Puerto Vallarta Squeeze

by Robert James Waller

  The shooter helped Danny along, or maybe pushed him along, as Danny came to think of it later on.

  “I’m looking for a ride up to the border… know any-one going that way? I’m willing to pay well for a lift.” He was speaking English with pretty good diction, a slow and almost lazy cadence to his voice, keeping his words quiet enough so Felipe couldn’t hear. Didn’t matter, since Danny was pretty sure Felipe didn’t understand English anyway

  “That’s a long haul,” Danny said, shoving his hands underneath his thighs and sitting hard on them to hold down what might have evolved into a noticeable shake. He looked down at his feet and could see the third toe of his left foot peeking at him through a hole in his sneakers. “Three, three and a half hard days, depending on where you’re headed.”

  He glanced at the shooter. “Most people fly down here except for truckers and those who have long-term rentals or own houses.”

  Danny was sweating even more than the evening called for, but nobody seemed to notice. The shooter kept one foot against his knapsack, knowing that way where it was all the time and keeping close track of it. A taxi horn honked twice in the street, and a group of tourists went by Felipe’s door, a male voice shouting, “Are you sure this’s the right way to Pizza Joe’s?”

  “Danny has Ford Bronco named Vito.” Luz had finished her cone and moved into the conversation, smelling money She knew they were short, and Luz liked margaritas and going uptown to hear Willie and Lobo and eating lobster at a beach restaurant up the coast in Bucerias. The shooter looked at her; lots of men looked at Luz. She was turned toward him, fine, slim legs crossed and running out from under her lavender dress, the hem of which had worked its way above her knees, wheat-colored sandal hanging from only one toe with silver nail polish on it.

  “Who’s Danny?”

  Luz poked her finger against Danny’s arm. “This Danny.” She was grinning and speaking pidgin English, which she did sometimes, even though she handled English just about perfectly when she felt like it. Danny signaled Felipe for another double shot.

  The shooter waved off a mosquito buzzing around his right ear, looked at Danny. “You interested in giving me a lift up there, to the border? Say, Laredo or Brownsville, maybe farther west?” Slow, easy words, as if he didn’t care when he might get to the border or if he got there at all.

  “Not particularly. If I were, I’d charge a hell of a lot more than a first-class ticket on Mexicana would cost.” Pretty good, Danny was thinking. A little cagey, showing lack of interest, but still leaving the door open, slowly getting back some of the old confidence from his killer journalism years. Do it the way you did when you were courting the Chicago mob and getting the dope for Chicago Underground, making them think they were tough, practical guys who grew up on the scramble while the carriage trade was going off to college. You’ve handled big dicks before, and the shooter comes off as an easygoing country boy compared to the Chicago wiseguys. Not too smart, either, shooting from the window of a crowded bar. The Chicago kids would have done it in the back on a dark street and ridden the evening train afterward. Danny—Danny boy—get up and get on the high wire and walk it. Walk the wire, concentrate on the other end and don’t look down.

  The shooter finished his drink, smiled again in that something less than genuine way of his. “I don’t like airplanes, never have. Friend dropped me off here from his sailboat. How much?” Now he was concentrating on Luz and her legs or the sandal dangling expectantly from her toe, or some or all of that.

  Danny sank back a little. This wasn’t working out quite the way he’d expected. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected, but this didn’t seem to be it. He was feeling somehow he ought to be more in control of the plot, yet the shooter seemed to be moving things along at his own pace. But there was something here worth the telling, something that could bring in some real money and a first-class piece of writing to boot. Danny didn’t know much about Mexican law, but in the States this would be called aiding and abetting. If he hauled this guy’s tail up to Laredo or wherever, would he be getting himself in serious trouble? Probably, but only if he actually knew the shooter had done something… which he did know.

  On the other hand, a writer’s got to take risks sometime, especially when you’re short and might have to take some kind of real job if things don’t pick up. Sit around on your can down at Las Noches and nothing happens. Rolling Stone would jump at this stuff if he did it as a Hunter Thompson gonzo kind of piece, or maybe it could be serialized in Esquire for ten grand and turned into a novel later on. Maybe a film option, too. Call it fiction or write it under a pseudonym. Or make up stuff and pass it off as true, call it “new journalism.”

  Danny’s agent was good at figuring out those details. He could hear her saying, “Go for it, Danny boy; this jerk’s nothing more than offal for the great American sausage machine called publishing. What’re you going to do with your remaining days, follow all the bullshit dictums of the careful life? Keep your hands in the boat, stay away from the road? Get a do-it-yourself will kit, have a V-8? A buck’s a buck, take ’im down. Besides, it’ll help with your support payments to Janice and little Robbie, which I understand you’re not making at the present time and better start making if you’re ever thinking about coming out of Mexico and joining the American parade again.”

  Something popped inside. “Three thousand American, plus expenses. Fifteen hundred up front.” Danny figured it was an absolute ripoff price, making it seem he wasn’t all that anxious to go north.

  The shooter didn’t even blink. “Done. When can we leave?”

  Caught on the stagger, Danny waited a second or two before answering, feeling his mind trying to make decisions without any help from him. Brain sent message to mouth, mouth talked. “Day or two. The Bronco needs a little work.”

  And while he was saying this out loud in a lurch toward high chance, he was also saying to himself, Back up, back down, get out and go home. Still, events have a force of their own once they’re under way, and it was too late, somehow. Somehow, too late. Confusing: tequila, money, Luz, back to el Norte and better things… no… yes… shit, what am I doing?

  “Would an extra two thousand plus twenty-five hundred front-end money get me a departure in the next couple of hours? I have to meet someone in Dallas.” Some part of Danny’s mind was working on the shooter’s accent, trying to place it. Mostly nondescript midwestern, with a hint of East Coast here and there on certain words.

  Somewhere in the middle of a tunnel closing behind him, Danny Pastor was looking backward and going forward at the same time. Mouth again: “The Mexican high-ways are messy, gets long and lonely out there, especially at night. Things can go wrong.”

  The shooter thought for a moment, then spoke slowly with an interior smile underneath his words. “Sounds like an overall description of life to me. What’s the problem, bad fellows?”

  “Maybe. Break down and the local thugs who have a general dislike for gringos might try to beat on us. Word is, bandidos are back in business on Fifteen up north and also around Durango, east in the mountains. On top of that, the federates can think up about a million reasons to give you trouble, even if you aren’t involved in any trouble to start with. They operate as their own law, more or less. Hard to tell ’em from the bandidos. Mexican law descends from the Napoleonic Code, not English common law, so habeas corpus is not part of doing business down here. They get you in jail and figure you’ll just sit there for life or until someone from the States sends a few thousand in bribe money to get you out.”

  The shooter toyed with his empty shot glass, tilted it up, and looked at the bottom. “Well, there’s two of us. We can watch each other’s backs, can’t we?”

  He glanced up at Danny, who wasn’t sure whether the question was rhetorical or required an answer, decided on the former, and focused momentarily on where the shooter was fiddling with his shot glass—the little finger on his left hand was missing.

  In any case, by the easy way h
e’d said it, the shooter obviously wasn’t worried about village thugs or bandidos, maybe not even federates or anyone else who might jump up and get in his way. He’d just cracked some important-looking gringo plus a naval officer for whatever reason, and he was sitting there with that hard little smile of his, like the whole thing was an evening stroll along the Malecón.

  Danny was still considering a fast tunnel backward toward the light of where he was an hour ago, toward recommended and sensible boundaries. Alternatives: Stay in Puerto Vallarta and ride Luz María’s warm and willing body into another thousand sunsets, get some real work done on another book while waiting for the next royalty check that’d be less than the previous one. Good choice, if low risk and even lower money were the criteria.

  Or, haul ass off into the Mexican night with a killer who might just put a pencil-size hole behind your right ear somewhere out on the road. At that level, bad choice. Still, five thousand for the ride plus another ten for the serial rights plus a book would sum to plenty of long, easy nights of Willie and Lobo, not to mention Luz, who could get especially willing and somewhere on the far side of enthusiastic with lobster and drink swirling around in her soft brown tummy. And maybe a few dollars up to Chicago for Janice and little Robbie, show good intentions and that sort of thing. Besides, Danny figured the shooter had no quarrel with him, and professional hit men don’t hit anybody they don’t have to. That’s one of their survival tactics, which is something Danny knew from his newspapering days on the streets of Chicago.

  So there was the business of money—the compulsions of greed or necessity, usually indistinguishable—plus the tequila in Danny’s head and the consequent upward slope of his risk curve toward imprudence. Not to mention ill-considered wed to misguided and penny wise cum imbecility. Later on, Danny Pastor would know Proust had it right: “It is always thus, impelled by a state of mind which is destined not to last, that we make our irrevocable decisions.”

  Some years before, Janice, Danny’s first and only wife, had said it differently, “Danny, make it a personal rule never to make decisions when you’re drinking. They’re always bad ones. Tattoo that rule on top of your thumb so you’ll see it when you lift the glass.”

  As they used to say, and put on T-shirts now, tequila has four stages:

  I’m rich,

  I’m beautiful,

  I’m bulletproof,

  I’m invisible.

  Danny was at stage three and climbing when he decided to take the shooter north, toward wherever it is men go when they’re out of their minds or in need of money… which amount to the same thing most of the time.

  BACK ROUTES

  Danny’s ’68 Bronco, torn seats and modified to three-on-the-floor with a choice of either two- or four-wheel drive, was boxy and high set and pretty much a rolling disaster. Standard issue for the expats who hung around beach towns. He’d bought it when he’d first come to Puerto Vallarta three years before, from another gringo down there squandering life. Salt wind and gritty dust had taken the original brown paint, and where you couldn’t see primer you saw rust, and where you couldn’t see rust you saw holes. After holes, infinity. It was parked under two scraggly almond trees, by the side of the building where Danny and Luz had an apartment on the second floor.

  The shooter stared at the Bronco. “Kind of a forlorn old sailor. Think it’ll make it to the border?”

  “With two days to get it ready I’d say the chances would be pretty good. Pulling out like we are, middle of the night and all, it’s anybody’s guess. I’ve got some new plugs and an extra fan belt in the house. I’ll bring ’em along.

  “Luz, start filling up those empty plastic water jugs we’ve been saving; we’ll probably need to top off the radiator more than once.”

  “How many miles on this thing called Vito?” The shooter touched one of the Bronco’s fenders.

  “Engine was replaced in seventy-six. Hundred and twenty-seven thousand on this one.”

  When the three of them had left El Rondo, Felipe, in a condition of studied lassitude, not to mention squinch eyed and feigning disinterest, was wiping off tables and his face with the same towel. Felipe was getting on, but he hadn’t lost his taste for pretty senoritas, and the gringos came and went, leaving young Mexican women behind and in need of counseling or a place to stay. One never knew. He’d gone to the door and watched the rear of the señorita’s lavender dress until they’d turned a corner and headed down Juarez, ducking back inside for a moment when the tall man in a blue shirt had turned and glanced at him.

  Danny had taken them down darkened back streets, past closed restaurants and tourist markets and small hotels with neon vacancy signs missing a letter or two. Danny and Luz had walked ahead of the shooter, who paused at each street crossing before stepping out and catching up, moving on long, easy strides of the kind that were soundless and a throwback to the veldwalkers who measured their distances by days and lifetimes. Later on, Luz would remark on that, how the tall, thin man hesitated at street crossings, as if he were afraid of being seen, how he covered ground like a big cat, like el gato walking soft in a mountain night.

  Halfway across the bridge on Insurgentes, they’d gone down stone steps to an island cutting the Río Cuale in two. The island was dark, and a short way along it was a suspension bridge crossing the south half of the river. A drunk had been hanging over the western bridge cable, vomiting into the river. They’d passed around him and cut down Constitucion to Madero and the apartment.

  In a state of tequila decline, mouth dry and nerves wobbly, Danny Pastor moved around the Bronco, checking tires, aware of the shooter standing a few feet away. Someone was playing a guitar in a nearby building, slightly out of tune and sounding muffled and distant and being just about the perfect launch music for Danny’s version of a run to el Norte. On a Tuesday night, with tomorrow a work day, it was mostly quiet along Madero, except for a group of people gathered at the end of the block, talking fast and pointing uptown where sirens were going off.

  “What else we need?” The shooter was leaning against one of the trees by the Bronco, looking up and down the street, then at Danny.

  “I’m not planning on camping out,” Danny said. “There’re resthouses, hotels, and other things of various stripes in the larger towns along the way. Depends how fancy you want to get. We’ll take some food, drinking water, and tools in case Vito decides to get balky, “fou got a hat? The sun’s a cannibal during the day.”

  The shooter gave his knapsack an easy slap. “Everything I need is in here.”

  Danny was pretty sure that was as true and profound as language got.

  “Where do we pick up the food and water?”

  “It’s a little this side of eleven-thirty. There’s a couple of small stores on Insurgentes that stay open late. We’ll get some things on our way out. “You sure must be in a hurry.” Danny wished he hadn’t said that, about the shooter being in a hurry. Not that there was anything wrong with it—a little off-the-cuff remark that might be expected—but it didn’t need to be said. Don’t say any more than you have to say. Stay back, stay quiet, watch and listen.

  “Not that much of a hurry. I finished up some business here tonight, and I’m restless. Got to see a man in Dallas in a few days, like I said, but I should make it all right. I thought if we got under way pronto, it might give us time to take a more scenic route on the way up.”

  “Mister… hell, I don’t even know your name. Mine’s Danny Pastor.”

  “You’re right, not very mannerly of me. Peter Schumann, here.”

  Danny didn’t believe him and went under the hood, checking the distributor wiresp adjusting the carburetor. “Like I started out to say before we got into introductions, any way up to the border is the scenic route.” His voice was reverberant in the closed space between hood and motor. He turned the carburetor screw, and the engine revved up for a moment before he leveled it back down.

  “You’ve obviously never seen the Mexican highway system. Not
bad in parts, pretty raw other places, holes in the pavement that’ll break an axle if I hit one in the dark, cattle standing in the middle of the road when you come around a corner. At night a whole lot of the Mexicans drive with their lights off for reasons that’ve never been all that clear to me. It’s a mess. Decided where you want me to drop you off, which border town?”

  “Still thinking about it. Got a map?”

  “Damn!” Danny had skinned two knuckles on his right hand yanking out the oil stick in the dark. He straightened up, wiping his hands on a greasy cloth. “There’s a good Mexican road map under the driver’s seat. Little torn and smudged, but still readable.”

  The shooter pulled a small flashlight out of a side pocket in his knapsack and unfolded the map.

  Vito turned over, rough and noisy, billowing blue smoke into the black night, bringing down a curse on Danny’s head from the apartment building next door. He shut off the engine just as Luz stumbled out of the house with a gallon water jug in each hand, long-billed fishing cap on her head and sweater over her shoulder. She’d changed into old jeans and a white T-shirt with “Puerto Vallarta Squeeze” printed in faded green letters on the front and featuring two halves of a lime lying over the appropriate parts of her chest along with what was supposed to be a rendering of lime juice dribbling down between those parts.

  “Wait a minute,” Danny said. “You don’t think for a minute you’re going along.” Risking his own hide for a story was one thing. Bringing Luz under that cloud was something else again.

  She nodded. “I want to see el Norte”

  “Luz, we’re not going to the United States. I’m dropping Mr. Schumann off at a border town and heading straight back here.”

  She looked up at Danny in a way that promised double helpings of whatever she could invent that was new and different and depraved, if he’d just take her on this voyage. That kind of skin-soft persuasion wasn’t good enough, not this time.