Sailor & Lula (22 page)

The door to the outside opened and two men, wearing white shirts, black pants and black hoods over their heads, entered, carrying the boy, Juan, on a litter, which they placed on the altar. Juan lay perfectly still as the men withdrew into the audience, his eyes closed. He was completely naked and his body had been painted white and covered with sweet-smelling oil and garlic. Romeo bent over the boy and vomited on his chest. Juan's eyes remained closed. Romeo picked up a large knife from the altar and held it over Juan's neck.

“Shango!” Romeo shouted, and suddenly slit the boy's throat.

Blood spurted straight up from the wound like black oil from an uncapped well. It poured out over Romeo, and as he shook himself the blood spattered those closest to him. Juan's legs and arms kicked and flailed and Romeo jumped and danced, groaning and shouting, “Shango! Shango!” Everyone in the room watched now as Romeo returned to the body and plunged the knife deep into little Juan's chest, sawing and hacking until he had pried loose the boy's heart. Romeo dropped the knife and lifted the bloody, pulsating heart and drank from it, his face, hands, arms and chest shimmering red in the puce light.

Romeo went to the body once more, reached in with both hands, the heart having been discarded on the altar, and pulled out the dripping viscera. He stepped out of the circle, Juan's innards dangling from Romeo's fists, and passed among the observers, many of whom made shrill, shrieking sounds as the possessed
babalao
wiped his soiled hands on their lips and foreheads, smearing them with the sacrificial flesh and blood. Romeo returned to the circle and collapsed. Adolfo ceased his drumming. The people rose and left the room as quickly as possible, pushing together into the night, avoiding each other's eyes.

Only Perdita, Estrellita, Duane and Adolfo remained with Romeo and Juan's mutilated corpse. Perdita and Adolfo both lay down on the floor
and fell into a heavy sleep. Estrellita and Duane, their eyes taped open, sat motionlessly, fingers locked, minds frozen. A small calico cat with green eyes came in the open door, walked slowly over to one of the saucers filled with milk, and drank.

“You talk to the girl's parents, too,” Rip asked, “or just the boy's?”

“I only could get hold of Mrs. Satisfy,” said Fed. “Glory Ann. She says the FBI's already on the job. They got some kind of deal with the Drug Enforcement agents who been after this Romeo Dolorosa for a time now. Apparently the DEA had him set up at Del Rio, but he got away. Now that there's a probable double kidnap across the border, the FBI's buttin' in.”

Rip got up from his desk and walked over to the window. Because of the heat, Calle Brazo was practically deserted at three P.M.

“Don't underrate those boys, Fed. Them and us always has got along good.”

“You gonna follow up on Ramon's tip about a dropoff at Junction?”

“Have to. Figure to camp out on the highway there tonight.”

“Want company?”

“Come if you want, Fed, though I doubt there'll be anything movin' but the usual, wetbacks and coyotes.”

“There is, we'll be on 'em like a king snake on a pegleg rat.”

Rip and Fed headed toward Junction, which was at the extreme southern end of Larry Lee County, fifty miles south of Susie, at nine o'clock that night. Before he'd become a drunk, Ramon Montana had been a lawyer, a successful one, and as such had kept up on most of the significant doings in South Texas. The bottle claimed him now, but Ramon still listened carefully to what people said and how they said it, and he managed to remember about half of what he heard. When he eavesdropped on the Castillo brothers, Eddie and Lou, at the bar in El Loco's, and caught the name Marcello Santos, Ramon, even though he was half in the bag, paid particular attention. One of the Castillos' cousins, Pete Armendariz, was a soldier in the Santos family. Armendariz had recently called the Castillos and talked about having to deliver a truckload of goods down at the junction highway, after which he intended to drop in on Eddie and Lou. The Castillos were looking forward to Pete's visit.

“With soldiers like Armendariz,” Fed Phillips told Rip, “ain't no call for Santos to hire a publicity agent.”

Rip laughed. “Pete ain't exactly the genius in the group,” he said, as they tooled along in the unmarked white Ford Crown Victoria.

At junction, which was nothing more than a crossroads leading north to McAllen, south to Reynosa, northwest to Laredo, and east to Brownsville and Matamoros, Rip pulled off the road and drove a few hundred yards into the scrub. When he was far enough from the highway not to be spotted, Rip cut the engine and he and Fed got out.

“We'll hike back over and find us some cover,” Rip said. “Grab that thermos from the back seat. I made fresh coffee. Be interestin' to see if this is gonna turn out to be anything. Just hope it ain't somethin' Ramon overheard in Wild Turkey town. What else you know about this black magic dope-runnin' cult operatin' out of Cándido Aguilar or Zopilote, or wherever it is?”

“Just that the dude runnin' the show, Dolorosa, is supposed to be some kinda supernatural freak can change into a snake or a jaguar. Least that's what the Mexicans say.”

“Nagual.”

“What's that?”

“Nagual's got the body of a jaguar and head of a man. Indians believe only a
brujo
can transform himself like that.”

“Well, whatever he is, he's sure got all the peons between Corpus and Tampico spooked proper. Whole state of Tamaulipas is afraid of this cat and his bunch. Keeps the power over 'em, that's for certain.”

“Religion's about the most powerful force there is, Fed. It's just sex by another name. Think about all the damage been done throughout history in the name of some religion or other. Every blamed war been a so-called holy war. Not much you can do to persuade a person's dead convinced they got God on their side other than get 'em down and make sure they can't get up again.”

“My daddy, Federal Lee Phillips, before he died, used to say, ‘If God had any mercy in Him, he'd keep me clean.' ”

“Man had a conscience, Fed. That's somethin' to take refuge in.”

“Just couldn't abide bein' a sinner and not bein' able to do nothin' to prevent it. Finally, he stuck a forty-four in his right ear, the deaf one. You know that Blackhawk I got at the office in the left side bottom desk drawer with the
Hustlers
? That's the weapon he done it with.”

Rip stopped walking.

“This here's prob'ly the best brush for us to hide behind,” he said. “Got a good view of the crossroads.”

“Rip?”

“Yes, Fed?”

“You reckon there really is a man can change into a jaguar?”

“Doubt it, but I suppose in these times anything's possible.”

“Dolorosa would have to be the devil himself then, Rip, loosed upon the land, not no ordinary human.”

Rip took out his Smith & Wesson .357 revolver, checked to see that it was fully loaded, and replaced it in the holster.

“Like I say, Fed, it wouldn't take more than a little to surprise me. Meantime, all we can do is keep our good eye on the road.”

Perdita did not like the idea of having to drive all the way to Los Angeles with Estrellita.

“Why can't I drive Duane and you take Estrellita in the truck?” she said.

“What if he overpowers you and steals the Cherokee?” asked Romeo.

“We'll tie him up.”

“Bad idea,
mi amor.
Someone sees the kid, it's trouble. I figure you can handle Estrellita better. She's scared shitless of you, anyway. She won't try anything. And Duane will be under my control. Trust me,
chica.
”

“You know,” said Perdita, as she lit a Marlboro, “I never like it when you call me
‘chica.'
Maybe because that guy I used to know I told you about, Bobby Peru, he called me that. He's dead now, of course, and it don't really matter, but I'd just same rather you didn't.”

Romeo closed the back of the Jeep, took out a red and white kerchief from his back pocket and wiped the dust from the tops and toes of his steel-tipped purple and black lizard-skin boots. He replaced the kerchief in his pocket and smiled his movie actor smile at Perdita. Romeo's large white teeth shone in the moonlight. Perdita looked at him. Romeo's teeth were a lot nicer than Bobby's, she thought.

“Didn't realize you were so sensitive, sweetheart,” Romeo said. “Still got that tough boy in your mind, huh?”

Perdita took a deep drag on her Marlboro, blew out the smoke in a fast, thin pink stream, and flicked the butt off a cactus.

“I ever tell you how he was killed?”

“Not that I remember.”

“He was attemptin' to rob a feed store in West Texas and a patrolman shot him.”

“You saw this happen?”

“No. I heard about it later, on the radio.”

Romeo shrugged his shoulders and dropped his smile.

“Life goes bad that way sometimes,” he said. “And you move with it from there. You felt something sincere, then, for this Peru.”

“He wasn't no real friendly person. It's not easy to say just what there was between us. I ain't particularly upset he's dead, if that's what you mean.”

“What if I were killed, Perdita, would you mourn?”

Perdita studied Romeo's face hard for a moment, then looked away. She thought about Tony, Juana's husband, and how he'd once tried to force her to suck his cock while Juana was taking a shower. Perdita would have bit it hard if Tony had been able to pry open her mouth but he hadn't. She'd told Juana about it as soon as she came out of the bathroom, and Juana had grabbed a kitchen knife and stuck it into the thigh of Tony's left leg. Perdita could still remember the way Tony's face twisted up with pain and how he staggered out the front door to his Eldorado and drove off to the hospital with the black knife handle sticking up out of his leg. She and Juana had laughed a lot over that one, both then and at later times when one of them would mention it. The thought of Tony hopping to the car made Perdita laugh now. Juana and Tony were dead so there was nobody left but herself to remember what happened and laugh about it.

“Ain't it time we got goin'?” she said.

Pete Armendariz was a pill lover. He didn't care what kind of drug or vitamin he ingested, he just enjoyed the act itself, feeling the tablets, big or small, on his tongue, and then the exquisite infusion of water or whisky that washed the round or oblong things down his throat. Tonight Pete had taken six bumblebees, enough speed to keep even a big man like him—six-four, two-seventy—going for up to forty-eight hours, along with his usual evening complement of twelve thousand milligrams of vitamin C; two dozen Stresstabs with zinc, calcium and magnesium; twenty-two Super Hy-Vite time-release multivitamins with twenty-eight nutrients coated with natural alfalfa juice concentrate; and sixteen Giant E-ze with 3-rivers oyster extract to keep his libido bopping. Pete prided himself on his enormous capacity for fucking, fighting and eating. He credited the vitamins with keeping him fit and looking younger than his twenty-nine years.

As he guided the truck closer to Junction, Pete grew more and more excited by the thought of partying with his cousins, Eddie and Lou. It had been no little while since the three of them had done some serious shitkicking together. Pete enjoyed his size, his muscle, his overwhelming appetites. He'd played offensive tackle at Baylor University in Waco for a year, but got kicked off the team for beating up an assistant coach who suggested too strenuously that Pete quit calling the quarterback “Cunt Lips.” Pete hated quarterbacks, believing they got all the glory while the linemen, such as himself, did all the real work. He played part of another year for the Red Raiders of Texas Tech at Lubbock, but got expelled for sexually assaulting a student nurse who was attempting to prevent Pete from stealing a vial of Darvocet at the university medical center. After college, Pete went to New Orleans, where he tended bar in three or four places until he went to work for the Santos family.

Pete pulled the truck over on the northwest side of the highway, turned off the ignition and jumped down from the cab. Dede Peralta came up right behind the truck in the Lincoln Town Car. Pete walked over to the driver's side of the Lincoln and Dede rolled down his window.

“We're a little early,” said Dede. “You were really barrelin' that baby.”

Pete grinned, causing his
bandido
mustache to curl up slightly at the ends.

“Got some people to see,” he said. “Hopin' you could drive me up to Susie, about forty-five minutes from here. I'll get back to N.O. on my own.”

Dede nodded. “Don't see why not.”

Romeo and Perdita, accompanied by Duane and Estrellita in the back seat, drove up in the Cherokee and stopped behind the Lincoln. Romeo got out and walked up to Pete.

“I am Romeo Dolorosa.”

“You're right bang on time, Mr. Dolorosa,” said Pete. “Mr. Santos appreciates it. Mr. Peralta, in the car here, has got your instructions.”

Dede handed a nine-by-twelve-inch manila envelope to Romeo.

“The directions to the delivery location in Los Angeles are very clear,” Dede said. “If you encounter any difficulties along the way, or once you are in L.A., that you are unable to take care of yourself, there is a number to call. Mr. San Pedro Sula will meet you at your destination, as you know. Mr. Santos says he has great confidence in you, Mr. Dolorosa. I know you will justify his faith.”