MATAMOROS. BY DAY a wide street and a straggle of buildings that seemed to exist for not much more purpose than keeping one another company. Saloons that were open for business at all hours yet which seemed to have little enough custom to remain open at all. Stores half empty; the goods they did stock either too old or too expensive for any traveler to stop and buy. Rooming houses that double-let their beds so that the day shift got in at seven and slept till eight and then moved on, leaving an hour to change the blankets that were never changed.
The whores sat on the sides of the boardwalk and stared bleary-eyed at the men who passed by, without even the interest in turning a trick. And those who did travel through few and getting fewer. At the end of the town a patch of rough road and then the border. The federales too busy to guard their side—only the hut in which they used to sit and play poker, its windows boarded over.
Another twenty yards and the Texas Rangers stopped everyone who passed through and questioned them closely; examined them for anything they might be attempting to carry through illegally. Like guns. Like ammunition.
Beyond the Rangers Brownsville began.
Until maybe less than a year ago it was possible to walk unhindered from one place to the other. If you were drunk enough you needn’t know which town you were in when you woke up. Nor whose bed. Whether to leave dollar bills or pesos on the dressing-table before you lurched out into the morning.
At night things were different. The lights from one saloon merged with the next; the sound of one pianola intermingled with another and another up and down the street to form a weird cacophony of sound.
People suddenly lived there. Lived. They came out as rats from under rotting straw; lizards from between dry stones. It was a town where anything and everything could be bought or sold and was. Where you didn’t walk down an alleyway without a light in one hand and a gun in the other and you didn’t turn your back on someone you didn’t know for fear of ending up with a knife between your shoulder blades.
It was a border town and it lived between sundown and sunup. As far as you could call it living.
Matamoros: early 1914.
Yates McCloud pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes and then brought them away down either side of his face. Yawned. Pushed his far eye corners upwards as though doing so would keep them open longer. Wider.
It was something after three and he was tired.
The light from the kerosene lamp spilled over the table, falling around the boots of the four men. On the table itself the backs of playing cards shone too brightly; a blue and white pattern of small squares. The table itself was covered with a green felt cloth.
McCloud had been playing for a little over two hours and that without getting any sleep after the last stage of their journey.
Not that he’d intended for it to be like that. Not at all.
Just a few hands as a means of relaxing, that was what he’d thought. Rest his mind before turning in. He hadn’t thought the play would be up to much—none of the men sitting around the table had looked in any way special. Neither had the stakes seemed high.
But he was still there—and it wasn’t entirely due to the game. Though that was more interesting than he had reckoned it would be.
Three of them now—two had dropped out, broke. Opposite him the dealer. A Mexican who could have been as old as sixty or as young as forty. If forty was ever young. He had a hollow face and eyes that were so far back into their sockets it was difficult to see any pupils at all. Hardly a hair on his head, except for a wispy beard that simply made him look like a lazy shaver. He dealt slowly, the veins on the backs of his hands standing out like narrow channels of ink on ageing parchment. When he leaned forward to deal McCloud’s cards, McCloud could see the butt of the pistol holstered inside the left-hand side of his coat.
He wasn’t a bad player; McCloud had lost in his time to men who were a whole lot worse.
To McCloud’s left was a youngster of around nineteen or twenty with a little smile that appeared at the corners of his mouth whenever he got a new set of cards. Good or bad, he smiled just the damned same. And the cards were mostly bad. He’d lost a lot of money and that didn’t seem to matter too much to him, either. The wallet that he kept pulling from the side of his coat had enough bills in it to keep him playing and losing right through to sunup and beyond.
Every time that wallet came out all the others round the table—and the stragglers who wandered down to the back of the room with idle curiosity about what was going on—looked at it as if they were licking their lips.
The last player was the one who interested McCloud the most. The two of them were about level on terms as far as the game went. Both losing rather than winning, but by roughly the same amounts. Nothing too drastic, not like the youngster.
It wasn’t the man’s poker playing that interested McCloud at all. It was something in his looks; something in the occasional remarks he made.
For one thing he was American—a yanqui there in the middle of Matamoros. A gringo like McCloud himself. What was more interesting he was a gringo who wore a Colt automatic at his hip and looked as if he knew how to use it. McCloud thought about the gun and what that might make the man. Someone who could get hold of army issue Colts and who didn’t mind advertising the fact.
Madden, he’d introduced himself as. Simply Madden. He was around thirty and if he stood up he’d measure a good six feet. A hundred and eighty, ninety pounds. The traces of a knife scar on the left side of his face, diagonally below the cheekbone. Gray, slate eyes that rarely showed much expression; hands that were steady whenever he handled the cards.
The first thing he’d said that caught McCloud’s attention was something about riding down to Vera Cruz, seven, maybe eight months back. Along with a crowd of others, Americans mostly. He didn’t say what for, but McCloud knew there couldn’t be too many things a man like Madden would be doing deep into Mexico.
One or two other remarks that suggested he earned his dollars doing whatever came along that he and his gun could do.
And then he mentioned a big shipment of arms coming down to the border. Federales camped to the west of the town for the past three days, waiting to transfer it and ride it down south.
Worth a damn lot of money, Madden had said, glancing at McCloud. A damn lot of money!
McCloud had nodded and looked back at his cards.
Thinking ...
Thinking …
Jamie Durham shivered. The night was a lot warmer than they’d been for some considerable time and even then he had on a woolen topcoat over his jacket, wool shirt and vest. No matter how many clothes Jamie had on, he would still be shivering.
A slight, huddled figure with a grotesque leather mask covering one side of his even more grotesque, scarred face.
The Kid needed a fix.
In Matamoros it should have been easy.
For some fool reason it wasn’t. Not that night. Not that one night above all others.
All the way up from the south, it had been engrained into Jamie’s mind. His every waking, dreaming thought—that he would soon be at the border and then he could get his hands on something that would feed his habit.
Addiction.
Seven months in hospital being treated with morphine.
There’s a hole in Jamie’s arm where the money goes.
Sometimes he could even laugh at it; make up songs about it and sing them without sounding too bitter. This last week it had been getting to him more and more and he had been aware that Onslow and McCloud were conscious of it, too.
He didn’t like that—it made him weak. And weak men in an outfit like theirs became dispensable. He was sure that was the way McCloud would look at it. Huh! A good man, McCloud, for seeing faults in others; not so great at finding his own. As for the major, he was less rash, more loyal. Like he was being to Jonas Strong back there with Zapata. Like Jamie hoped he’d be with himself. Unless he really messed something up—something big—important.
He couldn’t concentrate on the random thoughts that rattled round his skull; the chattering of his teeth drowned everything else out.
All save one thing.
One.
Jamie hadn’t found anyone with a supply for sale, but he had been able to obtain a little information. Not easily. He had been forced to use his knife to get the Mex to talk and shivering like he was the results had been real messy.
Which would have been a shame—if Jamie had been given to thinking about it. Instead he thought about what the Mex had told him—stumbled words between coughed clots of blood—the whore who worked the red-light house in the alley back of Ramon’s Cantina.
Carmelita.
It was a nice name.
Jamie pushed open the door and stepped inside. More like staggered.
Most everyone inside stopped what they were doing and looked round. Ramon’s wasn’t the most well patronized place in town. There were maybe thirty people in there, all of them Mexican, most of them men.
Jamie pushed himself up straight, using the wall alongside the door. He pulled at his coat and did his best to stop the damned shaking that made him look like a man who was about to fall with a fit.
Made his way between a bunch of Mexicans who didn’t at all like the idea of having to step aside for a fool kid of a yanqui who was either drunk or loco or both. One masked as Jamie was.
The man leaning over the bar might have been Ramon himself; there was no way of knowing. It could be that Ramon had ceased to exist a long time ago.
Whoever he was he had a gut that hung down until it hit the counter of the bar before spreading over it in all directions. A mass of bubbly dark-skinned flesh flubbered through the gaps at the front of his shirt where the buttons had long since been pulled away.
He stared at Jamie and wiped one side of his mouth with a finger that was stained with years of smoking cheap and bitter cigars like the one that was set between his chipped teeth at that moment.
‘Tequila?’ The word was a mumble, spoken without the cigar even seeming to move.
Jamie looked at him, trying desperately to focus.
‘Tequila?’ The fat man reached along the counter for a bottle that was two-thirds empty. Then he turned round, bouncing his stomach along the bar top, and fingered a glass from a shelf behind. It was stubby and thick and smeared with fingerprints.
‘Carmelita.’
The man lifted his head and opened his eyes a little wider. ‘Que?’
‘Carmelita.’
A fat hand removed the cigar from the fat man’s face; the face shook—rather, it wobbled.
‘No, señor. No girls.’
Jamie slipped sideways and had to cling to the bar to keep his balance. Several of the Mexicans inside the cantina were eyeing his gunbelt, his Colt Thunderer, wondering how much they would fetch and if he had a bank roll on him as well.
‘Carmelita!’
The man stuffed the cigar back into his mouth and raised both hands, palms opened outwards: no.
Jamie grabbed at one of them and held the wrist fast; with his other fist he punched the cigar flat, splitting the man’s upper lip. The huge body started to recoil backwards, but Jamie held fast, keeping himself standing as much as anything else.
‘Where? Carmelita?’
One of the Mexicans came in towards him, looking as though he might be about to interfere. Jamie’s right hand clawed for the butt of his gun and missed; then got it the second time and dragged it out and he was still too quick for the Mexican.
‘Keep out! Get back!’
The Mexican took one look at the barrel of the Colt Thunderer and did what he was told. Jamie sensed rather than saw several of the others ducking out of the door and into the street, but he didn’t have time to deal with them.
He swung the gun back round until it pushed several inches into the quivering belly of the man behind the bar.
‘Where is she? I was told she was here.’
For Christ’s sake, Jamie was thinking, tell and tell me quick before I shake my arm so damned much this gun goes off and you haven’t said it. For Jesus Christ’s sake!
‘She has a room across the street. The hotel. Sometimes she takes men there, yes. This is truth. I swear.’
The Colt prodded him and he coughed, tears at the corners of his eyes.
‘Madre de Dios! No! I tell you where she is. You go. You go now, please. Please, señor?’
Jamie jerked the gun way and stepped away from the ban The eyes of the fat man never left him, all the way he went to the door. Walking unsteadily, the Colt Thunderer still in his hand.
Out into the night.
Dark but for the flicker of colored lights from up the street; the light that spilled out of the cantina after him.
Jamie stood there for several moments, letting the wind move about his head, refreshing him. For a time, clearing his mind.
The hotel across the street was shabby and poorly lit. Curtains were drawn across the upstairs rooms; the front door was ajar.
Jamie began to walk slowly towards it, pushing the pistol back into its holster.
McCloud waited until the last of his five cards fell across the others, then fingered them over the green felt to the edge of the table. He pushed them together before picking them up and holding them face outwards in the palm of his left hand. With his right thumb, he fanned them out.
Queen of Hearts: four of Spades: deuce of Spades: six of Clubs: eight of Diamonds.
Shit!
McCloud watched as Madden slid one card back across the table and took a fresh one from the dealer; inserted it in his hand. He decided to keep the Queen and the eight himself, changing three. He waited while the youngster tried to make up his mind.
McCloud was more awake now; he’d been sitting there so long that he seemed to have passed over a peak of tiredness. As for Madden, he was no longer running fairly even. For the last three-quarters of an hour he had been losing quite heavily—and the more he had lost, the more recklessly he had bet.
McCloud and even the youngster had taken some of his money from him, but the dealer had got the most.
The young man asked for three fresh cards and smiled as they were dealt to him. The dealer stuck with the hand he’d got.
All right, thought McCloud, what’s it to be. He had picked up a low Heart, a middling Diamond and a low Club. Nothing. Madden held his own cards tight in his left hand, bending them slightly inwards. He bet ten American dollars. McCloud threw in his hand.
Two rounds of the bidding later, so did the youngster, still wryly smiling. But Madden and the dealer—both thought they had a winning hand. The betting was raised and raised and raised again.
Finally Madden laid them down: three Jacks and two cards loose. For perhaps the first time that evening, he made as if to smile, too. But there was something about the way the dealer stayed his hand before placing his cards on the table. He set them down, neatly, one at a time.
King. King. King. King. Nine of Clubs.
McCloud watched Madden closely; saw something flash at the back of his eyes and the next moment Madden had pushed his chair back and was standing up, leaning forward over the table.
‘Cheatin’ bastard!’
‘Señor?’
‘You bin cheatin’ on me for the last hour, you stinkin’, no account ...’
The Mexican made as if to pull away and Madden slapped him round the face. Twice, fast, right hand, palm and knuckles.
Someone was shouting from further down the bar though the place was mostly empty by that time. McCloud glanced at the youngster who was looking on open-mouthed and ruled him out.
‘I want it back.’
The dealer looked round the table imploringly, but Madden wasn’t about to be talked out of it. He had made his mind up. As if daring the older man to stop him, Madden scooped up the pot and then grabbed a handful of the bills and coins that were alongside the dealer’s right elbow.
‘I reckon that’s about right and fair.’
Madden stood up straight and pointed to the rest of the money. ‘You two can take what’s comin’ to you if you want. If’n you ain’t scared of this old cheatin’ fool here.’
And he turned away; began to walk out of the saloon.
Ten yards on McCloud saw the dealer reach inside his coat pocket. Thought about drawing himself but didn’t. He shouted instead.
‘Watch out!’
Madden ducked and swung round and the Colt automatic was in his hand so fast that McCloud barely saw the movement, the blur of metal, the spurt of flame and the smoke that followed the shot.
The dealer was hurled back against the wall, a small pistol that he had never quite managed to get hold of bouncing off the floor and laying still.
Now the Mexican’s eyes were nothing more than deep hollows in that already hollow, sunken face. A veined, clawed hand tried to touch the side of his chest where his clothing was dark with blood.
Very slowly, he slid down the wall and finally pitched onto his face. Behind him he left a thick, slanting smear on the fading paintwork.
‘Thanks,’ called Madden. ‘Thanks a lot.’
‘That’s okay,’ said McCloud standing up and leaving the youngster the only one at the table, his mouth still open, a smile still on the edges of his mouth.
‘Let’s go somewhere,’ said Madden. ‘Least I can do is buy you a drink.’
‘Yeah,’ McCloud agreed as he came alongside him. ‘I guess that’s so.’
The back stairs were uneven and narrow; difficult to climb in the dark. Especially when you were in the state Jamie was in. At one point he clung to the banister rail and feared that the whole thing was going to break and let him fall.
It held.
Jamie got to the top and tried the back door. It was locked. He used the blade of his knife to open it, then stepped into an even deeper darkness.
He waited for his eyes to grow accustomed to what little light gathered. Twin traces from under doors at either end of the landing. He listened at each one: occasional sounds of breathing; a cough; movement of bed springs; a half cried-out word. There was no way of knowing.
Jamie drew his gun and tested the handle of the door to the right. It began to turn. He went in fast then, shutting it behind him, covering the couple inside with the Colt Thunderer.
A man and a woman. The man was stretched out on the bed, arms and legs angled outwards as if tied to the bedposts. Except that there was nothing holding them—only the man’s mind.
The whore who sat astride him was slim and young. She turned towards Jamie and her breasts flattened against her chest so that they were almost like a boy’s.
Her mouth opened in a question that never got answered.
‘Carmelita?’ Jamie asked, his voice sounding strange and cracked. The hand that wasn’t holding the gun reached out for the wall to steady himself.
The girl shook her head, dark eyes showing her fear; she pointed towards the door, in the direction of the other room.
Jamie nodded and stepped back.
The man on the bed had made no attempt to look round or to move in any way. Jamie stared at him for a last time. At the long bloodied lines where the girl’s nails had drawn themselves through the surface of his skin.
He shut the door and walked a wavering line to the other end of the corridor. It was locked. He knocked, called her name, banged his shoulder against it. Once and twice and on the third time the door opened several inches and he saw an eye and a length of hair and a few inches of bare arm. ‘Let me in!’
The eye shook as the head moved from side to side. Jamie stepped back and kicked. The woman was knocked back onto the bed and she lay across it holding the side of her face where the edge of the door had struck her.
Jamie looked round the room. There was no one else there. Business was waning. A look at Carmelita and it wasn’t difficult to tell why. After the whore along the corridor she looked yesterday’s meat.
Folds of fat showed through the yellowing shift that she wore; the face was puffed-up beneath the eyes and darker than the natural complexion of her skin. The calves and thighs of her legs were marred by a rambling succession of red spots and pimples.
She stared up at Jamie and began to pull at the ends of her hair.
He took a roll of bills from his pocket. ‘I’ve come to buy.’
The head shook and she scrambled off the bed and tried to make it to the door. Jamie hauled her back and hit her at random, until tears came silently out of her terrified eyes.
‘Not steal. Not rob. Buy.’
‘I have not ...’
‘I was told. Sent to you. I need it, goddam it! Need it!’
He stepped away from her; he realized that she was as much frightened by his mask as anything else about him. She was likely used to being beaten, counted it as part of her trade.
After a few moments her expression changed; her eyes flickered down to the roll of bills. Jamie knew that it was going to be all right.
She held out her hand and he gave her the tight roll, watching carefully as she unwound it and counted out more than half. Jamie covered her hands with his; took five notes back. She looked at him and continued the silent bargaining; returned two of the bills to her own hand.
Jamie nodded, too impatient, too eager for his fix to haggle any longer. Besides, even feeling as he did, he knew that the stench of the room would make him sick if he stayed there longer than was necessary.
The sheets on the bed hadn’t been washed for months. They were a mess of stains that had spread one on top of the other, darkening, darkening, becoming stiffer and stiffer. And the stink of her body grew stronger with every minute.
But when she lifted the box from the bottom drawer and took out the false bottom and then the tin with the white powder, she was suddenly the most beautiful woman in the world.
Carmelita.
Jamie murmured her name over and over as she very carefully transferred the pure white snow.
Cocaine, sweet cocaine, danglin’ round my brain.
Sweet Carmelita.
Jamie stuffed his supply down into his pocket and went to the door. She was sitting on the side of the bed, arms hanging between her legs, a hole in the side of her shift, paying him no more attention than the wind.
Outside in the street, Jamie sensed that it would soon be morning. And what a morning! The thought of his fix hustled him across the street and along the boardwalk, back towards the hotel.
Alone in his room, with tight leather strap and needle like the bite of a snake that had such sweet poison in its fangs. Sweet, sweet poison.
Sweet, sweet cocaine.
Sweet cocaine, tangles my heart and bites at my brain.