A Game of Authors (9 page)

“Father, he had no way of knowing,” said Anita Luac.

Garson shrugged. “Maybe the imbecilic action was your failure to take me into your confidence.”

Antone Luac snorted.

“Would you like to hear about my morning stroll with Maria Gomez to the grave of her son?” asked Garson.

Chins came up. They stared at him.

“Raul told her that you murdered Eduardo,” said Garson. “She now knows that it was Raul himself who did it.”

“Hmmmmph!” said Antone Luac. “Another needless complication.”

“Sorry I interfered,” said Garson. “You would no doubt prefer arsenic in your beans!”

“He’s right,” said Anita.

“He’s a bumbling meddler!”

“Shall we go ahead with our original plan?” asked Medina.

“I don’t like it,” snapped Luac. “Raul could have his men knock off you and Garson, then . . .” he glanced at Anita.

“He won’t dare move until he’s contacted Olaf,” she said.

Medina said, “And with Olaf gone . . .”

Antone Luac sighed. “I don’t like it, but perhaps it’s worth a try.” He looked at Medina. “But, Choco, I want this understood: You’re not to go ahead unless you make the contact with Pánfil and Roberto. Do you understand?”

“Naturally.”

“And if
anything
looks strange to you, you are to call it off and return!”

“Yes.”

Luac turned to his daughter. “If it’s possible, I want you to go with them. Go straight to Tucson. You know who to contact.”

“But, Father!”

“Do as I say,” he snapped. “I can take care of myself.”

“I will be here,
Señorita
.”

She frowned.

Garson looked from father to daughter, sensed the need they felt for each other, the unspoken bitterness of suppressed feelings.

“I will do what I think best at the moment,” said Anita Luac. “And I will not argue more about it!”

Garson cleared his throat. “It would be a good idea to tell me what you’re planning.”

Antone Luac flicked a glance like a whiplash across Garson, looked at Medina. “Choco?”

“I agree.” He looked across the room to the hallway. “Later, when I’m sure it’s safe.”

Luac returned his attention to Garson. “This time you will follow, please. I know it’s difficult for one of your magnificent qualities, but . . .”

“I, too, will do what I think best at the moment,” said Garson. He fought to conceal his anger. Felt like nothing would be more pleasant than to crash his fist into Luac’s sneering face.

The old man sighed, glanced at Medina, shrugged. “Take food,” he said. “It will be a long day whatever comes.”

Once across the lake, they waited beside the dock while a peon saddled horses. Constraint about the presence of people walking on the trail above them held them in silence. They stared across the lake at the hacienda: a splash of tan and orange against the deep green of the swamp.

Abruptly, Anita Luac picked up a piece of wood from beside the dock—an axe chip about four inches long, three inches wide.

“Choco! Show me!” she shouted. It sounded like the ritual of a child’s game. She hurled the chip into the air above the lake.

Medina’s right hand blurred to his hip, came up with the revolver. There was a single shot. The chip bounced in the air. Another shot. Again the chip bounced. Five times he hit it.

The splintered chip fell to the lake. Something nudged it from beneath, then it was still.

Medina opened his gun, replaced the spent cartridges.

“The horses are ready,” said Anita Luac.

“Now I understand why Raul was so hesitant,” said Garson.

Medina grinned, flicked a finger along his mustache.

They rode out through a narrow trail in jungle growth that thinned as they climbed, opened onto a meadow. Smoky blue haze filled the air, hid the detail of the distant hills.

Anita Luac reined up in the center of the meadow, patted the neck of her brown gelding.

Garson stopped the sorrel mare they had given him, shifted uncomfortably in the saddle. It had been a long time since his last experience on horseback.

“The smoke,” said Anita Luac. “The Indians are burning their
milpas
. They’ll never learn!”

Medina galloped past them on a big bay, stopped, whirled, returned at a walk.

“
Milpas
?” asked Garson.

“Their cornfields. It’s the way they clear them.”

“This is a good place to talk,” said Medina. “But keep your voice low.”

Garson nodded.

“The idea is this,” said Medina. “We are out on an inspection tour that will take most of the day. At noon we will stop for lunch . . .” he gestured to the bundle tied behind his saddle “ . . .at a point about four miles from the Torleon-Ciudad Brockman highway. After lunch we will ride in that direction. Two men will be mending fences along the highway.”

“This is the Pánfil and Roberto that Luac mentioned?”

“Yes. They are men we can trust. They will be in a light pickup truck.”

“And we take the truck?”

“You and the
Señorita
.”

“What if we’re followed?”

Medina patted his revolver. “The story is that you two are eloping. You will go to Ciudad Brockman where the colonel of police—who is another friend—will provide you with a car and driver to take you to the airport at Guadalajara.”

Garson looked up at the smoke-dimmed hills, a feeling of premonition in his stomach. “Somehow, I don’t like it.”

Anita Luac’s horse snorted, backed away.

“I don’t either,” she said. “But we’ll give it a try.”

Medina reached into his shirt pocket, brought out the papers from Luac’s notebook. “Here. You’ll want these.”

Garson put the papers inside his own shirt.

Medina touched his reins. The big bay reared, turned, and they were off, racing across the meadow.

At noon they stopped where a narrow stream tumbled from rocks in a tree-marked watercourse. The air was cool with spray from the waterfall.

Medina tethered the horses while Garson and Anita Luac clambered down a clay bank to a sandbar beside the stream. Anita Luac waded across. Garson sat down on a log in the shade of the clay bank.

From the other side of the stream, Anita Luac called back: “Choco! Bring firewood. We can have tea.”

Medina answered from above Garson. “
Sí, Señorita
.”

There came the sound of limbs breaking. A shower of dirt rained onto Garson. He looked up, saw part of the clay bank give way under Medina. The big Mexican fell on his side, began pulling himself upright with the aid of a vine. More earth caved from beneath his feet.

As Garson watched, the revolver slipped out of Medina’s upended holster, slid down the clay bank. Garson picked it up, glanced across the stream at Anita Luac. She held a hand to her mouth, her eyes wide. He looked up at Medina on the clay bank. The Mexican had regained his feet. His pockmarked face carried a strange, set look, and he was staring across the stream to the bank above Anita Luac.

A horse whinnied behind Garson. He turned, still holding the revolver.

Raul Separdo sat astride a giant black stallion, outlined against the sky above Anita Luac. He held a rifle carelessly across the pommel, its muzzle pointing at Medina. Behind Separdo ranged three other riders, all carrying rifles.

They looked like nothing more than a raiding party of bandits. Separdo wore a black sombrero.

Separdo grinned. “What a pleasant surprise!”

Garson nodded.

Separdo looked at Medina. “
Buenas tardes
, Choco. I see that you have loaned your gun to Mr. Garson. What a pity! I would so enjoy another demonstration such as the one you gave at the lake this morning.”

My God! He means to kill Choco!

Garson cocked the revolver. The sound broke loudly on the tense quiet.

“Ah!” said Separdo. “Perhaps Mr. Garson would like to give us a demonstration with the revolver?” He spoke over his shoulder to one of the riders. “
Pánfil! Un pedazo de madera, por favor!
”

A piece of wood!
Then the name “Pánfil” registered.
Have we been betrayed?

One of the riders dismounted, searched the ground, came up with a piece of wood.

“Show us how you can hit the piece of wood, Mr. Garson,” said Separdo. “Pánfil!”

The man on the ground threw the wood into the air.

In that split second, knowing he could not hit the wood, Garson took a desperate gamble. He snapped a shot at Separdo. The Mexican’s hat jerked from his head. His horse reared. He lost his grip on the rifle, which tipped forward, fell over the bank to Anita Luac’s feet.

She snatched it up.

Garson stared at the confusion of milling horses on the streambank.
My God! I hit his hat!

Separdo regained control of his mount, reined it up at the edge of the bank. His face was livid with fury.

Anita Luac stood beneath him, the rifle held at the ready. Separdo surveyed the scene.

“You do not like the small target?”

“I choose my own targets, Raul.”

Separdo’s hands tightened on the reins. “But Choco hit his target five times.”

“I thought I might need the other four shots.”

Separdo nodded. His lips trembled. “Did you hit what you aimed at, Mr. Garson?”

“Do you want to see another shot two inches lower?”

Separdo tensed, eyes wide, a wild light in them.

Behind Garson, Medina laughed. “Try him, Raul!”

Slowly, Separdo stilled his trembling. A smile like a nervous grimace touched his mouth and then vanished. “Perhaps we should continue on our separate ways.”

“Perhaps that would be best,” said Garson.

Separdo looked down at Anita Luac. “I will trouble you for the return of my rifle, Nita.”

“I think I’ll borrow it for the rest of the day,” she said. “Maybe I’ll find a target to my liking.”

He stared at her, turned to the man standing behind him on the ground, then looked to another of the riders. “Jorge! Give Pánfil another drink.”

Then Garson realized that the Mexican who had thrown the piece of wood was drunk, swaying, eyes glassy. One of the riders handed a bottle of tequila to the standing man.

“Tómelo!” snapped Separdo.

The man on the ground stared up at Separdo, lifted the bottle to his lips, drained it, threw the bottle to the creekbank.

“Pánfil was mending fences,” said Separdo. “But we have other work for him today.” He motioned for the man to remount his horse.

Pánfil staggered across to his horse, climbed aboard.

Separdo turned to Garson. “
Adiosito
, Mr. Garson.”

Garson motioned with the revolver.

The four riders wheeled their horses, galloped away.

Medina slid down the clay bank to Garson’s side, took back the revolver. Anita Luac splashed back across the stream, holding the rifle high.

“You were wise not to kill him,” said Medina. He bent over the revolver, replacing the spent cartridge. “His men would’ve slaughtered us.”

“What about your friend, Pánfil?”

“I suspect that his rifle was empty.”

Anita Luac said, “You are a man of many surprises, Hal.”

Medina holstered his revolver, looked at Anita Luac. “Has Pánfil betrayed us?”

“Never!”

“Then I . . .”

In the distance came the sound of a ragged volley of rifle shots, then the cold clear snap of the Luger.

“That bastard!” gritted Medina. “I’m sorry now you didn’t aim two inches lower!”

“What was that?” asked Garson. But he felt that he knew.

“Pánfil,” said Anita Luac.

“Did they kill him?”

She turned on Garson, her face suffused with rage. “Of course they killed him! The same way they killed poor Eduardo! The same way . . .” She broke off. Tears filled her eyes.

Garson turned, looked appraisingly at Medina. “Choco, did you know that Maria Gomez calls Raul ‘La Yegua’?”

Medina stared into the distance. “I have suspected the connection for several days. How did you find out?”

Garson explained about the vent.

“Thank you, Mr. Garson,” said Medina.

“For what?”

“For saving my life today . . . and for saving Raul for me. He’s mine!”

“We’d better go straight back to the hacienda,” said Anita Luac.

When they returned to the hacienda, Anita Luac stepped out of the boat, ran down the dock and across the terrace. Garson climbed to the dock, heard her calling for her father in the house.

Medina chained the boat to the dock, weighed the snap lock in his hand, hurled it into the lake, turned to Garson. “When I was with Villa, my brother loaned me for a time to be a batboy for an observer who came to us from Germany.”

“Oh?”

“The observer’s name was Rommel. He later became a famous general under Hitler.”

Garson studied Medina’s ugly face, wondering at the motive for this conversation. “Rommel of North Africa? The Desert Fox?”

“The same. Rommel was a colonel when I knew him. One day he said to me, he said, ‘Chocito, to win a war is a very simple thing: You must be on the right side, and you must always be ready to surprise the enemy.’”

“To do the unexpected?”

Medina smiled, touched his mustache. “
Sí!
”

“What brought this up, Choco?”

“Today, you surprised the enemy twice.”

“And he surprised us once.”

Medina shook his head. “No. Nothing that swine does should surprise us! Nothing!”

“Am I also on the right side, Choco?”

Medina grinned. “That is for the Good Lord to decide, my friend. But I think you are.”

Anita Luac and Garson ate dinner alone that night. The crone served them silently, avoiding Garson’s eyes.

“Where are your father and Choco?” asked Garson.

“They are talking in his study.”

“Has Raul returned?”

“No.”

At the mention of Separdo’s name, Maria Gomez looked at Garson. An evil smile touched the old woman’s lips. She nodded once.

Would she poison him?
wondered Garson. Then:
How much time have we? Has Raul contacted the mysterious Olaf yet?

Garson finished eating, turned, stared out at the garden. He felt tense, uneasy.