by Jake Logan
“You know where she went?”
Donna shook her head.
“When I am certain Don Carlos is under the best care, I’ll go see if I can find her.”
She agreed. “What is his wound?”
“I think his shoulder, but I have no idea about the damage. He was shot very early on and has scoffed at it.”
“I know him well. We can transport him and the other man in the surrey back to the hospital or the casa, whatever Dr. Carmichael wants.”
“He is in good hands then. I will ride into town and look for Nada.”
“Check at the house first. She may have returned.”
“Is this Friday?”
She nodded.
Good. The horse auction was still a day away, and he needed to reach his pistoleros, who were waiting for him in St. Francis, as well.
“You look tired,” Donna said.
He nodded that he heard her. “I will go on since you are here to look after Don Carlos.”
She clapped his arm. “Gracias for all you have done for him.”
Slocum acknowledged her words, mounted his horse and loped off for Sierra Vista. What in the hell had Nada gotten herself into? At Don Carlos’s house, he found that Nada was still absent, and the women in the kitchen fed him. He told them what he knew about their boss man’s wound. Gravefaced, they politely left him to eat his food.
After his meal Slocum headed for the square, and when he hitched his horse at a rack, Obregón walked over, shaking his head. “We heard you were up here and came to find you rather than wait in St. Francis. We still know very little about this one, the Cockroach. He hides well.”
Grateful to see his pistolero, Slocum agreed. “I have been up north at a mine robbery. A woman who was helping me here has vanished. Her name is Nada.”
“What does she look like?” Obregón grinned at him.
“A short Mexican woman—” Slocum gave up and went to shake hands with the other two men, who had just arrived.
“The Apache don’t know of this man Cockroach,” Cherrycow said with a grim set to his mouth.
“I think he is a ghost,” Slocum said.
Jesús frowned at him. “I don’t want to mess with him then.”
“Let’s go inside and have a cerveza.” Slocum waved them inside the cantina, and they found a table in the back.
A young barmaid came by and sat on Obregón’s lap. “What will you hombres have?”
“Four beers.”
“Nothing else?” she asked.
“What do you have to eat that is not rotten?”
“All our food is fresh.” She acted insulted.
“Bring us some frijoles and tortillas for my amigos.”
She looked at Slocum and then nodded.
“Wait,” Slocum said. “There was a girl named Nada who may have come to the square last night. She never came home.”
“Was she this short?” Then she tucked the tray under her arm and showed off a set of tits over twice her size with her hands.
“Yeah. Where is she?”
She looked around, then leaned her elbows on the table. “I think she is fucking Mendez.” With a shrug of her thin shoulders, she rose up, hugging the tray. “But who knows, huh?”
Slocum nodded and understood what she meant.
Obregón looked after her. “What did she mean by that?”
“She’s with this Mendez. A man she met night before last here at the fandango.”
“Will you go look for him?”
“After you all eat your frijoles and drink your beer.”
The three grinned in approval and raised their mugs to salute him.
“What do you really think about this Cockroach that no one knows?” Jesús asked.
“It may be two or three men hiding behind that name. Then they send out their men to do some crime. No one knows who it is, but I think there is more than one main leader responsible for these raids.”
Obregón shook his head. “At the hacienda, we heard he was a big, sword-waving generalissimo. But he never came with those raiders to the McCarty Hacienda. All that night I thought, where is this bastard?”
“I wondered too. Where is he hiding? I just came from a raid on one of my amigo’s mines. The peons who were the bandits said it was the Cockroach’s raid, but they didn’t know him either.”
“So who is La Cucaracha?” Jesús asked. The pistolero looked at him very seriously between spoonfuls of the hot beans.
“I think it is a committee that makes the plans for these raids.”
The three nodded between feeding their faces and swigging down their second beers. Slocum felt his three men were worth an army. Somehow he needed to find an answer to the source of these bastards, these bandits. And they might even now be sitting only a hundred feet from those leaders. But the very next problem for him was to find Nada. Was it a coincidence that she was still gone, or had she learned too much somewhere? The second possibility concerned him.
Mendez Salazar—Slocum would need to talk to him.
Sashaying over to Slocum, the bar girl leaned on his shoulder, pressing her small breasts into his arm, knowing he was the one paying for their meal. “Were the beans good?”
“They said so.” He lowered his voice. “Where can I find Mendez?”
“Oh, he has an apartment down on Agave Street.”
“You been there?”
She wrinkled her nose. “Sí. He thinks he is a great lover.”
Slocum nodded. “Where exactly is it at?”
“Above the saddle shop.”
“Does it have a back entrance?”
“Some stairs. The one time I went to his place, he sent me down them so some big, important visitor wouldn’t know I had been there. They are painted green. They are the only stairs that are green.”
“What does that back doorway open into?”
“A hallway.”
“What else should I do to get in there?”
“I guess go knock on the door.”
“Will he answer it?”
“I guess so.”
“What else can you tell me?”
She cupped her hand over his ear. “I think he has problems.”
Slocum frowned.
“His dick won’t get hard. You know what that means? He blames the woman who is with him for that. When I learned that, I knew I was lucky that he put me out that day before he tried me and I sure never went back. Such a man blames you and he might kill you. Huh?”
“I see. What is your name?” Slocum asked.
“Sudsy.”
“Why that?”
She laughed and blushed. “I used to wash the dishes back there.” She gave a head toss toward the back room. “They said I was too skinny to be a barmaid.”
“Nice to know you, Sudsy.” He put the money for the meals and beer and on the table and gave her a silver peso.
“Gracias.” Then she gathered up the mugs and dishes. When he stood up, she bumped him on purpose with her hip. Everyone laughed as they went outside.
“Where do we go next?” Obregón asked.
“To see if Nada is in Mendez Salazar’s apartment.”
Obregón looked around the square when they were outside. “What if she is not there?”
“The search continues.” Slocum told Obregón and Jesús to wait in the alley and watch the green stairs for anyone coming down them.
“Cherrycow and I will knock on the front door.”
The two pistoleros nodded and walked away like their business was over.
“You like to live in this place?” Cherrycow asked, looking around with distaste written on his dark face.
“Nice place to visit,” Slocum said.
“Maybe—but so many live here. Hard to find a place to piss.”
Slocum laughed and told him to go between the buildings. He watched the man who had lived in two worlds go find a place to empty his bladder—what a problem. No private place to piss. He looked down the street and saw th
e saddle hanging on the sign. In a few minutes he’d know if Nada was up there.
11
Slocum and Cherrycow took the stairs beside the saddle shop that led to a closed door at the top of the landing. The grit on their soles made a quiet, sanding sound on the already worn boards. At the top, Slocum softly tried the knob—locked. He flattened himself to the wall, away from the door knob, and waved for Cherrycow to get down a few steps. Then he reached over and knocked. Waited, no answer. He shared a nod with his partner. Then he reared back and used his right boot to smash the door open.
Six-gun in his fist, Slocum saw no one in the first room, then stepped inside and waved for his partner to come in. Cherrycow carried his pistol at the ready. There was a messed up, unmade bed in the center of the room, a couple of old stuffed chairs, some empty wine bottles on a table. The two front windows were open, and the dirty lace curtains waved in the breeze. A foul smell pervaded the room despite the open windows.
The place stunk of an unemptied chamber pot. Slocum moved across the bare floor, which creaked under his soles. As he headed for the back door, he tried a side room door. It was locked. Then he walked to the back door at the end of the hall. That door wasn’t locked and he opened it. He nodded to his two men in the alley, who quickly came up the stairs.
“Anyone here?” Obregón asked, looking over everything in the neighborhood as he climbed the stairs.
“No. I can’t tell when they were here last either.”
The pistolero wrinkled his nose at the smell when he reached the entrance. Slocum took the key left in the back door and went down the hall to the locked door. With a turn of the key, the door opened. A small, dirty side window let some light in the room. On the floor was something wrapped in a blanket. Slocum knelt down and began to unroll it, knowing full well the wrap contained a body.
He closed his eyes when he saw the messed hair and bloody face—Nada.
“Is it her?” Obregón asked over his shoulder.
“Yes.” Slocum could hardly swallow. His eyes squeezed shut, he rose, went to the back door and puked over the side of the landing.
“What can we do here?” Jesús asked.
“There must be police in this town,” Slocum said.
They agreed.
“But they might be in with this Cockroach gang too,” Obregón said.
“We have to take a chance that they aren’t. I want you three to go and stay at Don Carlos’s casa. I’ll meet you there later. We will close this place up, and I will go report it to the police.”
They agreed again and shut the front door, and all of them went out the back way. In the alley Slocum told them the directions on how to get to the casa, and they parted. A man in the square directed Slocum to the jail.
A large man wearing a badge, with dusty shoes propped on the desk, and no socks, sat snoring in the chair at the jail.
“Señor.” Slocum waited in the doorway for him to respond. Sometimes lawmen, jarred from sleep, thought they were under attack, drew their gun and shot someone. Slocum was taking no chances on this one.
“Huh?”
“Are you the police?”
The man blinked at him. “Why are you waking me up from my siesta?”
“A woman has been murdered.”
“Who?”
“A woman named Nada. I don’t know her last name.”
“Where is she?”
“In an apartment off the square.”
The man rubbed his unshaven face with his palm. “Who in the fuck are you?”
“A good friend of Don Carlos. My name is Slocum.”
The man sniffed a hmm out his nose, did not offer his own name. Then, waving his right hand with a “come on” sign for Slocum, said, “Why did you kill her?”
“I didn’t kill her. I found her.”
“Was she a puta?”
“What difference does that make? She was a good person. No one had the right to kill her.” His patience had worn thin.
“If you didn’t kill her, who did?” He put both shoes on the floor and made a face like it was all lots of work.
“If I knew that for certain I’d already have killed him. Do you want to see the body?”
“Hell, yes. I am the law here.”
“Good.”
The man strapped on a short-barreled Colt in a gun belt around his flabby waist. Then he jammed the revolver down in his holster like he feared it might fall out. He combed his unkempt black hair back with his fingers and put on a wide black sombrero, making the chin string tight.
“Go on. I will follow.”
By this time, Slocum was fed up with this lackey’s slovenly ways and set out for the square. In half a block the man called him back, out of breath and coughing. “You go too fast.”
“You go too slow,” Slocum replied. The policeman, his elbow leaning on the plaster side of the building, heaved for his breath. Coughed some more. “No rush. She’s dead, isn’t she?”
At this point Slocum didn’t answer. The lawman made two more stops to catch his breath on the way to Salazar’s apartment, then at last he looked up the stairs in disgust. “There better be a body up there.”
“There is.”
“Mother of God, why couldn’t you have waited for me to have my siesta?”
Slocum never answered him.
“Who else was up there?”
“No one but her when I found her.”
“This your place?”
“No. I’ll go up and wait for you.”
“Whose place is this?”
“I think Mendez Salazar’s.”
“No, he is the son of a very rich man. Why would he have such a dump of a place as this?”
“They told me in the cantina he rented this apartment.”
The man waved Slocum’s answer away. “They lied to you, señor. I know this man well.”
“The body is upstairs.” He started up and let the man come up at his own speed. Once up there Slocum sat on a wooden chair, listening to the policeman huff and cough his way up.
“Where is this body?”
“In the back room on the floor.”
“Show me.”
Slocum rose while his companion hacked up more phlegm and spit it on the floor. “Go ahead.”
He opened the door and let the man go inside the room. The lawman knelt down beside Nada’s body and then nodded. “Why did you kill her?”
“Damnit, I found her here thirty minutes ago.”
The man with great effort rose and folded his arms over his chest. “You found her up here and you thought she had fucked someone, so you killed her.”
“Are you deaf? I didn’t kill her. I found her like this thirty minutes ago.”
“You broke down the door when she would not answer and came in here and killed her. Men do it all the time all over Mexico every day. They get angry and then kill the puta for being disloyal.”
“Why would I come and get you if I killed her?”
“Why not? So the town would bury her for you, huh?”
“She’s been dead for hours. I was bringing Don Carlos, who was shot, down from the mountains all last night.”
“Hmm, who shot him?”
“Some of the Cockroach’s men who were robbing the Oro Canyon mine.”
“That is the best story I ever heard in a case like this.”
“Check with Don Carlos.”
“I will. You are under arrest for the murder of this puta—what was her name?”
Slocum jammed his Colt into the man’s belly and took the policeman’s short-barreled pistol away from him. “I don’t have time to mess with you, you son of bitch. Get your hands up. Where are the keys to your handcuffs?”
Hands raised, he said, “I don’t need any keys.”
Slocum found the handcuffs open in the man’s back pocket. He clamped one on the man’s right wrist and the other to the door knob. That would hold him for a while.
“You can’t do this! I am the gawdamn law!”
Before he left the man, Slocum took the short-barreled Colt out of his pocket. He emptied the revolver of the cartridges and wondered where to throw it. “You can have your siesta now.”
“You can’t do this! I am the law.”
“Well, practice it.” Slocum was gone. At the foot of the stairs, he tossed the six-gun in a pile of trash and began to run. He was maybe a half mile from Don Carlos’s casa.
If his friend was sleeping, Donna would know what to do—or he’d simply get out of town. That fat slob wasn’t jailing him for Nada’s murder. A block away, he could still hear the fat man’s faint shouts for help. A woman came by him in a small buggy going down the street.
“Wait. Wait,” he called to her, and to his surprise, she stopped.
Out of breath, he managed, “My good friend Don Carlos was shot last night. I need a ride to his casa right now.”
“I know him well,” the woman said. “Get in. I’ll take you there.”
With a sigh, he sank onto the horsehair-stuffed leather seat beside her. “I’m sure mighty pleased. Thanks a lot.”
“Any friend of Señor Carlos is a friend of mine. My name is Minnie Stallings.”
“Nice to meet you, Señora Stallings. My name is Slocum.” He noticed she was dressed in black. Must be a widow.
She sat on the seat, very straight backed, and from the looks of her clothing, not poor by any means. With the reins, she slapped her fine sorrel buggy horse on the butt, and he set out at a swift trot. Nice rig for a place like this. Skillfully she guided the horse around potholes and watched for the naked children at play who might run out in front of the buggy.
“How is Don Carlos doing? I mean, will he be all right?”
“I think so. But it was a long ride back from where the bandits shot him.”
“Did you bring him back?”
“I was part of that team.”
“I don’t believe I have ever met you before.”
“No, I don’t recall you either. I am usually on the move when I come through here and visit him.”
“Well, perhaps if he runs out of room sometime and you are passing by, you could stop at my casa. I don’t get a chance to speak English with very many people up here, and it is nice to talk with someone in my native language.”
“Yes, ma’am. It is nice to ease back into your first language. Have you lived here long?”