As Nick looked at his full-length profile in the mirror, sucking in his stomach, his chin up, his arms pleasantly stiff and tinged with pain from curling a sixty-pound bar, he thought, Not bad for Mighty Mouse.
Even though he didn’t like to see blood leaking from every orifice in his portfolio, his finances had a formidable degree of solidity at their core. He still owned the restaurant, a wholesome place that served good food and offered mariachi music, and nobody was going to take it away from him, at least not Josef Sholokoff or Hugo Cistranos. He still had a mortgage on his house in San Antonio, but his weekend home on the Comal in New Braunfels was free and clear, and he was determined for the children’s sake to hold on to it. He and Esther had started out with virtually nothing. For the first five years of their marriage, she’d had to give up attending classes at UNO and work full-time as a cashier at the Pearl while Nick ran Didoni Giacano’s cardroom until five in the morning, fixing drinks and coffee and making sandwiches for Texas oilmen who told Negro and whorehouse and anti-Semitic jokes in his presence as though he were deaf. Then he would swamp out their piss and puke in the bathroom while the sun rose and a greasy exhaust fan roared above his head.
But those days were all behind him. Esther was his Esther again, and his kids were his kids. They were not just a family. They were friends, and more important, they loved one another and loved being with one another. What he owned he had worked for. Screw the world. Screw the IRS. Nick Dolinski, badass at large, had arrived.
It was Saturday evening, and Nick was relaxing on the terrace of his weekend home on the Comal, reading the newspaper, drinking a gin and tonic. Fireflies were lighting in the trees, and the air was fragrant with the smell of flowers, charcoal lighter flaring on a grill, meat smoke pooling among the heavy green shadows on the river.
Esther had taken the kids to deliver a box of her peanut-butter-and-chocolate brownies to a sick friend in a San Antonio suburb; she had said she would be back no later than six-thirty P.M. with a delicatessen cold supper they would eat on the sunporch. He glanced at his watch. It was after seven. But sometimes she decided on impulse to take the children to an afternoon movie. He flipped open his cell phone to check for missed calls, although he was sure it had not rung that afternoon. He put aside his paper and called her cell number. His call was transferred to her voice mail.
“Esther, where are you?” he said. “I’m starting to think alien abduction here.”
He went inside the house and checked the kitchen phone. There were no new calls. He walked in a circle. He went into the living room and walked in another circle. Then he called Esther’s cell phone again. “This isn’t funny. Where are you? This is Nick, the guy who lives with you.”
He tried Jesse’s number and was sent to voice mail. But Jesse was one of those rare teenagers who had little interest in computers, cell phones, or technology in general; he sometimes left his cell phone turned off for days. Regarding his son, the more essential question for Nick was: Did Jesse have an interest in anything? It surely wasn’t girls or sports. The kid had an IQ of 160 and spent his time listening to old Dave Brubeck records or playing lawn darts by himself in the backyard or hanging out with his four-man chess club.
Nick realized he was inventing other forms of worry to keep his mind off Esther’s failure to check in. He went back outside in the twilight and retrieved his gin and tonic from the arm of the redwood chair. He drank it standing up, one hand propped on his hip, crunching the ice on his molars, chewing and swallowing the lime slice, his eyes fixed on the boiling rapids and the whirlpool farther down the river. When he touched his brow, it felt as tight and hard as a washboard.
The phone rang inside. He almost broke a toe on the back step getting to it before the message machine clicked on. “Hello!” he gasped, out of breath.
“Dad?”
“Who’d you expect?” he said, wondering why, of all the times in his life, he chose now to sound impatient and harsh with his son.
“Did Mom call?”
“No. You don’t know where she is?”
“She left us at Barnes and Noble. She was going back for something at the deli. That was an hour ago.”
“Kate and Ruth are with you? Y’all are still in San Antonio?”
“Yeah, but the deli is only three blocks from here. Where would she go?”
“Did she go back to Mrs. Bernstein’s?”
“No, Mrs. Bernstein went to Houston with her daughter. We went all this way to deliver the brownies, and she wasn’t there.”
“Did you see any strange guys around y’all? Like somebody watching or following y’all?”
“No. What strange guys? I thought all that stuff you were worried about was over. Where’s Mom?”
PAM TIBBS AND Hackberry Holland drove in their borrowed cruiser on a winding two-lane road that followed a dry creek bed bordered by cottonwoods that were bending hard in the wind, the torn leaves flying high in the air. To the east they could see irrigated ranchland and a long horizontal limestone formation that resembled a Roman wall traversing the bottom of a hill. The cruiser was shaking in the wind, grit and the needlelike leaves of juniper trees ticking against the windshield. They entered what appeared to be another domain, one that was dry and cluttered with brush and spiked plants and thick tangles of undergrowth, one that seemed abandoned to Darwinian forces, all of it surrounded by huge wire-mesh game fences of the kind one sees along highways in the Canadian Rockies.
“Shit, what was that?” Pam said, her head jerking sideways at something they had just passed.
Hackberry looked through the back window while Pam drove. “I think that’s called an oryx or something like that. I’ve always had a fantasy about these places. What if the patrons were allowed to hunt one another? The fences could be electrified, and the boys could go inside the fences with three-day licenses to blow one another all over the brush. I think there’s a lot of merit to that idea.” He heard her laughing under her breath. “What?” he said.
“God, you’re a case,” she said.
“I’m supposed to be your administrative superior, Pam. Why is it I can’t adequately convey that simple concept to you?”
“Search me, boss.”
He gave up and remained silent as they continued down the road, the cottonwoods and pebble-strewn creek bed gone, the terrain one of twisting arroyos, brush-covered hills, and flat expanses of hardpan where trophy animals as diverse as bison, elk, gazelles, and eland grazed. It was a surreal place sealed off by hills that seemed to suck light into shade, lidded by clouds that were as yellow and coarse as sulfur.
“I’ve got to tell you something,” Pam said.
He continued to look out the window and didn’t answer.
“I think sometimes you go to a place inside yourself that isn’t good. I think that’s where you are now. I think that’s where you’ve been all day.”
“What place might that be?”
“How can anyone know? You never share it with anyone, least of all me.”
He stared at her profile for a long time, somehow thinking he could force her to look him squarely in the eye, to make her admit the nature of her assault on his sensibilities. But she was unrelenting in her concentration on the road, her hands set in the ten-two position on the wheel.
“When this is over—” he said.
“You’ll what?”
“Take you out for dinner. Or give you a few days off. Something like that.”
She closed her eyes for a second, then opened them as though coming out of a trance. “All I can say is I have never in my life met anyone like you,” she said. “Absolutely no one. Never.”
They went around a curve and saw an archway over a cattle guard and, at the end of an asphalt driveway, a two-story log building with a peaked green metal roof. The logs in the building had not been debarked and, over the years, had been darkened by rainwater and smoke from wildfires and gave the rustic impression characteristic of roadside casinos and bars along western hi
ghways. The American and the Texas state flags flew on separate metal poles at the same height in front of the building. A pile of deer antlers and what looked like cattle bones was stacked like a cairn by the arch, an incongruous strip of red ribbon blowing from the eye socket of a cow’s skull. An SUV and two new pickup trucks with extended cabs and oversize tires were parked by the building’s front porch, the paint jobs freshly waxed and powdered with dust from the storm. Every detail in the picture seemed to tell a story of some kind. But there were no people in sight, and once again Hackberry was reminded of the paintings of Adolf Hitler, who could draw every detail in an urban setting except human beings.
“Slow down,” Hackberry said.
“What is it?”
“Stop.”
Pam pressed softly on the brake, her eyes sweeping the front of the building and the terrace on one side and the outdoor tables that had been inset with umbrellas. Hackberry rolled down his window. There was no sound anywhere except the wind. No lights burned in the building except one deep inside the entrance. None of the umbrellas inset in the outdoor tables had been collapsed in advance of the windstorm, and three of them had been blown inside out, the fabric feathering around the aluminum supports. A saddled horse grazed on the back lawn, dragging its reins, its droppings fresh and glistening on the grass. One stirrup was hooked on the pommel as though someone had pulled it out of the way to tighten the cinch and been interrupted in his work.
“Look at the woodpile by the fence,” he said. “Somebody was splitting wood and dropped his ax on the ground. That lawn is like a putting green, but somebody is letting his horse download on it.”
“It’s Sunday. Maybe they’re drunk.”
“Pull up to the door,” he said.
“You want me to call for backup? We can cancel it if we have to.”
“No, you go around back. I’ll go through the front. Don’t come inside until their attention is on me.”
“Why?”
“Because I said so.”
She cut the ignition and walked around the side of the house, her khaki shirt tucked in her jeans, her right hand resting on the holstered butt of her .357. In that moment, details about her caught his eye in a way they never had before: her rump tight against her wide-ass jeans, the wedges of baby fat on her sides, the thickness of her shoulders and the perfect symmetry of her upper arms, her round breasts pressed against her shirt, the way her mahogany-colored hair with its curly tips lifted in the wind and exposed her cheeks.
Pam, he thought he heard himself say. But if he spoke her name, it was lost in the wind.
The front door was already ajar. He set his hand on his revolver and eased the door back on its hinges. He found himself inside a dark foyer, one lined with brass coat hooks on which there were no coats. Farther on, he could see a large living room with a stone fireplace and hearth and a chimney made from stacked slag, and heavy oak tables and dark leather–covered stuffed chairs. In back were a dining room, a long table set with silverware and plates and glasses, and a kitchen that was filling with smoke and the smell of charred meat.
Off to the right of the foyer was a lounge area, the French doors at the entranceway hanging slightly open. Through the glass, he could see the heads of trophy animals mounted on the walls, the bar top wiped clean and shining, the bottles of whiskey and Scotch and gin and vermouth sparkling with the multicolored reflection of light from an antique Wurlitzer jukebox.
He pushed back one of the French doors and stepped inside the room. Somewhere in the shadows, from one corner of the lounge, he could hear an erratic sound like a hard object on a string knocking against a piece of wood. He removed his .45 from its holster and cocked the hammer, the muzzle still pointed at the floor.
A shaft of light burst through a rear hallway, and Hackberry realized Pam Tibbs had just come through a back door and was walking toward the lounge, gripping her .357 in both hands. He held up his palm so she could see the light reflect off his skin. She stopped and waited, her weapon pointed upward at a forty-five-degree angle.
The smoke from the kitchen was seeping into the lounge, the stench of burned meat different from any he could remember. Then he saw the shell casings on the floor, all .45-caliber, ejected in such profusion they could have come from only one type of weapon.
He pointed his revolver in front of him and walked around the tables and at an angle to the bar, closer and closer to the corner of the room where the erratic knocking sound continued. Now he could see the holes in the vinyl padding of the booths and the divots blown out of the wood trim and more holes stitched across the walls. He could see the glass beer steins and long-necked bottles exploded on top of the tables. He could see the men who had either been caught unawares in the first burst, or those who had been herded up against a wall and mowed down, probably disbelieving and terrified and trying to bargain all the way to the end.
“Sweet God in heaven,” Pam said behind him. Her weapon was still pointed with both hands in front of her. She looked to her right and left, then turned in a full circle before putting her pistol back in its holster. “Who are these guys?”
“I don’t know. Call it in. Tell the dispatcher to send all the medical personnel they can.”
Three men had died in a booth. The backs of their heads had burst all over the pine paneling on the wall. Two other men lay behind a poker table. Their chips were still stacked in columns, their five-card-stud hands laid out faceup on the felt. The exit wounds in their backs had streaked the wall five feet from the floor down to where they had fallen.
“What’s that knocking sound?” Pam asked.
Hackberry walked to the end of the bar. A man lay on his back in the shadows. There was one hole high up on his thigh, one in his stomach, and one in his neck. His eyes were closed, and his lips were compressed tightly in a cone, as though he were sucking on a piece of candy or trying to deal with a terrible sliver of pain working its way through his viscera. A pool of blood was spreading out from his sides into the wood floor. His face was round and white, in stark contrast to his black hillbilly sideburns and eyes that glinted like obsidian, buried deep inside the folds of his flesh.
He wore pointed ostrich boots, and his left foot was striking the side of the bar spasmodically. Hackberry holstered his revolver and knelt beside him. “Who did this to you, partner?” he said.
The inside of the man’s mouth was red with blood, his voice hardly more than a whisper. “Collins. Preacher Collins. Him and Bobby Lee.”
“Bobby Lee Motree?”
The man closed and opened his eyes by way of an answer. He said, “Yes, sir.”
“What’s your name?”
“T-Bone Simmons.”
“Why did Collins shoot you?”
“He picked up two hundred grand from Hugo. But he wanted Hugo, too.”
Hackberry looked back at where the other bodies lay. “Hugo Cistranos?” he said.
“Yes, sir.”
“Collins kidnapped Cistranos?”
T-Bone choked on his own blood and saliva and didn’t try to answer.
Pam handed Hackberry a towel she had found behind the bar. Hackberry began to work the towel behind T-Bone’s head. “I’m going to turn your head to the side to drain your mouth. Just hang on. An ambulance is on its way. Where did Preacher and Bobby Lee go?”
“Don’t know. They had a—”
“Take your time, bud.”
“A woman in their car.”
“A woman was with Preacher and Bobby Lee?”
“The Jew’s wife. We were supposed to pop her. She was supposed to get it in the mouth.”
“You’re talking about Nick Dolan’s wife?”
T-Bone didn’t answer. A metallic odor rose from his mouth.
“You’re losing a lot of blood,” Hackberry said. “I’m going to roll you on your side, and we’re going to plug up that hole in your back. You with me on this?”
“My spine is cut. I don’t feel anything down there.”
; “Where did Preacher take Cistranos and Mrs. Dolan?”
“I hope to hell.”
“Come on, bub. Don’t let Preacher and Bobby Lee get away with this. Where would they go?”
“Preacher can do things nobody else can do.”
It was pointless. A strange transformation had begun to take place in T-Bone’s eyes, one Hackberry had seen in battalion aid stations and triage situations and in a subfreezing POW shack where men with ice crystals in their beards and death in their throats stared intently at everything around them, as though taking the measure of the world, when in reality they saw nothing, or at least nothing they ever told the world about.
“My roast,” T-Bone said.
“Say again?”
“My pot roast is burning. It’s addax. It cost five grand to kill it.”
“Don’t worry about it. We’ll handle it,” Hackberry said, looking up at Pam Tibbs.
“I’m a good cook. Always was,” T-Bone said. Then he closed his eyes and died.
Pam Tibbs walked away, her hands on her hips. She stood still, looking at the floor, her back turned to Hackberry.
“What is it?” he said.
“I saw a security camera mounted on the corner of the building. The lens is pointed at the parking lot,” she said.
He glanced at the TV mounted above the bar. Below it was a VCR. “See if it has a tape.”
BOBBY LEE MOTREE placed his hand on Hugo Cistranos’s shoulder and walked with him to the cliff’s edge, like two friends enjoying a panoramic view of topography that seemed as old as the first day of creation. Down below, Hugo Cistranos could see the tops of cottonwood trees along a streambed that had gone dry in late summer and whose banks were flanged with automobile scrap jutting from the soil like pieces of rusted razor blades. Farther out from the cliff was a cluster of trees that still had flowers in the branches. Beyond the streambed and the trees was a long flat plain where the wind was troweling thick curds of yellow dust into the air. The vista that lay before Hugo Cistranos’s eyes was like none he had ever seen, as though this place and the events transpiring in it had been invented for this moment only, unfairly, without his consent as a participant. He hawked and spat downwind, leaning away from Bobby Lee, anxious to show his deference and care. “I was just delivering the money,” he said.
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