They took her, he said. Two of them, both Mexicans, both big. One with a pencil mustache and the other with a big bandido and a squinteye scar.
Did he know who they were?
Well hell yeah. They had to be the rich fuck’s guys.
What rich fuck?
Calveras, who else?
Who was that?
I didn’t know about Calveras?
“Dígame,” I said.
He said that on the drive from Brownsville she had told him a story she’d already told his aunt and uncle about getting kidnapped down in Veracruz by a rich guy named Calveras. Had a wooden leg and only one eye. Had a hacienda in Durango or Chihuahua, he couldn’t remember where she’d said. Las Cadenas, the place was called—after a river it was next to. She’d been a prisoner for months before she escaped and went to hide in Brownsville with Rocha’s aunt and uncle, who’d known her since she was little. Rocha thought she might be pulling their leg about the rich guy—she seemed the type to overdramatize things, didn’t I think so? But his aunt and uncle believed her, and when she said she was afraid of being so close to the border because Calveras might find her, his uncle Oscar invited her to come to Galveston. Then the Avilas heard her story and they offered her a place to stay. Rocha himself still hadn’t believed her, though—not until those pricks showed up last night.
They’d come in the back way. One-thirty, two o’clock. Quiet as cats. Daniela was sleeping on the sofa, he was on the floor. He woke up as one of them was starting to crouch over him and there was just enough light to see the knife. His shotgun was in the closet and might as well have been on the moon. He kicked the guy and they tangled up and Daniela let out a scream that got cut short. They went crashing all around and the guy was cutting at his head and trying for his throat and then stabbed him in the stomach before Rocha locked on the guy’s knife arm and got his teeth in his ear. The guy pulled away as the hall light came on behind Rocha and he heard Avila say “Qué pasa? Quién es?” and that’s when he got his look at them—the other guy was holding Daniela from behind with a hand on her mouth. Then the light cut off and a door slammed and Rocha threw a shoulder into the guy and sent him crashing and bolted through the kitchen and out the door. He ran across the yard and tore through the hedge into the neighbor’s backyard and fell down, choking bad, then realized he had a piece of ear in his throat and managed to spit it out. He had to keep wiping blood from his eyes but the real pain was in his gut. The neighbor’s house was still dark—probably nobody in the neighborhood had heard a thing. He was expecting them to come through the hedge looking for him and he lay still to keep from giving himself away. He had no idea how long he’d been lying there before he heard the Avilas’ car start up beside the house and then pull into the backyard. A moment later he heard whispering at the Avila back door but he couldn’t make out what was being said. He heard a low cry and one of them cursed and said to shut up and he knew they were taking her. He heard them moving off through the grass. And then he didn’t hear anything until a car started up somewhere down the street and drove away.
He didn’t know any of the neighbors, didn’t know if they could be trusted, so he went back into the Avila house. He found them with their throats cut. There was no telephone but even if there had been he wouldn’t have called the police. He’d been a cop himself—which came as news to me—but it wouldn’t help him much, since he’d been fired and now had an arrest record for various felonies. He figured the police would find it easier to charge him with killing the Avilas than to believe his story. He’d stretched out on the sofa to ease the pain in his gut and to think things over but he must’ve passed out. When he came to, he could tell that it was late in the day. His belly hurt bad but the bleeding had slowed down to an ooze. And then he was out again. The next time he opened his eyes, there I was.
Well hell. It wasn’t like I didn’t know how fast things can change.
What I wanted to know was why the Avilas hadn’t told me the goddamned truth?
Because she told them not to tell anybody, Rocha said. She came up with the stuff about being orphaned and the Picachos being her godparents, and the Avilas went along with it because she said the truth was too complicated and shameful and didn’t matter to anybody around here anyway. Besides, who the hell was I they had to tell the truth to? All they knew about me was I was a pistolero with gringo eyes. They were afraid of me.
She wasn’t. Why didn’t she tell me?
Christ sake, she was a woman—who the hell knew why a woman did anything? He gave a raspy chuckle and said maybe she trusted some guys more than others.
I asked if that was why he’d stayed in Galveston—in some longshot hope that she’d give him a tumble.
He said to go to hell. Maybe she would’ve, if I hadn’t shown up with my goddamn fancy clothes and boots and cars.
I said if he was waiting for me to apologize for spoiling his plans he was going to bleed to death first—and we both grinned. Then his face clenched in pain, and I got busy.
I called Rose from the Casa Verde.
The phone picked up and he said, “Yeah?”
“Youngblood.”
“Why the hell aint you here?” He said LQ and Brando had told him about how smooth the Dallas job had gone. He sounded tickled pink.
I said I’d be there but I was with a guy in bad need of a doctor who wouldn’t ask a lot of questions or pull the cops into it.
“What? Bullet?”
“Knife in the belly. Bunch of other cuts.”
“One of our guys?”
“No, just a friend.”
There was a second’s silence on the line.
“Warrants?”
“No, but he’s Tex-Mex with a record and he’d be an easy fall guy if they connect him to the thing. Double killing. The guys who did it are long gone.”
“Cops onto it yet?”
“No. Once the guy’s safe I’ll phone the cops with an anonymous tip about the bodies.”
“Christ, Kid, what the fuck company you keeping? Hold on.”
It took about fifteen minutes but it seemed like an hour before he was back on the line and saying my guy was cleared for admission to the hospital and nobody there was going to be asking the wrong questions or calling the cops.
“Just tell the guy at the emergency desk your man’s name is Johnny Garcia. They’ve got him down as a driver for Gulf Vending and he’s coming in for an appendectomy. All taken care of. And listen: soon as you drop him off you get your ass over here. We got something here belongs to you.”
Up in the Studio Lounge LQ and Brando were at the bar with Sam. They waved me over and I saw Sam say something to the bartender. A bottle of beer and a double shot of tequila were waiting for me when I got to the bar.
LQ and Brando had been drinking since they’d turned in the collection money to Mrs. Bianco and they were loudly happy and slightly buzzed. Sam was in high spirits himself. He clinked his shot glass against mine and said, “Nice going, Kid. Here’s to success.”
He ordered another round for all of us and said, “Hey, fellas, what do you call a woman who’s having her period and owns a crystal ball?”
We looked at each other and shrugged. “We give up,” LQ said.
“A bitch who knows everything.”
He said for us to come on and we followed him to the office.
Rose was at his desk when we came in. He took three envelopes from a drawer and handed them to Sam and Sam passed them out to us. Each envelope held ten fifty-dollar bills.
“A little something to show our appreciation for a job well done, fellas,” Sam said. “Enjoy.”