by J P S Brown
The chief said that he saw no evidence of a kidnapping either. By their own admission, the girls had not been harmed. Blood had been spilled among the accused, but none among the accusers. The accusers could not prove that the accused had done anything wrong. To the chief, everything pointed to the fact that Kane and Vogel and company, and especially Jim Kane, were the wrongdoers in this affair.
Kane looked at Vogel.
"These people kidnapped our girls," Vogel said. "We broke in just as they were about to cut their throats."
"Perhaps, but look at it from my point of view, Senor Vogel," the chief said. "There’s no proof that these girls were taken by force, no proof that they were made to submit to anything illegal. What am I to do? If the ministerio publico were here, he would have to bring charges against you and Senor Kane."
"If the ministerio wants to take over this affair, we’re all for it," Kane said.
"Alas, he's in Tucson for cancer treatment. No, this is up to me. I’ll release you now, but I order you to remain in town. Leave the name of your hotel, so we’ll know where to contact you."
"Is that it, then?" Kane asked. "You’re placing us under house arrest? What may I ask will you do with the kidnappers and pornographers we caught in the act of trying to snuff our girls? You want proof of a crime? Look at their film."
"I will, but won’t that only prove or disprove your girls’ ability as actresses? For now I have to release the people you accuse for lack of evidence. I have to keep you where I can find you while I wait for the persons you injured to bring charges or not bring charges against you."
"Are we free to go?"
"Yes, but stay in Huatabampo and stay away from the people you injured. I don’t want any more blood spilled on my watch."
Kane and Vogel turned to leave the office with the girls.
"One more thing," the chief said. "I understand that you have a ranch on the border, Senor Kane."
"I do."
"What do you know about the murder of four young men that took place on the border near Nogales only a day or so ago?"
"I haven't been home for a day or so."
"Well, someone ambushed, murdered, and robbed four young men near your ranch a night or two ago. I wonder if you know anything about it. I understand that horse tracks were followed from the spot of the massacre on the Mexican side and across the line to your ranch on the American side."
”Really?" Kane knew the man was as much a liar as he was now. Kane and his partners had left no tracks.
"Don’t you own a ranch called the 7X, the one that its Mexican neighbors call Rancho la Manzanita?" the chief asked.
"Of course. Everybody from Rio Alamos to Tucson knows I do."
"It seems that the killers of the young men escaped onto your ranch."
"Yes? Well, tell me something new. All kinds of murderers, smugglers, terrorists, and thieves, not to mention thousands and thousands of honest men and women who seek work, use my ranch as their thoroughfare."
"Isn’t it your contention that your girls were abducted on your ranch, Senor Kane?" the chief asked. "Because if they were, I will have to call in your FBI, as well as the Mexican Federal Judicial Police, in order to determine jurisdiction in my investigation of your charges, if and when they are ever filed. Boundaries must be clarified. This so-called kidnapping may be linked to the murders of our four young Mexicans."
"Yes, so why don’t you also link them to the crimes all the rest of the Mexicans are committing on the border at this time? Your Los Lobos kidnapped my girls and we followed them here. Jot that down in the notes of your investigation. Our girls will attest to it. That’s all you need to know."
"Duly noted, Senor Kane."
"Is that all?" Kane asked. "We’ve been up since yesterday at this time and need to rest." He wanted to get himself and his people out of there before the chief decided to question every individual involved. To hell with issuing the girls’ complaint. He would wait until Silverio Garcia came home.
As Kane and company filed out of the police station alongside Rafa’s gang, Kane turned to speak to Adolfo. The coward was going awfully free for someone who had been stopped only inches before he committed rape and murder. "When I see you again, you can say good-bye to your chile and eggs, coward," Kane said softly.
"What happened to your kidnapping charges, meestair?" Adolfo sneered. "Did the female Kane finally admit that she only came to Huatabampo to have some fun?"
Before Kane could answer, Ibrahim and Jacobo shouted him down and made him duck his head and scurry inside the protection of his companions.
Vogel and the Montenegros took the girls to the hotel to rest. Kane caught a taxi to the hospital to have a talk with Güero. Half the morning was gone. He found Güero’s doctor and asked to see him.
"You’ll be happy to know that his ears and the end of his nose have been reattached, Mr. Kane," the doctor said.
"Good," Kane said. "Maybe he’ll thank his God and not lose them again."
"Tell me, sir, do you know how the ears and nose were removed? The patient won’t say, but it appears to be the work of a skilled surgeon. Both ears were cut in the same angle and exactly in half."
"I have no idea," Kane said, as though the idea should be given a lot of thought. "Imagine. The skill that an operation like that must involve."
He found Güero in bed in a private room. When he felt Kane’s presence his eyes opened, then widened, and he tried to sit up. Kane put his hand on his chest and held him down.
"Ay, nooo," Güero moaned.
"Yes, bastard, your nightmare has returned," Kane said. "But I’m not here to hurt you if you listen to me, and I won’t be long."
Güero looked wildly around and squirmed under Kane’s hand. "Be still," Kane said in English. "Keep squirming and I’ll cut your whole nose off flush with your face right now and leave you for dead. For your own good, lie still and listen."
Güero quit squirming and tears filled his eyes.
"Aw, don’t cry. You’re a goddamned kidnapper who makes snuff movies. You don’t have any right to cry to try to move my heart. You terrorized my granddaughter. Your life is mine, now, so pay attention. Are you listening?"
Güero nodded.
"Good, here’s what I have to say. This can end here. If you want to make more of it, and that means if you bring charges against me, or any of my people, or try to take revenge on me, I won’t rest until I kick your rotting corpse to make sure you’re dead. I caught and killed Armando and the other three kidnappers on their way back to Nogales. I didn’t kill you at the warehouse, because my granddaughter, Luci, and Fatima were there. I held back because of them. However, you and I both know you deserve to die, because you took my granddaughter and her little friend away from me, and when I caught up you were only one click from snuffing them out. Don’t make me regret that I didn’t kill you.
"You still have to cope with Adan Martinillo. I don’t think he will let you live. You’re lucky I gave you back your ears and you were able to have them reattached. Enjoy them, because I don’t think Martinillo will want to send you to your grave without cutting them off again.
"Up to now, you have been very very lucky, but you do understand that I can change your luck again, don’t you?"
Güero looked Kane in the eye and said, "It’s over. I won’t cause you any more trouble. I swear."
"That’s good, bastard, because next time you raise a hand against me or mine in any manner, you die."
Kane found himself without wheels when he left the hospital. He was about to call a taxi when Fatima drove up. Kane got in beside her and told her he would buy breakfast. Fatima stopped at a restaurant that belonged to a widow friend of hers. The lady sat them at a table by her kitchen stove where fresh steam rose from a three-gallon kettle of menudo, a large skillet of eggs fried sunny-side up, a pile of beans fried in a pan, a kettle of beans boiled, and jerky fried in another skillet. A young girl gave tortillas their pats and laid them out on a large, clean expa
nse of the stovetop to cook. With that and Fatima’s company and the widow’s cheerful hospitality Kane’s blood slowed to a normal pace. The widow brought them café con leche, and after a while, freshly squeezed orange juice.
Over the meal Fatima wanted to know everything that had happened in the police station and the hospital. Now that she knew her son to be a pornographer, she wanted to know everything else he had been doing so she could give him the remedies he needed. She intended to find out everything that had been going on in that warehouse and how the Lupinos were involved.
”Jacobo and Ibrahim put a stop to Rafa’s movie before anyone got seriously hurt, so you don’t have to worry about their morals, courage, or principles," Kane said. "Be proud of them."
"They told me that Rafa directed a man to rape Luci Martinillo. Is that true?"
"You saw what he was doing."
"I saw something that I have not yet sorted out."
“Did you see a naked man on top of Luci with a knife in his hand?" Kane said.
"That was sick," Fatima said. "An awful, sinful thing."
"We1l, we got there in time," Kane said. "Thanks to you, Fatima."
"This is a catastrophe for my family. My father will be harder on Rafa than you were on Güero Rodriguez. He’ll probably want to castrate him."
"I don’t know, the old man is inordinately tolerant of Rafa."
"He loves his grandson. What can I say? He’s my son and we have to tolerate him. Will Dolly Ann be all right? I want to pay her medical expenses."
"She’s a little hard-twist, but we’ll have to see how she recovers. I’m very proud of the way she’s handled herself."
"It's good that you can still be proud of her. I’ve always wished I could be proud of my son, but he’s never been right about his values. It could be that he has no principles at all."
"What do you mean, ’still be proud of her'? Nothing could take away my pride in that girl."
"I mean, if she’d been raped, how could you have coped with the shame? She’d have been better off dead. Your family would be disgraced forever."
Kane heard the words and understood them to be a reflection of the differences in their beliefs, but thought, Right there, that's the reason I could never team up with this lady as her husband. Everybody else in the world can love their girls unconditionally, except a Muslim mother. Her girls will go to hell they sing and dance, or show a leg, and she’ll go to a place that’s just as awful somebody rapes her, or her daughter and so will her whole family. After a long moment in which he decided not to go into his and Fatima’s separate criteria for shame, Kane said, "I’m glad I don’t have to cope with the girl’s rape and death. How will you cope with Rafa’s depravity?"
"But he’s not depraved, Jim. He only has the powerful, dangerous urges of every man. Certainly the way he takes his pleasure behind closed doors is not abnormal for a man, is it?"
"You mean it’s only normal that he likes to take young girls by force, torture them, then snuff out their lives on film?"
"I don’t believe Rafa kidnapped those girls, or ordered Güero to do it. Have you considered that the girls might have wanted to play those parts in Rafa's movie, and the entire scene was only an act? These days, movies like that with stars as pretty as Dolly Ann and Luci make a lot of money. Your granddaughter and her friend might just be very good, enterprising little actresses. No one will ever make me believe that my son intended to take the girls’ lives. I know him better than anyone, and he’s not a murderer."
Fatima’s statement that the girls could make a lot of money surprised Kane. He did not want to distrust Fatima. He liked her. Even now in his old age he was attracted to her, but that was the fourth time in a very short period that he had heard a Lupino and their cohort say that Dolly Ann was worth a lot of money. However, he put it out of his mind. He wanted to trust Fatima and be good to her. Without her, he would still be looking for the girls. He would stop being suspicious of every Lupino. Rafa was the only Lupino who had done anything wrong.
Kane asked Fatima to take him to the hotel. He wanted to think this over. The war was not over.
The next morning the chief called Kane and Vogel at the hotel and told them that no charges would be filed against them by Güero Rodriguez, Rafa Lupino, or any of their associates. He told Kane he was a lucky man, because Rafa was willing to write the incident off as nothing more than a misunderstanding.
Kane and Vogel and company returned to Rio Alamos that morning. The girls stayed at Vogel’s house and were asked not to go out. Kane told Alicia that they should be locked in their room.
Oscar Vogel examined them within one hour of their arrival. Afterward, he stood outside the door to their bedroom and quietly proclaimed that their bodies had not been harmed, but their minds were probably still in shock. He was confident they would recover, but could not predict how soon.
As he sat in Alicia Vogel’s front room and listened to Oscar’s diagnosis and his answers to the questions of the women, Kane’s throat constricted again. The tightness spread to his jaws and ears, then down into his upper chest, and became painful as it spread to his left arm and down into his little finger, where it became an agony again. The doctor caught his eye just as he unconsciously pressed his fingers to his throat to ease the discomfort in his jaws. Kane looked away quickly.
Oscar needed to return to his office. The family escorted him to the door, but Kane kept his seat on Alicia’s divan. Oscar turned at the door and looked over the heads of the Vogel women at Kane, excused himself, and returned to the front room. He offered his hand and Kane looked up at him and shook it.
“You just turned pale as a ghost and took hold of your throat, Jim. Do you deny that you’re having some sort of spell?"
"No, but I’ve had it before and it will pass in a few minutes."
"Has it spread to your arm?"
"All the way down into my little finger, and it hurts like hell down there."
"At the very least, you’re having an angina attack. At the worst, for your information, it’s a heart attack."
"No, because it will go away in a little while."
"How do you know?"
"I told you. It’s happened before"
"How many times before?"
"Once."
"Ah, well, then you know all about it. You’re an old veteran."
"No, but it’s not all that painful and will go away."
"Would it do any good if I asked you to come to my office for an examination?"
"Not now."
"I want you in my office in one hour."
“Not now."
"No, not one hour. Within the hour."
"He’ll be there," Juan Vogel spoke up from the kitchen door behind the divan. He had been talking on the kitchen telephone.
That afternoon, armed with a tiny jar of nitroglycerine pills, Kane returned with his compadre Juan to the house, and Vogel announced the results of Oscar’s examination to the women. Kane had the blood pressure and pulse of a seventeen-year-old athlete, but he needed more tests. Kane would not say a word about any of it.
Kane and Vogel flew in Little Buck to the Sierra the next day to look for Martinillo. They buzzed the El Trigo hacienda, circled until Che Che came out and waved to them, then landed on the strip. Che Che came to the strip with Lagarto and Colorado, their saddle horses.
They penned Little Buck at the head of the strip, then rode down to Las Animas. They found Lucrecia all alone. Adancito had already sent her a messenger from San Bernardo with word of the deaths of Memin and Marco Antonio. Kane and Vogel hugged her, patted her shoulder, and gave their condolences. She knew the girls had been taken, but did not know they had been recovered. When the partners told her they were safe with Alicia Vogel, she wept with relief.
The partners headed for Canela. They hoped to find Martinillo’s tracks there, follow them to the high Sierra of La Golondrina, and find him. This time, they did not care that they were not invited to La Golondrina by Lupino.
Kane thought about Tepochici often. He had missed it as he recovered from his injuries. He knew his favorite spots in the Sierra never changed, but he often thought about them as he did people. He never stayed at Tepochici longer than to have a drink of water, but he was always thirsty and ready to get off his horse when he first looked down at the blue water from the cliff. He always enjoyed the beauty of the place for only a few minutes, then moved on and did not look back. However, when he found himself hundreds of miles away from his favorite places like Tepochici, he wondered if he would ever return. He hoped they would be unchanged if he did.
He found the pool unchanged this time, except that a man lay on his belly beside it and carefully drank from his cupped hands.
"¿Qué hubole? What have we here?" Vogel spoke under his breath, as though he did not want to startle the man. "It’s himself."
The man heard him and raised his face. He was Martinillo. He smiled, sat up, and crossed his legs to wait for them.