Head Games (The Hector Lassiter Series)

by Craig McDonald

  All right. I was officially starting to worry myself, now.

  If Alicia was still talking to me when Fiske was done working her over for me, I’d ask her to find me a good doctor to help with my diabetes. And I needed an eye doctor, too.

  In the meantime, I needed some grub to stabilize my blood sugar, but I couldn’t hardly hit the same restaurant as Alicia and Bud. I finished dressing and checked my face where Bud cuffed me. Skinny sucker threw a creditable punch — the bruise was already asserting itself.

  I locked up and walked a block to a diner that promised “breakfast all day.” The eternal and omnipresent beehive-capped waitress popped her stale chewing gum and called me ‘hon’ by way of greeting.

  Two other customers were perched on stools at the counter. They were an improbable pair. The first was an ugly fella with bad skin and an enormous red nose. He was drinking coffee with a midget decked out in cowboy boots and toddler-size Levis. The mismatched duo looked like they were trying to burn off the previous night’s beer buzz with the acidic black coffee.

  I ordered eggs-over-easy with sides of toast, sausage and bacon and my own flask of black coffee. The coffee came first, of course. I poured myself a cup and took it along to the phone booth in the back. Inside the mahogany phone cabinet was a stool and a little writing shelf. I set down my coffee and pulled out my notepad and Mont Blanc and flipped to a blank page. Then I dialed my answering service.

  Marlene Dietrich had called.

  Orson Welles had called.

  Sam Ford had called.

  Someone described to me as “an older, very rude, Mexican-sounding gentleman who couldn’t or wouldn’t speak English” had called. I got a phonetically transcribed version of what he purportedly said. I wrote it down, played with it, and eventually figured out it must have been: “Muerte a los gringos.”

  Very nice, that: “Death to the Americans.” My mind, of course, immediately went to Fierro. El Carnicero.

  Sam Ford could wait.

  Orson Welles could go fuck himself if he could ever position his hands around his own girth in order to do so.

  Fierro (?) — the Butcher (?) — left no number where I could reach him.

  “There’s one more,” the honey-toned voice on the other end of the line said. “A Senator Prescott Bush called.” With suddenly clammy hands, I scrawled down his number.

  I hung up and stared at Bush’s number for a minute or two. The spooky bastard and his reputed intelligence connections had me cowed. Christ, he could probably arrange to trace a call like nobody’s business. Probably could have J. Edgar’s goons growing from both of my arms before I could rack the receiver.

  Well, fuck that. For now, least ways.

  I called Marlene back — called her collect, just as she had instructed.

  Straight out of the gate, she asked: “Alicia is with you, Hector?”

  “Yes. And she’s fine.”

  “All these shot-up bodies...”

  “Trouble found us. Well, found me and a friend. Alicia got swept up in it. No fault of her own, though that hardly matters. Circumstances being what they were, I couldn’t really leave her behind.”

  “You swear to me that she is truly fine?”

  “Truly. She is ‘truly fine.’ I swear.”

  “You see that she stays that way, Hector. Whatever it takes.” Marlene hesitated. “She ... has a little girl, you see. Her daughter is about the age of—”

  “I know.”

  “It’s just that—”

  “Sure. I know, Marlene.” I rarely ever used the Kraut’s first name — doing so now brought her up short.

  “All right then,” she said. “Of course.” She tried then to put on a cordial face. I could hear her forced smile in her voice. “Orson is desperate to talk to you. He feels terrible.”

  “If you knew the back story, Kraut...”

  “I do know it, love. He told me, after you fought. Orson needs this film, Hector. I’m willing to let him draw on what we two shared if it will help him make a perfect film. If I’m willing to do so, what earthly objection can you have?” That sounded more like an accusation than a question. “Do you know that you cracked one of Orson’s ribs?”

  I shrugged. “Big so what? He got at least six of mine,” I said.

  “Hector...”

  “Aw, Kraut ... I abhor this. But you know, if I were similarly inclined — agreeable, as you say that you are — I have this other bloody business to contend with, and I know Orson is pressed for time. Not sure our schedules can be made to blend.”

  “What exactly is going on? What is this other ‘bloody business?’”

  “I’m not completely sure I really have a handle on it yet,” I said. “It’s just something that has happened and—”

  “Bullshit! That’s beneath you, Hector. Alicia is in danger because of this, isn’t she?”

  “Yes. She was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Just like I said. Nobody could see it coming. With me, or away from me, she’s a potential pawn until this is played out. At least if she’s with me, I can try to protect her. I’ll lay down my life to shield her,” I said.

  That last sounded too melodramatic to my own ears.

  Marlene snorted softly. “A pledge like that might mean something if you actually valued your own life.” She sighed. “She loves your writing, you know? More even than Papa’s writing. When his old dog has to be shot by your revolutionist, Perdido, in Wandering Eye — you know the scene of which I speak? Well, Alicia sobbed over those wonderful words of yours. We talked about your writing for hours these past few days. She has an old and steady soul, Hector. A soul sounder than yours, if I might dare say so.”

  “You just did, Kraut.”

  “That was harsh of me. I’m sorry for that.”

  “Doesn’t mean you weren’t right.”

  “Alicia wants a life close by her little girl,” Marlene said. “But money is tight. And you know, a Mexican girl like her, pretty as she is, well, she will never make that kind of money in Hollywood. Not now, nor for many many years. If you’d grow the hell up, Hector — stop courting disaster at every fucking turn just to get your blood pumping — well, you might, in a very real way, reclaim the life you had for those four years.”

  “No,” I said, grinding my teeth. “Let’s amend that. The life I thought I had for those four years. Turns out that life was a fucking lie.”

  “Not all of it. Dolores was real enough.”

  “All too real, darling,” I agreed. “But not any longer. And now you’re pushing too far — even for you.”

  “It’s too early for you to die, Hector. You have words to write. Scores to settle. Fences to mend. Friends to reclaim. And maybe another dark-haired, dark-eyed little girl to raise to womanhood.”

  “Kraut ... darling...”

  “Write this down,” she ordered. “Do it for me.”

  She recited a series of digits and I dutifully recorded them. “What is this, Kraut?”

  “A phone number. Just keep it with you. I won’t ask you to use it now. Just promise me that you will carry it with you for a while. For a good while. Do it for me. Won’t you do that, Hector?”

  “What kind of number is this? Where in hell does this number ring?”

  “Cuba,” she said.

  Of course. “Finca Vigia, yeah?”

  “Just carry it with you a time. Maybe one night, you’ll feel like using it.”

  I cradled the receiver between cheek and shoulder and tore the sheet of paper with Ernest Hemingway’s number from my notepad. I was about to crumple and discard it when Marlene lashed out at me:

  “I heard that — the paper tearing! Promise me you will keep it, Hector. Fold it up and stick it in your wallet and forget it is there if you will, but promise you’ll carry it. It ... it means luck to me. You know what ‘luck’ means to me, Hector. I know that you know that.”

  Goddamned superstitious German chanteuse.

  Marlene famously met Hemingway on a transatl
antic passage. She had been invited to dine with a large party and realized she would be the thirteenth at the table. Hemingway overheard. Papa’s the superstitious sort himself ... always carrying little coins and pebbles and rabbits’ feet for good luck. Hemingway offered to join Marlene to make it fourteen. And they were off to the races.

  I folded up the sheet of paper and shoved into a slot in my tri-fold wallet. “I just stashed it. For you, Kraut.”

  “Gracias, Hector. You two must settle this. For me, yes, but for yourselves.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t lightly give up an old friend like that, you know. Hem’ and me go all the way back to Italy, and our teens. We were both shot up working for the Red Cross. Shared Paris in our twenties. That first festival at Pamplona. He and me came up together, Marlene ... two of us share so many memories and losses. There’s scads of stuff that I can only truly talk about and reminisce about with him. Losing Papa as a friend is like cutting off a part of myself — denying myself vast chunks of my own history and experience. So I don’t do this lightly, you see — I’m not pissed on some whim.”

  “I hear you. Someday, perhaps, you will tell me, or he will, what happened between you two.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Well, for now, you work this other business out, Hector, and do it fast,” Marlene said. “Keep Alicia safe. Then get back down here. Orson feels terrible for what happened.”

  Fucking Welles — he called me a wife-killer, and his being right didn’t make it go down any easier to me. But I just said to Marlene, “I’m working on it.”

  “Stay well, Hector.”

  “You too, Kraut.”

  I needed to shake that conversation, so I went ahead and called up Sam Ford, my dissolute, one-eyed, director buddy. He was in some place called Glasscock, Texas and drunk out of his mind. Sam wanted me to “roll east to where I am.” Where he “was” was some cabin along Mustang Draw, not so far from Odessa — holed up with an Underwood and a crate of whiskey and three Mexican whores. I told him I was tied up in L.A., but would try to get back to him soon.

  I looked at Prescott Bush’s phone number again. I picked up the receiver and dialed the operator — then hung up before anyone answered. I needed to think it out more before I made that contact.

  My breakfast had arrived. I headed back toward my table. The big drunk and his midget friend had cleared out for parts unknown. Just a trio of college-age boys sat at the counter now, drinking orange juice and stirring around scrambled eggs.

  I poured some more coffee and smoked another cigarette and thought about Pancho Villa’s head. I hadn’t given it a good look since all this began. I hadn’t checked that rotting scalp for traces of some tattooed treasure map. I hadn’t probed the nose holes and eye sockets for scrolled up scraps of paper or other clues ... hadn’t searched for some scrimshaw map carved into bone, maybe.

  I hadn’t shaken that sucker to see if anything rattled inside Pancho’s rotten head.

  It was high time that I did all that.

  20

  I settled up and stretched and cracked my back and wandered out onto the street. It was already getting muggy and the smog lay thick across downtown L.A. The storefronts of the shops across the street shimmered and wiggled through the curtain of exhaust fumes.

  The first punch was to my right kidney — furious pain and I fell to my knees. A hand tangled in my hair and I took a kick to the gut. “Get him up,” I heard.

  It was the three kids from the diner.

  Of course.

  I coughed and tried to get my breath. Being lifted and forced to stand was agony on my kidney. I suspected I’d be pissing blood for the next couple of days. I choked out, “Skull and Bones?”

  “That’s right.”

  “How’d you assholes find me? Getting help from the senator and the CIA?”

  “Something like that. But probably we could have just followed all the bodies you left along the way. Now where’s the head?”

  “Back at my motel.”

  “We’ll walk you there, old man.”

  I nodded, biting my lip until it bled ... fucking kidney shot had really done me some damage. I heard tires squealing and saw the car slowing as it approached us — a ragtop Caddy with four Mexican’s inside. Three were young Mexican guys; one was an old white haired Mexican with a big moustache and leathered face. Instinctively, I went prone — hugged the pavement.

  The blast from the Tommy gun shredded through the college boys and exploded the windshields of parked cars in front of us. The storefront display windows behind us splintered and fell. As the slugs dug in past my feet, I struggled up and began half-running, half-limping in the direction the car had come — trying to put some distance between me and the Mexicans before they could swing their big Caddy around for another pass. I figured they didn’t mean to kill me... not until they had Pancho’s head, anyways. But the thought of being in the hands of a sadistic madman like Fierro? Frankly, that bloody prospect terrified me.

  But that kidney shot was slowing me down. I fished around under my jacket for my Colt. Another car swerved around the corner. It was my Chevy. Alicia was driving and Bud was riding all-too-literal shotgun. They skidded to the curb and I ran around to the driver’s side. “Over the seat, Sweet,” I barked at Alicia. She slid over into the back and I slipped behind the wheel.

  I got my Bel Air in gear and yelled to Alicia to lay down on the floorboards behind the front seat.

  The Cadillac was just turning the corner.

  I accelerated and steered straight for it. At the last moment, I veered to the right, palming the wheel with my right hand. I extended my left arm out straight, Colt in hand, and shot the Mexican driver in the face. The Caddy veered and slammed into the side of a newspaper delivery truck. One of the Mexicans in the backseat — the one who had fired a Thompson at me — flew over the front seat and landed on the pavement, face first and twenty feet from the Caddy.

  Two down.

  I was preparing to swing back around and take out the others — finish Fierro for good — when I saw the cop cruiser in the distance. Some L.A. flatfoot’s routine patrol was about to go very crazy on him.

  Cowed, I righted my Chevy and headed back toward our motel. “You guys come looking for me for a reason?”

  Bud nodded and slipped his shotgun down out of view. “We got back to the hotel and the proprietor was out front, watering his garden. He said several people had been by asking after us — some college kids and some Mexicans. We packed up quick, and left a message with the clerk to have you take a cab to the Aero Squadron to meet up with us again. It was just an accident that we spotted you when we did.”

  “Happy accident.”

  “We deserve some luck,” Bud said.

  Alicia sat up behind us and brushed the hair from her face. She pulled out a scarf and tied it over her head and slipped on a pair of black Wayfarers. “You looked like you were hurt, Héctor — unable to run,” she said.

  “College boys from Yale got a good shot into my kidney just before they got turned into confetti. Hurts like a son of a bitch.”

  “Pull over,” Bud said. “I’ll drive now.”

  I pulled over. Alicia slipped back in front between us and I squeezed in. She rested her hand on my knee. Fiske — that silver-tongued devil — I did owe him thrice.

  Bud said, “Which fraternity is going to be seeking new pledges?”

  “Those dead boys were authentic Skull and Bones.”

  “No shit?”

  “That was Fierro back there, wasn’t it?” Alicia asked.

  “Yeah — for sure it was him. The Butcher. Could see the Fierro I remember from newspaper photos and the wanted posters in that old face.”

  Bud smiled and shook his head. “Too strange. So what now?”

  “Now we get some new digs. Hotels and motels are out of the question, now. Fuckers will scour every one of those in greater L.A. for us.”

  Alicia arched a dark eyebrow. “What then?”
/>   “Pull over a second,” I ordered Fiske. He did and I struggled out and limped over to the newsstand. I picked up a copy of the L.A. Times. I pulled out the classified section and binned the rest. I searched the ads, arms held out a distance to see the tiny type better. “Here we go. There’s a little Hollywood court apartment with a garage. So let’s go claim our new bungalow. Ad claims Tom Mix once slept there.”

  Bud Fiske said, “I loved Tony.”

  Alicia looked at the poet.

  Bud said, “Tony. You know — Tom Mix’s horse.”

  Alicia mouthed, “Oh...”

  “It’s a guy kind of thing,” I said.

  21

  Our new place came furnished — two bedrooms, small kitchen. Came with a radio, too — a big old floor model Motorola with tubes and lights. Bud fiddled around with the dial on that monstrosity and coaxed loose a newscast.

  The morning’s shooting was being passed off as flaring Mexican gang violence; the Skull and Bones crew was presumed by police to have been confused for some rival gang. The ghosts of the Zoot Suit Wars loomed.

  It strained credulity, but, hell, at least we were kept out of it. No arrests were reported, so I could only deduce that Fierro and his surviving crony had walked off from the wreck before the cops spotted them. Fierro seemed to have been granted more lives than a litter of bastard cats.

  Bud and me went to the garage and retrieved Pancho’s skull. I brought along the fake head, too — the best of the phony skulls with the underbite — for good measure.

  Alicia said, “What are you doing with those heads?”

  “Full disclosure time,” I said. “You two should know some other legends about Pancho’s head and some of his lost loot. Stuff about treasure maps and the like. Stories that might make us all richer.” As I toyed with Pancho’s skull, I filled my friends’ heads with Tex-Mex treasure folklore.

  I thought maybe she would closet herself while I fooled around with Pancho’s head, but Alicia stayed close by the action. She brewed us up some coffee while Bud and I looked over the head. If there was ever a tattoo on the scalp, well, it was lost now. No carvings there in bone that any of us could detect, either.