“Shawn, do you suppose there’s any chance we might find Angela’s real parents?”
“I suppose,” he said. For the first time he avoided her eyes, trying to make contact with Hannibal. “Esmeralda’s a pretty small town, just south of Rio Bravo, not twenty miles into Mexico. You can just ask for the black couple. Any man you see can tell you where they are, because Angela’s mother runs the, eh,” Shawn was stuck for words for a moment. His voice became low. “You know, the local bordello. The cat house.”
-25-
In calling Esmeralda a pretty small town, Shawn Boyd had understated the case by half. After four hours on roads designed to torture the American luxury automobile, Hannibal pushed his rented Town Car down an unpaved street which was dry and flat as a stale tortilla. Eyes followed him down the street, mostly children’s eyes. Houses here were adobe. Only businesses lived in brick or stucco buildings. The few vehicles he saw were four wheel drive or ancient pickup trucks with huge steel bodies.
The almost empty streets and the overall quiet testified to the time of day. Hannibal guessed by four o’clock most of the day’s activity was over, the night time action not yet begun. Beside him, Cindy was half asleep, bouncing easily with the gentle vibrations of the car’s motion. She was clearly more relaxed, more comfortable in this situation than he was.
Hannibal eased to a stop in front of what looked like a small grocery store. A chair outside the door held a man in canvas pants, tee shirt and thong sandals. The chair rested on its two hind legs, pressing the man’s head back against the wall. He was a bit jowly, with the straight black hair and swarthy complexion Hannibal expected. He shook Cindy gently, rolled down the window and waved to the man on the chair. The only response he got was a cold stare. Cindy leaned across him to push her head out his window. Her face was enough to bring a smile to the seated man’s face.
“Donde esta el casa del Johnsons?” she asked. Then she exchanged a torrent of verbiage which, to Hannibal, was almost complete gibberish. With what looked like a great effort, the man raised his arm far enough to point a couple of times. He and Cindy chattered on for a moment, then she ended the conversation with “Gracias” and sat back down.
“Straight ahead about two miles,” Cindy said. “Then hang a right and drive until we cross a wooden bridge. Then go left. There’s a huge tree at a four corners. The Johnson’s place is about a hundred meters before that.”
“Uh-huh,” Hannibal muttered under his breath. “You can’t get there from here.” He pressed the accelerator and rolled his window up. It had been down long enough for him to taste the road dust. The town smelled to him like a musty closet, and the smell had gotten into the car.
“I didn’t understand much of what you were just talking about,” Hannibal said, “but I know the word negros. What was he saying about me?”
“Not you,” Cindy said. “After he gave me the directions, he said we should go down there with the other blacks.”
Hannibal’s stomach had begun to gnaw at him when they arrived. The Johnson house may well have been fancy at one time, although at present peeling paint and missing shingles gave it an unwanted, abandoned appearance. Its design was more Georgian than Spanish. The wide, two-story building had a deep porch which wrapped around it on three sides. The lathe turned spindles supporting the porch railing reminded Hannibal of a row of decaying teeth. A deep balcony wound around the second floor, matching the porch in every way. A variety of chairs were spread around both, all empty except for one occupied by a tall Mexican woman on the balcony, sunning herself on a lounger. She lay with her face to the sun, wearing nothing but a secret smile any normal man would want to unlock.
“Down boy,” Cindy said as they got out of the car.
“Don’t worry. Only thing I want in this place is some answers.”
Hannibal and Cindy crossed the narrow road and mounted the stairs to the front porch. Before they reached the door, a creaking board made Hannibal spin to his right. A man had walked around the corner from the side of the house, and he was plainly as surprised to see Hannibal as Hannibal was to see him.
The first black man Hannibal saw in Mexico was four or five inches taller than he was, but not at all threatening. If he was at all frightening, it was the way a zombie or a corpse might be. The man was bent and sallow, his head covered by a short layer of kinky white hair. He carried a hatchet, which he raised defensively, but the arms growing out of his work gloves were little more than bony frames wrapped in acorn colored skin. Hannibal suspected his ribs would show if he took off his frayed work shirt. A smear of scar tissue started under his jaw on the left and continued down under his collar. His eyes shifted suspiciously, as if seeing a stranger was the same as seeing an enemy.
Hannibal straightened and willed himself to relax. He did not want to present a threatening appearance. “How you doing?” he asked. “You Johnson?”
“Who wants to know?”
Cindy stepped forward. “Sir, I’m an attorney. I’m trying to get some information about a young woman I believe to be your daughter.”
“Ain’t got no daughter,” Johnson snorted, but his face denied his words. On closer inspection, Hannibal saw the blotchy scar on his neck was in fact the result of a badly healed burn.
“Are you saying Patty Johnson isn’t your daughter?” Cindy asked. The older man turned his head and spit over the railing. He braced his feet defiantly and stepped closer to Hannibal. He opened his mouth to speak, but they never got to hear what he had to say. Johnson froze in place when the front door swung open. Hannibal turned to see a very dark Mexican woman filling the doorway. Her body was a series of rolls. First her chin, which rolled down onto her chest. Then her bosom, grotesque inside the simple cotton dress, flowing down onto her waist, which then rolled onto vast hips which only fit into the door because she turned to one side. Even her hair was rolled up in a bun on top of her head. She rolled big, watery cow eyes toward the tall man.
“What you blubbering about, old fool?” she snapped. “Get on back to your work.” Johnson, nearly a foot taller than the woman, still shrank back from her voice, the way whipped dogs do from their masters. The low growl was there, but it had no power to frighten when you could see the dog’s tail between his legs.
Then the woman turned to the newcomers and flashed a syrupy smile which chilled Hannibal more than her appearance. “Won’t you come in?”
Hannibal and Cindy followed her into a wide front room almost choked with love seats, sofas and chaise lounges. Four of the seats were occupied by scantily dressed Mexican girls whose condition Hannibal rated as fair to good, on a scale where Cindy would be near mint. Lighting was low, supplied mostly by red bulbs glaring from standing lamps, adding to the general atmosphere of cheap warmth. The furniture, all chintz and chenille, showed signs of continuous repair. The room carried an oddly attractive scent. The weird combination of baking fruit pies and musk should have been disgusting but wasn’t. In the background, Spanish guitar music played very low. At the far end of the room was a counter which projected from the left side wall about six feet. Their hostess walked past it and turned to face them, leaning on it. Her eyes wandered up and down Cindy’s body, the way a man’s might.
“Are you the owner? Mrs. Johnson?” Hannibal asked
“I’m Mrs. Johnson,” the woman replied in clear English. “The customers call me Scooter. But you don’t look like my usual customers.”
“We haven’t come here for what you sell,” Cindy said.
“I see. Are you here to audition for a job, then?” Scooter leered at Cindy’s chest.
“We’re here about your daughter,” Hannibal said.
“Patty?” The smile dropped from Scooter’s face. “What about her? Is she all right?”
“If she’s the girl we know,” Cindy said, “she’s fine.”
“Couldn’t miss Patty,” Scooter said. She waddled into the next room and returned a few seconds later with an old photograph. Cindy took it, stared at i
t for a moment, then passed it to Hannibal. There was no mistaking those cheekbones or jaw line, even in a four year old photo. It was clearly Angela.
“Is my baby in any trouble?”
Hannibal looked around, noticing how the other girls ignored them. “Not at all, Ma’am. She’s just applied for a job and we’re doing the standard background check.” He saw Cindy turn her face to the floor and prayed she had not given him away. “Can you tell us how long she lived here, and when she left?”
A deep sorrow crossed Scooter’s face, or it might have been the wash from the red lights. “Patty lived here all her life until…” a deep sigh, almost a sob. “She left about four years ago. She was so smart. She was reading all the time, reading about this and that. And she sure didn’t get that from me, no sir. She was just starting high school, you know. She was just a child, too young to be on her own.”
“What made her leave?” Cindy asked. Hannibal did not see why it mattered.
“She had a big fight with her father,” Scooter said. “Almost killed him. They never got along very well. One day he said something to her, and she walked into that kitchen and carried the coffee pot back out here and threw a whole pot of hot coffee at his face. That scar you see on his neck? That’s from her. She probably figured he’d kill her behind that, so she ran away. Haven’t seen or heard from her since.” Then she looked up to Cindy’s face, searching for sympathy. “How is she doing?”
Hannibal figured he had her. It all fit. Young runaway, gets across the border, hooks up with the first bad dudes she meets. One of them notices the resemblance to the dead man, Jake Mortimer, and senses a good scam. But who down here would know about a murder in Baltimore years before. Then Hannibal thought he saw his chance to climb aboard the clue bus. He could be within reach of the linchpin connecting one train of events with another. He had nothing to lose by asking.
“Ma’am, do you happen to know anything about the man your daughter’s hanging around with? His name’s Pat Louis.”
Scooter’s expression did not really change so much as deepen. Her concern for her daughter was clearly quite real. One hand went to her face, pressing her jowls together. Her eyes squeezed together and she spoke through her hand. “Dear God don’t be so cruel. Please don’t tell me my little girl is with that low life scum.” Her eyes opened, looking too small, set too deep in her round face. “He’s my age. Why would she be with him?”
Cindy moved forward to rest a comforting hand on Scooter’s shoulder. “Don’t worry,” she said, turning dagger eyes on Hannibal, “They’ve gone their separate ways now. He can’t hurt her anymore.”
Hannibal was unmoved. “How did you know Pat Louis? He’s from way up in Maryland isn’t he?”
Scooter gave herself three deep breaths before she answered. “They come down here to hide out, when the law’s after them. I rent rooms upstairs in the back. I hate them, but it’s cold hard American cash and that stuff’s scarce around here.”
“When did you see him last?” Hannibal stepped in closer, and Cindy eased an arm around Scooter, as if to protect her.
“Does it really matter?” Cindy asked.
“He was here back then,” Scooter said. “They was staying here when my little girl ran off. He probably left a few days after. God I hoped I’d never hear that name again.”
“Who are they, Mrs. Johnson?” Hannibal asked. “Gangsters from up north?”
She nodded. “He usually travels with them Lerner brothers, but I guess they split up.”
“What?” Good luck can be as intoxicating as the finest liquor. Hannibal’s trip to Mexico was a gamble, taken with the hope of getting to the bottom of the mystery of Angela’s secret past. But now, the prize at the bottom of the box turned out to be much bigger than he could have hoped. He grabbed Scooter’s arm so hard she yelped, more in surprise than pain. “You talking about little Wally and a big guy they call Slo? How do you know them?”
“Known them for years,” Scooter said. “I told you, they always come down here to hide out when it gets too hot in the States. I rent them a room upstairs until…”
Cindy pulled Hannibal’s hand away from Scooter, then actually stepped between them. “Ma’am, we have reason to believe those men are a threat to your daughter. Can you tell me where they are now?”
Scooter looked from Cindy to Hannibal and back. Her eyes were calculating, perhaps measuring the possible trouble involved with talking as opposed to keeping quiet. Or maybe she was concerned about violence in her little business. Hannibal knew he had to stay quiet. Anything he said now would push her away from the decision he needed her to make. Ultimately, an outside force influenced her choice.
Her husband bent his head to come in the front door, sweat soaking through his shirt, work gloves making his hands look like hammer heads at the ends of his arms. Her eyes glowed and Hannibal could see she associated this man with all the trouble she had ever seen. Maybe she could not get rid of him, but some other troubles, maybe they could be shoved away. Her face hardened in resolve as she turned back to Hannibal.
“They right here mister,” Scooter said. “Right upstairs in room two oh three.”
-26-
“Hannibal wait!”
Cindy’s cries bounced off Hannibal’s ears unheard. He bolted up the winding staircase, taking the steps three at a time. Angela’s con game, Jacob Mortimer’s murder, and the more recent killing of Pat Louis were all forgotten. This was about getting his skull battered by a man he was trying to help. This was about his car being stolen, his being accused of murder, the hammering he took at the hands of a locker room full of fighters. This was about payback.
His feet stamped across the carpet runner covering the hall. At room 203 he grabbed the door knob and twisted. Locked. His fist slammed against the door three, four, five times, threatening to punch it down.
“All right, all right, hold your water.” A latch clicked and Wally Lerner swung the door open. He shouted “Whoa” as Hannibal’s face came into view, and tried to slam the door shut. But Hannibal’s shoulder was in the way. The door bounced back open and Hannibal lunged in. Wally had a gun, a thirty-eight, and he nearly got it pointed in the right direction before Hannibal grabbed his wrist and twisted hard. Wally squealed and the gun flew across the room. Hannibal’s right hand arced around and jarred Wally with an open hand blow across his face. Then Hannibal released Wally’s arm, using both hands to gather up the front of his shirt.
“Where is he, you little weasel?” Hannibal screamed into Wally’s face. His breathing came in short gasps now, his nostrils flared, and his teeth showed in a death’s head grimace. Wally’s oil spot eyes darted back and forth and his voice deserted him for a second.
“Out back,” Wally said. “He’s out there trying to fix the car.”
Hannibal thrust Wally out the door like passing a basketball. Wally crashed hard into the wall, sliding down the repeating flower print to the floor. Hannibal jerked up on his collar, half carrying, half dragging him to the stairs. They went down them together, Hannibal in control all the time. He imagined they got some odd stares from the girls in the front room, but he looked neither right nor left. Steering Wally by the back of his collar, Hannibal got him through the door and down the porch steps to the ground.
Hannibal was shoving Wally ahead of himself as he rounded the corner of the house. They almost walked into Sloan Lerner, on his way to the front of the house. Sloan’s hands were covered with grease, and he shone with sweat from working in a full set of coveralls. And he was even bigger than Hannibal remembered him.
“Hey!” Sloan shouted as he realized the situation. His right fist swept up, missing his brother by inches, and thwacked into Hannibal’s jaw. For Hannibal the world went black for a moment. He staggered back three or four steps before dropping onto his back. The hard ground sent the impact of his landing throughout his frame. He lifted an arm and one leg in a ground defensive posture.
It was unnecessary. Sloan was easing Wally into
a seated position. “You leave my brother alone,” he shouted at Hannibal.
Hannibal rolled a little farther away and got to his feet. His tailbone hurt from his landing. Still his anger drove him to continue. “That’s okay, Slo,” he said, raising his fists. “It’s you I want anyway.”
Sloan grinned, the way a man does when he first realizes the girl he is with is about to say yes. He drew to his full height and rubbed his greasy hands together before putting up his own fists. His massive shoulders rolled forward as he loosened up, and his feet shifted into a strong fighting stance. Hannibal shuffled forward and snapped off a couple of jabs which smacked solidly into Sloan’s forearms with no apparent effect. Sloan tossed a few punches which Hannibal easily avoided, despite the bigger man’s reach advantage. Frustrated, Sloan took a couple of charging steps forward and got in a left which scraped across Hannibal’s left ear.
“See, I spent some time in the ring,” Sloan said. “I knocked out more fighters than you’ve met in your life.”
Hannibal’s ears were ringing and his head had settled into a dull ache. His knuckles pulsed too, reminding him how he hated to do this without gloves on. Still, he was not going to be intimidated by this guy’s size. Instead, he put more energy into his footwork, dancing out of reach.
“You’ve probably done this with a lot of boxers,” Hannibal said from behind his raised fists. Then he planted a stamp kick into Sloan’s belly. “But how many kickboxers?”
Sloan drove forward again, and Hannibal met him with two left jabs, a right cross and a right crescent kick to the ribs. “I learned kickboxing as a teenager in Germany,” he said. “I was in a lot of fights in school before that, but after a few kick boxing lessons, I stopped losing all the time. Now I don’t lose at all.”
“Yeah, well I got tired of the kids laughing at me,” Sloan said. “That’s why I stopped losing fights.” He stomped forward again, ignoring Hannibal’s stiff left to his mouth, brushing past a kick to his right thigh, and sank his right fist deep into Hannibal’s gut. Hannibal doubled over, but quickly unwound, his fist sweeping up and back around, across Sloan’s jaw.
Blood and Bone Page 17