Ken Kuhlken_Hickey Family Mystery 01 (12 page)

“The uniform guy was tall? Light-skinned?”

“Yes siree. A big Mex that talks good English.”

“Cowpoke wear a straw hat or Stetson?”

“Not straw. Maybe a Stetson. What they want with you, Tom?”

“My neck. The police chief. He’s the one in the Stetson. If he comes back, break his legs for me, will you?”

“Sure, okay. Say, that kid, your chum, and a couple other guys are waiting for you in the shack. One’s big as a truck. Oh, and one guy came asking for Boyle or you, either is okay, he said. From the south. A tough Kraut.”

“Drove a red Chevy.”

Mr. Chee nodded. “And he’s very mad. A Nazi?”

“A psycho,” Hickey said.

“Well, he left one package for you. I put it in the shack. It’s a little thing, couldn’t be a bomb.”

“Thanks. Look, about Boyle. If something goes haywire, if I get wasted or anything, in a few days you should go down by the bridge, ask for an Indian named Crispín. Boyle’s lodging at his place.”

“Don’t you get hurt.”

Hickey patted the old guy’s shoulder, made him a promise, turned and walked to the office shack. When he opened the door a whirlwind of smoke gushed out. Leo and the giant sat beside the desk, drinking coffee, puffing cigarettes, and gazing at the package. Clifford was on the couch, one fist pounding lightly on his knee, the other hand holding a cigarette, the first he’d ever smoked.

Hickey left the door open and cracked a window farther. Then he sat on the desk and stared at the small package. He lit his pipe, held the smoke until it reached his brain. Then he picked up the package, a small white box. Something in his gut said to run the thing out to the incinerator. Don’t even look. As Clifford got up from the couch, and came over, the other men followed with their eyes. Finally Leo said, “A diamond ring, from some rich broad.”

Hickey shook the package. Something no bigger than a ring but even lighter. He broke the twine, lifted the boxtop slowly. He and the kid stared into the box at a little pyramid less than a half-inch high. Pink or salmon-colored. Suddenly Hickey knew. He closed his eyes, ground his teeth. Leo and McColgin stood up to look, while Clifford pulled the thing out of the box. Spongelike, slightly moist. Flesh and skin. The kid moaned, “Awwww …”

Hickey looked at the others. “God damn those …”

“A hunk of her lip,” Leo mumbled.

Her brother squeezed the thing tightly into his fist. He stepped to a corner of the room, put his left hand over his eyes. His body started jerking with spasms. At the same time, Hickey kicked the oak desk so hard a toe bone cracked, and he roared at the giant, “Go get the Mexicans. Tito should be over at the Licores. Bring ’em through the walking gate. I’ll meet you there, talk to Mr. Chee, and we’ll get ’em across. I gotta pay everybody. Then we’re all getting a nice dinner. Relax awhile, before we go slaughter the dirty fuckers.”

“Yeah,” McColgin snarled, and ran out.

Leo flopped onto the couch. A minute later he sprang up. For once he looked awake. He lit a smoke and growled, “I’m going with you, Tom, get my shot at the Nazi bastards.”

Hickey stood watching the kid, thinking he should go stand by him. But he couldn’t touch a sorrow that deep. So he thought about the rifles, the machine gun, the grenades. In his clearest vision they blew that place called Hell into rocks and splinters. Like a whole air raid got it.

Chapter Sixteen

The Santa Ana blew in that night. It began with hints. A warm gust now and then. A few stars flickered hotly. Moonbeams danced around.

Out over the Pacific, it looked like you could see a thousand miles, so you felt pretty sure no Japs were flying that way. And except for the rare gusts, silence prettier than music hung in the air.

At 8:30, in the office shack, Tito got the phone call from Teodoro Peña. From the corner of Revolución and Calle Siete, he’d watched two uniformed men escort a girl in red, with a hood and her face covered, out of a Cadillac limo and into Hell.

Just past 8:45, Leo Weiss’ Packard eased around the corner, off Revolución to Calle Siete. It pulled to a stop just where the sidewalk turned to dirt in front of the dental and abortion clinic that was closed for the night. The only places open for a long block either way were Hell on the south side a hundred yards downhill from the Packard and the tattoo parlor on the north side a half-block up the hill. The parlor wasn’t busy yet. That would be later, after midnight when the sailors got blind and stupid.

Hickey jumped out from the shotgun side of the Packard and loped across the street, to the dark beneath an apartment balcony. From there he had a straight view to Hell. Upstairs, some lights burned. In the window toward the rear of the building, a reddish glow bled through the shades and down their edges.

On that block only five cars were parked. Two old Ford jalopies. A white, spit-shined Cadillac limo with its chauffeur inside. A green British touring car. And the red Chevy.

There were only a few pedestrians. A couple strolling toward the river. A few sailors wandering up from the Club de Paris. A beggar woman with a gang of kids tagging behind, snooping in trash cans and gutters. The cop on the porch across the street from Hell looked awake, but just barely. And there was the doorman.

Hickey waited until the doorman glanced away down the hill, then he hustled back across the street.

Clifford hung out the Packard’s rear window. “Is she there?”

“Sshh!” Hickey leaned on the car, got an inch from the kid’s sorry face. “Yeah, she’s there. Let me in.”

He looked up the hill for the giant to come around the corner and give him a wave, telling him the Jeep was parked and ready, on Revolución. But McColgin didn’t show yet. Hickey slid into the Packard. The kid moved over. He sat with both hands under his coat, one hand on the pistol, the other on the gas mask. Whenever he glanced at Hickey, a grimace tightened his face. When he turned away, it became a vicious snarl, and his hands squeezed the mask and pistol brutally. In the front seat, Tito sat puffing on a brown cigarette. The smoke seeped out between his clenched teeth. Enrique kept busy popping his knuckles and watching out the back window.

“You gonna take orders, now,” Hickey asked the kid, “or do just like you want in the battle?”

Clifford wagged his head sullenly.

“Hey. Hey.” Tito slapped the seat. “There he is.”

Blood gushed to Hickey’s brain. He waited for the ebb, then checked his guns, the pistol at his chest and the M-1 rifle on the seat beside him. He checked his mask and the tear gas canister. “Let’s move.
Andale
.”

He started out and waved up the hill. McColgin disappeared behind the corner and Hickey came around the back of the car to Tito. He motioned toward the driver and said, “Tell him one more time—he doesn’t move from here till after we go in. When the shooting starts, he gets down there fast.” Tito gave a nod, then leaned into the car and talked to the driver, while Hickey turned to Clifford. “Got it straight? Keep your head?”

“I think so, Pop.”

Hickey grabbed the kid’s shoulders and stared at his misty blue eyes. “Say, ‘yes sir. Damn right’!”

“Yes sir.”

“Yes sir what?”

“I can do it. Damn right. I can.”

By now the sailors had walked out of sight up the hill and the beggar with her kids had passed Hell and turned into an alley. Tito opened the trunk. Hickey and the kid stepped back there. Each of the three men took out an M-1 and stuck it under his coat with the butt hitched into a loop roped around his belt and the barrel pointed high. Hickey eyed the kid one last time and chucked him on the arm. Then Tito shut the trunk quietly. He looked at the others and smiled, but a gust of hot air blew uphill—his face jerked toward the wind and his teeth started chattering.

On the far sidewalk, Leo came edging down the hill close to the buildings. About when he got to the tattoo parlor, McColgin stepped around the corner, ran across the road, and followed Leo, fifty or so yards behind. Hickey gave a last encouraging look at the kid and ran over to Leo. They raised their eyebrows at each other and stood there a few seconds while Hickey keened his eyes down the hill and saw nobody except the cop who slouched on the porch gazing toward the moon, the Cadillac’s chauffeur, and the doorman who was fussing with something in his hands.

Hickey and Leo walked side by side down the hill, stiffly because of all the weapons, off the concrete where it ended, along the shoulder, and across the dirt side street. About fifty feet past the intersection, Hickey stopped. They reached into their coats. Looked around once more. Still no innocent folks came walking and the only car that moved was down past the Club de Paris near the river.

Hickey raised one arm high. A moment later, McColgin cut diagonally across the road toward Hell, stumbling to act like a drunk, as the Jeep wheeled around the corner from Revolución, full of Mexicans and with two high ladders sticking up—it bounded down the hill and came alongside Hell about the same time McColgin staggered up to the doorman. At the same moment, Leo and Hickey moved on the cop.

As the cop’s face turned, he looked robust and friendly, until he saw the gringos, one with a rifle aimed at his gut, the other with a silenced Colt .45. The cigarette fell from his mouth, and he made his last mistake—he reached for his gun. Hickey shot him twice. You heard only
pfft
sounds like wine bottles opening—then a deadpan moan as the cop rolled onto his side, one hand grabbing his chest where the bullets sucked in, the other hand flying from the butt of his pistol up toward the sky. Then Leo was on top of him, throwing a gag on the man’s mouth and rolling him over to tie it. But the man was gone. His back looked like a squashed dog in the road.

Hickey stood there, a little dizzy as he stared at the cop. Somebody zipped past him—Tito running to the Cadillac. Somebody else came sprinting by. Clifford Rose.

The Japanese chauffeur had seen the cop go down at about the same moment he glimpsed the giant dragging the guy from the doorway of Hell out toward the Jeep. Frightened, baffled, he froze for a second, then grabbed for the door lock and the window crank. The window got halfway up before Clifford’s rifle barrel knocked the chauffeur’s cap off and put a gash in his skull. He threw his arms in front of him, fists under his chin, while Tito jumped in on the passenger side and rammed the silencer of a .45 to his ear. Tito pulled the chauffeur out and to the ground. In a minute, the bound and gagged chauffeur and the knocked-out doorman lay piled in the rear of the Jeep. And by now the Peña twins had set up the ladders.

The street was quiet. The loudest sounds were drunken gringos hollering a few blocks away, drums from a boulevard nightclub, and a mariachi whooping in falsetto. The Jeep took off with the captives, down the hill toward the river where Rafael would make sure they got tied well enough and dropped out on the riverbank.

Hickey crossed the road on a diagonal toward the uphill side of the bakery. The whole gang except Rafael gathered around him. He rubbed his eyes, which still saw the bloody cop. Then he looked at the kid, winced, and snapped, “Where’s your rifle?”

Clifford stared, deranged for a second, panting through his nose. Finally he spun around and ran across the street to the Cadillac, grabbed his M-1 off the hood, and ran back to the others.

Hickey told them to stay put. He crept down past the bakery and stood at the corner of Hell, listening. An African rhythm came out of the place, a conga and a tom-tom, along with the noise of chattering, laughter, and harsh, shouted words. All from downstairs. He moved to beneath the side upstairs window toward the front, and stood beside the ladder. After a minute he started to make out a deep voice in Spanish, like the railing of a preacher. Next he vaguely heard several hands clapping.

He stepped to the sidewalk, waved, moved back into the passway. When the others got there, he snarled, “Let’s go get her,” and moved toward the street. Clifford jumped out and followed. His eyes had grown big and enchanted, wandering. Hickey pushed him back toward the ladder. “You climb up there, remember?” he snapped. “And don’t make a move till I fire. Then smash the window, jump in, run for Wendy and grab her and get out the door. Fast. Understand?”

The kid nodded dreamily. Yet Hickey couldn’t wait another second. He moved to the corner of the building and waved McColgin ahead as they’d planned. Hickey came next, then Tito. Leo held the rear. They paused for a second, single file at the door. Then McColgin burst in, bellowing, waving the machine gun, and Tito ran past him, jumped on the bar, and stuck his rifle on the bartender’s nose before that one could hit the alarm bell to upstairs.

The room was full of blond whores, sharply dressed, wiry Mexicans, Okie stevedores, Marines who’d sneaked over the border dressed like civilians, a few of Cárdenas’ army, Indian waiters, and three bouncers—yet nobody argued with the giant who waved a machine gun, whooping as he jumped up and down.

Hickey ran over and grabbed the giant’s arm. “Cut out the damned yodeling!”

Then he caught up to Leo, passed the old man, and stopped before the stairs. From a scabbard on his belt, Hickey pulled a bayonet. He snapped it onto his rifle. He stabbed through the curtain and jumped to the stairs with the bayonet out, ready to stick the guard he imagined would be on the landing. But there was no guard. Hickey charged up the stairs, and Leo trudged behind. When Leo reached the landing, Hickey kicked the door, yelling, “Freeze, cabrones!”

As he fired into the room, high so the bullets powdered the ceiling, Clifford and Isidoro burst through the windows. The kid’s M-1 jerked spastically and his face looked purplish through the incensed light.

A long, mahogany table stretched the length of the room. Around it in padded chairs of soft, tucked leather, sat a dozen men in military officer uniforms. Scarlet campaign hats with gold braided bands. Suits of dark, velvety blue with gold clusters on the shoulder, golden stripes around the sleeves, and large gold buttons everywhere. Not one man had dark skin. Half of them were blond. They aged from around thirty up to one ancient man. Santiago del Monte, Hickey suspected—the patriarch, the entrepreneur who’d given soda pop to Mexico. The way his hat perched showed his pointed head. He looked shrunken except in the long neck, the gray bush mustache and bulging hazel eyes. In a rage he lunged forward and jabbered commands as if nobody held guns on them. Nearest the patriarch sat Leon del Monte of the Club de Paris. He’d frozen with a golden chalice at his lips. About halfway down the right side of the table Franz Metzger hissed curses in German. At the far end, at the head of the table, wearing a big golden star on his hat, Zarp stood flanked by a tall, husky blonde with naked breasts. She held a gold tray of golden cups, until they dropped.

With a strange grin and a pitch like joy in his voice, Clifford cried out, “Where is she?” and wheeled his rifle at Zarp, who stood just a few feet away.

“No!” Hickey yelled.

In a flash from a holster at his side Zarp drew a big automatic and fired three rapid shots. The right side of Clifford Rose’s head flew off. It splattered on the wall beside the window he’d jumped through ten seconds before.

The next shots, from Hickey’s M-1, launched Zarp’s big carcass flying backward. His chair toppled, and flipped on its side. He rolled out onto the floor. Then quiet fell. All you could hear was Zarp’s growling and a thunk as Franz Metzger heaved forward onto the table. Isidoro Peña had cut the slick German down from behind. Yet Franz began to rise, pushing with his arms on the table. His head angled upward, eyes gleaming, he loosed a howl so miserable, loud and deep it might’ve cracked windows and terrified neighbors—except Isidoro Peña finished the psycho with two slugs in the neck.

“Whoa!” Hickey shouted. “Jesus!”

Leo gulped a deep, rasping breath and pounded the floor with his heel as he stared at the kid, who never uttered a sound. Clifford jerked a few times, and then gave in.

“Guns on the table,” Hickey yelled. Only some of them reached to their sides. Hickey slapped Leon del Monte in the head and shouted, “Tell ’em in Spanish.” Soon the table was covered with pistols, and Hickey prodded del Monte’s neck with his bayonet. “Where’s the damned girl?” he roared.

Nobody spoke except old Santiago who kept squawking volleys of curses. But a few eyes turned toward the northwest corner of the room as though to watch the servant girl, who had backed against the wall when the guns fired, and now squatted, huddled in a ball between an icebox and a closet.

As Hickey looked at her, she squirmed a little and leaned against the closet door. Stepping over, he eyed the girl closer, backstepped, and motioned for Isidoro to gather the weapons, then he nudged the servant away from the closet door. He grabbed the handle, turned and pulled it open a crack. He raised his M-1 and used his foot to throw the door open wide.

She was dressed as before in the red velvet robe. Her head was bound in a pouch of leather with draw strings tied around her neck, only a small hole to breathe through. She was on a chair. Gasping. Her hands folded tightly on her waist.

Hickey leaned his rifle against the wall by the closet door. He reached in and touched the girl’s hands. They gripped tighter together against his touch but loosened after a moment, and she whispered, “An angel.”

She rubbed his hand and then squeezed it, tight as she’d held her own, and when he raised her arm she stood. With his left hand he untied the pouch’s leather string and lifted it off her head.