Blood Makes Noise (39 page)

“You’re right, Lopez. I can’t kill you…”

Lopez Rega calmed some, put his other hand over the first on his eye, and moaned, “My eye…Look what you did to my eye…”

“I can’t kill you…but I can still
shoot
you.”

Lopez Rega stuck his hands out to protect his face, but it was his knee Hector blew into a ragged pulp. Most of Lopez Rega’s screams went into the dirt, and it hardly mattered if he heard Hector walk away. “Casting spells for Isabel, Lopez, you don’t need to
walk
.”

Lofton listened to the pair of shots—two guns—and the direction was impossible in this caterwauling. They must have confused Alejandro as well, for the young Argentine responded this time when Lopez Rega’s thug teased a shot over his head.
A dull burp of half a dozen shells, and it wasn’t the reflection of bullets on masonry that caught Lofton’s ear but what was almost imperceptible just beneath it.

The click of an empty ammo magazine.

Michael waited on the ancient Karabiner grenade launcher. He had no shot but could hear the patter of gunfire below. He couldn’t decide which was worse: never getting a shot, or actually having to use it.

Then the dust lifted.

Bunched up into a whirlwind, it dragged away like a curtain the barrier between Michael and the street below. There was the truck, high and right. He couldn’t see Lofton or Lopez Rega, but there was the other thug, coming up slowly on a dead-looking Alejandro, curled behind some debris. Alejandro had let his machine pistol tumble away from his grip and it lay two or three feet from his unmoving body.

The thug was in no hurry, measuring his steps, and Michael knew he had one shot, if that, and where was Lofton? Then he saw him. Arcing from the opposite side of Alejandro, coming now nearer the thug, now himself right below Michael’s building. And the dust cloud had grown weary of its journey and was returning now, bearing down on them, and Michael knew it was now or never. Even if he hit Alejandro. Or the truck. Or nothing. The dust cloud smacked against the building, sand clogged his eyes, and Michael squeezed them shut and pulled the trigger.

Silence.

Then a hiss. A trail of smoke at the grenade’s base and Michael waited a million years till he couldn’t take it anymore and pulled the launcher back from the wall opening, tried to get a sense of where the hissing smoke was coming from…

When the grenade launched.

Straight up into the roof, and a thousand roosting birds died instantly in a concussive blast that flattened Gina and threw Michael into the wall.

Which gave.

A brick cascade that annihilated the remaining thug in a rolling catastrophe that might or might not have swept Lofton and Alejandro into it.

Michael went out with the first brick but caught a handhold, which went too, and he was scrambling the wrong way up an escalator of collapsing building till there wasn’t any more escalator and down he went. And if he could have felt it, eighteen feet down into a brick pile would have hurt. But he was numb and the world turned slowly in a dusty, dreamy way, and maybe that was Gina’s voice, screaming his name from somewhere over him. Heaven maybe. She’d be in heaven. He? He’d be, well, lower, just like this, listening to her voice above, waiting on the devil, and here he was in chalky orange seersucker.

The devil carries an FBI .38 and drinks too much.

“I can’t figure out if that was on purpose or not, you crazy fuck…”

There’s too much wind in hell. It’s hard to hear anyone.

Lofton had his .38 pointed at Michael’s face now, the barrel taking up way too much of his vision. “Long road, Mike, huh? Should have just stayed out of it…” Michael nodded. There was wisdom in that. Lofton straightened his gun at Michael, and that meant bullet time. “Sorry about your wife…” Michael nodded again. He’d forgiven Lofton. Forgiven everyone. He just wanted to float away.

Lofton squeezed the trigger. The gun jammed and Lofton smiled. “Son of a bitch. Just a second, Mike…”
Sure. Take your time.
Lofton flipped open the chamber and tried to clear the sand clogging it. “You and Wintergreen. The two of you were always my favorites at the station. The other stiffs. Never got on with
them, really. Too bad you turned out to be such a company cocksucker.”

Was I ever a company man?
Michael thought.
Oh yes. A long time ago. Something to do with Argentina. My mother and sister were there. And Evita. They’re all dead now. Everybody’s dead. Now I am too. Please don’t be mad at me. I tried and please don’t be mad at me.

“Still with us, Mike?” Michael blinked. “Just checking.” Lofton finished cleaning the gun, flipped it closed, and there was a noise in the rubble behind him. Over the wind and settling concrete, Lofton turned and was hit broadside by a rushing, screaming Alejandro. The impact drove them both off the top of the rubble into a wind-piled dust dune.

Michael watched Lofton struggle to get out of the dune, which was sucking him down like quicksand. He could see Alejandro, tangled around his legs, holding on, sinking with him. Lofton fought feverishly against Alejandro’s hold, striking the Argentine’s hands, dragging himself forward, working his gun around, firing over and over—
pop, pop
—point blank—
pop, pop, click
—and still Alejandro’s grip held, the boy almost completely below the sand now, Lofton clawing desperately up its sides but only clawing a grave that was closing around him.

At a certain point Lofton stopped struggling, turned back from the dune’s lip, and stared into the boy’s face. He was dead. Cold flat dead, but his arms held on like steel. And Lofton smiled improbably, patted the dead boy’s head, and together they sunk beneath the surface of the dune.

You see the strangest things in hell.

M
ichael.”

That face. Lingering again between this world and another. She really has to stop doing that. Purgatory’s maître d’ is beside her, pleasant concern etched on a face recently also etched by a bullet.

“Are you all right?” Gina asked.

“What a strange question.”

“It’s a doctor’s question, Michael,” Hector answered.

The doctor had her own etchings, tiny cuts over her face. He had liked that face. He liked it now. “Maybe. I can’t hear very well.”

“None of us do after that grenade,” Hector might have said.

“Can you feel your toes?” Gina asked.

“Yes.”

“Your nose is cold.”

“I’m not a golden retriever.”

Gina smiled and turned to Hector. “He’ll live.”

“Excellent.” Hector kneeled down beside Gina. “I’m proud of you, Michael. Of what you’ve done. You and Gina. She’s a remarkable woman. If I were a younger man…”

“You’ll outlive us both.” He blinked hard, fought a spasm of pain.

“There’s another town a few kilometers down the road,” Gina said. “A real town. I walked down and phoned a Guardia station.”

“They’ll be here shortly, Michael,” Hector said. “Medical care for you, a truck for the Senora.”

“Lofton? Alejandro?”

“Dead. Everyone’s dead, Michael. Everyone but Lopez Rega, and he wishes he was.”

“What about their bodies?”

“This is a place of war, Michael. What better place for them to be buried?”

“Dig them up. Lofton and Alejandro.”

“Why?”

“We’re taking them with us.”

By afternoon’s end the Guardia medics had helped Michael off the rubble and splinted his broken arm. They were leading him to an ambulance, but he insisted he and Gina ride with the Senora in the army truck. They agreed, making Michael as comfortable as possible on the benches.

Lofton and Alejandro’s bodies, bleached orange like Etruscan statues, were dug from the dune, wrapped in tarps, and laid beside Evita on the truck bed, which they had delicately covered with canvas. Hector sat in back with them, all three sporting bandages and salve, Gina wanting to sleep against Michael but it hurting too much for both of them.

There was only the few-hundred-mile ride to Madrid left. Hector smiled his reassuring smile as they bounced along the road, but he was not at ease. It was only a small thing, but Hector had noticed, sometime in the last hour, that his derringer was missing.

Michael smiled back.

Across the dry wastes of Aragon and over mountains Michael stopped counting, the small military convoy continued, past sunset, becoming a string of grated headlights on slow, two-lane highways. The back of the truck vibrated, a note musical and awful.

“How much longer?” Gina asked.

“A few hours. No more,” Hector said. “Then everyone can get to a proper hospital.” Hector smiled at Michael, who was thumbing
through Lofton’s wallet. Michael looked back at Hector and closed his eyes.

It was on the high-altitude plains outside Madrid that Michael asked Hector to stop the convoy.

“Why?”

“Let’s take Her in alone, Hector. Just us. No army. No guards. Lofton, Alejandro, you, me, and Gina. One happy family.”

“The driver?”

“Keep him.”

There was nothing threatening about Michael’s stance or the way he stared. Just one hand, the one not splinted, resting in his pocket. Hector smiled. “Of course, Michael. I appreciate the symmetry. We started this journey together, let us finish it that way.”

Michael didn’t nod, didn’t smile. Hector leaned out the back of the truck and spoke to the Spanish escorts. Thanks much. Appreciate the effort.

The troops gathered in their other vehicles, pulled back onto the ring highway, and with just the driver, Evita and her closest friends moved slowly into Madrid.

Fashionable only slightly, crowded with villas threatening to go to seed, the Puerto de Hierro neighborhood was well lit but silent, the truck’s engine vibrating windows up and down the street as the driver stopped at the gates on Calle de Navalmanzano.

“So we have finally arrived,” Hector said. “I always had the faith that you would make it, Michael. I always knew we would stand together here one day.”

“Dr. Ara is waiting in there, isn’t he?”

“Almost certainly.”

Two military police officers stood guard at the villa’s gates. “Tell them to send for the good doctor, Hector.”

“Of course. But why don’t you and I give the news to General Perón together, Michael?”

“Just tell them to get Ara.”

Hector leaned out and spoke with forced casualness to the guard nearest. The guard disappeared inside, and Hector found himself again facing Michael across three dead people.

“You are a continuous source of surprises, Michael Suslov.”

“There’s nothing surprising about me at all, Hector. You should have learned that by now.”

“Is the Senora in danger?”

“Not unless you’re stupid.” Michael’s hand was still in his pocket. “Within the confines of our relationship, Hector, would you say you trust me?”

Hector paused a long time, then the smile that irony owned crept over his face. “Within the confines of our relationship, Michael Suslov, yes.”

The guard returned from the villa with a scowling Dr. Ara. The former Spanish cultural attaché to Argentina looked with disdain on the dusty and bloodied pair inside. “Where’s Lopez Rega?”

“He’ll be along,” Hector said, “one way or another.”

Dr. Ara’s eyes fell on the smallest of the three canvas wraps, and his voice changed completely. “Is that Her?”

“Come with us, Dr. Ara,” Michael said. “Come with Evita.”

Ara looked at Hector suspiciously. “It’s quite all right, Doctor,” the secret policeman said.

“We want only a brief moment of your time,” Michael added, “for this final part of her journey.”

The doctor scrutinized Michael’s features as best he could in the dark. “Do I know you?”

Michael pulled Hector’s derringer from his pocket. “Just get in the fucking truck.”

Ara glanced over his shoulder for the guard—he was gone—and merely shrugged, accepting Gina’s hand and climbing aboard beside them. “Tell the driver to go,” Michael said.

“Where?” Hector asked.

Michael stared at Ara’s bald, elfin features.

“His house.”

It was a suite of generous apartments, three floors up, and they sat in the rear of the truck outside it. “We’ll take them in with us.”

“All these bodies?” Hector asked.

“No. Just Evita.” Michael gestured to one of the shrouds. “And Lofton.”

You could see Hector trying to make the pieces work. “Dr. Ara’s apartment is on the third floor, no?”

“Yes,” Ara confirmed.

“The Senora is no stranger,” Michael said, “to back stairs with you and me, Hector, in the middle of the night.”

“That was a long time ago.”

“And I’m sure that in the meantime the doormen here at Dr. Ara’s building have grown accustomed to all manner of strange boxes being delivered to his apartment. They probably even help.”

Ara stared at the canvas wrap between them. “Is it truly Her? After all this time?”

“Yes.”

Ara let his hand touch the rough material. “Have your driver take us around back,” Ara instructed. The command was relayed, and the military truck grinded itself to a service door. Ara turned to climb out. “I’ll be right back.”

“Not so fast.”

Ara stopped and shook his head, every motion an ooze of breeding. “Please, young man, I’m not a child, hmm?”

Ara climbed off the truck. “Go with him,” Michael said to Gina. She paused. “Please.” Gina touched his shoulder and stepped out behind the Spanish dwarf.

“I must confess I’m intrigued.” But Michael ignored Hector and focused what was left of his mind on Gina, now returning through the service door with Ara and two doormen.

“The doormen will take them up,” Ara said. “Do what you want with the other one. Just have respect for the neighbors.”

Michael came off the elevator with Gina and walked to the only door on the floor. It was open, and Hector and Ara were standing in the living room with the bodies of Evita and Lofton on carts between them. Michael entered and collapsed onto a couch. The derringer stuck out from his pants’ pocket, a cut on his neck had begun bleeding again, and his entire nervous system felt like melted copper traveling his spine.