by Ward, Robert
“Guess I forgot to tell you. Jest thought you knew. Tonight is a very special occasion in Mexico. It’s the Day of the Dead.”
Jack managed to look faintly interested, but the words sent a warning through him.
“We have a few people from the community over,” Charlotte Rae said. “Friends. It’s interesting, Jack.”
“ ‘Specially this year,” Wingate said. “Father Herrera’s gonna be here.”
“He’s an amazing man,” Charlotte Rae said.
Jack looked doubtful and Wingate laughed.
“I know, I know … you think it sounds like hocus-pocus. Well, maybe it is. But I think after you meet him you’re gonna be impressed. I ain’t never met anybody who wasn’t. Man leaves his mark on you. Trust me on that. He’s a real brujo.”
Jack looked confused.
“That’s a witch, a magician,” Charlotte Rae said. “Abracadabra,” Jack said back, but this time neither Wingate nor Charlotte Rae laughed.
The guest house was furnished pure Santa Fe, with colorful Indian tapestries on the walls, a little Indian kiva in the corner of the living room, charming exposed vigas with their crossed latillas on the ceiling, and lamps that were made to look like Aztec gods. The couches were covered with red and blue Navajo blankets, and there was a forty-five-inch television set in the living room.
Larry Altierez was fixing himself a large scotch and soda from the wet bar.
“All the comforts of home,” he said. “The other boys are upstairs. You want a drink?”
“Not right now,” Jack said.
Altierez shrugged his shoulders and sipped his drink. Then he smiled and fell back onto the couch. “I miss something?” Jack said.
“No, I guess not. But ever since I saw you that first day, seems like I know you from somewhere else, ese.”
“Sure,” Jack said. “I felt the same way.”
“Really?” Altierez said. “Where would that magic place be, I wonder?”
“The track,” Jack said. “Hollywood Park. You used to go out there with Freddy Calabasas.”
Altierez smiled with a curled upper lip, a bad Elvis impression.
“Freddy,” he said. “You know the Dude?”
“Knew him a little before he ended up in that lime pit outside of Palmdale. That was real sad.”
“Yeah,” Altierez said. “That was major sad ‘cause the Dude had a way with the nags. He could pick winners just about every time out. Inside info, I think he had. But you didn’t go out with him. Least ways, not when I was there.”
Jack picked up his grip, headed up the steps. He walked slowly, so it wouldn’t appear he was trying to escape the conversation.
“No, I used to make the track scene when I was working for Jerry Wallenstein.”
“The Jewish Prince,” Altierez said. “Man owned Head For Trouble. Too bad she had that fall.”
“Sadder than Freddy Calabasas,” Jack said. “I met you a couple times when I was out with Wallenstein.”
“Where’d Wally ever get to?” Altierez said.
“Disappeared one afternoon,” Jack said.
“Hey, maybe he’s living with Jimmy Hoffa?” Altierez said, lifting his lip again.
He took out his knife, hit the switchblade, and picked his fingers.
“Or Judge Crater,” Jack said.
“Yeah, him too,” Altierez said. “I guess we did meet when you were with the Jew. You remember it that way?”
“Sure,” Jack said. “Why wouldn’t I? Everybody remembers Loco Larry.”
Larry managed to give almost a full smile. He liked the star treatment. Jack smiled back at him and went on up the steps.
At the top he let out a long sigh. It was possible that Larry had seen him on another caper, working under another name. And if that other name suddenly came to him….
No use thinking about it. He was all right for now. He turned, walked down the hall, found an empty bedroom, went inside, and shut the door.
He quickly unpacked his bag. He wanted to get to the pool as soon as possible. The faster they were all drunk and lying around in the sun with the whores Wingate had provided for them, the better off he’d be.
At the pool that afternoon, Jack had yet another surprise. Wingate introduced him to one of his business associates, a German doctor named Gunther Baumgartner. He was in his mid-fifties and balding, but in excellent shape. There was something that troubled Jack about his face though. It was as though he could be any age at all, his skin was stretched so tightly over his bones. From one vantage point he looked young, no more than thirty-five, but from another he looked sixty. Jack decided that he’d had plastic surgery, perhaps out of vanity, but perhaps to conceal his identity. There was something terribly familiar about the man—not his face, but his walk, his stooped-over posture, the sound of his voice. For a second Jack thought he might be able to recall whom Baumgartner reminded him of, but then he lost it.
But whoever he was, it was obvious that the doctor had the hots for Charlotte Rae. He strutted and preened around the swimming pool, flashing his smile as he drank his glass of sparkling water.
“It is very good to see you and Mrs. Wingate, Buddy,” he said. “And a real pleasure to meet you, McKenna.”
“Likewise,” Jack said.
“I hear from Mrs. Wingate that you are just the man they have been looking for.”
It was impossible to ignore the sexual edge of what the German said, but Wingate laughed and made a joke out of it.
“Yeah, he’s the man of our dreams. We seen him do his stuff, Gunther, and I wouldn’t advise you to mess with him.”
“Impressive,” Baumgartner said. “I have spent much time with Buddy and his wife, and I have never heard them so impressed with anyone. You must be a dangerous man, Mr. McKenna.”
“Only to my enemies,” Jack said.
“And witty as well,” the German said. He walked to the diving board then, climbed the steps and walked to the edge, then walked back and began his preparation for the dive.
A few seconds later he sprang into the air and did a perfect half gainer, barely rippling the surface.
“Hooray for Tarzan,” Charlotte Rae said. “All he needs is a chimp.”
“That’s not funny,” Wingate said. “You oughta watch your mouth. Dr. Gunther is a very good friend of ours.”
“You mean good customer, don’t you?” Charlotte Rae said.
Wingate turned to Charlotte Rae as the German climbed out of the pool. He looked at her with narrow eyes, the eyes of a razorback hog, Jack thought.
“You talk too much, darlin’. Dr. G. has very good friends all over Europe. People I want to be our friends. So treat him nice, you hear me?”
She smiled pleasantly as the doctor approached them. Jack squinted, trying to imagine what the doctor looked like before his surgery. He had seen him before, or someone who looked a lot like him. But no name came to mind.
“Bravo, Doctor. That was an excellent dive,” Wingate said, handing the German a towel.
“Thank you. Do you do any diving, Mr. McKenna?”
“Only for cover,” Jack said.
Charlotte Rae smiled and brushed her leg against Jack’s ankle.
“Amusing,” the German said. “I like amusing people. I hope you will come to Germany sometime so that I might show you some of our amusements.”
‘I’ll bet you know just where they are too,” Charlotte Rae said.
“Yes, I do,” Baumgartner said. “I’ve spent a lifetime cultivating them. There are even some interesting amusements in Juarez. Perhaps, if we have time, I will show them to you, McKenna.”
Jack decided not to answer the German. Instead, he put on his wire sunglasses and looked across the grotto, where there was now a squealing sound.
A young whore of about fifteen came swimming naked from behind the rocks, but she was quickly overtaken by Loco Larry, who playfully dragged her back behind the rocks and vegetation.
“Children,” Baumgartner said. “For
them pleasure is a simple thing.”
He shook his head and sipped his mineral water.
“Well, I think you’re gonna like our little ceremony tonight, Gunther,” Wingate said, walking over to the grill. “You’ve never met anyone like Father Herrera.”
“So I’ve been told,” Baumgartner said. “I hear he has mystical powers.”
“Which you think is all bullshit,” Charlotte Rae said.
“No, you are wrong,” the German said. “My country has always believed in a certain amount of mysticism. I’ve known men who could look at someone deeply and know who they are, what they desired, what they feared. Fortune, destiny … I believe in these things.”
“That’s right,” Charlotte Rae said. “I forgot. You were the people who started the mystical empire that was going to last ten thousand years.”
The German said nothing but set his mineral water down heavily on the poolside table. Jack wanted to lean over and give her a kiss.
The Mexican sun beat down on them as if it had a score to settle, so that by five o’clock Jack and the others retired to their rooms—his men with their teenage whores, Jack alone. He fell into a restless sleep and woke up twice, disoriented, holding his breath through twenty seconds of terror as he looked around the strange and completely unfamiliar room. But gradually it came back to him. He was in Mexico, completely surrounded by his enemies. With no chance for outside help if anything went sour. Maybe it was better not to remember after all.
He looked out at the heavens. It was beautiful here. The sky took on a density and quality that was so unlike its appearance in Los Angeles. In Mexico you could actually see the stars twinkle, and he reminded himself that after the case was over, he might come back to this country, perhaps go down the coast to Zihuatanejo, maybe with C.J. He wondered how his partner was doing, if Lucille and Demetrius had come home.
Then, from outside his window, Jack heard the beating of drums. They were soft, hypnotic. He got up from the bed and looked down out of the window. There in front of him in the dark, two ghosts floated by, followed by a man dressed in a devil’s costume, complete with barbed tail and pitchfork. There was some other music as well, several pan pipes, like the kind he’d heard among the natives of Colombia. Everybody seemed to be heading up the desert trail toward a large fire that burned at the top of the mesa.
“You ready to go, man?”
Jack turned and saw Cutty Marbella standing in his doorway. The eerie light of the moon accentuated the scar on his right cheek. Marbella didn’t need a costume, Jack thought. He looked like a ghoul without one.
“Sure,” Jack said. “I wouldn’t want to miss Father Herrera.”
“It’s no joke, man,” Marbella said. “He’s a man of power.”
Jack started to make another crack, but Marbella’s look made him keep silent.
They walked up the winding hill to the tabletop mesa, about two hundred yards from the house. Ghosts, devils, and skeletons danced among the huge cacti, and Jack felt his head swim with a sense of unreality. As they neared the circle of people, Jack realized that Wingate had invited many of their neighbors in the town to the party.
Who were they under the costumes, Jack thought?
Probably dopers themselves, living the outlaw life in Mexico, where they couldn’t be touched.
Jack saw Marbella go over and join Altierez and felt icy fingers on his neck. He turned quickly and saw a ghoulish-looking Charlotte Rae smiling at him with a double row of teeth. Besides the perfect white teeth in her mouth, there was another set around the outside of her lips that she had painted on. Her cheeks were bloodred, and there were deep black charcoaled bags under her eyes. She was wearing a bright-red leather mini-dress, which had to have been plastered onto her body, and black mesh hose, which revealed her long, hard legs.
“You’re not in costume,” she said.
“Sorry.”
“No problem.”
She pulled a black Magic Marker from her pocket and pulled Jack close to her.
“Hold still, cowboy,” she said, pressing her breasts to his chest as she drew something on his forehead. She did it swiftly, deftly, then playfully pushed him away, and held up a hand mirror.
“A spider,” he said. “Thank you. I’ve always wanted a black widow on my head. Does he sting?”
“Only his friends,” she said.
“I’ll feed mine flies,” Jack said. “When’s the fun begin?”
“It’s begun. Come on.”
She grabbed his hand and led him toward the fire. They were a few feet away when Jack saw the man in the mask. The mask was so strange, so otherworldly that it took Jacks breath away. It was painted a copper color, and it had blue spokes that ran from the center, just above and on the side of the nose, out toward the ears and up to the hairline. There were three eyes painted on the mask’s face, the third one dead in the middle of the head, and the mouth was full lipped and open to reveal three stubby, thick teeth. They weren’t human teeth at all, Jack thought, but the teeth of a wild animal, some kind of pig or bush hog.
“That’s Father Miguel,” Charlotte Rae said. “We have to wait our turn.”
Jack became aware of the flute music again, the beating of the drums, and for the first time he realized he and Charlotte Rae were waiting in a line, a snake line, which coiled up the hill, through the cacti, and finally led to the masked, blue-robed Father Herrera.
“What do we do when we get there,” Jack said, “kiss his ring?”
“No genuflecting is necessary,” Charlotte said.
A waiter suddenly came by, a short fat man who was dressed like a vampire. He carried a silver tray with flutes of champagne.
“Thanks,” Jack said, taking one for himself and one for Charlotte Rae.
She took it and sipped it.
“Cold, just right for a ghoul,” she said.
Jack sipped his own glass. In the dry desert heat it tasted like ambrosia. He turned and looked out at the three tall cacti that surrounded him. They appeared to be three crucifixes, and Jack waited for them to start a little spontaneous bleeding. He turned once more and saw a great rock cactus, with its warty tubercles. It looked as though it belonged under the sea, and suddenly Jack felt that way … as though he had been submerged and was drowning.
He felt dizzy, prayed he wouldn’t fall.
And if he did, would Charlotte Rae pick him up again or would she turn like the rest of the pack of predators and devour his flesh with her double row of meat-eating teeth?
They were closer now, and Jack looked as Father Herrera gave Altierez something to eat. The big man took it but didn’t put it in his mouth.
“Are we taking sacrament?” Jack asked.
“No, that’s pan de muerte,” Charlotte Rae said. “Bread of the dead. We don’t eat it.”
They walked on, and then Jack was standing in front of Father Miguel Herrera. The man stared at him through the eye holes in his mask and spoke in a deep, resonant voice.
“We are here to honor Death,” the voice said. He handed Jack a golden tray, on which were pieces of the bread.
“This is the flesh of those who came before you, your grandmother, your aunt, your father.”
Jack felt a creeping fear in the pit of his stomach.
“Take the pan de muerte, young man,” the priest said.
“Wait, father,” Jack said.
But before Jack could finish speaking, the priest reached out and touched Jack’s shoulder. He squeezed, and Jack was aware of the tremendous strength in his hands.
Suddenly, someone behind Jack banged a gong, and the crowd of ghosts and goblins became silent. Jack felt overwhelmed by a strange sensation, as though the man were looking clear through him. He wanted to go on, but Father Herrera moved away from him and stood at the top of the hill, in front of the roaring fire, which cast shadows over his mask.
Jack felt a great urgency building in him. He drank the rest of the champagne and listened as the priest began speaking in a dee
p, sonorous voice.
“Friends,” he began, “we are here tonight to honor our dead, our ancestors, those who made us, nourished us, gave us life. We are here not only to honor but to speak to them, for we know that they are still with us, even though they have shed their physical bodies. We gave them pan de muerte, the bread of the dead, which has been distributed to you and which you will leave for the dead. For this, some people call us primitive, our beliefs are laughed at as mere ‘superstition,’ but I say to you, that it is mere superstition to think that the dead do not hear. That is dangerous foolishness, for any man of even elemental wisdom knows that they move restlessly in the wind, among the cactus that surround us. I say to you they are with us now, all of the dead. The ones we loved are watching us, waiting for what we will do, how we will honor them. They judge us. They know us, and they remember everything that was done to them.” His voice had grown low, rumbling, and he seemed to be staring in Jack’s direction.
Jack wanted to think of a wisecrack to ward him off, but language was beyond him now.
“Think of each plant that surrounds us as the spirit of someone you have lost … a grandmother, an uncle or an aunt … a dearly loved mother, or … a friend.”
Jack felt a cold wind blow through him. On the word “friend” the priest stared straight at him—or was it his imagination? No … he was looking at him.
What the hell did that mean?
“Now I will ask you to walk with us in the procession and remember a departed loved one who has already left this troubled world. Take the pan de muerte. Place it at the altar at the west wall of Senor Wingate’s estate. Come with us, and know that we do not fear death, but celebrate it, for the living and the dead are all one.”
From the rear of the crowd someone started beating a drum, and Jack turned and saw three fiercely painted Mexican Indians, naked except for loincloths, their copper-colored bodies shimmering with oil. They were beating hand-painted bass drums and chanting.
Charlotte Rae leaned against Jack’s shoulder.
“What did you think of the father’s speech?”
“Impressive,” Jack said.
“You felt something,” she said.
Jack pushed down an incipient panic. “Yeah, but I’m not sure I liked it.”
