Head Games (The Hector Lassiter Series)

by Craig McDonald

  Took me about six minutes, but I finally found this hairline bump trailing down out of the wispy, remaining hair, down the forehead toward the nose and then veering off and into the orbit of Pancho’s right eye. The bump was just raised a bit from the surface of the skull and of slightly different hue.

  Granted Pancho wasn’t embalmed well, but looking at the skull now, I thought about the steps that would have to have been taken to hide something all those years ago in that much fresher head. I figured Emil and his cronies must have had pretty strong stomachs to skin down to bone whatever was left of Villa’s mummified soft tissue; to maybe have to clear material out of the eye sockets and whatever was left in the head in order to accommodate whatever they might have hidden inside the skull.

  I took out my Swiss Army knife and used the dull edge of my bottle-opener to scrape away at the bump. The surface of the welt flaked off like old plaster or something similar to it. There was a thin string hidden under there — something like fishing line, maybe.

  I slipped the flat edge of my blade under the string and raised it and the rest of the welt crumbled away as the pressure I was exerting on the string popped it loose. I grabbed the end of the string where it disappeared into the eye socket and coaxed loose the other end. It emerged secured to a small glassine tube, about the width of a cigarillo and maybe an inch-and-a-half long. I detached the tube from the end of the string. I said, “There’s some kind of paper rolled up inside there.”

  Alicia loaned me her tweezers and I teased the paper loose and carefully unrolled it. It was square. Unfolded and unfurled, the scrap of paper measured maybe three inches by three inches. The paper was yellowed with age and appeared to be blank on both sides. There was a notepad of blank paper by the phone. I asked Fiske to fetch the pad. I carefully traced the outline of the hidden scrap of paper and cut out a match from the notepad. “An eventual replacement,” I said to Alicia when she arched an inquiring eyebrow.

  Bud leaned in and looked at the old scrap of paper. “The map?”

  “Must be. Or must have been: nothing to be seen on it now.”

  “Invisible ink maybe?”

  “Only thing it could be.”

  “Great,” Fiske said. “So we’ll need to get the information from Holmdahl about making the writing appear to have any shot at how to get at Villa’s gold. It’s looking like a four-way split.”

  “Fuck that,” I said. “This thing was probably prepared on the fly, down there south of the border. They would’ve used whatever was at hand and that couldn’t have been too fancy. So I’m betting the ink they used would’ve been milk, lemon juice ... maybe vinegar, or most probably, their own urine.”

  Alicia wrinkled her nose and muttered “Yuck.”

  “In any of those cases,” I continued, “heat will bring the writing up. We got any candles around this joint?”

  Bud found a pair in the cabinet over the range. The last inhabitant of our bungalow must have been some Klansmen or Amos and Andy fan who liked romancing fellow racists — the candles were attached to some wicked candleholders. The wax sticks of the candles were gripped in the exaggerated lips of these little ceramic-minstrel faces.

  I lit one candle with my Zippo, sat the repugnant Step-and-Fetch holder on the table, and picked up the scrap of paper with the tweezers. I nodded at the notepad and said to Bud, “Get a pencil and be ready to get this down. It’s old and the writing may be very faint ... it may also evaporate very fast. Could be one-shot-only stuff.”

  I held the scrap of paper over the candle, about three inches off the tip of the flame. The paper flared and exploded with a soft whoosh!

  “Son of a whore,” I bellowed. I slammed my other hand down on the table and upset the candle. The barest corner of paper was gripped in the tweezers now — the rest gone to hell.

  Bud was shaking his head. Alicia said, “Guess that’s that, yes?” She almost looked pleased; or maybe “relieved” was the better word to describe her expression.

  “Guess so,” I said. “So far as the treasure goes. On the other hand, the son of a bitch might have had something we can’t even imagine written down on there.”

  Bud sat back, disconsolate. “We’re fucked. I had been thinking about a hacienda somewhere on the coast of Baja.”

  “We’re not necessarily through yet,” I said, hiding my own disappointment. “This map stuff was apart from Prescott and the Skull and Bones. Remember — we’ve still got a good shot at securing our eighty-grand for turning Pancho’s noggin here over to those assholes at Yale.”

  “True,” Bud said.

  Alicia sat down next to me and smiled uncertainly. “So we can skip this meeting with Holmdahl, yes?”

  “Oh, God no,” I said. “I don’t think we should ‘skip’ that — not at all. There are some things to maybe learn there. And I haven’t completely written off a treasure hunt. And I think that bastard Emil would like to know — should know — that Fierro is alive and in town. Part of me, maybe mostly the writer in me, would like to kick back and watch that knowledge put to some bloody end by Holmdahl. And hell, the ex-Cavalry part of me feels an obligation to maybe even throw in with Emil to take down Fierro. Maybe fulfill one of our old missions from the Expedition.”

  “You’re loco,” Alicia said. “Let those two old men kill one another if you will, but you stand back from it now. We mail this head off to your senator friend, get our money, and go back to our lives. That’s my vote. Meet Holmdahl if you will, yes — just to point him at Fierro. But then end this before it truly harms one of us, Héctor. I mean, harms us beyond aching ribs, bleeding kidneys, black eyes and broken knuckles. Look at the two of you. What will Señor Holmdahl think when he gets a look at both of you with your limps and slow and careful ways of sitting down ... with your swollen, barked knuckles and bruised faces and throats and your split lips?”

  I looked at Bud and raised my eyebrows. It was long-pants time, now. The poet searched my eyes a minute and then nodded decisively. “The lady is right. Let’s see Holmdahl, then make the contact with the senator and wrap this mess up.”

  Truth be told, I was inclined their way — but I feigned disappointment that I didn’t feel. For some reason, I felt an obligation to play to character. “As we’re still in a democracy,” I said with a false edge, “you two win.”

  I leaned over and picked up the notepad. I took my fountain pen from my pocket and made a shopping list. I folded a couple of twenties up in the piece of paper and handed it to Bud. “We passed that grocery on the corner. How’s about you two get some provisions?”

  Alicia took the list from Bud and scanned it. She said, “Flour? Food coloring? We baking?”

  “Yeah. Just desserts,” I said. “We need to mock up a replacement skull for Emil. We’ll use the food coloring and flour to put a good fake welt on phony Pancho, here.” I cocked my thumb at the fake skull with the biggest underbite.

  I placed the piece of paper I’d cut from the notepad onto a cookie sheet and slid it into the range and turned up the gas on it for a minute. I pulled it out and inspected it. It looked a hundred years old now. It was a good facsimile of the slip of the treasure map I’d just inadvertently incinerated. I handed it to Bud along with a toothpick. “Keep these safe and at hand,” I told him. “The time to employ those poetic gifts of yours is swiftly coming.”

  Fiske looked wary. “How so?”

  “Once we talk to Emil, I hope that we’re going to have a better handle on what we need to write on that scrap of paper in order to fool the old bastard.” I pointed at the bathroom. “You’ll have to do those honors, Bud. I would, but I’m pissing blood.”

  Bud smiled, said, “It’s not my usual medium, you know.”

  22

  While Alicia and Bud shopped, I stashed Pancho’s skull and the other head — the one we would pass off on Emil as the real thing when we had it ready — in the hall closet. I drank several glasses of water and fiddled with the dial on the radio until I found a border station. A ma
riachi band playing “The Texas River Song,” an old tune believed written by a long-dead teacher:

  “There’s many a river

  That waters the land

  Now the fair Angelina

  Runs glossy and gliding

  the crooked Colorado

  Runs weaving and winding

  The slow San Antonio

  Courses and plains

  But I never will walk

  By the Brazos again

  All that water I had drunk down had its intended effect and I headed to the head. There was a good deal less blood in the bowl than I had anticipated. I’d steer clear of the liquor a few more days to be sure.

  I ordered a couple of pizzas and a carton of Coca-Cola for delivery and hit the shower.

  I dried off and dressed and found Bud and Alicia already eating my pizza. I grabbed a couple of slices and wrapped them in a napkin and then holstered my Colt and slipped on my sports jacket. I picked up my parcel of pizza and told my partners I’d be back soon.

  Bud chewed and swallowed and said, “What are you doin’?”

  “Phone calls. Appointments.”

  “Can’t call from here?” Alicia asked.

  “Can’t risk a phone trace. I’m keeping these calls short and sweet — and a good ways away from our dear Fortress of Solitude, here.”

  * * *

  I wolfed down my pizza as I walked four blocks to a phone booth. I thumbed through the phonebook and found a listing for what I deduced to be Holmdahl’s stepdaughter’s place. A woman, the stepdaughter, likely, answered. She went to fetch the old man. I waited, then a voice said, “Emil speakin’.” It was good to hear another Texas accent.

  “We go back, amigo,” I said. “My name is Hector Lassiter.”

  “I’ve read your books, a few of ’em anyhows. You lookin’ to write about me? Seems there’s always some reporter or biographer comin’ around these days. Can’t say as I’m much interested.”

  “Uh, no. Me neither, truth to tell. I was there, riding with Pershing and you way back then. I’ve got my own memories for memoirs if I were inclined that way. And I so ain’t.”

  “You were in the Expeditionary force?” Emil was palpably skeptical.

  “That’s right,” I said. “We talked a few times. Shared a few drinks together. Shared our thoughts. And we shared at least one Mexican whore, I think.”

  “Guess that last makes us something.”

  “I’d like to think so.”

  “So, you lookin’ to relive old times together, or something? Talk about stale tail? If so, I ain’t frankly interested in that, neither. I keep movin’ ahead. Never look back or dwell in the past — just kills you quicker.”

  “Drive on, huh?”

  “That’s it exactly,” the old campaigner said. “Life is short, but wide, and I mean to pack mine full to burstin’.”

  I had to smile. I said, “In that spirit, I’m gonna cut to the chase. I have Pancho Villa’s rotting head. And I know all the tales about you and treasure, tied, so to speak, to his fucking skull. I’m willing to deal for a cut of the gold and silver you recover. I’m no prospector myself, you see, but as I have his head...”

  Emil snorted softly. “If I had a nickel for every time some yahoo has come to me with an old skull and a proposition. Have to confess, though, you’re the first guy who hasn’t asked me to pay for the head up front.”

  “Well, the head’s not for sale,” I said. “See, I have other ambitions along those lines. I’m not going to give you the head, per se. I’m just gonna let you retrieve something you hid inside of that rotting bastard.”

  I could hear the excitement and terror in his voice now. “Have you looked that something over? Don’t lie to me — I’ll know.”

  “Hell no. Just looked enough to determine there’s something you rigged that seems to run into the right eye. Can hear it shake around in there a bit. But I haven’t gone further. Figure it couldn’t possibly be that easy, Emil.”

  “You’d be right, Hector.”

  Hmm. Swapping first names — we were getting downright chummy.

  “Here’s my vision,” I said. “I bring the head over, you take your little trinket from out of it, we strike a deal on your recovery, and I take the head away with me,” I said.

  “Gonna sell it to Yale, aint’cha?”

  “Maybe something like that.”

  “Won’t even ask what you stand to get for it,” Emil Holmdahl said. “On the one hand, it would probably depress me. On the other hand, it’s academic, ’cause that cocksucker Pres Bush will dick you, just like he dicked me, I expect. In his current position, he could screw you big time. Worse than he ever did me.”

  “I’m doing my best to see he doesn’t.”

  “Good luck with that, buddy. A fiction writer versus the U.S. intelligence services? I don’t like your odds, mi amigo. So, you bringing that head my way now, then?”

  “No can do. Looking to get some information, first.”

  Emil laughed. “You can’t get enough from me to read the map, if that’s your idea.”

  Map ... damn.

  “That’s not my idea,” I lied. “Thing is, since I got my hands on the head, a lot of bad things have been happening. So far, most of it has happened to other people, but I’ve had my brushes and enjoyed my share of dumb luck and I’ve survived long enough to know that luck can’t run my way forever. Lot of dead people around me suddenly. And there’s someone else wants Pancho’s skull.”

  “Besides, Bush, you mean?”

  “Brace yourself: Rodolfo Fierro is still alive,” I said. “This morning he nearly shot me to death outside a diner here in Los Angeles. You’ll see it in the newspapers this afternoon. It’s already on the radio, although they are reporting it as gang violence.”

  “So, Fierro found you.” It was a simple statement on the old man’s part. “And you didn’t fucking kill him?”

  No statement there — more like mocking accusation. Shaking my head, I said, “I have to say, I’m surprised you don’t sound surprised to hear that Rodolfo is still north of the dirt. You must be the only guy from back-then who doesn’t believe el Carnicero drowned decades ago down there in the quicksand bog.”

  “I’ve heard stories to that effect for years,” Emil said. “So, no, I’m not too surprised.” The old mercenary paused, then said, “I’d love to see him a last time.” He paused. “But you didn’t fucking try to kill the Butcher yourself?” That was a direct accusation. One I let pass.

  “Oh, I gave it a shot,” I said. “Then the cops blundered on the scene. Absent the intrusion of the fucking LAPD, he’d be stinking just fine now.”

  “Well, partner, you best keep your head down and yourself alive — least ways until I can have that session with Pancho Villa’s head,” Holmdahl said. “Come on by my place here and —”

  “Don’t be daft, Holm. I’m thinking more about a good chat, first. A chat some place public, where I can’t be ambushed. Not ambushed by you or yours, mind you,” I rushed to say, though I certainly wouldn’t put a double-cross past him; on the contrary, I was planning for it. “You know what I mean — I don’t want Bush’s cronies, or frat boys or Fierro and his banditos cornering me anywhere semi-private. That said, my friends and I will meet you at Aero Squadron tomorrow at ten a.m. Breakfast is on me.”

  “Your ‘friends’?” Emil snorted again. “Gonna gang up on me, huh?”

  “I doubt that we could do that.”

  “Me too. Tomorrow at ten a.m. then,” Emil said. “Oh, and Hector, don’t you go and die on me ’tween now and then, got it, hombre?”

  “Promise, amigo. Honest Injun.”

  One down.

  I took out my little notepad and flipped to Senator Bush’s number. No guts, no glory.

  23

  The senator kept it short and very spooky — in a CIA kind of way — all symbolic code-talk and mysterious mumbo-jumbo.

  Bush said, “You have the parcel?”

  I responded, “
The all-important fucking ‘parcel’ is accounted for, sí. Empty eye sockets and remaining whiskers intact. All the attendant bullet holes are there. So, yes, Senator, your precious fucking skull is back in play.”

  “Don’t use my title, please,” Senator Bush said. “Or my name. I’m sure you’re on an unsecured line.”

  “I’m sure you’re sure that I am. Well, what the fuck should I call you, amigo?”

  “Poppy.’”

  Oh Christ. That nearly did it for me, right there.

  I said, “No way, hombre. Fuck you and your Yale secret society. Fuck ’em all sideways. I’ve got my own handle for you. I’m gonna call you ... ‘Headhunter.’ As a nod to poor Geronimo, you skull-thieving asshole.”

  “Please, stop — you’re already making me hate you,” the prissy senator said.

  “Really? Well, it saves a step. You’re gonna get there eventually anyway, so why not do it now?”

  “This isn’t the way we should proceed, Mr. Lassiter.”

  “Oh, Holy Jesus — screw this. I’m not going to go the cloak-and-dagger, hand-job route with you, your Honor. Just tell me true, eighty grand still the going price for a dead Mexican legend’s head?”

  I could envision the thin lips saying the words: “Presuming you can provide provenance? Then, yes.” The senator sniffed.

  “’Provenance?” I almost snorted. “That ain’t gonna happen. We both know that, Hoss. Sucker’s been dead longer than your shot-down World War II-ace son has been alive. And Villa’s head has been bouncing around in limbo a very very long time. Poor old Pancho, he’s frankly the worse for wear. I don’t have papers of authenticity. We both know that. We both accept that. My proof — my fucking ‘provenance’ — is just this big fucking underbite and a steadily growing pile of bodies.”

  There was a sharp intake of breath. Apparently, the career politician didn’t like my use of the word “fucking.” But what of the bodies? Well, cadavers, based on the evidence of Geronimo’s headless torso, weren’t much of an issue for this callous, blue-blooded character.