Feast Day of Fools - James Lee Burke [89]
“You two guys go outside,” Hackberry said.
“You’ve got no jurisdiction down here, Sheriff,” the second man said.
“Who cares? I’m bigger than you are. You guys want trouble? I’ll give it to you in spades.”
The two men looked at each other again, then got up from the settee. “We’ll honor your request, Sheriff Holland. We do that out of respect for you and our employer,” the first man said.
“No, you’ll do it because if I catch one of y’all putting your hands on this little girl, I’m going to kick your sorry asses all the way to Mexico City. And if I find out you’re involved with the kidnapping of my deputy, I’m going to blow your fucking heads off.”
Hackberry did not wait for their reaction. He walked into the side room, where two men were shooting pool inside a cone of light created by a tin-shaded bulb that hung from the ceiling. The pool table was covered with red velvet, the pockets hung with netted black leather, the mahogany trim polished to a soft glow. “You!” he said, pointing at the man about to break the rack. “Yeah, you! Put your cue down and look at me.”
“¿Hay algún problema?”
“Yeah, you. Remember me?”
“Yes, sir, you’re the sheriff.”
“You were shooting pool at a cantina tonight.”
“Maybe I was. Maybe not. So what?” There was a deep indentation below the pool shooter’s left eye, as though a piece of the cheekbone had been removed and the skin under the eye had collapsed and formed a hole a person could insert his thumb in. But the injury was an old one. It was the same wound that Hackberry had seen in the face of one of Temple Dowling’s employees when they came to his office.
“There’s no maybe in this,” Hackberry said. “You were in the Cantina del Cazador. You were shooting pool there. My deputy saw you in there and described you to me. In very few words, you need to tell me what happened to my deputy.”
The pool shooter’s shirt was open on his chest, exposing his chest hair and nipples and a gold chain he wore around his neck. “¿Quién sabe, hombre?”
“You sabes, bud. Or you’d better.”
“I was in the cantina. I didn’t see anybody who looked like a deputy sheriff. What else can I say?”
“Why’d your friends out front say you weren’t there?”
“Maybe I didn’t tell them.”
“I can see you’re a man who likes to keep it simple. So how about this?” Hackberry said. He pulled his white-handled blue-black .45 revolver from his holster and swung it backhanded across the pool shooter’s mouth. The blow made a clacking sound when the heavy cylinder and frame and the barrel broke the man’s lips against his teeth. The pool shooter dropped his cue and cupped both of his hands to his mouth, his face trembling with shock behind his fingers. He removed his hands and looked at the blood on them, then spat a tooth into his palm.
“Chingado, what the fuck, man!” he said.
“You sabes now?”
“What’s going on here?” said a voice behind Hackberry.
Temple Dowling had come out of a bedroom down the hall. He wore slippers and a towel robe cinched around his waist. Lipstick was smeared on his robe, and his exposed chest looked pink and blubbery and his breasts effeminate. Two young girls were leaning out of the doorway behind him, trying to see what was happening at the front of the house. Hackberry could see a large man in a long-sleeve white cotton shirt and bradded jeans coming out of an office in back, a wood baton gripped in one hand.
Hackberry put his revolver in the holster and raised his left hand, palm out, at the man with the baton. “My business is with Mr. Dowling and his associates. Mix in it and you’ll take their weight,” he said.
“¿Qué dice?” the man with the baton asked one of the girls who had stepped out of the bedroom.
“No sé,” she replied.
“Está bien. It’s all right, Hector,” Dowling said to the Mexican with the baton.
“One of my deputies was kidnapped out of a cantina where your hired piece of shit with the bloody mouth was shooting pool,” Hackberry said. “He denies seeing my deputy, even though my deputy described your man to me over his cell phone.”
“Why would one of my employees have any interest