by Dan Ames
He got up and walked back to the bar.
Mary put the money away and turned in her chair to face the Pacific.
It was something she had considered, but ruled out. Now, she had to face the possibility a bit more seriously.
Maybe the Mad Hatter was already dead.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Flesh for cash and booze for hire.
Take your chance and feed my fire.
-Blood Shots (by Groovy Train)
He awoke to a couple pieces of good news.
One, it appeared he had survived the drug withdrawals.
He had made it through full, emergency detox that would have killed a lot of people, but he, the Mad Hatter, had fucking survived.
It was nothing short of a miracle.
The other piece of good news was that he felt hopeful.
Maybe the shadow guy with the machete had been part of his detox and wasn’t real at all? An imagined phantom.
Imagined Phantoms. What a great name for an album!
Maybe the weird chick in the room by the beach had been imagined, too.
No, he quickly remembered that was real. He had nailed her and the sex had been too real to have been a fantasy. Fantasy sex, dream sex, whatever you want to call it, was too clean and romantic. Real sex was down and dirty with all the accompanying sights, sounds and smells.
They’d definitely had sex.
Weird chick in the room by the beach had been real. For sure.
Now, it was time to get his bearings.
He looked around the room. It was totally empty. Not even a rug. Bare wood floors, plaster walls full of cracks and missing chunks. A window with wooden shutters locked closed with a padlock.
That was all bad news.
Then again, had they locked him up to prevent him from hurting someone else?
It happened before.
One time he’d gotten a big knife during a really bad drunk and his girlfriend at the time had locked him in a closet. The bitch. He never hurt anyone when he was drunk or high. At least not on purpose.
The Hatter was mad, sure, but not a killer.
Really, a harmless drunk and druggie.
Now, he got to his feet and it was a bit of a struggle. His legs felt rubbery and he thought how nice a screwdriver would be. Really cold orange juice, couple shots of vodka, didn’t even matter if it was cheap vodka. Hell, potato vodka–
The door banged open and shadow man was back with his machete. He stepped into the room and the shadow disappeared, revealing a scrawny young man, probably in his late teens, with the aforementioned machete. His body was covered with tattoos, easily visible since he wore no shirt, had torn shorts and flip flops. The tattoos went all the way up and around his neck. Zack noted they covered his hands and fingers.
The sight of the young man made his skin crawl.
“Good morning,” Zack said, realizing how stupid he sounded. “What’s up, man?”
Machete boy stepped aside and revealed the woman he’d screwed in the room by the beach.
She was thicker than he remembered, and when she smiled, he saw her bad teeth.
His penis retracted a bit at the sight of her, but he’d banged a lot worse looking women than this one. Hell, he’d done one who’d been as hairy as a Yeti.
“Hello, lover boy,” she said with a thick accent.
Zack’s smile was more of a grimace.
And then suddenly, he remembered her name.
“Hello Zeta,” he said.
Chapter Thirty-Five
The door slams on a Sunday harmony.
An angel laughs at my sordid memory.
-Remember Me (by Groovy Train)
The photo I had of Zack was a good one, quality wise.
After all, there were hundreds upon hundreds of photographs of the guy. From back when he as a star, mostly.
That was the problem.
There weren’t many recent photos of him. And most of them were when he was onstage. What I really wished I had was a recent photo showing him with all of the wear and tear that comes with being a former rock star.
Still, the photo would at least give people an idea of who I was looking for.
Bucerias was a town that had two distinct areas. There was the highway section with several banks, stores and restaurants, most of it screaming low income. And then there was the beach, with its much more expensive housing and shops.
What was interesting to me was that during the day it seemed like most of the locals were down by the beach, working to tear off their chunk of tourist money.
So that’s where I went.
I passed stall after stall of people selling the same stuff. T-shirts with Bucerias on the front. Straw hats. And painted ceramic skulls. Again, a lot of them with NFL team colors painted on them.
It was crazy, but there must have been enough tourist dollars to justify all of these people essentially selling the same stuff.
Without the benefit of being able to speak Spanish, I muddled my way through all of the shopkeepers with Zack Hatter’s photograph in front of me. I had used Google’s translate to figure out how to ask, but I had simplified it to ‘este hombre aqui?’ Which basically meant is this man here?
A lot of blank stares, shrugging of shoulders and a few torrents of Spanish followed by a hawking of their goods in English.
The people were friendly, but not in the least bit helpful.
Parallel to the ocean, the shops ran uninterrupted until there was a town square of sorts, with a huge sculpture of a man diving for oysters. From there, the vendors fanned out and the air was filled with the smell of food cooking. Barbecue and it smelled fantastic.
I also saw some fruit stands and a bread stand. Meat and bread was all I needed. Whenever I cooked at home, Anna would always sigh and throw some peas in the microwave or put together a salad real fast. When I planned a meal, I focused on the two main food groups: meat and bread. And if I had time, I usually included a third: cheese.
Around the square I went, showing the photo of Hatter, drawing blank stares. I noticed a huge restaurant with an enormous patio. Even though I’d avoided the tourists, I figured I could get a ton of them with one shot. So I asked the tables if they’d seen Hatter.
No one had.
“Try the bar upstairs,” one patron said. “It’s full of Canadians. They’re nosy bastards.”
I glanced up, saw a big advertising banner proudly claiming the establishment’s penchant for broadcasting hockey games.
There was a separate entrance to the bar to the left of the restaurant and I used it, climbed the stairs and went into the bar. I saw a chalkboard advertising a bucket of six beers for eighty pesos. That was less than five bucks by my rough math.
My kinda place.
Maybe the Hatter’s too?
Along the balcony overlooking the town square I showed the photo, again to no avail. But when I got to the bar, where it looked to me like the hardcore drinkers were stationed, one guy nodded in recognition.
“Yep, he was here. Drunk as hell,” the guy said. He had on shorts and a T-shirt that was way too tight. He’d either washed it and it had shrunk, or he’d gained weight. Judging by the empty beer bottles in front of him, I was guessing the latter.
“Or maybe he was stoned, it was hard to tell,” the man continued. “He looked familiar. But now that I see the photo that’s Zack Hatter, isn’t it?”
“It sure is. Was he here alone?”
“He started here alone, but he ended up leaving with a local. A woman.”
There was something about the way he said it.
“Did you know her?”
He held up his hands and acted like I’d accused him of drug trafficking. “No, no. Not me. No way.”
“Well, do you know her name? Where she lives?”
“Sure, everyone knows her name,” the man said. He lowered his head and sort of whispered to me. “She’s the biggest hooker in Bucerias.”
He said the name and the ca
se suddenly spun in a whole new direction.
“Her name is Zeta.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Slap some steel around your wrist,
Answer truth and swing your fist.
-Bad Cop (by Groovy Train)
It hadn’t taken Rutger long to locate the first of the local hoods.
After that, it didn’t take much more time to trail the punk to where the rest of the gang was hanging out.
He knew Los Zetas controlled this area and that there was no way an entire gang would be working in Bucerias without the Zetas’ knowledge.
Before he’d plugged Bulldog, he’d gotten the slob to cough up Bucerias and the Zetas.
It made sense.
Zack Hatter was a known drug user and the Zetas made their money trafficking narcotics. Easy to put two and two together and realize the Zetas must have grabbed Hatter, hoping for a bigger payday down the road.
Kidnapping was very much still alive and well in Mexico. In fact, one time he’d killed a lawyer from Chicago, dumped the body in the ocean, and then staged it to appear as if the lawyer had been kidnapped. He’d even read that the family had paid some Mexican gang millions of dollars.
Dumb bastards.
Unfortunately for the Zetas, they’d now grabbed the guy Rutger needed. He was here to grab Zack Hatter, get some information from him for Mr. Hmm, and then kill him.
So this time, the Zetas were the ones who were going to have to pay.
It was up to them how many of them would pay with their short, unhappy lives.
All Rutger had done once he’d arrived in Bucerias was to ask the guys at the taxi stand where he could buy the highest quality weed. They’d referred him to an area north of where all of the tourist market stands were located.
Once there, Rutger had picked out a dealer immediately. After that, he’d stalked the guy until he’d sold all of his merchandise and gone back for more supply, which turned out to be a run-down, dumpy apartment building on the edge of town. There weren’t really any tourists over here, so Rutger took great care to stay in his rental car and change locations often.
Eventually, a small group left the building led by a guy who Rutger immediately pegged as the alpha of the group.
Alphas can always pick out other alphas a mile away.
Rutger trailed the crew onto the highway and then off a side road. He checked behind him. There was no other traffic, no risk of being disturbed.
He slid his gun out and held it with one hand and then pulled the rental car out and even with the dusty, dirty white truck being driven by the crew.
Rutger slammed the car into their truck and forced them to the side of the road.
Rutger got out, the gun behind his back, with a map in the other hand.
“Donde Puerto Vallarta?” he asked, acting lost and confused.
Where is Puerto Vallarta?
The driver of the truck wasn’t the leader of the gang, so he got out and Rutger could see him reaching for a gun.
Not yet too worried about the lost gringo tourist asking for directions. But he was pissed and no doubt his boss had told him to get rid of this annoyance and fast.
Rutger could see all of that in the man’s demeanor.
The group’s boss was in the passenger seat, looking bored. Rutger moved the map closer to him and then drew his pistol and fired through the large square of paper. The bullet caught the driver in the forehead and blew out most of the back of his head. The driver folded and sagged to the ground, one hand clinging to the door of the truck.
The man in the passenger seat hadn’t moved.
Rutger stepped up and pointed the gun at him.
“Zack Hatter. Donde esta?”
“Quien eres?” the gang leader asked. Who are you?
The man looked at him with a blank expression so Rutger shot him in the knee.
The man reached into the footwell of the truck and started to come up with an ancient Mac-10 submachine gun.
Rutger shot him in the shoulder.
The gun dropped and Rutger reached inside the truck, took the gun away, then dragged the man out and dumped him onto the ground.
“Donde?” Rutger repeated. Where?
The man on the ground unleashed another torrent of Spanish. Rutger understood that he was saying he didn’t know anything. No se. Nada.
It was frustrating.
People never wanted to talk.
Rutger shot him in the head.
He knew he wouldn’t be getting anything out of the man, so instead he would do some detective work and look inside the truck.
He found a brown bag with a half-eaten tortilla and refried beans. A large Styrofoam cup filled with lemonade and a brochure for a tourist attraction that included caves.
And a ballpoint pen.
The ballpoint pen had been used to circled one of the buildings near the caves.
Aha, Rutger thought.
A cave.
Of course.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
She stuck her toes into the sand,
Nails into my head.
She walked along the razor’s edge,
And toasted all our dead.
-Martini Beach (by Groovy Train)
Mary had a hunch. Mr. Preppy claimed he didn’t know, but she felt her instincts about the guy in the corner weren’t wrong.
So once Ward left in a huff, leaving Mary with his dire warning about the Zetas killing all of their hostages, she went back to the bar where the guy in the corner was still watching her.
“How’d it go?” he asked, with a small smile.
“Not good,” Mary said. “He didn’t have what I needed.”
She set her Pacifico on the bar and stuck out her hand. “Name’s Mary, by the way.”
“Hello, Mary-By-The-Way. Name’s Neil. I’m judging by the look in your eye that you might think I have what you need, is that right?”
“Possibly,” she admitted. “I need information.” She had an image of Zack Hatter on her phone and she showed it to Neil. “I’m looking for him. He’s missing and the rumor is the Zetas have him.”
“I suspect that rumor’s wrong,” Neil said.
“Why’s that?”
“The Zetas don’t kidnap. They kill. Plus, that guy looks like he’s been around the block. No way he’s getting involved with them.”
Neil peered closer at the photograph. “Besides,” he added. “That dude’s a dead ringer for Zack Hatter from Groovy Train.”
“It is Zack Hatter from Groovy Train.”
“No shit? That’s cool,” Neil said. “Do you know him?”
“Not really.”
“Well, your rumor is definitely wrong. Zetas hate publicity. No way they’d snatch him.”
Mary put her phone away and took a long drink from her beer. It was possible the rumor was wrong. But why would Bulldog lie? Why would he say the Zetas have Zack?
She thought about it. What was the connection between the little town of Bucerias, home of oyster divers, and the music industry in Puerto Vallarta?
Drugs was the easy answer.
Zack was famous for drugs.
And women.
A thought hit Mary out of the blue.
She turned to Neil. “What about hookers?”
He laughed and nodded his head.
“Sure, I was just thinking that,” Neil said. “If there was one woman who would have found her way to Zack Hatter, it would be her.”
“Who?”
“Zeta.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Hey now, hey now, bring that monkey shine.
Hey now, hey now, show me your evenin’ grind.
-Hazel (by Groovy Train)
I put in a call to Mary and she answered on the first ring.
“Zeta’s a hooker,” she said before I could even get a word out.
“I know.”
“No you didn’t,” she said.
“I did. I talked to some Canadians at a bar who said they sa
w Zack with her.”
“Wow, great minds think alike,” she said. “Did you get an address for her?”
“I have a general area, how about you?”
“Same. Let’s meet and go together.”
We figured out we were only about four blocks apart so less than a minute later we joined forces near the taxi stand, which seemed to be the unofficial hub of the little town.
The five guys watching the one white car all nodded at me as I walked past. I wondered if they made any money or if they just liked hanging out together.
Mary approached from the beach and all of the guys suddenly sat up straighter.
She was a good-looking woman, I had to admit, and I couldn’t blame the guys for wanting to get a better look.
“How far away is the general area?” she asked.
“Not far at all,” I said. “Supposedly it’s a condo complex called Isle Verde. Just a few blocks from here.”
“Great, let’s go,” Mary said. We turned down the street, and I led the way to my rental car.
“I wish I had a gun, though,” she said.
“Me, too.”
We walked together and I told her about my meeting with the Canadians. She filled me in on her conversation with the preppy drug dealer.
“Not gonna lie,” I said. “I’m glad we didn’t have to pursue the Los Zetas angle. I have no interest in dealing with those guys.”
“Yeah, they seem like a fun bunch of dudes,” Mary said. “I heard they’re big fans of burning people alive. You know, when they’re bored and need some entertainment. As opposed to, you know, watching Netflix or something.”
“The shows are probably too violent for them,” I said.
We couldn’t miss the sign to Isle Verde.
It was a huge white monstrosity with a logo that looked like it’d been developed in the seventies. Next to the name on the sign was a pair of palm trees, but one of them was crooked and looked like it had been toppled by high winds.