Page 7 (1/2)

They were having a drink or three in the bar at LAX waiting for their connecting flight to Dallas when two young coed types waltzed in wearing aquamarine shorts and deep equatorial tans followed by two boys just as dark wearing sombreros on which was stitched "Acapulco"

Jack Crow, about to climb aboard his fifth jet in less than twenty-four hours, zonked by in-flight sleep and in-flight food and three or four drinks ahead of the Planet Earth, found this an inspiration

"That’s e oughta do," he announced "Go to Acapulco! Or better, Cancun or Isla de Mujeres! It’ll take a coupla weeks to get settled into the new shack anyway"

"We’ve already checked our bags on through to Dallas," Cat pointed out

Jack frowned at Cat’s lack of enthusias softly "I gotta get all our bullet stuff ready"

Jack looked at hio Annabelle?"

Annabelle barely s in’?"

"But the rest of you can go ahead," offered Annabelle in her very best martyred tone

Jack stared at his drink "Naw"

Annabelle s anyway"

Jack grinned back at her "Doesn’t mean I don’t want to be near you while you do it"

"How near?"

"I thought I’d stay at the Adolphus Hotel don" He looked at the others "I thought we all would the first couple of days"

Annabelle sipped and smiled "If you like"

Carl had his hands clasped across his great belly and wasto himself Adam, seated beside him, leaned closer

"What’s the matter?" he asked, concerned

Carl looked at him "I don’t unnerstand it, padre!"

"What, Mr Joplin?"

"Call me Carl"

"Okay, Carl What is it?"

"My drink" He pointed to the glass before him

"It’s empty," Adam noticed

"That’s what I don’t unnerstand! It was full only rinned

"Oh lass away from him across the table in mock tenor "It’s happened to mine, too!"

And then Carl and Cat looked at one another and began huht Zone

While the others laughed, Jack held his face in his hands and shook it mournfully "My Tea waitress scurrying by "An Eether in the first-class lounge to hide from the food One more airline meal, Jack felt certain, would make him left-handed So they sat and drank and played cards and chatted Jack brought up the subject of Mexico again but in an odd way and with an odd look on his face

"I used to work in Mexico," he dropped briefly and then blatantly waited for soe him to continue Davette complied and Team Croondered if she could possibly have known hih this soon to feel the oddness his eyes could shed

Cat curled up in his seat like his naoing on? he wondered, but said nothing out loud

He didn’t have to, for all who knew Jack Croere thinking the sa to have to know this They won’t understand hiht not understand hi

But they’re going to have to know

And ood part first

He s the initial phase ofAnnabelle spoke up "You mean before you joined the army"

"Nope Afterward"

"But you said the first part of

"No," he corrected with a sovern as bored as he kne

"Which nent for the DEA"

"What the hell is all this supposed to mean?" Carl wanted to know

"Well, my job was to check out the Cuban connection into ran Mexican heroin, so I was along the Texas border trying to find out if all the rulers was true"

"Was it?" so out all the a"

"So what did you do?" sorinned "Got in the way n I liked the NSA but they didn’t trust me I liked the CIA but they didn’t even trust each other I was scared of the DEA and they hated me but had to take me because of orders from upstairs

"It was a rinned easily "But I did have an interesting couple of weeks"

And Cat thought, Here it coe and wondered how they were gonna take whatever it was that Jack was trying to sneak up on the to sneak it up on me, too First ti, so

So why aan to speak

Second Interlude: Felix

Ran heroin changed everything Those little doper camps used to be so cute, like a piece of the Wild Frontier They’d camp out in the weeds so up a village out of tarpaper shacks to be close to the loose change spilling off And there was quite a bit of that to be had Life was pretty good

I re Cole undercover G-man, I left my weapons in theinto a ca ones and I could hear lots of shouting as I got close But when I stepped through into the clearing there were only two guys there, both Mexicans, both drunk I walked up beside one of theood right across the chops, uy beside hi out, "Another one! Here’s another one!" And then he jumps at e but that yelling brought reinforce out of the darkness fro atthe kind of night it was Toward the river, away froh the brush with Spanish obscenities echoing fro on except the basics: I was in deep shit

But I was old enough Old enough means I was too s mob There really are people out there hile you’re trying to explain it’s not your fault, will pound you into putty

I found the river when I fell into it Well, stepped into it The Rio Grande isn’t much but thirty feet across around those parts So anyway, I step back and start shaking h the night with "Hey, gringo! Where’re ya goin’?"

I probably didn’t jump over a mile or two And I had already started to run when I realized the voice had sounded out in English, not Spanish I spun around and first laid eyes on Willia in the door of an abandoned boxcar with a cigarette in his est shit-eating grin you ever saw in your whole life Had a World War II leather flying jacket, a faded blue navy work shirt, jeans, cowboy boots, and a Hu back Couldn’t help it

I walked over and took the bottle fro and asked him who the hell he was and he toldboot on a strut and climbed up into the boxcar It was even darker in there than outside

"What are you doing in this thing?"

I could barely see his grin "Saet down here by the river?" I asked hi back his bottle "Ask her"

He struck ait needed to go fro scraps and cardboard furniture to a bleeding Jesus on the wall Sitting in the ressively ugly woman I’d ever seen

Felix had lit a candle with theacross the opening to shield the outside froain "I’rin at her, and patted a spot on the floor beside hiesture for me to sit down on another box across from him I did He offered me another sip I took it The woman came over and sat down on the spot Felix had indicated

"What’s your nalish

She said: "Twenty-five dollars Aled her chest

Lord