Kiss The Girls and Make Them Die

by Charles Runyon

  “You can’t get there from here, right? Okay, here’s what you do. Take a plane to Melchor Ocampo, then get a bus to Playa Azul. From there you might hitch a ride on the beer truck that runs up the coast. Otherwise you got a two-day shuffle up the beach.”

  Though they smoked the omnipresent Mota, they seemed like friendly young men, albeit rough mannered and limited in vocabulary. They warned her not to sleep in the coconut groves, since these were regularly patrolled by armed men with an instinct for criminal assault. Also she shouldn’t be surprised if the natives acted hostile, as the costal jungles were speckled with poppy fields and pot plantations. Dope was a local cottage industry, with the niños picking the tops, the women bagging, the men hauling and dealing. Federal troops policed the larger towns, but the only law in the bush was the gun and the machete.

  Then as if to prove what they said, while she was taking a swim in the lagoon, they rifled her backpack and dissolved into the jungle with her passport, a packet of traveler’s checks, her combination coin-purse with key pouch, and the tape of her interview with Dan. No doubt they thought it was music. When she gave their description to the Teniente at the barracks, he lifted his eyes toward the ceiling. “I do what I can do, but the cheques can be how you say, replaced, no? You have lost, a lo más, a few coins, and my men could lose days, beating the bush …” Spreading his hands palm up, he smiled up into her face. “We work for so sma’ pay, you unnastand?”

  She left her forwarding address and chartered a fourseater Bonanza to the river town of Melchor Ocampo. She resented the five-hundred pesos it cost now that her cash reserve had been wiped out, but could find no other way to get there. In Melchor they told her the once-a-day bus to Playa Azul had already left. She was eating a rosbif torta in the banyan-shaded plaza when a huge black-bearded man rode up on a black Honda, wearing faded black dungarees and a black leather vest. His bloated belly was marked with three terrible bullet scars. He offered to take her, not only to Playa Azul, but onward, even as far as Las Catas, which was as far north as you could go and still have gas to return.

  She had misgivings, particularly when he fired up a joint the moment they left the village. The harsh sweet smoke drifted up her nose as they bounced along the pot-holed blacktop which arrowed across the swampy jungle. She was faintly nauseous by the time they reached Playa, a village of squalid concrete huts spread out behind a sandbar. Off to the south, she could see the terraced balconies of a luxury hotel, but the biker turned north, where the beach extended to the hazy distance in an endless scallop of crescent dunes.

  The Frog—as he had introduced himself—enjoyed it immensely, whooping as his bike soared over the cusp of one dune, wallowed, fishtailing, in the basin of another, then swooped up again. Liza’s stomach threatened to give up its burden. The hot exhaust scorched the inside of her calves, her thighs stuck to the outside of his legs, gritty with sand. Hot gusts of wind blew off the coconut plantations, which stretched like karnak pillars to the gray-green hills twenty miles inland.

  About noon he swung off the wave-packed sand and churned over a high dune, stopping at a little lagoon covered with water hyacinth. He dipped his hands in the water and slurped, then looked up at her and grinned. “Hey, swimtime, right?”

  He whipped off his vest and shucked down his pants, made a whooping pancake dive onto the matted hyacinth. She felt unbearably gritty and slimy, but didn’t want to join him, wallowing and snorting like a hippo, so she walked twenty yards down the shore and waded in without taking off her denim shorts and shirt. She enjoyed the refreshing coolness, though the slimy tendrils of hyacinth roots tickled her skin and made her uneasy.

  While she dried herself in the sun, he spread a greasy tarpaulin in the shade of a palm, opened a can of sardines and a box of crackers. Her stomach had begun to swish and gurgle like a laundry in the rinse (she remembered the ripe, rancid smell of the torta she’d eaten in Melchor) so she sat and looked attentive while he chewed his fish and crackers and told tales of personal valor: “… This dude in heavy leather … rode a 600 Suzuki, Jesus, that bitch was hot. He was holding a blade, only I didn’t see it until …” And his narrow escapes from death: “… On a run down to Oaxaca when the front rubber blew. It was like a slow-motion flick; I floated along about two feet above the pavement, spinnin’ like a frisbee …”

  After eating, he rolled onto his back, lit a joint, belched, and looked up through the leaves. “Let’s have a little fuck before we hit the road, hey Liza?”

  She would’ve laughed, if it hadn’t been for her incipient nausea. And a saddle-sore had begun to throb on her left buttock. “I think I prefer to get where I’m going.”

  He turned his head and squinted up at her. “What if you ain’t gonna get where you’re going, unless?”

  She felt no fear of him, but the scene disgusted her. She pulled her wallet out of her pack and dug out a hundred-peso note. He looked at it and sneered. “Whaddaya think I’m runnin’? A fucking beach taxi? Shit.” He snatched the bill and stuffed it in his pocket. “That pays for the ride to here.” He closed his left eye and grinned. “Dig?”

  She nodded, picked up her pack, slung it over her shoulder, and trudged up the dune. Her feet sank to the ankles in the loose sand; it was so hot it scalded her skin. She found it best to shuffle along and kick the hot surface layer ahead of her. Reaching the beach, she pulled off her thongs and walked in the cool surf. She heard his engine roar into life behind the dune. It sputtered, popped and crackled, but came no closer. She climbed to the crest and saw him astride the bike, sunk to the hubs in the loose sand. He waved and made a pushing motion with his hands.

  “Dig,” she said, and laughing to herself, turned and walked on.

  The night was hideous for her. At sunset she scooped a hole in the sand above the surfline and managed not to vomit as she sipped the gritty slime that seeped into the basin. She tried to sleep on the sand, but darkness brought fear and trembling; strange shapes emerged from the sea and humped toward the land; unseen creatures snorted and snuffled at the edge of the jungle. She gave up finally and started walking again. Only when the sun came up behind her did she feel secure enough to climb an outcropping of rock, build a nest of dry grass, spread out her bag, and sleep.

  The sun was halfway up the eastern sky when she woke up. She smoked a cigarette and watched the waves break on the beach below. Two horns of slate-colored rock jutted out into the sea; between them a line of surf stitched across the gap like the raveled string on a bow. Out beyond the breakers, the sea mounded up into towering concave shields, higher, it seemed, than the point of rock on which she sat. An offshore wind caught the white-scalloped edges and whipped them back in smokelike streamers. The leading edges curled, collapsed, and tumbled down in foaming froth. A lone surfer skittered up and down the shining green-glass wall.

  She looked across the fringed crowns of the coconut palms which covered the coastal flat. She could see the peaked thatched roofs of a dozen huts strung out along the edge of a hundred-foot cliff. A tall chimney of rock had come unstuck from the main massif, and seemed to be tipping into the surf which frothed like a lacy petticoat around its base. On its top stood a shack which appeared to have once been large and well built. One end of the roof had collapsed, a wall had crumpled, and the whole structure seemed to be drawing back, trying to avoid its inevitable collapse into the sea. A palm log had been laid across the chasm, connecting the rock to the rest of the cliff. She couldn’t help thinking what audacity it showed, to build there in defiance of wind and gravity …

  She felt reluctant to start moving again, though she was hungry and thirsty, and the village was the only possible source of food and drink. Her ears had grown accustomed to silence, and the thought of coarse human voices abrading her eardrums was unpleasant. She felt relaxed, at ease, alone. She was beginning to realize how many hundreds of little adjustments she’d made in order to live in society. Even to approach the village would involve putting her face into the shape of a smile
to indicate that she was not hostile, but desired to be friendly, only not too friendly. (Mexican men always had trouble grasping this.) Of course she could simply open her wallet and let money speak for her, as did most members of the tribe Turisticus A mericus—but she was nearly broke, so that form of communication was limited.

  Back to the old tried-and-true. She took out her compact and looked into the dusty round mirror. Mottled patches of dead epidermis covered her cheeks and forehead; beneath it glowed the angry red of a new sunburn. Her lips were swollen and cracked; her legs, protruding from frayed denim shorts, were pebbled with sand-flea bites and marked by a tic-tac-toe of fingernail scratches. Her denim shirt, open to the second button, revealed a wedge of blistered, burnt-sienna skin.

  She tightened up inside as footsteps crashed out of the thorny scrub behind her. Tilting her mirror slightly, she glimpsed a stubbled face—then the man turned his back and began unrolling a straw mat, twenty feet up the slope from her nesting place. He looked harmless: streaks of gray lined his shaggy dark-blonde hair, his ribs radiated out from his spine like those of a starving dog. A tinge of pain suffused his bronze skin, as if he’s just returned to the tropics after a brief absence. She marked him down tentatively as a butterfly collector or a bird watcher …

  She closed her compact and looked out across the bay, trying to ignore him, but unable to lose the prickly feeling that his presence had something to do with her. She felt like part of the local fauna being scrutinized by a zoologist. She turned slightly, saw him bend his head and begin rolling a cigarette. One of those, she thought. She turned away, heard him get up and walked up behind her, heard the sound as he scraped a match across a box. She smelled the acrid smoke, felt the touch of his finger on her shoulder, glanced over and saw the twisted tube, shook her head. He sat down beside her, crossed his ankles, and laid his walking stick across his lap.

  Walking stick. Her eyes trailed up the spiraling darkwood shaft, penetrated the dark-blonde fuzz on his jaws, met the blue eyes which glittered with secret amusement. Recognition came slowly; she recalled the dim smoky bar in Mexico City, the cold tartness of a diaquiri …

  “You!” She sucked in her breath. “What are you doing here?”

  He chuckled softly. “Would you believe I just happened to be passing by?”

  “Not for one second. Who are you?”

  “I am a thirty-eight year old male of American origin, in reasonably good health, though presently rather stoned, whom you can see sitting beside you. Would my name tell you any more?”

  “Look—can we have a moritorium on games?”

  “Okay, I’m Tom.”

  “Tom …?” She caught her breath. “The Learned Doctor?”

  “Uh-huh. You win another free diaquiri.”

  She turned her head quickly away, not wanting him to see her look of relief. Here at last was the true, the real spore of Dan Bollinger. It was a little like meeting someone from her hometown; she felt a sense of intimacy mingled with distrust, not knowing what demands he would make on her. She looked at him again, and felt a prickle of resentment.

  “No,” she shook her head. “I don’t have it all yet. Tell me about our meeting in the bar. Tell me it was an accident.”

  “It was an accident—”

  “Bullshit.”

  “An accident—you didn’t let me finish—in the sense that all human encounters are a triumph over phenomenal odds, like the collision of atomic particles in an orange. But actually—you aren’t going to like this.” He ducked his head in a coy grin. “I saw you at the trial.”

  “Oh, really?” Anger, confusion, curiosity fought for control of her mind. The anger came out first. “Well then why didn’t you say, in Mexico City, ‘Hi there, I remember you from the trial.’ Why didn’t you say that?”

  “Because I’ve lost my Zen. Listen—” He put his hand on her arm. “All this will I explain, and more. But first—I have somethmg to give you.”

  He walked to his mat and came back untying a strand of hemp from the top of a paper sack. He shook the contents out on the rock. She stared at her key pouch, tape, passport, the blank folded cover of her checkbook …

  “They glommed the coins.” he said. “I didn’t think they were worth a hassle.”

  She looked up at him. “Did you know those two beach-boys?”

  “Well of course. How else could I get your stuff back?”

  “You probably set them on me.”

  “I knew them, but not as friends. They’re just beach scum, without a thought in their heads. I found out they’d ripped you off, and I sent word I wanted your stuff back.”

  “Thanks. I said the same thing. You know what I got? Zilch.”

  “Well …” He smiled, fingering the stubble on his chin. “You could say I have connections—a hateful necessity. Part of protecting the family.”

  She picked up the black folder, riffled through the checks, and noted that two were missing. The paper seal she’d stuck over the end of the flat yellow box containing the tape had been torn open, then resealed. Her grease-pencil marking was smudged almost to illegibility: Patient #437 – Bo 1 nger – Int: ? dac. She slanted her eyes up at him. “Did you play it?”

  He nodded.

  “What for?”

  “I was curious. I wanted to find out how much you knew.”

  “From the questions I asked?”

  “No. From the answers that Danny gave you. I could tell how much bullshit he felt compelled to give you, know what I mean?”

  “No.” She frowned as she put the items in her pack. “How much did he give me?”

  “About as much as you could swallow.” He laughed, picked up her pack, and slung it on his shoulder. “I’m only kidding. Come, I’ll find you a place to throw your bag.”

  She had no choice, since the way was only a narrow footpath, but to dog his footsteps down the rocky slope, across the spongy soil of the coastal plain, beneath the arching branches of the coconut palms. The path angled sharply up the steep cliff, past an old stone well with a bucket and windlass. Several dark-skinned Indian girls smiled shyly. A tall lean blonde girl with an earthen jar on her outflung hip looked at Liza with frank, hostile appraisal.

  “Lona, this is Liza.”

  “Hello,” said Liza.

  The girl nodded but said nothing. The Learned Doctor chuckled and walked on. A sense of strangeness prickled Liza’s scalp. She had a definite feeling that the girl knew Danny, yet she hadn’t been one of those he’d mentioned. It made her wonder what else he’d left out. As much bullshit as you can handle, Liza. Oh yeah?

  She stopped to catch her breath as they topped the cliff. Now she could see that it was the headland of a plateau that stretched far to the north, dropping off to the sea in dozens of jagged little bays. About twenty rectangular huts were scattered at haphazard angles among the outcroppings of rock; footpaths wound among them, a deep rutted track twisted through the village and dropped into the next valley. The only sign of commerce was a round white-and-red sign nailed to the porch post of a hut near the road: TOME PEPSI—FRIO. Off to her left, next to a hut silhouetted against the white-capped sea, stood the black Honda she had last seen churning up sand beside the lagoon. And in the doorway of the hut, with a beer bottle clenched in his fist, his belly bulging over his belt, was the Frog himself, grinning like an ape.

  She stopped and turned to the Learned Doctor. “I think I deserve an explanation.”

  He shrugged, smiled. “You came down here to rummage around in Danny’s past, right? He’s part of it.”

  She felt the heat rise to her cheeks. “Don’t expect me to share the same roof with that Neanderthal.”

  “Suit yourself. Lona’s his chick, so don’t worry about that. You know he had to push his bike all the way back to Playa. Rewards of lust—look, why don’t you throw your bag down? I’ll fix us something to eat.”

  He broke two anemic eggs into a cast-iron skillet and set it on a charcoal brazier made of earthenware. Frog fanned the
coals lackadaisically with a folded banana leaf, while the Learned Doctor chopped some spicy Mexican sausage (he called it chorizo) into the skillet. Liza ate sitting on her pack, with the tin plate balanced on her knees. The hut held no furniture, just a few shredded straw mats covering the packed-earth floor, and a wooden sleeping platform strewn with several wadded sleeping bags. Liza sniffed the rank pungent odor and wondered if she was in for another sleepless night …

  Lona came in, swung down her water jug, and lowered herself cross-legged to the mat. Her sleeveless yellow dress barely reached her hips. Her pale straw-colored hair was pulled back tightly and tied at the back of her head; she had a long narrow skull and large gray-blue eyes. Her skin was a mosaic of sun freckles. Looking at Liza, she opened a leather draw-string bag and took out a short, gleaming pipe of red soapstone. The Frog sat down, packed it full of green flakes, lit it, and passed it to Elizabeth. She felt tempted, sensing that it was the only, way she could put them at ease, but passed it on to the Learned Doctor. Silently, the pipe went around the circle. A large parrotlike bird with iridescent green plumage perched on the roof pole, pecked corn off a cob and crunched the grains in his beak. Liza felt a deep lethargy from the rhythmic thrump-crash of the surf outside; part of it was the soporific effect of the mota wafting up her nostrils. She got up and dragged her pack to the edge of the sleeping platform, climbed the short ladder, spread out her sleeping bag, and slept

  It was dark when she woke up. She walked outside and saw a bonfire blazing on the seaward side of the hut. Seven young men and four women, all tanned to a shade of mahogany with sun-whitened hair, sat in a circle around the fire. The Learned Doctor beckoned to her, moved over to make room, but said nothing as she sat down beside him. The pipe made its endless round. A blond-bearded young man picked out an a-rythmic tune on a guitar; a man and woman got up and embraced swaying to the music, then walked off into the shadow. A wine bottle was put into her hands; Liza consulted her queasy stomach and passed it on. Gradually she became aware that the women were studying her from the corner of their eyes; the men faced her with a calm glitter, as if waiting for her to prove … what? Why should I have to prove anything?