“That neighbor across the fence, the woman in the next church pew. The old lady peeking out from behind the curtains, is she a harmless village busybody or one of Don Carlos’s spies? It’s hard to tell. How can you be sure? Yet to pass a word in the wrong ear in the wrong place at the wrong time can mean death for the unlucky. Not the unwary, for all are on their guard. But the unlucky, for blind chance so often decides who shall live and who shall die.”
“How do you know you can trust us?” Remy asked.
“How do you know you can trust me?” Herrera countered. “Perhaps even now I am the Judas goat leading you to the slaughterhouse, señores?”
“How, indeed?” Sam wondered.
An uncomfortable pause dropped into the conversation. Herrera’s brittle laugh broke the tension. “Put your minds at ease, gentlemen, I am no traitor,” he said.
Sam wasn’t worried, not about Herrera betraying them. He prided himself on his ability to read people and all his instincts told him that Herrera was all right. And if by some fluke he were not all right, he would be the first to die. Sam would see to that.
“Don Carlos’s men killed my brother when he protested the slave raids on the campesinos. They shot him down like a dog,” Herrera went on. “Don Carlos thinks I don’t know the truth and I never let on that I do. That is how I have managed to worm my way into his confidence so now I am placed at the black heart of the slave master’s operation, ready to strike.”
As he spoke, Herrera’s face remained carefully composed, with only a bitter twist at the corner of his mouth to betray the intense emotion dammed up within. His tone was casual, offhand, as if discussing some trivia of the day.
“I laugh at their jokes, grovel for their filthy money, and look the other way among their numberless infamies. All the time I am waiting, waiting for the day that I cast aside the mask and take my vengeance. The day when I become the worm that gnaws at the heart, the worm that kills.”
“With any luck that day is about to dawn,” Sam said. “Unsteady lies the head that wears the crown, the head of Don Carlos.”
“May it be so, my friends. In any case, you come well recommended. You could not hope for a better sponsor than the Chacon,” Herrera said.
“Being a bandit and cutthroat his references are impeccable, eh?” Remy joked.
“In Pago, yes. Gila Chacon is the one man those of us who hate Don Carlos and his works can be sure of. The Chacon will never turn his coat and become one of Don Carlos’s creatures. There is no reconciling those two. Theirs is a peculiarly pure mutual hatred. They are locked in a blood feud which can only end with the death of one or the other, or both.”
“Why do they have a big hate on for each other?” Sam asked Herrera.
“Gila is a campesino, a peasant. He comes from a long line of peasants bound to the Vega estancia, the estate. I speak now of the original Vega bloodline, the real one, not the newcomer who bought the title. The last of the de la Vegas went bankrupt after building the opera house. He died shortly after of taking poison—whether by his own hand or another’s, who can say?
“He lived long enough to sell his lands and title to Carlos Mondregón, going so far as to adopt him, to ensure that the title and patent of nobility would pass directly to him. Old Vega was then so considerate as to conveniently die, permitting Mondregón to become the newly ennobled Don Carlos.
“When he made himself master of the estancia, Don Carlos began by showing the peasants that his was a new regime. He did this with violence and brutality, lavishly dispensed by his private army of pistoleros and thugs. Where his predecessor ground the peons fine, he ground them to dust. Many died by the shootings and beatings and torture, more by starvation.
“The males of the Chacon family butchered a Vega cow to avoid perishing for want of food. They took what meat they needed and gave the rest to their relatives and neighbors. To make an object lesson of them, Don Carlos killed all the male Cha-cons, from the oldest graybeard to the youngest babe in arms. The father and his two oldest sons Don Carlos hanged, leaving them hanging until the flesh dropped from their bones.
“By sheer luck, young Gila was away from home when the vaqueros came for the others, and so he escaped. Don Carlos put a price on his head and a sentence of death on any who might aid the boy with food or shelter. But Gila did not die. Somehow, he escaped to run away and survive.
“He became an outlaw, a bandit. As soon as he was able, he began bedevilling Don Carlos: stealing his horses, rustling his cattle, shooting down his vaqueros whenever he could find them. The last of his line, and now the first when it came to deeds of blood and valor, Gila was acclaimed as The Chacon.
“Neither Don Carlos nor Capitán Bravo—then Teniente Bravo, Lieutenant Bravo you would call him—could catch him. He made fools of both of them. The clamor reached Mexico City, where Bravo’s superior officers became displeased. They put a black mark beside his name in the official records, ensuring that Bravo would never rise higher than the rank of captain and never command a post more prestigious than the Pago presidio.
“This went on for some time. Then came the old, old story. The Chacon’s woman was Carmen Oliva, a fiery beauty with a body made by Satan to lead the race of Adam astray. She was a faithless slut, a born whore—as much of a born whore as her vicious half-brother, Dorado, was a born killer. Carmen could be had by anyone for a few pesos or a cheap trinket. It was common knowledge known to all except the bandido, or if he knew, he was so besotted with her charms that he chose to ignore the truth. Carmen was not only his woman, she was his wife, married to him by a priest in a church.
“You can guess the rest. Carmen decided she was the Chacon’s woman no more. She took up with Capitán Bravo first, but quickly moved on to better prospects: Don Carlos himself. She needed little urging to betray the outlaw for gold, baiting him into a death trap sprung by soldiers and the vaqueros. Yet somehow, the Chacon managed to break free, though not before being seriously wounded.
“That was some years ago. Since then, the Chacon has long since recovered from his wounds and resumed his career of banditry with a new gang somewhere a long way from here, though he sneaks into Pago from time to time to work some devilment on his old foe. No, he and Don Carlos will never rest until death writes el fin to the blood feud.
“Many of us hate Don Carlos and will not rest until he is destroyed. But we don’t want to throw away our lives needlessly. Too many martyrs have already died in desperate ploys with little or no chance of success.
“Now it remains to be seen what you can do, señores. Show us how to do the deed in a way that will win and you will find us ready and willing to do what we can to help; aye, even at the cost of our lives. For be sure that there is no way you can throw down the challenge to Don Carlos without putting your own lives at risk.
“As, indeed, you do now,” Pepe Herrera said, smiling thinly. “But now we are here at La Casa. Best we speak of other things. You must be the rich, carefree whoremonger and his hired gun, while I embrace my role of grinning, fawning toady to a gang of pimps and killers.”
The trio had halted some distance from the opera house while Herrera told his tale of blood, lust, and vengeance unslaked. They now resumed walking, closing briskly on the opera house.
“Puts a different slant on Gila, eh?” Remy remarked.
“Um,” Sam said, noncommittal, thoughtful. But not so deep in thought as to be unaware of his surroundings, which he monitored with his senses heightened to their keenest pitch.
Well-dressed folk strolled about the grounds and gardens, taking their ease. They were obviously buyers in town for the slave auction. Most were men, but there were some women, whorehouse madams and procuresses. All were well fed proudly flaunting the accoutrements of prosperity, having achieved the good life by doing bad.
Some bared their evil nature openly stamped on face and form, with animalistic visages and twisted bodies. Others were handsome and attractive, beautiful and alluring. Some looked and dressed
like respectable businessmen; others like racetrack touts. Pimps and vice merchants from the cities of the interior and the coasts often were dressed loudly, flashily, with showy hats, flamboyant cravats, and brocaded vests, thick gold chains, and diamond pinky rings.
The bodyguards almost always could be seen for what they were—gunmen, pistoleros. They stayed close to their paymasters, but not too close. Some wore weapons openly in holstered gun belts; others concealed theirs under suit jackets and inside hip pockets where they made obvious bulges.
Noting their behavior, Sam faded back a pace or two, trailing Remy from behind and to the side. He, Remy, and Herrera crossed the curved drive fronting the structure. A brick apron led to a wide, curving marble staircase. Long shallow steps were arranged in tiers separated by wide landings. The trio climbed the stairs to the portico, passing between Greek–style Corinthian columns decorated with elaborate stonework.
They went under an overhanging pediment roof, out of the sunlight into the shadow. Several small knots of people stood scattered among the pillars, putting their heads together, talking among themselves. Some of the women gave Sam and Remy frankly appraising looks, liking what they saw.
Men, too, looked them over openly or with sidelong glances, seeing them as competition and wondering: how rich? How ruthless, dangerous? How much of a threat, if any, are they to me?
The pistoleros saw that the newcomers wore their guns openly and carried themselves as if they knew how to use them and wouldn’t shy from doing so if challenged.
A central set of big brass double doors was propped open. Sam, Remy, and Herrera passed beneath an arched entryway into a high-ceilinged, vaulting lobby and entrance hall, the checkerboard marble floor echoing to their footfalls. It was cooler indoors, out of the sun.
A few paces beyond the entrance and to one side of it stood a uniformed doorman and two armed guards.
That the guards had been recruited from among Don Carlos’s vaqueros was obvious from their prominent bowlegs, born from a lifetime spent in the saddle. They had shed sombreros, ponchos, and leather chaps for dark, short bolero jackets, white shirts, black string ties with silver-and-turquoise bolos, red sash cummerbunds, and black wide-bottomed pants over black boots. Impassive, stone-faced, they were armed with big-caliber six-guns and repeating rifles.
The doorman was decked out in ceremonial regalia like a Swiss admiral. He wore gold horsecomb epaulets over a black scissor-tail coat, starched white shirt, lace cuffs, red satin sash worn diagonally across his chest, and gray pinstripe pants.
His face suggested that of a pickled fish: tart, dour, with salt-and-pepper hair, hooded eyes, mouth downturned with deep lines at the corners. The picture was completed by stooped shoulders, a froglike paunch, and thin stooped legs.
Herrera held a hand up in greeting, the other nodding coolly in return. “Good morning, Álvaro.”
“Pepe.” The doorman looked questioningly at the two strangers.
“Buyers,” Herrera said, not slackening his pace. Álvaro waved Remy and Sam through. The three started across the main floor, Herrera leading a pace ahead, angling now to the left.
“Hold up there! One moment, gentlemen, if you please!” Implicit in the sharply ringing command was its subtext: even if you don’t please, halt!
A clerkish-looking fellow charged up to the trio, now halted. He was short, thin, with an oversized head sprouting a thatch of unruly black hair and a bristling black beard. A pair of wire-rim spectacles with thumbprint-sized, green-tinted lenses perched on the middle of a wide-bridged nose.
The armed guards posted near the entrance stiffened. They were blank faced, but paying close attention, ready to take their cue from the clerk.
Visitors in the lobby turned their heads, looking to see what the disturbance was all about.
“Sebastiano, Don Carlos’s man. And nobody’s fool,” Herrera said to Sam and Remy in a rasping whisper out of the corner of his mouth.
“Would you gentlemen please step over to the side?” Sebastiano’s command was couched in the form of a question
“What’s all this?” Remy Markand inquired, looking supremely nonchalant. Sam was blank faced, watchful, as befitted a bodyguard, as well as his own self-contained nature.
“Please,” Sebastiano said, gesturing to the direction in which he wanted them to go. The two armed guards came up behind Sam and Remy, who had to proceed as Sebastiano indicated or risk the guards colliding into them.
The two fell into step, good humored, easy. When they were sufficiently isolated from the others in the lobby, Sebastiano circled around so that he was facing them. He had small, neat hands. He held them clasped in front of his belt buckle. The guards stood behind the duo.
“This is your first time at the exhibition,” Sebastiano said. “I crave the privilege of making your acquaintance and examining your credentials. Entrance to these premises is restricted to members of the trade.”
“Credentials?” Remy echoed, arching an eyebrow in mild query of his interrogator. “Sorry, but I didn’t bring any of my sporting fillies with me to Pago. Seemed like carrying coals to Newcastle, no? This trip I buy, not sell.
“Credentials!” he snorted, shaking his head with amusement.
Herrera laughed easily. “I found these two strays wandering about the zócalo trying to find the opera house, Sebastiano, so I brought them here. I’m hoping to earn myself a finder’s fee for steering these gentlemen to the merchandise.”
“Looks like you’ve got competition,” Remy said, eyeing Sebastiano with just the right amount of amused insolence.
“Our custom is reserved to members of the trade, a specialized clientele,” Sebastiano continued, unfazed. “We reserve the right to refuse admittance.”
“Kind of exclusive, ain’t you, amigo?” Sam said, taking a step forward, the steely-eyed bodyguard taking his client’s part in the dispute. The guards grumbled, stirring uneasily, edging forward, but still a long way off from being committed to action.
“Now now, Cherokee, no need for impertinence. This gentleman is only doing his job,” Remy said, putting a brief but noticeable pause in his voice before saying the word “gentleman,” as though there might be some slight quibble in ascribing that status to Sebastiano. But that he, Remy, was broadminded enough to stretch the definition of the word to the man now confronting him.
Sebastiano picked up on it, a faint tinge of red coloring his cheeks.
“Yes, we know of the enterprise in Pago, even in the quaint little backwater from which I hail, a charmingly insignificant and unimportant provincial hamlet—New Orleans,” Remy said. “Perhaps you’ve heard of it?”
“You are a long way from los Estados Unidos, señor,” Sebastiano said stiffly.
“Quite, and I hope it doesn’t prove to be a wasted trip.”
“We shall see, we shall see. You are . . . ?”
“Monsieur Jules Duval, owner and proprietor of the House of the Rising Sun in the Quartier Latin—French Quarter to you.”
“I know what the Quartier Latin is, sir.”
“Then you know that the Rising Sun is one of the most expensive and exclusive pleasure palaces on the Gulf Coast, monsieur. My customers demand the best and are willing to pay for it. So am I. As you must know, there’s a fast turnover in the trade. The patrons are always looking for something new. And what’s newer and more precious in this wicked old world but innocence? Tender young flesh, unspoiled and new. For that I’ll pay top dollar, provided it lives up to advance billing and is as advertised.”
“The exhibition promises satisfaction guaranteed. We require the same of our clients—that they be what they seem to be.”
“I could provide a dozen references from my colleagues in New Orleans. They’d be glad to vouch for me. Be sure to exercise discretion in wording your telegram inquiries, please.”
“The nearest telegraph lines are in Mexico City. Perhaps one of the other buyers could vouch for you?”
“This is my first visit. T
he reason I’m down here is because I’m looking to develop new markets.”
“Are there not young girls enough in your homeland to satisfy your needs?”
“Virgins? In New Orleans? Don’t be ridiculous! After all, we can’t just grab them off the street and carry them away like you do here.”
“There’s a little more to it than that, sir,” Sebastiano said, coloring once more.
“Don’t get me wrong, I don’t speak ill of it. Quite the contrary. I admire what you’ve done here,” Remy said. Reaching into his jacket’s inside pocket, he took out his money pouch, loosening the draw-stings and opening its mouth. He poured a quantity of gold coins into an open palm, the glittering golden disks jingling with their cheery music.
“I daresay my money is as good as any man’s here,” Remy said, stray sunbeams glinting off the coins to underlight his face with golden highlights.
Sebastiano eyed the coins, little golden glints mirrored in the dark of his eyes. He breathed deeply, nostrils quivering as he came to a decision.
“Your credentials are impeccable, monsieur. Welcome to the Pago exhibition,” he said, forcing a wintry smile.
“Delighted,” Remy said, discreetly pressing several gold coins into Sebastiano’s hand.
“That’s not necessary, sir, but thank you,” Sebastiano said, pocketing the money. “A bit risky traveling about Mexico with such a large sum.”
“This? Pocket change,” Remy pooh-poohed. “My real assets are being held in reserve for the auction. As for the danger, I can take care of myself.
“My associate Cherokee also protects my interests,” he added, indicating Sam.
“Very good, monsieur. A pleasure to make your acquaintance,” Sebastiano said.
He nodded to the two guards, making shooing motions with his fingers, as if brushing away insect pests. They withdrew, returning to their post inside the front entrance.
“The livestock will be available for viewing until sundown tonight, and all day tomorrow. The auction begins tomorrow night promptly at eight o’clock. And we do mean promptly at eight. In a moment, Pepe will show you what you want to see and answer any questions you may have,” Sebastiano said. “Pepe, a brief word please.”
Blood Bond 16: A Hundred Ways to Die Page 23