Wolves At Our Door

by J P S Brown

  "How many more treatments?"

  "Many more during the next month."

  "I hope they’re successful."

  "Thank you. Now, I have to tell you that I can't help you much."

  Silverio told the partners that they could not count on help from the Huatabampo police. The entire Huatabampo force was suspected of collusion with crime lords. He verified that Los Lobos met regularly at the Wolf Cave nightclub, but he did not believe the girls would be kept there. Güero Rodriguez would hide them in a more secluded place, use them to entertain special clients only a day or two, then sell them. During the short while that he kept them, he would sell only their virginity. After that, he would sell their bodies to the highest bidder and be rid of them.

  "Where would the Lupinos keep the girls, if they were the kidnappers?" Vogel asked.

  "You think the Lupinos have something to do with this?" Silverio asked.

  "We don’t know, but everything bad that happens to us nowadays seems to come from them. I think they could be connected to this kidnapping. Güero Rodriguez is a half brother to the Lupino brothers. They were all sired by my cousin Eliazer. Old man Nesib made his daughters sons use the Lupino name instead of Vogel. Güero was educated in the same schools with them and is Rafa's best pal. His mother is Maria Ester Rodriguez, a Lupino maid who helped Fatima raise his half brothers."

  "Ah, we didn’t know that."

  "The Lobos hit our kids in a drive-by shooting after we beat the Lupinos in a matched horse race. Rafa Lupino went into a murderous rage after the race. It’s not unreasonable to believe that he hired Los Lobos to hit my godson Cody who jockeyed our horse, and my godsons Marco Antonio and Memin Martinillo, our trainer and his uncle."

  "I heard about the race and the hit," Silverio said.

  "I think you’re right about the Lupinos," Father Garcia said. "They have long been suspected of being the brains and money behind every criminal endeavor in Huatabampo. They own an inordinate percentage of the ships and airplanes that come in and go out of the port, and lately they’ve employed Los Lobos gangsters in their warehouses."

  "I think we can assume they’re holding our girls," Kane said. "Where would they hide them?"

  "Grab a Lobo out of the Wolf Cave, take him out by the canals, and make him tell you where the girls are," Silverio said. "If I mount a search by my police force, it will alert the kidnappers that we know the girls are in Huatabampo. Every one of my officers and every inspector of customs and immigration at the harbor are on the Lupino payroll."

  ”What do they do for them?" Kane asked.

  "The ones in immigration look the other way when unidentified people debark from ships and airplanes that arrive from foreign countries. The ones in customs overlook Lupino cargo that arrives on the ships. Nobody knows what the Lupinos load on the ships and airplanes they send out of the country"

  "How many warehouses do they have?" Kane asked.

  "About twenty big ones. Each one covers about one hectare."

  "What will you do when you find the girls?" Father Garcia asked.

  "We don’t have a plan. I want to land on the kidnappers and kill them without hurting the girls."

  "What weapons do you have?" Silverio asked.

  "They’ll be supplied by the Montenegros. This isn’t their first rodeo."

  "Then you intend to assault the place with firearms?"

  "What else can we do?"

  "Guns will start a firefight, and every city, state, federal, and security policeman in the harbor will be on you in five minutes. Start shooting and a horde of Lobos and policemen will come at you with a legal right to kill you. As you know, possession of firearms is prohibited, and your gunfire will be a call to arms for every bully cop in the city."

  "Our reatas worked well up to now. But I don’t think they’ll work against Uzis."

  "No, they won’t. Every Lobo in Huatabampo carries an Uzi to work. Count on them to be ready for you."

  "I wish we had Martinillo, the hunter," Kane said.

  "What would he do?"

  "Take our enemies by stealth."

  "That’s what you have to do," Silverio said. ”I’m sorry I can’t go with you. I belong in the first assault on those cutthroats."

  Back at the 7X that night, Kane called Beto Montenegro and told him to meet Little Buck on a dirt strip on Vogel’s Cibolibampo ranch north of Rio Alamos, instead of at the Huatabampo airport.

  Before he turned out the light so they could sleep, Kane wanted to ask Vogel about one more idea he had. Vogel was already under the covers and composed for slumber with his face to the wall.

  "Juan, let me pose a solution to the gunfire problem to you," Kane said. "How are good men to defend their families against bad men with machine guns without making noise? What if we use pellet guns? They’re quiet enough, but do they hit hard enough? Would that work, or is it too damned law abiding? Pellet guns are used more as toys than as weapons in this country."

  Vogel yawned. "Not law abiding enough if we miss, but totally law abiding if we hit every one of the cabrones in the eye," he said.

  THIRTEEN

  Kane loaded Vogel and took off in Little Buck at dawn the next morning. Beto Montenegro and his brother Manuelito met them with a five-ton bobtail truck at Vogel’s Cibolibampo ranch airstrip outside Rio Alamos at midmorning. The brothers brought, aviation gasoline to top Little Buck’s tanks.

  In Huatabampo, Beto left Manuelito and the truck at the hotel with the ten men who would help them retrieve the girls. Then he and the partners boarded a sedan and drove outside town to see Rodolfo Almada, the former owner of the Wolf Cave. Almada, a dark man with curly black hair, came down from his veranda to welcome them. His smile made a white slash across his face.

  "Did Beto tell you about our trouble?" Kane asked, after Beto introduced them.

  "Yes, he did, and I feel for you. I have three teenaged daughters."

  "One of the girls they kidnapped is my only granddaughter, and the other is my goddaughter. We need to find them quickly."

  "I know you do. I’ve already taken steps to do it, though I can't go near the club. I’ve been feuding with the Lupinos since I sold it to Rafa, but Urbano, my old bartender, still works there. After he leaves the club tonight, he’ll be able to tell us if the girls are there."

  "What time will that be?" Kane asked.

  "He closes the club at three a.m."

  Kane looked at his watch, then at Vogel. "Lord almighty," he said. "Do all the Lupinos own the Wolf Cave?"

  "Man, they do everything together, don’t they?"

  "We pursue Lobos, find them, and uncover a Lupino. Tell us about the bartender."

  "I talked to Urbano this morning. He told me that he had not seen or heard anything about two young girls. Rafa’s office suite is the only place where they could be without his knowledge. He’ll find out if they’re there during his shift tonight and call me after he leaves the club."

  Kane, Vogel, and Beto waited by the telephone in Almada’s front room all night and slept in their chairs. Urbano called soon after 3:00 a.m. and Kane picked up the phone. "This is Jim Kane, Urbano," he said.

  "They’re not at the club, Mr. Kane," Urbano said.

  'Are you sure?"

  "A lot of new girls pass through the club. It happens all the time and nobody tries to hide them."

  "I don’t understand," Kane said.

  "The Lobos don’t bother to hide the people they bring to the club, so they must be holding your girls somewhere else. None of the girls who come here stay more than a few hours, anyway. There’s no sign that your girls have been here."

  "OK. I appreciate your help and won’t forget it."

  "Don Rodolfo told me about your trouble, sir. I went to your fights at the Mutualista all those years ago when you boxed. I apologize that I haven't been more help to you. If I find out anything, I’ll call don Rodolfo."

  Kane hung up the phone, and looked at his watch and at Vogel. Vogel never carried a watch and n
ever asked for the time. He had worn huaraches and strapped spurs on his naked heels until he was twenty-one. Why did he need a watch? He kept a slow and patient pace. No matter how Kane hurried him along, he always kept sight of their partnership goals and prizes.

  "I don’t know what to do next, compadre," Kane said. "We’re as close to the girls as I can get us. I guess we could catch one of those pelones who wears his trousers on his hips, pull them down, take his parts in the jaws of a pair of pliers, and squeeze until he tells us where the girls are."

  "If he knows," Vogel said. "If he doesn’t know, you’ll have to get another pelón. You might squeeze the parts of ten or twenty and not find anything but a way to get your hands dirty and cause a lot of howling. Try to imagine how far away from the girls that will get us."

  "What then?"

  "Who are our friends here? I think we should go to them for help."

  "We haven't got friends here, have we?"

  "You have a very good old friend here. She doesn’t know where the girls are, but she’ll know where Rafa is. Rafa is almost sure to know. If he doesn’t, he’ll know where Güero is. Squeeze Rafa’s little finger and he’ll tell us everything."

  "Fatima," Kane said. "Is she here, or at La Golondrina?"

  "When we were at La Golondrina, she told me she spends most of her time here to be near Jacobo and Rafa because most of their business is here. They haven't married, so she thinks she has to take care of them."

  "You think she’s here?"

  "Let’s go knock on her door."

  "At four a.m.?"

  "Why not? She’s our friend and won’t care about the time when she knows the reason we woke her up."

  The Lupinos’ home was three blocks away in the same elegant sector of Huatabampo. Beto drove to the house in five minutes.

  Kane stepped out of the car and waited for Vogel, but he stayed inside.

  "I'm not going in, Jim," Vogel said. "You should go alone."

  "Why? She likes you better."

  "Maybe so, but she loves you. To get what you want, you’ll have to woo her as you would a sweetheart who’s been angry with you. If the Lupinos are in on the kidnapping, you’ll have to coax her away from her family as though you want to marry her."

  "How can I do that?"

  "You can do it, because it’s what she wants."

  Kane went up to the front door and rang the bell, then looked at his watch. Four a.m., a helluva time of day to try to woo somebody. He did not have to wait long before he saw a small figure move toward him down a long corridor of the big house. She turned on the porch light, looked him over through a side window, and opened the door. "Jim," Fatima said. "What brings you here?"

  "An emergency, Fatima."

  "What emergency? Come in. I’m making coffee."

  Kane stepped inside, embraced her, and kissed her on the lips. She stepped away from him. He did not try to hold her, but he stayed close.

  "What’s wrong, Jim?" she asked.

  "I’m scared to death and I need you. Güero Rodriguez kidnapped my granddaughter and her little friend Luci Martinillo."

  She reached up and cupped his cheek in her hand.

  "I have to find them before they’re taken out of the country and I think you can help," he said.

  "Come to the kitchen," she said

  Kane followed the tiny person down the corridor. From behind, she could be a quick, limber little child. His old bones were still stiff from being caged in Little Buck.

  Fatima offered him a chair at the kitchen table. He sat and watched her prepare the coffee. He was so anxious he caught himself gripping the seat of the chair with the cheeks of his butt. He knew he would not find out the information he needed any sooner if he let anxiety take him over, but it was all he could do to sit still. He was surrounded by patient people and did not think he would be able to stand it another minute. Vogel and Fatima could have been Bible characters, because a wait through a deluge of forty days and forty nights would have only been a good time for them to rest and cogitate.

  He found that he had also been gritting his teeth. "I like your coffeepot. I have one just like it," he made himself say.

  "Why did you kiss me like that?"

  "That’s the way I kiss hello. I’ve always kissed you like that, haven't I?" They both knew it was a lie.

  "You never kissed me like that."

  "I need you."

  "That’s what you said. So have you come to give me an ulcer again?"

  "Again?"

  "Ah, I should bring you up to date. In the life I lived after you dumped me, I suffered a chronic ulcer from loneliness and raised four sons for a man I didn’t love in a house without love. I waited through a lot of misery for you to come and kiss me like you did a moment ago, but you didn't want me."

  "Don’t tell me that, Fatima."

  "One thing about the early, early morning. Two people alone can speak the truth."

  Fatima was unsophisticated, but foxy. He could expect the truth from her most of the time, but she could be a good liar when it suited her. He should have come to her before this, when he first recognized that the Lupinos meant everybody so much harm. That way, he would have known by now if he could trust her.

  "You’re right. The truth is, I’m in trouble." Kane watched the dark eyes. The woman did not have the careworn face that a sixty-five-year-old mother of kidnappers should have. She needed to be as good as she looked, if she were to give him the help he needed.

  "Tell me what happened," she said.

  "Fatima, I already told you, my granddaughter Dolly Ann and her friend Luci Martinillo have been kidnapped. Vogel and I traced them here. That’s all there is to tell, except that if I don’t find them in the next few hours, they’ll lose their lives, and if that happens, I’ll lose mine."

  The statement made him recognize the helpless dread he felt for the girls. Day before yesterday that dread had made him a merciless killer, today a beggar. What would he be in another hour?

  "Are you going to weep?" she asked.

  "No."

  "Wouldn’t that be awful? Weep if you want to, man."

  "I don’t need to weep. I need to find Güero Rodriguez."

  "You suspect that my Rafa has a part in the kidnapping, don’t you?"

  "I don’t suspect anyone and I suspect everyone. I’m distracted and in an awful hurry. I’m only certain that Güero and Los Lobos are the cowards who abducted my girls."

  "Why do you suspect my son?"

  "Fatima, don’t mistake the reason I’m here. It’s not to castigate Rafa, or to blame him for anything. I need help. You’ve been my friend a long time. You’re close to your son and everybody knows he is close to Güero. Güero and his gang of pelones hang out at Rafa's nightclub."

  "I don’t want you to suspect my son. He wouldn’t harm your granddaughter."

  "That’s good, but I bet he can tell me where Güero is. That’s all I want from him. Where is he?"

  "He sleeps in his apartment when he works at night. He concentrates better at night and in the early hours of the morning."

  Kane thought of a thing or two he could say about that but did not have time. "Where?"

  "In the old warehouse district. I can show you the way, if you want. If you don’t want me to go with you, I’ll call Jacobo and he can go."

  "No need for you to go, Fatima. Beto Montenegro is with us, and I bet he can find it."

  "Nevertheless, I’ll call Jacobo. I’ll feel better if someone goes with you who knows the district." She went into another room.

  Kane thought, If Rafa is connected with the kidnapping, it will be good to take Fatima along. Then, something dawned on him that had not occurred to him since the day he practically whipped Rafa's teeth out of his head at Guazaremos: a statement about Dolly Ann that Güero had made on the Manzanita trail when Kane and the Lion confronted him had been the same as Rafa's statement at La Golondrina and again at Guazaremos. The half brothers were so much of one mind about Dolly Ann that t
hey both had said, "I can get a lot of money for that female." Now, Güero’s flight was leading Kane straight to Rafa. If he found Lobos guarding Rafa's warehouse, Güero and the girls would not be far away. In that case, nothing would be better than to have Fatima along as a ticket past the guard. Fatima might be his way to get hold of Rafa and Güero without waking the town with a firefight.

  Kane had been pacing slowly around the kitchen. He stopped at the door of each room he passed and looked inside. The light of the overhead chandelier was on in the dining room. A pile of account ledgers lay on the table. Three ledgers were open and an old-fashioned quill pen and an open bottle of ink sat beside them, ready for use. Also open on the table was a popular magazine that featured stories and pictures of American and Mexican movie stars. He thought, Now that’s lonesome, if reading that magazine is all the poor woman does for fun when she’s on her own. When Fatima rejoined Kane in the kitchen, she told him no one had I answered Jacobo’s telephone. She thought it strange because Ibrahim and his family had flown in from the Sierra that day, and she thought they had spent the night with Jacobo.

  She handed Kane a slip of paper with the address of Rafa’s warehouse on it. Kane took it and kissed her again, this time like Judas.

  "You’ve probably saved the girls’ lives with this," he said. "You know what? I think I’ll take you up on your offer to guide me to Rafa’s warehouse, if you still want to do it."

  "I’m glad. You might never find it on your own. The alleys and streets of the old district have been changed, barricaded, and rerouted so many times that only someone who has been there knows how to find anything."

  Now Kane had become a Judas. Killer, beggar, and Judas. He intended to betray Fatima to get at her son. If he found that Rafa had bossed the kidnapping, the poor woman was about to watch Kane cut off his ears. If he had not, she might still have to watch it happen, because whether he was party to the kidnapping or not, Kane would hurt him to find Güero. Kane hoped for her sake that Rafa was not part of it, but she was Kane’s insurance. With Fatima along he would be able to go straight into that warehouse, even if he had to take her by the nape of the neck as a hostage.