Bitter Drink (10 page)

1 OUNCE VODKA

1 OUNCE BLUE CURAÇAO

7 OUNCES LEMONADE

1 MARASCHINO CHERRY

B
lend vodka, curaçao, and lemonade with ice. May be enjoyed with rum and Malibu coconut cream, or sweetened with sugar. Garnish with the cherry and the tunes of Mel Tormé.

The blue lagoon was created by Andy MacElhone, a famous bartender and son of the owner of Harry’s New York Bar in Paris. The drink was named after the 1949 film directed by Frank Launder and based on a Victorian romance by the novelist Henry De Vere Stacpoole. Years later, in 1980, a new version of the movie was released, making actress Brooke Shields famous.

__________________

I was somewhat dizzy when I came to and suffering my worst hangover ever.

“You’re an irresponsible drunk. Did you think your old man would be proud of someone like you?”

I could hear voices speaking to me in the dark, but I couldn’t make out a face.

“It’s my life. I’m not you.”

“Tough guy, huh?”

“They’re my mistakes. Don’t fuck with me…”

I dragged myself across the wet ground and managed to get up on one knee. The voices continued, but they were only in my head. I was alone. Steadying myself with both hands, I tried to stand but fell down again, my hands covered with wet sand.

Slowly coming to my senses, I tried again. The second attempt was painful but successful. I got up with all the caution of an ice skater who’s just fallen flat on his ass, using the trunk-door handle for support. My joints were still numb.

I lifted one hand to my head. It felt as swollen and soft as a ripe mango. Having already kicked me once before in the jaw, Mr. Antsy Underpants had added another blow to the base of my skull this time. Running my fingers through my hair, I felt a sticky wetness. My head was bleeding freely.

My eyes focused on a large shape in front of me. It was the Cadillac. I stumbled over to it, opened the door, and collapsed in the driver’s seat. The keys were still in the ignition. I just sat there like a putz, the prize champion of putzes. For
a second it occurred to me I should lay off the bottle. But just for a second, before I convinced myself that what I really needed was another shot of that raicilla.

Where Bobby had been standing there was only darkness. I heard a man groaning in pain among the crickets and a motor purring in the distance. Headlights fell on the Cadillac and the clearing around us. I could see Bobby’s body lying a few feet away.

If the headlights belonged to the same guys that had done that to Bobby, there’d be no escape. I felt for my Colt. It was gone. The approaching headlights grew brighter.

The car stopped in front of me, blinding me for a second time that night. I could see it was a convertible jeep. A war relic. A Napoleonic soldier would have been more modern and better equipped. My intuition told me there’d be no trouble from that jalopy.

With enormous effort, I pulled myself out of the car and stumbled toward the ex-boxer. Bobby was alive and moaning, but I could see he was about to pass out. A bullet had gone through his thigh. Nothing to worry about. What a shame it would have been for the world to lose a future star like him, I thought. He’d received the same blow to the head, or maybe two, as I had, enough to knock him out at least. There was a lot of blood beside him, but none of it appeared to be his; it was nowhere near his leg wound.

A shadow blocked the headlights all of a sudden. I turned and gazed into the blinding halo of light. A robust but hunched silhouette appeared. I could see it wore shorts
and a scruffy beard. I don’t know which I recognized first, his voice or the smell of his T-shirt.

“
Soldado
, next time better invite me to the party.
Más diversión
than a cantina, huh?”

Billy Joe, my drinking buddy from Mazatlán, kneeled down beside me and started tending to Bobby La Salle.

“Your amigo needs a doctor. He’s not hurt bad, but he could still bleed to death.”

The old man lifted the boxer like a sack of potatoes and dragged him over to his jeep, depositing him in the backseat with all the delicacy of an airport luggage handler.

“Compadre, you look
muy mal
. Let me see that wound.”

I bent my head down so the old man could take a closer look. He gave a long whistle and moved away from me, as if my head wound and bad luck might be contagious. Leaning against the bumper of the jeep, he raised one of his British cigarettes to his lips and lit it, then offered me one.

“No thanks. They’re bad for your health.”

“Just like your line of work,
soldado
.” He took a deep drag and gave me the same smile he’d offered before, like Santa Claus having been asked for an impossible gift. Goddamned Santa. “You drive the Cadillac,” he said.

“What about the money?” I asked.

“Your amigo’s clean.”

“No. He was carrying an envelope with cash. I guess our date didn’t feel like giving up the ring. They must have kept the ransom money.”

“Rings, money, and a kick in head.
Mucho bueno
work.”

“So how come you show up out here in the middle of nowhere, mister?” I asked. “And I don’t like your half-assed whorish answers anymore. If you tell me you’re out here hunting lizards, I swear I’ll do you worse than they did Bobby.”

“I followed your trail from town.
Esta ser carretera
, the road, for cheap
putas
there. I saw your lights. It’s too cold to be a couple screwing…”

“I wouldn’t know. Haven’t noticed any this trip,” I replied. My head had finally stopped buzzing. Now it was just pain I felt. “Rescued by an old wise guy. Sergeant Quintero’s gonna love hearing this one.”

“Billy Joe’s always
listo, soldado
,” he said, getting into his car. “Follow me. Don’t die on the way,
por favor
. I still want
putas baratas
.”

“You’re the champion jokester, mister,” I replied, my head still aching. I got back into the Cadillac and started the ignition. It took all my concentration not to drive off the road, though before reaching Puerto Vallarta, I did have to stop and throw up, making a terrible mess in the Cadillac. It was all that raicilla I’d drunk with Richard Burton. I was simply returning the favor.

1 PART GIN

1 PART CAMPARI

1 PART SWEET VERMOUTH

1 LEMON TWIST

S
hake the gin, Campari, and vermouth with ice to chill. Strain into a cocktail glass with a few ice cubes, and garnish with the lemon twist.

The negroni hails from Florence, Italy, and was invented in the early twenties in honor of Count Camillo Negroni, who asked a bartender to add gin instead of soda water to his favorite cocktail, the Americano. The negroni didn’t make its debut in the United States until 1947, however. Here’s a cocktail to whet your appetite while Sammy Davis Jr. sings “The Girl from Ipanema.”

__________________

Just as I’d thought, Sergeant Quintero loved my story. In his own reserved way, he was whooping and bouncing off the walls. Very much in his own way: he raised one eyebrow and said in his standard bored tone of voice,
“Mis huevos.”

Of course, I spiced it up a bit. Like when you inherit a recipe. You add a little something, you take a little something out. And you always season to taste: Bobby La Salle and I were out practicing our aim, using river lizards as targets. That night there must have been a Rotary Club meeting or something, because there were no lizards to shoot. Then a gang of ruffians attacked us. It was highway robbery. It was a miracle I wasn’t killed. I would have been too, if not for the boxer’s courage. While trying to defend me, he took a bullet in the leg. The criminals took off, leaving a cloud of dust behind. Maybe they were late for that Rotary Club meeting. They left us in a sorry state: food for their colleagues, the lizards. Billy Joe had heard the shots and decided to investigate. And that’s how he found us.

At least I didn’t lie about cheap whores
.

“Mis huevos,”
Quintero repeated.

Bobby lowered his head. He had a bandage that made him look like a gift-wrapped coconut. Another bandage covered the wound on his leg. He’d gotten off easy: only five stitches. It had cost me seven on the nape of the neck. They hurt more than the first kick in the nuts you get in grade school.

Billy Joe smiled, using that Santa Claus expression of his. Goddamned Santa.

“The
muchacho
tells the truth. Drunk sailors, maybe.” With that, the old man was done. It was like adorning Quintero’s drink with a paper umbrella to see if he’d swallow it whole.

The old man smoked one of his cigarettes. Quintero, not wanting to be left out, removed a package of cheap, filterless Alas from his ridiculous blue shirt. Between the two of them, they puffed more smoke than a broken-down truck. Bobby Gorilla coughed. I liked the fact that he didn’t smoke; he was a true athlete.

“Mr. Rogue, it’s been a long time since you gave us any trouble. Do you really want to stick your nose into this and end up with blood on your hands because of this pair of
pendejos
?”

It surprised me that our friendly local Puerto Vallarta police officer was capable of articulating such a phrase; maybe he had gone to school after all, maybe even junior high.

“Sergeant, that bells thing was Manuel’s goddamned idea.” I must have looked confused, because Billy Joe turned to explain. “Arrested by the police the other night. Got drunk with
cabrón
Manuel Lepe. We went to ring church bells.”

“At four in the morning,” Quintero added in an annoyed tone. I tried to contain myself, but the image of that old man playing childish pranks—like peeping at girls in the bathroom or placing a tack on a chair or ringing church bells in the middle of the night—made me laugh out loud.

I’d met Manuel Lepe on one of my drunken sprees: he was a local
artiste
, a well-known character in town, who’d devoted
himself to painting canvases that looked like gorgeous pipe dreams: infantile drawings of children, little donkeys, birds; everybody grinning and flying around like angels. Heroin doesn’t generally provide such pleasant visions.

“It’d all be beautiful if it weren’t for the fact that we picked up a stiff,” Quintero told us sadly, like a bad actor on a Mexican soap opera. “In the river, a few feet away from where you were. It was thrown off the bridge and ran aground alongside the highway. Lucky the current was slow.”

“And does this body have a name?” I asked. Naïveté is the best weapon against cops.

“Believe it or not, it does. A guy called José Antonio Contreras. From Mexico City. A real luxury model: wanted for murder, robbery, and beating up bunny rabbits on Sundays. Suspected in the infamous killing of Mercedes Cassola and Ycilio Massine, and a known member of gangs run by Carlos Zippo, Giuseppe Bari, and the Nava.”

“This can’t be for real. You’re making those names up,” I said with a smile.

“Sure. Just like the stiff.”

“No big loss. Maybe just some poor brokenhearted soul who jumped off the bridge,” I concluded, trying to wrap up this mess.

“Sure, the kind of suicide you only find in Mexico—with a bullet in the chest. A little present from one of you, perhaps?” Quintero asked.

Silence. The street noise had suddenly died. Even the goddamned crickets awaited our answer.

“It wasn’t us,” I protested, breaking the awful silence. “I was packing my Colt. It didn’t so much as cough.” The crickets started chirping again. “And how did you find out so much about a dead guy in less than an hour?” I added. “Even James Bond would be impressed by the Vallarta police force.” I’ve found that playing the funny guy also helps with cops. Especially when they’re pointing a gun at you.

“We were already after this dude. His gang specialized in jewel theft. Our snitch said he was working for Bernabé Jurado here in town. With all these tourists, Puerto Vallarta is a thieves’ paradise.”

He looked us up and down, like three kids getting scolded at recess. And then he must have decided to take pity on us. “Get outta here,” he barked, “before I find a reason to lock you up all week.”

“No
problemo, soldado
. Though the coffee in jail is better than at the Hotel Rosita,” Billy Joe had to add. That really put Quintero in a bad mood. He cursed a blue streak as he escorted us out to the street.