I tried to play it as cool as he was. “I understand all that, but this guy’s an old friend of mine. I need you to get me out there so I can talk to him.”
“You’re a friend of his?”
“Used to be, long time ago.”
He smiled with his eyes. “You Satánico?”
“No. I’m nothing. I’m just a guy.”
Oddly enough, he seemed satisfied with my answer. “And you want to talk to him?”
I nodded.
“What’s the real reason you want to go out there?”
“That’s my business,” I told him. “Can you take me or not?”
He dropped his feet from the table and sat forward. “I can do whatever the fuck I want. The question is, will I? If even half the stories are true about what’s happening out there I’d be putting my life in danger taking this job. Now I got no problem with that, trust me—it’s what I do—but I don’t walk into nothing without knowing the details. I was in ‘Nam, right? I mean, in the shit, you hear me? I don’t scare easy because I don’t scare at all, boss, but I don’t do nothing blind. Maybe you’re running narcotics out there. Maybe that’s how they sustain themselves. Maybe you’re running guns or information—I don’t know and I don’t give a shit—but I need to know the truth so I know what I’m dealing with and how to proceed from there, keeping you and me alive. Understand?”
I sighed, too tired to go on with the games. “I’ve been hired by his family in the States, all right? I’ve been hired to find him and to try to bring him home.”
“Bring him home? You ribbing me?”
“No.”
Bosco scratched at his neck a minute. His bare arms were tanned dark and rippled with muscles and bulging veins. “I don’t know for sure,” he said, “and there’s no way we can be until we’re there, but word is he and his followers are at the end of the line on The Corridor. El Corredor de Demonios.”
“The Corridor of Demons,” I said. “So I’ve heard.”
“It’s a long and dangerous road. Some believe it’s haunted.”
“What do you believe?”
“I believe it’ll cost ten grand for me to take you there.”
“I’ll pay five. Same price you quoted Connie Joseph.”
He folded his powerful arms across his chest then cocked his head in the direction of the small Mexican man, who had drifted closer to the table and now stood staring at me expressionlessly. “I work with a partner. That’s Party Boy. Party Boy Doobage.”
“Now there’s a name.”
Party Boy’s expression remained flat. Numerous tattoos adorned both arms, and the open leather vest he wore barely concealed several others across his upper body and stomach, including one enormous Virgin Mary in the center of his chest. All were done in dark ink, no color, but intricately detailed.
“As you can see he’s the life of the party, and the man appreciates a good doobie now and then. So it fits. What do you care what the fuck his name is?”
“I don’t, but the offer stands at five grand. His pay’s your problem.”
“Tell you what. We’ll split the difference and call it seventy-five hundred.”
The hell with it, I thought, wasn’t my money anyway. “Fine.”
“OK, good.” Bosco nodded. “The Corridor can be a bitch, just letting you know. Only been on it a few times but that’s enough. Never know what the hell you’re gonna run into out there. Sure you want to do this?”
“You think I’d be here if I didn’t?”
“Just understand something. You’re hiring me to get you there and back safe and in one piece. That means I’m in charge while we’re on the road. You got to listen to me, right? You do exactly what I say when I say, and once we get there—if we get there—and find this sonofabitch, all bets are off. Anybody puts us in a corner or in any way fucks with me, and that includes you, the situation will be handled with extreme prejudice. We clear?”
“I understand.”
“Just so you know, so if you got any surprises for me, tell me now.”
The cook at the grill yelled something out, and Party Boy strolled casually to the counter, picked up a small bottle of hot sauce and a plate of rice, beans and grilled ground beef and dropped them in front of his partner.
“You got any issues with the Mexican authorities?” Bosco inquired. “Anything I need to know about?”
“No.”
“You’re definitely not a cop, but you don’t look much like a P.I. either.”
“I’m a hairdresser, what the hell difference does it make?”
“True enough.” Bosco shrugged. “When you want to do this?”
“Soon as possible.”
“You got my money?”
“I’ll have it first thing in the morning.”
“Good.” He shook a healthy amount of hot sauce onto the dish, mixed it up with a fork and began shoveling it in. “Then we’ll leave tomorrow. Travel light, we go in a Land Rover. If you’re taking weapons or anything illegal with you it’s cool but I need to know.”
“No weapons, nothing illegal.”
“All right.” He reached out, shook my hand. His grip was powerful to the point of being painful. “Where are you staying?”
I told him.
“Jesus, what a crap bin,” he laughed through a mouthful of rice. “Be ready in the morning. Let’s say eleven. Have my money and we’ll be good to go.”
“How do I know I can trust you? Be easy to take the money, drive me out to the desert and dump me somewhere.”
“Yeah it would, it’d be a fucking breeze, actually.” He sighed and picked something from between his teeth with the fork. “But I’m a professional. I take pride in that. I do the job I’m paid for. I’m old-fashioned that way.”
“Just in case you get any ideas, my employers in the states know of you and know I’ve come down here to hire you. I disappear and you’ll have—”
“Nobody gives a pinch of pussy squirt on a bagel if you disappear, boss.” He laughed lightly to himself. “Where the hell you think you are? Where we’re going, it’s a whole other world. Might as well be another planet. Don’t worry about it. I’m not out to fuck anybody. But hey, whatever, I didn’t come looking for you, right? You came to me. Now you want my services or not?”
“Yeah,” I said, “you’re hired.”
The muscles in his neck and shoulders relaxed, and he slumped forward over his meal, letting one forearm rest on the table. “All right then. Listen, you do right by me and I got your back, all right? I’m the best there is, boss. You want to get out there? I’ll get you out there. May not be easy, but I’ll get the job done, and I’ll be the best friend you ever had through the whole thing. But I expect the same kind of commitment from you, so here’s how it is on my end. We’ll be by to pick your ass up in the morning. If you’re a no-show or late or got the runs or sleep in or in any way screw up my departure time the deal’s off and you can pound sand. But you’ll still owe me half for inconveniencing me and wasting my time. If you make me come looking for it you’ll be pissing blood and eating through a straw for a month of Sundays, comprende?”
“I got it.”
He looked down into his food and kept eating. We were through.
As I got up to leave he said, “Pleasure doing business with you, Moretti.”
I guess we’d find out.
NINE
I stood on the corner across the street from the restaurant waiting on Hardy Brunner. My hands had begun to shake again, though I couldn’t be sure if it was only because I needed a drink. The meeting with Bosco had brought things closer to the flame, and that made them all the more real. These were not the kinds of people or situations I was accustomed to dealing with, and I felt out of my element and already in way over my head. There was a big difference between writing about these things and actually living them. What the hell was I doing here? Why had I agreed to this? I should’ve turned my back on this madness regardless of the price. But I’d spent my whole
life trying to forget. I just couldn’t do it anymore. Like damn near everything else over the years it had gotten away from me. In my world there really were deadly things concealed in the shadows, watching, calculating, marking time and wearing me down like grindstone. I had to stop them—I had to stop this—or die in the attempt.
As if in answer, the scarred man’s unearthly shrieks exploded in my ears. Thankfully they were absorbed by the clamor of the street, gone before I could feel anything other than the usual spikes of terror that ripped at my spine like a cleaver separating flesh from bone with a single violent strike.
When it began to look like Brunner wasn’t going to be coming any time soon—if ever—I took a moment to gather my thoughts as best I could, then pulled the cell Janine had given me from the clip on my belt and hit the only number programmed into the speed dial: her own.
It took six rings before she answered. “Phil?” The connection wasn’t great, but good enough for me to tell she was out of breath.
I put a hand to my free ear to buffer the street noise. “Yeah, it’s me.”
“Are you all right?”
“I’m in Tijuana, draw your own conclusions.”
“What’s happening?”
“Why do you sound short of breath?”
“I was in the shower and had to run for the phone,” she said with a touch of annoyance. “What’s happening?”
Ignoring visions of her wrapped in nothing but a towel, her hair wet and dripping across her shoulders, I explained I’d secured Rudy Bosco’s services and would be leaving in the morning. All I needed was the cash.
“I’ll make the arrangements first thing tomorrow,” she assured me. “The service I use makes the transfer instantly, so there shouldn’t be any delays.”
“By the way, his price has gone up. He wants seventy-five hundred.”
Rather than object, in her efficient, professional voice she told me the name and address of the bank where the transferred funds would be waiting.
“Haven’t found Jamie Wheeler yet,” I explained, “but I’m working on it.”
Dead air and then: “Phil, I…listen, about the other night, I—”
“Don’t worry about it.” My heart began to race like a schoolboy, and all I could see was her body, her eyes, her hands moving over me in the dark. I didn’t know what she planned to say, but whatever it was I couldn’t handle hearing it yet. I needed my memories of that night, of her—and of myself—to keep me going. “We’ll talk when I get back.”
“Be careful, OK?”
“I’ll be in touch soon as I can.”
A hissing sound answered, and I thought for a moment I’d lost her.
“Goodbye, Phil.”
I hated the way she said that. “Talk to you soon.”
Flipping the phone shut and severing the thin thread between us, I distracted myself by checking my watch. Brunner was already fifteen minutes late. Sticky with sweat and hungrier than I’d been in recent memory, my patience with him was running on empty. To make matters worse, a group of drunken frat boys charged by, screaming and laughing at the top of their lungs and being unnecessarily obnoxious in an attempt at what I could only guess they’d mistaken for cool. Behind them, an older tourist couple clung to each other and moved anxiously through the crowd looking like they planned to kill their travel agent the moment they got home, and an ashen, middle-aged American guy with a hideous comb-over drifted past like a child molester on the prowl from Caricatures-R-Us.
The longer I stood around the more congested the street became with waves of Mexicans and Americans alike. I watched the faces going by and quickly grew suspicious of them all. Night had changed everything. Where before I had no sense of Martin in this place, I realized now that it was more a matter of perspective, because it was no longer Martin I’d come here to find. Not really. He’d become someone else, maybe even something else. Anyone could be a potential threat, someone sent here to stop me from reaching him. He knew I was here, I was sure of it. Martin had eyes in Tijuana, and they were on me, tunneling through me and looking deep inside. He may have been miles away, but he was here, his breath warm and steady against the back of my neck, his fingers slithering up my chest and across my throat like snakes.
Martin’s face flashed before me, dripping rain and blood…
Just as I dropped my cigarette and crushed it beneath my shoe, Brunner appeared out of the crowd. Though he reeked of booze I noticed a few grease stains had been added to his suit jacket and already filthy shirt, so at least he’d spent some of the money I’d given him on food. “I apologize for my tardiness!” he exclaimed, sidling up next to me. “But as I’m on reasonably polite terms with a few employees there, I took a quick detour to the Pink Fox.”
Brunner was a goldmine, but just listening to him exhausted me. “And?”
“I inquired about the man you’re looking for, but these things must be done delicately and with the utmost care, you understand. Even those of us who reside here, we’re all anonymous in Tijuana, all of us ghostly spirits with no names or pasts, no futures. There is only tonight, this night.” He smiled. His teeth were a caramel color. “And then tomorrow it all begins anew. Thus is life, sir, here in a city which exists on the boundaries of—”
“Very poetic, Brunner,” I said, taking him by the arm and leading him into the crowd. The flow took us and we rode it like a river rolling along the sidewalk. “Cut to the chase. What’s the deal?”
“Yes, yes, of course. I’m sorry to report your Mr. Wheeler wasn’t there. However, as your information correctly suggested, he is known to frequent their establishment.” He removed a hideously stained handkerchief from his inside jacket pocket and mopped sweat from his brow as we walked. “There’s a good chance he’ll be in later. No guarantees, but it seems to me to be a simple waiting game at this point. From what I understand, he’ll show eventually.”
“That’s not gonna wash,” I told him. “We need to find him tonight. I’m leaving the city in the morning. Does anybody who works there know where he lives or where I can find him?”
“I have no doubt we can obtain that information.” Brunner raised an index finger crooked with arthritis. “The problem, of course, is one of funding, sir.”
“Funding isn’t a problem,” I said gruffly. “Just get me there.”
On the way I bought a burrito and a coke from an open-air food stall and ate it as we made our way through the crowds. I’d expected it to turn my stomach but it was actually pretty good. By the time we’d completed the boulevard and turned onto another street I’d finished it. Brunner stopped in front of an open doorway. I looked up. A pink neon sign in the shape of a fox wearing a sombrero, a woman’s spiked heel dangling from the tip of its erect and bushy tail, buzzed over the entrance. There was no door, only a sheer hanging curtain and an overweight, grinning Mexican man sitting on a stool next to it handing out flyers.
I followed Brunner through the curtain and into a poorly lit and seedy barroom that smelled of perspiration, cigarette smoke and liquor. Booths filled the walls, and down the center of the room was a long bar with stools on either side. A thin but busty twenty-something stripper strode along the bar in gobs of bad makeup and a red sequin bikini, looking bored as she danced slowly to a tune crackling through speakers mounted in the corners of the ceiling. Now and then she’d fluff her mane of heavily-teased jet-black hair and dance close enough to the multicolored lights shining up from beneath her along the bar to reveal a series of stretch marks and a scar from an apparent C-Section.
The bleary-eyed men seated at the bar and throughout the establishment barely paid attention to her, and those who did waved money and motioned for her to remove her top. Once she did the crowd picked up, but she seemed just as disinterested in the whole thing, flopping her breasts about in a move that was meant to be erotic but instead came off as sad and embarrassing. This was someone’s mother, for God’s sake. I could only imagine how awful her life must have been outside this horrible pl
ace. One more drowning soul, I thought.
“Sins of the world,” the scarred man whispered.
Somewhere in my mind I suppose chivalry still existed, and I told myself I should do something to help or somehow rescue this poor downtrodden woman. In a perfect world it made sense and seemed so clearly the right thing to do it was almost instinctual, like the feeling I often had when I saw a homeless person or anyone for whom life had become hopeless. But in this case there was nothing to do. She wouldn’t trust me or want my help even if I had any to offer. We were all just pieces, each with our roles to play in a fixed game where the outcome was already determined. The rest were fantasies and things we told ourselves at night when we stared at empty ceilings and hoped somewhere in all that darkness God was still listening. Or maybe we told ourselves these things in case He was. In the end, all of it served little purpose other than to make us feel better about ourselves while we turned our backs on each other.
Once we’d taken seats at a table near the back, Brunner flagged down a waitress, ordered two beers then whispered something to her. She looked me over without subtlety. Though her contempt for him seemed to outweigh even her distrust of me, she gave a quick nod and was gone.
I leaned across the table. “What’s the deal?”
“She’s getting me into the back to speak with Damita, a woman who knows the man you’re looking for and where we can find him. Damita’s a masseuse here.” He winked. “Her name means Little Princess. She’s of age but looks like a teenager, and apparently Mr. Wheeler has certain proclivities in that area. Of course I’ll have to pay her for the information but also for her time.”
“How much?”
“We’ll know momentarily.”
One song ended and another began. The same stripper worked the bar.
The waitress returned minutes later and delivered two beers to our table. I paid her, including a healthy tip. Rather than thank me she said something to Brunner then motioned for him to follow her.
“I’ll need one hundred dollars,” Brunner said.
Children of Chaos Page 13