The New Mammoth Book of Pulp Fiction

by Maxim Jakubowski

  I stood in the shadow of the wing as they untied the baggage and handed it down. I took my bag and walked across the runway, and it was so hot the soles of my feet began to burn. I took the sedan which had HOTEL DE LAS AMERICAS on the front of it, remembering that it had been recommended to me in Mexico City. No one else was going to that hotel. The airsick family piled into a shabbier sedan labeled HOTEL PAPAGAYO.

  The hotel was something right out of the imagination of an assistant to a Hollywood producer. High on the cliff, with cabañas, shops, pools, outdoor cocktail lounges, outdoor dining room and dance floor. I registered, took a cabaña, took a shower and put on the Acapulco clothes I’d bought in Mexico City. Protective coloration. I wanted to look like an American tourist. The shirt had a pattern of tropical parrots. The shorts were lime yellow. The sandals had straps that hurt me across the instep. I topped it off with a white mesh cap with a ballplayer’s bill, oval slanting sunglasses.

  I told my troubles to the desk clerk. “I’m trying to find a friend here in town. I don’t know what hotel he’s at. How would I go about it?”

  “An American, sir?”

  “Yes.”

  He gave me a list of the six most likely hotels. The flaw was that Joe Talley might not be using his own name. But there was no real reason for him not to do so. His name would mean nothing to Torran. Torran was big time. Talley was a small town crook. And just before lunch I found him. He was at the Papagayo. It was one of those breaks you get. I was just getting out of the taxi in front of the place when I saw him coming across the road from the beach. He had a dark pretty girl with him. Both of them seemed a little unsteady on their feet. They passed right in front of the cab and went into the hotel grounds. Joe was speaking Spanish to the girl. She was giggling. I don’t know how good the Spanish was. It sounded good and she seemed to be enjoying it. The black hair on the girl wasn’t a dye job. Of that I was certain.

  There were enough people around so that I could follow them into the grounds. I shoved money at the cab driver. I got such a wide grin I knew it was too much. I went in. The cabañas were on either side of long walks behind the hotel. Tropical foliage was lush around them. I kept them in sight. They turned into the last but one on the central walk and I saw Talley unlock the door.

  I strolled around. I went by to the end of the walk, came back, and when I was sure I wasn’t observed, I ducked into the thick brush beside their cabaña. The windows were open. Through the screen I heard the buzz of a fan, the clink of bottleneck on glass, the girl’s thin giggle. They kept talking Spanish to each other. They stopped talking after a while. I didn’t risk raising my eyes above the sill until I heard the roar of a shower. Then I looked in.

  It was Talley who was taking the shower. I could see the girl. She had changed into a white dress. She went over to the bureau and started making up her face. I walked away from there. I had vaguely planned to have Talley lead me to Torran and Anne. If Joe Talley could take Torran, it was all to the good. If he couldn’t, he’d knock Torran off balance long enough for me to take him. But Talley was playing. He was like a guy with nothing on his mind. It bothered me. He ought to be pretty well tightened up. Just the thought of coming up against Torran ought to keep him nibbling on his hands. Something had gone wrong in my guessing.

  An hour later the girl came out of the cabaña alone. She had a big bright red purse slung over her shoulder. I tossed a mental coin and decided to stay with Joe Talley. So I intercepted her where I could keep Talley’s cabaña in sight.

  “Do you speak any English?” I asked her.

  She gave me a long cold look, then wrinkled her nose in a very charming little smile. “A leedle.”

  “Can I buy you a drink?”

  “Dreenk? No, gracias. Other time, maybee.”

  A nice old lady schoolteacher walked by, glanced at the girl and gave me a sour look. I tried to make a date with the girl, but she walked on.

  I shrugged and found a bench where I could see Talley’s cabaña. The long hours went by. I was hungry and thirsty and out of cigarettes. I cursed Talley, Torran, Anne Richardson, Mexico and the three hundred and seventy thousand dollars.

  When Anne Richardson came by me, it caught me by surprise. I was waiting for Talley to come out. It shook me to see her and know that it could be the one. I went over the ticket agent’s description. Hair like harvest wheat, he had said. Moon-pool eyes, whatever those are. The funny, tough, scratchy little voice would be the payoff.

  I had to make a quick revision of all my guesses. It was like coming in on the third act, not knowing your lines or what has happened so far. I moved in behind her as she headed down the walk. She wore an aqua cotton two-piece dress with a bare midriff. She walked on high cork soles, and she was tall enough not to need them, and her walk was something to remember and speculate about and bring back to mind on long cold winter nights. A man like Torran should pick inconspicuous women. She was as noticeable as a feather bed in a phone booth.

  She went to Joe Talley’s cabaña, tried the door and went in. My play was to walk slowly by and see if I could duck into the shrubs again. This time they’d be speaking English, at least. But before I could get by, the door banged open and she came out again, blanched to the color of roquefort, sucking at the air through parted lips. I took a quick step back, caught her wrist and spun her around.

  “Let go, let go!” she panted, fighting me. The voice was small, scratchy.

  “Get back in there, Anne!” I said, pushing her toward the door. Her ankle turned because of the high cork soles and I caught her before she fell. My using her name took a lot of the scrap out of her. Her eyes were wide and hot as she looked at me. Moon-pool eyes, to that ticket agent, are the ones so dark that you can’t see where the irises leaves off and the pupils begin.

  “Who are you?”

  I shoved her again, reached around her to the door and pushed it open, pulled her in. She turned her back to me and I spun her around and caught her hand just as she yanked the small automatic out of her white purse. I tore the gun out of her hand and it hurt her fingers and she yelled with the pain. But I heard it as though it came from a long distance.

  I was too busy looking at Joe Talley. He was pretty messy. Through the open bathroom door I could see the top half of him. The shower was still on and turned too hot so that steam drifted around him. He lay on his back with his legs still in the shower and the big knife was stuck through his throat at an angle so that the tip of it came out under his ear.

  The girl made a dive for the door and I caught her in time, whirled her back, picked her up bodily and threw her onto the bed. “Be good,” I said. She lay there and stared at me. I opened her purse, took out cigarettes, lit one. I looked around the room. The search had been pretty complete. The bottle on the bureau. Two glasses had been used. The third was still clean, still upside down on the tray. I poured some of the defunct’s bourbon, a liberal dose, took it over and pushed Anne’s legs out of the way so I could sit on the bed.

  “I could use some of that,” she said in a wheedling tone.

  “Tell me some things and maybe you’ll get some.”

  “Why did you kill him, honey?” I knew she hadn’t. I knew she didn’t have time to do it. But she didn’t know I knew.

  Her eyes darkened curiously. “I’m asking you that, mister.”

  “I’m turning you in to the local cops. I think they have cells with dirt floors. I think the jailers will give me a vote of thanks for putting something like you in there. The bugs are bad, but they’ll keep you entertained.”

  “You can’t bluff me, mister. Who are you?”

  “How did you get here so fast from National City? You and Torran.”

  “Who’s Torran? Somebody I ought to know?”

  “From way back,” I said.

  “Why did you kill Joe Talley, mister?”

  I took another pull at the drink. Her eyes kept flicking to the glass and now and then she’d lick her underlip.

  “We�
�re going around in circles, Anne. I didn’t kill him. And I know you didn’t. But I do know who did. Interested?”

  She sat up, pulled her knees up, hugged them. “Who?”

  “I’ll give you a little. You give me a little first.”

  She shut her eyes for a long three seconds. “We got here fast because there was a light plane staked out for us at Ensenada.”

  “A girl killed him. A Mexican girl wearing a white dress and carrying a big red purse. She was pretty. He brought her back here from the beach around noon. They both looked a little high.”

  Still hugging her knees, she said five or six words that she shouldn’t have known. Her lips writhed like bloody worms as she said them.

  I asked, “Where’s Torran?”

  Suddenly a thought seemed to strike her.

  Her eyes went wide. She scrambled off the bed, took one hesitant step toward the door and then stood there. “Look, I just realized that maybe . . .”

  “Go ahead and talk. Get it off your chest,” I told her. “I know that you and Joe Talley planned to hijack Torran’s take and you crossed Torran by sending the wire to Brankis. I know which bus Torran took dressed as a fat lady, and I know the place he tossed the getup out of the gray Buick, and I know how you honked at the bus.”

  It was meant to shake her. It did. Her face went white again. She sat down beside me on the bed.

  “Who are you?”

  “I’m just a guy interested in three hundred and seventy thousand dollars, sweet.”

  She ran her fingertips along the back of my hand. “If I could trust you, mister.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Wouldn’t I be a damn fool if I steered you to that money and then you took it all?”

  I nodded gravely. “You’d grab it all for yourself if you could, wouldn’t you?”

  She looked at me. “I need help. Joe was going to help. I’m afraid he talked to the wrong people. I’m afraid he was killed by somebody who wants the money.”

  “Where’s Torran?”

  “How can I trust you?”

  “You can’t. But I think you’re on a spot where you’re going to have to trust somebody.”

  She turned into my arms and caught her hand strongly at the back of my neck and kissed me. She could be considered an expert. The kiss was as smarting hot as the sauce that came with the one meal I had in Mexico City.

  “It’s nice,” I said casually, “but it isn’t worth three hundred and seventy thousand.” I blocked the slap she threw at me and watched her as she went over to the bureau.

  She picked up the bottle and tilted it high. Her throat worked convulsively for five long swallows. She lowered the bottle, said, “Haaaah”, tilted it high again and took three more swallows. She wiped her wet mouth on the back of her hand, leaving a smear of deep red.

  “I’ve got to tell you,” she said, “because I’ve got to have help. Torran is sick. He got sick in National City, and he’s been running a hell of a high fever. He’s out of his head sometimes. That made it simple for me to contact Joe as soon as we landed. Joe made the arrangement for a house up the beach, a small place walled in and private. Torran’s there. The bad thing was not knowing how to get the money away from him. It’s all crammed into a huge money belt. Even sick like that, I couldn’t risk it. And I’m not killing anybody, even for that amount of money.

  “Joe has contacts. He got some sedative and handed it to me early this morning. I couldn’t get it down Torran until noon.

  “When he was out, I got the belt off him. I know it isn’t safe to stay here. I can’t get it out of Mexico without Joe’s help. So I hid it in the house and came to get Joe and tell him. Now I’m afraid to go back there, because if Joe talked to the wrong people and there’s another group after that money, they’ll be at the house now. If you come back with me and help me get the money, and help me get it to El Salvador, I’ll give you seventy thousand.”

  “Half, sweet.”

  “One hundred thousand. No more. Final offer.” The liquor had gotten into her bloodstream. Her lips looked swollen and she weaved slightly.

  “Half, and be good, or I’ll take it all.”

  She leered at me. “Maybe we could stick together, huh? Your money is my money?” She laughed. It looked funny to see her standing there laughing, because behind her I could see Joe Talley’s hand, palm upward, the steam curling around it.

  She turned toward the bottle. I got there first. She cursed me. She clawed at my face and I slapped her so hard her eyes went off focus. Then she turned sweet. “You gotta help me, honey,” she said. “Gee, I don’t know your name.”

  “Russ, sweet. Be good. Stand by the door. There’s prints to get rid of. That heat is going to make time of death tough for them to determine.”

  I cleaned up and we left. A man was standing up the walk talking to a woman who stood in front of the neighboring cabaña. I turned back toward the door, waved, and said, “See you later, boy.”

  Her face and eyes were empty as we got into the cab. She gave the address “Ocho Calle Revocadera.”

  “You know the language?”

  “Twenty words, Russ.”

  I held my hands low and took a look at the automatic. It was a toy. Twenty-five caliber. Curly designs etched into the steel. The clip was full. The cab took fifteen minutes to put us by the gate in the wall around the house. She sat in the cab and started to tremble. “I’m scared,” she said in a low tone.

  I held the door and she got out. I paid the driver and the cab went away from there. I looked at the gate. There was a chain for a padlock, but no padlock. I slipped the catch and pushed it open. The lawn was deep green, unkempt. Flowers straggled in wild confusion along the side of the pink stone house.

  “What room is he in?”

  She was shivering again. “In . . . in the back.”

  “Did you lock the place up?”

  “Yes.”

  I took a look at the side door. The wood was splintered and pieces of the brass lock lay on the stone step. I pushed her to one side, kicked the door open and went in fast, whirling on balance, the way I had been taught. The hallway was empty, dim. I listened. The house was silent.

  “Come in,” I whispered. She came in obediently. She was chewing on her lip. The liquor was sweating its way out of her.

  “Where did you hide it?” I whispered, my lips close to her ear.

  “You’ll take me with you, Russ?”

  “Of course.”

  “Promise.”

  “I promise.”

  “Come on, then.” She walked with extreme caution. I followed her. It was hard to walk silently on the gayly patterned tile floor. She peered into the next room and then walked in. Suspended from the ceiling was a huge fixture, like a fruit bowl. She pointed up at it. I picked up the antique Spanish chair from its position near the door and put it silently under the fixture. She put her hand on my shoulder and stepped up onto the chair, reached her hands up and around the edge of the fixture.

  The flick of movement was off to the side. I turned, firing as I turned, my snapping shot drowned by the resounding smash of a heavier weapon. He stood gaunt in the doorway, wearing only pajama pants, his eyes glittering and feverish, black stubble on his face, his lips cracked and caked with white.

  As the muzzle swung toward me, I saw the tiny holes appearing in his naked chest, all left of center. His left. The little automatic shot well. He tried to hold onto the doorway and steady the weapon. He trembled with effort but he could not stay the slow sagging of the muzzle. When he fired it, it was aimed at the tile. It smashed tile, whirred by my head and chunked into the wall behind me. His knees made a clocking sound on the tile and he folded awkwardly onto his face, getting one hand up but not far enough.

  I turned toward Anne Richardson. Both her hands were clamped on the rim of the light fixture and her feet were still on the chair. But her knees sagged so that all her weight was on her hands, and on the fixture. It pulled free of the ceiling an
d she came down with it, hitting cruelly against the heavy arm of the chair, tumbling off onto the floor while the glass splashed into all corners of the room.

  I knelt by her and turned her over gently and saw where the bullet had entered, just below the bare midriff, dead center, ranging upward. She gave me an odd little smile and said, “Tell . . . tell them I . . .” Then she chopped her heels at the floor so hard she broke the straps of both cork-soled shoes and they came off. She arched up a few inches and dropped back and died. I wondered what I was supposed to tell them.

  I went to the front door and listened. There was no traffic in the road. The nearest beach house was four hundred yards away, and the sound of the surf was loud.

  Torran was dead. That look of affability was gone in death. He looked weak, vicious, cruel. He looked like a punk, a dirty small-time killer. I searched the house. The kitchen was small. The girl in the white dress lay with her head under the sink, face down, the big red purse under her stomach, her white dress high on the bare strong brown thighs. The slug had made an evil mess of the back of her head. Her companion, a dark man I had never seen before, was one eighth alive. At least he was breathing. His pulse had a flutter like the wings of a captive moth. He had two in the belly.

  When Torran had regained the belt, he had put it where a sick person could be expected to put it. Under his pillow. I opened it. Each compartment was hard as a stone with money. It was crammed in so tightly the belt would have to be cut to get it out without tearing it.

  I looked at it. All the money in the world. Fresh money, still in the mint wrappers. All the money in the world for all the things in the world. I sat on the bed that smelled of fever and sickness in the room with the drawn blinds and ran my fingertips back and forth across the visible edges of the stacks of bills. I thought of crazy but possible things.

  It was done very, very neatly. It was done the way experts do it. A gardener was working in front of my cabaña at the Hotel de las Americas. Another man was coming down the path with a covered tray. I unlocked the door and went in. When I was three steps inside the room the gardener shoved the muzzle of the weapon through the screen of the side window. The waiter tossed napkin and tray aside, kept the light machine gun the napkin had covered. He held it centered on the small of my back. At the same instant the third man stepped out of my bathroom and covered me with a professional-looking revolver.