We ended up at a table under a canopy. The table was covered with fruit, fried meats, and eggs. There were tortillas and coffee. There were also a few flies, but Cesar brushed at these with his hand as if they were but part of the ambience.
“Please,” Cesar said. “Sit. Eat. Drink. Talk.”
We sat. Jim Bob said, “Actually, Cesar, we would like to get right to things. We’re on a limited budget and we’ve got time restraints.”
“Ah, you Americans. You do not understand time. Time is time. It has no movement. Revenge is revenge, now or later.”
“Drive-through burgers, drive-through pharmacies, and drive-through revenge,” Jim Bob said. “That’s us.”
Cesar grinned. “Of course. Try the cantaloupe. All the fruit is fresh.”
Hermonie went away, then showed up with a small pitcher of cream, sweeteners for the coffee, then she disappeared again.
“Will Hermonie be joining us?” Brett asked.
“Actually,” Cesar said, looking sadly, “she is shy, and she hates Americans. For that matter, she is not too fond of me. She married me because she thought I had money. And I do, but not the sort of money she is looking for. She wants big money for big cars and big things. I make money that allows the middle-sized things. She made a mistake.
“But that is all right. I tolerate her and she tolerates me. She is as lovely a woman as an ugly fat man like myself will get, and I am most likely as rich as she will find. And I love Americans. My good friend, Jim Bob, I love him.”
“I’m a Texan,” Jim Bob said.
“Texas was stolen from Mexico,” Cesar said. “It should not be part of the United States.”
“Mexicans helped steal it,” Jim Bob said.
“Would it be okay if you two didn’t fight the Alamo all over again?” I said.
“Ah,” Cesar said. “I love this guy. He loves me.”
“Well, before you and I mate, Cesar,” Jim Bob said, “maybe we should get right to it. We have a plan, and being no friend of Juan Miguel, we thought you might help us tweak this plan.”
“I am certainly no friend of this man, Juan Miguel. I have been waiting until my time is right to do what I need to do. Waiting, and praying to God to help me have my revenge.”
“He helps in those matters?” Brett asked.
“If he does not, then we will do it without him,” Cesar said.
Jim Bob briefly outlined our plan.
Cesar said, “Oh, you got some big stones, my friends. Big stones. Pardon me, lady.”
“Forget it,” Brett said.
“Let me tell you. We can do this. We must plan more carefully, but we can do this. By myself, I could not get even with this man. But with your help. Yes. I can. We can all eat a fine dish of revenge.
“Let me tell you about Juan Miguel, amigos. Many years ago a rich lady, a Mexican lady, she hires me to follow after her daughter who she thinks is being naughty with a man in Mexico City. Did I say she was a rich lady?”
“You did,” I said.
“She offered me very much to watch this girl. My partner, Tono, was to help me. We, how is it you say it… double-teamed her, you see. It is easier that way. One can rest while the other watches. After a day or two we determine that, yes, she is in fact being naughty. She is with another man. They are spending many hours together in his hotel room and they did not have cards or dice with them. They are certainly playing that other game we all like to play. Tono takes photographs of her and this man going in and out of the hotel. We think this is good enough to show the lady. Show her that her pretty daughter is in fact running with this man. And we find out who this man is. He is Juan Miguel’s son, Carmelo.
“We report all of this to the lady, and she sends her daughter away to the U.S. to study in the university, away from this man. So what happens? The girl, she pines for Carmelo and she decides to climb to the top of the University of Texas tower and jump.”
“Jesus,” Brett said. “I wanted a man that bad, I’d just hop a plane.”
“Who is to understand the thinking of the young?” Cesar said. “And there is another thing. When her mother sends her away, this Carmelo, he finds a new woman. It is not true love to him. It is true lust.
“But that is not all. The mother. She is distraught. She hires us to show her where this Carmelo is. And we find him again for her, and he is in a beach house near Cozumel, and we go away. And this woman, she comes back there another time, and you know what she does. She shoots and kills this boy.
“Then, she is not happy yet. A week after the boy is dead, she sends word to Juan Miguel she knows how his boy died, and he agrees to see her, and she has the photographs we took of Carmelo and her daughter, and when she explains the connection, so he understands, you see, she tries to kill him with a knife she has concealed, but they take it away from her. And then he tortures her. He wants to know how she killed his boy, how she found him. She tells them about us. She tells them Tono took the photographs. She mentions me, but she tells him Tono took the photographs. She remembers Tono because he wanted her. He wanted her badly. He tried to lie with her in his bed. It didn’t work, but I believe when it came time to call names, she called his because she knew him better. She said he took the photographs and that I worked for him.
“He cuts off her nose and sets her free. She does not go to the doctor. She goes home, she takes pills, and she is dead. She could not face having no daughter and no nose. Juan Miguel, he sends his men to see Tono. I do not know what happened to him. Not really. They come to see me and tell me they have killed Tono. They say I was Tono’s boss. I was not the one who took the photos, but in case I should ever want to bother in their business, they would leave me a reminder. This big one. Hammerhead. Or Oso as I called him. He beat me. He cut off the tip of my finger.”
Cesar held his right hand up. The tip of the little finger was missing, same as Beatrice.
“And he gives me this ear. Here. He hit me so hard with a slap he did that. I do not hear as well in that ear anymore. They let me live. That was a mistake.”
“Did you try the police?” Brett asked.
Cesar shook his head. “No. I know this place too well. Many of the policemen, they are good. They would do the law. But Juan Miguel, he owns those at the top. They run things as they see them, and they see them with money.”
“We’re sorry about your friend,” Brett said.
“Sorry is not important. Tono worked for me. He was not a friend. I did not like him much. He was good at what he did, but he was no brother. What I am mad about is my little finger and my ear. Juan Miguel, he will pay. But, unlike the woman, I do not go off half-cocked. I have waited my time. And now, with this tragedy of the woman…”
Cesar reached out and patted Ferdinand on the arm, “… and the tragedy of your friend, the time is correct. He shall now pay. Tell me more of your plan.”
“We thought we’d kidnap his mistress,” Jim Bob said, “but we need you for that. We need to corner her somewhere. As for the bodyguards, you got me, Hap, and Leonard to take care of them.”
“No offense, gentlemen,” Cesar said, “but are you capable?”
“I’d bet my life on them,” Jim Bob said.
“Oh, you will,” Cesar said.
28
It was a tight fit in the rental, but thankfully, the trip was brief. Cesar drove the car to a spot on the beach and parked us next to a high wide pile of large white stone slabs.
“There was to be a house here,” Cesar said as we got out of the car. “But it fell through. These stones. They were cut to be part of the foundation. The man having it built, he must have lost money. Or lost his wife. Or maybe he builds it for his mistress and she leaves him. I cannot say. Something went wrong. Perhaps he is still the owner of this land. There, where the grass grows up to the beach, that was where he was to build. This was the beginning, these stones. And they were the end.”
The huge stones were cut in even rectangles four inches thick and maybe four feet
long, and three feet across. It was obvious they had once been stacked neatly, but weather, or perhaps people climbing on them, had caused them to shift in places. Some of the stones had fallen and broken against others. At the peak of the pile was a colorful bird. I had never seen that kind of bird before. As I watched, it took to the sky. It looked like a bouquet of flowers exploding.
Cesar had placed a telescope in the trunk, and now he got it and the stand out, climbed to the top of the slab pile with it, moving his little round body as sure-footed as a mountain goat. He fastened the scope to its tripod, positioned it on a flat piece of rock, focused, looked through, called down, “Come see.”
I went up first, realizing that going up was not as easy for me as Cesar had made it look. I felt slabs shift under my feet. I yelled down for the others to watch out, went carefully, finally found the top.
A moment later the others worked their way up. We clutched together at the top around the telescope.
“This is a good telescope,” Cesar said. “I use it in my work. After what happened to me and Tono, I began to find out more about this Juan Miguel. I come here… and to another spot higher up, among the trees there, and observe from time to time. Juan Miguel spends much time at home. He likes the middle of the day to eat his lunch and answer his phone. Come look for yourself.”
I looked. The sun was bright on the house and there was a blinding reflection off a great satellite dish that looked like a flying saucer that had landed on its edge. There were palms and shrubs and flowering plants to the left of the house that grew so thick they completely concealed anything that might be behind them.
It was a huge house, mostly glass and stone, surrounded by a fence of rock and mortar positioned at the peak and around a great rise of land covered in greenery and scrubby trees. The way the rise sloped toward us, you could see the close-clipped backyard and the swimming pool and patio. Their view from up there would be terrific. You would see the road below, the greater highway, and beyond that the sandy white beach and the deep blue sea.
There was a man sitting at a table under a patio roof, shirtless, shoeless, wearing a pair of khaki shorts. He was talking on the phone. He was middle-aged, brown, a little heavy.
Closer to the fence was the pool. Someone was swimming in the pool. I watched. It was a woman. She climbed out. She was tall and lean and dark with shoulder-length black hair. She looked middle-aged, and she looked to have worn well. I could tell that even from a distance. She was topless and proud of it. Walked with her back straight, shoulders back, her breasts forward like copper headlamps. The bikini she wore was a dark color and covered her in the front but did little to hide anything else.
“Damn,” I said.
“Ah, that would be his wife you are seeing,” Cesar said. “Is she nude?”
“Damn near it.”
“She likes to go without the top. Sometimes she wears nothing at all. Juan Miguel. He often goes nude. They are very much into the nudity. They travel to nudist camps worldwide I am told. They think the life is healthy. And then there is Hammerhead. Do you see him?”
“Nope,” I said. “Damn. She’s a beauty… And he’s screwing around with another woman?”
“Alas, it happens. And she too is magnificent, this other woman. And younger.”
“They always are,” Brett said.
“If the guy takes off his pants,” Leonard said, “let me know. Then I’ll want a look.”
“I would like to see,” Ferdinand said.
“Look,” I said.
He looked through the telescope. “I want him to see my face before he dies. I want him to know why.”
“We all do,” Brett said. She stood with her arm around my waist.
“I’d just settle for him being dead,” I said. “A good rifle, and bam, he’s out of here.”
In fact, I knew it was a shot I could make if I had the right instrument. I had learned to shoot a rifle on my daddy’s knee, and though my close vision wasn’t what it used to be, I could still see far away and well.
“No,” Cesar said. “I agree with Ferdinand. He must know.”
“After he knows, he’s got a long time not knowing,” I said. “What’s the difference? We got to do this thing, why not just do it?”
Because I will think of it forever,” Cesar said. “And I will cherish it forever. The look on his face when I explain.”
“You have to have time to explain.”
Cesar grinned at me.
“I don’t think you’re going to find this type of revenge all that satisfying,” I said.
“Oh, I will,” Cesar said. “Are you losing your stomach for this?”
“I’m beginning to think I never had the stomach for it.”
Brett took hold of the telescope, said, “Let me take a look.”
She said, “Oh, my God. That must be Hammerhead. Jesus Christ. You put a sock and shoe on his dick, stroked it a couple times, he could use it as a third leg.”
I took over the scope.
“My Lord.”
The man was monstrous and naked. He had come into the yard carrying a barbell decked with weights. I saw now there were other weights in the yard, and there was a weight rack. Hammerhead was completely nude. Miguel’s wife had stretched out on a towel and was rubbing her long legs with lotion. She had put on sunglasses. Her head was turned in Hammerhead’s direction, head tilted slightly like a dog that had spotted a salami, and in way, she had.
Hammerhead’s body coiled and the weights rose, he uncoiled and they lowered. He repeated the process. Muscles crawled and knotted under his flesh like angry pigs struggling in a sack. He was the biggest man I had ever seen. Not the tallest, or the heaviest. Just the biggest. His shoulders were broad enough to maybe just hold up the sky. His chest was like the Hoover Dam. His arms were big enough to be used to beat the World Wrestling Federation to death all at the same time. His penis hung long and limp and seemed as big around as my wrist.
“He is one big motherfucker,” I said.
“Is he as big as Big Man Mountain?” Leonard asked, referring to a wrestler we had crossed paths with once.
“He could hide Big Man Mountain under his nut sack,” Jim Bob said, glancing through the scope. “I told you he was big, didn’t I, Hap?”
“Let me look at this,” Leonard said. He took a look. He said, “Good God, his goober and balls look like grapefruits hanging off a fence post. He got that thing up someone’s asshole they’d have to get it out with crowbars, maybe dynamite it free. He is one creepy motherfucker. Maybe a rifle shot for the both of them isn’t such a bad idea. Or in his case, maybe a couple land mines.”
“No,” Cesar said. “I will not do it that way.”
“Nor will we,” Jim Bob said. “Now we need to get started.”
29
We had to wait a few days and watch the mistress. Actually, I didn’t watch anything. Cesar, Ferdinand, and Jim Bob did the watching. They took turns near the mistress’s house, parking nearby and observing, sometimes from a distance with the scope.
Me, Brett, and Leonard got the cushy part of the deal, which probably meant Jim Bob was afraid me and Leonard would fuck things up.
Brett and I stayed at the hotel, in bed a lot. Leonard spent time in the swimming pool. Each day the three of us met for lunch, and in the afternoons, Ferdinand and Jim Bob, or Ferdinand and Cesar, or some combination of the three would meet us back at the hotel for dinner while the other watched. Ferdinand was very uncomfortable when he was one of the two who joined us for dinner. He was not used to restaurants.
It was one of the few times in my life I had lived like I had money, and I was enjoying it.
I did have money. But it was seeping away daily, like a sand angel washed by the waves.
About four days after we arrived in Playa del Carmen, Jim Bob met us for dinner without Ferdinand or Cesar. We were sitting at a poolside table, and Brett had ordered margaritas for herself and Leonard, and they were going at it when he walked up.
/> “Just you today?” I said.
“That’s right. Cesar and Ferdinand are on their way to Mexico City.”
“The mistress went shopping?” I said.
“Looks that way. She went to the airport. Cesar gave me a cell phone, left me sitting under a palm tree, followed her in the car, then called me back. They were at the airport. He said she was getting a ticket to Mexico City.”
“How does he know?” Brett asked. “She might have been getting a ticket to Juarez.”
“He knows,” Jim Bob said. He smiled at her. “He’s a detective. Remember?”
“Ah,” Brett said.
“Cesar and Ferdinand were about to get tickets to follow. Guess they did. He said for us to meet him in Mexico City at the Presidente Intercontinental Hotel. After I got all that, I walked a couple miles, hitched a ride, and here I am.”
“When do we leave?” Leonard asked.
“Not before dinner,” Jim Bob said. “I can assure you of that.”
The summer days were long, so it was still full light by the time we finished dinner and took a taxi to the airport in Cancun. We bought tickets, waited about an hour, and flew out. The plane was poorly air-conditioned, so it was a stuffy, hot flight.
Brett and I were sitting together with a spare seat between us. We were holding hands like teenagers, but it was too humid, and by mutual unspoken agreement, we let go. I opened my shirt collar, adjusted the air-conditioning vent, but no help there.
“I got sweat beads in my crack,” Brett said. “Both cracks.”
“Overshare,” I said.
There were no clouds and the sun was beginning to dip as we flew into Mexico City’s airspace. We circled for a while. Through the window I could see mountains and snow-capped volcanoes bathed in the red of the dying sun.
Finally we flew in closer to the city. A haze of pollution thick enough to wear overalls hung over everything. Mixed with the sunlight the air achieved the color of a dried wound. Buildings jumped up at us and the streets below were as confused as a ball of twine.
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