The Frighteners (22 page)

“Don’t you remember?”

I said, “I remember making a very tricky left-handed shot from a veiy awkward position, with my whole right side nonfunctional—temporarily, I’m happy to say; it seems to be clearing up now. I’m fairly sure I hit him, but I departed the conscious scene at that point so I don’t know how hard I hit him.”

“And that’s all it means to you? You just want to know if your marksmanship was adequate!” She made a small sound, a gasp or a sob. “Goddamn you, he’s my kid brother! I raised him from a pup!”

I spoke deliberately: “I wouldn’t boast about it if I were you, the way you goofed his education. You should have taught him important things like not taking shots at government agents or, if he had to, shooting straight enough to put them down for good.” I raised my right hand, the tingling one, pleased to discover that I could do it quite easily. I touched the bandage on my head, which seemed to be a towel of some kind. “This sort of peripheral marksmanship is guaranteed suicide.”

She started to respond angrily but checked herself and gave a little bark of laughter instead. Well, I’d had a hunch she’d respond better to brutal honesty than to fake remorse and sympathy.

She said, “At least you’re a consistent monster. And now we know whom you’re working for.”

“Hell, I told your brother that when we were discussing the outfit that had held him for a while in El Paso. Same government, different agency, I said.”

“So it’s really a sort of intramural shooting match with the U.S. taxpayer footing the ammunition bill for both teams.’’ She grimaced. “As usual, the government’s right hand doesn’t seem to know what the left is doing.”

I said, “Actually, it’s a four-way battle royal, with the Mexican government and the would-be revolutionaries also in the ring, to change your metaphor slightly.”

“He was very badly hurt,” she said. “Junior. If you must know. A very ugly stomach wound. It was obvious that he’d die without proper medical attention.
Fast
, proper medical attention. That’s why you’re here.”

I licked my lips. “The logic escapes me.”

She said, “I made a deal with your friend, the one who calls himself Greer. I don’t suppose it’s his real name, any more than yours is Cody. He didn’t give a damn about Junior, all he cared about was getting you away to a doctor he knew locally who’d keep his mouth shut. He wanted you out of there before the police arrived—fortunately, like all cops everywhere, they were taking their sweet time about it. Greer wanted to be sure that, if you survived your wound, you could carry on with your mission, and if you didn’t, you could be buried discreetly elsewhere, and he wouldn’t have to explain your presence in that suite. I think he was actually carrying out instructions he’d received over the phone. He’d made a quick telephone call, I assumed to the number you’d given him.”

“So you made a deal,” I said. I was finding it hard to concentrate.

“Yes, I examined you and told him that, although I couldn’t be sure without X-rays, I didn’t think you’d really need a doctor unless you had a considerably worse concussion than I thought; all you required was some rest and a bit of TLC and somebody standing by to get you to a hospital fast if you started developing certain symptoms, which I didn’t really expect. I said I’d get you out of there and take care of you if he’d make sure my brother got to an operating table immediately with a good man in attendance. I’m not a surgeon myself, I told him, but I’m certainly doctor enough to take care of a thick-skulled moron with a little crease in his scalp.”

I tried a cautious grin, but it hurt too much for me to maintain it. “People always say you can’t hurt us Scandihoovians by shooting us in the head. And if I’d said that about some other races I can think of, you’d accuse me of being a dirty racist. So you’re an M.D.?”

She shrugged. “Kind of, sort of. I do have a degree in medicine, but actually I’m a child psychiatrist.”

“I’d never have guessed,” I said. “I thought child specialists were supposed to be nice, gentle, sympathetic folks.” She smiled faintly at my insult; maybe it was a favorable symptom. I asked, “How did my young pal Greer manage to get control of things? Last I remember, the home team was in bad trouble and the visitors were marching down the field for the TD.” “The little Indian girl,” she said. “Or whatever she is. Sisneros. While you and Junior were bleeding all over the rug, and the big boy and I were trying to determine the extent of the damage, she got hold of that gun you’d been after, the one belonging to the so-called maid who’d brought the towels.”

“Why would Antonia need it? I remember seeing her own in her hand.”

“Hers was empty. Apparently Junior had recognized the big fellow when he came in through the French doors as one of the agents he’d met in El Paso. His name is Rutherford, incidentally, Marion Rutherford. Can you imagine a two-ton character like that going around calling himself Marion? Actually, he doesn’t; he’s known as Tunk Rutherford, probably derived from tank, like in Sherman tank. Or maybe that was the noise he made hitting the opposing football team in his college days. Anyway, Junior decided to change sides I guess, assuming he’d ever been on yours. He grabbed Sisneros from behind so Rutherford could disarm her. Then they emptied her gun but let her keep it because you’d have become suspicious if she’d been without it. With Junior covering her from behind, she pretty well had to cooperate while they pretended to march Rutherford in to you as a prisoner. . . . Well, you know how it went from there.”

“So afterwards, being mad at the way she’d been treated, the little girl got a loaded gun and, I suppose, got the drop on the big guy and opened the front door to let Greer join the party;

and everybody lived happily ever after.’’ I glanced at her. ‘ ‘And what were you doing while all this was going on? Whose side are you on, Mrs. Beckman?”

She said grimly, “I’m looking for one I can bear to associate with. I haven’t found it yet. Now you’d better rest and let me concentrate on my driving.”

I said, “They say you should never drive Mexican roads at night. The cattle think they have the right of way.”

“Go to sleep. If I hit a cow, you’ll know it.”

I closed my eyes and listened to the murmur of the engine and the rumble of the tires on the lousy Mexican pavement and the occasional rush of a passing car and the throbbing of my head. Greer seemed to be handling things okay, and apparently he’d got in touch with Ramón, who’d help him clean up the mess. . . .

When I awoke again, I was in a real, stationary bed, not a reclining, jiggling car seat, and there was sunlight at the windows. Vision: normal. Tingling: none. Headache: agonizing, but not much worse than a serious hangover. Sitting up, I found that my right arm didn’t like to push very hard; it was functional but rather tired. I swung my legs out of bed and stood up cautiously; the project turned out to be quite feasible, but my right leg felt equally weary. However, I found that I could manage a few steps without falling on my face.

It was a bare room furnished with a double bed consisting of a mattress, a spring, and a wooden frame that looked homemade. There was a bureau and a small wooden table by the window, flanked by a couple of slat-seat wooden armchairs that looked like porch furniture and aroused in me no desire to curl up in one and continue my perusal of
War and Peace
, which I’d started in college and never finished. There were no pictures on the white-plastered walls. A couple of small, well-worn rag rugs, one on each side of the bed, protected the feet of the occupants from the shock of morning contact with the colorful but cold Mexican-tile floor.

The top drawer of the bureau was empty; the next one down held some female-type bathing suits and underwear, not very sexy; even the pantyhose seemed to have been selected chiefly for durability. Size Q for Queen; a sizeable lady apparently. Equivalent male garments filled the bottom drawer. Shorts size 34. T-shirts size 38. No pygmy, but the queen-size wife would have him outnumbered. A similar division of space was apparent in the closet, where room had also been left on the rod for the use of a visitor. My own canvas bag, unopened, was on the floor.

I started to pick it up, but bending over that far turned out to be not such a good idea, so I left it there. A visit to the bathroom was essential, however. It was apparently a communal facility; entering, I was confronted by another door that presumably led into another bedroom. I didn’t feel strong enough to investigate; but I did have a look around the small, tiled cubicle that housed the plumbing. The shelf above the washbasin held a toothbrush and a small tube of American toothpaste—Crest, if it matters. The toothbrush, wet, had obviously seen recent employment. There was also a comb with a few light brown hairs in it, not very long. The medicine cabinet held some male shaving gear and some female cosmetics on the upper shelves, the lower one again having been vacated for the use of visitors.

The mirror on the cabinet door showed me a long, thin gent with a bloodstained brown towel wrapped around his cranium and dried blood on his face. Those scalp wounds do tend to pour it out in large quantities. I was in my underwear—apparently my high-powered medical attendant had balked at inserting me into pajamas—and it was pretty gory, too. Not an attractive figure, but alive. I hadn’t earned it, but I wasn’t about to turn it down.

I performed the obligatory function and made my way back into the bedroom. The bed looked very good to me, but I still had no idea where the house was located, so I moved to the nearest window and adjusted the slats of the Venetian blind so I could see between them. It was a rather bleak, sand-and-cactus landscape out there, with some scattered, small residences that didn’t employ the mud-brick architecture used in most Mexican villages in this part of the country and weren’t as old. There were some arid-looking hills on the horizon. I was at the rear of the house, which seemed to be at the edge of this desert community with few habitations beyond it. I moved to the other window, at the side, and peeked out; in this direction was a solid row of little houses, and between them I caught glimpses of blue water glinting in the sunshine. It looked like a not too high-class California beach development, but even if we’d driven all night it seemed unlikely that we’d made it up into the U.S. and clear over to the Pacific Ocean.

‘‘Get right back into that bed!’’

She was standing in the doorway holding a glass of water and a small bottle of Tylenol. Her expression puzzled me: equal parts of indignation and apprehension, although what she had to be apprehensive about, I couldn’t understand. She was wearing a blue tank top upon which she made no unreasonable demands and white shorts in the flaring, floppy style that makes any but the skinniest woman look fat. She was built narrowly enough to get by with them, but it seemed to me she was rushing the season a bit; the morning seemed chilly for shorts and bare shoulders. On the other hand, her temperature was her own business; and the shoulders weren’t as bony as I’d expected, and the long, lean legs weren’t totally unattractive either.

“Please get into bed and stay there, Mr. Helm,” she said.

“Let’s stick with Cody,” I said, as I obeyed her orders. “I haven’t got much out of this impersonation so far, just a cracked skull, but there’s always tomorrow.”

“Don’t count on tomorrow if you’re going to start running around before we know how badly you’re hurt. . . . Here, take these.”

“Okay, but it’s like spitting at a forest fire. A couple of lousy little pills aren’t going to touch it.”

‘‘It’s really bad, is it? Do you have any other symptoms beside the headache?”

It didn’t make sense. I mean, I was the man who’d shot her brother, perhaps killed him, and here she was full of tender concern about my health.

She went on, “I know you probably feel messy and uncomfortable, but please don’t dream of taking a bath. As soon as I’ve changed your bandage I’ll bring some warm water and. . .”

I said, “Beckman.”

She said, “A sponge bath and a pair of clean pajamas—I saw some in your bag—will make you feel much better. Then I’ll fix you something to eat. . . ."

I had it at last. I said, “Beckman, you have a very guilty conscience. Why?” Standing over me, she looked away and didn’t answer. I said, studying her handsome, averted face, “That was a lot of crap you handed Greer and me last night, wasn’t it? I've had a little time to think, and I’ve been hit on the head before, and my impression is that there isn’t a doctor in the world who can take a quick look at a bloody groove in a man’s scalp and know anything except that the bullet bounced instead of penetrating. I could have had a cracked skull and a brain full of blood and bone splinters, and the best surgeon in the world couldn’t have told the difference without an X-ray. Certainly a lousy pediatric wigpicker couldn’t. You lied to Greer to get his cooperation. You weren’t the least bit sure I was going to be okay, but you were willing to take a chance on my going into convulsions, or a coma, or dying on you, just so your back-shooting brother got the attention he needed. Beckman, I’m ashamed of you. Hippocrates is ashamed of you. You should be ashamed of yourself. Now get this crummy turban off me, and let’s see what the damage really is.”

The healing process took a while, particularly since the tall lady doctor really did have a bad attack of the guilts and insisted on making amends for gambling with my life once by taking no more chances with my health. She kept me bed-bound long after the headache subsided and the right-side weaknesses departed. I submitted to her ministrations in a docile manner, feeling strangely remote and unconcerned. So there was a load of arms to be found and a gent called Saturday to be dealt with, and maybe, if it could be discreetly arranged, a guy named Mondragon, and so what? They’d keep. According to Jo, there wasn’t a phone in the house, but who cared? There wasn’t anybody I wanted to talk with anyway.

I wasn’t even greatly interested in the lady who was taking such meticulous care of me. I mean, she was pleasant enough company when I wasn’t reading—the owners of the house kept stacks of well-thumbed paperbacks around—and she wasn’t physically repulsive by any means, but I had no real urge to grab her and pull her down to join me in the big bed. I wasn’t even seriously concerned about where we were. There had been the initial stirring of curiosity that had led me to peek out the windows, but our exact geographical location seemed a matter of minor importance. Gradually I learned from Jo that we hadn’t made California after all that first night out of Hermosillo, although we had reached an arm of the Pacific. We’d driven a mere sixty-five miles west to Kino Bay, on the body of salt water known to the Mexicans as the Sea of Cortez. The Gulf of California, to you.