Ringer

by Wiprud, Brian M

  Gina was disadvantaged by being overly attractive. She did not trust men because few to none of them had been able to get beyond her utterly devastating outward appearance in order to actually listen to any of the words that came out of her mouth. She did not trust women because few of them had ever been able to forgive her for her utterly devastating outward appearance. This disability had ruined her chances for both love and a career.

  I am perfectly suited for this type of woman, and I will tell you why. From this film treatment you have seen that I genuinely love all types of women, and I get a great deal of satisfaction charming them and making them feel special, whether it is the plump one from the hotel desk, Dixie with the implants, or Gina, the very picture of female perfection. I greatly appreciate Gina’s body, don’t get me wrong. She is one of the few women I’ve ever encountered who was more spectacular naked than partially clothed, and that says a lot, but looks and sex appeal are not an end-all for me. Crazy, I know. I can be with Gina and not be smitten, which is the only kind of man she can trust.

  Anyway, time is short. I had better get off my soap container and relate my wanderings through that garden, along the winding path, past the gardener’s shed not far from the trail to the Ramparts. I heard a low and serious voice from within the shed, speaking in Spanish, almost like a chant. Curious, I put an eye to the partially open door.

  Shadows of rakes and pitchforks and scythes danced on the walls by the light of a candle. Kneeling before the candle on a packing crate was the clumsy airline steward. In front of the candle on the crate was a crude hatchet. I recognized it as the type Mexican field hands use to harvest pineapples. Held reverently in his hands was the amulet, and even from where I stood I recognized it as the image of Santa Muerte.

  I stepped back from the door and continued on my way. Hey, whatever floats your boat, right? Live and let live. Or whatever.

  CHAPTER

  FORTY-EIGHT

  LET US FAST-FORWARD THROUGH DINNER at the oversized Moorish dinner table because it was a formality. Everybody’s mind was elsewhere, yet conversation was necessary. Of course, Dixie did most of the heavy lifting in that department, complete with mild put-downs to Gina and regular boasts about the ardor she and Grant shared for each other.

  Purity texted through most of the meal and said nothing and was pretty much ignored as she had been on the flight. Grant and she never even looked at each other. Not then, not ever that I saw.

  So we zip through the meal, candles burning down, the wine bottles being depleted in direct proportion to the growing tension and anticipation over the evening to come. I would venture that if there were any lapses in judgment that fateful evening, ones that seem curious in hindsight, you might ascribe some of that to the wine. Everybody was half in the bag when we scuttled away from the table.

  I think we can see the initial deployment of various schemes best using a crane shot at the back of the villa. Panning slowly right to left. Grant and Dixie—carrying a small duffel bag—trot down the path toward the marina.

  As we pan farther left, Gina, seen through her balcony in her bedroom, is holding the fake ring and tucks it into her most delectable bikini top, adjusting it so it doesn’t show in the mirror. The mere thought of her doing so gives me a manly shudder. The ring secure, she picks a tropical shawl off the bed and wraps it over her shoulders for warmth.

  The camera comes to my room, and me seen from my veranda. I am brushing my teeth and checking the whiteness of my smile in the mirror, adjusting my testicles. Yes, ladies, they need adjusting, it isn’t something we do for fun.

  Then the camera comes to Purity’s room, where we see her slip into a flashy short dress, her hair carefully messed and moussed for a night out on the town. A clever girl, spirited, and I admit that I still like her spunk even if she did make the effort to frame me, the man who more or less saved her life twice.

  As we pan farther left, we leave the house behind and see the gardens. We zoom into the gardens, until we see the candlelight flickering in the gardener’s shed, Paco muttering his prayers in Spanish. Cue subtitles:

  “I go without fear, but if they direct that I should die and you do not protect me from failure, come and take me. So be it.”

  We hear the candle blown out and the screen goes dark.

  CHAPTER

  FORTY-NINE

  WAVES GUSH ONTO THE SHORES of Rampart Beach by starlight. Grant’s motorboat emerges from the darkness, the engine shutting down as it slides with a sizzle onto the beach. The towering spires of rock look over the silhouette of Grant and someone in pigtails. Purity? No: She speaks and it is Dixie, and we see her adjust her wig as she whispers to Grant.

  “So do we have it straight, smoochie? With the ether from la farmacia, Paco and I will subdue Morty. Then I go down the path and hide and make sure Purity comes down the path before heading back to meet you at the yacht. Paco will do what he does, leave the weapon with Morty, and follow me to the yacht to be paid. We motor him up the coast to San José San Cabo, send him on his way, make sure we are seen at the marina for the alibi.”

  “So what time do you think you’ll be back?”

  “Ten-ish. Purity is not exactly punctual.”

  “Got it. Good luck—and be careful!”

  Dixie patted him on the cheek. “I am a force to be reckoned with, or hadn’t you noticed?”

  Grant gave her a quick kiss, and in silhouette we can see by her hesitance that she expected a longer embrace. She clambered over the front of the boat and into the waves, giving the boat a shove back out into the ocean. Grant started the motor, waved, and sped away. Dixie stood on the beach, small duffel over her shoulder, wearing a blond pigtail wig and Purity’s wardrobe.

  “Señorita?”

  Dixie shrieked, startled:

  Paco was standing behind her. He was dressed in dark coveralls, perfect camouflage for the shadows of the rocks. In one hand he held his curved pineapple hatchet. In the other, a gardener’s sickle.

  * * *

  Even as I began my hike down to the Ramparts, Gina started down the steps to the yacht, and Purity wheeled a Vespa out of the garage.

  CHAPTER

  FIFTY

  BY TEN O’CLOCK, THE CLOAKED specter of fate had begun his dastardly plan for us all.

  I arrived at the beach a little after nine, and by starlight alone saw who I thought was Purity in the shadows. I went in that direction, and that is the last thing I remember. I am not sure how I was subdued other than by the ether, as my only injury was four scratches across my chest. They were meant to look like those suffered by a rapist being clawed by his victim.

  By ten I lay on the sand in a dark, hidden crevice of the rocks. Paco squatted next to me. In one hand he held the sickle, and in the other the ether, ready to make sure I did not awake until Purity was dead next to me. He was waiting to make his kill.

  Dixie was halfway along the path to the villa, up a ledge, checking her watch. Her impatience got the better of her. She clambered down and began hiking back to the villa.

  * * *

  Cut away to the yacht, where Grant had Gina cornered on a sofa, his arm around her where he could keep an eye on his watch and the time. Glasses of champagne were in their hands.

  “Robert, you know I like you, but I can’t have a relationship with you. It can only be for sex, you know that?”

  “That’s a good place to start.” He giggled and moved in for a kiss. She turned her neck to him and he began slobbering on it. Well, perhaps I should say he was kissing her neck, but I don’t like imagining this.

  “You have to know something, Robert. I like sex in the water.”

  That bastard giggled again from the confines of her nape. “Great, the Jacuzzi is all warmed up.”

  “Oh. I was going to say I don’t mind cold water.” Gina winced, her eye searching her surroundings for some recourse other than having to let him grope her in the hot tub.

  He stood, pulling Gina to her feet with one hand and wrappin
g his other arm around the champagne bucket. “Let’s go!”

  * * *

  Dixie stood in the garage staring at where the Vespa had been. She bent down and picked up Purity’s phone, which was on the ground, obviously dropped by accident.

  Dixie hissed, “That bitch!”

  We see Dixie heading back down the path to the Ramparts, cursing under her breath, cell phone in her hand.

  * * *

  Grant led Gina out to the aft deck and flipped a switch. The Jacuzzi glowed green, plumes of bubbles erupting from the depths. With a beguiling smile, Gina dropped her skirt. In only a bikini, she placed her lovely behind on the edge of the tub and rotated her legs into the water.

  “Coming?”

  Still holding the champagne bucket, Grant was momentarily hypnotized by Gina’s otherworldly pulchritude, second only to Aphrodite on a good day.

  “Here.” Gina reached out her hands. “Give me the champagne so you can undress.”

  He did so hurriedly, and Gina plunked the bucket on the edge of the tub.

  Before he could step back she let the bucket tip forward, then pretended to try to catch the bucket from falling.

  Instead she sloshed the icy water on the front of his pants.

  Grant’s whoop of penile surprise echoed through the cove.

  * * *

  Paco peeked around the corner of his cubbyhole and did a double take.

  He saw the approach of a woman in blond pigtails and jumped to his feet. His back flat against the rock wall, Paco brandished both the sickle and the hatchet, me sprawled at his feet.

  Paco whispered in Spanish, “Santa Muerte, do not abandon me from your protection, and I ask your blessing upon your devotee, Paco, and that I am blessed with wealth for accomplishing what has been denied me.”

  * * *

  “I am so sorry, Robert!” Gina splashed out of the tub and to where Grant stood hissing and waving his hands at his sides. “You want me to rub it?”

  Like any man who has had a penile surprise, Grant was in too much shock to hear what she was saying or to do anything but hope the moment would pass quickly. He had hunched over and was making woofing sounds, one eye closed.

  “Let’s get you into the warm tub just the way you are!” Gina guided Grant in shuffling steps back to the edge of the tub. “One leg, then the other, that’s the boy.”

  She heard a plunk and looked back.

  The gold Caravaca ring of Hernando Martinez de Salvaterra was in a puddle on the deck behind her.

  As Grant lowered himself into the Jacuzzi, he shuttered violently.

  “Oops! My suppository fell out!” Gina crouched out of view for perhaps five seconds.

  When she reappeared, Grant had recovered enough from his penile surprise to ask, “Suppository?”

  Gina had battled men’s advances her entire adult life, and unfortunately some of her childhood as well. With women of lesser beauty, feigning a menstrual cycle would be an adequate defense against the onslaught. Gina had learned that for her there was really only one thing that would absolutely, positively make men not want to slip her the wood.

  Gina lifted one leg and then the other into the glowing green Jacuzzi. “Oh, it’s nothing, you’ll hardly feel it.” She handed Grant his champagne glass and settled in next to him.

  “Hardly feel what, where?”

  “It’s just medicine. Now where were we?”

  “Medicine?” Grant’s brow was a tower of furrows. “Medicine for what?”

  “I mean, once you’ve got it, it really isn’t that bad. People make such a big deal.”

  “They do?”

  Gina had wrapped herself around Grant, which under any sort of ordinary circumstances should have put him instantly back into an amorous mood. However, even as he may have recovered from one variety of penile peril, he was now experiencing another.

  “Make a big deal about what?” he asked.

  “The sores, silly, and the occasional discharge. It’s nothing. You’ll see.”

  * * *

  Head hung low, Paco knelt at the starry water’s edge. Waves crashed before him, ocean foam surging forward and swirling around his legs. He was shirtless, an elaborate tattoo of Santa Muerte’s grim scythe-bearing visage on his chest. In his hands was the pineapple hatchet. The jagged, fanglike rocks of the Ramparts rose ominously behind him.

  In subtitles:

  “Oh, Santa Muerte, I have called upon you for guidance but have accepted your will. You have helped me travel far, been my guiding light on my mission, and brought me full circle to this place in my homeland so that I might honorably complete my mission and return to my people with pride. It is not for me to question how or why you have done this only to abandon me from your protection at the most critical moment. No, I, Hermes Pacifico Diego Ramirez, El Cabezador, accept the meager destiny that you have bestowed, and I ask your blessing in returning me safely to my people, and hopefully with some small recompense for accomplishing the journey, despite the outcome, so that I might claim some small measure of success. I go without fear, but if you direct that I should die and you do not protect me from failure, come and take me. My soul is as ever always yours, Santa Muerte. So be it.”

  Paco unfolded himself and stood bare-chested in the starlight. He tucked the hatchet behind him in his waistband, the blade between his shoulder blades. With grim resolve, he turned and strode up the beach toward the path back to the villa.

  As the camera pans with him, we see in the distance that he picks up something the size of a soccer ball wrapped in his shirt. He tucks it under his arm and marches toward the lights of the villa.

  * * *

  Gina was on the dock, shawl around her shoulders, and back in her skirt.

  Robert was on the yacht, at the railing. “I’m sorry, Gina, I hadn’t realized it was so late. I’m expecting Dixie. If you see her on the path just tell her you came down for a look at the Hollywood yacht, OK?”

  Gina nodded and blew him a kiss.

  Her beautiful legs made quick work of the stairs, and as soon as she turned the corner out of sight of the yacht she pulled the Caravaca ring from her bikini top. It dangled from a loop of string, and she favored the trinket with a radiant smile. “Gotcha!”

  Footsteps approached, and her eyebrows shot up in alarm.

  Gina crouched, making herself small in a crevice in the rock and hiding her face.

  Paco tromped past on his way to the yacht, his shirt-wrapped package tucked securely under his arm.

  * * *

  Goggle-eyed from his close encounter with sores and discharges, Grant stepped up to the yacht’s bar and sloshed Scotch into a glass from a decanter.

  He took a sip, closed his eyes, and shuddered.

  His eyes popped open, and he put a hand on his pants front.

  Grant shoved his hand down his pants, feeling for the ring under his nut sack. His eyes darted this way and that as he retraced what had happened that evening. He hurried out to the Jacuzzi and turned it off. His face glowed green as he searched the depths of the tub for his ring. Turning, he began looking on the floor.

  “Ouch!”

  He stepped on something hard, wheeled, and stooped down out of frame.

  He came back up into frame, fake ring in his hands, a smile of relief on his face.

  “Gotcha!”

  A close-up of the ring dissolves into a quick flashback, of young Robert being led by a young Father Gomez through the courtyard of the orphanage. Ahead stood a man and a woman, smiling, clearly the couple that had adopted him. The gold ring was clutched tight in Robert’s hand, his eyes darting to the empty windows of the orphanage on either side. Yet one of the windows ahead was not empty. In the window was Pasqual, his eyes hooded, a scowl upon his lips.

  Silently, Pasqual’s lips mouthed the words Destino Ganado.

  The yacht rocked, and Grant snapped out of his reverie.

  Feet tromped up the gangplank.

  “Dixie? How’d it go?”

 
From the darkness, Paco stepped on deck, the reaper tattoo on his chest.

  The shirt-wrapped package was in one hand, the pineapple hatchet in the other.

  * * *

  In a rented Ford compact, Skip Baker arrived at the gates to Villa del Destino Ganado. He leaned out and pushed the intercom button.

  After a long pause, the box crackled with the voice of the caretaker.

  “Qué?”

  “I’m here to see Purity. My name is Skip Baker.”

  The box buzzed. “No está en casa.”

  Through the gate, Skip spotted Gina in the distance trotting up the path from the yacht.

  “Excuse me! Hello?” Skip got out of the car, waving.

  Gina stopped and peered toward Skip. She hesitated.

  “I’m here to see Purity. Can you tell me where she went? I’m here from New York.”

  Yellow flashed the night sky.

  From the marina’s cove an orange tongue of fire licked the sky, vanishing back into the cliff’s maw in a swirl of sparks. The ground jolted.

  * * *

  Mini cutaway: We see the calludaroo on Grant’s dresser jump from the explosion’s thump.

  * * *

  Both Skip and Gina were dumbstruck by the pillar of fire boiling into the sky.

  “Oh my God!” Gina muttered.

  She turned and ran back toward the marina.

  Skip leaped onto the hood of his car and rolled over the top of the gate, charging across the lawn after her.

  The camera tracks behind Gina as she dashes down the path and curves around the cliff face. Ahead, the path pulses with firelight, and as she turns the corner we see the yacht below, a cauldron of flame in a hull and nothing else. The entire inside of the vintage boat had been blown out, and anybody on board obliterated. Fragments of falling wood and metal chunked and clanked against the cliff walls, all eventually splashing into the fiery waters below.