Chapter 11
Another Cantina, Another Stranger
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters in this story, although I surely would like to.
Author's Note: Unlike my usual style, the POV in this chapter switches back and forth between two characters.
The waitress brought his check. El signed for it without even looking at the total. Chiclet's family had invited him to stay for dinner, but he had declined. He did not feel very comfortable around them. His mere presence only served to remind them of the son they had lost.
Tomorrow morning he would leave Culiacán. He had already stayed too long. He was ready to return to his house, to his guitars, to his quiet life.
He finished his drink and glanced around. He scowled. There. The man at the bar was still staring at him.
He returned the stranger's gaze frankly, narrowing his eyes just enough to let the man know he would not be stared down. To his surprise, the man nodded a little, then stood up and began walking toward El's table.
El reached down and removed the napkin from his lap. He wadded it up and dropped it onto the table; but his right hand remained beneath the table, his fingers just brushing the pistol at his hip.
The stranger sat down across from him. He had a mustache and dark hair starting to recede from a pronounced widow's peak. "You are El Mariachi," he said.
And suddenly El recognized him. He had seen this man once before, but only once. In this very city, in fact. A lifetime ago.
"Do you remember me?" the man asked.
El nodded. "You were there. The Day of the Dead. You killed one of Barillo's men."
The stranger nodded again. He held out his hand. "Jorge Ramirez."
El Mariachi. The mythical figure who walked around with a guitar case full of guns, shooting up small towns. The man who had looked at him from the shadows. A man whose dark eyes concealed a wealth of pain. A man who could kill him without even breaking a sweat.
For a long moment, Ramirez didn't think the man would shake his hand. Then calloused fingers gripped his own, and the former FBI agent relaxed a little.
Only a little.
"I hope you will forgive me for intruding." He gestured to El Mariachi's empty plate. "But I did not think you would meet with me otherwise." It was a standard tactic. Engage an unknown target in public, neutral territory. Give neither man the advantage. He suspected a man like El Mariachi did not have much use for things like tactics and strategy, but it never hurt to be prepared.
For Ramirez, old habits died hard.
"What do you want?"
"Just to talk," Ramirez said. He had seen the mariachi in town yesterday – the first stroke of luck he had had since returning to Mexico.
"About what?" In all the myths, he was referred to simply as "El." Ramirez thought it was a stupid nickname, but on the other hand, he did not particularly want to know the man's real name. With this one, too much knowledge was dangerous. So El it would have to be.
"A mutual acquaintance," he said. "Someone I believe we both know, to our misfortune."
El's lips quirked in an almost-smile. "I am listening," he said.
They went to another cantina. This one was smaller, dingier, and more poorly lit. It was the perfect place for a meeting between two men who did not know or trust each other. They took a booth in the back corner and they talked.
Ramirez started by explaining how Sands had manipulated him into joining the festivities on the Day of the Dead. He had been mildly interested in the possibility of capturing Barillo, but it was the mention of Doctor Guevara that had brought him on board. "He always knew which buttons to push," he said, feeling reluctant respect for his CIA counterpart.
El Mariachi listened well, but did not speak. He did not say how he had come to be involved in the coup, or what Sands had said to him. Ramirez was curious, but in the end he really didn't need to know, so this silence was fine with him.
The mariachi did ask one question, however. "Do you know what happened to him? How he lost his eyes?"
Ramirez nodded. "I know." He frowned. He did not like to remember the days after the coup.
"Tell me," the mariachi demanded.
Honesty was the best way to deal with a man like this. So Ramirez told him what he wanted to know.
He had pieced together the story from his own firsthand knowledge, and from the things Sands had babbled in his delirium. It was not a pretty story. He told El Mariachi about Barillo's daughter and Doctor Guevara. How the boy had saved Sands that day. How he himself had found them in an alley, how he had tossed the cell phone back, not needing it anymore. How the boy had chased after him, pleading for his help.
"Did Sands send you?" he had asked the boy.
"No," the boy had said. He had looked up at Ramirez. "I came alone."
"If he wanted my help, he would have asked for it."
"Please, señor. He is my friend."
That more than anything had decided him.
"He almost died," Ramirez said casually, and finished his beer.
"A pity he didn't," El Mariachi whispered.
Ramirez shrugged. It was not for him to say whether Sands should have lived or died. He had done what he could to help the man, and his conscience was clear.
Eventually Sands had left Culiacán, taking the boy with him. The years had passed without any word. Then one night Ramirez had woken to find Sands standing in his bedroom, a silenced pistol aimed at his head. "He had been sent to kill me," Ramirez said. "But he didn't. Instead he gave me a warning, and told me to run." He reached for his next bottle of beer, grateful to the observant waitress who kept their table so well-supplied.
"He warned you," El said flatly, as if he did not believe it.
"He did," Ramirez said. He did not say how that warning had taken shape. Not yet. Not until El had agreed to help him. Until then, he couldn't be sure how much the mariachi could be trusted.
El made a rude noise, but said nothing.
"So I left," Ramirez said. He tipped the bottle to his lips.
"Where did you go?"
"Texas," he said. "San Antonio. It was fine for a while. But I had no real desire to stay there. So about a year ago, I returned to Mexico."
He stared at a point beyond the mariachi's shoulder. "I wasn't back here three days when they came at me. They knew I had crossed the border, you see. They were watching the Customs records."
"Government men," El Mariachi said. Even accounting for the shadows in the room, his face was very dark.
"You betcha," Ramirez said. He took a long swig from the bottle. "Of course, the men who were sent to kill me aren't the kind any government would admit to knowing about."
"Assassins," said El Mariachi. The single word dripped with disgust.
Ramirez nodded. He had almost not survived that encounter. Fortunately his old training had come to his rescue. In a way he supposed he had Sands to thank for that. Sands had manipulated him into becoming an FBI agent again, and since then, he had never really gone back. For everything else Sands had gotten wrong, he had been right about one thing: a real agent never retired.
"What did you do?"
"I went back to the States again," he said simply.
El Mariachi thought about this. He gripped his beer bottle with both hands and stared into its depths. "Why did he warn you?"
"I don't know," Ramirez said. "Maybe he was paying me back. I helped save his life after the coup and he knows it."
The mariachi shook his head and muttered something Ramirez could not hear.
"I have a friend in San Antonio," he said. "He was my partner's brother. He was a cop in Dallas." He took another long drink. It never failed to amaze him how badly he could still hurt when he thought of his dead partner. "I went to see him. He told me he could get me across the border without official channels learning about it."
"So now you have come back," El Mariachi said. "Again. But why?"
"To finish this," Ramirez said. "I left San Antonio for a reason. Culiacán is my home now. I will not be chased away from my home."
El Mariachi nodded in understanding. "Sometimes," he said, "a man has no choice."
"Sometimes," Ramirez agreed. "But there is a choice this time. Unfortunately, I am not the one who can make that choice. Only one man can."
"Sands." El's scowl deepened.
"He was working with the new Presidente. He has made numerous contacts within the government. He can call off this manhunt." Give me back my life. "He is the only one who can do that."
"They will not listen," El said.
"He can make them listen. I am telling you," Ramirez leaned forward, "within two weeks of working for them, Sands knew all their dirty little secrets. By now he probably knows enough to publicly crucify every single man in the Mexican government. They will listen to him. He will give them no choice."
"They could always just put a bullet in his head," El offered.
"No." Ramirez shook his head. "Sands is too smart for that. He'll have covered his bases. Secret files. Secret informants. Well-paid people ready to come forward if he suddenly dies. And they will know that."
He drank his beer. Of course, he was assuming a lot here. The Sands of old would have done all the things he had just described. But this new Sands, the one who had been created on the Day of the Dead? He didn't know. He could only hope.
"And why are you telling me all this?" asked El Mariachi.
"Because I need your help," Ramirez said. "My new partner and I have been in Mexico for five months now, and we cannot find Sands. I had hoped you might have some information on his whereabouts."
An expression Ramirez could not name flickered across the mariachi's face. "Why would I have that kind of information?"
"Because you were the last," he said. "Sands was ordered to hunt down and kill everyone associated with the coup. He would save you for last." Of this he had no doubt. It was exactly the kind of thing Sands would do. Save the best for last.
"What do you plan to do with him?" El asked.
He shrugged. "Whatever I have to do, to gain his cooperation. But I don't think it will be too hard. I figure he's probably sick of working for the Mexican government by now. He'll be looking for a change of scenery." Then he winced, embarrassed that he had used such an expression when talking about a blind man. Sands himself had never seemed to mind, and in fact had never stopped saying things like, I see and Would you look at that? but Ramirez had always felt uneasy around those kind of words.
"He will not cooperate," El Mariachi said. "Besides, he cannot help you. Not anymore."
Ramirez frowned. "What does that mean?" El did not speak as though Sands were dead, but there was such flat finality in the mariachi's voice that he was instantly suspicious. "Not anymore?"
"He is in prison," El Mariachi said. "For the crimes he has committed while in this country."
Too shocked to speak, Ramirez concentrated on finishing his beer. Sands was in jail! It was the last thing he had expected to learn. He found it hard to believe that such a thing was possible. The Sands he had known was too slippery, too hard to catch. What had happened?
He was unaware he had asked the question out loud until El answered. "He killed a child."
Ramirez's eyes widened. He breathed the boy's name, the boy Sands had always insisted on calling Chiclet.
El Mariachi nodded. "He did not pull the trigger himself, but he was responsible for the boy's death." He shifted in his chair. "That is why I am here. I am paying my respects to his family."
Ramirez nodded. He found it hard to order his thoughts. "When did this happen?"
"One year ago," El said flatly. "Almost to the day."
Ramirez nearly choked on his beer. A full year!
He could scarcely believe it. It seemed so unfair. He was a year too late. All Sands' information would be obsolete by now. His contacts would probably not even acknowledge him, having gratefully slipped back into their thankless jobs where no one singled them out and paid them exorbitant sums of money to play at being a spy.
His entire plan was slipping away, right before his eyes. "Tell me about the boy," he said. "How did he die?"
El Mariachi held his beer bottle tightly. "Sands found me one night, at the cantina where I was working as a mariachi…"
Telling the story took some time. Ramirez managed to make his way through yet another beer, despite the fact that a dimly alarmed portion of his brain was trying to frantically signal him to slow down. He was in no mood to stay sober tonight. He needed alcohol in order to sit here and listen to this story. Lots of it.
And what a terrible story it was. He listened as El Mariachi explained how Sands had manipulated him into thinking they were working together against the cartel. He heard about the trip to General Juan Garcia's villa and the way Sands had betrayed his former military allies. He winced as El described the resulting shoot-out, and how the boy called Chiclet had died in Sands' arms.
"I blame him," El Mariachi said. "But I also blame myself. I should have known what was happening. I was suspicious of Sands. But I believed the boy. He seemed genuinely concerned about everything."
"He probably didn't know everything," Ramirez pointed out. "It sound like Sands kept some secrets from him, too."
El nodded firmly. "That is why he is dead today. Why I am here, visiting a family who grieves for their son. I do not want to be here." He looked up at Ramirez. "But last year when I delivered their son's body to them, they begged me to stay, to tell them what I knew about their son. I promised I would find out everything I could, and come back. That is what I have done. I have fulfilled my promise. I will never return to this place again."
The pain in the mariachi's eyes was devastating. Ramirez swallowed hard. "Then what will you do now?"
"I do not know," came the answer.
"Are you still hunted?" Ramirez asked. He wanted this man on his side. El Mariachi was a formidable man and he could be a powerful ally.
El made a sound that might have been a laugh. "Always," he said.
"Then stay," Ramirez said. "Come meet my partner. We will talk. We will think of something."
El Mariachi looked up at him. "Can your partner bring back the dead?"
"No," Ramirez said, thinking of his first partner, thinking of his wife. "But Eddie has many contacts in official places, and so do I." He smiled grimly. "I used to be FBI, you know. Among the three of us, I'm sure we can find a way to get these men off our backs and take our lives back."
"I would like that," El Mariachi said quietly.
So would I.
"Then come with me," Ramirez said. "Please."
They met in a small apartment near the center of the city. El said little as Ramirez introduced him to Eddie Archuleta, the older brother of his FBI partner, Danny Archuleta. Both boys had been born and raised in Texas, and both had gone into law enforcement against their mother's wishes. It was obvious that Ramirez wasn't as close to Eddie as he had been to Danny, but there was still a tight friendship between the two men.
El observed all this with interest. The older Archuleta brother was tall and tanned and he shaved his head. He looked like a man who didn't take shit from anybody. In fact, he looked exactly like every American cop El had ever imagined.
"Prison," Archuleta said, after hearing the whole sorry tale. His mouth thinned. "That figures." He knocked back a glass of whiskey.
"Maybe we should pay him a visit," Ramirez said. He slumped in an armchair. "Tell him what we want."
"I doubt he can do anything from in there," Archuleta said. "He won't have access to any of his contacts."
El listened to all of this with growing concern. He had a very bad feeling about where this conversation was headed. He was starting to wish he had not accepted Ramirez's offer. He did not belong here.
"Besides," Archuleta added, "a visit wouldn't solve anything. Give me ten minutes alone with this guy and I could tell you everything he knows. But that's not gonna happen with two inches of bulletproof glass between us."
Ramirez nodded glumly. El took a drink from his glass, just enough to be polite, and said nothing. Eddie Archuleta knew nothing. Not if he thought he could make Sands talk after just ten minutes. Ten years wouldn't be enough, El thought angrily. Some men were just made to keep secrets, and Sands was one of them.
"You know," Ramirez said, "I could always call Benning. See if he could help."
Archuleta pondered this. He had very light blue eyes that contrasted sharply with his tan. "Could he do it?"
"I don't know." The former FBI agent struggled to sit up straighter in the soft confines of the armchair. "He might."
"Do it." Archuleta nodded decisively. He looked at El. "Do you have any friends you could call? Men you trust?"
"They will not come for something like this," El said.
Archuleta lifted an eyebrow, feigning surprise. "Not even to save your life?"
El decided he did not like this man. That raised eyebrow, that tone of voice, they were false. This man was very much in control of his emotions. There was no reason to play the fake.
In a way, Archuleta reminded him of Sands. Not the Sands who had made him think he was facing off against the cartel, but the Sands who had made him agree to kill General Marquez. The Sands who didn't care about the cost, so long as he got what he wanted.
With an effort, El kept hold of his temper. He was through with being lied to and manipulated. He much preferred the straightforward honesty of a man like Ramirez. At least Ramirez hadn't felt the need to play games with him. "Why should I call them?" he challenged Archuleta. "What would I be asking them to do?"
Archuleta smiled humorlessly. "We've got a man to get out of prison."