Saint Death - John Milton #3 Read online

* * *

  58.

  MILTON SAT AND watched the streets of Ciudad Juárez as they rushed past the windows of the Dodge.

  Plato looked across the car at him for a moment. “You alright?”

  “Fine.”

  “You don’t look fine.”

  Milton saw his reflection in the darkened window of the car: his right eye was swollen shut, lurid purples and blues in the ugly bruise; there was dried blood around his nose and from the cuts on his face. He probed his ribs gently; they were tender. “Looks worse that it is,” he said.

  “Want to tell me who they are?”

  “Ex-colleagues.”

  “They seem pretty keen to meet with you.”

  “They’ve been looking for me for six months.”

  “You think it was my fault they found you?”

  “Those fingerprints you took get emailed anywhere?”

  “Mexico City.”

  “Probably was you, then. Doesn’t matter.”

  “What do they want?”

  He sighed. “I used to do the same kind of job that they do. Then I didn’t want to do it anymore.”

  “I know the feeling.”

  “But the problem is, mine’s not the kind of job you can just walk away from.”

  “And they want you to go back to it again?”

  He chuckled quietly. “We’re well beyond that.”

  Plato mused on that. “Where’s the girl?” he said.

  “With Baxter.”

  “He got her out?”

  “As far as I know.”

  “Did you speak to her?”

  “Briefly.”

  “And?”

  “I don’t think they touched her. But you’ve got a problem.”

  “I know,” he said grimly.

  Milton nodded. “Alameda.”

  “I think I’ve known for a while. He ducked out when they attacked the restaurant and, if you asked me to bet, I’d say it was him who called González from the hospital then disappeared so he could do what he came there to do. I checked who responded to that murder, too, when she was taken. It was him.”

  “She said he took her.”

  Plato sighed.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Haven’t worked that out yet.”

  “What’s the plan now?” Milton said.

  “You don’t wanna see them again, right?”

  “Not if I can help it.”

  “Thought so. Sanchez will keep them busy for an hour or so. Papers to fill out, and suchlike. Give you a bit of a head start. The only thing to decide is where do you want to go?”

  “North, eventually.”

  “My opinion? El Paso’s too obvious. I’m guessing your passport is shot now and even if you could bluff your way across it’d be easy to find you again from here.”

  “I think so.”

  “So, if it was me, I’d go east and then go over. You can walk across, somewhere like Big Bend. It’s not easy––it’s a long walk––but the coyotes take people over there all the time. I’ve been hunting there, too, I can show you the best place. You’ll need some gear. A tent, for one. A sleeping bag. A rifle.”

  “I’m not going yet.”

  Plato glanced across at him. “Why not?”

  “There’s something I need to do first. But I’m going to need your help.”

  “Am I going to regret that?”

  “Probably. Can we go to your house?”

  “That’s where we’re headed. I was going to kit you out.”

  He slowed, turned left across the flow of traffic and headed into a pleasant residential estate. Milton recognised it from before. Oaks and pecan trees lined the broad avenue. After five minutes they pulled into the driveway of the house and parked behind the boat. A light flicked on in a downstairs window and a woman’s face appeared there; Plato waved up at the window and made his way to the garage at the side of the house.

  Plato led the way inside, switched on the overhead striplight and started to arrange things: he took out a one-man tent, a rucksack, a canteen that he filled with water.

  “What are you going to do?” Milton asked him.

  “About what?”

  “Juárez.”

  “Stick it out like I’ve always done.”

  “And El Patrón?”

  “Nothing’s changed there.”

  “But if he finds out you were involved with me? And the girl?”

  “Look, man, if he wanted to take me out, he could’ve done it a long time ago. There’s nothing I could do about it if he has it in his mind to make an example out of me. You get used to the thought of it. That’s just Juárez.”

  “And your family?”

  Plato looked away. “I’m thinking about that.”

  “Where do you think he’s gone?”

  “Don’t know for sure––he has a lot of places––but I could hazard a pretty good guess. I reckon, given that you and your friends back there just gave him a bloody nose, he’ll go back to where he feels most secure. The Sierra Madre. That’s where he’s from originally. The whole place out there, it’s all La Frontera: hundreds of cartel men, even the locals are on his side. The mountains, too. Inhospitable. You’d need an army to get him out again if that’s where he’s gone. And I’m not exaggerating.”

  There was a gun cabinet on the wall. Milton pointed at it. “What have you got in there?”

  Plato took a key from his belt and opened the cabinet. There was a rifle, a revolver and several boxes of ammunition.

  “The rifle,” Milton said.

  “I’m guessing you know plenty about guns?”

  A small smile. “A little.”

  “You’ll like this, then.” Plato took it down and handed it across. “That’s the Winchester Model 54. They started making those babies in 1925. Chambered for the .30-06 Springfield. They’ve developed it some over the years, and some people will tell you the Model 70 is the better of the two, but I don’t have any truck with that.”

  Milton ran his fingers across the walnut stock and the hand chequering. The gun had good rifling and a strong muzzle. The bolt throw still had a good, crisp action. It had been oiled regularly and kept in pristine condition.

  “You ever shot with it?” Plato asked.

  “Now and again.”

  “Most accurate gun I ever used. Belonged to my father originally––he took it to war with him. I killed my first deer with it. Must’ve been no more than ten years old. Had it ever since.”

  “Do you think I could I borrow it?”

  “Don’t suppose there’s any point me asking you what for?”

  “You don’t need to ask, do you?”

  “No. I don’t suppose I do.”

  Milton put the rifle next to the tent and the rest of the equipment that Plato had assembled. He added a box of bullets.

  “Your car, too, if that’s alright?”

  Plato chuckled. “Why not? Lending my rifle and my car to someone I don’t know wouldn’t be the stupidest thing I’ve done this week.”

  “Don’t worry, Plato. I won’t be long. And I’ll bring it all back.”

  * * *

  59.

  BEAU HAD STOLEN a Pontiac Firebird from the street near to the mansion. Caterina was in the front with him and González was in back. He was cuffed, his arms behind his back. They had cuffed his ankles together, too. Beau had a pistol laid out on the dash in front of him and he had threatened González that he would gag him with the duct tape he had found in the glovebox if he made a nuisance of himself. So far, Caterina thought, he had not. She guessed that he was facing something very unpleasant on the other side of the border and his compliance––up until now, at least––made her nervous. He did not strike her as the kind of man who would just go quietly.

  Beau had not explained their route to them but it was easy enough to guess. They were going to head south and then west, probably to Ojinaga, and then cross into Presidio and Texas. They were close enough to the border for
the car radio to pick up the channels on the other side of the Rio Bravo and, as the miles passed beneath their wheels, the channels blurred from stoner rock to throbbing Norteño and then to the apocalyptic soothsaying of fire and brimstone preachers.

  They cut through the savannah and scrub on the 45, the distant buttes of the mountains visible as darker shadows on the horizon. The road was quiet, shared only with trucks, each cab decorated with the coloured lights that the teamster used to distinguish his from the next. A freight train rattled along the tracks to their right, the huge half-mile long monster matching their pace for a minute or two before splitting off to disappear deeper into the desert. Caterina watched it and then stared out into the night until the swipes of its lights faded from her retinas and she could see the darkness properly again, the quick flashes that were the eyes of the rabbits and prairie dogs, watching them from the side of the road as they passed.

  They reached the edge of Chihuahua, found the 16 and headed back to the north-east.

  “Do you really think this is going to work?”

  Beau stiffened a little next to her. She glanced into the rear-view mirror and straight into González’ face. He was calm and placid; there was even the beginning of a playful smile on his thin lips.

  “Don’t reckon you need worry yourself on account of that,” Beau said.

  “You won’t even get across the border. My father owns the border. What is it? Where will you try? Ojinaga? Ciudad Acuna? Piedras Negras?”

  “Thought I’d just take a little drive, see which one caught my fancy.”

  “Fifty thousand is very little to be forever watching your back, Beau.”

  “It’ll do for now.”

  “I could give you five hundred thousand.”

  “Haven’t we been here before? Shoe was on the other foot, then, as I recall. Answer’s still the same.”

  “The offer stands until the border.”

  “You know something, Adolfo? You’re a piece of work. You might be a scary fucker when it’s on your own terms but when it gets to the nut-cutting, like now, the moment of true balls, and all you’ve got is talk.”

  The dawn’s first light fell upon them as they turned off the highway and headed directly north. The landscape changed suddenly, the flat scrubland replaced by ridges and plateaus, the mountains filling the distance all the way to the horizon. The rock turned from black to blue and then to green as the sun climbed in the sky. Dust devils skittered across the road. The next twin towns on the line east from Juárez and El Paso, Ojinaga and Presidio clung together against the awesomeness of the mountains. It was the most isolated of the crossings. Here, the Rio Bravo was supplemented by the waters from the Conchos and, rather than the insipid trickle that apologetically ran between Juárez and El Paso, it was a surging, throbbing current that was full of life.

  Beau stepped on the gas.

  “Caterina,” González said.

  Beau turned to her. “Don’t.”

  “I’m not frightened of him.”

  “Long as he’s trussed up like that, there ain’t no need to be. But, a feller like him, the only thing he wants to do is put things in your head, thoughts you’ll worry about, cause problems down the line.”

  Caterina set her face and turned a little. “What do you want?” she said into the back of the car.

  “Those girls––you want to know what it was like?”

  “Shut your trap,” Beau ordered.

  “Come on, Caterina. You’re a writer. You’re curious, I know you are. This is your big story. What about that girl you were with in the restaurant? You want to know how it was for her?”

  “No, she don’t.”

  “Delores. That was her name. I remember––she told me. I don’t normally remember the names––there’ve been so many––but she stood out. She kept asking for her mother.”

  “I won’t tell you again. Any more out of you and you’re getting gagged.”

  “She’s the proof, though, isn’t she? Look at what happened to her. You can’t escape from us. It doesn’t matter where you are. It doesn’t matter who is protecting you. Eventually, one way or another, you’ll be found and brought back to me.”

  Beau slammed on the brakes. “Alright, you son of a bitch,” he said, reaching for the roll of duct tape. “Have it your way.”

  THEY FOUND a motel on the outskirts of Presidio. The place was a mongrel town, full of trailer parks and strip malls. They had crossed the border an hour ago. Beau had pulled the Firebird to the side of the road as the steep fence and the squat immigration and customs buildings appeared ahead of them. He had taken out his cellphone and made a quick call. A few shops had collected next to the crossing: Del Puente Boots, a Pemex gas station, an Oxxo convenience store, a dental clinic. An all-night shack with flashing lights advertised ‘Sodas, Aguas, Gatorades.’ It was practically empty and only one of the northbound gates was open. Beau slotted the car into it, wound down the window and reached out to hand over his passport. The customs agent, a nervous-looking forty something man who reminded Caterina of a rabbit, made a show of inspecting the documents as he removed the five hundred dollar bills from within their pages. He handed the passport back. Welcome to America, he had said, opening the gate. Beau had thanked him, put the car into gear and driven them across the bridge and into the United States.

  It was as simple as that: they were on the 67 and across. A neat line of palm trees on either side of the road. A smooth ribbon of asphalt. A large sign that welcomed them to America and invited them to ‘Drive Friendly – The Texas Way.’

  The Riata Inn Motel was a low, long line of rooms on the edge of the desert, set alongside a parking lot. They had taken a single room and, now, the dawn’s light was glowing through the net curtains. They had cuffed González to the towel rack in the bathroom.

  “Is this it?” Caterina asked him.

  “It is for him. My employer will be here in a couple of hours.”

  “And then?”

  “Not our problem any more. He’ll take him off our hands and then he’ll sort you out with what you need: papers, money, someplace to live.”

  Beau sat and tugged off his boots. He unbuckled his holster and tossed it onto the bed.

  “What do you think happened to Smith?”

  “I don’t know. That boy’s as tough as old leather, though. I wouldn’t count him out.”

  Beau looked at her. She was tired but there was a granite strength behind it. After all she had been through, well, Beau thought, if it had’ve been him? He might’ve been ready to pack it all in.

  “Long night,” she said.

  “Tell me about it.”

  “I’d kill for a cold drink.”

  “There’s an ice machine outside. I’ll get some. Thirty seconds?” He pointed at the door to the bathroom. “Don’t––well, you know, don’t talk to him.”

  Her smile said that she understood.

  The machine was close but, even though the door to the motel room was going to be visible the whole time, he didn’t want to tarry. González was resourceful and smart––thirty or forty or however the hell old he was practically ancient in narco-years––and although Caterina was smart, too, he didn’t want to leave him alone with her for any longer than he had to. He went outside in his stockinged feet and walked across to the machine. He filled the bucket with crushed ice, took a handful and scrubbed it on the back of his neck and then across his forehead and his face.

  He was getting too old for this shit.

  When he got back to the room Caterina had taken his Magnum .357 out of the holster. The bathroom door was open. González was on his knees, his hands in front of his face. She was pointing the gun at his head.

  “How do you get paid?” she asked him.

  “Cash on delivery.”

  “So, what?––he’s got to be alive?”

  “He don’t got to be. More for me if he is, though.”

  “Ah,” she said. “Sorry about that.”

  Th
e gunshot was audible all the way across the scrubby desert.

  * * *

  60.

  CAPITÁN VICENTE ALAMEDA lived with his wife and three children in the upscale neighbourhood of Campestre. The district rubbed against Highway 45, just before the crossroads with Highway 2, and massive maquiladoras were gathered on one edge of the neighbourhood. Plato continued along an avenue that could have been in any city north of the border: a Starbucks, Chili’s, Applebee’s and strip malls. He turned into Alameda’s street and parked. Razor wire lined the top of brick and stucco walls. Uniformed guards stood watch at gated entryways. Gold doors on one home reflected the lamp-light. Parked in the driveways were BMWs and Lexuses, many with Texas license plates. Alameda’s house had an Audi in the driveway. There was a large garden. A pool. Four or five bedrooms judging from the windows on the second floor. A set of gates, although they hadn’t been closed.

  It wasn’t a policeman’s house.

  Plato got out of the car and looked up. The sky was full of stars, a rind of moon hanging over the silhouette of the factories on the edge of the neighbourhood. He made his way up the street to a small zócalo where the grackles in the eucalyptus trees called out in drowsy alarm.

  He pressed the intercom.

  “Yes?”

  “Capitán––it’s Jesus Plato.”

  “Plato? It’s late. Do you know what time it is?”

  “I know. But I need to talk to you.”

  “Tomorrow, Jesus, alright?”

  “No, sir. It has to be now.”

  The intercom cut out. Plato stood at the gate, staring through the bars at the home beyond. The curtains in one of the large windows on the first floor twitched aside and Plato saw Alameda’s face.

  He held his finger on the intercom for ten seconds.

  He would wait as long as it took.

  After a minute, the front door opened and Alameda came outside. He was wearing slippers and a dressing gown.

  Plato slipped between the gates and met him in the garden.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” Alameda hissed. “You’ve woken the children!”

  “I must be some kind of idiot. How long have we known each other?”