Waltz across Texas with a Shoe and a Fart (WALTZ ACROSS series book #1)

Chapter 17: Dunce Upon a Time in Mexico

"Hey, senor! Senor! You want a tour?"

"What? A tour of what?"

"A tour of the best places in all of Juarez!" The little boy glowed with his hands and arms held outward. The other men tried to shoo the kid away, but Barnard grabbed him by the shoulder.

"You know a way out of here without going through the front door?" He asked with sudden excitement.

"Oh, yes, senor, we go the back way. Short cut to the best places for beer, horse betting, and very good deals for your woman." Barnard thought he had said "for your woman" instead of "for a woman" but he wasn't absolutely sure. "Take you on tour for only cinco dinero." The man with the Chihuahua grabbed Barnard's elbow.

"You don't want to do that, senor. These boys ..." The man didn't get to finish because Barnard cut him off.

"You don't understand. I've got to get out of here and this is my exit strategy." The man pulled his hand back with a confused look on his face, then shrugged. He took his beer, toasted it to the other men at the table saying something in Spanish, and took a drink while they all were laughing.

Barnard stood up, anxious to get away from his stalker who was at this point blocking the front door, and grabbed some money out of his left front pocket. He stuffed back the few twenties he had left, glad that his big money was still in his wallet. His mother had told him to make sure to only keep a little spending money visible in case a would-be thief might see his cash roll. He thought in that very moment that his mother might actually have some redeeming qualities, but he didn't realize that to this kid a twenty dollar bill was wealth. The kid's eyes swelled open to their maximum diameter as he took the fiver from Barnard and followed his hand back into his pocket making sure he knew where the rest of the money was kept. As Barnard was being led out of the back of the cafe, he glanced back to the front and discovered that the stalker was nowhere to be seen.

Alleys in the U.S. are usually large enough to accommodate a garbage truck, as we have already witnessed in this story. Alleys in Juarez, however, are sometimes just walkways between buildings, large enough for a person or two. Stepping into the alley out of the back door of the cafe, Barnard immediately began to rethink the possibility of just taking his chances out front. He thought maybe the man with the dog had been trying to be helpful. The light was notably dimmer because of the shade of the buildings. The din of the packed cafe was instantly shut out when the door closed and only ambient sounds could be heard of a not-so-distant cantina band and the voices just inside the cafe. A dog barked somewhere nearby. A trash can fell over somewhere down the alley, but Barnard couldn't see it or any cause for the noise. His eyes were still adjusting to the difference in light. He missed Audie. He even missed his mother. He wished he had Lydia's other shoe for some semblance of protection. Taking his chances with the stalker guy and trying to reason with him, maybe even buying him a beer to make amends for sneering at him, might actually work out. This definitely was not feeling like a good idea.

"Hey, kid, I think I'm just gonna go back in. Thanks anyway and you can just keep the money." The kid started pulling violently at his shirt as he tried the door, which was now either locked or hopelessly jammed.

"No! No, senor! You pay me! You got to take the tour! We get out of spooky alley right now and you will see, es right this way!" The kid started dragging Barnard deeper into the alley. Barnard argued with him saying that the street was closer the other way but the kid insisted that this was the fastest way out of the alley. Glass shattered ahead. Two looming shadows stepped out of a doorway about thirty feet further along. In the shadowy play of light, he could make out that one of them appeared to be holding the neck of a broken bottle. Barnard recognized the drawl as soon as one of them opened his mouth.

"Ya know, Barnyard boy, fer somebody on the run from the likes of us, you ain't been too damn smart." The kid let go of Barnard's shirt and jammed a hand into his jeans pocket to pull out the two twenty dollar bills he had seen get stuffed into it. He quickly and deftly jammed them into his own pocket with no one else noticing and ran up to the men. The one speaking, who was also holding the bottle and standing in the middle of the alley, took a hand out of a pocket and gave the kid something, probably money, and patted him on the head. "That's a good boy, Paco, now you run along and tell yer mama I'll find her in a little bit. She better be where you said she'd be." The boy ran off between them, disappearing into the shadows behind the men. The two stepped slowly toward Barnard who had suddenly lost any capability of movement, even to have stopped a little boy from robbing him, but he was able to muster a squeaky bit of speech.

"Um, I don't get it. Um. Sid? Donnie?"

"Aw, how touchin', Donnie, he does remember us! Just like ol' times!" The one holding the bottle was evidently Sid since he slapped a backhand across the other one's chest. Their cowboy hats covered their faces with enough shadow that from 30-or-so feet away Barnard could only guess at their identity, but their voices were clear enough that he had little doubt.

"How ... why ... um, what do you mean about not being smart?" Barnard was hoping to buy at least enough time that use of legs would return to him before they got close enough for him to lose the chance for an attempt to run away. He remembered, though, from Houston that he was not as fast as these guys. Not without a decent head start or a beer to toss onto the ground.

"Oh, now, Barny, you don't remember puttin' a video on the Internet last night with you and Otterboy talkin' about comin' over to Mexico t'day?" Donnie clicked his tongue. "Tsk, tsk, tsk, you got a bad memory these days, son." Donnie was definitely the one not holding the bottle neck because as he was speaking, Donnie moved an arm and banged something metal against the building next to him, "Maybe we need to adjust that melon head o' yers." The two advanced on Barnard with slow, baby steps, in time now with the pipe dinking on the building. Barnard thought it was frightfully similar to some kind of a funeral march and realized that they weren't planning to adjust his head. They were planning to bash it in.

"Yeah, Barnyard ... ya know, Donnie, I prefer Barnyard over Barny 'cause it points out what a world o' shit this boy's really in right now, don't it?"

"Yep. Yeah, it does, Sid, it sure does."

"As I was sayin', Barnyard, it didn't take no rocket science to figger out that all we had t'do was t'wait right chonder in that there parkin' lot until you boys pulled in some time t'day. Gotta admit, it took ya longer than we figgered, but patience is a virchew, as they say. By the way, where is that girlfriend o'yers? Ain't seen Otterboy with ya since ya got out of that little windup car."

Barnard wanted to lie and tell them that Audie was on his way over with some very large friends of theirs, but he knew these guys wouldn't buy anything but the truth. "He got bit this morning by a rattlesnake," he squeaked out, barely able to even catch his breath. "In the hospital right now. Might not make it. You didn't see my video about that?" He thought that maybe he could take away their attention from his friend and let them be pacified with his own death. Maybe he could do at least one noble thing in his life. He stood trembling with his arms folded tightly across his chest in mock defiance, his phone sticking out just enough for the camera lens to see the men advancing on him, which they did now a little faster. He hoped there would be enough light for it to show up.

"Nah, we ain't bothered lookin' any more since findin' out where you'd be. But thanks for the tip."

"Well, then,"Donnie said, "We'll just have to look at that in a few minutes. If itdon't say where the puto is, we'llpay some convalescent visits to every hospital in El Paso until we find thatlittle SOB and beat him to a pulp right there in his bed. Thanks for lettin' usknow how to find him. Too bad he won't be comin' back out. Too bad yer time isup, Barnyard Patty." With that, the two of them broke into a jog, thoughthey were only about six leaps away. This must have been all the impetusBarnard needed because his legs suddenly worked. He spun around to run awayjust as something cold and hard struck him on the right side of his head.Sparks seemed to fly in his vision and he went down to the dirt with whatseemed like several pairs of legs running at him from the street. Donnie andSid must have brought friends. Who knew that the likes of them could have friends?