Head Games (The Hector Lassiter Series)

by Craig McDonald

  The senator said, “Bring the parcel on up to Connecticut, won’t you? When you reach my town, call, and I’ll send intermediaries to greet you. They’ll take the parcel off your hands and you’ll be paid your bounty.”

  “Please,” I said. “You insult my intelligence. I’m not going down that path, no way, no how. We’re going to use ‘cut-outs,’ to resort to your sad-ass spy parlance. And you’re gonna make the first crucial leap of faith, mi amigo. You’re going to pay eighty grand to a Swiss account of my choosing. I’ll wire you the details, mañana. The guy who will be bringing you the head is an hombre I think you’re well acquainted with — Emil Holmdahl. When I see my account has been filled, then you’ll get the rotting skull for your jerk-off Yale secret society.”

  “Very well,” the senator said. He didn’t sound too happy. And that gladdened my dark heart.

  I said, “Here is my heart-felt advice, dumbass. You try and learn to love this plan, cocksucker. You really don’t want to meet me face-to-face, you pinched-faced head thief. Just trust me on that.”

  The senator, just before hanging up and thus insuring himself the irrelevant last word, said, “Based on your violent and sorry excuse for novels, I suspect that’s too terribly true, Mr. Lassiter.”

  24

  I began the walk back to our new bungalow. There was a crack of a thunder, then a warm and steady rain began falling. With hunched shoulders, I trotted through an alley to a side street that afforded a near-constant procession of storefront canopies leading back to my current digs.

  One canopy was emblazoned the name of an osteopath. For a fifty, the mercenary doc agreed to give me a cursory once-over.

  I confided to the doc my fears regarding diabetes. He listened to my anecdotes and nodded gravely.

  He checked my most recent wounds — deftly jerking the bandages from the backs of my hands before I could react. He leaned in close and clicked his tongue.

  “When exactly were you wounded?” The doctor’s brow furrowed as he examined the scratches on the backs of my hands.

  I told him. He shook his head and “tsked-tsked.”

  My new doctor shook his head and looked me in the foggy eye. “These wounds should be much better healed than they are. They’re a sorry sign, all on their own, I’m afraid. Those and the foot pains you describe. Though those could be from dehydration, too. You should drink more water every day. And as regards circulation, you strike me as an active man. We wouldn’t want to lose our toes or our feet, would we?”

  “We wouldn’t.”

  The sawbones spiked me and drew my blood. Then he passed me a cup and asked me to hit the restroom and to piss into it. I said, “I will, but I’ll warn you in advance, there may be some blood in there.”

  “You suspect you have a cancer?”

  “No,” I said. “Some son of a bitch punched me in the kidney.”

  My doctor-for-hire didn’t blink. He scoped my bruised and swollen knuckles. He said, “I’ll confess that I’ve read many of your books, Mr. Lassiter. I didn’t realize until now that they were nonfiction.” I reckoned he fancied himself a comedian, but down deep, I had a grudging affection for my accidental doctor for that crack.

  The sawbones ran me through an eye test and then, frowning, he referred me to an optometrist two doors down. I took that as another grave sign.

  “It’ll be a few days before I have anything definitive in terms of your tests, but I think I can safely say I’m soon going to be prescribing insulin,” the doctor said. “Stay away from sugar in the meantime and refrain from alcohol. Can you do that?”

  I shrugged. “What exactly makes you think I couldn’t?”

  “It’s the alcohol that concerns me.”

  I bit my lip, then said, “What makes you think I drink?”

  My new doctor blinked and smiled politely. Then he blinked a few more times.

  “I’ll do my best to stay dry,” I promised.

  “I know you’ll try for me. But you need to do this for yourself. That’s what concerns me.”

  I patted his arm. “Don’t confuse me with my characters.”

  “That’s good advice. You should listen to yourself, Mr. Lassiter.”

  25

  My vision was fuzzy and my pupils light-sensitive from being dilated by the eye-doctor as I resumed my walk back to Alicia and Bud. The rain had slowed to a soothing drizzle.

  Fucked up as my vision was, I nevertheless sensed I had a shadow.

  This fella in a black suit and tie fell in step behind me. He stood out on the Los Angeles streets in that dark and severe rig of his. I guessed him for FBI.

  Soon enough, he laced arms with me and said, “Don’t react. I’m Special Agent Duane David.”

  I smiled and shook loose my arm. “My strong sense is that you’re just a Fed by title. But whose creature are you really, Duane? J. Edgar’s, or do you do the bidding of Bush?”

  He sneered and reached under his jacket. I felt a barrel dig into my ribs. “That’s some kind of record,” the alleged FBI agent said, “pissing me off this quickly.”

  “Yeah, well fuck you, Duane. If that’s so, you’re so far out of your league I can’t help but feel for you.”

  He steered me to a food stand that was sculpted to look like a giant hot dog. We took up a table in the shade of the giant wiener. As we hadn’t ordered any food, we drew cross looks from the fella manning the stand. “Duane” — a blond asshole in a too-tight black suit jacket — flashed his FBI identification. The proprietor flashed Duane his middle finger. Duane started to rise. The proprietor raised his other hand. He curled his lip and said, “You and fucking HUAC wrecked my uncle.”

  “Well, fuck you,” Duane shot back.

  “Making friends everywhere you go, huh?” I shook my head. “Screw this. My time is valuable. You arrest me, or you tell me what you want, or I’m gonna take the side of hot-dog boy there. I’ll start working my persuasive mouth and see you gutted by the resulting crowd.”

  Duane leaned in. “Don’t fuck with me Lassiter. We have a file on you thicker than the hard-on I have for you, cocksucker.”

  Oh boy. This was calamitous strategy on his part. Now I had a hard-on. I said, “I’m thinking your ‘thicker than’ equals my invisible, pendejo. Again, my question stands. Exactly whose stooge are you, dumbass?”

  Duane bit his lip. His fists were clenched and his cheeks were red. Good. The boy had a temper. He snarled, “I’m not going to fuck with you. You were prematurely anti-fascist, and—”

  “Hey, Duane-O, fuck you and your slut mother. Think about that term all you FBI cocksuckers seem so warm to: ‘prematurely anti-fascist.’ What’s that make you Johnny-come-latelys? Tardily anti-fascist? Can only be the term for it. Wanna know what else? I went over to Spain to raise money just to chase Spanish tail. I ain’t a political animal.”

  “I should clap iron on you now.”

  “And I should put a bullet in your right eye and call your mincing boss and tell him you’re schlepping for sorry-ass Yale. I’m right, aren’t I?”

  “Fuck you.”

  “I’m gonna take that as a ‘yes.’” I stood and flipped the bird at “Duane.” I said, “You’re out-gunned. Here’s the thing, Duane — you come at me again, and I’ll kill you. Fed or no.”

  “You’re threatening a federal agent?” His face was red. His hand was trembling — wanting to stray to his gun, I guessed.

  I leaned in close. I smiled, my lips and eyes close to his: “No, Duane. I’m threatening a card-carrying member of the Skull and Bones Society. And I think, push comes to shove, Hoover would side with me. I know how much J. Edgar likes running his own show. Hell, garbage men in Illinois know that. I’d wager if I make one or two phone calls up the chain, I can have you unemployed in under two minutes.”

  26

  I’d nearly made it “home” when the second FBI agent accosted me. “I’m special agent Kenneth Brown. Spare me a moment, Mr. Lassiter?”

  I stopped and turned. “You wor
k with Duane David?” I glared at the fella and said, “I really have to think so. So, you know, I think I’m gonna say, respectfully, ‘Fuck you,’ agent.”

  Special Agent Ken Brown smiled. He said, “Me and Agent David, we’re only titular partners, Mr. Lassiter. That’s all.”

  I looked him over. This guy was slender as hell. White hair; a good smile. He held out his hand and I shook it.

  “That’s all?” I asked.

  “That’s all.”

  “Seems maybe enough,” I said, curious now where this was headed.

  Brown tipped his head on side. “I’m frankly taking your measure, sir. I’m sure you’re doing the same, sir. But I have an advantage. I’ve read Wandering Eye. I loved Border Town. Hell, I love The Land of Dread and Fear. I think it’s your best book. I frankly think I understand you and what matters to you, Mr. Lassiter. I’ve spent some time with Mr. Hoover’s files on you. And I think, at base, maybe you and me are kindreds. So I’m going to gamble here. I’m going to confess that I have a pretty firm handle on what you’re involved in. I think I know what you possess. If you don’t know already, I’m going to say it up front: Agent David was recruited by the Bureau during his senior year at Yale. We now suspect another agency got to him first. We think Agent David is playing a double game. We think this, because he was a member of the Skull and Bones Society. Please, Mr. Lassiter, don’t insult my intelligence by pretending to act as if you don’t know what I’m talking about. I’m certain you do. We’ve wired your car, put multiple tracers in it. To your credit, you quickly found one of those and sent several other agents — two of whom, parenthetically, are Skull and Bones members — to Idaho. But we correctly guessed once you found one tracer, you wouldn’t look for redundant units.”

  “You bastards,” I said.

  “I can see how you could see it that way,” Agent Brown said. “To be honest, we’ve traced every call you’ve made since you left New Mexico. We’ve even disposed of some bodies you or others left in your wake in order to shield you from various local law enforcement agencies and media outlets.”

  My head was spinning. I said, “For that, I guess I must say that I’m grateful.”

  “You should be,” Agent Brown said. “I don’t mean that in a gloatful sense, Mr. Lassiter. I just mean, well, you’ve collected some powerful enemies. The Skull and Bones are knitted tightly to the CIA and to the Secret Service, as I’m sure you know. That, frankly, concerns Mr. Hoover. I confide this to you at some personal peril. Particularly in so far as it concerns Special Agent Duane David. Mr. Hoover, understandably, can’t abide CIA incursion into the Bureau, even if said-agent David is acting primarily under the aegis of Yale secret society fealty.”

  I laughed and shook my head. “Jesus, you sound like a lawyer from hell.”

  Special Agent Brown shrugged. “I happen to have a law degree. For liability reasons, my verbiage regarding that particular nuance was required to be a rote recitation of agency-hired attorneys. ’Tween us, it disgusts me, too — wordy cocksuckers.”

  Someday, I thought, all the litigating assholes would accidentally destroy the world. And the CIA and FBI and their constant attempts to out-dick one another would result in bloodshed of epic proportions.

  I steered Agent Brown back to the CIA mess.

  “Fucking CIA, they’re foreign, aren’t they?” I shook my head and said, “They’re not remotely domestic, right? At least by design, they can’t operate on U.S. soil? So far as J. Edgar is concerned, they’re over-reaching their charter by nosing around the domestic front, yeah?”

  Special Agent Brown stared hard at me. He was really taking my measure, now. “That’s essentially accurate, yes, sir. But they are also fucking with Mr. Hoover’s agency. Mr. Hoover can’t countenance rogues pissing in his pond. Sir.”

  “Now you’re speaking my language Agent Brown.”

  He shook loose a cigarette from a soft pack and I accepted it. He shook loose a second for himself. I fired up both up with my Hemingway Zippo. “This rest has to be off the record,” the FBI agent said. “The director would gut me for going where I’m about to go, sir. Do you understand? I need my job. I have two daughters to support. I need you to handle this information with real discretion.”

  “Sure,” I said. “I get that. Thee and me, Agent Brown, we have made a separate peace. By the way, if I’m being watched by David and his cronies, aren’t you worried you’ll be spotted here with me?”

  “You’re on light surveillance currently, as we have your car wired and your phone tapped. You’ve established what appears to be a domicile with your two friends. You’re easily found. For the moment, it’s just me and Agent David tailing you. Agent David who needed a haircut. I threatened to report him to our superior. Director Hoover is very very fussy about our appearance, as I’m sure you know. So Agent David is now at a barbershop.”

  “‘Fussy?’” I smiled. “One must be fastidious in his sartorial presentation, yes.”

  “I hate it too,” Agent Brown said. “And now who sounds like a goddamned lawyer? But there’s another reason your security is light.”

  “I’m all ears, Agent,” I said.

  “You’ll be accumulating additional surveillance in a very short time,” Brown said. “When you meet with Mr. Holmdahl, two investigative lines will be crossing. I hope you understand I’m breaking a confidence sharing this with you.”

  “Mum’s the word.” I said, “You’re already watching Holmdahl?”

  “For many many years now, yes,” Agent Brown said. “We — well, actually the Secret Service — first questioned Holmdahl in 1952 regarding twenty million in gold he was reputed to have smuggled out of Mexico.”

  “Villa’s gold?”

  “Perhaps. But more likely, not. We think Holmdahl is also searching for Villa’s gold. He’s made several trips to the Las Nieves region — Durango — where Villa’s gold is still rumored to be hidden. This other twenty million is something else ... maybe something foreign — in a dark sense.”

  Jesus ... maybe Emil was more mercenary than even I knew.

  Agent Brown slipped me a sheet of paper. “A special phone number. Call it if you need to. You’ll be in touch with me within five minutes.”

  27

  The night before a battle ... that’s what it felt like, anyway.

  The whole escapade was starting to remind me of one of my own novels from the late-1940s.

  Overlapping and conflicting objectives. Third and fourth parties hiding private agendas.

  The looming specter of double- or triple-crosses.

  If I were plotting it, I would find a way to have Duane and Emil screw one another, to have Fierro wind up dead. Bud and me would end up with a king’s ransom and “I” would get the girl. At least for the short term. All my books seem to end in death — never any happy endings.

  Just like life.

  But, hell, maybe I could “plot” it after all, manipulate events toward some end of my own.

  I found myself a table in a dark corner of the tavern. I ordered a club sandwich and a bottle of club soda, took out my notebook and tried to write while I waited for my food.

  I didn’t really have a story I could get going, so I started writing descriptions of Alicia, depicting her in different settings and situations. I tried to imagine what her mannerisms would be and what she would say in certain circumstances. Those descriptions and fragments of dialogue eventually began to spread out into a short story about a young, unwed Mexican mother sleeping with an older and doomed Villista the night before his final battle.

  Roman à clef? Push come to shove, I’d surely be hard-pressed to deny it.

  The tavern had a small stage and a good sound system. Two guys with guitars were strumming and belting out cowboy tunes and border ballads. I didn’t know most of the tunes and so figured they must be original compositions. But they were riveting and authentic. The singer/songwriter was this prematurely white-haired dude who introduced himself as “Buddy Loy Burke.” H
e wore dark-tinted glasses and a white straw cowboy hat. Dude had a dry sense of humor and a riveting baritone. His accompanist was tall and skinny and a genius on the guitar. The singer was crooning a tune about lost romance and resulting regrets that he called “The Ones That Got Away” — a pitilessly self-appraising border ballad that cut straight to my black and bloodied heart.

  My club sandwich came and I ate and drank soda water and coffee and listened to the singer ... stealing occasional thirsty glances at the glasses of whiskey and bourbon gripped in the hands of the other patrons seated around me.

  I finished eating, wrote for the duration of another four or five songs, and then felt these fingertips trail across the back of my neck. I looked up and Alicia smiled and leaned over and kissed my mouth. “Am I interrupting?” She nodded at my notebook. “I’d understand if you said yes.”

  “No. You’re not. I’m finished. Have a seat and I’ll buy you a drink and stare lustfully. At the drink and at you, I mean. And not necessarily in that order.”

  She smiled and nodded. She pointed at the singer. “He’s quite wonderful. I requested a song for you. One Bud says you favor ... ‘Tramps & Hawkers,’ but with what Bud called, ‘the Jim Ringer lyrics.’”

  “Seems Bud knows me better than I do.” I smiled and squeezed her hand. “It’s probably my favorite tune. How in hell did you find me?”

  She smiled. “It’s the closest bar in walking distance.”

  I almost winced, but said, “I haven’t gotten to apologize to you for that stuff with Bud the other day, Alicia.”

  “‘Alicia,’” she repeated. “So ... poised. But you needn’t be you know.” Alicia brushed a black wing of hair back from above her left eyebrow and smiled. “Forget it. Bud explained for you.”

  “Explained how much?”

  “Enough. Enough that I can link it to things I’ve heard from Miss Dietrich, and from Mr. Welles. And things I have deduced to make me think I know all of it. Or, at least as much as I want or need to know about how it was.”