by Ed Teja
She was slim and sexy and aware of it. Tim always seems to find girls with casual sexiness. She wore a large tank-top tee shirt cut off at the waist to show her flat belly and short cut-off jeans. Maybe the clothes made her look younger than she was, but I doubted she was eighteen.
“So, what does Tim want now?” she asked me. She stretched, yawning and showing me that she didn’t button her pants and that as she sat the zipper pulled partly down. I knew this to be one of those odd fashions. You often saw young girls in poor sections going around with their pants unbuttoned in that way. Combined with the bare belly button, it made a clear erotic signal. I wouldn’t say I didn’t enjoy it, but I wasn’t used to it either.
I forced myself to look into her dark eyes. “I don’t know what Tim wants,” I told her. “Except to get out of jail.”
“So, am I supposed to lie to the police for him, to say that he was here with me when my brother was killed, and that someone else left the drugs here?”
“No. He told me you’d gone to Puerto la Cruz for the day. I am quite sure he told the police that as well.”
Her look was almost hostile. “Then why are you here?”
“To learn what you know about the crime,” I said.
“Hah!” She laughed. “At least your Spanish is decent, unlike your brother’s, but you do not lie any better.”
“My Spanish is coming back to me,” I said. “I’ve never been a good liar.”
“No?”
“Not really. Lying hasn’t worked well for me.”
“Then how do you get girls?”
I laughed. “Sometimes the truth is enough.”
“Never.” Her eyes were bright in the soft dark of the room. Afternoon shadows were growing longer and the little light that came into that room elongated shadows with stripes. The best mental movies in my life are in black and white. This one had a strange, erotic feel to it.
“I think Tim is innocent.”
“You are his brother,” she said, reminding me of the strong sense of family that determined attitudes in this country. Everyone assumed I would believe in Tim.
“I need help proving it,” I told her.
She held out her hands, palms up. “I have nothing I can tell you.”
“Do you think Tim did it? Killed your brother?”
She shook her head, and her ponytail lashed gently at her cheek. “But then what do I know of men with other men, other than that they are foolish?” She thought for a moment. “I think Tim is one who worries. I think it is foolish to lose many nights of sleep agonizing over what it is right for a man to do or not do. I think he is foolish because he cannot do anything important without first going through enormous bouts of suffering.”
I had to chuckle. “It’s a cruel description, María. Honest and accurate enough, though, I’m afraid.”
She stretched again, and as she brought her arms down, the strap of her oversized tee shirt slipped down on her right shoulder. I could see the tattoo of a rose just above the breast. She ignored the strap, and that made the action seem all the more deliberate. Knowing that did nothing to reduce its erotic effect, however.
“Were you with him the night before your brother was killed?”
She smiled. “Yes.” She patted the bed. “Right here, sharing this very bed. He was very passionate. Is this a family trait?”
“And in the morning, you went to Puerto La Cruz very early.”
“Maybe nine o’clock. Is that early?”
“Early enough.”
She smiled.
“Why did you go that morning?”
She made a face, the kind you make when you smell something bad. A shudder passed through her. “Ramón,” she said.
“Ramón? Tim’s friend?”
“Ramón, the pig,” she said.
“What about him?”
“He came over in the morning, saying he had to talk to Tim. I told Tim that if he was letting that creature in my house, I was going shopping in Puerto la Cruz. He ignored me so I took some of his money and called my sister to go with me. We stayed away all day.”
“So, Tim was sober that morning?”
She laughed. “He pretends to drink so that people will forgive his foolishness, but he drinks very little. I told you he was very amorous that night.”
“Yes, you did.”
“Drunks are not passionate men. They are clumsy lovers.” She smiled seductively and wrapped her arms around herself. “Tim made love to me for a very long time.”
“And you dislike Ramón.”
She spat on the floor. “He is as ugly inside as outside.”
“Do you have any idea what he wanted to talk to Tim about?”
She shook her head. “I am not curious about pigs.”
“Do you know where I can find him?”
“Look in the gutter.” Then she relaxed a little. “All I know is that his family are fishermen and live not too far from my family. But we have nothing to do with them. We never have liked them. All their men are pigs and their women are cows.
“But Ramón doesn’t live there anyway. He was probably too much of a pig even for them. I heard he works somewhere in Cumaná. I think he works on trucks.”
She ran her hand along her brown thigh and looked at me, her eyes soft. “But a man and a woman alone in a bedroom should be able to find something better to talk about than that pig.” She reached up and pulled down the other strap of her tee shirt, then eased the shirt down around her waist, exposing pert brown breasts. “If that idea puzzles you, perhaps I can suggest something.”
I frowned at her. “You are Tim’s girl.” I tried to sound indignant.
She scowled. “I was with Tim for a time. But Tim is a gringo in a Venezuelan jail. He is thought to be a drug dealer, or at least to know where drugs are. Even if I were married to him, I would not be waiting for him. I would be wearing widow’s clothes, for I know his future. As it is, I am a woman without a man. Tim told me a bit about you.”
That surprised me. “Why?”
“Because he thought well of you and wanted me to do so as well. Now I think I know you a bit. I think that you would be good to me.” She shrugged. “It is a simple thing. I would do things for you, things to you and you would take care of me. Is that not the way it works?”
It was simple, all right. On a purely physical level she was nothing but temptation. In every other way, nothing but trouble. “I already have a woman.”
“An American,” she said dismissively. “A gringa. Besides, many men in Venezuela have more than one woman.” She ran a hand gently over her bare breast and left a finger resting on the dark nipple. “I wouldn’t care if you kept the gringa and you don’t have to tell her about me. You might learn to like our ways. I know how to be very good to a man.” She let go of her breast and waved her hand, indicating I should come to the bed. “Let me make you feel good. Let me make us both feel good.” She ran her hand across her belly and down into her shorts. “Isn’t this more desirable than such trouble? Your hand should be here instead of mine.”
Trying to stay in my seat, think of questions, and ignore my arousal was a bad combination. She had a wonderful, lithe body and knew how to flaunt it. “I have to leave.” I said. “If you think of anything that might help Tim get out of jail, please let me know.”
She laughed bitterly. “I can think of only two things that will do that. You can become very rich, or very powerful. If you were either right now then you wouldn’t need my advice, and unless you can become one of them, any advice I can offer is useless. Of course, a handsome man like you might find a powerful person and make his wife your mistress. If you loved her well enough you might get her to convince her husband to help Tim. But this takes time.” She licked her lips. “Loving me and forgetting about Tim might be more pleasant for you.”
On that happy note, I left the half-naked woman sitting on her bed in the darkening room and forced my way outside into
the stifling afternoon air.
María’s firm belief that Tim was already history troubled me more than I wanted to admit. I decided to go straight to the jail and confront Tim about his meeting with Ramón. He had lied to me, claimed he had been drunk and alone, and I needed to know why.
I decided to walk in the direction of the jail. I guess it was getting close to five, when visiting hours started, and walking would give me a chance to think. When I passed the panadería, the skinny gringo still stood there, looking aimlessly and out of place outside, and smoking a cigarette.
I was interested to see if he’d follow me. He stood his post, however, and halfway to the jail I stopped at a small shop and bought two packs of cigarettes. Seeing the guy smoking had reminded me. When I got to the jail, I gave one pack to the reception guard and managed to get in quickly. When they brought Tim in, I saw that he had been given some new clothes—a worn, but clean denim shirt and clean and worn jeans. He had been cleaned up too, and there were signs that his cuts had been tended to. He smiled when he saw me.
“Back so soon?”
“New developments,” I said. I handed him the other pack of cigarettes and a box of matches. He opened the pack, gave one to the guard and lit one for himself. That guard did all right for himself.
“So, what’s happening? Learn anything?”
“So far, just that you lied to me.”
He sighed. “You know I hear that a hell of a lot. What did I lie about this time?”
“About what you were up to when Antonio was killed.”
His eyebrows went up. “Let’s see, I said I was at María’s. So where was I really?”
“You were at María’s all right, but you weren’t drinking. You were having a cozy chat with Ramón.”
The smile vanished, replaced by a frown. “So what?”
“So what? I’m trying to save your skinny ass and you are giving me a bunch of shit. You said you had no alibi, but you do—Ramón.”
“Won’t work.” His voice was flat.
“Why not?”
“Because Ramón is a small-time drug punk whose ambition always outruns his IQ. He is in trouble with everybody. Recently he stole some drugs from some very bad people and was trying to sell them to some other bad people. For the duration, he can’t be found, or at least hopes he can’t be. If he did let you find him, if he decided to try and help me, he’d never live to testify anyway.”
“What did he want from you?”
Tim grimaced. “To be stupid. To keep the drugs for him. The stuff the cops found were his salesman’s sample. He said he needed a few days to arrange an escape from town, he wanted to set it up so that he could split the instant the deed was done. In the meantime, he couldn’t waltz around town carrying a bag of coke.”
“And you agreed to hold it for him.”
Tim stubbed out his cigarette on the concrete floor and looked up at the ceiling as if he wanted to study the light fixtures. “I wanted to help him. He was a chump, doomed. I thought I could help him get out of drugs. He had said he wanted to. Then he pulled this stunt and came to me, and yes, I helped him. He also wanted to know exactly what Antonio had seen.”
“What Antonio had seen?”
“He wanted to know what Antonio was rambling on about the night we fought. I think that the poor dope stashed his drugs on Las Negadas somewhere, which is the place Antonio claimed I was doing something with drugs.”
“Which you weren’t.”
“Right.”
“What did you tell Ramón?”
“Just what I told you, that I refused to listen to what Antonio was saying ’cause it was some crazed bullshit. I hadn’t been on Las Negadas in days. So, I don’t know what Antonio thought he saw, and apparently no one else does either.”
“But you weren’t really drunk that night.”
He smiled. “Who says?”
“María.”
“She is too smart sometimes, but chatty, you know? But no, I wasn’t. If I’d gotten drunk, I couldn’t have hit Antonio hard enough to do any damage. I was drinking, though. But I mostly was angry. Imagine how I felt when I heard my friend Antonio trying to accuse me of being involved with drugs.”
“He was right, though. You were helping Ramón.”
“I was trying to get him out of the business, I told you!”
“Could Ramón have killed Antonio?”
Tim laughed. “If Antonio had photos of Ramón dealing drugs, Ramón wouldn’t lift a finger against him. Ramón is a stone coward. Even when he did something that seemed daring, it was really an act of desperation.”
That seemed the end of the line for the new facts. “Why did you lie to me?”
Tim hesitated, took out another cigarette and tapped it on the back of his hand. “I was afraid. I thought you might not help me if you knew that I was helping a drug dealer.”
“Fair enough.” I reached over and touched his arm. “You were wrong, by the way.” He smiled. “One other thing, do you know a tall, skinny gringo?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know many gringos at all in Cumaná. Why?”
“I saw him watching María’s house. I hoped you might know who he was, which might tell what he was hoping to see. Do you think there is anything for her to worry about?”
He smiled. “Plenty. But she is pretty and resourceful. And what could you do besides worry her anyway? You can’t guard her house day and night.”
“True,” I admitted. “Given the nature of our chat earlier, I’m not sure she’d even believe me. But that leaves us at square one. I still haven’t a clue as to who killed Antonio. All I know is that it seems pretty clear that it has to do with the drugs Ramón stole.”
Tim shrugged and nodded to the guard. “Barney Fife and I had better get back to the barn and let you detectives go about your sleuthing. And thanks for the duds.”
“No problem,” I told him. “Do you want me to give the guard a little bonus so that you can see a doctor again?”
He shook his head. “The doctors here are usually worse than whatever they are treating.” He grinned. “They patched me up enough. I'll be okay, coach.”
Serious confusion left the jail with me as I went to meet Maggie. I knew more about the events than I had before, but I still didn’t have any real leads but Ramón. I wondered if he had any connection to the skinny gringo, or if perhaps he was on yet another payroll. Tim thought he was freelance, but there were the anonymous crowd he stole the drugs from, and the crowd he planned to sell them too. I realized I was looking forward to my meeting with Victoria López in the morning. If nothing else, she might be able to tell who the gringo watching María’s was.
As I came out of the park, I almost walked into a man shuffling down the shadowy sidewalk. I stopped to apologize and recognized Chris.
“Well,” I said.
“Oh, hi,” he said. He looked nervous and unhappy to see me.
“What are you doing in Cumaná?” I asked. “I thought you were headed home to Puerto La Cruz this afternoon.”
He looked around. “I got halfway there and remembered that I needed some spare parts for the engine.” I looked at his empty hands. He laughed and thumbed over his shoulder across the street to Casa Mar where they sell engine parts and fishing gear. “I stopped to talk with a couple of guys and didn’t get here in time. Jesús had already locked up and gone.”
There wasn’t much to say to that, and he seemed eager to leave. “Well, there’s always tomorrow.”
He shook his head. “It’ll wait until my weekly tour of Mochima on Thursday,” he said and left, taking brisk steps toward the port.
As he disappeared, I saw Maggie standing by her car, waving at me. I walked over. “Did you see Chris?”
She opened her door and got in. “Yeah, but he pretended not to see me.”
“What do you think he was up to? He said it was for engine parts, but I’m sure that he could have found them in Puerto L
a Cruz. They are probably easier to find there.”
Maggie grinned. “Maybe his wife has reason to be jealous. I’ve caught him in Cumaná a few times and he always seemed a bit furtive about it.”
She turned on the engine and we started the drive back to Mochima. I was glad to be getting out of the city. I still reeled from the new discoveries, and the interview with María had bothered more than my brain. I put my hand on Maggie’s knee and she smiled at me.
“How did it go with María?”
I told her about the visit, about seeing the gringo, and about María’s hard sexual pitch. And I told her about the visit with Tim.
“There is a lot going on here that doesn’t fit together.”
“You can’t expect to just stumble across the answers,” she said. I nodded. “But that’s not what bothers you the most.”
“No.”
She put her hand on mine. “I can help you get over it.”
You know, she was right. Maggie was just the person to help me get over all that unsettling talk.
CHAPTER FIVE
We were up early the next morning, first to make love, then to watch clouds gather on the road up on the hillside.
“A squall is coming,” Maggie said. In silence we set about doing the many little preparatory tasks good sailors do before a storm. We double-checked the ground tackle—the anchor and chain—closed and latched the hatches on the deck and tied down or stowed away everything that looked like it might blow away. During the final stages of a squall, the wind can blow like it presages the end of the world.
By the time the squall finished building on the ridge and started down toward us, we were ready for it. We sat in the cockpit watching a fuzzy white cloud drifting down toward us. We knew it was no cloud, but the front of the squall line. Maggie stripped off her clothes.
“Long as there is free water I might as well get a shower,” she said. It made sense, so I undressed too.
There were two other boats in the bay, anchored on the far side, away from the town. Abruptly the temperature dropped, and all three boats began to swing from pointing west as they normally did in the morning, to face the storm coming in from the south. The wind hit first, lifting the awning and trying to take it away. But Maggie had designed it to withstand this life and it held.
