Bitter Drink

by F. G. Haghenbeck

  Text copyright © 2006 by F. G. Haghenbeck

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Bitter Drink was first published in 2006 by Roca as Trago amargo. Translated from Spanish by Tanya Huntington. Published in English by Treadstone Ltd. in 2012.

  Published by Blue Amazonas Corp.

  P.O. Box 24610

  Las Vegas, NV 89140

  To Bill “el Chief” and Silvia, thanks for the support, the love, and the real-life inspiration for this novel. I promise to return the favor.

  I DRY MARTINI

  II THE ZOMBIE

  III MINT JULEP

  IV MARGARITA

  V CUBA LIBRE

  VI TEQUILA WITH SANGRITA (JALISCO-STYLE)

  VII HURRICANE

  VIII GIMLET

  IX BLOODY MARY

  X HANKY-PANKY

  XI TOM COLLINS

  XII LOLITA

  XIII WHITE RUSSIAN

  XIV SIDECAR

  XV BLUE LAGOON

  XVI NEGRONI

  XVII MOJITO

  XVIII DAIQUIRI

  XIX MANHATTAN

  XX KAMIKAZE

  XXI PIÑA COLADA

  XXII MAI TAI

  XXIII SANGRITA, TEXAS-STYLE

  XXIV SALTY DOG

  XXV GIBSON

  XXVI IGUANA MARTINI

  LAST CALL

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  A man’s got to believe in something. I believe I’ll have another drink.

  —W. C. FIELDS

  Alcohol is the anesthesia by which we endure the operation of life.

  —GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

  One can drink too much, but one never drinks enough.

  —GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM LESSING

  6 PARTS GIN

  1 PART DRY WHITE VERMOUTH

  COCKTAIL OLIVES

  Combine the gin, vermouth, and ice in a shaker, mix until chilled. Serve in a cocktail glass. Garnish with the olives. Enjoy while listening to Frank Sinatra sing “Witchcraft.”

  The origin of the best-known cocktail in the world is the subject of some debate. It made its debut in California in 1870. And some contend that it was created by a San Francisco barman named Martinez, while others believe it was first served in the small California town of Martinez. Both theories, however, account for its distinctive name. The drink gained popularity during Prohibition because of the relative ease of distilling gin.

  The martini used to be sweeter, with the components mixed in equal parts, than it is today. Though Winston Churchill believed that one glance at a bottle of vermouth was enough, most agree the olive provides the final touch and—according to many mixologists, modern-day alchemists—absorbs the evil spirits in the gin.

  American par excellence, the symbol of soirées, style, and class, the martini has been the preferred drink of Hollywood stars, writers, and even presidents for decades—from Humphrey Bogart, Raymond Chandler, Dorothy Parker, and Luis Buñuel to Franklin Delano Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy, to name a few. The last take of the day on a movie set is known as the “martini shot.”

  Some call it by the elegant nickname “silver bullet.” Its simplicity is what makes it so marvelous: only two ingredients are required to create something so sublime.

  __________________

  He wasn’t as tall as he looked in photographs, just slightly shorter than a palm tree. His voice wasn’t that deep either, only a notch lower than a lawn mower. He puffed on a cigar the size of a rolling pin, perfuming the entire set. His face, underneath the panama hat jammed down over his ears, radiated power—a god looking down upon mere mortals. He embodied the kind of power possessed by those who run the movie business. And that’s the only power that counts here.

  The director was barking out instructions to his people: actors, producers, technicians, assistants, the locals hired as extras, and dozens of onlookers surrounding the cameras, all working to make his dream, his film, a reality.

  I felt sorry for the lot of them, soaked in sweat in this debilitating climate. I, on the other hand, was drinking a martini so dry it drove away the oppressive humidity. And Richard Burton, who was sitting next to me, had just finished his. He ordered another. A double.

  I wondered in which leg he stored all that booze. He was carrying around more fuel than the gas plant that powered the set’s electricity. Burton spent so much time at that bar you’d have thought they planted him there a hundred years ago. And, as long as they kept the drinks coming, he’d stick around for a hundred more. He was playing an alcoholic reverend in the film, and given how much he had been drinking, I thought he deserved an Oscar for his work off the set as much as on.

  A reporter with a face like a cockatoo asked Burton if Elizabeth Taylor was annoyed to find herself in a remote Mexican town surrounded by snakes, tarantulas, mosquitoes, and scorpions.

  “She’s one tough cookie. But that’s Liz. She walks so dainty and looks like a French tart,” he replied in his thick Welsh accent, while chewing on an olive, his lunch for the day.

  I turned my attention to the scene they were filming: a conversation between “Lolita” and the “God-Fearing Woman.” To me, and probably the rest of the world, Sue Lyon would always be Lolita, her most recent role before this one. But she was more renowned for playing the lead in every man’s erotic fantasies. Her childish body, crowned by that wicked angel face, simply reeked of illicit sex. One look at her and you could almost taste twenty years of prison. But it was just a front. That chick was more baked than last year’s Christmas turkey.

  I never liked Deborah Kerr’s acting in the first place. But, as the God-Fearing Woman, I liked her even less. She reminded me of someone on my mother’s side of the family. We have a saying in Mexico about people from Puebla, something to the effect of not wanting to touch them with a ten-foot pole because they’re vermin. And there’s a kernel of truth to that.

  Ava Gardner was the only star missing at that moment. She was playing a mature woman this time, a former lover of Burton’s character, determined to have sex with all the macho men in town. Miss Gardner was back in her bungalow rehearsing for the role. She’d locked herself in with a crooner from a local bar, and it sounded like she’d found her necessary motivation; her cries were so embarrassingly loud that Gabriel Figueroa, the famous Mexican cinematographer, had to turn up the volume on his gramophone. Carmen could be heard everywhere, punctuated by the sounds of Miss Gardner’s climax and the warbling of the cinematographer’s off-tune tenor.

  My boss, producer Ray Stark, flashed me a smile, as he surveyed the impressive set built on scenic Mismaloya Beach, as if to welcome me to paradise. But I’d misread his expression. He wasn’t welcoming me to heaven; he was welcoming me to hell.

  All of the actors on The Night of the Iguana hated each other, and there was more sexual tension on the set than at a high-school dance. The director was so sure they would end up killing each other that he’d had five golden pistols made, each loaded with five silver bullets, a different name, including the producer’s, engraved on each one. The director was a cautious man; he didn’t include any bullets engraved with his own name. Even so, Mr. Stark seemed happy with everybody and everything.

  I didn’t know why he was so happy with me. We were so different we must have descended from different apes. He’d done everything imaginable in his life, and he was famous and a millionaire to boot. All he had left to do was write a book.

  As for me, well, I didn’t know what I was yet. For that, I guess, you need an entire lifetime. I’m just a beatnik bloodhound by the name of Sunny Pascal, half-Me
xican, half-gringo, half-alcoholic, half-surfer, half-dead, half-alive. Hell, I even speak half español, mitad English.

  And I was in hell.

  Two days earlier they’d found one of those silver bullets in a body so dead not even the flies would land on it. One of the actors had done it. My job was to keep everyone out of jail. Let dead dogs lie.

  The roar of a motorboat suddenly shook everyone at the bar out of their inebriated haze for a moment. A glowing Elizabeth Taylor, clad in an eye-catching pink bikini, disembarked. If she was the incarnation of sin, as the Catholic Church seemed to believe, then she was the juiciest piece of flesh since Mary Magdalene.

  Richard Burton, still clutching his drink, was clearly aroused by the vision.

  “See! Now she’s even dressed like a French tart!” he told the reporter.

  The gossip-rag photographers started firing their cameras at the world’s most infamous couple. I finished my martini, enjoying the three-ring circus they’d staged.

  The backdrop of the Mismaloya set was truly beautiful from any angle—the mountains, the sea, the deserted beach, all the sunrises and sunsets framed by still-virgin jungle—making the enormous tangle of cables and lights seem even more tawdry. Modernity had certainly overtaken this place, raping it like a vulgar sailor.

  The director appeared next to me.

  “Keep an eye on them, Sunny. There are more reporters in Puerto Vallarta than iguanas.” He threw his cigar into the tiny, listless waves that lapped at the rocks.

  I didn’t say anything. Hardly anybody said anything to John Huston.

  1 PART DARK RUM

  1 PART LIGHT RUM

  ½ JIGGER OF BRANDY

  1 PART ORANGE AND PAPAYA JUICE

  1 PART PINEAPPLE JUICE

  TWIST OF LEMON

  1 PINEAPPLE SLICE

  1 MARASCHINO CHERRY

  1 MINT SPRIG

  Mix the rum, brandy, and juice in a shaker or blender with ice. Serve in a tiki glass with a twist of lemon. Garnish with the pineapple, cherry, and fresh mint. Enjoy to the 1963 Ventures’s hit “Let There Be Drums.”

  Perhaps the most famous tiki drink, the zombie, was created in the 1930s by California restaurateur Donn Beach in his famous Hollywood establishment, Don the Beachcomber. Beach used rum, a favorite of alcoholics and sailors, in his cocktails because it was cheap, but by mixing in fruit juice he tamed the rum’s strong favor, making it a more universally popular spirit.

  The story goes that Beach first concocted the zombie for a regular customer who had a hangover. Returning to the Beachcomber a few days later, the lucky recipient claimed the drink made him feel like the living dead. Donn’s blends were esteemed by Clark Gable, Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Groucho Marx, and Marlon Brando, making him the most famous mixologist in California, and the founding father of tiki culture.

  __________________

  The Cuban Missile Crisis had gripped the nation less than a year ago, but the world had gone back to normal since, and it almost seemed as if nothing had happened.

  “I ordered you a zombie, Sunny,” Scott Cherries announced.

  I’d just walked into the Luau Bar in Beverly Hills, and my drink was already waiting; the cherry welcomed me blushingly. In one corner of the bar, one of those new bands that bred like rabbits in California was trying to convince the small, jaded crowd that they were worthwhile by playing a catchy tune called “Surfin’ Bird.”

  Scott Cherries was drinking from a ceramic tiki glass, the kind featuring a sphinxlike Hawaiian god or the face of a Tijuana cop, depending on your perspective. Scott flirted with the barmaid, a dark-skinned girl dressed like she was from the Pacific Islands, though no doubt hailed from some little Mexican pueblo.

  Scott and I were born the same year, but he looked older than me. His mileage gave him away: he’s the kind of Republican who has a haircut like Ike’s, and nearly as bowling-ball bald, and wears glasses with ruthless frames and a shirt with stripes like a racetrack.

  I took a swig from my glass. The first sip was as refreshing as a splash of ice water. I almost asked for a towel to dry myself off. It wasn’t even five o’clock yet, but it was already too late in the day for a zombie, surf music, and Scott Cherries. Especially Scott.

  Scott was one of those new independent producers that Hollywood was hatching almost as fast as surf bands. Since the recent downfall of the major studio empire, anyone with a camera could make a picture it seemed. Scott’s group had truly transformed cinema. Though, sometimes a cheap Roger Corman film was more effective than a couple of Valiums. At least in the drive-in, you could get a little fresh with your girl.

  Scott took the movie business very seriously. He knew everything and everyone from Sacramento to Tijuana. He had a knack for public relations, hearty greetings, and cocktails. I stuck with the cocktails.

  His angle was book rights: comic books, pulp fiction, even a tome on the life of Duke Kahanamoku, the original, and greatest, surfer. If a director wanted to do a movie on Mighty Mouse, he’d have to go through Scott first. In Movieland that was a flush. Royal, to boot.

  Warner had just bought the rights to an old Dr. Seuss story from him. He used the dough to rent an office on Sunset Boulevard and buy a convertible Jaguar. I’d have given my Woody and both kidneys for that car. It’s a real dreamboat. They probably sell it with the blonde included.

  “Did you bring the photos?” he asked eagerly. “I hope you kept your mouth shut. It’s sensitive.”

  I didn’t argue. No one likes to appear in the papers in a photo taken in the men’s room of a restaurant in Ensenada. Less, when it’s not technically a restaurant, and even less, if the bathroom isn’t exactly a bathroom and the men aren’t altogether men. If you were Rock Hudson, it would be catastrophic. They’d let Doris Day get away with a tryst with some guy in a restroom but not her beau.

  “I had to pay more than we’d agreed. Some judicial cops had the photos.”

  Hollywood doesn’t like to do business with cops, especially not Mexican ones. That’s why they call me. If they needed to clean up a mess—like paying a bribe in Tijuana, or going to Rosarito because Sal Mineo flirted with a waiter there—call Sunny Pascal. He’s a beaner, a greaser; he can get his hands dirty.

  I hate them.

  As if most gringo producers, stars, and politicians didn’t stink worse than a gas-station bathroom.

  “Thanks, Sunny. I owe you one,” Scott said. He opened the envelope, careful-like, so no one else would see him. He asked the barmaid for an ashtray, and then burned the evidence right there.

  Scott always gave me jobs like these. He knew a guy who knew a guy who knew somebody who could take care of sensitive matters. And that somebody was me. Don’t get me wrong, I was very grateful. It meant I could pay the rent on a nice little apartment in Venice Beach and send some money back home to Puebla. Mamá always told me she didn’t need it, but she never sent it back either.

  “I was with a man the other night,” he said, changing the subject. Though, there was no need, he knew I’d never ask about the photos. “Ray Stark,” he said the name like it was as well-known as President Kennedy’s. “He produces Broadway shows. He’s married to Fanny Brice’s daughter.”

  “I don’t like the theater,” I told him, taking another swig of the zombie. “I’ve got enough of my own family drama.”

  “He made loads of money as a literary agent. A ton of dough. Worked with Raymond Chandler. He told me some stories.”

  He gave me that look that only real friends can give, the ones entitled to smack you in the head and call you a jackass.

  “Only someone as nuts as you would work as a detective in Hollywood just because you read his stories.”

  “I don’t like the detective bit. I prefer ‘personal security.’ It’s on my business card.”

  Scott was always laughing at my business cards. Printing the word detective on them was too cliché, but working in Hollywood as a detective was a cliché anyway.

  Not long after
I arrived in California to live with my father, I realized it wasn’t such a hot idea. So I struck out on my own. I loved the movies, the surf, and a redhead in Culver City and saw no reason to go back to Mexico. The “personal security” bit had been Scott’s idea.

  “We ended up talking about you,” he remarked.

  “Why? You’re thinking of selling him the rights to my life story?”

  “He’s going to start producing movies with outside financing, far from the long arm of the studios,” he continued without hearing a word I’d said. “And it’s gonna be big. He’s hired John Huston to do his first picture. He’s got the rights to a play by Tennessee Williams.”

  “And you’re considering me for the main role? That’s sweet of you, but my left profile doesn’t look so great on screen.”

  “He’s filming in Mexico. In a beach town. Portal Vallarta.”

  “Puerto Vallarta,” I corrected him.

  The gringos couldn’t care less about butchering Spanish. If Cervantes could hear half the things they say to me, he’d turn as pinko as Nikita Khrushchev. Together, they’d have bombed Washington, DC, Manhattan, and Disneyland by now.

  “They want someone who can solve problems if anything should happen. You know, deal with local officials.”

  “Why should there be any problems? It’s just a movie.”

  Scott ordered another round. He didn’t answer me; he was wearing that smile that only the cartoonists at Warner Brothers can reproduce. The one Sylvester the Cat sports when he thinks he’s caught Tweety.

  “Are you in? It’s easy money. They’re filming at this great spot; you can have a few margaritas, get in some surfing, and shack up with a local girl.”

  He still hadn’t answered my question. Sylvester was written all over his face.

  “Good money?” I asked.

  “More than what you’d get from me, shoveling the manure of two-bit stars south of the border.”

  The rum had done its job. Sylvester the Cat was looking pretty good after all.

  2½ OUNCES KENTUCKY BOURBON