Operation Bamboozle Read online

  Luis was elsewhere, doing business, but Julie reached the office just as men with snapbrim hats and short haircuts were smashing the locks. She went to the bank and emptied their account; went home and packed their bags; then found Luis. “Party’s over,” she said. “Shut your eyes and pick a town.” She gave him a Rand McNally US roadmap. He opened it blindly and stabbed a finger.

  “Unbelievable,” she said. “You have chosen the town of Truth or Consequences in New Mexico. Let’s go.”

  He drove. “Which way?” he asked.

  “West. Just follow the bleached bones of the pioneers.”

  They took country roads into Virginia until they got hungry. That was when they had their long conversation with Rivers and Jones. “They were fishing,” Julie said. “If they had any proof, they would’ve said the paper was going to run the story anyway. They were bluffing. Let’s go.”

  Ahead lay the Appalachians. They climbed over the mountains and, still using back roads, they entered Kentucky, dipped down into Tennessee and crossed Arkansas. That took them to Texas where they found some fine federal concrete highways which went from one end of that great state to the other and finally delivered them to Albuquerque, New Mexico. It had taken a week.

  3

  The car sounded a little weary. They gave it to a garage to be refreshed, and found an outdoors restaurant which offered twenty kinds of omelet, with chilled beer.

  Julie spread the road map. Truth or Consequences was 150 miles south. “We don’t have to go there,” she said.

  He looked at her. She seemed unhappy. It was time to say something wise. “Huh,” he said. But he tried to make it thoughtful and sympathetic.

  “We could keep driving,” she said. “Away from DC. Away from all those complications. I want a simple life.”

  He looked at the map. “Arizona, Nevada, California. North to Oregon. Alaska. I could be a lumberjack. Simple enough?”

  Her beer had a head like a cap of snow. She wrote her name in it with her finger but the name dissolved before she finished it. “Driving this far, it’s addictive. I don’t want to stop. Keep driving and you’re free. Floating along, flying forever until …”

  He waited. “Until what?”

  “Oh, you live to be ninety, go rockclimbing, break your neck.” She was happy again, or at least not unhappy. So his worry was wasted. Bloody women. He thought of making a witty remark about getting driven to distraction but it took too long to assemble so he abandoned it. Better never than late.

  Truth or Consequences would not die of thirst. It had twenty miles of reservoir to its north and much the same to the south. Apart from that, the map was noncommittal.

  Julie was driving. She cruised into town and saw nobody. Well, it was New Mexico, it was afternoon, it was hot. “Here we are,” she said. “But where are we?”

  “Shangri-la it’s not,” Luis said.

  She pulled over and parked under a tree. It was next to a building site that had been coming along nicely until the builder lost interest or went bust or died, or all three, and left a flight of concrete steps leading up to half a house. A breeze, as bored as a small boy, chased a yellowed newspaper up the steps, kicked it around and wandered away. “Well, that was gripping,” Luis said.

  “You want tickertape?”

  “I must say I expected more splendor. This is the West. It should have grandeur. Immense grandeur. Also heroic status.”

  “Let’s go find the sheriff.” She started the car. “Maybe he’ll let you hold his sixshooter.”

  Nothing much was happening in the town square. Well, it was still hot. An old man sitting on a bench watched Julie pull into a space between nothing and nothing else. She killed the motor and they got out. “You done wrong,” the old man said. “Can’t leave your ve-hickle there. We got laws in this town. Got regulations. You done wrong. See, where you made your mistake was leavin’ your ve-hickle where it ain’t legal.” He spat.

  “Are you the sheriff?” Luis asked.

  “Was once. Ain’t now.” His voice was weaker. It had been a long conversation.

  “We’re looking for immense grandeur. It’s somewhat lacking in these parts.”

  “Get in, schmuck,” Julie told him.

  They drove away. She said, “Towns like this, they don’t like out-of-State drivers. Soon as he saw our Jersey plates he was really pissed at us.”

  “A little cheery banter might have helped.”

  “Lack of grandeur? Around here, that kind of banter is an excuse to shoot a hole in you.”

  “How quaint. Nobody in New York needed an excuse. What makes these people so fastidious?”

  “Fastidious, that’s another insult. We need gas.”

  She found a Texaco station. Luis walked around the car, kicking the tires to show what an experienced driver he was, and ended up watching the attendant filling the tank. Now this man was the real McCoy. Beat-up cowboy boots, shaggy mustache, corncob pipe. “Howdy,” Luis said. The man grunted. Well, that’s how they were in the West: laconic. “Cute little town you got here,” Luis said. “Could a man buy a spread here, real easy?”

  “Pay no attention,” Julie said. “He thinks he’s Jimmy Stewart. We’re from the East.”

  “Uh-huh.” Frankie Blanco finished with the pump and made a long job of washing the windscreen, which allowed him a good look into the car. No weapons in sight. Proved nothing. “Don’t get many strangers here,” he said. “You folks on business?”

  “Could be. You thinkin’ of sellin’?” Frankie didn’t like the idea. “Joke,” she said. He didn’t like jokes, either. She gave up.

  Luis had been looking at the map. “Ben Hur,” he said. “There’s a place near here actually called Ben Hur! And look, there’s Pumpkin Center, and Noodle, and Cut and Shoot. There’s even somewhere called Uncertain.” He smiled at Frankie. “Could you live happily in Uncertain?”

  “Ain’t never given it no thought.”

  Julie paid him. “Where’s the best place to eat?” she asked.

  “Texas.”

  They cruised quietly out of Truth or Consequences. Julie drove, observing the speed limit and highway instructions at all times. “Watch out for the sheriff’s posse,” she said. “New Mexico hangs traffic violators without trial. That’s how Kit Carson took out the Comanches.” Luis was map-reading. “It’s a hundred and some miles to El Paso,” he said. “That’s Spanish for ‘the pass.’ You’re lucky to have someone like me, fluent in ten languages including Khachachurian.”

  “Gesundheit,” she said. “Whatever that means.”

  Frankie Blanco dug out the card given him four years ago and he dialed the number of the nearest FBI office. He said he was Floyd Boyd, and he told an agent that a man and a woman in a car with Jersey plates had been snooping around Truth or Consequences, acting peculiar. Tan Chrysler, recent model. He had the license plate number.

  “In what way peculiar?” the agent asked.

  Frankie thought hard. “The guy wanted to know how did I feel about livin’ in Uncertain. That’s a town I never been in, Uncertain.” It didn’t sound like much. “She asked me did I want to retire. Asked real nasty. Pair of freaks.”

  “Not exactly discreet, were they? I mean, if they came to do a number on you … Why drive from New Jersey? Take the plane, rent a car, makes more sense. Were they armed?”

  Frankie felt he was losing. “He’s carryin’ a 38, she got a 22 in her purse. I saw a big old shotgun in the car. They said they’re goin’ to Texas,” he added. “For the food.”

  “So they’re not stupid,” the agent said. “Lock your doors, Floyd. Callus if they comeback.”

  Not good enough. If the FBI wouldn’t watch his ass, Frankie knew he’d have to do it himself. He took fifty dollars from the till, gassed up his Chevy, locked up the station and headed south on Interstate 25. By driving flat out and collecting a black harvest of bugs on his windshield, he caught up with the tan Chrysler after about twenty-five miles. Then it was easy. He dropped back
until he was a small soft blur in their rearview mirror. They’d never suspect he was following, and he couldn’t lose them, because the road went to Texas and nowhere else. He enjoyed driving. He sprawled across the bench seat and hung his left leg out the window, in the breeze. He was taking positive action for the first time in four years, and that felt good. Felt strong. What next? Leave it to fate. Screw the Bureau. Besides, thinking hurt.

  As they hit the outskirts, Luis said, “We don’t have to stay here. If El Paso looks like el dumpo, then Fort Stockton is only 260 miles further on.” But El Paso turned out to be a lively little city. It had more than grandeur. It had splendor, passion, horse racing, Mexican rodeos, bullfights, mariachi music, margaritas, custom-made cowboy boots, and a fair claim to be the Tex-Mex food capital of the world. Why leave?

  They checked into the Hotel Bristol, a goodlooking place where a squad of young and smartly uniformed Mexicans would be insulted if you didn’t let them park your car and carry your bags and cry at your funeral by prior arrangement with the management. Frankie Blanco watched from across the street and knew he didn’t have the clothes or the confidence and definitely not the money to stay at the Bristol. Including the fifty he took from the gas station, he had seventy-nine dollars and twelve cents. He had a bank account but it was in Truth or Consequences, along with his checkbook. He didn’t know how long he’d be staying in El Paso. Fate didn’t know either. Something else it didn’t know, or wasn’t saying, was what it intended him to do about this double-act that drove from New Jersey to Truth or Consequences just to talk to him about his uncertain future, as if it was a gag. He could whack one or both. Whacking people was his trade. Then what? The organization in Jersey would take it very badly and he’d be on the run for the rest of his life. Just thinking about it gave Frankie Blanco a dull pain in the chest. He beat it with his fist and it moved sideways a little but it still ached. He took that to be the voice of fate: no whacking, not yet anyway.

  Still, he felt happier to be out of Truth or Consequences. That place was too small, too vulnerable. He decided to stay in El Paso, keep an eye on his problem, wait for fate to show its hand. First, find a cheap motel, eat a cheap meal. It had been a hell of a day, and he was still getting it straight in his mind when he wrote Frankie Blanco in the motel register and felt his pulse jump so much that the pen bounced. He scribbled on his name until it was unreadable. “My mistake,” he said, with a shy grin. “Wrote my stage name. Forgot where I was.” He wrote Floyd Boyd.

  “Ten bucks,” the manager said. “Including tax.” He’d seen shy grins before. They didn’t change the price.

  ENOUGH DEAD COWBOYS TO FILL BOOT HILL

  1

  Julie and Luis didn’t stay long in the Hotel Bristol. They found a real estate agency and the agency quickly found what they wanted. It was a low-slung five-bedroom ranch-style house nailed to the side of a hill above Cliff Boulevard and offering sprawling views of two cities—El Paso on this side of the Rio Grande, Juárez on the Mexican side—plus the nearby Franklin Mountains as a backdrop. Available now, to rent fully furnished. Owner had gone to Africa to write a book about elephants. Might be gone a long time. Very big, elephants.

  They were in the office, signing papers, when the head man said: “Congratulations. You’re our one hundred thousandth client,” and he held up the keys and stuck out the other hand, so Luis shook it and a photo flash went off. “One for the family album. And there’s a complimentary case of champagne waiting at your new home.” Luis didn’t like sneaky photographers but it seemed churlish to complain. He took the keys and cranked out a two-star smile.

  By then, Frankie Blanco was living in a big old wooden roominghouse with an uninterrupted view of the tracks of the Southern Pacific Railroad. When a long freight passed, the building trembled. None of the toilets flushed properly. All the doors refused to shut, and the beds sagged from age and fatigue. But the rent was cheap. Apart from that, Julie and Luis had the better deal.

  For the next few days he watched them from a distance as they explored the city.

  They were in no hurry, stopped often to look around, which made him feel conspicuous so he bought some gray coveralls and a peaked cap that said Bell Telephone, and a clipboard. Nobody ever looked twice at a guy in coveralls carrying a clipboard. Big deal. He had them in view, sometimes from his car, more often on his aching feet, and what did it tell him? Big fat zero. He was losing confidence in fate. Losing money, too.

  Then, after he’d followed them home to Cliff Boulevard, he stopped at a Texaco station only a mile away, filled his tank, got talking and got a job. Fate. It was meant to be. Suddenly he felt like the hunter, not the hunted. Stick around long enough and these jokers from Jersey would succumb to a hunting accident. Happened all the time, it was a national disgrace, a man couldn’t take a stroll in the woods without being mistaken for a grizzly bear. Frankie made a quick trip to Truth or Consequences for money and bought a rifle on the way back. Succumb: he liked that word. Better than whacking.

  On the day they moved in, Luis patrolled the terrace and checked out the view. He wore Bermuda shorts and a small black sombrero; nothing else. “See the hummingbirds in the wisteria,” he said.

  Julie came out. “The wisteria is bouganvillea,” she said.

  “Yes, a common mistake. In fact, your bouganvillea is actually Norwegian wisteria, which hummingbirds find irresistible. See?”

  “There you go again,” she said. “Big Chief Bullshit.”

  He touched a wall. “This must be adobe, which means we’re living in a hacienda. Perhaps we should have a few houseboys. A small Mexican butler?”

  “Sure. Use your family title while you’re at it. Duke of Eggs Benedict. Should fool the FBI.”

  “The Bureau isn’t looking for us. We haven’t committed any crime.”

  “Try fraud. Grand fraud, with Sprinkles and a cherry on top.”

  “Surely not. Fraud deprives people of what they value. We enriched those people. Enhanced their lives.”

  “Bet you J. Edgar Hoover thinks different.”

  Louis tipped the sombrero over his eyes. “If he comes looking, we can flee across the border. I’ve always wanted to flee across a border. It’s hot out here.”

  They went inside. “Those pictures have got to go,” she said.

  He looked closely at two white kittens playing with a ball of wool. The ball was as big as a melon. The kittens were as big as huskies. “Painted on velvet,” he said, and moved to another picture. “Puppies,” he said. “Or perhaps friendly timber wolves.”

  “Here’s a canary thinks it’s a buzzard.”

  “Look, more kittens. Cute, in a terrifying way.”

  “Wait till they’re fullgrown,” she said. “They’ll have your leg off in a flash.”

  She put her arms around his neck and kissed him on the lips so generously that he knew at once there was a price to pay. “Which leg?” he asked. Her right leg rubbed the inside of his thighs. “Oh, that leg,” he said. “Why are we talking about legs?”

  “They matter. If I were crippled, would you still love me?”

  “Not as much as I do now.” That made her eyes open wide. “Look, you started it,” Luis said. “Anyway, what if I go to jail? Would you wait for me?”

  “Sure.” They kissed again, much more softly. “No, probably not.”

  “See? That’s what we share: deep suspicion. We’re totally unreliable. It’s the glue that sticks us together.”

  “Last night it was hot sex.”

  “True. So maybe I’m wrong. I feel further research is needed.”

  “Yeah, I can feel that too. But I’m hungry, so let’s go eat. After that …”

  “I am the slave of science,” Luis said. “Glue has me in its grip.” They were just words, and words didn’t always have to mean anything; but they made her laugh, and that was good enough.

  2

  Nobody wants to get his hands filthy, checking some other guy’s oil and water, when he could ju
st as easily lay those hands on his girl, who sooner or later will get ants in her pants waiting for him and consequently will slip easily and treacherously into the smooth, clean arms of his best friend. Allegedly best.

  So the least popular duty at the Texaco station was the evening shift, six p.m. to midnight. That’s how Frankie Blanco got the job—the last guy quit, usual reason, and the manager was very happy when Frankie said he liked the shift. He didn’t say why. It gave him all day to snoop on the Chrysler couple, that’s why.

  He was sitting in his Chevy, watching the house on Cliff Boulevard, when they came out and he followed them into town.

  By noon he had got through a pack of Pall Malls. He was always a happy smoker, forty a day at least, and now he was hitting sixty. It calmed his nerves, and besides they were free. The gas station had a smokes machine. Boost it in the right place with a screwdriver and out came a pack. His boss knew and didn’t care. He’d sooner the guy stole a quarter from the till to feed the machine, that would be sensible and quick and do less damage. But Frankie preferred his kind of theft. He preferred Pall Malls, too, because they didn’t wear those little white ankle socks that took away the kick in the throat. You can light either end, the makers boasted. Frankie approved. Life was complicated enough already, for Chrissake.

  He was opening his second pack as he watched the pair go into a place called The Picture Show.

  “Last chance,” Julie said. They had browsed the art galleries of El Paso, their feet ached and they had bought nothing but ice cream. Now they paused to let their eyes adjust to the gloom. “Hold the front page,” she said. “Breaking news. Cowboy dies, gunplay suspected.” She pointed to a painting of blazing revolvers in a crowded saloon. “Okay, the party’s over. Let’s vamoose.”

  “That one’s kinda special,” the owner said. He came out of the back room: short and stocky build; steel-gray hair turning white and clipped short; army fatigues. “What you got here is the death of John Wesley Harden, fastest gun in the West, shot in the head while playin’ dice right here in the Acme Saloon, 1895. Killed forty-four men afore he was 25. Look close, you’ll see double-four on the dice. Fifty bucks.”