by David Rich
I relaxed on the terrace for a while, watching the flat bay and the lights of the resort below me. Then I sat in full lotus and brought up my vision, complete with Dan sticking his head out the window. He wanted to review the plans for the next morning with Shaw and Teresa, but I wanted my mind blank so I closed the window on him.
Later, on the couch, I let Dan calculate the full matrix of possibilities. Whenever my mind drifted to Junior, I could hear Major Hensel saying, “Don’t go after him.”
40.
Shaw knelt behind bushes on the sand dune, peeking out at the dirt road where Teresa stood beside the car, waiting for me. A small blue nylon duffel sat beside him. “Hey…” I said it softly, but he heard despite the noisy wind. He held a small automatic in his right hand. My gun was in my belt behind me. I left it there.
“I knew. I knew it…” He was shaking his head like a guy whose putt broke the wrong way. “You don’t have the money, do you?”
“You walked away from it before. I didn’t think you could do it twice.”
“It’s too much.” I wasn’t sure if he meant it the way Dan did: too much to do anything with, or too much to resist? “Did you have to nail her?”
“You wouldn’t have trusted me if I hadn’t. It was a matter of credibility.” The wind blew his curly hair around and rippled our shirts. The sun had us squinting. The high dunes blocked the view of the beach and the ocean, but I could smell it and hear the waves.
“How did you find me?”
“Teresa told me where you were going.” He knew it was a lie and it was all he would get. “But I don’t know when you took the what? Three million nine?”
“When you and Teresa went into the store to buy the recorder.”
“You were the inside man from the start. You were there when Dan was killed. It was your idea to give me the jeep and the money and to turn me loose.”
“That’s right, pal. You can thank me for that. McColl had different ideas for you.”
“But you let them kill Dan.”
“Not even Dan wanted to stop that. There was nothing I could do.”
He was right. The only thing he could have done was not played the game, and that wouldn’t have saved Dan, either. “You were good. You took the punch. Stayed out of my way, let me do the work. I got rid of all the barnacles. Except Junior. I can’t figure how he fit with you.”
Shaw smiled. He wasn’t going to tell me that and I felt foolish for asking. It was probably as simple as Junior sniffing around the money and Jessica drawing him off the scent.
“And then once I had the money, you set me up to get killed by General Remington.”
“I was just giving you what you wanted. You kept bringing him up. I sure didn’t. Every sucker wants something. C’mon, you’re Dan’s son, you know how it goes.”
“What do you know about Dan?”
“I knew him in Iraq. Great guy. We worked some projects together. Dan knew his stuff. He talked about you, too. Very proud father.”
I let that one pass. “Here’s what I think you should do. Take about one hundred thousand out of the duffel, then join your girlfriend, get in the car, and go anywhere you want. Stay around here if you want.”
“I’m holding the gun.”
“Then use it. You’re not stupid enough to do that. My offer is the best one you’ll get. I found you. Kill me and someone else will find you and they won’t be as generous. You’ll spend all the money hiding and it won’t work anyway. This way, you walk away with a little working capital, plenty of suckers to fleece, and no one on your tail.” His shoulders sagged. He knew he should accept, but no one likes being outmaneuvered. His phone rang. He ignored it while he tried to find a winning angle.
Behind him, Teresa came over the dune. She yelled, “You bastard.” Shaw turned. With my left hand, I pulled his right wrist forward, around my left side, and slid my right arm around his elbow. Maybe his arm didn’t break. The gun fell and he fell. I picked up the gun and then the duffel.
From the ground, he looked at Teresa moving toward us, and for a moment, he looked like a guy checking out a babe at the beach. What a gift. He got up and used his left hand to brush sand from his shirt. “For Gladden? Remington? Who you doing this for? I figured Dan’s son would be looking out for himself.”
I took out a handful of bundles of bills and tossed them on the sand. “That’s enough to keep you going.” He did not bend down for them. I knew it disgusted him to be on the receiving end of that move: the cheap payoff to mollify the mark. “It’ll blow away,” I said.
“You bastard,” Teresa said. I think she was talking to Shaw.
I had only taken about ten steps when I heard the shouts: “Dammit!” Both of them were yelling. I didn’t have to turn. Hundred-dollar bills were swirling in the air all around me.
41.
Suddenly Guaymas looked like a wonderland to me. Every cliff was a perfect spot from which to launch a body. The ravines were just natural, impenetrable graves. The desert was filled with nooks and crannies, dining rooms for carnivorous vermin. The harbor was deep with potential; even the garbage in the alleys sent my imagination on fire. I felt no shame at this exercise because I knew I was just one in a long line of Junior’s acquaintances to fantasize about dumping his dead body somewhere. How many had explicit orders not to go after him?
The duffel of money went into my American car, parked in the hotel lot. I took five thousand dollars to the bank near the plaza where I had seen Junior and changed it into pesos. It didn’t seem that Junior had located me so I went to my hotel, hoping he had staked it out. I didn’t spot him outside and he wasn’t waiting in my room. I showered and took a nap, telling myself that if, when I woke up, Junior was not to be seen, I would start back to Pendleton; if Junior was around, I would have to deal with him. When I went outside, around six p.m., the black Dodge was parked at the far end of the lot.
I tried out a small lie: It would be useless to run; he’ll just keep tracking me; I must deal with him immediately. But that always ended with: But he came after me; I had to kill him; it was essential, defensive, prudent.
If Major Hensel bought that story, it would mean he was either corrupt or stupid and I would have to quit SHADE before I started because, either way, it would mean failed missions and wasted effort, at best. For the story of Junior’s demise to pass Major Hensel, I would have to be left out. Completely.
South of the harbor, a row of low-down bars serviced the sailors and fishermen. A few enterprising, optimistic prostitutes hung around: early-bird specials. After parking, I circled around so I could see where Junior left the black Dodge. I picked a tavern away from the cars and sat at the bar and nursed a few beers, talking baseball with the old guy to my right and the bartender who was missing one eye. We spoke Spanish, but I did not want them to worry that I was a cop so I let them know I was a gringo. Fishermen drifted in. The jukebox played a mix of Mexican and American rock and roll. Somebody especially liked Freddy Fender.
“Come in, Junior. Confront me. Threaten me. Pull a weapon.”
“Hey, buddy boy, hand over the money. It’s mine.”
“Nothing is yours, Junior. You’re a…” A what? A scumbag? What would be the use of calling him anything? Of talking to him at all? Junior was beyond words and he thought by now, he was beyond punishment, beyond shame. Punching him out would not bring enough pain for him or enough satisfaction for me.
I looked at the old man next to me and said, “My father is a big-time general in the Marines, very powerful and very much feared. So no matter what I do, I can get away with it. Okay?”
The old man got up quickly and left. No one around here would care about Junior’s connections. Junior did not come in so I drained my beer, and leaned toward the bartender, and told him I wanted to buy cocaine. He rolled his eye. I gave him two thousand pesos. “Para usted. De buena fe.”
I followed two friendly, happy-go-lucky, south-of-the-border dudes down to their boat, where they sold me twel
ve thousand pesos’ worth of cocaine, which I asked them to divide into three bags. They were happy to do it. “Are you sure you don’t want to try it? We want satisfied customers. You can send your friends.”
“There is something else,” I said. “Someone is following me. I’ll pay you an additional five thousand pesos if you’ll just delay him. Don’t hurt him, please. I need about ten minutes.”
“You bet, amigo. No problem. We know a lot about hassling people.”
We started walking back to the bar. I was about to say good-bye, have them deal with Junior, but I had another problem. “You guys know where I could pick up a coat hanger and maybe a screwdriver around here?”
“How about just use a slim jim, amigo?” We walked back to the boat to fetch the tool. They refused to accept money for it. “We have a bunch of them. Come back if you need more blow, okay. And we’ll look after your friend.” But Junior was not following me. I wandered around for a while, then signaled to the dudes. I paid them for their trouble and called them off and headed toward the bar.
A young prostitute fell in beside me. She spoke enough English to get her job done and I let her go on with it. “You very handsome hombre. I love you. Come with me.”
“And you’re very beautiful and I love you, too. Very much. But not right now.”
“Now, okay? Cheap deal. Cheap deal special for you.”
“How cheap is cheap tonight?” She didn’t understand or wasn’t sure. She looked back at the small Ford trailing us, driven by her pimp. “One thousand pesos,” she said.
That was pretty cheap. But I wanted to find out just how much in love with me she really was. “Two hundred,” I said.
She looked back to the pimp in the car and held up two fingers. He held up one. She shook her head and said, “Doscientos pesos. Doscientos.” He paused, then shrugged and nodded. Maybe he was in love with me, too. Maybe they did not love me at all and someone else was subsidizing the difference.
I paid her on the spot and took her arm, and she led me to a crumbling three-story building where two sleazy guys hung out at the door. The pimp followed us. He called out to the sleazy guys and they moved aside to allow my new love and me inside the courtyard. A concrete staircase ran up the right side to an outer walkway. Flaco Jiménez and his accordion, or someone who did a good imitation, was playing from two different rooms with competing songs. In the courtyard, a disused molded plaster fountain was half filled with still, fetid water and cigarette butts. I threw a coin in and smiled at my love. “Which room?”
She pointed to a room on the left side of the second floor. The lights were out. She glanced back toward the gate. I could see the tail end of the pimp’s car idling. My love marched for the stairs, but I stood still. She stopped at the bottom and turned back and smiled at me. She shifted her pose in a way she thought was enticing and gestured for me to join her. I moved away from the staircase, under the left-side walkway, so I would not be visible from the room. “Ven aquí, por favor,” I said quietly.
She was scared. She looked toward the gate but no help was coming from there. I held up a bunch of pesos. When she came close, I held out my hand. “The key. La llave.” I rustled the pesos in my other hand. “Give me the key, then go. Don’t hang around. He won’t find you.”
She understood.
I moved deeper under the walkway, deeper in the shadows. When the sleazy guys glanced in, they didn’t see me, so their eyes rose up to the room on the second floor. They shrugged in unison and retreated. Flaco stopped playing in one room. And a moment later, he stopped in the other room. The only sound was the scratching of the rodents near the stairway.
Junior was making it easy for me. I could burst in and shoot him; he would be hiding, probably in the closet, waiting for me to get in bed with my love. I had the cocaine to leave with his body: another gringo drug casualty. Or I could wait right where I was and shoot him when he came down, frustrated and angry, ready to take it out on the pimp and the whore.
“Don’t go after him.”
There would be no witnesses. If there was an investigation, it would not lead to me. He had caged himself and no one could make an argument for mercy. I took out the gun and spun the cylinder to make sure it was loaded, and I started for the stairs. Two steps were all I could take. I knew I could kill Junior and come out alive, but this felt like a trap, a trap made of crumbling concrete and rusted iron and the foul stench of the fountain, which would cling forever. Flaco started playing again at once in both rooms. I put the gun in the backpack and walked out.
Two fishermen and their wives or dates watched me open the Dodge with the slim jim. I put my gun in Junior’s glove box along with one bag of cocaine. Another bag went under the driver’s seat and the last in the bottom section of the trunk, tucked in with the spare.
I asked for an outside table at the restaurant down the street from the car, ordered a beer and arroz con camarones, because camarones are a big specialty in Guaymas and I didn’t want to leave without having any. Using the pay phone inside, I called the PFM, the local police, and even the uniformed federales, giving them all the details on Junior’s car. I spoke only Spanish and gave no hint of my identity. Having been burned twice with authorities letting Junior off the hook, I thought that if multiple agencies were in on the bust, there would be a better chance of the charges sticking.
I forced myself to eat slowly. Everything was control at that point. The cops were in place within twenty minutes. I don’t know which organization arrived first. I paid my bill and waited. Ten minutes later, Junior strode into the square, heading for his car. I looked away, and when I glanced around a moment later, he was gone.
He could not spot me sitting out in the open cafe, but I knew where he would go to look for me. I strolled down to the bar where I had sat before, came out, and walked to my car, taking my time. Inside, I watched in the rearview mirror as Junior hustled back to his car. It was easy as leading a dog on a leash.
I started the car. And I let the thoughts of confrontation drift away: pleasing fantasies of indulgence vaporizing, as they should. I was following Major Hensel’s orders, Colonel Gladden’s example of restraint, and Dan’s lifetime of lessons: a line so crooked that toeing it required a crazy dance. I pulled into the street to get a better angle in the mirror.
Junior put the key in the car door and sprang the trap. Cops came at him from all directions. I drove away.
42.
Kate’s office said she was on vacation. Scott’s boat wasn’t in the slip. Maybe they were honeymooning. Major Hensel met me at Air Station Miramar. I handed over the money I took from Shaw and gave him the accounting he asked for of the money left in the cave. I neglected to mention the money I gave Loretta. He didn’t ask about Junior.
“What do I do now?”
“What do you want to do?”
“That’s a lousy question to ask, sir.”
“I know the answer. I just want to see if you know it, or will admit it.”
I knew the answer, too. And I didn’t want to admit it. This guy was good. He could even read my expression.
“The other graves full of money.”
“Where do I start?”
“Start at the beginning.”
The beginning? “Back in the brig, sir?”
“You’re shipping out to Baghdad. I have someone for you to speak with at the morgue. I’ll leave it to you how to proceed, but keep me informed at all times. That’s important.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And Lieutenant, I’m pretty sure there is exactly twenty-five million dollars in each of the graves.”
“Yes, sir. Oh, one thing. If there is more money in one of the graves, what should I do with the extra?”
“Your plane leaves in two hours, Lieutenant.”
I sat in the terminal letting my mind go blank. Families waited for their fathers and mothers to arrive. Some of the kids ran around according to some mysterious game. Other kids sat tight and nervous and, probably, scared.
A plane arrived, everyone stood as if they had been told “All rise” in church. The kids who had been running around were ordered to stop and stand with the rest of the family. Every one of them got it immediately. Marines, men and women, strode from the tunnel, most of them looking around expectantly with sharp, cautious eyes that softened and teared when they found who they were looking for. A sergeant fell to his knees and kissed the dirty tile floor, and a specialist wasn’t paying attention and tripped over the sergeant. Others helped them both up and everyone laughed and kept moving. Some kids were shy about greeting their parents; some hogged the hugs.
The outbound passengers around me watched it all carefully with their spouses or girlfriends or boyfriends or parents or kids. I don’t know how many were jealous of the new arrivals. They all should have been, but it’s a difficult thing to admit. Probably quite a few had already been through it before. Except for one blubbering teenage daughter, the tears had not yet started for the outbound group.
My plan was to have no plan, get a slow start in the hope I could see it all with fresh eyes. But Dan had some ideas to plant and would not be denied.
“Thank me,” he said. “I got you the best job you’ve ever had. SHADE. You could get rich.”
“I’m not going to steal the money. None of it.”
“I know that, Rollie Boy. You’re too smart for that. But you’re going to Iraq. There’s turmoil. Maybe to Kurdistan. They’re hungry. Want their own country. They have oil. You can offer them help. Information. Contacts. You’re in a position to have the greatest job of all.”
I knew the answer, but I asked just to hear him say it. “What’s that?”
