When she changed at night it was a ritual. She’d lift the hem of her dress and show me the little revolver in its white holster, which matched her white nurse uniform and white hose. Then she slid the dress up high enough to show me her panties. Off came the dress, the revolver, the hose, the panties. Finally she was wearing nothing but a smile and a thin fringe of red pubic hair growing back into place.
Now and then, while wearing my chicken plant guard uniform, I’d insist I was the law and thought she ought to be strip-searched, and she’d let me. It was foolish and fun.
We made love a lot during the two weeks Jim Bob was gone. Deep down maybe we figured things could go wrong. Thought we’d try to make up for all the love-making we might miss if one or both of us got killed. Something silly like that.
Whatever, that part of the waiting wasn’t so bad. And I realized that I didn’t just love Brett, I was crazy in love with her. I had never met a woman who made me feel this way.
I thought my first wife, Trudy, was the only one that would ever give me those feelings, but Brett, she was the best yet. She made me truly realize just how childish and puppylike my love for Trudy had been.
At work Leonard and I found ourselves telling Charlie stories. Hadn’t been for Charlie, there were a few times when I wouldn’t have gone home at night, and now, in an odd way, it was my fault he was dead.
I began to gather up guilt. Had I been where I was supposed to be it would have been me. It was supposed to be me.
And then I’d feel something else.
Shame. Shame because I was glad I hadn’t been home, that it hadn’t been me. It was a mix of noxious feelings that didn’t set well on the stomach.
I told Leonard how I felt. He said what he’s said to me before. “Things don’t happen for a reason, Hap. They just happen. It’s got nothing to do with either you or Charlie deserving to die. The guy did this wanted you, you weren’t there. That’s good for you. Charlie was there. That’s bad for Charlie. It’s simplistic, but that’s all there is to it. Some idiot might say things happen for the best. And for you that would be true. But what about Charlie? Was that for his best? Of course not. Neither of you deserved that, but he got it. No rhyme. No reason. Just the way it came together. Once you start realizing it’s got nothing to do with deserving it, you’ll deal with it better.”
“Would you have felt guilty had it been you?”
Leonard was silent for a moment. “Yeah. Yeah I would have. But not like you, brother. I’d have brooded on it for a day, told myself just what I told you, and I’d have moved on. I might have a bump in the night from time to time thinking about it, some wiggle in the back of my brain. But I’d put it in its place, and day by day it would grow smaller, and then it would just be what happened. I’d still love and miss Charlie, but I’d know it wasn’t my fault.”
“Are you saying that just to make me feel better?”
“A little. But I also mean what I say. You can’t carry everyone’s problems, every bad thing that happens to someone you know around on your back like a boulder. That boulder is going to get heavier and heavier, and finally, you won’t be able to bear it. You’ll go down before your time. My advice is feel guilty only about the things that happen to me because of our association and jettison the rest.”
25
AFTER TWO WEEKS or so, in the middle of the night, on a weekend, mine and Brett’s nights off, the phone rang. Brett was so deep in sleep she didn’t hear it. I had become so accustomed to sleeping part of the day, I found it difficult to sleep at night on the weekends. Brett, on the other hand, would have shamed a hibernating bear.
I rolled out of bed and went around on Brett’s side where the phone sat on a nightstand. I sat down on the bed and answered it, expecting it to be one of Brett’s worthless children with their tit in the wringer, their dick in a crack.
It was Jim Bob.
“Qué pasa,” he said.
“Where are you?”
“I’m at a phone booth in the center of town. I called John’s place, but no answer. I called Hanson and he’s coming in. We thought we’d gather up at John’s place or Brett’s. That okay?”
I thought about it a minute. I said, “Come over here. But don’t knock the house down, Brett’s asleep.”
“Can you get in touch with Leonard?”
“I can. I’ll have him meet us.”
“Be there in a moment. And I got a little surprise for you.”
“I didn’t know you knew my size. Is it revealing?”
“Just in all the right places.”
“Well, come on then.”
I called Leonard’s place and he answered. I could hear country music in the background.
“You having a hoedown?”
“Me and John was dancing. He dances like someone sawed off about half his foot.”
I told him what Jim Bob had said.
“We’re on our way.”
“Well, don’t let Bob drive.”
“He’s grounded. Sonofabitch rooted around one of the blocks holds up the porch, made it collapse. No movies, dates, or giving him the car for a week.”
Jim Bob arrived first. He knocked gently on the door and opened it. He said, “I really didn’t know your size, so I got you something else.”
“And what’s that?”
Jim Bob stepped aside and I saw Ferdinand standing there, wearing a simple white shirt and blue jeans. There was a scabbed scar on the right side of his face. He was leaning on a cane.
“Well, I’ll be goddamned. Come on in.”
Ferdinand came in, suddenly grabbed me and hugged me. He started to cry. “You must think me an awful man,” he said.
I peeled him off of me and guided him to the couch. “I don’t think anything,” I said. Which was a partial lie. I had my opinions about Ferdinand. Some of them good, some not so good.
“How did you find him?” I said.
“Let’s wait until the others are here. I’d rather not tell it twice.”
About fifteen minutes later Hanson arrived. He was wearing Charlie’s porkpie. I was surprised to see him using a walker.
“You’re out of your chair?” I said as I let him in.
“Your skills of observation are as sharp as ever,” Hanson said, his black face beaming. “Feeling is back in my legs. Been using this for about a week now. Doctor thinks I keep up the physical therapy, martial arts training, the feeling will come back completely.”
I sat him on the couch, introduced Ferdinand.
About thirty minutes later John and Leonard arrived. When Ferdinand saw Leonard, he got up and extended his hand. Leonard took it. Ferdinand began to weep.
“Just sit down,” Leonard said.
“I’ll make tea,” John said.
“Of course you will,” Leonard said.
I decided to slip back in the bedroom for a moment. When I got in there, Brett was stirring. I said, “Baby, if you don’t want to repeat your Gypsy Rose Lee act, I’d advise you to dress before you come in the living room.”
“What’s going on?”
I told her.
“I’ll be out in a moment.”
John was pouring tea into cups and putting the cups on a tray when Brett came out. Her hair was beautifully tousled around her face. She was wearing a white T-shirt and white shorts. I introduced her to Ferdinand. She sat on the arm of the couch.
Jim Bob was sitting in a chair near the coffee table. He sipped his tea and set it on the table. He said, “I’ve got an interesting story for you people. I’ll try and give you the Reader’s Digest version.
“To sort of capsulize the theme, let me say, Hap, that you inadvertently stepped into a nest of vipers.”
“Hell, I know that.”
“No. You don’t know. This thing has some twisties and some turnies.”
“Twisties and turnies?” Leonard said. “Is that some kind of exotic underwear?”
“Sophisticated private eye talk,” Jim Bob said. “Don’t you fret none no
w, Leonard. It’s over your head and it isn’t your fault.”
Jim Bob turned his chair backward and sat so that his arms lay on the back rest. He said, “I’m gonna nutshell for you what this is all about. Ferdinand filled me in on some of it, and me and him sort of guessed out the rest, but I figure it’s pretty accurate.
“Beatrice’s father borrowed money from someone known for loaning money and not being nice about it. High interest. Strongarm tactics. It was the only way he could get the money he needed to send Beatrice to the States to go to the university. Deal was, she’d graduate in four years, and then pay back what was borrowed with money from her new job, whatever it was. In the meantime, Ferdinand had to pay something back every week. And this amount didn’t count toward the amount borrowed. It didn’t even count as interest. The man who loaned the money, Juan Miguel, saw it as collateral on the major loan. Best I can describe it.”
“If you don’t mind me saying, seems like a pretty dumb kind of loan,” Leonard said.
“Yes,” Ferdinand said. “But I wanted for her what I could not give her. She was to pay it back.”
“Let me finish this,” Jim Bob said. “Beatrice goes to the University of Texas, and bails. That’s the bottom line. She gave up on it and came back to Mexico without the debt paid. That meant Ferdinand had to pay every week and she had to help. In the long run, this being a lifetime deal until they could pay back the loan in full, this might not have been a bad way for Juan Miguel to go. Just have them keep paying until they’re both in the grave. This might surpass the loan. And say somehow they make back the loan, pay it all off, well, okay. He gets his money back with interest, plus all the money they’ve been paying weekly to keep him from breaking something.
“Then there’s a new wrinkle. Through old contacts at the university, Beatrice finds out that some Mayan facades—”
“What?” John asked.
“Mayan facades are painted stucco on the fronts of temples. These had been found by looters in the jungle, and they had contacted university scouts to let them know they had them available for a good price.”
“Is this kind of thing legal?” Brett said.
“Nope. The scouts aren’t sanctioned. They’re just people who work for the university and occasionally field information of a dubious and illegal nature. Lot of things you see in museums came through university contacts that weren’t on the up-and-up. It’s a coup for the university as well as the museum. Though it’s harder to pull that kind of thing off these days. Used to, there wasn’t much to stop that kind of commerce. That leads us to the rest of the story, as old Paul Harvey is fond of saying.
“Well, the university offers a whole shitload of money for this thing, and the looters say yippie. We’ll bring it as far as Playa del Carmen. You come get it. Secretly, of course.
“Here’s the corker. The looters load this stuff on trucks and arrive at the pickup point, just outside Playa del Carmen, and the university people don’t show. They’ve gotten cold feet. New attitudes are in place, and what was once smart archaeology is now considered looting. Not only by the obvious looters, but by the university and museum folks as well. That’s always been the attitude, openly, but underneath, this kind of thing was okay as long as no one got their tail in too tight a crack.
“University decided it was putting the tail of its reputation in just such as crack, and they backed out. So guess what? The looters decided to hide the stuff away and sell it to another bidder. They decide to hire a boat. Ferdinand’s boat. They moved the stucco facades by boat to an island Ferdinand knew. He occasionally took people there to fish, and the looters were paying pretty good money, and he thought he could put this money away and add to it later to pay off what he owed Juan Miguel.
“How am I doing, Ferdinand? Am I telling it right?”
Ferdinand nodded.
“So, Ferdinand, with the help of his daughter, transfers the facades to this little island, hides ’em away, then on the return trip the looters decide—or have already decided—they don’t really want Ferdinand and Beatrice to go back with them. In fact, they don’t want them to go back at all, and they don’t plan on leaving them on the island to Robinson Crusoe it. They decide to use machetes and chop the old man up.”
“Well, seeing that he’s here, and having seen him in action,” I said, “we know how that turned out.”
“Exactly. There were two of them. He took the machete away from one of them and killed them both. Dumped them in the ocean. Is that right, Ferdinand?”
Ferdinand nodded.
“You are one bad dude,” Leonard said.
“They did not expect one so old to be so willing,” Ferdinand said. “And they did not know that I grew up training with the machete.”
“Not something you’d expect,” Brett said. “Machete training. I thought you just chopped with it.”
“Whatever,” Jim Bob said. “He and Beatrice survived. So now Ferdinand and Beatrice have an ace in the hole. Or so they think. Beatrice goes to Juan Miguel and tells him she knows the whereabouts of these facades. She believes that the University of Mexico will be interested in them, and that they will pay heavily. She offers to trade the facades to Miguel to sell to the university for the cancellation of her debt.
“Juan Miguel is a nut not only for money and meanness, but dig this—if you’ll pardon the pun. He loves archaeology. He likes to think he’s adding to the world’s knowledge in this area. You know, loan shark a little, kill a little, and do a little archaeology. Or rather buy a little archaeology. He sees himself as a Renaissance man of sorts. So, he agrees to go with Beatrice. He contacts the Mexican university, and sure enough, they will pay for these facades. And considering they don’t have to be sold out of the country, it’s a legal deal.
“But in the meantime, Beatrice decides she’s screwed the pooch. She should have offered to sell them herself, cut out the middleman. This way, she thought, she could pay off Miguel, and come out with enough money to take her and her father to the States.
“Now we have Juan Miguel having negotiated with the university through his contacts, and suddenly, when he’s ready for the information to reveal the location of the facades, Beatrice isn’t talking.”
“I did not know she had done this thing,” Ferdinand said. “I would not have let her. Sell them to Miguel for our debt, yes. But to double-cross him … no.”
“Juan Miguel was,” Jim Bob said, “to put it in casual terms, about ready to piss vinegar and turn it to wine. He was embarrassed. He’s like a kind of mafia don in Mexico, and all the underworld knew he was brokerin’ this deal, and now some woman, a former prostitute … No offense, Ferdinand …”
“It is the truth,” Ferdinand said. “But when she goes to the university, she leaves this life behind. Until this man Billy … Please, continue, Señor Jim Bob.”
“Well, he doesn’t like it that she backs out on him and throws shit in his face. He is not a happy little criminal. He’s as embarrassed as a priest caught jacking off during a confession. He goes to Beatrice and says, Hey, we had a deal, and she lies and says, I have another deal in place, and I’ll have all the money I owe you, promise. You won’t get the facades to give to the University of Mexico, I’ll do that, but you will get your money in toto. Juan Miguel doesn’t like this, but he accepts. But, to make sure Beatrice understands he’s tired of dickin’ around, he has his man cut off the tip of her little finger.”
“She told me it was a fishing accident,” I said.
“She lied,” Ferdinand said. “I would have killed this man had I been there.”
“Maybe not this guy,” Jim Bob said. “Maybe not any of us this guy. But I’ll come back to him. So he cuts off Beatrice’s finger, tells her he’ll kill her and her father if she fucks this up.
“Beatrice isn’t through, however. She meets you and Leonard. And you get involved, and then she meets this Billy. Billy’s a blowhard and as full of shit as Beatrice. No offense, old man. But it seems your daughter had enough
bullshit to fertilize about half the globe.”
I saw Ferdinand’s eyes glow, but only for a moment. He hung his head.
“She wants what she wants so bad she will deal with the devil,” Ferdinand said.
“And she did,” Jim Bob said. “And besides the devil, she dealt with Billy. Billy says he’ll pay her a lot more than three days of fishing are worth if she throws herself in and agrees to do whatever he wants her to do.
“As I said, before she went to the university Beatrice was a call girl in Mexico City. She’s not afraid of this deal. She’s seen some things, done some things. It turns out Billy, who is Billy Sullivan, is full of it and doesn’t really have any money. He’s a blowhard but Beatrice falls for it. He gave a little down payment, but the rest of it he didn’t have and wasn’t about to ask his father, who, though not rich, is fairly well off.”
“Know what,” I said. “I never did call his old man. I forgot all about it.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Jim Bob said. “He finally got in touch with him and his father came down with lawyers and money and got him out of jail and took him home. I traced him down when I got back from Mexico. And, guess what? He’s dead. Someone went all the way to Indiana, which is where he’s from, and cut him up. Same way as Charlie.”
“Poor old Billy,” I said.
“Fuck Billy,” Leonard said. “I wouldn’t have shit a hot meal in his hand if he was dying of hunger.”
“Way I figure it,” Jim Bob said, “Beatrice gave names or had addresses on her, something. Somehow she led them to you, Hap, or rather Charlie. I don’t think they knew the difference. Then they went to Indiana and got Billy. For all I know, they got all your addresses from the police and Beatrice didn’t give them shit. Enough money, information tends to change hands. And not just in Mexico.”
“But why would he want us?” I said.
Jim Bob shrugged, said, “Juan Miguel wanted vengeance and he thought you and Billy were in on the scam. Maybe Beatrice, to prolong her life, told them that. How’s that for a guess? I think it’s that simple. Juan Miguel, he doesn’t like taking a fuckin’, and if he does take one, then he makes sure whoever gave it to him takes it up the ass as well. A sort of permanent fuckin’. ’Course, could be he thought you or Billy, or both of you, knew about the facades and maybe he thought he’d find that out. He’d still want them, I think.”