David Corbett - The Devil’s Redhead

Shel assumed this was Lyle. Or Hack. She tried to picture it. Then she tried not to. “What happened to him?” she asked quietly.

“What do you think?” He seemed wounded by her tone. “You can say a prayer for him.”

“Yeah. I’ll do that.”

“It took us a while, but Snuffito came around. Big-time.”

“Don’t gloat about that,” Shel said. “It’s beneath you.”

She thought for a moment she detected a slight blush rising in his face.

“I wasn’t gloating,” he said. “That’s how we learned about the house, where we found you. From Snuff.”

“And Dayball?”

“There’s a place Snuff and his brothers deliver money, it’s a front, some plumbing repair outfit in Rio Vista. That’s what he told us. We put a bandista on it- ”

“Bandista?”

“Gang,” he said. “Guy from a gang. New recruit. We put him on this place in Rio Vista, Dayball showed up early this morning.”

Shel looked off toward the northerly hills. They were low and smooth and lush with windblown grass.

“What’s my part in this?”

Cesar picked up another stone, hurling it in almost the exact same place as the last.

“You get traded for Frank,” he said.

She couldn’t help herself, she laughed. “You’re not serious. To accomplish what?”

“Whatever we fucking choose.” He looked away uneasily. “To be honest, the plan’s changed since we picked up Dayball.” He shook his head, shrugged. “Fucking coward. We barely had him in the car before he was telling us everything, anything, begging, trying to work an angle. It was pathetic.”

Shel understood his contempt, at the same time envying Dayball’s having an angle to play. Not that it seemed to be doing him much good.

“So now,” she said. “What’s the plan now?”

Cesar picked up another stone, but instead of tossing it he merely bobbed it in his hand. “That Dayball, very chatty guy. We know enough now to take it to Señor Felix but good. Run him out of here. But you know, knowledge is power. The men who call the shots, they see an opportunity here. So they’re sending somebody back to the plumbing shop in Rio Vista, where we snagged Dayball, they’re gonna leave a message for Felix. He hands up Frank to us, we hand you back to him. Show him. See? We’re not so bad. We’re human beings. Then we talk terms.”

“That’s nuts,” Shel said. She could hardly draw a breath, so it came out sounding like a laugh.

“He goes along, or he goes down, man by fucking man.”

“You don’t know Felix. He’ll never go for that.”

“Too bad.”

For me, she thought, turning away. Too bad for me. Voices erupted from the far side of the house. Shel recognized one of them as belonging to Humberto, or Pepe. One of the big ones. They were out in the open now, out of the cellar, calling to the men in the truck. She heard something drop hard onto the back of the flatbed amid the banter of men at work.

“You hand me back to Felix,” Shel confided, “I’m dead.” Cesar wouldn’t look at her. He knows, she thought. Of course he does. On the far side of the house, the truck started up and began backing around to head out again. “I was supposed to make sure Frank could deliver. That was my side of the bargain, or else they’d just kill him as is.”

“Yeah, I know,” Cesar said softly. “Dayball told us that, too. That’s what makes you valuable.”

“To who?”

The flatbed headed out the gravel road, returning the way it had come, leaving behind another cloud of black exhaust. The truck’s back end was covered now with a large sheet of canvas roped down tight.

“Felix put a price on your head,” Cesar told her. “You disappeared last night. Frank fucked up, the trap they laid turned to shit. Felix figured somehow, some way, you’d been in on the whole thing. He’d put the word out, you get brought to him. Well, okay, we’ll do that. He brings Frank to us, so we can finish what the Arevalo brothers wanted. One for the other. A sign of good faith. He pays his weekly dues, everybody goes back to business.”

“Dues?”

“Twenty-five grand.”

Shel’s jaw dropped. A cough of air came out instead of sound. “That’s crazy,” she said. “A shakedown, Felix? That’s what, a million a year. More.”

“He can afford it.” Cesar grinned. “Like I said, that Dayball, very informative guy.”

And now he’s dead, Shel thought. Informative. Valuable. Dead. “Felix’ll never pay you.”

Cesar shrugged. “Then he’s a dead man. Him and everybody who stays in with him.”

“You don’t understand. He’s a redneck. His mind’s bloated on that Aryan warrior horseshit. Thinks the Alamo was a victory. He’ll wear his blood like a badge of honor. His and everybody else’s.”

“Yeah, well, nothing I can do about that, is there?” Cesar said. “I don’t make this shit up, I just do what I’m told.”

Another wind stirred the oak branches, showering the ground with thorny leaves.

“Either way,” she said, “I’m dead, right? You’re talking to a dead woman.”

Cesar bobbed the stone in his palm one last time, then chucked it high and far, as though to get the thing out of his hand. “Not my decision,” he murmured. “I’m sorry.” Turning to her finally, he added, “For now, though, no. Like I said, you’re valuable.”

Humberto and Pepe appeared, turning the corner of the house and grinning like grade school boys. One of them made kissing sounds again. The other one clapped his hands and whistled, as though for a dog, then gestured for Cesar to come, follow them back inside. Cesar put his hand under Shel’s arm and said, “Time to head back in.”

“I want you to do me a favor,” she said, resisting his pull. He turned back to face her. “When it comes time, I want you to be the one who kills me.”

Cesar flinched. “It’s not going to work that way, I told you. I can’t- ”

“You,” Shel said. “No one else. Don’t hand me back to Felix. Don’t leave it to him.”

Resentment darkened Cesar’s eye. Gradually, something else took its place. The same sorrow as before, tinged with despair.

“Why me?”

“Because we’ve had this talk,” she said. “It’s a favor, a big one, I realize that. But I’m asking. Please.”

Omar’s House of Omelets rested in midtown San Francisco, halfway between the theater district and the streetwalkers. The decor insinuated low-income plush: imitation Tiffany, overstuffed booths, cobwebbed ferns. The early morning clientele consisted of hustlers, cabbies, hookers ordering their ceremonial breakfasts. A few elderly locals joined the mix, sitting at the counter and staring hypnotically at the order window, holding rubbery wedges of toast. The place smelled of stale vat grease and industrial cleanser. The waitresses, older women mostly, wandered table to table without haste. It was not a pressure job.

Frank had found his way into the city during the last wave of paranoia. He’d wakened before dawn in his hotel room, feeling tormented and raw, his skin all but ready to rip away. There was this hazy recollection of a dream involving the president, or the owner of the Dallas Cowboys, he couldn’t quite make out which. Regardless, the end result was: Run.

He’d downed two Thorazine and it evened out his mood but left him feeling light-headed. The shakes were holding fast, but the spooks had faded somewhat. Gradually his mind decided to cooperate. The recent past took form like snatches of a TV marathon watched over a stoned weekend. If it was all true, he had some doing to do. Lie low. Razzle up some money, get to Mexico. Or Canada, maybe. All things considered, Mexico did not seem all that great an idea.