Cactus Garden

by Ward, Robert

  “I’m betting fifty large on this hand,” Buddy said.

  “Buddy,” Charlotte Rae said. “For godsake. You’re in a death spiral.”

  Buddy turned with surprising speed and grabbed Charlotte Rae by the wrist.

  “You know better than to ever say anything like that. Now, shut up, darling!”

  He squeezed her wrist until she gave out a small cry of pain, then he turned and pushed a huge pile of chips toward the center of the table. Jack had to restrain an urge to grab him by the throat.

  Jack watched the hand unfold with the curiosity of a mourner looking at a well-preserved corpse.

  Buddy drew a queen, and the dealer’s face card was a seven. Then Buddy drew a nine and stayed pat at nineteen. Jack could see the sweat break out on his upper lip and watched Buddy’s whole body sag forward in the chair as Lu Anne took another card … a seven, giving her fourteen.

  “Doesn’t look promising,” she said. “Guess I have to take another hit.”

  The dealer flipped the final card. A six, which gave her twenty. And made Buddy Wingate a loser again.

  “Son of a bitch,” he said, reaching for his drink.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” she said, raking in the chips. “May you have better luck next time.”

  Jack watched as Buddy pushed away from the table. He was down seventy-five thousand dollars—perhaps he could still walk away with his final twenty-five grand.

  “Come on, Buddy,” Charlotte Rae said. “Let’s go see a show. Merle Haggard is in the main room.”

  “Fuck Merle Haggard and the horse he rode in on,” Buddy said. “Gimme another drink.”

  His words were slurred, and his eyes were glassy. It didn’t make sense. He’d had maybe three drinks. Then Jack understood. Buddy was wasted on something besides booze. He had the glazed-over look of a man who was on downers.

  “Twenty-five on the last hand, and I bet I make the greatest comeback since the fucking Buffalo Bills,” he said.

  Jack watched him push the money forward. There was no cockiness in the action now. It was as though he was giving the money away, the game a mere formality.

  The hand was over before it began. Buddy had seventeen showing, and against the advice of almost everyone at the table, he took a hit and busted out at twenty-five. The dealer won, and Buddy demanded to see her hole card. She had a four, which went nicely with her ten. She had won on a pat hand of fourteen.

  Buddy staggered to his feet and took a long sip of whiskey.

  “Some fun, hey, Jackie?” he said.

  “Yeah, a million laughs,” Jack said. “You always this lucky?”

  “Usually. But, hey, there’s always more green, Jackie. Always more green.”

  He gave a wild little laugh, took a step forward, and nearly fell on the floor. Jack caught him and threw an arm around his back.

  “Come on,” Buddy said. “At least we got comps to the shows and all the drinks we want. I aim to get hammered.”

  He headed for the bar, one arm over Jack’s shoulder. When Jack looked at Charlotte Rae, he saw that her face was a mask of humiliation and pain.

  By the time they left Harrah’s, Buddy Wingate was walking like a broken-field runner through the tables. He staggered over a craps table, knocking aside a small dark-faced man with a deep scar on his cheek. The man, like everyone else in Harrah’s, seemed to know Buddy. But his tone wasn’t friendly.

  “You wanta watch running into people, Buddy,” he said, straightening his tie. “That gets old real quick.”

  Jack waited for Buddy to go for the guy, but Buddy was strangely passive.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I’m heading home.”

  “Good idea,” the guy said.

  Jack stared at the man. He had mob written all over him. Even Buddy couldn’t afford to offend them.

  “Come on, pal,” Jack said, getting his arm around Buddy’s back.

  “Hey, a free ride. I like that,” Buddy said, and giggled a bit as Jack got him out of the door and dragged him to the car.

  With a mighty effort Jack placed Buddy into the car’s backseat and took the wheel.

  Charlotte Rae got into the passenger side and smiled at Jack.

  “You’re kind of handy to have around,” she said.

  “Damn right he is,” Buddy said, from the backseat. “Now, you get this chariot home, while I take me a little snooze.”

  “Sweet dreams,” Jack said, as he turned the key and heard the roaring raw power of the Typhoon.

  Jack stared at the mountain highway, which was brightly illuminated by the Typhoon’s powerful headlight beams. From the backseat, Buddy Wingate’s snores echoed throughout the cabin.

  “He’s going to have one hell of a hangover tomorrow,” Jack said.

  “No, he won’t,” Charlotte Rae said, smiling. “Buddy doesn’t’ have hangovers. He says it’s because he’s always got something working for him—booze, pot, pills, sometimes a little something else.”

  There. She had said it. Jack smiled a little, as if he had suspected as much.

  “That right?” Jack said. “What’s his drug of choice? No, let me guess. Downers.”

  “You win the Amana freezer,” Charlotte Rae said, sounding a little surprised. “How’d you know?”

  “ ‘Cause he’s wired all the time. Guys like that don’t need coke or crank.”

  “God, he used to do coke,” she said, a shudder in her voice. “You should have seen him behind that stuff. He’d turn into a wolverine.”

  “As opposed to the gentle little lamb he is now. So what’s he like, Tuinals, Secs?”

  “Sometimes. He used to get bootleg Quaaludes, but they’re harder to come by now. Besides, he got tired of feeling like a balloon. No, these days he uses a little smack now and again.”

  Jack liked the “now and again” part. Made it sound like it was a weekend hobby, gardening.

  “He does like to live dangerously. You into it too?”

  “I’ve chipped a few items. But that was a long time ago.”

  “Is Buddy hooked?”

  “No. He’s wild, but he’s also very smart. There’s plenty of people who get down once in a while who aren’t hooked.”

  “Yeah,” Jack said. “That’s right.”

  He gunned the powerful engine, and the car shot up a straightaway, like a sled rocket on the Bonneville Salt Flats. The dark, drooping branches of the trees made a black canopy, and Jack felt her powerful sexual presence, could smell her soft perfume.

  “You say it, but you don’t mean it,” she said.

  “You’re wrong,” Jack said. “What people do is their business. I don’t put drugs into my body outside of a little alcohol, but I got no problem with it.”

  “No?” she said. “You wouldn’t worry a little if you saw me shooting drugs?”

  He gave a short snort of a laugh. Buddy snored like a happy hog in the backseat, but there was real danger here.

  “I don’t tell people what to do with their lives,” Jack said. “That’s for ministers, and I haven’t been to church in a long time.”

  “That’s a cute answer,” she said in a voice that was practically a whisper, “but it’s not the answer to the question I asked you, Jack.”

  “I know what you asked me,” Jack said. “It might bother me a little bit. But only because I get sick seeing needles stuck into people.”

  “Oh,” she said. “That’s all, is it?”

  “Yeah,” Jack said. “That’s all. We turn here?”

  “Uh-huh,” Charlotte Rae said. “I just think it’s kind of sad.”

  “What is?”

  “That I thought I’d found my white knight and it turns out he doesn’t give a damn whether I live or die.”

  “You’re right,” Jack said. “That’s maybe the saddest story in the world.”

  But he smiled at her when he said it.

  He made the turn, then went up the steep, dark dirt road toward Wingate’s property. But he hadn’t gone twenty feet across the bum
py road when he sensed something was wrong. There was a flash off to the left of the car, something metallic illuminated by moonlight.

  “Get down!” Jack said.

  He reached over and, with his right hand, pushed Charlotte Rae’s head down.

  “What are you doing?”

  “On the floor! Now!”

  Jack gunned the Typhoon’s engine and ducked as low as he could.

  Suddenly, shots rang out from the darkness, exploding the windshield. A shower of glass cascaded in on Jack, cutting his face and hands. There was another burst, and Jack heard the back side window blow. He had already gunned the Typhoon straight ahead, trying to clear the cross fire, but he now realized he would never be able to outrun the snipers on the road. The car careened crazily forward, lurching to the left. Jack was barely able to keep it under control. More shots rang out, from behind them, and the rear windshield was smashed into a thousand shards of glass.

  “It’s Salazar, Buddy,” Charlotte Rae whispered. She was crouched down in the seat, her eyes wide open with fear.

  Jack made a mental note of her slip…. It was just as he had thought. Salazar’s crew was taking a shot at Wingate. Good information. Now all he had to do was survive long enough to use it.

  From the backseat, Jack heard a groan, and Buddy Wingate’s big, whiskey-smelling face was suddenly thrust over the backseat, near Jack’s.

  “Son of a bitch,” he said.

  “Are you hit?” Jack said.

  “Not yet.”

  “Then get the fuck down or you’re gonna be,” Jack said.

  There was more rifle fire, and Jack saw a pair of headlights in the rearview mirror. To his left, Jack spied an opening between two huge fir trees.

  “What’s down there?”

  “The creek, and across it, the cliff trail that goes over to Echo Lake,” Charlotte Rae said. “Hang on,” Jack said.

  He jerked the wheel in a hard left and sent the vehicle crashing through the underbrush. “Holy shit,” Wingate said.

  “They said this son of a bitch is an off-road vehicle,” Jack said. “So we’re putting our faith in American advertising.”

  They flew downhill over jagged rocks, the car leaning wildly. Tree limbs smashed into the shattered window. Jack saw a log lying in their path, but he was hemmed in; there was no escaping it. The Typhoon’s tires crashed into it and all three of its occupants were thrown upward from their seats. They smashed their heads on the roof. Jack felt blood trickling down his face, but kept his foot on the accelerator as they raced downhill. When they hit an open space on the forest floor, he straightened the rearview mirror and looked into the now-cracked glass. For a brief second he felt relieved. There was nothing behind him but fractured trees and a cloud of dust.

  Then he heard an engine and saw two powerful headlights.

  “Bastards …”

  Jack tromped down on the Typhoon’s powerful brake, then hit the accelerator hard. The engine made a wild whirring sound as the turbocharger kicked in. He held the steering wheel bone-tight with both hands, then let up on the brake. The engine gave a roar, and the car shot forward rapidly, the two front tires actually lifting off the ground. In seconds they were across the clearing and headed directly between two huge fir trees. There was barely enough room for them to pass through, and the tree limbs scraped like bones on the window. Jack felt his heart pumping wildly through his chest. But it had worked for now. The turbo had gotten them clear of their pursuers. The headlights had disappeared on the hill above them.

  “Made it,” Jack said.

  “Yeah, but we’re still fucked,” Wingate said. “The stream’s straight ahead.”

  “How close?” Jack said.

  “About a hundred yards. And then another fifty yards down, through the trees. No way we can take a car down there.”

  “What happens if we turn, run parallel to the stream? Any way to find a road, go back up, and connect to the highway?”

  “No way. You turn left you end up in a thicket. You turn right, you end up in more trees, too dense to drive through. The only way’s across the stream, up to the north, then back across on the rope bridge.”

  Jack hesitated for a split second, then turned right.

  “What the hell?” Wingate said.

  “Hang on,” Jack said.

  He smashed his foot on the accelerator, turned the wheel radically to the right, running parallel to the stream below, and soon saw in front of him a thick grove of trees. There was a narrow opening between the trees. A perfect place to park the Typhoon. Jack turned the wheel violently to the left, and Charlotte Rae was thrust over into his lap, as they squealed on the hard ground. Jack hit the brakes in time to avoid a collision with a huge Douglas fir that towered over them like a silent ghost.

  “Give me the pistol,” Jack said.

  Charlotte Rae popped open the now-empty briefcase and handed the Glock to Jack. “Out,” he said.

  Charlotte Rae was out of the door instantly, and Buddy tumbled out behind her.

  “Can you walk, Buddy?”

  “Fuck’n A. Nothing like cold fear to sober a man up.”

  “Then move. Down toward the stream.”

  “We going fishing? ‘Cause I left my tackle home.”

  “No,” Jack said. “We’re going across the stream … right there.”

  He pointed to what he hoped was a shallows.

  “Then we’re going up the other side.”

  “They could pick us off as we climb,” Buddy said.

  “Yeah,” Jack said. “But they have to see us first. We make it up there, we can stand them off. Come on.”

  They scrambled madly down the bank, the three of them grabbing roots, limbs, anything that would support them. They were halfway down the hill when they heard the sound of the truck engine up above the hill, on the tree line.

  “Keep down, and keep moving,” Jack whispered.

  Charlotte Rae stumbled over a stone and fell into Wingate, who grabbed her with one meat-hook hand.

  They were at the foot of the hill now. The cool stream flowed rapidly in front of them.

  “Get in the water and keep low. If they start to fire, go under and swim for the other side. See those logs on the other shore? Try and come up under them for cover. “Go!”

  Jack took a step in, but Charlotte Rae and Wingate stood as still as trees.

  “What the hell you waiting for, Mario Cuomo?”

  “Got a little problem here, son. I don’t swim.”

  “No?” Jack said, coming back out of the water.

  He walked up next to Wingate. Up above him he could hear doors slamming, the sound of men talking to one another in rapid Spanish.

  “Time to learn, friend.”

  Jack shoved Wingate hard toward the stream. He fell in face-first, then came up fast…. “You daddy-jacking lame son of a bitch,” he coughed. “Thank me later. Go!” Jack said.

  Charlotte Rae cast a look toward the voices at the top of the hill and leapt into the water herself. She grabbed Wingate’s hand and began pulling him toward the middle of the stream. Jack joined them seconds later, the coldness of the water surprising him, taking his breath away.

  The moonlight shone on them like a searchlight. Jack wished he could fire at it and put out the soft yellow light. They advanced cross-stream maddeningly slowly, the current knocking Wingate down. But they were making progress, when suddenly they heard cries from above them on the shore:

  “Down here. Abajo. En la agua.”

  “Andale. Andale.”

  Jack saw them then, coming down the hill. Two men with rifles. A third seemed to be holding a pistol in one hand, something else in the other. What was it?

  Then there was a round beam of light that powerfully illuminated the water. Christ, they had a flashlight. The bastards had thought of everything.

  Without a word, Jack pushed Wingate underwater.

  “Swim,” he commanded.

  As he grabbed Wingate’s arm and pulled him towa
rd the other shore, he heard the bullets popping only a few feet away. It was an odd sensation: as they harmlessly hit the water, they seemed like children’s toy bullets. He could only move slowly under water, looking back at Wingate, whose eyes bulged in panic. To his right, Charlotte Rae had already reached the logs and was surfacing between two of them, under the cover of brush. Jack felt the pocket of his coat. The Glock was supposed to be waterproof. God help him if it wasn’t true.

  Jack headed for the logs, which he could see dimly in front of him. He came up quickly and gasped for breath. Wingate came up a half second later. He was rasping badly; it sounded as though his lungs were bursting.

  Jack looked at the other side of the stream. No sign of the assassins yet. Jack knew the men were scrambling down the same hill they’d just come from, which left them only a few precious minutes before the men would be on the opposite shore with their high-powered rifles. This was the only chance they would have to climb.

  “Come on,” Jack said. “We’ve got to make that bluff.”

  “No way,” Wingate said, gasping. “I can’t.”

  “Bullshit,” Jack said. “Get out of the water, now!”

  “I’m telling you son. I ain’t got the wind.”

  Jack tried to keep the chilling hand of panic off his throat. He looked around. Downstream.

  “All right,” he said. “You two stay here. Under this brush. Don’t move.”

  “But they’ll be coming,” Charlotte Rae said.

  “That’s right,” Jack said.

  He scrambled up onto the muddy bank, looked ten yards downstream, and saw a log floating by the river’s edge, caught on some roots or a rock.

  Jack checked the load in his pistol.

  “Stay down,” he said.

  The two of them hid their heads, and Jack tossed a couple more branches over them.

  Then he ran ten yards downstream and got back into the water. He was right. The log was caught up on a jagged boulder. It was anybody’s guess how long it would stay that way, but he had to take the chance. If he hid farther up the hill, he would be out of reliable pistol range.

  He cocked the hammer and sat there waiting, his feet getting numb. He looked at the alien moon and suddenly felt an overwhelming desire for a blanket and a drink. It wasn’t fair. He might die protecting the very people he hoped to bust. Why not let these guys … undoubtedly Salazar’s men … kill the two of them and be done with it? He laughed at the sheer absurdity of it and looked out across the dark, rippling water.