The Running Kind: A Hector Lassiter novel

by Craig McDonald

  Hector said, “Locals. Passing acquaintances. Amazing what the offer of booze and twenty bucks for a night’s work will buy a man here in the borderlands.”

  “Let’s just hope they’re loyal then,” Jimmy said. “Hate to see the allegiances of that bargain-basement militia shift from us to our foes for a mere few dollars more. Still, they look, ya know, capable.”

  “They look capable of anything, more like,” Meg said. “Ferocious.”

  Hector said, “And therefore perfect for our needs. Anything new on your front Jimmy?”

  “Not a jig.” Jimmy sipped his whisky and rolled his head, stretching his neck out. “I’ve been cut out. Gibson’s pretty much closed down on me. Seems pissed I never produced the two of you. So I figure I was followed by all sorts coming down this way. But I tried my best to be careful and to confuse things. Flew to Texas and came across the New Mexico border from there. Switched cars and drove down roads nobody could follow without making it clear they were following. I think I’m clean.”

  “Gas station attendant recognized Megan a ways north of here,” Hector said. He hadn’t told Megan about that, and she looked at him, suddenly flustered. “Your picture was all over the newspaper in his office,” Hector said to her. “Anyway, I figure the opposition—be they mob, or be they ex-Pinkertons—know we’re running for Mexico. So we’re just going to have to reach the other side and keep going. Thank your stars for a broad national border. If they do follow us across, we’ll do what we can to thin the herd.”

  “Then let’s talk strategy toward that very bloody end,” Jimmy said.

  Meg struggled up to her feet. “I’m sorry, but I just can’t listen to this. I’m already a wreck. Going to go upstairs, try and sleep.” She kissed Jimmy on the cheek; kissed Hector fleetingly on the mouth. She said, “You’ll be staying up late?”

  Hector said, “Better figure I will be. We’re down to the important last hours. Strategy counts most of all now, especially against the inelegance of such thugs.”

  “Of course,” she said. She picked up her glass. Then she picked up the bottle of gin and limped out of the study.

  Jimmy said softly, “That limp of hers looks like something that might last. Poor beauty.” He paused and said softly, “But her elbow seems more limber than memory recalls.”

  ***

  Jimmy and Hector talked for about an hour: they mulled thrusts and counter-thrusts. Contingency plans and distractions. After a bit, he said, “Hec, you look like hell. You really need to sleep. And she’s waiting up there, I think.”

  That was when Hector confided to Jim about Hallie. He told Jimmy all of it.

  “It is getting to be that time of life, been getting to be that time,” Jimmy said, clearly pleased but trying to hide it. “Neither of us is kids anymore, Hec. It’s past time to settle down. Sounds like you’ve found yourself a good woman… at last.”

  The Irishman looked up at the ceiling and said, “That one up there, well, Meg’s still got a lot of vixen in her, and Lord knows you’ve have had enough of that in your life.”

  Jimmy hesitated, then said, “Besides, she… well…” Jimmy broke off and waved a hand. “Never mind.”

  “Say it, Jim.”

  “Hardly seems to matter anymore,” Jimmy said. “Some other time, maybe. Go to bed, Hector—in whichever bed you intend to bunk down in tonight. I’ll not judge you for that, not this night. I’ll go talk to those nasty boyos prowling your property. I’ll make sure they’re still on our side and endeavor to keep them there.”

  PART III:

  — CIUDAD JUAREZ, MEXICO —

  “The longest road out is the shortest road home.”

  — Irish proverb

  39

  Before dawn, Hector was freshly showered, dressed and at work in his garage, transferring all those guns they’d been collecting since Youngstown and all those weapons Hawk had—moving them from the Woody to the old Cabriolet. Hector checked the glove compartment of his older Chevy to make sure the pink slip was still in there.

  After, he talked to his ragtag brigade of soldiers. They said they’d seen lights in the surrounding hills. They’d heard voices northwest of Hector’s place; overheard many car doors slamming.

  Later, they’d spotted campfires.

  One of Hector’s boys crept out and saw a massing army—two-dozen, maybe as many as three-dozen men silhouetted against the wine-red mountains.

  Sounded to Hector like their time was growing terribly short. He fetched Jimmy and gave him the fill. He then set Jim to finishing packing Meg and Shannon’s stuff in Hector’s old Chevy.

  While Jimmy did that, Hector paid off their overnight guard, then handed them the keys to the Woody.

  He said, “Car’s yours boys. Just drive fast that-a-way,” He pointed a bit west of where the ex-Pinkertons and their ilk were camped. He said, “And don’t you boys dare stop for anything.”

  It was a little like a suicide mission, but Hector’s recruits looked game for it.

  And as Jimmy said, they were capable enough. Hell, they might even make it.

  And they’d maybe buy the rest of them time, send that crew of brigands running west while Hector and company ran south across the border to lose the girls in the desert’s wastelands.

  A short time later, Hector’s boys set off in the Woody.

  He listened to their engine roar; heard others start up.

  Hector saw this big dust cloud rise out there on the horizon. Heard gunshots… heard screams.

  ***

  Meg was squeezed between Hector and Jimmy. Little Shannon and her puppy were stretched out atop their hidden weapons’ cache. Hector figured that tactic might dissuade border sentries from a too-aggressive search of their car.

  They caught a break at the border—they drew a couple of guards Hector was well enough acquainted with, a fringe benefit of his frequent crossings in and around Juarez.

  The guards and Hector chatted briefly and they waved them through. In the rearview mirror, Hector saw some other cars coming up fast on the checkpoint, some Pinks who hadn’t been fooled, he figured.

  There was also a too-familiar bus.

  Jimmy saw them too. He said, “Two cars at least. Four men to a car. Maybe five.”

  “And the bus, too, of course,” Hector said. “Figure as many as fifty in there, maybe.”

  Meg looked sick. Hector floored the old Chevy. Jimmy said, sour-faced, “You got yourself a notion here, Hec? ’Cause I’m frankly dry.” Jimmy, too, looked nauseous.

  Hector couldn’t say he felt so wonderful himself. He said, “Other side of the city, there’s an old road. It’s narrow and runs between hills. There’s an old one-lane bridge there across a dried up arroyo. Only one car can pass there at a time. Call it a natural chokepoint. You and I will make our stand there, Jimmy,” Hector said. “The girls will go on without us.”

  Jimmy’s blue eyes searched Hector’s, long and hard.

  A grim smile. The Irish cop finally said, “Hokey-doke, then. Looks as though that’s the way it’ll be, Hec.”

  ***

  They drove through a jumble of Juarez streets, just losing themselves for a short time there. Then Hector headed for that old and narrow desert road to make their last stand.

  ***

  There was a solitary cantina not far from the bridge, the kind of joint that never truly closes. Hector pulled into the parking lot and climbed out. He lifted sleeping Shannon up and moved her to the front seat where Jimmy had been sitting.

  Hector got out the box of weapons and handed it to Jimmy who said, “Jesus, Hec, what’s in here?”

  “An arsenal. So be careful—some explosives, too.”

  Jimmy’s eyes went wide.

  Hector pulled Meg from the back seat. “You have to go on alone now, I’m afraid, darlin’. You have to do that fast, Meg. I wanted to help you set up your new life with the little one, I truly did. I wanted to help with all those logistics. But we don’t have that luxury, now. We need to hold
these bastards off to buy you escape time.”

  Meg searched Hector’s face with scared eyes.

  She looked a bit hung-over. Her chin was trembling.

  He said, “Thing you do now is put me and Jimmy from your mind and start driving south. There’s money in the glove compartment, enough to get you started and see you through a year or two, here. Cost of living’s much cheaper down here. You can stretch those dollars a good ways if you’re real resourceful. And the car is yours, too. If things get tough, sell the wheels and buy something cheaper. You should get a few hundred for it, even this side of the border. Pink slip is in the glove box. Along with your forty-five.”

  Meg looked panicked. “I don’t even speak Spanish, Hector.”

  “In a month you will,” he said, “enough to get by, anyway. That little girl of yours will pick it up even sooner, I’ll wager. Tykes are sponges that way. Little natural linguists. And there’s no other choice and damned little time left us now. You run, Meg. Both of you go hide so good that even I can’t find you. You best figure if I can’t find you, or if Jimmy can’t, then nobody else can either.”

  Meg clearly wanted to talk more, to stall somehow, but there wasn’t time.

  Hector urged her through the dust to the driver’s side of his old Cabriolet. “You hustle now, darlin’. And don’t you ever look back.”

  Meg’s eyes pleaded, “Shannon, she’ll want to say good-bye to you two.”

  “Let her sleep, Meg. You need to make time and distance, and I mean now. Burn down that road, dainty foot to the firewall. Really go. Do that now.”

  “But you two…? You’re goners if you stay back here.”

  Jimmy pushed her into the car and slammed the door. “We’re survivors, this magnificent heathen and me,” Jimmy said. “There is no reason to fear for the likes of us. Now go, lass.”

  Hector leaned down and kissed her hand. “You said you’re the running kind, Meg. Prove it to me.”

  She said, “Will I ever see you again, Hector?”

  With a sad smile Hector said, “Don’t take this the wrong way, darlin’, but I surely hope to God not. Now go!” He slapped the roof and Meg flinched, reflexively giving the Chevy the gas.

  A cloud of dust.

  Jimmy and Hector stood in the cantina’s sweltering parking lot with a box of weapons at their feet and an army headed their way.

  The dust kicked up by his departing car sifted slowly back down, settling on their shoes.

  Jimmy said, “So what next, Custer?”

  40

  Hector winced as he lifted one end of the box of weapons. Some rebelling ache flared high up in his left arm. “Help me stash this alongside those trashcans there,” he said to Jimmy.

  They carried the box into the shade alongside the cantina and he opened it up. Jimmy whistled. “Jesus! We could actually win this war with this stuff if we only had a dozen more like us.”

  “One miracle at a time,” Hector said. He pulled out five or six grenades and held them curled in his arms. There was some discarded twine and rope curling around the trashcans. “Grab that, too,” he said, setting off toward that rickety old bridge.

  “What do you have in mind?” Jimmy asked, fast-walking to catch up.

  “We’re gonna blow up that bridge,” Hector said.

  The dead arroyo’s dusty bottom was about ten feet below the road grade—with the bridge gone, no cars would be passing over that way. The ex-Pinkertons—or whoever was chasing them—would have to drive another thirty miles east or west to find another crossing if they meant to maintain their wheels, Hector figured. That equated to more critical get-away time for Meg and Shannon. It was all down to that now, Hector told himself—all about buying those two get-away and get-lost time.

  Hector lashed some grenades to the rusting struts at the end of the bridge on their side of the dry creek bottom.

  There was a jumble of boulders on their side of the dusty arroyo Hector figured to use for their cover. He strung the rope through the grenade pins and played the rope out toward the big rocks. He caught a break in that the rope indeed reached the boulders with two or three feet to spare.

  Jimmy looked at the rocks and said, “I’ll go get that box now.”

  As Jimmy was huffing along behind the rocks to set down their weapons cache, Hector saw a cloud of dust and heard rumbling motors.

  Didn’t sound like cars, though.

  Across the morning heat shimmer he finally made out what was coming their way: a motorcycle gang. It was a passel of young toughs with a few hard-looking women clinging to their backs. Hector counted fifteen. They looked like much worse than simple rough trade.

  Jimmy shot him this look and rolled his eyes: “Oh Christ, you’re not thinkin’ of…?”

  Hector stepped out from behind the rocks and waved at the bikers to stop. The leader rolled to a stop a few feet from Jimmy and Hector and planted his feet in the dust. He pulled up his goggles and said, “What gives?”

  Americans… better and better, Hector thought. He smiled and said, “I have a proposition, brother. Buddy and I need a little earnest back-up, pronto, on a situation about to transpire with some ugly types. Could use the appearance of some serious muscle to dissuade those coming from pushing back.”

  The head biker snorted and shook his head. “We look like Samaritans to you?”

  “Not at all, and that’s precisely your appeal,” Hector said, smiling again. “And I’ll pay you in hardware. You each get a gun or rifle. After these others clear out, the weapons are yours to keep. And after that, I’m buying drinks at the watering hole over there yonder for you and yours. Lots of goddamn drinks. Ya’ll can drink on me until you’re just short of blind.”

  The head biker snorted. “Guns we don’t want if the price is some son-of-a bitchin’ strangers’ blood. We don’t need that kind of trouble.”

  “Won’t be that kind of trouble,” Hector lied. “I’m not asking you to shoot anyone. Just point the guns at some folks if need be. Look menacing. No shock in me saying that won’t be a reach for you fellas. The women can wait in the bar. They can start that tab running while we close-out cases.”

  Hell, the women could stay and fight as far as Hector was concerned. Some looked meaner than most men.

  The chief biker frowned. “Who are these guys you’re looking to stand down?”

  Hector looked the bikers over; took a gamble based on things he’d increasingly heard about drug trafficking and the biker gangs down Mexico way.

  “Narcotics agents, working undercover,” Hector said. “Of course they have no jurisdiction this side—they’re crooked, too. Probably have a good supply of contraband with them. And hell, any drugs you can have, too.”

  The leader of motorcycle gang nodded, sucking on a lonely front tooth and thinking about that. He looked at his comrades, who shrugged, almost as one. He turned back to Hector and said, “Exactly what kind of guns ya got?”

  ***

  Jimmy did a rough count: there were still ten handguns left; a few stray grenades and that longbow and some arrows. He said, “Gonna make a run over to the cantina, Hector. See if I can’t scrape up a few more recruits.”

  The bikers followed Jimmy over there to park their motorcycles in the lot—to keep ’em safe from stray bullets and on the right side of the bridge if things went crosswise.

  Ten minutes later Jimmy returned with a dozen young Mexicans: scrawny bucks ranging in age from maybe fifteen to twenty-five.

  The handguns ran out and the youngest of the boys, grinning with gold-capped front teeth, picked up the longbow and fitted an arrow. He whooped like an Indian. His burly friend scooped up the last of the grenades.

  There was another big dust plume out there on the horizon. This time it sounded like a bus engine. Hector’s stomach kicked. Jim gave him this wild-eyed wink: the Irishman’s adrenaline was kicking in—Hector knew the look. Jimmy wasn’t alone in that way—Hector was feeling it, too.

  Hector looked at their crew. “Motle
y” didn’t do this bunch justice.

  But they’d have to do.

  Hell, Hector figured they’d prove out just fine; they seemed awesomely feral. It had been a while since Hector had his my own guerilla outfit, not since Paris and the liberation.

  Jimmy cocked a rifle and gave Hector this last fond look, smiling and shaking his head. “Jaysus, Hec. Here we stand, likely about to go down like Jim Bowie and Davy Crockett, and I’ve rarely seen you look so happy.”

  Hector shrugged. He truly didn’t expected to die this day. He had something—someone—to get back to, after all. And the tide, it seemed, had turned in their favor.

  “We’re gonna have us a time, Jimmy,” he said. He jacked shells into a double-barreled, then checked his Peacemaker. Hector smiled and said, “Let’s call it a last blast.”

  41

  Hector had a very particular vision: he’d stand up on top of the pile of boulders and call across the bridge—give that busload of hard cases a chance to turn around and skedaddle back across the border without ever engaging them.

  And he’d promised the bikers no risk of real trouble, though he really had in mind forcing the fight on them, much like he had with those Feds back in Cleveland.

  Diplomacy at the point of a gun—that was Hector’s first impulse. Call it a rough wooing.

  And, when the time came, it started that way well enough—diplomatic, like.

  Hector scaled atop the sprawl of rocks, holding out his hands to get the bus stopped while it was still on the far side of the bridge.

  The bus and a couple of touring cars trailing behind it stopped in an engulfing cloud of drifting alkali. Air brakes wheezed. One of the former Pinkertons stepped down into the dust, and Hector started stating terms.

  Then one of Hector’s conscripts, his blood up, whooped like an Apache.

  It was the young boy with the gold front teeth—‘Carlos’ was his name, Hector would later learn. The kid pulled back that gut string on his bow and let fly with a deep thwang.