Cactus Garden

by Ward, Robert

  It was true, he did like it. He liked its pure ostentation, and he was going to like it even more when he put Buddy in a five-by-ten cell where the air smelled of piss and shit all day and night.

  They walked through a huge dining room, with a stuffed bear in a tuxedo sitting at the forty-foot dining table. “That’s my touch too,” Buddy said. “I hate to come into an empty room, you know what I mean?”

  Then they were going through another pair of oversized doors and were on a long deck that felt as though it were suspended in midair. Buddy hit a switch and powerful flood-lights came on, illuminating the garden. There, below Jack, were hundreds of cacti of every variety and phantasmagoric shape. Taken together they looked like a thousand pin-faced creatures of the night.

  Buddy was already walking down the spiral wooden steps.

  “Come on, son,” he said. “You don’t get the full effect, ‘less you walk amongst them.”

  Then he was following his host along a narrow pathway, brushing against the cactus flowers, seeing the small spiky plants at his feet and the huge, monster cereus hovering above his head, and he heard Wingate’s voice, like a wigged-out announcer’s on some PBS nature special for the criminally insane.

  “This one here is one of my favorites,” Buddy said, pointing at a plant that looked as though it belonged on Venus. “It’s called the black aeonium. It’s wild and wonderful. Look at the way that sucker just shoots out at you. It’s arrogant, got these wonderful spines all over it. It’s a mutating muther. Like a cancer, know what I mean? Some of these plants mutate according to the weather, some according to damage. Some son of a bitch animal eats on it, it’ll grow all new spines and impale the bastard. Some of ‘em even give off boiling cabbage smells to ward off the little predatory fuckers.”

  They walked farther down into the yard. Jack felt something tickle his back and looked up and saw a huge hanging cactus, which looked as though it had a wide-open mouth.

  Wingate stopped and smiled at him.

  “Great, huh?”

  “Looks like the surface of Venus,” Jack said.

  “Right. That’s it. They ain’t like nothing else. Cactus are tough-assed, surviving, originals, know what I mean?”

  “It’s a poor host that invites a man out to his house and doesn’t give him a drink,” said a voice from behind them.

  Jack turned and saw Charlotte Rae standing in the path, a ceramic tray of margaritas in her hand. She wore a tight-fitting pair of Levi’s and a purple T-shirt that fit tighter than a body stocking. On her feet were three-inch-high platform heels, and her blonde hair was combed like Veronica Lake’s, a lock of it falling over her left eye.

  She walked toward them, and they each took one of the drinks.

  “Welcome to the garden of horrors,” she said, smiling.

  “Hell, darling, Jack is like me. He appreciates cactus,” Wingate said. “You see flowers are safe, predictable … they bloom, they look pretty, they fucking die. Cactus is big and bad. It’s the NFL of plant life.”

  “Which is certainly another thing to recommend it,” Charlotte Rae said, putting down the tray on the edge of a huge urn, which housed a cactus with seven-inch needles. Suddenly, she sniffed the air.

  “I think I smell burning meat,” she said.

  “Aw, hell,” Buddy said. “Be right back. Take care of him, will you, sweetheart?”

  Buddy hustled back up the cobblestones, and as soon as he was out of sight, Charlotte Rae took Jack’s hand and led him farther down the twisting path.

  At the bottom of the garden they came to another stone fountain, this one made out of brightly colored tiles.

  “Nice,” Jack said, but he wasn’t looking at the water.

  She reached over and touched his hand. Jack felt the electricity striking him again.

  “Jack, I want to say something. What happened the other night. I know it can’t happen again. But I’m not sorry.”

  “Me either,” Jack said.

  He reached for her, but she pushed his hand away. “Don’t, we can’t. You don’t know how Buddy can be.”

  “I got a pretty good idea.”

  “The thing is,” she said, sitting on the edge of the fountain, “he really does like you. Which is rare. If he ever found out that you betrayed him … that we did …”

  “What would he do?” Jack said. “Beat you maybe? Put bruises all over your body?”

  “Maybe I deserved them,” she said, dropping her eyes.

  Jack moved toward her and gently lifted up her chin with his right hand.

  “That’s the orphan talking,” he said. “ ‘Whatever I get I deserve, ‘cause I’m nothing anyway.’ “

  “No, that’s realistic. I can be a bitch, Jack. Maybe I made him do it. I don’t deserve all this.”

  She had suddenly started to cry.

  “Or maybe it’s because you deserve better.”

  Then she put her arms around him, and he could feel her breasts pushing into his chest, smell her.

  “God, I loved it with you,” she whispered. “It’s been so long since I felt anything … Jack.”

  Then she was kissing him, and Jack kissed her back and felt the softness of her lips, her tongue inside his mouth.

  She took his hand and brought it up under her blouse and bra. He felt her nipples, already hard.

  “Stop, Jack,” she said. “This is no good.” She pushed him away then, and though he ached for her, he was glad, because he wasn’t sure he would have stopped.

  “Let’s go up to the house,” she said, regaining her composure.

  “Sure,” Jack said, as they walked beneath the phantom cactus. “Dinner for three.” She stopped and looked at him.

  “I try, but I can’t stop thinking about you. God help me.”

  “I know,” Jack said—and no longer knew if he was acting or not.

  He took her hand as they walked up toward the great house, through the wild cactus garden. Jack felt her pulse beating in her palm, saw the needles glistening on the alien-looking plants, and pushed down the panic in his heart.

  Chapter 15

  Jack parked the Mustang in the underground garage two blocks down from the Chateau des Roses. Now he got out of his car, locked the door, and started the walk back to the street. There was an elevator, but it had been broken for two weeks. He walked back through the gloomy structure, listening to water dripping from some leaking pipe. He thought of Buddy Wingate and his garden, and it occurred to him that the whole damned city was really a cactus garden. Someday the big earthquake would come and waste everyone, and cacti would reclaim the desert. Jack could picture it, the huge spikes jutting defiantly out of the remnants of the burned out office buildings … the hustling Gucci-clad citizens lying dead in the streets, while the first buds of the spiky, unkillable plants peeked through the huge rents in the rat-gray concrete of Hollywood Boulevard.

  Jack shook his head, tried switching the pictures inside. He told himself to blow through it; it was just preop anxiety. Because now he knew … Buddy had finally sprung it on him just as Jack was leaving the little dinner party. The deal was going down tomorrow morning—though Buddy still wouldn’t say exactly where they were headed. Jack had tried to push him on it, but not too hard. All Buddy would tell him was that it was south … “down the way where the nights were gay,” which could mean anywhere.

  Jack hunched his shoulders and headed up the bombed-out street. He was about a block away from the Chateau, which rose like a dusty, smog-covered castle in front of him, when he realized that there was a car moving behind him, slowly, inexorably, coming closer. He reached into his jacket, wrapped his fingers around the Glock, and kept walking. There was nowhere to run to. He was trapped here on the goddamned street. But by whom? Salazar’s men? Getting their revenge for Tahoe?

  Now the car moved faster. It was still fifteen feet behind him but closing. Jack felt a jolt of adrenaline zap through his veins and pulled out the gun, but kept it close to his chest, out of sight. If it was S
alazar, in one second he would see the barrel of an Uzi.

  To hell with it, turn, face them, shoot first, then run like hell for the Chateau.

  Jack turned, aimed the gun at the advancing headlights.

  The car blinked its lights twice … stopped … and someone began to frantically honk the horn.

  Jack lowered the sight of his pistol and watched as agent Ted Michaels stepped out.

  A black Lincoln Town Car. Of course, it was Michaels. Jack laughed with relief.

  Standing on the driver’s side, Michaels waved awkwardly to him to get inside.

  Jack slid his gun back into the holster and walked to the car.

  Once inside, he slammed the door and looked over at Michaels, who gave him a sheepish grin.

  “Michaels,” Jack said, “what the hell was that about?”

  “Sorry. I’ve been waiting for you for some time. I knew you parked here. Found out from your landlord, the Rastaman, but I dozed off about an hour ago. Must have anyway, because I missed you coming in.”

  Jack squinted in disbelief. First off, Michaels was telling only a partial truth. He hadn’t dozed off from the tedium of surveillance but from drinking scotch and, judging from his breath, quite a bit of it.

  Someone blew their horn behind them, and Michaels trod down on the accelerator, a little too hard. They shot forward, bouncing on the potholes that scoured Franklin. Jack bounced on the seat, hit his skull on the low roof.

  “What’s with all the mysterioso stuff?” Jack said. His own heart rate was almost back to normal now, and he had to admit Michaels’s visiting him was intriguing. Nothing could have been farther from his expectations.

  Michaels drove across Franklin, through the Armenian neighborhoods, and toward Vermont.

  “I know you don’t like me, Walker.”

  “So what?” Jack said. “You don’t love me either. I can’t believe you hung around all night to tell me that.”

  Michaels looked nervously in the mirror. It was as though he was afraid they were being tailed.

  “The problem is,” Michaels said, his speech thick from alcohol, “that because you and I have this hostility toward one another, I doubt if you’ll take what I’m about to tell you seriously.”

  “Try me,” Jack said.

  “Well, to start, I know that you think that my opposition to this operation is due to politics. You feel that I’ve got a stake in bringing down Wingate and that I don’t want you screwing it up and snatching my glory…. Isn’t that true?” Michaels said.

  “Yeah, it’s true,” Jack said. “That’s exactly what I think. So, you’re here to tell me it’s not so, is that it?”

  “That is precisely why I am here,” Michaels said.

  “So why didn’t you just phone me and tell me?”

  Michaels suddenly became quiet again. Then, after a long wait, he shook his head.

  “Listen, Walker, I can’t tell you any more than this … that there is something going down, something bad, very bad … If I’m right, and I think I am … we’ll have to watch out for our asses, all of us.”

  Michaels shook his head and reached down to a compartment in the armrest between them, opened it, and pulled out a pint bottle of Glenlivet scotch.

  He took a pull and handed it to Jack.

  “No thanks,” Jack said.

  “It’s a hard time, Jack,” he said. “Very hard. I’m here as your friend. I’m asking you to wait on this operation. If Wingate calls you and says you’ve got to go, find a reason to stall him.”

  “Why should I?”

  “Because there’s things going on, things you don’t know about.” Jack looked at him hard. “You setting me up?” he said. “How could I be?”

  “I don’t know, Michaels. You’re the bright boy with the fancy education.” Michaels shook his head.

  “Quite the opposite. I can’t tell you any more, but there is more, believe me.”

  “It’s too late,” Jack said. “I leave tomorrow. Buddy gave me the word a few hours ago. I haven’t even told Zampas yet.”

  “Jesus,” Michaels said.

  Jack felt an intense annoyance.

  “Listen, Michaels, if you have something to say, you should say it now. Cut the cat and mouse.”

  Michaels took another hit from the bottle. Some of the booze dripped down his chin. He turned toward Jack, squinted.

  “Have you ever heard of Zapata?” he said.

  “The Mexican revolutionary?” Jack said. “Yeah, so what?”

  Michaels hesitated and shook his head.

  “I want to tell you more, Jack, but I can’t just yet. Just keep Zapata in the back of your mind. If you need it, you’ll know when to use it.”

  “Oh, great. Come on, cut the bullshit,” Jack said.

  Michaels took another sip.

  “Just promise me this, you won’t go into Mexico with them. On whatever pretext.”

  “I have no intention of going into …”

  “I’m not talking about intentions, Walker,” Michaels said. “Don’t go over there, even if it’s just for one night to get laid in Juarez.”

  “Why?” Jack said. “Is my cover blown?”

  “I’m not saying that,” Michaels said.

  “Then what are you saying? Come on!”

  But Michaels’s head lolled over. It seemed suddenly to Jack that he might be falling asleep at the wheel.

  “Michaels, wake up before you kill us both.”

  Michaels nodded and snapped awake. They turned right at Vermont and Sunset and headed back toward Jack’s apartment house. Michaels was silent, seemed to be weighing things, Jack thought. Either that or he was just hustling him, trying to make him fuck up his assignment.

  “The important thing is,” Michaels said again, as they came up Cherokee, “is that we don’t want you down there.”

  “All right,” Jack said. “But this is bullshit. If you have information that pertains to my welfare, I have a right to know what it is.”

  Michaels looked glassy-eyed out the window.

  “Walker, listen. When you get back, if you need to see me and I’m not available, there’s a place I can be reached. No one, I mean no one, knows this place even exists…. It’s my getaway.”

  He handed Jack a piece of paper with an address written neatly on it: Michaels—2322 China Island, Boulder Bay, Big Bear. “It’s just a shack. But I like it. I think you’ll like it too.” Jack put the paper in his shirt pocket.

  “So now we’re going to spend cozy weekends together flyfishing?” he said.

  Michaels laughed a little, and Jack was shocked to see that when he smiled, he looked ten years younger. Michaels craned his neck forward and looked out the window, up at the Chateau.

  “You live colorfully, Walker. Take care.”

  He hit the switch, unlocking Jack’s door, and Jack climbed out. Before he shut the door, he leaned in toward Michaels.

  “Can you drive?” he said.

  “Of course. Good night, Walker.” The warmth in his face and tone was gone. His voice was filled with the old imperious arrogance again.

  Jack shut the door, and the big Lincoln pulled away up the hill back toward Franklin. What was that about? It made no goddamned sense. And what was all that Zapata crap? Maybe drunken mumblings, jive to convince him to back off.

  Yet, there was something about their little drunken drive that made Jack uneasy—that and the ruined look on Michaels’s face as he closed the door. Michaels seemed genuinely afraid, haunted.

  But it was too late to turn back now. He was deep inside, and he wasn’t about to blow it off. Still, as he unlocked the grated door to the Chateau, Jack felt a rumbling inside his stomach. If Michaels had wanted to stir him up, get him worried, he had succeeded only too well.

  Chapter 16

  Eduardo Morales stared down at the simple wood cross that marked Jose Benvenides’s grave. Though Morales had brought a cigar, a Romeo Y Julieta no. 4, he did not light it. Instead, he slowly put it into the pocket
of his new Savile Row suit and remembered Jose.

  He recalled himself and Jose Benvenides laughing and trading whores in an exclusive bordello just off the Spanish steps in Rome.

  He remembered Jose and himself climbing a mountain in Switzerland. They had depended on one another that weekend in a way few men ever do, and they had come away knowing things that few men ever know.

  He recalled Jose’s laugh, an infectious laugh, a laugh that women and men loved and that Eduardo could hear plainly even now, a year after Jose’s death.

  The truth was, Eduardo thought now as he shivered in the mountain air, there was no one else like Jose.

  It occurred to Eduardo that Jose’s death was one of those things—no, the only thing—he would never get over.

  It was still inconceivable that Jose was dead. But when it had happened, Eduardo had not felt the full shock. Indeed, he had handled Jose’s death with his usual professional manner. First, there was the matter of obtaining the body. Not an easy task, since it was being held in a Tucson, Arizona, morgue. But Eduardo Morales had found long ago that he could reach just about anyone, a lesson he had first learned growing up in the slums of Quito, Ecuador. All he needed was enough patience and enough money. And, perhaps, a few threats.

  With the help of two hospital workers, Jose’s bullet-ridden body was brought back to Colombia and buried in this beautiful spot high atop the Andes Mountains.

  And during the funeral, Eduardo Morales had held up very well. His wife, Sylvia, said so, and his friends and employers all remarked on how tough el jefe was.

  Yes, during those first few weeks, he had thought that he would survive it better than he had expected. He slept normally; he continued to conduct the business that had made him one of the twenty richest men in the world. He even found time to see his mistress, the actress Sylvia Gennaro, in Rome, and she said he looked remarkably well.

  Then, six months after Jose’s death, he began to experience strange phenomena. He was driving through Mayfair in London, when he thought he saw Jose standing in the middle of a school crosswalk.

  He swerved the car to the left and ran into a parked car, a new Jaguar.