Sailor & Lula (19 page)

“Ssshh,” said Romeo. “I know I seen him somewhere.”

“I was a good-lookin' kid in those days, though, the kind they were after, like Coop, McCrea, Johnny Mack, Randy Scott. Didn't matter I was out of a Boston insurance office. I looked the part, so they stuck me on a horse and I fit. I did all right, saved my money and didn't forget everything they taught me at Harvard, just the things I never could remember. Trained me to talk like I was bred to take my meals from a Montana Hereford. Some of the others, though, didn't do so well. Lash was makin' pornos last I heard. At his age it's more a credit than a discredit. And Sunset's a doorman at the Thunderbird in Vegas. Saw him there myself. Duke, of course, you all know what he did. Licked everyone and everything except the Big C. And Randy didn't die broke. Only real mistakes I made was to marry a couple of American women. Shoulda stuck to Mexican and Japanese, or somethin'.”

When the man paused to pour himself a fresh shot and knock it down, Romeo said to Perdita, “Happy Pard, Protector of the Pecos! That's who he is. Man's a legend.”

“I heard you, pardner,” Hap said, nodding his head at Romeo. “You're dead right. Made over one hundred westerns before I got my own TV series. They just churned 'em out over at Republic and Monogram. Started the series when I was forty-five, and it ran nine years. Still on in parts of Asia and South America. My real name is Winston Frost, but everybody's called me Hap for so long I finally had it changed legal. The wiseguys even made me sign my IOUs that way!” He laughed. “That was a mean road for me, folks, that gamblin'. For years I'd bet on anything. Why, I'd wager on which cube of sugar a fly'd land on. I tell you, that Russian sonofabitch, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, had it pegged natural. Just read that story of his, ‘The Gambler,' and you'll see what I'm
gettin' at. Man was the greatest writer ever lived. Had himself the same problem as me.”

“What's he talkin' about?” Perdita whispered.

“Don't matter,” said Romeo. “There go your pigeons.”

The boy and girl, neither of whom were more than nineteen or twenty, walked out of El Loco's followed closely by Perdita and Romeo. Perdita caught up to the boy on the street and put her arm through his. Romeo came up next to the girl and showed both of them the nose of his .38.

“Amigos,” he said, “we're goin' for a little ride.”

“So what is this? Where are you takin' us?”

“Relax, amigo,” Romeo said. “Just a ride in the country. And hey,
mil gracias
, by the way, for not makin' a fuss back at the border.”

“Said you'd shoot us if we did,” said the girl.

“Now, sweetheart, I might've, that's right. You can't never be certain a man means what he says, but I've always made sure there's plenty of meanin' in my life. Ain't that right, honey?”

Perdita rode shotgun. She didn't answer, remaining stonefaced, thinking about how best to get the job done. Better to kill them before they got to the ranch. But the boy was cute. She could use him, maybe, then kill him. Romeo'd stick his thing in a keyhole if he thought it'd feel good. He could jump the little white whore if he wanted.

“We'll just be
compañeros
now for a while, if it's okay,” said Romeo. “Now, my name is Romeo and the mystery woman here is Perdita. What can we call you?”

“Don't say anything,” said the girl.

Perdita stuck her head out the window and let the wind blow through her hair. This is the right girl, she thought. They'd snatched them the perfect platinum bitch. Be easy to smack her, that's for sure.

Romeo laughed. “Better to be friendly, little lady. Easier all the way around.”

“Why should we make anything go easy for you?” the girl said.

“You figurin' on ransomin' us?” the boy asked. “If you are, my folks don't have much money. Dad manages a Luby's in El Paso. My mom's a typist for a real estate office. Estelle's folks ain't any better off.”

“Estelle?” said Romeo. “Is that your name, princess? Estelle. Almost like Estrellita, little star. I like that better, much better. Estrellita! That's what we'll call you. You like that, Perdita?” He laughed. “And now you, boy.
Cómo se llama
?”

“It's Duane.”

“Okay, okay,” said Romeo. “I'll take it. Regular name for a regular guy. You look like a regular guy, Duane. You
are
regular, aren't you?”

“I guess.”

Romeo smiled his big smile. “Now, yeah! We all know each other's names, and that's a step. Duane and Estrellita. Romeo and Perdita. Mix 'em any way you choose. Duane and Perdita. Estrellita and Romeo. How about Estrellita and Perdita? There's a pair. Or Romeo and Duane. Ha! There they go, hand in hand, the good little boys. We could do this one up right, use some brainpower.”

“Where are you taking us?” asked Estelle.

“Show you where the people live, Little Star. Be a place to tell about, you get the chance the next family picnic, all the little Estrellitas and Duanes and things are there, drinkin' bug juice, eatin' pie, honeydews. Fourth of July, could be.”

“Only it won't,” said Perdita, not turning around.

Romeo laughed. “Oh, Duane and Estrellita, you've heard of ‘voices'? You know, like, from the air, not from a person.”

“Like disembodied?” Duane asked.

“I think so,” said Romeo. “Not a body, just a voice. Like from God.”

“Yeah?”

“You're gonna hear it.” Romeo turned quickly, looking around at the boy and girl tied up in the back seat.

“Won't be no Fourth of July, baby,” said Perdita. “No Thanksgivin', neither.”

“How about
Cinco de Mayo
?” Romeo asked.

Perdita smiled at him, showing an even dozen of her tiny white teeth. “What you think of Christmas in hell, Chico? Think your honeycunt here can handle that?”

Romeo banged the steering wheel with both hands, howled and rocked back and forth as he drove.

“Holiday in hell!” he shouted. “Happy fuckin'-A holiday! Whew! You make it right, sugar. Make it fuckin'-A, hard-as-a-rock, crazy-baby okay!”

Perdita laughed. “Well, I guess I love you, too,” she said.

Tyrone “Rip” Ford had been born and raised in Susie, Texas, and in the forty-three years of his existence had never, excepting his time in the service, lived beyond plain sight of the Rio Grande. Rip became a deputy sheriff of Larry Lee County when he was twenty-one, three years out of high school and three weeks out of the U.S. Army. He became sheriff of Larry Lee County ten years later and had held the job ever since.

Rip Ford's father, Royal Ford, had nicknamed his son after his own paternal grandfather, Colonel Rip Ford, an early member of the Texas Rangers. After rising to the rank of captain in the Rangers, Rip Ford, elevating himself to colonel, had subsequently recruited a fugitive company of men from South Texas to fight under his command during the War Between the States. Composed mostly of wanted men and men considered too old or too young to be conscripted by the Confederate Army, Ford's irregulars united primarily for the purpose of resisting an expected invasion of South Texas by a Union brigade of Negro soldiers.

Colonel Ford's raggedy group maintained a peripatetic camp along the Mexican side of the border, dodging hostile Kickapoos and Apaches and staging supply raids on isolated settlements on both sides of the river. Declared an outlaw by General Robert E. Lee, his followers branded as criminals and lowlifes, the original Rip Ford attempted to construct a deal just prior to the surrender at Appomattox whereby his company would have switched their allegiance to the North and assisted the Union in a campaign against Mexico. This realignment did not come to pass, but Colonel Ford did succeed in acting as agent between Yankee merchant ship owners and Southern cotton growers, convincing the shipping magnates to place their boats under Mexican registry and transport cotton to the fleet of European ships, mainly English, sitting in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea.

Royal Ford had always admired his grandfather's resourcefulness, and hoped his son—whose Christian name, Tyrone, was given him by the boy's mother, Louise, an ardent admirer of the movie star Tyrone Power—would exhibit a similar tenacity and sense of purpose. Royal was
killed during a robbery at the Gulf gas station he'd owned and operated in Susie since his discharge from the army following World War II. A drifter named Ulysses Neck had shot Royal Ford in the back of the head while Royal lay face down on the floor of the office of his Gulf station. Ulysses Neck had exactly thirty-two dollars and eight cents in his possession when he was apprehended by two Texas Rangers an hour later less than ten miles away in the town of Fort Dudgeon. Neck took his own life that night by hanging himself by a belt from the high bars of his cell in the Larry Lee County jail, the same jail that Royal's son, Rip Ford, now commanded.

Rip had never married. His life was his work; no citizen of Larry Lee County could question Sheriff Ford's dedication. From Fort Dudgeon to Susie to Madre Island, Rip Ford was well-known and, at the very least, grudgingly respected by Anglos and Hispanics alike. Throughout its century-long history, there never had been a permanent black resident of Larry Lee County. Those Negro Yankee troops so feared by Louise Ford's son Tyrone's great-grandfather never did materialize.

The moment Rip Ford learned of the disappearance of the two college students, Duane Orel King and Estelle Kenedy Satisfy, he felt a sharp pain in his lower back.

“What's wrong, Rip?” asked First Deputy Federal Ray Phillips, noticing the sheriff's grimace.

“Like as somethin' just poked me with a pitchfork above the right buttock, Fed,” said Rip. “Never felt nothin' like it before.”

“Better hope ain't nobody down in the Mud Huts stickin' no pins in a doll got your name on it,” said Federal.

Both men laughed.

“Nothin's happenin'.
Yet!
”

Fed Phillips looked over at the man who said this and I.D.'ed him. It was Ramon Montana, one of the county's more prominent drunks.

“You can hear me, Señor Fed! You know I mean what I'm sayin' when I say somethin'. I
said
, nothin's happenin'.
Yet!
”

“Heard you, Ramon. Havin' a good weekend already, I can tell.”

Ramon Montana staggered to the curb where he fell on his knees and regurgitated into the gutter. He shook himself like a wet dog, got up, cleared his throat, threw back his shoulders, put one foot in the air as if he were about to climb a flight of stairs, listed to starboard and toppled to the sidewalk.

“C'mon, there, Ramon,” said Fed, helping him back to his feet. “Let's see we can get you home before you get so scarred up your sister can't recognize you.”

“Ain't
goin
' home!” Ramon shouted. “Can't make me. My sister's dead, anyhow.”

“Better'n takin' you to jail.”

Ramon grumbled but allowed Fed Phillips to escort him the half-block to his rooming house, where Fed led Ramon up the stairs and in the door.

“On your own, now,
amigo
. Sleep tight.”

“Tell you, Señor Fed, some strange shit goin' on. You see I ain't talkin'. They gonna kill them kids, them
gringos
, the
gringa
. You hear about it, 'member I tell you firs'. Man got the evil eye. Evil eye.”

Fed closed the door and went back to the street. Who's gonna kill what kids? he thought. Fed headed toward El Loco's to see what he could find out.

Over at the jail, Rip Ford sat in his office looking at the picture of Ava Gardner he kept in a plastic frame on his desk. It was a full-face photo taken in 1954 by a Frenchman, Philippe Halsman. Rip knew this because the photographer's name and the date were printed on the back of the picture. It was a postcard, really, but set into the frame like it was made
it look proper, as if it were his wife or fiancée. In the picture, Ava Gardner's tousled black hair obscured her right eye, and her full, closed lips were pulled slightly to the right, resulting in something less than a smile. They looked as if they'd been smeared shut with red paint, though the photo was in black and white. It wasn't so much a fuck-me face as a I've-been-there-and-back look, the kind of expression you see only on the most expensive whores. This was Ava at her best, right after
Mogambo
, which Rip had seen as a boy from the balcony of the Joy Rio in El Paso. It was ten o'clock on Saturday night and he stared at Ava Gardner's immutable face, the face of a lifetime a lifetime ago. Rip let the telephone ring for thirty seconds before he picked it up.

As Romeo drove, Estelle Satisfy thought about her mother, Glory Ann Blue Satisfy, and wondered whether she'd ever see her again. Glory Ann had been born and raised in Divine Water, Oklahoma, a place she dearly loved and wished she'd never left. The house on Worth Avenue in Dallas, where Estelle had grown up, never pleased Glory Ann, nor did Dallas. Glory Ann never stopped complaining about the city. “When I wake up in the mornin',” she'd say to Estelle, “I like to know who I'm goin' to see that day. There's too many surprises here in the Big D.”

Glory Ann weighed three hundred pounds now. Her husband, Estelle's daddy, Ernest Tubb Satisfy, who'd been named after the famous singer, stood five-feet four and weighed one-hundred-ninety-five. He drove a 7-Up delivery truck and smoked Larks but took only three puffs of each one before putting it out. Ernest Tubb claimed the Larks lost their taste after the first two drags. He took the third one, he said, just to keep proving it to himself.