Feast Day of Fools - James Lee Burke [83]
R.C. drank again from the coffee cup, then set it down on the bar. His throat felt clotted, as though he had swallowed a handful of needles and could not blow them from his windpipe.
“Here, eat a tortilla,” the mulatto said. “You ever have your throat blessed by the crossing of the candles on St. Blaise’s Day? See, the priest puts the candles in an X on your throat, and for the next year you don’t got to worry about choking on a bone or a piece of glass somebody put in your food. You okay, rubio?”
“Why you calling me that?”
“’Cause you’re rubio and macho, man. You’re blond and strong and got cojones and can kick ass, I bet. Here, drink your coffee, then we’ll go out back. It won’t cost you nothing. I got a tab here. The best thing about my tab is I ain’t got to pay it. You know why that is, man?”
R.C. could feel the skin on his face shrinking and growing hot, the beer signs and long bar and cuspidors streaked with tobacco juice slipping out of focus, the colors in the plastic casing on the jukebox dissolving and fusing together, the grin on the mulatto’s face as red and wet as a split in a watermelon.
“I’ll tell you why I ain’t got to pay. I’m friends with La Familia Michoacána. You know who them guys are? They’re religious crazies who cut off people’s heads when they ain’t transporting meth up to your country. We got your country by the balls, man. You need our dope, and you like to screw our women. But I’m gonna take care of you. Hang on to my arm. I’m gonna introduce you to a chica out back you gonna love. You can use my spurs on her, man.”
R.C. felt himself falling to the floor, but the mulatto and a second man grabbed him and fitted each of his arms across their shoulders and carried him through the back of the bar, past a small dance floor and the stone urinal that was shielded only by a bead curtain, and into the alleyway between the cantina and the row of cribs that had canvas flaps on the doorways.
R.C. heard himself speaking as though his voice existed outside his body and he had no control over it.
“What’s that you say?” the mulatto asked. “I couldn’t hear. My ears are stopped up, and my mind is slow. It’s ’cause of the way I grew up, working on a gringo ranch for a few pesos a day and eating beans that never had no meat in them. Getting slapped on the ear didn’t help none, either. Okay, go ahead, I’m listening real good now.”
R.C. heard himself speaking and then laughing like he had never laughed in his life, his legs as weak as tendrils hanging from the bottom of his torso.
“Oh, that’s good, hombre,” the mulatto said, having listened carefully to R.C.’s words.” ‘Mexico would make a great golf course if it was run by Texans.’ But you’re a narc, man, so guess who we gonna sell you to? You get to meet La Familia Michoacána. They don’t mess around. When they catch informers or narcs pretending to be down here for puta, they put their heads out on the sidewalk with the blindfolds still on and sometimes a cigarette in their mouths. Believe me, man, when I tell you this. What’s gonna happen to you ain’t gonna be like life on no golf course.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
WHEN HACKBERRY CAME through the front door of the cantina, he saw the bartender take note of him and Pam, then continue eating from a bowl of tripe, blowing gently on each spoonful before he placed it in his mouth. The bartender was seated on a stool, a napkin tucked inside the top of his shirt, his throat skin as coarse and wrinkled as a turkey’s, his eyes like big brown buttons in a pie-plate face, his head shaved bald and a large black swastika, with red feathers for appendages, tattooed on the crown of his skull. He told Hackberry that he was sorry, but no, he had not seen anyone in the bar resembling Hackberry’s young friend. His hands were big and square and looked like those of a bricklayer rather than those of a bartender. He continued eating, leaning forward over the bowl of tripe, careful not to spill any on top of his stomach.
“How long have you been on duty here?” Hackberry said.
“A few hours,” the