He struggled to pull his fractured universe together, to bring order to the chaos assaulting his inner vision, to distinguish reality from the delirium tremens flickering shadowlike about the peripheral of his semiconscious mind—a slathered black dog, an albino quadriplegic strapped to a skateboard…
Concrete. Lying on concrete. He tried to roll over and sit up, but one arm had no feeling.
His car. An accident. Vague recollections formed, shunting back and forth among the hallucinatory horrors. He had wrecked his car. Or was that the time before…? No, this just happened. Last evening. A wall. He had crashed into a stone wall.
He wondered if his dead arm had been severed in the wreck. He saw it then, the fingers on his hand like the legs of a centipede, struggling, dragging his arm across the concrete toward a hole of a toilet in the floor. He shook off the image and with his other hand found his arm in its proper place, saw it through warped fractals of light, intact. Perhaps it was broken. Clumsily, he inspected it, and while it felt normal, it felt like someone else’s. He fumbled for his glasses with his good hand, but they were missing from his shirt pocket. The arm began to tingle and he realized he had been lying on it and that it had only gone numb. Asleep.
He realized, too, that he was still drunk—thinking his arm had been severed. If his head didn’t hurt so, he might have laughed at himself, for he had a great sense of humor, though this occurred to him now as sudden and surprising news.
He became aware of a sewer stench, urine and feces and vomit. Crude pornographic images scared the walls. A jail cell.
Simultaneously, he realized he had blown his assignment. Binged at the worst possible moment.
Another hallucination blurred into focus—a female clown sat on the floor across from him, her back against the wall, legs splayed toward him from a red leather miniskirt, pinches of flesh bulging like blisters through snags on her black fishnet stockings. Helmut tried to clear his mind but the apparition lingered—a female clown, bald, a fringe of yellow hair around her ears, green eye shadow, rouged cheeks, orange lipstick—watching him. A clown could not possibly be here like this. Yet when he tried to dismiss the image, it remained. He saw now that the makeup wasn’t clownish but applied with some precision, much as a woman without taste might, a woman with a barrel body and a fringe of pale peroxided curls. A man, Helmut realized. An Anglo.
The man got to his feet. He took an only cup from a shelf on the wall, turned on a shoulder-high faucet and ran water into it. The toilet hole opened in the floor directly beneath. He brought the cup over, squatted before Helmut and held it out. A mop of curls crawled in and out of the man’s ears like bloodless worms. With a kind of beggarly longing, he looked down on Helmut with limpid wet eyes, the puffy little bags underneath smeared with mascara.
“The woman,” Helmut managed, his accent thick with hangover. “She is hurt?”
The man withdrew, nose wrinkling. “Woman? What woman? Here, drink.”
Helmut took the cup, trying to steady it in both hands, trying not to breathe on the man. “There was a woman,” he mumbled. “You did not see her?”
“Naw, hell,” the man said, a dismissive gesture as he stood back. “I was here all the time. There wasn’t no woman.” He gestured at the cup. “Drink up.”
“Thank you.” Helmut took a sip, dizzy, the room sliding about, thinking he might throw up.
“What’ve you done?” the man asked. “Why’re you here?”
Again Helmut tried to focus. “You do not know?”
“I woke up when they brought you in.” The big man grinned. “You wasn’t too happy.”
“I wrecked my car. And you?”
“Name’s Jenkins. Call me Jinx.” He shrugged, a small self-effacing smile. “That’s kind of a joke.”
“Jinx. Okay Jinx, why are you here?”
Jinx sighed. “That lieutenant, he’s pissed at me. I’m no longer a cop in this municipality.”
“Cop? A Policeman?”
Jinx shrugged again. “Yep. Was, anyway.”
Helmut tried to separate reality from hallucination. He pressed his fingertips to his temples, yawned to unstop his ears. “Why are you dressed like a woman?”
Jinx gave him a sharp look. “You got a problem with that?”
Helmut lifted the palm of his free hand at Jinx in deference. At the same time an idea began to take shape in his tortured brain. “Do you own a car?”
The big man watched him, a touch of humor deepening the lines webbing the mascara around his eyes. “Why? You wanna go for a little joyride?”
Helmut took another sip of water, suffered another moment of nausea. “As a policeman you have had experience with surveillance?”
The man shrugged. “I was watching a meth lab when the lieutenant brought me in. Yeah. Why the questions?”
“Ah. Methamphetamines. You were undercover? That is why you are dressed as you are? And the lab, they were paying you for protection. Money you were not sharing with the lieutenant. I see. The jefes, they do not like this.”
The big man watched him levelly, no longer so affable. “That fuckin lieutenant sent you, didn’t he.”
“No, no. I am looking for a good man to help me keep an eye on a man from the States. If you have a car, you will earn three months police pay in a week. You are interested?”
Jinx hesitated, eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Who is this man from the States? What do you mean, keep an eye on him?”
“A policeman with experience. I will pay you, say, fifty dollars a day, US. Plus expenses.”
Jinx looked on as Helmut sipped at the water. After a moment of consideration, he said: “I’ve got this friend. We might do it for fifty each. A hundred bucks a day.”
Helmut lumbered to his feet with difficulty, struggling to keep his balance, guarding against the viscous blackness rising up to drown him. He made his way along the wall, turned the faucet on, ran the cup full again. “Okay. Fifty each. But only if he is reliable, an experienced man like yourself.”
The big man grinned. “You and me, we’re a couple of pretty funny bozos. All this big talk, but here we sit, locked in the calaboose.”
Helmut leaned one hand against the wall, closed his eyes. There was no place to sit other than the floor. Nothing at all in the room other than the hole of a toilet. He craved a drink, a little dog hair—as the Americans liked to say. He took his hand away from the wall, looked at it, wiped it on his pant leg.
“How much money to get you out of here?” he said.
The big man studied him, as if determining whether he was reliably serious or unreliably delirious. “That lieutenant, he can be a real hard-ass.
Helmut didn’t care for this soft gringo with his round face painted like a woman, but he was readily available and apparently qualified for the work. Regardless, he had to move quickly.
“Tell me,” Helmut said. “If you are a policeman, you have a uniform?”
Jinx gestured at a tan policeman’s shirt he had been sitting on, spread on the floor, that Helmut hadn’t noticed. “The pants,” Jinx said, gesturing at a big saddlebag purse resting against the wall.
Helmut was about to call out for the jailer when the steel door clanged open at the end of the outside corridor. He was surprised and relieved to see Ana limp-swinging along behind a swaggering police lieutenant. Ana’s faint limp was unusually pronounced, and he was shot through with guilt, believing he had damaged her in the wreck. An armed guard stood back inside the doorway, rifle butt resting on his hip.
The lieutenant threw a lock and swung the cell door back. “You,” he said to Helmut in English. “You are free to go.”
Helmut saw that Ana’s eyes were red and swollen, her mouth drawn in angry silence. She handed over his glasses, then held a handkerchief over her nose against the stench.
“You were hurt?” he asked, cleaning his glasses on his shirttail.
She shook her head, not looking at him.
“How much to get me out?”
&nbs
p; “You are a drunken pig,” said the lieutenant. “Except for this woman and the large generosity of my compassion, I keep you forever.”
“And the generosity of her wallet, ja? How could you ignore that, ja?” Even as he said it he realized it was the booze talking.
“Helmut—” Ana began angrily.
The lieutenant darkened. “It is not too late. The door shut the same as it open.”
“And this hombre?” Helmut said of the big man, Jinx. “How much do you require for him?”
The lieutenant looked at Jinx, then at Helmut and Ana, one to the other. “What?” said the lieutenant, gesturing at Jinx with contempt. “You are trade the woman for this maricón? You wish to buy him for yourself?”
“Fifty dollars.”
“Fifty dólare? This impostor, he is shake down the good peoples of México and keep the money for himself. This is not how we do. And we don’ hire gringos for our distinguish police. Fifty dólare? You think I am estúpido?”
“I think you are very smart. I think you would like to have fifty dollars and be rid of this man who eats up your food and disgusts you.” Helmut was pleased with himself, realizing how rational he was, though realizing it only after the fact.
“This man, he owe me a large amount of money.”
“You must know he cannot repay you here?”
“I make his life miserable. This is payment enough.”
Helmut studied the lieutenant, swimming a little in his vision. “I see. You are keeping him for your own pleasure then?”
Lieutenant Garza colored. “Tú eres un gringo estúpido!”
Helmut forced a smile. “Fifty dollars.”
“One hundred. You take him and I never see you again. All of you.”
“Fifty. Take it or leave it.”
“This is an insult to my position.”
“Not to mention your integrity also. Ja.”
“Helmut,” Ana said sharply, “that’s enough.”
“I lock you all up. This cripple woman also. Cohecho, this is a very serious offense.”
Helmut pulled himself together. “Very well. Whom shall we contact? The consulate? The municipio comandante?”
The lieutenant threw his hands up in exasperation. “Fifty dólares. Take your queer maricón and get far from my sight.”
Helmut turned to Ana. “Do you have fifty dollars?”
“No,” she said from behind her handkerchief, visibly bewildered.
Helmut frowned. “How did you free me?”
She moved the handkerchief aside, cool, aloof. “Perhaps the lieutenant likes cripples more than he lets on.”
Helmut knew she was angry, tormenting him from spite, nevertheless he felt a prick of jealous anger. “No, my dear Ana. Your indiscretions are not so flagrant.” He turned abruptly to the lieutenant, ignoring Ana’s wounded look. “You must accompany me to the ATM, for it seems we are short of funds.”
Jinx gave the lieutenant a taunting lipstick-smeared grin. “I’m gonna miss you, boss.”
The lieutenant turned on him. “You want I should call in my special friends to take care of you? It is not too late!”
“What we really want,” said Helmut with alcohol-induced bravado, “is to give you fifty dollars and never to see you again.”
What he really wanted was a stiff shot of brandy.
8
Gift Basket
ROBERT PICKED OVER his dinner under a stuffed crocodile on the wall above his table in a restaurant just off Paseo de la Reforma, one of the main avenues in Mexico City. The crocodile was a dried brown, its toothy grin yellow with age.
Whether it was the croc or the abrupt transition from sunny Miami to the smoggy bowl of Mexico City, it all came back—a kind of unsettling déjà vu—the secretiveness, the suspicions. It was a business in which when all was said and done one learned to negotiate compromises with one’s own values. Not even Tricia had known what he did in those long absentee periods. A consultant for Halliburton, he had told her, dealing with the company’s foreign enterprises where trouble was always breaking out.
It was Trish and Nick and the land that embodied what little integrity he may have retained in those years, the month or two between assignments, nourishing the desiccated roots of his character. That had been the one true thing. Then they were gone. Nick. Tricia. The ranch.
He punched another Vibramicina out of the card in his shirt pocket and chased the capsule—a guard against Montezuma’s revenge—down with a last half-inch of brandy. He thumbed his plate back, laid a few bills on the table and went out. A last throb of red light lay dying in the west, darkness closing down over Mexico City.
He stepped into a little hole-in-the-wall kiosk and bought three prepaid Telex phone cards, then went on toward his hotel, picking his way through the crowds that gathered each evening to idle on the sidewalks after the heat of the day had cooled a little.
Up ahead, a ragged Indian squatted in the shadows away from the streetlight. A tiny child hung limp over his shoulder. The beggar’s small eyes and upturned hand followed pedestrians going either way on the sidewalk. He whispered in a pleading voice as Robert passed. Robert walked several yards beyond, then stopped and looked back.
The Indian wore a coarse-woven pullover that may have once been colorful, trousers frayed below his knees, rough brown toes splayed on the sidewalk. The child's arms and legs hung limp from a shapeless rag over his shoulder. There was little flesh on her bones, elbows and knees swollen.
The Indian lifted his hand like an upturned claw, mumbling in an unfamiliar language as Robert walked back toward him. Robert gestured at the child in an attempt at sign language. “Sick?”
“Enferma,” the Indian mumbled, raising his shoulder so that the child's head rolled to one side—obviously a practiced gesture to best reveal the child’s pitiful condition. Seeds of white matter had collected in the corners of her eyes. Her lips were thick and scabbed, her coarse black hair matted.
Robert studied the Indian and his child, then removed a hundred-peso note from a roll in his front pocket, the equivalent of about ten US dollars. As in all developing countries, it was helpful to carry a pocketful of small bills, not for beggars, but to grease your way through the endless bureaucracy, the mordida, or bite as it was called.
“Eat,” Robert said, holding the money in one hand, pointing at the child with the other.
The Indian rose to his feet, staring at the note. Robert shoved the money at him, but the Indian stepped back, as if afraid to believe or take this large amount. Robert dropped the money on the sidewalk and walked away. He glanced back to see the beggar snatch it up.
Robert continued along the poorly lit street. He turned onto Motolinia where it intersected Juarez, and entered the Hotel Lafayette, whose promotional material boasted: “A modest, comfortable and clean hotel with hot water all day long.”
A Mexican wearing a yellow blazer over a purple shirt and a green tie sat in a club chair near the admissions desk. On his lap he held a large gift-basket wrapped in blue cellophane and festooned with an orange bow. He stood as Robert walked toward the elevator. “Otis T. Baker?”
Robert stopped short.
The man’s gaze lingered a moment on the bead of fleshy tissue high on Robert’s forehead. “Ah, yes. The scar,” he said, visibly relaxing. “Compliments of Mr. Flax.”
Had Robert not been expecting the basket, he might have dove for cover. Even so he accepted it with trepidation. He reached for his wallet but the man lifted one hand in polite refusal. “It is taken care of,” he said. He nodded once, a faint bow, then turned and walked out without looking back.
Robert followed to the entrance and watched as the courier flagged a taxi. Robert visually scoured the street in each direction, then took the elevator up to his room.
He switched on the light, pulled the shutters closed, removed the cellophane and placed the fruit on the dresser. Underneath the straw lining he found the expected packet tied with cord. He unwrapped a Bersa Thu
nder .380 semiautomatic in a clip-on holster—a little abbreviated nylon job—and a box of Cor-Bon 90-grain cartridges. He field-stripped the weapon and determined that it had seen very little use. The action checked out, smooth. Normally, other then the heavy stuff, his weapon of choice had been the FN FiveSeveN, a 5.7 millimeter designed by the Belgium based FN Herstal, its ammo capable of penetrating body armor. The gun was designed for military use, special agents and some SWAT teams. Of course it had been adopted by drug cartels as well. However, the ammo wasn’t always easily available, and the Bersa .380 was a reliable weapon, an acceptable compromise when concealment was an issue.
He dumped a few cartridges on the bed. Then, of old habit, put his hand in a sock so as not to leave prints on the brass casings and fed six into the clip. He shoved the clip home with the heel of his hand, jacked one into the chamber, then removed the clip and thumbed in a replacement. He flicked the safety on and clipped the gun above his right hip, under his Hawaiian shirt.
After folding and repacking his clothes in the black carry-on, he wiped the room clean of prints with the room towel and checked both trashcans for telltale debris. He left the fruit and the basket on the table with fifty pesos for the maid, and, after a final look around, took up his bags, rode the elevator down, and checked out.
A taxi let him out on Santa Veracruz in front of the Hotel Hidalgo, a dozen blocks from the Lafayette. It wasn’t an impressive neighborhood, but while the Hidalgo’s lobby was small and not very trendy, it looked clean. A small dining room opened off the lobby.
He checked in using a credit card and a Louisiana driver’s license identifying him as Edmond Haywood. Unknown to Duane Fowler, those good Cuban boys who had arranged his Miami license and the ID for his pickup had more recently provided him with this new identity, including a letter-perfect passport, for a price, of course. Degrees of separation: the name of the game. Edmond Haywood, just one more obscure gringo in a city of twenty million souls.
The Dogs of Mexico Page 5