Standoff

Twenty

Apostles’ cell rang as we raced out of the car park and were waved on by frantic attendants. The caller’s name came up on screen: “Arturo”.

“Who was he?” I heard Apostles ask. He breathed once, in and out, when he got the answer. “Luego, averigüe.” Then find out. Apostles lifted his eyes to me and said, “Si, él está conmigo.” He’s with me.

Was Perez concerned about my wellbeing?

“I can tell you who the man was,” I said. “Hector Gomez. We were partners, briefly. He was a Texas Ranger, though who he’s working for now …” I let a shrug finish it off.

Apostles passed this information onto Perez, and ended the call. Putting his phone away, the boss looked at me earnestly and said, “Thank you.” He produced his hand for me to shake.

I obliged. “No problem.” We were at a fake fight. The least I could do was top it off with a fake shootout. Those first two rounds I fired, the wild, poor marksmanship on my part that took out the windows? That was intentional. No way was I going to hit Gomez with a hollow point at such close range, even though he had to have been wearing some kind of vest under that T-shirt, protecting his chest. The third and fourth rounds were blanks, the training cartridges Arlen had thoughtfully provided back in El Paso, loaded into the mag. Who knew Gomez was such a good actor with all that spinning and falling. There’d been plenty of blood and guts accompanying the action, maybe even a little too much. Pig’s blood, probably, with some hamburger mince thrown in for added realism. In all, a convincing show. And, I had to admit, something of a relief, if only because sometimes it’s reassuring to know you’re not swinging solo on the highwire without a net. And why would Panda, Claudia and Gomez go to all that trouble and risk so much to achieve, well, what exactly? Because me shooting Gomez and giving up his identity was something a man El Santo could trust would do. And Perez had contacts — Gomez’s identity wouldn’t remain secret for long. In fact, I suspected CIA would make the job easy, but not too easy.

I put my head back against the rest and closed my eyes, aware of Daniela’s bare leg rubbing against mine as the Hummer sped along Juárez’s streets, an obstacle course of potholes and disintegrating asphalt.

Arriving at the bunker in Campestre, Apostles made a beeline for the drinks cabinet, thereby demonstrating that at least some of his priorities were squared away. “Single malt, right?” he asked.

“When I can get it,” I replied.

The rest of Apostles’ entourage arrived nosily through the front door. Perez gave the boss a nod and disappeared down the hall with a couple of his henchmen to torture small fluffy animals or whatever. The rest of the crowd went suddenly quiet when Apostles gave them a look, and then made themselves scarce. All except Daniela and Lina. The twins came up to Apostles, wrapping their arms languidly through and around him like fast-growing vines. They said goodnight to him, and departed with a glance back that I interpreted as, “It’s on with both of us, Juan, so don’t be long. And tonight, we’re bringing toys.”

Okay, so my imagination can occasionally work overtime.

“You like them,” I heard Apostles say.

The comment made me realize my mouth was open and salivating as I watched the twins slink down a hallway, open a door and close it behind them. “You’re a lucky, lucky man,” I told him, finally getting that one off my chest.

“Yes, a certain amount of luck has been helpful,” he agreed as he handed me a glass of fifty-year-old Macallan and then poured himself one. He toasted me and my lips touched heaven. Fifty-year-old Macallan? Shit, just a sip of this stuff was probably worth around a hundred bucks. “You favor Glen Keith,” Apostles said, holding the contents of his glass up to the light to further appreciate the Highland malt’s rich honey color. “Lovely fruits, but Glen Keith doesn’t compare to this.”

He was right, it didn’t, but then neither did the price. He walked to a couple of lounge chairs in the large relatively bare open room and sat. I followed him and took the chair roughly opposite.

“What do you think of its sherry style?” he asked once he’d gotten comfortable.

“If sherry tasted like this I’d drink sherry.”

“Perhaps if things go okay for you here, you’ll be able to afford to develop a taste for it.”

We both sipped some more.

“Let’s talk more about luck,” he said. “Luck is being born into a rich family. Luck is having you beside me this evening. But Daniela and Lina are nothing to do with luck. They are the product of my determination to satisfy my desires. For that I have worked, and continue to work, long and hard. What do you desire, my friend? What do you burn for? Tell me, man to man.”

No one had ever asked me that question before, but I didn’t have to think about it long or hard. I burned for Anna Masters. But traveling back in time to stop a bullet tearing through her heart was something no amount of work would achieve. Beyond that, in terms of desires, I couldn’t say.

“Ah, you have experienced loss,” he said, reading something in my face that I wasn’t aware I displayed; an imperceptible drop of the head, a dilating of the pupils, the telltale deepening of a line in my forehead. “Show me a man who hasn’t experienced loss and I’ll show you a man going to his grave a pauper.”

The cheesy philosophy I could do without, but if that’s what it took to stand around belching occasionally while I drank a bottle of ten-thousand-dollar scotch, I could bear it.

“Then that is your life’s mission,” he went on, taking a gulp, maybe five-hundred bucks’ worth. “To figure out what you need to fill the void, eh?”

I nodded in agreement. Daniela and toys would be a good start.

“Thank you again for tonight.” He put his glass on the cabinet, Macallan shamefully still undrunk sloshing about in it. “Sleep well.” He put his hand on my shoulder. “Tomorrow we will try to do it your way.”

I waited for him to walk out of sight down the hallway before I tipped the contents of his glass into mine and drank it. Sounded to me like I’d made the team.

It felt like the day had started a week ago, but there was too much on my mind to sleep. So I stood under the showerhead and went for full hot followed by a blast of cold. After the shock of the extremes, I mixed up a temperature somewhere in the middle. And that’s about when I felt fingertips caressing my shoulder. It wasn’t a sensation I was expecting. Leave your door unlocked. El Santo doesn’t like locked doors.

“You’re a mess,” a woman’s voice cooed, not one I was familiar with, her fingers delicately tracing scar tissue.

“Do I know you?” I asked, glancing over my shoulder.

“You’re about to,” she said.

In fact, I did recognize her. She was one of the women I’d seen hanging around looking generally hot, on the payroll, in the column for entertainment. Her accent was mid-west American and she was tall and blond in the Marilyn Monroe fashion — darker eyebrows, strawberry hair and nipples.

“Mind if I ask what you’re doing here?” I asked.

“What does it look like?”

Ask a dumb question. “Let me rephrase,” I said. “What are you doing here?”

“Why didn’t you ask? I’m keeping you company — orders from El Santo. Because of what you did tonight. He likes to reward people for a job well done.” She found a bar of soap in the holder and used it to lather up some circles on my back. “I joined you in the shower for a reason. We can talk in here.”

“We can’t talk out there?” She knew I meant the bedroom.

“We could, but the bugs don’t work so well in the bathroom.” Her hands worked their way around my waist and the soap circles continued on my chest. “What do you want to talk about?”

“They were going to kill you, you know. They were going to do it tomorrow, out in the desert. Cut you up and leave you for the ants. The Tears of Chihuahua doesn’t trust you.”

“And why should I trust you?”

“Because I saved your life. I got a message to mutual friends across the border.”

I turned around to face her. She was pretty. Slim, with large fake breasts done by someone who liked breasts almost as much as me. “What’s your name?”

“Do you need one? Okay, call me Bambi.”

“Really?”

“Or Fiona. Take your pick.”

I’d never showered with a Disney character before. “Are you CIA, Bambi?”

“You know that’s against the rules.”

“Don’t give me the rules bullshit. Who’s running you?”

“And I just give you that?” she asked.

“I need a name and it’s not Thumper.”

“You know everyone uses aliases in this business. If it helps, he was forty-something, a sleaze and walked with a limp.”

I relaxed. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”

“So we’re good?”

“His name is Bradley Chalmers.”

“He said it was Freddie. Saving Apostles’ life tonight saved yours. You know that, don’t you? I made that possible — that was my doing.”

Her hands washed between my legs, making sure everything down there was especially clean. “And now, because I was picked to keep you company and we’re in the shower, I get the chance to tell you about it.”

“You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to,” I told her. “We can just talk.”

Bambi laughed and took hold of me, and then worked her hand up and down while she nuzzled my neck. “The bugs don’t work in here, but the cameras don’t have a problem. I’ve got a job to do, and I have to be seen to be doing it. You going to make it difficult for me?”

Her lips found mine and I kissed her hard. Our wet tongues wrestled. I eventually tapped out and whispered in her ear, “I wasn’t aware we had someone on the inside. No one told me.”

“Need to know,” she whispered back as my soapy hands found her breasts and we exchanged suds.

“If you’re here, then I don’t need to be,” I said.

“No, I’m a woman.”

“You don’t say.”

“What I mean is, I don’t have access all areas. I’m an ornament. When they leave this place, they don’t take me with them. I just get a call when the entourage is in town. And I never get to hang out with Apostles or Perez. I take care of middle management and get the occasional VIP.”

“So you hear things,” I said.

“Mostly just rumors,” she replied. “Everyone’s pretty tight with the operational stuff. I can tell you that Daniela thinks you’re cute.”

“Only because she knows she can’t have me.”

Bambi laughed.

Yeah, that was pretty funny. “Have you heard any talk about the business at Horizon Airport?”

“Not a peep. If the Chihuahua Cartel had something to do with it, they’re better at keeping secrets than anyone thought.”

So far, that had been my experience, too. “What have you heard about Apostles and his Pancho Villa fixation?”

“What?” She was frowning. Apparently I’d stumped her with that one.

“There are portraits of Pancho Villa hanging in various places,” I said. “I’ve seen Apostles parading around like the Cisco Kid — at least I think it was Apostles; and Villa’s favorite horse has been stuffed and stands around in El Santo’s lounge room back at the Hacienda. What gives?”

“He’s got Villa’s horse? I’ve never been to the place in Colombia … Maybe he’s just trying to make an impression; you know, create an image. There are plenty of Mexican peasants working for him. Many of them don’t have a lot of education. If that’s what he’s doing it’s not such a dumb idea, you know. Villa is still a hero of the Mexican revolution. They’d probably go for that kind of symbolism.”

“Why would he need it?”

“I don’t know. Maybe that’s why you’re here — to find out.”

“Next question: has Apostles got a couple of screws loose?”

“He’s a lot of things, but crazy isn’t one of them.”

“His daughter thinks he is.”

“I’ve never met her … Can we talk about something other than El Santo?”

I let it go. “So where are you from?” I asked her.

“That’s better.” She bit my shoulder blade — not too hard, just right. “I’m from Vegas. And, yes, I was a dancer. Now you want to know what’s a nice girl like me and so forth, right?”

“I don’t necessarily like nice girls.”

“Good, ’cause I ain’t one.”

Her hands certainly had an aptitude for badness. “Then I think we’re gonna get along just fine,” I told her.

She nibbled on my earlobe and whispered, “I discovered young that the two loves of my life were money and sex. So what I’m doing combines them. And I was never gonna be a brain surgeon, except that guys think with their dicks so maybe in a way, I kinda am. I’ve got two properties in Vegas and a timeshare in Palm Springs. By the time I retire, with a little help from our mutual friends over the border, I’ll have double that.”

I wondered who was getting screwed here.

“So you just close your eyes and think of Uncle Sam,” she suggested.

I suddenly had the image of a bearded guy wearing a Stars and Stripes top hat, standing in the shower with me. “Hey, you’re spoiling it.”

“Sorry.”

To make up for it, she did something that made my knees tremble.

“You know how some people can sneeze at will?” she whispered. “I can orgasm. So if I like who I’m with, I reward myself.”

That was a novel sales pitch. It took all the responsibility for her climax out of my hands. I was prepared to give it a go. Sensing my willingness pulsing against her bellybutton, Bambi turned away from me and leaned against the tiles, still holding me in her hand. She spread her legs and I pressed myself against her. My mouth found the nape of her neck while my hands cupped her breasts.

“And I’m about due for a … AH …” she said, gasping as I entered her, “… reward.”