The Dogs of Mexico

by John J. Asher

  DUANE HUNG UP the phone and exited the scrambler. Ah, he mused with guilty satisfaction, they each have their own peculiarities; like musical instruments, each must be played differently.

  Money. A little seed money. He would put in a call to Eli, take out an equity loan against the house. He couldn’t help but smile, relief bolstered with pride. You’re a diabolical son of a bitch, he told himself. Diabolical, but effective.

  At first he had thought to have Soffit bring the diamonds up to San Diego, or even back through the canal and up to Philly. But Soffit was something of a loose cannon and that would be bringing the game a little too close to home. Besides, Soffit’s disappearance could be more easily orchestrated in Mexico. As always, safety lay in degrees of separation.

  All he needed now was a field man to make the pickup. He would do it himself but he was too well known, visibility too high. That, plus it was a chancy operation at best. Were it to fall through he would be busted out. No pension. No anything. Or worse. Already he suspected they were looking on him with suspicion. He hadn’t had a promotion in two years and he was being kept out of the loop. Others were getting the gravy. It was essential now that he keep his own nose clean.

  Besides, he had just the man for the job. Duane congratulated himself again; a man you had something on was money in the bank.

  Now he could enjoy his breakfast.

  On second thought, he would go home, shower, and take Susan out for a nice upscale brunch.

  4

  Unannounced

  ROBERT BOHNERT GOT out of the pickup, empty thermos in hand. “Tomorrow,” he said to Diaz behind the wheel.

  “To-MOE-rah,” Diaz replied, coloring the word with a Cuban accent.

  Robert grinned. “Tomorrow,” he repeated. Then, enunciating: “To-mar-row.”

  “Sí. Tu-MOE-rah.” Diaz waved cheerfully then drove off into the evening heat, pulling the trailer with its lawnmowers, gas cans, string cutters, pruners, leaf blowers.

  Robert walked up the shell driveway and around behind the sagging old Victorian in Miami’s less desirable Opa-Locka neighborhood where he took room and board by the week. He was dirty and bone-tired and once again he told himself that at forty-one he was getting too old for this kind of work. But then, he had been saying that for, what, three years now? He still wasn’t used to the climate either. The tropical heat and humidity, the swamp-smell of decaying vegetation.

  He entered by the back door, smiled and helloed Carmella, the cook, washing vegetables in the kitchen sink. She smiled in turn. Robert went on past the pantry, the utility room and the downstairs bathroom to his own quarters, a single room with a twin bed, desk, dresser, one chair and a wall-mounted sink. He kept an illegal hotplate in the closet.

  He touched his key to the lock, then saw the door was ajar. He paused, alert.

  “Welcome all ye who goeth there,” said a man’s voice.

  Robert pushed the door open with his foot and stood back.

  He stared for a second as recognition flooded him: Duane Fowler! At the same time, thinking: Duane Fowler—who three years ago refused to okay my emergency hardship leave! Thinking further: So, they finally nailed me…

  Fowler sprawled in Robert’s chair, feet propped on his desk, holding a glass of brandy from Robert’s open bottle. Robert’s first impulse was to pick up the bottle and beat Fowler’s head in with it. But his old training kicked in—self-control, keep your cool.

  “Why not just come on in,” he said evenly. “Make yourself at home.”

  “You might want to think about upgrading your booze,” Fowler said, wrinkling his nose at the brandy, affecting an air of amiable goodwill.

  “I’ll make a note of it”

  Robert set his thermos on the desk, observing Fowler closely—hair thinning, a buzz cut going gray, workout trim, a knotty face with little budlike muscles on high cheekbones so his eyes seemed fixed in a perpetual squint. He had acquired a broken nose, an unnatural hump across the bridge. He wore pressed slacks, a dress shirt open at the collar and expensive, well-shined shoes. A blazer lay folded on the bed behind. An expensive-looking brown leather satchel stood on the floor nearby.

  Fowler grinned, openly appraising him in turn. “I guess we’ve both changed some, umm?”

  “Time and gravity. That’ll do it.” Robert took off his John Deere gimme cap, removed work gloves from his back pocket and placed them on a shelf in the closet.

  Fowler narrowed his eyes with interest on the weld of scar tissue just below Robert’s hairline. “Damn, Bohnert, I heard you took one but that’s a humdinger.”

  “Goes to show what a sworn upholder of the law and protector of the people can do with a little motivation.”

  Robert held two distinctly different images of Duane Fowler in memory. First, the skinny precocious teenager who became his best friend in the North Carolina military academy, then four more years at Georgetown University, and finally a stint in the military, Special Forces. Duane Fowler. Brilliant. Intensely competitive. Respectful. A modern day Southern Gentleman.

  Then there was the second persona, the one with whom Robert had served after their subsequent recruitment into the Company. This was a different individual altogether, as if he had drunk down a vial of Dr. Jekyll’s private stock. Duane Fowler, the overnight metamorphic. Duane Fowler, the tenacious obsessive. Duane Fowler, ever more competitive and considerably less respectful. At one point Robert entertained the possibility that Fowler may have been the subject of some clandestine Company experiment. In any case, he was effective. The word lose wasn’t in his vocabulary. The first one you chose for your winning team.

  “I know what you came for,” Robert said.

  Fowler looked at him in surprise.

  “You may as well know right up front. I’m not going.”

  “No?”

  “Interesting they sent you.”

  Fowler watched him. Taking measure.

  “Or did you volunteer, thinking I’d go peacefully?”

  “Oh, that,” Fowler said, brightening with comprehension. “The house thing.”

  “Well, I’ve got news, friend. It ain’t a-gonna happen.”

  Fowler removed his feet from Robert’s desk and stood up. “Listen, I was sorry to hear about all that. Terrible thing with your son. And your wife bailing on you like that. I didn’t really know her very well but, anyway, pisser all around.”

  “That was a long time ago,” Robert said, his emotionless tone discouraging further discussion.

  “I mean it. You took one in the nuts.”

  As Fowler had made use of the only glass, Robert screwed the cap off the thermos and poured an inch of brandy into it.

  Fowler had idled to the far end of the room. He stood to one side and inched the plastic curtain back from the one window, looking out—a subconscious gesture Robert recognized—absentmindedly reconnoitering the premises. Fowler rubbed the slick curtain material between thumb and forefinger, frowning with distaste.

  He let go the curtain and turned back to Robert. “The house thing. Right. Well, you can relax, m’boy. That’s not why I’m here.”

  Robert let that soak for a minute, careful not to show surprise or curiosity. From Fowler’s apparent ease, his relaxed conversational attitude, Robert was beginning to think he had actually forgotten the rejected leave. If so, it only further proved how little empathy Fowler was capable of, what a small insignificant thing it had been in his view.

  “Okay,” Fowler said. “Cut to the chase. Right? Bohnert, I’ve got a project for you”

  Robert watched him, waiting.

  “A job,” Fowler added.

  “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m no longer one of the boys.”

  “You haven’t been active, that’s true. But you know how it is—once a Company man, always a Company man.” Fowler smiled, a touch of self-satisfied superiority. “Our people don’t dump us, we dump them.”

  “I see your old arrogance is still enjoying good health.”
/>   Fowler sighed. His smile faded. He looked older than he had first appeared. Harder. More embittered. Robert wondered whether he himself had appeared as soulless in his active days. If so, it probably made it a lot easier on Trish when it came to leaving him.

  “You shouldn’t have bailed,” Fowler said. “We needed good translators.”

  “Listen, you son of bitch,” Robert said, briefly losing it. “What do you want? What’re you doing here?”

  Fowler looked surprised, genuinely hurt. He lowered his gaze, helped himself to another drink, looked up again. “Don’t you think that was a little over the top? Blowing up your own house?”

  Despite a case of nerves curdling the brandy in his stomach, Robert couldn’t help but smile at the transparency of it—abruptly changing to an emotionally charged subject—an old, if simplistic, interrogation technique for throwing the perp off balance.

  “You should know that crap won’t work on me.”

  “What crap? I’m trying my best to find some common ground here.”

  “Common ground? You and me?”

  “You think I didn’t know all you went through? You think I wasn’t concerned?”

  “I didn’t see you showing up to spring me out of the loony bin, friend.” Robert drained the last of the brandy into the thermos cup.

  “True. But I didn’t come after you when you blew up your house either.”

  “You didn’t know where I was.”

  “Don’t kid yourself. You were right here except for a short time living on the street. I could have picked you up any day of the week.”

  Again Robert tried not to show surprise.”So? Why didn’t you?”

  “Why didn’t I? Shit, Bohnert. You were having a rough enough time as it was.”

  “Come on. You’re not the hearts-and-flowers type.”

  Fowler grinned a little. “That’s hurtful.”

  “I know you. Friend.”

  Fowler gathered himself, officious now, eyes narrowed in their perennial squint. “I could have every operative in Miami here in two seconds flat. Take you down before you could blink.”

  “Yeah? Maybe you want to give it a try. Right now. Friend.”

  Fowler eyed him closely, judging perhaps whether he was serious. Then, shrugging him off: “Shit. You’re hopeless. Always have been.”

  “Okay, let’s stop all this horse-assing around. What’re you doing here?”

  “The man insists on wounding me. Hurting my feelings.” Fowler’s expression went suddenly grave again. “Okay. Bottom line? Money. This is the big one. I need your help.”

  Robert looked at him in genuine surprise. “This is new. Duane Fowler needing help?”

  Fowler waved him off. “A collection of rare diamonds is being smuggled out of South Africa.”

  Robert’s senses went on alert. “And?”

  “A quarter of it’s yours. I’m guessing three to five million. Maybe more, your part. All you have to do is get them into the States from Mexico.”

  In spite of himself, Robert felt a flush of excitement. “What’s the hitch? You send people anywhere you want every day, twenty-four-seven.”

  “It isn’t that easy anymore. Besides, this is a private transaction.”

  Private transaction? O-kay…

  Robert stood by as Fowler picked up the satchel, placed it on the bed and unsnapped the clasps. He lifted out a smaller case. “Your everyday video camera. Now. You know what this is.” He pulled out a presentation projector, roughly eleven-by-twelve inches by three-and-a-half inches thick.

  Robert looked on, noncommittal.

  “Gutted.” Fowler took a screwdriver from a small packet and had the back off in seconds. “The diamonds are in a titanium canister that will fit perfectly inside this cavity.”

  “You’re telling me you can fit several million dollars worth of diamonds in that space?”

  “These aren’t your mother’s diamonds. This is De Beers, a private collection.”

  “And just how, if I may ask, did we come by these De Beers diamonds?”

  Fowler gave him a studied look. “One of our men is imbedded in a terrorist group in North Africa. They knocked over a De Beers carrier and made off with the diamonds. Our man got away with them. He contacted me and, well, here we are.”

  “So, the question is, are we stealing from De Beers, or are we stealing from terrorists?”

  “Here’s the deal. You’re a boat salesman taking a little car trip from Mexico City to Acapulco where you’re meeting a client who’s considering one of our cigarette boats. However, you’re interested in Mexico, its culture, so you’re shooting a little footage along the way.”

  “Why not fly straight into Acapulco?”

  “Degrees of separation, Bohnert, name of the game.”

  “And the cartels? I’m not all that eager to find my head on somebody’s doorstep down there.”

  Fowler dismissed him with a wave of his hand. “Those people don’t care about you. They’re only interested in killing each other. The competition. You know how many US expatriates live in Mexico? Our best guesstimate is between five hundred thousand and three million.”

  “Well, that’s narrowing it down.”

  Fowler ignored the sarcasm. “We do know that over four hundred thousand Americans have bought homes down there in the last ten years. All living in perfect safety. They shop at Costco and Home Depot. There’s a McDonald’s and a Walmart on every corner. Besides, you never had an assignment yet that didn’t have a few rough edges.”

  “Assignment? You’re calling this an assignment?”

  Fowler took a manila folder from the satchel and unwrapped the string from around the two button-tabs. “Superior Seacraft. Right here in Miami.” He removed a DVD disk in a customized jewel case. “PowerPoint pitch to the client. I had that made up professionally. Tools of the trade. You’re an ace salesman, nothing if not prepared.”

  “If it’s all that easy, why don’t you do it yourself? Save yourself a big cut?”

  Fowler observed him, cool again. “What I’m doing is offering you an opportunity. I can’t believe you’re not jumping at it.”

  “Oh, I can see why you thought of me all right. I’m off the books and there’s a warrant out for my arrest in Texas. I get caught, it’s nothing to you. Just another ex crossed over. A mental case no less.”

  Fowler grinned a little. “Well, that’s colder than I would’ve put it. Thing is, I know you’re reliable, and you can use the money.” Fowler glanced around the room, a dismissive gesture with both hands. “I mean, look at this dump. You want to go on like this forever? Listen, we’re not kids anymore. This may be our last chance at the brass ring.”

  Robert shot a derisive nod at the projector. “This the latest from OTS?”

  Fowler wasn’t amused. “Simplicity, Bohnert. That’s the beauty of it.” He took a second envelope from the case. “New passport, credit card and a Miami driver’s license along with an inter-American duplicate. There’s four thousand dollars cash money in there. Buy yourself some decent threads. Our people dress for success. Tastefully conservative. And don’t forget, boat shoes. Topsiders.”

  “Hell, I could wade across the Rio Grande with that canister in a backpack.”

  “Maybe you could and maybe you couldn’t. This isn’t Poncho Villa’s Rio Grande. It isn’t worth chancing. Not for this kind of money.”

  Robert considered it. True, the Secure Border Initiative with their fences, cameras, ATVs and helicopters with night vision had slowed illegal crossings to a trickle. Even so, many still made it. But it was also true that in addition to the Border Patrol, illegals and coyotes alike would be suspicious of a gringo alone, sneaking a backpack into the US.

  Robert looked at the new passport. A three-year-old photo. He kinked one eyebrow at Fowler. “Otis Tandy Baker?”

  Fowler grinned. “A whole new identity.”

  How about non-identity, easily disposed of.

  Even so, Robert determined to go for it
. For here was a chance to rectify his failures and in some obscure way he wasn’t quite clear on, absolve himself of guilt. More, it was a chance to get even with Fowler for denying him the leave that had cost him everything. He would go along with Fowler, then take the diamonds and skip when the opportunity presented itself. Make sure Fowler knew why. See then how self-satisfied he was.

  Robert was going to do it, but in that moment of decision he felt fundamentally altered in some way; a grainy flood of something darkly unpleasant washed through his entire being.

  Fowler studied him, a frown of suspicious disapproval. “What’s wrong with you?”

  Robert eyed him in turn, his furious lust for revenge barely restrained beneath a facade of good-old-boy joshing. “You really want to know? I was thinking I might just kick your sorry ass anyway, coming in here like this, assuming you can browbeat me into playing your fall guy.”

  Fowler actually appeared to relax a little. “Hey, nice to see you too, Bohnert! C’mon. Get your shower on. Suit up and I’ll take you to dinner.”

  It was a fine line, maintaining your balance while going for the gold with a guy like Fowler. The foreboding he felt might be simple resentment over Fowler’s dictatorial attitude—resentment built up over the last three years. But at the same time it felt like a premonition of something evil.

  On the other hand, you couldn’t go so quickly from mowing yards to smuggling diamonds without a few bumps in your mental get-along.

  5

  The Big Book

  NINE IN THE morning and forty-year-old Helmut Heinrich was on his second vodka and orange juice, musing over the Twelve Step Program in the Big Book Ana had given him. He had only gotten to Step Two—Come to believe that a power greater than ourselves can restore us to sanity—when the phone rang.

  The landline phone hung on a support post between the kitchen and dining area in the studio apartment he and Ana Farrington kept behind a bicycle repair shop just off Reforma in Mexico City.