Ken Kuhlken_Hickey Family Mystery 01 (19 page)

“Buy me ten minutes,” Hickey said. “And get the cars down here into the yard.”

“Right. I guess ten minutes you got. Maybe not a second more.”

Hickey dropped the radio mike. He poked his head around the corner. At the end of the hall, a guy lay sprawled on the floor, his blue shirt stained like a bloody vest.

Hickey told the Kickapoos to each search a room. He took the closest door, on the right, turned the knob, and with his bayonet out, he kicked it open. The room was tinted soft pink and green, dimly glowing from a lamp beside the canopy bed where two señoritas in torn nighties lay tied with wound-up sheets. They weren’t even squirming but their dark eyes followed Hickey like searchlights. Hickey gave them a quick bow. Then he looked in the bathroom and saw it had a door leading to the next room. He quietly turned that knob. Kicked through the door.

He almost got blasted by Sergeant Jack who was guarding two naked women and one old man, Santiago del Monte. The Presidente, who might be as rich as Solomon, stood bowlegged in a corner, pissing down his leg. Both arms over his head, one hand flexed claw-like, he yelled a string of curses. Then he fell back into the wedge of the corner, dropping his arms and using them to brace himself there.

Jack aimed his Browning at the old fool and growled, “One more time he calls my mother a puta, boom.”

“Who fixed that guy in the hall?”

Jack told him how the guard had stepped out of the last room on this wing, the one on the left with the locked door that you couldn’t kick through. Desmond had blasted him.

Hickey nodded, and stepped out there. He walked to the last door on the left, stood a minute beside the dead guard, as three Indians gathered around him. They all stared at the door. Hickey knew exactly what he’d find in there. He could feel its power.

He gave orders that everybody should get herded out back.

A parade of whores and ricos began. They appeared out of rooms all along that wing. Kickapoos and Yaquis shoved them down the mezzanine hall, along the balcony toward the spiral stairway. The men, especially the police chief, Buscamente, proud as ever in his silk cowboy shirt and high-heeled boots, cursed and threatened everybody. Most of the whores looked amused, like they were going to a party with their long bare legs and bright silk underwear, hips rolling and twitching. Two of them pranced along the hallway applying lipstick. The Indians herded them outside, across the yard to the pool deck where the Otomis bound them together and drove them to join the others in the pool.

As he stood at the door of the last room on the mezzanine, Hickey’s radio clicked. “Tom, that car’s the goddamn Federales. I didn’t hear any shots, but they knocked out our boys somehow. They’re making time up the hill.”

Hickey’s overloaded brain popped and sputtered.
With this loco wind and moonshine. What was behind that door. Now, Federales
. “Okay, get yourself outa here. This minute.”

“No. Listen to me, Tom. If you ain’t found the gold yet, once those cops get up here—they’ll pin you down till the Army shows. We all gotta run now. Bring a couple hostages. Big shots. Forget the damned gold. It ain’t there.”

“Yeah. It is,” Hickey said darkly. “I’m not leaving without it. But you are. You got Vi. Magda. And Wendy.” With a cramp in his chest and his legs shuddering, Hickey switched off his radio.

The big Kickapoo Thompson gunner, Renaldo, Hickey ordered to stay by this door. He led the other two down the hall, back to the landing and along to the south wing. In the first room on the right, he found Tito chatting with a pretty mestizo who lounged on the sofa rubbing against him.

When Hickey glared, the cabbie snapped, “It’s okay, boss. We got everything fine down here. I’m asking Malu here about this gold. You want me tell you where the gold maybe is?”

“I know,” Hickey said. “Now, you take some drivers and get the cars off the street, on this side of the wall. There’s Federales on the way.”

The cabbie sat for a minute squeezing the girl’s knee. Then, mumbling, he got up and hustled out. His boots clomping hard on the stairway echoed in the great hall. Hickey turned to the servant girl.

Chapter Twenty-six

“
El cuarto de oro
,” Hickey said.

Pretty Malu nodded and walked ahead of him. As they started down the landing, she turned and doed her eyes. “
Por favor
, General,
da me una cosita de oro
.”

“A little gold. Okay. You got a key?
Llave?
”

“No, Señor.
La unica llave es del diablo Alemagne
.”

“That’d be Zarp.”

“Oh, si.”

They turned down the north wing. Two Kickapoos stood by the door at the end of the hall. They’d pushed the dead guard up against the far wall, out of the way.

Since Hickey outweighed the biggest Kickapoo by at least fifty pounds, he told them to stand back and cover him. He kicked the mahogany door, a full blast with his right sole that nearly busted the arch of his foot. The door didn’t give. He told the Kickapoos to have at it. They hit the door with feet, elbows, shoulders. When they gave up, Hickey pulled his .45 and fired at the lock. Then he kicked again. Still wouldn’t budge. Finally he shooed the others down the hall, unclipped a grenade from his belt, pulled the pin, set the grenade on the floor in the doorway, then let go and ran for the landing. In three seconds he made the corner.

The boom sounded far off, echoing down the hallway like out of a cavern. A moment of quiet. Then with a great thud the door fell, and three rifle shots from the room smacked into the wall across the way.

Dark, acrid smoke gushed up the hall on wind from the blown-out window. Hickey unclipped another grenade. He walked along the north wall, stepping softly, but to him it sounded loud as falling trees. Halfway, he stopped and listened. Heard nothing. Five feet from the door, he pulled the pin and lunged forward. He stumbled, almost fell over a hunk of crashed-in wall, and slung the grenade through the doorway.

As that blast hit, he slipped and skidded around the corner. The Kickapoos and Malu watched him with admiration, and he sat there a minute catching his breath, wishing his heart would ease down. The Kickapoo named Desmond reached to help him up, and stood beside Renaldo waiting for orders. Three more Kickapoos ran down the landing from the south wing. Hickey asked for volunteers to go in first, and got nobody. He thought of going himself—but you don’t want to get the general killed—except all this mess was
his
big idea. He started around the corner. But Desmond touched his shoulder. “Me, sir.”

Desmond took the lead, Hickey followed, then came Renaldo and the others. By now the wind had blown the smoke away, gusting hard, hot, down the hallway—you had to lean against it when you walked. But the room was still full of smoke like a reddish-golden fog. Walking on debris, Desmond used a sleeve to wipe his glasses, then he pushed through the fog, his head stuck forward, with Hickey just a rifle-length behind and to the left. When the shots boomed—two in a breath, and Desmond fell sideways as if he’d been cut in half, and Hickey got miraculously spared. He dropped behind Desmond, sighted at the blue thing moving through the smoke—he fired a whole clip, ejected, slapped in another and fired it clean. He might’ve squeezed off twenty rounds before he was sure all the noise came from his own rifle.

Renaldo and another Kickapoo stepped in, looked down. Hickey looked too. At Desmond’s guts and chunks of flesh strewn across the floor.

In a fury, Hickey leaped up, jumped over the body and a pile of debris, and kicked the blue soldier who lay twisted on the plush white carpet, ribbons of blood spurting from his neck. The Indian face looked about twelve years old. Still Hickey booted, kicking hate and fear out of himself. Then he wheeled and gazed around the room, eyes pulsing with his heartbeat.

Suddenly the smoke cleared and the room flashed at him like sunrise knocking you out of a hazy dream.

First he saw a wall about twenty feet long, of shelves covered with golden vases, candlesticks, statuettes, bowls. Beneath the shelves sat three trunks twice as big as footlockers. Cherry wood with golden hasps and braces. Along the east side, about thirty feet from the blown-out door to the corner, the wall was cluttered with paintings in golden frames and two big calendars, an Aztec and a Mayan, made of gold, and the cameo likeness of a schooner, all gold.

Then he gazed toward the corner, and saw the gold-framed bed and a gun pointed at his eyes.

Behind the long .38 pistol, lay Señor Zarp—his giant head, with the gray beard and tiny eyes, propped on a stack of pillows, his free arm clutching a golden thing. The voice was deep as ever, but tremulous. “Why don’t I kill you right now?”

Hickey swallowed his breath. He tried to sound tough but only could gasp, “You want me to bring the girl back.”

“Oh yes, and…”

Suddenly, a great yell filled the room, as Renaldo sprang up from the body of his cousin, spun and ran with his arms out toward the foot of the bed, and then dove head first and sailed through the air. Zarp didn’t quite get the gun around before he fired two shots—as the Indian and then Hickey landed, Renaldo crashed Zarp’s midsection with a rifle butt. Hickey tore the pistol away and crunched the big white face. Busted a cheekbone, and molars. Blood and teeth oozed out of Zarp’s mouth.

Hickey backed away from the bed, grabbed the Kickapoo’s arm, and both of them dropped onto the floor and sat breathing hard, shaking, with their eyes on all that damned gold. Soon the other Kickapoos came and stood by them, gawking.

After a minute, at the sound of a crackling radio, Hickey got up, walked out on rubbery legs, and found the servant girl in the hall holding his radio. Then Tito and two Indians came on the run. His face tightened like someone’s swimming underwater, the cabbie shouted, “Man, we got one of those cars in, but no more. The goddamn pinche Federales got us stuck in here, hombre. What we doing now?”

Hickey motioned Tito and the others into the room. As they stepped that way he picked up his radio. “Leo? Where are you?”

Through the static, Leo’s voice rasped, “Right out front. Me and these two Indians and six Federales so far. Tom, Cárdenas’ boys’ll be along any minute. Yaquis say the army’s climbing the hill.”

Hickey couldn’t stand anymore. He sat on a pile of rubble, struck by a paralyzing melancholy in which nothing mattered because everything was doomed. All along he should’ve known the deal would end like this. Dreams always ended this way. At the climax. Then you wait to die. The only thing to do was go downstairs, find the liquor cabinet, and die like a man, stone drunk. If these buzzards caught him alive, they’d torture him trying to get the girl back. For Zarp. Unless he stepped in there now and wasted the freak.

He stood up. Looked at the doorway. At the radio, and wondered if gold could buy their way out of here. “Leo, anybody out there wanta listen to our side?”

“I’m giving it to ’em, Tom.”

“Good, and tell ’em they oughta see all this gold.”

He switched off the radio, dropped it on a pile of rubble, and stepped back into the room where five Kickapoos, Tito and Malu, all leered and plucked things off the shelves to look closer. The girl wore a necklace of diamonds and gold. Someone had dragged Desmond to the barest corner. Zarp lay panting through a mouth of blood and chopped, swollen tongue, as Hickey stepped over to where Tito gripped a statuette in one hand while his other hand rode the servant girl’s rump.

“Get back outside. Make sure we got Indians posted all around, up on the wall.…C’mon, move! The Army’s racing up the hill.”

“Where he get all this much gold?” Tito muttered.

“Now!”

“First you tell me what we going to do.”

Hickey grabbed the flowered shirt and twisted it into a noose. “Load the gold in the limousines. That’s what.”

Tito fiercely threw down the statue and marched out of the room. The girl stood petting the necklace, wagging her chin at Hickey, who turned to the Kickapoos and barked, “Start packing this junk down to the garage.” Slowly, entranced, they went to the shelves, loaded their arms with vases and things. Hickey sat on the bed. He stared for a while at the mashed, bloody face, the hot eyes deep in puffy sockets, and a sharp corner of the gold thing Zarp still clutched to his chest.

“So you’re the devil,” Hickey mused. “Anyway the girl thinks so.…Guess why I don’t kill you, yet?”

The faint voice gargled blood. “You are afraid.”

“Naw. But I’m a heck of a nice guy.”

The radio sounded. Hickey jumped for it. “Tom, the commandante wants to see this gold.”

“Send him up.”

After a minute, Leo said, “He figures you oughta bring it down.”

“Sure enough,” Hickey snarled, then considered how much gold they could dish out and still have a gang of fortunes. Even so, for a second he broiled at the idea of letting any of it go. A weird possessiveness caught him, like this gold was his right and destiny. All his life he’d passed up chances, acting like a dupe, Madeline figured, too proud to bend far enough, always trying to stride like some hero through a world that treated heroes and clowns the same. Leo called his name a few times before he said, “Okay, then. Some guys’ll be coming out pretty soon. The first shot fired, or any bad news, we open up too. Tell ’em that. Tell ’em how we got air support coming.” He shut off the radio, mumbled, “Tell ’em any damned lie you can,” and sat on rubble waiting for the Kickapoos to return from the garage. Trying to boost his spirits, he picked out items of gold, and estimated their worth. Renaldo came back first.

“You and somebody take a bunch of those candle things down front, heave them over the wall. Be careful you don’t go near the front gate or the Federales’ll chop you in half.”

As the Indians filled their arms and left, Hickey stepped to the French doors and out to the balcony. Below, a dozen rifles wheeled and levelled at him. He dove back inside and heard shouts like Crispín yelling, “Es el Heecky!”

He got up from the floor, stepped out there, and looked over the backyard. The Indians on sentry paced, spooked like horses in the paddock, their guns up and gripped tight as they looked every way at once and tried to listen through the wind. Any second now, Hickey thought, one of those Germans or Spaniards could yell the wrong cuss word at the wrong Indian and cue the massacre.

He walked back and sat on the bed. Sank into the downy mattress and let a hand glide across the silk sheets. He listened for gunfire. For wheels rolling up the hill. Finally he looked at the bloody sorcerer, and after a minute the man stirred. Then he rose up just a little. Even with his face bashed in, the tiny, greenish eyes looked catlike and ferocious. A gust of wind slammed the French doors. Hickey whipped around, then turned back. “Where’d all this gold come from? Besides what del Monte stole from Agua Caliente? He find the seven cities? Or did you alchemize the junk?”

Battered as it was, Zarp’s face got animated, his slack skin tightened, eyes rounded, like he saw a chance to turn Hickey’s mind. “You are interested?”

“Naw,” Hickey said. “Just passing time.”

The man started coughing, choking. Each cough, blood like raindrops shot out. His voice strained weaker. “In this room are coins four hundred years old, and jewels that belonged to the Empress Carlotta.”

“Oh, yeah? Del Monte steal most of it?” The man coughed another mist of blood, and Hickey said wearily, “How’d you get your claws into him?”

A shot, then a volley of screams issued from the backyard. Hickey jumped to the French doors and looked out. Over by the pool, Indians dragged a body along. The screams kept on, louder, wilder, and another shot cracked. Then the wind gusted viciously. Hickey turned back to the room, collided with a Kickapoo—a fortune clattered to the ground. He started to yell at the Indian but he clipped his words off and, muttering, stepped to the bed. Zarp reached out and tapped his arm with a bloody finger that left a wet stain. “Señor? Who do you believe will find more pain, less pleasure, for eternity in hell? You or me?”

“Guy like you believes in hell,” Hickey mused.

“I have visions.”

“Yeah, I bet.” Hickey sneered. “Tell me more about the gold. That’s what I’m here about, and we only got a minute.”

Zarp collapsed into the bed and pillow as if the will had sapped out of him. Finally he said, in a voice mostly breath, “I can get you home alive, with half of the gold for your own.”

“Not your gold, is it?”

“The spoils of war.”

“War, huh?”

“A man is always at war,” he gasped. “If not against another man, then against his nature.” His mouth quivered, trying to speak, but his lungs couldn’t raise the power.

“Half the gold?” Hickey muttered, and waited.

“All you must do is bring me the girl.”

As that sank in, Hickey snarled weirdly, raised his arm high and smashed the bloody mouth with his elbow. Then he wiped his arm on the bedspread. Zarp lay still, sipping little breaths. The gold thing he’d been holding had fallen beside him. Hickey picked it up, the ornate gold frame around a painting, a miniature, an exquisite face, white and young with carved and polished features. Ringlets of real golden hair. Eyes of real gold. The same image as Zarp had worn in Hell, on his medallion. It could’ve been male or female. It transfixed Hickey, made him dizzy with staring. Lucifer, it was. The brightest angel.

If there was any truth to the tales of Christians and Jews, this one damned spirit inspired all the death and misery.

He tried to snap the thing with his hands. Then he slung it down onto the floor and reached for his M-1, fired on automatic, one clip then another until all that remained was the gold frame and gold chips that used to be eyes and hair. A dread silence had fallen. Even Zarp’s breathing had stilled. Hickey sat on the bed waiting for judgement. Then he wondered if he’d shot anybody below, through the floor.

The Kickapoos ran in from the garage, and out toting their armloads of gold. Hickey told one of them to stay in the room on guard. Then he grabbed up his rifle, his radio, and walked out, down the hall to the landing and turned toward the front of the house, to see if he could get a look at the street. Electric bolts zinged up his spine and down his arms to his fingertips, as if he could start a fire just by touching. He turned down the south hallway and entered the first bedroom on the right, stepped to the French doors. With the moon low, behind the house, it was dark enough so he opened the door a little way, crept out, and hid beneath a potted rubber tree.