I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive (26 page)

"
Yeah, that's right, Doc. Before Graciela, who changed everybody and everything around here with a touch of her hand. Without that little gal, there ain't no tellin' where you'd be right now, Doc, and even
she
says that it's time to go. Time for her and time for you!
"

"
Excuse, me, Hank, if I'm somewhat suspicious of your sudden conversion to the cult of Graciela! And just exactly where do you suggest we go, if you know so goddamn much?
"

"
Somewheres else. It don't matter. You've got plenty of cash stashed away in that bag of yours.
"

"
How did you ...

"
You could go anywheres, Doc. Mexico. Or South America. Rio, maybe.
"

"
You need a passport for South America. And what about Marge? She left Graciela and me in charge. She and Dallas won't be back from Padre Island for another week.
"

Hank shakes his head solemnly. "You ain't got a week, Doc. Can't you feel it?
"

"
I can't feel anything but a pain in my ass and—
"

A car door slammed in the driveway, and the entire porch shook as someone jogged up the steps. Graciela flew through the door primed for battle, but when she got there she found that it was only Manny.

"I just made a pitcher of tea," she offered, and the big man nodded and took his usual seat on the swing.

"You're going to break that thing if you don't lose some weight, Manny," Doc grumbled. "And if you're here to climb up my ass about getting out of town, get in line."

"Damn, Doc. I just got here," Manny complained.

Unseen by Manny, Hank smirks as he surrenders the rocker to Doc and takes his place on the rail.

Doc sat down and flipped the butt of a Camel out into the yard. "Well, I'm just tellin' you before you start. Hell, once Graciela gets going, you'd swear she was a flock of parrots squawking about the same damn thing, over and over. ‘Time to go, Doc! Time to go!' Yeah, well, I've already told her and I'm telling you. I'm not going any-fucking-where!"

Graciela appeared with Manny's tea and an unsolicited glass for Doc. Manny winked his thanks as she set it on a table. "But I am, Doc. I just stopped by to say goodbye."

Graciela was instantly in tears. She knew the answer, but she asked anyway. "When?"

"Right now. I'm all loaded up and ready to go."

Manny stood up to catch Graciela as she rushed across the porch. Her cry was muffled as she buried her face in the big man's waist. She couldn't reach her arms around him but she did the best she could. Manny gathered the tiny figure up in the crook of a gigantic brown arm and patted her gently on the top of her head. "
No llores, mija. ¡Por favor, no llores! Todo va bien.
"

Hank's still perched on the rail, seething now. "What
the hell's the matter with you, Doc? Can't you see the signs? Somethin's comin'. Somethin' bad. Everybody's figured it out but you!
"

Doc did his best to ignore the voice and cleared his throat to get Graciela's attention. "You know, you can go if you want to, Graciela. I can get by fine on my own."

Graciela reacted viscerally to the insult. She wrested herself free from Manny and whirled to face Doc, planting her bare feet wide apart and glaring at him, daring him to look her in the eye.

"I'm just sayin'," Doc mumbled, avoiding any further eye-fucking by engaging Manny. "So where you off to, big guy?"

"California, eventually. But first I reckon maybe I'll head south. Mexico. Hell, I'm a Mexican, Doc, and I ain't never been. I got cousins in Saltillo. Reckon I'll look 'em up and get 'em to show me around. See where my people's people come from. Then I'll work my way up through Carlsbad and out to the Grand Canyon. All those places. You know what I heard? I heard they got 'em a motel out there somewhere where you can spend the night in a teepee, Doc! A real teepee like a wild Injun! I got a shoebox full of money out there in the trunk of my Ford, enough that I could bum around for a year or two, if I wanted. All kinds of sights to see up and down the West Coast, Doc. Then, when my money's gone, I'll find me a job drivin' somewhere. You know, Doc, just like we talked about. I hear California's nice this time of year. Hell, California's always nice. At least that's what they say! You sure you don't wanna go?"

The ghost alights noiselessly on the weathered floorboards between Doc and Manny and looks from one man's face to the other as if there is anything left to decide and then...

"No, Manny, like I told you, I'm stayin' right here."

...
twists sideways and spits angrily, any trace of moisture evaporating in thin air along with any vestige of patience or pretense of vigilance. So incensed is the phantom that he doesn't even hear the second vehicle arrive...

Graciela spotted the headlights half a mile up the road. She held her breath until the plain white Dodge passed beneath the streetlight at the corner. "Hugo!" She exhaled. The corpulent vice cop presented no threat, she sensed. Manny wasn't taking any chances. He dropped his .38 behind an oleander bush just as Hugo squeezed out of his unmarked car.

"You're all right, Manny." He panted. "I'm still off the clock." He acknowledged Graciela—"Ma'am"—a hint of awe in his tone. "It's Doc I came to see. You got to get out of here, Doc. They're comin'."

"
What'd I tell you, goddamn it!" Hank frets, wringing his hands and pacing back and forth behind Doc in a claustrophobic arc.

Doc shook his head in disbelief. "Aw, not you too, Hugo? What is this, some kind of plot y'all cooked up? Who's coming?"

The cop was still bent over pawing at the stitch in his side. "Feds!" he huffed, and then he puffed. "Bureau of narcotics. Big Mike Novak himself!"

Manny whistled. "Time to go, Doc! Graciela!"

The girl was way ahead of him, up the stairs, pattering from room to room, gathering up the meager accumulation of her life with Doc on South Presa Street. Not much. A couple of cotton dresses, a half a dozen pairs of panties, and a brassiere. Even after she'd emptied Doc's chest of drawers into it, the dust-covered suitcase she'd found in the top of Helen-Anne's closet was only a little over half full. Finally, she scooped up Doc's instruments and dropped them in his black bag with a clatter and a snap, and before five minutes had elapsed she was back downstairs handing off the luggage to Manny. Doc had yet to get out of his chair.

"Big Mike who?"

"Michael B. Novak, Doc. The head prosecutor for the western district of Texas."

"But I've been clean for damn near a year now, and Manny—"

Hugo shook his head. "It ain't dope they're after!"

"But you said—"

"I said they got a warrant to search for dope, and search for dope they will, and they'll find some too, by God, if they have to plant it themselves."

"What the hell, Hugo?"

"Look, it's like this, Doc. Yesterday afternoon, just before the end of my shift, I get a call. It's some college-boy junior G-man from the western district. Can I come drop by for a minute on my way home? I try to put him off until tomorrow but he drops Big Mike's name. Says that the prosecutor would consider it a personal favor if I was to show up. What am I supposed to do? I walk across the square and they hustle me up to an office on the fourth floor and, sure enough, Big Mike Novak himself is in there and he sits me down in a cushy chair, a walnut desk the size of a fuckin' aircraft carrier between us. Might as well have been handcuffed to a straight-back chair over in the SAPD. Anyway, Big Mike wants to know did I know anything about a junkie name of Doc. Middle-aged. Well spoken. Some kind of a quack that drifted over from Louisiana way."

Doc was worried now. "And what did you tell him?"

"I lied. Like a rug! To a federal prosecutor! Problem is, I wasn't the only narc that Big Mike talked to and somebody told him plenty. By the time I get to work this morning it's a done deal. Everybody on the squad is invited to a big federal door-bustin'-down party except me. None of this shit makes any kind of sense as far as I can tell, so I call my boy in Judge Fisher's office and he allows how Big Mike's already made the rounds to every judge on the square, state and federal, and been turned down flat by every one of 'em. No probable cause for search and seizure. That is, until he comes across a county judge,
county,
mind you, name of Aguilar, who may or may not have any jurisdiction in a felony case, but Big Mike gets him to sign off on a raid on thirty-four hundred South Presa anyway. Put it together! Big Mike Novak is a bohunk! Catholic! The county judge, Aguilar, is a Meskin! Catholic! Probably Knights of Columbus, the pair of 'em. Somebody's done told them what it is that you do down here, and the self-righteous sons of bitches believe that they've got God on their sides and they're comin'. Maybe tonight, maybe in the morning after it's light, but they're comin', Doc, I guarantee, and you don't want to be here when they do ... and neither do I!" He excused himself and tipped his hat to Graciela before waddling to his car and backing out of the driveway.

That was Graciela's cue. She stepped forward and took Doc's hand, and the physician snapped out of his torpor. "
¡Vamos!
" she commanded. Doc blinked, well aware that he had lost the battle, but he fired a final volley anyway. "The next girl in trouble who knocks on that door," he offered weakly, "where's she going to go?"

Graciela tugged firmly and Doc knew, despite the slightness of the outstretched arm, that she possessed the strength to guide him to Manny's car if she wanted. "There are girls in trouble everywhere," she said. "You can't help them all."

"I need my hat," Doc grumbled just as Manny appeared behind her, back from loading the Ford. Graciela held on tight.

"Manny, get Doc's hat for him, please. It's hanging on the rack in the kitchen."

When Manny returned, Doc took a last look back through the front door of the Yellow Rose before resolutely accepting his battered Panama from his friend and pulling it down low over his eyes. Just then, yet another car door slammed.

Hank spots him first—a solitary figure unfolding from an unnoticed station wagon parked across School Street. "Priest!" the ghost hisses.

***

Graciela turned to face this new threat, instinctively imposing herself between Doc and the interloper. "Don't let him come near!" she implored Manny, and the big man closed half the distance between himself and the oncoming priest in a couple of loping strides. Then, suddenly, both antagonists stopped, only yards apart.

"H-he's a priest!" Manny stammered, glancing uncertainly over his shoulder at Graciela. "I ain't never hit no priest!"

The devil in Father Killen sensed an opening. "Of course you haven't! Why would you? And what would your mother think if you did?"

"Don't listen to him!" Graciela warned, but the priest already had Manny's attention.

"That's what I thought!" Killen said condescendingly. "You weren't raised to be a miscreant, were you ... Manny, isn't it?"

"
Careful!" the cat coughs, but the Mexican can't hear him. The spirit can only circle the combatants impotently, like a referee without authority.

His own name in the mouth of a priest that he had never seen before was too much for Manny. He glanced over his shoulder again for some sign from Graciela, and the distraction allowed Killen a crucial uncontested step forward. The heel of a hard, heavy black oxford crashed down on Manny's instep, and he collapsed in pain, dropping like a freight elevator until his chin collided with the priest's upthrust head. A second head butt sent the vanquished giant sprawling semiconscious to the ground.

Doc didn't stand a chance. By the time he realized what was happening and stepped protectively in front of Graciela, the intruder was on the porch.

"You must be ... Doc!" The priest grunted, putting his full weight into a rib-crushing left hook. Doc dropped instantly but Killen stood him back up with a knee in the groin. "Murderer of innocents!" Uppercut to the chin. "Corrupter of children!" He shunted the helpless physician to one side in a heap. "Well, no more. It all stops here and now!" He snatched Graciela's arm as she rushed to help Doc, but the girl bit him, clamping down hard on the back of his hand. He cursed as he ripped the wounded member free but didn't retaliate. He offered Graciela the other hand instead. "Take it, child! Come with me. I'll take you away from this place. From these people!" Graciela threw herself protectively across Doc's body and muttered a sequence of syllables, low and musical but completely nonsensical to non-Nahuatl speakers: "
Yolistsintlayektli Ooselo, Nekauyo...
" Even Graciela didn't understand what she was saying. She only knew that her grandfather had insisted that she commit the words to memory against a day when every ray of hope had faded. That day had come.

Hank's ghost sputters helplessly over the tangle of humanity. "Get up, Doc!" he screeches, but the physician doesn't respond. He involuntarily shifts between one shape and another, settling into his feline aspect only when the jaguar arrives on the scene to take charge.

Graciela instantly recognizes the newcomer. "Grandfather!" she cries, and the big cat purrs in acknowledgment. Hank follows the older entity's lead, and the two cat-shaped spirits take up defensive positions flanking Graciela and Doc.

Killen saw no shadow or shade of either man or beast. Manny was sprawled behind him and Doc lay crumpled before him and nothing now stood between the priest and the miracle he prized. His miracle! The priest had eyes only for the Mexican girl, and he never saw Big Tiff coming.

Doc did. He had just managed to struggle up to one knee, but he nearly laughed out loud when he spotted the transvestite pelting up the sidewalk in pedal pushers and an undershirt. Then he recognized the shiny nickel-plated barrel of a Saturday night special, and the hint of a smile vanished. "Gun!" he hollered as Tiff charged the priest like a linebacker zeroing in on a quarterback. The scene unfolding before him was sickeningly familiar. He'd seen it before, beamed in from Dallas, a flickering image on a black-and-white twelve-inch screen. But his was live and in living color and happening right before his eyes, and Doc knew that if he didn't do something, nobody would. "Not this time, you son of a bitch!" he swore. He stepped in front of the priest and turned to face Big Tiff just as the first of eight sharp, rapid pops rang in his ears.