“Pretty crazy, no?” somebody says by my shoulder. I turn to find Pepe, dressed in blue jeans and a t-shirt.
“Hell, I came to see you,” I say. “Why aren’t you up there?”
He’s on the evening shift, he tells me, and just came over to hang around a bit and see if he could pick up some gringas. I nod a bit at this, and then I ask how much El Loco pays him to find likely marks for their secret casino. Pepe frowns. They buy his drinks, he says, but he swears he wasn’t trying to scam us – people do win money back there, just not my amigo Kafka. We go over to the concession stand for two Cokes and take a seat on a bench.
“Where’s your amigo today?” Pepe says after a while.
“He’s supposed to be helping me out with a little investigation,” I say. “That is if he hasn’t found his way to the back of El Loco.” Pepe is curious to know exactly what I mean by investigating. I tell him a bit about my life as a famous private investigator and mention that we’re looking for information about a man named Ricardo Queso. Pepe gives me this sideways look like he’s trying to gauge whether I’m dumb or just plain stupid. Then he tells me that Queso controls just about every entertainment operation in Acapulco, from the parasailing to the discotecas to the cliff diving we’re sitting there watching.
“You work for him?” I say.
“He used to be a cliff diver himself,” Pepe says. “He worked his way up. Hombre, he’s a legend. Everybody wants to do what Queso’s done.”
“You know him personally?”
“I see him around. He still comes out here to watch a few times a week. He takes a personal interest in young divers. He’s still very big in this world.”
I ask if Queso’s out there this morning, Pepe tells me he wouldn’t know. He keeps a table reserved at the Mirador, the restaurant up the hill with views of the show out plate glass windows. He wears a white suit, apparently, and his table’s big enough to seat the white-suited bodyguards who accompany him any place he wears pants.
“So don’t think you’ll get close to him,” Pepe says. “The only time I’ve met him was when he hired me. Since then we haven’t talked. Nobody talks to Queso unless Queso wants to talk. He’s too busy running the city.”
“Does that include back room casinos?”
“Gambling is illegal in Mexico,” Pepe says, making a point of studying the technique of one of his pals flipping through the air over the water. I nod real slow and pretend to do some higher-level trigonometry in my mind. Then I look back over at Pepe.
“You’re the detective,” he says, shrugging his shoulders and sipping on his Coke.
“He takes a cut?”
“Hombre, Queso takes a cut of everything,” he says, his eyes fixed on a large man in a suit and tie who’s coming our way, boots moving real slow like he’s wading through the sunshine. When the man gets close, Pepe stands and introduces me to his cousin, who also happens to be chief of police. The Chief is wearing one of those big Mexican mustaches that tells you he’s also wearing a gun. He wants to know if I’m enjoying the festivities, and then he wants to know if it’s too early for us to join him for a real drink. We end up riding with him over to El Loco, where the Chief turns out to be as popular as Pepe, and where we’re on a second round of Coronas before I can even begin figuring how to slip off and locate Kafka, who has unsurprisingly abandoned what was supposed to be his post with a view of the plaza. Just imagining the kind of damage he’s doing in the back room starts my boots tap dancing, but the Chief’s ordering up a third round, and I really can’t refuse when Cindy, the girl who’s tending bar, tells us that tequila body shots are on special till noon. One look at Cindy will tell you the bar’s been tending her, but when faced with a choice between rescuing an Albanian from straight flushes and a tequila body shot, I’ll choose Cindy’s belly button every time. It’s sort of a rule to live by.
So Cindy comes around the bar wearing a little t-shirt tied up into a bikini and what they’re calling a shot belt, little glasses all around where they’d put the bullets, and a bottle of Cuervo in the holster. She hitches herself up on the Chief’s stool and leans way back like she’s doing the limbo, which gets us all a little nervous for Cindy and that stool, but the Chief takes charge of the situation and crouches over like Cindy’s the line of scrimmage. She holds up the bottle, pours it down her front till it pools a little around the button area, and the Chief just drinks it up as neatly as you please. Wonderful to see, glassless tequila. Conservation of our natural resources. I mention as much to Cindy, which gets her to giggling, so that by the time I get down there myself, she’s more wave pool than body shot. And yet more fun than I’ve had with a belly since Vail, Colorado, which is saying something. What I want to know is where do you go on honeymoon when you’re starting in Acapulco? Then she passes out in my arms, the Chief makes an arrest on the spot, so Cindy’s out of a job, and I’m left to console myself with a little tequila in glass form.
The good news here is that with the Chief out of the way, I feel I can make a move on the casino, which is the suggestion I make to Pepe. With pleasure, Pepe says, con mucho gusto, and so we make our way through the restaurant tables into the back room, where my gusto takes an immediate hit when we find a crowd making a spectator sport out of watching Kafka toss chips. The kid’s broken out in a sweat just trying to keep his stack moving out into the other fellas stacks as fast as he needs to. You have to give the lunatic credit though, he is unperturbed, even after another acquaintance of Pepe’s steps into the game and draws to a five-of-a-kind. Hell, Kafka just lights two of those Albanian cigarettes he carries and gets them both going at once.
“I need to talk to you, Kafka,” I say into his ear.
“Not right now, Willie,” he says, raising with what I see is a pair of twos.
“What are you doing?” I say.
“It’s a pair,” he says.
“I mean back here. You were supposed to be watching Lulu.”
“I did,” he says. “She came out of the convent about an hour ago and smoked a cigarette behind a trash bin. Then she went back inside.”
“She smokes?”
“She tried to hide it behind her wimple, but yeah, she was smoking. Then she ate some breath mints and went back into the church.”
“And so you figured you could abandon the post and come over here.”
“Hold on,” he says, staring down his opponents and raising again with the table showing an ace and a king. “Yeah,” he says, sipping a Cosmetic Surgery. “If you think about it, all that money Twiggy’s so crazy to get her hands on, I could make it in here in less than a day.”
“If you knew how to play poker.”
“You’ll see,” he says, as the dealer rakes his money over to man in mirrored sunglasses who’s holding an ace.
“Can we talk for a minute, Kafka? Think they’ll let you sit out a hand?” I say, knowing full well that he could sit out for years and still have a seat saved. They may well put a brass plaque on one – Kafka sat here. In any case, he makes a sign at the dealer and follows me over to the corner of the room.
“Where’d you get all that money?”
“I won a lot of it.”
“Where’d you get the rest?”
“Also borrowed a bit. Like an investment.”
I ask who he borrowed it from, he tells me the casino will lend you pesos at twenty-five percent interest, which considering you’re using it to play poker means you can cover the interest in just a hand or two. “Poker’s not really a game of chance,” he tells me. “You can learn poker. It’s a skill. You just have to know the percentages.” I ask how much money. He says ten thousand pesos, which he tells me is about a thousand bucks.
“Who’d you speak to about the money?” I say
“You just ask a dealer. Mine waved over somebody who gave me an envelope. Actually, there he goes,” he says, pointing out a bruiser in a white suit who’s making his way across the room with an envelope in his hand. You don’t have to be a de
tective to figure he’s one of Queso’s Blancos. It does, however, help to have an uncommon investigative mind to come up with the kind of genius plan I now propose to Kafka.
Here’s how it goes: I’ll flash some money around and sit at his table. He’ll play only his very best hands, and I’m talking suited aces and high pairs, and when I see he’s in on a hand, I’ll throw in serious money no matter what I’m holding. So I’ll lose big, he’ll win big, and I’ll borrow real big to see if it gets me taken to Queso. Worst case scenario, Kafka wins the money I’ve intentionally lost and we come out even. That’s the plan.
I’ve never been a gambling man, but a few hands in, contrary to the plan, I’m up five thousand pesos. Then Kafka comes in with a raise and a significant look for yours truly, so I re-raise with trash, which three cards later has developed into a full house and a pot of skyscraper dimensions, again for yours truly. What Kafka’s got left in front of him now is more like a hut, such that you can’t help but thinking that our most brilliant move of the day was posting Twiggy far across town at the airport. Two hands later Kafka shows a pair of aces but is unfortunately busted by my six-high straight. He really has no choice but to wave over some more money, which isn’t how we planned it, but when you’re hot, you’re hot, and it really can’t be denied that I’m smoking.
So I go with it, and we go all day. By afternoon Kafka’s on a first name basis with the white suit, and I’ve got what looks like a model of Manhattan in front of me, chips rising up along little avenues I’ve carved out. Then Kafka goes bust again, providing me with that second Empire State Building I didn’t really need, and the white suit is none too pleased to inform him that the bank’s closed unless he agrees to put up some collateral. Kafka offers his leather cap, or a couple of Albanian cigarettes. He offers his Seiko, and that’s when the suit starts taking it personally. He slaps the kid, who covers his face in his hands and wails with pain, or at least that’s what it sounds like until he drops his hands and stares down the Blanco with more rage than I figured he had in him. Before I can blink, the kid’s invented a few awkward looking punches and has landed a few on the Blanco, and before I can move, two more white suits have shown up on the scene and have fastened onto Kafka like they intend to stretch him till he breaks. Meanwhile nobody’s playing poker anymore. A circle of men surrounds the suits, and Kafka’s glancing around the crowd trying to locate me. Before I can commit suicide, however, the suits are dragging the kid to the back of the room, making a pretty good example for the rest of us of what happens to a man who runs up a debt to Ricardo Queso. A door opens out onto an alley, where a black Mercedes waits. The crowd follows them out to watch as Los Blancos toss Kafka into the back seat like luggage and take him away.
19
Don’t let anybody tell you that pesos bring happiness. It gives me great deal of pain to tell Twiggy that we’ve lost her partner. I find her back in the hotel in the fitness room, where the concierge has said she’ll be. She’s spinning on a stationary bicycle at about twelve revolutions per second, sweat pouring off her body, like if she spins fast enough she might transport off into another dimension once and for all. I recall what she said about starvation and God back in the steam room in Vail, Colorado, and I’m starting to wonder if it’s only in these extreme states that she can feel anything at all, although news of Kafka’s kidnapping is met with absolutely no feeling that I can see. Twiggy may well be crazy.
“The Farsinellis. Are. Here,” she says between breaths.
“Then what are you doing riding a bike indoors?”
“Here,” she says. “In the hotel.”
So Bella Farsinelli finally got her five stars, I think.
“Also. Fernanda,” she says.
“In this hotel?” I say. “Fernanda Shore?” But she’s spinning so fast now, she appears to have pedaled right off into a trance.
“You follow Lulu,” I say, beginning to lose faith in Albania altogether, along with most of Eastern Europe. “I’ll take care of the others.” Then I go over to the front desk and ask what room Miss Shore’s in. They can’t give out that kind of information, they tell me. I tell them it’s an emergency and slip a stack of pesos across the counter. The fella standing there just slips it right back with a frown, which is one of the problems with staying in a five-star hotel. Sometimes the reception’s not as receptive to the pesos as they can be in lesser-starred affairs.
So I just take a little tour of the premises, hoping to spot some familiar faces. I do the Coyote Bar and Grill, I do the Luna Lounge. Then I head out poolside, where they’re playing volleyball now in the water – waterball I guess it’s called – and the lounge chairs are full of half-naked tourists drinking cocktails decorated with enough paper umbrellas to shade a nation of gerbils. Strolling around the pool, I acknowledge a few bikinis with a friendly nod, and then over by the hot tub area I spot her. She’s bikinied too and makes as fine an impression as she did in a sundress. She may not be the type of woman you’d put on the cover of a magazine, but you sure as hell wouldn’t mind taking her off for a picnic somewhere and maybe playing a little beach blanket bingo. She’s got on big sunglasses and is sipping a dark drink.
“Miss Shore, I presume,” I say, blocking out her sun.
She raises her sunglasses to show some dark-rimmed eyes. “Why am I not surprised to see you?”
“Because you’ve been seeing me every night in your dreams?” I say.
“Maybe that’s it,” she says, as I take a seat beside her. “Mint julep?” she asks, waving a waiter over to refresh her own.
“I’m on a diet,” I say. “Better hold the mint and the julep.”
“Another drink for you, Miss Shore?” the waiter asks.
“That’s right, Pablo,” she says, and Pablo carries off her glass for what is clearly not the first time.
“What are you doing down here?” I say, sensing that this may not be the best moment to discuss the future of her soul. It’s my job, I know, but until you’ve attempted to talk salvation to a blonde in a bikini, cast not the first stone and whatnot.
“Drinking,” she purrs, further gone than the last time I saw her, if that’s possible, not that I can’t work with far gone. “Trying to get picked up.”
“I don’t know that Ricardo Queso hangs around swimming pools,” I say, but the sunglasses are too dark to make out any kind of reaction. Kafka’s been kidnapped, Twiggy’s in a trance, now Fernanda’s comatose. Thankfully there’s still The Kid, sitting snug atop my head. “I trust you had a pleasant flight with the Farsinellis?”
“No. Bella’s a real bitch. How did you know about them anyway? Nevermind – let me guess – you’re a private investigator.”
“Right you are, Fernanda. Right you are. And quite a bit more besides, but we’ll get to that in time.”
“I bet. The Professor said you mentioned me. Thanks so much. He was only too pleased to have Shore’s daughter come along. Do you think it’s the real Madonna, or are we all just crazy?”
“We’re most definitely all crazy, and from the looks of her, your sister Lulu may be the craziest.”
“You’ve seen her,” she says calmly. “Now there’s a bitch. Self-righteous as hell. Even growing up she could do no wrong. Daddy bought the whole routine. I went to see her this afternoon. The nuns didn’t even know Lulu had a sister. They said they didn’t know where I could find her.”
“You think she’s behind this?” I say, taking two drinks from Pablo and handing the greenery to Fernanda.
“Of course she is,” she says, taking a long sip. A little piece of mint gets stuck to a front tooth, which despite the attitude just makes her all the more charming. “She knew I would jump when Queso called asking about a painting,” she says. “She knew I would try to sell daddy’s Madonna. My sister always knew how to play me like a drum. I’ve fallen for her traps ever since we were kids. I always make the mistake. I guess I’m just bad.”
“Better bad than good like that,” I say. “As the great
Mister Cash put it, She’s so heavenly minded she’s no earthly good. There’s hope for you yet, Miss Shore. Just trust me on that. But how did she get hooked up with Queso? That’s what I can’t figure out.”
“I can’t either,” she says.
“Then tell me about the Farsinellis,” I say. “When are they set to meet Queso?”
“I wouldn’t know,” she says, doing her best to work up the corners of her mouth into a mysterious smile. “I’m just down here for the sun and the chimichangas.”
“Then I’d heartily recommend the Luna Lounge,” I say. “They do them in both beef and chicken. I’m partial to the chicken. And don’t tell me you still think you can make any money off that Madonna.”
“I can’t screw this up any more, can I?” she says. “I’m so down I can only go up.”
“Liberating, isn’t it?” I say. “Hell of a lot better than being so up you can only go down, and I do speak from some experience. Also, I wanted to mention that two Albanian friends of mine handed out a couple dozen of those fakes between here and Denver. So even if you do get your pretty little hands on the original, you’re going to have a hard time selling it.”
“Why don’t you just leave me alone,” she says, closing herself around her drink and shutting me out for good, so I leave her there to experiment with how far down she can go. If she can get down far enough, I figure I’ll catch her when she’s coming up. So I locate Pablo and pay the tab, and then like it or not, I’m not finished with the Shore family for the day.
Evening mass has started at the church of Santa Pulcheria by the time I arrive. The priest is up front in his robe, listening to the smooth sounds his own voice makes in Spanish. There’s not much of a crowd to speak of, which considering we’re in Acapulco is no big surprise, but a couple dozen orphans are squirming on the pews on the left side of the aisle, and on the right the nuns of Santa Pulcheria sit like it’s posture, not cleanliness, that’s next to godliness. I make my way up the side aisle and slide in behind some nuns. Lulu’s down at the far end of the pew, a bit apart from the others but sitting straighter. Given the circumstances, I can’t say I blame her. She’ll be needing all the godly points she can score. We do a few songs, we drop to our knees for a few prayers, and like it or not, when you consider the surroundings, I’d be remiss not to send up a report to headquarters.
Planet Willie Page 16