Before The Killing Starts (Dixie Killer Blues Book 1) Read Free Page B

the rope looped over one of the branches.
    If Chico had been born
in, say 1959, he would only have been nine years old in 1968. Unless he'd been
an unusually big and strong boy for his age—which would have been unlikely
given that he spent his whole life hungry—he wouldn't have been suitable for
the role that the patrón had in mind for him. At age seventeen he was just
perfect (although the patrón ended up being very disappointed nonetheless).
    Dixie had heard the
story many times but he could never remember whether the young Chico had cussed the patrón or whether the patrón simply saw himself as an innovative sort
of man, but, whichever it was, he added an extra touch. A certain je ne sais
quoi . Before standing Chico's father on his shoulders, they tarred his
feet. Then they broke a couple of beer bottles into small pieces—the men had
been enjoying some cold beers while they had their sport—and pushed the pieces
into the tar. It made Dixie shudder to think about it. Who knows whether it was
the pain of the glass shredding his shoulders or his legs giving way, but he
didn't suppose Chico could have taken it for long. Twenty seconds? Thirty, at
most.
    Dixie seemed to remember
that the patrón had gone for lunch—he'd never bothered asking how Chico was supposed to know that detail; people always got irritated if you questioned
their stories too closely—his men staying behind and severely beating Chico. When they'd finished, they'd gone on their way, leaving him to die in the desert.
Somehow he'd managed to drag himself to the nearest road where he'd been found
by a pack of roving Jesuits. Unable to get any sense out of him, they'd taken
him with them back to the seminary where they put him to work to earn his keep.
    Chico had stayed with them for three
years, the last two as a noviate, hoping to find the elusive state of grace in
the ranks of God's Soldiers. But the state of grace did just that—eluded him—perhaps
because there was a part of him that nobody could reach and nothing could rid
his mind of thoughts of revenge. So, after two years he left the seminary,
roman collar tucked away in his bag.
    It took him six months
to get close enough to the patrón. The patrón was a careful man with a lot of
enemies and it would have taken a lot longer except for the fact that nobody
suspects a man wearing a roman collar in a Catholic country like Mexico. A bit like a man with a clipboard; he can't possibly be up to any mischief. Chico caught up with him in a hotel in Mexico City and, after putting the fear of God into
his whore, set about the process that left the patrón in need of the last
rites.
    Chico had studied diligently in the
seminary and although he wouldn't have said he went hunting for the means of
his revenge in the scriptures, he knew it when he saw it. So it was that the
patrón went to meet his maker in the manner of Saint Bartholomew the Apostle
and Chico liked to say that at least his chosen method had better provenance
than a spaghetti western starring Charles Bronson and Peter Fonda, however good
a movie it might have been. He also said he wore his dog collar the whole time.
    Dixie believed most of the story, subject
to a certain amount of artistic license (such as the patrón's lunch appointment
and maybe the dog collar) but there were other aspects that he wasn't so sure
about. Foremost amongst these was Chico's claim that he'd kept a large piece of
the patrón's skin and found a man in the city who had made it into a wallet for
him. Ignoring any questions about the suitability—mainly the durability—of
human skin for an item that is going to go in and out of your pocket all day
long, Dixie doubted this was true. Not only that, but Chico was always careful
to ensure that nobody ever got too close a look at it.
    Dixie was pulled from
his reverie by the realization that Chico had stopped pacing up and down, his
ranting and raving finally running out of steam. He looked at the