Strong from the Heart--A Caitlin Strong Novel

by Jon Land

  “You should wait outside, Ranger,” Pancho Villa advised, when they reached the cantina in question. “Let me go in and at least get the lay of the land.”

  “So you scamper out the back door, amigo? No way in hell. We walk in together.”

  Villa let William Ray see him regarding his badge. “Suit yourself. But Texas Rangers are about as welcome here as malaria and there’s probably more wanted men than not inside.”

  “How ’bout I promise not to arrest anybody?”

  Villa extended his hands. “You should take these off. I walk in there as your prisoner, it won’t be a good day for either one of us. They’ll figure you dragged me in to eyeball men you’re tracking.”

  “Good point,” the Ranger said, drawing the key from his pocket. “Just remember, I speak Spanish well enough to know if you pull something.”

  “At least take off your badge.”

  “Might as well go in naked. Come on, amigo, I’ll lead the way.”

  * * *

  Many of the men inside, several wearing bandoliers and with squat-looking shotguns not far out of reach, recognized Pancho Villa immediately. William Ray figured this must be the gang the young Mexican had been riding with, leading him to similarly figure he’d walked straight into a trap and things would be going to guns soon.

  But he resisted the urge to draw when those closest to the door noticed his badge and lurched up from their chairs, fumbling for their weapons. It seemed like William Ray hadn’t even taken his next breath before two dozen guns were poised his way, held by men who need fear no repercussions this far south of the border.

  Instead of going for his gun, the Ranger let the men see his eyes. This was far from his first experience being vastly outnumbered and outgunned, and that experience had taught him that nothing stops the first man from beginning a fusillade better than fearing he might get shot himself. With only six bullets in his Samuel Walker Colt, all twenty-four of the men behind the guns aimed at him knew he couldn’t possibly shoot all of them. But the question of which six would ultimately fall to his bullets was argument enough to preserve the stalemate long enough for Pancho Villa to intervene.

  “Tranquilizarse! Tranquilizarse!” Villa yelled out, urging the gunmen to stay calm, as he moved in front of William Ray. “Todo está bien! Está conmigo!”

  Hearing the young bandit say they were together was a welcome relief for the Ranger, while soothing whatever reservations he held about the man’s intentions. William Ray knew that Pancho Villa was after something himself in all this. He just didn’t know what that was yet.

  “What are you doing with this el Rinche?” a bearded man with a stomach hanging well over his belt asked Villa in Spanish.

  The young bandit stole a glance at William Ray before responding. “He agreed to keep me out of an American prison if I agreed to help him.”

  The fat man had a full beard that stretched down to his chest and a depressed scar across the bridge of his nose that made his face look like it had a hole on it. His bulbous cheeks were bell-shaped and seemed to merge with the drooping jowls hidden by the fall of his beard. His eyes looked to be different colors. William Ray was left to wonder whether the lighter one might be made of glass.

  “Help him what?” the fat man asked Pancho Villa.

  “Children were taken from the town where I was jailed. I told him I could help him get them back.”

  William Ray felt something in the dusty cantina change in that moment, a heaviness filling the air, as if this gang of bandits had found something else to be scared of besides him.

  “Dile que te equivocaste, chico.”

  “I’m not a kid,” Villa told the fat man. “And I’m not going to tell him I was wrong, because that would be a lie. I might steal, I might kill, but I won’t lie. If you know something about whoever took those kids, just tell me so we can be on our way on their trail.”

  “I never kill a man lightly,” the fat man told him. “And if I tell you that, I will be killing you. What kind of friend would I be then, chico?”

  “We came upon a posse from the town that set out after the stolen children, all of them dead. Shot from the hilltops above by sharpshooters.” Villa turned to gesture at William Ray Strong. “I want the Texas Rangers to know we weren’t behind all those killings, that we are many things but not sharpshooters who gun down innocent people who’ve done us no harm.”

  The fat man looked genuinely sad, his jowls drooping to the point where they appeared ready to slip off his face. “If you leave here still on their trail, you will die too, you and your new Tejas diablo friend.”

  Villa swallowed hard. “Maybe that’s a chance I’m willing to take.”

  The fat man nodded in resignation, looking toward his men, who took that as an unspoken gesture to finally lower their weapons. “When you ride with the Texas devils, chico, don’t expect God to be by your side.”

  “Speaking of which,” William Ray interjected, in the best Spanish he could muster, “you look familiar. Maybe our paths have crossed before, jefe.”

  The fat man shook his head. “I never forget the face of a man I kill or want to.”

  “Well, in my case there’s been too many of those to keep track of in my head. You sure we haven’t met before?”

  “What did I just say?”

  “Maybe I didn’t hear you right. Guess my Spanish is a bit lacking.”

  “Eres un pedazo de mierda.”

  “Not the first time I’ve been called a piece of shit, jefe.”

  The fat man grinned broadly. “Maybe your Spanish isn’t as bad you think, el Rinche.”

  “Who are we looking for, exactly?” William Ray asked him.

  “If I tell you that, I might as well shoot you myself.”

  “Like I said,” Villa told him, looking toward William Ray Strong, “that’s a chance we’re willing to take.”

  The fat man uttered a raspy sigh. “Los Chinos.”

  29

  SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS

  “The Chinese,” Caitlin translated. “You sure you got that part of the story right, Jones?”

  “Have you ever known me to be wrong, Ranger?”

  “I’ve known you to be a liar and an asshole.”

  “That’s not what I asked you.”

  “Okay, so what did these Chinese want with the kids from Camino Pass?”

  “Uh-uh,” Jones said, shaking his head. “My turn. Tell me more about that cyanide gas that wiped out the same town a hundred and twenty years later.”

  “You want to know where it came from.”

  “Do you blame me? Almost three hundred people getting killed in less time than it takes me to tie my shoes tells me this was no accident.”

  “You’re wearing boots, Jones.”

  Jones chose to ignore her. “Could be somebody’s already figured out how to weaponize this cyanide, the alternative being that whatever did this is waiting to be weaponized. Either way, I want in.”

  “In on what, exactly?”

  “The party, Ranger. And it’s in your best interests to cooperate, because you’re going to need me before this is over.”

  “Just how do you know that?”

  “Because this is Texas, the lowest point on the planet where all the shit comes to settle. And you, Ranger, are a person with a true gift for attracting that same shit. All your ancestors had it easy by comparison; all they had to deal with were criminals, instead of every aberration the devil can throw at the world.”

  “What were the Chinese doing in Mexico in 1898, Jones? What was it my great-grandfather really latched on to?”

  Jones shook his head, smiling wryly, instead of responding. “Your grandfather mixed it up with J. Edgar Hoover. Your great-great-grandfather took on John D. Rockefeller, and your great-grandfather ended up running buddies with none other than Pancho Villa, not to mention Judge Roy Bean.”

  “What’s your point?”

  “I’m wondering if maybe your father solved the Kennedy assassination and
didn’t bother telling anybody. What is it with you Strongs?”

  “Just lucky, I guess.”

  “I want in on this, Ranger,” Jones repeated. “Whatever wiped out Camino Pass is my ticket back to Washington. I’m making more money than I’ve ever seen in my life and I hate every single minute of it. I hate bureaucracy and accountability. I hate wearing a tie and having to suck up to people I’m never going to see again. I hate shareholders, stakeholders, and cup holders. I hate finding somebody eyeballing me every time I turn around.”

  “That’s quite a mouthful, Jones.”

  “I don’t like being on the outside, Ranger.”

  “Give me something I can use to help you back in.”

  Jones smiled like a man who’d just found somebody else’s wallet stuffed with cash. “I knew we could do business, just like we always do.”

  “Except you’re accountable now and don’t have an army backing you up.”

  Jones weighed her words. “I’m accountable, but the company I work for has ten thousand mercenaries on speed dial. You bet I’ve got an army.”

  Caitlin gave him a longer look, realizing he was slowly morphing into the very man she didn’t trust at all but had often found common ground with. “What did the Chinese want with those children they kidnapped?”

  “Beats me.”

  “What were they up to south of the border?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine, Ranger.”

  Caitlin pulled her gaze off him, the distance between them lengthening in a figurative sense. “If you want back in, Jones, you’ll have to do better than that.”

  He flashed that smirk she knew all too well. “Keep asking the questions, Ranger, and sooner or later you’ll get the answers you’re looking for.”

  Caitlin was about to continue pushing him when her phone rang, with CORT WESLEY in the caller ID.

  “How’s Luke?” she said, by way of greeting.

  “Just dropped him off at school.”

  “Well, that’s good. Why do I think you called for a different reason entirely?”

  “Because I did. I need you to run a name for me, somebody I need to have a sit-down with.”

  “Please tell me this has nothing to do with the drugs Luke overdosed on.”

  “You want me to lie?”

  “Your definition of ‘sit-down’ varies from the rest of the population, Cort Wesley.”

  “I’ll be on my best behavior. Promise.”

  Caitlin knew there was no way to talk him out of this, searched for a compromise instead. “Why don’t we do this together?”

  “Because I’m in Houston and you’re not.”

  “Whoever this guy is, we can just as easily find him tomorrow.”

  “Guy’s name is Cholo Brown, Ranger. Call me back as soon as you’ve got something.”

  30

  HOUSTON

  “Think this is a good idea, bubba?” Leroy Epps wondered from the passenger seat, as Cort Wesley pulled into a southwest Houston parking lot, past a sign that read “TAKE YOUR VALUABLES.”

  “No, champ, but it’s all I’ve got. I’ll buy you a root beer as soon as I’m done.”

  “They serving root beer in hell these days?”

  * * *

  “Cholo Brown is an alias,” Caitlin had told him when she called back, an hour after they’d spoken. “The guy’s real name is Frankie Ramos and he’s got a rap sheet that would fill a shoe box.”

  “Sounds like the man I’m looking for.”

  “He seems to specialize in selling dope to minors. There’s a couple notations on his sheet that suggest middle schools are right up his alley. I probably shouldn’t have told you that, Cort Wesley.”

  “My blood’s already boiling, Ranger. That just keeps the steam rising.”

  “Here’s something to bring it down: Ramos cut his teeth with MS-13 before he went to jail, where the mob took a liking to him. The word is he’s connected to greaseballs running smack through the projects of cities all through the South. Even the gangs don’t mess with him, on account of his association with the old Branca mob, your former employers.”

  “I’ve since seen the light.”

  “Good thing. Maybe you should take Paz along for the ride,” Caitlin suggested.

  “He’s not available. That school you got him hired at doesn’t get out until three thirty.”

  * * *

  Cholo Brown used a bodega two blocks from the parking lot as his headquarters, and Cort Wesley figured he’d wandered into a different world. The neighborhood was just a ten-minute drive south of the Galleria shopping mall, one of Houston’s most famous landmarks. In the seventies, the area had been known as “Swinglesville.” Dozens of sprawling apartment complexes, some of them a block long, had been built here, one right beside the other, to accommodate the horde of young, single white adults who were then coming to the city to begin their careers. The complexes were given such sophisticated names as Chateaux Carmel, Napoleon Square, Villa Royal, Sterling Point, and the Turf Club. The owners had planted crape myrtles by the front gates and offered free VCRs to renters who signed yearlong leases. At one complex, a two-story disco was built next to a swimming pool.

  Today, the crape myrtles continued to bloom, but there were no more free VCRs—and no disco. The walls of almost all the complexes boasted large banners, many written in Spanish, offering ninety-nine-dollar move-in specials, with no credit check required. In the courtyards, where the young singles once played sand volleyball in skimpy bathing suits, young mothers in faded dresses held babies against their hips, watching their other children kick soccer balls. Old men sat in plastic chairs on tiny balconies, drinking beer and looking down over rusting cars that had become part of the scenery.

  The corner bodega out of which Cholo Brown based his operation featured outdoor tables set mostly in the shade of an awning. A pockmarked, acne-scarred face that matched the picture Caitlin had texted him sat under that awning, drinking from a bottle of fruit punch–colored liquid that Cort Wesley took as the kind of wine cooler that had been popular back when Leroy Epps was still alive.

  “Wish I could help you bust some heads, bubba,” he heard, from somewhere close by.

  Cort Wesley looked to the side but found no trace of his old friend’s ghost.

  “I be here, even if you can’t see me.”

  “How’s this going to end, champ?”

  “With you buying me a root beer, either on this side or the other.”

  31

  HOUSTON

  “Cholo Brown,” Cort Wesley said, when he was close enough for the man seated in the shade of the awning to hear him.

  Two other men were seated at the circular, rusted metal table, atop folding chairs that looked salvaged from a junkyard. Cort Wesley had spent enough time with men like Cholo Brown to know that they were almost never alone, at least not in public, as if they detested their own company or considered sitting alone at a table to be a sign of weakness.

  Maybe I’m no one to talk, Cort Wesley thought to himself, considering I keep company with a ghost.

  Brown’s hair was twisted into dark, shiny dreadlocks, and the tint of his complexion left Cort Wesley thinking he was of mixed race.

  “Tell me, Cholo, what would your friends and associates think if they knew you were selling drugs to kids?”

  The man’s eyes narrowed, the muscles in his neck tensing. “You must have me mistaken for somebody else. Be a good idea to get yourself gone before damage gets done you won’t be able to undo.”

  “That’s quite a mouthful. You practice saying it in front of a mirror?”

  Cort Wesley watched Cholo smirk toward his henchmen. “Dios mio, que olor a culo hay ahi afuera.”

  “The only thing that smells like ass here is you, Cholo. That’s what cowards smell like, and only cowards sell drugs to kids.”

  Cholo looked like he wanted to stand up, but he stopped short of doing so. “Cree ud que soy una cobarde?”

  “I don’t think y
ou’re a coward. I know you are.”

  Cholo Brown kicked his work boots up onto the table and interlaced his hands behind his head. “I’m gonna give you one last chance to run away. Then I’m gonna snap my fingers and have you driven out of here in the trunk of a lowrider.”

  “Do it,” Cort Wesley told him, feeling the blood boiling inside him.

  “What?”

  “Snap your fingers.”

  “You’re a strange kind of crazy, brah.”

  “What happened to snapping your fingers, Cholo?”

  Brown stretched a hand from the back of his head and creased a finger and thumb together. The resulting snap sounded more like a crack to Cort Wesley. He studied the man he was hovering over, Cholo’s eyes telling him everything he needed to know for starters. His hearing and the shadows flitting at the edge of his vision picked things up from there.

  Before Cort Wesley could record the motion, he’d picked up a metal chair one of Brown’s lackeys had just vacated and slammed it across the face of a beefy, onrushing thug. The metal dented, literally dented, on impact, leaving Cort Wesley to wonder if any of the man’s nose was left recognizable.

  The next guy coming had a pistol out, and Cort Wesley flung the dented chair through the air at him. It spun like a Frisbee and clipped him hard enough to take his feet clean out from under him.

  In that moment, the two guys sharing the table with Cholo Brown launched themselves at Cort Wesley from opposite angles, close enough to each other for him to slam both with the upturned table he’d hoisted off the sidewalk, before tossing it through the bodega window at a man steadying a shotgun. The shattered glass flying inward stunned the man enough to lose the trigger, and by the time he found it again, Cort Wesley was already through the jagged hole, grabbing hold of the thug by the lapels and tossing him out through what remained of the pane.

  He followed in the thug’s wake and had his pistol palmed in the next moment, steadying it on a final trio of thugs coming fast from around the corner, big fancy guns held absurdly to the side in the best gangbanger tradition.