“You’re going to have him deliver half, right?”
“It’s all he’ll ever deliver,” I said. “We’re going to kill him, remember? Then let the girl go.”
“You want to do this right, want to get him good, have him pay all the money, and on the last delivery kill him.”
“You’re cold, Brett.”
“We’re going to kill him anyway, right?”
“Right.”
“He’s a piece of shit, right?”
“Right.”
“So we kill him, and we take him for a million. Ferdinand would never have to worry. And with that kind of money, neither would we.”
I turned in my chair and looked at her.
“Brett, I’m not sure I believe my ears. Didn’t you just say you didn’t want the money?”
“It’s a lot of money.”
“It’s not like we’re finding it in a pig track. It’s blood money.”
“I was just thinking out loud,” she said. “Jesus. Will you listen to me? Money does corrupt. I feel like Humphrey Bogart in Treasure of the Sierra Madre.”
“Well, one thing you got going for you, you don’t look like Bogart. And if it’s any consolation, I’ve thought of the money too. You can’t help but think about it. But we start getting greedy, even if we get greedy for someone else, we’re gonna end up messing up.”
“Don’t you want the Anthropology Museum to have those facades?”
“Brett, we don’t need money for them to have the facades. We just give them a tip-off on where they’re hidden. They’ll do the rest.”
“Oh yeah, I forgot. But you know what?”
“What?”
“You could quit working at the chicken plant. You could do what you want. So could I.”
“For a while. Even if we took the money, it would be split between everyone, our share would be small for a lifetime. We could live on it for a while, but then what?”
“We invest it.”
“And maybe we lose it.”
“True. I don’t know anything about the stock market. We could live off of it while you figured out what you really wanted to do. Maybe you could go to college. You got some hours, right?”
“Right.”
“You could get a degree, maybe teach or something.”
It sounded good. But it sounded wrong. Still, I sat and considered.
Brett said, “When does Jim Bob let Ileana talk to Juan Miguel?”
“I don’t know. He’s playing it loose, making sure Juan Miguel is tense. He’s also giving him time to get the money together. Mostly though, it’s just Jim Bob playing a waiting game.”
“You think he knows what he’s doing?”
“Much as anyone knows. You should have seen him at Juan Miguel’s. He was as cool as an ice tray. He had Juan Miguel eating out of his hand. Juan Miguel tried to act like he was in charge, but I tell you, Jim Bob, he was running the show. We left, his hand was shaking bad as mine, but he didn’t show it, not with Juan Miguel.”
“Did you?”
“I don’t know. Jim Bob says I didn’t. I hope I didn’t.”
“You wouldn’t want to be outmachoed by Jim Bob, would you?”
“I wouldn’t,” I said, “but I got to tell you, that sonofabitch is more macho than my brother, Leonard. I’m surprised he doesn’t go around with a wheelbarrow in front of him so he can carry his balls.”
“Remember,” Brett said, “Leonard’s macho and queer as a duck in a tuxedo. He’s starting one square lower on the tough guy scale. So, you got to sort of give him special points.”
“I wouldn’t let him hear you say that.”
“Hap, we come out all right on this, you and me, we’re gonna stay together. Right?”
“We’re gonna get married,” I said. “If you want to, of course.”
“You’re not joking?”
“I’m not. I had a ring I’d give it to you. But you didn’t say if you’d marry me. We’ve talked about it, but we haven’t really talked about it. We just keep saying someday. I’m saying we’ve about come to that day.”
Brett slid her chair over close to me and put her arm around me.
“I want to. Bad. But you got to pretend on our wedding night that I’m a renewed virgin.”
“That won’t be easy,” I said.
“Most women play that game.”
“It still won’t be easy.”
“Well, considering I been to bed more than a hospitalful of invalids, I know that,” Brett said. “But you got to try, just the same. You don’t try, well, to put it in simple terms, you don’t get any nookie.”
“You drive a hard bargain,” I said.
We were sitting there snuggling, when we saw Jim Bob and Leonard come along the pedestrian walk.
“Back from Cesar’s already,” I said. “Things be happenin’.”
I went to the door and opened it. Jim Bob and Leonard appeared in the hallway, and I ushered them in.
“How goes it?” I said.
“Good. You got a beer?” Jim Bob said.
He looked rough. He had taken a worse beating than I had. One eye was swollen and there was a bruise the color of smashed plum on his right cheek. The lip on that side was fat and dark. His hat had crease lines all through it.
“There’s a beer in the cash bar. What about you, Leonard?”
“I want John.”
“He’s not in the cash bar,” I said.
I got the bar key and retrieved a beer for Jim Bob. He twisted off the cap, dropped down in the only cushioned chair, and pressed the cold bottle against the bruise on his cheek.
“Man,” he said, “I could cook an egg on this motherfucker.”
Brett and I sat on the edge of the bed. Leonard pulled one of the wooden chairs over and sat down, crossed his legs and played with the toe of his shoe.
“How’d it go?” Brett asked.
“Well, we hauled Ileana to a pay phone, twisted her arm, had her talk to Juan Miguel a bit,” Jim Bob said. “I talked to him then. I set a meeting up. He’s so mad he sounds as if he could eat the ass out of a bull and spit out a wallet.”
I said, “When?”
“Tonight.”
“That’s quick. I thought you’d let him sweat.”
“I don’t think we ought to fuck around.”
“And I don’t like waiting,” Leonard said. “It makes my feet break out in little hives.”
“Juan Miguel is supposed to meet us at the souvenir stands on this side of Tulum,” Jim Bob said. “He brings the money, we take the money. He thinks that’s it. He thinks he gives us the money, then we set up the next meeting, where we give him the girl and he gives us the rest of the money. I was him, that’s where I’d think about nailing us. He gets the girl, double-crosses us, kills us. That would be the plan if I were doing it. Maybe I was him I’d torture us to give back the first batch of money.”
“So, like us,” I said, “you’ve actually thought about the money?”
“You can’t help but think about the money,” Jim Bob said. “ ’Course, being smarter than the average criminal, the plan should be take the first batch of money and kill the woman-”
“We’re not doing that,” Brett said. “That’s not the deal.”
“Of course not,” Jim Bob said. “I’m saying if I were really a kidnapper.”
“You really are,” I said.
“You know what I mean. I was really out for the money, I’d take the half, let the girl go free, or kill her, and get away with what I got. Best thing to do would be to actually let her go. That way Juan Miguel doesn’t have a way to magnify the grudge.”
“Since there’s supposed to actually be some real money,” I said, “what do we do about that?”
“Yeah,” Brett said. “What about that?”
“I’ve been giving that some thought.”
“So have we,” I said.
“Crossed my mind too,” Leonard said.
“My belief is this,” Jim Bob sai
d. “We take just enough to pay for our expenses, we give the rest to Ferdinand.”
“I thought maybe give it all to Ferdinand,” Leonard said, “but I got to admit, that sounds pretty fair.”
“We got the hotels, car rentals, and we owe Cesar for the guns,” I said.
“Where are the guns?” Brett asked
“In the trunk of the rental,” Jim Bob said.
“What time does it happen?”
“We meet at midnight.”
“Why midnight?”
“Because where the tourist stand is there’s a crossroads.”
“Yeah. So?”
“I like the idea of it,” Jim Bob said. “It’s an artistic touch to the job. Devil takes a man’s soul at the crossroads, and this bastard’s gonna sell his soul there.”
“How will it work?” I asked.
Jim Bob looked at his watch. “It’s eight o’clock. We go over and pick up Ferdinand at Cesar’s so he can have his chance to see it come down-”
“He wants to do the killing,” Leonard said. “Not see it.”
“He may have to settle for a back seat,” Jim Bob said. “Perhaps Juan Miguel doesn’t go down for good right off, we let Ferdinand deliver the coup de grace. A bullet to the head. That kind of thing.”
“No torture,” I said. “I don’t care what Ferdinand wants. Juan Miguel knows why we took Ileana, and that’s as close as we’re going to get to explaining it. It meant nothing to him anyway.”
“At the moment of death, it may,” Jim Bob said. “Anyway, we load up Ferdinand. We go out to the drop sight early, before dark. This time of year it gets dark, say, nine-thirty, true dark a little later. There are some good places to hide, and you, Ferdinand, and Leonard can get somewhere you can’t be seen.”
“Won’t they get there early too?” Brett asked.
“They will,” Jim Bob said. “You can count on it. But we’ll be earlier yet. They see us, they see us. We deal with that when we get there. Thing on our side is Juan Miguel doesn’t know our real plan is to kill his sorry ass. If it goes well and he doesn’t get there early, doesn’t see you guys, I’ll appear to be there alone. When Juan Miguel delivers the money, you drop him, Hap.”
“Me?” I said.
“Leonard says you can shoot the nuts off a squirrel when all you can see is shape.”
“Thanks for volunteering me, Leonard.”
“You’re welcome, Hap. You’re the best shot, and that’s all there is to it.”
“But if I’m going to shoot him in hiding, what’s so wrong with my idea of picking him off from a distance? It’s because he wouldn’t have the money, isn’t it? It’s about the money, isn’t it?”
“It’s about him deserving it,” Jim Bob said. “Then there’s the money. I told you what I wanted to do with it. I don’t think that’s selfish. We get our expenses, Ferdinand gets the big cut, and Juan Miguel is dead. That okay with you, Hap?”
“I suppose.”
“They’ll search me for weapons, so I won’t carry. Leonard will be hidden with the shotgun in the bushes. When I clench my fist, you shoot, Hap, and I’ll jump. Leonard can open up then. I’ll stash the nine mil close by in the weeds so I can get to it, and play cleanup. We still got Ferdinand and Cesar as insurance. Brett, there’s not enough guns, so you’re going to stay at Cesar’s with Ileana. Someone has to watch her.”
“All right,” Brett said.
“You can bet Juan Miguel will have his boys with him, so no fuckin’ around. Be sure, be double-sure, to take out that Hammerhead motherfucker.”
“What if Juan Miguel sends someone?” I said. “Doesn’t show himself?”
“When I called, I told him he had to come with the money. Said we didn’t trust any of his sidekicks. So he’ll show. Like I said, he’ll bring them with him, but he’ll show. No matter how cool he plays it, he’s got it bad for this Ileana. She’s got his nose wide open, buddy, you can count on that.”
“Now that we got it all talked out, how about we go do it,” Leonard said.
34
We drove up in Cesar’s yard at about eight-thirty. When we got out of the car a cold feeling went over me. Something was out of kilter.
I said, “Something sucks.”
“Yeah,” Leonard said. “But what is it? It doesn’t look any different.”
Jim Bob stared at the house for a moment. “Yes it does. The blinds are closed. They haven’t been closed before.”
“Maybe they wanted them closed,” Brett said.
“Yeah,” Jim Bob said. “Crushed shells up by the porch are pitted. Like maybe there was a struggle there. See, there’s shells on the porch. More than would have come off someone’s shoes. It’s like they were rolled in them, got dragged on the porch and the shells fell off their clothes. Screen door is unlocked and it’s slightly open.”
Jim Bob strolled to the rear of the car, opened the trunk. He popped one of the suitcases. He took two nine mils from the case and gave one to me, one to Leonard. He got the shotgun parts out of the other case and put it together. He gave us ammo clips, took a fistful of shells and stuffed them in his shirt pocket. He loaded two in the double-barrel.
“I’ll just stroll around back,” Jim Bob said. “You and Leonard take the front.”
Jim Bob trotted off. I said, “Brett, you get behind the wheel. You see anyone come out of the door you don’t want to see, you back out and go. Go away fast.”
Brett nodded, climbed in behind the wheel, closed the door softly.
Me and Leonard moved toward the front door.
I thought: It could be they wanted the shades closed. Maybe Cesar or Hermonie fell in the drive, brushed themselves off on the porch. Went in and didn’t close the door well. In a hurry. It could be that.
I moved the door with my foot. It swung open with a sound that would have made a can of WD40 cry.
Easing inside, crouching, the gun held before me, I saw why things were quiet, and I felt my knees wobble. I kept the gun at ready, but I knew I wouldn’t need it.
Leonard came in behind me about the time Jim Bob reached the back patio glass. I strolled over and let him in, using my shirttail to work the latch.
I went around what was on the floor, stepping carefully, eased to the bedroom, pushed the half-open door the rest of the way with my foot.
The room was empty, of course.
I checked out the bathroom, just in case Hammerhead might be using the commode, found nothing, went back to the living room.
I sat down on the brick ridge of the fireplace and looked at what was before me.
Hermonie was dressed in her white pants suit, seated on the couch, looking pretty much the way she always looked, except one side of her head poked out in a funny way. That was because a bullet entering the other side had come out on the side facing me, splintered the bone, lifted her hair. Where her hair was lifted it was slick, as if she had been hit with a tomato. Her right eye had moved a little too far to the right and was almost hidden. The left looked straight ahead. A splotch of blood like another shot from a tomato was splattered on the right shoulder of her outfit. There was red on the wall and the back of the couch.
Cesar lay on the floor. He had been tied to a chair. In his final agonies, most likely, he had turned it over.
His fingers had been chopped off close to the knuckles, and I could see the skin on his hands had been filleted all the way to his elbows. He was shirtless and there were burns on his chest. His eyes were open, as if he had just discovered he had gotten exactly what he wanted for Christmas, but his mouth was wide and gummy and his tongue poked out of it, fat and gray as an old piece of liver. His pants had large globs of blood on the knees where they had dripped off the chair when it was upright. His shoes were gone. So were his toes. The skin on his feet had been peeled all the way to his calves, and his pants were cuffed high to allow it. There were little bits of crushed shells from the drive stuck to his clothes and on the floor around the chair.
Leonard leaned again
st the wall and let the nine mil hang by his side. Jim Bob bent over Cesar, stood up, looked at Hermonie.
“You have some intuition,” I said to Jim Bob. “You were right about there being a struggle in the yard.”
“Intuition is really just the unconscious mind learning to talk to the conscious.” He gestured toward Hermonie. “One for her and it’s over with. Cesar, not so easy. What’s that tell you?”
“He didn’t talk,” I said. “So they gave him hell.”
“Shit, he talked. I would have. I tell you what happened. Hermonie here, she called Juan Miguel and told where the girl was.”
“But why?” I asked.
“Because she wanted what she thought Juan Miguel could give her,” Leonard said.
“Yep,” Jim Bob said. “Leonard, you aren’t as dumb as you look.”
“Thanks.”
“I never really trusted her,” Jim Bob said, “but I didn’t think this. I didn’t think she was this stupid. I just thought she was a shit and a bad pick for Cesar. Goddamn, Cesar didn’t deserve this.”
“Who the hell does?” Leonard said.
“You actually think she called Juan Miguel?” I said.
“They finished her easy,” Jim Bob said. “No torture. They just popped her. That tells me she thought maybe she could make the big money. Maybe Ileana talked Hermonie into it. Said I’ll see you get paid good. I’ll get you in good with Juan Miguel you get me out of this.”
“Who did she think she was dealing with?” I said.
“She had no idea,” Leonard said.
“No,” Jim Bob said, “she didn’t. She didn’t like us, and according to Cesar, she didn’t like him much either. But I don’t think this is what she expected. Maybe she thought Cesar would get his, but she figured she was doing Juan Miguel a favor, so she thought she was all right. Would make some big money out of the deal. Get a chance to end up with what she thought she deserved. Juan Miguel had other plans. He decided to thank her by not torturing her. He gave her what he thought she deserved.”
“So now Juan Miguel knows we were going to ambush him?” I said.
Jim Bob nodded. “I’m sure Cesar said what he had to say.”
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