Goodbye Mexico

by Phillip Jennings

  “Oh, Jack,” she laughed, “you sound just like that damn Gearheardt.”

  She giggled at her bold language, so I said goodbye and hung up.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  I’LL BE DOWN TO GET YOU IN A TAXI, HONEY

  I dropped by my apartment to clean up and change clothes, as well as fill a leather case. I wasn’t sure when I would be going, or where for that matter. If things worked out, I could possibly return and stay in my apartment again, but with Gearheardt in charge of planning …

  The apartment had a slight odor I didn’t recognize. Almost like someone had cooked a meal, or roasted a goat. The Pygmy had been in my apartment. Gearheardt was supposed to have called him off. And I meant to ask Crenshaw about him. But I just had too many things on my mind.

  Sitting on the sofa sipping one last Scotch and water, I thought about Marta. It seemed ages since she was tripping around the place au natural. I missed it. I knew that one of the reasons I had decided to back Gearheardt’s plan (although he didn’t know I was backing it yet) was Marta. I didn’t want her to have to go back to being a prostitute either. I found a couple of spare clips for my nine millimeter, made my bed (once a mama’s boy, always a mama’s boy) and left to hook up with Gearheardt.

  I found him hard at work on the plan … if you call MC’ing a butt-measuring contest on the second floor of Las Palomas working on the plan.

  “Jack, just the man I want to see,” he said as I walked in. “How thick would you say that two layers of material, say silk, could be? I’m trying to convince these girls that getting measured in their underwear is misleading. Don’t you think?”

  “I’m not sure, Gearheardt. I wouldn’t think that your measuring was all that accurate.” I didn’t know whose side I was supposed to be on.

  The girls, all fifteen of them, squealed. “You lie to us, Gearheardt. Maybe we pull off your pants and measure you,” the bleached blonde said. She had on what I think was called a Baby Doll negligee. Folded up twenty times I couldn’t imagine the thickness of the material was more than a thousandth of an inch.

  “I show my butt by appointment only, Victoria. But we’ll just have to declare Teresa the winner. Come here, Teresa, and get your prize.”

  “I take the prize in appointment only, Señor Gearheardt.”

  The girls thought this was a great comeback and everyone laughed at Gearheardt’s embarrassment. He started to get out of his comfortable leather judging- chair.

  “Señor Gearheardt,” a lovely, sure bottom measurement winner said loudly, “why are we not living in the Chapultepec Castle? You said that we would move there.”

  Gearheardt looked at me as if I was supposed to have an answer. I shrugged.

  “I’ll tell you the truth, ladies. I did promise that, but I’m having the place redecorated. It was way too trashy for your tastes.”

  The girl spoke so rapidly in Spanish that I could tell even Gearheardt was lost.

  “What was that, Laquita?”

  “Es sound of toro going bathroom.”

  Gearheardt held his head high in defeat as we left the room. In the hallway, he stopped me. “All of the girls are not ISP here. I have to be careful what I tell them.”

  “So how did you do with the Halcones? Did you see Eduardo and get their cooperation for tomorrow?”

  “Are you kidding me? Eduardo almost wet his pants when I told him he could look at the traffic from Mexican brothels as well as the overseas brothels that Mexican diplomats might have visited. He’s up there right now with Lisa.”

  “Isn’t that a little dangerous, to turn him loose with the files?”

  “He’s only seeing traffic a year or older. I called ahead and had Daisy move everything current into her room. Jack, the Marines couldn’t get into Daisy’s room without suffering major casualties. How’d you get along with Friar Crenshaw?”

  I looked up and down the hall. It was empty but sounds of music and muffled laughter came through the walls. “Its okay,” Gearheardt said. “The only customers right now are foreign businessmen. But I don’t want to go upstairs until that damn Eduardo is gone.”

  “Okay. Well, the Major was pretty nice actually. Said he understood how I got into this. Thinks you’re the anti-Christ. Gave me the plans. Said he’d take care of things tomorrow on his end.” I paused, sorting our loyalties. “You do know he’s personally planning to go to Havana?”

  Gearheardt looked around, probably to see if Daisy was about, and then lit a cigarette. “Not a shock to me. Some guys think they can do anything.” He smiled. “So it looks like we’re just about all set to go. We’ll brief the Good Cubans tonight. I meet with Victor at eleven o’clock. Then tomorrow, we change the world.”

  “Hmmmm,” I said. “Gearheardt, about your plan. I know that it means a lot to you and that you seem to have things all worked out. I just—”

  A few of the girls came into the hall and excused themselves by us. They smelled terrific. Just as Veronica passed she dropped her magazine and leaned down from the waist to pick it up. Gearheardt bit his knuckle. Then rolled his eyes at me.

  “Jack, don’t even mention it. I should have told you the truth when we were holed up in the El Diablo that first night. We’re on track now. Let’s just move ahead.” He held out his hand and I took it.

  “You do understand that I mean—”

  “Jack, let me tell you something. Women who have had babies on average have bigger butts than those that haven’t. Seems logical, but I just never thought of it. You have to allow for age and bone structure, but—”

  “Oh for God’s sakes, Gearheardt. I’m trying to tell you something important.”

  “Gearheardt, you are smoking out there?”

  “Shit.” He handed the cigarette to me and took off down the hall in the opposite direction from where Daisy’s voice had boomed out. This was a man who flew unarmed helicopters into landing zones where people were shooting fifty caliber weapons at him.

  Daisy came thundering around the corner. When she reached the spot I seemed to be glued to, she grabbed the cigarette from my fingers. Opening the door nearest her, she stepped in and dropped the cigarette into a glass of water on the bedside table. The couple on the bed, inflagrante delecto, were in stop action. Some ugly Spanish flew over the man’s shoulder until Daisy walked to the bed and slapped his bare butt. The man quieted and Daisy came out and shut the door behind her. She glared at me and then tromped back in the direction she had come from. Her high heels clicked and I saw about half a mile of bare leg when her negligee flared as she turned the corner. I blew out my breath.

  Gearheardt was no where to be found so I went back into the reception room. Chiquita and her sister were cleaning the place up, picking up magazines, replacing cushions onto the leather couches and rearranging the flower in the vases. Getting ready for the evening rush hour.

  “Ola, Señor Jack,” Chiquita said. “You are a very handsome man. I am telling my mother that you will be my first.” She blew a kiss to me.

  “That’s very flattering, Chiquita. I don’t think that would be a very good idea. I am a homosexual.” I never thought I would be saying that to a beautiful girl. In the game room, I sat down without looking at the plaque underneath the Ibex horns, the one that had the small brown shriveled bag mounted on it. I could see Chiquita and her sister through the open double doors, whispering and giggling, looking at me with pity.

  After a while, I closed my eyes and began to relax. The die was cast. My fate was in the hands of a lunatic. But it had been there before. My job was to keep Victor Ramirez from shooting the President of Mexico, and then to hole up in Havana, presumably running Gearheardt’s network of prostitutes, until the Marines came. The plot was pretty thin, but then I could remember when we unleashed a trillion dollar bombing campaign because some fishing boats took potshots at boats the size of Rockefeller Center in the Gulf of Tonkin.

  I was becoming resigned to the fact that history books were filled with borders and politics and gr
and strategies, heroes and heroines (infrequently), God, family and country. In the Agency, we dealt with whores, drugs, greed, and madmen. Not to mention thugs, gangsters, zealots of all description, double dealers, triple dealers, turncoats, thieves and some good people (more often than one might think). I supposed that somewhat like policemen on the local level, we saw the underside of societies on the global level. And we were a part of it.

  “Ola, Jack.” I felt a hand on my arm, gently squeezing. It was Marta, perched on the arm of my chair. “So now you are homosexual, si?” She smiled.

  “I was just—”

  “I know. The girls can be a nuisance. And Daisy, she is fierce, no?”

  I slipped my arm around Marta’s waist and pulled her onto my lap. She didn’t resist.

  “Marta, we should talk. Tomorrow, if we’re lucky, we may be heading to Havana. I want you to know that part of the reason I am going is because of you. I don’t know how you feel, but …” I wasn’t sure what to say next.

  “I am glad that we will be together, Jack. I am glad that you trust me to take care of you. It is a scary thing, to go to Cuba now.”

  “I’ll admit that. But on a personal basis (why did I always sound like a bureaucrat when I tried to discuss emotions with women?) you do understand that I like you very much.”

  “I am beginning to embarrass to be nude in front of you, Jack. I think this means that I like you very much also.”

  Well, that was a start. I thought I knew what she meant. I had noticed before that when she became excited or emotional, her English started to fall apart.

  When Marta turned her head to look at me, I pulled gently on her neck and brought her lips to mine.

  “Hey, knock that shit off. We’re in a respectable whorehouse here.”

  “Gearheardt, you rotten bastard. You scared the hell out of us.”

  Marta stood up quickly, but she was smiling.

  Gearheardt grabbed my hand and pulled me out of the chair.

  “Marta, Jack likes you. Jack, Marta thinks you’re cute. You can get back to the courtship later. We’ve got some problems to address.” He turned serious. “Jack, brief Marta quickly on the information you got from Crenshaw, then I’ll give her a couple of messages also. She needs to meet the Palanque contingent and get them squared away. You and I have bigger fish to fry. First that damn Victor is off the reservation. And if that’s not bad enough, the Pygmy is on a rampage. Claims he’s being cut out of the deal.”

  “What do you mean Victor is off the reservation?”

  “The asshole sent word that he wants Marta to … well in effect he wants her as hostage against a double cross tomorrow. Don’t worry Marta. No way in hell we’ll let that cutthroat get his hands on you. But Jack and I need to go talk to him. You go get the envelope from Crenshaw off of my desk and bring it down here. We’ll go over it with you.”

  After she left, Gearheardt and I went to a dark corner of the game room and pulled two chairs together.

  “Jack, this deal with Victor could throw a monkey wrench into the works. If we don’t have a bona fide Cuban brandishing a weapon around El Presidente, then we can’t look like heroes.”

  “What about using one of the Good Cubans you have coming up?”

  “You want to try to convince one of them to let us shoot him?”

  “Oh, yeah, I guess that wouldn’t work.”

  “Don’t feel bad. My mind is spinning right now too. But you and I have to convince Victor we are 100% behind him. No way I’m throwing Marta into his greasy hands.”

  “I agree. What about the Pygmy? What’s that all about?”

  The little asshole still thinks he’s going to take over the ISP. He’s pretending to be confused about who he assassinates, but he’s not fooling me. And he thinks if he does get control of my network, he can run Cuba. The little prick.”

  “Is there anybody that doesn’t think they have a right to run Cuba?”

  “I don’t know anyone in this fucked up mess that hasn’t put themselves on the list, except you. But we need to head out. We can find the Pygmy in the park and either talk some sense in him, or just tie him up and leave him in the refrigerator at your place. I’m tired of dicking with him.”

  Marta unfortunately came through the door into the reception room just as three well-dressed and well-oiled Mexican gentlemen arrived through the front door. Chiquita tried to head them off, but the allure of Marta was too strong. Gearheardt stepped into the room. Marta lifted her skirt and drew her Baretta and the three amigos were almost on their way to amigo dreamland, when Daisy showed up.

  “Aw, Señors,” she sang. “Buenos noches.” After a bit more Spanish, a finger pointed at Gearheardt and a discrete jingling of her necklace, the gentlemen accepted champagne and seats in front of the fireplace to wait for other entertainment, concocting a to-be-told-later of the whore who kept a pistol in her woman parts.

  “Gearheardt, it is time for business. You and the smoking man should do your talking elsewhere,” Daisy said.

  “We need to use the office for five minutes and then we’re gone, Daisy.”

  In the hallway I asked Gearheardt, “What the hell was that Daisy was wearing around her neck. Ugliest damn necklace I’ve ever seen.”

  “Its what they use to de-nut sheep.”

  “Oooooh,” I said. I felt my testicles crawling up into my groin. “That’s what I thought.”

  In the office we briefed Marta quickly. She had the information in Crenshaw’s papers. And she was the one that had to coordinate the getaway with the Good Cubans. She said she could handle it and took off.

  “Where is she taking them after the briefing?” I asked Gearheardt.

  He thought for a minute. “I’m not sure. But we agreed to meet back here no later than midnight. She can tell us then.” He took out his PPK and checked to see if the clip was full. “You ready to go see Victor?”

  “Ready as I’ll ever be.”

  On the way down to the street, Gearheardt put his arm around my shoulders. “You remember going to see old Ho Chi Minh?”

  “I remember his sidekick, Giap, getting ready to shoot you with a pistol that must have been a 75 caliber. Biggest damn thing I ever saw.”

  Gearheardt laughed. “Me too.”

  “I also remember why he wanted to shoot you. Because you were such an insufferable wise-ass. Remember that?”

  “Must have been another trip to Hanoi you’re thinking of, Jack. I was on my best behavior.”

  We were at the street. The young Mexican Gearheardt had left the Impala with was there holding the door open on a gray Mercedes. The plates looked suspiciously like the diplomatic plates on the Brazilian embassy cars.

  “Muchas gracias, muchacho,” Gearheardt said. “How long will the gentlemen not be needing his car?”

  The boy grinned as he accepted a wad of pesos from Gearheardt. “He just went up with the lady. He is quite old and quite drunk. I would say maybe one hour, two hour. His driver is quite content to wait in Las Palomas restaurant.” He pointed through the window toward a man in black who was having his inner thigh stroked to a fair thee well by a lady with long red fingernails.

  “We’ll be back before then. Gracias.”

  As usual, Gearheardt carefully strapped himself in and then went ape-shit. Burning away from the curb, he rounded the corner at a speed that threw the back end to the side, and settled down to fifty miles an hour on the straightaway, a street full of shoppers, taxis, strolling policemen, vendor carts and other speeding automotive maniacs.

  “My mother said to tell you hello, Gearheardt.” A part of me probably thought that reminding Gearheardt that I had family depending on me might slow him down.

  “Great woman, Jack. Great. Your dad’s still dead, right?”

  That’s how much he was paying attention to me. It took his total concentration to watch for the openings between men driving donkeys ahead of them and liveried drivers in Cadillacs edging in from side streets. Those were openings allowing
him to shoot through the closing gaps and literally get tens of feet further than if we had just waited for a place to pass.

  “Gearheardt,” I said to keep my mind off dying, “would you like me to get a jousting lance and strap it to the side of the car?”

  “Sounds good, Jack. Hey, look at that asshole trying to pass us on the sidewalk. What an idiot.” Gearheardt went up on the sidewalk to block the idiot’s way. Then we turned at the next corner. “I can’t stand guys like that.”

  “We’re coming up on the street that leads to the club, Gearheardt. You might want to slow down.”

  And I might want to save my breath. He was almost past the street when it dawned on him that I had spoken.

  “Hold on, Jack.”

  My hands, feet, and sphincter were grabbing whatever they could get hold of.

  At the curb in front of the club I tried to breathe deep.

  “Damn, Gearheardt, riding with you just wears me out.”

  “We were in New York one night and one of my buddies ran out of money. He walked back to Princeton rather than ride with me. Took him three days.”

  “At last, Gearheardt, one of your stories I can believe.” I looked up at the club. “Remember, we’re here to convince him to do what we planned. We’re not here to give him a lot of crap, or try to antagonize him. You’ve met him before and you know he’s a cocky jerk. Forget that.”

  “Righto, Jack. Mr. Diplomat. That’s me.” He opened the car door. “Let’s go see this asshole.”

  I grabbed his arm just as we got to the front door. “Gearheardt, we forgot about the Pygmy.”

  “I didn’t. Daisy is going to send a couple of her boys to pick him up in the park and take him to Las Palamos. I told her to have them break his damn head if he puts up a fight. She’s going to lock him in with Benito. The Pygmy hates homos.”

  We entered the Club Tristiza and found the manager.

  “We’re here to see Victor Ramirez,” I told him.

  “Una momento, Señor.”

  In just under a minute he returned and led us to the same office where Marta and I had met with Victor the day before. He sat behind his desk and didn’t get up or say hello as we came in and sat down in front of his desk.