Captains Outrageous

by Joe R. Lansdale

  “I did.”

  “I sold some hogs cheap, fired all my help, so now I got some extra bread too.”

  “I brought some,” Brett said. “But I didn’t have much. I plan to suck off Hap when we get home.”

  “That sounds enticing,” I said.

  “You know what I mean,” Brett said.

  “I didn’t bring any money,” Leonard said. “I don’t even know what color a dollar bill is anymore.”

  Jim Bob changed lanes so close had the car behind us had another coat of paint, it would have been in the back seat of the Red Bitch.

  “You are one scary driver,” Brett said.

  “I’m just getting you folks primed for the really scary stuff.”

  27

  WE ARRIVED IN CANCUN, rented a car, headed off toward Playa del Carmen. As we neared the town, a slice of sunset the color of a fresh-sliced salmon fillet stained the horizon. As we watched, darkness corrupted it, then it all sank away as if into a tar pit.

  It was a night full of clouds and no visible moon. Darkness dripped over the car like ink poured from a jar, but as we neared the city pinpricks of colored lights jumped into view. We cruised past a McDonald’s and a T-shirt shop and on into town.

  We ended up staying at a nice hotel near the sea. Brett and I took a room, Jim Bob, Leonard, and Ferdinand took one together. Leonard ended up on a roll-away.

  In our room we opened a window, pulled back the curtains, let the sea air in. There was a palm tree near our window. The limbs and leaves scraped the wall like a cat scratching. There were lights on poles along the edge of the beach and they made the sand and water and the pedestrian walk, Fifth Avenue, look like one of those paintings you do by numbers.

  Seabirds were coasting low over the water, dropping birdshit like napalm, hoping for a late fish snack before hanging it up for the day.

  People walked along Fifth Avenue, talking and laughing.

  “Since this is gonna cost us anyway,” Brett said, “what say we order room service, enjoy that, then fuck like two rabbits in a lab experiment?”

  “That’s my kind of night,” I said.

  We ordered room service, but what we ended up doing was not fucking like rabbits in a lab experiment, but lying in one another’s arms watching a late movie, The Man With the Golden Arm, starring Frank Sinatra. It was in English. Something cabled in for the tourists, I guess.

  Next morning we got up early, had room service, then went with Jim Bob in the rental to meet César. Leonard was walking a little funny. I thought maybe his bad hip was acting up.

  “You all right?” I asked.

  “It’s not my hip, if that’s what you’re thinking. It’s that damn roll-away. I fought that motherfucker all night. It finally threw me. I ended up sleeping with a blanket and a pillow on the floor. Now I know how those poor racked sonofabitches felt during the Inquisition.”

  We piled into the car. As we drove near the beach, I saw Ferdinand look out at the sea. I said, “Where’s your boat?”

  “I sold the boat,” he said. “Some rich American who wanted his own fishing boat.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I needed the money … I know what you must think of me, señor. All of you. But I did what I could do. I tried to help my daughter. I did not make her a whore. She chose that for herself. When I thought she could get the money needed to keep her from dying, I let her do what she had to do. It was never for me. You must understand I was only letting her do what I thought she must do. It is all nothing now. She is dead. I am dead.”

  “Time heals things,” I said.

  “No, señor. It only heals some things. An open wound heals. This, this does not heal. But I can put salve on it. I can help kill this man who had my daughter killed.”

  “If it’s any consolation,” Leonard said. “Knowing now what you were up against, I understand why you did what you did.”

  “It is something, señor. It is something.”

  César’s place was very nice. Nothing like what I expected. It was nestled amongst palms and foliage, one long story made of wood and stone, not far from the beach. The garage contained a Jaguar and an older-looking dirt-brown Plymouth.

  “Looking through people’s windows, prowling through their underwear drawers, seems to pay pretty good,” Leonard said.

  Jim Bob looked at Leonard and smiled. Leonard may have forgotten that Jim Bob and César were in the same business, but I doubted it.

  We walked up a little crunched seashell path, and before we could knock, the door opened and a little fat man in a red shirt opened the door. He looked to be in his late thirties or forties, had very little hair, and what hair he had was black and gooey with oil. He had a face that would have looked at home on the Buddha, providing the Buddha had one cauliflowered ear. He shook our hands and hugged Jim Bob and Brett.

  “Would you come in,” he said. “It is so good to meet you, señores, and it is even better to see this delightful señorita. Or is it señora?”

  “Señorita,” she said.

  “Surely, you are but an angel visiting from heaven.”

  “That goes without question,” Brett said.

  Inside the house it was also very nice, with colorful Mexican rugs hung on the wall, fine furniture, and nearby a young Mexican lady with blond hair and black roots. She stood near a stone fireplace, almost at attention. She wore a white pants suit with a long, near-waist-length strand of black beads that had gotten slung sideways, so that against her white suit it looked as if she were a cracked porcelain doll. She was pretty, but the look on her face was like that of someone who had just discovered her asshole has been sewn shut.

  “This is my wife,” César said. “Her name is Hermonie.”

  “Is Hermonie a Spanish name?” Brett asked.

  “I have no idea,” César said. “She is very shy … Ah, Jim Bob.”

  He and Jim Bob embraced. “Didn’t we just do this?” Jim Bob said.

  “What?” César said. “It is not as good the second time? Come, I have had a late breakfast prepared.” He spoke pleasantly to Hermonie in Spanish.

  She led us out the back way, as if leading us to our execution. Leonard leaned toward me, said, “I don’t think these two are a love match.”

  We ended up at a table under a canopy. The table was covered with fruit, fried meats, and eggs. There were tortillas and coffee. There were also a few flies, but César brushed at these with his hand as if they were but part of the ambience.

  “Please,” César said. “Sit. Eat. Drink. Talk.”

  We sat. Jim Bob said, “Actually, César, we would like to get right to things. We’re on a limited budget and we’ve got time restraints.”

  “Ah, you Americans. You do not understand time. Time is time. It has no movement. Revenge is revenge, now or later.”

  “Drive-through burgers, drive-through pharmacies, and drive-through revenge,” Jim Bob said. “That’s us.”

  César grinned. “Of course. Try the cantaloupe. All the fruit is fresh.”

  Hermonie went away, then showed up with a small pitcher of cream, sweeteners for the coffee, then she disappeared again.

  “Will Hermonie be joining us?” Brett asked.

  “Actually,” César said, looking sadly, “she is shy, and she hates Americans. For that matter, she is not too fond of me. She married me because she thought I had money. And I do, but not the sort of money she is looking for. She wants big money for big cars and big things. I make money that allows the middle-sized things. She made a mistake.

  “But that is all right. I tolerate her and she tolerates me. She is as lovely a woman as an ugly fat man like myself will get, and I am most likely as rich as she will find. And I love Americans. My good friend, Jim Bob, I love him.”

  “I’m a Texan,” Jim Bob said.

  “Texas was stolen from Mexico,” César said. “It should not be part of the United States.”

  “Mexicans helped steal it,” Jim Bob said.

  “Would it
be okay if you two didn’t fight the Alamo all over again?” I said.

  “Ah,” César said. “I love this guy. He loves me.”

  “Well, before you and I mate, César,” Jim Bob said, “maybe we should get right to it. We have a plan, and being no friend of Juan Miguel, we thought you might help us tweak this plan.”

  “I am certainly no friend of this man, Juan Miguel. I have been waiting until my time is right to do what I need to do. Waiting, and praying to God to help me have my revenge.”

  “He helps in those matters?” Brett asked.

  “If he does not, then we will do it without him,” César said.

  Jim Bob briefly outlined our plan.

  César said, “Oh, you got some big stones, my friends. Big stones. Pardon me, lady.”

  “Forget it,” Brett said.

  “Let me tell you. We can do this. We must plan more carefully, but we can do this. By myself, I could not get even with this man. But with your help. Yes. I can. We can all eat a fine dish of revenge.

  “Let me tell you about Juan Miguel, amigos. Many years ago a rich lady, a Mexican lady, she hires me to follow after her daughter who she thinks is being naughty with a man in Mexico City. Did I say she was a rich lady?”

  “You did,” I said.

  “She offered me very much to watch this girl. My partner, Toño, was to help me. We, how is it you say it … double-teamed her, you see. It is easier that way. One can rest while the other watches. After a day or two we determine that, yes, she is in fact being naughty. She is with another man. They are spending many hours together in his hotel room and they did not have cards or dice with them. They are certainly playing that other game we all like to play. Toño takes photographs of her and this man going in and out of the hotel. We think this is good enough to show the lady. Show her that her pretty daughter is in fact running with this man. And we find out who this man is. He is Juan Miguel’s son, Carmelo.

  “We report all of this to the lady, and she sends her daughter away to the U.S. to study in the university, away from this man. So what happens? The girl, she pines for Carmelo and she decides to climb to the top of the University of Texas tower and jump.”

  “Jesus,” Brett said. “I wanted a man that bad, I’d just hop a plane.”

  “Who is to understand the thinking of the young?” César said. “And there is another thing. When her mother sends her away, this Carmelo, he finds a new woman. It is not true love to him. It is true lust.

  “But that is not all. The mother. She is distraught. She hires us to show her where this Carmelo is. And we find him again for her, and he is in a beach house near Cozumel, and we go away. And this woman, she comes back there another time, and you know what she does. She shoots and kills this boy.

  “Then, she is not happy yet. A week after the boy is dead, she sends word to Juan Miguel she knows how his boy died, and he agrees to see her, and she has the photographs we took of Carmelo and her daughter, and when she explains the connection, so he understands, you see, she tries to kill him with a knife she has concealed, but they take it away from her. And then he tortures her. He wants to know how she killed his boy, how she found him. She tells them about us. She tells them Toño took the photographs. She mentions me, but she tells him Toño took the photographs. She remembers Toño because he wanted her. He wanted her badly. He tried to lie with her in his bed. It didn’t work, but I believe when it came time to call names, she called his because she knew him better. She said he took the photographs and that I worked for him.

  “He cuts off her nose and sets her free. She does not go to the doctor. She goes home, she takes pills, and she is dead. She could not face having no daughter and no nose. Juan Miguel, he sends his men to see Toño. I do not know what happened to him. Not really. They come to see me and tell me they have killed Toño. They say I was Toño’s boss. I was not the one who took the photos, but in case I should ever want to bother in their business, they would leave me a reminder. This big one. Hammerhead. Or Oso as I called him. He beat me. He cut off the tip of my finger.”

  César held his right hand up. The tip of the little finger was missing, same as Beatrice.

  “And he gives me this ear. Here. He hit me so hard with a slap he did that. I do not hear as well in that ear anymore. They let me live. That was a mistake.”

  “Did you try the police?” Brett asked.

  César shook his head. “No. I know this place too well. Many of the policemen, they are good. They would do the law. But Juan Miguel, he owns those at the top. They run things as they see them, and they see them with money.”

  “We’re sorry about your friend,” Brett said.

  “Sorry is not important. Toño worked for me. He was not a friend. I did not like him much. He was good at what he did, but he was no brother. What I am mad about is my little finger and my ear. Juan Miguel, he will pay. But, unlike the woman, I do not go off half-cocked. I have waited my time. And now, with this tragedy of the woman …”

  César reached out and patted Ferdinand on the arm, “… and the tragedy of your friend, the time is correct. He shall now pay. Tell me more of your plan.”

  “We thought we’d kidnap his mistress,” Jim Bob said, “but we need you for that. We need to corner her somewhere. As for the bodyguards, you got me, Hap, and Leonard to take care of them.”

  “No offense, gentlemen,” César said, “but are you capable?”

  “I’d bet my life on them,” Jim Bob said.

  “Oh, you will,” César said.

  28

  IT WAS A TIGHT FIT in the rental, but thankfully, the trip was brief. César drove the car to a spot on the beach and parked us next to a high wide pile of large white stone slabs.

  “There was to be a house here,” César said as we got out of the car. “But it fell through. These stones. They were cut to be part of the foundation. The man having it built, he must have lost money. Or lost his wife. Or maybe he builds it for his mistress and she leaves him. I cannot say. Something went wrong. Perhaps he is still the owner of this land. There, where the grass grows up to the beach, that was where he was to build. This was the beginning, these stones. And they were the end.”

  The huge stones were cut in even rectangles four inches thick and maybe four feet long, and three feet across. It was obvious they had once been stacked neatly, but weather, or perhaps people climbing on them, had caused them to shift in places. Some of the stones had fallen and broken against others. At the peak of the pile was a colorful bird. I had never seen that kind of bird before. As I watched, it took to the sky. It looked like a bouquet of flowers exploding.

  César had placed a telescope in the trunk, and now he got it and the stand out, climbed to the top of the slab pile with it, moving his little round body as surefooted as a mountain goat. He fastened the scope to its tripod, positioned it on a flat piece of rock, focused, looked through, called down, “Come see.”

  I went up first, realizing that going up was not as easy for me as César had made it look. I felt slabs shift under my feet. I yelled down for the others to watch out, went carefully, finally found the top.

  A moment later the others worked their way up. We clutched together at the top around the telescope.

  “This is a good telescope,” César said. “I use it in my work. After what happened to me and Toño, I began to find out more about this Juan Miguel. I come here … and to another spot higher up, among the trees there, and observe from time to time. Juan Miguel spends much time at home. He likes the middle of the day to eat his lunch and answer his phone. Come look for yourself.”

  I looked. The sun was bright on the house and there was a blinding reflection off a great satellite dish that looked like a flying saucer that had landed on its edge. There were palms and shrubs and flowering plants to the left of the house that grew so thick they completely concealed anything that might be behind them.

  It was a huge house, mostly glass and stone, surrounded by a fence of rock and mortar positioned
at the peak and around a great rise of land covered in greenery and scrubby trees. The way the rise sloped toward us, you could see the close-clipped backyard and the swimming pool and patio. Their view from up there would be terrific. You would see the road below, the greater highway, and beyond that the sandy white beach and the deep blue sea.

  There was a man sitting at a table under a patio roof, shirtless, shoeless, wearing a pair of khaki shorts. He was talking on the phone. He was middle-aged, brown, a little heavy.

  Closer to the fence was the pool. Someone was swimming in the pool. I watched. It was a woman. She climbed out. She was tall and lean and dark with shoulder-length black hair. She looked middle-aged, and she looked to have worn well. I could tell that even from a distance. She was topless and proud of it. Walked with her back straight, shoulders back, her breasts forward like copper headlamps. The bikini she wore was a dark color and covered her in the front but did little to hide anything else.

  “Damn,” I said.

  “Ah, that would be his wife you are seeing,” César said. “Is she nude?”

  “Damn near it.”

  “She likes to go without the top. Sometimes she wears nothing at all. Juan Miguel. He often goes nude. They are very much into the nudity. They travel to nudist camps worldwide I am told. They think the life is healthy. And then there is Hammerhead. Do you see him?”

  “Nope,” I said. “Damn. She’s a beauty … And he’s screwing around with another woman?”

  “Alas, it happens. And she too is magnificent, this other woman. And younger.”

  “They always are,” Brett said.

  “If the guy takes off his pants,” Leonard said, “let me know. Then I’ll want a look.”

  “I would like to see,” Ferdinand said.

  “Look,” I said.

  He looked through the telescope. “I want him to see my face before he dies. I want him to know why.”

  “We all do,” Brett said. She stood with her arm around my waist.

  “I’d just settle for him being dead,” I said. “A good rifle, and bam, he’s out of here.”