Cactus Garden

by Ward, Robert

  “Hey, I’m for that,” Buddy said. “And this time without that fucking megalomaniac Morales around to screw up our friendship. Mind if I put on a robe?”

  He indicated a red silk robe sitting on the king-sized Spanish bed with four-foot-high, hand-carved headboard and footboard, to Jack’s left. Jack picked it up, checked the pockets to make certain there wasn’t a weapon inside, and tossed it to Buddy. Buddy swirled it over his broad shoulders with a regal flourish and smiled at Jack.

  “You think I’m kidding, but I always did like you, Jackie. You got a lot of balls.”

  “Yeah, but you liked them most of all because you were squeezing them,” Jack said.

  Wingate laughed appreciatively.

  “That’s the other thing I like about you. You got a quick mind. Morales always thought you was stupid, but I knew different. Take that diversion you just set up outside. Explosions and all that death chatter. That had me scared shitless, tell you the truth. I was just trying on this here cowboy hat prior to biting the last bullet. No shit, I was thinking, “Well, it’s Morales’s boys come to get me, and the question is, do I die like Davy Crockett, fighting Santa Anna to the end, or do I pull a Nero and find me an asp.”

  “Wrong emperor. That was Cleopatra. Nero disemboweled himself.”

  “Ooooh,” Wingate said. “He musta been part gook to do something like that. No, I was leaning toward the old gun-in-the-mouth routine, though I don’t know if I coulda done it or not. I was going to wait till I saw a few of ‘em pouring into the gate before I made the final decision.”

  “Don’t chicken out until you see the whites of their eyes,” Jack said.

  “Something like that, yeah. Well, a man can’t expect much better working with a maniac like Morales. I told him it was madness all along, but Eduardo cherishes his obsessions. Very self-indulgent that way.”

  “Yeah,” Jack said. “He went to an awful lot of trouble, and gave away his nice little money tunnel.”

  “Well, that’s Eduardo. You know he loves his drama. Anything short of total humiliation wouldn’t do. Might seem crazy to you and me, but he had his reasons. You do know who you killed in Tucson, don’t you?”

  “Jose Benvenides. His friend.”

  “That’s his name, all right,” Wingate said. “But he was a lot more than a friend. See, Benvenides was Jose’s mother’s name, which is the only one the boy could take because Eduardo is married to somebody else. Jack, my boy, you had the honor of shooting Eduardo Morales’s only son.”

  Jack gave out a low whistle.

  “Now it figures,” he said.

  “Yessir. And given the fact that Eduardo has the big C, it’s likely to be the only kid he ever does have. You know, the old boy don’t give two shits about most things, but losing that boy almost killed him. Hey, even I can understand that. A man loses somebody he loves, it can tear the heart right outta his chest.”

  Jack walked toward Wingate now, keeping the gun leveled at his stomach.

  “How would you know?” he said. Buddy’s florid face drained of color.

  “Jest a minute. You suggesting I didn’t love Charlotte Rae?”

  “Loved her enough to beat her.”

  “Oh, don’t gimme that politically correct crapola. This here was a girl who ate her violence with a spoon. If I didn’t whack her around occasionally, she would get all pouty, say I didn’t care no more.”

  “Oh,” Jack said. “So when you covered her body with bruises and welts, you were doing her a favor. That it?”

  “I don’t expect somebody like you to understand. We had a lasting bond, and she’d be alive today, if it wasn’t for her misguided attempt to help you.”

  Jack smiled and shook his head.

  “What makes you think she isn’t?” he said.

  Wingate blinked, and his mouth dropped open.

  “She was shot when she left the warehouse. My guards told me they saw her drop.”

  “They lied. She’s as alive as me or you.”

  “Where is she, Jackie? I gotta know.”

  “Somewhere where you will never find her,” Jack said. “Now, I’ve enjoyed this little chat, but it’s time for me and you to get the hell out of here, before your boys come back. Move it, Buddy.”

  Wingate smiled.

  “I don’t know. Nah. I jest don’t feel like it.”

  “Move or die here,” Jack said, cocking the gun.

  Wingate shook his head and smiled cockily.

  “You are a smart boy, Jackie. But, you are always jest one beat behind the drummer.”

  He shifted his gaze and looked behind Jack. Jack half turned and, from the corner of his eye, saw someone standing behind him.

  “Put it down, Mr. Walker. Slow and easy, partner.”

  Jack heard the growling voice behind him and turned to face the old cowboy star, Canyon Caine, holding his cowboy Colt .45 on Jack.

  “Don’t try anything, boy, or I will drop you like a bad habit.”

  Jack knew it was true. He dropped the .38 on the floor, and Buddy Wingate smiled as he picked it up. “Good work, Canyon.”

  “What’s he doing here, Mr. Wingate?” Canyon said.

  “Just another disappointed office seeker,” Buddy said, sticking the gun into Jack’s side. “Why don’t we walk out here on the porch now, Walker.”

  Wingate poked Jack with the gun, and they slowly started out to the deck. Canyon Caine lowered his Colt and trailed on behind them.

  As they got outside, Jack noticed the quiet. And so did Wingate.

  “Well, well, looks like my men have seen through your little joke. Soon, they’ll be back here, and I’ll just have to improvise a little. I know, I’ll tell ‘em that you created a diversion, so you could break in here and rob the place, and I was forced to shoot you off this balcony. I’ll kind of shake my head in wonderment and stare down at your lifeless form in the cactus garden. How’s that sound?”

  “Dumb,” Jack said. “I doubt if anyone over five will buy it.”

  “Now, Jack, I’ve known you to be devious,” Buddy said, pushing him out a little farther, “but I have never heard you out and out desperate before.”

  Wingate laughed out loud and put the pistol under Jack’s chin.

  “Look out there, Jack,” Buddy said. “See the ocean out there? Ever-changing yet the same, huh? See the beach, the gulls? This here is what is called a vista, asshole. That is the real difference between you and me. I see a vista and you don’t. You’re smart, you’re a plugger, you’re ballsy. I’m the first to admit it. But you ain’t got no vision, son. You’re like the poor redneck assholes I grew up with in Little Rock. They could only see to the next drink, the next dance, but ole Buddy could see the whole damned rodeo, which is why you are gonna die, while I go right on roping steers. And I might add, with you out of the way, I think I can reason with Charlotte Rae and get her to come back home where she belongs.”

  “Reason, huh?” Jack said. “Does that mean using your fists, or will it be your boots this time?”

  Buddy smashed Jack in the mouth with the back of his gun. Jack’s head snapped back as his lip split open.

  “You stupid asshole,” Buddy said. “She will always love me.”

  “Wrong,” Jack said. “She hates you. How do you think I found this place? She told me where you’d be.”

  Buddy looked shocked. For once he had no answer.

  “That’s a lie. You found out through somebody else. She’d never give me up. Never! After all I done for her! I was like a … father to that girl.”

  “She couldn’t wait to give you up,” Jack said. “You little fucking troll.”

  Buddy’s cheeks got red. He began to sputter.

  “I’m through talking to you, asshole. Where do you want your bullet. In the temple, under the chin? You tell me, you stupid shit. Tell me where.”

  “Fuck you, Buddy,” Jack said. “It’s all over for you.”

  Buddy laughed wildly and turned to Canyon Caine, who watched with a co
nfused look on his face.

  “You hear what old Jack’s saying, Canyon? That it’s all over for me? You believe this guy?”

  Suddenly, from down the beach, there was new shooting, new cries. Wingate’s ears pricked up as he looked down the land. But all the action was obscured by the thick grove of palms.

  “What’s that?”

  “The local Federales,” Jack said. “I called them and told them that there was a group of asshole Americans who had blown up a car and were stealing their nice Mexican drugs. This makes them very angry. I don’t think they’re gonna treat your boys with much respect. And after they finish with them, I think they’re going to be coming around here. Looking for you.”

  “Mr. Wingate,” Canyon Caine said. “I mean to know what’s going on. I don’t want to end up in any trouble.”

  “Shut up, Canyon,” Wingate said. “There’s not going to be any trouble. We’re just going to shoot this intruder and tell the Federales that he was one of the bad guys come to rob me.”

  “But they won’t buy that, Canyon,” Jack said. “They’ll identify me as DEA, and you’ll go away for life for accessory to murder one. Instead of a new film career, you’ll spend your golden years eating SpaghettiOs in San Quentin.”

  “DEA?” Canyon said. “Mr. Wingate, you didn’t say nothing ‘bout that.”

  “You don’t believe any of that crap, do you, Canyon?” Wingate said. “This man is a drug dealer, pure and simple. Now shoot him off this roof, cause I’m tired of hearing his talk.”

  “Mr. Wingate, I can’t do time. I jest can’t.”

  Wingate turned and glowered at the old man.

  “Shut your ignorant mouth,” he said, spitting out the words. “Remember this, cowboy. Without me, you’re nothing more than a broken-down cough-syrup junkie I found hanging out at the Thrifty ice-cream stand.”

  Jack saw the flint come back into Canyon’s eyes.

  “Don’t talk to me that way, sir.”

  “I’ll talk to you any way I damned well like, buckaroo,” Wingate said. “This isn’t any Republic Pictures serial, you hear me? This is the real world, and I fucking run it. Now, get out here and shoot this asshole.”

  “I will not,” Canyon Caine said.

  “The hell you won’t, you broken-down, pathetic, wino throwback, the hell you won’t!”

  Jack watched in disbelief as the old cowboy, Canyon Caine raised his Colt .45. He squinted with the easy menace he’d assumed in a thousand cowboy epics and nearly brought it off. But Buddy Wingate was thirty years younger, and already had his gun trained on Canyon’s tired old heart. There was a sound like a whip cracking, smoke poured from Wingate’s gun, and Canyon Caine went down to his knees, clutching his heart, as so many bad guys had clutched theirs all those thousand kiddie-matinee Saturday afternoons so long ago.

  For a brief second Jack was transfixed by the drama unfolding in front of him. But he quickly realized that this was his chance, his last chance.

  As Buddy turned to give him a bullet in the head, Jack leapt forward, grabbing for the gun. Wingate fired, the bullet grazing Jack’s temple, but instead of slowing Jack down, the powder burn seemed to fill him with adrenalized madness. He punched Wingate in the face, knocking him back against the low adobe balcony wall. Wingate tried to aim the gun, but Jack knocked it from his hands. But the move cost Jack. He left himself open, and Wingate kicked him in the groin, sending shock waves of pain through Jack’s stomach and legs. He fell to one knee, and Wingate was on him, raining down blows on him with hammerlike fists. Jack felt himself passing out. Desperately, he shot out the palm of his hand into Wingate’s kneecap and felt it buckle, as Wingate fell backward, letting out a scream. Jack staggered to his feet, but Wingate was at him again, his huge hands around Jack’s throat, pushing him backward toward the balcony wall. “You’re going to die now, Jack. It’s time, you cop asswipe!”

  Jack felt his head exploding and, with his last energy, clasped his hands together and brought them up against Wingate’s arms, breaking his grasp. Then, with the heel of his hand, Jack punched Wingate in the throat, sending him falling backward, gagging.

  Jack wanted to follow up that blow with his own offensive, but he had no energy and no wind left. He stood helpless by the balcony wall, gasping, telling himself to move forward, charge him for Chrissake, but he was unable to move. And so, when Wingate recovered from the blow to his throat and charged screaming at him, it was all Jack could do to duck. He felt Wingate’s big body suddenly hanging over him, draped on him like a great side of beef, and with his remaining strength, Jack stood straight up and flipped Buddy Wingate off the balcony.

  Jack turned, leaning on the wall, and watched as Buddy Wingate went flying through the perfectly blue Mexican sky, down into the cactus garden below.

  Jack turned his head, as he watched Buddy land face-first onto the huge barrel cactus. He saw the great needles puncture Wingate’s face, his chest, his stomach. Buddy’s short, sturdy legs flopped for a few seconds, and then, for the first time Jack could recall, Buddy Wingate was still.

  Chapter 32

  Zampas sat in the back booth of the Union Pacific Railroad Car drinking his whiskey. His wife, Ronni, sat across from him. She looked at him and shook her head.

  “I know what day this is,” she said.

  “You do?”

  “Yes, I do. There’s a kind of seedy compassion on your face. It’s the look of someone who has decided to dump his wife and already feels a kind of loving afterglow. You’re sitting there thinking, ‘She was a decent person. We had some good years together. It wasn’t all bad. She’ll come to see me in the same light after a while.’ Well, I won’t, George. I’ll hate you from this moment on, you bastard.”

  She began to cry. Zampas reached over and stroked her hand. She started to pull away, but he held on.

  “Let me go,” she said.

  “No,” he said. “No way.”

  “Cut it out. Don’t mock me. At least don’t do that.”

  “Ronni,” he said. “I love you. I want things to be right between us again.”

  He looked at her, at her green eyes, at the worry lines in her face.

  “You don’t mean it,” she said, her voice barely a whisper. “Yes, I do,” Zampas said. “Believe me.”

  “What about … Jane?” Ronni said, her voice barely a whisper. Zampas sipped his drink and shook his head.

  “There was never anything between me and Jane,” Zampas said. “The stuff I was going through wasn’t about her. It was like I said, it was all about my work. And it was classified. See, after a long time denying it to myself, I had begun to suspect that we had a mole in the Agency. Too many things were getting screwed up, too many ops were blown. So I sent three of my own operatives out to keep tabs on Michaels, Valle, and Brandau. It had to be one of them, but, the truth is, I had my money down on the wrong guy.”

  His wife leaned forward, chin in her hands, in her direct, interested manner. Zampas felt a terrific surge of affection for her.

  “Who did you think it was?”

  “Bob Valle. He was furious about getting passed over for a promotion, and what made him even more suspicious was that he wanted to be transferred back to his last post in Colombia. I had a feeling that he was expecting some shit to come down and he wanted to be over there so that he might go for diplomatic immunity when we tried to arrest him. But it turned out that Valle is okay. He’ll get to go overseas in a couple of years, and meanwhile, now that Brandau is gone, we’re going to expand Bob’s duties.”

  His wife smiled, reached across the table, and held his hand. There was a troubled look on her face.

  “Richard Brandau. That’s hard to believe. He always seemed so gung ho.”

  “That’s right,” Zampas said. “But he was a bad apple. He even got C.J. Jefferson to turn. Then he staged a little scream-out with Pedro Salazar at Citrus to put us off. If it wasn’t for Jack Walker, he might be running the show.”

  Ronni shook her head
and laughed for the first time.

  “Jack’s a maniac. But I love him.”

  Zampas shook his head.

  “Me too, the crazy, twisted bastard. He’s gonna give me a heart attack though.”

  “So you sent a team of spies to watch your own people?” Ronni said.

  “Yes,” Zampas said. “For all the good it did me.”

  “But there’s something odd here,” Ronni said. “Because during the last few weeks, I was sure there was someone following me too.”

  Zampas laughed and squeezed her hand with his own.

  “There was,” he said. “I had a tail put on you as well. I was worried that if the mole found out he was about to be arrested, he might try something crazy. Probably unnecessary, but when it comes to you, I don’t feel I can be too careful.”

  His wife smiled at that and squeezed his hand hard.

  “And I accused you of … Oh, God, I thought it was a typical male midlife crisis. Instead, I think maybe it’s my own midlife crisis.”

  She began to laugh a little.

  “It’s not so much that I hate getting old, darling,” she said. “It’s just that I’m afraid you won’t find me attractive anymore. I can’t bear to think of that.”

  She sniffled and rubbed her wet cheek.

  “Well,” Zampas said, smiling, “I don’t think you’re gonna have to worry about that. Fact is, I’m starting to get turned on right now.”

  He rubbed his foot on her trim leg under the table, and she blushed a little.

  “Let’s get out of here,” she said.

  “Good,” Zampas said, smiling. “I’d rather make out in the car anyway.”

  They both laughed at that, and as she slipped from the booth, Zampas placed his large arms around her slim waist. Then arm in arm, they walked through the dark restaurant to the street.

  Chapter 33

  Two Months Later

  The wind blew the tumbleweeds across Highway 16. Jack, driving his Mustang down the dusty road, stopped at a red light and watched two Mexican women leaning into the wind as they walked.

  On the boardwalk he saw a sign—”Las Virgines, New Mexico, Pop. 1493”—and he laughed a little at the irony. It was perfect that Charlotte Rae would want to meet him here.