Down Among the Dead Men (A Thriller)

DOWN AMONG

THE DEAD MEN

Robert Gregory Browne

~

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2010, 2012 by Robert Gregory Browne

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission from the author.

All rights reserved.

This book was originally published by St. Martin's Press.

Published in the United States of America by Penname Press, a division of Braun Haus Media, May 28, 2012

Cover design by BHC

Cover photo: day of the dead skeleton figure, © Dan Shust - Fotolia.com

BOOKS BY

ROBERT GREGORY BROWNE

Supernatural Thrillers

Kiss Her Goodbye
 

Whisper in the Dark

Kill Her Again

The Paradise Prophecy
 

Suspense/Mystery Thrillers

Down Among the Dead Men

Trial Junkies
 

Short Stories

Speechless (Thriller 3: Love is Murder)

Bottom Deal (Killer Year)

DOWN AMONG

THE DEAD MEN

For Lani and Matthew

and

in Memory of Ignacio “Nick” Garcia

Rest in peace, old friend

Patient’s Journal

Day 56?
11:36 P.M.

I don’t remember the shooting, but I’ll never forget the pain.

I feel it, sometimes, as I lie here in my bed, looking back at that night.

The night that changed my life.

In a distant corner of my damaged brain I see myself lying facedown on rutted pavement, my chest on fire, the faint sound of accordion music playing on some distant radio.

I don’t know where I am. I’m not sure why I’m here. But there’s something wet beneath me, and I don’t know if it’s blood or simply a puddle of water I’ve landed in after the impact.

I’m guessing blood.

Lots of it.

Then there’s my head. Something wrong there, too. A damp spot. A pressure. As if someone is stepping on my exposed brain with a spiked heel. Leaning into it for maximum force.

That’s the pain I’ll never forget.

A pain that sends me drifting.

Then, the darkness comes—an internal darkness, where everything is loose and floating toward some black, nebulous nowhere.

A distant scream echoes. A high shrill keen followed by the tattoo of approaching footsteps that quickly fade into the ether as the darkness finally overcomes me.

And my last thought as I drift away is that I might never wake up again.

Sometimes I wish I hadn’t.

Most times, in fact.

PART ONE

Casa de la Muerte

1

Vargas

T
HEY FOUND THE
bodies in the desert, about twenty miles southwest of Tolentino.

Two Texas dirt bikers, father and son, had come down from El Paso to ride the dunes and discovered a dead woman lying in the scrub, her throat slit, her body half-drained of blood.

It didn’t stop there.

Vargas had to give the two men credit for calling the local
policía
rather than packing up their bikes and hightailing it back across the border. Most Americans thought of this part of Mexico as some lawless dirtwater hellhole full of corrupt
huta
who would toss you into jail at the slightest provocation. And taking ownership of a house full of corpses was always risky business for anyone, let alone a couple of
gabachos
.

But it seemed that the two had been genuinely concerned about doing the right thing, and Vargas admired that. Their willingness to walk him through the crime scene didn’t hurt, either.

The father, Jim Ainsworth, was a lean, sunbaked cowboy who reminded him of that guy from the
Lord of the Rings
movies. Viggo something. They met on a Friday afternoon at the Café Tacuba, a hole-in-the-wall just off the 45, where they shared a booth near a window that hadn’t been washed in a decade, if ever.

The accordion-laced songs of Julieta Venegas played quietly on a jukebox in the corner, an ancient, mule-faced waitress swaying to the beat as she dragged a damp rag across a tabletop.

They were just finishing their meal when Ainsworth said, “You still haven’t told me which one of the shit catchers you work for.”

Vargas raised his eyebrows. “Shit catchers?”

“Newspapers. That’s about all I use ’em for. Line my rabbit cages.”

There was a bit of a twinkle in Ainsworth’s eyes and Vargas wasn’t sure if this was a pointed jab or just a piss-poor joke.

“No paper,” he said.

Ainsworth frowned. “I thought you were a reporter?”

“Used to be. Now I’m freelance. I write books.”

That was stretching it a bit. Truth be told, this was Vargas’s first stab at writing long form and he wasn’t completely sure he had it in him. After fifteen years of turning in concise thousand-word stories to the
Los Angeles Tribune
—and the
San Jose Reader
before that—the idea of pumping out four or five hundred pages of
who-what-where-when-and-why
seemed like a slow, uphill trudge. This book would either make him or break him.

Ainsworth nodded as he scraped the last of his beans off his plate. Vargas had sprung for the meal, mentally counting every peso as he’d scanned the menu, wondering how much more spending he could get away with before his advance money was gone.

“I’ve never had much use for books, either,” Ainsworth said. “My wife, God bless her, used to go through about every half-baked paperback she could get her hands on, but I never saw much point to it.”

Vargas said nothing. He wasn’t interested in getting into a debate with this guy about the merits of literature.

“I’ve gotta admit,” Ainsworth went on, “I didn’t mind her reading the spicy ones.” He flashed a conspiratorial grin. “She was a helluva woman.”

“I’m sure she was,” Vargas said, smiling politely. Then he nodded to Ainsworth’s empty plate. “You want anything else?”

Ainsworth leaned back and sighed, rubbing his stomach. “I think that’ll about do her.”

Vargas gestured to the plate next to Ainsworth’s. Tacos and beans and Mexican rice that had barely been touched. The seat behind it was vacant.

“What about your son?”

“He’s never been much of an eater,” Ainsworth said. “He ever gets his ass back from the
baño,
I think we’re good to go.”

2

T
HEY DROVE OUT
to the desert in Ainsworth’s F-150, a couple of dusty red dirt bikes chained to its bed. Ainsworth had taken one look at Vargas’s rusted ten-year-old Corolla and offered to drive.

“It’s these goddamn long legs,” he said. “I need all the room I can get. Besides, I don’t really want to leave these bikes out here.”

Vargas didn’t mind. He figured he’d save on gas, and Ainsworth had said the truck was air-conditioned, a luxury the Corolla hadn’t been blessed with. It was late October, but the Southwest was in the middle of a massive heat wave, and by the time Vargas had reached the café this afternoon he’d been drenched in sweat.

He rode up front with Ainsworth, while the son, Junior, sat in the extended cab behind them. Junior was a lean, twentyish version of his old man, but there was something seriously off about the guy. He spent a lot of time staring at nothing and spoke about as much as he ate. The few words he
had
said had been accompanied by a loopy half-there smile as if he were hooked up to an invisible morphine drip.

Ainsworth, on the other hand, seemed to enjoy talking.

“Me and Junior get down this way just about every couple weeks. Nice to get out of Paso, you know? Just load up the bikes, hop in the truck, and drive.”

“Why Chihuahua?” Vargas asked. “There’s plenty of desert up in Texas.”

Ainsworth shrugged. “Something about this place, I don’t know, everything’s slower down here. Everybody pretty much minding their own business. Never in a hurry to get in your way.” He paused. “Besides, you can’t beat the price of that sweet Mexican
chocho.
Right, Junior?”

“Chupamelo, mamacita,”
Junior said.

The words, which roughly translated to “
suck it, baby
,” surprised Vargas. Junior seemed too simpleminded and innocent for such a vulgarity, let alone in Spanish.

Ainsworth, however, chuckled, glancing at his son in his rearview mirror.

“Your mother was still alive, she’d wash that mouth out with industrial-strength Ajax.” He looked at Vargas. “You’ll have to pardon my boy’s manners.”

“I’ve heard worse,” Vargas told him.

“And I’ve probably said it. I gotta admit I haven’t been the best influence on the kid. Took him to his first whorehouse when he was fifteen. You shoulda seen how big his eyes got when he saw all them cute little bare-assed chiquitas lined up just for him. I swear to Christ it took him longer to make up his mind than it did to do the deed.”