The Arraignment

by Steve Martini

  Touché.

  Adam is tired. He wants to get some sleep. “We can relax around the pool tomorrow, during the day, meet with Ibarra in the evening, find out what he knows. I’ll get the plane fueled and we can leave tomorrow night, as soon as we’re finished. Sack out on the Gulfstream and be home early Saturday, be fresh for work on Monday morning. How does that sound?” Adam looks at the two of us.

  “Agreed.”

  Julio smiles. Almost done.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  The sun at this latitude starts to bake concrete at sunrise, so by the time we arrive on the patio behind the Casa Turquesa, Harry is hopping across the pool deck in bare feet before he slips into the water.

  “How is it?” says Adam.

  “It’ll be fine as soon as the skin grows back on my feet.”

  “I mean the water.”

  “Feels good.” Harry ducks under, comes back up, and shakes some of it out of his hair. Then he starts doing laps underwater. For a man who once smoked, Harry defies all the odds. He has the lung capacity of a blacksmith’s bellows.

  Adam has already made arrangements so that a table is set under one of the two large canvas cabanas near this end of the pool.

  He has given Julio and Herman the morning off, letting them sleep in after the long drive up the coast last night. One of Julio’s lieutenants is watching the cars, and another is sitting in the lobby, reading the paper and keeping an eye.

  “It’s hardly worth staying open,” says Adam. “The place is empty.”

  He is right. Harry is alone, swimming in a pool the size of a lake. According to the clerk, the only other guest besides our party checked out this morning. Larger groups are clustered at the big resorts down the road where they cater to tour groups and trade conventions. But any way you cut it, it’s definitely not the high season in Cancún.

  Tiny ultralights, their engines buzzing like lawn mowers, fly by every few minutes, heading north up the beach trailing banners trying to peddle anything that the few tourists might be willing to buy. This one has a sign that reads: PAT O’BRIEN’S—CARIBBEAN LOBSTER TAIL.

  Harry climbs out of the pool, but not before he splashes some water on the concrete. He grabs a towel from a stack on one of the chaise longues, then toe-dances over the hot pavement to the island of shade under the cabana. He puts one foot up on the chair, drying himself off and looking out toward the ocean.

  “You know, I been thinking.” Harry is trying to clear water out of an ear with one finger, using a corner of the towel. “If the three of us were able to piece this together—Espinoza, Saldado, the Ibarras—why haven’t the cops?”

  “It could have to do with the fact that we’re palming some of their cards,” I tell him.

  “Like Nick’s PDA,” says Adam.

  “And the letter from Pablo Ibarra,” I say.

  Adam smiles. “Point taken.”

  “I know that,” says Harry. “But you gotta figure there’s only three of us. The cops have an army, a ton of resources, computerized crime histories, forensics lab, snitches on the municipal payroll. By now they’ve gotta have Saldado’s fingerprints from his apartment.”

  “Which means?” says Adam.

  “Which means they probably know more than we do—his real name, for starters. It couldn’t take that long to check with the Mexican authorities.”

  “So what’s your point?” says Adam.

  “So if Saldado has a record in Mexico, it would show associations, people he ran with. You’d think the cops could connect the dots.”

  “Maybe they’re just a little slower off the ball,” says Adam.

  “That and a lack of motivation,” says Harry.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Paul and I have talked about it. Nick wasn’t the kind of crime victim that brings on waves of passion in the breast of law enforcement.”

  “You don’t really think they’re sitting on the case?” says Tolt.

  “One thing we know they don’t have is a Gulfstream to wing their way south,” I tell him.

  Adam’s eyebrows arch as he looks at me.

  “Not that I’m unappreciative. It’s a fact. Unless they’re flying down here to pick up a suspect, or question one already in custody, that kind of travel takes time to work its way through the bureaucracy.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that,” says Adam. “Then you think they might be on the trail?”

  “I don’t know how they could miss it,” says Harry. “The trail to the Ibarras couldn’t be more clear unless we hung signs. You gave the cops their names at the hospital.”

  Adam’s expression is one of approval, nodding as his eyes gaze down at the table, some restoration of faith in the system.

  “And they’ll have the letter from Ibarra by now. I know because my ears have been burning for the last day,” says Adam. “That lieutenant, what’s his name?”

  “Ortiz,” I say.

  “He’s gonna be on the warpath when I get back. Wanting to know how long I had Ibarra’s letter. It’s why I haven’t called the office. I don’t want anybody there to have to say they talked to me, or that they know where I am. Better if I’m able to say I was out of touch until I got back.”

  “Then what are you gonna do?” says Harry.

  “Hunker down, take some official abuse I suppose. What can they do?”

  “If they can prove you were sitting on the letter, plenty,” says Harry. “If it’s all the same with you, I’d just as soon be back in San Diego tonight, watching the Dodgers kick the crap out of the Padres on the tube. Instead we’re goin’ to see some guy, who if he’s anything like his kids, is probably gonna have his people kick the crap out of us. That’s if we’re lucky.”

  “We’ll be home tomorrow,” I tell him. “You can read the box scores in the paper.”

  “Which one, the Padres or us?” says Harry.

  “That reminds me.” Adam is looking at his watch, holding it up to his ear again. “What time have you got?”

  “A couple of minutes past nine,” I tell him.

  “Oh, shit. My watch says eight-forty.”

  “You should get that thing fixed,” says Harry.

  “I’ve got to go, call the pilot and make sure he doesn’t drink anything at the bar today. Have him fuel the plane or we’ll be here all night.” Adam is out of his chair, halfway to the stairs, talking to us over his shoulder as he goes.

  I watch him climb the steps, taking them two at a time, moving like a man in his twenties, all the way to the top as he disappears like a flash through the door to the lobby.

  “Guess if the pilot drinks, we won’t be flying tonight,” says Harry.

  “Looks like it.”

  “How much do you think it takes to fill one of those things up?”

  “Oh, I’d have to think a fifth of vodka would put any pilot I know on his can.”

  “Be a smart ass,” says Harry smiling. “You know what I mean. The plane?”

  “How would I know?”

  “You think they have to wait in line? Get out the credit card?”

  “Go ask Adam.”

  He thinks about this for a second. “No. The steps are too hot. Besides, if I go back inside the air-conditioning, I’m done for the day.” He looks at the pool instead. “Think I’ll go back in the water. Why don’t you at least sit on the side, put your feet in?”

  “Why not?” I grab my dark glasses off the table and slip off my running shoes.

  “Besides, the sun might cook some of that lip off you,” he says. “A fifth of vodka.”

  Harry is right. The water feels good. The pool is shallow, slightly more than three feet with little signs all the way around in feet and inches to keep their northern guests from diving in and breaking their necks. If you want anything deeper, the Caribbean is just down the steps and across the beach.

  Another ultralight buzzes by towing its sign. Harry pops up in the center of the pool just in time to see it.

  A few seconds later a
nother one comes over, this time from another direction and maybe thirty feet above the rooftops, close enough that I can see the wire struts and hear the nylon fabric on its wings flapping as it buzzes past. Its shadow flashes over the deck and the pool and then is gone almost before I see it.

  “Isn’t he a little low?” says Harry.

  “Just a little.”

  Harry, with a line of sight out toward the beach, has one hand up shading his eyes, watching as the plane heads out over water.

  “Must be giving rides,” he says. “He had a passenger.”

  I look up, but the building next door blocks my view. When I look toward Harry, he is back underwater.

  There is a breeze off the sea, flushing some of the hot air from the patio. I wet my hands in the pool and prop them behind me on the hot deck, leaning back. I’m getting hungry, wondering how long Adam is going to be.

  Out on the water the parasail boat comes by again, its engine winding up and then dropping RPMs like a Mixmaster as it bounces its way north against the chop. Behind it, nearly invisible at this distance, is the thin steel cable curving up toward the parachute, its rider, looking like a dot in the sky, hanging underneath.

  I watch the parachute as it sails slowly past in the distance. Splashes in the water in front of me, sending up a spray. Harry’s throwing gravel. Wasps whine past my ear. I flick them away with the back of my hand. There’s a spark from the pool’s concrete coving, and something hits my cheek. I rub it. There’s an instant before the synapse in my brain fires after I see blood on my hand.

  An image out of the sun, diving toward the plaza from over the roof of the Casa Turquesa behind me. It projects a shadow that crosses twenty yards of terraced foliage and the deck around the pool, before I can even turn my head. Kaleidoscopic silhouette—raptor racing across the ground. An instant later, the high-pitched whine of the ultralight engine—fleeting images of color, it fills my frame of vision for an instant and is past me almost before I hear it.

  It sends me sprawling, rolling onto my side across the hot concrete. A rip of reports as it passes, jets of spray in the pool, shattered tile at the edge. A second later, a shower of spent brass cartridges hits the water while others click across the concrete at the far end.

  As the plane wings out over the beach and pulls up, gaining altitude and losing speed, I see the pilot, both hands on the control stick, looking straight ahead. The plane is nothing but an open frame, the pilot’s feet in a set of stirrups. I can see him push one of these as the ultralight makes a slight turn to the right and climbs.

  His passenger is in a kind of jump seat up behind him, sitting higher, the propeller pushing from behind. He is looking back to assess the damage, a set of goggles strapped to his head, shielding his eyes from the wind. In his hands, I can see what looks like a dark snub-nosed machine gun, moving it around, working at something. Then I realize he’s loading a magazine with fresh rounds.

  I look for Harry, but I don’t see him. What I do see is the vaporous hue of blood drifting in the water out near the center of the pool. I track it to a dark shadow on the bottom, and before I can think, I’m in the water, kicking off the side, pulling with my arms.

  Before I’m there, I fill my lungs with air, and on the next stroke I pull under the surface toward the shallow bottom. Silence, only the pounding of my pulse in my head and chest. Snagging Harry under the arms, around his chest, my feet under me, I shoot us to the surface. I can’t tell if he’s alive. His body is limp, chin resting on his chest. I grab his hair and pull his head back, look at his face. His eyes are closed.

  Backpedaling with my feet on the bottom, I push through the water, towing Harry toward the stairs and the hotel.

  In the distance, the ultralight circles in a broad arc out over the surf, turning, dipping its wing, wheeling around.

  I’m concentrating on the plane when my feet hit the steps of the pool and I fall backward, end up sitting on the next step with Harry in my lap. I hang onto him and try to get up.

  I see the waiter in his white linen jacket, facedown, hugging the tiled floor just inside the sliding door to the restaurant on the pool deck. But he’s not looking at me. He’s looking at the plane as it approaches.

  I yell and wave for him to help.

  Instead he gets on his feet and runs toward the kitchen.

  I look down and see Harry’s blood on my shirt. The back of his head, his hair is matted. A head wound. Not good.

  When I look back, the ultralight is bearing down, making speed with its tail now into the onshore wind. With nothing but adrenaline, I heave Harry and myself up onto the pool deck and drag him, heels across the concrete until I reach the canvas cabana, and lay him in the shade. I turn and look toward the stairs up to the hotel, but there is no one there.

  The plane is approaching the beach. I grab the table and flip it on its side in front of Harry’s prostrate body. I reach for a towel to wrap his head, anything to stop the bleeding, but there is no time. The pitch of the engine changes as the plane noses down, gaining speed.

  I step out from under the cabana and see the plane coming straight at me, maybe two hundred yards away. I run along the pool deck toward the other end, closing the distance between us, shortening his target time.

  Like radar, the gunman’s attention is drawn to the moving object. Bullets shatter the glass in the windows and the French door to the thatched-roof bar overlooking the beach. Then I hear the sound of the shots.

  The gunman fires in controlled bursts. Half a second, twenty rounds. I see light puffs from the muzzle and the trail of brass as it glitters in the sunlight, the plane dropping cartridges like rain.

  I sprawl onto the concrete, knees and elbows sliding, as bullets rip into the stucco wall just above me, walking a pattern into the low hedge at my feet. The sound of the burst follows an instant later. It is almost lost in the whine of the engine as the plane races by, over the pool, followed by its winged shadow.

  The gunman swings around to fire another burst, but the pilot is forced to pull up, in order to clear the roof of the hotel. The rounds go high, ripping into the thatched palm-frond roof of the bar as the ultralight disappears behind the Casa Turquesa.

  Where the hell is Julio and his security? I glance at my watch. The second hand is still moving. I figure ninety seconds, maybe two minutes, depending on how wide they take the turn, if they come back.

  I run back to the cabana where Harry is lying on the concrete, grabbing a towel on the way.

  Down on one knee, I place my ear to his nose and mouth and feel for a pulse. Shallow, but he is breathing. I reach around the back of his head, searching with my fingers for the wound, feeling for a depression in the bone through the hair. Nothing, just blood. I fold the towel into a long strip and wrap it as tightly as I can around his head, tucking it under like a turban on his forehead. I grab cushions from two of the chaise longues nearby, as well as a stack of towels. I put the towels under his feet to elevate them. Maybe not a good idea with a head wound, but I think Harry is in shock. I cover him with the cushions. It’s all I can do for the moment.

  Then I step away from the cabana, this time to the other side of the pool, putting distance between myself and Harry so they won’t be tempted to spray bullets through the blue canvas top.

  On this side there is a small mushroom-shaped kiosk bar with a thatched roof, right up next to the pool.

  My eyes race over the area, looking for cover. In the corner of the patio forty feet away, near the low wall looking over the beach, sits a white metal bench, a bronze statue taking up a third of it. Larger than life, a solid hunk of metal, feet planted firmly on the ground, the figure’s head is turned toward the north, staring pensively up the white strip of sand. It has one arm raised to shoulder height, holding out a hand with a cigar clenched between two fingers.

  In the water beyond the beach, the tow boat, its bow slapping in the chop, is pulling its cargo in the parachute again, oblivious to what is happening a quarter mile away.
The driver is doing a large circle, a horseshoe of white water at his stern.

  As I am looking, the whine of an engine cuts the silence in the distance, just for an instant. Then it’s gone, dampened by the high structures around me. I scan the roofline of the hotel, then the tops of buildings on either side. My eyes continually return to the southwest corner of the plaza, the gap between the hotel and the building under construction next door, where the ultralight came from the last time.

  Then suddenly it’s behind me, coming north up the beach. I drop down, my body flexing, flinching, waiting for the bullets to hit as I pivot on one knee. It takes an instant to connect sight and sound when I see it, a half mile to the south moving this way, an ultralight lumbering up the beach, towing a long sign behind it.

  My head is pounding when I hear sirens somewhere in the distance. Another couple of seconds and I hear them again, out on the highway, moving this way.

  There is no sign of the plane. I take a deep breath. Then my attention turns to Harry.

  Some of the hotel staff have gathered near the rear of the lobby, up the stairs from the pool. I can see their heads peeking from around the edges of the large plateglass door.

  I wave with one arm, motioning for them to come down and help. As the door opens and the manager and another man start down the stairs, half of the liquor bottles in the kiosk behind me explode. Splinters of wood from the shelf under them fly up like toothpicks before I hear the sound and look up.

  Flying into the quickening current of air off the ocean, the ultralight is suspended nearly motionless in the sky just above the top of the hotel roof.

  Its wings wobbling, the pilot struggles to hold the platform still as another series of puffs rise from the muzzle of the gun, his companion firing over his shoulder.

  My body heads toward concrete with the force of gravity as something hisses and cracks past my ear.

  When I look up, the pilot is tapping all his skills, beginning to inch forward as the breeze slackens.

  I retreat across the concrete on my hands and feet and huddle on my knees behind the kiosk.

  On the next burst, a few of the bullets hit metal inside the kiosk with a dead thud. The rest blow right through the little building, flashing like electricity, one of them fragmenting as it hits the cement a few inches from my hand.