Border Prey

by Jessica Speart

  “Well, this conversation is about as exciting as a worn out dog trying to hump my leg,” Mother Krabbs announced, pushing away from the table. “I’m calling it a night.”

  She clomped down the hall with her walker, followed by a series of squeaks and hums as she successfully launched herself up the stairs.

  “I should be going, as well. I was up at the crack of dawn this morning,” I said, pretending to stifle a yawn.

  “Let me walk you to the door,” Lizzie offered, jumping up from her chair.

  “Me, too.” F.U. eagerly joined her.

  Pierpont remained seated, but cordially extended a hook. “It’s been a pleasure, Agent Porter. Let me know if there’s ever anything you’d like to have cloned.”

  I looked at the man sitting in front of me, and knew of at least one thing I could live without having reproduced. “I’ll do that,” I responded, and slipped my hand around his hook. The sleek steel burned bitterly cold into my flesh, almost as if he’d somehow managed to regulate the temperature of his prosthesis.

  I walked into the hall accompanied by Lizzie and F.U., along with Ten-Karat, who bounced up and down as if she had springs under her paws. Lizzie wrapped her arms around me, her body heat helping restore the warmth to my skin.

  “You don’t know how much I’ve missed you, Rach. Let’s get together. Just the two of us,” she whispered in my ear.

  I nodded, then turned to F.U. “Thanks for an interesting evening. I’m sure I’ll be seeing you again.” I had no doubt it would be due to some sort of hunting violation.

  F.U. responded by pulling me into a body cast of an embrace. “Don’t you worry, Cupcake. I’ll be in touch,” he whispered in my ear.

  Then Ten-Karat leaped up and nailed me smack on the mouth with her tongue. Gee. Just how lucky could a girl get?

  I headed for my Ford, glad the evening had come to an end, when something lobbed me on the back of the head. Unless Lola had escaped from Fat Boy, I was the target of a lunatic Krabbs attack.

  “Psst! Up here!” came a raspy voice.

  Mother Krabbs leaned out her bedroom window, throwing bath oil beads my way.

  “What are you doing?” I called up, wondering why F.U. hadn’t yet had her legally committed.

  “Shh! Keep it down! I don’t need Dum dum and Dodo to hear us,” she commanded.

  “What do you want?” I asked again.

  “Well, it’s not as if I’m waiting for you to recite the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet. So, what do you think?” she fired back.

  “How the hell am I supposed to know?” I snapped.

  “My, my. You’ve got quite the little mouth on you, don’t you?”

  Like she was one to talk.

  “Since you can’t figure it out, I’ll give you a clue.” She waved for me to come closer. “Pick me up at noon tomorrow. You’re taking me to lunch.”

  “And why would I want to do that?” I retorted suspiciously.

  “What have you got? A Ring Ding for a brain like that daughter-in-law of mine?” she sniped. “You want information about Pierpont, don’t you? Well, who do you suppose you’re going to get it from?”

  “You?” I inquired incredulously.

  “I’d say that all depends on where you take me to eat,” she replied with a dash of Greta Garbo mystique.

  “What about Lizzie? Won’t she be home when I pick you up?”

  “Nah. She’ll be at that gym of hers. Or out shopping and spending my money, while F.U.’s fooling around at the ranch. By the way, I have to eat by twelve-thirty sharp or my blood sugar goes crazy. So don’t be late,” she instructed.

  Mother Krabbs pulled her head back inside and shut the window before I could respond.

  I drove home pondering what Lizzie had gotten herself involved in.

  Sometimes thinking too much does more harm than good. By the time I reached Mesilla, I was in bad need of a drink. El Patio, the local bar, was just the type of down-and-dirty dive I was looking for after an evening at the Krabbses’ mansion. It had two pool tables, a juke box, and a black and white checkerboard floor, along with a flickering Budweiser light that hadn’t been dusted since the first Superbowl.

  I took my regular spot, slipping onto the stool next to another staple of El Patio’s run-down decor—my neighbor and landlord, Sonny Harris. Hovering in his late sixties, Sonny hated having been forced to retire from the New Mexico Border Patrol. Partly, it was a matter of pride. The number of men he’d captured during his career had set a record high. Sonny felt that due to this, his skill was a tool which should be treated with respect and taught to the next generation of agents. His superiors at Border Patrol had disagreed, believing the agency needed to catch up with the times.

  “The only thing their trackers rely on these days is a bunch of shiny gadgets and snooty, high-falutin’ technology. Heaven forbid something happens to those fancy Japanese instruments of theirs. A bunch of wet-behind-the-ear trackers will be helpless as newborn infants. Hell, you need more than that to catch desperate men on the run,” he’d told me with a contemptuous sniff.

  The other reason Sonny hated retirement was because he was bored out of his gourd with not much to do but drink. He sipped his shot of house whisky as I ordered a cold draft beer.

  “Guess what? I put those tracking skills you taught me to good use today,” I informed him, signaling the bartender to refill Sonny’s glass.

  He immediately perked up, his Yosemite Sam mustache twitching in excitement. “Oh yeah? And where’d you do that?” he asked eagerly.

  “Out along the Anapra Road,” I replied.

  “Hell, you’re talking about smugglers paradise. So, what’d you find?”

  “Not much besides a dead informant. Whoever else was there had wiped their tracks away with a mesquite branch.”

  Sonny glanced over at me, his face etched with as many lines as trails he’d tracked, each telling a different story. “Anything else?”

  “Yeah.” I smiled, eager to reveal my coup de grace. “I found a freshly made heel mark hidden beneath a creosote bush.”

  “Good girl,” Sonny said proudly.

  “The only problem was the sheriff who came out to investigate. He stepped on it and destroyed the evidence.”

  Sonny shrugged. “Figures. Did you note the size of the footprint?”

  “No,” I admitted. “I didn’t remember to do that.”

  “See? You already forgot the first lesson. Always keep a stick with you to mark things like length and stride. Otherwise, all your hard work won’t amount to more than a dog lifting his leg and peeing in the dirt.” Sonny polished off his whisky, and the bartender automatically refilled his glass.

  He was right. In my excitement, I’d overlooked one of the most basic steps. My sense of dejection must have showed, for Sonny proceeded to buy the next round of drinks.

  He clinked his glass against mine. “Don’t worry, you’ll get it right next time. Besides, life ain’t that bad. You could always be a black cow standing out in the summer heat of the desert.” It was his standard toast. “Sounds to me like a drug deal gone sour.”

  If so, then why had Timmy Tom bothered to call me out to the scene? The unspoken question reverberated inside me like the vibration from Lizzie’s Chinese gong. I polished off my beer, bought Sonny another round, and hit the road for home.

  The moonlight shone bright, making lunar love to a bunch of bleached skulls scattered across Sonny’s front lawn. I quickly strode past, afraid the taint of death might be catching. I had yet to understand what was so decorative about a pile of dead critters.

  I opened my front door and walked inside, where it felt dark and lonely. Santou’s image unexpectedly swamped my mind, and I lunged for the TV, hoping for a distraction. What I got was a country western singer crying of a good love gone wrong. I was tempted to pull my revolver and shoot the messenger, but opted to save some bucks and turned off the set, putting one of us out of our misery.

  I had vowed to keep no phot
os of Santou lying around. Little did I know it wouldn’t matter. Every love song, every sunset, every lousy couple were constant reminders of what I was missing. No matter how hard I tried, Santou remained permanently seared in my heart.

  I combated my attack of the blues by heading into the bathroom and jumping in the shower. However, no amount of soap and water could wash away Santou’s ghostly image, which mercilessly teased me like an unforgiving lover. I knew each hard-earned line in the man’s face as intimately as if I were studying my own reflection in a mirror.

  I stepped beneath a coursing stream of warm water, where the shower’s spray turned into the sensual touch of Jake’s fingertips. Closing my eyes, I felt his lips blaze a trail across my mouth, my cheeks, my nose. The warmth of his breath caressed my breasts, my stomach and hips, as the memory of his scent rushed over my senses with the force of a tidal wave, pulling me down as I gasped for air. I held on for dear life by winding my fingers in his black tousled curls, only to have his deep set eyes lock me tight in their embrace, his lopsided grin sending the message that there was no escape.

  I reached out and upped the volume of cold water, chasing all thoughts of Santou down the drain.

  Then I turned the water off and the pipes let out a groan. In the silence that followed, I heard the sound of shoes creaking across the floor. My skin turned deathly cold at the knowledge that I wasn’t alone—an intruder was in the house.

  I grabbed a towel and quickly wrapped it around my body. Then I ran straight for the living room desk, where my gun was stashed. I slid open the drawer, and my fingers instinctively wrapped around the .38’s handle. I held the revolver before me as I listened for the telltale sound of steps. But all I heard was the whisper of silence beckoning me forward, daring me to enter the next room.

  The wet towel clung to my skin like a jealous lover as I approached the kitchen and slowly walked in. A shaft of light hit the dreary linoleum floor. My eyes followed its trail. The refrigerator door was ajar.

  I pulled open the door. Gaping out with blind eyes was yet another skinned cow’s head—but in place of a lifeless tongue, a black cell phone was sticking out of the creature’s mouth.

  A wave of dizziness caused me to sway towards the flayed beast, but the smell of raw flesh brought me back to my senses. That, and the cold shiver which crept up my back. I suddenly knew there was someone standing behind me.

  My breath tore through my lungs as I spun around. A shadow lurking in the corner ran through the darkened hall and out the front door, disappearing into the black of night. I followed as far as the walkway, my gun trembling in my hands, but couldn’t see anything. I went back inside and bolted the door. Every cell in my body shook, as the cry I’d been holding back ripped its way out.

  Grabbing a plastic garbage bag, I walked in to confront the warning that had been left for me. The cow’s eyes held a stunned expression, not yet having come to terms with its own death. I gingerly removed the phone from the critter’s mouth, and found it was a plastic toy.

  I made one final trek outside with the bag, then polished off a bottle of cheap wine before crawling into bed. The smell of barbacoa crept through my window from Tia Marta’s smoker. As the hooting of an owl kept me awake, I thought about decapitated heads and prowlers. It took the low whistle of a distant train to break the spell. Its lonesome cry pierced my soul as it split the air, and I rode it to sleep, my restless dreams gliding along on the silvery wail of the Atcheson, Topeka, and the Santa Fe rail.

  Six

  I woke up to the commotion of Tia Marta pulling out pots and pans in my kitchen. The other sound was my pager vibrating on the night table where it nervously jerked, as if threatening to jump up and bite me. I checked out the number and saw that it was Fat Boy calling. I leaned over, picked up the phone, and dialed his number.

  “Where were you? I was calling all night! What’s the matter with you, anyway? Don’t you know what a beeper is for?” Juan fumed, sending a full head of steam through the receiver.

  I’d mistakenly left my pager at home when I’d headed off for dinner at Lizzie’s. In hindsight, it appeared to have been a wise move.

  “I’m here now. So, what’s up?” I inquired, conjuring at least six different ways I’d have chosen to start off my day.

  My question was met by a pause. If Fat Boy had been so anxious to get hold of me, what was the hold-up about?

  “Well?” I prodded. “Why did you call?”

  “I want to know if you got Timmy Tom’s phone back yet,” Fat Boy blurted out.

  Well, well. Wasn’t this the grief-stricken significant other?

  “His cell phone is rather difficult to get hold of at the moment. But I’m sure it’ll be removed when the autopsy is done,” I explained to Juan.

  A shiver rippled through me as I remembered the phone which had been left in my refrigerator last night. I firmly squelched it.

  “And just when is that going to happen?” Fat Boy asked waspishly.

  “I couldn’t tell you. Timmy Tom’s body first has to be shipped up to Albuquerque, where the exam will take place,” I informed him. “But you should be aware there’s a good chance you won’t get the phone back.”

  “What! What kind of crap is that? That’s my private property,” Fat Boy erupted.

  “I thought that was Timmy Tom’s cell phone.”

  “Yeah, but when he died I inherited it,” Fat Boy replied indignantly. “Which means that it’s legally mine now, and I’ll be damned if some government official is going to get it for free.”

  “It also happened to be the murder weapon,” I reminded him. “Besides, what do you want that phone for, anyway?”

  I could hear the wheels turn as he thought. “I need one for when I’m out playing my organ grinder, so that I can make and receive calls. Why else do ya think?” Juan huffily retorted.

  “You actually want to use the same phone that was shoved down Timmy Tom’s throat for conducting your business?” I wondered how Juan could be so ghoulish.

  “Listen, Porter. I don’t owe you any explanation. All you need to know is that it’s got sentimental value. Being that it was the last thing Timmy Tom used,” Juan added, with a well-placed sniffle.

  I didn’t answer immediately, letting the information sink in. Evidently, pauses were a no-no when it came to Fat Boy’s busy schedule.

  “Besides, I’m the one who paid for damn thing. Which means it rightfully belongs to me!” He slammed the phone down hard, making me wince.

  Some mornings you just had to wonder why you even bothered to get up and shave your legs. This was clearly turning out to be one of them. On top of which, I had to make myself look more than routinely presentable. Lunch with Ma Krabbs was looming ahead later today. I jumped out of bed, showered, threw on some makeup, and donned a clean top and pants. Then I headed into the kitchen, where Tia Marta was whipping up a breakfast fit to keep a coven of vampires away. The scent of chili powder and garlic permeated the air in a Mexican potpourri. I’d taken the precaution of pulling out a large bottle of mouthwash in the bathroom, knowing an after-breakfast gargle would be a “Miss Manners” must.

  Tia Marta was humming merrily as she fried up a batch of chorizo sausage in one of my “you’ll-never-get-this-thing-clean” pans. Marta smiled at the sight of my wet hair, already beginning to dry into its standard red frizz.

  “I don’t suppose you’ve got anything in your garden that will permanently sedate the frizzies, do you?” I wistfully asked.

  Tia Marta added a dash more chili to the chorizo, and reached for the carton of eggs. “I’ll mix something up, but it won’t do much good. Your hair is just like you, my dear: it’s got a mind all its own,” she chortled.

  She was just about to break open an egg when her mal ojo monitor zoomed into overdrive. She rushed over with egg in hand, and began rolling it up and down my body as she hastily said a prayer. Much more of this dairy action, and the biggest problem I’d be facing would be a case of spiritual high cholestero
l.

  “That’s odd. I must have missed something when I did your cleansing yesterday,” Marta muttered.

  Cracking the egg open, she dropped the contents into a dish. A speck of blood winked up at us from where it floated, crimson as a maharaja’s ruby.

  “Something more than usual is going on in your life. What have you been up to lately?” she questioned.

  I suddenly felt like a mischievous child who’d been caught red-handed. Even worse, I relished the feeling of impishness. “Well, I discovered a dead body yesterday morning, and had dinner with a mad scientist last night.” I decided not to mention the surprise waiting for me when I got home. My hunger-driven adult self chided me to behave, longing to eat a couple of those fortune-telling eggs.

  Tia Marta gave a no-nonsense snort. “Hmph. That must be it, then.” She focused her attention on breaking four eggs into a pan, until her tongue finally rebelled. “But let me warn you. I’m going to make you drink an extra strong cup of licorice weed if you plan on bumping into anymore corpses today!”

  I grinned and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “I’ll have to check my appointment book and let you know,” I teased, my fingers going for a piece of chorizo.

  Tia Marta swatted my hand away with her spatula. “Enough play. I have breakfast to cook so that you won’t starve,” she scolded, and began to scramble the eggs.

  I grabbed a couple of Goodwill plates, along with utensils, and arranged them on my dilapidated kitchen table, placing two large mugs of freshly brewed coffee beside them.

  “I went to Lizzie Burke’s for dinner last night,” I casually mentioned.

  Tia Marta glanced at me questioningly and I realized she had no idea who I was talking about.

  “Sorry. Lizzie Krabbs, I mean.” God! How I hated that name. “We used to be friends and neighbors when I worked in Las Vegas. I didn’t know she’d moved here until we bumped into each other outside your house yesterday. I forget. How long is it that Lizzie’s been coming to see you?” I inquired, doing my best to sound nonchalant.

  Tia Marta gave me the eye, as if knowing what I was up to. She dished the eggs and sausage on to our plates, then sat down to join me. “That girl has been coming for cleansings at least once a week for over a year. But hers is a very difficult case. She always has lots of bad spirits hovering around.”