Feast Day of Fools - James Lee Burke [9]
“Yes, it is.”
“It doesn’t weep blood, does it?” Pam asked.
“Ms. Ling, if you don’t feel you can confide in us, talk with the FBI. The man we’re looking for barely escaped a terrible fate,” Hackberry said.
If his suggestion had any viability at all, it did not show in the Asian woman’s face. “I’ll keep in mind what you’ve said,” she replied.
Pam Tibbs’s arms were folded on her chest. She gave Hackberry a look, waiting for him to speak, the fingers of her right hand opening and closing, her breath audible.
Hackberry took the manila folder from his side pocket and removed the sheaf of eight-by-ten photos. “These were taken today at a crime scene no more than a half hour from your house. What you see here was done by men who have no parameters, Miss Anton. We have a witness who indicates the victim gave up the name La Magdalena before he died. We think the torture death of the victim was conducted by a man called Krill. That’s why we’re here now. We don’t want these men to hurt you or anyone to whom you may have given shelter. Have you heard of a man named Krill?”
Her eyes held on his. They were dark, unblinking, perhaps containing memories or knowledge she seldom shared with others.
“Yes,” she replied. “Three or four years ago, there was a coyote by that name. He robbed the people who paid him to take them across. Some say he raped the women.”
“Where is he now?”
“He disappeared.”
“Do you know how he came by his name?”
“He was a machine-gunner somewhere in Central America. His nickname came from the food of the whale. He ate the ‘krill’ in large numbers.”
It was silent in the room. Hackberry glanced through the door of the side room, which must have served as a chapel of some kind. Perhaps thirty or forty candles were burning in red and blue and purple vessels, the light of the flames flickering on the base of the statue. “You Catholic, Miss Anton?” he said.
“That depends on whom you talk to.”
“Expecting some visitors tonight?” When she didn’t reply, he said, “Can we look out back?”
“Why do you ask me? You’ll do it whether I like it or not.”
“No, that’s not correct,” Pam replied. “We don’t have a search warrant. We’ll do it with your permission, or we can get a warrant and come back.”
“Do whatever you wish.”
“Excuse me, ma’am, but what if we just leave you alone here?” Pam said. “Would you prefer that? Then you can deal with Mr. Krill and his friends on your own.”
“We’ll wander out back, if you don’t mind,” Hackberry said, placing a business card on the coffee table. Then he smiled. “Is it true you worked for Civil Air Transport, Claire Chennault’s old airline?”
“I did.”
“It’s an honor to meet you.”
Minutes later, outside in the wind, Pam Tibbs’s throat was still bladed with color, her back stiff with anger.” ‘An honor to meet you’?” she said. “What the hell is that? She’s a horse’s ass.”
“Look at it from her point of view.”
“She doesn’t have one.”
“She stands up for people who have no power. Why not give the devil her due?”
Pam went inside the stucco cottage, then came back out, letting the screen slam behind her. “Check it out. There’s a mattress in there soaked in blood, and bandages are scattered all over the floor. The blood is still sticky. I bet that guy was here while we were talking in the house. What was that stuff about Claire Chennault’s airline?”
“It was a CIA front that became Air America. They supplied the Laotian resistance and flew in and out of the Golden Triangle.”
“They transported opium?”
Hackberry removed his hat and knocked a dent out of the crown and put it back on. He felt old in the way people feel old when they have more knowledge of the world than they need. In the south the sky was blackening in the sunset, and dust was rising off the hills. “I think it’s fixing to blow,” he said.
KRILL SQUATTED ON the edge of the butte and looked out at the desert and at the red sun cooling on the horizon. The