The Best Bad Dream (12 page)

“I know,” she said. “Me, too.”

“Don't play me, though,” Jack said. “I know you, Michelle. I know you and if you play me, I don't know what I'll do.”

“I won't, Jackie,” she said. “No matter what. We're together. But we have to hurry. I'm so afraid for Jennifer.”

She kissed him deeply again, and Jack ran his fingers through her thick hair.

Then she opened the hotel room door.

“Tell me what happens at Jackalope,” she said.

She smiled seductively, twitched her perfect ass, and walked away from him into the hall.

Chapter Sixteen

Oscar Hidalgo wore a black Rodeo King cowboy hat, jeans, and an ancient pair of rattlesnake boots that he had inherited from his Mexican sheriff grandfather. With his new black moustache, he looked downright scary.

They drove out into the desert dark, the road illuminated only by fierce moonlight.

Jack was dressed in black denim, and wore black leather boots.

“Man, you make a great cowboy,” Jack said. “We oughta take a picture of you and me like this and send it to the Great Supervisor, Watt.”

Oscar almost laughed.

“No, man. We don't want to irritate him any more than he is already. If he wasn't so busy with the Homeland Security guys he'd be keeping tabs on you. If he finds out we're going rogue down here he'll be all over your ass.”

“What are those Homeland Security guys up to?”

“They want to see all our records. They want to run every investigation. The only agency they treat worse than us is the D.E.A. They got the power right now and they are kicking ass and taking names, bro.”

“Good,” Jack said. “That'll keep the boss busy for a while. Which is just what we need.”

“You really think Jennifer Wu is out here?”

“That's what I've been able to learn so far and it fits. Jennifer has probably been kidnapped by these Jester assholes. She could be drugged and forced to ‘work’ out here or they might have sent her to one of their other places.”

“That makes more sense, doesn't it?” Oscar said. “I mean they take her off the streets and put her out here, someone is going to recognize her.”

“Yeah,” Jack said, as he hit a jackrabbit head-on. The thing made a sickening slushy sound and blood and a little fur came flying up onto the windshield. “That does make more sense. But according to Lucky Avila they could be keeping her out here until they make their shipment to Mexico.”

“And you trust this Avila dude?”

“Not hardly,” Jack said. “He's a weird kind of New Age redneck.Like Merle Haggard meets Deepak Chopra.”

“That
is
weird,” Oscar said.

“Yeah, he seemed eager to lead me out here.”

“And you searched his whole place?”

“Yeah, I did. Maybe he has some kind of secret room, but I couldn't find it.”

“But if he did kidnap Jennifer to punish Michelle he'd make some kind of demand, a ransom or something?” Oscar wondered out loud.

“I know. And so far he hasn't asked for a thing. And yet . . . I feel like he's involved somehow. I know Michelle thinks he is.”

“Well, we'll check this place out and see what we can learn. Maybe it'll be simple after all, compadre. We bring her back tonight and we're heroes.”

“That would be nice,” Jack said. “I could use an easy win right now. Man, I'm supposed to be on my free time, hanging out with my son.”

“How is that rascal?” Oscar asked, smiling.

“He's fine,” Jack said. “Staying with my dad.”

“Good,” Oscar said. “I like your old man. Even if he is a dog sometimes.”

Jack laughed and gunned the car down the moonlit road.

Jack had expected the place to be a dump, but it turned out that the Jackalope Ranch was a big stone house at the foot of a mountain. There was a wide front porch with comfortable-looking rocking chairs. Some of the girls for hire sat out there now, one of them dressed in supershort cut-off Levi's and a tank top that barely covered her breasts. Another wore a lacy party dress and a sports bra, and a third wore spandex so tight Jack wondered if she could ever peel out of it.

They parked in the nearby lot, and as they walked back to the gate Jack saw three big Mexican guys wielding shotguns. As he and Oscar approached up the stone pathway to the porch, one of the girls welcomed them to the Jackalope in Spanish.

That was the cue for the other girls to surround them, giggling and playfully touching them. The spandex girl took Jack by the hand and pulled him through the screen door. The girl in the party dress nabbed Oscar.

“You are
muy guapo,
senor,” she said, with a fake, bashful smile.

Inside there was a big living room with a long bar. Behind the bar was a sexy woman busy making margaritas for two couples who were laughing and eating chips and salsa.

On the walls were some of the same pictures that Jack had seen downtown at the local galleries. Blue dogs, wise roosters, and more O'Keeffe rip-off blue flowers.

The chairs were comfortable and filled with more girls and some tired-looking Mexican ranch hands.

As Jack and the young girl headed toward the bar, they were cut off by a wide man in a Brooks Brothers suit and a rep tie. Though he had longish hair and a big moustache, he looked like a broker at Smith Barney.

“
Buenas noches,
” he said. “I am Pancho Flores. The owner of the Jackalope.”

“Jack Morrison.” At the first sight of Flores, the girl had dropped his hand and suddenly become busy talking to another girl who was getting some appetizers at the bar.

“I have not seen you and your friend here before,” Flores said.

“That's because it's our first time,” Jack said. “But you have a very good reputation.”

He looked across the room and saw Oscar and his girl drinking margaritas.

“That's good to hear,” Flores said. “You are from where?”

“Los Angeles,” Jack said.

“Ahhh, the city of Lost Angels. Now, what drink can I buy you?”

“I'll have tequila on the rocks.”

“Excellent,” Flores said. “I see you have a nice girl already. But if you like something a little more special, we can always accommodate that, too.”

“Really?” Jack asked.

“Yes. Whatever your taste in escorts, we have them all. Though some of the more rarefied women are available only if you are a club member.”

“I see,” Jack said. “And what are the benefits of membership?”

“Your wildest fantasy—any fantasy—comes true.”

“Sounds interesting,” Jack said.

“Yes, time catches up with the most beautiful of women, senor,” Pablo said. “And to be honest, with men, too. But some day, maybe soon, we will beat time down.”

“Yeah,” Jack said. “If we just drink enough tequila we can pretend that we're still young.”

Flores laughed but shook his head.

“No, senor. There are new paths to take. I am thankful I live in the center of consciousness, senor. All the battles for cosmic consciousness in the sixties were forgotten in the commercial eighties and nineties. All except in Santa Fe and a few other enlightened places.”

“I see,” Jack said. “And do you think running a bordello takes cosmic consciousness?”

“Oh, yes, senor. This is all part of the new movement. Pleasure goes mainstream, the breaking down of the old Puritan ethic. Do you know the DVDs we make here have more effect on consciousness all over the world than a thousand plays by Shakespeare? And soon, senor, what is called porn now will be seen as the liberation it really is. That and new scientific breakthroughs will make a whole new world. Instead of hiding our sexuality in a basement we will put it front and center in the world, where it ought to be. God and religion will trade places with it. If you say you believe in God you will be laughed at. And rightfully so. Sex, youth, and vitality will replace the invisible despot in the sky. The judgmental tyrant who starts wars. The hippies were right when they said ‘Make love, not war,’ but they didn't take it far enough.”

“But you charge people for sex,” Jack said.

“Yes, because they are so unliberated they think only if they pay can it be worth anything. But in the coming Utopia, my friend, we shall all be young and we shall all be free of money. We shall be drenched in the earthy sperm of perfection, senor.”

Pancho Flores looked at him with a malevolent twinkle. Jack thought for a second about showing Flores a picture of Jennifer Wu, but then thought better of it. After all, if he had her out here, penned up somewhere, he wasn't going to admit it.

Then Flores patted him on the arm in a fatherly way and drifted off to talk to another patron.

A second later, the attractive young girl who had met him at the door found her way back to him.

“You met Pancho. I think he likes you very much. I am Maria. You want buy me a drink?”

“Sure,” Jack said. “What's your pleasure?”

“I like margarita. Strawberry,” she said laughing.

“Whiskey for me,” Jack said. “Jack Daniel's.”

“You want to drink in here, or go back to my room?” she asked. She batted her eyes in a silent-movie-actress kind of way. Jack laughed and she grabbed his hand again.

“I think maybe you want to go to the room first. We can order drinks and have them brought back there. You like that?”

“Sounds great,” Jack said.

Maria looked at the bartender and rapped twice on the bar. He nodded and she led Jack off down the hall.

The guitar player started singing “Wasted Days and Wasted Nights.” That seemed odd to Jack. He had just been thinking about Freddy Fender, and now they were playing the very song that had been rolling through his mind. He had the strange sensation that whoever
was running things around the Jackalope could read his thoughts. He knew it was an absurd idea, but this wasn't his usual low-grade paranoia. It was as though he had ingested some speed and could feel it tweaking his mind.

They knew what he was thinking. They knew he was going to come here, and they also knew he was with the FBI.

They knew all about him. They were playing with him. Like Lucky had played with him back at El Coyote.

He shook his head as though physically trying to shake out the spooks.

They don't know a damned thing, he silently reminded himself. They think you're just a friend of Michelle's. Relax.

As they headed out back, the porch door opened and Jack saw that his partner had added another woman. Now one was hanging from each arm. Oscar looked at Jack and cracked up.

“A man's gotta do his duty,” he said.

Maria took Jack to what looked like a motel room, just across from a broken fountain and a smaller service bar being tended by a spectacular-looking transvestite with a pink and gold D.A. haircut. They got their drinks from him/her, and Maria unlocked the door to her room. The bed was made, but just barely, and she left the lights out and lit an incense candle.

She smiled at him, sat down on the bed, and took off her top. The move was about as erotic as a child undressing a doll. Rather than being aroused, Jack felt protective of her. He hadn't really looked at her closely outside. But now she seemed about fifteen years old. Her breasts were small and there was a scar under one of them. Where a knife had sliced her, Jack thought.

“You pay me now?” she asked, timidly. “One hundred fifty dollars.”

“Sorry,” Jack said. “I only have a hundred.”

He took the bill out of his pocket and handed it to her.

“You a cop?”

“No way,” Jack said.

“You want something? Blow job?”

She reached for Jack's crotch and before he could do anything she had squeezed his soft penis.

“You not hard. You a fag?”

“No, what I am is a
hermano.
”

“A brother?”

“That's right,” Jack said. “A brother who is looking for his adopted sister.”

He sat down on the bed next to Maria and took out the picture of Jennifer and showed it to her.

“She disappeared two days ago. You seen her anywhere around here?”

She looked at the photo and shook her head.

“No, I don't think so.” But her whole manner had changed. She was frightened, her hands shaking.

“I think you're a cop. You going to take me to jail?”

Tears rolled down her face and she had begun to shiver. Jack took her hands softly in his.

“Now listen,” he said, “I'm not here to hurt you.”

She looked up at him with doubt in her eyes.

“Maybe you take me away. Maybe you feed me to the beast.”

“The beast,” Jack said. “What are you talking about?”

“You don't know? Really?”

“Really. Tell me, Maria.”

She bit her lower lip. Jack tenderly wiped the tears from her eyes.

“All the girls know. There is a man, wears black, he may not even be a man. May be the devil . . . He comes up to people on the street or even in their homes and he takes them to some place where he has . . .”

She could barely continue.

“Where he has a beast. A . . . how you say, a—”

“Monster?”

“
Si.
Monster. Terrible thing, weighs many pounds, and will chew up the girls. He gets strength from their hearts and brains. He is like a divinity. Can never die.”

“Where is this monster?”

“I don't know. Some people say he is at the Satan's place.”

“The Sons of Satan?”

“
Si.
A monster they feed girls who try to get away. In underground.”

She must be talking about Ole Big, the hog, Jack thought. But why would the Jesters have him eat people? Unless it was like a goodwill gesture between two nation-states. The Sons sold meth, the Jesters sold women. A little business between them made it possible for them to coexist; they might even do each other favors.

It sounded like something that sick creep Zollie would do.

But would Lucky be involved? It was possible. If a girl had seen too much in either camp she could put the whole operation at risk.

He thought of Jennifer, half-drugged, being fed to that horrible hog.

He looked at Maria again but she looked away and played nervously with her hair. He was struck by another possibility.

“Do you know of any girls who have disappeared?”