Feast Day of Fools (Hackberry Holland 3)

One of the men standing closest to the far wall rose on his tiptoes to see outside. “There’s a flatbed truck out by the pecan trees,” he said. “It’s probably some of your field hands.”

“They’re not supposed to be there,” Sholokoff said.

“It’s some peons, sir. I can see one of them,” Craig said.

“Mike, you get the spoon back from the man in the cell,” Sholokoff said. “The rest of you come upstairs with me.”

“Sir, the woman is about to break,” Frank said. “I got everything under control. I’ll check around outside if you want, but don’t ease up now.”

“You received a phone call earlier. Who was that from?”

“A gal I met in the cantina,” Frank replied. “I told her not to call while I was working.”

“A girl from the cantina? You are always thinking about your appetites, Frank. Do you never think about the man who took you off a porn set and made a soldier out of you? Do you have no gratitude for the life I’ve given you—the women, the power, the money?”

“Sir, I got on the cantina gal’s case. I want to prove myself to you. Leave me with the Chinese broad. Trust me, you’ll have everything you need when you come back downstairs.”

“You have a great problem, Frank. You have never been able to hide your lean and hungry look,” Sholokoff said. “That’s because a black heart has no loyalty. You can only think in terms of your own needs. I do not believe your story about the girl in the cantina. Have you done something you shouldn’t? Do you want to confess to La Magdalena?”

“Why do you mock me, sir? I’ve done everything you wanted, including hanging up that cowboy preacher on a cross.” Frank’s features sharpened with resentment, his cheeks sinking and pooling with shadow. “I’m surprised you didn’t have us throw dice for his clothes.”

One of the men on the first floor opened the door that gave onto the stairwell. “Mr. Sholokoff, there’s a truck and an SUV out by them trees,” he called down the stairs. “The maid hauled freight like somebody stuck a cattle prod up her ass. I sent Toy Boy out.”

HACKBERRY AND PAM Tibbs and Jack Collins and Eladio and Jaime fanned out in the pecan trees as soon as they had exited their vehicles. The rain was blowing in a fine mist against a barn that stood between them, dimming out Sholokoff’s compound. Hackberry held the cut-down twelve-gauge with one hand, the barrel resting against his shoulder, and studied the main house through his binoculars. Pam was to his right, carrying the AR15 with her left forearm partially wrapped in the sling, a thirty-round magazine inserted in the frame. She had strung two pairs of handcuffs through the back of her cartridge belt and had stuffed a twenty-round magazine in the back pocket of her jeans.

The house was massive, the walls two feet thick, built of stucco that had been painted a mauve color, the flower beds bordered with bricks and packed with soil that was as dark as wet coffee grounds, the yellow and red hibiscus and climbing roses and Hong Kong orchids trembling with rain that dripped off the roof.

The position was bad; the angle of approach was bad; and there was too much light in the sky.

The back door opened, and an overweight Mexican woman came into the yard and walked toward a hogpen with a heavy bucket in her hand. Then she looked once over her shoulder and dropped the bucket, full of slops, onto the grass and ran past the barn into a cornfield.

“I think Jack’s inside contact just blew Dodge,” Hackberry said.

“Hack, this sucks,” Pam said.

“There’s nothing for it. We believe in what we’re doing,” he replied. “Those guys inside don’t.”

“You and I stay together. I don’t want any one of these bastards behind me,” she said. “They’re planning to kill us. I know it.”

Before Hackberry could answer, the back door opened a second time, and one of the biggest men he had ever seen came into the yard. His long-sleeve shirt looked like it was filled with concrete; his neck looked as stiff and hard as a fireplug; his hands were the size of skillets. But his face didn’t match the rest of him. It was too small for his head, as though it had been painted in miniature on his skin, his hair cut like a little boy’s. A MAC-10 hung from his right hand.

The man looked at the slop bucket on the grass and walked toward the barn, looking neither to the right or left, entering the open front doors and walking steadily toward the open rear doors that gave onto the pecan orchard.

Before he emerged from the barn, Pam Tibbs moved quickly out of the trees, throwing the AR15 to her shoulder, aiming it at the center of the large man’s face. “Drop your weapon,” she said. “If you don’t, I will kill you where you stand. Do it now. No, it’s not up for discussion. Do not have the thoughts you’ve having. Drop the weapon. No, don’t look at the others. Look at me and only me, and tell me I won’t kill you. I’m the only person on the planet preventing you from going straight to hell in the next five seconds. The first round will be in the mouth, the second one between your eyes. You will not know what hit you. Indicate what you want me to do.”

The man with the miniaturized face stared woodenly at her, his skin slick with rain, his chest rising and falling, the blood draining from his cheeks, mist blowing in his face. Pam closed her left eye and lifted her right elbow, her finger tightening inside the trigger guard. “Good-bye,” she said.

“I was just checking the yard. I got no beef with y’all,” the man said, letting the MAC-10 fall to the barn’s dirt floor.

“Thattaboy. Now on your face. Come on, handsome, do it. You’re making the smart choice,” she said.

As soon as he was on the ground, she handed her rifle to Hackberry and stripped a pair of handcuffs from the back of her belt and hooked up the man’s wrists, snicking the ratchets into the locking mechanisms. When she straightened up, she was breathing hard, her cheeks pooled with color. “They must know we’re here. What now?”

“We go through the cellar door. Let Collins and the Mexicans handle the upstairs,” Hackberry said.

She took the assault rifle from Hackberry’s hands and wet her lips. She looked over her shoulder to see where Collins and the two Mexicans were. Collins was talking to the Mexicans, all three of their heads bent together. Her breath was still coming short in her chest. “Hack, don’t let those guys get behind us. Listen to me on this,” she said.

“We’re going to be all right.”