by Bacon Thorn
She bit her lower lip tentatively, and Navarre noticed her hands on the wheel, long, beautifully shaped fingers; there was a tremor in them. “Maybe he can,” she added. “I did walk out. But I don’t think he’d like the Screen Actors Guild to hear my version of the story.”
He asked, “Do you always invite speculation by saying shocking things like that?”
Her dark glasses flashed with the swift, irritated glance she shot at him. “Listen to me, Thomas Navarre,” she said firmly. “I gave you a lift because I need somebody to drive. You looked capable. I don’t pick up hitchhikers as a rule. You’re the exception because I’ve got a hell of a hangover. A going-away party last night. Now that you know I don’t play the Good Samaritan and I’m not giddy with anticipation for a roadside rendezvous, will you drive the car?”
Navarre’s surprise and sudden anger vanished. How could he be angry in the presence of such immense conceit? He laughed, feeling good yet cautious. It cheered his somber face. She was a beautiful, honey-skinned woman who spoke her mind like a precocious child who says naughty words to test the limits of her audacity. He liked her.
She smiled back at his burst of laughter, then grinned generously and stopped the car. “Well, wonders, you’ve got a sense of humor.” She added flippantly as she climbed out, “Unless you’re a masochist, I wouldn’t try to scoot over the gear knob.” Navarre pulled his bag from behind the seat and carried it with him around the front of the car. He noted as he passed her that she was taller than he had thought. In her low heels, the top of her head came to just above his chin. Tall and lithe with a flash of long bronze legs.
She was buckled in when he placed his overnighter on the driver’s seat and zipped it open. “There’s a thermos of water in here. I’m a little dry from the heat.”
The deep swallow of water was refreshing, and he rezipped the bag.
He felt her eyes on him as he strapped himself into the bucket seat and decided to play the role of the cheerful college professor as far as it would take him. There was bitterness in Yuma Haynes which he did not wish to explore. He sensed that she was a woman who used brash flippancy to hide a deep disappointment and that her composure was fragile, her wisecracking façade only skin deep. She was a dangerous companion for a fugitive, for a man who preferred to keep inquiry about himself to a minimum. The last thing he wanted was to draw her into his circle of danger.
When Navarre had the Fiat rolling and she was satisfied that he was competent, she unsnapped her seat belt and rummaged in the rear seat, bringing up a pebbly silver pint flask encased in a soft, rich leather case. Her hands trembled slightly as she twisted the silver cap and lifted the flask to her lips. She drank deeply with her head thrown back. “Oh, dear God, that’s good. Cold gin. I really thought I was going to die. I had a belt about a hundred miles back, but it wasn’t near enough to get rid of the shakes. Jesus, there’s nothing worse than a tequila hangover. In case you’re wondering, I’m not a lush or a chronic boozer. Here, take a swallow. Do you good.”
“I’d better not. I was in the sun for almost an hour. I think it would hit me like a ton of bricks.”
“Me, I’ve got a cast-iron stomach.” She tilted the flask again, her lipstick leaving a partial imprint on the silver rim, then said banteringly, “Well, good, old, practical Thomas, what shall we talk about? The weather? No, that’s predictable. Plenty hot. I know. Let’s talk about you. Where in the East do you teach?” There was a subdued, quarrelsome note present in her voice, and Navarre realized that the gin had acted quickly.
He started to say, “Let’s talk about you,” when he saw the brown Chevrolet suddenly pull abreast of him and pace the Fiat while the policeman in the right-hand seat looked carefully at Navarre and at Yuma, who was frowning in inquiry. The Chevy held its position a few moments longer, then the man tipped his fingers to his forehead and turned away. The Chevy accelerated past the Fiat and gained distance rapidly.
Navarre let his breath out slowly. They must have been bare minutes away from the Duelos road intersection when Yuma picked him up. A close call! Returning to the intersection so soon, they couldn’t have driven to the farm. They must have seen the Buick, put two and two together, contacted Rodriguez by radio, and then headed back toward Chihuahua. They had no way of knowing which way he had run. And seated behind the wheel in a white shirt, he did not look like a hitchhiker. Yuma sitting beside him was perfect camouflage. Their scrutiny of the Fiat had been routine. He’d passed inspection. But now he realized the hunt for him was in deadly earnest and he was certain that his earlier conviction was correct—that the cops in Chihuahua somehow formed a link with whoever it was that was behind the killing of Raldon de la Garza.
Suddenly, Navarre felt more naked and open than he had ever been in his life. And what worried him more than he wished to acknowledge was the danger to which he had exposed Yuma Haynes. Her voice penetrated his whirling thoughts. He realized she had called his name twice, sharply.
She was looking at him strangely. She had removed her sunglasses. Her eyes were green, he observed, but suspicious now. “You lied to me,” she said. “You flinched when that police car looked us over. You pretended to be fine, but you flinched. Why did you do that? Are you running from something? You are. Don’t deny it. Don’t you dare deny it! What were you really doing out there, skulking along that road? What are you hiding from?” Her speech was slurred, but her wits were sharp enough.
“That story about visiting a priest was a lie, wasn’t it? Why? Why the Goddamn act? I want an answer. Now!”
Navarre sighed. His plans for cordial subterfuge went out the window. Why couldn’t he have been picked up by some poor-assed Mexican farmer on his way to market? Why had he even mentioned the accident?
“I didn’t lie to you,” he said emphatically. “I have no reason to. Why are you suspicious just because I was surprised by a police car? You’re an attractive woman in a flashy red car and you draw attention. It was you they were looking at. I did visit with a priest. Yes, the police car surprised me. But I’m not wanted by the authorities. I’m just who I told you I am.”
“Then, why were you startled?” she insisted.
“Because,” he said patiently, groping for a convincing answer and unable to find one, “police always make me feel guilty for something I haven’t done.”
Yuma Haynes snapped her glasses back in place. “What do you think I am?” she asked bitterly. “Dumb, blind, insensitive? You may be a university professor, Thomas Navarre, but you’re hiding something. Boy, I’ve got a real knack for picking them. Even to a frigging hitchhiker who’s leery of the cops. I guess I’ll never learn.”
She was silent for a moment, sulking like a disappointed child, he thought, and as suddenly as she had turned on him, her mood changed. She drank again from the flask, threw it carelessly in the rear, and said with false gaiety, “Hell, let’s have some music. Oh, I forgot, the CD player’s on the fritz. Well, there’s always some good, brassy Mexican music.” She flipped the radio knob and punched several buttons before she got a station. An announcer with a brassy voice was describing verbosely and with explosive enthusiasm the coming major bullfighting event to be held on Sunday in the Plaza de Toros in Mexico City. He explained that the legendary torero Cid Campeador y Camaro would be challenging La Punta bulls in an exciting test of courage.
Yuma twisted the radio dial savagely, muting the announcer’s voice. “Bastard!” she said. “Men never change. You are all the same.” A sharp acrimony deepened her husky voice, and she turned in her seat, flashing a hot, antagonistic look at Navarre.
“You know why I really left the movie location? It wasn’t because of the director. I could have smoothed that out. No, it was because of Cid Camaro. You’ve heard of him. The guy they were just talking about on the radio. The macho bullfighter. The Ghost Who Dances . . . in the ring and in the boudoir. He has a small part in the picture I was in. We were lovers.” She removed her glasses, and Navarre could see the tears in her e
yes. “He came to me two days ago, pleasant and cold as ice. ‘Querida,’ he said, ‘it is over with us. I’ve found somebody else. It was a pleasant episode. Perhaps we can see one another in Mexico City when the company goes there for the final shooting.’ Just like that,” she snuffled. “Apples are good but tangerines are tastier. The son of a bitch! He shamed me in front of the whole crew. Made me a laughingstock, strutting around and cozying up to that busty, brazen, brunette tramp. Boy, did they flaunt it. The new director was going to do me a favor, console me. Cid . . . Cid was actually astonished when I finally got drunk enough, mad enough, to slap his face . . . so hard it made my hand burn. That’s when I walked . . . I decided to drive to Chihuahua to visit a friend.”
Yuma fumbled in a large straw bag and found a wad of Kleenex. She dabbed her eyes and replaced her glasses. She breathed deeply several times, and then said with a distinct slur in her voice, “I guess I’m a little tipsy. Booze doesn’t generally hit me this hard. But I’m not fooled easily. You stiffened when that cop looked in at us. You’re hiding from something, and I was your cover. Don’t try to deny it. Just drive and get us to Chihuahua.”
Navarre turned his attention back to the road, thinking how shrewd and perceptive she was and how strange and true it was that people who have never met before often bare their souls more honestly to one another than they would ever do with friends. It happens because they feel safe in the knowledge that their confessions will be carried away, like smoke on the wind, and never come back to haunt them.
As his eyes searched the highway ahead, he was not surprised to see a quarter of a mile in the distance the brown Chevy parked diagonally on the side of the road. Its front bumper extended into the pavement, partially blocking the driving lane. One of the men leaned against the left front fender. He held a stop sign in his hand, now pointed at his feet. As Navarre slowed the Fiat, wary and worried, the deputy waved him on. He smiled perfunctorily. He was the man who had scrutinized Navarre and Yuma and decided they were harmless.
“Well,” Yuma said, flashing a disappointed glance at Navarre, “aren’t you the lucky one.” Then she hunched herself against the door panel, untouchable, terribly silent, isolated in herself, removed for the few miles remaining to Chihuahua.
There was nothing Navarre could say or think to say to her.
As they approached the outskirts of Chihuahua, passing a sign that declared Jesus Saves Repent Your Sins, he thought about the call he would make to Hebrano once he found a room in an inconspicuous hotel. His recollection of the events in the past thirty-six hours seemed unreal: The discovery of the body of the man who had been like a brother to him. His meeting with an extraordinary Catholic priest whose friendship may have saved him from the assassins of his dearest friend, who were now searching for him. It was hard to believe so much had happened in so little time. There was the strange desert rat who resembled a buzzard and had forecast death in a tunnel for Navarre. And finally there was the attractive, embittered woman who sat beside him and detected the lies behind the false words he had spoken to her. She would not have been surprised to learn that he carried a lethal weapon in his bag.
He said goodbye to Yuma Haynes a few minutes later, pulling the Fiat against a curb in the fringe of the modern downtown area of the city. It was a neighborhood of drab shops, family bakeries, secondhand stores. She was still withdrawn, her emotions caged. She stared at him when he switched off the motor, curiously, not stirring, but taking in where he had parked, and her lips drew back in a mocking, mirthless smile.
“You really don’t want to draw attention to yourself, do you? No polite exchange of addresses? No interest in any promise of the future? It stops here. Just thanks for the ride, lady, and fuck off?”
“I’m sorry, Yuma . . . I . . .”
“Yes, you are sorry, a sorry imitation of a man. Just go. Just get the hell out of my car!”
Navarre shrugged, removed his bag, and closed the door gently. She was still sitting in the passenger seat when he was half a block away.
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Chapter VI
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Thomas Navarre walked for several blocks before he found what he was looking for, a camisería, a small, unpretentious shop where he could buy clothes. The neighborhood to which he had driven Yuma’s car, bordering on Chihuahua’s downtown area, suited his purposes as well as if he had planned to find it in advance. It was peopled by shop owners who would not give a second thought to a man who was dusty and coatless. Chihuahua was the business and agricultural center for a vast desert ranching, farming, and mining area. It was a frontier city of buying, trading, and banking. Men from all walks of life moved in and out of the city, seeking supplies, clothing, tools, and information. Men who were open and proud, men who were silent and hard, men who asked no favors and answered no questions. Hombres duros.
When he abandoned the Buick, Navarre had left his large suitcase in the trunk. Shirts, underwear, shaving gear, two suits, and accessories were packed in the bag he left behind. He found what he wanted in clothing from what the fat little proprietor of the camisería showed him. But he did not linger over his selections. He was on the run. He needed durable clothes. If he had to hide for any length of time, he was certain it would not be in fashionable places. He chose a soft, bleached-khaki safari jacket, matching slacks, open-collared khaki shirt, and sturdy desert boots. He bought a shaving kit, toothbrush, razor, and other necessities.
Purchases made, he paid in cash and asked the helpful little proprietor for the name of a decent family hotel with moderate rates. He was directed to a nearby small hotel owned by the nephew of the camisero.
An hour later, showered, dressed in clean underwear, and wearing a cheap blue robe he had purchased, Navarre lay on the bed in his inexpensive room with his hands folded behind his head. He thought about Yuma Haynes with a moment of regret, and then redirected his thoughts to an appraisal of his situation. He had avoided the big hotels and the glossy men’s shops for the same reason he had given a false name to the hotel proprietor. There was no question that he was being sought by law-enforcement authorities. The brown Chevy had been proof of that. And he knew he would have been apprehended if he had not been behind the wheel of the Fiat with Yuma Haynes, a beautiful woman who had distracted the police from focusing sharply on him. He wouldn’t be that lucky a second time. And by now, he was certain, an alert had been broadcast for him. This meant that major exits from the city would be watched. Blocked also, he was equally certain, would be access to Santa María Iglesia, Hebrano’s church.
The significance of the trap closing around him led Navarre to the same indisputable conclusion that Fabian Hebrano had reached. Under brutal torture, Raldon had to have confessed that Navarre was his confidant and collaborator with strong contacts in the press. He had to be stopped, for a leak of any kind would jeopardize the months of planning involved in the assassination of Felipe Calderón.
Navarre felt his eyes smarting as he thought about the suffering Raldon must have endured before he broke and betrayed the man who was like a brother. He swallowed the lump in his throat and realized it would be easy for the police to post armed men in a vehicle to observe and interdict anyone resembling himself who attempted to enter the church. He had already tried to reach Hebrano by telephone from the coin booth in the lobby of his hotel. He had been dismayed by a recording which informed him that the number was temporarily out of order. True or false? he asked himself as he showered, and then realized it didn’t matter. He was thwarted and had to proceed on the assumption that whoever it was in the police department that was able to arrange a telephone interruption was a dangerous person of considerable influence. Also, he had failed to reach Lazlo Peñas in Mexico City. When Navarre identified himself and his urgency, an administrative assistant had coolly offered to take a message for the director. Navarre had hung up.
He did not feel especially alarmed by the preparations he knew had been made to close him in. Chihuahua was a big city with many exits. It
would take an army to shut it down. He knew that with any luck he could avoid capture. His plan was simple. He would not stir out of his room until darkness fell. Then, he’d find an inconspicuous place to have a meal, inquire innocently for the directions to the church, and reconnoiter it after dark, probably by taxi. He would play it by ear.
He was convinced that his best chance of eluding capture was getting into the church. Trying for the border would be the worst kind of folly. The authorities would not keep a surveillance team at the church for more than a few hours. Beyond that they would reason he had anticipated the trap and eluded it. So, waiting was his strategy. He was clean, comfortable, and safe for the present.
Stretched out his full length on the narrow bed with a pillow puffed up behind his head, he yawned; his eyes were tired. For a minute or two Navarre allowed his body to relax, his muscles to loosen, his breathing to slow, his senses of urgency to drain from his body. He remembered how he and his murdered friend had been drawn together years earlier at the University of Mexico. He and Raldon de la Garza had enjoyed a strong companionship. They had admired the same qualities in girls and were welcome in each other’s homes with the same strong sense of belonging and parental indulgence. They argued about ideas, the mysteries of life, the blessings of economic freedom their families’ status gave them, defended one another when they were threatened by other students, and were loyal to the strange beliefs one or the other adopted and later discarded in their progress toward maturity.
When Navarre’s father, a civil engineer and a Mexican by birth, was killed in a construction accident, Navarre’s mother, a beautiful Irish woman with flaming red hair, moved east to Connecticut, where her family lived. Her son was seventeen when his father died, leaving his wife with a small insurance benefit. There was no discussion of where Navarre should live. The de la Garzas looked upon him with the same fierce devotion they held for their son. Señor Anicelo de la Garza insisted with winning persuasion that Navarre’s mother allow her son to remain where he would be well cared for. He would be encouraged to visit her as often as possible.