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Loren D. Estleman - Amos Walker 16 - Poison Blonde

Page 12

by Loren D. Estleman


  Matador sat on one of the chairs, cutting and rearranging the two halves of a deck of cards one-handed. Like many Latinos he had nervous fingers, and his stretch in Jackson hadn’t settled them down. The suit today was charcoal gray, with a narrow lilac stripe and a tie and display handkerchief to match. Black slip-ons with tiny gold buckles glistened on his narrow feet.

  “Lots of memories in this place,” he said. He might have been speaking to the deck of cards for all the eye contact I got. “I held my war councils here when the dagoes started to push back. When they put fifty thousand on my head I stayed here a month. That’s when I taught myself to cook. I planted a little herb garden out back. Cops dug it up after Jimmy Socks Mondadori went missing. They didn’t find him.”

  I said, “Of course they didn’t. That was a Sicilian hit. Everybody knows the Colombians leave ’em where they fell. You’d bend over to pick up a greasy nickel, but not a shovel.”

  Benny had withdrawn behind me. Clothing rustled and the edge of a steel girder struck a glancing blow off my left shoulder near the base of my neck. I felt a flash of agonizing pain. Then my left side went dead. The black man spun the other chair with one hand and got it behind me just as my legs folded. I sat down hard.

  “You should appreciate Benito’s gentle touch,” Matador said. “He can split a two-by-four with that hand. Emmett?”

  The former marshal had put away his pistol. He found something in a pocket, jerked my right hand behind the back of the chair, and yanked something tight around the wrist that didn’t feel like wire or rope or duct tape, but that held it just as snugly. I assumed my other wrist was also involved; I had no feeling in it yet. The bond would be one of those plastic zip ties electricians use to secure cables. They’ve just about replaced steel handcuffs for space and portability.

  Matador cut the jack of diamonds. “Those were good days. I had a new car every six months, quicker if I got bored with the one I was driving. Paid for them with suitcases full of cash. That was before the town went to shit. They tell me this was a meth lab last year. A meth lab.” He leaned forward, curled back his upper lip, and spat through his teeth. The spittle splattered on the linoleum. He wiped his lips with the back of his hand. “I am still un hijo del trabajador, you see. The son of a working man.”

  “I heard a pimp,” I said. “But I guess they put in their hours just like the rest of us.”

  “Benito.”

  Something pricked the back of my neck. Before martial arts training, Benny had been one of the best men with a knife this side of Bogota; excuse me, Mexico City. He could filet a fish in three seconds and a man in five minutes. Half an hour if he didn’t like him.

  Matador put the deck of cards in his side pocket, rested his hands on his thighs, and looked at me for the first time. “Thank you for telling Gilia you were tipping the cops. I had just enough time to prepare some answers.”

  I said nothing.

  “You think I’m angry with you. You don’t give me credit. Do you think I did not play the shell game when I worked in this town? Fortunately we all look alike to Anglos.”

  “Not all of you. The honest ones don’t look like buttered eels.”

  I was trying to make him mad enough to work fast and unmethodically. It had begun to dawn on me what the silent man was cooking on the stove.

  Matador smiled. He had good teeth, blue-white against his brown skin, but he was easier to look at when he was solemn. “The Rubio woman said she had documents,” he said. “Newspaper articles in Spanish—detailed, not the watered-down accounts that appeared over here—her birth certificate, proving she was the original Gilia Cristobal. Some other things, probably. Nothing incriminating, unless it was all together. Then one could make a connection with the other Gilia. I had hoped to get them from her. For that it was necessary to play the meek little business manager; the lucky spick who lived upon Gilia the entertainer and could not bear the loss of his meal ticket should the truth come out and she was deported. That was not possible in the beginning. The woman was nervous, afraid to meet me in any but the most public place. However, I was patient. She came from a good family, and it was only a matter of time until the class system asserted itself. I am, as I said, a man of simple origins. We peons have known for centuries the power that is ours if we but hold our hats, lower our eyes, and employ the formal address when speaking to our betters. Your language does not even have such a thing, because of course you are all born equal under God.” He almost spat again on the last part. I began to think he had emotions after all. I hoped it wasn’t an act. Something clinked on the stove; the big silent man turning over the main course to heat the other side.

  “It was working,” Matador went on. “The last few times we met she had begun to become insolent. She called me jíbaro, which is a name that has no adequate translation in English. Formally it means a peasant, a man of no sophistication, unlettered, but it has come to mean so much more, as such terms will. Or rather so much less. The time was near when I would succeed in luring her into very much the same position in which you find yourself at this moment. Then a thing happened which frustrated me deeply.”

  “She stood you up,” I said.

  “Sí. I was disconsolate. The more so the second and then the third time. It was only when I remembered that Gilia was scheduled to appear in Detroit that I began to have hope. You see, I knew of a competent investigator in this place.”

  “Thanks for the recommendation. I’d wondered about that. So that’s why I had company.”

  “That is why. When you observed that you were being followed, I knew that I had chosen the right man for the job. Now the time has come to ask you where are the documents. Felipe.”

  Something made a scraping noise and the man at the stove turned around. He had a pair of ordinary serving tongs in his hand with something that glowed between the pinched ends. I smelled red-hot copper.

  EIGHTEEN

  “We can learn much from third world countries,” Matador said. “Any American child can operate a computer, and our scientists have unlocked the secret of life itself. But who would have thought one could obtain so much useful information from the humble penny? It was generous of them to pay tribute to the United States by calling it the Lincoln Question. I assume the local coin carries the likeness of their current president or generalissimo.”

  I was barely listening to his droning. A thread of smoke curled off the penny in Felipe’s tongs. Honest Abe’s sad face glowed with rude health.

  “Benito?”

  Reaching from behind my chair, Benny folded my throat in the crook of his arm. I struggled, but he tightened his grip and cut off my windpipe. All I got from wriggling my hands was a raw burn on my wrists from the plastic tie.

  “Let him have some air,” Matador said. “I want him awake for this.”

  Benny made the adjustment. I sucked in sweet oxygen, coughed.

  “The left eye, I think, Benito. That is usually the weaker of the two. I am not a vindictive man.”

  A thick thumb and forefinger prised at my eye socket. I couldn’t have closed the eye without a pry bar. The hot penny moved in close. I could feel the heat on my cheekbone.

  Matador said, “The documents, Senor Walker. I would search your house and office, but if I enjoyed physical labor I would have stayed home and picked coffee beans.”

  “I don’t have them.” My voice was as squeaky as a cricket’s.

  “Brave, but unimaginative. Felipe?”

  The penny was the size of a manhole cover. I couldn’t see around it.

  “We’re on the same side,” I croaked. “Don’t you think I’d give them to you if I had them?”

  “It’s a hazard of my former calling. I think everyone is a criminal. There is a great deal of money to be made from that material, and you are a poor man in a line of work that in five years will cease to exist. Unfortunately, you will spend most of the money on devices for the blind.”

  I felt the heat on my cornea now. It was like star
ing into the sun. Felipe wouldn’t have to move the penny any closer if he didn’t want to; it would cook the retina in moments just where it was. Water ran out of the duct, drenching my cheek. In a couple of seconds it would be steam. My hands worked independent of the rest of me. They were becoming slick with sweat or blood.

  “You’re not thinking, Matador. By next week the cops will know Gilia’s a fake. The documents won’t be worth anything.” I almost said, “won’t be worth a penny.” My eyeball felt poached. Smoke seemed to be rolling off it.

  Silence sizzled. I thought it was something else.

  “Cristo.” Matador’s tone was a whisper. “Take it away, Felipe. Now.”

  The sun went behind a cloud. Green spots swam in the fluid that remained. They separated painfully, like old men climbing out of a pool. Light came between them and I saw Matador’s face. Not the sight I would have chosen, but much better than none at all.

  “Thank you, Benito. You may rest your arms now.”

  Benny let go. My eyes blinked with no help from me. I snuffled. Something bitter and viscous crawled down the back of my throat. I turned my head from side to side, testing my neck for breaks. Emmett, the big black former U.S. Marshal, was gripping the back of the chair Matador had been sitting in. His fingers were white.

  Matador uncovered his blue-white teeth. He gave my cheek three smart pats.

  “You make good sense, Anglo. I am not a savage, merely curious. If you knew where the papers were, you would have given me that answer instead of the one you chose. The trouble with the people who are used to asking this question is they want only one answer, and it is not always the right one. Often enough it is sufficient merely that the question is asked. No harm done. We are friends, yes?”

  I kicked him in the crotch.

  I didn’t give it any thought beforehand, or to what would come after. I was sitting down and I couldn’t get the leverage I wanted, but he was crouched in front of me with his feet spread and I had a clear shot. I found out he’d had onions for breakfast. He jackknifed and started making little mewing noises. That was no reflection on his masculinity; Manolete would have made the same sounds, and probably had when the horn went in.

  “We are friends, no,” I said. “Sorry to disappoint you, jíbaro. Jillian Rubio didn’t call you that because your old man worked in a field. She guessed what you were. Maybe that’s why you killed her.”

  Behind me, Benny coughed deep in his chest, the way a lion coughs, with a thud you can feel at the base of your spine. I heard a metallic shink, and remembered he had a knife.

  “Not till you hear the order, muchacho.” Emmett had dug his fingers out of the back of the chair and showed his foreign pistol. “Just now the jefe’s too busy to give it. Why don’t you cut our friend loose meanwhile. He’s had one shitty day, and it’s not even noon.”

  “You don’t tell me what to do,” Benny’s voice said.

  “This little piece of Italian machinery says I do. Don’t look to Felipe for help. He’s just the cook.”

  The big silent man was standing next to the stove, still holding the tongs with the penny cooling between the ends. He tossed them clanging onto the griddle and lowered his hands to his sides.

  After a moment I felt a vibration in my wrists; Benny sawing through the plastic tie. It came loose and I brought them around in front of me and rubbed the raw spots. The skin wasn’t even broken. I thought I’d severed an artery at least. I stood up. I was a little unsteady on my feet. Matador remained in a deep crouch. He had his hands on his knees and all his attention focused on breathing in and out. Benny stepped in front of me and stooped to rest a hand on his shoulder.

  “He’s kind of a shrimp,” Emmett said. “You don’t notice unless he’s standing next to one of us or bent over waiting for his balls to drop back down.”

  I said, “You wouldn’t look any bigger. Nobody’s unbreakable. Not even you.”

  “That’s the trouble with you liberal types. Once they’re broken you bleed all over them. Think he’ll give me a reference?”

  “Yeah, but you’ll never know to who. You won’t even hear the bullet.” I snuffled again. He put up his pistol in an underarm clip, brought out a white handkerchief, and stuck it at me. I shook my head and took out one of my own. The tears had dried to a crust on my cheek. I rubbed at them, blew my nose. I always cry at tortures.

  He watched me. “When you make your case, leave out conspiracy, okay? I just came along for the heavy lifting. Nobody told me the plan.”

  “Where was that snazzy gun when they were getting ready to fry my pretty brown eyes?”

  “I was pretty sure it was a bluff. Turned out I was right.”

  “You always gamble with other people’s money?” I put away the handkerchief. “I’m not making any kind of case. I’ve got two on my hands as it is.”

  Matador took in his first deep breath in several minutes, let it out with a shuddering whoosh. We glanced down at him, then back at each other. Emmett said, “So you figure he killed the Rubio woman?”

  “How much do you know about that?”

  “Not a damn thing before today, and I don’t even know what I guessed based on what I heard.”

  I decided I was still too shaken up to try to untie that knot. “I don’t figure it was Matador. I only said that to get a rise out of him. I was sore or I’d have waited until he wasn’t so distracted.”

  “Yeah. These spicks put a lot of store in their cojones.”

  “So do Swedes and Albanians. The last time Matador paid off Jillian Rubio was October in Milwaukee. If he killed her because of something she said, he wouldn’t have waited a month and commuted all the way to Detroit to do it. If he planned it that long, he’d have found out where the documents were before he killed her. He was a big noise in this town for a long time before the cops quieted him down. You don’t get that big and last that long by going off your coconut every time someone calls you a nasty name.”

  “Too deep for me. I don’t have any training in murder, committing or investigating.”

  “Me neither. It’s all been on-the-job since I hung out my shingle in this town.”

  “You can have it.” Emmett buttoned his coat. “Time to fly, boys. These two kids are past due for a play date.”

  Benny looked up from his boss. “We ain’t leaving him here.”

  “You’re forgetting the job description, Ferdinand. I’m a free agent now, but Gilia bought you that suit, not Matador. You don’t walk in front of him, check his car for wires. Who’s doing that for her while you’re down here?”

  Benny straightened, facing him. What he was thinking crawled across his face like the weather report. It was the old test case: martial arts vs. a loaded pistol in a holster.

  It wasn’t settled that time either. Felipe tipped the balance by reaching out and shutting off the stove. The fourth burner fluttered and went out with a pop. He twisted shut the valve on the tank, then got his coat off the back of the kitchen door and shoved both fists into the sleeves.

  Some of the tension went out of Benny’s shoulders. “Mr. Matador?”

  The Colombian was breathing almost evenly now, coming up out of his crouch. He nodded. “Give him back his gun. I don’t want you getting pinched.” His voice lacked resonance.

  Benny found the Smith & Wesson in his hip pocket. He swung out the cylinder, shook the cartridges into his hand, and dropped them into the side pocket of his coat. He smacked the revolver onto my palm hard enough to sting if I didn’t already hurt in a few other places. I stuck the gun under my waistband in back.

  “Hasta manana, friend,” Emmett said. “Don’t say it’s been real, ’cause it ain’t.”

  “Is that all you got?”

  He smiled and went out with the others. The Corsica started up and crackled away through frozen slush. With the load it was carrying, the frame must have been sitting square on the springs. I didn’t see Emmett again after that, manana or any other day. I never found out if Matador gave him a ref
erence or if he went back to the U.S. Marshals. My life is a row of revolving doors and the only ones who ever seem to keep coming back in are the cops and the crooks.

  In the awkward little silence that followed, I noticed the difference in room temperature with the stove turned off. It must have been getting colder outside, a lot colder. I swung a chair around. Matador looked at it, then lowered himself onto it, concentrating hard on not reacting. I reversed the other chair, straddled it, and folded my hands on the back. I watched him a while.

  “Try an ice pack if it doesn’t feel better later,” I said. “You shouldn’t need a doctor. In college I forgot to wear a cup the one time the other guy decided to give me an uppercut to the chin by way of the inseam. He had both feet on the floor and he got his weight behind it. Ice did the trick that time. I didn’t hit you as hard as he hit me.”

  “Did you win?”

  “On my back, by default. Boxing has rules.”

  He pulled out his pocket square and used it on his forehead. He spent some time folding it with the sweat inside. “I heard what you told Emmett. You were right. I didn’t kill her.”

  “Of course you didn’t. If you had, you’d have left her where she fell, like I said. Either that or you’d have made sure no one ever found her. Stashing her under a tarp was half-ass. You’ve been guilty of plenty, but never of not finishing a job once you’d started.”

 

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