Captains Outrageous (22 page)

31

W
E BOUND THEM
and gagged them with strips of sheets. We poured the chloroform down the sink, put the towel in the tub. The air was still fairly stout with it. We opened a window. We turned on the TV set, sat the bodyguards on the floor with their backs against the bed.

We found a Spanish game show. Jim Bob patted them on the head and we left out of there, the woman in the duffel bag, slung over Leonard’s shoulder.

We rode the elevator down. As Jim Bob and Brett stopped at the desk with our keys, prepared to check us out, Leonard and I walked outside to the curb. There was a black van there. César got out of it, nodded at us. He opened the side of the van. Leonard put the duffel bag on the seat, closed the door.

“We will see you in Playa del Carmen in a while,” César said. “We must drive the whole way. Where is Jim Bob?”

“Coming,” Leonard said.

Jim Bob and Brett came out. Jim Bob got in the van. Before he closed the door I looked at the duffel bag on the seat. “She’s moving,” I said.

Jim Bob reached inside his coat, pulled out the blackjack. With a motion a ballet dancer would have appreciated, he shifted in his seat and smacked the bag where the head was. The bag quit moving.

“Goddamn, Jim Bob,” I said. “It’s not her we want to hurt.”

“You want I should take her to a bullfight?” Jim Bob said. “A bump on her head is better than us in a Mexican jail. You should know.”

I closed the door, César drove them away.

We had a slightly better ride to the airport than from it. I was able to get out of the taxi without feeling faint. Our life had only been in danger maybe half a dozen times.

We caught our flight out without incident, arrived that night in Cancun, took our rental back to Playa del Carmen. We didn’t have reservations, but we got our same hotel without trouble. Leonard got a room. Brett and I shared a room.

That night, when she finished brushing her teeth, Brett said, “Do you think that woman is beautiful?”

I was stepping out of the shower. “Ravishing,” I said.

“She was very pretty.”

“Ravishing.”

“Don’t overdo it if you want Mr. Happy to actually be happy tonight.”

“But with that knot on her head from the blackjack, not so beautiful. And you know what? Jim Bob may have hit her again. Maybe a lot of times. She could be real ugly by now.”

“That’s better. And dry under your balls. I hate it when they’re sticky on my ass.”

“You say the most exciting things,” I said.

“Do you know what they’re planning to do?”

“About as much as you do. They’ll drive her to César’s, taking their time. Maybe stop along the way a couple of nights. Tomorrow, a couple of us go to see the man, tell him we have her, and then we lay the trap.”

Brett had slipped out of her clothes, and I was enjoying watching her pull on a nightie with no underwear. No underwear was always a good sign.

32

T
HREE NIGHTS LATER
, about three
A.M
., we got a call.

“Come over.” It was Jim Bob.

“On our way.”

I woke Brett up. Called Leonard’s room, fifteen minutes later we were in the rental, wheeling our way to César’s house.

César let us in. He was colorful as usual, a purple shirt with red and green parrots on it, white slacks and slip-on white shoes without socks.

Jim Bob looked his usual self, but for the moment, he was without his hat. I was surprised to discover he had hair.

Ferdinand was sitting quietly in a chair, hands rested in his lap. He looked calm, as if he were waiting to drop the lever on a guillotine. He smiled thinly at us, nodded his head.

Hermonie sat on one end of the couch, looking pretty and inscrutable in a pale yellow pants suit. When we came in, she didn’t speak, didn’t change her expression. There was nothing about her to acknowledge we had entered the room except a lifting of her eyes.

On the other end of the couch, her hands cuffed in front of her, a chain fastened to the center of the cuffs on her ankles, was the mistress. She looked like a goddess, except for a faint blue bruise above her right eye. I assumed, under that luxurious mane of black hair, would be at least one blackjack knot. She was smoldering. I half expected the couch to burst into flames.

On the coffee table in front of the mistress was a plate of food, untouched from the looks of it.

“More bastards!” she said. “You are all bastards!”

“Actually,” Brett said, “technically, I’m a bitch.”

“Bastards! All bastards!”

“Her English,” Jim Bob said, “is quite good, especially when it comes to cuss words. We took our time getting here, and we’ve had her here awhile, doing a bit of interrogation.”

“Juan Miguel will kill you,” she said. “He will have you skinned. He will nail your skins to walls and he will piss on them.”

“Do you want to be gagged?” Jim Bob said. “I’ll use my dirty underwear again.”

The mistress went silent, but the looks she gave Jim Bob were almost enough to skin him without Juan Miguel’s help.

“Her name is Ileana,” Jim Bob said.

“Fuck you, you pig,” Ileana said. “Fuck you. Fuck you.”

“Dirty underwear, dear,” Jim Bob said. “Ones with the Hershey stains in the seat.”

“Jesus,” Brett said. “You’re not even threatening to gag me and I’m scared.”

Ileana went silent again, but she wasn’t happy about it.

“What’s next?” I said.

“We have already contacted Juan Miguel,” Jim Bob said. “Told him we had his woman. He really wants her back,” Jim Bob said. “I don’t know he cares for her so much—”

“He loves me,” Ileana said. “He loves me much. He will hate you much.”

Jim Bob put a finger to his lips. “You be quiet now. As I was saying, I don’t know how much he cares for her, but he wants her back, talks like he’s lost a wallet or something and wants it back. He doesn’t talk like she’s a person.”

“Neither do you,” Brett said.

“No, I don’t, lady. It makes things easier not to. He wants her back, so I arranged a meeting. You and me, Hap. We’ll do it.”

“Will it be safe?” Brett said.

“Safe as we can make it,” Jim Bob said. “We got something Juan Miguel wants.”

Jim Bob stopped at a phone booth on the way into Playa del Carmen. He didn’t want to chance César’s home phone or cell phone number. If the number could be traced, Juan Miguel might have the contacts to trace it.

César had somehow gotten Juan Miguel’s number, either through research or from Ileana. I hoped he had not done anything bad to her to get it.

Jim Bob called and talked while I stood outside the old rickety phone booth. As he talked, three young Mexican men wandered over in our direction.

I knew their intent. I had seen it many times. Thugs come in all colors and sizes, but they all walk just alike. I figured a phone booth that worked, located in a dark place, this time of night, was a great spot for them to pull off a mugging.

By the time Jim Bob finished talking and came out of the booth, they were about ten feet away. He reached in his coat and pulled out one of the nine millimeters, said something in Spanish while he waved it around.

The three thugs bolted away into the darkness.

“You have such a way with words,” I said.

“Ain’t that the goddamn truth,” Jim Bob said.

“How’d it go?”

“They’re expecting us.”

“Jim Bob.”

“Yeah.”

“Ileana. You didn’t really hurt her, did you?”

“I think that sap shot hurt pretty good.”

“I mean beyond that.”

“No … You planning on dating her?”

“I merely meant I don’t want to see her hurt. I feel scummy. She’s an innocent bystander.”

“In a manner, but in another, she knows who Juan Miguel is. She knows what kinds of things he does. She profits from this, Hap. Don’t get too fuckin’ sentimental just because she’s a looker. She got in bed with this mangy, flea-bitten dog, and she’s got his fleas on her now. That’s the long and the short of it.”

We drove along the beach toward the great house that belonged to Juan Miguel. It was full of light up on the rise, stood there like a gem growing out of the ground.

We came around on its back side, stopped at a wide metal gate. There was a box you talked into, and Jim Bob did that. The gate opened. Jim Bob took the nine millimeter out from under his coat and pushed it under the car seat.

“They’re gonna search us anyway, take it away,” he said. “You got anything?”

“A wallet.”

“Put it under the seat. That’s what I’m doing.”

I did that. He said, “Anything else?”

“Nothing that isn’t attached.”

“Let’s hope they let us keep that stuff,” Jim Bob said.

We drove through the gate, down the drive, up to the house. Juan Miguel’s home was even more awesome close up, like something I thought the movies made up. Three stories high, lots of glass, the rest of it pink stone with a red tile roof and a front porch big enough to build a tennis court on. The porch was made of stone too, but snow white, as if it were bleached daily and polished. The house and porch gleamed fairy-tale-like in the soft glow of the night lights that poked out of the shrubs and palm trees, but the tall tinted windows deadened the light like cataracts.

Surrounded by low-cut shrubbery was a well-lit pool. It was to the right of the house, the color of a sapphire, the shape of a kidney. A diving board perched above it like an extended tongue. It was a big pool, and I knew from my telescopic eavesdropping it was smaller than the one at the rear of the house, which had through the looking glass appeared big enough and deep enough to provide Shamu the Killer Whale with a vacation home.

“Damn sure beats a double-wide, don’t it?” Jim Bob said.

“I once knew a fella fastened two double-wides together,” I said. “That was pretty nice.”

Jim Bob chuckled.

The door opened and two guys in tan suits came out on the stone porch. From where we sat, they looked like two fleas standing on canvas, about to go through their act. They were the two guys we had beat and tied up at the hotel in Mexico City.

As we got out of the car, Jim Bob said, “At least there are two people here who know us.”

“They are sweet,” I said, “but my guess is neither of them will be bringing pot luck lunches to Mensa’s next Christmas party.”

The air was stuffed with the smell of fresh-mowed grass and recently manicured shrubs. There was a touch of chlorine from the pool. If it had been daylight I’m sure a butterfly and bluebird would have lit on my shoulder.

The two came down the great steps carefully, as if they were afraid their pants might rip. It seemed to take them forever to cross the green, clipped lawn, make their way over to meet us. First thing they did was clobber the both of us. I took an uppercut in the belly and went down. I wanted to fight back, but didn’t. I took another clip to the side of the head, was yanked up and kicked in the ass. I made a note to remember that kick in the ass. Not to mention the fact I had a headache about the size of Alaska.

A moment later we were searched and four pesos I had in my front pocket were taken and Jim Bob lost a pocketknife out of the deal. We should have put those under the seat.

Next Jim Bob and I were hustled in front of them, toward the pool. Jim Bob had lost his hat in the beating, and it had been stepped on before he recovered it. As he walked along he was at work straightening it.

“They took it personal,” he said.

“Looks like.”

“I didn’t take the beating personal myself,” Jim Bob said. “But stepping on my hat was just mean, and I won’t forget it.”

“You’re like Leonard about his hats,” I said.

“I’ve never seen him in a hat.”

“They get stepped on.”

We went through a gap in the wall of shrubbery, between palm trees with lights on them, out to the side pool, which was bordered by copper-colored tile and on the far side there were plenty of bushes and trees and a fountain in the shape of an angel with wings spread wide. There was plenty of light on the sapphire pool and someone was in it, swimming. We were taken to a glass table, pushed down into white plastic chairs, spoken to in Spanish.

“They want us to stay,” Jim Bob said.

“I figured that much. Goddamn, my gut hurts. That fucker has quite a punch.”

“My guy hit like a sissy,” Jim Bob said.

“You’re lucky,” I said. “He hit any harder than he did, you’d look like E.T. on that side of your face.”

The person in the pool was obviously Juan Miguel. He swam a couple more laps just for show, then climbed out. He was butt-naked. One of the buffaloes gave him a long white towel and he went to drying himself.

He came over, flipping his dick and balls with the end of the towel. I didn’t know if he were merely drying himself, or if it was some kind of greeting.

Up close I could see Juan Miguel was older than he had appeared through the telescope. He was in good shape, with a slightly protruding belly, but solid muscle tone. He had all his own hair and certainly dyed it. He was probably about five ten, one ninety and proud of himself.

“Qué pasa,” Juan Miguel said, and he smiled so big the light bouncing off his teeth nearly put my eyes out.

“How’s it hanging?” Jim Bob said.

Juan Miguel thought about that, then slowly he laughed. “How is it hanging. That is good. How is it hanging. As you can see, my man, it hangs quite well.”

“Yeah. It almost looks like a real dick.”

Juan Miguel said something in Spanish. One of the buffaloes stepped forward, slapped Jim Bob so hard he was knocked out of the chair and the chair went spinning. He lost his hat again. It rolled backward all the way to the shrubbery.

Juan Miguel looked at me. “Do you have a comment, sir?”

“I’m cool,” I said.

Jim Bob got up, straightened his chair, recovered his hat, sat back down. “Where do you get these guys? A girls school?”

Juan Miguel made a movement with his mouth that wasn’t quite a frown or a smile, but was certainly unpleasant. I thought Jim Bob was due for another slapping, or worse, but Juan Miguel took a breath, looked down at his package and continued drying it as if he were polishing a precious stone.

“Do you find nudity unpleasant?” Juan Miguel asked us.

“Yours, yes,” Jim Bob said. “But your woman, hey, I think she looks pretty good.”

Juan Miguel snapped something in Spanish, and this time both buffaloes jumped on Jim Bob. I wanted to help him, but I knew that wasn’t our game. Jim Bob took a short but rapid beating from their fists, then lay on his side and was kicked for a while.

I said, “You do that much longer, I can assure you, you’ll never see your mistress again, unless it’s in a ditch with a zucchini stuffed up her snatch.”

“Alto,” Juan Miguel said.

Jim Bob lay awhile longer this time, but finally he got up, brushed himself off, righted his chair, recovered his hat, which was the shape of a paper wad, and sat down. “The two of them together, working hard, are almost a man,” he said.

“You are crazy,” Juan Miguel said. “You want to die. And you will.”

Jim Bob spat blood on the stones. “Not unless you want that mistress to end up like my partner said. Only I’ll make sure she gets a zucchini in every hole. Maybe even a melon. No more beatings. No more bullshit. You listen to us. We don’t come back soon, call in, your girlfriend, she’s gonna end up in a bad way. You hear me, you cheap-ass Mexican Godfather wannabe. We’re just hired help, and it don’t mean a thing to us one way or another, except we want to come out of this alive and happy, and if things work out, you get your bitch back alive and happy, and we come out of it with some money. And let me tell you, I’m gonna talk to you, you get some drawers on, or wrap that towel around that limp piece of spaghetti, sit down and listen.”

“You are on my turf, you American turd. Nudity is healthy. I am sixty years old, and I know I do not look it. It is the nudity. The fresh air, the sun. I swim nude every night in this pool, and it has done wonders for me. Man was meant to have fresh air, sunlight, and exercise.”

“It’s dark,” I said.

“Yes, but there is the night air,” Juan Miguel said.

“We’re on your turf,” Jim Bob said, straightening his hat, “but we’ve got your muff. Let me tell you about nudity for health, Zorro. Tried it when I was twelve. Stripped off and played Tarzan. Climbed up in a tree and got a sunburn, damn near fried my pecker off, turned my ass the color of a Washington apple. I didn’t find it so healthy. You get a good sunburn on your general and it starts to peel, let me tell you, it’s highly uncomfortable.”

“You idiot,” Juan Miguel said.

“You gonna sit and deal, or you gonna bore me with your lifestyle choices?”

“You fool,” Juan Miguel said. “You think I am losing true love here? My wife, she is my true love. Ileana, she is a dalliance. A hobby. A pastime. She is one of many.”

I felt my stomach go sour. What if Ileana didn’t matter to him? What if he had women all over Mexico?

Then I thought: Like Ileana? Not likely. Who the hell was he fooling?