The Rules of Wolfe (15 page)

A few minutes later he's back and says, “She wants us over there.”

“When?

“Now.”

“You ask why?”

“Musta slipped my mind. Why don't you call her back and ask?”

16

Rudy and Frank

She has lived in this small house on Levee Street since the Three Uncles were toddlers. Built by the first Wolfes to settle in the delta, it's made of stone and roofed in Spanish tile and has withstood every hurricane of the last hundred years with no more damage than a broken window or a lost tile or two. The small front lawn is neatly trimmed and bordered by flower beds and a chain-link fence. Frank parks the 4Runner in front and we pass through the gate and go up the walk.

We're admitted by the younger maid, Rosario, who says for us to please be seated, la doña will be with us in a moment. We no sooner settle ourselves on the sofa than she enters the room and we stand up again.

She's in a loose dress of a light blue that matches her eyes, her carriage erect, her silver hair cropped above dangling silver earrings, her only capitulation to vanity. Nobody we know has ever seen her with even a trace of makeup. She's a bit taller than most Wolfe women, a genetic advantage of her paternal lineage, a rugged Scotch-Irish family long since settled in Mexico. They're inclined to lankiness and are incongruously named Little. Her grandmother on her father's side was a Wolfe, and Aunt Cat's sole marriage was to one of her Wolfe cousins.

“Buenas tardes, Mamacita,” I say, using the family's maternal address for her. It is also permissible to call her “señora” or Aunt Catalina in either language, but to directly address her as “Aunt Cat” or “tía Gata” would be excessively informal. Among ourselves, we generally refer to her as La Gata, and sometimes—if we're peeved at her for some reason and not under the same roof with her—as the “old woman” or “la vieja.” Frank has pointed out, however, that it isn't really accurate to call her “la vieja,” that to be precise we should speak of “la antigua” or “la prehistórica.”

“Good afternoon, Rudolf, Francis,” she says. “Please sit.” Her voice a mild rasp but still strong. That she chooses to speak in English means she doesn't want the maids to be privy to our conversation. She eases herself into a chair on the other side of the low coffee table.

She looks to be in her seventies and in excellent health for her years, but the irrefutable fact is that the birthday we celebrated last New Year's Day at Uncle Harry Mack's house was her one hundred ninth. Harry McElroy may be the patriarch, but Aunt Catalina was already in her forties when he was born. Her only two children, both sons, are long dead, but her three grandchildren are alive and robust, and all four of her great-grandchildren are now adults.

“Phenomenal” is an insufficient descriptive of her. She wears glasses only to read or thread a needle. She uses a cane on her daily neighborhood stroll less as an aid to walking than to swat away overly frisky dogs. Her hearing's still good enough to keep us from even whispering about her when we're under the same roof. She cooks, works in her garden, submits to Jessie's interviews for hours at a time. Her known history is no less impressive. Her godfather was Porfirio Díaz, dictator of Mexico for thirtysomething years. Her American great-grandfather was said to be the chief of Díaz's secret police. She was sixteen in the early days of the Revolution when a train carrying her and her two siblings to the Texas border to live with the Wolfes was attacked by bandits who murdered her brother and abducted her sister. In some versions of the story the bandits raped Catalina, though nobody knows if that's true because nobody's ever mustered the nerve to ask her such a personal question. Maybe Jessie knows, but of course she won't say. A few months after crossing the border, she survived another bandit attack, this one at the Wolfe seaside home. The family's twin patriarchs died in that fight, but all the raiders were killed, and, as the story has it, Catalina herself killed one of them. With a knife. The most widely known fact about her—it made headlines in the 1930s—is that she shot her husband to death in front of more than a hundred witnesses at a party. Then spent thirteen years in prison for it. Of course Jessie Juliet wants to write about her. Every year since she turned a hundred the
Herald
has solicited an interview, and every year she has turned it down. Doctors from medical schools have asked if they might examine her, and university historians and anthropologists have requested meetings with her. All of them turned down too. Since the New Year's party, we'd seen her only once, back in April, at the funeral of an infant cousin of ours, who died at the age of three months. I suspect Frank and I weren't the only ones at the graveside who reflected on life's vastly unequal apportionments.

“You look well, señora,” I say.

“As do you both,” she says. “Though perhaps a bit thirsty.”

She inclines her head toward the kitchen and without raising her voice says, “Rosario. Cerveza, por favor.”

The girl brings in a tray holding three cold glasses of beer and places it on the little table and retreats. We wait for Aunt Cat to pick up her glass before we reach for ours and raise them to her. “Salud,” I say.

Frank echoes the toast and he and I take a deep draft as she touches her glass to her lips, then sets it down. It's a superb pale ale, and I wonder of what label.

“I do not wish to be ungracious,” she says, “but the situation is urgent and I must proceed directly to it.”

“Yes, mam,” I say. Wondering what the hell.

She tells us that Eddie Gato—“your cousin Edward,” she says, referring to him as always by his formal name—is in serious trouble in Mexico. She's been informed that he angered some dangerous people in Sonora and they are in pursuit of him. If they catch him they intend to kill him. His only hope of escaping the country is to get to the border by motor vehicle and then cross it on foot, and the only part of the border he might hope to achieve is a segment along the edge of Arizona between Nogales and a place called Sonoyta. She's been told that although it is possible he could get to the border as soon as tonight, it is very doubtful that he will, considering the extreme caution he must exercise and the remote and roundabout roads he must use to avoid detection.

“More probable,” she says, “is that he will not arrive at the border before sometime tomorrow. Should he get there at all.”

She picks up her glass and raises it to her mouth and this time lets the ale touch her lips as we take another big slug of ours. She's giving us a minute to take in what she's told us.

I can see Frank's as knocked back as I am. We haven't seen Eddie in six months—nobody in the family has, so far as we know, not since the brouhaha about him and Jackie Marie—and I have to wonder what the hell he's done to get in such a serious jam. It's not entirely surprising, though, that this is about him. He's the only one in the family Aunt Cat's fonder of than she is of Jessie Juliet. Most of us believe there's nobody she's genuinely fond of
except
him and Jessie. As for why she's telling me and Frank all this, only one possibility comes to mind, and I don't like it.

Frank asks what Eddie was doing way over in Sonora. “We'd heard . . . I mean, there's always been talk he may have gone to . . . down to Mexico, but . . .” He lets it fall away. He'd almost said what many in the family have thought ever since Eddie took off—that he's been staying with Aunt Cat's people at Patria Chica, their place in San Luis Potosí. Nobody knows for certain if it's true, except for Aunt Cat herself, of course, and she's never said. The only one who's ever asked her if Eddie was really there was Aunt Laurel, one of her granddaughters, who said La Gata's “icy” response was “What makes you think
that
?” It put an end to the conversation, and despite several apologies for having asked such a presumptuous question, Aunt Laurel still got the silent treatment from her for almost two months.

“Why he was in Sonora is now irrelevant,” Aunt Cat says. “The only pertinent point is that he is in danger there and is trying to get across the border to save himself.”

“Yes, mam,” Frank says. “But . . . do you have any idea why these people want to kill him?”

“I am told he killed someone of importance to them. I am told he did so in his own defense.”

Oh swell, I think. And wonder how she can know all this except through her Patria Chica kin, however the hell
they
knew it.

“Do you know who they are,” I ask, “these dangerous people?”

“A criminal organization of Sinaloa. So I am told.”

Frank and I exchange a glance.

“I have summoned you because you are finders of persons. That is your trade. I am told you are very capable at it.”

Oh hell, I think, here it comes.

“I want you to find him before those people do.”

Frank cuts another look at me.

“Mamacita,” I say, “we share your concern for Eddie—for Edward—but for
us
to go to Sonora, well, that's not . . . practical. Sonora's a long way from here. It would be better and faster if we arrange for someone who is already there to—”

“Forgive my interruption,” she says. “I don't know anyone there. I know you.”

Frank says, “We have kin in El Paso who—” but she cuts him off to say she has already spoken with them and they will help us. “But they are not finders of persons.”

“With all proper respect, señora,” I say, “we have duties here. We're employed by our uncles. We can't simply go away on some other . . . task. We need to speak with—”

“I have spoken with Harry McElroy and he has granted permission for you to go. It is all arranged. He will inform Charles that you will be away for a few days on a personal errand for him.”

That's what she calls it. An errand.

She tells us she's not unaware of the difficulty of what she's asking. She's not unaware of the risks to us. She knows that the segment of border Eddie's heading for is over a hundred miles wide. Knows that it's a region of mean desert and alien to us. Knows that the men who are after him are killers. She understands all that. And she's sorry to say that her people in Mexico are unable to be of help to us. But, as she has said, our kin in El Paso will be able to assist us to some extent.

“You should also know,” she adds, “that his seekers believe his name to be Eduardo Porter. And he may be accompanied by a woman. She was said to have fled with him but it is unknown if they're still together.”

Of course a woman, I think. Eddie and his troublemaking dick. I'd bet a month's pay the whole thing has to do with her. It would explain why Aunt Cat's kin in Patria Chica are staying out of it. You don't risk harm to your people and your business for the sake of some distantly related kid's girl troubles.

“One other thing,” she says. “The two of you and I and Harry McElroy are the only ones of the immediate family aware of this matter. I wish it to remain that way until . . . the matter is concluded.”

“Yes mam,” I say. And now I'm absolutely certain it was her idea for him to go to Mexico—to Patria Chica or Sonora or wherever the hell. It's why she wants this kept between us. If anything happens to him down there it'll be on her ancient head.

She rises and we hop to our feet. She tells us time is critical, to collect whatever we need and get to the airport as quickly as we can. “Harry McElroy has arranged an aircraft for you. The pilot
will notify our people in El Paso when you are due to arrive.”

She opens the drawer of the lamp table next to her chair and takes out a pair of cell phones and hands one to each of us. Prepaids. “Keep these with you,” she says. “Should I receive more information regarding Edward, I must be able to convey it to you directly.”

I almost smile despite my irritation with her. She'd been denied access to us by Charlie Fortune earlier today and wasn't going to let it happen again.

“I know it is not likely you will find him,” she says. “But we must do what we can. All I ask is that you do your best. Please.”

I've never before heard her say “please” in that way.

She turns her gaze to a wall clock. It's a quarter of six. “Váyanse,” she says. And we go.

Back in the 4Runner, I say, “She sent him down there, you know. I'd bet the ranch on it. He wouldn't be in this fix if she hadn't.”

“No,” Frank says. “He'd probably be in some other one.”

p

After zipping home for a shower and change of clothes, packing a small valise each, and picking out driver's licenses and passports to match, we head for the airport in Frank's '68 Mustang. His Frank Bullitt ride, he calls it. I had phoned Charlie Fortune to see if it was true that Harry Mack had cleared our absence with him. It was, though Uncle Harry hadn't told him what it was about. Charlie was irked at being left out of the proceedings and said he knew this had something to do with “the old lady” and wanted to know what. I said I couldn't tell him, not now, but I would when we got back.

“Goddamn right you will,” Charlie said.

The security guard admits us into Spur Aviation Company's private lot, and twenty minutes after that we're in a twin-engine Beechcraft carrying only the pilot and the two of us, taking off and then banking toward the last red light of day, high over the tangled ribbon of the Rio Grande.

17

Rudy and Frank

Nobody in the family really knows why Aunt Cat has such particular affection for Eddie. His parents, Katy Jane and Roman Augusto—Catalina's only grandson—said it was obvious she took a special shine to him from the moment she first saw him. She'd asked Roman if they might name him Edward, which had been the name of her eldest son, Roman's uncle, and they did. Then went even further and middle-named him Gato in her honor. Every year on his birthday, from the time he was old enough to ride a bike, she's invited Eddie to her house for a special supper and to receive his present. Not even Jessie Juliet has ever received such special treatment. He's been to her house more often than anybody else in the family, but whatever they talk about, he's never said anything of it to us, or to anybody else, as far as I know.