“It goes back to the cave days,” she told him. “Be glad it’s not a saber-toothed tiger.”
He smiled up at her, his teeth white in the dimness. “Probably a couple of milk-toothed kittens.” He glanced over at the clock. “Three A.M.” He added a half-intelligible curse in Spanish and slipped out of the bed. Legs went into underwear and jeans, feet into a pair of sandals. Wendy was sitting up, fully awake now, watching him.
Exiting the bedroom he staggered into the living room, scratching at his scalp. A glance out the front window showed nothing … no, wait a minute. He squinted toward the driveway. There was movement there. Port Lavaca was too small to be afflicted with such big city ills as car thieves, but Arriaga did not hold to the Pollyanna view of small town life that some rural inhabitants clung to. There was a first time for everything.
He felt under the couch for the steel pipe he kept there and quietly opened the front door. The moon was just enough of a lamp to allow him to see across the battered lawn and through the trees lining the long driveway. Someone was definitely fooling with the van. That van had cost Arriaga half a season’s work because of the wheelchair lift and other special equipment installed for Amanda’s comfort.
“Hey!” he called out. The movement ceased along with the faint knocking sounds. “Hey you! Man, if you know what’s good for you you better get moving. Comprende?” No sign of activitiy or retreat.
The waterfront wasn’t all quaint characters, camaraderie and fish stories. Arriaga had learned how to handle himself at a young age. Now he started slowly toward the driveway.
“Look, man, I don’t know who you are or what you think you’re doing, but you’ve got five seconds to split before I call the cops to—”
Something hit him from behind. He staggered but didn’t go down. As he turned he saw the tire iron coming toward him again and swung blindly with the pipe even as he was falling backward. The end of the pipe made contact with something yielding and a cry of pain filled the night. Wet stuff splattered his face, warm and salty. Blood, not mine, he thought as he collapsed to the driveway and rolled over. He fought to clear his eyes. Something hit him again, not as hard as the first time, but hard enough. Dream voices reached him.
“Let’s get the hell out of here.”
Then darkness.
The sheriff’s sympathy wasn’t forced, wasn’t fake-professional. He’d known Arriaga and Wendy Ramirez for a long time. “You sure you never got a look at them?”
“No.” Arriaga sat on the couch in the living room. The pipe he’d used the previous night lay on the coffee table in front of him. Wendy sat close to him, attentive and concerned. A cold compress rested on the back of her husband’s neck. The sheriff leaned back in his chair.
“Doesn’t make any sense to me, Arri. What would a bunch of kids want with—”
“Wasn’t kids,” Arriaga said curtly.
“How do you know, if you didn’t get a look at them? Nothing personal, Arri. I’m not questioning you, but you have to look at this from my point of view.”
“Look, Benbrook, that was no kid that hit me. Kids would’ve run like blazes the moment I stepped out the front door. These people didn’t run.”
“Kids could freeze if they were frightened enough,” the sheriff argued.
“I’m telling you, Benbrook, these weren’t kids. There were two, maybe three of them.”
“Well, whoever they were, they didn’t get away with anything. Frankly, I don’t think theft was what they had in mind. That’s why I tend to think it was a bunch of kids, Arri. I don’t see why a couple of grown men would take the time or trouble to vandalize your van.”
“No kids from around here would do anything like that,” Arriaga muttered. “You know that, Benbrook.”
“Sure I do. I’m just trying to make sense out of this, like you, Arri, and you’re not helping me much.”
“I’m sorry. Que lástima.” He winced, put one hand to the ice pack. Wendy squeezed his arm reassuringly.
“What about you, Wendy?” said the sheriff. “Did you see anything?”
“Nothing,” she confessed. “I didn’t even leave the bedroom until some time had gone by and Arri hadn’t returned. That’s when I went outside and found”—she hesitated—“found him lying there next to the van. For a minute I thought he was dead.”
“Felt like it.” Arriaga indicated the section of pipe. “I got one of them. In the mouth, I think. I hope he’s feeling it this morning.”
“If it wasn’t straight vandalism,” the sheriff said thoughtfully, “then they were after the battery or something. If so, they were amateurs because they sure made a mess under your hood. Professional car thieves wouldn’t be that sloppy or uncertain. Wires cut all over the place. The distributor’s busted. Maybe they were trying to pry it out.”
“Maybe,” said Arriaga, not much caring.
“Wendy, Arri, we’ll get right on this. I’ll shoot the information up and down the coast.” He stood. “But without any descriptions of the assailants….” He shrugged. “Probably out-of-towners looking to pick up something to hock on their way through. You were unlucky enough to have the vehicle they picked on.”
“Yeah,” said Arriaga.
“It could’ve been a lot worse, Arri. When you heard them monkeying around in your driveway you should’ve stayed in the house and called us.”
“I thought like you, Benbrook. That it was probably just a couple of kids I could scare away. Besides, if I’d called you, by the time some deputy could’ve showed up they might already have taken off with what they wanted. Nothing personal, Benbrook.”
“No offense taken, Arri. I’ve got two deputies and a lot of ground to cover. Sorry about the damage.”
“That’s no problem. Insurance will cover it. It’s Amanda I’m sorry for.”
“Amanda?” The sheriff frowned uncertainly. He knew the Ramirez’s daughter. Everyone knew everyone in Port Lavaca.
“We’d sort of decided to take the weekend off to go up and visit her brother at A & M.”
“Can’t you still do that?”
“Not really.” Arriaga shook his head, but only slightly because of the pain it produced at the back of his neck. “First off, I don’t feel much like driving right now. More importantly, it’s almost impossible to stuff her wheelchair and accessories into the back of the VW. It wouldn’t be a very comfortable weekend wrestling with that, either for us or Amanda. Anyway, the doctor says no driving for me for a few days. No fishing, either, but I can work on the boat if it doesn’t mean moving around too much.” He glanced apologetically at his wife. “Sorry, querida.”
“That’s alright. Arri. Amanda will understand. The important thing now is for you to get well, and for the sheriff to catch those awful people before they hurt anyone else.”
“We’ll do our best, Wendy. You know that.”
“I know you will, Benbrook. Are you sure you can’t stay for some coffee and muffins?”
“Believe me, I’d like to.” The sheriff shrugged. “What the hell, why not?”
As they started toward the kitchen Amanda hurriedly backed her wheelcahir out of the hallway and rolled into her own room. She was more than just concerned now. At first she’d been terrified for her father. Now she was afraid not just for him but for her mother and herself as well.
If her father was right and the people who’d vandalized their van the previous night weren’t kids, then she had a pretty good idea where they’d come from. She conjured up an image of the bugs and listening devices she’d uncovered, sucking at their privacy. The people on the other end knew everything that went on in the Ramirez household. They knew about the plan to go up to College Station to see her brother. It was clear now that they suspected some sort of collusion between her and her uncle, or else they just wanted his only relatives where they could keep tabs on them. Yes, that made sense.
His only relatives…. She’d read lots of spy novels. Relatives could be used to force someone to do something he didn’t want to do. Threats…. It was getting more and more complicated. She’d never thought of herself and her family as being in danger from the people who were after her Uncle Jake. Everything was changing too quickly for her to adjust to, too fast to anticipate.
Her confidence was beginning to evaporate, her determination to falter. After all, she was only sixteen. Maybe what she’d read in books and seen in movies wasn’t enough to enable her to outguess the sort of people she was up against. Maybe real life was full of nastier surprises than she’d believed possible. Last night was a good example of one.
She sat there in the chair, listening to the faint conversation coming from her parents and the sheriff, and chewed worriedly on her lower lip. She had to tell her Uncle Jake about what had happened. She didn’t want to. It would only worry him more. But he ought to know, should know.
Several passengers turned to look toward the rear of the bus. The old man in the back was twisting awkwardly as he moaned in his sleep, talking to something unseen. Such sights were common enough on transcontinental buses. The passengers gradually returned to their own business. The old man gave no indication of getting violent, and he was obviously no wino. His moans weren’t strong enough to reach to the front of the bus. The driver kept his attention on the road.
The motel wasn’t as accessible as the potash plant outside Phoenix, but Huddy insisted on visiting the exact spot where Pickett had slipped past his people for the second time. An old homily persisted in taunting him: If a man does thee once, it’s his fault. If he does thee twice, it’s thy fault. Huddy felt responsible for the failure. There weren’t going to be any more failures.
The motel manager stared through his office window at the conclave surrounding room twenty-three. When one of the neatly dressed, solemn-visaged men assembled there threw him a warning look he quickly returned to watching the soap opera unspooling on channel ten. He vaguely recalled the last occupant of the room which was attracting so much unusual attention: old man, balding in front, pleasant and friendly. What had he done to attract the notice of such people?
Well, it was none of his business and he wasn’t likely to find anything but trouble by inquiring further. He submerged himself in the maudlin antics onscreen.
