by Lionel White
“You will be Mr. and Mrs. Johns, I presume. Welcome to La Casa Pacifica.”
I swung around, startled. The floor was tile, but I had heard no footsteps, and the man who stood some yard and a half away seemed to have materialized out of thin air. A tall, gaunt, leather-faced man wearing a wide Mexican sombrero, a khaki shirt and khaki shorts and ridiculous, cowboy boots with high heels. He had a seamed, weather-beaten face, as bronze as an Indian, but he was very obviously an American. Pale, expressionless, blue eyes looked at me, unsmiling. He side-stepped around the edge of the desk to face us.
“We have prepared the yellow suite,” he said. “This is a small place and we only have accommodations for three couples. Fortunately, no one is registered at the moment, and so I am able to give you the suite facing the ocean. It has cross-ventilation, and I hope you will find it pleasant.”
He swung the register around and handed me a ballpoint pen.
I leaned over and signed in.
“You will be staying���” He left it a question.
“Several days, at least,” I said. “Perhaps a week or more.”
He nodded, apparently satisfied.
Sharon spoke suddenly. “The sign outside,” she said. “It said cocktail lounge.”
The trace of a smile crossed his face.
“Through the arch on the other side of the room,” he said. “My wife will be happy to serve you and if you like we can arrange for your dinner and breakfast. We like to know in advance. Would you like me to take your bags to the room first?”
I turned to Sharon. “You go into the lounge and order us a couple of Margaritas,” I said. “I will go up to the room with the bags and join you in a few moments.”
Sharon wasted no time in heading for the arch leading into the small bar, and I followed our host toward the other end of the lobby. We passed through a narrow hallway, and he unlocked the door at the end. Surprisingly, it was a pleasantly furnished suite of two rooms and a bath, overlooking the ocean, and furnished in the typical Mexican presidio fashion, with Indian rugs scattered around the floor, a comfortable, long, leather couch in the living room off the bedroom. There was an open fireplace, and heavy beams supported the ceiling.
Dropping our suitcases to the floor, my host turned and spoke. “My name is Homer Billings,” he said. “My wife’s name is Juanita. We run a very small and informal hotel. We are happy to have you here and hope you enjoy your stay. I appreciate Captain Morales recommending our establishment. Would you care to have dinner in? The menu is limited, but I believe you can have either chicken or steak or fish. We always have fish.”
“It sounds attractive,” I said. “We will take the chicken tonight, if it is convenient.”
“At six-thirty, then,” he said. He handed me the key to the room, and I waited only long enough to wash up before going down to join Sharon, who had already polished off her first Margarita and was requesting another one from the handsome Mexican girl who stood behind the bar. The woman smiled at me wordlessly, half nodding, when I joined Sharon at one of the tables facing the iron-grilled windows which looked out over the ocean.
I was finishing my drink when Sharon spoke.
“Do you think she’s pretty?” she asked. She was looking at the Mexican girl behind the bar.
“For God’s sake, Sharon���”
“She doesn’t understand English,” Sharon said. “She knew what Margarita was, but that was all. I tried to talk to her, and she couldn’t understand a word I was saying.”
I looked over at the girl behind the bar, and she was smiling, half nodding her head. I had an idea that she understood English a little better than Sharon thought she did. I finished my drink, picked up our glasses, and walked to the bar and put them down. I held up two fingers.
“Two more, please, senorita,” I said.
She smiled at me. “Mrs. Billings,” she said “Mrs. Juanita Billings.”
I was surprised. She didn’t look to be more than nineteen or twenty. Her husband must have been at least fifty. I finished my second drink. Sharon finished her third, and then she reluctantly let me take her back to our rooms. I closed and locked the door and then turned to her.
“Get your suitcase,” I said. “Put it on the bed and open it.”
She stared at me, baffled. “What?”
I didn’t answer her. I reached down, picked up her suitcase, tossed it on the bed and threw it open. I started to go through it.
“What in the hell do you think���”
She stopped suddenly as I stood up, holding a small tobacco tin in my hand. I flipped open the lid and spilled out the two dozen, thinly rolled cigarettes on the counterpane of the bed.
“Have you any more?” I asked.
She shook her head.
“I suppose these were given to you by Captain Morales?”
She nodded reluctantly, then, defensively, “Well, what did you expect? You deserted me, went away for two days, without telling me a thing. What did you expect me to do? Just sit around?”
I took her by the arm and walked her over to a chair and sat her down in it.
“You’re going to listen to me,” I said. “We’ve got to get something clear. I didn’t desert you. I was taken away. But that’s beside the point. I told you I wanted you to go back to the States, and you refused. I told you I had things to do, that I have to do alone. You hung around when you were not wanted, and now, unfortunately, I’m stuck with you. But from now on, you’re going to do as I say and exactly as I say. For reasons that I’m not going into, it’s necessary that I keep you with me for at least the next week or so. But you’re going to behave yourself and you’re going to do just what I tell you to do. To begin with, there’s going to be no more pot. You saw what happened back there in Tijuana. You may think it’s a day in the country to get busted in Mexico, but I don’t. And I’m not going to be busted again because you like your pot. You want to smoke a joint again, you can go ahead and do it. But don’t do it when you’re with me, don’t do it in any room that I’m living in. Don’t do it anywhere around me. If you want to take a chance, that’s your business. But I’m taking no chances. I’m going to run that stuff down the toilet, and I don’t want to see you with another cigarette as long as we’re together.”
I looked down at my wristwatch. It was a quarter after six.
“We’re going to wash up now, and then we’re going down to have dinner. After dinner, we’re going to drive into town. I’m going to find a motion-picture theater and you’re going to spend a couple of hours watching a movie. I have things to do which I have to do alone. I will arrange to pick you up outside of the movie house at a specific time, and I want you to be there. I don’t want you to talk to anybody, be picked up by anybody, get in any kind of trouble at all. If anybody tries to stop and talk to you, question you, ignore them. You will go to that movie and you will stay until the time I tell you to come out, and when you come out I will be waiting for you. Now do you understand?”
For a moment, she looked at me blankly and then said, “But why can’t I come with you?”
I took a step back, carefully unbuttoned my shirt and took it off.
“See the bruises on my body? See my face, this busted nose, black eye. Look at it closely. Well unless you do exactly as I order you, you’re going to look about fifty times worse and hurt about fifty times as bad as I hurt. I don’t want any more questions, and I don’t want any more arguments. Now get your ass off that chair and get in the bathroom and clean yourself up. You’re going to get some food in you, get sobered up, and then we’re going into town. You’re going to that motion-picture house, like I tell you to, and I’m going to pick you up, probably around ten o’clock. I’ll tell you exactly when, after we get into town. You’re going to be a good girl.”
I hesitated a moment, then I half smiled at her. “We’ll come back here later,” I said. “And because you’re going to be a good girl, I’ll pick up a bottle and we can have a quiet drink or two before we hit the sac
k.”
“I liked those Margaritas,” she said. “Do you suppose you could make Margaritas?”
“I’m damned sure I could make Margaritas,” I said.
We were served dinner in the cocktail lounge, and the chicken fricasseed with onions and peppers in olive oil was excellent. We were the only two customers.
At eight thirty that night I found a motion-picture house in the center of Ensenada, and Sharon complained bitterly when she realized that the dialogue of the picture would be in Spanish. There wasn’t a hell of a lot I could do about it, however, as there were no English-speaking pictures in the town, and so she went in in time for the first show. I really didn’t think it made too much difference. Pictures probably meant more to her than dialogue in any case.
Sharon had not owned a watch, so I picked her up an inexpensive wristwatch in a tourist gift shop, and we coordinated our times. We agreed that I would pick her up at ten o’clock on the dot, outside the theater.
Leaving her, I drove over to the Bahia Mar Hotel and parked the Jag in their private parking lot. I gave the attendant ten pesos to keep an eye on it. I wandered around town for ten or fifteen minutes, attempting to see if anybody had picked me up and was following me, and I was pretty sure that no one had. Then I turned west and started for the boat basin at the foot of the harbor. Angel Cortillo lived on board his fishing vessel, the Rosita Maria, named in memory of the mother who had died in giving birth to him.
The harbor installation at Ensenada is divided between two sectors. To the north is the network of modern piers servicing coastwise and transoceanic freighters which ply between Mexico and a hundred foreign ports. South, opposite the business section of the town and about two or three blocks away, are the fishing piers for the commercial fishing-vessels and the few private yachts which periodically stop by, mostly coming in from California ports. The commercial fishermen share this basin with party and charter boats, and it is a relatively small operation. It took me less than fifteen minutes to find the berth where the Rosita Maria was tied up.
The forward cabin was lighted, and I walked past and wandered down to the end of the pier before turning and coming back. No one had followed me out on the pier. I hesitated a moment and then stepped from the pier to the deck of the forty-eight foot commercial fishing-boat.
Inside the cabin a dog suddenly barked and a door slid open. A short, broad-shouldered man was silhouetted in the light coming from the cabin. Angel Cortillo stared at me and then twisted his head. “Shut up, Cactus, shut up!”
As the barking subsided into a low growl, he took two steps forward, and a moment later his heavy arms were embracing me.
“Son-of-a-bitch, amigo, it is you. I had all but given you up and was about to finish off the tequila myself. I had figured the border police must have taken one look at you and barred you from entry into our country. How are you, my friend?”
I winced as his arms squeezed my bruised and battered body, but I grinned into his ugly face. He stood on his toes and kissed my cheek and then literally dragged me through the door into the cabin of the Rosita Maria. He gave me a gigantic slap between the shoulder blades, sending me half way across the small cabin.
The German Shepherd stopped growling and barked.
“He’s vicious,” Angel said. “A real son of a bitch. Hates everybody. But ignore him; he’s also a coward. Son-of-a-bitch, you haven’t changed at all, except you look terrible. What happened? Did the lady’s husband catch up with you? Don’t answer. I’ll make a drink. Then you can tell me all about it.”
We had the drink, but I didn’t tell him all about it. Not just then. Instead, while he was preparing the second drink, this time digging out the lemon and salt, after having heard me gasp as I took the first one straight, I asked him a question.
“Angel,” I said, “does the name Captain Hernando Morales mean anything to you?”
He had been about to hand me the second four-ounce-shot glass filled with tequila, when his hand froze in midair. For several moments he merely stared at me, his expression changing from startled to serious and then, as again his hand moved and he extended the drink, his large, liquid-brown eyes half closed and he cocked his head to one side nodding ever so slightly.
“Captain Hernando Morales,” he said knowingly, “I think I am beginning to understand what has happened to your face.”
“What do you know about Captain Morales?”
“I know that he is a very dangerous man. If we are talking about the same person, it would be the Captain Morales who is connected with the police. A dangerous man, a man with connections, influence, power, a man whose name it would be best to forget. I do not know this man personally, but one does not have to know him to know about him. Why do you ask me?”
“I ran into your Captain Morales up in Tijuana a couple of days ago,” I said. “The fact is, I went out of my way to look him up.”
Cortillo moved over to the berth at the side of the cabin and sat down, slowly shaking his head.
“You went out of your way to look him up?”
I nodded.
“I had a business deal to talk over with him,” I said.
“Would you like to tell me about it? Or perhaps you would rather tell me about what happened to your face and why you are two days late arriving?”
“I was two days late, Angel, because shortly after I had my interview with our Captain Morales, two crooked Mexican cops busted me on a frame-up, beat the living shit out of me, and buried me in some obscure jail in the boondocks. And then, miraculously, our good Captain Morales discovered my plight and rescued me.”
“He rescued you, amigo? I see. And it was possibly because of the business deal that you had talked to him about.”
“Yes, about the business deal.”
Angel reached for the bottle to refill our glasses. He didn’t look at me when he spoke again, but walked over and patted the German Shepherd.
“I am getting the impression, amigo, that this trip of yours is not strictly a vacation. I am also getting the impression that you have not looked me up solely for the purpose of having fun and games. We are old and good friends. Perhaps it would be best if you told me all about it.”
And so I told him from the beginning, and he heard me out without uttering a single word. For several minutes after I had finished speaking he merely sat at the side of the bunk and stared at the deck between his outstretched feet. At last he looked up, and his face broke into a smile.
“Amigo, you son-of-a-bitch,” he said. “You have spoiled the vacation I had planned for us. There can be no going out on the town, no girls, no carousing. You can understand why it would be impossible for us to be seen together. Now let me briefly review.”
He stood up and poured another round of drinks, and I could feel the tequila beginning to get to me.
“If I understand you right, you have made a deal with this Captain Morales to contact a third party who will be supplying you with the thing that you have come to Mexico to obtain. The stuff will be delivered to you here in Ensenada. It will be transferred to my boat here, and I am to carry it out to sea where I will be met some miles off shore by another vessel which you will be piloting. Am I correct so far?”
“That is correct.”
“Aside from the fact, amigo, that this operation is highly illegal and extremely risky, not to say dangerous, it presents certain problems. I am not prepared to have any direct contact with your sources of supply. I am not prepared to have anyone but yourself know of my possible participation. Once you have received delivery, just how have you planned to get the cargo aboard this vessel?”
It took me a good half hour to outline for Angel the plans that I had made, and he frequently interrupted me with questions and suggestions. But when I had finally finished, he nodded and conceded that it might possibly work.
“You have thought it out beautifully, and it can work. But there is one big danger, amigo. There is the possibility that your source will tip off the authorit
ies for the reward. There is the possibility that Captain Morales himself will doublecross you.”
“There is, of course, that danger. If this were a one-shot operation, I would say that it would be far too risky. On the other hand, this will be but the first of many trips that I will make. The longer I operate, the more money Captain Morales will be taking in, the more profits the sellers will be making. They have every reason to protect me.”
“Amigo, you are playing a very dangerous game with very dangerous and sinister people. I have heard many rumors about Captain Morales. It may not be simple marijuana that he deals in. The important deals, the big money deals at the border, involve hard drugs. Are you sure you���”
I shook my head. “Angel, you know me. You’ve known me a good many years. I have not changed. Marijuana is one thing. Hard drugs are something else again. I have no interest in hard drugs. There is enough money to be made in marijuana to make it unnecessary to move into other fields, assuming that I might even be able to overcome my moral prejudices against doing so.”
He stood up and crossed to a shelf in the galley, reaching for a new bottle of tequila. When he turned back, the serious expression had left his face and he was smiling.
“And now,” he said, “enough of business for tonight. I will sleep on it and think about it. It is time we relaxed and started our celebration. It would not be wise for us to be seen together in town, but I can make a telephone call, and there are a couple of girls���”
I looked down at my watch. It was twenty minutes to ten.
“The celebration must be postponed, Angel,” I said. “One thing I have forgotten to mention-a girl. The girl I told you about has come to Ensenada with me. Right now she is watching a movie in town, and I am due to pick her up in less than twenty minutes.”
Angel looked startled. “Amigo, you must be losing your mind. You brought that girl with you? Why in the world would you do a thing like���”
“I had little choice, Angel,” I said. “It was, on Captain Morales’ suggestion. He wanted her to be with me.”