“Talk?”
“Yeah, talk. Maybe you could tell me what’s been eating you.”
He cleared his throat and spit on the floor. “Well, look everybody, it’s Martin Fender, the great bandleader. He walks, he talks, he takes his guitar player out on a leash. You wanna fire me, Martin, is that it? You got some other player in mind? Somebody who reminds you more of the late, great KC? Lemme tell you something, Martin, I can’t drink as much bourbon as he could and maybe I don’t play as fucking loud as he did, but I can play as good as him any night of the week and I didn’t let my old lady get the best of me and then blow my fucking brains out.”
I didn’t say anything. Then, as suddenly as his hostility erupted, it faded, and his face fell into a slack, boyish expression. “Aw hell. I’m sorry.”
“It’s OK,” I said, sighing. “Why don’t we call it a night?” Billy nodded in agreement.
Leo said, “Well, you guys go on and go. I think I’ll stick around, work on this guitar. Maybe sleep here, I dunno.”
“Trouble at home?” I said.
Nodding slowly, he said, “Nadine, she . . . well, I think we need some, uh, you know . . .”
“Space,” I said.
“Yeah, that’s it.”
I went over and slapped him on the back, then packed up my instrument. Billy got his sticks and followed me out. Once we were outside the warehouse, he said, “Don’t worry, Martin. He’s not as dumb as he acts. He’ll work it out.”
“Without our help, right?”
Billy sighed. “What can you do? Don’t tell me you’ve never had a problem you didn’t want to share with your pals.”
“He’s at the point where he’s sharing it with us whether he wants to or not. We may not be the Three Musketeers, but sooner or later he’s going to mess up bad, and we’ll either be his accomplices or his victims. The world is not made up of a bunch of separate, insulated compartments, you know.”
“OK, Martin. Whatever you say. But I’m no psychologist. I’m just a drummer. And right now, I’ve got a date with a girl around the corner from you who drives a Porsche. You think it would be OK if I park the van at your place and pick it up later?”
“Sure you don’t want to use the van?” I asked.
“Nah, she’s not the back of the van type,” he said, laughing. “Neither am I. I got a bad back, you know.”
CHAPTER NINE
While we waited for his date to pick him up, Billy and I talked about Donald Rollins.
“I wonder how a person gets like that,” he said, “so out there, so cut off from everybody that they can just drop off the face of the earth? I mean, you gotta let a lot of things go to get like that, so that you just don’t give a damn.”
“And no one gives a damn about you,” I added.
“Well, you’re right there. I mean, we all liked him fine when he was tending bar, sliding those free drinks over to us, didn’t we? I mean, he was a great guy back then, always on the guest list, we gave him free records and all that. But when he was rolling through the supermarket parking lots, asking people if they were ‘looking for a bargain on some stereo equipment,’ we didn’t talk to him too much, did we?”
“He wasn’t such a great guy at that point. Maybe he never was a great guy. Just because we might have been a little over- solicitous when he was living the straight life doesn’t mean we out and out turned our backs on him when he wasn’t.”
“You’re right. I’m just playing devil’s advocate here. Besides,” he added dryly, “he had Vick and Ed for friends, didn’t he?”
“You mean, with friends like that . .
“I don’t know much about it, man. Nothing, in fact. But I ran into Donald’s sister this afternoon, and she was running them down pretty bad. Said they ruined Donald. Ruined him as a person.”
A Porsche Speedster roared up, and Billy got up and shook my hand firmly. “What the hell, Martin? We all gotta go sometime.” The Speedster’s door swung open and I caught a glimpse of long, wavy blond hair. Billy climbed in, shut the door, and hollered out the open window, “Don’t worry about it, man. Nothing you could do about it.” Then they roared off.
&&&
I was sitting in the van, thinking that Billy was right. There was nothing I could have done about it. Donald Rollins had just been one of those people you don’t know, but see often enough to pretend you do. It doesn’t mean you’re friends, and it doesn’t mean you have any special obligations to look after him. But I’d snapped at Billy just a half hour earlier, saying that the world wasn’t broken up into separate, insulated compartments. And he wasn’t going to let me forget about it. I felt like a hypocrite.
I felt a disquieting mixture of familiarity and alienation sitting in the van. There was the stale smell of cigarettes and booze and road food and the characteristic scent of band equipment that has been given a good workout and then loaded into close quarters, and I knew that if I leaned back into the seat and closed my eyes the comforting sensation of rolling down a highway en route to another one-nighter would come easy. It struck me that the road trip had been, in some ways, like a working vacation. Now I felt a million little responsibilities tugging at me that I hadn’t felt on the road. It was time to start dealing with them. I got out of the van and locked it up. Number one on my list of things to do was to pay Vick Travis another visit.
But before I did that, I went inside and drew up a little contract.
“I think you just might be crazy, Martin,” said Vick. He held the typewritten pages under the light, waving them so that they crackled. “You want a shot of Cuervo?”
I declined, but he turned around and opened a drawer on the desk and brought out a quart bottle anyway. Then he made a face after he checked the level. “Damn. That Eddie’s been in here again.”
“Pushing a mop can make you work up a thirst real quick, I imagine,” I said.
“So can blackmail. Sure you don’t want a shot?”
“Not right now. What do you think of the contract?”
He poured a couple of fingers of the gold tequila in a shot glass and took it all in one gulp and picked up the contract again, hissing through his teeth as the tequila did its stuff. “OK, Martin, so you want my store. The way I read this, I give you the store in return for your ‘assistance in a private matter.’ Hah. I like that wording.”
“But you also have my word that I’ll help you for the thousand bucks you offered, plus pretend this contract never existed, unless," I emphasized, “it turns out that you’ve lied to me.”
“Your word."
“I’m taking you on faith, you can take me. Share the risk, in other words.”
“This joint’s only worth about ten grand after debts.”
“Used to be worth fifteen.”
He tilted his head back and let out a laugh. “OK, fifteen. Whatever. You know, the funny thing is, after I get the hundred grand, even if I shell out twenty on this blackmail thing, I’ll still have eighty. So I was thinking about lamming outta here. Maybe buy a farm in Mexico. So hell, if you’re interested in running the place . . .”
“I’m not. I already told you, it’s just insurance, encouragement for you to be straight with me. One other thing, though, I need to know.”
“What is it now?”
“Donald Rollins.”
“Don,” he said, shaking his head. “Poor ole Don. Used to be a damn good bartender. Had this German shepherd named Alamo. Got run over by a semi. His old lady run off the next day too. Poor ole Don. Used to be a good bartender.”
“Yeah, I share your sympathy,” I said. “Did you give him any while he was alive?”
Vick’s head rocked back as if I’d slugged him again. “OK, Martin, look here. Don owed me some money, and we worked it out, OK? He used to borrow money from me all the time, and we always worked something out. I didn’t sell him no heroin. He was fine when he left here.”
“I guess I’ll have to take your word on it. But you’d better not be lying to me.”
“I ain’t lying, OK? Christ, Martin, you think I’d shoot up one of my friends with smack and dump ’em in the river?”
“No, I guess I don’t. That’s all for now, then. You going to sign the contract?”
“You get off my ass for a minute I might,” he said, sighing and shaking himself. He started to write his name, then looked up suddenly as if pricked by some private thought. “You know, none of this would be necessary if the goddamn guy from the record company would fly in here in the morning with a check. Then I could tell these guys to kiss my ass, tell the whole world I used to do business with Bingo Torres, South Texas Payola King, a k a Danny Cortez. None of this would be necessary if the IMF boys would just get here and do the deal.”
As I watched him put the pen down to the paper again, I wondered why he hadn’t said that before. Suddenly he leaned back in the chair and giggled.
“Martin, you know how he got that name, Bingo?” I shook my head. He leaned forward, grinning. “His daughter. When she was little, he’d hold her on his lap and play a little game, looking for her tickle spots. Whenever she’d start giggling, he’d say ‘Bingo.’ So she used to call him that instead of Daddy. She hasn’t been around here in twenty years I bet, but I like to think she still calls him that. Kinda brings him down to size, you know?”
“Are you gonna sign that or not?”
He nodded and scratched out his name. “The kid wasn’t more than two, three years old when the wife took off with her. Mrs. Torres was a good-lookin’ gal, too. Tall, blonde, looked kinda like Kim Basinger ...”
He signed both copies, and he poured two more shots. After we’d downed them he looked at me with glassy eyes and said, “OK, now what? They called again today. They said to get the money.”
“Where are you going to get it?”
For a moment, he didn’t seem to have heard me. He got a faraway look in his eyes and said, “He’s too good for me now. You think he cares about my problem? And it’s his fault. But he doesn’t care. He’s too big, too rich to care.”
“So what?” I groaned. “Where are you going to get the money?”
He laughed like a bandido. “You’re gonna like this: from Bingo Torres.”
CHAPTER TEN
The next morning I drove out there. Vick was pretty certain that Bingo was the right place to go for the money. For one thing, he’d have it. For another, this was the in-between world of pimping, smuggling, payola, land flipping, and other shady enterprises; honor and codes were more important here than the United Nations charter was among heads of state. But Vick didn’t say all these things. He just rubbed his fat stomach and said, “A favor’s a favor.”
Only, they hadn’t spoken to each other in three years, and that was why I was driving out over the high wooded hills on Ranch Road 2222, resisting the sideways pull of the winding road, thinking about how Vick had reacted to Bingo’s achievement of success like a spurned lover, like every dollar that Bingo accumulated was another act of infidelity. It didn’t matter that they hadn’t been partners in Bingo’s most successful ventures, it only mattered that Bingo had a huge house overlooking Lake LBJ and several black cars, including at least one Mercedes, while Vick Travis was still a junk salesman.
It was a blindingly hot morning with the convertible top down, the air clear but heavy with the smell of the ubiquitous cedar, and as I savored the road’s swings to the left and right, it seemed that the situation had its own goofy symmetry. Vick and Bingo needed each other. Vick needed Bingo’s money. Bingo needed to keep Vick off the stand if and when he went to trial. It didn’t matter that, aside from the minor local records that Bingo had financed, most of Vick’s firsthand information on Bingo’s payola machinery was probably twenty-year-old news. I knew I wouldn’t want him testifying at my trial—on either side. The jury wouldn’t even hear his testimony; probably they’d just look at the 320-pound monster and say, Whoa, crime is ugly, ain’t it? I briefly considered the possibility that Bingo was blackmailing Vick himself, just as a test of loyalty.
But Vick wouldn’t be likely to incriminate himself and thereby risk having the IMF deal blow up in his face. Besides, in Vick’s opinion, Bingo was too busy with his own legal problems to know anything about the IMF deal. However, someone knew. Someone who knew that Vick had something to hide.
The theory of the loyalty-test-blackmail scheme seemed to collapse under its own weight, raising more questions than it answered, and it fell apart completely when I heard the mellifluous Spanish-inflected tenor on the telephone, saying, Sure, come on out, I’m sure I can be of some help to poor Victor.
But I still wanted to ask him if he knew Retha Thomas.
&&&
The house was just off the road, high up on a scenic overlook, precariously situated just before a curve that dropped sharply down toward the lake. The place screamed for attention with matching turrets jutting up from the second-floor balcony, Texas flags waving in the breeze, but to take a good look at it while driving by was to risk going off the side of the mountain or colliding with an oncoming car.
I parked next to a black Mercedes station wagon, walked up to the front door, and rang the bell. A Mexican boy in huaraches and white shirt and shorts greeted me, let me in, and escorted me out back, all without speaking any English.
Three Hispanic men sat poolside drinking Big Red sodas as they watched an androgynous-looking teenage girl dive off the diving board. All three wore sunglasses, and all three giggled like school kids as the girl hit the water and they were showered with the spray.
The one in the middle wearing a black cowboy hat and a white guayabera put his Big Red down on the wrought-iron table, smiled, and extended his hand.
“Hey Martin,” he said as he pumped my hand, “how’s it going?” He pointed to a chair across from him, and before I got a chance to answer, added, “You know, you’re one hell of a bass player. Damn good.”
“Thanks, Mr. Torres.”
“Bingo, Martin, Bingo. Everybody calls me Bingo that I like. I don’t like somebody, I send Roberto here to shoot them, right, Roberto?”
Roberto nodded, a stone-faced caricature of a Mexican gangster with an electric-blue suit and a black shirt, the collar open wide so you could see his turquoise necklace. The other companion looked vaguely like a professional man on holiday, a doctor or a lawyer. His suit was more conservative, his smile more tentative, his Rolex half hidden by a five-button cuff. He remained nameless.
“Martin, who was that guy, played a black Les Paul, left- handed, upside down?” he said, still smiling, scratching the back of his neck.
“Spider Wilcox?”
“Yeah, that’s the one. You played with him back in ’79, didn’t you? Down in Harlingen, big rock festival?”
“Yeah, I played with him.”
“That was a good show, Martin. You guys rocked their socks off, man.”
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. I promoted that show. I made ten thousand dollars. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” I said. “So you understand why I’m here?”
“You said that poor Victor is being blackmailed, because of me?”
“I’m afraid so. Because of Danny Cortez, actually.”
He laughed, looked at his companions, who were looking slightly uncomfortable, and not because of the heat, and then looked back at me, and wasn’t smiling anymore. “Don’t mention that name again, Martin. OK?”
“OK.” Evidently Bingo Torres, as Danny Cortez, had done some things besides act as executive producer and sing “It’s a Man’s, Man’s, Man’s World” in Spanish. Things that the feds would probably like to add to their indictment.
“So how come poor Victor needs this twenty thousand dollars? On the phone you said he wanted to borrow the money. That is what you meant, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. That’s what I said. He can pay it back real soon. It would be a very short-term loan.”
He nodded. “That’s good, because I have to wonder somethin
g. On the phone you say he needs the money because someone wants to go into business with him, but someone else wants to tell this prospective partner that poor Vick used to be partners with me. Am I right so far?”
“Yes, Bingo.”
“You can’t tell me who this person or persons are that want to go into business with him, but you say they would not go into business with him if they knew he used to associate with me.”
“That’s right.”
“You know how that makes me feel? You know it hurts my feelings?” It wasn’t something I’d considered, but I nodded sympathetically, just the same. He leaned forward. “Whenever I get a feeling, Martin, you know what I ask myself? I ask myself, Is this feeling just a sign of weakness, the voice of a demon or malevolent ghost of one of my family’s past enemies, come to distract me? So I ask myself in this matter, Are my feelings really hurt, or is it a sign? A sign that someone is trying to fuck with me. Are you trying to fuck with me, Martin?”
“I assure you, Bingo, that I’m not,” I said.
“Vick isn’t asking for twenty thousand in exchange for not talking to the feds about me, is he?”
“No. It’s a personal business matter, as I described.”
He repeated the question, his voice a bit higher in pitch, but lower in volume, almost a soft whine. “Vick isn’t asking me for twenty grand to keep his mouth shut?”
“No. That really isn’t what this is about.”
He sniffed, pushing his lower lip up under his upper so that it made a bulldog face. “No, Vick wouldn’t ax me for money to keep his mouth shut because, ntimero uno, he doesn’t have the cojones for it, and numero dos, if he wants me to help him keep quiet he knows I’ll cut off his dick and shove it in his mouth."
Roberto and the nameless one were like bookends. He didn’t even have to defer to them for support. I had no one. So I was nervous when he said, “Have you ever been hang gliding, Martin?”
Tough Baby (Martin Fender Novel) Page 8