Spiral

by David L Lindsey

  "I don't know what you think you're going to do," she said angrily. "I don't see how any of this is going to make any difference. It's bigger than you think. The politics of Mexico, you know what that's like . . . you don't. . . It's insane to believe you could do any-ing, alone." She searched for the right words, frustrated. "If it's . . . for God's sake, you killed the man who shot Ed. What do you want?"

  Her voice cracked a little. They both heard it, and he saw her face tighten, angry at herself for letting it happen. She jerked around with her back to him and walked to the fireplace, wiped at another strand of hair, rubbed a bare arm, and came back toward him. He knew what she was feeling, that he had stepped out of character, had made the extra effort to bare his feelings to her about his work, something he had attempted rarely and had never done satisfactorily in all the years of their marriage, and she had come back at him with a total lack of understanding of what he had been trying to say. But she was wrong. She hadn't let him down, not now, not ever, not in any way at any time.

  Still facing him, she started to say something else, but changed her mind. For a moment she stood like a wax figure, her features empty of expression. Then her eyes softened, and he saw her shoulders

  slowly relax. She stepped toward him, lifting her arms to him, the lamplight behind her penetrating the silk as if it were spun of something finer, rarer than fabric. He saw the swell of the sides of her breasts, the exact lines of the space between her slightly parted thighs.

  "If ever I come to the point that I think I understand you," she said, taking his face in her hands, "it will be the end of us. I don't believe I could bear it."

  He put his arms around her hips and held her, his head cradled against the flat of her stomach as he inhaled her special fragrance, felt the slow movement of her breathing, the shape and texture of her body.

  Chapter 24

  WHAT did he have to say?" Benigo Gamboa sat behind a baroque seventeenth-century French desk with gilded sphinxes facing outward from its corners. The two men were in a small private office off the formal library, and Gamboa was dressed for bed in white shadow-striped silk pajamas and a burgundy silk robe that sagged on the left side from the weight of a family crest braided of heavy gold thread. Muted light, falling from a fixture recessed in the ceiling above him, illuminated only the desk and the front half of his body in the otherwise dark room. His wavy gray hair was immaculately groomed, as always, but was in stark contrast to his weary expression and the unattractive bruises his tinted glasses cast around his sagging eyes. The ornate desk was clean. There was not a single piece of paper on it, not even a letter opener, or a small decorative tray, or pen set. It had been a long time since Benigo Gamboa had needed such utilitarian items to conduct his business. Now he worked only with his voice. His words and his wealth were sufficient.

  "To tell you the truth, I think he was fishing for something," Negrete said. He sat in an armchair in the twilight margin of the darkness, his cigarette burning bright as he sucked on it, then fading as he blew the smoke into the circle of jaundiced light where Gamboa glowered back at him.

  "Fishing?"

  "And warning."

  "I don't need any fucking riddles," Gamboa said.

  "He told me that this was not Portillo's Mexico. That Durazo did not control Houston." Negrete chose not to mention Haydon's reference to the Tula River.

  "Son of a bitch." Gamboa snorted. "What the hell does he think he is doing?" He fell silent, brooding.From the darkness a whorl of smoke wandered into the light. Negrete said, "He knows something about the tecos."

  Gamboa, who had slumped in his chair as he thought, now lifted his head and fixed his glare on the faint form of Negrete.

  "He said the tecos de choque were implicated in the assassination attempt," Negrete said.

  "He said that?"

  Negrete nodded in the darkness. It was doubtful that Gamboa could see him. "He asked me if I had ever heard of Rubio Arizpe."

  The old man showed no emotion, but Negrete knew that for Gamboa, hearing Arizpe's name was like getting bad news from his doctor. Suddenly, life no longer could be taken for granted.

  "This Haydon, he knows something," Negrete said. "He was warning me off. He was very pissed about his friend who was killed."

  Gamboa stared grimly across the desk. Negrete thought he looked drawn. Old and drawn. This teco business was scaring the hell out of him. As it should. Fanatics had to be feared like devils and madmen. The normal addictions of other men didn't have any hold on them; they couldn't be bribed with pesos, or pussy, or power; they couldn't be bought. Beyond a certain point, they didn't even think like other men. You couldn't reason with a fanatic. For his part, Negrete too was nervous. Protecting Gamboa in Mexico, where everybody ignored the rules equally, and most of the police and federates understood the practicality of the mordida, and let you handle such business in your own way—that was one thing. But trying to keep the old man alive on this side of the border, where you had to keep glancing over your shoulder for the police as well as for the tecos, that was something else.

  "Arizpe." Gamboa said the name softly, almost as if he had been pronouncing the name of his beloved mistress. He studied the darkness in front of his desk, staring like a sullen old dog.

  Negrete could not determine if his boss actually was looking at him or simply looking in the direction of his voice. Gamboa was asking the questions. It seemed an odd reversal of setting: the spotlight on the inquisitor, while the questioned sat in the protection of the darkness.

  "That little pussy-lipped chingon," Gamboa said, with no particular enthusiasm. "Those fucking maniacs have sent their best boys, anyway, huh?" He found a grim pride in the fact that he had warranted the very best, even in assassins. "He said nothing about Medrano?"

  "No."

  "How did he get Arizpe's name without Medrano's?" A faint smile of amusement. "That's funny, huh? He doesn't know too much, this smart cop. You don't have to worry about him."

  Negrete bridled inwardly. Good. Very good, Senor Gamboa. He wouldn't have to worry about this detective, just as he wouldn't have to worry about the limousine routes. Gamboa had been impatient with Negrete's elaborate precautions, but Negrete had insisted. It was only a gut feeling that had made him switch Gamboa to another car when they left Charlie T's. The old man hadn't wanted to, had gotten huffy in the parking lot when Negrete decided on the last-minute switch, had almost refused to do it. Then the tecos blew the limousine to hell. Gamboa had never said anything about it. He just threw a tantrum about losing Sosa, that was all. No "Thank you, Lucas, for saving my life once again." Nothing. So now, Negrete didn't have to worry about this detective. Thank you, Benigo, for this very good advice. In these matters, Gamboa had made only one good decision: to hire Lucas Negrete.

  "Those shit tapatios." Gamboa's mind had shifted to the enemy. "Their dog-shit pride. Their fucking honor. They don't know the meaning of the word 'pragmatism.' " He turned his head aside in disgust. "Fucking romantics." His shoulders were hunched as he placed his forearms on the shiny burled surface of the desk and with the thumbnail of one hand absently traced the swirls of wood grain, pressing occasionally, making shallow crescent dents in the finish. Then he looked again to Negrete's darkness.

  "So what are you doing?"

  "We're still trying to find—"

  Gamboa's hand shot up. "No names," he snapped.

  "The guy with the explosives, the name we got out of Ireno. The boys found his house and they're watching it, but he's not coming around. Not yet."

  Gamboa looked at the top of the desk and slowly swept an open hand back and forth across its smooth, burnished surface as if relishing the feel of its glossy finish. Negrete watched him. This was the side of Gamboa that only Negrete saw, the side Gamboa hid from the rest of the world, from his family, his associates. It was the side of him closest to his soul, the true Benigo, the side Jesus Christ would lay bare on the Judgment Day before Satan sucked him down to hell. At least that's what tho
se owly Catholics believed. The tecos believed in justice. Negrete saw it differently. He saw Benigo living a very nice and comfortable life and it didn't make a shit what happened to him after he died. The truth was, being a badass had been a wonderful thing for Gamboa. It had gotten him everything he ever wanted, and for the past five years Negrete had clung to him like a pilot fish. When the good things came to Benigo, they came to Lucas too. Being this man's security guard was a hell of a lot better than being a Jaguar for Durazo. This work was more respectable, not so dirty, not so dangerous. At least it hadn't been until the tecos came into it. Now it was as dangerous as anything he had done for Durazo in Mexico City. The tecos were threatening not only Gamboa, but a very comfortable living that Negrete didn't want to see come to an end.

  Therefore he could not have agreed more with what Benigo Gamboa said next.

  The old man abruptly stopped his hand in midsweep and pressed the open palm on the glossy surface of the desk. When he lifted it, there was, for a moment, a moist spectral print of his splayed fingers which gradually evaporated in the dry, climate-controlled atmosphere of the room. I don't give a fuck how you do it, Lucas," Gamboa said, looking up and into the darkness between him and Negrete. "I don't care if you have to pull their nuts out through their nostrils, but I do not want these tecos to make another run at me. Let them know how it is." He paused. "Every time you get your hands on somebody connected to them, kill him. Con venganza. I want to eat this owl bite by bite," he said, crimping the fingers on one hand and snapping it closed, opening it slowly and snapping it closed again, as he spoke. "And I want him to watch me taking every mouthful. I want him to know what it feels like to be eaten alive, watching my mouth closing on him, from his asshole all the way up to his fucking head.

  Chapter 25

  HE was not aware of having actually awakened, for the night had afforded very little sleep. Rather, he simply opened his eyes and looked up at the morning light burning on the sienna wood of the bed posters, felt the eddying breeze of the ceiling fan, and was thankful the dreaming was over. In the wakeful moments of life, at least, he was allowed a sense of transition from one experience to another. The night world had been unmerciful, hurtling him from one perception to another in a never ceasing, never slowing succession of phantasms. As he lay there, his single overriding emotion was that of relief at seeing the morning sun.

  Nina was not in bed. His watch said eight-forty. He threw off the sheet and went into the bathroom to wash his face and brush his teeth. Coming out, he grabbed his light cotton robe off the foot of the bed and started down the stairs. He smelled breakfast before he was halfway down, and he hurried through the dining room to the kitchen, where he found Gabriela squeezing oranges.

  "Buenos diasT she said, wiping her hands on a towel and reaching for the coffeepot. "Coffee?" She looked at him and frowned appraisingly as she poured the dark Colombian brew into his cup. "You don' look like you slept too good," she said.

  "I didn't." He pulled the cup and saucer toward him across the massive butcher block they used as a work table in the middle of the kitchen. "Where's Nina?"

  "On the terrace. You ready to eat? We got migas."

  "Has Nina eaten?" He poured cream into his coffee, stirring until it was the right color.

  Gabriela shook her head. "Jus' coffee, tha's all. She wass gonna wait for you. You ready?"

  "Sure," Haydon said. "How about you?" "I've already eaten, twise," Gabriela said, grinning. "I'm no lazybones."

  Haydon took his cup through the sunroom and out onto the terrace, where Nina was sitting in the webby shade of a flamboyana. The two morning newspapers were sitting on the table, but Nina was again reading her book, her bare feet propped in another chair, a cup of coffee sitting on the wrought-iron table beside her.

  "How long have you been up?" he asked, standing near the doorway, taking his first sip of Gabriela's coffee.

  She looked at him and smiled. "Good morning." She lifted her wrist and looked at her watch. "Since six-thirty. I woke up, and couldn't go back to sleep. How do you feel? You did a lot of twitching and tossing last night."

  He went over to her and sat down in another chair at the round table. Nina never looked bad in the morning; sleep refreshed her as it was supposed to, even when she got only a little of it. That was one of the first really personal things he had ever noticed about her.

  "How about you?" he asked, not answering her.

  She smiled. "I've had better nights."

  The newspapers were face up, and he could see the headlines about the shooting at Richmond and the West Loop, and Mooney's death. The stories took front-page space for the second day. There was also an item about a tropical storm that had grown to hurricane status entering the Gulf of Mexico, early for the hurricane season.

  He reached for the Chronicle and pulled it over in front of him. Police spokesmen were saying that it hadn't been established that the deaths were related, but the waffling was obvious. Reporters were not going so far as to draw their own conclusions, but in light of the little information coming from the police department, they stated facts that allowed readers to make their own judgments: Detectives Ed Mooney and partner Stuart Haydon had investigated a death Tuesday morning at the same Chicon address where Detective Mooney was killed Tuesday night. Both detectives were among the investigators at the scene of the "terrorist-style" assassination on Tuesday afternoon. Motorcycles were used in the assassination, and a motorcycle and "motorcycle workshop" were found at the Chicon address where detective Mooney had been killed Tuesday night. One reporter had speculated that the Mexican, Sosa Real, had been the intended target of the assassinaton, rather than the two Americans in the car with him.

  There was a boxed article farther back in the first section, accompanying the continuation of the lead story from page one, which explored the potential of "Latin terrorism" spreading to the United States, specifically Texas. Several experts and authorities were interviewed who said that indeed what had happened on the West Loop had been a "classic" terrorist-type assassination. They speculated about the reasons for it—increased drug trafficking from Latin America, increased political and economic tensions in Central America and neighboring Mexico, increased activity of illegal aliens in all Texas cities—and said they feared this would not be the end of it.

  A second sidebar article said gunshops in the city had done a booming business on Wednesday.

  Benigo Gamboa Parra's name was never mentioned.

  Haydon shoved the paper away and reached for the Post just as Gabriela brought their breakfast on a tray and set it on the table. Haydon poured fresh coffee for each of them and returned to the articles in the Post. He ate indifferently, paying more attention to the newspaper. Though there were more photographs in the Post, the information was essentially the same. After he read the last article, he leaned back, the cool wrought iron pressing into his bare back.

  "Did you read these?" he asked.

  Nina nodded, wiping her mouth on a napkin. "Not much there, is there?"

  He shook his head. "I imagine Captain Mercer's being pretty tight-lipped, but I suspect the truth is there's really not much to be tight-lipped about."

  "What are they going to do?"

  Haydon stuffed one hand in his robe pocket and set his cup in the saucer. "They're going to hope for the lifesaver: an anonymous tip. I imagine everyone's working his snitches, the Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms agents are running their traps, the FBI's counterterrorist teams are doing the same. Probably the DEA in Guadalajara is trying to help. And Interpol."

  "Who's going to be coordinating all this?"

  "I guess Pete has drawn that impossible task."

  "Impossible?"

  "With this many agencies involved, 'cooperation' is wishful thinking," Haydon said. "It's sensational investigations like this one that can make or break a career, and agencies are an extension of their administrators' egos. The FBI ought to have a head start.

  They've got a special division for
this sort of thing, but I doubt they're going to want to share a heck of a lot of information. Everyone else will resent that, and will have a tendency to do likewise." He sipped his coffee. "You won't read about it in the newspapers, but agents are going to be tripping all over each other. Whoever has the best informant network is going to win this one."

  "What about what Renata Islas told you?"

  "I imagine the DEA in Guadalajara has people who can provide information on the tecosT

  "I mean about this man with the scarred lip." As always, Nina was going straight to the central issue, central for Haydon, that is.

  "She said there was no police record of him," he answered evasively.

  "That's my point. Aren't you going to pass that on to them?"

  "Yes."

  Three bluejays came out of nowhere, falling and screeching out of the bright morning light and into the flamboyana. They fought shamelessly, like an ill-mannered family taking their squabbles into public with no sense of disgrace, thrashing about in the branches, shaking loose a scarlet shower of broken flowers, and then they were gone.

  "When?"

  "As soon as I check it out," he said.

  "How are you going to do that?" Nina was being unusually curious. He liked that, but what he didn't like was the irrepressible twinge of caution he felt about answering her. It was peculiar, having the gut reaction of wariness—the sixth sense he depended upon to keep him alive—to a question from Nina. There was no reason for him to feel that way except for the fact that she was showing the kind of interest in the case that, if exhibited by anyone else, would have put him on Haydon's checklist. He didn't like it. He didn't like the way it made him feel. It was a sensibility that belonged "out there," not at home.

  "I don't believe these people could operate in Houston as they've been doing without some kind of backup system here to support them," he said. He tilted one of the newspapers and shook off the ruby debris of flowers. "They've got to have some kind of collaboration. Someone up here has to deal with someone down there. I think that the someone here is the lawyer who was the Teco Corporation's registering agent, Enrique Cordero Rulfo.