by David Pierce
Anyway, about Mérida I found out nada. It was there on the map of Mexico, of course, down there in the southeast corner in the bend of Yucatán, not that far away from Guatemala and what used to be called British Honduras, but there was no separate entry giving any details. The atlas did say, at the beginning, some rubbish about it was once thought that the world was a flat disk surrounded by a lot of water and Paradise was in the Far East somewhere, which was terribly picturesque and all that but not exactly helpful.
I was in the midst of listing some of the items I very much wanted to know about Mérida when Benny showed up, looking as ever the exact opposite of what he really was. What he looked like was Sonny Tufts' (Sonny Tufts!) kid brother—with his now beardless baby face, round, innocent eyes, and just the hint of a cowlick in his neatly trimmed ginger-brown hair—but behind that angelic exterior lurked a soul of the purest larceny. Not only had Benny never made an honest nickel in his life of guile, hanky-panky, and knavery, but he loathed the very idea. He told me once he'd begun his life of artful dodging at the age of two when he found out how to cheat his sister playing Fish, and he'd never looked back since.
We were pals, for some strange reason, me and Benny the Boy; we were close. As an example of the depth of our friendship, he let a good ten seconds pass before making a crack about my new glasses, and then all he said was, "Bifocals or regulars?"
"Here," I said, tossing him Billy's letter. "Read and inwardly digest."
He read, while I told him a bit about Billy and me and dear old Davenport. Being a gentleman, I left out the part about Marge Freeman's lingerie. When he was done, he handed the letter back to me. Then I remarked casually, "Mérida, Mérida. If I remember correctly, did you not visit that part of the world a couple times last year?"
"Yep," said Benny. "And the year before that."
"I don't believe you ever told me exactly what it was you were doing down there."
"Nope, I never did," said Benny.
There followed a long pause.
"Well, moving right along to greener, more verdant pastures," I said, "tell me this. Have you got a lot on right now, my closemouthed friend?"
He shrugged. "The usual—this, that, and the other. You?"
I shrugged and filled him in on my meeting with J. J.
"I do have something that could be very, very sweet coming up next month," Benny said. "But that's next month."
I was always interested in hearing about Benny's scams, so I asked him, "Like what?"
"We're going to sell this high roller an interest in one of the Dodgers' farm clubs."
"Do you happen to own an interest in one of the Dodgers' farm clubs to sell?"
"Of course not." He scoffed at the notion. "That's what makes it so challenging."
"So you could be available for a little caper?"
"There's a good word for busting someone out of a Mexican jail," he said. "Caper. I like it. What did you call World War Two, a tiff? As for being available, Victor, let me put it this way—when do we start?"
"We've started already," I said. "There's an Aero-México flight number 943 leaving tomorrow at eight-fifty A.M. I made a reservation in your name just in case. To be precise, in one of your names."
"Which one?"
"The one that's in that forged passport of yours."
"Forged?" Benny said indignantly. "Forged?"
"Well, it's not in your name, is it," I said, "unless I've been wrong all these years and you really were baptized Henry Albert Sanderson? What's the big deal, anyway? You've forged everything else in your life of crime."
"That may be true," Benny said, "but not that passport. It is possible to legally have more than one name, you know. Actors do it. Companies do it. Married ladies have a choice of names. Songwriters, you may like to know, have the right to register two aliases with whoever it is they register things with. It's just a question of knowing how to go about it."
"You must tell me sometime," I said.
"I'd be delighted," he said. "If you'll tell me what I do when I get to Mérida besides drink a lot of good beer."
"This sort of thing," I said, passing him over the lists I'd been making under the heading "MEXICO." "You are going to be a busy boy, I will tell you that. There is a lot I need to know about and fast."
"It's just a passing thought," Benny said, "but why don't you go?"
"Because I am extremely noticeable," I said, "due to my amazing build and stunning good looks, while you are not only extremely unnoticeable by birth and by life-style, but a master of disguise. Also you speak the lingo fluently, while all I've got are a few vital phrases like 'Another pitcher of margaritas please, garçon' and 'Where is the nearest toilet?' Also, I do not want to be spotted ambling around pretending to be a tourist from South Bend and then turn up a few days later as, let us say—who knows?—a U.S. prison inspector on a goodwill tour."
"Tell you one thing," Benny observed, looking over the lists. "You were right when you said I was going to be a busy boy. 'Hotels. Car rental. P.O. box—mail drop. Airport and access. Official American agencies in Mérida—consulate? trade mission? Department of Agriculture? Immigration? Accesses to and from Febrero Segundo. Office equipment rental. Intercom. U.S. bank? What customs formalities crossing border both ways? Passport? ID? Temp secretarial service.' Goodness me."
"Wait till you get to page two," I said. "And pictures," I said, "lots of pictures, pictures of everything you can get, but obviously we do not want you arrested for taking closeups of the locks on the prison gates."
"It might help," he said. "Then you'd have someone on the inside."
"We already got someone on the inside," I said, "remember? Two we don't need."
"Just another passing thought," Benny said. "That's the way they'd do it in the movies."
"What I also would like," I said, ignoring his foolishness, "are your opinions—your hunches, shall we say, as you probably won't have a lot of facts to base them on. Is it possible to bust someone out by physically removing them with a helicopter or maybe one of those cherry-pickers Con Edison men use to change light bulbs way up in the air? How about bribery? Has anyone escaped before, and how? My feeling is, if we're going to get it done quickly without a whole army, we'll have to set up some kind of a con, but I could be wrong. It has happened. Maybe a couple of thousand bucks in the right hands will do it all for us. Billy did say money was no object."
"Yes, I did notice that remark," Benny said. He glanced briefly through some of the items on the second page, then tucked the papers away in his wallet. "I better move it. If I'm flying tomorrow, I've got things that must be done first."
"Need some money?" I said.
"Later," he said.
"Then happy landings, amigo," I said.
"Hasta la vista," he said. He gave me his boyish grin, then a wave, and headed for the door.
When he was just about to open it, I said to him, "Benny, are you sure you don't want to think it over? It could get a bit scary down there."
"No sweat," Benny said. "See, I know a guy who already did what we're going to do, and we have to be at least as smart as him."
"Benny," I said. "Come back."
He came back.
"Sit down."
He sat down.
"Tell me about this guy who has already done what we are going to do, will you please? Otherwise I will kill you."
"You mean Big Jeff?" he said. "Of course. Big Jeff is a Cape Cod fisherman. He owns and operates a thirty-five-foot fiberglass craft, which has a 200-horsepower turbo diesel engine. During the season he fishes for cod, going out early in the morning if there isn't too much wind and laying out two or three miles of baited line. In the off season he puts his boat up and heads for warmer climes, and it was in one of those warmer climes that I met him. On Isla Mujeres, to be precise, which is a small island a ferry ride northeast of Cancún, which is a booming resort popular with American college students, about a four-hour drive due east of Mérida. All right so far?"
>
"All is fine so far," I said. "But I didn't know you knew anything about boats, let alone cod-fishing techniques."
"I don't," he said, "but I do have an excellent memory."
"That I know," I said. "So go on, go on."
"So," Benny said, clasping his hands neatly on one knee, "from January to March more or less, Big Jeff heads for the azure waters of the Caribbean where he has a friend name of Dan Peel, who I also met. Dan fishes for dorado out of Costa Rica, you may like to know, using a floated long line baited with squid."
"Squid, eh?" I said. "Fascinating."
"What is fascinating," Benny observed, "is that we know someone not far from Mérida who not only has a boat, but who knows that whole coast intimately from Costa Rica all the way up to Brownsville, Texas."
"Hmm," I said. "You start to interest me."
"So," said my pal Benny the Boy. "Picture the scene. Big Jeff and I are downing a few in the Rocamar, waiting for Pepe the cook to start up his charcoal fire so we can have a light snack. But Pepe is taking his time about things, so we down a few more, and after a dozen or so snifters of a dark local rum, Big Jeff begins to wax loquacious."
"He's not the only one," I said.
"He takes a faded clipping out of his worn alligator wallet," Benny said, ignoring me, "the headline of which is 'American desperado escapes in bloody gun battle from Guerrero prison,' which, Jeff informs me, is reputed to be the worst in the country outside the notorious clink in Mexico City."
"I wonder if that's where Pedro comes from," I said.
"Pedro who?"
" 'Pedro who?' " I said. "Listen, pal, if you're going to sell one of the Dodgers' farm clubs to some hick, you might at least know who is on their roster, you might at least know who their main man is. Pedro Guerrero."
"To continue," Benny said, "with the main feature and not the latest sporting news, Big Jeff had a pal who got busted for a gram of gold in the province of Guerrero—and I don't mean the gold that glitters, I mean the kind from Acapulco. He says the family coughed up near on fifty grand trying to bribe him out, but the money never got to the right hands or it was too late or the lawyer they used siphoned off too much or whatever—so finally a group of his pals, financed by the folks back home, decided to try and spring him."
"Sounds familiar," I said, "but in our case it seems to be me who's doing all the bloody financing."
"So what they did, according to Big Jeff, and you can believe him or not, was to contact a career marine out of Pendleton who was game for a weekend lark, and so was one of his drinking buddies," Benny said, "for a fee of forty thousand dollars plus expenses, or fifty thousand dollars plus expenses if they didn't get to kill anyone."
"Well, there's a switch for you," I said, "having a nokill bonus. What is the world coming to?"
"I will tell you another time," Benny said, looking at his watch. "In fact, I believe I will have to tell you the rest of the story another time as well because I got a million things to do. To conclude, all this is one reason I agreed to lend my talented services to this madcap adventure. The second is, as you know, I already have a contact or two down there who might be helpful, aside from Jeff and his pal with the boat."
"Like who?"
He peered around in a paranoid fashion.
"Promise it'll go no further?" he whispered.
"Scouts' honor," I whispered back.
"I do business down there."
"That's no reason to swear me to secrecy," I said. "You do business in a lot of places."
"This one is legit," he whispered.
"No!" I exclaimed.
He nodded sheepishly.
"Totally one hundred percent legit, not a scam anywhere?"
He nodded again.
"What kind of business might it be?"
"Sleeping," he said, getting up to go.
"Aha," I said. "Sleeping. So you are the mystery waterbed king of Yucatán."
"No," he said, "I'm the mystery hammock king of San Diego." And with that Delphic utterance he took his leave.
CHAPTER FIVE
Shaking my head sadly, I watched Benny drive sedately away in his old Ford that he'd parked just outside. I noticed that he had a new bumper sticker: "Please drive carefully, the life you save may be mine." I sighed, and then, right out of nowhere, I had a good idea. It was so good I couldn't believe I'd thought of it. I called Bat Girl—a new name for Sara I'd just dreamt up, as she was bats—and in my most dulcet of tones invited her out to luncheon. Bat Girl was surprised but pleasantly so and agreed to meet me at one-thirty at a steak and lobster joint nearby that I knew she liked. She liked the Nus' Vietnamese restaurant that was right next to me even more, but it was closed. I'd seen a sign in the window that morning reading, "Death in Family. Opens again Wed. 11:00 A.M. Thanking You." Me and the Nus had been friends for years; I liked everything about them except for their beef in hot peppers.
Then I went back to the mail, wondering if it held any other little surprises out of the past, such as a postcard from Marge Freeman saying she'd be passing through L.A. in a few days and wouldn't it be swell if we could get together in some dimly lit piano bar where we could hold hands and talk about the old days. It is perhaps unnecessary to state that there was no such postcard. Someone from Orange County had written me asking what my fee would be for following someone three nights a week; I wrote back and told her. Then I opened an appealing epistle from one Patrick O'Brien (14), who said he was contemplating taking one of those courses, advertised in comics and the cheaper men's magazines, on how to become a detective in the privacy of your own home, and did I, as a working professional, think it would be a suitable start to his career in detection?
Forget it, was what I told him. The only person a course like that could possibly benefit would be the small-time hustler (e.g., Benny at the start of his career) who was peddling his outdated and badly printed leaflets. Then I opened two checks and one bill and chucked the usual handful of junk mail unopened into the wastepaper basket under the desk. I couldn't help noticing the basket was not only full but overflowing, so I took it to the alley out back and emptied it into the big galvanized iron bin next door, managing to dump a substantial amount of gunk onto my neighbor's rabid nuisance of a cat, who had jumped up to see what was going on.
While I was doing so, I spied with my little eye a dirty, white, unmarked panel truck, with two dimly viewed guys in the front seat, slowly drive up the alley toward me. It stopped outside the back door of the emporium next to the Nus' restaurant next to me. The place was owned by the Nus' cousin Mr. Nu, who sold and rented videocassettes and peddled all manner of home entertainment equipment and also things like cordless telephones and Walkmans. Trucks were often drawing up at Mr. Nu's back door, sometimes in the wee small hours of the morning, loading and unloading various merchandise, so I went back to my desk and thought no more about it for a good ten seconds. Then it struck me that if the Nus were closed because of a death in the family, why wouldn't Mr. Nu, their cousin, also be closed? Was he not of the same family? And if he was closed, what was that panel truck doing parked there. It merited a closer look. It also merited me getting out one of my .38 Police Positives from the locked drawer in my desk where it lived when I was in the office. I spun the cylinder to check that it was loaded (it was), waited a minute, then picked up the wastepaper basket again, with my right hand on the bottom and, being a southpaw, my left hand, the one holding the revolver, hidden just inside the top of the bin as if I was holding down a load of rubbish that would otherwise spill out.
Then back out again I went, whistling cheerfully. The truck was still there, its motor idling, but the front seat was empty. Still whistling cheerfully, I began to walk toward the Nus' garbage bin, which was right between me and the truck. Then a man in overalls and baseball cap came out of Mr. Nu's back door lugging a heavy carton, not hurrying, taking his time, not looking at all suspicious. A second man, similarly attired in plain white overalls and cap, came out behind the first
carrying two smaller cartons; they loaded them casually into the back of their truck without giving me a glance, then went back inside again.
Ah-ah, I thought.
If I, I thought, saw someone six foot seven and a quarter walking toward me in an alley carrying a wastepaper basket, I'd give him a glance, a deeply searching one.
When the two men—youths would be more accurate—emerged the next time, again toting cartons, I was banging my wastepaper basket against the inside of the garbage bin as if I'd just finished emptying it.
"Mr. Nu around, gents?" I called to them. "Need a quick word with him." A deceptively simple question, I thought. They couldn't very well say he wasn't around, because if he wasn't around, what the hell were they doing being around? So if they had any brains at all, they'd have to say he was around, which the taller of them did. Of course that left them with the problem that if he was around, where was he?
"Yeah, he's here," the tall one said. "He's up front. I'll give him a shout. You hang on here, Mick, there's only one more load anyway."
So Mick, or whatever his real name was, hung on, leaning against the side of the truck, looking cool, calm, and collected while his pal disappeared inside once again, then came back out with a last armful, the greedy thing.
"He'll be right out," he called to me. He loaded the last of the cartons, slammed the rear doors shut, locked them, said to Mick, "Let's do it, man," and then they headed, one on each side of the van, for the front doors. Which move I did not care for overmuch, as it meant they were split up. But I had run out of choices by then, so I let the wastepaper basket drop, revealing the revolver, which I stupidly held pointing down at the ground.