Free Ken Kuhlken_Hickey Family Mystery 01 by The Loud Adios Page B

came surfacing out of the clubs, grimacing at the crystalline sky. Junk cars crashed over the potholes. A gang of Indian kids stopped to beg. Hickey gave them a few dimes and they walked on, searching the gutters.
    The waitress brought a stack of buttered tortillas, and Hickey asked the cabbie to tell him more about this Mofeto.
    “Okay. I know that loco a long time. He’s the worst, hombre, no lie.” Tito ripped a tortilla and hissed, “I saw him cut the head off the Virgin—a little statue, you know. For no reason. At his mother’s house while we eating dinner. It was Christmas, man, and he laughs. Ay, diablo.”
    At the end of the block, a two-year-old red Chevrolet coupe pulled up and a strange man got out. He might’ve looked at home in London, Paris, Berlin, but not here. It wasn’t just the blondness that made him look unusual, but his shiny brown shoes and the fit of his brown cotton suit. Like a guy who combed his eyebrows. He glanced their way, then stepped into a curio shop.
    Tito growled, “Aléman.”
    “Aleh what?”
    The cabbie pointed over where the slick guy had been. “German, that’s what I said.”
    “Don’t point.”
    The tacos arrived. The slick German came out of the curio shop and stood, straightening the knot of his tie. A couple of minutes later, a white Ford Model A roadster pulled up to the curbside, hitting a puddle and spurting up mud. It almost splashed the German. He jumped back and barked at the Mexican who got out of the roadster and came around to meet him. The Mexican wore boots and a straw cowboy hat with the brim curled up the way gringos wore them. The German only said a few words, then turned and walked to his Chevy, and drove off. At the first corner he took a right. Up the road to Las Lomas.
    The Mexican entered the curio shop. Hickey caught the guy staring at him through the window.
    He dropped a few bills on the table, and he and the cabbie got up and strolled down the block toward the limo, keeping an eye on the curio shop. He didn’t see the taxi until it screeched to a stop beside him.
    Clifford Rose jumped out. He ran to Hickey and then pulled up short. His jaw quivered. “Why’d you leave me there, Pop?”
    Hickey sighed and caught a deep breath of the fine air over the lump in his throat. He felt so sorry for the kid it shamed him. “I sent Leo to get you.”
    “Yeah, but he tried to keep me up there.”
    “Where is he?”
    “I don’t know,” Clifford said meekly. “I socked him and got away.”
    “Hey, you don’t sock an old guy. Understand?”
    Clifford slumped and stared at the ground. Hickey gave him a shove toward the limo.
    They cruised north on Revolución, and Clifford asked, “Where we going? You got a clue?”
    Hickey didn’t answer, but wondered how to tell the kid in a few words that to search you didn’t just follow clues. Like in all pursuits, you kept your eyes drifting around, because the view straight ahead was only about a tenth of the world. Besides, Hickey wasn’t only seeking Wendy Rose. Same as every man except the few content ones, he was looking for what had gone wrong, and the wild card that could set him free.
    Hickey stopped at the Long Bar, which ran the whole block between Calles Uno and Dos and was jammed with gringo troops. He left a message for Luz, with her brother, a waiter.
    Now they’d go see Juan Metzger. The cabbie turned right, started down toward the river, and cut back uphill at Calle Siete. A block past the Club de Paris, Hickey noticed the square two-story building, painted blistering yellow except where hell was block-lettered in white over the open front door. He slapped Tito’s arm, pointed to the curb.
    Juan Metzger, he was thinking. The German had told him to go to hell.
    Hickey stared at the queer sight and wondered how he’d passed here before and hardly paid it any mind. Finally they got out and started toward the door, but the kid halted, gaping at the big white letters. Hickey backtracked to