Cactus Garden

by Ward, Robert

  “It might matter to you to know that I didn’t want to kill him, father,” Jack said, putting an ironic spin on the last word. “Jose shot at me first, but his gun jammed. I had no choice.”

  “Is that true?”

  “Yes,” Jack said.

  “Do you think that matters?”

  “Yes. I do.”

  Morales nodded.

  “Yes, I can see you would. I can see you are a brave and honorable man. But it does not matter to me, Jack. What matters to me is that you and your clever little boss, what’s his name, Zampas? You two set your little trap, and you lured Jose in. Fooled and then killed him. And for that you must die.”

  Morales stopped talking now, and Jack heard him breathing hard, the breath of a rage and loss that could never be quenched until his revenge was carried out.

  And upon hearing that breath, Jack realized that his case was hopeless. He was finished, because this wasn’t about drugs at all. No, it was about obsession. It was deeply personal, which left him no room to negotiate.

  “You are going to die, Jack. But because I like you a little, I am going to give you a choice. You can tell us everything we ask you and die like Jose died, from a bullet to the head. Or you can stonewall and die like a snitch dies.”

  The sound of Morales’s voice cut into Jack’s soul.

  “No door number three?” Jack said, but the words sounded hollow, even to himself.

  “I admire your sense of humor, Jack. I really do. I wonder how long you can keep it. Perhaps you need another drink of Coke.”

  “You son of a bitch,” Jack said.

  Then they were descending on him again. And he felt the bottle jam into his broken nose. His screams became obscene gags, and just before he passed out, he wondered if Charlotte Rae was out there somewhere in the dark, watching it all go down.

  When he awakened, he was no longer in the room, but in a cactus garden. All around him there were terrifying shapes, huge cacti that looked like skeletons and crucifixes and hanged men with melting faces. The sky above him was black and blue, as though God had beaten it with his bare fists.

  There was a high corrugated tin fence, and mariachi music blared from speakers that hung overhead. He was manacled in a chair, and then, suddenly, Wingate was above him.

  “Hey, welcome to my world, Jackie,” Wingate said. “Long as I’ve got my little garden, any place can be real homey.”

  Jack felt a searing pain in his neck and sucked in a lung full of air.

  Wingate walked toward him. He leaned to one side a bit, and Jack thought that he looked drunk.

  “You are so fucking dumb, Walker. You and the whole DEA are so dumb, so hopeless, so pathetic. The elephant and the ant, Walker. We’re the elephant, and you’re the little fucking ant.”

  Wingate’s face loomed like an insect’s above him.

  “Go ahead and scream, Jackie. No one can hear above the music.”

  Jack said nothing. But stared at him through bloodied, half-closed eyes.

  “Scream into the night, Jack. It’s good for the soul. I love it out here. Don’t you love it, Jackie?”

  Jack looked around, felt the fear flood through him.

  “Wouldn’t you love to get away, Jackie? Wouldn’t you love to escape? Think of what you could do to us, Jackie? Think of how you could bring us down.”

  “Fuck you, Wingate. And Morales too.”

  “Morales?”

  “Yeah. I know it’s him. Where is that cowardly piece of shit?”

  “He’s busy, Jackie. Busy making other plans for our little dope shipment. Just think of it, Jack. One thousand kilos of white heroin at a hundred grand a key. That’s a hundred million bucks, you might have brought in. And that’s only the beginning. What we’re talking about here, my friend, is a whole new market. We’re cutting out the Chinese, all them slope-eyed Asians. We can deliver a better product for one-third what them Chinks get. They’re gonna be dead meat. And you mighta stopped us. Whew, a bust like that, and maybe you would have replaced Zampas.”

  Jack blinked.

  “Zampas one of your heroes, Jackie? That little shit-heel bureaucrat.”

  “Fuck you, Buddy. He’s worth more than twenty of you.”

  “Ohhh, still got a little fight in you. That’s good. You know your problem, Jackie? You’re arrogant, pushy. You think you can fly by on a song. I bet you think my old lady has the hots for you too. Or, no … I guess not. Even a young hotshot like you doesn’t think that anymore. Not after the way she set you up.”

  Wingate began to laugh, and Jack strained against his bonds.

  “See, Jackie, you think ‘cause you’re young and thin that you can charm us to death. But you been raised on the MTV, son, and charm don’t cut it. Truth is, Jackie, you’re too fucking dumb to bring anybody down, least of all anybody in this organization. Hey, I know what you’re thinking, ‘If I could only get out of here …’ Well, you ain’t gonna, you are heading for the Big D, son. But, jest for fun, let’s talk about what might happen if you did get away. Yeah, let’s play it out. You could go to your boys and say that you had us dead on dealing drugs. But would it hold up in court, Jackie? I don’t think so. Why? ‘Cause you never ever saw any drugs. All you saw was a tunnel and a pool table, Jackie boy. And Father Herrera, well, he wore a mask in the ceremony. As did all the others. And you couldn’t see him when he was here. But let’s just pretend, Jackie, that you were successful in getting us arrested and in court … let’s imagine my defense.”

  Wingate laughed and showed Jack some Polaroids.

  “Hmmm, what’s this?”

  Jack felt a new shock enter his system.

  He looked at a picture of him and Charlotte Rae, making love at Malibu. Jack felt sickened, crushed, and ashamed. The thought had crossed his mind that the house in Malibu wasn’t safe, but he had not listened to his inner voice. He had wanted her too badly, been too convinced of her need for him. He had rushed in to play hero and ended up being the court jester instead.

  “See … see what we have here, Jackie. If you did get away, look what I have. I can say that you framed me because you wanted my wife. Oh, and there’s always the matter of the guys you killed at Tahoe. See, my people and Salazar’s people have come to an understanding. He’s no longer my competitor, so he’d be happy to get on the stand and say that you killed two of his people, just to get in with me. Yeah, he’d say it was a DEA setup. Why, we might even be able to get you indicted for murder. Imagine how effective those poor widows are gonna be on the stand, Jackie, talking about how you killed the fathers of their babies just to entrap me. Sad, Jackie, real sad.”

  Jack’s head dropped. He’d fucked it all up. And they had him. There was nothing more to say.

  “I bring this up just for the hell of it, Jackie, ‘cause you ain’t ever gonna leave this place. I think we’re gonna bury you right under ole monstera deliciosa, my favorite cactus. You have been dumb, Jackie. Real, real dumb. We had your ass from day numero uno, hoss. See, I wasn’t born with no good luck, so I jest naturally had to be smarter than the next guy. Truth is, Jack, I am gonna miss you, though. I liked seeing you do your little swashbuckling undercover number. It was real amusing. For a while.”

  “Yeah, Buddy, well I guess I’ll see you in hell.”

  “I reckon so,” Wingate said. “Meanwhile, Father Herrera has made you a generous offer. The bullet to the head or something much worse. Might give you a Cartagena necktie. You know, cut out your tongue and hang it down your chest. They even give you a little anaesthetic so you don’t pass out from the pain right away. Wonder what Charlotte Rae will think of you when she sees you like that?”

  Wingate took a Romeo Y Julieta cigar from his pocket, lit it, then turned and blew the smoke in Jack’s face.

  “You are a sorry motherfucker,” he said, looking away.

  Wingate turned back and put out the tip of his cigar on Jack’s cheek.

  “You’re gonna talk, asshole,” he said. “In the end everybody talk
s. So you sit here for a while, Jackie. Sit here and think about how you want it to be. Shithead.”

  Then there was something being stuck in Jack’s arm, and though he fought it, he found himself falling down a blue drain into the phantom blackness below.

  Chapter 24

  There were monsters roaring in his head; he saw himself standing amidst an entire city that was ashen, demolished, the buildings black from soot, their windows broken like a face with its eyes put out. All along the city streets were golden electric snakes attacking children, who screamed and ran frantically for the illusory safety of brightly painted doorways. But Jack knew, knew as one can know only in a dream, that there was no safety behind those doorways, for the blackened, crooked houses had their own demons inside, demons far worse than the bright, yellow snakes that slithered on the city’s bombed-out streets. Inside the houses were the greatest monsters of all, men: white, black, Latino, Chinese, all the masses of men in the world, all of them huddled together on the oily floors with their syringes and their cacti and their great vats filled with money and their lying tongues.

  He awoke with a start, then opened one bloody eye and looked around at the room, at the mirrors that reflected his battered, swollen face.

  He groaned. That couldn’t be him: chained, back in the standing position again, his face pummeled, his lips purple and swollen, his right eye completely closed and bloated with fluid, so that it looked like some grotesque, overripe fruit.

  He was dead on his feet, he knew it. And in the end he would tell them the names of every snitch he could recall, because under torture everybody cracked—which Wingate and Father Herrera knew. No, they had pumped him full of drugs to soften up what was left of his will and left him here simply to make him suffer more, to think about how he had been suckered, how they had played him—putting the girl out as bait, knowing that he would try to stop the car-jacking, and then letting him get close to her, letting her tell him the story of her past at Tahoe. Her story about her sad life as an orphan—Christ, an orphan, for godsake—it was like something out of a fairy tale, and he had bought it because of her tits and her ass and the pain in her voice, but most of all because of his own preening ego, his need to play hero.

  They had been so far ahead of him that he hadn’t even been in the game. They must have waited and watched and figured him out ever since the day he pulled the trigger on Jose Benvenides.

  But how had they known he’d shot Jose? That was the question that had no answer.

  Not that it mattered anymore. Because now he was finished—done in by his own lack of judgment.

  His head fell upon his chest. He sucked in air. Then he looked around. His hands and feet were manacled to the tilting table.

  There was no way he was going to get out of here—unless somehow he could get a key. There must be a guard outside. He had to get him in here, try something, anything, before they came back with their knives and syringes.

  He thought for a second, then began to scream.

  Loud, piercing screams that cut through the darkness. Maybe the guard would come in just to shut him up … that would give him a chance.

  But there was only the buzzing of the flies in the room. No one came.

  He waited, tried it again, knowing that this game could backfire. His screams might irritate them so badly that they simply would kill him right now. But he had to take that chance.

  And then, astonishingly enough, this much of his plan seemed to work. From the right side of the room, a door opened quickly, sending in dim yellow light from a hallway. The door shut rapidly, but someone had come into the room and was walking quickly toward him.

  “Shut up,” a flat, cool voice said.

  Jack squinted through his swollen bloody eye.

  He couldn’t believe who was standing in front of him—Charlotte Rae Wingate.

  She smiled mockingly, shook her head. “Why are you screaming?” she said.

  “Just trying to get in touch with my inner child,” Jack said through swollen, thick lips, amazed that he could still make a joke.

  “Something I haven’t figured out about you,” she said. “For a guy who always has a good line, you do a lot of really dumb things.”

  “Yeah,” Jack said. “And of all the dumb things I ever did, you were the dumbest.”

  She came closer to him and touched his lip lightly, and he jerked away in pain. “You look like hell, Jack.”

  “Compared to how I feel, I look great,” Jack said. “Funny, I was just thinking about you … about how good an actress you are. I mean, to sell a story about your lonely life as an orphan … you got to be very good.”

  She smiled at him. Patted his head.

  “Trick is to use as much of the real back story as possible. In my case all of that was true. All I had to do was tap into it and feel a little sorry for myself. Acting one-o-one.”

  “Ahhh, I see,” Jack said. “And the bruises. Get those from the makeup truck?”

  “Those are my business,” she said. She snorted and shook her head. “You know, you’re really funny.”

  “How’s that?”

  “We played a game, you and I, and you lost, but now I hear self-righteousness in your voice. Like I sold you out or something.”

  “Well, didn’t you?” Jack said, staring directly into her eyes. “I suppose, but what were you going to do to me as soon as the bust went down, Agent Walker?” Jack managed a shrug. “All’s fair in love and war,” she said.

  Jack said nothing, but kept his gaze steady into her face. She broke off from his gaze, stared at the floor as if she was considering something, then quickly met his eyes again.

  “Was any of it real, Jack?”

  “Truth?”

  She nodded.

  “Yeah, it was. I didn’t let myself go all the way, but I thought about it. I thought about you all the time.” She smiled at him.

  “Then it was the same for both of us.”

  “How’s that?”

  “I didn’t let myself think what might happen to you, and you tried to forget that you were setting me up to bust me. In the end that makes us even—a couple of liars.”

  “I don’t think so,” Jack said. “I’m not selling heroin. I’m not killing kids. Destroying families. Call me old-fashioned, but I think that’s a difference worth noting.”

  She stood looking at him for what seemed like the longest time, then reached up softly and touched his battered, bruised cheek.

  “You surprised me with your tenderness, Jack. I knew it was an Academy Award-winning performance, but part of me still bought it. I even tried to warn you out there in the desert. If you had listened to me then, I’d have come with you.” Jack nodded.

  “It’s not to late, Charlotte.” She shook her head.

  “Oh, yeah, it is. Way too late. But that’s okay. I’m a specialist in ‘too late,’ and ‘big regrets.’ “ Jack laughed a little.

  “Me, I’m a specialist in last-minute heroics. Maybe tha’s why we’re meant for each other. Get me out of here, Charlotte.”

  She looked at him noncommittally, sudden blankness in her eyes, as though she had turned him out forever, and that look frightened Jack more than anything he had yet seen.

  “Charlotte, I need you to do the right thing. Now.”

  She smiled slightly.

  “We’ll never get out. And if they catch us, then I get the same treatment you do.”

  Jack stared into her eyes.

  “You did care, didn’t you?” she said.

  “I do care, and if we get out of here, I can help you.”

  She reached beneath her black cloak and took out a long, serrated knife, with a fancy carving of a black ivory bull on its handle.

  “I brought this for you,” she said, her voice resonating an ethereal emptiness. “And this.”

  She reached into her pocket and pulled out a key.

  “I decided to talk to you and see if any of it was real. Or if I’d just fallen in love with an illusion.
Funny thing was, I was sure that after we talked, I’d know whether to use the knife or help you escape.”

  “And which way is it going to be?”

  She shrugged and laughed in an ironic way.

  “The test was a failure, Jack. I talked to you, and you sound sincere. I might even buy it, but I still don’t know if anything you said is really true.”

  “You don’t believe me when I say I care about you?”

  “I’d believe you more if you said you had a hard-on for me.”

  “You already know that. I’m telling you the truth. You make me laugh. I don’t know anybody else who does that.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “There is that.”

  “And there’s something else too.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I think you’re better than these assholes. It’s not only that they’re going down in the end, and that you’ll end up in jail for the next forty years, but that you have a choice right here to be yourself or be Buddy’s whore. Which is it going to be?”

  Her eyes flashed at Jack, anger that was like heat lightning.

  “That’s not really the choice you’re offering me, Jack. It’s more like ‘Will I be Buddy’s whore or your whore.’ “

  Jack looked directly into her eyes.

  “I don’t think so,” he said. “I don’t think they’re the same, and I don’t really believe you do either.”

  She moved the knife closer to his throat. Jack felt his head pressing back against the steel table.

  “I think I’ve decided something, Jack.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. I’ve decided that the test doesn’t matter?”

  “No?”

  “No. I don’t think I’ll ever know if you mean what you’re saying to me or not. I don’t even think you know. Maybe you’re just so used to lying that you think you care.”

  She knelt down in front of him and put the key into the lock on the manacle clamped on his right foot.

  “You’re a bastard, Jack, and you probably don’t deserve my help,” she said.

  “So why then?” Jack said, as he heard the lock click open.