by Hugh Fraser
‘Lee …’
‘It’s counterfeit.’
‘Oh, Christ.’
‘But good. The best in fact. Confiscated from the master. He’ll never know.’
‘OK.’
‘You only need to show it to him, anyways.’
‘Do you know about the truck swap?’
‘Yes. Did you see the coke?’
‘I saw the containers being welded to the truck.’ ‘Fenders and false gas tank?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good.’
He takes a piece of paper from his pocket and hands it to me. ‘This is your route from here to the farmhouse. Does it match the location they gave you?’
I take out my piece of paper, look at both and say, ‘Yes.’
‘OK. It’ll take about a half hour. You be there at nine and I’ll take care of the rest.’
‘Where will you be?’
He gets out of the truck and says, ‘Don’t worry about it.’
He gets into his car, starts the engine, reverses into a tight turn and accelerates across the forecourt. Horns blast as he cuts into the out-of-town traffic.
I open the briefcase and look at the money. I take a hundred dollar bill from my pocket and compare it with a snide one. I can see no difference. Even when I hold them both up to the light, they appear identical.
I slide the briefcase under the seat and look at my watch. It is eight fifteen and I don’t want to be early to the meeting. I go to the filling station office and buy a cup of coffee. I sit in the truck and feel how much I miss Pilar’s touch. I know I’ll never change the way I live and I offer a hope that she finds happiness.
At eight thirty, I crush the coffee cup, crawl under the truck and retrieve the Colt. I drive off the forecourt, turn right onto Alameda, follow the directions and go south on Interstate 10. Twenty miles later, I reach exit forty-nine and turn east. After five miles on a two lane country road, I am looking for a shack on the right with a dirt track beside it. I find the shack, turn onto the track and bump along through arid scrubland for three or four miles until I see the farmhouse at the end of the track. As I approach the house, I can see that most of the roof has fallen in and one of the two outbuildings has collapsed in a pile of rubble. Rusting oil drums, bails of wire and the skeleton of a dead chicken litter the yard in front of the house. Behind the outbuildings, a derelict yellow mechanical digger stands wrapped in the sinewy limbs of some thorny desert creeper, as if the plant had pounced on it and suffocated it.
I stop the truck, kill the engine and wait. I wind down the window and let the Texas breeze ruffle my hair. A brown snake slithers across the track in front of me and disappears under a bush. A bird trills in the silence. In the mirror, I see a mockingbird, sitting on the tailgate of the truck. It flies off as a white pick-up truck appears out of a dust cloud and draws nearer.
There are two figures in the cab. I reach under the seat for the Colt and put it in my back pocket. The truck pulls past me and stops.
Guido gets out, comes to my window and says, ‘You search the house?’
‘No,’ I say.
‘Wait,’ he says. He takes an AK from the truck, walks to what remains of the front door, pushes it open and goes inside.
I get out of the truck and look round, expecting Lee to appear, but there’s no sign of him. Manuel’s body sits in the passenger seat of the other pick up. Seen through the windscreen, he looks OK. If he hadn’t been killed before my eyes, I would think he was alive.
I hear a burst of gunfire. I vault into the back of the truck, crouch down and peer round the cab. Guido is lying on the ground in front of the farmhouse. Lee and two armed DEA agents in dark blue overalls step out from behind an outbuilding and run towards the other truck.
Lee pulls open the door, points a gun at Manuel’s head and yells, ‘You’re busted, you slimy son of a … What the fuck?’
He pulls Manuel’s inert body out of the seat and it falls to the ground, still in a sitting position. He turns and sees me.
‘You fucking bitch!’
He raises his gun. I vault over the cab and aim both feet at his head. He steps aside, but I get a hold on his neck, pull him to the ground and try to wrestle the gun out of his hand. We roll around in the sand. He gets on top of me, pins me down and puts the gun to my head. I spin sideways, get hold of his balls and twist. As he shrieks in pain, one of the DEA agents grabs the gun, pulls Lee off me, and forces him back against the truck.
‘You don’t want to do this,’ he says.
‘Fucking cunt,’ says Lee, as he sags against the tailgate holding his crotch.
The other agent points his gun at me and says, ‘Stand up slowly.’
I get to my feet. He takes the Colt out of my back pocket, pushes me to the other truck, puts my hands on the bonnet and kicks my legs apart. He searches me, finds the passport and the box-cutter and walks me towards the house. Lee follows us, supported by the other agent.
We enter the house and I am pushed into a room at the back which was once a kitchen. The roof is open to the darkening sky. The agent pulls a deformed kitchen chair away from what the termites have left of a wooden table, places it against a wall next to a rusting stove, sitting under metal shelves, and pushes me towards it. I sit down as Lee and the other agent enter. Lee pushes the agent aside and stands in front of me.
He points his gun at me and says, ‘Say goodbye, cunt.’
The agent who was supporting him steps forward and tries to grab his gun. ‘This is murder, Lee!’
Lee shrugs him off, aims at my head and says, ‘No one’s gonna miss this piece of trash.’
The agent tries for his gun again and Lee turns and punches him. While his back is turned, I give my bracelet a twist, then I grab him round the neck, pull his head back and dig the blades into his throat just far enough to draw blood. The agents see the blood and move back. I pull Lee to the wall.
With my bracelet still at his throat, I look at the agents and say, ‘Guns on the floor, over here!’
They take their automatics off their belts and lay them and their AKs down beside my feet.
‘Now back off,’ I say.
They stand by the side wall. The one who was trying to stop Lee killing me spreads his hands and gives me an imploring look.
‘There ain’t no need for this, lady, we can work this out …’
‘Where’s your car?’ I ask.
‘Out back,’ he replies.
‘Throw me the keys.’
As he puts his hand in his pocket, a door opens at the far end of the room. Rodrigo enters and fires two shots. The agents fall and I let go of Lee. As he bolts for the door, Carmela appears and swings an iron bar into his stomach. Lee doubles over and goes down. Rodrigo’s fist comes at me and the lights go out.
• • •
I feel a violent pain in my shoulders and open my eyes. I am hanging by my wrists, which are handcuffed to a pair of hooks on the wall, and my mouth is gagged. My legs are spread and I can’t move them. Lee is tied to the chair. He is slumped forward, whimpering and moaning. Blood drips from his nose and mouth.
Rodrigo stands in front of him holding a pair of bolt cutters. Carmela is next to him, breathing hard and wiping blood off her knuckles. She holds one of Lee’s hands out to Rodrigo. He raises the bolt cutters and there’s a crunch as he cuts off a finger. Lee screams.
Rodrigo holds the finger up to Lee’s face and says, ‘You have any more friends in our country you are going to tell us about, or you want to lose your balls as well?’
Lee spits blood and slowly lifts his head. He looks over at me and says, ‘Why don’t you ask my boss?’
Carmela and Rodrigo turn and look at me. Carmela’s stare would bore through metal. I try to speak, but can only make a faint groan behind the gag.
Rodrigo drops Lee’s finger, opens the bolt cutters, moves towards me and says, ‘We start with a breast?’
Carmela steps in front of him and says, ‘Let me soften her up a little f
irst.’
She comes towards me, taking off her singlet and shorts. She unties the gag, then she leans her stinking body into me and rips open my shirt and jeans. She delves into my groin then she holds three fat fingers up in front of my face, licks them and gives me a revolting grin. She forces the fingers into me and I lean against the searing pain and grip it hard. Each thrust grinds my back against the wall and wrenches my wrists against the cuffs. She mashes her mouth against mine and forces her tongue between my lips. I retch into her mouth. She spits, pulls out her fingers, then she backs off and says something to Rodrigo. He throws keys to her. She catches them and unlocks one of my wrists. I try to claw at her eyes with my free hand but she bites my wrist, takes hold of my neck and squeezes until I pass out.
I come round on my back on the floor and she’s lying on top of me, thrusting her face at me and laughing maniacally. I go for her eyes again, but she punches me and my head swims. She sits up, turns round to face my feet, pins my arms down with her knees and lowers the part of herself that I least want to get close to onto my face. I fight for breath between her thighs as she bucks up and down on my face. As her massive breasts wallop and slap back and forth between her neck and her stomach, I get a glimpse of Rodrigo crouching down to get a better view. After accelerating her pelvic convulsions until I think my skull is going to fracture, she finally raises her head, spews forth a guttural roar of orgasm and collapses on top of me.
As I’m trying to lift her dead weight off me, an engine roars into life outside and light floods the room. Rodrigo shouts something and tries to pull Carmela off me. I slither out from under her and spit out hair and slime. As she gets to her feet, I stand, grab the hooks I was cuffed to, climb the wall and lie on top of it. I see headlights through the window opposite and hear the crack and snarl of branches breaking.
I make out the yellow digger erupting into life beneath its shroud of thorns. Rodrigo is looking through the window with Carmela beside him. I see the cast iron bucket rearing up outside with a snapping and splintering noise as its steel teeth chew through the spiney web that covers it. The tracks churn and the machine turns towards the house. The headlights blind me as the digger crunches over the wreckage towards us. Rodrigo fires through the window at the headlights and receives a barrage of lead in reply that thumps into the wall below me.
Carmela dives at Rodrigo and throws him to the floor. The digger advances. The bucket rises high into the night sky and then crashes down onto the top of the wall. An avalanche of bricks buries Carmela and Rodrigo. The digger’s engine splutters and dies.
The silence is broken by the sound of some creature scurrying away on frightened feet. Through a haze of brick dust, I can see the outline of the digger’s cab. The door flaps open and a small, nimble figure climbs down the side of the machine, makes its way over the pile of rubble and stands below me.
‘All is safe now,’ says Juanita.
Relief floods through me and I climb down the wall, fall into her arms and pass out.
I am diving headlong down a long metal shaft, twisting and turning somersaults. I come round suddenly and Juanita is sitting me on a chair. She strokes my forehead and massages my wrists and ankles. She puts a flask to my lips and I swallow whisky. My head clears and I try to connect the lean, black-clad figure in front of me, with a knife on her belt and an AK slung over her shoulder, with the demure little woman in her maid’s uniform I knew at the mansion.
She says, ‘I have worked for these beasts for years now and I know what they do and how they do it. I have seen them destroy themselves with greed and ambition and their foolish rivalries. Now it is my turn to take what they have thrown away.’
‘How did you do it?
‘I knew that a time would come when I could make my husband take power from Manuel and when he did …’
‘You could take it from him?’
She nods, helps me to my feet and says, ‘We must go. Can you walk?’
I stand, pull up my ripped jeans and button them. I take the DEA tracking device out of my pocket and drop it beside Lee’s body, still tied to the chair and now with a bullet hole in his chest. There’s just enough of my shirt left to tie at the waist. I take a couple of tentative steps and Juanita takes my arm.
‘I’m OK,’ I say.
‘Come.’
She leads me out of the house towards the trucks. Guido is lying where he fell beside the truck he arrived in. Juanita crouches beside him and feels for a pulse in his neck. He moans a little and opens his eyes. He tries to speak, but can only make a faint croaking sound.
Juanita slides the bolt on her AK and points it at her husband. He reaches a hand towards her and opens his mouth to try to speak again. Juanita says something to him in Spanish and puts a single shot in his forehead.
She drops the gun beside her dead husband, turns to me and says, ‘The money is in your truck?’
‘Yes.’
‘Take it out, please.’
I take the briefcase out of the truck. ‘Do you want to take the drugs?’
‘I just want to get home.’
‘I thought so.’
‘It’s not my line of work.’
‘I understand.’
She reaches into her pocket and hands me my passport. Inside there is a first-class air ticket to London.
‘I will take you to the airport.’
Something melts inside me and I feel faint and unsteady for a moment. Juanita puts a hand on the back of my neck and says, ‘It is OK.’
I look at her and smile.
She says, ‘Do you have the American passport?’
‘It’s buried in the house with one of those DEA agents.’
‘No matter.’
She walks to the truck containing the cocaine, gets into the driving seat and beckons me over. I get in beside her and put the briefcase on my knee. She turns the truck round and we move off down the track towards the road.
‘Where did you learn to drive a digger?’ I ask.
‘My father.’
‘Really?’
‘When my mother died, he would take me and my brother with him to his work. We would run errands and do odd jobs for the foreman and he would take us in the cab sometimes.’
‘Is he still around?’
‘No.’
The way she replies does not invite further inquiry and we continue in silence. We reach the main road and turn left.
I tap the briefcase and say, ‘This million bucks is counterfeit.’
She looks over at me and says, ‘You are sure?’
‘That’s what Lee told me, although it looks pretty good to me. He said it was printed by a top-class forger.’
She pulls the truck over. I open the briefcase and show her the money. She takes out a bill and examines it and then puts it back.
I shut the briefcase and she says, ‘We will use it for bribes, they will not know.’
‘We?’
She looks away quickly and I know that I’ve been taken. I suddenly feel very tired.
She turns to me slowly and says, ‘We had to be sure you would be there.’
‘She doesn’t have a brother in Los Angeles.’
She nods. After a moment she says, ‘She feels …’
‘Take me to the airport.’
‘She wants you to know …’
‘Take me to the airport.’
I turn away from the woman who has just saved my life, grind my thumbnail into my forearm and wish I hadn’t left the box-cutter at the farmhouse.
At the airport, I get out of the truck without a word. I take the suitcase I bought in Ciudad Juárez from the back, walk towards the domed entrance of the passenger terminal and go in through the glass doors, appreciating the slight drop in temperature as I walk across the marble floor. I look at the ticket and see that I fly Continental Airlines to Atlanta and then on to London. The departures board shows a flight to Atlanta leaving at midnight.
I go to the Ladies’ room, wash off as much of Carm
ela’s stinking residue as I can and change into fresh jeans and a cotton shirt. I change my remaining dollars for pounds at the currency counter, walk to the Continental desk on the other side of the concourse and put my ticket and passport on the desk. A platinum blonde with a bright smile and very white teeth checks me in. When she’s done, she calls a male colleague who escorts me to the first-class lounge. After a club sandwich and several whiskies, I board a Boeing 707 and sink into soft leather. We roll down the runway and then the sudden thrust of the jet engines presses me back into my seat. I look out of the porthole and watch the lights of Texas falling away below me.
• • •
It’s a little after six in the morning and getting light as the taxi pulls up in front of the house. I pay the driver, unlock the front door and go in. As I put my case down, I hear movement upstairs and then a door opening. A figure appears on the landing. I switch on the light and see Graham, in his underpants, struggling to put on a shirt.
‘Where is she?’ I say.
Managing to get the shirt under control as he walks down the stairs, he says, ‘There’s a letter.’
‘Who from?’ I ask.
‘I don’t know, it just says ‘She’s at Portland’.’
‘Show it to me.’
‘It’s in the kitchen.’
I follow him along the hall and into the kitchen. He picks up an envelope from the kitchen table and hands it to me. After almost twenty years, I recognise Claire’s handwriting. I severed all links with Claire and Maureen after they grassed me for murder and testified against me, but this piece of paper tells me that Georgie didn’t. I sit at the table and consider what to do. I need to know she’s all right, even if that means confronting two people who were happy to see me hanged. I find my car keys and make for the front door.
Graham says, ‘Er, where are you …?’
I open the door and say, ‘I know where she is.’
‘Shall I come?’
‘Probably best if you stay here, just in case.’
‘Right.’
‘And put some trousers on.’
‘Yes.’
‘I’ll call.’
I shut the door and walk the short distance to the car.
The clock on the dashboard tells me it’s seven fifteen as I turn off Holland Park Avenue. I park the car towards the far end of Portland Road. I never went back to the flat after I was acquitted, but as far as I know, Claire and Maureen never left. The flat was in Dave’s name, so there wasn’t much I could do about it. As I walk past the smart white houses towards the flat, I’m taken back to the days when this end of the street was dirty and dilapidated and home to thieves and chancers before the slum clearances and the new building in the sixties. I get to the front door, ring the middle bell of the three and wait.