The Hemingway Thief (12 page)

“See, right there,” he said. “Hemingway writes ‘He had come into the Dingo bar in the Rue Delambre where I was sitting with some completely worthless characters.' That's him. That's my uncle.”

“One of the completely worthless characters,” I said, not caring about the skepticism in my tone or on my face. Milch caught the limes in one hand and dropped them on the bar. He flipped open the latch on the portfolio with one deft hand and pulled out the manuscript pages. He flicked through them with nimble fingers until he found the passage he wanted. He handed it to me. The top of the page read “Fitzgerald,” and it was written in the looping, sprawling handwriting.

“I've done my research, Coop,” Milch said. “There are a couple of different versions of this chapter. They think the original's at the JFK Library, but it's not. You're holding it.” He pointed to the middle of the page and read aloud. “He had come into the Dingo bar in the Rue Delambre where I was sitting with the thief, Ebbie, and another completely worthless character.”

He was right. The sentence was there, scrawled out and unmistakable. Milch picked up the limes again and continued his routine, juggling them with a casual ease and punctuating his words with the occasional toss behind his back or through a raised leg.

“He's in there a couple more times, but there's only one that matters. The one Thandy came to see me about. Did you read the chapter about Auteuil?” I nodded, and Milch flashed his knowing smile again. “Right, so, Thandy reads about Hemingway's thief friend in the same chapter as the suitcase and he puts two and two together.”

“So did I,” I said. “Especially when Thandy asked about the suitcase.” I'd had my suspicions about the significance of the thief in Hemingway's story since reading it on the way to Ensenada. It had been more of an idea than a theory. The type of thing a reader would imagine about a twist ending while they were still in the first act of the book. It seemed too fantastic to take seriously, but that was before a rare book dealer had tried to make me choose which way I wanted to die after digging my own grave. Now the fantastic seemed quite ordinary.

“How 'bout you let the rest of us in on what seems to be so obvious,” Grady growled. “What suitcase?”

“1922,” I said. Milch's smile widened, and he began to nod as I told one of the most famous stories in American literature. “Hemingway was the Parisian correspondent for the
Toronto Star
, but he moved in some high-flying circles. He was friends with some of the bigger names in art and literature but still couldn't get published. He was on assignment somewhere, I don't know . . .”

“Lausanne,” Milch helped. “Switzerland.”

“Right, Lausanne,” I continued, impressed that Milch knew the story as well, but then he had been, as he said, doing research. “So he's in Geneva and he suddenly wants everything he's ever written, first drafts, final drafts, onion skins, everything. Ostensibly it's because an editor is impressed with his work and wants to see it. So, Hemingway cables his wife and tells her to pack everything up and get her ass on a train. She does, and while she's waiting for her train in Paris, somebody swipes the suitcase. Almost every piece Hemingway'd been working on since the end of the war. No one knows what happened to it.”

“Crook probably looked inside, found a bunch of worthless paper, and tossed the whole thing in a river,” Grady said.

“Probably,” Milch said, “Or he left France, came home to the States, and took the case with him.

“Jesus,” Grady said, and his cigarette fell out of his mouth and onto his T-shirt. He brushed it away with a curse. “So, Thandy thought your uncle stole this suitcase?”

“He didn't come right out and say that,” Milch said, and began to juggle the limes one-handed. “But it seemed to be what he was driving at.”

“What'd you tell him,” I said.

“Told him my uncle never returned from the war and we never heard from him again.”

“But that's not the truth, is it?”

“No,” Milch said. He put the limes down and held up his hands to show they were empty. He spread his arms out wide and clapped his hands together twice in quick succession. After the second clap, he held a postcard in his hand, and he laid it on the bar like a winning poker hand. I picked it up and ran my thumb over the rough, pulpy paper. It had been folded in half several times, and the creases looked like they could split any moment. The sepia-toned picture was of a nondescript Mexican mission, and the words “Greetings from Tequilero” were scrawled in gaudy technicolor across the top. I flipped it over. No message, just a signature reading
Fred C. Dobbs
and a red-brown stain in the corner.

“This is supposed to be from your uncle?” I said. Milch nodded. “Was he a big
Treasure of the Sierra Madre
fan?”

“Obsessed, according to my dad,” Milch said. “You see, Ebenezer did return to the States, but that was like in the fifties. Grampa Joe had gone straight at that time, so Ebenezer didn't hang around long. He took off for Mexico and disappeared. My dad was just a kid then, but he liked to tell the story. I always thought it was one of those family legends. Part of it was that he stole something from some famous writer. Dad never got the details right, and my grandfather was dead before I was born. I figured it was all bullshit.”

“Until Thandy showed up with the manuscript pages, asking questions,” I said.

“Wait,” Grady said, lighting another cigarette. “Why the hell would your uncle steal the goddamn suitcase in the first place?”

“Ransom?” I said with a shrug. “No, Hemingway didn't have any money. Never mind.”

“He wasn't poor then,” Milch said. “He just liked people to think he was. Added to his street cred. And anyway, his woman had plenty of dough,” Milch said, his grin turning from friendly to smarmy. “Pauline Pfeiffer, the mistress. She had dough to spare and she loved him, but that's not why Uncle Ebbie stole it.”

“Then why?” Grady asked, and I could tell Milch's story had hooked him.

“He stole the suitcase, my friends, because Mr. Ernest Hemingway asked him to.”

“What?” Grady and I said together. Digby remained quiet on the issue.

“It's all right in there,” Milch said, stabbing the leather portfolio with his finger. “He says the thief is Ebenezer Milch, doesn't he? They have a conversation about Hemingway needing to suffer, to lose something, in order to get published right?”

“You're saying Hemingway told him where the suitcase would be? He set the whole thing up?”

“Precisely. Why else would he put everything into that one suitcase? It's all right there if you look.”

“He says he knew Ebenezer Milch and, yeah, there's that conversation, but it doesn't say he took the suitcase,” I said. I laid a hand on the portfolio and pulled it toward me. I did it without thinking, a reaction to Milch touching it.

“He did take the suitcase,” Milch said in a low whisper that made me lean in to hear him. “I told you that's the family legend, right? The manuscript proves that he knew Hemingway, right? So if that's true, why not the rest of it?”

“It's a stretch is all I'm saying,” I said.

“Look, Dad kept that postcard in his wallet. Like a good luck charm or something. Had it on him when the cops blew him away. That's his blood there.” He pointed to the rust-colored stain. “Last known whereabouts of Ebenezer Milch the First is what that is. He was down here in Mexico, and I'll bet dollars to doughnuts the suitcase was with him. So here's what I'm thinking: you guys know how to handle yourselves, and after what happened on the road I feel like I owe you.”

“No shit,” Grady said. “You sent us up there to die.”

“No, I didn't,” Milch said, affecting a frown. “I was hoping you'd make the deal. I needed the money.”

“You tried to make a break for it,” Grady said. He downed his cup of coffee in one gulp. He gagged on it, tossed the mug aside, and picked up a bottle of something unidentifiable from under the bar.

“I only left when I didn't hear from you,” Milch said.

“No, you tried to bolt the moment we left,” Grady said. He shook his head and waved his hands in front of his face. “But forget that. You could've at least told us who Thandy really is.” Digby took the bottle from Grady and replaced it with another mug of coffee.

“Oh, come on. If I told you the truth, you wouldn't have gone,” Milch said, as if this was a perfectly valid reason. “Shit, we're in this together now, right? How about I cut you in for thirty percent and we all go to Tequilero?”

Before we could say another word, a loud, shrieking beep pierced the room. I winced from the noise and looked around for the source. Digby pressed a button on his watch and the beeping stopped.

“Sorry to interrupt,” he said, “but that's three hours since you got back, Boss. Four since the incident up on the road.”

“So what,” Milch said. For the first time since we moved to the cantina, he sounded irritated. He had been working us, trying to get us on his team. He'd been close, and the shrieking alarm bell had interrupted his rhythm. It pissed him off.

“So, it's about an hour from that roadblock to the nearest town,” Digby said. “If Thandy is alive, that's where he'll go.”

“He's tied up on the side of the road somewhere,” Milch said. “Probably dead.”

“He was alive when they left,” Digby replied. “Can't assume he ain't alive now. Let's say he gets loose, goes back to the roadblock, or maybe the nearest town. At the very least, that's an hour down. The colonel won't want anything to do with him, I'm guessing, but we can't be sure. Let's say he's on his own. He'll have to find himself some new help. I'm guessing he used some sort of liaison to hire the colonel. He'll make a call to the liaison. He'll have to explain what happened. He'll offer more money for more men, but I doubt he'll get it. He'll have to go with someone new. If he's lucky, and let's assume he is, it'll take him a couple of hours at most to rustle up a new posse.”

“I left him tied up in the desert, rolling down the side of a mountain,” Grady said. “He's most likely dead.”

“Did you see a body?”

“No.”

“A rule I live by,” Digby said. “No body, no death.”

“That's a rule you live by?” I said. “This situation comes up often enough that you have to have a rule for it?”

“It's wise to assume he's alive,” Digby said. “It's wise to assume Thandy's got a truck full of men hauling ass down here. It's wise to assume they will be well-armed and there will be no fooling around. It's wise to assume I won't be able to handle them when they get here.”

“Who are you, Digby?” I said, not for the first nor for the last time.

“The handyman,” Digby said, without a touch of irony. “If they're leaving from Ensenada, it will take them three hours to get here. We need to be gone by then. We head south. When we get to La Paz, I can arrange transport up the coast to Cali. Or,” he gave a long, hard look at Milch, “Tequilero is a hop, skip, and a jump from La Paz. I can get you out or I can get you in deeper, Boss. What I will not do is wait here to reenact the last stand of Davy Crockett.” He struck a match against the wall and held the flame to the tip of a cigarette. He took a deep drag and exhaled, examining our faces through the scrim of smoke.

“Point is, Boss,” he said. “You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here.”

Part 2

The Killers

Chapter Thirteen

The decision was made with a certain tacit ambiguity. No one actually said the words—and in this way no one took the responsibility—but twenty minutes after Digby had told us to shit or get off the pot, we were gathered in the parking lot. I had my backpack full of the few things I'd brought with me plus the leather portfolio. I was kitted out in my corduroy sports jacket and jeans. Grady was dressed the same as always, plus a duffle bag stuffed under his arm. Milch held his tiny suitcase. Digby carried nothing, but he didn't have to. We were taking his home with us.

Digby lived in a mobile home, emphasis on
mobile
, de-emphasis on
home
. The outer shell was made of pale beige fiberglass, huge chunks of which were missing. Dingy pink fluffs of insulation sprouted from these holes like hair on a mange-riddled dog. A twisted wire coat hanger secured the door to the living area, which was unnecessary, as there was nothing inside that could be stolen. There was a sink, which didn't operate, and a stove, which couldn't operate safely. The shower unit had been turned into an amateur marijuana hydroponics laboratory, but it had not been in use for some time. There was a stack of apple crates for a table, and a mattress, which was surprisingly clean, in the back corner. Every window save the windshield was broken or missing.

This was our getaway car.

There was a part of my brain that housed my mother's voice. It told me to take Digby's exit plan when we reached La Paz and hitch a ride on a boat heading back to the States. I wanted to float the idea to the others, but a sort of camaraderie had overtaken us since the decision to leave, an adventurous esprit de corps, like a band of brothers setting out together for parts unknown. We'd been called to action, crossed the threshold, sat in the belly of the whale, and I didn't want to spoil that by voicing my concerns. Besides, there was a louder, more obnoxious voice egging me on in another part of my brain. When it spoke I could smell the faint odor of whiskey and newsprint in my nostrils.

We drove through the night, heading south. Along with some sleeping bags, Digby had procured a cooler full of sandwiches and beer for the drive. He drove and Milch kept him company. Grady and I sat on our bags, watching the stars go by through the hole in the roof. We stopped once for gas and once to take a leak. No one said much, little more than a grunt here or there. I think we were all afraid to speak, afraid that if we talked about what we were doing or, more to the point,
why
we were doing it, then it would fall apart. Money, glory, professional redemption—these vainglorious incitements may have paled to the relative danger we were facing. Thandy, most likely alive and monumentally pissed, would not give up his own search for the suitcase. Even if he did, we were heading into one of the most dangerous places in the world. I knew about the cartel wars and the specific perils involved with them, but what about, as our former secretary of defense called them, the “unknown unknowns”? And so, we kept our mouths shut, hoping like the inverse of a birthday wish that if we said nothing then nothing would happen.