The Frighteners (15 page)

He spoke over his shoulder and reached a hand through the tent flaps; I’d guessed wrong. It wasn’t a knife. When he stepped forward he was holding a big machete, a rather beat-up looking and tarnished old blade that looked as if it had been used for cracking cement blocks. He put his foot against my shoulder and kicked me away from Gloria and stood over her for a moment, making a thing of testing the edge with his thumb.

“Not very sharp, unfortunately. I regret this very much, beautiful señora, but you must blame your stubborn husband, not me.” He reached down and whipped the oversized hat off her head and tossed it aside. He dug his fingers into her matted blond hair, pulling her head back against her knees, and he laid the edge of the heavy weapon against her cheek. “As I said, not very sharp, it will make a ragged wound and an ugly scar, impossible to repair. Do not procrastinate further, Señor Cody. You have told a part of the truth, now give me the rest. Tell me how to find those arms!”

There was nothing to do. I simply didn’t know enough to continue lying plausibly. I didn’t know the location of the place on the coast, Bahia San Cristobal, where he’d said the guns had been landed, and I didn’t know the inland delivery point where the trucks had been found to be empty and Cody’s agent, Medina, had been tortured and killed. There was no way I could stall by inventing a plausible fictional hiding place somewhere between those two geographical points. Hell, I didn’t even know what Mexican state or states we were talking about.

Gloria’s face was pale under the dirt. A little thread of blood wormed its way down her cheek. She didn’t protest or plead, perhaps because she was afraid that just the movement of talking would cause more damage, or perhaps because she realized that it was useless. She just stared at me without hope, knowing that, not being Cody, I had no idea where the damned arms were hidden, so I couldn’t save her. . . .

“That will do, Captain!” The voice spoke sharply from behind me. “We do not make war upon women.”

A man in civilian clothes marched past me. He helped Gloria to her feet. Aleman stepped back, lowering the ugly blade.

“Sir. . . !”

“You may go, Captain Aleman.”

“Si, señor!” Offended, Aleman tossed aside the machete and marched out.

“He is a good man, but he gets carried away.” The newcomer was examining Gloria’s face. “Only a scratch, señora. As he said, the weapon had a very rough edge. There will be no mark; to make certain, we will clean it and bandage it in a moment. I am the one they call
El Cacique
. Chieftain, in your language. You are Mrs. Cody?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“And this is Mr. Cody?”

El Cacique
turned to look at me; and I knew him. I’d encountered him before in the line of duty here in Mexico. From his surprised expression, quickly controlled, I saw that he recognized me, too, in spite of the years that had passed and the

disguise I was wearing; and that he knew perfectly well that I wasn’t anybody named Cody.

You might say that was one impersonation that had never really got off the ground.

“It is a pleasure to meet you again, Mr. Cody. Cigarette? No, I remember, this Mr. Cody does not smoke. . . . This Mr. Horace Hosmer Cody who is known as Buffalo Bill for some mysterious Yankee reason that will have to be explained to me.”

We were sitting in the front seat of one of the three-quarter-ton Suburbans—the white one, if it matters—with the motor running and the two air conditioners gradually dispelling the heat that had built up inside the closed vehicle. Maybe that was why this one had been chosen for our conference, because a white car doesn’t get as hot in the sun as a darker one. I knew that the gloomy window glass prevented the men eating in the meadow outside from seeing in, but it was hard to believe since I could see out perfectly well. We’d left the tent to Gloria and her personal cleanup campaign.

I said, “The original Buffalo Bill was a frontier scout, and later a star in a Wild West show. He had the same surname. I imagine young Horace Cody was a tough kid and didn’t much like the sissy name he’d been given. Horace, for God’s sake! He was willing to go along with what the other kids called him in a joking way, so the nickname stuck. I guess you could call it an example of Texas humor.”

“I see. Very dimly. Do you mind if I smoke?”

I said, “In our racket, when we die, it’s seldom from secondhand carcinogens.”

“Or even first-hand ones. I find the habit very satisfying. As you say in your country, who wants to live forever?”

I said sourly, “The old bad-guy/good-guy routine. The bad guy holds the rusty machete to the lovely heroine’s face and the good guy comes charging in crying that he doesn’t make war on women. Corny! You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Ramón. ”

He laughed. ‘‘I did not know with whom I was dealing, friend Matthew, or I would have found a better approach. Would you care for a drink?”

“I can’t remember the last time I refused.”

He passed me a small silver flask with the cap off. Out here in the Mexican boonies, I’d expected some kind of ethnic tipple like tequila, or maybe even corrosive mescal or pulque, but it was very good, smooth Scotch. Well, I suppose that could be called an ethnic tipple, too; I guess they all are, and only ethyl alcohol itself can be considered truly international. I took a judicious slug and passed back the flask with appropriate thanks, sat there while he drank, and had another one, feeling the liquor easing the strains and bruises of the long morning.

In Mexico, you never come directly to the point, and we had all the time in the world, so there was no need for any rude
gringo
haste.

I said, “This is quite a collection of rolling stock you have here.”

Ramón laughed. “We did not wish to attract attention by employing obvious military vehicles. As a matter of fact, I asked for trucks and vans of various makes and styles, but apparently a politico had a friend who sold Chevrolets and had a surplus of these left from the previous year that he wished to dispose of profitably. You know how it is.” He shrugged. “At least they are of different colors and have the dark windows so that we do not flaunt the fact that we are transporting men in uniform along the public highways. It is not total camouflage, of course. The people in whom we are interested know who we are; but it diminishes public curiosity.”

“And just who are the people in whom you are interested, Ramón?”

He laughed and didn’t answer. I had not, of course, called him by name the moment I recognized him, or reminded him of old times, or embraced him fondly—well, that would have been quite a trick with my hands tied. But we don’t recognize people unless they make it clear that they want to be recognized; and after that first flicker of surprise he’d treated me as a stranger. I was merely the husband. He was more interested in the lovely, distressed wife. Well, that figured. He’d always been a ladies’ man.

After applying a neat Band-Aid to her cheek—it really wasn’t much of a cut—and seeing that she had plenty to drink and that her other needs were taken care of, he’d produced a small automatic pistol and ordered me to precede him out of the tent, leaving Gloria alone with a washbasin, a washcloth and towel, a five-gallon jerrycan of water, the feminine clothes that had been provided in the Subaru, and his assurance of complete privacy.

As an afterthought, he’d made me wait at the entrance briefly while he took care of something he’d forgotten: he went back to his suitcase and produced a bar of scented soap, fragrant enough to make the whole tent smell like a florist’s shop when he opened the plastic case for her. They have some effeminate tastes down there, and I have no desire to smell like a flower, even in the bathtub, but you’d better not underestimate them on that account—I noticed that, while he’d been just as solicitous as he could be, he hadn’t left her the machete. He’d gathered it up casually and passed it to the sentry outside the tent door. Then he’d marched me at pistol point, hands still tied, to the big white station wagon, indicating clearly to anyone interested that I was a dangerous prisoner with whom no chances were being taken. Once inside the vehicle, however, he’d brought out a small pocketknife and cut me free.

His name was Ramón Solana-Ruiz. He was a short, stocky man with a brown face and a full head of glossy black hair. He could have had some Indian blood but I’d never asked; you never know, with this racial nonsense, if they’re going to be flattered or insulted. He was wearing a dark but summerweight business suit with a faint stripe and an immaculate white shirt. There was a silk tie with a discreet pattern in green. I remembered that he’d never gone in for casual clothes much. The city outfit didn’t look as out of place here as it should have, but I couldn’t help wondering how he kept his black shoes so shiny in this dusty area.

Years ago we’d been in more or less the same line of business for our respective countries; and in the line of business he’d saved my life once, on a deserted islet in the Gulf of California. In the line of business I’d done him some favors that might be considered to even the score—except that I don’t ever forget folks who save my life, any more than I forget those who try to take it. The last time we’d met, Ramón had indicated that he was through with our kind of work; he’d had a very rough time on a previous mission, and his nerves weren’t up to it any longer. That had been quite a while ago, and I hadn’t expected ever to see him again; we don’t keep track of old business acquaintances with Christmas cards and social visits. Now I’d found him down here playing chieftain to a warlike tribe of little men who could move through these mountains like ghosts.
El Cacique
, for God’s sake!

He must have sensed what I was thinking, because he said, “Hey, how you like my Yaquis,
amigo
."

I grimaced. “Hell, I’m supposed to know my way around the boonies, but the little bastards made a monkey of me. I never knew they were there until they had me.” I glanced at him. “I thought you people exterminated your Yaquis around the turn of the century.”

He laughed. “Yes, like you people exterminated your Apaches. Perhaps they are not all full-blooded Yaquis. What is that strange term you use north of the border, Native Americans? I found it hard to believe when I first heard it. Such an insult. Is calling a man a native not like calling him an ignorant primitive, a brutish aborigine? The Native Americans are restless tonight, hey? But very well, we will follow Yankee custom in this as in many other things and call my men Native Mexicans.” He laughed again. “You will be happy to know that my Native Mexicans report that you move quite well in the brush—for a clumsy
gringo
.”

I grinned. “Thank them for me. I’ll treasure any compliment from those slippery little gents, even a qualified one. But where did you get that Aleman clown?”

Ramón shrugged in the elaborate Latin manner. “He is my second-in-command and my liaison with the Army. My own military experience is far in the past. He makes a useful executive officer, he knows the current regulations, he is good at administration and discipline, and the Army does not like independent commando units, even small ones that are fully authorized. There have been too many independent armies in Mexico’s history. So we have one of their officers as, what do you call it, a chaperone? To see that we do not misbehave.”

“Politically, you mean?” When he nodded I studied him for a moment. “Not to be snoopy or anything, but I’d still like to know why you’re prowling these mountains with a bunch of trained Indian scouts. What is this commando unit of yours fully authorized to do?”

He smiled thinly. “Perhaps I will answer you—after you have told me what you do in Mexico using the name of a man who is currently very much
persona non grata
here.”

And that brought me up against a question I’d been anticipating, for which I had no official answer: How much could I tell him? I mean, he was a good man and an old friend of sorts; but he had his country and I had mine.

I said, “Before I start lying to you, I’d like to ask a few questions, if you don’t mind.”

“Ask.”

I gave myself a moment to line things up in the right order inside my head. “First, what do you know about a man who calls himself Señor Sabádo?”

He studied me thoughtfully. “You are, of course, aware that it is what we call one of the days of the week. Saturday.”

“It’s about all I know,” I said.

“What is your interest in this Mr. Saturday?”

“It’s merely a name I was told to watch for—I suppose I should say, listen for. But I was informed that if something should happen to said Sabádo your government wouldn’t order black armbands to be worn and flags to be flown at half mast. ” “That is correct.” Ramón smiled thinly. “Let me put it this way: We have not been able to determine the identity of Señor Sabádo, but the name has come to our attention in a context that leads us to believe that an accident to the gentleman—even a very serious accident—would not, to use your figure of speech, justify a day of national mourning, quite the contrary.”

Well, I’ve heard less elaborate ways of passing a death sentence, but it confirmed what Mac had told me in El Paso: the Mexican government would put no obstructions in the way of my shadowy mission and might even cooperate to a degree.

I said, “Now tell me how Lieutenant Barraga came to address me by name—well, by the name I’m using here.”

“We are, of course, very interested in those missing arms, and in everyone connected with them. When we heard—we have our sources above the border; maids and waiters hear a great many things—when we heard that ‘Mr. Cody’ intended to spend his honeymoon in Mexico, we made arrangements to protect him from the fate met by his partner, Pierce.”

“Some protection!” I said.

Ramón laughed shortly. “My men, watching, reported that the elderly millionaire gentleman was not, it seemed, quite as helpless as his bald head and gray beard would suggest. I suppose the skill with which you made your escape, as well as the vehicle that was so conveniently supplied you, should have led me to suspect your identity—”