“So we have to kill him?” I said.
No one said anything for a time. Finally Jim Bob said, “Before we start passing out the ammunition and a sack lunch, might be a good idea I tell you a little about this guy Juan Miguel, and his main henchman.”
“Henchman?” Leonard said. “Shit, I just love that term. I think I used to read that in the Fu Manchu books. Henchmen.”
“Cesar helped me find out a lot of stuff on this dude. Juan Miguel is rich because he’s run more drugs than Johnson and Johnson. He started out a petty thief, worked himself up to a higher level, killed off the right guys in the Mexican mafia, and eventually, he’s head dick. Got him some class along the way. Money buys class, you know. And very expensive suits, in all shades. When he wears a suit. He’s a practicing nudist much of the time.”
“A nudist?” Brett said.
“Yep. A classy nudist. At least in his own eyes. In reality he’s about as classy as a ball peen hammer to the back of the head. Which is something he’s done. Used a ball peen on his enemies’ skulls. But he’s too cool for that now. He’s got hired hands that do that.”
“The henchmen,” Leonard said.
“That’s right.”
“Is he hard to get to?” Hanson asked.
“He’s got a little fortress of a house in the hills surrounding Playa del Carmen. Nice pad. You can drive a car right up to it, but there’s guys with guns to greet you. One of the guys, according to Cesar, is about six eight, weighs about three eighty-five, and only the bits between his fingers and toes is fatty.”
“Sounds like hyperbole,” John said.
“Could be,” Jim Bob said. “They call him Hammerhead.”
“An old family name,” Leonard said. “Surely he’s a junior.”
“Point is,” Jim Bob said, “what we got here isn’t a cakewalk. This guy is dangerous. The people who protect him are dangerous. We can’t drive up to his house, knock on his door, ask if he can come out to play and shoot him in the head.”
“Any weaknesses?” I asked.
“Maybe at bridge,” Jim Bob said, “not much else. Well, there is one thing. A mistress. A real stunner. She lives in a fine house with some pretty nice guards herself. Provided by Juan Miguel, of course. She likes to travel to Mexico City and shop in expensive shops. We followed her three times in one week to the airport. And we even got on the flight once. The guards were with her. She shopped Mexico City to death. Only thing she didn’t do was buy the coats off the bears at the Mexico City zoo. She had the two plugs with her carrying all this shit. Clothes. Shoes. Whatever the crap is women buy, and I bet me and Cesar sat outside those stores in a rented airport car most of the day. We didn’t even eat lunch.”
“She’s the key,” Leonard said.
“Yep,” Jim Bob said. “I suppose so.”
26
That night the rain blew hard against the house, rattled the windows like teeth chattering in a cold face. Only it was warm, sticky warm, even in the house with the central air and a fan blowing at the foot of the bed.
Brett, who I thought was asleep, rolled over and laid her arm across my chest.
“You aren’t sleeping?”
“I know. And neither are you. Surely you don’t want sex again? I think I’m pooped out.”
“We didn’t have sex tonight.”
“I’m still pooped out… You sure we didn’t?”
“I’m sure. Man, is that rain gonna wash us away?”
“We’ll float on the bed. We’ll be okay.”
“Will there be room for all the animals, Noah?”
“We’re the only animals that matter.”
“Hap. Can we do this?”
“You don’t need to do anything. Me and Leonard, Jim Bob and Ferdinand, we can do it.”
“The plan sounds kind of lame to me.”
“He’s actually using part of my idea.”
“Like I said, the plan sounds lame.”
“Jim Bob said it was a better plan than he expected the bunch of us to come up with.”
“Finding an extra pecan in your pecan sundae is better than you expected, but it isn’t exactly a whole pie. Jim Bob’s so smart, why doesn’t he come up with a better plan.”
“You’re knocking the plan?”
“I’m just saying Jim Bob saying it’s a better plan than he expected doesn’t make it the best plan devised.”
“It’s better than me or Leonard running the show.”
“It’s still not a plan that makes me feel confident.”
“Would any plan make you feel confident?”
“Probably not.”
“It’s what we’ve got. Or what we’ve got without you. You don’t need to go at all. You have a job to worry about.”
“You’re not doing anything without me. I got a little money put back. I can probably get off for a couple weeks. How long does it take to hunt down and kill a guy anyway?”
“Christ, don’t say that, Brett. I still wake up with the other on my mind.”
“Me too. I even wake up screaming about it sometimes. But I’d do it again. I’d do what we’re about to do twice. Charlie was a good guy, Hap. He didn’t deserve this.”
“No, he didn’t.”
“You did a thing for me once that I can’t imagine anyone else doing.”
“Leonard did it too.”
“You always say that, and he did, but he did it for you… Okay. I can’t imagine anyone but you two doing it for me, and now here’s my chance to pay you back.”
“I don’t want that. You’re not paying me back. This has got nothing to do with you paying me back. It’s got to do with me paying back that cocksucker in Mexico.”
Brett got up, went to the bathroom, came back, and snuggled in with me again. I said, “Frankly, I hate to admit it, but I been thinking about walkin’.”
“No you haven’t.”
“I haven’t?”
“Oh, you might consider it. It’s in your head. But you know what you’ll do, and so do I.”
“Am I that predictable?”
“Except that part where you bent one of my legs sideways and came at me from that weird angle. I didn’t expect that. But, other than sex, yes, you’re predictable.”
“Hey, we’re together long enough, I’ll be predictable there too. Then you’ll have to get rid of me.”
“I don’t think you’re altogether joking.”
“I haven’t had the best luck with love, my dear.”
“Hap. I don’t care you’re not young, you’re not rich or overly handsome, or even well hung-”
“Hold it now, goddamn it, you’re stepping across the line.”
“I thought that would wake you up. I’m saying I don’t care. I don’t care about any of those things, but I care about you, and I can’t just kiss you bye and send you to Mexico not knowing what’s going to happen. And when it’s over, when we come back here, I want to make this deal permanent. I’m not saying you have to marry me, though that would be nice, but I want us to be together. And that means being together when you go to Mexico. I don’t want to be sitting here waiting on my man to do what a man’s got to do like some cheap-ass Western movie.”
“That’s kind of what it boils down to, though, isn’t it?”
“It boils down to you and me. From now on, I want it you and me. Except when I’m doing some serious business in the bathroom. I don’t mind you come in I’m doing a number one, but a number two, no way. Unless maybe it’s to hand me the toilet paper if I forgot to put it on the roll, but other than that, not a number two. You stay out then.”
“You’re fucking nuts, Brett.”
“I know.”
“Brett, I don’t know I can go through with it. I think about it I clench up inside.”
“Whatever you do. Whatever you decide. I want to be there with you. Except that bathroom part that I’ve already explained. And that goes if you’re doing number two as well. I don’t want to see that.”
“Brett
, thy middle name is class.”
“I keep telling you that.”
Next day they fired Brett when she wanted time off. She’d already used all her time off dealing with her worthless daughter.
I was with her at the nurses’ station when the head nurse told her it was all over and that they’d been thinking about firing her for some time because of her mouth.
“My mouth,” Brett said. “My fuckin’ mouth. You old dried-up cunt. You’d be so lucky as to have my cunt for your mouth. Turn it sideways, and it’d go better with your mustache than the mouth you got, you fuckin’ Wicked Witch of the West. I ought-”
I got her by the arm and pulled her out of there. On the way out she yelled back what they could do with their thermometers.
Later that day, Leonard and I went to our boss. It was tough. I knew Bond felt he owed me something, and I didn’t want to put him in a position of feeling he had to let me have more juice than I deserved, but there was nothing else to do.
His office was in town, away from the chicken plant. There were, however, pictures of chickens on the wall, and charts with chickens. There was also a big wooden desk, a black leather chair, and a black and gray striped couch.
Bond actually hadn’t been in the office, but I had called and he had called back and said he’d meet me there. He ended up meeting us out in the parking lot, riding up with us in the elevator.
“I don’t come here much,” he said. “I’m really too rich and too far removed from what’s going on anymore to have opinions. I just like to collect checks and leave the work and the organization to people I’ve handpicked.”
“It’s a nice life if you can get it,” Leonard said.
“Yes it is,” Bond said.
Leonard and I sat on the couch, shuffled our feet for a moment. Finally I came out with it. Told Bond something had come up. That we had to go away for a while. But we’d come back. And we’d like our jobs back, if that was possible, and not to think we were trying to take advantage of him. To my ears, I sounded like a kid making up some bullshit excuse for not doing his homework.
Bond looked at us, said, “You do whatever you want. I won’t even cut your pay.”
“You don’t owe me that,” I said. “You sure don’t owe Leonard that.”
“Thanks,” Leonard said.
“No,” Bond said. “I do owe you that. Go with my blessing.”
“I want you to know I’m not trying to take advantage of you,” I said. “Something really did come up.”
“I believe you. Go with my blessing. And the assurance your jobs are waiting.”
“How is Sarah?”
“She’s much better. She has been moved to a less critical wing of the hospital.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
“She’s talking now. Some of her old spirit is back. She speaks highly of you, Hap.”
“That’s kind of her,” I said.
Bond was starting to look teary. We got up to leave. Bond said, “Hap. Leonard. I got an idea you two aren’t just going on a hunting trip.”
“Actually,” Leonard said, “that’s exactly what we’re doing.”
“Be safe.”
We thanked him and left.
Jim Bob booked me, Brett, Leonard, Ferdinand, and himself on a flight to Cancun for the next afternoon. I took Brett to a nice store in Tyler and bought her an expensive outfit or two. Still, we packed light.
That night we slept hardly at all, got up early, muddled about. Hanson came by to wish us off. Told us to keep him posted. Early afternoon, we headed for Houston Intercontinental in Jim Bob’s car, the Red Bitch.
“What about guns?” Leonard asked.
“Cesar,” Jim Bob said, switching lanes to the sound of a car horn blaring. “He’ll provide what we need. He has his own grudge he’d like to take care of. He’s been nursing it for years, and now he’s ready. You brought some of that money you got, didn’t you, Hap?”
“I did.”
“I sold some hogs cheap, fired all my help, so now I got some extra bread too.”
“I brought some,” Brett said. “But I didn’t have much. I plan to suck off Hap when we get home.”
“That sounds enticing,” I said.
“You know what I mean,” Brett said.
“I didn’t bring any money,” Leonard said. “I don’t even know what color a dollar bill is anymore.”
Jim Bob changed lanes so close had the car behind us had another coat of paint, it would have been in the back seat of the Red Bitch.
“You are one scary driver,” Brett said.
“I’m just getting you folks primed for the really scary stuff.”
27
We arrived in Cancun, rented a car, headed off toward Playa del Carmen. As we neared the town, a slice of sunset the color of a fresh-sliced salmon fillet stained the horizon. As we watched, darkness corrupted it, then it all sank away as if into a tar pit.
It was a night full of clouds and no visible moon. Darkness dripped over the car like ink poured from a jar, but as we neared the city pinpricks of colored lights jumped into view. We cruised past a McDonald’s and a T-shirt shop and on into town.
We ended up staying at a nice hotel near the sea. Brett and I took a room, Jim Bob, Leonard, and Ferdinand took one together. Leonard ended up on a roll-away.
In our room we opened a window, pulled back the curtains, let the sea air in. There was a palm tree near our window. The limbs and leaves scraped the wall like a cat scratching. There were lights on poles along the edge of the beach and they made the sand and water and the pedestrian walk, Fifth Avenue, look like one of those paintings you do by numbers.
Seabirds were coasting low over the water, dropping birdshit like napalm, hoping for a late fish snack before hanging it up for the day.
People walked along Fifth Avenue, talking and laughing.
“Since this is gonna cost us anyway,” Brett said, “what say we order room service, enjoy that, then fuck like two rabbits in a lab experiment?”
“That’s my kind of night,” I said.
We ordered room service, but what we ended up doing was not fucking like rabbits in a lab experiment, but lying in one another’s arms watching a late movie, The Man With the Golden Arm, starring Frank Sinatra. It was in English. Something cabled in for the tourists, I guess.
Next morning we got up early, had room service, then went with Jim Bob in the rental to meet Cesar. Leonard was walking a little funny. I thought maybe his bad hip was acting up.
“You all right?” I asked.
“It’s not my hip, if that’s what you’re thinking. It’s that damn roll-away. I fought that motherfucker all night. It finally threw me. I ended up sleeping with a blanket and a pillow on the floor. Now I know how those poor racked sonofabitches felt during the Inquisition.”
We piled into the car. As we drove near the beach, I saw Ferdinand look out at the sea. I said, “Where’s your boat?”
“I sold the boat,” he said. “Some rich American who wanted his own fishing boat.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I needed the money… I know what you must think of me, senor. All of you. But I did what I could do. I tried to help my daughter. I did not make her a whore. She chose that for herself. When I thought she could get the money needed to keep her from dying, I let her do what she had to do. It was never for me. You must understand I was only letting her do what I thought she must do. It is all nothing now. She is dead. I am dead.”
“Time heals things,” I said.
“No, senor. It only heals some things. An open wound heals. This, this does not heal. But I can put salve on it. I can help kill this man who had my daughter killed.”
“If it’s any consolation,” Leonard said. “Knowing now what you were up against, I understand why you did what you did.”
“It is something, senor. It is something.”
Cesar’s place was very nice. Nothing like what I expected. It was nestled amongst palms and foliage, one lo
ng story made of wood and stone, not far from the beach. The garage contained a Jaguar and an older-looking dirt-brown Plymouth.
“Looking through people’s windows, prowling through their underwear drawers, seems to pay pretty good,” Leonard said.
Jim Bob looked at Leonard and smiled. Leonard may have forgotten that Jim Bob and Cesar were in the same business, but I doubted it.
We walked up a little crunched seashell path, and before we could knock, the door opened and a little fat man in a red shirt opened the door. He looked to be in his late thirties or forties, had very little hair, and what hair he had was black and gooey with oil. He had a face that would have looked at home on the Buddha, providing the Buddha had one cauliflowered ear. He shook our hands and hugged Jim Bob and Brett.
“Would you come in,” he said. “It is so good to meet you, senores, and it is even better to see this delightful senorita. Or is it senora?”
“Senorita,” she said.
“Surely, you are but an angel visiting from heaven.”
“That goes without question,” Brett said.
Inside the house it was also very nice, with colorful Mexican rugs hung on the wall, fine furniture, and nearby a young Mexican lady with blond hair and black roots. She stood near a stone fireplace, almost at attention. She wore a white pants suit with a long, near-waist-length strand of black beads that had gotten slung sideways, so that against her white suit it looked as if she were a cracked porcelain doll. She was pretty, but the look on her face was like that of someone who had just discovered her asshole has been sewn shut.
“This is my wife,” Cesar said. “Her name is Hermonie.”
“Is Hermonie a Spanish name?” Brett asked.
“I have no idea,” Cesar said. “She is very shy… Ah, Jim Bob.”
He and Jim Bob embraced. “Didn’t we just do this?” Jim Bob said.
“What?” Cesar said. “It is not as good the second time? Come, I have had a late breakfast prepared.” He spoke pleasantly to Hermonie in Spanish.
She led us out the back way, as if leading us to our execution. Leonard leaned toward me, said, “I don’t think these two are a love match.”
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