Jailbreak

by Giles Tippette

  I said, “I ought to. But it does my heart so much good to see you sitting there feeling sorry for yourself that I got to stick around and watch.”

  He looked up. “Oh, go to blazes.”

  The guard was tugging at my sleeve. I turned. “I’ll see you as quick as I can. Just don’t make it any harder on you or me than you feel you righteously have to.”

  Walking down the line of cells the well-dressed man who’d been watching us said, “Señor.”

  I stopped. He was wearing well fitting charro britches with silver conchos down each side and a leather jacket. He was obviously a well-to-do rancher. I said, “Yeah? I don’t speak Spanish.”

  He said, in good English, “Your brother talk too much. He make trouble with a policeman here.”

  “Davilla?”

  “Sí. Capitán Davilla. A very bad man. Your brother should be quiet.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “I told him so already.”

  He was smoking and he took a second to drop his cigarillo on the floor and grind it out with his boot before he said, casually, “Mi nombre—my name is Elizandro. Miguel Elizandro. I have a hacienda some thirty kilometers south of here in the little village of Zapata. I have about ten good men working for me. Very good men.” He looked at me.

  I studied him in return. He was a well-set-up young man of about my age though not up to my size. But he had the attitude of a gentleman. I said, “And they don’t know you’re in here.”

  “Sí.” he said. “Not yet.”

  The guard pulled at my sleeve. “Pronto!” he said.

  I said, “I’ll see what I can do.”

  Just before we left the cell-block area I looked back. It was an awful somber place to be shut up in—dank and dark and sort of close fitting. About the only thing I could say about it was that the stone walls made it cooler than outside. I glanced back once more toward Norris’s cell. I’d have hated to been where he was.

  I pulled Jack back as we went through the door into the corridor where all the office doors were. I said, “Ask one of these jailers which office is Davilla’s.”

  He said, “You reckon that’s a good idea?”

  “Just do it.”

  He spoke quickly to one of the guards. The jailer just shook his head. He said something back to Jack.

  “What?” I said.

  Jack said, “This hombre says Davilla ain’t here. Ain’t been for a couple of days. Says he don’t know anything about no office. Says he generally hangs around the chief.”

  “Son of a bitch,” I said. “If he ain’t been here for the last couple of days, who the hell has Obregon been negotiating with?”

  Jack said, “That ain’t a serious question is it, Justa?”

  “I guess not,” I said. “We better get back to the hotel and do a little figuring.”

  But the clerk was waiting for us in the outer office. He said it was urgent that I see Señor Obregon at once. I sent Hays and Ben back to the hotel and Jack and I trotted along behind the clerk, who was about the fastest thing I’d seen so far in Mexico. Going over I couldn’t help thinking about the gentleman with the ranch down in Zapata. He’d said he’d had ten men, ten good men. I wondered if he meant that the way I’d taken it. Pistoleros.

  Señor Obregon was not alone. Seated by the side of his desk was an ordinary-looking Mexican in a badly fitting business suit. He introduced the man as Capitán Davilla’s representative. Making depreciating gestures, he explained, through Jack, that, naturally, Captain Davilla, being an honorable representative of the police couldn’t negotiate directly for the price of his honor, that it would have to be done through a representative.

  Hell, I was beginning to wonder if this Davilla actually existed. I asked Jack to ask Obregon what the representative’s name was, but the lawyer declined on the basis that it was “inaplicable al caso, ” of no consequence.

  Well, it seemed like everything was inaplicable al caso except me passing money across the desk. I told Jack to insist on knowing the man’s name.

  Jack tried, but after a pretty spirited exchange all he could come back with was that the man was willing to be called “José.”

  “That’s just dandy,” I said. I was plenty disgusted. I said, “Tell the lawyer that we heard Davilla wasn’t even in town. Ask him who the hell he’s been talking with.”

  When he’d finished Jack turned back to me and said, with that natural little smile he wore, “Says the good capitán has a ranch outside of town and he’s been there resting, healing up from that awful blow yore brother struck him with.”

  “Norris? Hurt somebody with a punch?”

  Jack pulled a face. “Hell, they goin’ to play it for all it’s worth.”

  I sighed. “Well, when do we start the negotiations?”

  Jack spoke to Obregon. The lawyer shook his head and said something that didn’t take long. Jack said to me, “He says they ain’t gonna be no negotiations. Already been decided. The price is twenty-five hundred dollars. Flat.”

  I was startled. I really hadn’t expected it to be that much. It wasn’t a great deal of money, but I had the bad feeling we were being taken and I ain’t ever been a big hand for that.

  Jack said, “You realize how much money that is in Mexico? I don’t reckon Davilla makes more than fifty dollars a month. Remember Norris saying he could have bought himself out of the arrest for a twenty-dollar bill? I figure our fat friend across the desk is the one looking for a big payday.”

  I said, “Tell him it’s too much. Tell him we can’t pay.”

  When Jack had finished, Obregon looked at me but talked to Jack. Jack said, “Our buddy here says it was his understanding you and your family were ricos, rich, very important businessmen and ranchers in the United States. He wants to know, if that is true, how such a sum could be so significant to you when yore brother’s life is involved.”

  I said, “Offer him fifteen hundred. Total. Including his fee.”

  I didn’t have to understand Jack’s words. All I had to do was watch the expression on Señor Obregon’s face. I don’t know whether the outrage was put on or not, but he made a mighty good show of it. You’d of thought we’d insulted him. Kind of made me wonder whose money we were talking about, his or this Captain Davilla. And there was the fact that he was sort of supposed to be my lawyer, although those little finer points didn’t seem to count south of the border. But I did find it interesting that, while him and Jack argued back and forth, Obregon never once turned to Davilla’s “representative” and asked his opinion. I found that passing strange.

  Finally Jack leaned over to me and said, lowly, “I got him down to two thousand. But I think if we stall him a little, couple of days, say, that he’ll come down. Maybe to fifteen hundred.”

  I shook my head. “No, I’ve got to get Norris out of there before he does or says something to get himself in deeper.”

  “What shall I tell him?”

  It was pushing for five o’clock so I figured the banks would be closed and I’d have to exercise that letter of credit to have the two thousand. I said, “Tell him we’ll have the money here tomorrow morning at eleven o’clock.”

  When Jack had told him the lawyer folded his hands on his desk and looked satisfied. He still hadn’t paid any attention to the “representative.” I wondered what cantina they’d dug him up out of.

  I told Jack to ask when we could expect Norris’s release. Obregon looked at me and said, smiling so broadly that for the first time I noticed he had a gold tooth, “Queekly.”

  I smiled back at him. I said, “Is that a Texas quickly or a Mexican queekly?”

  Apparently he didn’t get it for he looked over at Jack and said, “Cómo?”

  Jack explained what I’d meant, though I reckon he did it a little more polite. Senor Obregon said, “Very queekly. En the tarde?”

  Jack said, “In the afternoon. That’ll be fast if it happens, Justa.”

  I got up. “Okay,” I said. “Tell him we got a deal. We’ll be her
e with the money in the morning.”

  We shook hands all around, formally, even the “representative,” though I was damned if I could see what part he played.

  Once outside I asked Jack how much of the two thousand this Captain Davilla would see. “Not a hell of a lot,” Jack said. “Obregon will use some of it to grease the local magistrate and some for the chief of police and a little for the guards. The rest will go in his pocket. But that’s what you pay his kind for down here. They knows who to grease and how to do it. A gringo can’t operate down here like a real Mex. Don’t care how long he’s lived in the country.”

  A little wind had blown up and the dust was swirling in the streets. I looked at the horses that were hitched along both sides of the streets. Mostly they were a poor, underfed-looking lot. So were a lot of the people. As we walked to the hotel I could feel eyes following us. Gringos were welcome down there as long as they brought money and left the biggest part of it.

  Ben and Hayes received the news in good spirits. They were tired of Mexico and tired of worrying about Norris and just wanted to go home. I felt the same way, but I wasn’t going to do any celebrating until I saw Norris safely across the border.

  That night I told the other three about the conversation I’d had with the caballero, Senor Elizandro. I asked Jack how far twenty kilometers was.

  He said, “Oh, ’bout twelve miles, give or take a little.”

  I said, “We might ought to do that fellow a good turn and get word back to his ranch that he’s in jail.”

  Ben said, “Let’s get Norris out first.”

  “I’m for that,” Hays said.

  I said, “I meant after we see to Norris. I could give a peon a few bucks to carry word. Seems like a nice fellow. Told me Norris ought to keep his mouth shut.”

  Ben laughed. “I want to see that day.”

  We made an early breakfast and then sat around waiting for the bank to open, which it finally did around ten o’clock. I wasn’t too worried about the letter of credit. The night before we’d taken an inventory of what cash we all had and it had come to a little over $2100. So even if they hadn’t of cleared our letter of credit we would still have had enough for the payoff.

  But it went all right. The only hitch was they didn’t have that many dollars on hand and insisted on giving us two thousand of it in pesos. Well, that wasn’t too bad although you lost a little on the exchange rate every time you swapped currencies. But considering the money we were already out for nothing it didn’t seem like much to worry about.

  At eleven o’clock we were all in Senor Obregon’s outer office. This time he didn’t keep us waiting. To keep things from getting jammed up in the small office, I left Ben and Hays outside. Señor Obregon was at his desk, as was the representative of Captain Davilla. Obregon stood up as soon as we came in, as did the go-between. Obregon said, “Choo have the moneys?”

  “I got the moneys,” I said. “When do we get my brother?”

  “Queekly,” he said. “Primero the moneys.”

  I started to hand him a packet of bills, but he drawed back like I was offering a live snake. “No, no,” he said. “Por este hombre. ” He pointed at the go-between.

  Well, hell, I didn’t care if they wanted to have their little game. I handed the money to the representative. Obregon was right over his shoulder, watching as he counted the peso notes. When they were done he looked at me in startlement. He said, “Es uno sólo. ” Only one.

  Jack had been told what to say. In Spanish he said, “You get the other one thousand when his brother walks out of that jail.”

  “Oh, no, no, no, no!” Señor Obregon said. He was shaking his head so violently that a little of his black hair somehow worked its way loose from the plaster of grease he had it held down with and fell around his ears. He was very excited. “Dos es necesario!” He held up two fingers. “Dos. Ahora. ”

  I said, “No, I’m not going to give you all of it now. One now and one when my brother is out.”

  Jack didn’t even have to translate. Señor Obregon understood well enough. He just kept shaking his head, getting more and more agitated and saying, “No, no, no.”

  “All right,” I said. “I’ll just take this back.” I reached over and jerked the packet of money out of the hands of the representative, who looked like he needed a drink.

  That brought Senor Obregon up short in his tracks. He turned a volley of Spanish loose on Jack. Jack answered him back a time or two and then turned to me. He said, “He spouted a lot of words, but what it comes down to is he feels you be questioning his honor.”

  I said, “They do set a heap of store about that honor business down here, don’t they? No, tell him it has nothing to do with honor. That it’s just business. Tell him if I were buying cattle from him I’d do the same—give him half as a binder and the other half on delivery. It’s the same.”

  That led to another volley between Jack and Obregon. The lawyer just kept looking sourer and sourer, but, finally, he heaved his shoulders and spread his arms out, palms upward. “Hokay,” he said.

  Jack said, “He said, ’Hokay.’ ”

  I just give him a look. Then I passed the money back to the representative. I said to Obregon, “When?”

  “Queekly, queekly,” he said.

  “This afternoon?”

  “Sí, ” he said. He said something to Jack.

  Jack said, “We’re to go back to the hotel and wait. The lawyer here said he’ll get word to us when it’s time to come collect Norris.”

  “All right,” I said. We done the hand-shaking business again and then gathered up Ben and Hays as we left. Outside, in the street, I turned to study Obregon’s office. It was a long, low, whitewashed affair that held a couple more offices besides his. Other lawyers, I reckoned. I looked across the street in the opposite direction. There was a cantina with a bench conveniently placed out front. I said to Hays, “Ray, go in there in that cantina and get you a cold beer and come set out on that bench and watch the front of Obregon’s office. See who comes and goes, especially if he goes. About one o’clock I’ll send Ben down here to relieve you.”

  We had a lunch of sorts in the hotel café and then went back up to the room to await word about Norris. When two o’clock had come and there was still nothing from Obregon I sent Ben to spell Hays. Ray came in a few minutes later looking hot and sweaty. His shirt was soaked nearly clear through. He said, “Boy, that beer don’t do you no good at all. Might’s well not drink the stuff. Goes right through a man’s skin and ends up on his shirt.”

  I said, “That’s fine and dandy. Now tell me what happened.”

  “Not much of nothin’,” he said. “Wasn’t but the one transaction. Thet little fat lawyer y’all was jawin’ with come out just before Ben come over. But he jest headed down the street.”

  “He didn’t go toward the jail?”

  “No sir. Went in the exact opposite direction.”

  “Nobody went in?”

  “Nary a soul. Like I said, wasn’t but that one piece of business an’ that was the lawyer strollin’ away from town.”

  That left me a good deal troubled. From two until four o’clock was the traditional siesta time. If Obregon was heading home for his nap there wasn’t going to be no “queekly” about this business of releasing Norris, not unless he was on his way to see Davilla. I asked Jack what he thought. He shook his head and said, “I’ve learnt one thang since I commenced doin’ business down here in Mexico: believe only one half and doubt the rest.”

  I said, “But, hell, he’s got to deliver Norris. He took my money.”

  “Did he?” Jack said.

  “Hell yes. You were there. You saw it.”

  He was chewing tobacco and he took a second to spit. He said, “What you reckon my word is worth down here?”

  I said, “A man can’t just make a deal and not live up to it.”

  “He can’t?” Jack said. “What’s to stop him?”

  “I am,” I said.


  Jack spit again. “Then we’d have two of you in the hoosegow.”

  I studied him. “This is getting serious.”

  “It always was,” Jack said. “These folks ain’t got a whole lot of sand in their craw, but they dearly do love to git a gringo in a tight. They real good at squeezing. Ever notice the folks that carry on the most about honor are generally the ones with the least supply?”

  We waited all through that long afternoon, sitting in the room sweating. About five o’clock I sent Hays to spell Ben off. He came in hot and sweaty and angry. He said, “If that son of a bitch is supposed to be doing something he must be doing it by mail. He come back to his office about four and ain’t been a damn thing happen since then. Justa, I’m telling you we got to do something. That fat bastard is taking our money for nothing.”

  We had a tub of iced beer sitting in the middle of the room. I took the tin cap off one with a little metal opener that came with it and handed the beer to Ben. I said, “Sit down and cool off, little brother. We got to let things fall out a little more. Game ain’t over. Let’s wait and see.”

  But by late evening nothing had happened. We had some supper sent up and then, about nine, went wandering around the town. Ever’ so often we’d see a policeman slouching against a post, looking like a soldier with his carbine slung over his shoulder. I finally sent Jack over to see if he could find out where Davilla was or where he lived. After a few minutes Jack came back. He shrugged. “Man says he don’t know where Davilla is. Says he’s probably out arresting a gringo. Wasn’t all that friendly. Says he thinks Davilla has got a ranchero out south of town somewheres.”

  We wandered into a few cantinas, but all we got was what we’d got before—suspicious looks and overpriced whiskey. The high-class cantinas were full of businessmen in suits whispering together. The cheaper joints were full of drunk peons and charros who looked at us resentfully. I reckoned in the latter it wouldn’t have been no trouble at all for a lone Texan to get in a fight. But there was four of us and that kind of balanced out the odds. We saw few Americans, and since they didn’t pay us any mind, we replied with the same courtesy.