The Monkey

18

A black Cadillac limo waited in the service alley. The Eskimo put me against the car, patted me down, then said, “Okay.” He shoved Manolo into the front, then he and I got into the back. There was an Asian guy at the wheel. I said, “Hey, just like the Green Hornet.”

The Asian guy glanced at me in the mirror. The Eskimo said, “Shut up,” then settled back and closed his eyes. I nodded and did what I was told.

We went east on Santa Monica, then north on Highland to pick up the Hollywood Freeway north, passing Universal Studios with its ominous black tower and skyscraper hotels and array of sound stages so numerous it looked like a breeding ground for airplane hangars. In the San Fernando valley we looped onto the Ventura Freeway and rolled west for a long time. The big Cadillac was whisper quiet. The Eskimo was to my left, slouched down on his spine, eyes still closed. Maybe sleeping, maybe faking it and waiting for me to make my move. A lot like seal hunting, I guessed. The driver never looked back, never moved, just drove. Manolo shifted every once in a while, a lump in the front seat ahead of me. Quiet. I whistled the opening bars to The Bridge on the River Kwai.

The Eskimo said, “Shut up.”

Yassuh.

We passed Woodland Hills and Reseda and Thousand Oaks. Pretty soon we left the west valley and were moving toward Camarillo. Manolo coughed twice, groaned, then sat up. He rubbed at his face, then shrugged his shoulders and rolled his head from side to side. He twisted around and looked at me. There wasn’t any threat in his look; it was more like he’d discovered a new species of rhododendron.

The sprawl and clutter of the valley gave way to hilly pasture land, green from the winter rains. There was the occasional scrub oak and the occasional dirt road and Jersey and Hereford cattle spotted on the steeper slopes. In summer, the same hills would be brown and dead and would look like desert. A few minutes past Camarillo we left the freeway. There was nothing around but a Union 76 station and an old two-lane state road running to the northwest and what was maybe a grain elevator from the forties. I said, “If you guys are lost we should ask.”

The Eskimo said nothing. Maybe I was wearing him down.

We went northwest. Ten minutes later we turned through an arched metal gate that said Cachon Ranches and followed a well-maintained composition road about a mile up into the hills until we came to what I guessed was the ranch. A maze of steel pipe corrals, one wooden main office, and three corrugated metal buildings. A heavy-duty livestock truck was backing up to the corrals as sweaty men in worn jeans and work shirts and broken fiber cowboy hats waited to receive it. Another limo was parked by the wooden office and there were three or four dusty pickups by the largest metal building. We pulled up beside the pickups and got out. The Eskimo said, “Come on.” Manolo fell out of the front seat. No one rushed to help him.

Domingo Garcia Duran stood at one of the smaller corrals, his back to us. He was standing next to a fat man. Duran was about five-ten, slim and strong-looking with narrow hips and wide shoulders and black hair shot through with silver. He was wearing tan Gucci loafers and dark slacks and a cream-colored pullover shirt that showed his build. He stood erect, much like Ricardo Montalban. He looked wealthy, also like Ricardo Montalban. Maybe if I said, “Boss! Boss! De plane! De plane!” he’d think I was funny. He and the fat man were watching a black cow walk in slow circles about the corral. Every once in a while the fat man said something and pointed at the cow and Duran would nod. Duran was holding a slender sword in his left hand. About three feet long, with a bent tip. Ixnay on the Villechaise.

The Eskimo said something to them and the fat guy went away. The black cow was short and squat and nervous. She saw us, lowered her head, then twitched and jumped away to resume her walk. No resemblance to Elsie. Duran looked at me and said, “We will talk. I will ask you questions, you will answer. I will give you instructions, you will act on them. First, do you know who I am?”

“Karl Malden.”

Something hit me hard in the left shoulder blade. I grunted and bent over but didn’t fall. The Eskimo stared at me.

Duran said, “He will hit you as many times as I wish. There are others who will hit you, also. After they are done, still others will put your body there,” he pointed the sword into the hills “so that it will never be found. Do you understand these things?”

“Do I get penalized for questions?”

The hard thing hit me again and this time I went over, my left arm dead from my shoulder blade out. He should have hit me in the head. In the head, he would’ve broken his hand and knocked some sense into me. Somebody lifted me and held me up before Duran. Life as a puppetoon. I said, “Do you have Ellen Lang or Perry Lang or know of their whereabouts?”

I tensed for the next shot but it didn’t come. Duran looked at me like he was looking at a retard. He said, “A man named Morton Lang came to my home. I did not know this man, yet I welcomed him and allowed him in as a guest. He repays my hospitality by stealing from my home two kilograms of cocaine. Very special cocaine. Not easy to get. Medical quality, you see, the cocaine they study in laboratories and hospitals. Now I’m told you have it.”

I looked at Duran. I looked at the Eskimo. I looked back at Duran. He looked at the cow. “She’s beautiful, no?”

“Somebody told you I had your cocaine?”

“Come. I show you something.”

The Eskimo shoved me after Duran toward the bigger corral. The truck had backed to the loading ramp and killed its engine. The ranch hands were swarming around the rear gate, pulling chains and metal latchbars. Duran said, “Do you know toreo?”

“No.” Toreo. Next it would be Thai cuisine or decorative macrame. A guy like Duran, you’ve got to let him run his course. Especially if you don’t want to get hit a lot.

“To the shame of the United States. It’s an art of great passion and beauty.”

“Yeah, all that red.”

He shouted something to one of the men working at the truck, then turned back to me. “Much of what happens between the man and the toro grows out of jurisdiccion. To cite the toro, to make him charge, you must place yourself in his jurisdiccion. You invade his place. You offer yourself to his horn.” He looked at the sword, then touched it to my chest. The point curved down. If he shoved it in, the blade would follow the curve to my heart. “The most courageous matador, he offers his balls.”

I looked at the Eskimo, who was staring off across the yard, probably watching for narwhals. My back hurt, but feeling had returned to my arm. Maybe I could take him. Maybe I could do something to his eyes, then put him down on the ground to neutralize his size and go to work on his throat and groin. Sure. I looked back at Duran. “You mean the whole idea is that the bull is coming for your balls.”

“Yes.”

I shook my head. “Dumb.” I think the Eskimo smiled, but I wouldn’t swear to it.

The ranch hands slammed open the truck’s gate. A brown and gray steer looked out, then trotted slowly down the ramp and into the pen. He didn’t look like much. Then, almost as if in slow motion, a heavy black bull not quite the size of Godzilla came down the ramp to stand beside the steer. He stood very still, feet squarely placed, head up, looking first at the ranch hands, then at us. A Russell sculpture. It was impossible to imagine a chest and shoulders more powerfully formed. His horns came up and out then curved back in. They were very sharp. Duran nodded. “See how he carries his head, see the way he looks about. This is pundonor. Great pride, a very great jealousy of his jurisdiccion. He accepts the duty of protecting what is his.”

Maybe Duran was thinking about adopting him. I said, “Why the steer?”

“ Cabestros. To calm the bull for the journey. The herd instinct, you see? They are friends.” He looked at me again. “Would you offer yourself to such an animal?”

“Maybe with a rocket launcher.”

“Imagine standing before his charge, watching him come, waiting for him.” Duran smiled, maybe remembering. “We will breed them, the bull and the cow. The young one will inherit the looks of the father, the courage of the mother. She is very brave. She killed a man in the Pampas.”

I said, “I don’t have your cocaine. I don’t know anything about your cocaine.”

“I am told you do.”

“You were told wrong. I was hired to find Morton Lang. He’s been found. I don’t guess you guys know anything about that. Now I’m looking for his wife and his little boy. I think you’ve got them.”

He touched me with the sword again. I wondered if I could take it away from him before the Eskimo nailed me. I said, “Maybe Morton Lang didn’t steal your cocaine. Maybe somebody else did.”

“No.”

“Maybe Nanuk here took it.”

“No.”

“Look, if Mort had taken the dope and now I had it, wouldn’t I be trying to sell it back to you?”

Duran touched a button on my shirt with the point of the sword. He pressed. The button split. “Return my property. Perhaps then you’ll find the woman and the boy.”

The ranch hands began to chatter. When I looked, the bull had lifted his snout and begun to trot around the pen. The hands scurried to open a gate on the far side, but Duran snapped an order and they stopped. The bull made a coughing sound and lowered his head. There was drool streaming out of his mouth. The steer, eyes wide and rolling, edged away.

Duran said, “He smells the female.”

The bull charged the steer. When they hit, it sounded like a mortar round, whump. The bull caught him in the gut by the hindquarters, then lifted and twisted, ripping forward into the ribs. You could hear them pop like green wood. The steer brayed and went down. The bull stayed with him, lowering the thick neck and hooking his horns two lefts and a right like a boxer throwing combinations, once almost lifting the steer off the ground. Then Duran nodded and the hands threw open the far gate, shouting and waving their hats. The bull backed away from the steer. His horns glistened red. He pawed the ground then ran through the gate. The steer flopped around for a while, then managed to gain its feet. When it did, most of its intestine fell out onto the ground. It wobbled and staggered but stayed up. Some friend.

Duran looked at me, then vaulted the fence. I was dismissed. The Eskimo led me back to the limo and opened the door. A full-service thug. Kato was still behind the wheel. The Eskimo said, “He’ll take you where you tell him.”

“What if I tell him the police?”

“He’ll take you there.”

“That easy.”

The Eskimo shrugged. “Play it the way you want. Mr. Duran was lunching at the Marina today. He can prove that. If you consider what has happened and what could, he won’t have to. You will do as he tells you.”

“I don’t have the dope.”

He looked at me.

I said, “The woman and the boy, they’d better be all right.”

Something like a grin touched the Eskimo’s lips. He said, “Nanuk,” then turned and walked back toward the corrals.

I got into the car. The last thing I saw was Domingo Garcia Duran approach the steer and drive the sword to its hilt down through the steer’s shoulders at the base of its neck. The steer dropped, the ranch hands cheered, and I shut the door.