Operation Bamboozle (3 page)

“Uh-huh.” Frankie Blanco finished with the pump and made a long job of washing the windscreen, which allowed him a good look into the car. No weapons in sight. Proved nothing. “Don't get many strangers here,” he said. “You folks on business?”

“Could be. You thinkin' of sellin'?” Frankie didn't like the idea. “Joke,” she said. He didn't like jokes, either. She gave up.

Luis had been looking at the map. “Ben Hur,” he said. “There's a place near here actually called Ben Hur! And look, there's Pumpkin Center, and Noodle, and Cut and Shoot. There's even somewhere called Uncertain.” He smiled at Frankie. “Could you live happily in Uncertain?”

“Ain't never given it no thought.”

Julie paid him. “Where's the best place to eat?” she asked.

“Texas.”

They cruised quietly out of Truth or Consequences. Julie drove, observing the speed limit and highway instructions at all times. “Watch out for the sheriff's posse,” she said. “New Mexico hangs traffic violators without trial. That's how Kit
Carson took out the Comanches.” Luis was map-reading. “It's a hundred and some miles to El Paso,” he said. “That's Spanish for ‘the pass.' You're lucky to have someone like me, fluent in ten languages including Khachachurian.”

“Gesundheit,”
she said. “Whatever that means.”

Frankie Blanco dug out the card given him four years ago and he dialed the number of the nearest FBI office. He said he was Floyd Boyd, and he told an agent that a man and a woman in a car with Jersey plates had been snooping around Truth or Consequences, acting peculiar. Tan Chrysler, recent model. He had the license plate number.

“In what way peculiar?” the agent asked.

Frankie thought hard. “The guy wanted to know how did I feel about livin' in Uncertain. That's a town I never been in, Uncertain.” It didn't sound like much. “She asked me did I want to retire. Asked real nasty. Pair of freaks.”

“Not exactly discreet, were they? I mean, if they came to do a number on you … Why drive from New Jersey? Take the plane, rent a car, makes more sense. Were they armed?”

Frankie felt he was losing. “He's carryin' a 38, she got a 22 in her purse. I saw a big old shotgun in the car. They said they're goin' to Texas,” he added. “For the food.”

“So they're not stupid,” the agent said. “Lock your doors, Floyd. Callus if they comeback.”

Not good enough. If the FBI wouldn't watch his ass, Frankie knew he'd have to do it himself. He took fifty dollars from the till, gassed up his Chevy, locked up the station and headed south on Interstate 25. By driving flat out and collecting a black harvest of bugs on his windshield, he caught up with the tan Chrysler after about twenty-five miles. Then it was easy. He dropped back until he was a small soft blur in their rearview mirror. They'd never suspect he was following, and he couldn't lose them, because the road went to Texas and nowhere else. He enjoyed driving. He sprawled across the bench seat and hung his left leg out the window, in the breeze. He was taking positive action for the first time in four years, and that felt good. Felt strong. What next? Leave it to fate. Screw the Bureau. Besides, thinking hurt.

As they hit the outskirts, Luis said, “We don't have to stay here. If El Paso looks like el dumpo, then Fort Stockton is only 260 miles further on.” But El Paso turned out to be a lively little city. It had more than grandeur. It had splendor, passion, horse racing, Mexican rodeos, bullfights, mariachi music, margaritas, custom-made cowboy boots, and a fair claim to be the Tex-Mex food capital of the world. Why leave?

They checked into the Hotel Bristol, a goodlooking place where a squad of young and smartly uniformed Mexicans would be insulted if you didn't let them park your car and carry your bags and cry at your funeral by prior arrangement with the management. Frankie Blanco watched from across the street and knew he didn't have the clothes or the confidence and definitely not the money to stay at the Bristol. Including the fifty he took from the gas station, he had seventy-nine dollars and twelve cents. He had a bank account but it was in Truth or Consequences, along with his checkbook. He didn't know how long he'd be staying in El Paso. Fate didn't know either. Something else it didn't know, or wasn't saying, was what it intended him to do about this double-act that drove from New Jersey to Truth or Consequences just to talk to him about his uncertain future, as if it was a gag. He could whack one or both. Whacking people was his trade. Then what? The organization in Jersey would take it very badly and he'd be on the run for the rest of his life. Just thinking about it gave Frankie Blanco a dull pain in the chest. He beat it with his fist and it moved sideways a little but it still ached. He took that to be the voice of fate: no whacking, not yet anyway.

Still, he felt happier to be out of Truth or Consequences. That place was too small, too vulnerable. He decided to stay in El Paso, keep an eye on his problem, wait for fate to show its hand. First, find a cheap motel, eat a cheap meal. It had been a hell of a day, and he was still getting it straight in his mind when he wrote
Frankie Blanco
in the motel register and felt his pulse jump so much that the pen bounced. He scribbled on his name until it was unreadable. “My mistake,” he said, with a shy grin. “Wrote my stage name. Forgot where I was.” He wrote
Floyd Boyd.

“Ten bucks,” the manager said. “Including tax.” He'd seen shy grins before. They didn't change the price.

Julie and Luis didn't stay long in the Hotel Bristol. They found a real estate agency and the agency quickly found what they wanted. It was a low-slung five-bedroom ranch-style house nailed to the side of a hill above Cliff Boulevard and offering sprawling views of two cities—El Paso on this side of the Rio Grande, Juárez on the Mexican side—plus the nearby Franklin Mountains as a backdrop. Available now, to rent fully furnished. Owner had gone to Africa to write a book about elephants. Might be gone a long time. Very big, elephants.

They were in the office, signing papers, when the head man said: “Congratulations. You're our one hundred thousandth client,” and he held up the keys and stuck out the other hand, so Luis shook it and a photo flash went off. “One for the family album. And there's a complimentary case of champagne waiting at your new home.” Luis didn't like sneaky photographers but it seemed churlish to complain. He took the keys and cranked out a two-star smile.

By then, Frankie Blanco was living in a big old wooden roominghouse with an uninterrupted view of the tracks of the Southern Pacific Railroad. When a long freight passed, the building trembled. None of the toilets flushed properly. All the doors refused to shut, and the beds sagged from age and fatigue. But the rent was cheap. Apart from that, Julie and Luis had the better deal.

For the next few days he watched them from a distance as they explored the city.

They were in no hurry, stopped often to look around, which made him feel conspicuous so he bought some gray coveralls and a peaked cap that said
Bell Telephone,
and a clipboard. Nobody ever looked twice at a guy in coveralls carrying a clipboard. Big deal. He had them in view, sometimes from his car, more often on his aching feet, and what did it tell him? Big fat zero. He was losing confidence in fate. Losing money, too.

Then, after he'd followed them home to Cliff Boulevard, he stopped at a Texaco station only a mile away, filled his tank, got talking and got a job. Fate. It was meant to be. Suddenly he felt like the hunter, not the hunted. Stick around long enough and these jokers from Jersey would succumb to a hunting accident. Happened all the time, it was a national disgrace, a man couldn't take a stroll in the woods without being mistaken for a grizzly bear. Frankie made a quick trip to Truth or Consequences for money and bought a rifle on the way back.
Succumb:
he liked that word. Better than whacking.

On the day they moved in, Luis patrolled the terrace and checked out the view. He wore Bermuda shorts and a small black sombrero; nothing else. “See the hummingbirds in the wisteria,” he said.

Julie came out. “The wisteria is bouganvillea,” she said.

“Yes, a common mistake. In fact, your bouganvillea is actually Norwegian wisteria, which hummingbirds find irresistible. See?”

“There you go again,” she said. “Big Chief Bullshit.”

He touched a wall. “This must be
adobe,
which means we're living in a
hacienda.
Perhaps we should have a few houseboys. A small Mexican butler?”

“Sure. Use your family title while you're at it. Duke of Eggs Benedict. Should fool the FBI.”

“The Bureau isn't looking for us. We haven't committed any crime.”

“Try fraud. Grand fraud, with Sprinkles and a cherry on top.”

“Surely not. Fraud deprives people of what they value. We
enriched
those people. Enhanced their lives.”

“Bet you J. Edgar Hoover thinks different.”

Louis tipped the sombrero over his eyes. “If he comes looking, we can flee across the border. I've always wanted to flee across a border. It's hot out here.”

They went inside. “Those pictures have got to go,” she said.

He looked closely at two white kittens playing with a ball of wool. The ball was as big as a melon. The kittens were as big as huskies. “Painted on velvet,” he said, and moved to another picture. “Puppies,” he said. “Or perhaps friendly timber wolves.”

“Here's a canary thinks it's a buzzard.”

“Look, more kittens. Cute, in a terrifying way.”

“Wait till they're fullgrown,” she said. “They'll have your leg off in a flash.”

She put her arms around his neck and kissed him on the lips so generously that he knew at once there was a price to pay. “Which leg?” he asked. Her right leg rubbed the inside of his thighs. “Oh,
that
leg,” he said. “Why are we talking about legs?”

“They matter. If I were crippled, would you still love me?”

“Not as much as I do now.” That made her eyes open wide. “Look, you started it,” Luis said. “Anyway, what if I go to jail? Would you wait for me?”

“Sure.” They kissed again, much more softly. “No, probably not.”

“See? That's what we share: deep suspicion. We're totally unreliable. It's the glue that sticks us together.”

“Last night it was hot sex.”

“True. So maybe I'm wrong. I feel further research is needed.”

“Yeah, I can feel that too. But I'm hungry, so let's go eat. After that …”

“I am the slave of science,” Luis said. “Glue has me in its grip.” They were just words, and words didn't always have to mean anything; but they made her laugh, and that was good enough.

Nobody wants to get his hands filthy, checking some other guy's oil and water, when he could just as easily lay those hands on his girl, who sooner or later will get ants in her pants waiting for him
and consequently will slip easily and treacherously into the smooth, clean arms of his best friend. Allegedly best.