a chair over for the woman to sit in and told one of the other cops in Spanish to get some water. He patted the woman's shoulder.
"Her husband and son suffered a tragic. . . accident," Ruiz told Munch. "Their bodies were fished from the river just this morning."
"Mi niña, tambien," the woman said.
"No," Ruiz said.
The woman choked out another rapid string of words, interrupted by moans and sharp cries of pain. Munch distinctly heard "guvacho," the Mexican slang for white man, used several times.
"¿Es verdad?" Ruiz asked, anger and surprise clouding his lace. He fired back another round of words. Munch watched as well as listened. Occasionally a word would be used that was the sane in both languages, such as "television" and "radio." When Ruiz spoke to the woman, his face was kind, almost pleading. The woman shook her head as she replied, obviously not buying whatever he was selling. A second federale helped the woman gently from her chair and led her outside.
Unwanted Company - Barbara Seranella Page 11