Admittedly they’ve got a few points, and I’m not intending to wait around for my wheels when they’re being driven by an irritable angel named Ralph. I wonder how many hours it might take to get to Acapulco in a Volkswagen Beetle. I wonder what the Albanians might know about Alberto’s cocaine. I wonder if there are angels in Mexico. I wonder if I’m ever going to get back to South Texas and ask Caroline who shot me. But as the little Dutchman wrote, if you keep thinking about what you want to do or what you hope will happen, you won’t do it, and it won’t happen. So I tell Kafka to fire up the Volkswagen, and then I tell Che, “Viva la revolucion.”
17
As far as I’m concerned, the only hard rule in life is that you’ve got to live it, and that’s a rule you’ll particularly want to keep in mind when you’re travelling across the deserts of northern Mexico in a Volkswagen Beetle. It the sort of situation that really obliges a man to find the silver linings. I’m talking enchilada extravaganzas whenever we can find an excuse to stop. I’m talking making a point of sampling as many tequilas as possible, since we learn pretty quick that there are over a hundred varieties. Every once in a while Twiggy even cracks a smile, and I actually manage to get her to dance to a salsa tune I put on the jukebox in a Juarez cantina. Later that night, I think I spot Ralph in a passing truck and experience a few moments of mild panic, but Kafka makes a fair point: even if Ralph miraculously managed to tail us to the border, there’s no chance an American like him would ever have a passport. When I point out that I’m an American too, he says I’m more international, which I guess I take as high praise. “Also he doesn’t have any school of Botticelli Madonnas to bribe his way through the border without a passport the way you did,” Kafka says, and in truth it’s unbelievable the number of laws you have to break to do God's bidding.
The kids hand out paintings in El Paso, they donate them to strangers in Chihuahua and Mexico City. Along the way we talk the missing original through every which way. They insist that Alberto never did drugs and that the cocaine must have been planted on him, but they have no idea why. The trip takes us three long days, and I wouldn’t want to repeat it, but then I could name you thousands of worse ways to spend three days. For that matter, I could name you a worse way to spend eternity.
Once we hit Acapulco, we check into a five-star Hyatt, courtesy of Harry Shore. I figure we deserve it after all the money I’ve saved him traveling such distances in an automobile airbrushed with a man in a beret. Immediately we decide to put one of us at the airport to follow the Farsinellis once they arrive, and to hopefully find out how a painting worth authenticating got all the way down here. Meanwhile the other two will scour the streets for orphans and Lulu Shore on the off chance she might provide a few clues of her own. Twiggy doesn’t want to be left alone with yours truly, which puts her at the airport, leaving orphan duty to Kafka and me. We keep Che in the hotel garage and enjoy sunny Acapulco on foot, since that’s really the way you want to do it. Mariachi bands, taco stalls, college girls wrapped up tight in beach towels. The suit just seems to move easier in that warm seaside air.
We take our investigations into the bars and down onto the beach. Kafka’s not much of a swimmer himself, but I buy myself some swimming trunks, and it causes quite a stir, the streamlined self, as I cruise across the sand looking for an unoccupied lounge chair. I mean these shorts would be snug on a eunuch, so you can imagine. Sort of like a Speedo that had too much to drink and lost a bet. Make enough friends in thirty seconds to last a lifetime, though to be honest most of these are seventeen-year-old fellas selling shell necklaces, coca-colas, parasailing tours, or whatever they’ve got. Don’t take no for an answer, really. Tend to congregate around the lounge chair, such that if you get more than a sentence read in the ol’ Praise of Folly without interruption, it’s a near miracle. Makes you wish you spoke a little more español, or at least a few more synonyms for no, but unfortunately little Mindy Farsinelli, my synonym queen, is presumably back in Denver keeping house. Finally we just give up and cruise the beach with the fan club, popping up occasionally to one of the hotel bars overlooking the bay to bring down beers for the whole gang.
People want to know what two guys like us are doing in Acapulco. We tell them we’re philanthropists, philanthropicos, who love the little orphans of Mexico and want to help out where we can. This turns out to be even more effective at drawing a crowd than the swimsuit. Turns out a greater part of the population of Acapulco is orphaned. We meet orphaned alcoholics, orphans in gold chains, and several orphaned retirees. Eventually we meet Cipriano and El Gordito, who at least have the virtue of being twelve and thirteen. We come across them out on the strip that runs past the tourist hotels and the souvenir shops. They’re holding out baseball caps and begging for small change, El Gordito the muscle, Cipriano the charm. The discussion gets around to the kind of money they could pull in with my hat and Kafka’s leather cap, although if they’re not managing to fill those baseball caps with pesos, it’s hard to see how they could fill The Kid. Both boys are clean and well-dressed, and Cipriano speaks perfect English. I ask him how he learned it, he tells me they teach it over at the church. Kafka’s a religious man, I tell the boys, and would be interested in seeing that church. They’re not too crazy about the idea. Even start denying they were ever orphans in the first place. We end up having to buy them ice cream to get the story straight. What comes out is that the nuns over at the church have forbidden them to beg for money. Cipriano and El Gordo have been caught for it once and don’t intend to be caught for it again. Last time they ate beans for a week and were forced to do hail marys into the wee hours of the morning, which I can’t imagine ever did wonders for a soul.
“How much do you fellas manage to get in those hats on any given day?” I ask.
“Maybe a hundred pesos,” Cipriano says.
“Hundred, hundred ten,” says El Gordito, which are the first words we’ve heard out of him.
“Then how about Kafka and I just give you each a hundred ten pesos without your having to beg for it, and you two take us over to the church to meet the nuns.”
“You two crazy hombres,” Cipriano says, shaking his head like he’d just as soon not earn his money in this ignoble way. “Alright then,” he eventually says. “Let’s see the money.”
I show it, and he leads us into the old town, to a little plaza and a small whitewashed church with a façade shaped like a bell. We walk up some stone steps to a wooden doorway open to the dim sanctuary of Santa Pulcheria. Inside the air smells like a cave, damp and cool. Cipriano and El Gordito get to trembling just walking into the place. They lead us up the center aisle to the altar, which looks more like a flea market. I mean crucifixes and candles of every color imaginable, gaudy Marias, flowers plastic and real, hard candy and home-baked icons, incense smelling of wildflowers and sweat. Religion Mexican-style. All sorts of odds and ends get mixed up in it, which seems to me a hell of a lot closer to the chaotic way it really is than the organized way people want it to be.
The kids lead us off through a door to the right of the altar and into sort of an office area. A nun in a habit sits behind a desk. She’s got a hard, heavy face, thick black-rimmed eyeglasses, and answers to nobody’s fetishes. Kafka is looking as nervous as the kids. Cipriano mumbles some introductions. Sister Margarita, she’s called, and the sister has some fiery looks for Cipriano and El Gordito, whose other name is apparently Juan. They scamper off through another doorway like Kafka and I never existed, and Margarita says in English that she knows we’re no philanthropicos, so how can she help us?
I tell the sister we’re looking for Sister Lulu, who’s the sister of a friend. “Biologically speaking, I mean. We were hoping to have a word with her.”
Margarita tells us that Lulu works mostly out in the plaza, ministering to the young and the homeless, offering the little orphans a proper meal and a place to stay. She says that if we must speak to her, we might find her out there. We thank Margarita for her time and head back
out into the plaza, where it’s not too hard to spot the nun in the crowd. She’s standing by the central fountain looking around anxiously, like maybe she’s not making her quota of orphans for the day. Even with the scarf over her head, I recognize her as Fernanda’s sister. Dark blonde hair pokes out at the edges of the scarf, and she appears to have those same green eyes. Eyes of a Southern girl, they are, but she’s been away for a while and is made of sharper lines than any Texas debutante. Cheeks like knife edges and a mouth clamped shut like a seam. With looks like that, she’d make a better New York art dealer than Fernanda will ever be.
“What do you call that thing they wear on their heads, Kafka?” I say.
“A wimple,” he says. “You really think she knows something about that painting?”
“That’s why we’re here, isn’t it? Let’s go find out. Might even be edifying for a young man like yourself. After all, Twiggy’s over at the airport, isn’t she?”
“The woman’s a nun, Willie.”
“Never say never,” I say, as we walk across the cobblestones towards Lulu. I introduce myself, and I introduce the kid. “Kafka here lost his folks at an early age and was wondering if you might take him in personally, Miss Shore.”
“Who are you?” she says, trying to hurt us with those hard eyes, but they’re so nervous they keep glancing off without making any real contact. Kafka’s blushing like he’s been hit anyway.
“Two orphan lovers like yourself, Lulu,” I say.
“I happen to live for these poor children,” she says, some holy conviction finally allowing her to fix me with a stare.
“Blessed be the children, for they shall inherit the earth,” I say.
“That’s the meek, Mister Lee,” she says. “You’ve got your verses mixed up.”
“Call me Willie,” I say, as Kafka kicks his heels on the cobblestones. “And I guess I could never see the meek getting much of anywhere, although that may be a personal inclination. But talk of inheriting the earth gets me to thinking about inheritances in general, which gets me to thinking about your father, who’s hired me as a private detective to find a piece of his inheritance that’s gone missing. Mind if we go over to that bar and talk this thing through?”
“My work is not in bars,” she murmurs, glancing back at the church.
“It was a Madonna painted by the school of Botticelli, and seeing as how you’re of the Madonna persuasion yourself, I thought you might have some suggestions as to where we might find her.”
“You came all the way down here to ask me that?” she says, tucking some stray hairs back under the wimple.
“That was the first question,” I say. “We’ll put that one aside for a moment if you like. The second one was about a man named Ricardo Queso. He’s a Mexican businessman, and I was wondering if you might have come across him in your ministries here in Acapulco.”
Her mouth snaps shut, and her hands ball into fists so tight she begins to shake. Mister Queso has touched a distinctly uncharitable nerve. “I don’t have to stand here and be addressed this way,” she snaps. “And if I see you and your friend anywhere around this place, I will immediately call the police. Do I make myself clear?”
“All too clear, Lulu,” I say. “Exceptionally clear, in fact.” Then she turns and scurries off across the plaza to the church door, where she disappears.
“Good job,” Kafka sitting down on the fountain’s edge, looking a little depressed by the results of our conversation. Water spurts up and falls behind him in a steady splash.
“We found out what we wanted to know, didn’t we?”
“She’s a nun. You don’t talk to nuns that way.”
“She’s a nun who knows Ricardo Queso,” I say, “and we’re going to have to keep an eye on her. If she knows Queso, she knows where that painting is.”
“You think she stole it?”
“No. I think your friend Alberto did, and then I think Queso got it from him. But your nun’s involved somehow.”
Kafka sighs. “She’s not my nun.”
“You need a drink,” I say, and so we take it over to the other side of the plaza to a bar they call El Loco. From the bar we’ve got a good view out past the terrace to the church, so if Lulu makes another move, we’ll see her. Also Coronas are a dollar a bottle, which makes ten dollars for ten, and pretty quick Kafka and I are heavily invested. Then we meet Pepe, who introduces us to a cocktail they call the Cosmetic Surgery. They serve it in a fishbowl, and at two-fifty a pop it seems like a good investment opportunity, so we shift our assets from Corona over to said Surgeries, a decision that will prove to be a mistake, at least where Kafka is concerned, not that you can’t eventually learn something from your mistakes.
In the meantime, Pepe speaks pretty good English, learned strictly via pillow talk if you can believe Pepe, and he starts telling us about how he makes his living diving into the Pacific from the cliffs west of town, like Elvis in that movie from the fifties, I forget what it was called. I’ll have to remember to ask Darling next time I speak to him on the phone. Failing Darling, I’ll have to ask Caroline. What I’m asking myself at the moment is how a man can set out to live for the simple things but nonetheless get mixed up with competition divers everywhere he turns. I’m wondering if this might be a sign, but honestly I’ve got no idea what to do with it if it is.
Pepe’s been cliff diving since he was fourteen. He’s had three broken collar bones to show for it but supposedly ten times that many women by way of compensation. That’s just if you’re counting tourists who saw the show. Inspirational show, apparently. When I ask if he’s heard of an American diver named Rock Lightford, he just laughs and says Americans don’t know how to dive. He says he’ll take us over there one afternoon to watch him do it Mexican-style. They’ve also got a night show with torches. Then he asks if we like to gamble. I tell him I thought gambling was illegal in Mexico. Not if you know the right places, he tells me. By this point Kafka’s downed his Surgery in a gulp and is checking his wallet to see how much he’s got left to invest.
“Follow me,” Pepe says, and leads us back through the tables of the restaurant to what looks like a door to a closet or a boiler room. He opens the door and leads us through a curtain and into a cement-floored room as big as the restaurant area with bare light bulbs hanging from the ceiling. Half a dozen folding tables topped with green felt are set up around the room, and dealers in tuxedos are passing out cards to a few dozen men scattered around smoking cigars and drinking beers. Paint it gold and carpet it red, we could be in a Vegas gambling hall.
By midnight we’re down two grand at the poker table. We meaning Kafka, who keeps assuring me he’s read a book on Texas Hold ‘Em and has a system that takes all of this into account. And two grand meaning probably three, conservatively estimating, at least half of that deducted from Harry Shore’s retainer. This goes on till about four in the morning, when Kafka goes all-in with an unsuited two-seven and miraculously wins back three of my grand. Minus probably five, which makes forty billion or so in pesos, but Kafka’s seeing the glass half full, contrary to what he’s been doing to those Cosmetic Surgeries. Tells me how this is all a part of his master plan, and he’ll get the bastards in the morning. Laying the groundwork, he says. Building the foundation, he’s telling me as we ride back to our five-star hotel in a taxi generously provided by Pepe and his friends.
18
In the morning I wake with some pushups and deep knee bends before breakfast down by the pool, where a group of college girls is doing water aerobics with an instructor they call Suave. Pretty girls, but not enough to make you want to do water aerobics or call yourself Suave, and I do give both options some consideration. After breakfast I call up the Albanians, and we meet in the lobby to discuss the day’s agenda. Twiggy’s clearly fed up with us both and volunteers for airport duty again. Meanwhile over her shoulder Kafka’s dealing cards to his invisible friends, which I take to mean that Twiggy is as yet blissfully ignorant of the news that we’re all wor
th significantly less than we were yesterday. Once she’s gone, Kafka insists on staking out Lulu from El Loco, which is honestly the last place he needs to be, but against my better judgment I let him go. I want to go check around town and see what I can learn about this Queso.
So I set off walking, not quite sure of where I’m headed. I’m just moving, counting on a little inertia to take me into the heart of things, which is Newton’s first law if I’m not mistaken. Then I see the cliffs of Acapulco in the distance and figure maybe I’ll catch one of Pepe’s death-defying leaps if he’s around, maybe ask him what he knows about these nuns of Santa Pulcheria, specifically Lulu Shore, or the man who makes her tremble, Mister Ricardo Queso.
It takes me about an hour to get over to the observation platform, where a crowd has gathered and the day’s first divers are climbing up to the peaks to begin the show. Most of those on the observation platform are tourists, and nobody looks a likely source of information pertaining to Queso or anybody else who might help me get that painting back. Acapulco, Mexico. What the hell am I doing? Seems like I keep asking myself the same questions, but truth be told, the answers don’t matter so much when those divers start plunging a hundred feet into this narrow little channel running out to the Pacific. I don’t know that I’ve even seen anything so spectacular, and I can imagine the thrill it gives Caroline, even if I can’t imagine her actually flying through the air. A young guy, muscled like a gymnast, climbs up the rocks on his bare hands and feet. When he gets to the top, he says a little prayer and waits, watching the waves come in as the crowd holds its breath. You have to hit the tide just as it fills the channel, Pepe has explained. Otherwise you’ll hit bottom and stay there till the tide washes you up on the beach, and that’s a death scenario I really wouldn’t want to even try to imagine.
So this time I let the kid up there do the death scenario for me. Don’t know his name, don’t know where he comes from or how he spends his time, but mister he is one fearless Mexican cliff diver. I watch in sheer wonder as he flings himself out into the air like a lunatic. Takes what seems like a minute or two to arch down and hit the water at what Junie James once called a perfect vertical. Comes up out of the splash grinning, and I’ll bet a hundred Madonnas that no crowd ever went this wild for Rock Lightford.
Planet Willie Page 15