The Dogs of Mexico

by John J. Asher

  Her eyes watered up again. “I was broke.”

  “You were going home.”

  She took tissues from the bed and blew her nose. “I don’t have a home. My family, they’re all dead.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “I made it up. I’ve never even been to Berkeley. And Mr. Soffit, at first I thought he had killed himself because I took his money. Then I realized: he wouldn’t do that. Not him.” She shook her head. “I can’t believe it—him, into drugs.”

  “You just never know, do you.”

  She squinted from mascara-streaked eyes. “Why did you see Mr. Soffit, really?”

  “DEA. Undercover.”

  She paled again. “You mean… Aw Jesus…”

  He picked up a packet of money and began counting: one hundred hundred-dollar bills in each packet, seventy-six packets, plus seventy hundred-dollar bills secured with a rubber band. He pitched the last packet on the bed. Seven hundred and sixty-seven thousand dollars. His heart rate picked up. A sensation akin to sexual arousal pulsed through him.

  Mickey leaned forward. “How much is it there?”

  He took the envelope with Soffit’s name on it from the case, removed the single sheet and read to himself:

  Mr. N. Soffit:

  You have acquired a Bible from

  Eduardo Agustino, the man you

  have displaced. We are prepared

  to exchange twenty thousand dollars

  US for delivery of this Bible within

  three days. Ask for señor Valdez

  at the souvenir shop in the Hotel

  Camino Real in Oaxaca. We trust

  you will find it prudent to act

  immediately.

  Señor Renaldo Salinas Valdez

  It was a one-two punch. First there was the name, Eduardo Agustino, a fellow operative from Robert’s early days in the Company. Then there was the second name, Valdez, the same name Soffit had mentioned in relation to the photo delivery. And the word, displaced. Equally troubling, Fowler knew Eduardo well and he hadn’t mentioned him in regard to this operation.

  He narrowed his gaze on Mickey. “You run across any photos in that case?”

  “How much money is that?” she asked again.

  He thumbed through the Bible, turned it upside down, shook it and thumbed through it again. “You ever hear Soffit mention the name Eduardo?”

  “Not that I remember.”

  “He say anything about a guy named Valdez?”

  “What are you talking about? Who are these people?”

  Robert checked the Bible over again.

  Mickey stared at the money. “What’re you gonna do now?”

  He considered the question. On the bed lay seven hundred and sixty-seven thousand dollars in cash, a titanium canister full of rare diamonds, and in his hand a King James translation of the Holy Bible that might be worth twenty grand.

  Then there was Mickey.

  He wiped his forehead with his handkerchief. It was this damn country all right—the bleeding Jesuses, the pained saints and mangy dogs. The open sewers, the poverty and the rotten smells. A land of low vibrations, inconsolable spirits. A man couldn’t think straight.

  He paused. The Bible’s back cover felt unnaturally thick. He saw that a second piece of heavy black paper had been glued inside. He pressed open a slot at the top and turned it upside down. Six four-by-five-inch Ektachromes fell out. One by one he held them up to the light—head-shots of Arab men in traditional Afghan clothing.

  “What’s that?” Mickey wanted to know.

  He looked the photos over, then replaced them.

  “I’m giving you some money,” he said. “I want you to get out of this country. Go home.”

  “Yeah? How much money?”

  “Two thousand dollars.”

  “Two— Hah! That big pile? I guess you would too!”

  “I’m turning the money in. And that dope’s going in your incinerator.”

  “Oh, sure. You think I was born yesterday?”

  “Just about.”

  “Show me your ID. Your badge or whatever.”

  “You know we don’t carry that stuff undercover.”

  She picked up the brandy, took a good drink, and wiped her eyes again. “I’m sticking with you,” she said, choking a little.

  “See those photos? Major drug lords. That’s what got Soffit killed.”

  “So, then? What’re you gonna do?”

  “I’m gonna look into it. That’s what I’m gonna do.”

  “Geez. You sound like government all right. I’m gonna look into it. Well, I’m looking into it with you.”

  “I’ll have you locked up.”

  She finished off the remaining brandy in the glass, eyes watering. “I’ll raise holy hell all over this fucking hotel. They’ll arrest you for killing Mr. Soffit and attempting to rape me.” She dabbed at her eyes with tissues, further smearing her mascara. “Tomorrow, ace, you and me, you’re gonna give me my half, and then we’re gonna load out of here. You go your way, I’ll go mine.”

  He was beginning to see the kid in an entirely new light.

  “Well,” he said, “looks like you’re the one in the driver’s seat.”

  No use making a scene, he thought to himself. Not yet anyway.

  15

  Slip out the Back Jack

  ROBERT PRETENDED TO sleep but Mickey wasn’t buying it. She sat in the chair with the light on. She had stopped with the brandy, but too late and just before dawn the sandman did the kid in. An inability to hold their booze—a definite disadvantage to the very young. She slept, knees drawn up, bare feet in the chair’s seat, arms folded under her breasts.

  He eased out of bed, took the folded money from his pocket and stuck it in one of her Converse sneakers on the floor near her chair. He slipped his own shoes on, then picked up his carry-on and the aluminum case and stole quietly to the door. He let the carry-on down, then softly turned the handle and drew the door back. He took a last look at Mickey—innocent, one step removed from a Gerber baby food ad—then slipped both bags into the hallway and smoothed the door closed behind, letting the latch ease silently back into place.

  Daylight was just breaking, a faint colorless glow behind the black silhouette of Acapulco in the east. A few tourists and businesspeople were already up and about, some going and coming from the restaurant, others checking out, bellmen pushing luggage carts, flagging taxis, valets bringing cars around to the front. Apparently the police were no longer holding the guests hostage.

  The two registrars were in their place behind the check-in counter. Robert stood in line behind a stately man in a dark suit, silver hair combed straight back from a high forehead, laugh lines fanning around prominent cheekbones. When the man bent to pick up his bag, his jacket gaped open, a badge visible, clipped to his belt.

  When he moved on, Robert stepped forward and handed an envelope to each of the two concierges. “I want to thank you for the excellent service.”

  The older concierge bowed almost imperceptibly. “Gracias, señor. It has been a pleasure. Shall we have your car brought around?”

  “Yes. Thank you.”

  The woman placed the credit-card voucher before him. He worried Fowler had cancelled his Visa, relieved then when it went through without a hitch. She handed over his receipt. “May you have a safe journey,” she said.

  “Gracias, señorita. And you, señor.” He kept one eye on the annex behind.

  “Visit us again soon,” said the woman. Neither asked about his absent niece.

  A bellman took his bags—the one carry-on and the aluminum case.

  The light in the east was tinting rose when a valet whipped the red Nissan in under the entrance portico and squealed to a stop. Robert had the bellman put the luggage in the backseat, tipped him, and when the valet handed over the keys, tipped him also.

  He was about to slide in behind the wheel when she came charging out through the entranceway, her big backpack hugg
ed in both arms.

  “Uncle Otis! Wait! Don’t leave me!” Attendants and guests alike turned to stare as she ran to the passenger door, eyes trailing comet-streak tears.

  “Goddamn you,” she breathed, slamming the car door shut after herself, wrestling the clumsy backpack over into the backseat.

  DUANE FOWLER WAS still walking the floor, sleepless, when Helmut finally called.

  “Where the hell’ve you been?”

  “I have been right here,” Helmut muttered.

  “The canister, who has it?”

  “There is a problem.”

  “What do you mean, ‘problem’?”

  “I sent the men, but Soffit did not have the canister. We don’t know where it is.”

  Duane’s mind jimmied. “The men?” he bellowed. “What men?”

  “The men. I hired two men to give me a hand with Soffit.”

  Duane couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “You hired two— You’re drunk! That’s why you didn’t report in. Dammit, Helmut, do you realize how you’ve jeopardized— Wait a minute—” Duane stared at the composite maps on the split screens. “That sonofabitching transmitter’s moving out, down the coast…”

  “What? What are you saying?”

  “Helmut,” Fowler said evenly, “you let him get away with that canister, you’re one dead duck.”

  “Not to worry. The situation is well in hand—as you Americans like to say.”

  “No, we don’t say vell in hand, we say well in hand.” Duane could practically hear Helmut’s fury in the silence that followed.

  “Do not concern yourself,” Helmut said after a moment, speaking precisely. “We are taking care of it.”

  Duane paused again, newly startled, not by the sending unit moving out on one side of the screen, but by a faint blinking still repeating from within the hotel.

  “Helmut,” Duane said, his voice hoarse with intensity, “apparently he has discovered one of the transmitters. One is moving out, but the other is stationary. That son of a bitch, he’s trying to pull one on us.”

  Helmut was quiet another moment. “I am only one person. I cannot be in two places.”

  Duane suffered briefly the humiliation of having to reverse himself. “Okay, what’s the story with the two men you hired? Can they be trusted?”

  “Oh, I believe they are exactly your kind of people.” There was no mistaking the sarcasm in Helmut’s tone.

  “Listen,” Helmut, “you handle this. Whatever it takes. But you have one more drink before I get that canister, they’re going to find what’s left of your fat ass in some back-alley pigsty. I’ll come down and personally take care of you myself.” Duane slapped the phone shut.

  He stared at the monitor. The signals from inside the Hotel Acapulco Princess had never been strong, and now it weakened and died altogether.

  Nothing.

  Duane reasoned that it wasn’t a failing battery; those were good for at least a month. For a while intelligence had ordinary Pakistani citizens dropping them at Taliban safe houses wrapped in cigarette papers for drones to zero in on when deemed appropriate. But, paid by the drop, some individuals began placing them indiscriminately. No, Duane reasoned, it wasn’t the battery, it was a damn double-cross.

  16

  Abandoned

  “YOU WONKY IN the head, or what?” Mickey stood alongside the Nissan’s open trunk, arms crossed, clutching her elbows.

  Robert had stopped near a drainage ditch on the outskirts of Acapulco and dragged the spare tire from the well under the dirty mat. He seated the leather punch from his Swiss army knife into the valve stem, letting the air out. It wasn’t something he would have chosen to do in Mickey’s presence, but as sure as there were checkpoints going into Acapulco, there would be checkpoints leaving, and opening the aluminum case full of money to the Mexican army was not an option.

  He set the canister aside, then handed one of the packets of hundred dollar bills to Mickey. “Split that up. Half for you, half for me.” He began stuffing the rest between the wheel rim and the deflated casing.

  She thumbed through the bills. “How much is in one of these?”

  “Ten thousand. Five each.”

  “What about all of that?” she said of the money he was stuffing inside the deflated tire.

  “I told you. We’re turning it in.”

  She looked on in silence as he pitched the tire in the trunk. He took the back off the projector and slid the titanium canister inside. Perfect fit.

  Mickey frowned. “What’re you doing there?”

  “Seeing to it you don’t get busted for smuggling drugs.” He replaced the projector in the document case.

  Her eyes locked on him, her face pale. “You already had that set up. You’re in a drug cartel, you and Mr. Soffit both…” She covered her mouth with both hands, watching him with big frightened eyes.

  “Get in the car.”

  “You’re not gonna kill me, are you?”

  “Get in.”

  Mickey hurried around and climbed in. He got in and started the car.

  She narrowed her eyes on him. “You’re not really cartel are you?”

  “Split that money up like I told you.”

  She hesitated, then tore the paper band off and divided the bundle into two packets. “Here,” she said, handing him one.

  “There’d better be fifty bills here,” he said, folding them into his shirt pocket.

  A mile down the road, he stopped at a Pemex station, had the tank filled, and aired up the spare with its load of money at an old thump-bumping air compressor on iron wheels. He tipped the attendant ten pesos, then took the Ivory soap and the face towel from his carry-on and washed his hands with mineral water from a plastic bottle.

  He bought two more bottles of water and drove on down old coastal Highway 200. Mickey’s backpack lay in the backseat along with his maroon carry-on and Soffit’s aluminum case, the aluminum case empty now but for his seersucker jacket, two clean pairs of shorts and the Bible. Most of his clothes were still packed in the black carry-on, abandoned in the Princess’s hotel room when he tried to skip out on Mickey. He had made sure there was nothing traceable in it.

  Midmorning heat shimmered on the narrow pavement. An occasional dirt road forked off, disappearing into the inhospitable terrain—coastal hills scruffy with rocks, cacti, scrub brush and Joshua trees. He could drive Mickey a short distance inland, force her out, and be free. He could, but then, thinking about it, he couldn’t. He had seen and done plenty, and while he wasn’t one to get all touchy-feely over causing someone a little discomfort, he wasn’t one to turn a kid out in such a merciless environment either.

  She opened a Spanish-language newspaper she had picked up at the service station. “Where’re we going?”

  “Down the coast.”

  “No shit Dick Tracy.”

  “Feel free to get out, anytime.”

  “Gimme my half and I will.”

  “You just got your half. Plus two thousand.”

  “What about that dope?”

  “It wasn’t the tar we were after.”

  “We?”

  “DEA.”

  She slanted a look over him. “Oh, sure. You’re DEA and I’m Tinker Bell.”

  “You think I’m lying.”

  “Exacto correcto.”

  He gave her a quizzical look.

  “Latin,” she said.

  He grinned a little. She was an all-right kid. He regretted what he had to do.

  She turned and knelt on her knees and removed a zippered case from her backpack. She took off her Converse sneakers and socks and, bare feet propped on the dash, began to trim her toenails with a pair of clippers. Her toenails were painted the same black with silver glitter as her fingernails, both beginning to chip.

  “Geez,” he muttered, “you’ve got a lot of class.”

  She spread one hand, observing her fingernails. “I need new acrylics.”

  “Yeah, you could use a perm, too.”
<
br />   She glanced at her watch. “I’m fuming on four, ace.”

  “Latin again?”

  “Hungry. I’d give twenty bucks for a Big Mac and a double order of fries.”

  Robert tensed over the wheel, squinting down the road ahead. “Uh–oh. Here we go.”

  A red flag on a wire stem jutted up from a small pile of rocks in the middle of the pavement. An armed soldier and an officer stood nearby, two tarp-covered trucks and a jeep behind.

  The .380 was tucked under his shirt, Soffit’s .45 wrapped in a towel under his seat.

  He brought the car to a stop. The officer stepped to Mickey’s window.

  “Hey, general,” she said, bare feet still on the dash, a squinty smile, smacking her gum.

  The officer glanced at their passports and tourist cards. He said something in Spanish. Mickey let her feet down and opened the ashtray; then leaned back over the seat and unzipped Robert’s maroon carry-on. “Una filmadora,” she said of the camera and projector.

  The officer gestured at her armor of jewelry, buttons, pins. “Ah, much adornment.” He lifted his eyebrows pleasantly. “Famous actress in movies. Sí?”

  Mickey squinted, slowly appraising his uniform, up and down, smacking her gum. “Listen general, we aren’t all into Boy Scout mode, you know?”

  The officer laughed good-naturedly then gestured at the aluminum case. Mickey opened it. Soffit’s Bible lay under Robert’s jacket.

  “Ah. La Biblia,” the officer said reverently. He returned their papers with a broad smile and motioned them on. “Say hello to Hollywood from Eugenio in México, sí?”

  Mickey cracked her gum. “Sure general. I’ll do that.”

  Robert let go a breath as they left the checkpoint. “Whoa. A Hollywood star now. How about that.”

  Mickey sat erect, absently working a strand of beads around her fingers. “Kinda funny,” she said.

  “Funny?”

  “The DEA, sending a spook down here who can’t even speak the lingo.”

  In Modern Standard Arabic, he said, “You are much too naïve to be playing this game.”

  She squinted at him. “Say again?”