Laguna Heat

by T. Jefferson Parker

  “What kind of car?”

  “Dark Porsche Carerra. Beautiful car.”

  “What does Dulak look like?”

  Hyams sighed and drank again from the gin. Shephard wondered what else was making his eyes gape. “Big guy. Dark hair and brown eyes. Always wore real nice clothes, I noticed.”

  Bruce Harmon, Shephard thought, always right on the scene. Waving money at Hyams like he’d waved it at Jimmy and Dot Hylkama. So he had found Hodges-Steinhelper-Dixon-Mercante first, and not even bothered to call. Somehow, Shephard wasn’t surprised.

  “Tom,” Hyams continued, staring down at the blotter again. “I think I did something wrong. So I called you. I was scared. When Dulak brought the suitcase and Dixon left in the taxi, I figured they’d be out of my place for a while. It’s a good place here. You might not understand it, but there’s a lot of good things here for a lot of people. I don’t want it, uh, fucked up.”

  “What kind of car did Dixon drive?”

  “Red caddy convertible. Nice one.”

  Shephard studied the man in front of him, and saw something sincere in the haggard young face. “You knew it was the man in the Identikit sketch I showed you Saturday, didn’t you?”

  Hyams downed the bottle in one gulp. “Dulak said I could keep the money, and my life, by saying and doing nothing. Russ. Shit, I knew it was wrong.”

  “And Dixon left here with the suitcase Dulak brought?”

  “I’m sure it was the same one.”

  “Let’s see his room, Ricky.”

  Hyams rose, swayed, steadied himself against Shephard’s shoulder, then led him back down the hallway and through Valentine’s dense lobby.

  The apartments were clustered around a small courtyard behind the club. In the center stood a planter filled with banana trees, their fronds lacerated by the recent wind. Hyams took him to the second story, up a cement staircase that was swaying by the time they reached the top. The railing was littered with beer cans. The doors of several dilapidated apartments were open and couples kissed, laughed, spilled from the rooms. At the last door on the left, Hyams stopped and fumbled for the key. Mercante knew the out-of-the-way places, Shephard thought. He had hidden himself in town like only a man who had once lived there could.

  The reek of chemicals hit him as he stepped inside and turned on the light switch beside the door.

  The shock that rocked his body as he looked at the huge painting in the middle of the room rattled Shephard clear to his fingertips. Smiling at him from the canvas, revealed in all her golden youth and beauty, a beauty that hurt him to look at, was his mother, Colleen.

  “Dixon’s a painter,” Hyams offered. “I could see him through the window, working on her. Pretty, isn’t she?”

  Shephard’s heart was beating in his ears. “Close the door, Ricky, would you?” he heard himself ask. “And don’t touch anything, please.”

  He stepped away from the canvas and surveyed the rest of the small room. It was chaotic: tubes of paint—Winsor & Newtons, he noticed—lay strewn on the dirty carpet; dishes were littered on the floor and couch; magazines and newspapers had been discarded in one corner, and now the pile reached nearly a foot high. Other paintings hung on the shabby walls, discordantly, as if thrown there without regard to balance or order. A violent seascape, a still-life that emitted a jittery anxiety, and a painting that arrested Shephard’s attention immediately. A self-portrait.

  “Pretty, uh, riveting stuff, isn’t it?”

  Shephard studied the sallow face in the portrait. Mercante had chopped his own face into green and yellow bevels from which his eyes arose narrowed and grim, like those of a viper about to strike. He might act like a god, Shephard thought, but he sees himself as a serpent.

  In the kitchen, tossed beneath the cheapish table, Shephard found a pair of cowboy boots, the right one cloven at the heel. Sitting between the salt and pepper shakers on the table was a roll—barely used by the looks of it—of white surgical tape. Beside it was a Bible, open to Revelation.

  The page had been kept by a brightly colored ticket envelope for AeroMexico, which contained no ticket. The date, scrawled by hand on the cover, was August 31. So, he’s traveling by air now, Shephard thought. The gate number was 42, the flight number 217, and whoever made the reservation had preferred—he read the words with a mirthless laugh—non-smoking. Shephard’s insides twisted.

  “Is there a phone in this rathole?”

  Hyams pointed to the couch. Shephard dug out the phone from under a dirty pillow and dialed Los Angeles.

  The AeroMexico counter at International was still open, but the ticketing agent mournfully told Shephard that Flight 217—L.A. to Cozumel—left at 10:15. He asked what time the next flight departed.

  “That will be nine-fifty this morning,” she said. “Arriving Cozumel at seven P.M. May I reserve you a seat?”

  Shephard took the reservation, hung up, and tried to find an earlier flight. Six phone calls later he had come up with nothing.

  Then he thought of Marty Odette, who owed him one. Shephard dialed again. A song by the Rolling Stones echoed from the background of the Sportsplace when Odette answered the phone.

  “Marty, buddy, this is Tom Shephard. I’m coming by in ten minutes and I need your help. Close the bar if you have to, you’re flying to Isla Arenillas.”

  TWENTY-FIVE

  What I like about the Lear is the velocity,” Marty yelled as the jet careened down the dark runway. The scream of the engines rose to a soprano whine, the main wheels broke loose, and Shephard was pushed into his seat as the nose lifted into the air and the runway lights rapidly fell away below him. “Louder’n hell, but that’s the price you pay for speed.”

  The Learjet angled upward and banked south toward Mexico. When Odette had climbed to thirty thousand feet, he left the jet in Shephard’s control and disappeared into the passenger cabin. Shephard grasped the yoke and held course by doing nothing. A moment later Odette returned with two heavy Scotch and sodas, light on the soda. He worked his way back into the tiny seat, strapped the headphones on, and reclaimed the controls from Shephard.

  “This ain’t exactly legal, but that gun under your coat ain’t either, Shephard. We’ll ditch it under the seat when we go through Customs in Veracruz. They probably won’t even look. The Mexicans don’t care much what we bring down, as long as we got some dollars with us.” Marty sipped his drink and settled into the seat. Shephard gazed out the window at the dull glow of San Diego to the west, the blackness of the California desert in front of them. “Well, now that we’re comfortable, what the hell are we gonna do in Isla Arenillas? It means Island of Fine Sand, you know. And the airport there won’t accommodate this baby.”

  “You’re going to drop me in Cozumel, spend the afternoon, turn around, and come home. I’m going on to Isla Arenillas for a date with an old … acquaintance.” Odette studied Shephard with his gambler’s deadpan. “That’s the version you give back home, if anybody asks. It’s all I can tell you now, Marty.”

  Odette turned his attention to the instrument panel. “Do what you got to, Shephard. Being a betting man, I’ll give you even odds down there. Yucatan isn’t California. You run into the law and you might not ever get out. You run into something that isn’t the law, and, well, there’s plenty of jungle to fertilize with gringos.”

  Shephard sipped the Scotch and listened to the hypnotic crackle of voices on the radio. He sat back, running all the possibilities through his mind, coming up with nothing. How, he thought. How did Mercante find out Wade had left for Isla Arenillas? Was it Harmon? And if it was Harmon, how had he found out, and so quickly? An hour later he dozed off, his head resting on his jacket, his dream visions returning incessantly to the golden-haired woman in the portrait.

  He woke up later with the back of his shirt drenched in sweat and the sick premonition that Mercante had lured him out of town on purpose.

  Two Customs officials at Veracruz examined their passports and papers, one finally nodding
while the other lowered the official stamp. The morning was overcast and humid, smelling of stagnant ocean. The first official stood, cast a disinterested glance at the Lear, then told them to have a good stay in Mexico. Odette had told them they were divers. Shephard reset his watch to match the wall clock, noting that his palms were damp.

  Ten minutes later they were high above the turquoise water of the Bay of Campeche, climbing to cruising altitude for the two-hour journey to Cozumel.

  “Ought to do some fishing if you have the time,” Odette offered. “Boats run about twenty bucks an hour down here. White marlin, bluefin, sailfish, wahoo. Some of the best in the world.”

  Shephard lit a cigarette and put on his sunglasses, feeling the delirious swirl of exhaustion in his brain. “I’ll think about that, Marty.”

  Odette gazed out the window, rubbing his tired eyes. “One last offer, Shephard. I’ll stay in Cozumel while you do what you do, then bring you back out. I could use a day or two of that fishing myself. What do you say?”

  Shephard thought a long moment before answering, his mind filling with visions of arrest, extradition, the foreign bureaucracy led by humorless Mexican federales. “Do that for me, Marty. That would be great.”

  “I’ll book at La Ceiba if they’ve got room. If not, try the Cozumel-Caribe.”

  “I’ll call you tonight. Thanks, Marty.”

  “It’s not exactly police business, is it?”

  “Oh, mostly.”

  He left Odette at the Cozumel airport and found an information booth, where he learned that charter flights to Isla Arenillas left from a number of small airstrips around the city, but not from the main terminal. The woman at the booth suggested the Hotel Presidente, which handled the flight bookings. Even inside the airport it was humid, sticky-hot.

  “Taxi?” he asked, seeing none.

  “No taxi from airport—the law,” she said. “The bus goes downtown every fifteen minutes. Catch it right out there by the sign, señor.”

  Shephard waited in the vaguely air-conditioned airport, a tiny and still-unfinished cluster of buildings that seemed no more than a temporary intrusion on the jungle. The bus—a Volkswagen van already loaded with passengers—picked him up half an hour later and began its cumbersome trip to downtown Cozumel. It was unbearably hot, even with all the windows down and a large fan whirring from its mount over the rearview mirror. A picture of the Virgin Mary dangled from the roof. The passengers were all Americans, drained of energy by the long flight from the mainland, waving hands or newspapers in front of their faces to break the wet heat.

  “I can see why the prices drop thirty percent in summer,” a Bermuda-shorted man joked. All he got from his wife was a disgruntled “Yeah.” “Where you staying?” he asked Shephard. Behind his sunglasses, the man looked like a shark.

  “The island. Arenillas.”

  The man noted that Shephard was traveling alone. “Hear it’s nice,” he said with a minor grin.

  The Presidente was the third stop. Shephard got off, tipped the driver, and refused help with his suitcase, which he had packed hastily and poorly in the five minutes he’d spent at home before picking up Odette. He thought of the tenderness in Jane’s voice as she said good-bye. He suddenly wondered if he’d see her again.

  The one-way ticket on the seaplane to Isla Arenillas cost thirteen dollars. Back outside, in the sweltering heat, he flagged a cab. An hour later—it was nearly one o’clock—the rickety seaplane groaned off a dirt airstrip on the outskirts of the city, overloaded with gleeful tourists. Most of them had brought their diving gear. Some wore only swimsuits, sandals, and T-shirts. A pretty young woman dug into her purse, applied lipstick, and smiled at Shephard. Her boyfriend had his face to the window, enumerating the sights from above. An hour later Shephard saw the island in the distance, a tiny strip of jungle green outlined in talc-white sand. The water surrounding it was a pale and unrippled blue, azul in Spanish, he thought, like the eyes of his enemy. The plane bumped down on a small runway.

  The smell of Isla Arenillas was one that Shephard had never experienced before: a muggy, humid-sweet mixture of ocean and vegetation, sea and jungle. The airstrip had been cut from the dense foliage, which crept nearly to the edge of the runway and looked as if it could reclaim the thin landing area in a weekend.

  He climbed off the plane, lugging his suitcase behind. Above him, cirrus clouds flattened high in the sky and a flock of seagulls stirred and cackled. A stand of banana trees, short and green, was clustered at the far end of the strip. Shephard followed the tourists toward a path leading into the jungle, turning briefly to see the pilot, beer in hand, trudging toward a dilapidated cantina on the end of the strip. The pathway was soon engulfed in green. Shephard moved his suitcase from one sweaty hand to another and listened to the musical riot of the jungle birds hidden around him. He stopped to light a cigarette and watched a pair of bright monarch butterflies winging silently against the undergrowth. The tobacco—a Mexican brand he’d bought in Veracruz—tasted black and dank, like the humid air. As he picked up his suitcase, a dark iguana lumbered across the path ahead of him, unhurried.

  The pathway widened, left the jungle, and opened onto a neat dirt road that swung to the right. Ahead of him, he could see that both sides were spotted with hotels and restaurants, with many of the guests drinking outside under palapas. Beyond the hotels, the ocean sparkled blue and lazy. Walking past the tables of a restaurant called Tortuga, Shephard added the aroma of boiling shrimp to the smells that, like the heat, seemed intensified to the point of unreality. It occurred to him that of all the people on Isla Arenillas, he was the only one still wearing a coat, lugging a suitcase, or moving faster than one had to. And, he was sure, the only one carrying a .357 magnum in his suitcase. Two girls sped past him on motor scooters, each somehow balancing a bottle of beer on the handlebars. “Hey, gringo,” one yelled back at him, “lose your load.”

  Wade had not specified a hotel. His note said only that he would check in under the name Frank Seely, if Shephard needed to reach him. What a surprise this will be, he thought, praying that Mercante hadn’t surprised him first. The AeroMexico flight had arrived at six o’clock, just under five hours ago. Surely, he reasoned, it would take Mercante all of that to locate Wade, make his plans, and wait for night to carry them out. Longer maybe. Without knowing that Frank Seely was the man he was looking for, Mercante would have to loiter around the town in hopes of spotting him. The unnerving thought that Mercante could be sitting in one of the outdoor restaurants, watching him as he walked into the hotel, haunted Shephard as he pushed into the mercifully air-conditioned lobby of the Rocamar.

  No Señor Seely, they told him. And no Señor Mercante, very sorry. The desk clerk offered him a cancelation, but Shephard declined. He bought a can of Tecate beer from the cantina and a Panama hat from the gift shop before heading back out into the sweltering afternoon. Outside he took off his coat and draped it over his arm, feeling for a moment as though he had arrived in paradise.

  He worked his way down one side of the main avenue, enquiring at the hotels after Señores Seely and Mercante. When he had exhausted the possibilities and found himself facing a pen fenced off from the ocean and filled with huge sea turtles, he crossed the street and worked the other side.

  At the Mesón del Marquez, Shephard found that Frank Seely had checked in the night before.

  The porter had snatched his suitcase away and was heading toward the hallway before Shephard could protest. He fished some change from his pocket as he followed the man down the hall to room 26, which was ground floor, facing the main street. The porter set down the suitcase and smiled, not counting the coins that he slid into a pocket in his shirt. A moment later, looking haggard and scared, Wade opened the door, smiled, and stood back as worry overcame the smile.

  “Tommy, what are you doing here? Are you okay?” Shephard saw that his father had been lying on the bed, reading the Bible. The look of control, compassion, still hadn’t returned to his fac
e.

  “He knows you’re here, pops. He flew down last night, from L.A. You’ve got bad security leaks.”

  Shephard called room service for a bottle of Scotch and ice, which was brought ten minutes later by the same eager man who had carried his bag. He pushed the cart into the room with some ceremony, arranged the ice tub on the desk beside the window, and presented Shephard with a bottle and a bill. When the door closed behind him, Shephard made sure it was locked, poured himself a stiff drink, and told his father about the near death of Francis Rubio and the grim room at Valentine’s. Wade sat on the bed, listening intently, looking out the window with newfound anxiety.

  “So?” he said finally. “What do you propose to do?”

  “You’re going out the way I came in,” Shephard said.

  “No I’m not, son. That’s something I can’t consider. He’s crazy. You’ll need all the help you can get.”

  Shephard drank from the Scotch, then put his face in front of the air conditioner. “This is the way I see it. He’s looking for you, one man alone in a hotel room. This is a little town. Word gets around who’s where, what they’re doing. If he senses anything wrong, he’ll never show himself. Point two, pop: you get mixed up in this now, it’s going to be real hard on you. Even if everything goes like I hope it goes, there’s going to be an arrest, extradition, publicity. Look real bad for you stateside, but bad down here, too. Who’s going to want your hospital here if you’re mixed up with some killer?” He stood at the window and looked out at the street, saw a fishing boat easing into dock in the shimmering distance.

  Wade hadn’t moved. “You might need me, Tommy. Another body can be a help.”

  “Another body is what Azul wants,” Shephard said quietly. “This is what I’ve learned to do, pop. You taught me some of it yourself. You had a chance at him thirty years ago. This one is mine.”