The Arraignment

by Steve Martini

  “Here it is. Something called the Doorway to the Temple of the Inscriptions. I looked on a map. Cobá’s in the middle of the fuckin’ jungle. They holdin’ Tolt as collateral for this Rosen shit, whatever it is. So I hope you got some. Otherwise they gonna be sending your friend back a piece at a time.”

  “Do the police have the note?”

  “No. It was slipped under my door early this afternoon. All they know is Tolt’s gone and his room’s a mess.”

  This sends a lot of silence from my end of the line.

  “Hey. You there?”

  “I’m here, Herman.”

  “Tell me. Where exactly is here?” he says.

  “I’m across the street in the plaza.”

  “What the fuck you doin’ there?”

  “I don’t have time to explain. Can you get out of the hotel without the police seeing you?”

  “Yeah right, six-foot-five, three-hundred-pound bro’, I’m gonna slip through the lobby unnoticed like Tinkerbell.”

  “There’s gotta be some way.”

  “Yeah. I can do it. It won’t be easy. First tell me why?”

  “I’m going to need your help.”

  “Take me a minute to get dressed,” he says. “In my Skivvies.”

  “I’ve got some bad news,” I tell him.

  “What?”

  “Julio is dead.”

  Silence on the other end. “What you talkin” bout? Ay don’t believe ya. Bullshit.”

  “I just saw him. He’s sitting behind the wheel in one of the Surburbans down in the garage with half of his head gone. Do you know where the rest of your people are?”

  Nothing but the sound of his breathing on his end.

  “Herman?”

  “What?”

  “Where are the rest of your people?”

  He hesitates for a second. “Ay don’t know. Called the condo four or five times. Nobody answers.”

  “Then we have to assume they either bought them or they’re dead. And one of the cars is gone. Do you know where it is?”

  “No.”

  “Do you have keys for the other two?”

  “Got keys for all of ’em.”

  I tell him to meet me in half an hour on the sidewalk behind the plaza. Then I hang up.

  I buy a pair of pants, a couple of shirts, some underwear and socks at one of the men’s clothing shops in the mall, then head for the men’s room. Inside I wash the blood off my neck and clean away some of the crusted blood from my ear, being careful not to reopen the wound. Then put on one of the new shirts.

  Out in the mall I wait inside, watching for Herman through the glass doors I had entered forty minutes earlier. A few seconds later, I see him hoofing it up the sidewalk and coming this way. He’s wearing black high-top shoes, a pair of black chinos, thighs bulging, and a tee-shirt, stretched in every direction. Around his waist is an oversized fanny pack on a thick web belt sagging from the weight of the forty-five and the clips of ammunition inside.

  Carrying the shopping bags with my clothes in them, I head out and meet him on the street.

  “I don’t believe you, man. Fuckin’ shoppin’ at a time like this,” he says.

  “I had blood all over my clothes.”

  “Oh. That’s different,” he says.

  “Everything I brought with me is locked up in the room, including my passport.”

  “Looks like you gonna be talkin’ to the powlice before you go home,” he says.

  We head down the hill.

  Five minutes later we’re standing in the garage under the condo, Herman with the leather pouch on his left side unzipped. His right hand is in it under the flap.

  The Suburbans are parked where they were when I left, the smell of exhaust still lingering in the air.

  “Which one’s Julio in?”

  “One on the right.”

  “Stay here.”

  “Herman.”

  “What?”

  “Leave it. Don’t touch it.”

  “Can’t just leave him here,” he says. “Besides, my fingerprints are all over that car.”

  “There are things besides fingerprints,” I tell him. “There’s nothing we can do. As soon as we get the other car and get out of here, we can stop and call the cops from a pay phone. Tell them some kids saw the body in a car in the garage. Give them the address and hang up. They’ll take care of it.”

  “I at least want to see him,” he says.

  “I understand. Look, don’t touch.”

  Herman goes up and looks at Julio through the driver’s side window. “Fucker did this is dead,” he says. “Now I gotta go tell his wife and kids.”

  “He was married?”

  “Yeah. Gal named Maria. Nice lady. Three kids. Two boys and a girl.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah. So am I.”

  “We need to go,” I tell him. “Do you have the keys to the other car?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then we should go.”

  “Not yet.” He turns and walks back the other way, right past me.

  “Where are you going?”

  He doesn’t answer.

  “Herman!”

  “You wanna go, go,” he says.

  “This is crazy.” I follow him.

  He leads me through a door and up two flights of stairs, man on a mission. Herman has to use a key from his pocket to unlock the door upstairs. Once inside, he heads down a hall, past several doors. He holds out a hand for me to slow down, pops the snap holding the handle of the gun in the fanny pack, and pulls the stainless automatic out, holding the muzzle up toward the ceiling, the gun near his right ear.

  He stops in front of one of the doors and puts his ear to the wood, listens for a second, then slips a key into the lock. Motions for me to stay where I am in the hall. A second later, he is inside.

  I wait outside listening. Nothing. A few seconds later, Herman swings the door open. “They’re gone. And all their stuff. Like they checked out. Bags, everything.”

  “Why?”

  “Sold out’s what I figure. Otherwise, Ibarra’s people killed ’em, their stuff would be here. The way business is done down here,” he says. “It’s either buy you or bullets. There ain’t no other way.”

  Back at the car, Herman fishes for the key in his pocket, then steps around to the passenger side window and, without opening the door, looks across toward the driver’s side of the front seat.

  “What are you doing?”

  “There’s things besides fingerprints,” he says. “There’s things besides bullets too.” Then he opens the door, pushes the button that unlocks the other doors, goes around to the driver’s side and pulls the latch to pop the hood. It takes a minute or so, looking around the engine block, then underneath before he’s satisfied.

  “Where you figuring on going?” he asks.

  “The glass pyramid.”

  “See Papa Ibarra?” he says.

  I nod. “I assume he’s the only who can tell us what this Mejicano Rosen is and help us find Adam.”

  “And who killed Julio.” Herman walks to the back of the car and opens the back hatch. He finds a key on the ring and slips it into a key slot in the floor, turning it. The entire section of carpeted flooring lifts out. Underneath is a rack with three long guns and something that looks like a short machine gun.

  “Can you shoot?”

  “I’ve fired a gun before.”

  “Not what I asked. Can you shoot?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Here, you take the shotgun.” He hands it to me. “You slide the pump underneath each time you shoot. Like this. Then shoot again. This little thing. This the safety. Keep it off when you’re shooting. Think you can handle that?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Just don’t point it anywhere near me.” He grabs a box of shells and hands them to me. “I’ll show you how to load it inside.” Then he pulls the little machine gun from the rack and gathers up several magazines of ammunit
ion, each one with a gleaming, round copper bullet protruding from the forward side of the open end.

  “We’re not going to go in there with these?”

  “Watch me.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  In the car I slip on a pair of long pants from the shopping bag in back and put on socks while Herman drives. A block from the glass pyramid, we stop near a restaurant and I use the pay phone to call the police and tell of the location of Julio’s body. Then I hang up.

  Herman doesn’t want to talk about it. Man on a mission, he turns onto the private lane leading to the glass pyramid. The road is lined with palm trees planted in the thirty-foot strip of grass that forms the center divider.

  We wind along this toward the hotel. He parks in a space out in front.

  “Go inside, get us a room, high up. Close to the top floor as you can get.”

  “Why?”

  “Just do it. Bring the key back here.”

  A few minutes later, I’m back in the car. “Eighth floor. Is that high enough for you?”

  “It’ll do.”

  “Now what?”

  “Sit tight.” He backs out of the space and pulls around the hotel, ten stories of smoked glass on an angle, reflecting sunlight like a solar generator.

  Herman drives through the parking area, edging his way around the building until he finds what he’s looking for: dumpsters and service vehicles, a small electric cart with canvas bags filled with dirty linen in the back.

  “This the place.” He parks the car.

  “What now?”

  “You just sit here fo’ a second.” He gets out and goes over to the cart. Hands in his pockets, he stands, looking around, ultimate stealth, your usual seven-foot dark mountain. Then he grabs a folded canvas linen bag from the back of the cart and returns to the car. This time he gets in the backseat.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Tol’ ya, just sit tight.” He leans over the backseat into the rear compartment, grabbing the guns, the pump shotgun, and the stubby little machine gun, making sure they’re loaded, the magazines are in, and the safeties are on.

  “Now. In a minute I’m goin’ over there.” He talks while he checks the guns. “Do you see that door?” He nods in the direction with his head.

  “Yes. I see it.”

  “In a second I’m goin’ in there. What I want you to do is just sit right here ’til you see me wave from that door.” He gathers up the extra ammunition and puts it in the laundry bag, unclips the web belt from around his waist, and drops the fanny pack with the forty-five into the laundry bag too.

  “Then I want you to get out of the car, walk over there. Don’t run, just walk. And bring this shit witcha.”

  He hands me thirty pounds of canvas with sharp edges sticking out everywhere. “You got that?”

  “I got it.”

  He reads my expression, one filled with doubt.

  “Hey, fuckin’ Tolt, he’s your friend. I don’t care they cut his ears, nose en balls off, hang ’em on a charm bracelet. But this man upstairs, this Pablo Eyebarra. Far as you and I are concerned, he be the fuckin’ Wizard a Oz. Man with all the answers. Now we can either go talk to him or we can go home. I don’t know ’bout you, but I ain’t goin’ home ’til I get the answer to at least one question. Who the fuck shot Julio? So you in or you out?”

  “I’m in,” I tell him.

  “Good. I thought so. Den let’s do it.” Herman smiles through his chipped tooth, opens the door, and seconds later he disappears into the service entrance at the back of the hotel.

  After letting Saldado practice his meat-cutting arts on my arm and becoming gunnery target for the Ibarrian Air Force, I am in no position to question Herman’s judgment. Whatever he’s missing on that score, he makes up for in loyalty. The difference between us is he’s more direct.

  Before I know it, he’s back, waving at me to come.

  I get out of the car with the bag over my shoulder, Santa Claus with an arsenal. I walk quickly toward the door. When I get there, Herman takes the bag and pulls me inside like a rag doll. I follow him down a short corridor. I don’t have a lot of choice; he has me by the belt towing me along. I see some guy in whites and a chef’s hat cross the corridor in front of us, passing from the kitchen to another room across the hall. He doesn’t see us.

  Herman opens a door and pushes me into a dark service closet, then closes the door behind us.

  “Gotta find the fuckin’ light,” he says.

  We stand in the dark for a couple of seconds until I hear the metal beads click on the light over our heads. Herman with the string pull.

  “Here. Put this on.” He hands me a white linen smock, the kind waiters in posh restaurants wear.

  “Would you like to tell me what we’re doing? Or is that a surprise?”

  “Probably best you don’t know the details. That way you free. Know what I mean? Adapt to the circumstances. What my main tai chi man says. What you don’t know can’t fuck witch your brain.”

  “Inscrutable.”

  “What ya say?”

  “Nothing.

  I slip on the smock and button it up to the tunic collar.

  In the meantime, Herman is going through a bag of soiled ones, trying to find a tunic big enough. He finally settles on one. He has to leave three of the buttons undone high up around his chest and neck. It fits him like a rubber coat, the bottom barely reaching his belt.

  “Don’t worry. Man’s gonna be in no mood be doin’ fashion reviews. Be too busy with his ass pucker lookin’ down the barrel your gun.”

  “We aren’t gonna shoot him?”

  He doesn’t look at me.

  “Herman.”

  “Depends what he has to say. He tells me he sent somebody over to shoot Julio, you can expect to find little bits of him stuck in the holes I’m gonna be making in his wall with little emma gee in the bag there.”

  “No. I don’t think so.”

  “Think what you want. But you gonna be thinkin’ it in the dark by yourself in about ten seconds.” He grabs the bag with the guns, pulls the string on the light overhead, then opens the door a crack and peeks out.

  “Show time,” he says and steps out into the hall, the linen bag over his shoulder looking like the Pillsbury Doughboy after a bad day. I watch as he latches onto a rolling stainless steel cart against the far wall.

  There’s a linen tablecloth over the top of it and a warming compartment underneath. He checks to make sure there are no lit sterno candles inside the compartment, then slings the bag with the guns inside, and closes the stainless steel door.

  I look at my watch. It’s ten minutes to four. Adam and I weren’t scheduled to meet Ibarra until six-thirty.

  “You comin’?” Herman’s looking at me.

  “He may not even be there.”

  “Then we’ll flop down on his nice furniture and wait.”

  I push the cart out into the corridor. “Let’s hope the man has nothing but good things to tell us,” I say.

  “Good. There you go. Positive thinkin’,” he says.

  We take the service elevator. It stops three times along the way, to pick up a maid on five and drop her off on seven, and once again on the eighth floor.

  A maintenance man with a bucket in his hand stands in the doorway looking at us.

  “Abajo?” he says.

  Herman holds his fist out with his thumb pointing up.

  The man shrugs his shoulders and starts to get on anyway.

  Herman moves his bulk in front of the door. “Elevator’ll be right back down, bro’.”

  The man looks up at him. I don’t think he understands a word Herman said, but he comprehends the body language. He stays where he is, and the doors close.

  We ascend the last two floors undisturbed. When the doors open again, we are in a small pantry area, dishes stacked on shelves against the wall in front of us, crystal glassware, towels and linen napkins, everything arranged in a neat order. To the left is a door leadin
g out into a hallway. To the right, another wall. A large double refrigerator, zero clearance built into it, with silverware and serving utensils on shelves and hooks on each side of it.

  Herman puts his thumb on the open-door button and holds it as he leans to his right and looks toward the hallway, then nods, giving me the all clear.

  I push the cart out into the pantry, and Herman steps out. The elevator doors close behind us, point of no return. This is Pablo Ibarra’s private lair. Offices and living quarters and, if Herman’s plan is star-crossed, his own personal army.

  I step to the front of the cart and peek around the door leading out into the hallway. I snap my head back in quickly just as the guy sitting in the chair twenty feet down the hall turns and looks this way.

  Herman’s big dark eyes stare at me like two dots under question marks.

  I hold up one finger and point in the direction down the hall. Then I make a sign, a circle with my thumb and finger. I look through it and pretend that I am turning a crank. Then I point to the ceiling.

  Herman nods. He turns and looks at the wall behind him. Quietly he lifts a large soup ladle from a hook on the wall and takes a towel from the shelf. He wraps the ladle tightly in the towel with the handle facing the end of the cart near his hand.

  Then he goes to the refrigerator and opens the door. He looks around without touching until he finds what he wants. When he turns around he’s holding an aerosol can of whipped cream.

  I look at him like, “What’re ya gonna do, give the guy a sugar high?”

  He ignores me, nods toward the door that we should be going now.

  Before I can even think, he pushes the cart with me in front of it out into the hall. I turn around and take my end as if I’m pulling with my back to the guard sitting in the hall.

  I look over my shoulder and get my first good look at him. He’s wearing a blue serge suit, sitting in a straight-back chair against the wall. He has one leg crossed over the other, reading a newspaper. Just beyond him is a set of double doors, heavy polished teak.

  He hears the clatter of the cart, as the wheels rumble slowly over the thick carpet, and looks this way. Lean face, dark eyes, and no mirth, he checks us out, then turns back to his newspaper.