by Chuck Dixon
“What did you tell them?”
“Fern handled it. Lied up a storm about Dale getting drunk and passing out too close to a campfire. You Cades are world class at that. Lying.”
“I told you to stay in place, Jessie.”
“Did you now? Well excuse me for saving your life. And when did I ever do what you told me to?”
“You didn’t call an ambulance for me?”
“Your wounds were interesting but treatable,” she said. Removing the cuff.
“I…” he began. He glanced at the bandage about his hips.
“Well, I’m usually performing that particular operation in reverse. But you’ll heal once the stitches are out.”
“I’m sorry. I would never have called you.”
“We both know it’s nothing I haven’t seen before.” She smiled. Her hand was on his chest.
He closed his eyes; his mouth pressed shut.
“I do believe you’d be blushing right now if you had enough blood in you.” Her tinkling laughter filled the room.
He took her hand in his.
“Tell Fern we’re safe. There’s nobody’s going to be bothering us now,” he said. His eyes were locked on hers. Her smile faded.
“I’m not going to ask what any of that means. But I am going to insist you lay still and let the antibiotics and your own body do the rest.” She broke his hold to stand up and inject a dose of something into a port on the IV line. “And, no, this is not doggy drugs. And you got real human blood and plasma. And a tetanus booster. A surgeon at the hospital owed me some favors. He has a prize Paso Fino I saved from foundering last year.”
“Now I owe you,” Levon said.
“And I plan on collecting,” Jessie said. She leaned over the bed and kissed his forehead.
“I’ll send Merry back in, all right?” she said at the door.
“Yeah. Send her in.”
Merry rushed past Jessie to the bed. Jessie stepped outside, closing the door halfway behind her.
“Do you want some broth? Uncle Fern’s making you some,” Merry said.
"In a little bit, honey." He stroked her hair.
"Maybe I can read to you? I could start at the beginning. I don't mind." She picked up the book from the bedside table. On the cover, a young boy in knight's armor stood at bay against a monstrous two-headed wolf.
“I’d like nothing better in the whole world, honey,” he said.
Levon lay back to listen to his little girl read to him of a hero on an endless quest.
33
Danny Huff borrowed a work station at the county building to read the medical examiner’s report on the murders at the Mathers house.
He hated visiting autopsy rooms. He’d rather read the results written in cold prose. In his experience, most MEs hated running through a post mortem in person anyway. They got in enough talking when called to court to testify.
Once the torsos found hanging in the Mathers' home had been rejoined with their attendant parts they were positively identified as Juanita Gaye Mathers, Delbert Mathers' mother. Beth-Ann Tolliver-Mathers, Del's common-law wife. Jacob Howard Mathers, his younger brother. John Bedford Knox, his uncle on his mother's side.
The report claimed the bodies were dismembered using some kind of chopping tool. A machete had been ruled out. It was something with a shorter, broader blade. The ME suggested a cane knife, a tool used for cutting sugar stalks. In any case, they were looking for a murder weapon that was unusual outside of Haiti or south Florida.
Every limb had been tied off using tourniquets of the kind of plastic tie-wraps readily available at any home improvement store, auto parts place or electrical supply. The victims had been systematically dismembered while alive and conscious. The bright red blood, rich with oxygen and infused with adrenaline, confirmed that. Each limb had been severed by a series of chops from a right-handed person of considerable strength. The wounds were messy ones inflicted by a strong but careless hand.
Times of death were approximate and staggered. The victims died within a two-hour timeframe; their separate ordeals spread across that period. They died one by one leaving a shrinking number of witnesses who knew they were next.
Delbert Mathers, the big stick of the Mathers clan, was left for last. Made to run the marathon on Eight Mile.
Danny finished reading the files and attached them to emails back to the state bureau in Montgomery and to agents at the FBI and DEA as requested. He wrote up a summation of his own in the body of the emails. His theory was there was some kind of turf war happening in the northern part of the county between Mexican nationals and either other Mexicans or locals over the meth trade. Whether they were at the beginning, middle or end of that war, he could not confirm. He sent suggestions, bound to fall on deaf ears, to the various agencies suggesting they probe deeper into the Mathers and their associates. He also asked for any word on the jungle telegraph about any Zetas cartel action that might be going on. All the Mexican bodies so far were marked with Zetas tats.
Emails sent. Report completed. Danny stood up, stretched his back, and thought about sipping a couple of ice-cold longnecks and staring at some titties for a few hours. Simple pleasures were best, he thought.
His plans from the evening came apart with the appearance of Trooper Durward.
"You don't have good news; do you?" Danny said with a sigh.
Trooper Durward shook his head in his own mournful way.
"There's weird, and then there's fucking weird," Danny said after a long walk down the CSX tracks with the trooper.
He played a flashlight over a shattered utility box leaning crooked on its posts. A mile behind him waited a convoy of state and county vehicles and personnel watching for his signal to come do their jobs.
“We got an obvious vehicular accident here but no vehicle other than some chrome, plastic trim, a blown wheel and glass everywhere.” Danny crouched to put his spotlight on a coil of steel cable. The end of it gleamed silver from a fresh cut.
“And two deceased muchachos. Both generally fucked up. One with two bullet wounds to the back of the head. The other with his cabeza bashed in with what looks like a hammer.” Danny stood and walked away from the tracks to the trees. He held an ultraviolet hand lamp out before him. Spots on the gravel showed phosphorescent on the trail leading from the tree line to the previous location of the vanished vehicle.
“And blood all over the place.” Danny turned to Trooper Durward. “Does any of it speak to you, Ralph?”
“First impression, sir. These two set up someone else for a run with a noose around their ball sack. Then things went bad for them. Got all turned around somehow.”
“That would be my impression too, trooper. And the victim took whatever vehicle they had him chasing after and escaped.”
“Do I call in the teams?” Durward said.
"Sure. I want Cheech and Chong identified. Prints. DNA samples. Tire impressions. Paint analysis of the debris. The whole deal."
Durward turned his head to the mike clipped on his shoulder and welcomed the bunny suits down toward the scene.
“And let’s contact CSX. See if one of their trains came through during the time window. Maybe one of the crew saw something. Or remember hitting something.” Danny snapped off his light and looked up at the stars.
“Put out a BOLO, sir?”
“Excellent suggestion, Ralph. ‘Be on the lookout for a balls naked individual driving a severely damaged vehicle of unknown make and model sporting a brand new wheel recently changed. Person of interest will be identifiable by a steel leash tied around his special purpose.’ Or words to that effect,” Danny said. He regarded Trooper Durward with a weary grin.
34
“Thought you were taking me home,” Dale said. He sat with his back to the door of the International Harvester, his bandaged leg propped up on the bench seat.
“This is home for a little bit,” Fern said. He swung the wheel of the truck up the drive to where his house sat in the green sh
ade.
“There’s stuff I’ll need,” Dale said.
“I went over to your place and packed plenty. You’re mostly gonna be healing anyway.” Fern brought the truck to a stop. The engine rattled, taking its own time to come to rest.
“You went over to my place?”
“Cleaned up some like Levon told me.”
Dale sat a moment listening to the tap and patter of the roughly idling truck. His head was still light with painkillers. The drugs took the edge off the agony in his leg, but he could still feel a searing tingling sensation in his foot and ankle. A nurse in the burn unit told him he'd have some trouble there until more of the nerve endings gave up the fight. He could look forward to numbness in that area once he was healed. His flesh would feel dead and alien to him. Three days and nights in the hospital left him weak. He craved a cigarette more than anything in the whole world and Fern wouldn't let him smoke in the truck.
“My mom?” he said.
“Took care of her too. Buried her behind the kitchen. The clearing filled with milkweed? Buried the other fella too. Way deep in the woods where even I forget where,” Fern said.
Dale went to speak. Fern coughed and opened his door.
“Best you not ask any more, nephew,” Fern said. He stepped from the truck to pull a sack of Dale’s belongings from the truck bed.
Dale struggled out of the cab on his own with the help of a crutch they gave him at the hospital. He was greeted by Levon coming down off the porch, a hitch in his half-brother’s step as well.
“You look like shit,” Dale said. He leaned against the hood of the still ticking truck to poke a Pall Mall from a pack.
“You look like more of it,” Levon said.
“Guess you and me need to talk,” Dale said. This was their first meeting since the night Levon found him in the barn.
They limped together over to the carport where Dale sat hipshot on the hood of the Mustang, his good heel propped on the bumper. Levon stood in the shadows, leaning against the open door frame.
“You need to tell me what you got us into,” Levon said.
“What can I say? We stirred a hornet’s nest and both of us got stung.” Dale blew a stream of smoke from his nostrils.
“Bullshit.”
“I didn’t mean for any of that to happen like that.”
“Bullshit.”
“That’s all you’re gonna say? Bullshit?”
“You didn’t take me up that road for any other reason than to see that compound,” Levon said.
He stood with hands braced on the roof of the car. His head was lowered, shadowed. Dale could not see his face. Didn’t want to see it. Didn’t want to have to look into those eyes and lie.
“I had a problem. I was looking for advice.” Dale shrugged and flicked ash.
“You were looking for a recruit. You wanted to know if I’d come in with you.”
Levon’s voice was calm. Just above a whisper. Dale knew the tone and a thrill of icy fear cut through his oxycodone haze.
“Don’t lie. Stop lying,” Levon said.
“Yeah. I thought maybe you’d be into it.” Dale tried for a light tone. It failed with a quaver.
“Into what? Robbing those guys? Is this what you do now? Making like you’re still with the county? Is this how you could buy that shotgun?”
“I just look after things. Keep my eyes open.”
“For who?”
“The Mathers. Del Mathers and them.” Dale took a last drag and fired the filter out into the yard with a flick of his fingers.
“The ones who used to run white up to the shot houses in St. Louis? The ones our daddy drove for sometimes?” Levon looked up then, pushing himself upright off the car.
“It was Reese Mathers back then. Del’s daddy.”
“What do the Mathers care about some illegals running a meth lab? Have the Mathers moved on to another business?”
“Yeah. They’re diversified these days. Crank. Fentanyl. Got growhouses over in Teeter and Yardley.”
“And what were they paying you for exactly?” Levon said.
“Like I said. Keeping my eyes open. Reporting back to them,” Dale said. He stepped into the sunlight, gait awkward on the loose scree.
“Only you stepped in it and pulled me in after,” Levon said. He hobbled after his half-brother, catching up to put Dale’s arm in a painful grip.
“I don’t know what to do, Goose. I’m sorry. I don’t know what to do now.” Tears brimmed in Dale’s eyes.
“You’re gonna leave it to me from here on,” Levon said.
Dale nodded, mouth turned down.
“I’ll need names and places. Everything you know about the Zetas and the Mathers,” Levon said. He gripped Dale’s shoulder, pressing hard.
Dale winced and nodded with more vigor.
“Right now we’re going in the house. Merry baked a cake for you and you’re gonna stop acting like a pussy, put a big old grin on that stupid face and eat a slice as big as your goddamned head.”
Levon released Dale’s shoulder with a shove. Together they walked to the house; walking wounded come home to heal.
35
Tio Fausto hated baseball.
He also hated sitting in the bright afternoon sun. It was making him sweat like a horse. His camp shirt was sodden through. And he hated the way the wooden bleacher seat was frying his ass. And he hated how the glint of sunlight off of every surface was pushing a migraine deep into his skull despite the almost black wraparounds he wore.
But he decided that it was baseball he hated most of all. If this were a soccer game, he would not mind any of these other things. He would be on his feet, cheering and punching his fists in the air. It was the crushing tedium of this boring gabacho game causing him the most misery.
He was certain he shared this sentiment with most of the crowd. Yet the three stands of bleachers behind home plate were packed in this stadium the jefe built for the local team. The people of Agujereada came to these games so as not to displease the jefe. They also came for all the cold sodas and beer they could drink. Kids with ice chests handed out chilled bottles and cans to all who wanted them.
There was also music before and after the game. And it was always a popular band from the TV or radio. Today it was Los Hombres Infernal playing lively corridos about bandits and revolutionaries and lost love. They played their most popular song before the game: “El Hombre con Nueves Vidas." The man with nine lives. It was a song about the jefe. They would certainly play again after the game was over.
And who could complain about the punishing heat? Was not the jefe here himself, sitting like any other peon on a skillet hot bleacher seat with nothing but a folded newspaper for a fan? Was he not sweating into his underwear like all the rest?
The jefe was alone among the onlookers in his intense interest in the game. Two of his sons were playing in this junior league match. They were sixteen and fourteen, very athletic young men, standing at first base and right field. They played for the Agujereada Tigres in uniforms of brilliant white with yellow trim and caps. The boys grew up with a passion for baseball that their father indulged.
And if they liked hockey, Fausto thought to himself, their papa would have built them a pinche ice rink.
The Tigres opponents were from La Osca, fifty miles west. They were the Diablos and wore white and, of course, red.
The Diablos’ sponsor was a Dutch company with a tire plant in La Osca. The gringos in Amsterdam paid for the junior baseball as a gesture of goodwill. It was money well spent to keep the peons happy in their toxic factory doing dangerous work. Though not too much money. The Diablo’s stadium was not near as fine as the one the jefe built for the Tigres. And the La Osca team wore uniforms passed down from the teams that played in the years before, with patches on the knees and brown perspiration stained permanently on their blouses.
The jefe clapped his hands and whooped at some event on the field; its significance lost to Tio Fausto. The crowd, as ignorant
as Fausto, as to what was happening before them, followed the jefe’s applause with a thunderous ovation and barked coyote cries. To Fausto, it was just boys raising dust on the field to no purpose other than to make him feel old and tired.
And he did feel old and tired today. There was a burden upon him and the weight came from up north.
His brother Sabio was missing. His nephews were both dead. The police report that found its way to him had them listed as homicides. This brought the death tally to an even thirteen men after the massacre of some of his cousins by persons unknown.
Sabio had been sent north to find out who was responsible, who dared war against the plaza, against his family. Sabio was most certainly dead now in an unmarked grave or chopped to pieces in a landfill. It did not bear thinking about.
Other police reports informed Tio Fausto of other homicides in the same place as his nephews were murdered. At least they made an accounting of themselves before falling though Fausto wished it was more than five dead gabachos. And it would be more than five, much more, after he spoke to the jefe this afternoon.
The game ended in a three-point loss for the Tigres. 15-12. The home team slouched back to their dugout, raising a red cloud as they kicked their cleats in the dust the whole way.
Fausto knew better than to try and speak to the jefe. The man’s face was red in the shade of his broad-brimmed straw fedora. The jefe walked away between the bleachers without a word to anyone. The crowd sensed the mood of their patron and exited the stadium as though from a church. Los Hombres packed up their instruments and left swiftly. It was a dark day in Agujereada.
The jefe had an air-conditioned trailer set in the shade of some jacarandas outside of the public ballpark he paid for as a gift to the people of his town. Fausto waited in the heat until summoned within by a pair of young Indios. They were the jefe’s personal bodyguards, twins armed with gold engraved AK-47s and bandoliers of ammo worn old school bandido style.