“Geraldo’s a blueblood,” Helmut said dryly.
Geraldo fixed Helmut with a humorless smile. “You are not always so funny as you think, Herr Heinrich.”
Carrying the tire, Robert shifted the webbed strap on the army haversack on his shoulder. He and Ana followed Helmut into the courtyard. Ana stayed close, her breathing ragged. Geraldo pulled the gate closed and followed.
Broken pottery, tin cans, shards of glass, paper, and bits of plastic littered the yard. In contrast, a collection of pots, bowls, and other artifacts fired in black clay stood in orderly rows, racked on wooden shelves against the inside walls.
Under a makeshift arbor near the center of the yard, an old woman in black, a mantilla draped over her head, worked gnarled hands in a plastic bucket near a mud oven. She looked identical to the old woman Robert had seen rising up beside the road with the two birds clutched in her hands—the old woman Ana swore wasn’t there. But this old woman was real, for sure.
In the nearby shade, black beans simmered in a lidless cast-iron pot over a bed of coals. A mange-ridden dog lay in a dust hole alongside a table supporting a wooden framework laced with strings of marigolds. The table, draped with an embroidered cloth, was heaped with baked breads, corn, mangos, squash, berries, and small sugar skulls with red and green candy eyes.
The dog cocked his head and watched as Helmut ushered them inside.
At the rear of the compound, a sagging roof of wood and scrap tin some fifteen feet in length and depth linked two mud-walled rooms. Sunlight pierced the failing roof with its burden of honeysuckle, the transvestite in the platinum wig visible in sharp slashes of light underneath. But what Robert saw, what he couldn’t take his eyes from, was yet another man in the shadows behind—naked, body bent forward, arms bent up behind as if about to dive into a pool.
“Hey, what’cha got there”? The crossdresser shouted to Helmut.
Robert realized the naked man’s hands were tied behind, fastened to a length of clothesline drawn up over one of the overhead beams, the other end tied off to an old engine block half buried in rubble.
“Hey, hey, hey!” The big man cried. He stomped on the rope, causing the naked man’s arms to jerk up behind. “Señor Valdez, you got company. Look sharp now!”
33
Madness
ROBERT STARED AT Valdez, at the welts, the cigarette burns, the urine that darkened the dirt under his bloodied bare feet. His mouth had been painted a bright, greasy red, eyelids a metallic green—a clownish parody of the big guy in the wig—mocking. Certain terrorists Robert had held incommunicado in Cairo flashed in his mental vision, the humiliations they had been subjected to.
Ana dropped the aluminum case with a convulsive catch of breath.
Helmut stopped, surveying the scene before him. “What have you done?” he demanded.
“We’re encouraging this old boy to get friendly,” said the big man in the wig, a drawly southern accent. He sauntered toward them in the orange blouse, Capri jeans, the wrecked blue pumps, his feet sluing out in a duck-walking swagger.
The black grit began to cloud the outer realms of Robert’s vision, floating as if in slow motion.
“You’ll do only what I tell you—” Helmut began, but Robert swung the tire into him. Helmut went down with an airless grunt. Robert leaped on him, clawing at the gun in his hand, but the big man drove his full weight into Robert’s back, slamming him face-first into the dirt. He caught one arm around Robert’s neck from behind and jerked his head back. In the same instant, Helmut scrambled from underneath and jammed the .22 against his temple. “The rope!” he shouted. “Tie him down!”
Robert struggled to breathe, ears ringing, only marginally aware of the big man’s body odor and cheap cologne, his fleshy pelvis pressing down, grinding over him.
Geraldo crouched, his weapon ready. “Kill him! Kill him!” he screamed.
“No killing!” Helmut yelled.
“Hey…!” The big man scrambled to his feet, fumbling at the two halves of Mickey’s broken sunglasses dangling on the cord around his neck. “Goddammit! Lookit what you done!”
In the confusion, Robert lunged again for Helmut. Helmut stumbled backward and they went down, Robert holding to the splint on Helmut’s finger. The .22 discharged with a bang as they hit the ground. For a moment Robert thought he was shot in the face, then realized the stinging was debris from the bullet ricocheting off the hardpan earth directly under his face. Before he could recover, the big man grabbed him by the hair and hammered him face-first into the dirt. Robert lost his bearings and after a second he felt only a pounding numbness—barely aware of Helmut shouting: “That’s enough! That’s enough” The big man let up, but the pounding in Robert’s head continued. Helmut pressed the gun-muzzle behind his ear. “Get the rope! Tie his hands!”
The big man flung the sunglasses off. “You broke ’em, you sorry-ass son of a bitch!”
Robert tried to get a fix on him in the fractured imagery glimmering in his field of vision, tried to curse the man in turn, but his mouth wasn’t working and the words slushed together. The big man slammed him again, caught both arms under his shoulders, interlocked his fingers behind his head and heaved down as if to break his neck.
Robert was vaguely aware of Ana screaming: “Stop it! Stop it!”
“Pull his head off like a chicken!” Geraldo shouted, his face squeezed red with breathy laughter.
“Enough!” Helmut yelled. “That’s enough!”
The big man let go. Robert collapsed in a heap. He couldn’t hold his head up, squeaky noises in his neck, behind his ears, face burning. His training had kicked in—normal thought and behavior subverted to emotionless logic—impervious to everything short of death itself.
The big man picked up his wig and slapped the dust out against his thigh. “Dammit to hell shit! This fuckin hair cost money!”
“Ooh,” Geraldo taunted, “you have dirty your little panties?”
Through a ringing haze of grit, Robert was conscious of Ana tossing her luggage, making a break for the gate. Geraldo caught up, leaped on her like an animal and buried his face in the hair at the back of her neck. She cried out, whirling and kicking, crumbling under his weight. Geraldo jerked her to her feet and shoved her stumbling before him. “This one is a tigre!” he shouted, and threw her in the rubble before Helmut. Helmut knelt and pried her hands from beneath her hair. Geraldo’s teeth had punctured her flesh, the wound swelling quick and dark. Geraldo wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, sucked his teeth with his tongue.
“You’re not to touch her again,” Helmut said.
“I bite her tits off!”
“Touch her again and I will kill you,” Helmut said.
Geraldo’s yellow-eyed gaze lingered on Helmut, but Helmut ignored him, holding the gun on Robert until the big man returned with a coil of clothesline. The big man buried his knee in Robert’s back, jerked his arms around, ripped his watch off and tied his wrists to his ankles in back.
“Her, too,” Helmut ordered. He lifted the leather purse from Ana’s neck and tossed it on a wooden table in the shade of the tin roof. The big transvestite jerked her arms behind her back. “Easy,” Helmut cautioned.
Robert leaned to one side and spat out a mouthful of syrupy red grit.
Helmut adjusted his glasses. “Hand me the mescal” he ordered Geraldo.
Geraldo tossed one of the bottles at him. Helmut caught it in his free hand, wincing a little, favoring the splint on his finger. His eyes narrowed on Geraldo with contempt. “Nothing more poisonous than the human mouth,” he said.
Ana flinched as Helmut splashed liquor on her wound. Helmut gave Geraldo another searing look, then gently lifted Ana to a kneeling position. He picked the Beretta out of the rubble and handed it to to the larger man. “This one,” he said, “has found it’s true father again.”
Geraldo sneered at the Beretta. “Those are but toys for old women to kill the cockroaches.” He lifted his machine-pistol high in one hand and kissed th
e fingertips of his other. “This is the fang of the snake for whose bite there is no cure!”
“Of course,” Helmut said. “Only a big old boy like you could handle a big old gun like that.”
Geraldo paused in midstride. “I think your mouth is what is big.”
Unperturbed, Helmut took the yellow-handled knife from his pocket and handed it to Geraldo. “Another bastard finds its luckless father.”
Geraldo took the knife, watching Helmut, uncertain. There was a squeezed-down brightness to his eyes and he had the jits. Robert recognized the symptoms—crystal meth. A speed freak.
Helmut took Robert’s brandy from his carry-on and set it on the table alongside two more bottles and a couple of black pottery cups. He poured a little into one of the cups, then tapped a cigarette from his pack and turned his attention to Valdez.
“Señor Valdez”—Helmut put the cigarette in his mouth, lit up and took a drag, holding it backward between thumb and forefinger, index finger in the splint, a red stain showing—“these friends say you do have the film. They say you gave them twenty thousand dollars for it. And”—he exhaled with a long sigh—“they do have twenty thousand dollars. I say this looks very bad for you. Ja? What do you say?”
The clumsy man in the wig ruffled his fingers through Valdez’s hair, almost gently. “Ja? What d’ya say to that, hot cakes? Ja?”
Through the grotesque makeup, Valdez cut Robert with a fierce stare. “Hah! I never see these people before.”
“Helmut,” Ana whispered urgently, “look at that poor man. How can you do this?”
Helmut sighed. “Ah, well. Bring up the luggage. Let us see if we missed something.”
The big man cleared the tabletop, he set Ana’s purse and the liquor bottles underneath with care.
Geraldo stood back, suddenly disengaged, peering up into the vine-clogged tin roof. His arms hung slack, little-boy shoulder blades thin as hatchets under his T-shirt. He stared at a hummingbird—a blue-green blur making a de-jit de-jit sound in the honeysuckle. He snapped out of it when Helmut swung Soffit’s aluminum case up onto the table and released the locks. Helmut removed the haversack and set it aside. Otherwise there were only a few articles of clothing Ana had purchased the evening before and a small zippered cosmetic case.
Geraldo sneered. “I think Jinx like to wear the little panties, eh Jinx? You like these pretty things?”
“That’s enough,” Helmut said.
“Helmut, please,” Ana begged. “Think of what you’re doing.”
He raised one shoulder at her in a kind of self-protective, imperious gesture. “It is not a personal thing. Only the work I do.”
“And just what is your work?” she said. “Murdering children?”
“These men, their methods are not mine.”
“I suppose you have nothing to do with Valdez here, either,” she replied.
Helmut made a dismissive gesture with a sweep of his hand. “I am not so barbaric.”
“Ja!” Geraldo mocked. “We are all inferior to the civilized German. Ja!”
“You are each and every one a prince among men,” Valdez said hoarsely. He sagged on the rope, knees barely touching the ground, arms drawn up behind in a painfully agonizing posture. Even with his clownish face, he looked on them with dignity, with an air of superiority.
“Gentlemen,” Helmut said, addressing Geraldo and the one he called Jinx, “I believe you have been properly chastised.”
They looked at one another, certain only that they were being further ridiculed. “He is the one who hang naked like a pig!” Geraldo shouted.
Helmut swung Ana’s new carry-on up onto the table and zipped it open.
“Sunglasses!” Jinx exclaimed, snatching a pair from among Ana’s things.
“Ah, sí, sí,” Geraldo taunted. “For a woman. These are for you, Jinx.”
“Put them back,” Helmut ordered.
Jinx pouted, but replaced the sunglasses with care.
Apparently satisfied that there was nothing of interest in her things, Helmut repacked the bag. Geraldo and Jinx stood by as Helmut picked through Robert’s carry-ons.
Robert’s head throbbed. One eyebrow had swollen, a shadowy overhang visible above his right eye. He scanned the yard, but saw nothing to work with, nothing to suggest a plan. The old woman knelt in a little patch of shade beneath the arbor, seemingly oblivious. The dog looked on from his dust hole, indifferent. The glare of heat in the yard smelled of honeysuckle, cheap perfume, urine, sweat.
There was a mud kiln and a mound of charcoal piled against the back wall under the tin roof connecting the two rooms. The upper part of a chicken roost—a grid of poles lashed together and slanted against the inside wall—was visible through a sashless window in the nearest room. Robert had an oblique view through the doorway into the second room where Jinx had gone for the rope, but all he could see was a calendar on the wall, and part of what might be a cornhusk mattress on the floor.
Helmut went through Robert’s new carry-on again, then cut the lining out and tossed it away, along with his clothing. He then placed the maroon carry-on on the table and dragged the contents out onto the tabletop. He unzipped the shaving kit and dumped it—safety razor, comb, nail-clippers, scissors, toothbrush, floss.
Geraldo showed his blackened teeth in a grin. “You like these pretty things, eh Jinx?”
Jinx ignored him, sullen.
The Ziploc with Mickey’s finger in the handkerchief fell out. Helmut opened the Ziploc and shook out the handkerchief. Mickey’s shrunken finger plopped on the table before Geraldo.
Geraldo stared for a moment, then leaped back with recognition. “Santo Dios!”
“Geraldo,” said Helmut, “this finger, it will come and visit you at night when you sleep.”
Geraldo’s pinpoint eyes fixed on the finger. “Hah. I am not so superstitious…but it is bad luck to have this thing.”
“You carry your bad luck up here,” Helmut said, gesturing at his head.
Helmut rolled Mickey’s finger back into the handkerchief and put it away. He ripped the lining out of the second carry-on. The two remaining cardboard rectangles laced with cartridges fell out. Helmut smiled at Geraldo. “For your abuela to kill las cucarachas.”
Geraldo stared at Helmut, though his gaze was vague and could just as well have been fixed on some indeterminate point in the distance.
“No sunglasses,” Jinx muttered gloomily.
Robert could only watch as Helmut pulled the projector out of the haversack and began removing the rear plate.
“Santo Dios!” Geraldo muttered as Helmut slid the canister out. “Contrabandista?”
Jinx gazed at Robert with something like new respect. “God damn, son. Cocaine?”
Helmut set the canister on the table and inspected the housing.
Geraldo cut his grin toward Ana. “Ah. We take a little taste to see the quality, then I think we have a little party.”
“Like hell!” Jinx said. “That’s not what we’re here for.”
“Jinx, he is jealous of the señorita’s sweet red tits, ’ey?”
“Geraldo, that is enough,” Helmut said. “Jinx, bring the tire up here.”
Geraldo and Jinx exchanged looks. Jinx picked up the heavy tire and plopped it on the table with a solid thud. Helmut pressed the knife’s leather punch into the valve stem. Jinx leaned his weight on the tire. A little air whistled out, then the seal popped free around the rim. Helmut opened the knife’s serrated blade and sawed back and forth, cutting a C into the sidewall. He pulled the flap up, shoved his hand inside and withdrew a fistful of hundred-dollar bills.
“Santo Dios!” Geraldo whispered.
“Hah! I think you are all in big trouble now,” Valdez mumbled with effort.
All eyes turned to Valdez.
“You think Geraldo will not kill you for the drugs? And now so much money as this? Hah!”
Geraldo sprang at Valdez, swung his foot back and kicked him in the face as if punting a
football. Valdez’s head snapped back. His bowels let go and bile ran down his legs. He hung quivering on the rope, blood gushing from his mouth. “Son of a pig!” Geraldo positioned himself to kick Valdez again.
“Stop!” Helmut held the .22 wavering over Geraldo. “He dies, so do you.”
34
Geraldo
“SHOOT HIM!” Robert cried. “Shoot him!”
Geraldo’s yellow eyes shimmied and locked on the gun. “It is a good thing to have one’s life insured by the great CIA of US America, eh, Herr Heinrich?”
“Untie him,” Helmut said. “Take him out in the yard and clean him up. Jinx, give him a hand.”
“Helmut, are you crazy? Shoot him while you still can!”
Geraldo’s rage-filled eyes dwelt briefly on Robert before he took the yellow-handled knife from his pocket and cut the rope near the engine block. Valdez dropped face-first into the dirt.
Jinx untied Valdez’s hands. “I think his arms are already dead.”
“Then pick up the already dead arm!” Geraldo shouted.
“Hey! Watch your mouth.” Jinx, wig skewed, took Valdez by one arm while Geraldo strained on the other. They dragged Valdez across the yard on his stomach, indifferent to the debris, and let him down by the arbor.
Geraldo shouted at the old woman in Spanish. Heedless, she poured a soupy mixture into a plastic bucket and covered it with a damp cloth. “Chingar!” Geraldo shouted, and kicked the bucket across the yard, the yellow mix stringing out.
“Hey!” Jinx shouted. “What the hell’s wrong with you?”
“I tell her to get water, she sits.”
“So? She’s old. What d’you expect?”
“I don’t like this old Indio with her ugly face!”
Jinx took two plastic buckets and started toward the gate. “You don’t like anything. You make yourself crazy. You make us all crazy!”
“Watch your tongue!” Geraldo shouted after him.
The old woman sat still, her small, flesh-enfolded eyes fixed on the cakes on the sheet-iron before her.
“Helmut,” Robert said, “can’t you see he’s totally nuts? He’s going to kill us all, you included. If you don’t care about yourself, at least think about Ana.”
The Dogs of Mexico Page 24