Feast Day of Fools - James Lee Burke [198]
Through the ground-level window on the far side of the cellar, Krill could see a dirt road winding through the fields and rain starting to fall on a line of white hills and a flatbed truck and another vehicle coming down the road toward the compound, a rooster tail of dust rising behind each, the electricity in the clouds flicking like snakes’ tongues, forked and sharp, without sound.
“Señor Sholokoff, your employees have been screwing you behind your back, conspiring against you in order to hide their incompetence,” Krill said.
“What’s he saying?” Sholokoff said to Frank.
“Mike let the half-breed have a spoon to eat with and didn’t get it back,” Frank said. “The guy was probably working on the lock with it.”
“Where is the spoon now?” Sholokoff said, lowering his cigarette from his mouth.
“I don’t know, sir. He isn’t going anywhere,” Frank said.
“You’ve decided that, have you?”
“It’s not a big deal, sir. I’m taking care of it.”
“Not only do you make decisions for me, you also decide whether or not I should know about them?”
Krill could see the rain sweeping across the fields in a gray line, dimming the hills in the background, the flatbed and an SUV behind it turning off the road into an unfenced pasture, the drivers circling behind a pecan orchard.
“You hear something?” Mike said.
“No,” Frank said.
“I thought I heard a car,” Mike said.
“It’s thundering in the hills,” Frank said.
“Señor Sholokoff, listen to me when I tell you I have the plans for the drone,” Krill said. “I can be a very valuable employee to you. Your men are worthless. Look at them. They cannot think. They hide like children from their responsibilities. I retract my insults, señor. They were said in hot blood. We are both businessmen and need to behave as such, without rancor, without pissants like these to obstruct us.”
“You shut the fuck up,” Frank said.
“No, it’s you who needs to be silent, Frank,” Sholokoff said, glancing over his shoulder at the ground-level window. “I heard a car or truck. Look out the window, Craig.”
One of the men standing closest to the far wall rose on his tiptoes to see outside. “There’s a flatbed truck out by the pecan trees,” he said. “It’s probably some of your field hands.”
“They’re not supposed to be there,” Sholokoff said.
“It’s some peons, sir. I can see one of them,” Craig said.
“Mike, you get the spoon back from the man in the cell,” Sholokoff said. “The rest of you come upstairs with me.”
“Sir, the woman is about to break,” Frank said. “I got everything under control. I’ll check around outside if you want, but don’t ease up now.”
“You received a phone call earlier. Who was that from?”
“A gal I met in the cantina,” Frank replied. “I told her not to call while I was working.”
“A girl from the cantina? You are always thinking about your appetites, Frank. Do you never think about the man who took you off a porn set and made a soldier out of you? Do you have no gratitude for the life I’ve given you—the women, the power, the money?”
“Sir, I got on the cantina gal’s case. I want to prove myself to you. Leave me with the Chinese broad. Trust me, you’ll have everything you need when you come back downstairs.”
“You have a great problem, Frank. You have never been able to hide your lean and hungry look,” Sholokoff said. “That’s because a black heart has no loyalty. You can only think in terms of your own needs. I do not believe your story about the girl in the cantina. Have you done something you shouldn’t? Do you want to confess to La Magdalena?”
“Why do you mock me, sir? I’ve done everything you wanted, including hanging up that cowboy preacher on a cross.” Frank’s features sharpened with resentment, his cheeks sinking and pooling with shadow. “I’m surprised you didn’t have us throw dice for his clothes.”
One of the men on the first floor opened the door that gave onto the stairwell. “Mr. Sholokoff, there’s a truck and an SUV out by them trees,” he called down the stairs. “The maid hauled freight like somebody stuck a cattle prod up her ass. I sent Toy Boy