THE DEATH FREAK -- An Eddie Mancuso Thriller (Eddie Mancuso And Vasily Borgneff Book 1)

by Clifford Irving

  "Is he really a general?"

  "Bet your bubble gum. I can spot one at a hundred yards over open sights."

  Cuervos, who looked barely out of his teens when seen up close, gave Eddie a friendly smile, put out his hand, and said in easy English, "Hi, good to meet you."

  The general, middle-aged, mustachioed and moon-faced, wore a scowl that seemed engraved about his lips. He spread blunt hands in a sign of unfriendly refusal and said, "I excuse me. I no speak ingles."

  Francisca was an ebony-haired, dark-eyed woman of about thirty, with lush lips that spread in an inviting smile. She ob­viously belonged to the general. "I speak a little," she said. She looked at Chalice and the smile faded. "Enough to under­stand."

  Eddie said quickly, "Who's drinking what? It's my round, I'm behind."

  An hour later he had finished off three double bourbons and had listened with admiration to a recital of the brief career of Jose Cuervos. The young bullfighter was engagingly open and frank about his abilities.

  "I'm pretty good," he said with a disarming smile. "With the cape and with the sticks, I guess I'm one of the best around." Then the smile disappeared. "With the sword, it's something else, but maybe you know about that."

  "I don't know anything about bulls," Eddie admitted. "What's your problem?"

  The torero seemed embarrassed at having brought up the sub­ject. He hesitated, then said, "It's just that I don't kill very well. Everybody knows it. The old-timers, they're always saying that the young guys today don't know how to kill anymore. Well, in my case it's true. I don't know why, but it's true."

  I should have such problems, Eddie thought sadly, and turned away to talk to Chalice. He ordered another bourbon and then, too quickly, another. Three drinks later he had danced with Chal­ice once, which had saddened him with memories; had danced with Francisca four times, which had excited him into a raging lust; and had endured with amusement the ever-deepening scowls of General Herrera. He asked Francisca to dance again, and she looked apprehensively at the general.

  "What does he want now?" Herrera asked in Spanish.

  "To dance."

  "Again? Mierda, he doesn't want to dance, he just wants to rub up against your tetas."

  "Rodolfo, please ..." "Let him dance with his own woman. Better still, let him take her home to bed."

  "Hear, hear," said Chalice, who understood.

  "What's he saying?" Eddie asked Cuervos. The torero looked uncomfortable and did not answer.

  Chalice supplied her own interpretation. "He thinks you've been neglecting me. If he only knew ..."

  "Tell him to leave you alone," the general ordered Francisca. "I'm tired of supplying him with flesh to feel."

  Eddie, confused in the bilingual crossfire, put his hand on Fran- cisca's shoulder and asked, "Look, do you want to dance or not?"

  "Maybe later," she answered.

  "She wants to, but her old man says no," Chalice told him. "Are you going to take that jive from a Messkin?"

  "Well, if he feels that way . . ."

  Francisca appealed, "Please, I don't want trouble."

  "Where the hell are your balls these days?" Chalice asked, her voice cutting. "If I were a man I wouldn't let any tin-pot Messkin soldier run me off a girl like that."

  "Nobody's running me off anything, and take it easy on the Mexican business. You're not back in Texas now."

  Chalice waved her hand airily. "Texas, Mexico, it's all the same thing."

  "What is she saying now?" the general asked suspiciously.

  Francisca, eager for any change in the subject, answered, "She says that someday Texas will conquer all of Mexico."

  "iQue puta sinvergiienza!" the general exploded. "How much more do they want? They already have most of it."

  Chalice turned on Francisca. "Listen, we took all we wanted years ago. What's left ain't worth doodly-squat."

  "Time out." Jose Cuervos rose and touched Eddie lightly on the sleeve. "Let's you and me go make room for some more whiskey."

  Inside the men's room they stood side by side over the zinc trough, unzipped, staring at the blank wall before them. Cuervos cleared his throat nervously.

  "Speaking as a new friend, Eduardo, may I give you some advice?" "About Francisca?"

  "The general is a very possessive man."

  Eddie laughed. "You mean he's a Mexican."

  Cuervos laughed with him. "I'm glad you understand. It would be much better if you did not pay so much attention to her."

  "Why? Is he going to challenge me to a duel?"

  Cuervos looked thoughtful. "No, I doubt if he would go that far. He would simply shoot you."

  Eddie stood without moving for a long moment. "You're seri­ous, aren't you?"

  "Very serious." The two men zipped up and faced each other. "There have been incidents in the past."

  "But he can't just go around shooting people, can he?"

  Cuervos shrugged. "He's a general, and this is Mexico."

  "I'll be damned," said Eddie, marveling at the idea of such casual manslaughter. "This is one hell of a country you have here."

  Cuervos looked truly disturbed. "Please, Eduardo, be careful with this man."

  "Don't worry, I will," Eddie assured him, but he knew that he had taken too much bourbon to be entirely careful. Not that he felt in any way drunk. The whiskey had only banked the fires of charcoal burning in his belly, but he knew that he was swaggering a bit as he crossed the room to the table. Still, he felt fine. Confi­dent and fine.

  Besides, he asked himself, who the hell is General Herrera? Just an old man with bad breath and a suit that doesn't fit right. I've got half a dozen toys in my pockets that could wipe him out. Two weeks from now I go up against four of the aces. What's Herrera compared to them?

  With such thoughts in mind he approached the table, bent over Francisca's shoulder, and whispered in her ear.

  "iQue pasa?" asked the general. "The dancing again?"

  Eddie raised his head and looked at the man steadily. "Ac­tually, I'm tired of dancing. I was asking the lady if she felt like getting laid."

  Cuervos looked up at the ceiling, shrugged, and closed his eyes.

  Francisca hid her face in her hands.

  Chalice threw back her head and laughed, applauding "leefully, calling, "Way to go, little sweetie."

  "What does he say, what does he say?" Herrera asked excit­edly, but no one answered him.

  Then the import of the words sank in and his face darkened. He reached inside his jacket and brought out a black, long-bar­reled pistol. The folds of flesh around his jowls quivered with anger, but his pistol hand held steady.

  In a frozen moment of time Eddie heard the babble of voices in the room stop short, heard a chair fall over and crash, heard the dance music stop in a discordant jangle, heard someone, some­where, curse loudly. Disconnected from these sounds, living only within the frozen moment, he made three imperceptible motions at the same time. His left hand, inside his jacket pocket, tightened round a ball-point pen adapted to spit flame. He shifted the weight of his right foot to his heel so that the explosive cap in the toe of his shoe was pointed directly at the general's knee. He straight­ened his right elbow, and a steel flechette, poison-tipped and spring-activated, slid out of its holster and into his palm. All this in seconds, while the general's jowls quivered.

  He's not going to pull that trigger, not yet, Eddie thought. He's got to make a speech first, tell me all about it.

  "iMi general . . .?" It was Cuervos speaking tentatively, re­spectfully.

  "iQue?"

  The torero at once launched into a smooth flow of Spanish obviously designed to placate Herrera. The general listened im­patiently, his eyes never moving. Eddie met his gaze with a grin. When Cuervos had finished, the general replied in short, abrupt sentences.

  "I will translate," said Cuervos. "The general reminds you that you are in Mexico, and that there are certain things not done here. He says that you have no respect, that you tre
at this matter lightly, that you seem to find it amusing. He reminds you that honor is a serious concern here. He insists on an immediate apol­ogy. He says that if you do not apologize, he will shoot you on the spot."

  Eddie listened abstractedly, his mind concerned with the op­tions available to him, thinking: I can take him out easy with the pen, but I paid a hundred and seventy bucks for this jacket. Why the hell did I have to wear the good tweed tonight? Besides, the flame is messy, turn him into chile con came in front of the ladies, not very polite. On the other hand, if I use the shoe . . .

  Chalice's voice cut into his thoughts. The voice was low, but urgent and compelling. "Eddie, take him out now. Right now."

  ... if I use the shoe, that means noise. It also means that his leg comes off at the knee, which means a lot of blood, and I'm wearing my J. Press slacks. Christ, eighty-five dollars shot right there unless they have a decent dry cleaner here in town; damn difficult getting blood out of wool. Still, it's cheaper than losing the jacket . . .

  "Now, Eddie, now."

  ... so maybe I'd better use the dart—nothing gets ruined that way; just open my palm and let the spring action do all the work—except, damn, when that boomslang venom hits his heart he's going to puke all over the place, and right on top of my Gucci shoes. Son of a bitch, the next time this happens I better be wearing hip boots and jeans.

  "For me, Eddie. Do it for me."

  For her? I'm not doing anything for her. I'm doing it because I . . . Jesus, what am I doing it for? How did I get into this mess?

  "Eduardo," said Cuervos softly. "The general is waiting for your apology."

  This is crazy. I can't touch him without ruining the best clothes I own.

  "Eduardo?"

  Besides, Vasily would be sore as hell.

  "Please translate for me," Eddie said to Cuervos. "Extend my sincere apologies to the general. Make it as flowery as you like. Tell him I didn't know the local customs. Tell him I was drunk. Tell him anything you please. Understand?"

  "I understand," said Cuervos, and turned to the general. While the torero rendered the apology in Spanish, Eddie looked at Chal­ice. She looked away. He looked at Francisca. Her face was still covered by her hands. He looked at the general. The general stared back contemptuously. When Cuervos was finished with the translation, Herrera tucked the pistol back inside his jacket.

  Then he spat on the floor to show what he thought of apologetic gringos, and nodded for Eddie to go.

  "Jose," said Eddie. "Thanks for your help. I owe you one."

  Then he turned and walked out of La Fragua and into the dark, moist early-morning air. He was halfway down the street to the taxi rank when he heard the swift click of Chalice's footsteps behind him. She caught him as he opened the door to the taxi, and climbed in after him. She was silent and contained during the ride up the hill, keeping stiffly to her side of the seat. Only when they were inside the house, and alone, did she turn on him an­grily.

  "Just answer one question," she said. "Were you holding any­thing?"

  "Enough for an army."

  "Then why didn't you do it, you gutless bastard?"

  "What for? To entertain you? To top off the evening with a little blood?"

  "I don't know what you're talking about."

  "Come on, you were begging me to do him."

  "That's just an excuse. You lost your nerve."

  "Use your head, will you? What happens if I blow away Her­rera? I also blow the mission wide open. Then what happens to your little sweetie? Not to mention your big sweetie. Vasily and me, we're both out of business, that's what happens."

  They were both more sober now, the hard edges of reality cutting at them. Chalice said slowly, "I didn't think of that."

  "Sure. You were high on blood and bourbon, and so was I." He held up two fingers an inch apart. "I was that close to doing him. That close."

  "But you didn't."

  "No."

  "Because of the mission."

  He laughed unsteadily. "Because of the mission, and because I didn't feel like ruining a perfectly good jacket."

  She collapsed against him softly, muffling her laughter in his shoulder. She lifted up her face. "You nut—you lovable nut. If you were so concerned about your clothes, then why did you make a pass at Francisca?"

  He was holding her now, her flesh pliant under his fingers. "Francisca's just a body to me."

  "A lovely body."

  He drew her close to him. "But not the body I want."

  "I know," she murmured. "I know what you want."

  "You do?" His nose was in her hair, inhaling. He felt the last of his resolve go fleeing.

  "You want to get laid, that's what you want."

  "Romantic, aren't you?"

  "You're the romantic, Eddie, not me."

  He held her off so that he could look at her. His voice was sober and steady. "I want you. That's all 1 really want."

  "That's easy," she said, and her voice was as steady as his. "I'm right here. I always have been."

  "I know." Empty of outrage or anger, knowing only his need, he drew her to him again. "I only wish it didn't have to be this way."

  She put a finger to his lips. "But it is."

  "Okay, it is. I accept that. But I can wish." He took her hand and walked with her to the stairway that led to her bedroom. As they mounted the stairs he turned to her with a sudden gaiety. "Okay, I accept it all, but on one condition."

  "What's that?" she asked, leaning against him.

  "No more of this 'big sweetie' and 'little sweetie' business. From here on in it's an equal partnership."

  They had a week alone together, a week without tomorrows, a week of softness to cushion the hard rock of Vasily's return. They spent the week much as they had spent its first day—after­noons lying in the warm pools at Taboada, nights lying between cool sheets rediscovering old pleasures and inventing new ones. In the mornings Eddie worked in the laboratory, but each day at noon he produced a pitcher of margaritas to start them up the spiral of their own particular day. It was a romantic sort of week, a pause in time just made for Eddie Mancuso, and he reveled in it. Even Vasily's return did not do much to diminish his contentment.

  The Russian returned to San Miguel on Saturday afternoon, racing the truck up the hill with the horn bellowing flourishes, parking in the driveway with a cascade of gravel, and rushing into the house calling out for Eddie and Chalice. Lying in the garden, in the sun, they had heard the sounds of his coming and were up to greet him, the three of them exchanging bear hugs and grins in a warm round robin. The greetings over, they fell back from each other, and when they did it seemed only natural that Chalice remained within the crook of Vasily's arm, while Eddie slid down to sit on the grass.

  Vasily looked keenly at them both, then smiled broadly. "Do I detect a new air of peace and contentment in the household? A touch of the triumph of Eros? Correct me if I'm wrong, but—"

  Chalice stopped him by saying softly, "Be quiet."

  Unsure at first of what to say, Eddie stared at the ground; then, determined, raised his head to look up at his friend. "Yeah, you could say that, but what's the sense? We don't have to talk it to death, do we?"

  "Of course not." Vasily was at once contrite. "It's only that I was so pleased for you both."

  "Then let's leave it that way. How was the trip?"

  "Magnificent. I have everything we need, plus a few extra goodies that ought to delight you. Your mushroom spoor, inci­dentally, is in perfect condition, and I found some . . ." He stopped when Chalice, leaning against him, rested her head on his shoulder. He smiled an apology. "Actually, we can go over all that in a little while. Right now, well, the warrior is home from the wars, the hunter from the hill, and all that."

  "Sure," said Eddie, not at all sure of the allusion, but very much aware that Vasily and Chalice wanted to go upstairs to­gether. "Sure, I understand."

  He watched as they mounted the steps, arms around waists, and was surprised that the
sight caused no pain. He watched until they were gone beyond the curve of the stairwell, then he lay back on the grass and closed his eyes. He felt the gentle touch of the sun on his skin, breathed in the odor of fresh-cut grass, and, section by section, blanked out his mind until he fell asleep.

  When he woke there was something between him and the sun, and for a moment he thought he was back a week at Taboada with Chalice bending over him, and smiling; but it was only Va­sily standing at his feet.

  "Did I wake you?" The Russian had changed to casual cloth­ing; his hair was still damp from the shower.

  "That's okay." Eddie scrambled to his feet.

  Vasily gripped him by the shoulders. "Now that we're alone, tell me the truth. Are you all right? I mean, really?"

  "If you mean my head, yeah, I'm okay. You said I had to accept it, didn't you? Well, I have, and that's all I want to say about it."

  "You've said enough." Vasily punched him fondly in the arm. "Let's unload the truck."

  They spent the next two weeks refining the work of the past month, preparing their witches' potions, memorizing lists of emergency telephone numbers and letter drops, and working into their new identities. Eddie Mancuso became Edward Morrison, Indiana farmer and delegate to the Twenty-second Annual Soviet Exchange Program for Agricultural Implements. Vasily was now Baron Artur Zitowsky, Polish born and currently attached to the French mission to the United Nations. The new passports and identity cards were faultless, and at the end of the two weeks they were both satisfied that they had reached the outer limits of preparation. Vasily then declared them operational.

  "You agree?" he asked Eddie. "Or is there anything else we can do here?"

  "Not a thing. It's time to get moving."

  "Very well, we leave Monday. You for Moscow via Terre Haute, me for Williamsburg via Washington."

  "You know, there is one thing before we leave," Eddie said thoughtfully.

  "Whatever you say."

  "I want to go to the bullfight tomorrow. I owe a guy a favor."

  Late the next afternoon they sat close down behind the barrera at the Plaza de Toros of San Miguel, Chalice between the two men, drinking beer from cans, chewing sunflower seeds, and watching Jose Cuervos butcher his first bull of the day. The ring was crowded with tourists and aficionados, although now, in April, the toreros with any reputation had departed for the sum­mer season in Spain, and those who were left were as much the culls and rejects as the bulls they fought. Of them all, only Cuer­vos displayed a natural style and grace.