by Jim Nesbitt
He also wore a smile.
“Why ‘shore, Neville. She’s bored with me anyhow. We’ll talk over whiskey. But none of that cheap shit you used to give your whores. Make it the good stuff.”
Chapter 7
They sat around the head of a long table with high-backed, leather-covered chairs. Four of them now -- Ross, the woman, himself and and a short, squatty guy wearing a too-tight black suit in shiny polyester and a lump on his right hip.
The walls were stucco. The ceiling had exposed beams. The lamp above the table was made of crude black iron -- one hoop inside another inside a third big enough to band a wagon wheel. The High Chaparral, he thought, glancing around for Blue, Manolito and Buck.
Ross called the short one Bolo and circled his finger once. Bolo nodded.
“Jefe,” he said, in a whisper of reverence.
Bolo slid a full shot glass in front of Burch and two juice glasses on the side, one filled with ice water, the other with Coke. Near his left hand, Bolo placed a pack of Luckies -- unwrapped, with three cigarettes tapped part way out.
“Maker’s Mark, Mr. Burch. Like you would get down at Louie’s. On Tuesdays and Thursdays. With two backs. Ice water and Coca-Cola. Correct?”
“Correct. And sometimes Fridays.”
“Sometimes Fridays. Forgive me. I also regret we do not have a Zippo in the house.”
“Brought my own.”
“Of course.”
Burch knocked back the Maker’s, cutting the burn in his throat by sucking some air through his teeth. He ignored the Coke and ice water. He fished a battered pack of Luckies out of his shirt pocket, tapped out one with a serious kink near the brand and lit it, blowing smoke through his nostrils and closing the Zippo with a sharp snap.
“Silence is the way to make a stunt like this work. Have ol’ Bolo set down my favorite drink and my brand of smokes and not say a damn word. Let me get the shakes about someone tailing me in my favorite bar. Folks don’t get shook up if you point it out. Just pissed.”
“A subtlety I will have to master.”
“And tell your boy if he wants to fuck with my mind while I’m drinking, then buy me a damn drink. Anonymously. Helps heighten the tension.”
“An excellent suggestion.”
“Jes’ tryin’ to be friendly, Neville. Don’t mean nothin’ by it.”
He stared at Ross, who was leaning forward in his chair, his arms on the table. A shot of tequila, a salt shaker and five slices of lime sat on a small wood square, flanked by two sleeves of silk.
Ross tossed down the shot, ignored the salt and lime, ignored Burch’s stare and signaled Bolo by circling his finger again. Only then did he look at Burch, grinning slightly just before gunning the second shot, laughing loudly after he finished and waited for his guest to down his whiskey.
“Drink then talk, eh? I trust this bourbon is to your liking.”
“It ain’t pimp juice.”
“These references, Mr. Burch. I left those activities a long time ago. I am a rancher now. The fillies I take care of these days have four legs and don’t talk back.”
“Bet you miss the tryouts. Used to do your recruiting from the back of a van, as I recall. Fifteen-year-old runaways and such. Round or two of mattress polo to see if they had the go. Yessir, I bet you miss being a pimp, Neville. All that young wool. Maybe you give them horses a tryout now, huh?”
He never saw Bolo’s left fist, only white light from the pain of hard knuckles smacking into his jaw. His head slammed into the sharp angles of the solid chairback. He tasted blood on his tongue. He gripped both armrests and started to rise, stopping at the sight of a Charter Arms Bulldog, in .44 magnum, pointed at his nose.
Ross nodded. Bolo holstered the revolver, then draped a small towel over his arm, like a waiter, offering it to him and his bloody mouth.
“Next time, bubba.”
“Chinga su madre.”
Bolo bowed, then stepped aside. He looked at Ross.
“Happy hour’s over, right?”
“Alcohol and blood don’t mix, do they Mr. Burch? Unless you like the pain. Do you like pain, Mr. Burch? We can fix you right up if you do. Bolo would like that.”
“So would I. Bolo might not do so well if I see him coming.”
“That’s the point, isn’t it? A man like yourself never sees it coming. You just plow along and get sidestepped by people far smarter than you. Sometimes you get blindsided. Every so often, you screw up just right and put the arm on somebody within reach. But usually it’s the wrong somebody.”
“My life as a detective, Neville.”
“Call me Mr. Ross. A sign of respect.”
“Your whiskey’s not that good, Neville. And Bolo doesn’t hit that hard.”
The woman chuckled and shook her head. Ross frowned. He could feel Bolo tense up and glare at the back of his head. A huge knot was beginning to push up at the line where his hair ended and his bald pate began. His jaw felt hot and stiff.
Chapter 8
“We have a mutual friend. How is it you bubba types would say it? Ah, yes -- this fella needs killin’.”
“T-Roy, right?”
Neville made a clucking sound.
“So, the lovely Carla Sue told you. I was hoping to make it a surprise. A gift to such a worthy and wholly unsuccessful adversary, a chance for a real trophy for all those fruitless years of police work.”
“Kinda a consolation prize for not catchin’ you, right? Well, I don’t need no more trophies -- won a few bowlin’, got a bass or two on the wall at the house, got my state cham-peen-ship football plaque. Why would I want T-Roy stuffed and mounted?”
“Revenge? The sport of it? The money I’ll pay you? The chance to keep the company of this lovely woman? The chance to redeem yourself? Take your pick, Mr. Burch. Or take it all.”
“So, I’d get to work for you.”
“Consider it a business arrangement that would be to our mutual benefit.”
“I thought you blew his ass away in Reynosa, but your guys messed up, huh? What kept you from trying again?”
“A sense that I acted too hastily and without proper consideration of the delicate balance between myself and certain of my associates. Let us just say that they found conflict between myself and a man I once regarded as my son more than a bit distressing. They saw it as bad for business. Fortunately for me, they also saw the advantage in maintaining the fiction that I was successful in my attempt to kill my son.”
“Kept any avenging cops from Dallas out of T-Roy’s hair.”
“And kept you away from any further connection between him and myself.”
“And all that’s changed?”
“Correct, Mr. Burch. The balance has shifted. Our friend has angered my associates as well as me. Powerful people on both sides of the border. He has gotten too greedy -- too big for his britches, I think you’d say.”
“Can the goddam high hat, Neville. You’re South Oak Cliff white trash, remember?”
Ross glared, then forced himself to relax, the tension flowing out of his face, the heat ducking back from his face and eyes. When he spoke, it was in that forced voice of culture and politeness that scraped across Burch’s nerves like a rusty knife blade.
“Our friend has become very powerful down there on the border. He’s got his own little army of former freedom fighters, as our president calls them. He is also allied with a family that has long been in the smuggling business, headed by a woman who styles herself as a bruja.”
“A what?”
“A witch. As I was saying, our friend has got muscle, but he also has some powerful pressures being brought to bear on him. Some gentlemen I know of the Columbian persuasion want him out of our affairs.”
“So, let the boys from Cali take him out.”
“It is not that simple, Mr. Burch. They want
me to pay for my earlier transgression by taking care of this matter. They were mad at me for trying to destroy a valuable asset, but they still consider him a creature of my creation.”
Ross paused to light a panatela with a green wrapper. He took his time, rolling the cigar through the flame of a wooden match for an even draw.
“When a peccary is in a patch of briar and you want him out in the open ...”
Ross blew smoke across the table.
“... sometimes smoke is the only way ...”
Ross pointed the cigar at Burch.
“... and you, my friend, are my smoke.”
“No, no, no -- goddamit! Just why in hell would I carry your water? And don’t talk to me about Wynn-damn-Moore because I’ve drawn a line on all that. You want T-Roy dead, kill him your own damn self.”
“I want T-Roy dead. You will kill him. You will have no choice.”
“A man always has choices, Neville.”
“Not one like you, Mr. Burch. You still don’t get it, do you? You are already in a box, one of my creation. You can kiss your shabby little office, your peeper’s license and your precious gin mill good-bye.”
Ross’ mouth started to shift into a smile. It never made it. There was a loud roar and the whooshing rush of flame, smoke and debris flying down the hallway and into the room.
The flames wrapped around Ross, setting his hair on fire and drawing a wail from a sleek face now lined with pain. Burch felt something thump heavily into his right shoulder, knocking him out of his chair. It was Bolo, his hands to his neck, great gouts of blood pumping between palms and fingers that couldn’t dam the flood.
His shirt was wet and sticky. Just Bolo’s blood, he hoped. His knee slipped in the wetness that was quickly spreading across the floor, pitching him forward on top of Bolo’s twitching body. He groped for the Bulldog, grabbing its rubbery Pachmayr grip. He fished through Bolo’s jacket pockets, landing two speed loaders laden with circles of hollow-point.
His vision was wobbly, like he was looking through seven layers of glass at someone else’s hand gripping the pistol. Something was wrong with his head.
Automatic weapon fire echoed outside the room -- short, quick pops followed by the long, ripping sound of someone emptying a full clip. It sounded like a chain falling on a concrete floor. And it was moving closer. He shifted into a crouch and saw Ross stumbling around, his face and scalp blackened where a poolside tan and razor-cut hair used to be. His shirt was ripped and smouldering.
A steady cry came from Ross’ burned lips, low-pitched and in a minor key, like an Apache warrior mourning his dead. The woman moved into sight, the big Colt in her hand. Her eyes were still startled, but cold. The crescent-shaped scar was white and ghostly against her darkened face.
She fired eight shots into Neville Ross, the full clip, her slugs ripping his chest and blowing chunks of bone and flesh from his head. The top half of his body snapped up and back from the impact and his well-tooled boots kicked out in the opposite direction, dumping him onto the earth-colored tiles.
Burch tried to raise his pistol, but couldn’t move. She calmly changed clips, thumbing the button that dropped the spent magazine onto the floor, slapping home a fresh packet of slugs and tripping the slide forward in crisp and practiced movements.
She turned toward Burch. He felt a cold, prickling sensation move across his scalp. Her blouse was splattered with blood.
“C’mon Big ‘Un. Let’s get your sorry ass out of here.”
Chapter 9
He could barely walk. It felt like the tendons and muscles in his right leg were severed; he had to drag it along. Pain shot from his heel into the roof of his mouth when he did.
She scooted under his right shoulder, wrapping one thin arm around his waist, keeping the Colt free for action with the other. He kept the Bulldog level in his left hand as they clumped down a staircase into a narrow passageway cut through rock and soil, braced by timbers.
They came up through a cut in the stone foundation of the springhouse, stepping past stone ledges where fruits and meats used to be kept when the Kiowas and Comanches swept down from Kansas to kill the Tejanos and steal their horses and cattle.
From the doorway, they could see the Cutlass, etched in the floodlights and the flicker of flame that licked the front door of the big house and portions of the porch. The bright flash of assault rifles stabbed from the barn and the darkness surrounding the house. It was answered by equally bright flashes from the roof and windows of the house.
A tail of fire leapt from the front of the barn, arcing toward the strongpoint on top of the roof, taking it out with a roar and a starburst. A dark group of bodies ran toward the porch, spraying lead into the windows and the fire-framed door.
Two men in ninja black crouched behind a bush not more than 20 yards in front of the springhouse door, their attention and covering fire focused on the big house. Burch and the woman eased forward like teammates in a sack race, as fast as a turtle and as silent as a cricket on a hot summer night.
When the two men turned, Burch and the woman took them down -- she firing the Colt at the man on the right, he firing the Bulldog at the man on the left. Four shots each. Clean kills. She ran toward the Cutlass. He hobbled to the bodies, picking up a Heckler & Koch MP-5 with two clips, taped butt to butt.
As she opened the driver’s side door, three men moved from the shadows toward the Cutlass. Burch spun on his bad leg, tasting bile in his throat as he leveled the submachine gun and let loose a long burst, chopping them down with a stab of white flame.
The V-8 rumbled to life as she kicked the Cutlass into reverse, throwing a spray of dust that spread into the glare of the floodlights, fishtailing her way to where he stood. A burst from near the porch shattered the right headlight. He heard the bullets zip past his head. As he grabbed the rooftop to swing into the car, he fired another long burst toward the shooter.
“Close that damn door, Big ‘Un. They don’t want to let us live any much longer.”
He flipped clips on the MP-5 and rolled down the window. She punched the accelerator, throwing him back into the bucket seat. He heard bullets smack into the side of the car, each sounding like a sharp-nosed can opener cracking a beer. He saw the source of the fire and answered back with short bursts of 9 mm.
They tore toward the gate. He looked at her. She was grinning.
“You think this is fun?”
No answer. She kept her left hand on the wheel. With her right hand, she dropped a spent clip out of the Colt.
“Reach in the glove and get me another clip, Big ‘Un.”
“Just who in the hell are you?”
Chapter 10
Carla Sue Cantrell talked fast and flat, skidding her words like a car hitting a patch of black ice.
If you were listening, you always wanted to grab the wheel and make her slow down. But Carla Sue always kept a tight grip and never let anybody steer what she had to say.
She loved vodka on the rocks, the sharp rush of high-quality crank and vintage Detroit iron. She liked big guns and the shock it put on a man’s face when someone her size pulled down with one. Like this big, dumb pee-eye with the bald head and boots.
So cool with the Luckies, the low voice and the slow answers. Trying to eye the angles. Pushing her the slightest bit. Using what he had -- age and size. Edging right up to her limit, then backing up. Relaxing when he thought he knew the game.
That’s when she squeezed off a round. Not so cool then. Not so in control. Hard to be when the Levis are full of piss and the face is powdered with sheetrock dust.
Not so cool now. His face was drawn with pain, the lines shadowed by the faint light of the dashboard as he fed bullets into the revolver. His shirt was torn and bloody. But he pulled his weight back at the Ross spread. Not too swift, but stubborn and steady. Not shy about shooting somebody, either.
&nbs
p; He’d need to be.
Her aunt -- now just what would Big Lucy say? Probably blow a blue-white jet of True menthol past perfectly painted red lips and talk about sorry Tennessee trash always knowing how to show its ass.
Thirty years ago, Big Lucy was a black-haired, full-bodied woman with wide, green eyes and long legs. She came west as a dancer, swinging tassels on the Jacksboro Highway and nabbing a fast-rising Texas Instruments executive while she still headed the marquee and didn’t have to grant too many private audiences for paying customers.
Big Lucy and Uncle Lane lived the North Dallas life now -- registered Republican, golf on Saturday, church on Sunday, money every other day of the week. And how ‘bout them Cowboys! It was the life they served up to her like sliced brisket on wax paper -- private school, a Camaro, a Nieman-Marcus card and a little pin money on the side.
She learned to rein in her drawl in school and flatten her up-holler vowels, keeping just enough Southern sugar to snap a young man’s head around. But she was bored with the car, the cards and the boys who wore Duck Head slacks and Gant shirts and got sick in the grass outside the dance on Sloe Gin and Bud tall boys.
And she wasn’t a Native Texan. Something they spelled in capital letters. Something they let you know about in big and little ways. Why that mattered, she never knew because it seemed like everybody’s family was from someplace else, Southerners mostly, looking for one last shot after losing it all in the Civil War. It was a state full of the offspring of losers who moved here for the last second chance.
She was born in the mountains of East Tennessee. She came to Dallas when daddy and mama got whacked by the semi. The coroner whispered something about daddy’s blood alcohol. The sheriff shook his head about the car being on the wrong side of the suicide lane -- a fatal move on mountain blacktop. Good people. Damn shame.
Her Uncle Harlan, daddy’s brother, didn’t whisper or shake his head.
“That sumbitch never could slow down in no goddam aw-toe. And when he started dippin’ that corn, he thought he was Lee Petty his own goddam ‘sef. If the sorry bastard wasn’t dead, I’d shoot him right now.”