He was off again. He’d been over this part of the story at least three times now, and James knew it back to front, which was how Manny told it mostly.
The great peak of Mount Orizaba, tipped with white snow, passed to their right, and as they neared civilisation the roads steadily improved and they began to see buildings and people. They passed through some small villages, and then a couple of larger towns, all the time getting closer to Vera Cruz.
Thank God. They were almost there.
Then all they would have to do was ditch Manny at the first opportunity, which shouldn’t be too hard, considering the confused state he was in, and they were home and dry.
And not too soon. Manny was sweating badly and the inside of the car felt damp and claustrophobic. Flies had got in and they crawled on his wound, which was starting to smell.
In the late afternoon they saw a sprawl of white buildings on the coast up ahead, but the Dodge was beginning to falter.
‘We’re running low on gas,’ Manny explained. ‘We need to fill her up.’
‘We’re nearly there,’ said James. ‘Just a few more miles.’
It would be awful to get this close, only to grind to a halt.
They were fine on the downhill slopes. Manny could cut the gas and freewheel, but if they had to use the engine on flatter sections of the road, the car juddered and faltered. Luckily it was downhill nearly all the way.
‘Come on, baby, you can make it,’ said Manny.
Then James spotted a small roadside shack at a junction selling farm produce and gasoline.
‘We’re saved,’ he said and Manny whooped with delight.
They coasted to a stop by the pump. It was very quiet. There didn’t seem to be anybody around.
‘Why is everything always closed in this goddam country?’ said Manny. ‘How’s a man supposed to go about his business?’
He shoved his door open and got out, then stood and stretched, his muscles cramped from the long drive. He twisted his neck and grunted as it clicked.
‘Hola!’ he shouted. ‘Shake a leg. You got a customer.’
A swing door opened and a tired-looking Mexican woman came out.
‘There you are!’ said Manny. ‘Fill her up. Full. Entiendes?’
‘Full?’ said the woman.
‘You got it,’ said Manny and turned to look up the road. As he did so the woman got a look at the wound in his head. She gasped and said something under her breath that sounded like a prayer.
‘Whassamatter with you?’ said Manny. ‘Why are you staring at me?’
The woman was shaking her head and backing away from Manny, still muttering.
‘I said what’s the matter with you?’ said Manny, advancing on her. ‘You look like you seen a ghost or something.’
James got out of the car.
‘What’s eating her?’ said Manny.
‘Get back in the car,’ said James. ‘I’ll sort this out.’
‘Don’t treat me like a kid, Louis,’ said Manny, and he rubbed his temple.
‘I’m not Louis,’ said James. ‘I’m not your brother.’
Manny laughed. ‘Sure you are. Don’t try and kid me, Louis. You always was a kidder. Oh, this is giving me a headache.’ He let out a long animal moan that ended up as a sort of growl.
The woman backed in through her door and James heard the lock slide shut.
‘Now, you get back out here,’ yelled Manny. ‘You hear me? I need some gas. Gasolina.’
He pulled out his pistol and started firing at the building, laughing wildly. James ducked back into the car.
‘What are we going to do?’ said Precious.
‘If we can just make it as far as Vera Cruz,’ said James.
‘Should we make a run for it?’
‘It’s too risky,’ said James. ‘He’d try and shoot us.’
‘I can’t stand it a moment longer,’ said Precious. ‘Being shut up in here with him. That hole in his head is making me nauseous.’
‘Hold on,’ said James. ‘We’re so close.’
Manny walked over to the car, put his gun on the roof and unscrewed the petrol cap. He then took the hose from the pump and started to fill the tank.
He leant in through the window. ‘Why’d she stare at me like that, Louis?’ he said. ‘I don’t like people staring at me.’
James heard a rumble and looked round to see a police car driving towards them. There were two policemen in it, probably alerted by the gunshots. They pulled on to the verge a little way off and got out. They said something to each other and walked cautiously towards Manny, who had his back to them and hadn’t seen them.
‘Manny,’ said James, ‘I think we’d better go.’
‘She’s not full yet,’ said Manny.
‘Never mind,’ said James. ‘Let’s go.’
Manny finally heard something and turned round to see the two policemen approaching from the rear.
He grinned at them. ‘Buenos dias,’ he said. ‘Just filling the ol’ jalopy.’
One of the policemen said something in Spanish.
‘No entiendo,’ said Manny. ‘No hablo español.’
The other policeman moved a hand towards the gun on his belt, but Manny was too quick for him. He dropped the hose, snatched his pistol from the car roof and fired. The policeman threw himself to the ground just in time and avoided being hit.
The other policeman also dived for cover. Manny fired off a couple more shots and jumped into the car.
‘Let’s get out of here,’ he said.
They screamed off down the road, Manny crunching through the gear changes, forcing the Dodge to her limit. A siren started up behind them and James looked in the rear-view mirror to see the police car pulling out.
Manny still had his gun in his hand.
‘Take the wheel,’ he said, and, without slowing down, he leant out of the window, twisted round and let off a volley of shots.
There was a deep thud and a bright flash. He had hit the petrol pump. A boiling, orange and black ball of flame rose up and filled the sky behind them.
18
Change of Plan
A cloud of thick, purple smoke with a raging orange heart filled the road. In a moment the police car burst from it like a bat out of hell, its siren blaring.
‘Hoowee!’ shouted Manny, taking charge of the wheel again. ‘This is more like it, Louis.’
One of the policemen was shooting at them out of his window, now. They were going too fast for him to aim accurately and every bullet missed, but James knew that if they couldn’t pull ahead, it would only be a matter of time before the shooter got lucky. He scrunched down in his seat, trying to make himself very small. There was a little figure of the Virgin of Guadeloupe fixed to the dashboard and he was seriously considering sending out a prayer to her.
Manny was a good driver, and had had a lot of practice escaping from the police. They tore down the road, feeling every bump and dip, skidding and sliding in the loose grit, but slowly, ever so slowly, the police car fell behind, until, at last, it disappeared from view.
‘Looks like we burnt our bridges,’ said Manny. ‘We ain’t gonna be very welcome in Vera Cruz.’
James was seething. Vera Cruz had meant safety. It had meant help. It had meant finding JJ and an end to this ordeal. Now they were racing south down the coastal road with no destination and no hope of rescue. There were a few large towns ahead. They could try to steer Manny into the next one they came to, but if the Mexican police telephoned ahead, they would be welcomed by bullets. He felt the gun pressing into the small of his back. Could he get it out? Shoot Manny? No. Not travelling at this speed. And Manny had his own gun still in his lap.
And the simple truth was that Manny was used to shooting people and James wasn’t.
They were driving through fertile green lowlands, close to the ocean. There was evidence that the storm had struck here, although nowhere near as severely as further north. There was water everywhere but people seemed to be getting on with their
lives as usual. As day slipped into evening they passed farmers returning from their fields, clogging the roads with donkeys and mule wagons.
Eventually Manny had to stop the car. There was a flock of sheep crossing the road.
‘Damn,’ he said, wiping his face. ‘I sure wish I knew this place better.’
‘Where are we going?’ said Precious miserably from the back and Manny looked startled, as if he had forgotten all about her. He turned round in his seat.
‘What did you say?’ he asked.
‘I said, where are we going?’ Precious repeated.
‘Where are we going?’ said Manny. ‘I’ll tell you where we’re going… we’re going to…’ The wild look came back into his eyes. As long as they’d been driving he hadn’t needed to think. Now his poor damaged brain was struggling to make sense of it all. He began to shake. ‘There was a storm,’ he said. ‘A kid…’
‘We’re going to find Mrs Glass,’ James said hurriedly, hoping to distract Manny from thinking about what had happened.
‘That’s right,’ said Manny, and he struck the steering wheel with his fists. But then the haunted look returned. He became like a little boy lost. ‘Where is she?’ he said. ‘I don’t know where she is.’
‘Don’t worry,’ said James. ‘We’ll find her,’
Manny snatched up the gun and started waving it around inside the car.
‘Where is she?’ he screamed. ‘Where’s that devil-woman gotten to? Tell me. Tell me or I’ll shoot your face off, I swear to God I will.’
He grabbed James by the throat and forced him back against the side of the car, jamming the gun into his cheek with his other hand.
James thought quickly. Should he tell Manny the truth? Get him to drive them to Palenque, and hope they arrived before Mrs Glass and Strabo. Then they could maybe warn Jack Stone…?
No. It was too risky. What if Mrs Glass was already there?
He had spent so much energy trying to get away from her, it would be madness to go rushing back into her arms, and with Manny in tow it would be like sticking your head into a hornets’ nest.
So what should he say? He had to say something, or Manny was going to shoot him. If he said the wrong thing, though…
‘Palenque,’ Precious shouted before he could speak. ‘She’s gone to Palenque.’
Manny calmed down. Lowered the gun. ‘Palenque, huh? OK, can you get us there?’
James nodded, rubbing his sore neck. So, Precious had made the decision for him. She must have been thinking along exactly the same lines as him.
The hornets’ nest it was then.
Manny started the car up.
‘That woman,’ he said. ‘She thought she could run out on me. Nobody does that to Manny the Girl.’
‘Tell me about her,’ said James.
‘Who?’ said Manny.
‘Mrs Glass. Tell me about Mrs Glass.’
‘She don’t say a lot, keeps tight-lipped,’ said Manny. ‘Not like most broads I know. Yack, yack, yack. You know what I’m saying? But one night Strabo told us some about her. She’s a Kraut, apparently.’
‘A German?’ said James.
‘Yeah. Was born in Cincinnati. Theda Horowitz was her name. The daughter of German immigrants. Moved to LA when she was a kid.’
Telling the story, Manny became calm. James had observed how easily he slipped in and out of confusion. Now, remembering what Strabo had told him, he was relatively lucid.
‘Theda grew up an all-American girl but when we joined the war in 1917, things changed for her family. A lot of Yanks turned against the Krauts. You know, a funny thing, the Germans in America started changing their names. The Schmidts became the Smiths, the Silbermanns became the Silvers, Garfinkles became Garfields. Look at us! We’re all patriotic Yanks! Didn’t work out for Theda’s pa, though, lost his job. Her world fell apart. Started getting into fights. Hurt another girl at school real bad with a knife. Said she was only sticking up for herself, but they sent her to prison. Was only seventeen. Well, that was the start of her criminal career. She fell in with some real bad types.
‘Six months after she came out of the slammer she was married to a local hood called Billy Grosman. Who can say if she was born bad, or just turned bad, but she proved real good at being bad. Billy Grosman worked the border between the US and Mexico. He was a smuggler of drugs and drink and guns and people, and with Theda at his side he terrorised all of Los Angeles. But one day Billy’s luck ran out. He was ambushed in a hotel by a Mexicano gang and shot to pieces. Theda was with him. Was badly wounded. Tommy guns can do a lot of damage. Strabo reckons her body still carries the scars from that night, but I ain’t never seen ’em.
‘After that she went into hiding and somewhere down the line she married some guy called Glass. Don’t know what happened to him. Died probably. A lot of the guys she hangs around with seem to wind up in the morgue. Was with Legs Diamond for a while. Rumour was she helped set him up when he took his fall. She’s poison, Louis. We shoulda never gotten mixed up with her.’
Manny suddenly moaned and shook his head, the loose section of skull flapping open and shut with the movement.
‘You all right?’ said James.
Manny was looking around in an agitated fashion.
‘I don’t know the way, Louis,’ he said fearfully. ‘I don’t recognise this road.’
James had stopped trying to explain that he wasn’t Manny’s brother Louis. As long as Manny didn’t think about the incident at the Stones’ house, he and Precious were relatively safe.
‘It’s the right way,’ he said soothingly. ‘Just keep driving.’
‘The right way home?’ said Manny.
‘Yes.’
This seemed to cheer Manny up and he drove on with more confidence.
‘When I get there, Louis,’ he said, ‘I’m gonna give Mama a big kiss and a hug, and damn, will she be pleased to see her little boy. Hoowee! I’m coming home, Mama. Me an’ Louis are coming home. They didn’t kill him, Ma, he’s right here with me. You can touch him and talk to him and everything. It’s a miracle, Mama, a goddam miracle. I tell you it is, I done it, it was me, your little boy, I can raise the dead. I don’t know if I ain’t maybe some kind of a miracle worker, or a saint, or something!’
Manny ranted on like this for several miles until he ran out of steam and lapsed into silence, muttering occasionally to himself, lost in his thoughts.
Darkness came down fast and the headlights chewed up the seemingly endless and unchanging road. Apart from muddy farm tracks there were no turnings off to either side. Manny began to grow tired. He had been driving for about eight hours. Even though there were no other vehicles about James was worried that they might crash.
Eventually Manny nodded off and James had to grab the wheel to stop them from piling into a tree.
Manny woke up, pulled over and sat there yawning. The noise of the engine ticking over the only sound in the night.
‘I’m beat, Louis,’ he said, picking up his gun and checking it. Then his head dropped to his chest and he closed his eyes. ‘Could sleep for a thousand years,’ he sighed.
‘You sleep. I’ll drive,’ said James.
‘Sure, Louis. You drive some.’
Manny got out and came round to the passenger side.
James slid over and took the wheel.
When Manny settled into his seat, however, there was an intense look on his face.
‘Don’t try any more tricks,’ he said.
‘What do you mean?’ said James.
‘I know who you are,’ said Manny, sticking the gun in James’s stomach.
‘I can get you there,’ said James, desperately changing the subject. ‘I can get you to Mrs Glass.’
‘Yeah,’ said Manny, smiling. ‘Mrs Glass. Yeah.’
James shifted into gear and they set off. He drove steadily, holding the car at a regular speed, hoping to lull Manny back to sleep. Every time he looked round at him, though, he could see the black holes of Man
ny’s eyes, and the ugly gun was still aimed at his guts.
‘I miss Ma so bad, Louis,’ said Manny after a long period of silence. ‘I never shoulda shouted at her, you know. I never shoulda argued. I never shoulda raised my fist in anger to her. She was the only one could hold me and make everything all right.’ Manny gave a soft sigh in the darkness. ‘It’s gonna be just like it always was, Louis, when we was kids. You remember? Playing in the yard without a care in the world, and Ma would call us in for supper. I can still hear her voice – “Boys! Chow time!” I never shoulda struck her down, Louis. But we’ll be a family again, won’t we? The three of us. An’ we’ll sit down to eat and I’ll say grace, an’ the Lord will smile on us and forget all the bad things I done. Tell me it’s gonna be all right, Louis, tell me…’
‘Don’t fret,’ said James. ‘Go to sleep.’
‘Yeah.’
Eventually James gave up checking on Manny and concentrated on the road ahead, until he heard Precious’s voice.
‘He’s asleep.’
Sure enough, Manny’s head was lolling back, his mouth hanging open, his eyes shut. His gun, though, was still firmly gripped in his hand.
‘Do you think we can make it to Palenque before Mrs Glass?’ said Precious.
‘She had a head start on us,’ said James, ‘but that truck was pretty slow, and they would have had to change vehicles. We’ve a chance.’
‘We’ve got to do something about Manny, though.’
‘I know,’ said James. ‘And now might be our only chance. While he’s asleep. I’m worried that if I stop the car he might wake up.’
‘You’ve got a gun,’ said Precious. ‘Give it to me and I’ll shoot him.’
‘Could you really do it?’ said James.
‘No,’ said Precious, quietly.
‘Me neither,’ said James. ‘Not in cold blood.’
‘What then?’
‘The door,’ said James. ‘Can you reach the handle without waking him?’
‘I think so.’
‘I’ll count to three,’ said James. ‘Then you open the door and I’ll shove him out.’
‘I’m not sure I can –’
‘One…’
‘James –’