John Steakley - Vampire$

“What the hell is all this supposed to mean?” Carl wanted to know.

“Well, my job was to check out the Cuban connection into raw brown Mexican heroin, so I was along the Texas border trying to find out if all the rumors about a big-time purging of the hippie smugglers was true.”

“Was it?” somebody asked.

“It was. They were wiping out all the amateurs to get ready for the big money they were monopolizing.”

“So what did you do?” somebody else asked.

Jack shrugged, grinned. “Got in the way mostly. It was a dumb assignment and a dumb idea to send me along. I liked the NSA but they didn’t trust me. I liked the CIA but they didn’t even trust each other. I was scared of the DEA and they hated me but had to take me because of orders from upstairs.

“It was a mess.”

He paused, looked around, and grinned easily. “But I did have an interesting couple of weeks.”

And Cat thought, Here it comes. He glanced around at the others in the lounge and wondered how they were gonna take whatever it was that Jack was trying to sneak up on them.

And then he thought, He’s trying to sneak it up on me, too. First time ever. Of course, there’s a first time for everything, so…

So why am I so scared?

And once more Jack Crow began to speak.

Raw brown heroin changed everything. Those little doper camps used to be so cute, like a piece of the Wild Frontier. They’d camp out in the weeds somewhere in their motor-homes and the Mexicans would spring up a village out of tarpaper shacks to be close to the loose change spilling off. And there was quite a bit of that to be had. Life was pretty good.

I remember they used to string Coleman lanterns on poles for streetlights.

Playing undercover G-man, I left my weapons in the motel and parked my truck off the road before walking into a camp that night. It was one of the last really big ones and I could hear lots of shouting as I got close. But when I stepped through into the clearing there were only two guys there, both Mexicans, both drunk. I walked up beside one of them and said: “Qué pasa, hombre?”

He hit me.

Smacked me good right across the chops, my lip bleeding, then swings at me again and misses and the guy beside him starts yelling out, “Another one! Here’s another one!” And then he jumps at me, too.

They were both too drunk to do any more damage but that yelling brought reinforcements amazingly fast. More Mexicans started spilling out of the darkness from all directions, all drunk and all angry and all coming at me.

I ran like hell.

The wrong way, of course, that being the kind of night it was. Toward the river, away from my truck. I was lost in about two seconds, stumbling through the brush with Spanish obscenities echoing from behind. I had no idea what was going on except the basics: I was in deep shit.

But I was old enough. Old enough means I was too smart to try to stop and moralize with a meat-eating mob. There really are people out there who, while you’re trying to explain it’s not your fault, will pound you into putty.

I found the river when I fell into it. Well, stepped into it. The Rio Grande isn’t much but thirty feet across around those parts. So anyway, I step back and start shaking my boots dry and I hear this smartass voice pop through the night with “Hey, gringo! Where’re ya goin’?”

I probably didn’t jump over a mile or two. And I had already started to run when I realized the voice had sounded out in English, not Spanish. I spun around and first laid eyes on William Charles Felix, lounging in the door of an abandoned boxcar with a cigarette in his mouth, a bottle of tequila in his hand, and the biggest shit-eating grin you ever saw in your whole life. Had a World War II leather flying jacket, a faded blue navy work shirt, jeans, cowboy boots, and a Humphrey Bogart hat.

I found myself grinning back. Couldn’t help it.

I walked over and took the bottle from his hand and had a swig and asked him who the hell he was and he told me and invited me inside. So I propped a squishing boot on a strut and climbed up into the boxcar. It was even darker in there than outside.

“What are you doing in this thing?”

I could barely see his grin. “Same as you, Yankee pig. Hiding.”

“How’d it get down here by the river?” I asked him. I hadn’t seen any tracks.

“Got me,” he said, taking back his bottle. “Ask her.”

He struck a match and held the flame high. The boxcar had everything it needed to go from being a moving crate to a first-rate hovel, from rug scraps and cardboard furniture to a bleeding Jesus on the wall. Sitting in the midst of it all was a woman.

Just about the most aggressively ugly woman I’d ever seen.

Felix had lit a candle with the match after carefully pulling a battered blanket-something across the opening to shield the outside from the glow.

“Who is this?” I asked him.

He grinned again. “I’m not sure.” He sat down on another box, sent the grin at her, and patted a spot on the floor beside him. “I think this is her place.”

He made a gesture for me to sit down on another box across from him. I did. He offered me another sip. I took it. The woman came over and sat down on the spot Felix had indicated.

“What’s your name?” I asked her, unthinking, in English.

She said: “Twenty-five dollars American,” and wiggled her chest.

Lord.

Felix took the bottle back and sipped through his grin. “Interesting name, don’t you think?”

And we both laughed. So did the woman.

I lit a cigarette and leaned forward with my elbows on my knees.

“What the hell is going on?”

Felix was enjoying this. “What do you mean?” he asked innocently.

“Why are we hiding?”

He lit a cigarette of his own. “Well, I’m hiding to keep from having the living shit beat outta me by the locals.” He took a puff. “And you?”

“C’mon, dammit! What’s going on? Why are they so pissed?”

He eyed me strangely. “You mean you haven’t heard about the Garcia sisters?”

I sighed. “Who the hick are the Garcia sisters?”

He laughed. “Well, let’s have another little drink and I’ll tell you.”

He gave me another sip, took one himself. As an afterthought, he offered one to the woman.

She damn near took his arm off grabbing for it. Then she started chugging.

“Don’t worry,” said Felix, watching along with me. “I’ve got two more bottles.” He stopped, looked uncertain. The woman was still chugging. “It’s probably enough.”

At last he took the bottle after about a fourth of it was gone and told me all about the Garcia sisters.

Sixteen and seventeen, respectively, beautiful, sweet-tempered, and, most important, virgins, which means a hell of a lot more in Mexico than it does in Texas. They were the pride of the area. A ray of hope in a place where the future looked too much like the past. Everyone loved and bragged on them.

And then they ran off to Houston with two gringo drug dealers.

“But don’t worry too much,” Felix assured me. “Tomorrow morning nobody will be after us or even remember why they were mad tonight.”

I wasn’t convinced. “What makes you so sure?”

He shrugged. “It’s happened before.”

There was a sound from outside. Felix had the candle blown out, his cigarette coal hidden, and the blanket-thing shoved out of the way in one motion. He peered out into the darkness, listening intently.

They were out there. You could hear their unmistakable mob clamor. They sounded pretty close. I began to feel a little claustrophobic in that boxcar. I got down next to Felix by the door.