Head Games (The Hector Lassiter Series)

by Craig McDonald

  I popped the trunk and found two identical duffel bags — dead ringers for the one I’d carried from the cantina. I indulged a hunch and grabbed both bags, gathering them up with the third and stowing them in the backseat of my ’57 Bel Air.

  Bud was standing there, shivering. It wasn’t that cold yet. I placed my callused hands on his sloped and bony shoulders and squeezed. I searched his scared eyes and felt bad for what I saw. I smiled and said, “First man you ever put down, son?” I hedged, “Not to say he was necessarily dead, Bud.”

  Fiske’s eyes were skittish. He said, “First I’m pretty sure of.”

  I smiled and patted his cheek. “Some compelling ambiguity in your phrasing there, scribe of mine. Just like all good writers. Fair enough. You had my back, son. Saved my life. I won’t forget that, Bud. If you’d done anything else, or if you’d done nothing, I’d be dead right now. Sometimes we don’t have the luxury of choosing the fights we can win, son — the fights find us, win or lose. So you fight like hell to stay alive. Instinct. Don’t let it eat at you.”

  Bud was wearing a black tie emblazoned with a busty slut casting a pair of dice. Sucker was swanky. Hated like hell to do it, but there was nothing else for it. I loosened the knot, grabbed the fat end and tugged.

  Bud said, “What are you doing?”

  I relieved him of the half-empty tequila bottle and wadded in his tie. Now Bud was looking freshly concerned. Fishing my sports jacket’s pocket for my Zippo, I said, “Federales tend to travel in fifties, Bud. We sorely need a distraction ... and a scorched-earth trail, I think.” I flicked the Zippo open one-handed, right to left, nice and slick. I touched off the dice-throwing lady’s big breasts, opened the door of Wade’s Mercury and cast the bottle at the dash.

  There was this big whoosh! And it was adios to Wade’s sweet ride.

  I took the shotgun from Bud, shouldered it and took aim. I put one barrel to the front license plate and another to the back, just to make sure there’d be no tracing of plates. I tossed the shotgun into the smoldering front seat.

  I clapped my interviewer’s arm. “C’mon Bud, before she blows.” I tossed him the keys to my Chevy. “You drive, son ... it’ll help take your mind off the bedlam.” I didn’t volunteer the rest — lately, my night vision was inexplicably poor.

  As Bud drove us north, I checked the spare duffel bags. Two more skulls — but these lacked that telltale underbite.

  Canards.

  Clearly, Wade was playing some marks ... some Pancho-Villa-head version of three-card monte, maybe.

  The light was too dim for me to check the notebook for clues to the identities of Wade’s intended pigeons.

  The compartment of my Chevy flashed with orange light. The Mercury’s gas tank must have blown.

  Bud split his attention between me and the dusty one-lane trailing on up toward the border. “That waitress, the one with the limp,” he said, “I kinda sensed you two have a history. Will she finger you?”

  I pushed a button on the dash and the ragtop roof released and commenced its retreat behind the back seat. The desert air was cool across our faces. Could really smell the rain on the wind now. I growled over the wind sheer, “You’re sharp, kiddo. Got a good eye on you and that’s a necessary writer’s trait. Faleena’s served me for thirty years, at least — longer than you’ve been around. Served me drinks and more — when she was still pretty — as you’ve probably surmised. But she doesn’t know my real name. So there’s no sweat there, kiddo.”

  “How do you think those soldiers knew to look for Wade and the head?”

  “Well, Bud, that is troubling. That one’s got even me wondering. But Wade was an alcoholic. Maybe, in his cups, he talked to the wrong son of a bitch. But there’s another possibility. Prescott Bush, the senator up north? He’s got himself a lot of ties to U.S. intelligence ... could easily enough divine Wade’s unhappy situation — I mean the federal warrant out on Wade. Bush would learn easy enough — particularly after Wade made contact — where to look for him. Why pay eighty-grand for something this hot when you can just take it?”

  “What about the border? We gotta get back across.”

  I winked at Fiske. It was vintage me — cocky and awash in blarney. “Well, I’m not sweating that and neither should you, Bud,” I said. “The Mex’ cops will be a few hours sorting out that mess at the cantina. We’ll be across the bridge by then, back where they can’t fuck with tough gringos like thee and me.”

  Bud shook his head, palpably dubious. So call my poet/interviewer smart, too. I shook loose a Pall Mall and fired it up. I’d yet to see Fiske smoke, but said, “You want one, son?”

  Bud nodded, grateful. “Hell yeah.” I passed him mine and lit another. God bless the windproof technology of those geniuses at Zippo — suckers were doing hero’s work.

  Bud suppressed a cough, then blew smoke from the right side of his mouth. He asked, “That really Pancho Villa’s head?”

  “Pretty sure it is.”

  “I remember in my research for your bio reading that you chased Villa with General Pershing, so I guess you’d know. Those other bags — what’s in ’em?”

  “More heads.”

  “Jesus Christ.”

  “Yeah, Wade was a schemin’, me thinks.”

  I checked our dust. There was a guttering glow back there. We were probably too far away for the light to be coming from the burning Mercury. But it might be nothing. All the same, I reloaded my Colt.

  Bud said, “Trouble, Hector?”

  “Naw, Bud. Just being like a good Boy Scout.”

  That light behind us was vibing menace — and getting closer.

  But so was the border.

  Bud kept fretting. I fiddled with the radio. President Eisenhower was going on about something regarding a high school in the old south. Like most, I liked Ike — but not at this hour. So I found some mariachi music and cranked it up loud.

  Just for kicks, to lighten the mood, like Pancho Villa fleeing Columbus, New Mexico, I whooped like some Apache whose blood was up and fired a single shot in the air.

  With any luck, maybe the falling bullet would kill the bastard driving the car I was fairly certain was following us.

  3

  The border agent was one weary-assed wage-slave. It was all routine and rote with this fella. He asked, “Anything to declare?”

  My back was pressed to the passenger seat door and my legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles. I smiled and hoisted the duffel bag. “Just the head of Pancho Villa.” I blew two perfect smoke rings.

  The agent snorted and smiled. “Good one, Slick. Second time I’ve heard that one this shift. Hope you didn’t bring back the spic clap with the bandit’s head.” He waved us through.

  Bud Fiske said, “Where to, chief?”

  “My place.” I smiled and reached across and feinted one at his chin. “We’re in my country now, Bud. Feel free to put your foot to the firewall.”

  * * *

  I rarely returned home during that time. There were too many wicked-bad memories crowding my too-empty, haunted house. I had the cash — paperback reprint royalties, movie money, cock- and bullfighting winnings — so it was a lot of hotel time for me in those days. But I held onto the hacienda, unable to let go even if I couldn’t sleep in it anymore. It remained a beautiful old place — a posh pad in La Mesillia; two stories of stucco with a wrap-around second floor porch, hard by the Rio Grande.

  We rolled up the crushed-oyster-shell driveway; Bud was still at the wheel. I handed Wade’s chrome .45 butt-first to my latest interviewer. Bud looked at it, then thrust the rod down his pants. “Expecting more trouble, Hector?”

  “Just being careful, Bud.” I checked the matching bags, looking for the head with the profound underbite. I popped the trunk, lugged out the spare tire, and dropped the bag with the real bandit’s head into the wheel well. I rolled the spare tire out of sight behind a stand of cottonwood. Bud slammed shut the trunk. I handed him one of the two remaining duffels. H
e handled it just like what it was — a bag containing a severed human head.

  I keyed us in and stashed my duffel in the coat closet. Bud flipped on some lights, then whistled low. “Beautiful,” he said.

  Bud trailed me through my house to my study. The walls were lined with books. One wall was filled with my various first editions and translations — French, Spanish, even one in fucking Yiddish. I sometimes wonder how much of what I wrote remains in those non-English versions. How do killers and rats and whores and private dicks “travel” in the Romance languages? But the French seem to love me, just the same. Those suckers have always gotten noir.

  I took the third duffel from my interviewer and deposited it behind the leather couch by the fireplace.

  Bud zeroed in on the oil paintings over the bar. One was of Dolores, my daughter who never saw four; the other was of her mother, Maria. Both were about a year dead ... Dolores a bit longer. I’d sensed Bud had heard some of the wicked rumors ... that he was burning to ask me about my girls. Fortunately for him, he’d had the good sense these past few days not to press. But I knew for sure that he had heard the whispers when he pointed at my daughter — and just my daughter — and said again, “Beautiful.”

  I met his gaze, bit my lip and nodded. “Thanks,” I said. Bud got my unstated message: Don’t you dare go further. I slipped behind the bar and fetched a couple of big tumblers. “Like the man said,” I said, “‘You’ve got to find what you love and let it kill you.’ So we drink it neat here, Bud Fiske. What’s your poison, hombre?”

  “I’d kill — die — for Scotch,” the young poet said.

  “Blended or single malt?”

  “God, single malt if you’ve got it.”

  “Good man.” I broke a seal on a fresh bottle of Talisker and poured four fingers apiece. We tapped glasses and hissed together at the burn. I topped off our glasses and said, “Now my faithful Indian companion, we look this over.” I slipped Bill Wade’s notebook from my blazer’s breast pocket and tore it in half. I passed the back half to Bud and started flipping through the remaining portion. I squinted. It was suddenly hard to focus. I moved the notepad back and forth, trying to find a range where I could read it. Bud frowned. “When was the last time you ate?”

  “Maybe noon.”

  “Blood sugar. You should have your sugar checked ... you may be toeing up to diabetes.”

  Toeing. Good one. My feet had certainly been hurting enough in recent months. Great.

  Bud set off in search of my kitchen. “See if I can find something for you to eat,” he said over his shoulder. “That’ll help.”

  Yeah, I thought, good luck finding anything. I had fired the help six months before — probably the last time any grocery shopping was done.

  I dug around in my desk’s center drawer and found a magnifying glass. Like some dipsomaniacal/diabetic Sherlock Holmes, I started scanning pages covered in Wade’s cramped handwriting. There were a couple of longish entries on Emil L. Holmdahl, the alleged head thief. Seemed the sucker was maybe still north of the turf. That could be good, or it could be bad. Holmdahl’s last known whereabouts: Van Nuys, California.

  There were longish notes on some Yale fraternities — not the Skull and Bones Society, but some Greek outfits.

  I retrieved the half of the notebook I’d handed Bud and looked it over. There were several pages covered with notes regarding something called the “Wednesday Group” — some organization based in El Paso.

  I heard breaking glass.

  I stowed the notebook’s halves under the bar and slipped out my Colt, headed for the kitchen. I didn’t quite make the door of my study when Bud flew through, propelled face first.

  Three shotgun-toting young guys — roughly Bud’s own age — followed him in. All three leveled their shotguns at my crotch.

  Nodding, I slowly put my Colt down on the bar. Then I raised my hands.

  4

  The intruders sure weren’t toughs.

  Hell, they looked like college kids who had raided their dilettante daddies’ gun cabinets.

  I’ve been on the wrong end of more guns than a man has a right to face and remain standing. But you learn some things, staring down the iron at all those eyes of those that have you in their bead.

  You just maybe get good at judging.

  These young clowns were strictly sad amateur hour, I decided. They wouldn’t shoot us. But they sure could be clumsy — or easily spooked. I carefully bent down to help Bud to his feet. I was relieved to see that they’d stripped Fiske of Wade’s .45. I looked at Bud and whispered, “Follow my lead. No goddamned heroics this time, son.”

  One of the trio was wearing a sweater vest and a bow tie. Two others were wearing jackets emblazoned with Greek letters. I smiled, pointed, and said, “Yale, Class of...?”

  One slick winked and tipped his shotgun barrel up against his shoulder, casual-like, as though he was standing sentry at the fraternity house. He had blond hair and world class dimples. He smirked and said, “Class of ’59.”

  Bud sneered back and droaned, fairy-like, “Oh, go Harvard.”

  “Easy,” I said to Fiske. I moved to the bar, hands again up, and retrieved my drink. I handed the other glass to Bud. I took a swig and said, “You fellas follow us all the way from Ciudad Juárez?”

  Blondie smiled. “Wasn’t too hard.”

  I shrugged and waved a hand. “Well, we didn’t try to make it hard, old son. Though I’m shocked you got out of the cantina with pointdexter there in his sweater vest and bow tie. Chee-rist on a crutch...”

  The scrawny, bow-tied fucker’s ears surged red and his feet shifted nervously. I had this epiphany — he might actually be provoked to shoot me. So it was change-up time. “You lads working for Prescott Bush?”

  Blondie again: “Hell no. He’s old Skull and Bones Society. They’ve been after Villa’s head forever. We’re Sigma Chi. It’ll send those S&B’s over the edge when they learn we’ve got Villa’s head. And now we get that sucker for free. The dead geezer back in taco land was gonna charge us one thousand dollars for Villa’s skull. But we’ll just take it from you. Now where is it?”

  Bud’s started getting into it again: “Don’t do it Hector. They’re all bluff. ’Specially bow tie there. Fuckin’ pillow-biter, I ’spect.”

  I had furnishings to think about. And I was getting kind of fond of Bud. As bow tie raised his shotgun, pointing it at my interviewer, I stepped between them. “Naw boys, easy now.” I looked back over my shoulder: “Ain’t worth it, Bud. Win some, lose some. Stand down, Fiske — I mean that, goddamn it.”

  I jerked my head in the direction of the leather sofa. “The head is in the duffel bag, behind the couch. Take it and get your frat asses out of my house.”

  Blondie hurdled over my couch like the track star he probably was. He balanced the bag on the back of the couch, opened it and looked inside. He surely tried to put himself across as some kind of hard case, but I could see him swallowing hard, breathing through his mouth, trying to keep himself from puking all over the mummified head. “It’s jake,” he squeaked out in a girl’s voice. “Let’s roll, boys.”

  The trio backed out. The pointdexter, the last out the door, hollered, “Sigma Chi forever, you fucking assholes!”

  I laughed and raised my drink and said, “Go, Sigs.” I took a big gulp of single malt. Ah, whiskey — the milk of short-term mercy.

  The front door slammed, then tires squealed in the night.

  Bud and I were into our second round of single malt when I heard the door open again.

  It was four more college boys. These boys carried baseball bats. I didn’t even stand up ... just gestured with my drink and arched an eyebrow. I said, “Zeta Psi?”

  The biggest one — a footballer probably, maybe a linebacker, said, “Hell no: Delta Kappa Epsilon.”

  “Terrific,” I growled. “Don’t break anything. It’s in a bag in the hall closet, by the front door. Stick it to those Skull and Boners for Hector Lassiter.” I to
asted their backs.

  More squealing tires. This time I struggled up. I pulled my car into the garage and locked it down. I doused the lights and double bolted the front door. Place looked abandoned again. We retreated to my windowless library.

  Bud brought me a plate of crackers smeared with tuna fish, mayonnaise and diced pickles and a bowl of tomato soup. He had recovered his new .45 and shoved that sucker back down his pants. “What now, Hector? What do we do with that real head?”

  I chewed, talking through my food. “First thing? Push that rod a few inches left. You don’t want it to accidentally discharge and blow off your cock. That said, there’s eighty grand to be made here, Bud. Maybe more, bard of mine. I’m having a hard time ignoring that. How about you? You in?”

  “Gotta make all that back across the border matter for something, I guess,” young Fiske said. It was false bravado — he was visibly shaken from having killed that federale. But I loved him for his bluster. Bud said, “Forty grand might do the trick.” He was shaping up to be a good lad.

  “Then, Bud,” I said, “I say we finish this bottle. Then we get some shovels and we head toward Orogrande. There’s an old Mex cemetery down there. Migrant farmworkers killed by some long-ago twister, circa 1926. Makes ’em roughly the right vintage. We’re suddenly runnin’ low on spare skulls. Attrition rate is too fuckin’ high tonight and God only knows how many fraternities are angling for Pancho’s head. So I’m thinkin’ we need a refill. And I think we should be properly drunk in order to see to those dark needs.”

  I checked Bud’s haunted eyes: He was hangin’ in there ... even looked game for it. My kind of poet.

  5

  We were a quarter mile from casa de Lassiter when the stench of burning rubber reached us. There was a strange glow on the horizon. We drew closer and saw black, spiraling plumes of smoke.