Baja Blues: The Boy Who Played With Marbles (Liza McNairy Mysteries Book 2)

by Dan Glover

  "Bad as in I might have to pull down your pants and spank that gay ass of yours... that's how I define it. How about you, DanMan?"

  "Yeah... that'll work for me. But that'll have to wait, Liza. We've work to do now. Here... you take this part and I'll keep on reading where I left off when you two finally got back."

  "So you were jealous."

  "Maybe I was and maybe I wasn’t. I saw the way Cooper tried to kiss you."

  "And did you see how I wouldn’t let him?"

  "Well, yeah... I noticed that too."

  "Let me say it like this, DanDan... there's room in my life for only one man and I've already found him. Cooper didn’t act like that until we got back here. He's playing up to you, not to me."

  "Wait a minute, Liza... what's that about you already finding a man? When am I going to be introduced?"

  "Honey child, have I ever told you how you drive me wild?"

  Chapter 13—Into the Pit

  (Fabulinus and his Wake)

  1

  He knew why they moved him down to Santo Tomas, the proverbial asshole of the world. Back in those days it was easier to keep secrets but even then if the word got out a man would be ostracized, condemned to pit, relegated to hard labor. If only he had more time to insinuate himself into the fabric of the Church none of it would've had to happen. Bah. What of it. Things had worked themselves out and all in the Lord's Good time. God's time, as it were.

  This was where Father Fabulinus Fletch had been meant to spend his life. He couldn’t be certain of much, but of that he was sure. The Lord's Ways were mysterious. Those who professed to know, didn’t. All the Bishops right up to the Pope were little more than inflatable puppets pretending to inhabit a realm that no human being had any right to occupy. But who was he to question their wisdom?

  He did as he was told to do, by both mortals and by God. Their instructions were often times inscrutable, especially those issued by the mortals. God's, not so much. That He had a plan was always first and foremost in his mind. That he must follow it was beyond doubt.

  He hated it here, at least in the beginning. His so-called congregation consisted of old maids and peasants who hadn’t a spare peso to drop into the collection tin after each service. So he dipped into his own pockets. Working right along side the fieldworkers planting, hoeing beans, and bringing in the harvest. Making what they made. Kept none of it for himself. Nope. Instead, he used his wages from that labor plus from his meager salary apportioned to him by the Church to put a proper roof on his old building, to install new windows, and even a front door.

  That he might have electricity was beyond the scope of his wildest dreams. Instead he lighted lanterns when the sun dove into the ocean and hauled water from the well the peasants were kind enough to help him dig. He had no air conditioning, no furnace, no refrigerator. So in the summers he was hot and hungry and when the cold spells came during the winters he shivered and starved.

  He couldn’t help it that the peasants liked him so much and he returned those feelings in kind. He'd fought the urgings, at least in the beginning. Prayed over them. Sought to eradicate the impulses arising in his lions... the seedier side of his nature. Mother knew. That's why she implored him so strenuously to take up the mantle of the Lord, to become a little Jesus. In that way she must have hoped... well, he supposed none of that mattered much any longer.

  He'd grown old here. Mother was long dead. Father too. They'd been proud of their boy, or so they said. Still, he couldn’t help but sense a lingering scent of disappointment hovering in the air when he announced his new calling south of the border. Mexico. It isn't so bad, mother. I'll only be a short drive away. I can still visit during the week as my work allows. You'll see.

  "The pastor here before you spent forty years in this parish, Father. He grew old ministering to these people."

  She always called him Father. At first, it was strange, to have one's own mother addressing him in that fashion. But in time the notion grew on him and he came to realize how much she respected him and his choice to join the Church... how that small white collar conferred upon him far more adulation and admiration than any high paying job might have done in its place.

  "Why are they moving you out so quickly? You've only been here six years. It doesn’t make sense. Your parishioners are just starting to get to know you."

  "That’s how things work today, mother. As a rule, the Bishops no longer allow priests to settle in for extended periods at any one place. They keep us moving around. All the better to spread the word of the Lord."

  He'd always lied well and he used that knack to his advantage. But then again, what was the truth? Wasn’t it merely a socially agreed upon idea? Sure it was. The truth was fluid and ever changing. Never anything absolute that a person could hang their hat upon. That they believed him so easily made the things he had to do more palatable. All great men were called upon, charged with predestination, and in his case, a duty.

  And if his mother so looked up to him, what of these peasants who spent their lives groveling in poverty and want? He had only to utter a syllable and they were ready to obey. Indeed, where Jesus was the Son, he was the Father, Lord of all creation, charged with driving out the demons and freeing the souls of the misbegotten.

  2

  It was called La Iglesia de los Cinco ángeles... the Church of the Five Angels... and it was his. When he first arrived some thirty years ago, the building was in disrepair and that was putting things mildly. In some long ago conflagration the roof burned away along with any wooden artifacts—pews, altars, statues—inside the structure leaving behind only charred adobe walls, mounds of ash, and crumbling tiles under his feet.

  "Es mi pequeño, Padre."

  "Dime, hija ... ¿cuál es el problema?"

  That they would willingly come to him—beseeching him—lent the Father an enormous sense of responsibility. He had to do his best to help, yet he wasn’t trained in the modern day psychology that seemed required of him. Instead, he had to rely upon the Lord's Wisdom hoping some small part of that wealth of knowledge might in ways unknown leak into him and work It's miracles through him.

  His first few forays into the abyss were failures. But wasn’t that to be expected? That one did not succeed in the beginning didn’t mean they gave up. Not at all. Instead, his efforts were doubled and then redoubled. That he lost a few of his charges was unfortunate yet necessary in order to perfect his visions as well as the potions he used.

  No one blamed him but still his conscience suffered terribly under the duress of knowing he alone was responsible. Yet they kept coming, bringing los poseídos as they were called. The possessed, and him a priest... what else could he do but perform the miracles imbued in him by the Lord and his Savior Jesus the Christ?

  Yes, now he'd grown old, much older than his years. Maybe it was the stress that aged him so, or perhaps dabbling as he did with God's power could not but help debilitate a body. Either way, none of that mattered. No... the vessel was fragile and easily broken. What it held was holy and beyond both time and space, given onto the Lord. Thus revealed onto him was the power to heal, to take back the mundane and instill within its place the divine.

  That he might be mad troubled him more than a little... more than perhaps it should. He had no one to talk with, no superiors in who he might confide. Here in this place of poverty and want, of desert and dearth, he had only the Word to guide him through that valley and though he might stumble and sometimes fall, until the day he hadn’t the strength to rise again he'd keep on administering to those dispossessed of the thing that made them sacred—their souls.

  Chapter 14—Flings

  (And Bling)

  1

  That he'd had a fling with the sister wasn’t information McNairy and Forthright needed to know. Hell, he was just a man. And a woman like Elena Ramirez... well... she had a way of making the knees of even tough men shake, rattle, and roll, and Hank Lupo was one of the strongest.

  So what if he'd lied
about not going to Mexico to investigate the Ramirez disappearance. Of course he went. Not that it did any good, other than the sister showing him around that one horse town of hers as well as teaching him a thing or two about the nature of lust. Sure, he'd taken advantage of his station, but wasn’t that one of the reasons he'd become a deputy with the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department?

  The Feds were already involved in the case. Something about the father of Eduardo Ramirez being a Columbian national suspected of drug trafficking as well as an assortment of other crimes of which he wasn’t deemed worthy enough to be apprised of. The Bureau was notorious for eschewing the locals, and to them, he was as local as it got. They were assholes, all, as far as he could see, other than Agent Jeffrey Munroe, who'd taken him up on his offer.

  He'd met the man while drinking at a cantina just outside Santo Tomas called Bajo el volcán, under the volcano, as it were. Hank hadn’t recognized him as a Fed but Munroe knew exactly who he was. That was the way the Bureau worked... keep your friends close but your enemies closer, and to those ball busters, any other government agency was considered a rival. Christ, no wonder the pricks got caught with their fucking pants down around their ankles on 9/11.

  "Hey... you're Hank Lupo, aren’t you."

  "That depends on who's asking."

  "Name's Jeffrey Munroe, from Los Angeles... call me Jeff. I recognize you from your picture in the papers back home... you're with the Sheriff's Department."

  "Yeah, that's right. I don’t recall my picture being in the papers though."

  "Sure it was... sometime back... something to do with you solving that case... you know which one I mean. Come on, have a drink on me."

  But he didn’t know which case the man meant nor could he ever remember allowing his picture being taken for the paper. That wasn’t good business. Too many creeps out there. Like this bozo. Still, what the hell. The man had a fat wallet and was offering him drinks and he'd just got done bopping Elena and worked up a bit of a thirst, so yeah. He sat there bullshitting with Jeffrey Munroe from Los Angeles half the afternoon and most of the evening while the campesinos and their drunken damas crowded around the bar drinking the slop water that passed for draft beer while betting one another who could go the longest without having to step outside to piss.

  Sure, he knew a bit of the language. That was why the Captain asked him to go... well, part of the reason. The rest of it had to do with the hard choices they all made in joining the department in the first place... in Hank's case going against the wishes of his wife Sally, who so far as he could tell loved being a sailor's wife and the entitlements that his position brought. But hey. He was the one bringing home the paycheck, not her.

  She wasn’t the one who had to serve duty. Hell, he'd put in his twenty years but they still treated him like a recruit. Made him work the graveyard shift. Gave him the shit details. All but the Captain. They had an understanding... had done a lot of business together even if they weren’t the best of friends. Who needed friendship anyway? That was the kind of shit that got him into trouble... like the near fiasco with Americano gringo Jeffrey Munroe from Los Angeles who just happened to be drinking in the same cantina as Hank. Sure he did. And Parker Posey just happened to be kneeling under the table ready to blow them both.

  Hank had caught

  2

  The flash of the badge beneath the black suit coat during the third round. Mescal with beer chasers... bottled beer, thank you anyway. Watch you don’t drink the worm, senor. Es muy bad luck. And even though the cantina was so close to the beach he could smell the salt air that place was anything but Margaritaville. Jesus... did they really have to kept playing that same fucking song over and over again?

  He told himself it wasn’t a badge. The man had a gold pen in his pocket. Bling. Yeah, that was the ticket. And that lump in his jacket? Hell, anyone with any sense at all would only enter places like that when they were strapped. Those hombres weren’t the come on and play patty-cake with me types, especially as the night wore on and the sombreros grew darker and the whine of the waves crashing on the beach began to overtake that goddamned juke box screeching in the corner. Wasting away again in Margaritaville.

  "Tide's coming in, Hank... hear it? The vaqueros say how the Pacific has no memory. I always sort of liked the sound of that."

  "Is that why you sort of forgot to tell me that you're a cop too, Jeff?"

  "What was it that gave me away, partner?"

  "My picture was never in the paper. I make sure of shit like that. Don't like the advertising. That and the badge under your jacket."

  "Yeah, well my bad. I'm not actually a cop. I'm with the Bureau."

  "Ah... that explains it."

  "How so, Hank?"

  "Investigating the investigators... only the FBI would bother with that crap."

  "Well you got me there, Hank. That's the part of my job I hate... this undercover bullshit."

  "You always wear a badge when you go under like this, Jeff?"

  "Down here I do, partner... believe me, when in Rome and all that, don't you know. Tell you what... let's pad the old account and have one more on me, what say?"

  "Hey, if you're buying, I can drink another one. Are you tailing me, Jeff? Is that what this is about?"

  "No, partner... at least not officially. I just happened to notice your little visit to Elena's hacienda and wondered if you got her to chat a bit."

  "What, you guys haven’t interviewed her?"

  "We tried. She's not talking, at least not to us. She's gotten the idea in her head that we're here about her father rather than the disappearance of her brother."

  "And you are."

  "Well, yeah... the man is cartel. High ranking. We've been tracking him for months. About the time we're ready to move on him, he up and leaves Mexico for parts unknown. No one's seen him in Columbia, or if they have they're not saying so. Could be he's paid them off. So we got to thinking maybe the daughter might have an idea where the man went. No dice."

  "You think the father took the kid with him?"

  "Officially? Nah... probably not. A man like that, what the hell would he need with a snot-nosed brat following him around. Unofficially, yeah... we let the sister think so, anyway. Still, she wouldn’t talk. Slammed the fucking door right in our faces. But you seem to have an in."

  "Funny how things work, isn’t it, Jeff. You guys treat me like shit and now that you need something I can offer you, here you are, wooing me and buying me drinks. Tell me one good reason why I ought to help you now."

  "Maybe, because it's your duty?"

  "Look, partner... I put twenty fucking years into the military. I did my duty."

  "I'm sorry you feel that way, Hank."

  3

  And now here it was fifteen years later and little Eduardo Ramirez was still just as gone and McNairy and Forthright were on the case. Wondering what he had to offer. Not much, folks. The case file was woefully thin. The Feds had shut him out and he damned sure wasn’t going to suck Jeffrey Munroe's dick to get into the Bureau's good graces. Fuck them all. Besides, what did he care? So another kid went missing. Boo fucking hoo. Happened all the time. And it'd keep happening, no matter what Hank Lupo managed to find out.

  That's what kept bread and butter on his table... the criminals and the miscreants of the world. He owed them all, sure enough. If McNairy and Forthright managed to find something, it'd have to be on their own. He was already sticking his neck out just giving them what information he had. The Captain didn’t like sharing any more than the Bureau boys. Jesus... they were all in the same boat, supposedly. Why the one-upmanship? Forever keeping secrets? None of it made any sense. But then again, that was the world he lived in and there wasn’t a goddamned thing he could do about it.

  "That preacher, Hank... I keep dreaming that he has something to do with Eduardo's disappearance."

  "Preacher? What preacher, Elena?"

  "Father Fabulinus Fletch... he's the pastor at that old adobe church... you kn
ow the one. I pointed it out to you on the way here."

  Yeah, he remembered. Dreams. What the hell was he supposed to do about dreams? Sure, he'd taken a perfunctory jaunt by the old church. Christ, it was in ruins as near as he could tell. Adobe walls ready to cave in come the first good wind. Someone had tacked some tin on the roof and put some window glass in, but the place still looked abandoned. He'd knocked at the door but no one answered. He turned the knob and since it was open, he walked in.

  The place was empty, or nearly so. Some old folding chairs had been arranged in a half circle... a few rows... and a broken table that might have served as an altar sat in front of them... but otherwise, there was nothing to see. No priest, no sign of habitation at all. The placed smelled of rat turds and cockroaches and week-old burrito farts. In the back room he found an old mattress where some stumble bum must've been sleeping off his drunk but otherwise, nothing. Not even a goddamned bible.

  What the hell was Elena on about? The girl must be drowning in grief and grasping at straws to keep herself afloat. She'd lost her brother. What's more, she felt responsible for his disappearance. He'd tried to placate the girl... to let her know how none of that was her fault, but it seemed pretty clear he wasn’t getting through to her. Fuck it. He hadn’t even said goodbye.

  He'd given up, drove to the airport, and flew back to Los Angeles. That was it. The best he could do was live to fight another day. The Captain understood that shit. That's why he'd been sent in the first place. Another monkey like old Jeffrey Munroe, Grand Poobah of the FBI, might have taken advantage... might've spent months down in Santo Tomas screwing the sister and lapping up the tequila, but not Hank Lupo. He had a job to do, and it wasn’t getting done south of the border.

  Chapter 15—Something for the Nose

  (Something for the Head)