Goodbye Mexico

by Phillip Jennings

  “I need to find Gearheardt.” I needed to get this meeting under control.

  The Ambassador smiled and looked to Crenshaw. “Don’t we all?” he said.

  “I am not going to ask you but once,” I said in a voice I hoped was intimidating. “Do you know where Gearheardt is?”

  Crenshaw leaned forward and spoke up for the first time. “I’m not even sure who Gearheardt is, Mr. Armstrong. He certainly doesn’t work for us. The rotten bastard is only out for himself. If he hadn’t of—”

  “That will do, Major. Your opinion of Mr. Gearheardt is not the issue here.” He looked back at me. “The answer to your question is ‘no,’ Mr. Armstrong. We do not know the whereabouts of Mr. Gearheardt.”

  The Ambassador reached to a credenza behind him and brought back a folder. I wondered if I had been wrong about Ambassador Leahy. He almost seemed to be an ally.

  “The purpose of this meeting—which you chose to accelerate rather rudely, Mr. Armstrong—is to examine the charges that various agencies, U.S., Cuban, and Mexican, are bringing against you. Rather serious issues.”

  The Ambassador began reading the ‘charges’ against me which ranged from treason to public indecency. Evidently the Mexicans, Cubans and the Vatican all wanted a piece of me. Murder, rape, consorting with prostitutes and non-payment of rent were on the list. Car theft, speeding, conspiracy to commit assassination, and breaking and entering—Chapultepec Castle—were mentioned. The ambassador’s face got redder as he itemized the various infractions of embassy procedure that he personally had added to the charge sheet. Crenshaw looked at me with mounting glee, particularly when blasphemy and inciting an insurrection against Rome were mentioned.

  So I was to be the scapegoat. Gearheardt mentioning that he ‘didn’t want to cause me trouble’ flashed through my mind—the asshole. The Ambassador was now outlining the process by which I would be escorted to the airport and flown to a federal prison near Washington D.C. to await trial.

  “Why don’t you just take me to Queretero and shoot me like they did Maximilian?”

  “The Mexicans have suggested just that, Mr. Armstrong. But they wouldn’t assure us you wouldn’t be tortured first.” He looked up at me. “We can’t be a party to that.”

  I slipped my hand beneath the table and grasped the handle of the pistol. “Look, you silly bastards, I’m not going to—”.

  “We have a solution, Mr. Armstrong,” the Ambassador said. It was clear he wasn’t in favor of it. “There is an opportunity to go to work for the Pygmy. He is contracting his own organization to work for us.”

  “The Pygmy Intelligence Agency?” I said with as much sarcasm as I could muster.” The Pygmy you just denied exists?”

  “He is small, but growing. I have been asked by Langley to offer you that chance.”

  Crenshaw snorted and the Ambassador gave him a stern look.

  But Crenshaw couldn’t contain himself. “Listen, that freak might think he’s taking over the Agency, but just because he’s picked up Gearheardt’s prostitutes, doesn’t mean he’ll still have his contract.”

  “He’s picked up Gearheardt’s pros—”

  “Don’t interrupt, Armstrong. You’re finished. Done. History. We will not have blasphemers working in the intelligence business!”

  The Ambassador sat up straight. “It is you who is finished, Major Crenshaw. I run the show in Mexico now and I don’t need the bible-thumping, donkey loving—”

  “It’s a burro, you whore-mongering—!”

  “I thought your expense report said that your burro was eaten,” the Ambassador said sarcastically. “I can have that report sent up.” I assumed he was grasping for something he could understand. He looked bewildered.

  “I have a new burro, you sanctimonious dimwit.” He dropped his head into his hands, elbows on the table. “Where does the state department get you numbskulls? This is not about burros or pygmies or whores! This is about a mission that the Central Intelligence Agency was running that this man and his insane cohort screwed up.” He raised his head and looked at me. “Now we’ll never have Cuba.” He suddenly slammed his fist on the conference table, hitting his coffee cup and sending it skittering across the highly polished surface.

  “Oh my God,” the Ambassador said. He tried to gather the broken pieces and ran his hand over a scratch in the table. “This is government property.”

  It seemed time for me to get to the point. I stood and brandished my pistol so that all could see. “Shut up! Both of you! Crenshaw, get your hands on the table where I can see them! Mr. Ambassador … shit, quit crying.”

  After noticing that I had not inserted a clip into the pistol, I kept my brandishing down to a minimum, but got the desired affect—quiet and attention.

  “Gentlemen, here are the new rules. I am not going to be shot, tortured, hung, imprisoned or humiliated. I am not going to join Pygmy International in order to run the prostitute intelligence network.” I placed the folders on the table in front of me, reversed so that the men could read their names. Crenshaw, the Ambassador (I assumed that Gearheardt had never bothered to learn his name), and Armstrong (me?).

  I passed a copy of the release and hold harmless document that Gearheardt had prepared to the Ambassador, then copies to the Major.

  “It’s very simple, gentlemen. You will sign that document and these folders will never reach the press or the respective governments which would have the greatest interest in them. You, Major Crenshaw, can keep your relationship with your burro to yourself. You, Mr. Ambassador, can keep your part ownership of Las Palomas and common-law wife Daisy. There is no negotiation. And finally, I want to know—and I mean right now!—what has happened to Gearheardt. I suspect that he is wounded and needs my help.” A small piece of my mind was grateful that he was perhaps actually wounded, otherwise I would have had to argue that he was in a tub with three naked women and needed my help.

  “Well, there is not a snowball’s chance in hell I’ll be signing,” the Major said. “For starters, I have not had relations with any barnyard animals and specifically not with Caroline, my, uh, current burro.”

  The Ambassador already had his pen in hand. “That’s not the issue, Major. I for one don’t want to spend the next decade explaining that I had perfectly valid reasons for investing in Las Palomas (he had the decency to blush and not look at me) and I would think that you would not want to be in the position of always having to deny that you were fucking your donkey. Pardon my French.” He handed his pen to Crenshaw.

  Who, with a disgusted grunt, signed the last signature block. As he did so, a soft knock on the door caught our attention. Darwin entered, glanced at my pistol on the table and laid a sheet of paper next to the Ambassador’s ashtray. The ambassador looked at me then back at Darwin, nodded, and the man left. The exoneration document, probably worthless but which would get me out of town, was slid down the table.

  “Now about Gearheardt,” I said, “I want every swinging dick in the embassy out trying to find him. Ambassador, you can give that order from here and we’ll all just wait for him to be found.” I moved the pistol closer, holding the butt, with the gaping hole where a clip should have been, toward my body. “The document you all just signed gives me the right to shoot you as traitors.” I was bluffing, but they had only scanned the document and wouldn’t know that.

  The Ambassador, calm again, smiled and gently shook the message just delivered. “I don’t think any shooting will be necessary, Mr. Armstrong. And we won’t be waiting for your Mr. Gearheardt. Let me read this to you.

  “Flash: Urgent: Ambassador: Mexico City Airport, eleven hundred hours. White Caucasian male, believed American. Subject appeared to be wounded in arm and upper leg. Subject almost nude (towel around waist) and laughing. Escorted by three Hispanic men in black suits and one Caucasian male in military uniform. Not laughing. Forced onto aircraft roughly, subject greeted stewardesses warmly, tossed towel from airplane saying “I guess I won’t be needing this anymore.” Aga
in, escorts not amused. Threatening gestures and application of pressure to wounded areas observed. Aircraft left eleven hundred hours and fifteen minutes. Turkish Airlines. Please advise as to action needed.”

  “Does that sound like our boy, Jack?” the Ambassador asked, smiling.

  I looked at Crenshaw. “Do your guys know anything about this?”

  Crenshaw looked almost sympathetic. “No clue, Jack. But it doesn’t sound too good.”

  The Ambassador shook his head. “Gearheardt pisses off many people,” he said.

  I rose and gathered the folders. Crenshaw made a move to grab his, but I jerked it away and leveled the bulletless pistol at him. “Don’t give me a reason, Major.” I blushed at the dramatic statement. I couldn’t hate Crenshaw who, it seemed, was doing the job he was asked to do.

  “Goodbye, Gents. Give me about fifteen minutes and I’ll be out of the building and out of your hair.” I had been watching too many movies, but this was an awkward moment. Should I back out? Walk out boldly? I just left.

  Juanita stood as I walked by to my office.

  “I’m sorry, Señor Jack. To not be a loyal assistant, I mean. I try to work for the Major and for the Ambassador and also for you and Señor Pepe. I work for too many people.”

  “It happens to a lot of us, Juanita.”

  In my office I gathered the few remaining personal items and tossed them in a briefcase. I took a deep breath and picked up the folder that had “Armstrong” across the top. Inside was a note.

  Jackson,

  Fell for it didn’t they? I knew that you would open this note only, Boy Scout, so I’ll tell you that the other folders have blank pages in them.

  I tore the others open. All three were filled with blank sheets of paper.

  These suckers have so many secrets they’ve forgotten who they’ve screwed. Not that they’re bad guys. They have a tuf job. One that I could do with one hand behind my back, but tuf nevertheless. They have congress and all that bureaucratic crap.

  You and I did what we did, Jack. Leave it at that. I think it was Teddy Roosevelt who said, ‘There are those who never jump into the ring. They just sit in the stands yelling for somebody else to cut the bull’s nuts off. The guys who jump in are in deep bullshit and they have sweat on their brows but their eyes are on the bull’s nuts and they give their best. And even if the bull wins, he gets his nuts cut off anyway. And the men that never tried jumping into the bullshit’ … I forget the rest. But you get the idea. Maybe it was Hemingway. Anyway you and I tried, Jacko. God Bless America. God Bless the Marine Corps.

  Gearheardt

  The word had gotten around by the time I walked to the elevator and started out of the building. No one spoke to me. No one met my eye.

  At the entrance, the Marine guard handed me the clipboard for me to sign out. He looked strong, his uniform spotless and crisp.

  “Semper fi, sir,” he said as I walked toward the door. I could have kissed the corporal right then and there if it wouldn’t have ruined his career opportunities.

  In Chapultepec Park I found a bench that was catching the afternoon sun. Above me the walls of the castle also caught the sun and somehow made the fortress look impregnable. The Marines had stormed those walls decades ago. Around me the Mexican people laughed and strolled, unchanged and seemingly happy.

  I remembered my last conversation with Gearheardt before we headed to the faked assassination.

  “You know, Gearheardt, it strikes me that all of the bad guys in this operation were minding their own business until we stirred them up.”

  “Jack, you know the saying. Defeat is the result of men minding someone else’s business. I’m not sure who said it.”

  “I don’t think anybody said it. It doesn’t make a damn bit of sense.”

  Gearheardt had sat twirling his wine in his glass. He tossed it down, broke the glass on the ground and smiled. “What makes sense, Jack, is that we’re trying to do something for someone less fortunate than ourselves. We’re Americans, Jack. That’s what we do. Sometimes we’re not successful and the people are even less fortunate. But at least they’re people who had a shot at being more fortunate.” He paused and lit a cigarette. After picking a speck of tobacco from his tongue, he smiled the Gearheardt smile. “If you want an egg, you’ve got to squeeze a chicken, Jack.”

  I looked at him for a moment, wondering which of us was crazy.

  “Yes,” I said, “there is that I suppose.”

  I leaned back on the bench and closed my eyes to the smog-muted sun above Mexico City. I missed Gearheardt already. When he left he seemed to take my energy with him.

  The plan to take Cuba bloodlessly wasn’t a bad one. Giving the prostitutes a decent future, who could argue with that? It all seemed doable. But for the betrayal of Crenshaw, who had his Catholic agenda. And the Pygmy, who had his … I guess he just wanted the girls. Was there anyone in the deal looking out for the U.S.?

  Sometime in the early morning, the phone rang in my apartment. I climbed over half-packed suitcases and boxes and answered it on the fourth ring.

  “Armstrong.”

  “Sir, this is Corporal Winters. I’m not sure that anyone has called you. I was in the com room just now.” He stopped.

  “And?”

  “A Turkish airliner blew up over the Atlantic, sir.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “There were no reported survivors, sir.”

  “Thank you, Corporal. If it’s possible could you get a copy of the dispatch and send it to my apartment? The drivers will know.”

  “No problem, sir.” He paused again. “Sir, do you think that Mr. Gearheardt …”

  “I’ll drop by and see you tomorrow if you’re on duty, Winters. Thanks very much for calling me.”

  “Better come early, sir. We’re supposed to have our gear packed up by noon.”

  “What’s that all about? What do you mean ‘have our gear packed up?’” I was in a nightmare and couldn’t clear my head.

  “The Mexicans have kicked us out, Mr. Armstrong. In forty-eight hours the whole embassy staff is persona non-grata in Mexico.”

  After a moment I was able to reply.

  “Well, at least Gearheardt accomplished something.”

  “The scuttlebutt is that the Ambassador is crediting you with that accomplishment, sir. I hope I’m not talking out of turn here.”

  I sighed and rubbed my aching head. “Defeat is the result of men minding someone else’s business, Corporal.” I felt numb, but couldn’t help picturing Gearheardt in another flaming aircraft.

  “Yessir. That’s what Mr. Gearheardt always told us. Semper fi, Mr. Armstrong.”

  “Semper fi, Corporal Winters.”

  I hung up and found the bed in the dark. Then I grabbed the phone cord and moved the receiver nearer. I didn’t want to chance missing a call from some Godforsaken place where Gearheardt might turn up.