by Jim Nesbitt
Mueller and his partners barely survived that mid-’80s dive. They scrambled around to find new customers for the extruded plastic parts they could crank out of their factory, turning to firms in Texas, New Mexico and Arizona, finding companies accustomed to cutting deals in Mexico and unfazed by the country’s fluctuating economy.
This was tough sledding in a Texas doubled over from the triple body shot of the oil and real estate bust and the savings and loan collapse, but they did okay with firms in the other states. As one crusty owner of a Deming, New Mexico, electrical components company told him: “Hell, my daddy started doin’ business down there in 1901. Got shot at by a bunch of Villistas. Unless you tell me ol’ Pancho’s come back from the dead and is knockin’ on your door, I ain’t worried.”
Prophetic words given the Zedillo government’s decision to send in the troops against Subcommandante Marcos and the Zapatista rebels in Chiapas state, a tough-guy gesture meant to soothe the nerves of investors in the massive Mexican bailout, mainly the U.S. government, the International Monetary Fund and assorted Wall Street types. A dicey move for any Mexican politician, fraught with the risk of appearing to be the gunhand for gringo money interests. But there you had it — the federales and rebels shooting at each other again. Far from the border but too close to Mexico’s violent, revolutionary past for Mueller’s comfort.
Mueller’s mind wasn’t eased by Zedillo’s sudden reversal — a halt to the military operation and a request that the rebels reopen negotiations. More talk. With Subcommandante Marcos, the pipe-smoking son of the middle class whose identity had been revealed by an informer and whose romantic reputation was dogged by the rumor he might be receiving massive subsidies from the CIA.
Mueller heard these rumors in the bodegas in Piedras. Bundles of fifty-peso notes bandied about by the Zapatistas in Chiapas. Subcommandante Marcos as a front for the CIA, bidding to undermine the party that had ruled Mexico for six decades, the Partido de Revolution Institutional, the PRI, a corrupt and doddering dinosaur ripe for toppling. Hopes that voters would rush to the more business-oriented Partido Authentico Nacional, the PAN, a group that would cut a more favorable deal with American capitalists.
Crazy talk but seductively logical. And the fireworks could resume at any time. Unless you were a gunrunner or a mortician, revolution was no place for a capitalist. At least, not a small-timer like Mueller. Another reason for long-term worries.
Mueller also had to juggle the interests of that special client, the one his partners knew nothing about, the one who just wanted a flat one-for-one return on the money pumped across the border then back again and occasionally asked him to handle a little cross-river shipping problem.
That special client gave him his biggest worries but filled his pockets with enough jingle to afford the Rolex, the new Suburban and the Ranger bass boat with the 200-horsepower Yamaha In-Line Four that made it an aquatic rocket. Tired of grubbing for customers during the bust, Mueller had been willing to listen to a smooth-talking friend of a business acquaintance, a man who called himself Mr. Stabler and walked with the cocky limp of an ex-jock, a man who said he needed help servicing a group of businessmen with a special problem that would earn him a steady stream of cash into the account of his choice if he helped solve it.
It had been easy pickin’s — money in, dummied-up supply bills and service contracts and order forms, money back out, minus a handsome handling charge, of course. Screw the small dips in the exchange rate; with a steady flow, the little ups and downs evened out.
The smooth talker didn’t seem to care. They phoned each other regularly and sometimes he dropped down for a visit, flying his own Beech Baron into the municipal airport. He took the smoothie to Piedras and the Restaurante Moderne on Allende — he and Marta and a friend of Marta’s to put on the smoothie’s arm. They ate and drank and the smoothie told him the special client was very happy. But he didn’t trust a man stupid, arrogant or vain enough to pick the last name of a left-handed pro quarterback as a nom de guerre. He made it a point to make himself known to the contacts in New Orleans and backchannel a relationship with them. Call it insurance.
Smoothie dealt him the cash on a biweekly basis. He checked with New Orleans on the same basis. This new money gave his business a stronger foundation and kept those parasitic partners off his back. It also put him in the bar and restaurant business in Piedras Negras, the perfect complement to the wash-and-wear service he was already giving.
The shipping deals were even easier; a package slipped into goods headed north, a truck number called in to a New Orleans number from a payphone next to a Shamrock convenience store in El Indio. Sometimes a call to meet a truck bringing supplies and a special package from the states.
Smoothness until a few weeks ago. Then the smoothie stopped calling; fresh money quit rolling in. And he got a midnight visit from two rude dudes with thick y’at accents fresh from Metarie — bull-necked, big-bellied guys who looked like they muscled crates and drums for a living and didn’t give a shit about what went down their gullets or how much whiskey or light lager they used to wash it down. His wife and son weren’t home; they were visiting her folks in Houston.
The dudes jerked him out of bed and smacked him around. But they didn’t kill him. Only because he was able to show them the money that hit his accounts before the smoothie disappeared was still in play.
He was lucky. But he was also pocketing the payoff of playing it smart. The insurance policy kept him alive. Alive and dented. Alive and working a direct relationship with New Orleans. No more backchannels. No middleman to entertain.
Smoothness again until the peso collapsed. Then he had to work like a madman to get the client’s cash back over the border before a third of its value vanished in the free-fall. They didn’t mind the little dips but they’d kill him two or three times if he didn’t cover their backsides on this one. He was still smoothie’s recruit, not theirs. And it was clear they wanted to kill smoothie in the worst way and didn’t care who they took out along the way.
That’s why a Ruger .357 in matte chrome rode in the map pocket of the driver’s side door and a blued Smith & Wesson in the same caliber nestled in his tooled leather briefcase with two speed loaders full of jacketed hollow point. Right next to the Toshiba laptop and portable modem. He was watching his back for the smooth talker, too.
He recovered most of the money. New Orleans seemed satisfied with his accounting but told him they were shutting down the laundry for a while. A setback. Another key business partner spooked by Mexico’s instability. Back to where he was at the time of the last collapse. But better than being dead. And there was still the promise of special shipments that required his familiar touch.
His stomach rumbled as he turned onto Main. Burrito time. He pulled into the dirt lot of Flaco’s taqueria and ordered his usual. Two of them, gobbled as he rolled down toward the checkpoint leading to the Puente Internacional, a slow crawl cross the river and around the welcoming arc of shops and the park that fronted the cathedral. Faster rolling out Abasolo to the crosstown cut on Avenida Torreon, which became Calle Zaragoza and led him to a long two-story blue stucco building at the end of Calle Monclova.
The sign above the entrance said Dos Republicas Fabricar Plastico. Inside, the hum of machinery and the sharp sweet smell of plastic resins, powerful despite the sweep of chilled early morning air from the factory’s ventilation fans. The first shift was in high gear, making harnesses for the wiring systems of vans and light trucks and housings and mounting brackets for the fans on a cooling system of a portable generator.
He spoke to Luis Aguilar, the shift foreman, then headed for his office at the rear of the second floor with a list of logistical problems to iron out, burping up a bit of cabrito and kidney as he climbed the stairs, huffing with exertion.
“Got to hit the treadmill, son. Just got to.”
He patted his belly and ducked into his office. Phone and paperwork. Trying to unknot a supply problem and hustle up a
new customer or three. Two or three more cups of coffee. Lost in thought.
The cellphone on the left corner of his desk chirped — one of the old-style Motorola columns that all the business machos carried, slapping them upright on the table at lunch or happy hour like so many phallic silos. Used to be pistols. Now you muscled up with an electronic device that peeped like a parakeet. A sign of modern times.
The cellphone chirped again. His private number. Mistress or wife. One of his fishing or golf buddies. But not New Orleans. Definitely not New Orleans. That would be insecure. Their calls came to one of his cafes or bars. Another chirp. He punched the Talk button and slipped into an informal, but guarded tone that was different from his brusque business style.
“Bueno.”
“Why haven’t you called today?”
A sharp, accusatory tone. No pouting. Marta, leading as she always did with a slap instead of sugar.
“Vida mia, I’ve been buried under a ton of work.”
“I don’t care about that — it’s almost 11 and I haven’t heard from you. Are you coming over to take me to lunch or did you plan to just pop over for a quick fuck?”
“I plan on doing both. And neither one that quickly.”
“Humph — mister big-time businessman. Always in a hurry. Always trying to do too much at once. And never doing anything the right way.”
“Look, I’ve about got things squared away. Some jokers are supposed to call me around noon about a new order. So look for me around one.”
“One my time.”
“Si, mi vida. Your time, not Texas time.”
“It would help if you lived over here so I wouldn’t have to worry about time differences with Texas.”
He said nothing.
“Instead of being with me, you live over there with that fat cow of a wife and I sleep alone.”
“I don’t have time to get into this right now.”
“Hah! You never do. And you won’t until it’s too late.”
Bait in front of his nose, like the blade of a spinner flashing past a big lunker. He knew there was a hook there. He bit anyway.
“What’s that supposed to mean? You tired of not having to pay the rent? You bored with toolin’ down to Mexico City or up to San Antone with me? You rather be flat-backin’ college boys from a crib in Boys’ Town?”
“Jódase en el hocico, pendejo! Comer mierda y besar mi culo . . .”
He listened to this long tear of Spanish profanity, waiting for her to pause and catch her breath.
“See you at one. Be ready.”
He punched the Off button and gingerly placed the cellphone back in its recharging cradle. It wouldn’t chirp again. Not because of her. She would be there when he pulled up.
He was certain. She bitched and cussed him thoroughly at every opportunity and he never failed to take advantage of an opportunity to ignite her rage. But they had been together four years and enjoyed the same things — fucking, fine dining, dancing, travel to cities far enough to be away from home, but not so far as to be totally out of touch with what was familiar. That meant cities in the Southwest, Central America and the interior of Mexico, but not New York or San Francisco or Kingston, Jamaica. His wife was stuck in the groove between Eagle Pass and Houston and welcomed the fact he didn’t press her to take business trips with him. Which he did on a frequent basis to cover his cards.
His wife did like to fish, so he took her along occasionally. Marta didn’t fish and ridiculed him for wounding poor water creatures with sharp hooks, warning him he would come back to earth as a bass that would be endlessly jerked out of its hiding place, hounded by hell’s own anglers.
Sex bound them together. Marta loved to suck his cock and would start unzipping his trousers before he had a chance to clear the door of her flat. He loved to fuck her from behind in the shower, with hot water pounding his chest and her back, soaking the place where their bodies merged.
Marta had talents outside of the bedroom, ballroom and dining hall. She was a meticulous bookkeeper, with the soul of a hard-nosed supply sergeant. When he cut the deal with smoothie and bought into a small string of bars and cafes, Marta took over ordering supplies and making sure the bartenders and managers didn’t rip him off too badly. She banked the daily take, skimming some for herself, he assumed, and handing a cut over to him for walk-around money. She also tended the books — the legal ones. The off-book accounting he handled himself.
They would huddle at her apartment and go over her handwritten ledgers. He would enter her numbers in the spreadsheet of his laptop. After lunch. Before sex. If they could wait that long. Most times, they couldn’t. Marta would bring the ledgers into bed and spread them across the scattered sheets and pillows. He would sit cross-legged and naked with the Toshiba on his bare thighs. Sometimes, Marta would reach under the laptop and stroke him to hardness.
Mueller could feel his cock start to stir as he thought about Marta, her coarse curls, the flat sharp planes of her face, her broad nose and full lips. Her nipples stood out from her breasts like the cherry top of a cop car from the 40s, tall, bullet-headed cylinders the color of oxblood. Their bases would whiten when he clenched them between his teeth and pulled back, dragging a throaty moan from her mouth, open and huffing hot puffs of air in time to the thrust of his hips and cock.
He checked his watch. Almost noon. His call didn’t come in until quarter past. It was a waste of time — three strangers blathering to him on a conference call where individual words were wiped out by static or the talker’s distance from the speaker phone. Lots of bold noise. Lots of qualifiers. One message shot through the static — these guys were taking their business elsewhere and didn’t have the cojones to tell him so directly.
The call ended with false promises. He shook his head in disgust and checked his watch. Quarter till. He would be late. She would be mad. Bad for their luncheon conversation. Good for siesta sex. He grabbed the cellphone, tossed it in his briefcase and gunned the Suburban across town.
Traffic crawled. He drummed his fingers on the dashboard, feeling his tension rise. She wasn’t at the curb. He didn’t expect her to be. She would be upstairs, fuming, practicing her glare of impatience. A firefight over lunch, he thought. He eased the Suburban onto the sidewalk and tapped the horn twice. He crooked his neck to look up at her window. No waving hand, no quick pop of the head. He tapped the horn again then waited. Nothing.
He checked the side-mirror for traffic then popped open his door, sliding out and grabbing the briefcase as his boots hit the street. He glanced at the Ruger nestled in the map pocket of the door, metal swathed in mustard-colored silicone cloth. The gun’s dull gleam jostled a small germ of doubt that wasn’t fast enough to catch up with his hurried consciousness.
Her door. His key. Two steps inside. A third. Nobody home. Cold metal jammed into his temple. An arm around his throat, jerking him backwards and on the back of his heels. A leg thrust between his legs, bracing him in this helpless position.
“Welcome, Cully. You’re late. Marta was pacing the floor when I got here. Bad manners to keep a lady like this waiting. Felt sorry for her and had her take a load off.”
“Where is she, man? What have you done to her?”
“Now, now, Cully — calm yourself. We’re all friends here. We’ve broken bread together, sipped wine, laughed at each others’ jokes. Hell, I’ve even fucked some of Marta’s best friends. The last thing I’d want to do is hurt Marta.”
“Where is she?”
“Right where you like her, son. In bed. I took the liberty of using certain carnal accessories to keep her there. Nothing harmful of course. The same silk scarves and handcuffs she keeps in her nightstand for you. I assume she uses them on you. Does she? Or are they for some other Anglo studhoss?”
“Piss off, Crowe.”
Mueller felt Crowe’s arm tighten across his throat, the biceps cutting his airway. He started to gag.
“Now, be nice. Keep things friendly. I’ve had a very long nigh
t and a very long morning and I’m in too filthy a mood to ask for anything twice. Be a good boy and drop that briefcase on the floor. Very good.”
Mueller coughed twice then tried to talk. He coughed again. His voice was raspy.
“You are a crazy bastard for coming here, man. New Orleans wants you real dead, real quick.”
“Yes, and you’d like to be the one who gives them what they want, right? That’d square you up just perfect with those wop bastards, wouldn’t it? Put you solid on their side and wash away the taint of being associated with me.”
“You got me wrong.”
“Really? I think I underestimated you all along. You’re still alive, aren’t you? I assume some gentlemen from the Pelican State dropped in shortly after I disappeared. Normally they’d bounce you off the walls, hook you up to some nasty electrical device, get the information they want out of you then snap your neck for you. But you’re still walkin’ and talkin’ and fuckin’ ol’ Marta here. That tells me you were smart enough to get friendly with New Orleans behind my back.”
Mueller said nothing. He let Crowe muscle him across the living room of Marta’s flat and dump him hard on a ladder-back chair. Crowe pinned his arms behind one of the slats then bound them together with electrical cord. Next came his legs.
Crowe rose up from his work and stretched toward the ceiling, hands at the small of his back, moaning slightly as he rolled his head from side to side.
“What’s wrong with you?”
“Bus ride — twenty hours.”
“A man like you on the Gray Dog. I don’t see it.”
A stare and a tight smile: “Reversal of fortune.”
Long seconds of silence. Crowe’s eyes on Mueller, flat and assessing, sensors taking in the data and giving no feedback. A nod from Crowe and a break in the silence.
“You helped yourself by doing that.”