Spirit of Tabasco

by Richard Diedrichs

flashes and gyrating movement, like looking through a kaleidoscope. It is surreal, and it brings on vertigo.” Ellie lay on her back on the gray sofa, a damp washcloth over her eyes.

  “I have had those myself,” Thuy said.

  “You have?” Johnny said. “I have never heard you say anything about that.”

  “Maybe I don’t tell you everything little thing,” Thuy said.

  “Doesn’t sound little to me.” Johnny put his hand on Thuy’s shoulder.

  “Mine are not debilitating,” Thuy said. “More a minor nuisance, like someone I know.”

  “Funny,” Johnny said.

  “I’m sorry that you’re not feeling well, Ellie,” I said. “What did Gordon do when you told him you couldn’t drive him?”

  “To tell you the truth, your father is not telling me a lot. I have threatened to quit and possibly sue him.”

  “You two have been working together for years,” I said. “What is happening?”

  “I have supported your father through it all, thick and thin. And you know it. Now that he is successful, he has the nerve to tell me that he does not have the confidence that this success will last. Increasing my salary and benefits could put him in a precarious position in the long term. What a gob of snot! This is how much he appreciates my loyalty and hard work over the years. And putting up with his insanity. I deserve better. Besides, the way things are going, I cannot be certain your father will survive his success. In the long term!”

  “I am so sorry, Ellie. That is exactly why we need to find him and get the mirror back where it belongs.”

  “I was pretty much out of it when he left,” she said.

  “So, he did not give you any idea of how he would make it to San Diego?”

  “He didn’t say San Diego. He said down to the border. What does this have to do with that damn disk?” Ellie peeled the cloth from her eyes.

  “We are not sure yet, but that is why we need your help to track him down. Is there anyone else who might drive him south?”

  “Karl, probably”

  Karl Smulders was my father’s oldest friend. They went to USC together. He was an airline pilot. Karl and his wife, Molly, were my parents’ best friends for years, until Karl had an affair. They split up and we never saw Molly again.

  “Do you think Karl was going to fly him down in his plane?” I said.

  “Honey, I really do not know. I am not feeling well. I wonder if I might take a nap. If you want Karl’s information, it’s in the card file on your father’s desk. I wish I could be more help.”

  Back in Thuy’s car, I sat in the back seat and looked at Karl’s address. “He lives in Marina Del Rey,” I said. “We don’t even know for sure that Karl is Gordon’s ride to San Ysidro.

  “And if we call Karl’s phone number, it might alert the Old Man to skip out with the disk,” Johnny said.

  “Driving to the South Bay right now would be ill-advised,” Thuy added. “It would take us, like, three hours just to get there.”

  Johnny squared himself in the driver’s seat and ran his hands through his straight black hair. “You mean, I have two geniuses right here in this car and we cannot figure out how to track down a pitiful and poisonous old man?”

  “You should not talk about your father that way,” Thuy said.

  I leaned my head forward, between Johnny’s and Thuy’s shoulders. “We can’t catch up to Gordon right now. We do not know for sure where he is or when, how, or even if he is going to San Diego. I think we need to let this go, for the moment. Let’s see what the universe and our friend, Jose Maria, lay in front of us.

  Two days after Ellie’s ocular, Karl Smulders, himself, sat in front of me, in our living room. When I stepped through the door of our duplex from school, my mother was filling Karl’s wine glass, at four in the afternoon.

  “Look who’s here, Jules,” Mom sang. It was rare to see her so pleased. “Karl and I are catching up.”

  Before I could offer him my hand to shake, Karl pulled me into his slim, erect frame for a hug. He smelled like leather. “You have grown, Kid. Last time I saw you, you were up to here.” He held his hand level with his hip. His twinkly blue eyes, short sandy hair, and strong jaw reminded of the stereotype of a jet pilot. Right stuff and all that.

  My mother asked, with a silly grin, if I knew that she and Karl had dated before she met Gordon. I did not. In fact, she related, Gordon was dating Molly at the time. After the two couples double-dated, they all agreed to switch. The resulting couples ended up married for over twenty years. The way my mother was fluttering and fawning and looking at the man, I wondered if her spark for good old Karl had ever died.

  After sipping his wine, Karl cleared his throat and moved his first two fingers along his upper lip to spiff his full sandy moustache. “I’m here about Gordon.”

  I lowered myself into the chair across the small room from him.

  “What has he done?” Mom said.

  “He came to see me at the marina, on my boat. We have not been in touch that much. In fact, I had not seen him in over a year. He looked awful. I’m not sure he has slept in days. His eyes were red and crusty. He went on about a pre-Columbian mirror that he had to get to an art dealer down in San Ysidro.”

  “I know the piece,” my mother said. “It’s mine, actually. It belonged to my grandmother.”

  “He is obsessed with it. He carries it with him in a black velvet bag. He keeps it on his lap, under his arm, in his hands all the time, with an iron grip. It is like he thinks it might rise up on its own and overpower him, like Doctor Strangelove’s hand.” Karl laughed and looked around the room. “Anyway, he said he had to get it to this guy and he couldn’t drive himself because he was sleep-deprived. He acted so fuzzy and erratic that I had to ask him if he was on drugs or something, which he denied.” Karl uncrossed his legs and leaned forward on the sofa.

  “Did you agree to take him?” I said.

  “I did. Life and death, he said it was. He was so desperate that I flew him to San Ysidro that day in my Hawker Beechcraft. He said he had a meeting with a guy named Aguilara. He told me that he has been struggling. He believed a spirit of some kind in the mirror had brought him success he only dreamed of. But the spirit wanted something in return, something that he could not give. He would not say more than that and I did not ask. Too sinister for my blood.”

  “So, you guys found the art dealer?” I said.

  “You know, we could not even land the airplane. Poor visibility. The fog was so dense. We had to turn around and fly right back to Santa Monica.” Karl shook his head and wrung his hands as if he were complicit in some crime.

  “What did my Dad do?” I said.

  “He was gracious enough. He thanked me for my help. Said I was a true friend.”

  “Did he mention what he planned to do with the disk?” I sat forward in my seat.

  “He said he would get down south even if he had to take the train or a Greyhound. He did not have a choice, he said. I am kind of sorry I could not do more, he was so distressed.”

  “What I don’t understand,” my mother said, “is why he is so desperate to sell the disk to this art dealer if he feels it’s the disk that is helping him make all the money. I suppose I shouldn’t question it too much. It will mean more for us in the divorce settlement.”

  “It might not have to do with money,” I said.

  “Do tell,” my mother said.

  “I think Gordon is as much running from something as he is toward something.”

  “Very insightful and could well be,” she said. She stood and walked to Karl’s chair. “Karl, you are a true friend. You know, I was thinking. It’s Friday night. The freeway will be murder right now. It will take you hours to get back to Marina Del Rey. Would you like to stay for dinner? I think I have some small steaks in the fridge. I can pour us another glass of wine.” She had an expression as if she were about to unwrap a
Christmas present.

  Karl looked at her and said, “Rosie, I would love to, if I am not imposing.”

  “You could never impose, my dear.” Mom picked up the wine bottle and refilled his glass.

  I grabbed my phone and went into my bedroom to call my brother at work. My mother wanted to be alone, and we had to find Dad before he unloaded the mirror, even if it meant chasing him to the Mexican border.

  Johnny, Thuy and I cruised down palm-tree-lined East San Ysidro Boulevard at eleven on sunny Saturday morning. Mission-style buildings with red-brick roofs housing banks, fast-food restaurants, and grocery stores, signs in Spanish, and exclusively Latino people on the streets gave flavor to the fact that the chain-link border stood a block away. The address Emil Drescher gave me for Alejandro Aguilara’s office was a tidy strip mall tucked in off the street. As we turned into the driveway, a banner stretched between two palm trunks declared that “Abrigos” were selling for fifteen dollars. Number Six was a storefront between a Little Caesar’s pizza parlor and a perfume outlet.

  Ellie told me on the phone early that morning that Gordon was taking a Greyhound Bus from the depot on Cahuenga Boulevard in Hollywood, arriving on East San Ysidro Boulevard, less than a quarter mile from Aguilara’s office. Thuy, Johnny and I hustled out of L.A., figuring that we could be beat Gordon’s bus on the milk run south. We would be waiting in front when he approached Aguilara’s.

  “I read on Wiki,” Thuy said, as we sat in the car in the parking lot