Free Bitter Drink by F.G. Haghenbeck Page B

all the caution of an ice skater who’s just fallen flat on his ass, using the trunk-door handle for support. My joints were still numb.
    I lifted one hand to my head. It felt as swollen and soft as a ripe mango. Having already kicked me once before in the jaw, Mr. Antsy Underpants had added another blow to the base of my skull this time. Running my fingers through my hair, I felt a sticky wetness. My head was bleeding freely.
    My eyes focused on a large shape in front of me. It was the Cadillac. I stumbled over to it, opened the door, and collapsed in the driver’s seat. The keys were still in the ignition. I just sat there like a putz, the prize champion of putzes. Fora second it occurred to me I should lay off the bottle. But just for a second, before I convinced myself that what I really needed was another shot of that raicilla.
    Where Bobby had been standing there was only darkness. I heard a man groaning in pain among the crickets and a motor purring in the distance. Headlights fell on the Cadillac and the clearing around us. I could see Bobby’s body lying a few feet away.
    If the headlights belonged to the same guys that had done that to Bobby, there’d be no escape. I felt for my Colt. It was gone. The approaching headlights grew brighter.
    The car stopped in front of me, blinding me for a second time that night. I could see it was a convertible jeep. A war relic. A Napoleonic soldier would have been more modern and better equipped. My intuition told me there’d be no trouble from that jalopy.
    With enormous effort, I pulled myself out of the car and stumbled toward the ex-boxer. Bobby was alive and moaning, but I could see he was about to pass out. A bullet had gone through his thigh. Nothing to worry about. What a shame it would have been for the world to lose a future star like him, I thought. He’d received the same blow to the head, or maybe two, as I had, enough to knock him out at least. There was a lot of blood beside him, but none of it appeared to be his; it was nowhere near his leg wound.
    A shadow blocked the headlights all of a sudden. I turned and gazed into the blinding halo of light. A robust but hunched silhouette appeared. I could see it wore shortsand a scruffy beard. I don’t know which I recognized first, his voice or the smell of his T-shirt.
    “
Soldado
, next time better invite me to the party.
Más diversión
than a cantina, huh?”
    Billy Joe, my drinking buddy from Mazatlán, kneeled down beside me and started tending to Bobby La Salle.
    “Your amigo needs a doctor. He’s not hurt bad, but he could still bleed to death.”
    The old man lifted the boxer like a sack of potatoes and dragged him over to his jeep, depositing him in the backseat with all the delicacy of an airport luggage handler.
    “Compadre, you look
muy mal
. Let me see that wound.”
    I bent my head down so the old man could take a closer look. He gave a long whistle and moved away from me, as if my head wound and bad luck might be contagious. Leaning against the bumper of the jeep, he raised one of his British cigarettes to his lips and lit it, then offered me one.
    “No thanks. They’re bad for your health.”
    “Just like your line of work,
soldado
.” He took a deep drag and gave me the same smile he’d offered before, like Santa Claus having been asked for an impossible gift. Goddamned Santa. “You drive the Cadillac,” he said.
    “What about the money?” I asked.
    “Your amigo’s clean.”
    “No. He was carrying an envelope with cash. I guess our date didn’t feel like giving up the ring. They must have kept the ransom money.”
    “Rings, money, and a kick in head.
Mucho bueno
work.”
    “So how come you show up out here in the middle of nowhere, mister?” I asked. “And I don’t like your half-assed whorish answers anymore. If you tell me you’re out here hunting lizards, I swear I’ll do you worse than they did Bobby.”
    “I followed your trail from town.
Esta ser carretera
, the road,