The cars were all late-model American, with dark windows and no markings. I didn’t make them for government since they didn’t have a police escort or the usual garden of federal, state, and regional flags blossoming off every fender. I turned to a man standing next to me on the curb, asked him who it might be.
He looked carefully both ways before responding, curled his lips and said, “Ese puerco, Mario Bravo.”
Then he spat onto the sidewalk as if the words were venom in his mouth. It took me a second to place the name. He was one of the crime bosses in the area that Vito had reported on earlier. It occurred to me then that I no longer had any business standing on that corner.
“Taxi!” I shouted, stepping back into the street. “Taxi!”
62
I had no particular reason for following Bravo, not even a death wish. The only thing I knew about him was that he was some sort of big shot in the Baja rackets, if there was such a thing. But then again, I didn’t have anything else to go on and there was always the chance I’d spot a better restaurant while following him.
He did me one better. After just a mile or so, the flotilla of cars pulled up in front of an impressive three-story white stucco building with vented pink awnings and a sweeping terra-cotta staircase in front. The stairs were faced with colored Mexican tiles and flanked by huge iron lanterns on either end. Doormen in gold jackets swarmed down the fancy steps, buzzing around the limousines parked under a script neon sign that spelled HOTEL CORTÉS in bright salmon letters.
A few other dark limos were parked alongside the hotel, with men who looked a little too serious to be drivers loitering around them. The joint was apparently the cat’s pajamas for Ensenada’s dice and vice set. I was intrigued.
I let the cab pass by the hotel, then told the driver to stop at the corner. I didn’t recognize anyone as we passed, but I saw a burly man in a white suit brushing off a brace of obsequious types who surrounded him. That was probably Bravo.
By the time I’d gotten out of the cab and paid the driver, the swarm of bodies had gone up the staircase, but I caught just a fleeting glimpse of a woman’s dress in the crowd as she disappeared into the building. I was a little more intrigued.
I had no idea who the woman was. Maybe it was Bravo’s grandmother or sister, or a nun, but I doubted it. Didn’t matter, the dynamic was different. A woman changes everything.
A group of bad guys is a group of bad guys, but throw a woman into the mix and you’ve got a whole new game. Sex, or maybe romance, a curbing of brute behavior at the least, chivalry at best, that charge in the air, that iron taste on the tongue, those unchecked and impossible thoughts in the minds of those who should know better. A woman changes everything—and seldom for the better.
I decided to take a closer look.
63
I played it straight, walking right up the stairs and into the hotel. Some guy in a gold jacket even held the door for me.
I stepped inside, surveying the lobby for a moment, noting the two men in front of the closed wooden doors on the far side of the room. A mustachioed concierge met my glance, smiled, and came forward to meet me in the middle of the lobby, his rose jacket gliding across the room like a low-flying flamingo.
His skin was a perfect brown, bereft of imperfections, and where it was pulled back around his pink gums, an army of ivory white teeth stood at attention to face me. His hair was jet black and crisp, and parted so lovingly and perfectly that I was sure I’d find a level and a tape measure in his pocket if I checked. A vaguely floral scent permeated the air around us. He was one hell of a dandy, this guy, right down to his white bucks.
I measured him coolly with my eyes, said, “Buenas tardes, señor. I was wondering if I might have some lunch today.”
He grimaced ever so slightly, as if he’d just swallowed a tiny sliver of glass. “I am terribly sorry, señor; any other day and I could offer you the finest dining in Ensenada.”
“But today … ?” I asked, lingering over the words, knowing the answer to come.
“But today the dining room has been rented for a private engagement.” He made a wonderful faux smile, his waxed mustache rising perfectly at each end of his mouth.
“Ohhh. Too bad,” I said in mock dejection. “Mind if I look around the lobby? It’s a lovely place, I might want to stay here tonight.”
“Certainly, sir. There is no finer place on the Frontera. We would love to have you.”
Fine. Fine. Everything was fine with him. It was fine with me, too. I said so. We spent an awkward moment admiring each other, then he excused himself to cut across the polished marble toward an English couple that had come down the grand staircase dressed for a coronation.
I moved off slowly, smiling at him once more when he eye-checked me, then slipped around a corner when a throng of people passed through the lobby.
I didn’t really have a plan, just wanted to get a better look at Bravo. Maybe Spazzo was with him. There couldn’t be that many full-blown bad guys in Ensenada, and none of the others were likely to drop into my lap the way Bravo had. Sometimes you get lucky.
I was due.
The restaurant’s name, El Jardín, Spanish for “The Garden,” was painted on the wall above the wooden doors where the two guards stood. I’d seen places named that before and they were typically courtyard affairs with open-air dining amid small palms and potted plants—the sort of place where everyone has a perfect smile and a chauffeur, and it never, ever rains.
The doors were large enough to suggest a good-size courtyard. That meant the best vantage point would be from above. I wasn’t going to get very far trying to pass myself off as the busboy anyhow.
At the end of the hallway I took the narrow side staircase up one flight and slowly pushed the door at the top open. The hallway was empty and the doors all closed. I figured that I was about halfway down the courtyard, so I knocked lightly on the door of the guest room closest to me. No one answered. The knife trick worked again—I can’t remember when it hasn’t.
The room was made up and well appointed, but I wasn’t staying. I cut across the floor to the window and pulled back the curtain to have a look. The view opened onto a courtyard as I suspected. Leaning forward toward the window, I put my nose to the glass and looked down.
A short, tiled roof ringed the courtyard beneath the guest room windows, a dozen or more people visible below it. They were seated in the middle of the open space at long dining tables arrayed in a box pattern. On the far side of the courtyard, I could see just the legs of a man facing me, the end of a pistol tight at his side. The roofline blocked his upward view, but also cut off a good deal of my visibility of the activity below.
I wanted to see who was present, but I didn’t have a reason to take any further risk. It appeared to be some bad guys having lunch, nothing more. Maybe it was their annual awards ceremony, or a company picnic, but it really wasn’t worth getting shot to find out who won for Best Supporting Gunsel.
And then I saw her. The woman in the dress appeared suddenly from beneath the overhanging roof as she leaned forward to pick up her wineglass. I stooped down low, squinting tightly as I strained to focus on her. But I needn’t have bothered.
It was Helen.
64
I stood up, let the curtain fall, and slumped numbly against the wall as I tried to make some sense from this latest inexplicable twist. There she was, not a prisoner but a lunch date. The whole thing was now profoundly absurd.
Who was this woman? Who was she with? And what the hell was I doing there? A hundred other questions ping-ponged across my mind, the preeminent one being: How in hell was I going to get her out of there?
I took several deep breaths and thought it over. Bravo didn’t know me, wouldn’t recognize me, but Spazzo would—and that would be game over. If Helen was there, it followed that the zoot-suit king was, too, probably just out of sight.
Surprise, a key element in any engagement, was mine, but firepower and numbers overwhelmingly fav
ored the other side. This was a fight you walked away from all the way—if you were looking for a fight. But all I wanted was to get Helen out of that room without firing a shot, without making a sound.
I thought of a way, but it required me to get her attention, and it also depended on her not being so startled she gave me away. I had total confidence in one of us.
65
The wood creaked just a little as I slid the mesquite frame open, but not enough for anyone to notice. Fortunately, the window and most of the lower roof were still hidden in the shade from the overhang above me, but the line was creeping backward as the sun arced past the midday point. The lower foot of the roof was already in bright sunlight, so I had maybe twenty minutes of cover.
Slinking out slowly until my waist was even with the sill, I leaned out the window, raising my feet as a balance. Then, placing my hands on the adobe tiles as a brace, I slid down as low as I could get. The tiles were still cool, but they would heat up quick in the sun. The position was awkward, and hurt like hell, but it afforded me a clear view of the principals at the facing table below.
The big fellow in the white linen suit sat in the middle. He had some Spaniard in him, his fine brown skin several shades lighter than that of his companions. It was offset by a textbook desperado mustache, so heavy and sharply angled that it must have been shaped with a chisel. His hands were large and adorned with gold rings just buckling from the weight of their gemstones. On his wrist, he wore a chunky gold bracelet that rivaled a small mine’s entire annual output. A pistol butt protruded from beneath his jacket.
I couldn’t see his face clearly, but he seemed raffishly handsome and given to rousing bursts of laughter. I heard someone address him as Señor Bravo.
Helen had gone native. She wore silver bracelets and a pale-blue cotton dress of local origin, indigenous designs ringing the white border around her bust. She sat as distantly from Bravo as she could while still being in the same room, seemingly bored to death by the conversation, which was in Spanish. Her face was blank, her mouth a slit. She didn’t touch a bite of the fried lobster or avocado salad in front of her, but sipped occasionally from a glass of sangria, a cigarette smoldering softly between her fingers, wisps of smoke backflipping into the balmy air around her.
Several lieutenant types bracketed them, engaging in casual conversation with unseen parties across the table. On either side of the tables, I made out the legs of standing men who were almost certainly guards, their bodies cut off at the thighs by pink sun umbrellas. The guard across from me was now visible to chest level but his head was still out of sight. I didn’t see or hear Spazzo anywhere.
I was way out on a limb in a very real sense, but I had to shimmy down just a little lower to get Helen’s attention. Flattening myself as much as possible against the warming tiles, I stretched out toward the edge of the roof.
The Baja sun above blazed down upon me as it edged past the overhang, radiating heat tendrils on my neck and arms. Sweat began dripping off my forehead, making tiny splashes on the baked clay roof as I crawled forward.
From nowhere, a raven suddenly fluttered down onto the tiles just a few feet away, flapping his big wings several times as he settled in.
He hopped about on the roof edge a bit, looked over at me once, and then turned his attention to the courtyard diners. He regarded the men below then began a mischievous cawing.
One of the men looked up, straight at the bird, for the longest time.
I froze in fear, waiting for the shouting to begin, but nothing happened. I could tell by his squinting that the sun was almost directly in his line of sight, blinding him to anything above the ledge. After what felt like minutes, he looked away.
Inching forward into the light, my face pressed flat against the steaming adobe, I finally reached the edge of the roof, maybe thirty feet from Helen. Then I waited.
Periodically, she or one of the banditos would look around or up, but with the sun still relatively high above me, I remained lost in the shadows and streaming light. Lunch went on and on, the conversation about drinking and whoring and some poor son of a bitch who found his way into mother earth for a power play gone wrong.
The sun beat down, sweat drenching my shirt, and the raven stayed on, watching the diners, but Helen didn’t look up. Still I waited.
Finally, she propped an elbow on the table and laid her chin upon it, dialed out of the whole situation. Bravo said something to her but she didn’t respond.
Just then the raven finally took flight, flapping off with a final, noisy caw. Helen’s eyes rolled upward toward the bird, toward me.
I took my chance.
Gently but deliberately, I raised my right hand and waved it side to side a few inches above the roofline. She paused, then cocked her head. I could see her eyes focusing on my shaded figure. She made one of those dull faces people make when they’re trying to cipher something.
I lifted my head just a little more, pulling my lips back in an anxious smile. A bead of sweat rolled into the corner of my eye, but I stayed locked in.
Then it hit her, the recognition that it was me. Actress or not, her reaction betrayed her, green eyes doubling in size as her face turned bone white. Her mouth fell open just a crack as she mouthed my name.
I shot her a tight smirk; she was due a surprise of her own.
Helen raised a hand to her face and she dropped her head slightly, then she didn’t move at all for several seconds. I visually checked Bravo and the others. They hadn’t noticed—they were too busy telling stories about dead men and yukking it up.
When I looked back at her, she was still gawking at me, an incredulous look on her face she shielded with her hand. I pointed to her, then made a hit-the-road gesture with my thumb, repeating it several times.
“Get out of there,” I said in a minute whisper, accentuating my facial movements for emphasis.
Helen’s eyes interrogated me, but her face was a mask. The mask slowly melted into an I’ll be damned smile, and she closed her eyes and made a subtle nod. Then she turned toward Bravo and spoke, pointing toward the front of the hotel as she did, probably telling him she was going to the ladies’ room. He nodded and gestured to one of his men. She stood up, then walked languidly out of sight, followed by the gunman.
I pushed myself away from the ledge by degrees, fading slowly back into the retreating darkness. Slinking backward up the wall, I slipped into the room, watching the men below the whole time. I paused a moment as the pieces of my spine popped back into place, grunting a little as each grudging bone locked back in.
There was no sign that anyone below had seen me. I grinned in self-congratulation just a little as I closed the window and pulled the curtains shut, planning a very speedy checkout from the Hotel Cortés.
When I turned around, a mustachioed man in a gold jacket gave me a big, broad smile.
Then he stuck two pistols in my face.
Smiling back at Gold Jacket, I said, “This room won’t do, thank you, I don’t much care for the view.”
He was not amused.
I went to my trick bag. Sweeping my hands upward, I tried to deflect his weapons away with my forearms. I got the left one, but he was too quick with the right, bringing it down hard across my chin, dazing me.
He was behind me in a flash, tripping me with a shove and a raised boot. The floor came up quick and then I was done, sprawled forward with Gold Jacket on my back, both of his guns jammed against the base of my skull.
“Adelante, gringo,” he growled, just begging me to make another move.
66
Mario Bravo watched me walk, the conversation in the courtyard falling away as I approached the table, a trickle of blood running from the corner of my mouth and a pair of handguns pressed to my ribs.
Another gunsel leaped to his feet as I passed, gratuitously smacking his pistol against my temple hard enough to make me wince. He was a sawed-off little shit with a low widow’s peak and pointy yellow teeth that he kept baring at me
. I think he was actually drooling a bit with excitement. He was bucking for tough hombre, but he looked more like a teen vampire. Must have been a helluva sight as the three of us marched toward the head table: the mysterious stranger, the pistol-packing porter, and Pocket Dracula.
Gold Jacket stopped me ten feet out and shoved half his arsenal under my chin, grinding the muzzle up tight against my skin. Bravo put his fork down, dabbed a canary yellow cloth napkin to his mouth, tossed it away with an insouciant flip, and then leaned back into his curved wicker chair.
He put an elbow on the chair arm, resting his chin in the crook between thumb and index finger, studying me as he might a zoo exhibit as I stood before him, his dark eyes dancing with curiosity. Several of his men had drawn their weapons, but he never so much as blinked.
Gathering his lips in a mirthful grin he asked, “Quién es este hombre?” in a baritone that was rich and full and majestic, the words wrapped in a flawless Castilian accent that flowed from his mouth like molten gold.
“Joe Buonomo,” I said before anyone could answer. “Y yo hablo español, Señor Bravo.”
This positively delighted him. He sat straight up and wet his lips, looking directly into my eyes for the first time. He took the measure of my face, leaned back again, and crossed his arms slowly across his chest as if he were Cuauhtémoc at a war council.
As he sat there in bemused reflection, Gold Jacket approached him and whispered into his ear for several seconds. Bravo arched one eyebrow while he listened, his face dipping down into a stony glare.
“Señor Buonomo,” he began in a Stratford-upon-Avon accent, “my associate here says you have placed yourself in a highly untenable situation. Please, sir, pray tell, what might you have been doing on that rooftop? And let me caution you that your life may depend on the answer you furnish me.”
One for Our Baby Page 19
