by Sam Stewart
Rocky nodded, sitting down in his bright yellow sweater on the red leather chair. He looked like a fire. Or a large pustular wound, Billy thought.
“What’s she cooking?”
“Paella.”
“Paella,” Billy said. Wanting to scream again, wanting to smash his glass through the window and his fist through the wall. “Paella,” he repeated. “And Hector’s on his way now?”
“Yeah,” Rocky said.
“Why don’t you turn on the tube or something, huh?”
Rocky went over now and turned on the tube. Rocky could sit and watch the Spanish cartoons. International language. Zap. Boom. And Billy could relax. Through the magic of modern pharmacology. Instant. He could feel it already, his engine gearing down. A little more vodka and a little more time and he’d balance on the point. He could lie on the couch and be amused, not troubled or maniacally depressed, or bothered by the dullness of defective companions. Of exile. Boredom. Paella. Spain … Spain, Billy thought, his anger sending bile out to kick against the lude because, Jesus, he hated it. And not only Spain. What he hated with an edge was being out of the action; the days full of nothing on your mind but your mind. Still … you could hammer that idleness to purpose. There were precedents for that: Napoleon at Elba, Vesco in Costa Rica, Marcos in Maui—he could even include the Ayatollah in Paris, Nixon at the Annenbergs, quick—who else?
“Who else?” he said to Rocky.
“Who else who?”
“Never mind,” Billy said.
He listened now, hearing the rough sound of car tires crackling on the gravel. No one snuck up on a man who had gravel. A man who had gravel, not to mention an electrified twenty-foot gate, was a man who had an edge.
Only now he had a problem: When the doorbell rang should he answer it himself?—did he want to treat Jackie as an equal and a peer?—or do a little joke, send Rocky: “I’ll see if the mahster is at home”? Decisions, decisions, decisions, Billy thought. Still, he admitted, he was hot to see the Uzi. Fuckin kike machine gun. Billy’d once captioned it Revenge of the Nerds. Israelis say “never again,” they really mean it: Bladadadadat. After the Uzi, he wanted a Kalashnikov—Russian—but the instrument favored by the Arabs. Bladadadadat. Billy’d be ready for a Seven-Day War.
It was coming, Billy thought. Fuck-all. Armageddon.
He listened, with his eyes half-closed, to the door. BING! He could feel the vibrations through his feet.
Rocky said, “Boss?”
“Go do it,” Billy said, deciding to be cool. He sucked his cigar and then waited, sprawling on the white linen couch. But instead of hearing Jackie, what he heard was Diego. What he needed right now, Billy thought, was Diego. Fuckin Captain Diego, who’d come from a long line of local pescaderos—the picturesque fishermen who plied along the coast—and who’d wound up as local commander of police because he couldn’t catch shrimp. The Pedro Principle, Billy’d decided. You translate the Peter Principle to Spanish and you’re deeply into shit.
Billy made a groan. What he wasn’t too eager for was Jackie—more accurately, Jackie and the Uzi—coming up against Diego. Diego’d take a look and his eyeballs would register a million pesetas. Additional. Jesus on a barrel, Billy thought. But he’d think it with a smile because it paid to own police chiefs, especially in Spain.
Billy bounced up now, politely, resiliently, smiling like an asshole and offering his hand, going, “Hey—buenas noches,” while Diego went, “Si.”
Grim; Diego looked grim, Billy thought. His body crammed into his custom-made uniform and fighting with the seams. He took off his hat now, exposing what appeared to be his painted-on hair. Billy wondered idly if he groomed it with fish oil. Krazy Glue, maybe—get it stuck down flat.
“What’s happening?” Billy said.
Diego tossed his hat on the table now and sat. “I got a call from Los Angeles.” Los On-hell-es, he said.
Billy looked indifferent. “So? So what?”
“They ask about your general moves,” Diego said. He said hen-er-al.
“Whether I’ve been laying any eggs?”
Billy giggled.
Diego looked sullenly confused.
“I told them you hadn’t left Majorca—a correction—your villa, in a year. I said you were a character of excellent proportion.”
“Proportion,” Billy said.
“This is not the right expression?”
“But forget it,” Billy said.
“They seem to be inquiring in terms of a … disruptive occasion.”
“Of a what?”
“A lot of poisonings.”
“Oh.” Billy nodded, then shrugged. “Well … you know cops. I mean American cops. Fuckin assholes,” Billy said. “Panatella?” He’d opened the brown leather humidor with genuine Havanas, observing as Diego said, “Possibly for later,” and confiscated three.
Billy said, “So now you’ll need something to light ’em with—right?” He went over to his desk now and palmed himself a couple of crisp new bills, the Iberian equivalent of seven hundred bucks. Smiling, he tactfully advanced it to Diego who slipped it into his pocket, uncounted.
“If you’d do a guy a favor,” Billy said, “you could kind of cock your eye. Anybody asks you more questions, prowls around, gets nosy, let me know.”
Diego bobbed his head again, slowly, up and down, as though the printed instructions that had come with his brain had said, Shake Before Using.
He fiddled with his hat.
“Well … I’d suggest you stay to dinner,” Billy said, “but tonight—”
“I have a weekly appointment with my wife,” Diego said.
“Keeping up the franchise, eh?”
“This is so.” Diego smiled. Like one fucking hombre of the world to another. “But Sunday night …” he said, allowing it to dangle.
“Sunday,” Billy said, “we’re gonna party like there ain’t no Monday, okay? We’re gonna fly in some broads—imported—blond—not a hair in their armpits. You’re gonna love ’em,” Billy said. “A little something we can smoke.… A little something we can eat.… You comprende?” Billy said.
Smiling, Diego went erectly to the door.
***
Billy took a breath. Shot. Worn out. Christ only knew, it wasn’t easy, Billy thought. It was a tough fucking row. You had to put up with enough fucking clowns you could start a fucking circus. Not that it surprised him Los Angeles had called. Jesus. A cookie was missing from a cookie jar in Pig City, Idaho, they’d clamor after Billy. Just a natural victim.
Billy closed his eyes. He was getting to the point now, exquisitely balanced; tuned; there was no more static in his head. He was someplace nice between the bass-line of Quaaludes and the treble-line of coke. He was What-me-worry.
He squinted at the clock. On his desk was a clock that told the times in the various locations of the globe. It was midnight in Europe; in New York City, it was five hours earlier, in L.A., it was only four in the afternoon … and already it was six tomorrow morning in Japan.
Friday.
Payday.
Time, Billy thought. Ti-i-ime. It was clearly on his si-i-ide.
29
The plan had been this: Joanna’d take the Regularly Scheduled Flight, land at Palma de Majorca, rent a car at the airport, and drive to the beach. Where Mitchell, Mack, and their couple of handguns had been dropped from a chopper.
Without that assignment, she knew damn well they’d have left her back in Switzerland. Handed her a ticket. Mitchell going Ciao, bambino at the airport. No; he’d’ve kissed her very sweetly on the lips but the basic translation was a Ciao, bambino and a ticket to the sticks.
She thought, as she drove along the sun-spattered highway, that she’d have to keep her mouth shut: the price of admission. The only and completely predictable result of her telling him, or asking him, or nagging him to quit would be his handing her a ticket. (If you don’t like the heat, go back to the kitchen. Or words to that effect.) There was nothing she could do. Sh
e was swimming against a tide of testosterone now—the old Masculine Mystique.
She said, picking them up, that she felt like an extra in a buddy movie.
“No. You’re ‘The Girl,’” Mitchell said.
“The girl,” she said.
“The one-and-only.”
Mack grimaced. “You want to let me drive? You can neck in the back seat.”
Joanna ignored him, looking at Mitchell as he circled around the car, his eyes picking over the scratches and the gouges, while Mack stowed the gear. They were still dressed alike—this time in jeans and in different-colored T-shirts: a couple of tourists who’d been lolling on the beach. Mitchell’d even thought to bring a blanket and a thermos. Joanna’d brought the luggage.
“What is this?” Mitchell said. “Is this a ’78 Ford?”
Joanna held her tongue. “It’s an ’87 Datsun.”
“Ah,” Mitchell said.
“It was the last car in Palma.”
“I believe it,” Mitchell said. He looked at the odometer. “Forty thousand klicks.”
“There was nothing at the airport. I panicked. I pictured you abandoned on the beach. I went all the way to Palma.”
“All the way,” Mitchell said.
“She put out for it and everything. Jesus,” Mack said.
“You want to stop?” Joanna said. She could have murdered them, both of them, gladly, on the spot. “You want to try it out in Palma?—go on,” she said hotly. “Do better.”
They did. Mitchell got a dark blue ’88 Wrangler. Talking Spanish to the agent, all buddy to buddy. Saying his wife had made an error with the car but then women—las lindas diablas, Mitchell said, were expected to be charming, not mechanical, eh? The agent, an old-time Latin lothario, could not agree more. He accepted the trade-in with elemental grace, just as he accepted the handful of pesetas which Mitchell forked over with a “Please. For your trouble.” The agent, showing no trace of shame to Joanna, to whom he’d regretted there was no other car, then handed him the keys.
Joanna said, “Next time, I’m gonna be a man. I’m not kidding. I’ll come back as a man or a flowerpot but not as a woman.”
Mitchell said provocatively, “Flowerpots break.”
“So do men,” Joanna said. “You just never acknowledge it.”
Mack said, “Jesus. You want to let me drive? You can fight in the back seat.”
They were moving through the town—palm trees and two-story whitewashed buildings and colorful little shops. Outdoor cafés where people on vacation sat breakfasting, lizards in the ten-thirty sun.
“She’s hungry,” Mitchell said. “She gets cynical when she hasn’t eaten.”
“She,” Joanna said, “had breakfast on the plane.”
“She also gets testy when she’s eaten on a plane. She’s a toughie,” Mack said.
Joanna started to laugh. She turned now and looked at him, sprawled in the back seat, his eyes half-slit against the glamour of the sun. It was funny, Joanna thought, how different they could be and at the same time, alike. Like different instruments that were playing the same nervous tune. They were nervous, she could see.
“What I think we’re gonna do … we get to Punta de Mayo.…” Mitchell glanced at her awhile. “We’re gonna drop you at the hotel and then go about our business.”
“Reconnaissance,” she said.
“I thought the word might upset you.”
“Me?” Joanna said. “Your little cheerleader? No.”
“Good.”
She said nothing.
“I love you,” Mitchell said.
She whispered, “Fuck off.”
***
In Jackie’s phone book was a printed notation: Billy/Villa Rosa/Punta de Mayo/Majorca, Spain. A telephone number and a scribbled-in note: 14 k on 710, left at Saguaro, right at the fork.
The fishing village of Punta de Mayo was halfway up the western coast of Majorca, on a road that played hit and run with the coast—skimming past beaches of stark white sand against jewel-blue sea; climbing through a forest where the sun disappeared; reappearing on a cliff with the water, below it now, crashing on the rocks; then wandering east again; descending; winding through terraced groves—orange, lemon, almond, olive; returning to the sea again: Route 710.
Fourteen klicks from the turnoff to the village was a road called Saguaro. Mitchell made the turn and then headed up a cliff again, passing no villas, no other signs of life. Mack beside him was silent, smoking, observing. Mitchell watched the odometer of the bouncy little Jeep. Two-and-a-half klicks over pine-covered mountain and they came to a fork, parked, got out again and went for a walk. A balls-out daylight recon patrol.
It was twenty after one. It was bright but with a cool brisk wind off the sea. The air smelled of salt and orange blossoms and pine and carried the music of small darting birds and the caw of the gulls. There were no other sounds.
They moved quietly around the trees. Another two klicks and they were staring at the high stone wall around the house, an entire enclosure with a locked iron gate and a drive made of gravel.
Mitchell eyed the wall, about … four meters high, made of fat gray stones and not difficult to climb. He raised the binoculars and hunted for the catch and then found it: a thin black electrified wire tucked neatly around the ledge. Try to cross it or cut it and you’d ring a lot of bells.
They moved around the wall, staying in its shadow as it headed towards the cliff among large white boulders and a scattering of pines. Standing at the precipice, Mitchell looked over at a long wedge of beach, a half-moon cove that was jammed between the rocks about sixty feet down. It was possible that Billy had an access to the sea.
He turned and saw Mack going farther up the rock, and he nodded, then followed, feeling the exertion in the tendons of his thigh. With the height, came the view. From the promontory, Mitchell looked over at a steep down-angle at the house—the ultimate gutsy Mediterranean clash with its pink stucco walls and its red tile roof and its vines of bougainvillea. There were Romanesque arches on a red-tiled court, a garage about fifty yards over to the side, and then a wide sweep of lawn.
In the back was a red-tiled terrace and a pool, then another sweep of lawn, and then an opening in the wall that gave a clear and uncomplicated vista of the sea.
“Half a million,” Mack said. “You think I could buy a little castle in the sand?”
He grabbed the binoculars and focused on the house. Mitchell leaned back against a warm slab of rock.
“What have we?” Mack said. He was grinning now. “I think I found an X-rated window. Is Billy a kind of a midget?”
“Five-eleven,” Mitchell said.
“Well … what I’m looking at is basically horizontal.… Kind of jiggling up and down? It’s got … dark thinning hair … a little baldy on the top … a kind of—woops! There it goes.… All gone.… Bye-bye.… Rolling over now, folks.… And—come on, let me see her, you creep.… And.… Not bad. Not … at all … bad. In fact, you want to know, a really sterling set of knockers.… And another swell surprise—want to look?”
“Just to tell you if it’s Billy,” Mitchell said.
“Sez you.”
It was Billy. Looking ten years older and as skinny as a cat. It was also a truly outstanding set of knockers.
And lying right next to them was Jackie, in the bed.
“Moving on,” Mitchell said.
***
Patrolman Estanchez had come upon the Jeep that was hidden in the trees. Surely a Jeep that was hidden in the trees was a Jeep that, in general, was up to no good. And then, on the other hand, what should he do? Should he have the thing towed? Should he slap it with a summons? Estanchez, twenty-seven, was an earnest young cop with the problems of every other earnest young cop on a tourist-trade island. In performance of his job, he had two very major and, more than occasionally, conflicting priorities. 1) Protect property and 1) Never hassle any money-bearing guest.
He got off his scooter now and walked arou
nd the Jeep in a slow-footed circle. He noted the license plate number in his book. He saw it was rented. He noticed the sticker from the Islas Baleares Garaje in Palma, the Chesterfield cigarettes waiting on the seat. Los ricos, he thought. Los turistos Americanos.
Well … that was that.
He stood for a moment and peered around the path, observing the beauty of the pine-covered forest and the swift acrobatics of a red-breasted bird. He grabbed another moment just to breathe in the air of the exceptional morning. Then he shrugged and rode off.
***
They got back to the Jeep again and headed down the silent pine-bordered road, made the turn at Saguaro, and looked for an opening to take them to the sea. About three klicks farther, beyond Billy’s villa, the road went flat again and skimmed along a beach. They parked and made their way over huge white boulders to a white strip of sand.
Mack said, “We should’ve fought the Spanish Civil War.”
“You like the turf,” Mitchell said.
“Beats hell out of Nam. You could fight, take a little time off, take a swim.…” Mack picked some stones up and tossed them at the sea. They were heading in the general direction of Billy’s. There was no one on the beach.
“Thing is …” Mitchell said, “I still don’t know what I’m doing.”
Mack looked at him. “I thought you were fighting for your company. Protecting the Allegedly Innocent.”
“No, I mean doing,” Mitchell said. “Specifically. Practically.”
“Oh.” Mack peppered at the sea again. “That. Well … offhand … I’d say the battle plan’s a bushwhack—isn’t it? We wouldn’t want to handle them in the house. There’d be guns there. Goons. Gizmos. Shit we wouldn’t know about—right?”
“Okay. Pretty much what I was thinking,” Mitchell said. “Keep going.”
“We come back when it’s darker,” Mack said. “We assume for the moment they’ll be watering in town. We jump them on the road. Make a barricade with the Jeep and then—”
“What?” Mitchell said. “Then what?”
“We kill ’em.”
“Short of that.”