Cactus Garden

by Ward, Robert

  “Turn out that light, and I’ll tell you anything you want to know,” Jack said.

  But Wingate’s mocking words sent a shock through Jack’s system. As he looked up into Buddy Wingate’s little eyes, sitting there like two frozen black-eyed peas, it occurred to Jack that the setup had been Wingate’s. That had to be it. Wingate was merely playing with him. Was it possible that he had been suckered all along? That Wingate and whoever was behind him had set him up … the guys at Tahoe for example … could they have worked for Wingate? It seemed incredible. Jack’s mind reeled. They had actually shot bullets through the windows. Yes, but they didn’t hit anybody. With their high-powered infrared scopes such accuracy was entirely possible. And if he had been set up, what of Charlotte Rae? Had she known from the beginning too? The thought of that was more unbearable than his physical agonies.

  “How did you find out who I was?” Jack said.

  Wingate smiled at him. His teeth looked green.

  “Sorry, ole dawg. That’s the one you’ll take to your grave. Nice to see you thinking about it, Jackie. You really don’t know what’s happening, do you?”

  Jack felt the panic rise in his stomach. How had they found out?

  “There’s something I want to know, Jackie. Did you get your call through?” Jack said nothing.

  “Well, it don’t matter what you say ‘cause we’re going to have to assume you did. Guess the boys will be waiting to nail us tomorrow night, but by then we will be long gone. And you, you’ll be stone dead.”

  “Turn the fucking lights out,” Jack said, desperately stalling for time. He had to think through this, but he was so tired, in such pain.

  “Oh, you want the lights out, do you, Jackie? Well, I’d like to accommodate you, I really would. Like I said, if it was up to me, we’d just stand outside of some old saloon and settle this thing with six-guns at dawn, like real Americanos, but I’m not the only one involved, and you have had the extraordinary bad luck to be caught in a foreign country. And not in jest any foreign country, but in one where certain traditions of violent and antisocial behavior are prescribed for the likes of you, if you get what I mean? And none of them are real humorous, least ways, they won’t be to you, hoss. No, sir.”

  Jack said nothing. The light felt as though it were slicing his eyeballs in half.

  “But I did try and reason with these boys a little. Told ‘em you was formerly a family friend, so if you tell them what they want to know, they might be encouraged to take it easy on you. I mean you are already a mess, son. Check it out.”

  Suddenly the lights dimmed enough so that Jack could see his reflection in the mirror that was thrust inches from his face—or rather, some horrible parody of his face. His nose was pushed over to one side, and his right eye was completely closed and encrusted with blood. His top lip was split open, and when he opened his mouth, he saw two teeth were missing.

  It took all his discipline not to scream. Instead, he sucked in his breath and retreated to that dark safe place that was still left inviolate inside of him.

  Then the mirror was taken away, and the light was slicing his eyes again.

  “See what I mean, son,” Wingate said. “You look like homemade shit. But I have prevailed upon our hosts in this fine country to take it a little easy on you if you tell us certain things we want to know, meaning the names of all the snitches, excuse me, I mean confidential informants, in this country and in Los Angeles right now.”

  “Funny, I forget all their names,” Jack said.

  “Wrong answer, Jackie.” Wingate punched him in the right jaw. and Jack felt a flash of pain crunch all the way into his temples.

  “Always negotiate from a position of strength, Jackster. Now, let me ask you that question again,” Wingate said. “Who are the informants? What are their names?”

  “Go fuck yourself.”

  “Now, that’s funny,” Buddy said. “Very clever.” He poked his finger in Jack’s right eye, hard, and Jack screamed.

  Jack felt as though his eye was falling out of his head. And worse, he now understood. He had been set up, set up all along, which meant Charlotte Rae was in on it from the beginning. He thought of their nights together at Malibu, of the bruises she’d shown him. They’d been real, for godsake. Or had they? Could they have been mere makeup? No … his mind was playing tricks on him. They were real, all right. But so what? Maybe they were the result of some sick little game between Buddy and her. Maybe she liked it when Buddy used his fists on her. Maybe they laughed wildly as he pummeled her, both of them thinking how easy it would be to suck in one dumb cop who was led around by his prick. The thought of that hurt him more deeply than the pains in his eyes, jaws, or temple. She had gotten inside of him and played him for a sucker. And he remembered his dead father’s words now about the fatal Walker family weakness, the love of being the hero, the penchant for playing the big scene.

  He’d thought he had them all along. He’d thought he had her too. But he had nothing. It was all blue sky, smoke and mirrors. And now they owned him.

  Wingate laughed and shook his head.

  “Yep, you been played for a prime sucker, Jackie. Course we made a few mistakes. You was never supposed to make that phone call to your friends back home. The phone in the bar didn’t work, but we neglected to look at the pay phone in the street. And it looks like you got to tell your boys quite a bit. So why don’t you jest tell us a complete list of your snitches here in Mexico, and in Los Angeles, and maybe you’ll come out of this all right.”

  Now it was Jack’s turn to laugh.

  “Sell it somewhere else, Buddy,” he said. “You wouldn’t go to all this trouble to get me in here just to let me go.”

  “Suit yourself, Jack.”

  Jack steeled himself for the next punch, but there was none. Instead, he felt himself falling backward, a terrifying sensation, as though the ground were being pulled out from under him. Then he realized he was on a reclinable table. He was flat on his back, his hands, feet, and head tightly manacled.

  Wingate stood above him now.

  At least Jack thought it was Wingate. The lights were still intense in his eyes, and it was hard to make out a face—just nameless, terrifying shapes above him.

  Then he saw one of the shapes raising its arms. It was holding something in its hands, and Jack steeled himself for a beating with a club. But again no blows came. Instead, he observed that this man was shaking something, up and down, like a bartender mixing a martini.

  “What the hell?” he said.

  Then there was someone else, no, two more of them coming toward him. Escondero? Marbella? He couldn’t tell. They had something in their hands too, something that looked like a long, fat sausage, and they were lowering it toward his nose.

  Now he could see what it was, not a sausage, but a tightly rolled steaming towel.

  And the other thing, the martini shaker … it was being lowered near him as well. Only, now that he could see it, it was clear that it wasn’t a martini shaker at all. And this sure as hell wasn’t Happy Hour.

  Finally he could catch a glimpse of it, and his heart sank. The object was a thirty-two-ounce-bottle of good old-fashioned classic Coca-Cola. And Wingate was shaking it up, shaking it hard, with his thumb over the top of it, and Jack now knew exactly what was going to happen.

  “Ahhh,” Wingate said. “There it is. I see it in your handsome face, Jackie. You just got the message. Yessir. That’s always an interesting moment in times like these, when the victim, that would be you, gets the message from the boys who are going to apply the technique, that would be us. Some say that the moment of truth, the apprehension of waiting for what is inevitable, is even worse than the actual torture itself. Course these are your deep thinkers. As for me, well, this ole boy would rather face mental torture any day. Know what I mean? Now you gonna tell us the names? Or are we gonna find out if things really do go better with Coke?”

  “Fuck you, you fat piece of shit,” Jack said, pressing his head as f
ar back as he could.

  “Wrong answer, Jackie.”

  The steel bands around Jack’s head tightened, and he could no longer offer even token resistance. He tried to fight back the panic by telling himself they wouldn’t kill him—not until he talked.

  Then Jack stopped having thoughts.

  He felt the Coke bottle splitting his right nostril, and then the soda was sprayed into his sinus cavity with the force of a fire hose.

  Jack heard someone screaming then, and he knew it must be himself, as his legs and arms jerked spasmodically in the tight stirrups. His nasal passage was flooded with an agonizing burning, and Jack knew at once that something was mixed into the bottle as well, probably two or three heaping spoonfuls of scorchingly hot cayenne pepper. Desperately, he attempted to keep his mouth open, spit the stuff out as it came pouring into his throat and lungs. But within seconds that was no longer an option, for rough hands applied the burning hot rolled towel over his nose and mouth. There was no way to emit the scorching soda as it flooded his nose, then quickly began filling up his lungs.

  Now Wingate moved the Coke bottle from the right to the left nostril and the sticky spray erupted into his nostril once again. The hands kept the pressure up on the towel, and Jack saw a white stallion bucking wildly as someone lowered him with blinders on into a tank of bubbling, scalding water.

  He felt his heart rate reach some ridiculous level. And there was no holding back the panic…. He was drowning, drowning … in this godforsaken room in Juarez. Oh, Christ, Christ….

  As he felt the liquid flooding into his lungs, he tried to cough it out, but the towel kept it all down, and then he threw up breakfast, and he choked on that as well … and he felt a wild animal terror, like nothing he could ever have anticipated, and then he was gone … gone … and he couldn’t hear or see anything at all.

  But at precisely the moment he was grateful for death, they pulled the towel from his mouth, and Jack began to violently throw up the Coke and his breakfast.

  In between heaves, he gasped wildly for air.

  And someone, it wasn’t Wingate, he was certain, was gently wiping a towel over him, cleaning up the mess. Then they put something else over his face, and though he at first tried to fight against it, he realized that it was an oxygen mask, with pure, clear, cool air in it; he gasped it down like a beached fish.

  “There, my son. Isn’t that better?”

  It wasn’t Wingate’s voice anymore.

  But a kinder, wiser, infinitely benevolent voice, the voice he had known deep inside that he would hear again—the voice of Father Miguel Herrera.

  “Do you know who I am, my son?”

  Father Herrera touched him gently on the cheek. Jack jerked his head away and found that the bonds on his forehead had been loosened. He felt such a huge wave of gratitude that it nearly sickened him. He was like a starving man being given a great, pink, disgusting marzipan candy, which he gobbles down in one bite. He wanted badly to resist such slavish gratitude. But the caress, so tender and caring that it seemed like that of a mature and understanding father, was followed by a few gentle drops of water, which were sprinkled lightly on Jack’s face.

  “Is that better, son?” the voice said.

  Jack was unable to make words; it felt as though someone had severed his tongue.

  “You did well, my friend,” the smooth, unflappable voice said. “You’re remarkably resilient. Most people scream much louder than that.”

  Jack found that he was able to swallow. He moved his tongue around in his mouth.

  “Where’s Wingate?” he said, choking.

  “Señor Wingate has to tend to some other details, Jack. I will be talking with you now. I find it disturbing to see you this way.”

  “Do you? Really. That’s touching.”

  Jack coughed up some more of the vile fluid and gasped for air.

  Father Herrera said nothing, but reached over and applied a wet towel to Jack’s cheek. Jack squinted but could not make out his face.

  “How does that feel?”

  Jack answered in as hard and angry a voice as he could muster.

  “You want me to talk,” said Jack, gagging again. His throat felt like raw meat.

  “Yes. That’s right. I won’t lie to you.”

  “Then why don’t you turn the light out?”

  “I don’t think so, Jack. I wouldn’t want you to become too comfortable. You might go to sleep.”

  Jack felt a glass of water being pressed near his burned lips.

  Jack looked down into it. A clear liquid.

  “It’s only mineral water, Jack,” the priest said. “It’s good for you.”

  Jack’s throat was raw from vomiting and gagging. But he knew that he had to resist it. He turned his head as far as the steel bands allowed.

  “If you are worried about poison, Jack, don’t be. I would never do such a thing to you.”

  “I know that, Father. Because you like me so much.”

  As he finished speaking, Jack heard a cough from his right and craned his head that way. He was able to see just a flash of someone’s shoe, a pointy-toed brown loafer with a tassel, but then two hands grabbed his head from behind.

  “Too late, Doc,” Jack said. “I saw your neat little Nazi shoes. Standing there with your little harpoon?”

  “Impressive,” Father Herrera said. “Your recovery time is very impressive. But you surprise me, Jack, you really do. I have heard from everyone that you are a highly intelligent man, yet you seem to think that this is only about information. But it’s not, Jack. No, it is much more than that. Let me ask you a question. Do you understand what it is to love someone?”

  “You tell me, Father,” Jack said, his voice sounding like sandpaper.

  Suddenly Father Herrera smacked Jack hard in the face with the back of his hand, and Jack felt a sharp sting and then his own blood running down his chin.

  “You would do well to take this seriously, Jack. I am not talking about sexual love. I am talking about a love between two men, a friendship if you will. A friendship—I am not ashamed to say it—that was deeper than any man-woman relationship can ever be. Do you know the meaning of such friendships, Jack?”

  This time Jack said nothing. Father Herrera rubbed his hand over Jack’s cheek in a gesture that was almost a caress.

  “I am talking to you, Jack. I expect an answer.”

  “Yes,” Jack said. It was as though someone had attached red hot electrodes to his retina.

  “ ‘Yes,’ because I want to hear yes?” Father Herrera said. “Or yes because you have such friendships yourself? And don’t lie to me, Jack. I always know when someone is lying.”

  “Yes, yes. I’ve had friendships like that.”

  “I wonder?” Herrera said. “Truly. I doubt it, Jack. I think people in your country, the wonderful land of freedom and dignity for all, I think they have no understanding of such love. I think they measure everything in terms of money, of power, of status. To Americans, love is like buying a car. You trade in your old love every two or three years for a nice new shiny one. I think you are a pathetic people, really.”

  “And you prove your moral superiority by selling us drugs, is that it?” Jack said.

  “Why shouldn’t we?” Father Herrera said, his voice rising now. “Your CIA encourages it. Your government has, for years, taken my money. It’s business as usual, my friend. Some of your own people are on the take, Jack. Oh, you would be quite surprised if I told you their names. Granted, the DEA is mostly clean. So what? Your Agency is nothing more than a pathetic contemporary version of the Peace Corps. Remember those high-minded children of the sixties who came to the unfortunate downtrodden third world and built bridges and dams, while Kennedy and the American CIA undercut the very reforms they advocated? That is exactly the position of the DEA, my friend. You catch a few of the dumber dealers, while your government and your businessmen make billions of dollars in the drug trade. So why shouldn’t we sell your people drugs? In our
own way, we are liberating our world by infecting and enslaving yours. You see?”

  “I see,” Jack said, hoarsely. “You’re not drug dealers. You’re emancipators.”

  “Exactly,” Herrera said. “Like Bolivar, or Zapata.”

  For a second Father Herrera sounded as though he wanted to go on, but then there was an ever-so-slight pause, and Jack knew that he had gotten Herrera to say more than he wanted to. Zapata? Michaels had said something about that. But what could it mean? What was this tirade really about? If the Agency was so pathetic, why was Herrera so furious? Father Herrera cleared his throat, sucked in air. It seemed to Jack that he was trying to get a handle on his own emotions.

  “We were speaking of love, Jack. I loved someone. More than I have ever loved anyone.”

  The father stopped again. Jack heard him wheezing and was astonished. It seemed he was almost crying.

  “But because of you, he is dead,” Herrera finally said.

  “Who was he?”

  There was a silence between the two men, and suddenly both Jack and Father Herrera were aware of a strange intimacy that passed between them, an intimacy that shared death bestows, no matter what the circumstances.

  “His name was Jose Benvenides. You shot him to death last year in Tucson.”

  And now Jack knew, knew for certain what he had felt uneasy about since he first laid eyes on the “priest.” Father Herrera was Eduardo Morales, himself. Jack couldn’t prove it, but he knew in a way that was beyond logic. After all, who else could have planned so elaborate a revenge and had the resources to carry it out?

  “Do you remember him, Jack?”

  Morales’s voice was very quiet and reverential, as if he were saying a prayer. “Yeah, I do.”

  In his mind Jack could again see Benvenides’s revolver aimed at his head. He recalled his own absolute certainty that he would soon be dead. He could hear the click of the gun, as it jammed. And he could see the flash of fire from his Glock as he shot Benvenides in the head.