Laguna Heat

by T. Jefferson Parker

  He bluffed forward a step, muttering a curse. Another step toward it—he was now within charging distance, Shephard guessed—the animal proved to be nothing more than a branch. He kicked it to be sure, picked it up, and brushed the damp earth from one end. Continuing on his way, he smacked the plants and trees around him like a city dweller whose lantern had blown out in the woods. Five minutes later the pathway forked and he bore right, quickening his pace.

  The trail narrowed. He used his stick to part the fronds and began to hum a song that kept changing into other songs. At a small clearing he stopped and tried to find the moon again, but the tangled jungle over him offered only darkness. He noticed that the sounds—the piping of night birds, the occasional chatter of monkeys—always diminished around him, resuming only when he had moved on. He filled this portable silence with the whacking of his branch and a muttering threat to the jungle as it encroached onto his slim passageway.

  A fat shape with tiny legs shot across the path ahead of him, followed by three more of the same, but smaller. Muy peligroso, he thought, very dangerous, the wild pigs. In the silence he heard them cracking through the jungle floor, a shuffle, a snort, then nothing.

  Just as the jungle had choked the path into nothingness, he broke through a wall of fragrant foliage and saw the silver water of the Caribbean sparkling ahead. He threw the branch toward it with a silent blessing and watched it thud onto the powder-white sand. And just as the desk clerk had said, the dark shape of the Hotel Cora stood profiled against the sky on a hill overlooking the sea, a quarter mile to the west. It was completely dark, recognizable only by its angular symmetry against the blue-black sky.

  Shephard followed the perimeter of the jungle, which zigzagged along a series of peaceful coves. The sand was soft underfoot, and the air was tinged with the clean and reassuring smell of ocean.

  The outline of the Hotel Cora grew larger as he rounded a small lagoon. Behind him he could hear the busy chatter of the jungle, and in front the ocean against the shore. He stopped for a moment to look behind him and studied the series of tiny footprints that trailed off into the darkness from which he had come. The far side of the lagoon ended in an outcropping of dark rocks, which in the pale moonlight he saw was alive with iguanas, loafing in and out of each other’s shadows. No wonder they eat them, he thought, big as pheasants.

  He cautiously rounded the rocks, looking up when he reached a dilapidated boardwalk that had once served as an entrance to the Cora. The hotel stood above him, large and decrepit, the sagging posture of the unused. Against the main wall, which was now covered by foliage nearly to the center, the words Hotel Cora were written in graceful wrought-iron letters. One of the wooden double doors was all but torn away, left dangling by a disfigured hinge. An iguana pulled itself across the porch, then dragged its dark weight up the decaying flanks of the colonnade. Shephard could hear its claws finding their way through the rotted wood. He studied the three floors of darkened windows, only a few still with glass. Two years, he thought, may as well be two centuries in the jungle. The glass of an upper-story window, the one farthest from the entrance and nearest to the water, seemed for an instant to move.

  Shephard backed away from the boardwalk and stepped down onto the sand. He kept near the front of the building, squinting at the window, now with a copper glow behind it, now with an orange flicker.

  Candlelight.

  And a moment later the silhouette of a man at the window, looking down at the sea.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  He watched the orange spot of a cigarette rise, brighten, trace downward again. A moment later, the man moved away.

  Shephard worked his way back to the hotel porch, whose boards sagged pliantly underfoot. The iguana twisted around the colonnade as he passed it, keeping to the deepest shadows. He ducked through the broken door of the lobby and stepped inside, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the greater darkness of the once-splendid Hotel Cora. The lobby smelled of rotted wood and mildew. Out of the blackness, shapes began to solidify: the desk was to his right; two columns rose ahead of him; behind them a wide set of stairs swept upward from the lobby floor to the upper stories. Its balustrade gaped with holes, and some of the pillars still lay scattered on the floor where age, or vandals, had dumped them.

  As Shephard’s eyes strained in the darkness he saw that the shapes were blurred and rounded, and a moment later he realized that everything in the lobby, from the walls to the strangely lumpy desk to the drooping chandelier above him, was covered with a carpet of jungle moss. He crouched and ran his fingers along the floor: the moist springiness of sphagnum gave way to cool tile. A rat squeaked, scampering across the moss in front of him.

  He padded his way to the stairs and tentatively tried the first step. It was stout and resilient. Good, he thought, concrete or stone. He rose a step at a time, careful to test each plank before putting down his weight. High as the chandelier now, he stopped and looked down over the moss-draped lobby below him. Above the entryway door, a broken window gave him a view of the Caribbean, which lay flat and unperturbed to the east. The moon hovered low over the horizon, like a last beacon for travelers at the end of the world.

  The stairway widened, easing onto the second floor. He stopped at the head of the stairs, unsure of how to go around the gaping hole in front of him. Below, he could see the door through which he had come twisted obscenely out and hanging by the stubborn hinge. Finally, he stepped across, his foot hitting the solid plank of the next step. Pushing off the mossy handrail, he heaved himself over the hole and onto the stairway, teetering momentarily when his full weight hit the other side. His shirt and jacket were soaked through, and his own smell was as strong as the smell of decay around him. The holster scraped against his wet ribcage, leather on soggy cloth.

  As he took the last steps upward, his hand on the balustrade for balance, Shephard felt his stomach beginning to weaken as the anger that had brought him this far began to disappear. He stopped, listened to the shallow quickness of his breathing, heard his heart thumping in his ears. The darkness worried him. He considered settling onto the stairway to sleep until daylight, and finishing what he had come to do in the clean light of morning. Would Mercante come peacefully? Did he have the gun? Was he alone? Shephard conjured visions of his mother, her golden hair shifting as she played tennis, her smile as she held her son in her arms on the Surfside beach. Then he saw Hope Creeley again, and Algernon’s head blighted by the sharp rock as he lay by the stables, and Jane’s grieving face as she spoke of him in his living room the day after. He thought of his father on the witness stand, his long jumps from the pier at night.

  Everything, Shephard thought, had its seeds in the man he had come to find. He stepped from the stairway onto the third floor and carefully began making his way to the outside balcony that would take him to the room at the far end.

  With his back to the building, Shephard moved onto the balcony and stepped past the window of the first room. Lizards scattered over the railing as he moved, quicker and more agitated with the nearness of morning. Far to the east, he could see the first mellowing of the black, a fading of stars, the moon giving up its crisp outline.

  Two rooms beyond, the window at the end still glowed. He opened his left palm against the wall for support and brought the Python from its holster with his right. Revolver in hand, he could feel the old terror creeping back into him—Pico Boulevard in the rain, Morris Mumford on the wet grass—and he wondered if when the time came, he would be able to make the gun obey his trembling fingers. Too-Long Tom, Too-Long Tom. With his back flattened against the building, Shephard edged to the last window, waited, then looked in.

  The man sitting at a table, his face turned downward to a book, was Azul Mercante. Two candles threw a burnished orange light onto his old and wrinkled face. He turned a page of the book—Shephard saw it was a Bible—yawned, then looked at his wristwatch.

  Keeping close to the wall, Shephard crept back to the balcony entrance and turned int
o the hallway, breathing rapidly.

  With the rooms to his right, he stepped carefully across the moss-heavy floor, past the first three doors, over a small crevice to the last. The hallway was narrow; he gauged that two yards’ running start was all he would have. He heard the blood rushing in his head. What if the door were as stout as Rubio’s? Directly in front of it now, he moved his back to the wall opposite. Christ, he thought, won’t the pounding stop so I can think; and he shoved off the wall, charged across the hallway, lowered his shoulder into the soft door, and crashed through. Splinters showered his head as the wood shattered. Light. But no movement. Only the glow of candlelight and the calm and hateful stare of Azul Mercante.

  Shephard had the man’s face just over the front sight of his pistol. He was surprised how familiar it looked, how well he knew the haughty eyes, the superior smirk, the wide forehead and dangling gray hair.

  “I’m on target, asshole. Don’t even blink.”

  Mercante was standing, his hands flat on the table in front of him. He was thin, and shorter than Shephard had imagined. His shirt looked new. From the stare in the man’s eyes, Shephard seemed to have made no impression whatsoever; they considered, then dismissed him. The full madness of the man didn’t hit Shephard until Mercante finally spoke.

  “You are disturbing the work of the Lord,” he said. “But, please, sit down.”

  “I’m a cop. You’re under arrest for the murders of Tim Algernon and Hope Creeley. And the attempted murder of Francis Rubio.” Shephard’s voice sounded shrill to him. He tried to lower it when he spoke again. “You’re coming back to the States with me. You’re going on trial again.”

  Mercante sat down, carefully sliding his chair back under him. He poured a glass of wine from a bottle on the table and held it out. Shephard stepped forward and slapped it away, resting the barrel of his revolver against Mercante’s head as he worked his hand over the old man’s body. The derringer was in a shirt pocket. Shephard eased it up and out, keeping Mercante in the sight of his Python as he backed away.

  “You’re Tom Shephard,” he said. “I used to hold you in my arms when you were just this big.” Mercante smiled and stretched his hands. “I consider it one of the great ironies of my life that you have come to take me back.”

  “It’ll be one of the big pleasures of mine, bud. You’re the only man I’ve ever hated.”

  Mercante shook his head and motioned again for him to sit. Shephard lowered the gun to Mercante’s chest, his arm growing tired.

  “That gun must be getting heavy. Sit down across from me, Tommy. What can an old man do to you now? We shouldn’t be walking around this old hotel in the dark. When it’s light again, I’ll go with you, agreed? Besides, since you’re going to take me back, there are a few things I want you to know about me.” Mercante brought a fresh wineglass from a table tray. He poured, and Shephard noted that Mercante’s hand was steadier than his own. With his foot, he pulled back the chair and eased himself down into it. Mercante held up the bottle and Shephard shook his head. “So, you want me to go back to prison? Do you know what a living hell that can be?”

  “If you want to talk, hell, let’s talk Hope Creeley’s eyelids.”

  Mercante rolled his eyes and drank again. “The woman was a liar and a cheat. Her punishment was terrible but brief. And Tim, too. Such a cowardly man, always. In his living room that night he tried to pay me money to let him live. Can you imagine?”

  “I saw where you put it. Why didn’t you just take it?” Shephard’s hand was quivering now. Did Mercante notice? He lowered the gun butt to the table, its barrel still pointed at Mercante’s chest.

  “That would have been wrong. And unnecessary. The Lord has provided me with all I need for my revenge. I’ve never done anything in my life for money. It is a filthy and corrupting commodity. I don’t need it. I am protected by Him. I’ve walked through your town, unseen. I’ve driven the car He sent to me. I’ve left my voice on Hope’s answering machine. You see … I’ve simply been above your rules.”

  “You changed a few, too, didn’t you? While you were working in the Folsom Records section?”

  Mercante smiled proudly. “Eighteen months to turn Manny Soto’s official records into mine, and mine into his. A miracle.”

  Through the window behind Mercante, Shephard could see the first gray of morning. “And the airline ticket? Don’t tell me the Lord sent that to you personally, chum.”

  “Oh, literally He didn’t. He used the form of a man, a man I don’t even know, to aid me. He provides for me. I do not question, I only accept gratefully.” He glanced down at the open book in front of him. “It says to do so in many places.”

  “Well, He just provided you with me. I don’t think you’ll be too grateful when you’re making your last walk to the gas chamber.”

  Mercante studied Shephard with his bright blue eyes. “That will never happen. You must be thirty-two years old now. You weighed six pounds and four ounces when you were born. Colleen was very proud of you.” Shephard felt a stony hatred at the mention of her name. “In fact, your birth kept Colleen and me from marrying. She was reluctant to leave your father because of you. I understood. Here, look at this.” Mercante unclipped a chain from around his neck and swung it gently across the table to Shephard, who gathered it up with his left hand. The pendant was a deep blue stone framed in gold. “The rock is lapis, which Colleen said reminded her of my eyes. The inscription on the back, of course, is hers.”

  Shephard set the pistol on the table beside him, watching Mercante as he brought the pendant close. Mercante folded his hands. The inscription said: So much for so many, so little for us. Love, C. Shephard threw it back.

  “And here, look at these. All from Colleen. I’ve kept them with me since the day I received them. Older than you are, Tommy.” Mercante slowly unfolded his hands and sorted out an envelope from the papers stacked beside the Bible. He slid one down the table.

  It was a letter in a woman’s handwriting. The paper was yellowed and limp with age; the blue ink had turned to purple. Shephard read the salutation: “My Dearest Lovely Azul.” He again felt the blood rushing to his ears; his eyes stung with the pressure.

  “This is shit,” he said. “You made it all up, amigo. Bought the necklace yourself and wrote the letters to yourself. You tried to rape her and you killed her when she wouldn’t submit. You’re crazy, cheap, and stupid. Didn’t work on Rubio. It won’t work on me.”

  Mercante shrugged, holding out his hand. Shephard stuffed the letter back into the envelope and threw it across the table.

  “You have your father’s temper,” Mercante said finally. “I could have used those letters in court, but that would have been a desecration of everything we were together. Besides, the Honorable Rubio was corrupt and ignorant and little could have changed that. You saved him?”

  “I saved him.”

  “He really is a very inconsequential man. I pity his uselessness as I pity your father’s. I searched for him all day yesterday, and the Lord kept him from me. I came here to be alone. It’s good that you don’t believe me about your mother. In the absence of truth, it is healthy to nurture illusions.”

  Shephard saw that the sky outside had reached a pale blue. The water was nearly the same color and the sand was beginning to regain its white, powdery softness. But inside, he felt a darkness descending, as if the night had left the sky and settled into him.

  “The truth is you killed a woman. My mother. The illusion is that she loved you. You can take that with you to your deathbed,” Shephard said.

  Mercante studied him for a long moment, and the look on his face was one of pity. “We loved each other very much,” he said, slowly brushing away the love letters to uncover a .45 caliber pistol. It lay on the table, inches from the old man’s fingers. “Now, everything is fair again, as it should be.” Mercante lowered his hand to the table.

  The roaring in Shephard’s ears as he looked at Mercante’s pistol mounted to a whine that made
the man’s next words almost impossible to hear.

  “… not going back with you … suppose I’ll need to go and find Wade … can’t do it with you around, Tommy.…”

  The roar inside was so loud now that Shephard felt tears coming to his eyes. Then it stopped abruptly, leaving only a tight and brittle silence.

  Mercante’s hand flashed forward behind the candle flame. Shephard reached for the Python as he pushed off from the chair. He watched his own fingers straining for his gun—how long can it take to get there, he wondered—and he could see Mercante moving too, then the Colt was in his hand and jolting his arm twice while orange flames shot across the table. Three cracks shattered the silence, one of them bringing a zip of heat to his ribs. He hit the floor on his stomach, the pistol held out before him. Two things reached his senses at once: the acrid sting of gunpowder in the air, and the bottoms of Mercante’s feet dangling over the seat of his fallen chair.

  It was a long time—an absurdly long time, he remembered later—that he lay there, keeping those unmoving feet in the sights of his gun.

  He remembered, too, as he lay in the soft moss of the floor, his fingers finding the little hole in his side, and his thumb finding the larger one behind it. Between them, he realized, was what little fat he had collected in thirty-two years, and perhaps all of the luck.

  And, he remembered finally standing up to the early colors of morning, the rich ocean blue in the background, the room encased in green moss, and the man lying back in the toppled chair, motionless except for the purple on his shirt and the first breeze of the day in his gray hair.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  For the next three days Shephard remained on the Yucatan, explaining and reexplaining his presence on Mexican soil, his pursuit of the American Azul Mercante, the attempted arrest that had ended in gunfire and death. A Cozumel detective named Ruben Cortez received Shephard, exhausted and bleeding, on Monday morning, and drank hot coffee in his sweltering office while Shephard recounted the night’s events. When Cortez had made copious notes and finished his fourth cup of coffee, he entrusted Shephard to the care of two uniformed deputies, who drove him to the small infirmary that passed as the city’s hospital.