Ballistic(57)

The cops got back on their bikes and led the way now; the three-vehicle procession followed a long, hilly driveway whose cobblestones had been pushed up out of the undulating earth. Weeds grew in fat sprigs between the loose uneven stones, and the unkempt landscaping on either side of the drive brushed against both sides of the truck as they ascended towards the main building. The property looked as if no one had lived here in years; the view illuminated by their headlights showed nothing but wild flora, fallow hills overgrown with pine and cacti and cypress and lime and orange trees, flowing vines, and tall grasses.

Laura explained that all the property, both within the walls and for miles around outside of the walls, had once been a massive hacienda, an agave plantation built back in the 1820s. The walled compound was at the center of the farm, and she pointed out several ruined stone buildings back in the woods, overgrown mostly by vines and geranium and azaleas.

Soon they arrived at the casa grande, the main house in the hacienda complex. Gentry thought it looked haunted in the dark with its broken masonry and aged whitewash and pink walls. Moneda, a green ivy that grew fast and thick, wove up the structure, wrapped around columns along the long arcaded front porch, and made its way through the ironwork on the second-floor balcony, where it integrated itself into the architecture. The truck and the two bikes parked in a round gravel driveway that had an old fountain as its centerpiece. A stone angel, probably half the size of a woman, stood above the fountain; her wings were broken, and her white eyes stared Court down through the windshield of the car. He turned off the engine and the headlights. Below the angel the fountain, even in the moonlight, looked like it was full of algae and trash.

A single light appeared suddenly in a window on the second floor. It was faint and it flickered like a candle.

“Someone is here.” Court said it looking back to Laura, and her eyes widened in surprise.

“Impossible. That cannot be. No one has lived here in three years.”

Gentry stepped out of the truck and began crunching across the gravel drive. Laura climbed out as well, chased up behind him, and grabbed him by the arm. Her fingers felt tiny yet strong. Insistent. “We need to leave. We cannot put anyone else in danger.”

“Where are we going to go? Elena has been lying in the back of the truck for four hours on bad roads. She needs to rest. We have to stay here, at least for tonight.”

Laura winced in concern, but she did not continue to argue. She followed “Joe” and the two Mexican officers up crumbling steps to a huge oak and iron door. Gentry knocked, his right hand hovering over the butt of the pistol stuck in his pants.

Laura stepped up beside him. “It might be a caretaker or some farmer from the nearest pueblo who snuck in. Let me talk to them.”

“Go for it.”

A minute later the door opened slowly; a man stood back away from it in a dark tiled hallway, and the long double-barreled shotgun in his hand was pointed at Court Gentry’s chest. Moonlight reached into the building, illuminating the old man like a gray ghost.

Gentry did not draw his pistol. He understood the man’s suspicion; he just hoped like hell Eddie’s sister could quickly explain the situation to this old coot’s satisfaction.

Laura gasped in shock, put her small hand to her small mouth. She recovered, spoke softly, “Buenas noches, Señor Corrales. It’s me, Laura. Guillermo’s wife?”

“Guillermo?”

“Yes. Guillermo. Your son.”

This dude was ancient; this much Court could tell. Much older than Ernesto. He wore a white mustache that hung low on either side of his face. By the look of it, he’d been sleeping facedown, the bristly hair shot out in random directions.

“Sí, Señor Corrales. ¿Cómo está Usted?”

“Guillermo is here?” The old man asked.

Laura responded softly, “No, señor. Guillermo is not here.”

Just then another ghostly form appeared behind the old man in the shaft of moonlight let in by the open front door. The figure moved towards the doorway from the recesses of the house.

“Lorita?” The voice of an old woman.

“Inez. How are you?”

“I am fine, little one.” The old lady shot out into the moonlight and hugged Eddie’s sister tightly. “Luis, put down the gun and let them inside.”

The old man lowered the weapon, stepped forward, and embraced Court. He spoke in Spanish. “Guillermo, my son. I have missed you.”

It was immediately apparent, by Señor Corrales’s words and actions, that Laura’s father-in-law suffered from some form of dementia.

Five minutes later all eleven residents and guests sat in a massive candlelit sitting room. A stairwell led to a second-floor landing that wrapped around the dim room, but it was too dark for Gentry to see past the banisters. Inez, Laura’s mother-in-law, brought a bottle of fresh but lukewarm orange juice and poured it into broken cups and plastic tumblers, laid the offering out on a long wooden coffee table. A bottle of tequila was placed next to it, there for the taking, but only sullen and silent Ignacio spiked his OJ.