Devil's Redhead

by David Corbett

  The entry opened onto a suite that was elegant and vast, with furnishings of raw silk. Lilies and dahlias rose from large vases. Above an ample buffet, a crystal chandelier with prismed rhombs showered tiny white reflections across each wall. The man in the gray suit chose a seat in the corner and gestured for Waxman and Abatangelo to sit as well. They waited in silence until the front door opened again and Rolando Moreira charged into the room, followed by a man Abatangelo recognized from his aging photograph as Victor Facio.

  “Who are you?” Moreira shouted. His fists were clenched, his skin flushed. Before either Abatangelo or Waxman could answer, Facio placed a restraining hand on Moreira’s arm.

  “Rolando, please,” he said.

  Facio had a wiry, athletic frame and his voice seemed suited to a larger man. The eyes were hard and intense and disembodied from the rest of his facial expression, which remained dressed into a smile. There was a feral intelligence about him that Abatangelo guessed was the result of long schooling by foreign handlers, men who’d molded him to project an urbanity that might disguise an unseemly youth. Given Waxman’s profile, Abatangelo knew the man was likely in his fifties, but he looked considerably younger. As though the life he’d led had preserved him somehow, like a vampire.

  Moreira turned toward the buffet table, trying to contain his rage. Abatangelo withdrew from his pocket one of the snapshots he’d taken of Shel. “We’re looking for someone,” he said, edging toward Facio. “There’s a rumor going around that an exchange is to be made. The woman you see in the photograph here for a man named Frank Maas.”

  Moreira spun around. “This is my daughter’s quince—”

  “Rolando,” Facio said again, no louder than before. He didn’t say please this time. Moreira stormed over to a chair and dropped into it like a chastened boy. Removing a cigar and a gold lighter from the pockets of his white tuxedo jacket, he bit off the end of the cigar, drew a flame from the lighter, and began puffing smoke.

  Facio came forward and accepted the picture from Abatangelo. After only a moment’s regard he handed it back.

  “This wouldn’t have anything to do with the article that appeared in the paper today, would it?”

  Waxman eased up from his chair. “Yes,” he said. “My name is Bert Waxman. I’m the reporter who wrote that piece.”

  “Rolando,” Facio said. “I realize you’ve been busy so let me explain this to you.” He pointed to Waxman. “This gentleman wrote an article which appeared in the San Francisco paper today. The article concerned the murders of some people—”

  “Three people,” Waxman noted.

  “Three people, thank you. Murders which took place last night. A woman has been abducted, apparently, and is being held for ransom.” He turned to Waxman. “And I’m guessing that you are here because someone has come forward with the ridiculous accusation that we are somehow involved.” Without waiting for Waxman to respond, Facio turned back to Moreira and said, “Rolando, did you kill someone without telling me?”

  No one laughed, not even the large one in the corner, which confirmed for Abatangelo that he didn’t speak English. Turning to Waxman, Facio asked, “Who told you such preposterous lies?”

  “A man named Frank Maas,” Abatangelo answered. “He told us—”

  “And you are?”

  Abatangelo nodded toward Waxman. “I’m his photographer.”

  Facio took a second to consider this. “Frank Maas, you said. I do not know him. Rolando?” Moreira shook his head in disavowal behind his cigar. “We have no idea who this source of yours is,” Facio said.

  “He claims,” Waxman interjected, “to have delivered stolen goods to some of your men.”

  Abatangelo held out his hand. “Wax, wait a minute.”

  “He arranged with those same men,” Waxman continued, “for the murder of a local drug dealer named Felix Randall.”

  “Wax—”

  “But the arrangement was a double cross, you lost several of your men, and then retaliated with the kidnapping of the woman in that picture.”

  Facio laughed good-naturedly. “And we killed someone. Don’t forget.”

  “Three people,” Waxman corrected. “One a seven-year-old boy.”

  “Wax, shut up,” Abatangelo said.

  “That is simply, wholly, fantastically untrue,” Facio replied.

  Waxman stood there with his eyes whirling as though in the thrall of a fierce intoxication. He was high on fear, Abatangelo guessed. Fear and the sound of his own voice.

  “I had little doubt you’d say that,” Waxman said. “You realize, though, it won’t prevent me from going forward with the story.”

  “You intend to print these hallucinations?”

  “Oh, yes,” Waxman told him. “That and more.”

  “Then you are not a journalist, Mr. Waxman. You are a fabulist.”

  “I’ll incorporate your denials. But I intend to print the story.”

  “That will be libel,” Facio advised.

  “No. You’ve had your chance to respond. There’s no malice here.”

  Facio laughed and moved a little closer to Waxman. “Isn’t it customary for a man to be able to confront his accuser?”

  “He’s dead,” Abatangelo said, trying to regain control of the situation, at the same time sensing it was already lost. “Frank Maas, he blew himself to pieces this afternoon. We were there. He’s dead. Okay?” He held up the picture of Shel again. “There’s no need to include her in this anymore. She’s done nothing. There’s nobody to trade her for. You can take her out somewhere, the middle of nowhere, blindfold her, let her go, that’ll end it.”

  Facio said, “I have no—”

  Abatangelo stepped forward so their faces were only inches apart. “If you need someone,” he whispered, “need to have someone as a guarantee, take me.”

  Facio gestured, and the large man in the gray suit rose from his chair.

  “I’m begging you,” Abatangelo went on, the desperation obvious in his voice now. “Let her go. Trade me for her.” He felt a hand on his shoulder. He shook it off, dropped Shel’s picture and grabbed Facio by the lapels. “She means nothing to you. How can it make any possible fucking difference. Take me.”

  The large one grabbed him by the collar and withdrew a pistol in the same movement. Abatangelo swung back with his elbow but missed. The move drew him off-balance. The large one, still gripping his collar, twisted him around with embarrassing ease and kneed him hard in the midriff. His lungs emptied, his knees buckled. Shortly he lay on his back, the large man’s knee now lodged on his chest and the gun aimed point-blank at his face.

  “Shhh,” the man said, grinning. Abatangelo looked up beyond the gun into the man’s face and saw such a breathtaking lack of intelligence that for the first time he felt true terror.

  Moreira shot up from his seat. “I’m calling him,” he said, and fled the room.

  “Him,” Waxman said, head spinning toward Moreira then back to Facio. “Him who?”

  Facio held up his hand.

  “For the record, as they say, we have committed no murders. We are involved in no illegal acts of any kind. And if you bother to learn more about us, you will realize how ridiculous you will sound repeating these charges.”

  Waxman reached down into his pocket and withdrew two clippings, unfolding them carefully. “Interesting you should bring up background,” he said. “I noticed some omissions in your press packet.” His hands trembled as he offered the clippings to Facio.

  Facio unfolded the articles as though expecting something to crawl out from inside. The first concerned his conviction on weapons charges in Texas. He recognized it and smiled. The second, however, appeared to baffle him. It was written in Dutch, so he resorted to the attached translation in Spanish. It related the account of a Jesuit priest who had debriefed refugees entering Mexico near the Moreira plantation, around the highland village of Niquivil. The refugees told of a massacre across the border in the village of Santa Maria Ixcoy.
The village was razed to build an airstrip for drug shipments, and all the adult men were first pressed into use as slave labor, then gathered together on the finished runway and murdered in front of their families, a warning to their wives, sisters and children not to talk. Three women in the village went mad, attacking the gunmen. One was taken into the jungle, tied to a tree, her skin scored with a knife so the insects could lay eggs in her wounds as she waited to be eaten at night by animals. The other two were left hanging from trees, their dead children tied to their backs. The massacre was conducted by paramilitaries led by a commander the refugees knew only as El Zopilote.

  “Where were you tonight, Señor Facio, while Don Moreira was giving his speech?” Waxman asked. “Giving a little speech of your own? To the men? Telling them how proud you are, that you could see the bravery in their eyes? You have become famous for that speech, are you aware of that? But that, unfortunately, is a different piece. I didn’t bring that one.”

  Facio folded the articles in half, squeezing with finger and thumb down the crease. He looked down at Abatangelo, then back at Waxman, sighing with irritation. He said something in Spanish and the large one lifted Abatangelo to his feet and planted him in a chair. He kept the gun trained on him. Returning his attention to Waxman, Facio asked, “Do you know what is keeping you alive at this moment, Mr. Waxman?”

  A gagging reflex shut Waxman’s throat at first. Finally, he managed, “My newspaper knows—”

  Facio cut him off with a gesture and a smile.

  “Your white cells,” he said. “Your white cells are keeping you alive.” Facio studied his hand as though to contemplate the underlying tissue. “The white cells work even while your body rests, always vigilant, because infection remains vigilant. Without white cells, even weak, obscure, bizarre infections can kill. You can drown from the microscopic creatures which grow in your own lungs, were you aware of that?”

  He lowered his hand.

  “I have met your kind before, Mr. Waxman. You show up a lot in our country, coming down like tourists. Then you go back home and cry about the poor. You pronounce them good, honest, and basically gentle. Like you. All of which is nonsense. You come here to ruin us, Mr. Waxman, how gentle is that? It’s this hypocrisy that makes you so jittery. So false.” Raising a cautionary finger, he concluded, “Trust me, we will not be ruined by the likes of you.”

  Moreira burst back into the room, smiling with relief. “I just spoke to our friend,” he said. “He has a response that will be filed with the local media, should Mr. Waxman fail to give up this hoax. And he has a contact at the Commerce Department who will prepare a statement as well.”

  Moreira looked about the room, to be sure everyone had heard him. Satisfied, he went to the buffet table, poured himself a cognac and downed it, his back to the room. Facio returned to Waxman the two articles.

  “There you have it,” he said. “Write what you want, Mr. Waxman. Disgrace yourself.”

  He gestured to the large one, who then lifted Abatangelo from his chair. Facio came forward, picked up Shel’s photograph from the floor where Abatangelo had dropped it and handed it to him, saying, “It is obvious you are very concerned about this woman. But I cannot help you.”

  He turned away and joined Moreira by the buffet table. The large one reholstered his weapon and gestured for Waxman and Abatangelo to march ahead of him toward the entry. The same landeno youth who’d greeted them earlier opened the large white door and shut it firmly behind them. The corridor stood empty, dimly lit and still. The large one prodded them down the hall to the elevator, rode down with them in silence and led them out through a rearward corridor to a back entrance opening onto the hotel’s loading dock. He whistled harshly through his teeth, as though to shoo a cat, nodding for them to go. Once they’d climbed down in the dark onto the asphalt, he returned inside and bolted the door.

  The rain had worsened, with winds tunneling in cold gusts through the hills. Waxman hiked up his collar against the chill, blinking against the droplets hitting his face. Turning to Abatangelo, he winced and said, “Are you hurt?”

  Abatangelo recoiled from the question with an enraged and bitter laugh. He still felt short of breath from fear and his bearings drifted in the darkness. He rested his back against the loading dock, closing his eyes.

  “Congratulations, Wax,” he said. “If she isn’t dead already, you just killed her.”

  CHAPTER

  22

  The only thing that stopped Humberto from climbing on top of her one more time was the arrival of food. Another one of the gray-suited ones brought it, a picnic basket with brightly colored napkins that suggested party fare. Humberto chortled with joy and rummaged through the basket, removing a bottle of Chanaco and then announcing with satisfaction what else he found. “Picadillo, quesillas, totopas. Bueno.”

  Humberto dug in with his fingers as the newcomer’s glance darted toward Shel. He found her the way Humberto had left her, thrown back on the mattress, legs akilter, jeans in a knot around her knees. She reeked of sex, and it mingled with the coppery scent of fresh blood.

  Her head rang with pain and her stomach seethed. The last booster of whatever it was they were shooting her full of had worn off about an hour before, draining from her the bizarre hallucinatory defense she’d had against Humberto’s first few onslaughts but leaving behind an inchoate craving, too. Her mind phased in and out, but every now and then she’d snap to like a rousted dreamer and find herself fixed in the present. In those moments she realized what he’d done to her. Given the chance, she told herself, I’ll kill him.

  The newcomer took one look and turned back to Humberto, saying something in a tone of disgust. Humberto shrugged. A moment of uneasy silence ensued between them, then the newcomer sighed, turned and left. Humberto snickered at his back, cracking the seal on the Chanaco. He downed half the bottle in record time, stretching out on his side as he ate and leering at Shel drunkenly from beneath the crucifix nailed to the wall. It was the same spot Snuff’s body had occupied earlier.

  “You’re not the first to pull this shit with me,” she told him, aware he did not understand English, not caring. She tugged her pants back up to her hips. “So don’t think you’ve made good on some sick bet with yourself. You want to kill me, you’ve got to shoot me.” She struggled with the zipper. Watching, Humberto licked his fingers. “I’m not gonna fall apart, fucker. I’m not gonna just wither and die. I won’t give you the pleasure.”

  As though to drown out what she was saying, he started to sing. His voice was boyishly off-key, and even when repeating the same melodic line he couldn’t hit the notes the same way twice. Not that he cared. He trolled along, one hand lilting back and forth as though to conduct an invisible band.

  When the door opened again she figured it was the same man who’d brought the food. He’d thought twice, come back, deciding why not, he’d have a go at the guerita. Why should he miss out?

  But it wasn’t him. It was Cesar, though it took a moment for his face to register. His features were drawn, his skin pale. Blood soaked one whole side of his suit jacket, and his left arm hung limp at his side. In his right hand he held a gun that he raised as soon as he broke the plane of the doorway. He fired four times at Humberto, still lying on his side like a glutton. The small whitewashed room amplified the sound of the gunfire. Shel cringed from the echo in her ears as the smoke and the smell of cordite hung in the air and Humberto’s head fell back, his mouth gaping with unchewed food soon gorged with blood.

  Cesar staggered over and put one last bullet in Humberto’s face. An explosion of blood sent missiles of flesh and bone across the room. Shel tucked her face inside her arms. Cesar reached down, withdrew Humberto’s weapon and pocketed it. Turning around, he approached the edge of the mattress taking short, dragging steps.

  “The thing about stupid people,” he said, panting for breath, “is that they think everybody else is as stupid as they are.”

  He shoved his gun into his belt and
reached inside his jacket, withdrawing a tangled shred of newspaper streaked with blood. “You stink like a whore,” he said as he tried to unfold the newspaper clipping one-handed. Unable to, he ended up throwing it down. Pointing, he said, “You spoke to the press. Your picture’s there. You have to die.”

  Shel looked down at the clipping and pulled its edges apart, sticky from his blood. It was an account of the murder of Duval and Rowena and the man she’d brought home. On the second page was a picture of her, one Danny had taken, beside an old stock photo of Felix Randall.

  “El Zopilote demands it,” Cesar said, not so much to her as to the room. “‘She needs to disappear. She’s already spoken to a reporter. The reporter’s nosing around out here. Him and some photographer. Tonight. It’s a problem.’” He turned back toward Humberto. “Your fucking problem, big shot. Not mine.”

  Photographer, Shel thought. Danny. Out here. Tonight.

  “Guess what else,” Cesar added, his voice rising. “Francisco Fregado, Frank the Mess? He’s dead.” He laughed, a spiteful shrieking sound, hissing through his teeth. “Killed himself. Blew himself up. How’s that for apples?”

  He flipped his hand at her, like a prod: Go on, say something. Shel’s body sagged. A feeling of unreality numbed her for a moment, then a damning sorrow took hold. “How do you know?”

  “The reporter, him or this photographer, I don’t know.” Cesar inspected his bloody sleeve. “But you should have seen them, El Zopilote, the rest of them, working it out. ‘Does Felix Randall know? Does he know but think we don’t? Will he still be interested in the woman?’ Round and round, till they finally threw up their hands. Hey, Plan B. The hostages are history. Now we go, set up an ambush like they did to us and cut off their balls.”

  Spotting the Chanaco by Humberto’s side, he staggered over to the bottle, trying to peel off the left sleeve of his jacket. He trembled and gasped from the pain. Once he had the sleeve tugged down beneath the wound, he picked up the bottle and poured the liquor over his bloody arm. He fell against the wall, gritting his teeth, emitting a woozy howl of pain.