by Jack Barnao
"Yeah, all right. You're a hell of a lot brighter'n I figured. Like I thought I'd get here an’ skip out."
"We knew that. What I need to know now is, where is your money stashed and when are you going to pick it up? The way I see it, we can hop the plane back north the day after. You've seen your wife, you can give her some cash and pay your dues in Canada, then join her back here."
"Look, it's not that easy. I can't get the money for a couple of days,” he said.
"It's not in a bank?"
"Are you kidding?” His voice had a hint of his old contempt, but he reined it in. “No offense. I mean, I'm talkin’ a lotta bread. You don't stick that in a bank."
"I would, if I ever got a lot of the stuff. But anyway, when can you pick it up?"
"It's gonna take a couple of days. First off, I have to see a guy, he's got part of what I need to get it back."
That didn't ring true. “You're pushing me. An operator like you, in your line of work, you wouldn't have anybody else cut in."
"He's not cut in. He's just got part of the control I need to get my cash back."
"Like what, like a key? You've got it in a double-locked place?"
"Yeah.” He grabbed my comment so quickly I knew he was lying.
"Sounds like bull-roar to me. You want to get ashore and meet up with the guy who was in the motorboat. Then you plan to back-shoot me and head for the hills."
He pursed his lips in frustration. “I know you're gonna think that, after what happened. But it's not like that, believe me."
"Why do guys always say ‘believe me’ when they're lying through their teeth? Listen. We'll do this my way. We'll head for shore now and go back to the hotel. Tomorrow we'll make contact with this buddy of yours and you get your money. The day after, we're catching a flight back home."
He narrowed his eyes. “It can't be done that quick. But I promise we'll get it soon's we can, an’ we can head back then."
"Okay. Let's go back to port."
I didn't believe him, but he'd been promised the chance to get his cash and see his wife. He'd had his meeting with Maria, now I would go along with him on the other part of the deal. Then I'd haul him back. Keeping him under wraps in Mexico City wouldn't be any harder than trying to watch him here. At least I knew he would be alone once we left Zihuatanejo.
He stuck out his hand. “Thank you. Deal."
I waved his hand away. “If you're telling the truth, I don't need the handshake. Call Maria up here, and let's go back to the dock."
He turned and called, and Maria came out instantly. She must have been lurking just out of sight in the wardroom, waiting for the word. “Hoist the anchor. Mr. Locke is taking me back to the hotel."
She went forward and wound up the anchor while he started the motor. I sat in the stern and watched them, wondering what to do about the rifle. The smartest move would be to ditch it, but if I could get it back to the hotel without attracting attention, it might be useful if we had to go out of town on his search for the unholy grail.
When we were under way and steering back to the dock I went below and stripped a bright Mexican blanket off the bed. Folded clumsily, it made a cover for the rifle and I bundled it up and set it beside me on the seat.
Maria took the wheel and steered us back through the moorings until we reached the dock. She didn't speak to me, and her face was stony. Very proper. I was the wicked man who had put the blocks to her beloved.
The dock in town is a long pier with steps down to the water in several places. There were boats tied against all of them, but Maria tucked alongside another boat and we tied up. Then I spoke to her. “I'm going to want this boat tomorrow night, we'll sleep aboard. We'll see you here.” I turned to Amadeo. “When will that be? What time will you get to see your contact?"
He shrugged. “I dunno. Could be anytime."
"Right. Then we'll see you here at dusk,” I told Maria. “Get canned food and beer enough for three or four days. And no tricks, no weapons. Okay?"
"I will do it,” she said. Then she grabbed Amadeo by the hand. “Vaya con Dios,” she said, and kissed him.
That threw me. Mexican women aren't demonstrative in public. And the “Go with God” was pushing it if she expected to see him the next evening. Either that or they were rerunning The Cisco Kid on local TV.
I picked up the blanket with the rifle inside and followed Amadeo across the other boat and up the steps to the top level. A line of tourists was forming at the cruise ship at the end of the pier. It's an ancient ferryboat with a five-piece band on top. For a couple of thousand pesos you can cruise the bay getting boiled while you listen to mariachi interpretations of the kind of songs that your parents listened to on the car radio while they were trying not to conceive you. By the length of the lineup to get on, it looked like a popular number.
We turned the other way and walked down the pier, through the Sunday crowd of lounging locals with their wives and babies, past the fishing boats for hire, out to the naval barracks where the world's worst bugle band practices at six every morning, and out into the cobbled streets. Amadeo was barefoot, and he was hopping painfully on the hot stones. I was alert, right hand on the gun in my pocket, glancing around constantly. If he figured his jumping bean impersonation would soften me up for an ambush, he was out of luck. In any case, I flagged down the first cab that came by, and we headed back, with me watching every other vehicle that moved.
Cuatro Vientos was out of its afternoon coma now, people were moving around again, heading down to the bar or to the crafts shop on one of the middle levels. Amadeo and I walked around to our room. I opened the door and ushered him inside first. Just a precaution, his old workmates might have been waiting for him with a sawed-off shotgun. Better him than me on first.
They weren't. From the casual way he went inside, I don't think the idea even occurred to him. In any case, he flopped on his bed and rubbed the soles of his bare feet. “I shoulda had Maria bring some shoes,” he said with an ingratiating grin.
"Why don't we go back down to the beach and get your stuff, it's still lying on the sand. Then we can grab a couple of beers and come back up here on the balcony.” There, good old John Locke, never one to hold a grudge. Just don't try to run away on me again or I'll break your bones.
"Yeah. Makes sense.” He stood up and stretched. “There ain't a hell of a lot of company up here, though."
"I figure you've had your quota. Let's go."
He annoyed me. I'm no saint around women, hell, when things are good, I may have a whole circuit going, but I never promise any of them more than a few laughs. If and when I get married, I'll tear up my black book.
We left by the back door and walked along the balcony that overlooks the open-air space behind the building. It's covered in on every floor by the walkway of the floor above and at the top by the wide roof over our story, supported on concrete pillars. Beyond the pillars there is bushy ground cover over the natural slope of the hill, separated from the walkways by about forty feet at our level. That's close enough for a handgun to be useful, a shotgun to be fatal. I would have to watch the slope carefully if we stayed here.
As we reached the end of the walkway, at the main office, there was a sudden commotion as two VW vans arrived together. The hotel visitors all turned and chattered like sparrows when a hawk moves overhead. I shoved Amadeo against the wall and waited, and then saw the reason. The model he had pointed out in the airplane magazine was getting out of the lead van. She was tall, about five-ten, and vital, smiling energetically at all the people around her, crackling like a bowl of Rice Krispies, working for applause, even though the only cameras snapping her were Instamatics. Someone came forward with a paper, and she signed it and smiled as if it was the most fun she'd had all day. Then another woman, about thirty and shorter, wearing blue jeans and a blouse knotted over a bare midriff, got out of the wagon behind her and hustled her through the crowd, polite but firm. “Miss Steen will be in the dining room later,” she said. �
��She's had a long, hard day, she'll see you then."
They whisked through the main office and down the corridor to the left, the internal equivalent of our own walkway, out to one of the best suites in the hotel. I turned to Amadeo. “So, you were right, that was little Miss Face Cream in person."
"Yeah,” he said, and his lip curled with contempt. “Y'ask me, that bitch is wired."
Seven
I stared at him. “She just looked a little hyper, typical showbiz, I would have thought. What makes you figure she's wired?"
He turned and spat over the railing, “Just say I've seen a lot of it."
"I figured you'd keep the stuff at arm's length. It's for losers, right? Anybody sharp enough to be in the business leaves it alone."
"I've seen a lotta dopers in my time,” he said calmly, “an’ I'm telling you, that lady's got a big habit."
"Poor bloody woman,” I said. I didn't argue with his theory. It fit the predictable pattern. The pressure was on her, the terrible pressure of the calendar, wearing out her beauty day by day as she twinkled her way across the world's magazine covers, waiting to wake up one morning and find she was no longer fashionable. And on top of that, she had the money and the jet set connections that makes coke easy to get and hard to turn down.
"Yeah,” Amadeo said easily. “Six months from now she'll be puttin’ out for the price of a hit."
He was full of contempt. If it would have improved anything anywhere, I would have called him down for it. Without drug traders there would be no drug users, and I wondered how he squared his conscience with being in the business. If he hated his customers for fools, how could he do what he did? But then, most lawyers feel the same way about their clients, and it doesn't stop them from cashing their checks. Hell, bodyguards are no better.
We went down to the steps and out onto the beach, past the hotel guests, who were out in the sun now it was declining and bearable on their pale hides. Most of the natives had gone, back to their cars or to the roadway for the slow walk back into town. It was a languid, off-peak time of day, ideal for an ambush if you let your guard down, so I kept my head moving. The hotel is surrounded by native bush, palm trees and cactus, and low withered bushes with dusty leaves, enough cover to hide fifty men. I couldn't see anybody but I didn't want to dawdle on the beach.
The tide was coming in, but it hadn't quite reached Amadeo's clothes. He stooped and put his sandals on and picked up his shirt and pants. “That's better,” he said. “Shit, you think your feet are tough until you walk on that hot sand for a while.” He was loose again now. He'd lost one round, but he was safely back in his corner with his teeth intact, now it was time to set up the next move. In the meantime, he was acting as if we were a couple of buddies looking for a little action. Maybe he would pick up tempo again when we started closing in on his connection and we got a sniff of the money he was hiding. For now, he was so laid back he belonged in a hammock.
The para-sail boat was doing land-office business, but the attendant put everybody on hold while he ran over and pumped my hand. He rattled at me too fast for my limping Spanish, but Amadeo answered him and told me, “He thinks you're the biggest thing since sliced bread. Any time you want a free ride and they're not busy, he wonders if you'll put on a show for him, drum up some business."
"Muchas gracias, amigo.” I told him. “Mañana.” The Mexican tomorrow, meaning some time when hell is a ski resort. He told me that would be fine, “muy bien,” and skipped back to some middle-aged daredevil who had just handed his camera to his wife and was fiddling with the parachute harness.
"That was a hell of a stunt you pulled with that parachute,” Amadeo said cheerfully as we walked back over the sand. “You a sky diver?"
"Not anymore.” I didn't want him knowing my pedigree. He already respected me. If he heard I'd been in the SAS, he would rewrite his scenario for the coming week, giving one of his buddies a clear shot at me with a rifle. As long as he figured I was just lucky, he might go on being sloppy.
The bar was jumping. It looked as if all the younger guests of the hotel were there, couples who had spent the siesta hour up in their rooms were sipping drinks and laughing in the soft afterglow of making love on a warm afternoon. One couple who looked squishy enough to be honeymooners were slow-dancing on the flagstones to the beat of Manuel's radio. You could almost smell the bloody orange blossoms. Beth and Kelly were sitting at a table in the shade. They had glasses in front of them, mineral water by the look of it, and they both had a pinkish glow to their skins from their few hours of sunshine.
Beth got to her feet and came up to me as I reached the bar. “I watched you in that parachute,” she said, and put her hand on my arm. “You were fantastic."
"Why, thank you, ma'am. Just showing off, I'm afraid. I had a bet on with Greg. He said it couldn't be done. I knew it could."
She lifted her hand from my arm, out of the corner of my eye I could see Amadeo's lip curling slightly. She was twelve years older than him, maybe seven more than me. To his eyes she was a middle-aged loser. To me she seemed no lonelier or more pathetic than I had looked at times in the past when men outnumbered women and you knew you had to make your moves early. I smiled at her and said, “We're going to duck away from the crowd and have a drink on the balcony. Would you and Kelly care to join us?"
"I'm sure she would. I'll ask her.” She went back to the table, and I got to the bar. Manuel looked up and grinned at me. “Hey, amigo, you pretty good.” He reached over and shook hands, a quick dap, first a normal shake, then changing the grip to an arm-wrestling stance and shaking again.
I winked at him. “It was a bet with my buddy. No big deal. Now we'd like four cervezas for the room and a couple of what the señoras over there are drinking."
He was young enough to feel the same way as Amadeo, but too pro to show it. He winked back. “Piñafiel,” he said and whipped out two soft drinks from the cooler. I got them, plus four Bohemia beers, paid him, and turned around. Amadeo was talking to the two women, barely able to hold back his amusement. It was embarrassing Beth, who glanced at me to see if I was stringing her along.
"I checked with Manuel, he says you're drinking fine vintage soda pop, so I took the liberty of picking some up,” I said, and she relaxed a hairsbreadth. Amadeo took a couple of the beers off me and as he took the necks between the fingers of his right hand, I squeezed them together, pressing carefully on his knuckles. He had enough self-control not to cry out, but his eyes narrowed and he started. “Lead the way,” I told him, and he took the hint and went ahead up the steps, with Kelly, panting from the exertion, walking beside him.
I hung back a few steps and spoke to Beth quietly. “Don't pay any attention to him, he's got a big problem."
She brightened. His problem, not hers.
"Yes, he's got a bad substance-abuse problem. His family sent me down here with him so he wouldn't get into trouble. He's run away from a couple of clinics. That's why I'm living in his pocket. It's not my choice."
Her mouth shaped a silent O. I winked at her. “Don't mention anything, please. I just wanted to explain."
She squeezed my arm again. “Thank you for telling me. I was beginning to wonder about you two."
"It embarrasses me, too. But his father owns the company, and I work for them, what can I do?” Not a bad cover story, Locke. Let Amadeo worry about his own conduct while Saint John chats to the women and sips his beer.
He went ahead of us all into the room, and we rounded up the drinking glasses and went through to the front balcony. It was flooded with glorious sunshine now as the sun hung lower in the sky, clear of the overhang above us. There was a hammock and several bamboo chaise longues outside and a small bamboo coffee table. I rechecked the surroundings quickly before sitting down. We were in the last room along the balcony, screened from the hill behind us by the bulk of the hotel. To our right was a space of about a hundred yards before the ground rose up from the beach to our own level. But just above us, a hundre
d and twenty yards away, the coast road curved into a lookout point where a couple of cars were parked. It would be from there that any attack would come.
Beth was my ally now, and she agreed with me when I told Amadeo, “You sit there, Greg,” and placed him against the wall. I took the outermost chair, my back to the ocean, but far enough forward on the balcony that I was out of line of fire of anybody closer than half a mile out. It was safe, and I was placed where I could see anyone who came around the end of the balcony to join us. I had the .38 in my pocket and my jacket was off, lying casually beside my knee, the gun within inches of my hand. The women sat each side of Amadeo, facing into the sun.
It was not the most relaxed soiree I've attended. The women were tentative, they didn't believe in the Easter Bunny any more than I did, but this was the tropics, by God, and if romance was ever going to blossom under the big yellow moon, the way it did in the books in Kelly's library, then tonight was the night. Amadeo and I weren't rich men or movie stars, but if we were straight, we would do. The big question in their minds was, where did we go from here?
At least, that was my reading of the situation. I would have been very happy to whisk Beth away from her roomie and do my best to live up to her expectations, but I had Amadeo to worry about. If I turned my back on him for five minutes he would be gone and I would never catch up with him again. On top of which, I agreed with Cahill's forecast. His old workmates in the Mafia would squash him like a bug once they knew he was turned around.
Picking a time when there were no cars on the lookout point, I excused myself, went into the bedroom and replaced the bolt in Amadeo's little rifle, then I loaded the magazine and slipped it into my pocket. The gun I set in the corner of the built-in closet, out of sight from the room but within a moment's reach if I needed it.
Kelly was talking about the model we had seen. “She's nowhere near as pretty as she looks on television."
"She's a good camera subject,” Beth said. “The camera puts about ten pounds on you, and on her it looks better than it would on other people."