She shook her head, and her eyes filled with tears.
“Don’t cry now,” I whispered. “You can do that later. I’m going to look for him. You get yourself untied and untie Emma so she can walk. It would be better if you left her gag on until we are out of here, as we have to be very quiet. Do you understand?”
She nodded and began to work at the knots. “You wait here. I’ll be right back.”
The next room was Eduardo’s, still quiet, but as I approached I thought I could hear childlike breathing. The door was open. Eduardo lay in his bed, his teddy bear at his side. The eye in the center of the storm. Lupe watched me from her tiny chair as if she hadn’t moved since I was last there, but she had put on a sweater, and a suitcase sat next to her on the floor, a sad south-of-the-border suitcase, held together with tape and hope, a suitcase that had carried a lifetime of belongings across the border and was getting ready to take them back again. Lupe, it appeared, was cooperating with Monogal.
“Wake up Eduardo,” I said. “We’re leaving.”
She looked at me without surprise, with a resignation that long preceded this event, that knew all about losing. Gringos were bigger, faster, better at business and motion.
“I’m awake,” Eduardo said.
“Can he walk?”
“Sí.”
“Up then. We have to hurry.”
“He is taking him home, señorita,” Lupe whispered, “to his mother.”
Home, the place where children and flowers spring from dry riverbeds and dust. “Not really, Lupe. He’s just using him to get what he wants.”
“But he is not safe here, señorita. You saw what happen … the dog.”
“That was Monogal’s fault.”
“I don’t believe. He save Eduardo.”
“There is more to Monogal than you think, Lupe. Believe me, Eduardo must go with Celina.”
She stood up then and helped me lead the boy into the next room, where Celina had untied Emma, mouth and all. “Who is that lady, Mommy?” she said when she saw us. Celina began to cry. “Oh, Edward, my baby,” she said, “my baby.” Time was not on my side. Somewhere in this house were two men, one crazy, one questionable, and a pack of vicious dogs.
“Okay, everybody,” I said, “let’s go. Andale.” I shushed them and marched them down the hallway. Celina carried Eduardo, whispering to him all the way. I hurried an unwilling Emma along. It wasn’t going perfectly, but more smoothly than I might have hoped. Too smoothly. We were close to the den when Emma spoke up. “I don’t want to go,” she said—loud.
“Shh,” I replied. I bent over to pick her up, and in that instant Lupe grabbed her suitcase and stepped into the shadowy courtyard. She slipped past the leather chairs, the bougainvillea, the terra-cotta pots, into the corridor that led to the kitchen, and, beyond that, the night and another country. Shadow in shadow, she was gone. Eduardo watched her go, and I had the feeling he could see her a whole lot longer than I could.
“Where is Lupe going?” cried Celina.
“I don’t want to leave,” Emma said sulkily.
“Oh yes you do.” I gave her a good smack on the fanny and she responded enthusiastically.
Her efforts didn’t go unnoticed. There was the sound of a strangled cry from the living room.
“Here,” I said to Celina, “these are the keys to the truck that is in the driveway. Go through the den and get the children out of here. Go to Carl’s office. The Sikh guard there will take care of you. Tell him to send someone to help, quick.”
“Neil,” said Celina, “how can I ever thank you?”
“Please. Just go.”
This was one part of the plan Sam and I hadn’t worked out: was I to stay or to go too? Someone—Sam—had saved my life, someone was responsible, and I found myself in the Prado room once again. Sam had Monogal under control just as he had said he would, with no sign that he had had to use a gun. Monogal’s own gun lay across the room on the floor, as if he had drawn it and Sam had chopped it away. Jungle-fighter skills had triumphed over superior weaponry once again. Monogal hadn’t been let down gently, however. He sat furious and deflated in one of Peter’s stiff red chairs. “Look,” Sam said when he saw me. “Your sack of chiles. She’s not looking too bad, is she, from spending the night in your trunk.”
I don’t suppose I looked great in a bloodstained shirt, my eyes turning black and blue, but Monogal blanched as if I were a zombie returned from the dead—which apparently was the fate he’d planned for me, to be dumped off somewhere along the interstate, a meal for the coyotes and the crows, one of those piles of teeth and bones that turns up around the time that everyone has forgotten about you.
“So sorry to disappoint,” I said.
Outside the window, beyond the red velvet drapes, we heard a door slam, an engine start, hesitate, stall. “You’re letting them get away,” screamed Monogal, lunging forward, his face screwing up in rage.
“Yup.” Sam pushed him back.
“Cool it, Sam,” I said.
“Hey, Nellie, this is the guy who carried you all the way down the freight elevator and dumped you in his trunk. Is that any way to treat a lady?”
The truck coughed again, hesitated, then caught, spinning gravel as it took off down the driveway. “No,” cried Monogal, listing like a limp balloon.
“Don’t go limp on me, man,” Sam said. “That’s no fun.”
“Where are the dogs, Sam?”
“Your friend here shut them in the kitchen so we could have a little talk. Didn’t you, big boy?”
Monogal didn’t reply, slumping a little farther down in his chair.
“You killed Menendez,” said Sam.
“What do you care?”
“He was my partner, my friend.” He gave Monogal a playful little slap that left a red welt on his face. A touch of malice beneath the fun.
“What do you want? Money?”
“Nope.”
“Knock it off, Sam.”
“You knock it off, Nellie. I been wantin’ for a long time to get my hands on this guy.”
Monogal pursed his lips and made a blowing motion, but no sound came out, or maybe it was a sound that was too high-pitched for me to hear.
“This guy’s pathetic, ain’t he? He keeps doin’ that, thinking his dogs will come. But they’re locked up in the kitchen, ain’t they? I helped you do it.”
“Sam, wait a minute—Lupe went out through the kitchen.”
“Lupe? Who’s that?”
“The Mexican maid, Sam. Remember?”
There was a high-spirited, gleeful yelp, the sound of scrambling claws.
“You fucker.” Sam grabbed Monogal.
Monogal smiled his shitty, stub-toothed, little-boy grin.
In about two seconds the dogs filled the doorway, black bodies leaping through the air, white fangs flashing, barking in happy chorus. “Here, boys,” Monogal called. “Him.” Sam could have used a gun now, but they pounced on him before he had time to go for it, grabbing his pants leg, pulling him down.
“Get off me,” he yelled, flailing at them.
A dog turned in my direction, pushing me back against the wall, waiting for a final command before moving in for the kill. I wasn’t relishing the prospect of having my face ripped open by a bunch of Dobermans, and I put my hand up to protect it. The other hand pushed deep into my pocket.
“Good boy, Vronsky,” said Monogal.
The dog crouched. If dogs could laugh, he was. I had one opportunity, and it was in my pocket, smooth as silver. “Now, Vronsky,” commanded Monogal. Vronsky went for me with a joyful snarl, fangs bared in a grin. This was the moment he’d waited his entire life for. No trainer’s padded arm was at the end of that leap, just me, my own tasty flesh and blood. My hand closed around the whistle. I brought it to my lips and blew it in Vronsky’s narrow face. He fell back and looked at me with disappointment and confusion in his black eyes.
“Now!” screamed Monogal.
But the dogs stopped
snarling and hesitated just long enough for Sam to leap up, jump on Monogal, and put his fist in his mouth, just long enough for Sam to grab Monogal’s arm, twist it behind him and yank. I heard the bone pop. I saw Monogal’s face turn white and tears fill his eyes. I saw his options fall away like leaves in November.
“No, boys,” he cried. “Hold it. Not now.”
21
NO ONE IN that household ever saw Lupe again. She disappeared into the night, or into Mexico, which is similar enough. Sometimes that country seems like a dream, brilliant, confused, full of flowers and birds, demons and flies. Andrew Monogal was carted off for psychiatric evaluation and probably extradition to Mexico for the murder of Menendez-Jimenez. As I had suspected, he’d also blown up the Mother Lode, hoping that Carl and Peter would be part of the explosion, but the Kid kept them out of the way.
Carl and Peter were willing to forget about the mine for the pleasure of seeing Monogal knit sweaters in a Mexican jail and the benefit of not having the publicity of a trial. No charges were filed for the kidnapping attempt or the attack on me. When Carl and Peter asked me if I wanted to pursue the matter they made it clear that the publicity would be a disaster for all concerned. Except me, of course. How would it hurt me? But I agreed. It made life simpler for them, but that wasn’t why I agreed. Monogal was a broken man, not one of whose dreams had come true, unlike Peter Esterbrook, most of whose dreams had. But if you measure a man by the quality of his dreams, what did that say? Peter was forced to level with Carl about Eduardo, and they agreed that no one else was to know the truth of his parentage. That meant not Celina and Eduardo, not me, I already knew. But it was a client confidence, privileged information. I didn’t intend ever to tell. I hoped no one would ask.
Carl came by one day to pay my fee, and he brought the child with him, which was a nice gesture. Eduardo’s little shirt hid most of the damage. A scab on his neck might leave a scar, but it wasn’t terribly noticeable. His eyes had changed, though; they had gotten bigger and darker and about a hundred years old. Carl told me that Eduardo never mentioned Lupe, that he never even asked about her, but Celina was terribly hurt by Lupe’s desertion and for a while that was all she could talk about.
“Maybe that’s all she can afford to talk about,” I said. Monogal was written off as a man who had cracked, Lupe had been unduly influenced, Sam’s and my presence explained by the coincidence of our having been doing work for Monogal when he cracked. It wasn’t a story that bore a lot of thought “You can’t really blame Lupe,” I said. “She believed that Eduardo was in danger.”
Carl shrugged. “Did she have to let the dogs out of the kitchen?”
“I’d like to think that was an accident. She had to go through the kitchen to get out of the house. She was distraught She probably didn’t think to lock the door and the dogs just pushed it open.”
“Well, we’ll never know for sure, will we?”
Carl had left Eduardo in the waiting room with Anna while we walked. She thought he was the cutest precioso she had ever seen. If Mexican children turned out this beautiful, she was probably wondering if she shouldn’t start looking for a Mexican to father hers instead of George, the blond computer salesman. But when you get right down to it, most people are happier with children that look like them. It’s easier to confront another culture in one burst of sensuality or anger than to face it calmly every day. Even Peter Esterbrook had made the decision to look on from a distance and let someone else actually raise his child. Carl’s famous adaptability was working on his behalf. He was capable of putting the fact that Peter was Eduardo’s real father out of his mind for the most part, and recent events had, if anything, made him and the boy closer.
Carl sat down and laid the bill that Anna had prepared on my desk. He took out his pen and thing-of-beauty checks, but before he started to write, he said, “If you need more, just say so.”
I laughed. I knew where every penny of that check was going: the back rent, the payments on the copier, the telephone bill. What would we do with the extra money, anyway? Buy Anna a word processor?
“Just pay the bill.”
“I can’t tell you how much we appreciate what you’ve done, Neil, all of us.”
“Please,” I said.
“It’s the truth, whether you want to hear it or not.”
“I don’t.”
Carl looked good, like the bottle had been recapped with the fizz back in. Ready now, I could see, for the race, and with that kind of enthusiasm he’d probably win.
“Will the explosion change WIPP’s negotiations for the mine?” I asked him.
“No. It’s the geological formations and the land they are interested in, and that’s still there—maybe rearranged a little. The agreement has been signed.”
So the WIPP project would most likely go through, the trucks would thunder across Lagrima with their lethal loads; uranium and plutonium would lie among the gold.
“The explosion was unbelievable, Neil. It knocked us off our feet and we hadn’t even entered the mine yet. We would have been right in the middle of it if that young man hadn’t blocked the bridge across the arroyo with his truck and kept us from driving up the road. When he refused to move his truck, Peter insisted we’d go up anyway—we’d walk. So thanks to him, we were still a half a mile away when the place blew. By the way, don’t we owe him something, too?”
“He’s covered in my bill.”
“Is he a, um, friend of yours?”
“My mechanic,” I said.
“Monogal and Peter go back a long time. Who would have thought that losing the mine would make him crazy?”
“Anybody but you and Peter.”
Carl let that one go by and handed me the check. “Well, I guess that covers it. Peter made a settlement with that guy, Sam. He’s kind of sleazy, don’t you think?”
“It was your father-in-law who hired him to follow us in the first place.”
“I know, Neil. I’m sorry. I don’t approve of everything Peter does; you know that. But I have to live with him.”
“Sam saved my life and kept Eduardo out of Monogal’s hands.” Why was I defending Sam? Why not?
“You’re right,” said Carl. He closed the checkbook and put it in his pocket. “Oh, by the way, Peter offered Kiefer his job back.”
“Did he take it?”
“No. He said he’d live on berries and bugs before he’d ever work for Peter again.”
“I guess being a good judge of character isn’t always enough.”
“Everybody makes mistakes, Neil.”
“But not everybody thinks they’re perfect.”
Carl stood up. “Well, I guess our business is through.”
“It is, except that I hope Angie will forgive me for lying to her.”
“I explained that it was necessary and she understands. Well… thanks again.”
“It’s nothing.”
I walked him to the door. Anna had Eduardo at her desk, coloring in a coloring book that she kept around for slow times. “I hate to let this little guy go.” She wasn’t the first to have that feeling.
Carl picked Eduardo up and the boy leaned over his shoulder and waved as they went out the door. “Bye, Neil,” he said.
“Bye, sweetheart,” I replied.
I had the Kid over for dinner and made my specialty of blue corn tortillas, Monterey Jack cheese, and salsa, which I call Chile Willies. You break the tortillas into chip-size pieces, sauté them until crisp, drain them, then heat them with the salsa. When the salsa is hot, you put thinly sliced Monterey Jack on top, cover it and simmer until the cheese is melted. I serve it with pinto beans. The Kid loved it. He ate every bit and asked for more. He could eat like that at every meal and stay thin as an aspen. For dessert I served vanilla Swiss almond and chocolate fudge ice cream together.
“I park my truck across the bridge and wait,” he told me. “I was worried the rattlesnakes would be out, but I see nothing, only rocks and shadows and then these guys come in d
ifferent cars. They look like father and son.”
“Close.”
“I tell them you say not to go up the road but to wait. They don’t like it, but I won’t move my truck and they have to walk. Before they get there, kaboom! one big explosion lights up the whole sky.” He shook his head. “How you know there would be an explosion?”
“I didn’t. It was just a hunch.”
“You want to go to the racetrack with me next time you have a hunch?” he said.
“Don’t blow this there.” I had a check for him. I had charged a hundred and twenty-five dollars an hour for his time, Carl’s rate. Why should the Kid work for less? Although it was a lot more per hour than he got for fixing cars or playing the accordion.
“This much?”
“You deserve it.”
“You tell me, chiquita, if you ever want me to work for you again.”
“Don’t worry,” I said.
THE END
Enjoy a free preview of A NEIL HAMEL MYSTERY, #2
Raptor
1
“DEATH IS A debt to nature due. I have paid it and so must you.”
My aunt, Joan Hamel, found that message on a New England tombstone and liked it so much she expropriated it for her own grave two thousand miles distant, six thousand feet higher and light-years in sunshine away. Since her will had made me the executor of her estate, my job was to see that she got her wishes: a tombstone with a perverse warning and disposition of her things to the ever more distant relatives.
On a November day I found myself in her frame and stucco ranch house in Albuquerque (the city where we’d both ended up) deciding who got what, wondering as a person might when faced with a paid debt if anyone would be there when the time came to tidy up after me. Maybe Joan had chosen me as the executor because I had become a lawyer and the only one in the family. Maybe not. If I was the best she had, it wasn’t much. Although we were related and lived in the same city, I seldom saw her. She called around holidays; I didn’t always answer. I had my life, she had hers. For thirty years she taught high school biology and went on birding expeditions; then she retired. For ten years I’d been a lawyer, the last five with my own office in a building on Lead. Joan had never married, never divorced. I had.
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