Lockestep

by Jack Barnao

  He was shaken enough to be honest. “I'm not sure.” He looked up at me, his face still white. “Do you think we could do it?"

  "It depends how much you want what's at the other end. How much are we talking about?"

  "Half a million bucks.” The thought gave him some of his cunning back, and he looked at me closely to see if I was going to keel over with amazement.

  "How big are the bills? Hundreds, thousands, what?"

  He frowned, thrown. “What difference does that make?'

  "I want to know how heavy the load's going to be, that's all."

  He nodded slowly, understanding. “Oh, yeah. Well, it's a mix."

  "What's it in?"

  "A metal briefcase. It don’ weigh that much.” He made a little hefting motion with his right hand.

  "It might not have done while you were lifting it in and out of a Jeep, but if you're carrying it for ten miles, you'll wish you took it out in diamonds instead,” I told him. “So what do you think? Do we go for it, or do we run off home without it?"

  He lit a cigarette and sat back against the head of the bed thinking. I guessed he was weighing up the chance of getting back into the state of Guerrero after he had testified against his old workmates in Canada. I didn't think they were good. The people here already hated him. The Mafia in Canada would tail him from the courthouse, no matter what kind of tricks the Mounties tried to play. You don't send a bunch of Godfathers down the river for twenty years without making some serious enemies. They would alert the people here, and he might never get his money. On the other hand, he had me with him right now to run interference. He had a chance if he could handle a couple of days’ march over tough terrain. I tightened up the screws a little. “You want to tell me how you managed to set aside a half million for yourself?"

  Now his face relaxed into its usual expression of casual cunning, like a kid who habitually cheats in school. “I saved it."

  "Sure you did. And your employers in Toronto found out, and that's how come you ended up being fingered with a key of cocaine in your house. They set you up, Greg, after you cheated them."

  It was a wild guess. It didn't seem logical to me. They would have taken care of him more simply. A bomb in his car and lots of crocodile tears at the funeral would have been more in keeping. But I'd touched a nerve, even if not the right one.

  "I brought that back last time,” he said.

  "Like, off the record, a little sideline for yourself, right?"

  "You might say.” He drew deeply on his cigarette. His color was returning, and he allowed himself to expand a little. “Like we're talkin’ big money here. A guy like you wouldn't understand."

  "I understand that you're a dead man walking. And I understand that you've got more chance of getting your money back now then you will have later. These guys here aren't dummies. If they know the money is within a Jeep ride of here, it won't take them forever to find it."

  He lay back with his eyes closed and his right arm lying flat, palm up, clear off the edge of the bed, the cigarette forgotten between his fingers. He was making up his mind.

  "What do you think's the best?” He opened his eyes and sat up as he asked it, an unconscious commitment to action.

  "I think we go for your money or we leave, right now. The choice is yours, but we do one or the other."

  He sniffed, then dragged on his cigarette and blew out the smoke. “I'm not gonna leave that money for García. Let's go."

  "Have you got any running shoes with you?"

  He stood up and dropped his cigarette, stepping on it casually. “No. But I gotta pair of lace-ups. Topsiders."

  "Put them on, over your thickest pair of socks."

  I was still wrapped in the towel, so I slapped on some talcum powder and dressed. Amadeo watched me in surprise. “Wha's with the powder?"

  "We're going to be sweating before the day's over. It helps."

  I tipped out my backpack and rechecked the contents. First I filled my canteen and added a halazone tablet and shook it up. A liter of water would be a start on our needs. Next I reloaded the .45, cocked it, and told Amadeo, “Okay. We're going to need a meal before we start and some beer to take with us. Grab that straw basket and bring the rifle and blanket and we'll go."

  He picked up the rifle and checked it. “There's no magazine."

  "I've got it. We'll put it in when we're out of town. Now, let's grab a cab into town. And carry that box with you in the basket."

  I waited until he had squeezed the parcel into the basket, towel side down; then we walked out through reception and into the sunshine. A taxi was standing in the thin shade of a jacaranda outside the hotel, and we took it back down the hill and into the main street where the market stands. I paid the driver off and we got out. “Okay, we'll take some bread, some canned meat, and some beer. Let's shop."

  He ducked ahead of me into the shady old building with its crowd of shoppers, local women with their beautiful bright-eyed children, picking over the produce on all the stalls. The place was rich with the smells of peppers and herbs and fish and the blood from the tough thin slices of beef at the camicería. Amadeo looked at the meat as it hung over the edge of the counter blackening in the heat, and swallowed. But he didn't weaken. He bought us a bag of rolls and a couple of tins of meat and, at my reminder, a couple of razor-sharp machetes and a pair of big straw hats, the same as the natives were wearing.

  "Great souvenirs,” I kidded him, “Imagine having this hanging over your fireplace?"

  He looked at me as if I were out of my tree, and I smiled a big happy smile and told him, “Look amused. We're a couple of dumb, happy gringos on vacation, no sense looking glum."

  He smiled weakly. “I'll try to remember that.” He bought a bag to carry our purchases, glancing around the whole time, expecting one of García's men to pop up. I watched him, but he didn't react to any of the faces in the crowd.

  At the back of the market, close to the little lunch counter, where the locals were eating tortillas loaded with a thick peppery stew and drinking the local equivalent of Kool-Aid, we saw a beggar sitting on a step. She was a tiny old lady, almost blind, wearing a crucifix and mumbling over her rosary. She had a flat little basket beside her with a few coins in it. If that was her day's take, she was on a pretty lean diet. Amadeo bent and spoke to her and folded her fingers over a thousand pesos. It wasn't much in our terms, three dollars possibly, but to her it was a fortune.

  I watched him wait, head bowed while she blessed him. Then he straightened up and came after me, carrying his two bags.

  "Let's grab some lunch,” I said, and he shook his head.

  "I can’ eat, not with this bag next to me.” He raised the basket containing his parcel and shook his head.

  "Okay, then, we'll get some beer and get going,” I said.

  I led us out, across the broad, dusty boulevard in front of the market, and picked up ten portly bottles of Superior, muy fria—very cold—from one of the dozen or so refreshment stalls. We didn't look out of place here among the lounging local men and bustling women and the few tourists poking around with their cameras around their necks. “Take one now,” I told him.

  "Didn’ we oughta get used to going without?” he asked.

  "No. The secret of survival is to drink your fill, every chance you get. When we're up in the hills, we can start water discipline. For now, drink up."

  We stood back against the rough brick wall that ran all around a big old hacienda. Nobody paid us any attention, although we both scanned the crowds and the passing cars for familiar faces. As we drank, I asked Amadeo, “Is it any closer if we go to Ixtapa?"

  He thought about it, narrowing his eyes. “Yeah. Not a hell of a lot, but maybe a mile."

  "A mile counts. Let's go."

  We flagged down a cab and left town, driving out on the noncommercial side where the locals live, with no cluster of hotels for tourists. Some of the houses were handsome, but most were simple, brick-built, or corrugated-iron sheetin
g roofed with banana leaves. Some had a pig tethered outside, feeding on the fruit rinds and stale tortillas from the family table. One or two had fighting cocks tied on strings just out of range of one another, all of them preening and practicing their victory crows.

  The taxi climbed the hill that divides Zihuatanejo from Ixtapa, and I studied the terrain we were going to have to cross. Steep hills, dry as the inside of a snuffbox, covered with coarse, irregular growth, low bushes, and a few tall trees. Here and there was a cactus, but mostly scrub.

  Amadeo looked out the window at the hills and then at me. “It ain’ gonna be easy."

  "I know. That's why you'll get away with it. They don't know you've got the cojones for the job."

  "S'long's it's just one way,” he said. “We hitch a ride after, right?"

  "Right. It's a good payday for a hard day's work,” I said.

  We pulled into Ixtapa, a well-irrigated garden spot lined with big hotels. It was typical Mexican planning, allowing for the fact that most tourists want a beach and a bar, that's all. So they build a place with all the charm of the row of hotels alongside a northern airport, except for the fact that it has an unswimmable beach with picturesque killer surf and lots of pools with swim-up bars. In the middle of all the hotels they build a tiny shopping plaza with banks and restaurants and souvenir stores. Half the visitors never get farther than this from their hotel. And they go home thinking they've been to Mexico.

  We paid off our cab outside the little plaza, then sauntered down the road beside it as if we were out for a stroll.

  Twelve

  The road was only a quarter of a mile long. It ran through the irrigated area where the native scrub had been cleared and thin grass planted among palm trees that would look good on the free postcards in the hotel lobby. On our way we saw a workman riding a mower. He looked at us curiously, and I waved at him.

  "That's right. Make sure he sees you,” Amadeo said.

  "He saw us anyway, now he thinks we're a pair of fun-loving hikers, out for a look at the bush. He'll forget us before he gets back to the end of his row."

  Amadeo swore under his breath and changed hands on the bags. The provisions were heavier than his parcel, I noticed. The road stopped abruptly at a concrete curb, but a small trail went on ahead into the brush. It ran the same way as the road, so I followed it, pausing only to clip the magazine back into the little rifle. It wasn't much firepower, but it would be accurate over a longer distance than my pistols.

  Once we were out of sight of the road, I stopped and let Amadeo catch up. He did, sweating but, so far, not short of breath. Good, we were still on the level. I slipped off my pack, and he set down his bags gratefully. “Now what?"

  "Now I need to know exactly where we're headed. All I know so far is we're looking for a track that runs in from the highway about fifteen miles from town.” I took out my map of the region, it was not very accurate, it came from the tourist department's guidebook, and it devoted most of the space to the town of Zihuatanejo, but it was the best I had.

  Amadeo lit a cigarette, dropping the match negligently. I stooped and picked it up. “Before you drop another one, break it, that way you know it's out and we won't have a brush fire on our backs. And when you've smoked that butt, grind it all the way out on your shoe before you let go of it."

  "Yeah, okay.” His eyes widened momentarily. He hadn't thought of any more trouble than he was in already. He came and peered at the map. I looked at the scale and used my fingers as compasses, marking off the radius of fifteen miles from town.

  "From what you said, the trail was about this far up the highway. How far in from there is the place we're going?"

  He thought for a moment. “Yeah, well, it's fifteen miles, but that's all around the mountains, it's less'n that in a straight line."

  I held the radius on my fingers and drew another curve, using the road as the center of the circle. “About there. What am I looking for, a house, what?"

  "Used to be a house, it's half fallen down now."

  "And how clear is the track, will we find that easier than trying to home in on the house itself?"

  He nodded, breathing out smoke. “Yeah. Maybe we should aim to cut the track."

  "Okay. That means we're heading north-northeast.” I took out my compass from my pack and took a bearing on the most prominent landmark I could see, a bare tree on the side of a mountain about a mile from us. It was ten degrees east of what I wanted, but our track was leading almost directly to it. I would need to make up ten degrees west in the mile after that.

  I slipped the compass into my shirt pocket and then took off my jacket and folded it into the top of my pack, then shouldered the pack again. “We're making for that tree. Let me have a machete, and we're on our way. If the path turns off, we'll have to go through the brush. Ready?"

  "Yeah.” He stooped and rubbed out his cigarette on his shoe sole. “But how about I leave this behind.” He pointed to the basket containing the parcel.

  "This is too close to the hotels. The vultures will gather, and somebody may come looking. We carry it until we're up in the hills, clear of civilization."

  He snorted. “What's this ‘we'? You ain’ carryin’ it."

  "He wasn't my amigo, and I'm walking point. Carry it until I say.” I snapped the words at him. I couldn't afford arguments. Until we were back on the highway with his money, I was in charge.

  He grunted and picked up the bags, and I headed on up the path. We were lucky. It ran the way we wanted for another half mile, growing steeper and washed out in places but wide enough for one man to walk easily. Then it swung west, so I left it, checking over my shoulder that Amadeo was with me.

  Now the going was rougher. Fortunately the ground was too dry for the brush to be thick, but we had to cut our way around the edge of some of the denser bushes, and we were climbing a forty-five-degree slope. It felt good to be working, but the sweat ran down my face and dripped off my chin onto my shirt. I glanced around at Amadeo and saw that he was in worse shape, his mouth hanging open, gasping with exertion, but he was keeping up, still carrying both bags.

  It took us fifty-five minutes to reach the tree, and when we did, he collapsed against the trunk, not even bothering to light a cigarette. I slipped off my pack and crouched beside him. “Five minutes’ rest,” I said.

  He was wearing a T-shirt, and he tugged at the right sleeve with his left hand and used the cloth to wipe his forehead. “I need more'n that,” he said, drawing deep breaths.

  "We've got a long way to go. And we can rest all night if you're tired. I want to get well away from Ixtapa before we start to kick back."

  He glanced at his watch. “You realize it's one-thirty, the hottest time of the day?"

  "Yes. I know that most of the locals are resting, but they're not expecting half a million dollars’ pay for today's work. You are."

  He closed his eyes and said nothing. I wondered what was going through his head. Was he thinking about spending the money? About toppling García and taking over the drug business in Guerrero? Or was he planning ways to take a swing at me with his machete once I'd brought him close to his cash? What was that thing Spike Milligan wrote? The Small Dreams of a Scorpion? Amadeo's were probably smaller, and meaner.

  I gave him seven minutes while I walked ahead to the peak of the hill and took a bearing on a white rock on the next mountain, about another mile and a half. Then I called him, softly, and he caught up with me, not speaking. “We're heading for that rock. When we get off this hill, you can leave the package behind. Open if it you want, but I guess the vultures will find it anyway."

  "I ain’ touching that thing.” he said sincerely. “All's I'm gonna do is take the towel off it."

  "Keep the towel. It's not bloody and it belongs to the hotel, it could lead people to us later."

  He pulled a disgusted face, but he nodded. “Guess you're right. Okay, let's go."

  It was marginally easier downhill. Not as easy as going down steps, I sti
ll had to slash some of the brush, and we had to hang on to bushes in the steep places, but the law of gravity was working with us instead of against us. I glanced up and saw that the vultures were starting to gather. Where there was usually only one in any square mile of sky, there were now four of them, lying flat on the updrafts like scraps of burned paper over a fire. But they were below the level of the hilltops, out of sight of Ixtapa. Unless some driver with keen eyes saw them from the crest as he came in from Zihuatanejo, they were invisible. And that meant we could deposit the parcel.

  When we reached the bottom, I looked around for a clear spot on the baked ground. “Here,” I told Amadeo. “Give me the basket."

  He handed it over without speaking, then set down the other bag and wiped his streaming face on his sleeve. His T-shirt was soaked through with perspiration, and he was openmouthed and silent. I took out the parcel, lifting off the towel and turning the box upside down so that the horror inside slipped out onto the ground. Then I burned the wrapping and box, making sure nothing else caught. I glanced at Amadeo's shopping bag. It was sturdy plastic mesh, the universal carrier of the region. But the handles were thin, and I could see they would cut his fingers. “You want this basket for the goodies?” I asked him.

  He thought about it and nodded. “Yeah. When we pick up the case, it'll go in there, people won’ know what it is."

  "Now you're thinking. Stick the bag in here for now."

  I gave it to him, and we waited until the paper was all burned. “You want to say something over the remains?"

  He nodded and crossed himself. I bowed my head and waited. I'm not religious myself, but I'd never knock it. I've served with a lot of men who were, tougher men than I am.

  When he had finished, in silence, he crossed himself and said, “Now let's get the hell out of here."

  By the time we reached our second landmark, I was beginning to think he would never complete the march. His shirt and pants were black with sweat and he was pulling in every breath openmouthed, like an old emphysema patient. He fell rather than sat down in the small patch of shade from the side of the rock, letting the basket drop carelessly from his hands.