Fugitive Nights (39 page)

And Breda Burrows said, “Sure. Thanks.”

The fugitive had started outside when he saw him—and almost dropped the remaining two margaritas. The policeman from the mortuary!

The fugitive spun around and mounted the stairs two at a time, nearly jarring Breda's drink out of her grasp. A blob of cold sticky ice splashed on her bare thigh and she was scooping it up and licking it off her fingers when Lynn and Nelson approached.

Lynn looked from her thigh to her mouth as Breda licked, and their eyes met. Hers said: Don't even
think
it!

“I say, old thing, must you sneer so?” Lynn said to her.

“Did you say hello to Lugo yet?” Nelson asked.

“He's too busy,” Breda said. “Why would I want to meet him anyway?”

“You're in business in this town. Might not be a bad idea,” Nelson said. “Even if we can't figure out why somebody's lookin for him.”

“I might try later,” Breda said. “Want something to eat? They just started serving.”

“I want a drink,” Lynn said.

“That's outside too,” said Breda. “The waiter that gave me this one just ran upstairs with two more. Maybe you can find him.”

“I think I'll find a tall cool Scotch,” Lynn said. “I'll bet Lugo's Scotch beats the hell out of Wilfred's.”

When they got outside, with the lights of Palm Springs spread out below them, Nelson gazed dreamily and said, “I wonder what he'd say now?”

“Who?” Breda wanted to know.

“The Indian that looked at the first white land developer and said, ‘What, a golf course in the
desert
?'”

H
e had not been this frightened in his life! His jaw was trembling, and he couldn't keep the drinks from sloshing over the rims of the cocktail glasses.

Every room in the house was thrown wide open for guests to wander as they chose. There were valuable pre-Columbian pieces on display in the upper hallway, and the fugitive pretended to be looking at them as guests strolled past, meandering from room to room.

As soon as he heard the last of them go back downstairs, he entered a guest bedroom, put down the drinks, and pulled up his trouser legs, removing his weapons from where they were taped to his calves. The tape stripped the hairs from his legs but he didn't even feel it.

If only his hands would stop trembling! He didn't usually tremble, even in dangerous police situations, but this was different. He wasn't a policeman here. That man downstairs was a policeman. And who knows how many others were in this house!

He put his weapons under a satin cushion on a bay window bench. Without his weapons he didn't know if he felt more safe or more threatened. He crept along the hallway to the top of the stairway and looked down. The policeman with curly hair was gone. There was no one on the staircase now. He started back to the bedroom, but changed his mind. Better this way if his idea worked.
If.

The fugitive hurried downstairs and took a bold gamble. He stopped the first Mexican waiter he saw, and said, in Spanish, “Tell Señor Sierra to come upstairs. There's a small problem.”

“Señor Sierra?” the waiter said.

“Yes, Señor Sierra!” he said. “He works for Señor Lugo. Find him, and ask him to come upstairs. There's a lady who has had too much to drink.”

The waiter nodded and hurried toward the kitchen, while the fugitive went back upstairs and waited.

Lynn, Breda and Nelson were by then about midway through the queue of people on the dimly lit patio. The mariachis were playing “La Paloma.”

“Hope there's gonna be something left,” Nelson said.

“I wouldn't worry about that,” Breda said. “Whatever else John Lugo is, he does nothing on the cheap.”

Lynn spotted Bino Sierra talking to one of the bartenders at the service bar by the kitchen. A Mexican waiter ran up to Sierra and said something. Then the waiter followed Sierra across the flagstone patio and into the house.

“That's Lugo's man,” Lynn said to Breda.

“The guy with the white streak in his ponytail?”

“Uh huh.”

“Good looking guy,” she said. “Striking hair.”

“Sure,” Lynn said, “if you like a tango dancer with hair like a skunk. I saw better ponytails in
Gidget Goes Hawaiian.
”

“I guess I like clean-shaven,
slim
guys,” Breda said, with a glance at Lynn's stomach. “Wonder if they've got any pork left?”

His heart sank. He hadn't planned on the waiter coming back with Sierra! Couldn't
anything
go his way? The fugitive quickly picked up the two margaritas. He didn't know whether to speak English or Spanish. Sierra was a coconut, brown on the outside, white on the inside. He'd speak English to this coconut. He hated to hear their
pocho
Spanish.

The fugitive said to him, “Sir, I am sorry. The lady is gone.”

“What're you
doing
up here?” Bino Sierra was furious. “I told Henry I didn't want
any
drinks served upstairs!”

The waiter who'd delivered the message didn't want any part of the ass-chewing and got out. And somehow it all fell into place. The fugitive now knew it was going to work, against all odds.

The fugitive studied that haughty lineless handsome face, and said, “I am sorry, sir, but the lady told me I had to bring them. She was in there.” He pointed to the guest dressing room and bath. “Could she still be there?”

Bino Sierra turned his back and stalked across the bedroom to the dressing area. The fugitive closed and locked the bedroom door. When Bino Sierra came back out, the fugitive was bending over the love-seat bench, framed by one of the most spectacular views in all of California, the nighttime lights and silhouetted mountains of Palm Springs.

“What the fuck're you
doing
over there?” Bino Sierra asked, and then he saw what.

The fugitive pointed the Beretta with his left hand, holding his right hand down behind his leg. He said in English, “If you cry out, if you try to run, I will shoot you. Come
here.
”

Bino Sierra automatically raised his hands to shoulder height and said, “Hey, man, what the fuck? WHAT THE FUCK?”

“Keep your voice quiet,” the fugitive said, “and sit down over here. Just sit down and look from the window at the vista.”

He stepped back to allow Bino Sierra to pass, noting the inky-blue silk shirt, like a
guayabera
shirt with epaulets, but finer than any
guayabera
the fugitive had ever seen. And Sierra wore perfectly tailored gray trousers, with a knife crease, perhaps linen trousers. But the shoes were ugly white Palm Springs shoes like the ones he'd bought for himself.

“Are
you
the guy?” Bino Sierra asked, his hand nervously touching his hair where the white slashed through.

“Don't touch your white stripe,” the fugitive said. “Don't touch anything. Keep your hands away from your body, and look out at your city.”

“Are you the guy that wrecked the mortuary?” Bino Sierra asked. “What's it about? The tombstone for Lugo's mother? What the fuck's it all about, man?”

“You are the one who arranged for ten kilos of cocaine to go to Los Angeles on day thirteen of last September,” the fugitive said.

“I don't know what you're talking about!” Bino Sierra said.

“All three of your couriers were killed by Mexican police, and you never got delivery. One of them identified you.”

“Man, you're crazy! You trying to say somebody gave you my
name
?”

The fugitive thought he was standing a little too close to the back of Bino Sierra's head, so he retreated a step. There, that was better.

“No, he did not know your name. You received a telephone call. The man told you of an unexpected problem. A Mexican policeman had interrupted their plans. You told them what to do with that policeman. Strangling is a cruel way to die.”

“Just a minute!” Bino Sierra said.

And now the fugitive could see that the back of the man's shirt was already showing wet. That lovely silk would be slimy against his body, the fugitive thought.

Bino Sierra said, “If these guys got killed by the cops, who mentioned me?”

“One of them died later, during interrogation. He did
not
lie. He
could
not.”

“Who are you?” Bino Sierra demanded. “Are
you
a cop? Are you DEA? If you are, whaddaya want me to say? I'll say it. I'll say anything!
Arrest
me!”

“I am not a DEA agent,” the fugitive said. “I am a citizen of Mexico.”

“Well, whaddaya
want
from me?”

“Javier Rosas was a good policeman and a good man,” the fugitive said.

“Wait … a … fucking minute!” Bino Sierra said, and the fugitive could see rivulets running from the black hair at the nape of his neck. “You can't tell me that somebody claims Bino Sierra arranged a drug shipment and ordered some Mexican cop to be killed!”

“The man who spoke to you on the phone told us what you said on that night, September thirteen. You said, 'I just ordered a tombstone carved with orchids for an old dead woman. I can order another one for the cop. What is his favorite flower?' You see, it meant nothing to you, that little joke. You have forgotten it. Or perhaps you were enjoying too much of your own cocaine when you said it? Cocaine makes a man forget, sometimes.”

Bino Sierra's voice was trembling when he said, “This is a
mistake!
”

“It is all we had,” the fugitive said. “Tombstone and orchids. But in Mexico we don't expect much. We learn to work with very little in so many ways.”

Bino Sierra sounded like he might cry when he said, “Maybe it was my boss! Maybe John Lugo talked to the guy! He didn't make all his money with vending machines!”

“He would not refer to his mother as an old dead woman. Also, the document from the tombstone company showed that the stone was ordered by Lieberman Brothers Mortuary, but payment was guaranteed by Mister Sierra, personal secretary to Mister Lugo. A note on the-invoice said, ‘Mister S. wants two orchids, one on each side of name.'”

“Look, man, you ain't being rational here. Siddown and let's
talk!
”

“You see, sir, if only the invoice had shown your address I would not have gone to the mortuary at all. And if not for the mortuary problem, I would not need to be here so soon, because I would not be so afraid of the policeman with curly hair.”

“
What
policeman with curly hair? Man, you're fucking crazy! You want money? I'll give you more money than you ever seen!”

“I have no wish to torment you, Mister Sierra,” the fugitive said. “But I had to be more than sure about you. And now I
am.
”

The Beretta moved toward the left side of the head of Bino Sierra, who turned ever so slightly to watch the steel muzzle.

And as he did the fugitive's right hand shot up and cut his throat.

It was a sawing slicing slash, first left, then right. Coming back it scraped on gristle, but the fugitive pulled and ripped with all his strength.

The fugitive dashed to the door then, shoving the bloody knife and gun inside his belt under his vest. As he opened the door he heard a sound, like radio static underwater. He turned and saw Bino Sierra with
two
gaping mouths, one above the other. Coming for
him!

The fugitive ran in panic but stumbled and fell down in the hallway. Bino Sierra kept lunging past, to the landing, tumbling down the staircase, rolling to the bottom. There was blood smeared along the wall and carpet and it looked like a hog had been slaughtered on his chest. And yet Bino Sierra got up and
ran
, his hands paddling like a man treading water,
thinking
he was screaming and breathing, but doing neither. Outside, he plunged into the black-bottom swimming pool, and against that lighted black bottom, his blood swirled up black. And with one last incredible effort, he pulled himself onto the pool steps, onto his back, half in and half out of the water. While people screamed.

Breda had her plate heaped with roast pork, and had said to Nelson, “The hell with the calories,” when the screaming started. Then,
riot.

Plates were flying, glass was breaking as warming platters crashed to the flagstone. One of the buffet tables was overturned by the panicking hordes. Some ran toward the body, then realized what they were doing and scurried away from it, crashing into others. Yelps of pain joined screams of panic.

Nelson plowed his way through, followed by Breda. They stopped at the pool, at the body of Bino Sierra, still oozing, staring up at one of the most beautiful skies in the world. Every star in the dipper was glittering.

The fugitive ran through the entry doors, colliding with the people running inside, almost getting knocked off his feet. Even valet parking attendants, along with the hired security people, stormed through the house toward the rear patio, toward the screams. The fugitive finally got outside and ran across the lawn to the banana trees. He plunged into them, groping for the bag, cutting his hand slightly with the bloody knife when he jammed it inside. Then with the Beretta still tucked inside his waistband he started to dash toward the street. Until he spotted the policeman with curly hair.