Julio was an extremely valuable asset in another way. High Pockets and I had started frequenting tourist bars. I’d wear an old captain’s hat, horizontally striped T-shirt, a three-day growth and an unlit stogie. We’d track down tourist chicks or military brats who were looking for “atmosphere” and drag them back to the Don Juan, improvising hair-raising sea stories on the way. If the Don Juan had anything, it was atmosphere. Julio played the Walter Brennan role, holding down the fort. He’d pretend he was drunk, I’d yell at him for being a rummy, he’d yell about dead bees in Spanish, then I’d corner the chick in my cabin. She’d look at High Pockets with his big pink tongue hanging out, then at the cracked and peeling paint, the dirty mattress, then at me, with my cigar, captain’s hat and bottle of cheap rum. It was Bogart and Bacall as far as she was concerned. Once I got’em aboard the old Don Juan, it was all over but the moaning.
I could’ve gone on this way forever, but late one night Robert and Jim showed up. It was a nightmare.
The sun was starting its descent over English Harbor when Robert began to growl. Softly, from deep down in his chest. At first Jim and I thought it was distant thunder. We looked around for cumulonimbi, but there were none.
“It him, it him, mon.” Cap was sweating profusely now. I had almost forgotten about him. I motioned for another bottle of Mount Gay. High Pockets let loose another sneeze.
“Say what, Cap?”
“it him. He be growlin’.”
“Who? High Pockets?”
“Shit, mon. Robert. He be lookin’ at me and he be growlin’. Like las’ time.”
Cap had seen Robert run amok once before, at a local bar called the Spinning Wheel on the other side of the island. Apparently Robert had done some growling there, too. The Spinning Wheel was now being rebuilt under new management.
“I remember,” Jim said, referring to that night in Panama. “Robert was fucked up. Jesus, was he fucked up.”
Robert’s growl deepened further, as if he were trying to speak.
“Mebbe,” Cap said, “I just be gettin’ up slowly an’ be goin’ on my way.”
“I wouldn’t recommend that,” I said.
“We’d hit every bar and whorehouse in Panama City,” Jim said. “Then Robert gets it into his head that we had to pay you a visit. See if you needed anything. Drugs or whatnot.”
“Where’d you dredge up those two chicks?” I said.
Robert’s growl increased in volume. Cap began to tremble.
“What chicks?” Jim said.
High Pockets and I were fast asleep in our cabin with a little honey we’d run into in town when I heard this horrendous bellow, then a splash. I jumped up in shock, thinking the Don Juan had busted a gut and was on her way down. Then I heard Jim laugh. Two frightened females were whispering. Another incoherent bellow, this one mixed with water. I stuck my head out the porthole and looked straight down. Robert was trying to heave his huge body out of the water and back onto the wharf via a slippery old warp. Jim was looking down from the edge, howling. He had a magnum of Dom in one hand and a magnum of .357 in the other. A huge joint was sticking out of his mouth and the bottom of his face was coated with a fine mist of Peruvian flake.
A few yards away, two overweight girls were huddled in fear.
“What is it, hon?” inquired the little Cupcake on my moth-eaten mattress.
“Nothing,” I lied. “Nothing.” I sensed that there was going to be trouble. Maybe serious trouble. “Put down the gun, Jim.” I was trying to be calm, but we were in the Canal Zone, which at the time was still controlled by the American military. With tensions between the U.S. and Panama as strained as they were, I had the sickening feeling that a shot fired here could start a revolution or a soccer match.
Jim put the pistol to the end of the joint and drawled, “I reckon I’ll just shoot it lit.”
“No, wait, Jim,” I stammered. “Uh-uh.”
He lowered the gun. “Wha?”
“Uh, ain’t you gonna introduce me to your lovely lady friends?”
“Wha?”
Robert emitted some inhuman sounds and then, with a bovine roar, managed to haul himself onto the wharf.
“Put the gun down, Jim,” I said.
“Who are you talking to?” asked my little Plum Crumpet.
“Nobody,” I said. “Nobody.”
Robert had gotten to his feet. He pulled a water-soaked glasine bag from his plaid polyester jacket.
“Goddammit! Cocksucker! Piss cunt ratsbit!” echoed around the Canal Zone.
I could hear Spanish voices from the Panamanian side. It sounded like they were taking up defensive positions in response to Robert’s gringo battle cry.
“I’m horny,” said my little Honey Pot.
Robert threw his ruined bag of coke into the water and demanded some of Jim’s. Jim put the .357 magnum to the end of the joint again.
“Just a minute. Lemme fire this sucker up.” He cocked the piece.
“Jim!” I yelled. “The ladies! Introduce me, will ya?”
Jim pointed the pistol at one of the girls. He closed one eye, trying to remember. “Lemme see. This is ... uh, shit.” He pointed the piece at the other girl, who let out a small, weird screech.
“And this is ... uh, the other one.”
At this point Robert pulled a hand grenade from his jacket pocket and hooked his middle finger around the pin.
“Gimme the coke or I’ll blow myself up,” he announced.
“Oh, yeah?” Jim pointed his piece at Robert, waving the barrel a foot under his nose.
“Pull that pin and I’ll blow your head off, asshole.”
I sprinted out of my cabin and ran into Julio on the lower deck. He was watching Robert and Jim in their Polish standoff. High Pockets staggered out, bleary-eyed.
Seconds passed.
The fat girls whimpered.
Somewhere up the canal, a ship blew its horn.
My little Cheese Danish called out for me to come back to the cabin.
Julio crossed himself.
High Pockets was having one of his sneezing attacks.
The tension mounted.
Then Robert pulled the pin.
There was a faint hissing sound. A little wisp of smoke rose from the top of the grenade.
“Gimme the coke,” Robert said.
“All right, just lemme light this baby first,” Jim said. He put the magnum to the end of the joint and pulled the trigger. There was a bright flash and a loud bang. The shock and recoil of the weapon sent Jim flying about ten feet backward. He landed on his ass, then looked curiously at the joint. It was still in his mouth, a lot shorter now, and still unlit.
Searchlights were turned on and a siren was wailing nearby. I could hear the sound of running boots on pavement and the gruff voice of somebody deploying troops.
The two overweight girls were screaming uncontrollably.
Robert was looking at the hissing grenade, trying to remember something.
Julio was saying a Hail Mary.
High Pockets was squatting and straining in the throes of a serious defecation.
My little Cranapple Strudel was yelling something from my cabin.
“Robert!” I called down. “Remember that trout fishing trip you told me about?”
Robert looked up at me, or tried to. His eyeballs were moving around independently, like a lizard’s.
“Arrgarah,” I think is what he said.
“Trout fishing! How do you do it?”
His face lit up in revelation. He tossed the grenade into the Canal.
Baboom! About a ton of water and dead fish rained down on the wharf and the Don Juan.
At this point our position was overrun by the Marines.
What followed was the first but by no means the last time that High Pockets, Robert, Jim and I would be interrogated by military and/or law enforcement agencies. The Marines quickly released the two overweight girls and my little Pumpkin Truffle. They had enough on their hands with the f
our of us plus poor Julio, who rambled on continuously about the heads backing up on the ship from the concussion of the explosion.
I was obviously carrying the ball since Robert and Jim were actively hallucinating. Jim was attempting to catch a bat that was circling his head, while Robert kept trying to dislodge something from his left nostril. As his grunts became more coherent, I realized what his problem was: A pig had somehow become lodged in his nose and Robert had him by one hoof and was attempting to pull the animal out.
The interrogation didn’t start right away. The two CID men and three military intelligence officers were staring dumbfounded at Robert and Jim as they struggled with their marauding hallucinations. That was okay with me. I had to decide between several contingency attitudes that had proved successful in similar situations. I opted for reliability rather than creativity.
“Hey, assholes,” I said, “do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
Robert seemed to have the pig halfway out of his nose. It was a big one.
“What?” a distracted CID man asked.
“I said, do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
“Let’s see some ID, fella,” said military intelligence officer number one.
“Your friends here, who are they?” asked military intelligence officer number two.
Before I could respond, High Pockets let fly the most horrendous doggy fart I’d ever been subjected to. It was one of those devastating, silent jobs that makes your eyes water.
This hard-assed, crewcutted Marine captain, being the senior officer, took charge of evacuating the room.
“Leave him here,” I said, referring to High Pockets. “Let him sit in his own stench.”
As usual, High Pockets refused to acknowledge the mindless act he’d perpetrated. As everyone else bolted for the door, he remained seated with that shifty-eyed look he uses when he fucks up.
Anyway, after we relocated and settled down, the interrogation resumed.
“What are you doing in the Canal Zone?” a CID man asked.
“First of all, none of you assholes are cleared for any of this information,” I said, “and judging from your handling of this situation, none of you ever will be.”
Then I started asking for names, ranks and serial numbers. Crewcut made a few threats, so I made a few threats, so he stood up and made more threats, so I stood up and did likewise. Robert stood up and started beating the shit out of the pig. Jim caught the bat.
“Good work, men,” I said.
“What are you doing aboard that ship?” The CID man was trying to calm things down.
“Okay, assholes, have you ever heard of the code name Don Juan?” I said.
They all looked at each other, each afraid to be the first to admit ignorance.
“I thought not,” I said sarcastically. “That ship out there is the most important advancement in electronic eavesdropping equipment yet developed.”
Julio nodded his head for some reason. “Sí, sí.”
“Who were you shooting at?” Crewcut asked.
“Left-wing guerrillas,” I said. “Security has obviously been breached. We have to move that ship immediately.”
“I don’t believe a word of this shit.” Crewcut again.
Jim was asking one of the CID men if he had any ’ludes. This was going to be close, so I played my trump. To Crewcut: “You ever hear of Congressman Kaminsky?”
He had. This was the Congressman I had cultivated over dinner at the Holiday Inn. By the end of the meal he was completely confused about who I was and what I was up to. I told him that if he ever needed a favor, he should contact me through Langley. I told him to mention Operation Don Juan. With politicians, if you offer them a favor, they figure they already owe you one.
“He’s on the committee that oversees you clandestine military assholes and your appropriations, right?”
“So?” said Crewcut.
“He’s here. Over at the Holiday Inn. My operational name is Don Juan One. Call him. Tell him you have me locked up here and see what he says.”
A half hour later we were back at the Holiday Inn conference room. I was trying to revive Eduardo. Robert was on the phone with room service attempting to order a magnum of Dom, but the words weren’t coming out right. Jim tried to help, but he sounded like a 78 record played at 45.
I found a straw and blew about a half gram of flake up Eduardo’s nostrils. He started coming around. It was vital that we get the Don Juan and ourselves out of Panama. There was a lot of bureaucratic confusion, what with the Canal treaties getting close to a Congressional vote and the Panamanians threatening to take the Canal by force, but it was only a matter of time before “Operation Don Juan” was discovered to be run by a bunch of drug-crazed anarchists with colorful criminal records. I figured Crewcut had already been on the phone to whatever contact he had at the CIA in Langley. We had one thing going for us: None of the dunderheads at the Agency would care to admit they hadn’t heard of “Don Juan,” just in case there was such an operation. The pettiness of those jerks, their internal power struggles, and their rivalries with other agencies (especially the DEA) made our organization’s antics seem downright ingenious. I calculated that we had at least six hours before the awful truth was uncovered.
Eduardo opened his eyes and sat up. He smiled; then his eyes closed as he slowly slumped forward and rolled off his chair onto the floor. I scanned the conference room for signs of life. All the key members of the syndicate, gringo and Latino, were there, but they all appeared to be in deep comas.
“Robert,” I said, “try waking up José there.”
“Gralpnlop!” Robert yelled into the phone, then slammed it down on José’s forehead, missing the receiver cradle by a yard. He looked at me quizzically.
Jim was in the bathroom dry-heaving.
The only thing I could do was leave a note, collect High Pockets, Robert and Jim and beat cheeks back to the Don Juan. I’d instructed Julio to fire up the old clunker and be ready to cast off.
I found a piece of paper and printed in large letters: “Eduardo : Muchas problemas. Tenemos que salir abora mismo. Te veré en Riohacha en 48 horas.”
I stuffed it into a half-full jar of quaaludes, where I knew someone would find it, grabbed Jim, then told Robert about the ounce of Peruvian I’d left on the Don Juan. We were back on the ship in fifteen minutes.
We cast off and headed north; we would pass through the Canal, then turn east into the blue Caribbean, where, I hoped, we would somehow meet up with Eduardo and the boys. And 100,000 pounds of Guajiran Gold.
“A hundred thousand pounds,” Jim repeated softly.
The sun was starting to get low over the hills behind the Admiral’s Inn. I thought briefly about Admiral Nelson, whom the inn was named after, about the Battle of Trafalgar, the days of sail.
Someone was strumming a guitar from an anchored yacht.
Yes, I am a pirate,
Two hundred years too late.
Cannons don’t tbunder,
We’ve nothing to plunder,
I’m an over-forty victim of fate.
Arrivin’ too late,
We’re arrivin’ too late ...
I looked at Cap, who seemed on the verge of collapse. Exhaustion, fear, helplessness. There was something primal about his confrontation with Robert. His fate was in the hands of a mindless, indifferent entity much more powerful than himself.
“My leg,” Cap said. “It done failed asleep, mon.”
I looked at Robert. The warmth from a quart and a half of rum had spread throughout my body. I was at peace with myself. It appeared, from my angle at least, that Robert had started to glow dimly around his head and shoulders. His mind was reaching critical mass. Yeah, it would soon be the Fourth of July in Robert’s skull. There was nothing I could do for Cap, so I waved for more rum and relaxed, waiting for the display.
I have been drunk now for over two weeks
I passed out and I rallied
and I sprung
a few leaks ...
“I don’t remember much about the trip to Riohacha,” Jim said.
I had lied about the ounce of Peruvian. There was no coke at all aboard the Don Juan. Robert didn’t take the news very well, but I had planned ahead, as all competent skippers must. I tricked him into going down into the main cargo hold, locked the door, then broke the bad news by yelling through the loading hatch. Robert, of course, went berserk. The remake of King Kong comes to mind, when Kong was trapped in the Supertanker.
From on deck I could see Robert, fifteen feet below in the cavernous cargo area, pounding on the hull. I threw Valium-laced bananas and papayas down to him, but they had little effect. Julio was concerned about the integrity of the ship’s hull. I was worried about the fact that we were extremely short-handed. Jim had swallowed the rest of the Valiums with a quart of rum and would be out of action for a day or so. We wouldn’t pick up the Latino contingent of the crew until we reached Colombia, if we ever did.
We negotiated the Canal without incident, although I had to bribe several Panamanian officials who wanted to know if we had an endangered species of local fauna in the cargo bay. I breathed a sigh of relief when we were off soundings and heading due east, leaving Panama a foggy, twisted memory.
Julio had drastically overestimated the Don Juan’s cruising speed. I had expected to get at least eight knots out of her, but she maybe made four and was frequently stopped dead in the water by rogue head seas. It was just Julio and me for the first twenty-four hours. He refused to leave the engine room and I couldn’t leave the helm. Aside from High Pockets, the only semblance of human company I had was Robert’s bellowing from the cargo hold, just for’ard of the bridge. Eventually he stopped, leaving only the sounds of the wind and sea and the rumbling of the tired old diesel far below. I was starting to get drowsy when Jim staggered onto the bridge with a fifth of Mount Gay.
Cosmic Banditos Page 4