I screamed and pounded the wall of the bungalow.
Jesus Fucking Christ! Poor Bud, goddamn him, in the hands of that sadistic bloodthirsty motherfucker. Jesus.
Then I heard a single shot and watched as the back window of Fierro’s Chevy exploded. Alicia had ignored my warning — retrieved my gun and put a bullet through the back of the car. I doubted she hit anyone, but maybe she’d at least give the old cocksucker a heart attack — stroke him out before he could hurt poor Bud.
Neighbors were peering through their windows, mouths open.
Let in one pulp writer and there goes the neighborhood.
I limped around the corner. Alicia was wild-eyed, waving my Colt. “We’ll stop someone driving by, take their car and chase them,” she said, breathless.
“No. They have us outgunned. And they have too big a headstart.”
Alicia’s eyes implored me. “I’ll call the police,” she said, “report your car stolen.”
“No, it would take too much time. By the time we got those cops on our side, Bud...” I didn’t have to finish that.
Carefully, I pulled my Colt from her hands. “Try to flag down a taxi while I make a phone call.”
“Not the police?”
“No, someone better.”
He was deep into paperwork spinning out from the detention of his “partner,” so it took a full five minutes for him to answer. I laid out the situation for Agent Kenneth Brown and said, “You can still track my car electronically, yeah?”
“Yeah. I can. But I think the agency’s interest in this matter—”
“Stop,” I said. “Don’t even say it. I know where too many bodies are buried. I’m a writer with a lot of connections. It would be bad for all of us if I turned whistle-blower. Move now and you can maybe be back in time for dinner with time to spare to continue putting it to Agent Duane David.”
I could tell he’d cupped a palm around the receiver. Then Agent Brown said, “Okay. The Director has agreed.” Jesus — J. Edgar was personally there? He must really have a hard-on for Duane. “Get a cab or something and get yourself over to MacArthur Park,” Brown told me. “Do it now.”
“Why there?”
“Because we can land a helicopter there.”
37
We had to shout over the chop of the blades above us. I’d tried to talk Alicia into staying, or into accepting Agent Brown’s offer of an armed escort to a safe place until we had recovered Bud — or what was left of him — but she refused.
It had been several hours since Bud was snatched. For too long, we had been chasing the faint echoes of the signal from my car. But only echoes; no firm fix.
Agent Brown had explained the limitations of the tracking device. Essentially, we could stay within a ten-mile range of the transmitter in my car and still read a signal, but there would be no variability in signal strength in populated areas — nothing to indicate we were getting hotter or colder “in terms of acquiring a sight target.” There would be too much interference from other signal sources in greater Los Angeles — problems caused by radio and television signals, HAM radio operators and the possibility of other FBI tracking devices being employed in the area that could send us off target. “I mean, it’s Los Angeles for Christ’s sake,” Brown said, “...so many goddamn communists working in Hollywood...”
I shook my head. “Really? That’s still true? What was HUAC for?”
“I’ll ignore that,” Brown said. “Only place worse than greater Los Angeles to try and follow somebody would be New York City. But we can be sure they are headed south. When they get out a ways from the major cities, it will be easier to zero in on them, eyeball them. And if he gets into the boonies, then we can land this son of a bitch on the roof of your Bel Air, I think. We’ve got a handheld tracker, if we get close enough, that will give us signal strength, but we’ll really have to be in the sticks to use that.”
Now we were hovering over San Diego, and our fix was no firmer.
For now, the only hopeful thing was that there was still an indication of movement — that motion would make it harder to be too inventive in terms of torturing my poor young poet. But we had no line of sight on my fleeing Chevy — no hard target.
And if Bud had been moved from my Chevy to another vehicle? Well, the likely results were too terrible and tragic to contemplate. Didn’t stop me from trying, of course.
As we’d flown south, we’d gotten a bit of a fill on the aftermath of the head exchange.
Holmdahl had somehow succeeded in switching heads on Agent Duane David. That seemed to surprise to Agent Brown. But not me — it was impossible to overestimate Emil. The switch had been confirmed because the head David had when he was captured had no “x” carved into its right rear molar. Although it did boast its own hidden map written on flash paper.
Crafty Emil.
And he walked away clean — nothing really on Holmdahl that could be used.
Their respective tails had reported no rendezvous between Emil and Fierro. I could only assume Fierro hadn’t been convinced by the phony skull that I’d allowed Emil to steal. It would explain why Fierro came looking for me and mine to try and recover the real head and accompanying treasure map.
Brown said, “What kind of firepower do you think they have?”
I swallowed hard, thinking. I really didn’t want to go into trying to explain that arsenal in the trunk of my Bel Air that they might have found by now. “Can’t say for sure,” I said. “At the head exchange on Hollywood Boulevard, there were a couple of sawed-offs, some handguns. But a while back, they actually fired a couple of Thompsons at me.”
“And you’re still standing?” Brown’s eyebrows arched. “You’re better than you look. Or they’re inept.”
“Let’s hope both are true.”
The pilot signaled to Brown and he moved forward in a crouch to the cockpit to consult.
I reached into my boot cuff for the flask. I was unscrewing the lid when Alicia snatched it from me. She poured the contents on the floor. “How dare you?”
A shrug. “I’m trying to steady my nerves.”
“And dull your reflexes ... slow your mind,” she said.
I sighed. “You’re right, of course. Use the adrenaline.” Right.
“We have a problem,” a voice said behind me. I turned. Brown leaned in close to my ear. “We’re getting a better fix now. Thing is, they may now be outside my reach.”
The fucking border. They’d crossed into Mexico and right outside FBI jurisdiction.
“Christ, I knew I should have thrown in with Duane,” I said. “At least the CIA is extra-territorial. You’re of no fucking use to me now.”
Agent Brown got his finger up in my face. “Hey, fuck you! I’m amazed we’ve come this far together. I’m frankly shocked you’ve been given this level of agency support and access to resources by the Director. So fuck you, Lassiter.”
I could feel the heat of Alicia’s angry gaze on me. I needed to tamp down my anger ...try and play ball for Bud’s sake. “I’m sorry, Brown,” I said. “I know you can’t risk it — doing something in Mexico that could make news. All I have on me now is an antique Colt. Give me a little more firepower and take me in as close as you can, please? Enough for a short walk, but not so close they’ll hear this fucker coming in at them.”
Brown thought this through. “I should consult with Mr. Hoover. But — in a circumstance like this — well, maybe it’s better to ask forgiveness than permission.” He looked at Alicia and then back at me. “How many do you think there are?”
“At least four.” I thought of that third car. “But maybe eight or nine.”
“Nine on one?” Brown said. “I sure don’t like your odds.”
“Me either.”
Alicia shook her head. “Nine on two.”
I grabbed her arms and squeezed. “Oh, fuck that! For Christ’s sake — you’ve got a little girl. And you’ve never really fired a gun.”
She shook her head. “But Bud
...”
Brown was shaking his head, too. “This was all a mistake.”
“Then send for help,” Alicia said, pleading.
“Wouldn’t reach us in time,” I said.
“Wouldn’t matter, either way,” Brown said. “That pilot up there would have to give coordinates — in fucking Mexico. There’d be no help granted and we’d be ordered back. And I’ve got kids, too ... a mortgage. I’m too-many years in the bureau to fuck up my pension now — or to start a second career.”
“So we’re back to my original proposition,” I said. “Give me some good guns, then drop me close by them. I’ll go in alone and I’ll bring back Bud.”
Agent Brown didn’t like it. Alicia didn’t like it. Hell, I didn’t like it; not because of me, but because of poor Bud. It was a suicide run — like that hopeless fucking task Emil Holmdahl had described of trying to assassinate Villa in his homeland and then living to tell the tale later.
“They’ve stopped,” the pilot said.
“Where?” Agent Brown and I asked simultaneously.
“Somewhere near Tijuana. Not as remote as we’d want. It’s going to be hard to know exactly where. And if we fly-over to verify...”
Grand.
We hovered around a bit — perhaps another twenty minutes, trying to get a firmer fix on the location of my Chevy. Twenty long minutes ... I doubted that Fierro had taken more than ten minutes to dissect Urbina with bullets so many years ago. But I’d wager good money those ten minutes were an eternity of agony for the Butcher’s victim.
“This is as good as it gets, people,” the chopper pilot said. We lofted down and he cut the engines. As the dust settled, I checked my Colt. Brown gave me a pair of .45s, clips and a sniper’s rifle. “You need instruction on any of these?”
I took them with a shaking hand. I hoped nobody noticed. Not fear — blood sugar. Adrenaline and the fact that I couldn’t remember my last meal ... well, it was bad news. My vision was blurring and I was thirsty as hell. Felt vaguely nauseous.
Brown handed me a knapsack and I shrugged it over my shoulder. I said, “What’s this?”
“A canteen and grenades. I trust you know how to use those, too. The grenades I mean.”
“You can trust.” I smiled at Alicia. “Back in a jiff.”
She shook her head. “I’m coming.”
“No way.”
“I’m coming,” she said. “Alone, you don’t stand a chance.”
Brown shook his head. “Goddamn it!” He grabbed a rifle and two extra .45s. He handed a walkie-talkie to Alicia. He said, “I’m going to come. But strictly as an observer. Consultant, only. I think we’re at least a mile, maybe two miles out from these cocksuckers. Alicia will come the first mile with us. Then we go on ahead. I’ll carry another radio. These things tend to get screwy out here in desert with the bandit radio stations and shortwaves and weather conditions. This way, we stay in touch with the chopper so we can get out, muy pronto, if needed.”
I checked my watch. In theory, once we reached them, Fierro might already have had 45 minutes with Bud. I thought, No more words. “Let’s go,” I said. My mind was heavy with images of all the atrocities I’d ever heard attributed to Fierro — sliced-off soles of feet, ant trails, crucifixion and disembowelment.
Jesus Christ. Poor, poor, Bud.
Brown toted a little hand-held version of the tracking device in the helicopter. The thing had a little dial for adjustments and a needle that tracked signal strength, kind of like a Geiger counter. But it was still inexact stuff.
We walked perhaps a mile when we began to hear voices. Seems we were closer to them than we ever would have guessed. We edged along a nearly dried-up arroyo, staying close to the crisped scrub that lined the banks. On the opposite bank, there was a small cabin. Four Mexicans were gathered around something, looking down and laughing. Pointing. Occasionally they would stoop down and then stand up again.
I pulled out the sniper’s rifle and began fiddling — my focus was very poor now. Brown seemed to confuse my loss of vision with ineptitude. “Here,” he said. “Gimme.”
He fiddled then said, “Okay, there’s four of them. Three young fellows, and one old man. He let Alicia look through the scope.
“It’s him,” she said. “It’s Fierro.”
“Any sign of Bud?” My voice sounded strange to me. And I was dying of thirst. I pulled out the canteen and took a deep drink. It didn’t touch my thirst.
I pulled on my new glasses and took the gun from Alicia. I could see a little better now, but I wouldn’t want to pull the trigger on a target that really mattered. I scoped around, trying to see what they were all gathered around ... what they were dipping over.
Still couldn’t see well, but I soon saw enough.
Bud had been stripped to the waist and lashed to some flimsy wooden framework. He was spread-eagled, face down, over a massive maguey plant. It was reputed to be a favorite torture tactic of Fierro’s. They say Emiliano Zapata invented it. To help the process along, the cocksuckers were incrementally piling stones on Bud’s bony back, forcing him down on the spikes. Wouldn’t surprise me if they had already dislocated both of his arms at the shoulders with the weight of those rocks. I couldn’t tell how far those goddamned spikes had already drilled into Bud’s gut, but I could see blood on the plant.
And now we could hear Bud’s terrible screams.
I said, “Alicia, get down as close to the ground as possible.”
Brown said, “Lassiter, what are you—”
One of the young Mexicans was about to drop another rock on Bud’s back. I aimed for his head. There was a blast furnace wind cutting west to east across the scrub. I tried to compensate for that wind and its effects across perhaps 150-yards of desert. I pulled the trigger.
Like I said, my vision was bad. And, like I said, I aimed for that bloodthirsty bastard’s head. I saw him drop the rock — I prayed not upon Bud — and clutch at his neck as blood sprayed from his throat. I’d missed my target by nearly a foot. But I’d killed that son of a bitch.
The leaves and stalks above our heads were cut by the first sweep of one of Fierro’s flunkey’s machine guns. I sighted in on another of the younger Mexicans. I was going for the center of his torso — an easier target — and hit that bad bastard in the head.
Then my vision completely fogged. I got down close to the ground.
“Brilliant,” Brown said. “You stupid cocksucker.”
“There are only two left,” I said. “Even odds.”
“You said there might be nine. Maybe the rest are in that cabin.”
“Or maybe I was wrong.”
Brown inched up between volleys and sighted in on the last of the young Mexicans. He fired.
I smiled hopefully and said, “You hit the cocksucker?”
“He has a third eye,” Brown said, trying to sound angry but not quite getting there. I could tell he was impressed with his own marksmanship. And he was exhilarated in that way we get with bullets flying. He was positioning to fire on Fierro when his head snapped back. He grabbed himself between his throat and shoulder, low down on the neck. Arterial blood sprayed across my new glasses.
I fired twice with my Colt at Fierro and saw him fall — or dive. My vision was too faulty to distinguish between the two.
Brown was trying to speak, but going into shock. Alicia pressed her hand to his neck wound.
After I wiped the blood from my glasses, I picked up the sniper rifle and scoped around.
Fierro was in a crouch behind Bud, now. I could just get a glimpse at the top of his head. I tried to sight in, but my vision kept fuzzing. The odds of me hitting Bud — and hitting him in the heart or the head at this angle instead of hitting Fierro — were too high, even for a reckless bastard like me. If I were to pull the trigger, I’d have to conclude that Bud was likely to end up a dead man.
I squeezed the bridge of my nose and rubbed my eyes and tried looking through that goddamn scope again. My vision was even worse.
Now I could only really see motion and light through the scope.
Alicia said, frenzied now, “Shoot him, Héctor! End it! We have to help Bud and get help for the Agent.”
I shook my head. “I — I can’t see. The diabetes ... I can’t see enough to take the shot. I’ll kill Bud if I do. I know I’ll kill him.”
Her hands were pressed tightly to Brown’s neck wound. Her brown skin was slick with Brown’s blood. Alicia said, “You want me to try and kill him? That’s what you’re going to say, isn’t it?”
Truth was, that terrible notion hadn’t even occurred to me. My plan was more direct — I would rush Fierro. Try to get close enough to point my Colt like a finger at his body and fire until I ran out of bullets. We would trade slugs until one or both of us died.
“Put your hands here,” she said. “Press hard.”
“Alicia,” I said, “I can’t have you doing this. Killing a man — even a man like that, and like this — it changes you.”
“We don’t have time,” she said. “He doesn’t have time,” she said, nodding at the man whose blood covered her hands. “Bud doesn’t have fucking time, now. And we have no other options. You’ve seen to that, Héctor. Now put your fucking hands here and help this man.”
Cursing, I laid the sniper’s rifle down and shifted positions with her. As she took her hands away, a small geyser of blood erupted from Agent Brown’s neck. I pressed my hand to his wound as Alicia took my former position. She picked the gun up awkwardly, trying to get it up against her shoulder. Her posture was wrong; her grip was all wrong. But it would have to do. After she pulled that trigger, she’d have a bruise on that right shoulder. But that bruise would fade. The other effects of the shot...? I felt sick inside.
I saw her adjusting the gun, trying to sight in on Fierro.
Licking my parched lips, I said hoarsely, “Do you see him yet?”
Head Games (The Hector Lassiter Series) Page 15