The Arraignment

by Steve Martini

  This drives me out into the open. A quick glance.

  The gunman has the muzzle pointed up, slamming another magazine in. He pulls the bolt and lets it slide closed before he sees me. He slaps the pilot on the shoulder.

  It’s a footrace for cover.

  The plane noses down to pick up speed. I can hear the engine as it closes on me from behind, sliding in like a roller coaster, riding the currents of air over the palm trees.

  The winged shadow overtakes me in less than a second as bullets slam into the concrete, a procession of them chasing me across the concrete deck.

  I throw my body into a headlong dive. I hit the low wall overlooking the beach with my shoulder. I carom off it like a billiard ball and roll under the bench, curling into a fetal position beneath the sitting bronze figure.

  Bullets spark as they hit the bench with a ping. A few of them, finding openings in the filigree, slam into the concrete, taking divots. Chips of cement, bits of copper jacket pepper my face.

  The plane flies right over the top, the gunman pouring fire down on me as he passes. Bullets hitting bronze, turning into mushroomed metal until the last few hit the low wall on the outside.

  I claw my way out from under the bench and kneel, peering over the top of the balcony out toward the sea.

  The ultralight wings out over the surf, climbing for altitude. The gunman looks back, craning his neck, trying to get a glimpse around the flashing propeller and the tail section, to see if he got me. When he sees my head above the balcony, he slaps the pilot on the shoulder, frantically motioning for him to come around again.

  I feel something warm dripping on my shoulder. I reach up, and there is blood dripping from by earlobe, where I’ve been nicked.

  I watch the small plane. The gunman wants him to turn around. The pilot can’t, gesturing with his hands toward the other ultralight flying across his path, heading up the coast trailing the sign: SEÑOR FROG—FREE T-SHIRT WITH DINNER.

  The gunman, his arms waving, gestures in frustration in the jump seat. The pilot powers down. I can hear the whining engine drop to a purr, as he gives the other plane plenty of room to pass.

  They clear the trailing end of the sign, and he throttles up, dips his nose, and lowers a wing for speed in the turn. I can see the pilot clearly now, looking this way, trying to get a quick fix on me.

  I stand so he can see me.

  The gunman points, using his arm, flexing it at the elbow, back and forth, directing the course of attack.

  As soon as I see this, I move laterally across the plaza, running north along the balcony over the beach. I keep my eye on the plane until I reach the spot. Then I stop and turn toward him.

  Like a game of dodgeball, the pilot has to guess which way I’ll go. He is focused, eyes riveted on me. He adjusts his course a little to the left, lowers the nose for more speed, closing fast now, hunched over the stick, both hands and feet on the controls.

  He is focused on me and does not see the cable just a few yards away, tethering the parasailer to the tow boat. The force of the impact throws him forward with enough force that I can see the tubular frame supporting the wing over his head actually bend. The left wing crumbles like brittle paper, fabric tearing as the fiber frame twists around the cable.

  A good three hundred feet above them, the rider in the parachute gets an unexpected thrill, being jerked and dragged thirty or forty feet through the air by the impact.

  The driver of the tow boat sees what’s happened and cuts the engine, his bow dropping down into the water.

  I watch as the ultralight spins out of control, its motor now racing. The propeller hits something, and I flinch with the impact as the plane comes apart in the air.

  What is left of the wing separates. The frame, its engine, and passengers, drop like an anvil, plummeting into the water just beyond the surf.

  Pieces of the wing and tail section trail after it as they float and tumble like leaves. They splash one after the other into the sea.

  The parasailer glides down, settling smoothly into the water, the tow boat swinging around to pick him up.

  When I look back, everything from the plane is gone except a sheen on the surface as it rides the undulating deep blue just beyond the waves.

  My body shaking, hands trembling, I turn and look toward the hotel where Harry is still lying motionless under the cabana.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Within minutes after arriving, the paramedics have Harry stabilized, an I.V. in his arm, bandages around his head, and an oxygen mask over his face.

  With cops crawling all over the hotel, some of them with guns drawn, the medics carry Harry up the stairs and wheel him on a gurney through the lobby. It is crowded with police and a few people who have wandered in off the street to see what has happened.

  I look for Julio’s security man. I don’t see him. No sign of Julio or Herman.

  I consider using the house phone and calling Adam in his room. But the gurney is moving too fast. I want to be with Harry at the hospital in case something happens.

  Outside, they collapse the gurney and roll Harry into the back of the ambulance. I pile in behind the attendant, and as soon as the door closes, we roll down the driveway leading to the boulevard out in front. Another crowd has gathered here, but two traffic cops are holding them back. They have cordoned off the driveway and move some traffic cones to let us by.

  The paramedic tells me that the hospital is not far, a few miles.

  Everything is a blur as I notice the fingers of Harry’s left hand move, then his right arm. He opens his eyes, blinks, searches the ceiling of the ambulance, then sees me.

  “You’re going to be all right. Just stay still. We’re almost to the hospital,” I tell him.

  He smiles, tries to say something, but he can’t with the mask over his nose and mouth.

  He nods, but I don’t know if he believes me.

  Four minutes later, they roll Harry out of the ambulance and into the E.R. A nurse in scrubs with a paper mask down around her chin screens me, peeling me from the side of the gurney as we enter the emergency entrance. She gets some basic information, then tells me to go to the lobby, to the admitting desk. The swinging door closes in my face.

  The lobby is crowded. People sprawled in chairs, some of them looking as if they’ve been here all night. Kids are playing, crawling on the floor.

  I wait in line twenty minutes, then fill out forms and get in line again. It takes another half hour, leaning against the counter and answering questions on medical insurance, the health policy from the firm. I give them a business credit card to guarantee payment. This from the soggy wallet in my hip pocket. Harry’s watered-down blood all over the front of my shirt.

  When I’m done, I spend another forty minutes standing and pacing, occasionally looking at my watch. I have called the hotel twice. Nobody answers at the desk. Mass confusion.

  All the chairs in the waiting room are taken. People looking at me, blood on the shoulder of my shirt from the nick on my ear. I look at my watch again, wonder what’s taking so long, knowing that with each passing minute the chance of bad news increases.

  Then a voice. “Anybody here with Mr. Hinds?”

  I turn and see a young Hispanic man in green operating scrubs standing by the counter.

  “I am.”

  He has one of those faces you can’t read, the only apparent emotion being fatigue.

  “I’m Doctor Ruiz.” He looks at my bloody shirt. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine. How is he?”

  “Mr. Hinds is resting comfortably. We did an X ray looking for fractures, bullet fragments, chips of bone from the skull in the brain. We didn’t find anything. It appears that the bullet only grazed the skull.”

  “So, he’s going to be all right?”

  “He has lost a lot of blood. It took a number of stitches to close the scalp. I cannot say for sure. We will have to watch him for the next twenty-four hours, to make sure there is no swelling of
the brain. We’re going to hold him at least overnight. We’ll see how he is in the morning.”

  “Can I see him?”

  “For a moment. He needs to rest. Right now he is sedated for pain. He’s going to have quite a headache when the meds wear off.” He tilts his head to my right and looks at my ear. “Do you know you have been wounded?”

  Absently I reach up. Touch it. “Yeah. It’s nothing.”

  “If you like, I could have one of the nurses clean it.”

  “It’s all right. I can take care of it when I get back to the hotel.”

  He leads me down a hall and through a set of double doors to one of the emergency trauma rooms. The door is open. Harry is lying on a gurney in the center of the room, a blanket covering his body, his head bandaged.

  The doctor tells me they will be moving him to a room upstairs in a few minutes. I thank him and he heads to his next patient.

  I walk over and look at Harry. His eyes are closed. I touch his arm. He opens his eyes and looks at me.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Great.” Gravely voice. “Maybe they’ll gimme a prescription for whatever they pumped in my arm. Right now I’m feelin’ just fine. What happened?”

  “You don’t remember anything?”

  “Who are you?” he says.

  He reads my eyes. “Just kidding. Last thing I remember is a shadow on the water, just before the mountain fell on me. What was it?”

  “We’ll talk about it later. You rest. They’ll be coming to take you upstairs to a room in a couple of minutes.”

  “No. No. I want to go with you.” He starts to get up off the gurney.

  “Harry!”

  “Oh shit.” Hand to his head, he settles back down on the gurney. “My head feels like it’s gonna come off.”

  “If you don’t lie still, it probably will. The doctor says you’re going to be feeling some pain when the medications wear off. For the time being, you rest. I’ll stop by again later tonight.” I squeeze his arm and head to the door.

  “Paul?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where’s Adam and Julio?”

  “That’s a good question.”

  I flag a cab in front of the hospital and head back to the hotel. By the time we get to the intersection leading to the driveway up to the Casa Turquesa, the crowd out in front is gone. A motorcycle cop is standing at the driveway entrance, screening traffic in and out.

  The sun is searing. I glance at my watch. It’s nearly two o’clock. I’m feeling nauseous. I have a headache. I haven’t eaten since last night. The blood from my ear is dried and caked, but the sweat running down my face in the cab, which has no air-conditioning, causes the salt to burn in the wound.

  The cop at the gate will see the blood all over the front of my shirt as soon as we pull in, and the inquisition will start before I can get out of the cab.

  Rather than go up to the hotel, I have the driver go past the entrance and take a left behind Kukulcan Plaza.

  Up on the bluff behind the shopping center, overlooking the beach, are apartments and condos. Julio’s firm has rented space in one of the less expensive condos so that they could park the big Surburbans in the underground garage. The rest of Julio’s team, when not on duty, has slept in the condo upstairs. Herman pointed it out to me on one of our trips.

  I have the cab driver drop me off in front of the place.

  The two-story building houses a half dozen units with stairs out in front leading to the units on the second story. Each of the units look the same.

  As we drive up, I see the driveway to the garage, a concrete ramp at the side of the building leading down underneath. So I head toward it and down the ramp.

  I am looking for Julio’s man, the one who’s supposed to be watching the cars, hoping he has a radio to contact his boss. If not, maybe there is a phone in the condo upstairs. I can call Adam and find out what’s happening in the hotel, have them bring me some clean clothes. If I’m lucky, by now Adam and Julio will have answered most of their questions. I can fill in a few blanks, get a meal in my room, and nap before we meet with Pablo Ibarra; that is, assuming the meeting is still on.

  After the events of this morning, I’ve become a convert to Harry’s way of thinking. As soon as I button Adam, I plan to lay heavy hands. When Harry is ready to travel, we should hop on the plane and hightail it home. It’s one thing to look for answers as to who killed Nick. It’s another to meet them.

  Even though it’s dug into the earth like a bunker, the underground garage is warm and humid.

  I turn the corner and see the cars. Two of the Surburbans are there. One is out. The one on the right has its engine running, fouling the garage with fumes.

  The man watching them is sitting inside, listening to music, with the air conditioner running. I hear the muted vibrations of low notes, pounding out a bass in a monotone. I’m waiting for the car to sprout hydraulics and start jumping in place.

  As I slide up along side, I see the familiar five o’clock shadow in the side-view mirror. I’ve been looking at it for two days in the car. Julio sitting behind the wheel. I tap on the glass of the window behind him, but he doesn’t hear me. I open the driver’s door.

  “Where were your people . . .” The words aren’t out of my mouth when I see the splatter on the windshield like rust-colored stucco. Spider-legged fissures in the windshield fan out from a crater in the glass a few inches above the steering wheel.

  The side of Julio’s face is an ashen shade of blue, cyanotic. His eyes are half closed in a death daze. In the center of his forehead is the exit wound the size of a quarter, the edges swollen, already congealed with blood. This has run down his face in rivulets around his nose, covering large areas of his shirt and pants.

  I stand there with my mouth open, the sweet metallic taste of monoxide in my throat. The mind-numbing music and the fact that I’m standing inches from a dead body in a foreign county tends to focus the mind. Quickly I scan the garage to make sure I’m alone.

  I search through the pockets of my shorts for a piece of cloth, paper, anything. I find a folded cash register receipt still damp. I open it up and using it between my thumb and forefinger, I carefully reach under the steering column, find the key, and turn off the ignition. The deafening silence causes me to flinch, look around, make sure I’m still alone. Then I close the car door, wiping the handle with the tail of my shirt.

  It takes me five minutes to make my way back up the hill. I cross the empty street behind the plaza, take off my shirt, and drop it into a trash can at the curb on the other side. I enter the shopping center through a door on the back side. The cool, dry atmosphere of the air-conditioned plaza washes over me as I catch my breath inside. Except for the blood on my ear, I look like a tourist who forgot his shirt back at the pool, shoes without socks and beads of sweat.

  Against the wall just inside the door is a pay phone. I fumble with Mexican coins, trying to figure which one to use for a local call. I end up dropping a ten peso piece, then dial the hotel. A few seconds later, I get the front desk.

  “I’d like to speak to Mr. Adam Tolt. He’s a guest.”

  “One moment.”

  I hear voices. The clerk speaking in Spanish to someone else. I hear him say ‘Señor Tolt,’ a rubbing sound, his hand covering the mouthpiece, the word Inglés. Then another voice comes on the line. “Hello, who is this?”

  “I’m trying to reach Mr. Tolt. Adam Tolt. He’s a guest at the hotel.”

  “Who is this?” The voice speaks with the tone of authority.

  A half hour ago, before finding Julio’s body, I would have given him my name, crossed the street, and talked to the cops. Instead I don’t say another word. I hang up.

  The hotel has a small desk with a single phone. If I call again, the clerk will recognize my voice.

  At a counter a few feet away, there’s a young girl offering sample scents of perfume from some atomizers. I step over and tell her I’ve had a little accident, pointin
g to my ear. I ask her if she wouldn’t mind placing a phone call for me in Spanish. It would only take a moment.

  She smiles and steps around the counter. I drop another coin in the phone and dial again.

  “I want to talk to one of their guests. An African-American gentleman. A black man. His name is Herman. I’m afraid I don’t remember his last name, but there are only a few guests at the hotel.”

  When the clerk answers, the girl speaks in rapid-fire Spanish. They go back and forth a couple of times. Finally she hands me the phone and smiles. “His last name is Diggs. Herman Diggs. They are ringing his room now.”

  “Thanks.” I take the phone, listening as it ringing. Three times, no answer. On the fourth ring, “Hello.”

  I recognize Herman’s voice.

  “Herman. Paul Madriani.”

  “Well, shit, ’bout time somebody called. Where the hell are you? I been lookin’ all over. Go to sleep, wake up, and everybody’s gone. Startin’ to think somebody called an audible and I missed it. Can’t fine Julio, any of the rest of the crew. And some clerk downstairs says your partner got shot. Some shit about airplanes.”

  “Herman!” I have to raise my voice to stop him from jabbering.

  “What?”

  “Go find Adam Tolt. I tried to call him a couple of minutes ago and the cops cut me off.”

  “No shit, Sherlock? Tolt’s gone.”

  “What do you mean, he’s gone?”

  “Vanished, disappeared, vamoosed, gone. I went to his room. The place is all fuckin’ tore up. Cops are down there wrappin’ the place early for Christmas. All kinds of yellow tape across the door. It was Ibarra ’n’ his bro. They snatched Tolt right under our nose. This morning while their fuckin’ air force was busy shootin’ up the pool.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Cuz the brothers turned Tolt’s room upside down lookin’ for somethin’. When they didn’t find it, they took Tolt and dropped me a note. They want a meeting tomorrow morning early. At dawn. At some ruins. Place called Cobá. Some temple. Just a second, I get it.” He leaves the phone to get the note and comes back.