Goodbye Mexico

by Phillip Jennings

“You fought your way into Las Palomas to fire Jack? You must be the leading candidate for Asshole Boss of the Year, Crenshaw. A memo wouldn’t have worked?” Gearheardt sneered.

  “Listen, wiseass, the reason—”

  “Typical Agency bullshit. We have a world crisis brewing and the paper-shufflers start gumming up the works.” Gearheardt was on his feet, facing Crenshaw now.

  “I didn’t say I came here just to fire Jack, you nitwit. I just wanted to set things straight so that Jack wouldn’t think he could waltz over to stop the assassination with Agency support.” He turned to me. “We’ll handle things, Jack.” He stepped closer to me and lowered his voice. Holding his machine gun to his side with an elbow, he reached into his camouflaged shirt and extracted a small package of documents. “If I could just get you to sign these, Jack.”

  Gearheardt snorted. “Bureaucratic dildos. You’re as bad as the IRS.”

  “Which is looking for you, Gearheardt.” Crenshaw smiled. He raised the machine gun back in the direction of Gearheardt. “On the floor.” He took a length of clothesline from his small backpack and threw it to me. “Tie up our pal, Jack.”

  For a moment I thought he was inviting me back on his team.

  “I could shoot you both right now. You tried to double cross the Company, Jack. Not good. Not good at all. I’m disappointed in you.” Noticing I hadn’t moved, Crenshaw waved his weapon at me. “I said tie him up. I mean it. Believe me, I would prefer to shoot this sacrilegious traitor.”

  “Crenshaw, throwing around ‘double cross’ and ‘traitor’ doesn’t work for someone who has been spying for the Vatican the last ten years. Don’t think I don’t know who tipped off the Pope to the potential availability of Cuba.”

  “Don’t mention the Holy See, you—”

  “Yeah, well the Holy See holy saw a chance to grab a decent country and he thinks he’s going to take it. I told him this morning—”

  “You talked to the Pope!” I didn’t like the look on Crenshaw’s face. “Gearheardt, you may not take your obligations as a U.S. citizen seriously. You can make fun of the CIA and run roughshod over its policies. But I forbid you to commit this heresy! The Holy Father will not be denied by the likes of you. I’m going to Cuba. And I will deliver it to the Vatican. Your insane idea of some sort of idyllic … pleasure palace for fallen women is beyond—”

  “Major, could I interest you in a blowjob before you go off to fight the holy wars?”

  The major was not amused. Apoplectic might have been a better description.

  “You—you disgust me, Gearheardt,” he sputtered.

  “I wasn’t offering to give you one, Major. I just thought you might let me fix you up with—”

  The Major cycled a round into the chamber of his machine gun. “That’s enough, Gearheardt. Jack, get this man tied up. Now!”

  I started toward Gearheardt who didn’t look as if he were contemplating lying down or letting me tie him up. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do, but the door slamming open again relieved me of the choice.

  “Please lay the gun on the bed,” Marta said. Her pistol against the back of the major’s head added gravitas to her request.

  Gearheardt sat back down on the bed. “Jack, would you check the hall to see if there is someone on Crenshaw’s side waiting to come in and put a gun to Marta’s head?”

  I actually started toward the door before I caught his sarcasm. Crenshaw reluctantly put his sub-machine gun next to Gearheardt on the bed. I assumed he had more weapons concealed in his war gear, but didn’t think he would use them. As usual, I was wrong. When Crenshaw turned back to us, he was holding a .45, the weapon of choice for those wanting big holes blown in things. He was pointing the monster at my head.

  “I think we will call this a stand off,” he said to Marta. “You are not going to shoot an agent of the U.S. government, and you don’t want me to shoot your boyfriend here, I’m sure.” He was motioning the barrel at me.

  Gearheardt was his usual helpful self. “Sorry, Crenshaw, but Marta is a Cuban spy, so to speak, and she has no qualms about shooting U.S. agents. And as far as our pal Jack goes, Marta is a lesbian, so I’m not too sure about the boyfriend business. I wouldn’t stake my life on it.”

  The great thing about the male mind is its ability to prioritize issues and make reasonable decisions. Marta the lesbian was moved ahead of the possibility that Crenshaw would spray-paint the wall with blood and gore from my head.

  “Wait a minute,” I said brilliantly, “what are you talking about? Marta, I thought that we were—and what about Gearheardt? You and he were—weren’t you?”

  “I think that’s personal, Jack. Marta has gone through an experimental stage. I know that your ego is—”

  “You people are disgusting,” Crenshaw blurted. “I’m not interested in your sordid personal lives. What I am interested in is you giving me that pistol, young lady.”

  Marta lowered the weapon. I wondered if I would ever see her naked again.

  “Don’t give it to him, Marta. Major Crenshaw is also not going to shoot an agent of the Central Intelligence Agency. And Jack can be my boyfriend if you don’t want him.” Gearheardt smiled at me. “Personally I think he’s cute as hell.”

  Crenshaw picked up his sub-machine gun and began backing out of the room. “It pains me that the Agency has to deal with such … people. Gearheardt, in about two hours I am taking my team to Cuba. There we will await the Marines and then the Vatican team. Enough of your nonsense about prostitutes. The United States is not in the business of taking over countries to let them be run by whores.”

  Gearheardt showed remarkable constraint by remaining silent. I sensed he wanted to get back to the situation with the thousands of men in de-nutters around the world. He did allow himself a wide grin.

  “Necisito pantalones.” A small, mustachioed gentleman stood shirted and tied but pantless in the doorway.

  “I think he needs his pants,” Gearheardt said. “Must be a customer who was rousted out when Marta brought the good Cubans in last night.”

  I have often thought that a good intelligence officer has the ability to put himself in the shoes of his enemy. And also to see his actions as they would appear to those in his environment. The thought struck me that this poor man had visited a bordello last night, been thrown out of the saddle by wild Cubans, and now was searching for his pants in a room where a camouflaged American stood with guns in both hands, another gringo (me) was gaping at a beautiful fully-dressed woman with her own pistol, and a third grinning gringo lay with his hands behind his head on a red velvet bed. Did he even wonder what all of that was about?

  In a reaction which I quickly recognized as having the potential to lose future wars, Crenshaw started looking around for the guy’s pants. Marta found them draped over a chair. Instead of being grateful and scurrying out, he began a heated dialogue, with first Marta then Gearheardt, which sounded like he was demanding a ‘rain check.’ Finally, he drew himself up to as much dignity as you can have in baggy BVDs and cowboy boots and left the room.

  Crenshaw was right behind him. “You two aren’t competent to find your ass with both hands, much less find Cuba and take over.” He shouldered his Thompson. “Stay away from Cuba, Gearheardt.” He turned to me. “Jack, find a new career. This thing will be a stain on your record until the Second Coming, even if the Company did allow you to stay in. Good luck.” He left.

  Gearheardt bounced off the bed. “I’ve got prostitutes to lead. Jack, you and Marta can work out the itinerary for getting you to Cuba.”

  “We’re still going?”

  “Who’s to stop us? Crenshaw? You just follow the plan that we already agreed on, Jack. I’ll take care of the rest. Lying there on that bed, I realized what we need to do about those men with their balls in a trap.” He patted Marta on the butt as he went out the door.

  “You are sad to see me, Jack?” Marta sat down on the side of the bed and replaced her pistol into its thigh holster.

&n
bsp; “I am happy to see you, Marta. I am just …”

  “You are surprise I am a lesbian, no?”

  I sat down beside her. “It’s not just that. When you were first in my apartment, running around naked and all that, you seemed very strong. Very sure of yourself. But the last couple of times I’ve seen you …” I seemed unable to complete sentences.

  “You want me to be naked again, Jack?” She smiled and reached toward the top button of her blouse. But I could tell she was just kidding.

  “Marta, maybe we will have time in Havana for you to explain all this. But for now, do you really have a plan to get me from Mexico City to Cuba?”

  Marta put her hand on my shoulder in a sisterly way.

  “Perhaps.” She stood and pulled me to my feet. “We should go to the square.”

  The mystery of Marta—victim? Prostitute? Spy? Movement leader? Traitor?—would have to wait. She stood and straightened her dress.

  “Maybe not so lesbian sometimes, Jack.”

  I wasn’t sure what that meant, but it sounded promising.

  “I need to check with Gearheardt before we leave,” I said. Probably grinning like a fool. With Gearheardt running my life again, it took so little to make me happy.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  A DESIGN FLAW IN THE DE-NUTTERS

  Gearheardt was a busy man. Pacing the room with a cigarette in one hand and a phone in the other. He had evidently made tobacco peace with Daisy as she sat unconcerned near him. He looked up as Marta and I approached.

  “You all set, Jack?”

  “Got my gun. Got my map of the speaker’s area. I got Marta who is sometimes not a lesbian. What more do I need?”

  “You need to get past Crenshaw’s little band of Pope People. And past Victor’s little band of Cuban assholes, and past the official U.S. government detachment of sharpshooters and trouble makers.”

  “What are they doing here? I thought the American presence at this speech was going to be limited.”

  “Jack, if there’s a swinging dick in Washington DC that doesn’t know we have a faked assassination of the Mexican President scheduled, he must be locked in the pisser at Pizza Hut. There are Congressional delegations, military fact-finding missions, lobbyists, cabals, bureaucrats and God knows who else arriving like they’re lining up for the Oklahoma land rush.”

  “Why?” I personally wished I were thousands of miles away.

  “Who gets a chance to say they were at an assassination attempt? Damn few. And the word is out that we may take Cuba.” Gearheardt shook his head. “This is a fine damn way to run a democracy.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  Gearheardt looked at me for a moment. “Damned if I know. Guess I just mean that if I were in congress I’d be heading down here and if people like me are running the country … ”

  “You certainly have a point there.”

  “Our job is simple. The word goes out that the Cubans tried to knock off the President. The world is outraged. Congress, those who are sober, are outraged. And we avenge the Bay of Pigs fiasco. But this time, the ladies are left in charge.”

  “By whose order?”

  Gearheardt studied the map for a moment. “By the beseeching and distraught loved ones, assorted flunkies and compadres of roughly one hundred fifty thousand world movers and shakers about to lose their nuts.” He turned to the room and shouted. “Navaja!”

  The women stopped whatever they were doing and withdrew the metal instruments of pain from purses and brassieres. They held them toward Gearheardt.

  The women shouted (too darn gleefully I thought), “Navaja!”

  “Okay, now get your pretty asses back to work!” He repeated it in Spanish and the women laughed. “You still here, Jack? That means you too. By the way, you’re actually a bit too skinny for me. I was just trying to distract Crenshaw when I told him I thought you were cute. Sorry to disappoint you.”

  “So I’m too skinny for you and too male for Marta. My love life is—”

  “Jack, could you just get on over to the square? We can joke about this later.”

  I had never seen Gearheardt put business ahead of a good laugh, so I assumed this was serious. “And I’ll stop anyone from shooting the President, right? Even though I am semi-officially not a Company man anymore.”

  “Don’t worry about that. We’ll make you chief token male in the security department of New Cuba. Get going.” He looked up from his paperwork. “And yes, keep the President un-shot.”

  Marta was on the radio, talking to some of Gearheardt’s troops in the streets about a clear path to the square. She put the radio down and gave me a thumb’s up. “We can go, Jack. We will hook up with the good Cubans before the speech. You will have to make it to the stage facilities on your own. But we will watch you.”

  “Jack, take that Walkie-Talkie that Marta was using. It’s bulky, but you and I need to stay in touch. You look more official with it anyway.”

  “Gearheardt,” I said quietly, “I understand your plan to negotiate with someone to give you Cuba, using your hostages as leverage. I get that. But what about those countries which have leaders that don’t screw off and aren’t susceptible to your scheme? It would seem that—”

  Gearheardt stood up suddenly. His Spanish was too rapid for me, but I could tell he was relaying my concerns to his ‘troops’ that their ‘coverage’ might not carry the day.

  The room erupted in laughter. Isabella went to the main map and after squinting at it for a moment, placed her finger on a small town in Iceland. The women laughed again.

  I grinned sheepishly and nodded my head as if I understood. Gearheardt shook his head as if suffering fools was tiresome but necessary. The women went back to work.

  I fixed my tie and brushed off the jacket of my well lived-in suit. I needed to look presentable enough to get to my post next to the President.

  “Has anyone heard from Victor? I guess we’re all assuming that we will actually have someone there trying to shoot the President.”

  Gearheardt wasn’t listening. His head was tilted into a conversation with Isabella and Daisy.

  “Victor is on his way, Jack,” Marta answered. “I spoke with him this morning. And he has many ‘bad’ Cubans with him. We will have to be careful.”

  I waved at Gearheardt who waved absently back.

  As Marta and I passed through the main Las Palomas lounge the din was overwhelming. A row of teletypes spewed out messages. Two dozen or more women manned banks of phones. Baby-doll negligee clad women drew grease marks on clear plastic sheeting depicting bordellos around the world. Evidently the revolution had kicked off in full force. Marta nodded to three women who looked combat ready—trim, muscular, and armed—who rose and followed us out of the room and down the stairs. Marta motioned me to follow her outside and then wait by the door.

  On the street, aside from a disabled taxi, bullet holes in the restaurant window and a blackened orange cart abandoned at the curb, life looked normal. I had a fleeting urge to grab a passerby and scream “whores are taking over the world” but decided against it. And, of course, I was in favor of the operation in any event. I wasn’t sure it would, in fact I was fairly certain it wouldn’t work, but the revenge upon Cuba for the Bay of Pigs fiasco was worth the effort. If the U.S. or the Catholic Church ended up with Cuba, it was no skin off my nose. I tried not to think about the thousands of men around the world with their nuts in a chopper. Not that I felt sorry for them, it was just uncomfortable to think about men’s testicles, or being without mine.

  “Jack, you read me? Over.” It was Gearheardt on the radio.

  “I read you, Gearheardt. I can probably hear you without the damn radio. I’m still at the front of Las Palomas while General Marta is scouting the route I guess. Over.”

  “Good. Listen, Jack, we have some problems popping up. You stay on this radio in case we need to change plans. You copy that?”

  “What kind of problems?”

  “The wom
en in Tijuana just pulled the cord on about five hundred de-nutters. We couldn’t talk them into waiting. Now we’ve got a few Mexican guys pretty upset. Over.”

  “If I lost my balls, I’d be upset too.”

  “Naaa. I mean cops and army guys. As well as a few government officials.”

  I wanted to learn more, but it was cumbersome on the Walkie-Talkies, having to make sure the other person was through and had released the ‘send’ button before you tried to talk. You spent half your time interrupting each other.

  “I’ll see you later, Gearheardt. Over and out.”

  “No need to be so formal on the radio, Jack,” Gearheardt said behind me, causing me to jump.

  “I thought you were upstairs.”

  “I needed to give you this,” Gearheardt said. He pulled a pistol from his inside pocket and held it out to me.

  “That’s the one I got for you from the embassy armory, isn’t it?”

  “The very one.” Gearheardt looked squarely at me. “You thought I got it so that I could frame you or blackmail you with it didn’t you, Jack?”

  “Never crossed my mind,” I lied.

  “Jack, there is a very good chance that you will have to shoot Victor today. He’s more or less off the reservation as they say. After you shoot, drop the gun. We’ll make sure we get it and the forensics will prove that a pistol from the U.S. Embassy was the one who shot the assassin. Which of course he won’t technically be if you shoot him before he shoots the president. Got it?”

  “I think so. I’m not sure I see why it’s necessary. But I’m okay with using it.”

  “Where’s Marta? Hadn’t you guys better be getting to the square?”

  “She took off with those Amazon types and told me to wait here. Listen, Gearheardt, since I am finally about to do the mission I have been about to do for the past seventy-two hours, answer me truthfully, did you at first intend for me to kill the President of Mexico?”

  “I would never ask you to shoot someone I wouldn’t be willing to shoot myself.”

  “I appreciate that. And it’s not an answer. Was the first plan to shoot the President?”