The Arraignment

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Three hours in and the sleek Gulfstream is knifing through the night sky on its way south. I gaze out the tiny oval window and listen to the drone of the twin jet engines as we skim above humid thunderheads, wondering where we are and what is beneath us.

Adam is asleep on the couch across from me, a seat belt loosely draped over his midsection and buckled on the outside of a blanket that covers him. Shoes off, his stocking feet are sticking out beyond the end of the blanket.

He is a man grown accustomed to the finer things. It’s what a life of privilege can do. He has no sense of airport security lines that look like a scene from Gandhi. If I told him they stopped serving meals on trays with real silverware, I don’t think he would believe me. If you suggested that security now prevents even the use of plastic utensils on airliners, his first question would be, “How are you supposed cut your steak?” Man out of touch with the world.

His mouth is open, sleeping like a baby. I suspect he is snoring, though with the sound of the engines, I can’t hear it.

I look at the stars, holes in the dark sky, and finally doze off.

The next thing I know, Adam is shaking me by my good arm. Fully dressed, his shoes back on, he is straightening his tie.

“We’re descending toward the airport in Cancun. You might want to freshen up.”

Twenty minutes later we’re on the ground, rolling down one of the taxiways toward a hangar with its yawning door open, all lit up inside. The pilot pulls right in and shuts the engines down.

As he does, three large SUVs, dark and gleaming under the bright lights, drive up and park in an arc around the wing on Adam’s side. I start to get my bags from the back.

“You can go ahead and leave the bag,” says Adam. “They’ll get ’em for us.”

I follow him to the door. Adam slaps the pilot on the arm. “Good flight. Very comfortable. Now, you guys are heading back to San Diego, as I understand it, tonight.”

“Right. Be back here tomorrow night. Then we’ll be on the ground here ’til Sunday evening.”

“Great,” says Adam, and he heads down the stairs with me right behind him. Before I get to the ground, he is already shaking hands, smiling at two men who have gotten out of one of the cars. He motions me over.

“Julio. Like you to meet Paul Madriani. Paul. This is Julio Paloma. Julio’ll be our guide while we’re down here. I hope you don’t mind. Our firm has used Julio’s company for security on trips down here before. I took the liberty.”

“Not at all.” We shake hands. Julio is a big man, I’d say six-foot-five, a broad grin, white even teeth, and a hand that swallows my own. Neck like a bull, shoulders like an NFL lineman, he’s the biggest man I’ve ever seen except for the one standing next to him.

Adam introduces me to Herman Diggs, an African-American mountain who I am told is from Detroit. I look up at him. His top front tooth is chipped like a jagged piece of ice. I don’t ask how it got that way. I’d like to have my hand back. Both of them are decked out in slacks and dark blazers, enough cloth to sail a good-sized ship, each with a patch sporting a company logo over the breast pocket.

Adam tells me they are specialists in corporate security. They conduct some small talk with Adam while their minions gather our luggage.

We head toward the second car in line, followed by the Julio and Herman show, guys with our bags taking up the rear like a safari. These they pile into the back of the last car in line while they huddle to call signals on the best route to wherever it is we are sleeping tonight.

“You sure you have enough vehicles?” I ask Adam.

“Never be too careful down here,” he says. “Julio can tell you. He chauffeured me around Mexico City last time I was down. That was about two years ago, wasn’t it?” His voice goes up a notch to be heard over the blast of a jet throttling up off in the distance. He turns to look at Julio, who is too busy at the moment, making arrangements for travel, to hear him.

So Adam turns back to me. “May as well get in,” he says.

Oversized tires with lots of aggressive rubber. We could use a ladder to climb up into the backseat of the huge Suburban. We settle in and find the seat belts. Adam closes the door to keep the air-conditioning inside. The engine is still running.

“Anyway, it was a meeting on gas and oil leases for one of our clients.” Adam’s going on with his story even if nobody is listening. “And son of a bitch if somebody doesn’t try to grab one of our briefcases. Two kids on a motorbike.”

“Really?”

“That’s what I mean. You’ve got to be careful.”

“Did they get it?”

“Hell, no,” he says. “Herman there saw it all in his side-view mirror. He opened the driver’s door just as they were accelerating. Made a real mess. Blood all over the inside of the door, broken bones. Nobody killed, so I guess it could have been worse.”

“Yeah. They could have run into Herman,” I say.

Adam laughs, takes off his glasses, and wipes them down with a handkerchief. The car’s air conditioner is working overtime with one of the front doors still open.

“Beginning to fog up. I hate the humidity down here.” Adam checks his watch, then taps it with a finger. It’s stopped. He takes it off and taps it gently against the metal frame around the inside of the passenger window, then listens to it close to his ear to make sure it’s going again.

“This old Hamilton’s an antique,” he says. “Like me. It keeps great time, but it doesn’t like humidity. Makes two of us.” He wipes perspiration from his forehead with the handkerchief. “What time have you got?”

“It’s a little after one-thirty.”

“Add two hours,” he says. “Central time. We’ll sleep in the morning. Otherwise we’ll be wasted.”

Herman and Julio finally get everything together and we head for town, Herman behind the wheel and Julio riding shotgun.

Out of the airport, within two minutes we’re on a dark four-lane highway traveling at high speed for a few minutes before we reach an overpass. We turn off and head toward what looks like open water behind flat terrain covered by low jungle foliage. A few miles on, and we start to see lights, a few pedestrians walking along the sandy shoulder of the road, and small businesses. Another mile, and now there’s a sidewalk and the lights are brighter.

“You ever been here before?” Julio sitting sideways, looking at me from over the front seat.

“No.”

“All jungle, un pantano, in English ah, ‘swamp’ until maybe,” he has to think about this, “twenty years ago. Then the government they decide they want resort. Here.” He smiles, gestures toward the floor in the front seat, as if the government would plant their resorts at that location. “And poof, like that, resorts all over. Melia Cancun, La Piramides, Royal Solaris Caribe. Like Las Vegas,” he says. “You been there?”

“Not for a number of years.”

“Disneyland, huh?”

“That’s what I hear.”

He starts pointing out the attractions. By now the properties are abutting one another, palatial grounds with manicured lawns to make French aristocracy envious. These are lit up by banks of floodlights, some of them in color with water effects, fountains shooting spray skyward. He tells us that the name of the busy boulevard we are on, two lanes in each direction with traffic lights, is Kukulcan.

Adam disconnects his seat belt, and slides forward, leaning over the back of the front seat to be heard better. “This is the street where this man Ibarra has his office?”

“Yes, sir. We’ll be coming to that right up here. Beyond Kukulcan Plaza. I will show you.”

“Anything on the two sons?” asks Adam. “Ibarra brothers.”

“Ah, yes. Bad people. Very bad,” he says. “Emm, south. They are south, near Tulum.”

“What he means, they got property down there,” Herman tries translating as he drives, glancing back over the seat occasionally to make sure he can be heard. “Word around is they trying to develop it. You ask me, I think they doin’ something else.”

“Drugs?” asks Adam.

“Could be.”

“And the father?”

“Mystery man,” says Herman. “Told he and the boys don’t get along.”

Adam settles back in the seat again, leans over toward me. “Sounds like confirmation of what we’ve heard. Father and sons not getting along. And drugs.”

“Metz told me that the brothers wanted heavy equipment to develop a project on the coast, some property they wanted to sell for a resort. It could be true.”

“Did Metz send any equipment?”

“No.”

“There, you have your answer,” says Adam. “But perhaps part of his story was true.”

“What’s that?”

“Fact that the father and sons are at each other’s throats.”

“Here it is.” Julio turns and leans over the seat. “This building right here is the plaza. You hotel is here, but we go on to Ibarra’s?”

“Yes. Yes.” Adam motions for them to keep going. He wants to see where Ibarra’s office is.

“Dats an indoor mall, you need anything,” says Herman. “Lotta shops, restaurants, air-conditioning. Hangout for the ugly Americans wanna say they been to Mexico but didn’t sweat. This area’s called the Zone. Zona Hotelera.”

“Zona Hotel-aaaara,” says Julio.

“Hey, whad I say? Listen, I do the white man talk, you do the spic shit and everything be fine. Stay cool.”

“Enough, guys. You’re making Mr. Madriani nervous,” says Adam.

“We just kiddin’,” says Herman. “Hotel-aareeya.”

“Aaara,” says Julio. He’s packing a bulge under the front of his coat that, when he sits forward and turns, swings open to reveal the metal clip slid into the handle of a heavy semiautomatic, all of which is cinched up high under his armpit in a worn leather shoulder harness.

Herman turns his head toward us and leans back again. “Ibarra’s office, just up ahead here a ways.”

We go about a half mile and off to our right is lush greenery the size of a golf course, a carpet of velvet grass rolling into the distance and, beyond it, an immense resort hotel in the shape of a pyramid, ten or twelve stories high, what the pharaohs could have done if they’d had smoked glass and twinkling lights. Out in front a Mexican flag the size of a runway rolls in slow-mo, undulating waves from the top of its pole, animated by the gentle Caribbean breeze.

“The old man own that?” says Adam. He sounds as if he’d like to pick up Papa Ibarra as a client.

“Perhaps,” says Julio. “Bet he has partners.”

“I’d like to be one of them,” says Adam.

“His office is on the top floor. The penthouse,” says Herman. “And nobody gets up there ’less they have an escort and appointment.” Herman sounds as if he’s tried. “Man’s a regular Mexican Howard Hughes,” he says.

“Who is this Joward Jewes?” says Julio. “You keep talking Joward Jewes.”

“Hughes. Hughes.” The sound whistles as air passes over Herman’s chipped front tooth. “Read my lips, you stupid spic. Why don’t you learn how to speak English?”

“Because we speak Spanish here,” he says. “No black jive.”

“Jive?” Herman’s voice goes up an octave. “You never heard no jive from me, cuz I be speakin’ the Queen’s English.”

“Which queen es that?” says Julio. “The one dances at the queer bar downtown?”

“Hey, man, now you gettin’ personal.” Julio leans over the seat and smiles at me, taps me on the knee. “Don’t pay attention to us. We do this always,” he says. “Besides, you no have to worry unless I pull this thing out and point it at his head.” He gestures toward the gun under his arm.

“What? That thing? Last time you try to pull that teeny weeny thing out, got caught in your zipper,” says Herman. “Had to fill his mouth with Kleenex, keep him from screamin’ free willie.”

“Don’t believe him,” says Julio. “He just jealous cuz I get all the good-looking women.”

“Right.” Herman ignores this. “Word ’round town is your man Ibarra’s strange. Lots of money but nobody ever sees him. Know what I mean? Just lets his money talk for ’im.”

Julio is on the small walkie-talkie now, communicating with the other drivers, something in Spanish, then listening, one finger to his ear, holding in the earpiece.

The lead car suddenly does a U-turn, and we follow, three dark vehicles, like a train in the middle of the boulevard. There’s a cop settled back on a motorcycle half a block up, his arms folded over his chest, one foot on the ground balancing the cycle. He sees us, looks, reaches for the handlebars. Then thinks better of it. He doesn’t move. His arms go back, folded against his chest.

You get the feeling that vehicles like this, rolling black power with smoked windows, driving on each other’s bumper, might be carrying some high government official, or worse, some patron who owns a chunk of the country. One look and the traffic cop has decided he will get his quota somewhere else tonight.

We drive back a mile or so and turn into a private driveway that snakes uphill. Finally we come to a stop under a canopied entrance to a small hotel.

Herman jumps out and opens the door. He can move for a big man. Adam gets out. I slide across the seat and follow him.

It’s like a blast from a sauna and into a refrigerator, as the automatic doors open and close behind us. Adam and I stand around in the small lobby while Julio introduces himself and does business at the antique, carved-oak desk just inside the door.

It’s a small European-style hotel. Adam tells me it used to be a private mansion, thirty-nine rooms of marbled luxury. Lost in a sea of glitz, large tourist resorts, their glittering lights with acres of gardens and lawn, no one would notice the Casa Turquesa, its gleaming floors and circular staircase tucked in along the beach and huddled up against the mall.

A few seconds later, Julio is back with room keys.

“You both on the top floor. Adjoining rooms. Herman will have the room on one side, I the room on the other. Two of my men will be down here, the others will stay with the cars.

The manager, accompanied by four bellmen, one for each bag, leads us to the elevator, and we head up.

Three minutes later, I am alone in my room, door closed with the air conditioner humming.

I close the curtains. I’m too tired to enjoy the view, and right now the king-sized bed looks more inviting than the pool down below. I take a shower, and a half hour later, I’m asleep.