Captains Outrageous cap-6

by Joe R. Lansdale

  Soon we were landing, hustling our luggage, trying to move through a sweaty crowd of people toward the street and a taxi. Jim Bob spoke to a driver and got us a ride. The car was once blue, but was now spotted like a pinto horse with gray filler. The tires were so worn-looking the rubber seemed attached to them by no more than a prayer.

  We packed our luggage in the trunk, which smelled as if fish had recently been stored there, and no sooner had we closed the doors of the taxi than the driver gave it gas and leaped us out in front of traffic like a sacrifice.

  Horns blared. We cruised at top speed through lights that once they turned red were shaded by at least three or four cars before anyone actually took heed of their color. We bounced the curb a couple of times, as if our driver might get points for pedestrians, and he may actually have clipped the ass of a slow-moving woman carrying a shopping bag. It was hard to tell if she was knocked or she jumped. She just went leaping away, her long blue dress fluttering, one shoe flying, the bag swinging on her arm by its rope handle.

  I turned to look out the back window to see if she got up, but we turned so fast everything behind us became a blur and we edged in on another taxi as if to initiate a duel.

  I glanced out the left-hand window of the back seat, saw we were close enough for me to put gas in the other taxi’s tank, but that wasn’t close enough. Not for our man. He edged in tighter, so close that if the elderly lady in the back seat had rolled down her window, we could have French kissed.

  The lady looked to be on the verge of a stroke, or at least a very heavy-duty bowel movement. She glanced at me, swallowed. I smiled as our taxi driver cut down on his horn hard enough and loud enough to alert any ship channel within a thousand miles, then we shot away from the car beside us as if we had just vaulted to warp speed, changed lanes tighter than a suppository in a fat man’s ass, went weaving, honking, and being honked at all the way to the Presidente Intercontinental.

  As our driver pulled into the driveway at the hotel and I stepped out on solid ground, I felt like a ripped-up teddy bear that had just had its legs sewn back on, but without all the stuffing.

  Our driver lugged our luggage out of the trunk with the care of a murderer disposing of a body in a tar pit, and a fellow who looked as if he could bench-press the taxi came out, threw our bags on a rolling rack, and showed us he had all his teeth and every one of them yellow. Jim Bob paid the taxi driver, and we followed our toothy man with the rack to the front desk.

  “I haven’t had that much fun since my last yeast infection,” Brett said.

  “I just kept my eyes closed,” Leonard said.

  Jim Bob talked in Spanish to a pretty woman at the desk with too much eye makeup. They smiled at each other a lot. Jim Bob borrowed the desk phone.

  The phone conversation was short. Jim Bob talked to the lady at the desk again. She gave him some keys.

  Jim Bob said, “Cesar already has our rooms. You and me, Leonard, we’re roomies.”

  “Oh boy,” Leonard said. “Up late spitting water and reading fashion magazines.”

  “Hot damn,” Jim Bob said.

  We rode the elevator up with the man with the luggage carriage, got our stuff loaded in our rooms, paid the guy off, then took a walk down the corridor where Jim Bob knocked on a door.

  Cesar opened up and let us in. “Que pasa,” he said.

  He was dressed in a navy blue shirt that fit him tight as a grapeskin. His pants were tight as well, and too short. He looked like someone who had tucked his belongings into his crotch and was trying to wade high water.

  Ferdinand appeared, wearing what must have been one of Cesar’s shirts; it was black as the grave and the collars were flared as if they were wings. He was silent as usual, sat at the table near the window, looking down at the streets and the hot sunshine. He was drinking a Mexican beer. Another was on the table, opened.

  “Would you like drinks?” Cesar asked. He opened up the little bar with his key. Brett and Leonard took a beer, I took a Diet Coke. We sat on one of the beds, Cesar took a chair at the table. He said, “Our little mistress is quite the busy one already.”

  “Aren’t we supposed to go out and spring on her or something?” Leonard said.

  “In due time,” Cesar said. “I have followed her before, remember. Jim Bob and I followed her. But I have watched her before that.”

  “Why?” Brett said.

  “I have watched her because I have watched everything there is to know about this Juan Miguel. I am very patient, you see. But I must confess, this idea of kidnapping her, it had not occurred to me. It is a good idea for what you have in mind. I should have thought of it some time ago.”

  “We are masters of crime,” I said.

  “She is in this hotel,” Cesar said. “It is where she always stays. She will go to the Museum of Anthropology. She will shop, and she will come to the restaurant here to have her dinner. This is her schedule in the past.”

  “What if she changes it?” I said.

  “It is possible, but I will chance that she does not.”

  “You’re chancing our money, Cesar,” I said. “I only have so much. I can’t run around all over Mexico.”

  “Trust me,” Cesar said. “Tell them, Jim Bob.”

  “Trust him,” Jim Bob said.

  “I feel better,” Brett said.

  “What’s up with the Museum of Anthropology?” Leonard asked.

  “That is for Juan Miguel, or so I believe,” Cesar said. “I think she is trying to sell certain pieces that Juan Miguel has to the museum. She goes there each time she comes here. Juan Miguel, as I’m sure my friend Jim Bob has explained to you, is known to have an extensive collection, known to traffic in antiquities. So it is possible.”

  “And maybe,” Brett said, “the reason she’s his mistress is she shares Juan Miguel’s interests. Maybe she isn’t just a poke piece, but someone who is smart, sophisticated, and loves anthropology and archaeology, and maybe his wife doesn’t.”

  “And she’s a poke piece,” Jim Bob said.

  “That too,” Brett said. “But Hap and I are attracted to each other because we share interests.”

  “Like what?” Jim Bob said.

  “Chickens. He protects them, and I deep-fry them.”

  “I was once asked to masturbate a rooster,” I said.

  “I don’t even want to know about that,” Jim Bob said.

  “I think that I would, senor,” said Cesar.

  Even Ferdinand looked interested.

  I told them about being offered a job to garner rooster sperm. Cesar laughed as if I had told him the best joke he had ever heard.

  Brett said, “That’s my man.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Hard to believe I turned them down.”

  “About this thing we’re doing?” Leonard asked. “You know, the thing that’s not as exciting as jerking a chicken’s nub, but this thing with the woman… She has her bodyguards with her, of course?”

  “Of course,” Cesar said.

  “Are they big?”

  “Big enough, senor.”

  “As in big and mean?”

  “I would say so. Yes, senor, big and mean.”

  “Shit.”

  “Armed of course?” I asked.

  “Unless those big bumps under their arms are breasts that have slid sideways, I believe so, senor.”

  “Maybe we could talk them into just arm wrestling us for her?” Leonard said.

  “Will you two just shut up,” Jim Bob said.

  I looked at Leonard and grinned. He wrinkled his mouth into a near smile. Brett reached over, patted me on the leg. She either loved my humor or was kind enough to make me think so.

  “The best time to grab the woman would be when they come up from dinner to their room,” Cesar said. “They have a very nice room at the top of the hotel.”

  “You know they’re in this room because they always are?” I asked.

  “Yes. Juan Miguel pays for this, so he sees she has the best. Tomo
rrow, that will be the day when she does the serious shopping. It is too late today, and I am too tired. I say we have a good dinner, rest, and tomorrow, I will tail them. Is that how you say it, Jim Bob, tail them?”

  “Yeah,” Jim Bob said.

  “I will tail them, and then when she has her dinner, you will be prepared when she comes up, and you will take care of the guards-”

  “Hey, I don’t want to kill these guys,” I said. “That’s not part of the deal. We want Juan Miguel and the walking haystack, but these other guys, I don’t want to kill them.”

  “Then do not,” Cesar said. “But take care of them. Make your choice. Take the woman. Make her quiet.”

  “Then what?” Leonard said. “Do we knock her unconscious, beat her up in the hall?”

  “Do not worry,” Cesar said. “I have brought the chloroform. You put it on a rag, give her a whiff, and she will fall to the ground. You can do it with the guards too, but they may not fall so fast. They are big and strong and most certainly willful. I leave that to you.”

  “You know,” I said to Jim Bob, “I think your additions to my basic plan aren’t all that better than the basic plan. My plan sucks, and this is better?”

  “Believe me,” Jim Bob said. “It’s better. And there’s more to it. Most of it will be passed on to you on a need-to-know basis.”

  “Boss,” Leonard said. “Dat a good idea. We don’t wants lots of stuffs in our haids might be confusin’.”

  “You got that right,” Jim Bob said.

  “I suppose Jim Bob has told you that you are all listed under false names?” Cesar said.

  “He failed to mention that,” I said.

  “I was going to,” Jim Bob said. He told us our false names.

  Cesar said, “Meet here at four P.M. tomorrow, local time. If you have watches, make sure they are set correctly. Come to this room and wait until you get a phone call.”

  “From who?” I asked.

  “From me. I will be watching her. Ferdinand will let you in so you can wait. I will call when they are near.”

  “What about guns?” Leonard said.

  “I will take care of that, my friend,” Cesar said.

  Jim Bob said, “I’m going to my room now, going to watch a little Mexican TV, then get a good night’s sleep. What about you, Leonard?”

  “I got a key,” Leonard said. “I’ll come along shortly.”

  “Suit yourself,” Jim Bob said, and left the room.

  Leonard went with me and Brett to our room, had another drink. I said, “This thing is starting to involve more people than the U.S. Army. And it seems like there’s more people to hurt all the time. All I want to do is nab the woman, set her up as an insurance policy for us so we can do what we have to do.”

  “It’ll be okay, Hap,” Leonard said. He stood up. “Good night, brother. Good night, Brett.”

  30

  Next morning after breakfast I couldn’t bring myself to sit in the hotel room, because all I did then was brood on our plans. The old saw about revenge is a dish best served cold is bullshit. Revenge is only sweet in the heat of the moment.

  Brett was willing, so we went walking. The streets were crowded and the air was blistering to the eyes. Within fifteen minutes the pollution had done a job on my throat. It felt as if a little man with a bad temper had moved into my mouth and sandpapered my tonsils.

  We walked over to the Anthropology Museum and looked around. I loved it. Deep inside me I felt old longings. As a child I had often thought of teaching, perhaps archaeology or history. Here I was, in my forties, a night guard in a chicken plant. I didn’t even have a college education, just a piece of one. There wasn’t much point thinking about what might have been, but as we walked about and looked at things, I thought about it anyway.

  “I wish we had time to go out and see the pyramids,” Brett said. “The Temple of the Sun and the Moon aren’t far from here. A day’s excursion.”

  I looked at my watch. “How about lunch instead?”

  “Lunch is good.”

  We left the museum and walked until we came to an interesting restaurant. It wasn’t fancy, but it wasn’t exactly a hole in the wall either. No one spoke English there, so we pointed at the menu a lot, not sure of what we were getting.

  It turned out to be something the waiter called mole de quajalote, and it was good. It tasted like some kind of bird, maybe turkey, in a very sweet sauce. We also had a dish called cochinita pibil, which I could tell was made from pork.

  When we finished with the meal, they brought out a sweet bread and a kind of pudding made of milk, fruit, sugar, and stuff I couldn’t identify. It was too sweet for me.

  Feeling like funnel-fed geese, we decided to walk off the meal. Outside the air was rawer than before. It had a stench, like gasoline mixed with sewage, tortillas, and frying meat. The last two smells came from the large number of vendors who cooked you meals on the spot. Chances were, you ate the stuff in the square, you could get a case of the squirts that would make a mud slide seem tame.

  We looked at huge and beautiful churches, took a short walking tour that was guided by a man that almost spoke English, though it was certainly better than my Spanish, and finally we ended up at the Mexico City zoo. It was a huge zoo, well tended, but as always, like circuses, it made me sad. Polar bears housed in southern regions do not consider themselves on a tropical vacation. They just look lost.

  About three in the afternoon we caught a taxi, found out our first experience had not been a fluke. This taxi ride was just as scary, and by the time we arrived back at the hotel, the sweet sauce I had eaten was nestled in the back of my throat.

  We went up to our room, brushed our teeth, looked at our watches. We were about fifteen minutes early. We checked to make sure both our watches said the same thing. They did. Finally, we said fuck it, walked over to Cesar’s room, knocked on the door.

  Ferdinand let us in. About five minutes later, Leonard showed up.

  “You sightsee?” I said.

  “Just the back of my eyelids,” Leonard said. “I slept in. Jim Bob snores like a goddamn bear. I didn’t sleep good last night. I’m sort of pissed off, actually. I don’t like it when I don’t sleep well.”

  “Where’s Jim Bob?” Brett said.

  “He was gone when I got up. I grabbed some lunch, read a Western Jim Bob had brought with him, went to the bathroom a lot, blew my nose, looked out the window, and here I am.”

  “Quite a prosperous day,” I said.

  There was a knock on the door. I looked through the peephole. Jim Bob was shooting me the finger.

  I opened the door, said, “What an adolescent.”

  “I drop these pants, boy, you’ll think adolescent. Calling me a child is like calling-”

  “Oh, just come in and shut up,” Brett said.

  There were two suitcases setting on either side of Jim Bob. He picked them up, carried them into the room. He put them on the bed.

  “What you got there?” Brett asked. “Sex toys?”

  “You wish,” Jim Bob said. “Cesar’s contacts. They’re bad boys.”

  Inside one suitcase was something wrapped in a white towel. Jim Bob removed that, laid it carefully on the bed. It was a bottle of chloroform.

  He removed a folded duffel bag from the suitcase and unfolded it. It was about six feet in length. Beneath it were a couple of blackjacks, a slapjack, and four nine-millimeter automatics. The other case contained ammo clips and several pieces that went together to make a rifle and a sawed-off double-barrel shotgun. The rifle had a scope and a silencer. There was ammunition for both guns.

  “I still think shooting him from a distance is the way to go,” I said.

  “He must know who it is that kills him,” Ferdinand said.

  “Yep,” Jim Bob said. “It’s a grace note. Five seconds of knowing you’re about to die, for whatever reason, is a long goddamn time. Shooting him from a distance is just doing the motherfucker a favor.”

  “All right,�
� I said. “Outline it.”

  “For what we’re doing here,” Jim Bob said, “the guns are out. We take the blackjacks, or the slapjack, our hands, whatever. We use the chloroform. We get these two guys down quick, we nab the woman, put her out of commission, and we’re out of here.”

  “How are we out of here?” Brett asked.

  “We stick the woman in the duffel bag, we check out, we get in the black van out front that Cesar will have waiting, we go to the airport, and he drives the woman back to his place. We meet there.”

  “Why don’t we just put her in our pocket and walk out?” Leonard said. “A duffel bag? That’s it? A fuckin’ duffel bag?”

  “It’ll work,” Jim Bob said. “Trust me.”

  “So we’re supposed to meet them as they come up the elevator,” I said. “What if someone rides up the elevator with them?”

  “They won’t,” Jim Bob said. “Cesar says they never ride up or down with anyone. They wait until they have it to themselves. Safety precautions.”

  “Don’t these guys know what Cesar looks like?” Brett said. “I mean, hell, they cut the tip of his finger off and slapped his ear silly.”

  “These men may or may not,” Jim Bob said. “But they won’t see him if he doesn’t want to be seen. Cesar’s good. Almost as good as me.”

  “Why so much protection?” Brett said. “Is she made of gold?”

  “She’s protected because of people like us,” Jim Bob said. “Juan Miguel protects his property, and to him, she’s property.”

  “So the elevator opens on this floor,” Leonard said. “What’s to prevent someone else being in the hallway, seeing us go at these guys?”

  “Nothing,” Jim Bob said. “We deal with that if it happens.”

  Just before six the phone rang. Jim Bob answered, listened, hung up. He turned to us.

  “Yippie ki ’eah.”

  I put the slapjack in my back pocket, Leonard took a blackjack, and Jim Bob brought only himself. Ferdinand said, “And me?”

  “You’re going to have to wait in the room,” Jim Bob said. “When we knock, you be right by the door and let us in. Got me?”

  Ferdinand nodded.