The house was dark when he got there. That was unusual. Hard to believe with everything that had happened, but it really wasn’t all that late. Stark felt a shiver of worry go through him when he saw that all the lights were out.
He brought the pickup to a halt in front of the house and was out the door almost before the engine stopped turning over. When he reached the steps, Elaine’s voice came from the shadows along the porch. “No need to hurry, John Howard. I’m right here.”
“Elaine,” he said. “Are you all right?”
“Why wouldn’t I be? I’m not the one who went off to do something stupid.”
He saw that she was sitting in one of the rocking chairs. As he went toward her, he lifted a hand and said, “All the way home, I’ve been trying to figure out what I was going to say to you.”
“Don’t say anything,” she told him. “Just stand there and let me look at you for a minute.” Her voice trembled slightly as she added, “I was afraid I’d never see you again. Not alive, anyway.”
If she had been sitting out here in the dark for a while, as Stark guessed she had, then her eyes were more adjusted than his were and she could see better. He couldn’t make out the details of her face. All he knew was that she was sitting there hugging herself, staring up at him.
Finally she sighed and said, “All right. I’ve convinced myself that you’re real and not just wishful thinking or a figment of my imagination. Now you can try to explain what the hell you were thinking when you went off like some sort of avenging angel. I warn you, though, I don’t think you’re going to be successful.”
“Somebody had to,” Stark said. “Hodge Purdee’s hands are tied, and Hammond’s worse than useless. He’s actually on the other side. So it was up to me.”
“You were the voice of reason last night, telling Devery and the others that they couldn’t go after Ramirez no matter how much they wanted to. You told them they’d just get themselves killed. What happened, John Howard? What changed your mind? Or was it just an act all along? Did you intend to pull this Lone Ranger stunt right from the first?”
“I got an e-mail,” Stark said.
“An e-mail?” Elaine’s voice cracked a little. “My God, what sort of e-mail inspires you to go off and try to get yourself killed?”
“I wasn’t trying to get myself killed,” Stark said. “In fact, I did my damnedest not to. But that e-mail told me where I could find the three men who actually killed Tommy. Not Ramirez, who ordered it, but the men who carried out the order.” He shrugged. “It was better than nothing.”
She stood up and took a step toward him. “So you went after them.” The words weren’t a question.
“I had to. The e-mail was anonymous, but I figure Hodge Purdee sent it to me. He found out somehow who the men were, but he couldn’t do anything about it. I could.”
“Where did you go?”
“A club over in Acuna called the Blue Burro. A strip joint.” Stark chuckled humorlessly. “But don’t worry. I didn’t look at the girls . . . much.”
She stepped closer. “You . . . you idiot!” She punched him in the chest. Stark barely felt it. “You think I care whether or not you look at a bunch of strippers? You went there after some killers!”
“Found ’em, too,” Stark said quietly.
“What happened?”
“I confronted them, their reaction told me that they really were mixed up in Tommy’s killing, and there was a fight.”
“You’re lucky to be alive.”
“I know that,” Stark agreed. “They weren’t that lucky.”
Elaine stared at him for a long moment without speaking. Then she whispered, “Dead?”
“All three of them,” Stark said.
She lowered her head. “My God,” she breathed. “My God.”
“It had to be done.”
Elaine looked at him again. “Did people see you? Will the Mexican authorities be coming after you?”
“Plenty of people saw me, but I don’t think I have anything to worry about from the police over there. As far as they’re concerned, it was just a bar fight. People get killed in bar fights all the time. They’re not going to press the investigation.”
Of course, Stark thought, he had stood there in the Blue Burro and made it perfectly clear to everyone in earshot that it was much more than a bar fight. All those witnesses knew it was a personal vendetta. They knew as well that the three dead men worked for the Vulture. It was possible that the deaths wouldn’t even be reported to the police.
But Ramirez would know. The word had probably gotten back to him already.
“Oh, John Howard,” Elaine said. She came closer, and although he hated to hug her while he was wearing that filthy shirt, he put his arms around her and pulled her even closer.
“It’s all right,” he said. “It’s all over now. Nothing more to worry about.”
But there was plenty to worry about, he thought. What would Ramirez do when he heard about what had happened?
What had he done? Stark asked himself. What had he done?
Elaine put her arms around him and hugged him, and he flinched as she pressed against the wound in his side. Immediately she drew back in concern and said, “John Howard, you’re hurt!”
“Not too bad,” he assured her. “Just a little scratch in my side. There’s one on my arm, too. You reckon you’d be up to doctoring them?”
“You come on in the house right now,” she said briskly as she took hold of his hand. She led him to the front door but paused there to say, “Earlier tonight, when I figured out you were up to something dangerous, I asked Uncle Newt if he knew where you had gone. He just laughed and said something about the O.K. Corral. What did he mean by that?”
Stark laughed softly. “He’s just a crazy old man, honey. Don’t put too much stock in what he says.”
They went on inside, to the bathroom upstairs where Stark took a shower, and then Elaine cleaned and disinfected and bandaged the cuts and said that they probably wouldn’t need stitches but that he ought to have the doctor take a look at them just to be sure. Stark agreed that he would do that.
But all the time, Newt’s comment about the O.K. Corral lingered in the back of his mind. Stark had read enough western history books to know that the famous shoot-out in which Wyatt Earp had been involved had taken place near the O.K. Corral but not actually in it. He also knew that the gun battle, epic though it had been, had not ended the violent clash between the two factions vying for control of Tombstone.
That day had been, in fact, not the end of the killing . . . but the beginning.
Normal people might have expected to find Ernesto Diego Espinoza Ramirez snorting cocaine or having sex with an underage girl—or two—or some other disgusting and depraved activity in which Colombian drug lords might indulge. But no one had ever accused Silencio Ryan of being normal, and besides, he had worked for Ramirez long enough to know his boss’s habits. So he wasn’t surprised to find Ramirez in the office, in front of the computer, going over a spreadsheet that detailed all the cartel’s activities for the past year. A federal prosecutor would probably sell his mother into slavery for that file, but even if he got his hands on it, it wouldn’t do him any good. There were so many levels of encryption that no one except Ramirez or one of his trusted—i.e., drug-addicted—technogeeks could ever retrieve any incriminating data.
It wasn’t that Ramirez was immune to the charms of tender young female flesh; he wasn’t. There were always girls around the place, and Ramirez indulged himself with them often. He never touched drugs himself, having seen with his own eyes the dangers of a dealer becoming his own best customer. And he liked working with the computer. Guns, knives, bombs, torture . . . these time-honored traditions of the drug-running business all had their places, of course, but this was the twenty-first century, after all.
Ramirez switched off the monitor as Ryan came into the office. Trusting Ryan with his life was one thing. Trusting him with confidential information wa
s something else entirely. “Any leads on Carranza’s wife and kids?” Ramirez asked casually.
“Not yet.” The woman and the children had given the slip to the men who were watching Tomas Carranza’s funeral, and so far they hadn’t been located. That wouldn’t have happened if Ryan had been handling the chore personally, but he had already handed it off to one of the Vulture’s other men. To tell the truth, Ryan hadn’t been working all that hard at finding Julie Carranza and her kids. He would have put bullets through their heads without hesitation if they were right there in front of him and Ramirez ordered him to do so, but he wasn’t really all that interested in the job. If they escaped Ramirez’s vengeance, it was all right with Ryan.
He had found something a lot more intriguing tonight.
“What have you been doing, then?” Ramirez asked, the question little more than an idle one.
“I went to the Blue Burro with Guzman, Mendez, and Canales.”
Ramirez arched an eyebrow in surprise. “You went to a strip joint with some gunners? I didn’t think you liked to associate with that type unless you were working, Silencio.”
Ramirez didn’t know Ryan’s real first name, Simon. That was just fine with Ryan, and he intended to keep it that way. He shrugged and said, “They asked me to go out with them. I thought it might be good for morale.”
That was a lie. Ryan had invited the three men to the Blue Burro. He knew they were good men, experienced gunners, and he would not have been surprised at all if they had killed John Howard Stark with ease. The fact that Stark had killed them and injured several other men spoke volumes about the big Texan and indicated that he was not a typical middle-aged rancher at all, which was exactly what Ryan had been trying to learn.
With Guzman, Mendes, and Canales dead, Ramirez would never know that Ryan was lying. Ryan felt no particular disloyalty in doing so. He had always followed his own path, done things his own way.
“So how was the Blue Burro?” asked Ramirez. “Any new girls that were particularly interesting?”
“Not really. But something happened while we were there.”
“What’s that?” Ramirez asked when Ryan paused.
“That fellow Stark showed up, picked a fight with Guzman and the others, and killed them all.”
Ramirez started to nod, and Ryan realized that he hadn’t really been paying attention. But then the shocking truth of what Ryan had said soaked in on Ramirez, and he started up out of his chair, eyes widening.
“What?” he shouted. “Stark . . . you say . . . killed them all!”
Ryan nodded. “That’s right.”
“He came in with a . . . a machine gun or something . . . ?”
“He had what looked like a piece of an old fence post with some barbed wire wrapped around one end of it,” Ryan said, relishing the telling of it. “He laid into them, swinging that post like a baseball bat.”
“Dios mio,” Ramirez muttered as he sank back into his chair. “Dios mio. Alfonso will be upset. They were some of his best men. Stark killed them with nothing but a . . . a club?”
“I saw the whole thing.”
Anger flashed in Ramirez’s eyes. “And you did not step in to help them?”
Ryan allowed his voice to harden a bit as he replied, “You know our agreement, Senor Ramirez: I kill in defense of your life, my life, or on direct orders from you. Otherwise my conduct is left to my own discretion.”
Ramirez was still mad, but he was in strict control of his emotions, at least where Ryan was concerned. Where Stark was concerned, it was different. Ramirez nodded and said, “Of course I trust your judgment, Silencio. I have ever since you came to work for me. But this man Stark, why would he do such an insane thing?”
“To avenge his friend’s death, I assume.”
“But he had to know that he would probably be killed!”
“Some men don’t care about that,” Ryan said. “They do what they think they have to do.”
Ramirez slapped a hand on the desk beside the computer and came to his feet as his anger bubbled up. “That bastard! That no-good son of a whore! That gringo motherfucker!” The curses spewed out of him and became more obscene and blasphemous the longer he ranted. Caught up in rage, Ramirez grabbed some of the papers scattered on the desk and flung them across the room. “I want him dead, Silencio! You understand? I want him dead, and his wife, too, and his children and all his friends and anyone who has ever spoken a friendly word to him or had a good thought of him!”
That fierce, widespread hatred was part and parcel of Ramirez’s Colombian heritage, Ryan thought. That was the way Ramirez and his countrymen in the drug business operated. That was why they were so feared.
Ryan just stood there and let Ramirez erupt for several minutes, and when the Vulture finally ran out of steam, he stared at Ryan and said, “You will take care of it, Silencio?”
“Of course,” Ryan replied with a nod. “But I saw what Stark did tonight. It won’t be easy to take him out.”
Ramirez frowned. “The great Silencio Ryan says this? I thought there was no man you could not kill!”
“I can kill Stark,” Ryan said with easy confidence. “I can kill his friends and family. His sons may take a while—they’re both in the American military, serving overseas. But I’m sure they’ll get compassionate leave to come home for their parents’ funeral, and I can take care of them then.”
Ramirez nodded. “Good, good.”
“After tonight, though, Stark will be on his guard. He’ll know that you’ll send someone after him. So the best thing to do might be to try to draw him out in the open, where I can get at him easier. In order to do that, we should strike at his loved ones first. He won’t stay hidden then.”
“I trust you, Silencio. Handle this matter as you see fit. I make only one request, other than that Stark and those around him die.”
“What’s that?” Ryan asked, relatively sure that he already knew the answer.
Ramirez leaned forward and rested his hands on the desk. All his computer expertise and businessman’s facade had vanished. At this moment he was nothing but an outlaw and a savage. His lips pulled back from his teeth in a snarl, and he said, “Make sure this man Stark truly suffers before he dies. Not like with Carranza. Simple torture was enough for the likes of him. Stark is different. I want him to suffer the torments of the damned.”
Thirteen
Stark hurt like blazes when he woke up the next morning. Getting out of bed usually required a few grunts of effort since fifty-four-year-old muscles tended to stiffen up a little during the night, but this was different. He hadn’t realized that he’d been banged up so much during the fight at the Blue Burro, over and above the knife wounds. After some groaning and cussing under his breath, he made it out of bed and into the bathroom. When he looked at his naked body in the mirror before climbing into the shower, he saw that it was mottled with livid bruises. Stark turned the water in the shower as hot as he could stand it and stood under the spray for a long time, letting the heat massage away some of the aches and ease others. At the same time he checked the gash on his arm and looked at the one on his side as best he could. While both wounds were painful, the flesh around them looked normal. There was no redness and swelling such as would have been present in the case of infection. Elaine had done a good job cleaning them.
He was thinking about that as the shower curtain rustled and moved back slightly. Stark took a sharply indrawn breath and turned more quickly than he would have thought possible, considering how stiff and sore he was.
But this was no threat. Instead, a nude Elaine stepped into the shower with him and closed the curtain again. She smiled up at him and said, “I thought you might want a little help, John Howard. Since you’re stiff and all.”
Stark felt the surge of blood into his penis as he looked at his naked wife, who was standing so close to him that the erect nipples of her breasts brushed against his lower chest. Elaine’s body, though no longer that of a teenager, was stil
l slender and fairly firm. He thought she was beautiful, and his erection agreed with him.
She reached down and clasped her hand loosely around his penis. “Just like I said,” she murmured. “Stiff.” She gave him a squeeze and then said, “Turn around.”
“What?”
“Just turn around.”
Stark did as she told him, and her hands touched his shoulders. She began massaging him with a firm, expert touch, kneading and stroking and rubbing muscles that were still tense even after a night’s sleep. Stark felt relaxation spreading through him like a warm tide. The combination of hot water and his wife’s loving touch was magnificent. Elaine worked her way down his back, lingering anywhere that her prodding produced a groan from Stark. She didn’t move on until all the tension in those muscles had eased. She knelt to massage his buttocks and the backs of his thighs and slipped a hand between his legs to cup his scrotum for a moment. Stark’s erection hardened even more. How could any man be so relaxed and so excited at the same time? he wondered.
Elaine stood up, kissed the back of his neck, and whispered in his ear, “I need you to make love to me, John Howard.”
Stark turned toward her. She faced away from him, bent over slightly, and Stark took her from behind, clutching her trim hips. Elaine cried out softly as he penetrated her.
Time had not changed the way he felt about her. His passion for her was as strong as ever, and hers for him, too. The years fell away, like leaves plucked from a tree by an autumn wind.
“Rock Around the Clock” played on the radio, already an oldie; otherwise it wouldn’t have been playing on XERF, the Mexican station across the river in Cuidad Acuna that blasted out a hundred thousand watts of clear channel power all across Texas and up through the Great Plains and the Midwest. On a good night, when the weather was just right, XERF boomed in for listeners in Chicago and Detroit and could be heard more faintly in Los Angeles and New York. John Howard Stark sometimes wondered if Wolfman Jack, the howling, fast-talking nighttime disc jockey on XERF, could be heard on the moon if there had been anybody there to listen to him. President Kennedy had said that the United States would put a man on the moon and return him safely by the end of the decade. There were still a few years to go on that deadline. Stark, lying in the back of a ’48 Ford pickup, looked up at the moon and wondered what it would be like to walk on its surface. He wondered what the astronauts would find when they finally got there; a moon maid, maybe, like in that Edgar Rice Burroughs paperback he’d read not long before. The science textbooks said that gravity was a lot less on the moon than on Earth. Six times less, Stark thought. Did that mean that one of the three-hundred-fifty-foot home runs he had hit would travel over two thousand feet on the moon? That seemed logical enough to him, even though math and science had never been his strongest, or his favorite, subjects in school. He still did well enough in them to trust his calculations. Not that it really mattered, he thought, because it was highly unlikely that he would ever go to the moon, let alone hit a baseball on it. But if he ever did, boy, that sucker would be outta the park.
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