by Ward, Robert
If he had only paid cash, like he was supposed to, Brandau would never have had to worry. But that problem involved Suzie as well. She kept saying, “Put it on your MasterCard and you can write it off your taxes, Rich!” and he would have to come up with some lame excuse why he always paid cash.
He had tried a lot of them, such as: “I was a poor boy, Suzie, and so I like to have money around,” but her response to that was, “That’s so neurotic, Richard. You’re not poor anymore, you’re a successful man, and you should start acting like one instead of like some two-bit gangster who flashes around a lot of green.”
Little did she know how close to the truth that assessment was.
So in the end he had used the cards and told himself everything was okay, nobody suspected him anyway. After all, it wasn’t as if he ever ran into any of the other agents at these places, and if they had casually suspected anything, he could use the inheritance story.
But Michaels had started to dig, and so they had to do away with him, and then there was the wild plan to kill Jack and blow up Zampas.
It was brilliant, really. The bomb was under the escalator, about thirty feet down in the tunnel. Of course, the DEA would sweep the tunnel the night before. They used trained dogs, two beautiful Labs, to check every inch for explosives. The dogs were real professionals, top of the line, more effective than any minesweeper could be. The only problem was that the dogs couldn’t sniff Semtex. The same plastique that had been used to blow up Pan Am 103 was attached to a liquid-crystal-display watch, complete with a countdown timer, underneath the escalator. At exactly 9:00 P.M. Director George Zampas was going to descend into the tunnel and be blown into a thousand pieces, and Richard Brandau was going to succeed him as director of West Coast DEA.
The next day, of course, a shocked and deeply disturbed Brandau would demand that the heat be on until their noble leader’s assassins were found. But it would be difficult to prove anything. A bomb had gone off; the dogs had missed it. These things happen. After all, everyone knew that drug dealers laid traps in their tunnels in order to discourage rival drug dealers; unfortunately, the DEA’d missed this one, and that was that … a terrible tragedy.
In the end the investigation would come up empty. The United States couldn’t afford to push too hard anyway. Every time we sent our FBI or DEA agents into a foreign country, we were accused of police brutality, and the liberals screamed that we were trying to start Vietnam all over again. And with the new NAFTA agreement in such a precarious position, no one wanted to make waves.
No, in the end, Director Zampas’s killers would never be caught, and business would resume. But not quite as usual. Director Richard Brandau would help establish Morales’s new drug routes. Time to move on. There were many new ideas, the most promising of which was to turn the heroin into a chemical compound that could be applied as paint to cars, and once the vehicles were safely on the U.S. side, they would be chemically treated at a special processing plant, and, presto, the heroin would reemerge. More potent and deadly than ever. And more lucrative.
God, it had all been so beautiful, until fucking Walker had escaped—helped by Wingate’s broad. Who would have believed it, after she set him up?
And somehow, crazy, loaded-gun Walker had put it all together and even managed to get past C.J., Brandau’s ace in the hole.
It was outrageous really.
Today should have been his coronation, but instead, he was in solitary, unable to breathe and freezing, in September, in Latuna Castle, the coldest hellhole in all of Texas.
Suddenly, Brandau heard the creak of the cell door opening. He turned, half expecting to see his lawyer, but his face froze as he confronted Jack Walker.
“Hi, Rich. Nice place you got here.”
“Fuck you, Walker.”
Jack walked over slowly, smiling at him.
“Gee, Rich, that doesn’t sound like you. You were always such a cozy, pipe-smoking kind of guy.”
“I have nothing to say to you, Walker. You want to know anything about me, talk to my lawyer.”
“That’s a wise man,” Jack said. “A very wise man. But you always were smart, a heck of a lot smarter than the rest of us…. God knows, you’re a thousand times smarter than me. I mean, you guys almost pulled this thing off. Tell you the truth, I was just lucky to get out of there. I should be pushing up a monstera cactus out in the Mexican desert right now.”
Brandau said nothing, but his eyes told Jack that he agreed with him. Jack should be buried under the Mexican sun, in five different locations.
“Thing is, though,” Jack said, “what I lack in brains, I am gonna try to make up for with … what I like to think of as my zest for life and for the job.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Brandau turned from him and stared at the stone cell wall.
“It means that though I’m not as clever as you, I do take the job seriously. I mean, I feel strongly about certain things. I hate cops who go bad. I don’t care what their reason is, I hate them. They poison the profession. I believe they should be punished to the max. And I didn’t like being tortured much, either. So now I’m going to make you pay for it, Rich. Personally.”
Brandau turned, an alarmed look on his face.
“You’re crazy. I had nothing whatsoever to do with any of that.”
“No? I think so. My guess is you knew all about it and let it happen. And since I don’t have the others here, you’re going to have to do.”
“You’re full of shit. What the fuck can you do, Walker?”
Jack walked over and kicked Brandau in the face, splitting his lip.
“That, for starters,” Jack said.
Brandau wobbled to his knees, rubbed his mouth. There was panic in his eyes; he was afraid he was going to urinate into his prison pants.
“You’re a fucking maniac, Walker. We’ll make mincemeat of you in court for this.”
“I don’t think so,” Jack said. “ ‘Cause nobody knows I’m in here. And if you bring it up, I’m gonna deny it. Get up, now, pal. Let’s make this a fair fight.”
Brandau crawled away, trying to disappear into the wall.
“I’m not going to fight you.”
“No?” Jack said. “That’s too bad. ‘Cause being kinda dumb, I have to rely on stupid shit like physical violence.”
He picked up Brandau and slapped him hard in the face. Three times. Then he threw him on the floor.
“Stop. Stop it, God.”
“Ah, okay,” Jack said. “You’re right. This isn’t any fun. I guess I don’t want to really beat up someone who can’t defend himself.”
“Asshole,” Brandau said. He wiped his nose with the Kleenex Jack threw to him.
“But that’s because I’m really a softhearted jerk,” Jack said, leaning in so that his head was only three inches away from his former boss. “But some of the guys you’re gonna be rooming with, as of tonight … ooooh, they aren’t very nice. Fact is, I think a lot of them prefer it when a guy like you, a former cop, doesn’t fight back. Just makes it easier for them to carve their initials on the guy’s arms, chest, wherever.”
“What are you talking about?”
Brandau tried to keep his voice level, cool, but it came out high-pitched, with a gasp attached to the words. Jack stood up and scratched his ear.
“Didn’t you hear? Gee, with your connections I would have sworn you already knew. See, there’s only so many single cells, and last night the Feds caught a serial killer. Guy’s been knocking off prostitutes in El Paso. He’s a big catch, and, of course, they are very worried he’ll get offed in prison, so they’re gonna put him in this cell. You are going to the general population. Course, they aren’t gonna tell anybody you’re a former cop. They don’t want anything to happen to you. You’ll have a cover and all … but it’s not gonna do you much good.”
“Why? What the hell are you talking about?”
“Why?” Jack said, moving in close to the cowering Brandau. “Because unless you te
ll me exactly where Buddy Wingate is right now, I’m gonna make sure that your cover is blown. Every con in Latuna is gonna know who and what you are. My guess is you’re gonna become the cell block punchboard by dinnertime tomorrow. And some of those guys are not very nice in bed. I mean very few of them would qualify as the new sensitive male.”
“You’re bluffing. They won’t take me out of here.”
“Thought you’d say that,” Jack said. He reached into his back pocket, pulled out some papers and let them float lazily down to the terrified Brandau.
Brandau snatched them from the air and looked at them. His face collapsed in fear.
“What the hell? This is a Federal court order.”
“Tell you the truth,” Jack said, “I think Zampas might have spoken to the judge. You know how it is with those Greek guys. They’re very emotional. I mean, they’re primitive throw-backs to another century. Imagine anybody in this world of ours taking loyalty or friendship seriously. George actually thinks that what you did constitutes a personal betrayal. Hey, I tried to tell him it was only a career move on your part, but I might as well be talking to T. Rex. He wants you in there. And all the fancy lawyers in the world aren’t gonna keep you out.”
“Oh, Jesus Christ,” Brandau said, dropping the paper on the floor. “You wouldn’t blow my cover, would you, Jack?”
“Watch me.” Jack smiled. “Of course, if you happen to remember Buddy Wingate’s current address….”
“I don’t know. Really.”
“Really? That’s a shame.”
Jack reached down and picked up the court orders and smiled cruelly at Brandau. “I swear.”
“Oh, you swear. Well, that does it. I can’t fight that. Good luck in your new home, Rich. I bet you get a whole slew of dates tonight.”
Jack turned and headed toward the door.
“Walker, wait … wait….”
“Yeah, Rich?”
“Just remembered something. Wingate said he had a place he always gets away to, down in Mexico. Not far from Puerto Vallarta. I don’t know if he’s there. But I remember part of the address. Coronado Street. On the beach.”
“That all you remember, Rich?”
“No. He said he had it painted shocking pink ‘cause Hillary Clinton liked pink, and when the President called him to D.C. he was going to invite Bill and Hillary to spend the weekend with him there. Said she’d be thrilled.”
Jack laughed, and even Brandau managed a little laugh.
“Thanks, Rich. By the way, relax. You’re not going anywhere.”
“What? But the court order?”
“I swiped it and filled it out myself. Kind of a dumb trick, huh?”
“You son of a bitch, Walker. You rotten bastard!”
“See you around, boss.”
Jack rapped on the door, and the guard came to let him out. He could still hear Brandau cursing and beating on the bars as he walked away from the cell.
Chapter 31
On the dusty road ahead of him, Jack saw a white-bearded old man walking next to a donkey and three children. There, beneath the perfect azure sky and the wavering palm trees, the four people in front of him were a vision from a simpler world, a world that existed in Puerto Vallarta before the Americans started to come—before the big houses on the coast, before the health spas and tennis instructors and Body by Jake muscle freaks, before the private helicopter launching pads on the front lawns for the studio execs to hover in on, before the endless discos filled with long-greasy-hair metallists with their pouty cheekbones and their spandex-wearing, big-haired girlfriends, before the car phones and the posh, overpriced restaurants.
Before guys like Buddy Wingate moved here with his twenty-thousand-square-foot Casa de Pink.
Jack eased his car up behind that of the man ahead of him and watched as the guy took his own sweet time about moving over.
“Good for you,” Jack thought, as he drove by.
From his vantage point on the beach Jack could see Wingate’s monstrous pink home about fifty yards down the road. Jack got out of the car and shut the door behind him. It was a relief to be out of the death trap. The once-midnight-blue Malibu was battered, dented, and barely ran. He’d picked it up in a used car lot in Long Beach just last night for three hundred bucks. The salesman assured him that the car had only been lovingly driven by a terrific guy named Dwight Jones, a loyal and long-standing member of Robert Schuller’s Crystal Cathedral. Dwight, the sales guy said, only used it once a week to drive to Garden Grove to attend services. Jack had his doubts about that, since the Malibu had overheated twice on the trip down the coast; when Jack had taken a close look at the engine, he was less than stunned to see that it was held together with bailing wire and ancient green chewing gum. Care Free, Jack thought.
Jack opened the trunk of the car and took out the four caps of dynamite attached to the infrared timing device. He set the package down gently on the ground next to the half-collapsed back bumper, opened the trunk, and took out a tape recorder and two portable Bose speakers.
He reached into the pocket on his blue nylon Windbreaker and took out his mini cell phone and the two-inch-long activating mechanism.
He looked around and saw nothing but a few seagulls working on a dead crab. They looked like they were having a good time, and he hated to bother them. On the other hand, they were fat birds and could probably use a little exercise.
Jack looked at the Sony digital tape recorder, made sure that the timer was set correctly at 8:00 A.M., then punched start. Then he dialed the local police.
“Policia. Buenos Días.”
“Buenos días to you, lucky hombre,” Jack said.
Standing in the five-foot-high whip grass in front of Buddy’s fortress, Jack could see that Coronado Street wasn’t really a street at all. It was a sandy stretch of road, which reached back into as yet unspoiled dunes. A beautiful spot—you had to hand it to Buddy, Jack thought, as he aimed the infrared device in the direction of the car, pushed the button, and threw himself face-first into the sand. A second later the Malibu exploded in one great ball of hellfire and twisted, overheated wreckage. Five seconds after the explosion, the prerecorded tape kicked in. It featured the sounds of high-decibel rapid fire with light weapons and the voices of men screaming out assault tactics in both Spanish and English. Jack listened for a second and caught the phrases, “Attack to the west,” and “If they refuse to surrender, kill all the motherfuckers.” Very effective and very loud. It ought to be. He’d made the tape himself, splicing together bits from his favorite war movies, The Dirty Dozen, The Alamo, Bataan. He’d worried that you wouldn’t be able to hear the words from this far away, above the roaring of the fire and the explosion of the car engine, but it wasn’t so. You could hear it all just fine—fire, wreckage, military screams, machine-gun chatter, detonating hand grenades, the cries of the maimed, dying, and delirious.
He vowed to write the Bose people a fan letter—great little assault speaker you have there.
Now Jack looked at his watch, and counted off the seconds. Ten, nine, eight, seven…. On six the pink iron gates to Wingate’s home opened and two black Mercedes came screaming out of the driveway, toward the fire and the chatter.
There looked to be about three guys in each car. And the expression on the first driver’s face said it all. He was scared shitless.
And with good reason, Jack thought.
He looked at the big iron gate. In their hurry, Wingate’s bodyguards had left it swinging open. Great. His back and leg still pained him, and he hadn’t looked forward to climbing over a ten-foot wall.
The huge house was surrounded by the inevitable cactus garden. As Jack crept by it, he thought of Buddy Wingate’s first speech about cacti, that day at his house. Mutations and survivors, Wingate had said. Like himself. And it was true. Wingate was more like a cactus than a man.
But even the toughest cactus dies.
He moved forward, toward the absurdly huge wraparound front porch, as big a
s one found on a resort hotel. He took out the .38 and climbed the steps.
Jack pushed open the front door to the pink stucco mansion. Inside, the place was all dark wood, Mexican and Indian motifs. There were cowboy paintings on the far wall, with noble sad-eyed horses and pink sunsets—very romantic. But no sign of Buddy.
Jack started to go into the dining room, when he heard someone walking upstairs.
He changed direction and began slowly creeping up the wide steps, staying hunched next to the wall. His gun was cocked, ready.
He half expected Buddy to come charging down the steps toward him, guns blazing. After all, he’d anticipated everything else Jack was going to do. Why not this as well?
But Buddy didn’t appear. Now Jack was at the top of the stairs. He heard something coming from just down the hall; someone was singing, for godsake.
Jack stopped, listened. It was Buddy Wingate, singing in a high, sweet voice. “As I walked out in the streets of Laredo, as I walked out in Laredo one day. I spied a young cowboy, all dressed in white linen, all dressed in white linen and cold as the clay.”
Jack felt a chill pass into his stomach. There was something wrong here.
But there was no going back now.
Jack moved quickly down the hall, holding both hands on his pistol grip.
When he got to the door, he flattened himself against the wall, took a deep breath, counted three, and then swerved into the hallway, kicking open the door and quickly moving inside the room.
Buddy Wingate stood in front of a full-length wall mirror. He wore tight Levi’s, which accentuated his belly, and he was trying on a black cowboy hat. When he saw Jack, he dropped the hat and turned. Though he’d gotten fatter, Jack could see the muscles in his arms, the strength in his thick fingers and wrists.
“Jack,” he said, a startled yodel in his voice. “Well, what brings you here, partner?”
“You, Buddy,” Jack said walking into the room, looking left and right. “I thought it was time we get reacquainted.”
