The Right Wrong Number: An Ed Earl Burch Novel

by Jim Nesbitt

  Rolling out of the pocket with a ton or so of grunting, screaming beef clawing toward you, eager to slam your body into the turf before you could see a friendly color curling into the clear and dart the ball between the numbers. Cutting loose on a man holding a gun on you in that sliver of a second before he had the chance to do the same to you. Pulling the string on a complex series of international wire transfers that bled enough money from New Orleans wise guys to leave you set for life.

  Cool and loose. Finding that quiet zone in the middle of a howling storm of fear and chaos. For Crowe, a dose of icy calm was automatic, something he didn’t have to tap into or conjure up. It came naturally, slowing the rush of action into a half-speed freeze frame, keeping his gears meshed and lubed while others ground the teeth off theirs. He stayed centered. On the field, that was more important than arm strength and foot speed. In the game he was playing now, it was bigger than an eye for all the angles and a brain that was accustomed to being five moves in front of most players.

  He knew Burch would come. He also knew the people Burch was likely to call on to get to La Linda. His relationship with Salazar bought him this information, courtesy of Salazar’s network of cousins and brothers and in-laws and gunhands, people who worked on both sides of the river, who had friends and relatives working the sprawling Anglo ranches of the Big Bend, who would get a call if someone saw a bearded burly Texan nosing around Marathon or Alpine or Marfa.

  But he would have to wait. And that was the hard part, the part that was toughest for him to learn and practice. It had been that way during his days as a jock — the physical part came easy, the mental part took discipline and a degree of cold-cured willfulness. Subdue the impulse to push and hurry the action; have the patience to let the action come to you and master the art of slowing down time, splitting the seconds into subseconds, hanging in calm detachment in the face of that bellowing stampede.

  The wait. He hated it. But with machine-like precision he had mastered its art and made the act look easy.

  The diamonds cinched the relationship with Salazar, binding the Mexican tighter to Crowe, buying his loyalty with the promise of more rewards to come as their relationship deepened and blossomed. With all that ice, Crowe was telling Salazar that now was the time, now was the moment to step forward and start making the moves that would make him a new king among border narcotraficantes. Crowe was confident that Salazar had his eye on the long game, the promise of a profitable and steadily maturing alliance instead of the quick hit for easy money. Helping Crowe wrap up some unfinished business from up north was the first step along that road.

  Dinner at Casa Salazar had been borracho y teatro, part theater, part drunken revelry, a hearty mixture of both. Cabrito a la frontera — kid goat, spitted vertically like meat for a gyro, cooked by the indirect heat of mesquite coals. Lots of mescal, tequila’s poorer cousin, made from different varieties of the agave plant, distilled only once, not twice, bottled with the worm floating along the bottom. It was rawer stuff, akin to iron jack, the once-distilled sugar cane brew poor islanders drank because they couldn’t afford rum.

  Crowe sat on Salazar’s left, giving him a profiled view of the patriarch’s silver pompadour, sharp nose and acne-pocked face. Cesar, the eldest son, sat on his father’s right, his sharp Indian features framed by a flowing moustache and black hair swept back in a thick wave. Other sons and their wives and girlfriends perched on benches that flanked the long table. As they ate and drank, Crowe and Salazar spoke the notes of the elaborate overture of courtesies, oaths of everlasting friendship and compliments that precede any Mexican business negotiation. Underneath the smiles and bold declarations were nuances and inflections there for the reading by the careful negotiator.

  Crowe enjoyed these exchanges. They annoyed most Americans new to doing business in Mexico. But Crowe appreciated the style and substance of such formalities; it slowed things down to waltz time, adding a degree of freeze to his naturally icy calm and was an essential part of the deal, with its own rules and nuggets of communication. It was a tool of the trade; the inpatient gringo plunged through them at his peril.

  At the end of their duet, Salazar’s voice dropped and his brow furrowed.

  “My friend, you have been away from us for quite some time, but I have kept your counsel close to my heart and have remained patient despite some developments that have created opportunity for me and my family. I have done this out of respect for your counsel . . .”

  A pause here and a glance at Cesar.

  “. . . and despite the urgings of those close to me to move now and fill the gap that has been created by a few recent tragedies.”

  “Don Enrique, your waiting is over. I’ve executed a plan that gives me the freedom and the money to launch the venture you and I have talked about. I appreciate your patience and the patience and loyalty of your son, Cesar.”

  A pause and a nod toward Cesar, whose face was smooth and stone-like, his dark eyes hooded as he focused on the table in front of him. Crowe knew he would have to kill Cesar someday; he could feel that electric certainty flowing from the younger Salazar. But he also knew he would be finished with his business and long gone before that day came.

  “I’ve made mention of a small problem that troubled me. I now consider it solved, thanks to your generosity, and the way clear for our partnership to fully flower and bear fruit. To set this journey on a proper course, I give you these.”

  Crowe cleared a space on the table between himself and Salazar. He pulled the pouch out of his pocket and poured the diamonds onto the scarred, stained wood, the stones catching the light from the fluted brass ceiling lamp and the torchieres spaced along the walls of the dining room.

  Salazar smiled then laughed. He grabbed Crowe’s forearms in both of his hands, hardened by decades of work and far larger than the rest of his thin body. They had a bone crushing power, matched by the look in Salazar’s eyes, a look that told Crowe that this man wasn’t a fool and would do what it took to be the biggest narcotraficante in the region.

  “We are going to be very rich and very powerful men, you and I. They will know us in Mexico City. And in Washington. And they will fear us, the politicians and their lackeys.”

  He spit on the floor.

  “It will be like the days when Villa rode this country.”

  This startled Crowe.

  “You look surprised, my friend. You didn’t think of me as a political animal did you?”

  “I’ve always tried to keep my politics and my business separate, Don Enrique.”

  “Ah, but a man must always mind his politics as well as his business. It is his passion and his motivation. Otherwise, the money is just money.”

  A true believer, thought Crowe. A man who sees himself as the next Villa, riding again against the Colorados and the Hacendados.

  “Don’t you worry about politics getting in the way of business?”

  Salazar laughed.

  “In what way, my friend? Politics is business! Business is politics! It has always been so. What worries you?”

  “A high profile. A name that is known to too many people.”

  “What is wrong with that?”

  “I like to work in the dark.”

  Salazar laughed again.

  “Then do so, my friend. I like the spotlight. I want my name known.”

  Crowe was walking a line that was growing thinner the more he talked. But if he let the matter drop Salazar might tumble to the idea that his game had a much shorter clock on it.

  “And that’s the way it will be, Don Enrique. I will be your silent partner. In the dark. Out there in the shadows. But let me ask this — don’t you fear your government?”

  “My friend, my government knows how to do business. But it is a government that may not be in business much longer. Mexico is changing, my friend. And the old ways of doing business and the old masters, the PRI caciques, they’re losing their grip. Look at Chiapas. It can happen here.”

  “Revo
lution is bad for the businessman.”

  “Only for you gringo capitalists, depending on the NAFTA and all those PRI promises. For a man like me, chaos brings opportunity.”

  Crowe nodded, smiled and raised his glass.

  “To chaos and opportunity, Don Enrique.”

  Salazar laughed, met the toast then called out for music. Four men — two of them old, two of them young — walked out, guitars strapped to their bellies. One of the old men wore a bajo sexto, the 12-stringed guitar that made the player look like he was giving birth to the topside of a ’58 Caddy coupe. They launched into the old rancheras and corridos of the border, vintage story songs about legends like Joaquin Murrieta, the border bandit, and Gregorio Cortez, the man who led the Texas Rangers on a long chase through the Lower Rio Grande border country after killing an Anglo sheriff who shot his brother while questioning him about a stolen horse.

  The voices were high and hoarse, filling the songs with yelps and cries of pain and the sweet aching harmony of lost loves and injustices unavenged. Then came the rancheras, the redovas and the fast drinking songs, tunes like “Por To Mujer” and “Y Andale” that begged the feet to dance. Salazar took the hand of his eldest daughter, Elena, the widow, her husband killed while chasing cattle up a rocky box canyon. The father spun her about, his boots thudding into the heavy wooden floor like horse hoofs banging against the wall of a stall.

  Cesar and the other sons and cousins waltzed out their wives and girlfriends, flanking their patriarch and his daughter and spinning to the music. The men called to the singers as they danced with their women. The sound of boot leather and old wood added a fat line of rhythm to the old tunes, the songs of Villa, the music of La Revolucion.

  Crowe sat alone at the table, sipping mescal, the poor man’s spirit. At least it wasn’t pulque or sotol, he thought. At least his association with this Villa worshiper would be a short one.

  Too bad.

  A wild ride into the Chihuahuan desert appealed to his athletic spirit. Action. Blurry and fast. Beat the devil and his disciples. And make another fortune to pile on top of the one stolen from the wiseguys of New Orleans.

  Ballsy but not part of the plan.

  Too bad.

  He tossed down the mescal and took out a Te Amo Toro, a thick cigar with a rough brown wrapper, clipping the end with a pocketknife and firing the tobacco with a kitchen match. He felt eyes on him and looked up, catching the runaway stare of a young woman with a jet of black falling across her sharp Indian face. She wore a loose white blouse and a long dark peasant skirt that failed to hide the fullness of her figure. Her face was turned away in embarrassment so she didn’t see him stand and walk toward her, his face smiling around his cigar, smoke trailing in his wake.

  “Vamos a bailar.”

  “I’m sorry, señor but I don’t dance very well.”

  “You’ll do fine. Dance with me.”

  He grabbed her hand and pulled her onto the floor, pushing past the dancing couples, clearing a space with size and smoke. He pulled her close, caught the pace of the music and moved them to it. He spun her out and away, then danced in a circle around her, his boots slamming the floor, his hands clapping to the beat, his teeth clenched around the cigar in a tense smile. He caught her eye and held it. She shook her hair and stared back.

  The others hooted, laughed and applauded, led by Salazar. Cesar stood and stared.

  “So this gringo knows more than just money. He knows our food, our mescal, our music.”

  “Claro, he knows our dance and wants to know our women.”

  “How is that different from any other gringo?”

  “It isn’t.”

  Crowe ignored the comments and finished the dance, his eyes on the woman. The song ended and he bent forward in a deep bow, his hand holding hers.

  “Gracias.”

  “Por nada, señor. Por nada.”

  He looked up. Salazar was still smiling. Cesar was not. A small man stepped up to Salazar and handed him a cellular phone, whispering in the ear of his patron. Salazar spoke into the phone, listened, asked two short questions then punched the Off button and handed the phone back to his the small man.

  “Señor, that was a call from north of the river. Seems my nephews are entertaining an acquaintance of yours.”

  “Is she tall, blonde and bad tempered?”

  “They said she curses like a vaquero.”

  “That would be my wife.”

  THIRTY

  “You’re a needle-dick bastard.”

  “Nice to see you too, Savannah. I see travel makes you an unhappy camper.”

  “I don’t see you exactly going first class either, handsome.”

  “No. I’ve had to improvise.”

  “Is that what you call running for your life?”

  “Things aren’t that desperate.”

  “Oh no? What do you call this little shack here — the Mojado Hilton?”

  “This is my little hidey-hole. My briar patch.”

  “B’rer Rabbit never had such a butch haircut. Makes you look like bait for rough trade. Better watch it — some of these Mex cowhands may be tired of fucking cattle. Might give you a whirl.”

  “Savannah, you’re turning into a cliché. I expect you to mount a better attack on my manhood than some tired old homo jibe. Oldest trick in the book.”

  “All this cross-country rambling has turned me into a cliché, hon.”

  “Too bad. I’ve found the back roads refreshing. Your little siphoning job caused me a moment or two of discomfort but no big train wreck. Actually, it was kind of bracing. Forced me to do a little broken-field running, making things up on the fly. Exhilarating. Brought me up to a fine edge. Which is the right way to be when facing someone as strong as you.”

  “Sell it someplace else, lover. Your last ballgame was fifteen years ago and honey, your legs are long gone.”

  “You’re right. No timeouts or huddles in this game is there? No clock. No ref.”

  “And no chance for a trick play, bud. I’ve seen all your moves.”

  “Not all of them, Savannah. You’re here aren’t you? And I’ve got you.”

  “So what? We were gonna collide into each other one way or the other, on your terms or mine, so having the upper hand really doesn’t matter that much.”

  “It does to you. You’ve been dying to ace me out for a long time. I’m the one you can’t beat and it’s killing you. It will kill you yet.”

  “If you just wanted me dead, I’d already have a bullet in my brain. But I got somethin’ that’s yours and you want it back. I got you, mister. Took a hunk out of your hide. Made you take a tumble. Little ol’ me. And you can’t stand it.”

  “A small thing. Like tripping on a sidewalk crack. Annoying but not cataclysmic. How much did you take off me?”

  “What?”

  “How much did you clip me for?”

  “You don’t know?”

  “I can guess but it’s kind of like trying to gauge how much water somebody scooped out of a moving stream.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Think of my system as a river. Or an irrigation ditch. I know how much I put in. I know how much I should get on the other side once the stream runs its course. But I don’t know when you put your bucket in the stream. Or how many times. And the stream was still running when I tumbled to your play.”

  “Don’t you keep an eye on things?”

  “It was automatic. Standing orders for transfers from one bank to the next, one account to another, one currency to another. Once money in one account reached a certain level, it went to the next. You tapped the big pool, the one before that money really disappeared into thin air, out there where nobody could trace it, not the wise guys, not the U.S. government, not General Motors or Chase Manhattan, not even the Pope. It was also the only place in the pipeline that gave me quick access. Which made it the weak point.”

  “Five.”

  “Really? That’s all?”

  �
��That’s all. Stung you, though.”

  “Just a slap in the face, darling. Hit me at a bad time, though. When I needed to move fast. But I still got my reflexes.”

  Crowe smiled and bounced on the balls of his feet like a boxer. Savannah gave him a bored look.

  “What I have a hard time believing is you getting mixed up with a loser like Burch again. Although I understand it — it was your way to get next to that computer wiz friend of his, Krukovitch. But still . . .”

  “What the fuck are you talkin’ about, lover? Krukovitch isn’t a player in this. And Burch was the only muscle I could trust after you skipped town and left me holding all that bad paper from your clients.”

  “So who helped you hack into my system? You have trouble with a Krups coffee machine let alone a software program. Of course, I gave you a real edge by being stupid enough to leave my laptop around but you needed somebody to crack that for you.”

  “Kindness of strangers, lover. Kindness of strangers.”

  “Blanche would be proud. But knowing you, whoever it was wasn’t a stranger for too long. How many times did you have to fuck him before he was eating out of your hand?”

  “It only takes one time.”

  “Not for me, sugar. All the times in the world between us and I’m still eating food out of my own bowl. Sorry to hear about Krukovitch, though.”

  “Why?”

  “I guessed wrong. So did the greaseballs.”

  “Guessed wrong about what, him being involved in this?”

  “You bet. The goombahs had him killed. Before one of my associates could get next to him.”

  “Jesus. He was Eddie’s best friend.”

  “I know. Gives your boy Burch some strong motivation. Reason to hate both you and me. And the goombahs. But New Orleans is a long way away — we’re the only ones right in front of him now. I doubt your Mr. Burch will take a discriminating view. I doubt he’ll give much of a damn who actually had his best friend killed. He’ll take it out on whoever he can get his gun sights on.”

  “You’re right. He’s slow and dumb but if he gets close he’ll drop payback on us both.”