Cactus Garden Read online

  THE

  CACTUS

  GARDEN

  Also by Robert Ward

  The King of Cards

  Red Baker

  Cattle Annie and Little Britches

  Shedding Skin

  THE

  CACTUS

  GARDEN

  ROBERT WARD

  a division of F+W Media, Inc.

  For Larry Sullivan,

  Wise and Loving Friend

  Contents

  Cover

  Also by Robert Ward

  Title Page

  Dedication

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  The Sandman

  Also Available

  Copyright

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Many people helped me in the writing of this novel, but first and foremost was Special Agent Ralph Lochridge of the DEA. Lochridge went beyond the call of duty in every way—from setting me up with crucial interviews, showing me the border in San Diego, and teaching me how to shoot a machine gun. Thanks, amigo, you’re the best.

  Thanks also to Special Agent John Marcello and Special Agent Sal Leyva, both of the Los Angeles DEA.

  In El Paso, I’m grateful to Travis Kuykendall, Special Agent in Charge of the El Paso District Office, Group Supervisor Jeff Atkinson, Special Agent Earl Hewitt, and Special Agent John Moring.

  In San Diego, I’m indebted to Special Agent Jack Hook, who took me to the weirdest place of all.

  Among my civilian friends, I’m indebted to novelist/screenwriter Mike Perry, my smart editor Jane Rosenman, and her capable assistants, Donna Lynne Ng and Matthew Futterman.

  I’m also grateful for the support I’ve received from William Grose, Editorial Director of Pocket Books, and my agent extraordinaire, Esther Newberg.

  Finally, thanks to my wife, Celeste Wesson, for her love and emotional support through three years of hard work.

  Chapter 1

  Charlotte Rae Wingate sailed along in front of them, cruising over the smashed Dixie cups, old L.A. Times, three piles of dog shit, and one 1976 Barbie doll head, which lay smashed in the sunbaked street of Hollywood Boulevard. Charlotte Rae drove a perfectly restored candy-apple red 1965 T-Bird, and her bleached blonde head and thirty-eight-inch breasts bobbed up and down to the thunderous sound of Guns ‘N’ Roses. Two car-lengths behind her was a black Dodge Ram Charger. Jack Walker peered at her through his marine binoculars; C.J. Jefferson crouched forward behind the steering wheel, looking like a diver about to sail off one of the cliffs of Acapulco. Walker rubbed his jaw with his left hand and smiled.

  “I love her. She’s perfect. Completely self-invented,” he said. “The retro car, the bottle-blonde hair, the latest greatest in silicone jobs, the pink-frosted-lipstick, Jackie Kennedy redux thing, the shitty taste in music.”

  “You don’t dig Axl, man,” Jefferson said. “I thought all you white boys dug Axl.”

  “Axl’s an asshole with an attitude and a fag falsetto,” Walker said. “They should pay Al Green to give him singing lessons.”

  C.J. Jefferson growled a little.

  “You got the bad attitude, but I’m gonna forgive you for liking somebody in my generation.”

  “Still, I could see improving her mind over a bottle of wine,” Walker said.

  “Nah, only time you’re gonna meet Charlotte Rae is when we turn the key on her,” C.J. said.

  Jefferson’s gold tooth shone when he smiled, and Jack sighed and went back to his glasses.

  “Think of it,” he said, “a broad who looks like that. In any other city she’d be a star. Out here she’s just one more bad actress who can’t find any new hooker roles to play.”

  C.J. shook his head.

  “Yeah, ain’t it tragic. ‘Course I do remember seeing her in a couple of pictures, Die Roach Die and Bride of the Slime Master. You see those beauties, maybe you get a better understanding why she’s happy in the drug biz.”

  “Yeah, I saw the second one on USA. The honeymoon slime thing was a bitch,” Walker said. “Think she ever gives any of this shit a thought?”

  “Nah. That’s where the metal music comes in,” C.J. said.

  “How’s that?”

  “Keep it loud enough and drop enough pills, and you can pretend you’re not a flunked out actress who goes home to Buddy Wingate.”

  In front of them, Charlotte Rae Wingate cruised past three earnest young Hare Krishnas dressed in their orange robes, walking in lockstep down the street, ready to fill the denizens of the boulevard with ecstasy. She looked over at them, sneered a little, and then reached down to the Mexican briefcase made from a red-and-black hand-stitched blanket and aged-down buckskin. She slowed the car down as she got to Mann’s Chinese Theater and stared at the giant poster of Clint Eastwood. Buddy had said they were going to meet him soon…. Clint … Clint … she liked the sound of it, like rocks, rhymed with flint, something solid a girl could hang on to. She waited, waited for the man with the “End of the World” sign to cross the street. He was three feet away, wore a rust-colored beard that stopped at his knees, smelled like a buffalo, had a giant rip in the side of his pants, out of which one of his hairy, scabbed legs stuck. She wished to hell he’d move … there was work to do. She ripped the Axl disc out of the CD player and slapped in Pearl Jam. She pumped up the volume to ten, gripped the wheel, when suddenly she felt something cold sticking into the bridge of her perfect starlet pug nose. She looked up and saw a black man, six feet three, two hundred and fifty pounds. His face was in some kind of terminal grimace, and he had a half-moon tattoo wedged into his cheek.

  “Step out of the car, bitch.”

  “Jesus Christ, don’t shoot,” Charlotte Rae said.

  He pulled back the hammer of the .38 Colt semiautomatic. And smiled. But he didn’t look happy.

  “See, I need me a T-Bird,” he said. “You get out real slow and normal like, maybe I won’t make your pretty white face look like an explosion in a pizza factory.”

  “Oh, Christ,” she said. “Oh, my God. Please.”

  Behind her, the black van stopped at the traffic light at Highland. Walker sucked in his breath, listened intently on the speaker phones.

  “Unscheduled party, C.J.”

  “Oh, man. Big trouble.”

  Walker whirled the steering wheel to the right, jammed the van into a screeching halt at the curb in front of the Hollywood Wax Museum. He leapt from the car door and saw a Charlie Chaplin mime who stood frozen at the museum door, badly pantomiming the shoe-eating scene from The Gold Rush. Jack blinked, watched him as he twirled his derby on the tip of his cane.

  Jack looked back at Jefferson.

  “He’s gonna do her, C.J. I’m going in.”

  “Jack, wait, man.”

  “Trust me, partner,” Jack said. Then he was on the street, running full-tilt at the big black man, who had already pulled Charlotte Rae out of her car and was sitting behind t
he steering wheel. As Jack raced toward him, he could see the gun’s silhouette, refracting the morning sun. Very poetic.

  “You gonna kiss this white world good-bye, baby,” the car-jacker said, smiling.

  “Yo, homey,” Jack yelled. “Check this.”

  Then he lifted off the ground, sailed through the smog-deadened air over the back of the little T-Bird, and smashed his forearm into the man’s neck.

  He heard the jacker groan as his head hit the windshield and a wild shot fired off into the sky. That should have been the end of it, Jack thought, but it wasn’t. They were moving, the two of them … the car rolling to the right, fast, too goddamned fast. Jack looked down at the thief’s foot, saw it lying heavily on the accelerator. As he looked back out in the street, he saw the End-of-the-World man scream and fall back on his ass, and then there was this huge red coiling dragon looming above the speeding car.

  The T-Bird stopped dramatically as it smashed into the glass ticket booth at Mann’s Chinese. The car thief’s forehead was crushed as it smashed through the windshield. The shock of the impact flung Jack’s head into the fashionably restored chrome and leather dashboard. Glass shattered like diamonds, the windshield bent and bucked grotesquely, and behind them the End-of-the-World man had a vague smile of recognition on his face. Oh, this was it, this was the Day, the Great Day he had been waiting for, the Day of Fiery Judgment, Praise the Lord. He stared amazed as the red, forty-foot Mann’s Chinese dragon slumped from its perch atop the battered ticket booth and flopped on the crunched-up hood and smashed windshield of the car. Twenty feet down the street, C.J. Jefferson watched in pure disbelief, silently mouthing the single word, “Motherfucker,” while on the sidewalk the little Chaplin clone stood mute, amazed, his white-gloved hand over his painted O of a mouth.

  Inside the crushed T-Bird, Jack braced himself on the unconscious thief’s bald and tattooed head, then pushed himself up and back, onto the trunk, and slid down in a heap next to the back left tire. He turned and looked at Charlotte Rae, who walked toward him, taking one halting step at a time, like a sleepwalking toddler.

  “Oh, my God,” she said, in a dazed monotone. “Oh, my God…. My God.”

  Jack managed a crooked smile. Rubbed his hand across his bloody forehead. He could feel interesting dents in it, holes from where his skin had met the chrome knobs on her radio. Blood dripped down his eyebrows.

  “Have a nice day,” he said. “You okay?”

  “Yes, but you … Oh, my God. You saved my life. Really.”

  Jack nodded, looked at the wrecked car, the destroyed Hollywood landmark. The dragon’s serpentine head had landed just a few feet from him, and he reached over and gave it a friendly pat.

  “Nice dragon,” he said. “Looks a little hungry, though.”

  “You … you saved me,” she said again.

  “I don’t know,” Jack said, looking around at the debris. “Considering how little resale value your car is gonna’ have, maybe I should have let him go.”

  “No. You saved my life. ‘Cause he was gonna pull the trigger. There was no doubt, I could see it in his eyes. Oh, God.”

  Charlotte Rae slumped down beside him, her arms flopping like overcooked pasta.

  “Deep breaths,” Jack said. “In and out. Slow and easy. You survived the mugger, now you gotta make it past the bystanders.”

  He looked out at the pathetic ragtag group who stood gawking. The End-of-the-World man smiled at him with toothless gums. This was a Sign, oh, yes yes yes. The three Hare Krishnas stood stiffly in their flowing saris. They sported confused looks on their well-scrubbed faces; there was something they should do here, they were sure of it. Every catastrophe was an opportunity to serve the Krishna and win a few more converts, but in this case, it was unclear to them exactly how they could turn chaos to their advantage. Next to them, two foul-smelling bums dressed in rags, smiled at the tableau as though it were Christmas come early.

  Charlotte Rae swallowed hard, put her soft hand in his.

  “God,” she said. “Jesus, God. City of fucking Angels.”

  She began to cry, and Jack had to restrain himself from putting his arm around her and pulling her to his chest. Even with her standard Malibu Makeover, it was obvious she had the kind of beauty that stopped clocks.

  The manager came racing from the dark theater. He was a round little Armenian man with bad skin and great owl eyes. His black hair was combed forward to a perfect point in the middle of his forehead, just like Nero. He wore a shiny blue suit, with the Mann’s logo on the pocket and the pants legs two inches too short, revealing bright orange socks. His shoes were gray Hush Puppies. They had a mottled look, like old oatmeal.

  “Look,” he screamed. “Look what you done to my dragon.”

  “Fuck the dragon,” Jack said.

  “Fuck the dragon?” the manager said, staring down at Jack with watery eyes.

  “Right,” Charlotte Rae said, “and while we’re at it, fuck you too.”

  She looked at him and began to laugh. “You have no idea what you done. This dragon’s historic landmark,” the aggrieved manager said. “Not anymore,” Jack said.

  The manager said nothing after that, but wandered around touching the fallen serpent, shaking his head and making small sighing sounds.

  “How?” she said. “Where were you?”

  “Behind you. Me and my buddy in his van. Our day off, and we were heading for the beach. Hey, there he is now.”

  Calvin Jefferson was jogging toward them, smiling and shaking his head.

  “Son of a bitch,” he said. “I knew you played ball, Jackie, but that was an All-Pro hit, you all right?”

  “It only hurts when I cough up blood,” Jack said. He spat a little on the street.

  “Jack?” she said. “Jack who?”

  “McKenna,” Jack said. “You?”

  “Charlotte Rae Wingate,” she said, blushing a little. “Pleased to meet you … very pleased.”

  She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek, and Jack felt the spot burn a little.

  “This is my friend Larry Washington,” Jack said, pointing at Jefferson.

  “Hello, Larry,” she said. “Tell your friend Jack he has to go to the hospital. Now.”

  “She’s right, Jackie,” Jefferson said. “You’re dripping blood all over Joan Crawford.”

  Jack looked down at the footprint to his left. It was Joan Crawford’s. There was a nice little pool of his blood collecting in the big masculine. “J.”

  “No wire hangers,” he said. “We can beat the kids just as well with plastic.”

  “Is he always like this?” Charlotte Rae said to Jefferson.

  “ ‘Cept when he’s sleeping,” Jefferson said.

  “Good,” Charlotte Rae said. “Now come on.”

  She looked at Jack with her blue eyes in a way that made him want to bleed a little more.

  Jack looked back at the big guy behind the wheel. His head was jammed through the windshield. He seemed to be snoring. One of Salazar’s boys, no doubt. No way this was a legit car-jack.

  “I think the cops are gonna want to talk to us first,” Jack said. “The good old LAPD. I hear their sirens down the block, so they should be here by tomorrow.”

  “Oh, God,” Charlotte Rae said. “Do we have to talk to the police? They are so dumb and slow. And you’re bleeding to death.”

  Jack stood and felt the earth whirl a little beneath his feet. “I’m just fine,” he said. “No one could be finer than me.” With that he started to topple toward her, and Jefferson had to grab him by the shoulder.

  “I’m taking you to the hospital now,” she said. She sounded almost motherly.

  But the sirens had stopped now, and three black-suited Darth Vaderesque LAPD cops were walking toward them through the crowd.

  “It’s L.A.’s finest come to arrest your attacker,” Jack said. He spat out a little more blood and felt weak in the arms. Maybe he had broken a rib after all, punctured a lung. It would be just his lu
ck—get a break on a case and die coming out of the chute.

  “What’s going on here, miss?” a big cop with a face like a Wendy Burger said.

  “They have killed my dragon, that’s what’s going on,” the theater manager bleated.

  “Now you’re bleeding on Sidney Poitier,” Calvin said.

  “Shows I’m an equal opportunity bleeder,” Jack said.

  “Somebody has to pay,” the manager said. “This is historic fucking dragon.”

  “Watch your mouth in front of this here lady, sir, or I will bash in your teeth,” the cop said.

  “My husband will take care of it, officer,” Charlotte Rae said. “This man saved me from that creep. My husband is Buddy Wingate, and he’ll want to give this man a reward.”

  “You mean Buddy Wingate the Furniture King, from on the TV?” the cop said. He looked impressed, and Jack felt a measure of cool contempt for him.

  “That’s him,” Charlotte Rae said. “Now I’m taking this man to the hospital.”

  “There’s an ambulance on the way,” another cop said. “Meanwhile, somebody has to explicate all this stuff, as we got reports to make.”

  Charlotte Rae laughed and turned her perfect lips to Jack’s ear.

  “I love it when you talk to cops. They do dialogue.”

  Jack smelled her perfume and felt a little weaker. She put her arm around his waist, and he leaned on her. He looked over at Jefferson then, and his partner shook his head.

  “Too much,” he said. “Some day at the beach.” Jack managed to laugh at that too. Then he felt faint again and sat back down—right on the slain dragon’s head.

  Chapter 2

  He could feel her eyes on him as Dr. Ravi Whani cut off his blood-soaked shirt, and he was glad he’d spent the last two weeks eating sushi and pumping up at the Agency gym. Behind her, out in the cluttered hallway, Jack saw Calvin hitting on one of the black emergency room nurses, a tall, foxy-looking woman about ten years younger than him. Not a good move, Jack thought. C.J. was already having trouble with his marriage, and things sure as hell weren’t going to improve if he messed around. But there was no use saying anything about it to him; Jack had already tried that, and C.J. had told him to butt out.