Captains Outrageous (23 page)

“I think we’re wasting time,” I said. “You want her, we best get to talking, and talking now.”

Juan Miguel studied us, as if to be certain we weren’t mirages, some stupid dream. He wrapped the towel around his waist, pulled out a chair and sat down. No sooner had he done that, as if on cue, out of the darkness near the pool, on the far side, something moved.

At first I thought one of the palm trees had come loose of its roots and was about to topple, but the base was much larger than the palms, and as it stepped into the light, I saw it was tall, but shorter than a tree. It looked like someone had stacked some brown tires in a pile, put sumo wrestler legs and arms on it, fastened a vague facsimile of a human head to the top, and tied an anaconda between its legs. It was, of course, our living Michelin Man, in the nude.

Juan Miguel saw our gaze had shifted from him to somewhere over his shoulder. He grinned. “Hammerhead, we call him.”

Hammerhead leaped into the pool with a splash that almost started a tidal wave. He swam across the pool with a couple of strokes, climbed out dripping on our side. He ambled toward us. Moby-Dick gone bipedal.

“What do you think?” Juan Miguel said, as proud as if he was showing us a pet, and I suppose he was. “Is he not something?”

Jim Bob, naturally endearing, said, “An ambulatory shit pile. But I wouldn’t want him to fall on me.”

As Hammerhead grew closer, he became even more frightening. Through the telescope I had not been able to see how strange his head was. The front of it protruded, then sunk toward the nose, which lay flat against his face like a splattered man who had jumped from a great height. He had more scars than a Gurkha division and there were little pale scars like road map lines against the darkness of his body. It was hard to tell his nationality. He was dark, but his features were almost blank. He had Asian eyes and a little mouth that held tiny white childlike teeth. When he moved, water trapped beneath the rolls of his flesh squished out. He came to stand next to Juan Miguel’s chair.

“You’re a cute couple,” Jim Bob said.

I thought, that’s it. Jim Bob’s gonna be dead so fast Juan Miguel will forget why we’re here. But nothing happened. He just stared at Jim Bob for a while. Then at me. He said, “You listen to me. You hurt Ileana, Hammerhead here, he will beat you to death.”

“He could probably do that with that sausage between his legs,” Jim Bob said. “Considering that peanut you carry, I’m surprised you keep this guy around. Seems like it would remind you of your shortcomings.”

Juan Miguel leaped to his feet, his fist crashed down on the table and the glass split and splattered into thousands of fragments that caught the light and ricocheted images of trees and shrubs at us.

When the glass fallout was over, Jim Bob, in a bored voice, said, “You broke your table.”

“Enough!” Juan Miguel said. “It is enough!”

“I guess he’s had enough,” Jim Bob said to me.

“Reckon so,” I said.

Juan Miguel was panting. “What is … How do you say it? The deal? What is it? Tell me now, or I have you killed.”

Juan Miguel’s hand was bleeding. He pressed it to the towel at his waist.

“The deal is this,” Jim Bob said. “We want half a million dollars for your little doll, and we want to tell you why we want the money.”

“I know why you want the money,” Juan Miguel said. “I know why anyone wants the money.”

“No,” I said. “No, you don’t. We want the money because of Beatrice and Charlie.”

“Who?”

“We want the money because you wanted to kill me and the old man. I even want it for Billy, and I didn’t even like that sonofabitch.”

“What is it that you are talking about?” Juan Miguel said, his words becoming more accented and purposeful. “What is the fuck you want?”

“That’s what the fuck,” Jim Bob said. “That’s the way you say it. No slight there, just thought you might like to know that for future reference.”

“You do have half a million?” I said. “We’d hate to think you don’t. ’Cause you don’t, we got to take less, well, you get her back, but without a little finger or a thumb. You know what I’m saying?”

“Let me tell you a little thing you have not thought of,” Juan Miguel said. “I get her back with any part missing, her hair cut, a scar on her thigh, I do not want her back. She must come back as she is supposed to be. She does not, she is of no use to me, understand?”

Definitely not true love, I thought. And, unlike us, he wasn’t bluffing.

“Very well,” I said. “She comes back pretty quick if you act pretty quick.”

“How dare you threaten me.”

I knew we were beginning to play it pretty close. Maybe Juan Miguel was thinking now he could let Ileana go, shop for another. Then again, she was special. Unique. And she was his, and he liked to own things, and once owned, he didn’t like giving them up.

I said, “Here are our demands. And we want you to know our reasons. So just listen. And tell Gorgo here to go play somewhere. He makes me nervous.”

Juan Miguel spoke something in Spanish. Hammerhead’s face stayed just the same. Not a flick of an eyelash. He went to the pool, dove in, began to swim.

“Because of his size, the way he looks,” Juan Miguel said, “you might think he is a fool. He is not. He is very strong. And very loyal. He would do anything I ask. I want you to keep that in mind as you deal with me. You must prove to me that Ileana is alive. That she is okay. That she is unharmed merchandise.”

“We can do that,” Jim Bob said. “That’s how we’ll begin the down payment, with proof she’s okay?”

“What kind of proof?”

“A phone call. She can speak to you to let you know she’s all right. We come back here, you give us half the money.”

“How much is this half?”

“This half is two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. The other half, well, obviously we’re talking half a million here. But you try to be smart. You try to get by not paying the money, I’ll send her head home to you in a box. Comprende?”

Juan Miguel said, “Very well. But what has this to do with the people you named?”

“You’re making me mad,” I said.

“That bothers me so greatly,” Juan Miguel said.

Jim Bob looked at his watch. “We’re not back in half an hour, they kill the girl. So you had best listen and cut with the shit. Tell him, Hap.”

I gave him a brief outline of the events I thought he needed to know, and when I was finished, Juan Miguel said: “That was a personal matter. She had it coming. She lied to me. She did not do as she said. That I cannot allow. I will not allow it with you. Do you understand?”

“What about Charlie, the man you killed because you thought it was me?”

“I thought you had helped her to try and con me. I did not like that. The same with this Billy. Mistakes. I can see that now. I was angry. I like to make a clean sweep, as you Americans say. I have her killed. She gives your name. They find this other man’s name on a card. I send Hammerhead to the States. He does the job. He comes home.”

“That’s it?”

“That is it, señor. Nothing mysterious. That is all.”

I wondered how a giant like Hammerhead had wandered around LaBorde without the cops hearing about him from some source. Juan Miguel must not have been kidding about him being smart.

I suppose I had wanted there to be more, some semi-valid reason for all the deaths, but there was none. It was as Jim Bob had figured. Juan Miguel cleaning up after himself, not wanting any messes left over from his dealings with Beatrice.

“So, this is your plan,” Juan Miguel said. “I could hold you, of course. I could make sure you do not leave.”

“We been over that,” Jim Bob said. “Fuck with us, the woman’s dead. For whatever reason, even if the reason belongs to someone else, you fuck up, she’s toast.”

“Toast?”

Jim Bob slapped the back of his hand into his palm. “Burned. Done. Wiped out.”

“Very well,” Juan Miguel said. “But do not make a mistake. Take care of Ileana. Very good care. And when I get her back. When you have your money. Please run. Run very far. For I will be at your back, my friends.”

“We’ll remember that,” Jim Bob said.

“There’s just one more thing,” I said.

“There always is,” Juan Miguel said.

“The archaeological items you wanted from Beatrice. They are real and they are available. They are for sale.”

“You must be out of your mind,” Juan Miguel said. “I would not buy them from you.”

“Well, you see,” I said, “they sort of go with the deal.”

“Then we are not talking half a million of your dollars, are we?”

“I suppose not. I will reveal the location of the facades when I see the money.”

“I no longer want them.”

“That doesn’t matter. You’ll pay for them anyway. And then I won’t give them to you. I’ll donate them to the Anthropology Museum in Mexico City.”

“How much?”

“That’ll be another half million.”

“A million American dollars. That is outrageous. No woman is worth that.”

“Well, considering you can buy pussy for about two dollars in some places, I reckon you’re right,” Jim Bob said. “But if this woman is someone you like specifically, and can’t be replaced easy—and let me tell you, she looks to me hard to replace under any circumstances—well, then, at least to you, she’s worth a million dollars. It was me, and I was in your position, I’d buy her back. Oh boy, would I. And you want her, good buddy, you better let us leave in less than five minutes so we can stop and make a phone call along the way, say the deal’s on so she doesn’t get snuffed. And don’t follow. I wouldn’t like it.”

“My men could work on you until I knew what I wanted to know,” Juan Miguel said. “They are very good at that sort of thing.”

“That’s nice, but we made a pact with our group. We don’t know anyone’s real names. That way, you can torture us all you want, and we can’t even tell you where each other lives, except the two of us. We know each other. But you got us. So how would that help? And it don’t matter we did know, we told you where she is. By the time you get through doing what you got to do, it’ll be way too late. I can hold out that long, I promise you.”

Juan Miguel looked at his men, then he looked at us. I tried to remain cool and calm. I glanced at Jim Bob. He looked like he was waiting on a waiter to bring him a beer.

“Go,” Juan Miguel said. “Go. I will be waiting for her call. And she must answer me. It cannot be thought to be a recording. I must ask a question and she must answer so that I know she is alive and unharmed.”

“Fine,” Jim Bob said. “Remember, we’ll be listening. And I better not see your men, or your giant, anytime during the dealings. And when it comes time to trade, you’ll do it our way. Just you. And dress up, would you? And by the way, before we leave I want my pocketknife, and he wants his four pesos back.”

We went out to the car. Jim Bob drove us out of there. When we were away from the house, he checked the rearview.

“Well?” I asked.

“No one’s following.”

“Good,” I said, letting it out like a sigh.

Jim Bob held out his hand. It was shaking violently. He said, “Will you look at that?”

I held up my own shaking hand.

“Twins,” I said.

33

T
HAT NIGHT
, in the hotel, Brett and I sat by our window in chairs pulled close together. I had wrapped some ice in a towel, and was holding it to the back of my head, trying to bring the swelling down on a knot one of Juan Miguel’s Golems had given me.

We sat there with the shades wide, looked at the pedestrian walk and the sea beyond. The water looked oily and there were a number of dead fish washed up close to shore and they too were covered with something dark and slick.

The moon was a nasty slice of limburger, spotted by clouds that looked like soggy boles of field-spoiled cotton.

Jim Bob had dropped me off and driven out to César’s.

“You really think Juan Miguel will come through with the money?” Brett asked.

“Truthfully, I don’t know. And it doesn’t matter. We don’t want the money.”

“But he might come through with it.”

“You want the money, right?”

“Of course not. It’s blood money. I don’t want that. But what if he did come through with the money?”

“We meet him, he has the money, we kill him. We leave the money.”

“It would be a shame to leave all that money. A quarter million first time, right? I mean, that’s a lot of money to just leave lying around.”

“Brett, I don’t steal from the dead.”

“I know. But listen. What if you took the money and gave it to Ferdinand? He could buy a new boat. He could go on with his life. If anyone deserves the money, it’s him. His daughter was killed by that animal. Charlie, he doesn’t have anyone he’d want to have the money. Certainly not his ex-wife.”

“You got a point. It works out that way, okay. Ferdinand gets the money. Maybe César will have other ideas. I don’t know. But it’s okay with me.”

“You’re going to have him deliver half, right?”

“It’s all he’ll ever deliver,” I said. “We’re going to kill him, remember? Then let the girl go.”

“You want to do this right, want to get him good, have him pay all the money, and on the last delivery kill him.”

“You’re cold, Brett.”

“We’re going to kill him anyway, right?”

“Right.”

“He’s a piece of shit, right?”

“Right.”

“So we kill him, and we take him for a million. Ferdinand would never have to worry. And with that kind of money, neither would we.”

I turned in my chair and looked at her.

“Brett, I’m not sure I believe my ears. Didn’t you just say you didn’t want the money?”

“It’s a lot of money.”

“It’s not like we’re finding it in a pig track. It’s blood money.”

“I was just thinking out loud,” she said. “Jesus. Will you listen to me? Money does corrupt. I feel like Humphrey Bogart in
Treasure of the Sierra Madre.”

“Well, one thing you got going for you, you don’t look like Bogart. And if it’s any consolation, I’ve thought of the money too. You can’t help but think about it. But we start getting greedy, even if we get greedy for someone else, we’re gonna end up messing up.”

“Don’t you want the Anthropology Museum to have those facades?”

“Brett, we don’t need money for them to have the facades. We just give them a tip-off on where they’re hidden. They’ll do the rest.”

“Oh yeah, I forgot. But you know what?”

“What?”

“You could quit working at the chicken plant. You could do what you want. So could I.”

“For a while. Even if we took the money, it would be split between everyone, our share would be small for a lifetime. We could live on it for a while, but then what?”

“We invest it.”

“And maybe we lose it.”

“True. I don’t know anything about the stock market. We could live off of it while you figured out what you really wanted to do. Maybe you could go to college. You got some hours, right?”

“Right.”

“You could get a degree, maybe teach or something.”

It sounded good. But it sounded wrong. Still, I sat and considered.

Brett said, “When does Jim Bob let Ileana talk to Juan Miguel?”

“I don’t know. He’s playing it loose, making sure Juan Miguel is tense. He’s also giving him time to get the money together. Mostly though, it’s just Jim Bob playing a waiting game.”

“You think he knows what he’s doing?”

“Much as anyone knows. You should have seen him at Juan Miguel’s. He was as cool as an ice tray. He had Juan Miguel eating out of his hand. Juan Miguel tried to act like he was in charge, but I tell you, Jim Bob, he was running the show. We left, his hand was shaking bad as mine, but he didn’t show it, not with Juan Miguel.”

“Did you?”

“I don’t know. Jim Bob says I didn’t. I hope I didn’t.”

“You wouldn’t want to be outmachoed by Jim Bob, would you?”

“I wouldn’t,” I said, “but I got to tell you, that sonofabitch is more macho than my brother, Leonard. I’m surprised he doesn’t go around with a wheelbarrow in front of him so he can carry his balls.”

“Remember,” Brett said, “Leonard’s macho and queer as a duck in a tuxedo. He’s starting one square lower on the tough guy scale. So, you got to sort of give him special points.”

“I wouldn’t let him hear you say that.”

“Hap, we come out all right on this, you and me, we’re gonna stay together. Right?”

“We’re gonna get married,” I said. “If you want to, of course.”

“You’re not joking?”

“I’m not. I had a ring I’d give it to you. But you didn’t say if you’d marry me. We’ve talked about it, but we haven’t really talked about it. We just keep saying someday. I’m saying we’ve about come to that day.”

Brett slid her chair over close to me and put her arm around me.

“I want to. Bad. But you got to pretend on our wedding night that I’m a renewed virgin.”

“That won’t be easy,” I said.

“Most women play that game.”

“It still won’t be easy.”

“Well, considering I been to bed more than a hospitalful of invalids, I know that,” Brett said. “But you got to try, just the same. You don’t try, well, to put it in simple terms, you don’t get any nookie.”

“You drive a hard bargain,” I said.

We were sitting there snuggling, when we saw Jim Bob and Leonard come along the pedestrian walk.

“Back from César’s already,” I said. “Things be happenin’.”

I went to the door and opened it. Jim Bob and Leonard appeared in the hallway, and I ushered them in.

“How goes it?” I said.

“Good. You got a beer?” Jim Bob said.

He looked rough. He had taken a worse beating than I had. One eye was swollen and there was a bruise the color of smashed plum on his right cheek. The lip on that side was fat and dark. His hat had crease lines all through it.

“There’s a beer in the cash bar. What about you, Leonard?”

“I want John.”

“He’s not in the cash bar,” I said.

I got the bar key and retrieved a beer for Jim Bob. He twisted off the cap, dropped down in the only cushioned chair, and pressed the cold bottle against the bruise on his cheek.

“Man,” he said, “I could cook an egg on this motherfucker.”

Brett and I sat on the edge of the bed. Leonard pulled one of the wooden chairs over and sat down, crossed his legs and played with the toe of his shoe.

“How’d it go?” Brett asked.

“Well, we hauled Ileana to a pay phone, twisted her arm, had her talk to Juan Miguel a bit,” Jim Bob said. “I talked to him then. I set a meeting up. He’s so mad he sounds as if he could eat the ass out of a bull and spit out a wallet.”

I said, “When?”

“Tonight.”

“That’s quick. I thought you’d let him sweat.”

“I don’t think we ought to fuck around.”

“And I don’t like waiting,” Leonard said. “It makes my feet break out in little hives.”

“Juan Miguel is supposed to meet us at the souvenir stands on this side of Tulum,” Jim Bob said. “He brings the money, we take the money. He thinks that’s it. He thinks he gives us the money, then we set up the next meeting, where we give him the girl and he gives us the rest of the money. I was him, that’s where I’d think about nailing us. He gets the girl, double-crosses us, kills us. That would be the plan if I were doing it. Maybe I was him I’d torture us to give back the first batch of money.”

“So, like us,” I said, “you’ve actually thought about the money?”

“You can’t help but think about the money,” Jim Bob said. “ ’Course, being smarter than the average criminal, the plan should be take the first batch of money and kill the woman—”

“We’re not doing that,” Brett said. “That’s not the deal.”

“Of course not,” Jim Bob said. “I’m saying if I were really a kidnapper.”

“You really are,” I said.

“You know what I mean. I was really out for the money, I’d take the half, let the girl go free, or kill her, and get away with what I got. Best thing to do would be to actually let her go. That way Juan Miguel doesn’t have a way to magnify the grudge.”

“Since there’s supposed to actually be some real money,” I said, “what do we do about that?”

“Yeah,” Brett said. “What about that?”

“I’ve been giving that some thought.”

“So have we,” I said.

“Crossed my mind too,” Leonard said.

“My belief is this,” Jim Bob said. “We take just enough to pay for our expenses, we give the rest to Ferdinand.”

“I thought maybe give it all to Ferdinand,” Leonard said, “but I got to admit, that sounds pretty fair.”

“We got the hotels, car rentals, and we owe César for the guns,” I said.

“Where are the guns?” Brett asked

“In the trunk of the rental,” Jim Bob said.

“What time does it happen?”

“We meet at midnight.”

“Why midnight?”

“Because where the tourist stand is there’s a crossroads.”

“Yeah. So?”

“I like the idea of it,” Jim Bob said. “It’s an artistic touch to the job. Devil takes a man’s soul at the crossroads, and this bastard’s gonna sell his soul there.”

“How will it work?” I asked.

Jim Bob looked at his watch. “It’s eight o’clock. We go over and pick up Ferdinand at César’s so he can have his chance to see it come down—”

“He wants to do the killing,” Leonard said. “Not see it.”

“He may have to settle for a back seat,” Jim Bob said. “Perhaps Juan Miguel doesn’t go down for good right off, we let Ferdinand deliver the coup de grâce. A bullet to the head. That kind of thing.”

“No torture,” I said. “I don’t care what Ferdinand wants. Juan Miguel knows why we took Ileana, and that’s as close as we’re going to get to explaining it. It meant nothing to him anyway.”

“At the moment of death, it may,” Jim Bob said. “Anyway, we load up Ferdinand. We go out to the drop sight early, before dark. This time of year it gets dark, say, nine-thirty, true dark a little later. There are some good places to hide, and you, Ferdinand, and Leonard can get somewhere you can’t be seen.”

“Won’t they get there early too?” Brett asked.

“They will,” Jim Bob said. “You can count on it. But we’ll be earlier yet. They see us, they see us. We deal with that when we get there. Thing on our side is Juan Miguel doesn’t know our real plan is to kill his sorry ass. If it goes well and he doesn’t get there early, doesn’t see you guys, I’ll appear to be there alone. When Juan Miguel delivers the money, you drop him, Hap.”

“Me?” I said.

“Leonard says you can shoot the nuts off a squirrel when all you can see is shape.”

“Thanks for volunteering me, Leonard.”

“You’re welcome, Hap. You’re the best shot, and that’s all there is to it.”

“But if I’m going to shoot him in hiding, what’s so wrong with my idea of picking him off from a distance? It’s because he wouldn’t have the money, isn’t it? It’s about the money, isn’t it?”

“It’s about him deserving it,” Jim Bob said. “Then there’s the money. I told you what I wanted to do with it. I don’t think that’s selfish. We get our expenses, Ferdinand gets the big cut, and Juan Miguel is dead. That okay with you, Hap?”

“I suppose.”

“They’ll search me for weapons, so I won’t carry. Leonard will be hidden with the shotgun in the bushes. When I clench my fist, you shoot, Hap, and I’ll jump. Leonard can open up then. I’ll stash the nine mil close by in the weeds so I can get to it, and play cleanup. We still got Ferdinand and César as insurance. Brett, there’s not enough guns, so you’re going to stay at César’s with Ileana. Someone has to watch her.”

“All right,” Brett said.

“You can bet Juan Miguel will have his boys with him, so no fuckin’ around. Be sure, be double-sure, to take out that Hammerhead motherfucker.”

“What if Juan Miguel sends someone?” I said. “Doesn’t show himself?”

“When I called, I told him he had to come with the money. Said we didn’t trust any of his sidekicks. So he’ll show. Like I said, he’ll bring them with him, but he’ll show. No matter how cool he plays it, he’s got it bad for this Ileana. She’s got his nose wide open, buddy, you can count on that.”

“Now that we got it all talked out, how about we go do it,” Leonard said.