Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 36, No. 6, June 1991

Blind Trust by Gary Alexander

“You,” said a woman with two cameras. “You’re that upside down guy!”

Luis Balam smiled and said, “He was Maya, I am Maya.”

“Doesn’t the blood rush to your head?” someone else said.

After the laughter, Luis explained the “upside down guy,” a wall stucco of an ornately-dressed figure who seemed to be standing on his head. “He is guarding the doorway of his namesake, the Temple of the Descending God. Or the Bee God or the Diving God, some historians say. Nobody will be certain until the glyphs are completely translated. This deity is commonly represented in ruins throughout the Yucatan.”

The woman with two cameras snapped Luis’s picture. Through her viewfinder she saw a thirty-seven-year-old Yucatec Maya of average height: five feet three. She saw a round face, prominent cheekbones, an aquiline nose, and the almond eyes brought across the Bering landbridge millennia ago. She saw a deceptive musculature, she saw stockiness without fat.

Luis Balam was short but not small. Some had learned that distinction to their regret while Luis was with the police. Before the trouble, before he was forced out.

“The hieroglyphics are being translated, aren’t they?”

“More every day,” Luis said, leading his group to the finale, the largest structure at Tulum — El Castillo, the castle. “Still, only a fraction is known.”

“Do you?”

“I speak Maya,” Luis said. “I cannot read it. When the Spaniards came, they destroyed our writings. Only three codices survived. They are in European museums. Many times I have asked these walls to talk to me.”

Luis took his tourists up El Castillo’s steps. They caught their collective breath while looking out at the Caribbean. The midday sun was lost above puffy clouds but not forgotten. Intense tropical rays cast the sea the hue of blue topaz.

He said, “Tulum is the largest fortified site on Mexico’s Quintana Roo coast. Tulum means ‘wall’ in Maya. The wall behind us that we came through is up to eighteen feet high and twenty feet thick. The cliff El Castillo and we stand on is forty feet high.”

“Tulum was a fort?”

“And a trading center.”

“The Spaniards came to Tulum, didn’t they?”

This was Luis’s favorite part. “In 1511 a Spanish ship hit the reef and sank. Most survivors were sacrificed or died of disease. One Spaniard married a Maya woman, fathered three children, and commanded Maya troops who drove off the next Spanish foray in 1517. Hernán Cortez, no fool, sailed north and took on the Aztecs instead.”

“Human sacrifice,” a man said. “You Mayans still do that?”

This group was pleasant and playful if not generous. With a straight face, Luis said, “Not regularly.”

The laughter was hearty and just slightly nervous.

Outside the wall, in a seedy bazaar offering everything from T-shirts to postcards to ice cream, Luis recounted his money. Eight people, seven U.S. one-dollar bills. There was always a deadbeat in a crowd that size.

But Luis was not complaining. It was June, the beginning of summer. North Americans could stay home and lie on their own beaches and burn under their own sun. Many, many did. With the rabid competition amongst guides for those who came to Cancún, he had been fortunate to snag this cluster of eight. He conceded an edge, though, his resemblance to the “upside down guy.” Most of the others were mestizo, mixed European and native ancestry. He could think of no other advantage a full-blooded Indian had over a mainstream Mexican.

“Excuse me. You got a minute?” said a jowly, florid man.

He was in his fifties. His wispy, straw-colored hair was slicked straight back. He had been in the group, studiously anonymous, staying in the rear as if shy, smoking cigarette after cigarette. “I have a minute.”

The man extended a beefy, freckled hand. “Bud Lamm, Mr. Balam. I’ve got me one helluva problem, and I’ve been told you’re the best.”

Bud Lamm’s stomach protruded as if he were concealing a helmet under the chartreuse pullover that complimented tan plaid shorts. The quarry of a Cancún shop catering to golfers, Luis guessed.

“The best at what?”

“Investigating and getting to the bottom of things around here. I also toured Tulum with you day before yesterday. Remember?”

Luis remembered. He was the sort who endured cultural enrichment on his wife’s leash. “You were with a woman. She asked intelligent questions.”

“Helen. She’s my wife. This archaeology, that’s her thing. That and birdwatching. Me, I came for the sun and the margaritas and the golf. We’re from up by Chicago. We’re renting a condo up the coast a ways, which is what I need to see you about. Yesterday, I was checking you out. Making snap decisions got me in this mess.”

“Checking me out?”

Bud Lamm cocked his head, requesting privacy. They walked to the parking area. A line of tour buses howled at fast idle, to run air conditioners for absent passengers.

“You used to be a topnotch cop. That’s what your lawyer buddy Ricardo Martinez said.”

The engines were deafening, the air foul. Luis nodded an impatient yes.

“What I need is for you to find a guy who flimflammed me and get me my money back.”

“Did you go to the police?”

Lamm smirked. “I went in that little station in Tulum City. Three cops were sitting around playing with their handcuffs. They didn’t speak English. I got the hell out of there.”

Probably a wise retreat, Luis thought. “Swindled by whom, when, and for what?”

“Two days ago. This condo we’re in, it’s a beauty, right on the beach. The whole building’s for sale. This salesman was by with a couple who loved it, but they couldn’t agree on price. I bought it out from under them, on the spot. I’m close to retirement. I’d been looking to invest. I should of known better. I’m service manager at a car dealership. I ought to know a phony pitch by now.”

“How much money?”

“Sixty grand.”

Luis had to think a moment. Sixty thousand pesos was only twenty dollars. “Sixty thousand U.S.?”

Bud Lamm looked at his feet, then said, “Yeah, cashed in my pension fund. Thought I’d surprise Helen.”

“Does she know?”

“God, no!”

“How did you meet Martinez?”

“I was up in Cancún City, kind of crying in my beer in this bar. His office is up above it. Funny place for a law office. Will you help me?”

“I’ll talk to Martinez,” Luis said noncommittally.

“I owe you a buck,” Bud Lamm said. “For the tour. Didn’t mean to stiff you but, well, finances are tight. You can tack it on your bill.”

Eight kilometers north on the coastal highway was BLACK CORAL. It shared its generic name with others along Highway 307. This “black coral” was a large tent, a hand-lettered sign, and, inside, tables of hematite, silver, lapis, and, yes, black coral jewelry. Luis Balam was the proprietor.

Business was slow. Tour buses drove the local economy. Luis and fellow merchants bribed drivers to stop. But in the off season buses were scarce. Between his shop and Tulum, Luis was hanging on by his fingernails until winter. Investigative work for Ricky Martinez helped some, although his assignments were often like rainbows, dazzling but ethereal.

Luis’s adolescent daughters, Esther and Rosa, were minding the store. They and his parents ran it while Luis was gone. One bus, they reported. Two private cars. A hitchhiking American hippie who wanted to use the telephone and bathroom they didn’t have. Three sales altogether.

Luis told them about Bud Lamm.

“How much is sixty thousand dollars?” Esther asked, wide-eyed. She was eighteen, of his first wife who left him when he first went to Cancún to work.

“I can’t imagine,” said Luis, who could not.

“Then it isn’t real,” Esther said.

“Mr. Martinez—” Rosa hesitated, searching for a word “—magnifies everything, Father.”

“He does,” Luis conceded to his sixteen-year-old, child of his second wife, who died of a fever during his second and last Cancún employment. “Should I or shouldn’t I?”

“Talk to him as you promised,” Esther said. “After you eat.”

Strengthened by warm tortillas and a warmer bottle of Leon beer, Luis headed northward in a VW Golf he had bought as surplus from a Cancún Airport rental agency. Its running gear was shell-shocked from potholed roads, its engine malnourished by eighty-one-octane gas. The one hundred fifteen kilometer trip to Cancún City was always problematical, not to mention the eight kilometers of dust and ruts traveled daily between BLACK CORAL and Luis’s village. He had managed to keep his car running with bicycle tools and mechanical intuition. Soon he would need magic.

He worried about his girls. Was haggling with tourists over the price of beads their ultimate destiny? Perhaps. They could clean toilets at Cancún hotels. They could stay in the village, marry farmers, and become baby machines. There was much more a Maya could not do than do. Maybe, just maybe, this time he could get his hands around Ricky’s rainbow.

He passed the airport and entered Cancún City, old Mexico, circa 1977. When Mexico City began to develop Cancún Island from nothing in the early 1970’s as a tourist mecca, the city became its bedroom and market. Luis had as a teenager left his village to work as a construction laborer on both.

Downtown Cancún’s broad avenues were named for the Yucatan’s grandest ancient cities: Tulum, Coba, Uxmal, Bonampak. Ricardo Martinez Rodriguez’s law office was located in a cement building blocks from any reference to glorious history. Low overhead was an advantage, Martinez was given to point out. As was the proximity of doctors willing to validate Ricky’s calamitous diagnoses of his injured clients.

Castanets and guitars on the bar’s jukebox serenaded. Luis walked upstairs and found Ricky available. His office smelled vaguely of plastic.

“Luis, Bud Lamm saw you, yes?”

A year ago, Luis Balam had seen an old North American television show. It was called I Love Lucy. Shave Ricardo Martinez Rodriguez’s pencil mustache and he could be the twin of Ricky Ricardo, the Cuban bandleader. Ricardo had been Ricky to Luis ever since, like it or not. “Yes.”

Martinez clapped his hands. “Wonderful! Sixty thousand Yankee dollars. Do you know how much money that is, Luis?”

“No.”

“Me neither, but we’re rich. If we find it. If you find it.”

“The money belongs to the Lamms,” Luis reminded him.

“Yes, yes, I meant a percentage. We’ll be rich on a percentage.”

“What percentage?”

“To be negotiated. You have to find the money.” Martinez gave Luis a sheaf of documents. “Don’t bother to read the papers. They appear legal. Boilerplate real estate forms completed very professionally. They’re absolutely bogus. Since foreigners have been permitted to own beach property in Mexico through a trust setup, the land and home business has been crazy. What a trust. In Lamm’s case, blind trust, I think.”

“Did you recognize Lamm’s description of the salesman?”

“No. And that’s your department.”

Luis paused, thinking.

“Please,” Martinez said. “Sixty thousand dollars.”

“Real estate salesmen are more common these days than peddlers selling junk silver out of valises,” Luis said. “The beaches are black with time-share condo sellers. Like locusts.”

“Don’t be melodramatic, Luis. You can do it.”

Music began to waft upward.

“ ‘La Bamba?’ ”

“A mariachi trio. The tourists all request ‘La Bamba.’ I’m so sick of it. The new carpet muffles it some. Please, Luis. You can call me Ricky forever.”

The plastic odor, the carpet. “All right, Ricky.”

“Good, Luis, good. Locate the scoundrel. Lamm is broke. He can’t pay me until you do.”

Lamm’s condo was halfway between Ricky’s office and BLACK CORAL. A dirt road had been cut from the highway to the sea, through half a kilometer of scrub jungle. Houses and multiplexes Luis had never before seen lined this stretch of beach. Before long, he thought sadly, the beach from Cancún to Belize will be a necklace of vacation homes.

There were four units in Lamm’s building, two up and two down. It was stucco, painted flamingo, in arched, pillared Colonial Hacienda style. Three to four years old, Luis gauged, and aging fast, subtly crumbling and mildewing, victim of tropical humidity and substandard construction. Staked on the lawn was a Paradise Investment Properties Associates (PIPA) “For Sale” sign.

Lamm was waiting in a doorway, glass in hand. “Mr. Balam. It’s cocktail hour. Can I fix you one? Boy, it’s swell you’re taking the case.”

Luis declined a drink and said, “No promises.”

Lamm shrugged, said fair enough, and led him through the unit and out the sliders to a tiled verandah facing the Caribbean. “Pretty nice, huh? Except for doors that stick and a ceiling fan about to fall down, it’s in perfect shape.”

“What happened?”

“Like I said, this salesman came around with a young couple, showing the units. The place is owned by a guy in Mexico City. He’s trying to sell, the whole shebang or piecemeal, either way.”

“Through Paradise Investment Properties Associates?”

“Yeah. They got an office in Cancún. A legit outfit. The couple were looking around, real excited, and the salesman and me got to talking. He said they wanted it bad and the owner was in a squeeze and wanted to sell bad, but the couple probably couldn’t swing it. His name was Ralph Taggert, which was on the Paradise Investment business card he gave me.”

“Does Paradise—”

“First thing I checked. They never heard of any Taggert or anybody who looks like him. Anyway, we’re talking and he’s saying that the owner’s asking seventy-five grand for the two lower units, seventy for the uppers. That’s two ninety, too rich for my blood. But he says the seller is flexible. The couple comes back and they talk and the salesman takes me aside and says maybe they’ll get the money from her parents, but they’re trying to lowball the deal. I ask how much. He says two fifty. Before they leave, I say come back if it falls through. Meanwhile, I’m figuring what we can make, living in one and time-sharing the rest. Look.”

Lamm handed Luis a bar napkin with numbers scribbled on it. Printed in a corner was a grinning Mexican wearing a sombrero, shaking maracas. The figures made no sense to Luis. He handed the napkin back and asked, “What did Taggert look like?”

“Brown hair, glasses, thirty-five, medium height and weight. An average Joe.”

“And his clients?”

“Is that important?”

Luis shrugged.

Lamm lighted a cigarette and said, “They were your typical yuppies. Blond. Tanning parlor tans. The gal, her T-shirt had a toucan on it.”

“Taggert returned?”

“An hour later, alone. The yuppie gal called her daddy, but couldn’t swing a loan. I offered two hundred and forty thousand. It just sort of came out. Taggert acted like he was in pain, like I was taking advantage of him, but said his seller was desperate and that he was authorized to accept that low a price if I put a hefty chunk down.”

“Sixty thousand U.S. dollars,” Luis said.

“Twenty-five percent. In cash. Cash was the clincher.” Lamm rubbed thumb against fingers. “Money talks. So I thought. Talked me into the biggest jam of my life. We’ve been to Bermuda, the Bahamas, and Acapulco. The Yucatan beats them hands down. To retire here—”

A short elderly woman entered the verandah, limping on a brass-handled cane. She was festooned with binoculars, canteen, and knapsack. Smelling of bug repellent and sunscreen, Helen Lamm was a sprightly gray and pink elf. Luis Balam was immediately charmed by her.

Lamm gestured to her cane. “One of my old putters. She sprained an ankle yesterday. Helen won’t be happy till she’s scaled all those pyramids of yours.”

Helen touched Bud’s cigarette hand with the putter-cane. “This from a man who smokes three packs of coffin nails a day and compares eighteen holes of golf in an electric cart to a marathon. I climbed Coba’s biggest today. Twelve stories. On account of the gimpy ankle it took time, but it was worth it.”

They were teasing each other, Luis knew, but their words were tart. “I must go.”

Helen smiled and shook his hand. Bud walked him to his car. “You used to be a cop, Martinez said. How come you’re not now?”

Luis supposed that Lamm was entitled to a summary. “I went to Cancún to work construction. To escape the village and the cornfields. Back and forth I went. I made money, learned Spanish, then English, but had family problems. I later joined the police. A rich man’s son was drunk and speeding in a sports car on the highway. He hit a bicycle and kept going. A Maya man, wife, and child were killed. I investigated and arrested the boy. Money changed hands. The report was altered to show a phantom driver, case closed. He was released. I persisted. I had witnesses, signed statements, and pictures of the car. I made too much noise. He was convicted and jailed. I was fired for unrelated infractions that were manufactured.”

“An honest Mexican cop,” Lamm said. “You were a rarity.”

“I wasn’t an honest cop,” Luis said. “Not by your standards. Police are paid badly. They have to take small gratuities to feed their families. No amount of money can condone killing.”

“I don’t blame you, you being Indian, too.”

“Maya.”

“That’s what I said.”

“You said Indian,” Luis said. “That is like me calling you gringo. I am Maya.”

“Sorry,” Lamm said, raising hands in mock surrender. “A final question before I get in any more trouble. What’s Balam mean? It don’t sound Spanish.”

“Balam is jaguar in Maya.”

Bud Lamm gulped his drink, shivered, and said, “Jaguar. I can use one.”

Luis returned to Cancún City, reciting a prayer to any saint specializing in the longevity of Volkswagens. On a broad avenue of government buildings was the Quintana Roo State Judicial Police and Inspector Hector Salgado Reyes.

Salgado was dressed like Luis, in slacks, white shirt, and sandals. He eschewed the military uniform favored by his peers. Hector was roly-poly and nearly bald. Epaulets and khaki would have made him resemble a character in an operetta.

Hector was Luis’s mentor. During the scandal, he had tried to save his favorite young officer from Mexico City clout and his own zeal. He, of course, could not. Hector’s stand was unpopular. He barely saved his own career.

Luis related his story.

Hector was mildly sympathetic. “Poor stupid man. His wife will kill him.”

“Not if we recover the sixty thousand dollars.”

“Ricky Martinez and his golden clients,” Hector said, clucking his tongue. “Ricky would buy a sweepstakes ticket and be thunderously disappointed if he didn’t win. Ricky has no grasp on reality.”

“I realize Cancun has no shortage of con men, Hector, but have — you received other complaints fitting this pattern?”

“Not of this magnitude. Sixty thousand.” Hector whistled. “This could be his first and last job, you know. He accepts his wonderful fortune as an omen, a message from God that he retire from crime and spend it. No. Rental deposits hustled by bogus managers, five hundred, a thousand, that is the usual score.”

“I wonder if our Ralph Taggert has flown out already.”

“I would,” Hector said, rocking thoughtfully in his chair. “Then again, I might not. I might worry.”

“Why?”

“You fly home. Whichever city you fly to, you submit to U.S.A. Customs. They don’t like the shape of your nose, they search your luggage. They discover the sixty thousand. What do they think?”

“Drug money,” Luis said.

“Exactly. You have nothing to do with drugs, but you raise suspicions. They hold onto you and make inquiries.”

“Taggert waits in hiding or he converts the money.”

“Yes,” Hector said, raising a stubby finger. “Remember this, Luis. Dollars flow into Cancún. They do not flow out. That is an unnatural act.”

Cancún Island, the hotel zone, is a 7-shaped, fourteen-mile strip of luxury hotels, fine restaurants, a lagoon, and beaches with sand that could be mistaken for granulated sugar. In twenty years Cancún has gone from scrub brush to a sun-and-fun mecca that hosts a million visitors annually.

It got me out of the cornfields, Luis thought yet again as he cruised along Kukulkan Boulevard, the narrow island’s single street. Good or bad? he debated for the thousandth time, coming to the same nebulous conclusion.

Paradise Investment Properties Associates rented space in a newer hotel toward the southerly, least developed portion of the island. Luis didn’t recall seeing it before. They were springing up like weeds. The architecture was familiar, though: a latter-day Maya pyramid of glass and view decks.

Straight through the lobby was a disco boasting the latest electronic glitz, to the right a coffee shop serving tacos made with American cheese and iceberg lettuce, to the left an arcade of shops and realty offices. Luis, guided by a neon PIPA, asked a lovely, green-eyed mestiza receptionist to see the boss. She said that he was unavailable indefinitely. Luis sat on a sofa and said, fine, I’ll wait indefinitely. The receptionist went behind a partition. Luis heard whispering, including “Indian.”

A man of approximately forty came out with the pouting receptionist. He had Luis’s muscular build but was six inches taller. Luis surmised that his hairy arms and hands displayed more gold — watch, bracelet, several rings — than every piece at BLACK CORAL combined.

“Chester Cross,” he said. “Call me Chet. I’m the branch manager. Hortencia says you were gonna camp out.”

The levity was accompanied by a quick smile, but not in Call-Me-Chet’s ice-blue eyes.

“I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

“I didn’t peg you as a prospect. No offense.”

“Bud Lamm.”

“C’mon back.”

At his desk, Cross said, “I didn’t know Lamm from Adam until he came in to see a salesman we don’t have about a property this office didn’t sell him. Needless to say, he came unglued.”

“You don’t know Ralph Taggert? He has business cards.”

“Anybody can have them printed. Where do you fit in?”

Luis disregarded Cross’s question and repeated Bud Lamm’s description of Taggert.

“Sorry. He could be anybody. Listen, con artists make it tough. Creeps like that reflect on me. PIPA’s situated up and down the Pacific Coast along the Mexican Riviera, and in any other resort town where you can walk across the main drag without tripping over a chicken. Also Hawaii and the Virgin Islands. I make good dough honestly. Gimme half a chance and I’ll hand this Taggert clown his head.”

Chester Call-Me-Chet Cross was too passionately outraged to be believed. Ralph Taggert had made a fortune in a short afternoon of deception. Chet Cross was a salesman, too; he should have been catatonic with envy.

Luis waited across the street, with plans to follow Cross. An hour later, a visibly unhappy Bud Lamm strode into the hotel. He had changed into a shirt the color of his condo. And now his face. Lamm left in ten minutes, no less agitated. Chet Cross departed ten minutes later.

Luis followed him out of Cancún, south along the highway to a resort. It had a marina catering to fishermen seeking marlin and sailfish. Cross went into the bar and sat with Bud Lamm. Luis was willing to observe discreetly, but Lamm began shouting and jabbing a finger at Cross, who took Lamm by the wrist.

Luis entered, took them each by a wrist, and said, smiling, “Smile, gentlemen, like you’re having fun. You’re attracting attention.”

Cross and Lamm smiled, gritting their teeth. Luis wrenched their arms apart and sat down.

“Nice grip,” Cross said.

“That son of a bitch,” Lamm said. “I want my money!”

“Slow learner,” Cross said to Luis, shaking his head. “I’ve told him fifty times, I don’t know any Taggert and would string him up by the thumbs if I did. I invited him here to get him out of the office, he was raising so much hell.”

“You ought to know Taggert,” Lamm said, then to Luis, “Helen and I had a blowup after you were there. She knew I’d brought the money. She knew it was gone. She packs and unpacks us. Guess I didn’t hide it too good. I confessed the whole deal. Needless to say, she’s steamed. She’s getting up early tomorrow to go visit Xelha. I’m staying out of her hair till she hits the sack.”

“Staying out of her hair and threatening me,” Cross said.

“Wanna know why?” Lamm asked Luis.

“Oh, yes.”

“This slick talker here, Helen ran into him while he was showing the condo, the morning before Taggert clipped me.”

Cross spread his hands and raised his eyebrows. “Prospective clients wish to view a property. I show it. Is that a crime?”

“No crime except if you know Taggert, which I think you do. You show up at the condo. Then Taggert drops by.”

“What’s your point?” Cross asked him.

“My point is, it’s a small world, but it ain’t that small.”

Luis refereed three rounds of beer, compliments of Cross. The men were surprisingly mellow drinkers. Luis encouraged them into their respective cars before they became traffic menaces. He drove to BLACK CORAL. The sun was setting, and Esther and Rosa were closing.

“I smell beer on you, Father,” Rosa admonished.

“In the line of duty,” Luis said. He explained.

“Do you think Cross was lying?” Esther asked.

“I don’t know.” Luis unfolded a military cot and slapped dust from the canvas. He slept at the shop during high season, pistol under his pillow, when there was too much merchandise to lug to the village. “I have to be at Xelha early,” he explained.

“What can Mrs. Lamm tell you?” Rosa asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Ask everything that occurs to you, Father,” Esther said. “She may be the only person involved who will speak the truth.”

The Xelha (shell-HAH) ruins were ideal for tourists who merely wanted to say they had seen a Maya ruin. Located across Highway 307 from the immensely popular Xelha lagoon, the structures were modest, an isolated and easy walk on a jungle path. At the ruins was a small, brushy cenote — a sinkhole well. The Yucatan was a limestone shelf, flat as a tortilla, riverless and possessing few lakes. Cenotes were considered bodies of water and were sacred to Luis’s ancestors.

Luis waved to the visitor center’s caretakers. They had soft drinks and souvenirs, but no customers. Xelha, lacking towering pyramids, had once been described to Luis as “not very sexy.”

Helen Lamm was aiming binoculars into a copse of trees. She heard Luis’s footfalls, lowered her glasses, and said, “Mr. Balam, your homeland is a birder’s dream. This morning I’ve already seen a tody-bill, three species of flycatcher, and a bananaquit.”

Luis smiled.

“Our genial and knowledgeable Tulum guide, you aren’t a coincidence today either, are you?”

Luis shook his head no.

“I sensed Bud had involved you. We had words. He came home last night and cried. He’s a big, strong man. I’d never seen him cry in forty years of marriage.” Helen limped by Luis toward the entrance, unaided by the putter-cane, and continued, “Bud’s a good man and he isn’t stupid. He’s punched a time clock all his life. He hoped to finally make a special splash for our retirement. I appreciate anything you and your attorney friend can do to recover our money.”

“Your husband is convinced that Cross and Taggert are conspiring.”

“I couldn’t say. I never met Mr. Taggert.”

“You met Cross.”

“I did. He showed the condominium to some people. Bud was playing golf.”

“What did you and Cross discuss?”

“Not a lot,” Helen said. “It’s funny, you know. I would have sworn he’d make the sale.”

“Why?”

“His clients were an attractive young couple who were positively giddy about it. Evidently they didn’t smell the mildew. As they scampered through the rooms like children, Mr. Cross remarked to me how he hoped they could qualify financially, they loved it so, and it was such a bargain. Well, in the final analysis, they couldn’t swing it. They were so disappointed.”

“What did the couple look like?”

“The picture of health. They obviously exercised and ate right. Mr. Bud Lamm could learn a lesson from that pair.”

“How were they dressed?”

“Normal for Cancún and the Caribbean. Beach casual. Between you and me and the gatepost, Mr. Balam, he was a cutie. He wore a tank top. Nice skin tone. The young lady, a gorgeous toucan was printed on her T-shirt.”

“Did you exchange names?”

“No, but when I spotted that toucan, I asked if she liked birds. She loves them. She has parakeets and finches at home, and she was worried whether their housesitter was caring for them properly. Oh my.”

Helen was looking above and behind Luis. He turned and saw a flock of black vultures circling.

“What could be enticing them?”

“The jungle,” Luis said. “It always has what they want.”

Luis picked up Ricky Martinez as persuasion ammunition and went to Hector Salgado.

“Luis, let me understand,” Hector said wearily. “I am to don my uniform and we as a threesome are to intimidate Chester Cross?”

“And scare him witless!” Ricky said, shaking a fist.

“I perceive my role,” said a glaring Hector, who did not especially like lawyers.

“I don’t believe he will reveal the identities of that couple unless he is frightened,” Luis said. “The couple can lead us to Taggert.”

“Luis, do I have to put on the uniform?”

“Hector,” Luis said, “you are a kind and reasonably honest man, but in khaki and epaulets you are a stereotype of corruption, torture, and filthy Mexican jails.”

Hector Salgado Reyes rose, smiled, unbuttoned a shirt button, and said, “Yes, I am, aren’t I?”

On the drive to Paradise Investment Properties Associates, Ricky proposed that they stop and buy Hector a riding crop, as an added dash of implied cruelty. Luis and Hector in chorus told Ricky not to push it.

Hortencia was respectful and immediately ushered them in to Chet Cross, who provided scant resistance.

“Salting the mine, what’s wrong with that? Their excitement is infectious. They get the renters enthused. They’re possibly motivated to make the best investment decision of their lives.”

“A valuable public service is performed,” Hector said, looking at Luis.

“Who are they?” Luis asked Cross.

“Real nice kids named Beth and Corky. I don’t know their last names. I met them at a bar in the hotel here. They had long faces. It was their last night. They were broke and had maxed out their credit cards. They didn’t want to go home.”

“You provided a means to remain in paradise,” Luis said.

“Money,” Cross said, twirling a finger, “makes the world go around.”

“Where are Beth and Corky?” Luis asked.

“I’m not exactly sure. They’re scraping by, but they’re not flush enough to stay in these digs.”

Inspector Hector Salgado Reyes stood and asked. “Where are Beth and Corky?”

“Xcacel,” Cross said quickly. “The campground. They bought a tent.”

Xcacel (sha-SELL) was a beach near BLACK CORAL. A sign at the highway advertised “The Wildest Beach Around.” This was not true, Luis knew. The waves were not particularly hazardous, and resort accommodations were primitive. Budget travelers with expectations of tranquility were drawn to Xcacel.

Xcacel was out of Hector’s jurisdiction, but he went along for fun and procrastination of paperwork at the station. His value to Luis persisted. The caretaker snapped to attention and directed them to Beth and Corky. They were beside their tent, drying off after a swim, lean North Americans in skimpy bathing suits, blond hair sunbleached more white than yellow, skin as brown as Luis’s.

“Chester Cross told you where we were, I presume,” Corky said, focused on Hector. “I’m an attorney, incidentally. What we’re doing isn’t illegal.”

“I’m an attorney, too,” Ricky said. “And this isn’t California. Incidentally.”

“Why did you mention Cross?” Luis asked. “He isn’t your only client.”

“He is,” Beth said. “Honestly.”

“You don’t have to answer their questions,” Corky told Beth.

“Correct,” Hector said. “You have the right to remain silent in jail while we investigate further.”

“What did we do?” Corky said defiantly.

“Bud and Helen Lamm,” Luis replied.

“Helen,” Beth said. “Isn’t she that sweet older lady who likes birds?”

Luis nodded. “Wife of Bud, who was cheated out of sixty thousand dollars, sold the flamingo condo on phony papers.”

“Fraud is a crime in any land, attorney,” Hector said to Corky.

Corky’s and Beth’s lower jaws dropped and their suntans momentarily faded.

“Now wait a sec,” Corky said, “we were hired as cheerleaders. If a deal turns kinky, we can’t be held liable.”

“Accessories, before and during and after the fact,” Ricky pronounced.

“My partner is taking over my clients,” Corky said. “We love the Yucatan. We never want to leave, but it’s expensive.”

“Live in Mexico for ever,” Luis said. “On the beach. Or if you continue lying, in prison.”

Corky puffed his chest in defense of his mate’s honor. “She didn’t lie. We do our thing for Chet Cross exclusively.”

“Ralph Taggert,” Luis said.

“Same difference,” Corky said. “Ralph used to sell for Chet. They’re still associated somehow.”

Beth and Corky gave them the address of a cement block apartment house in Cancún City. After repeated knocking, Hector rattled the doorknob and said, “Deadbolt.”

“We must obtain a search warrant,” Ricky advised.

“Article 16 of the constitution of the Mexican United States permits officials to enter private homes for the sole purpose of ascertaining whether health regulations have been complied with,” Hector said.

Luis sniffed. “I smell rotten food, too.”

“For the record, I am elsewhere,” Ricky said.

Hector kicked the door. “Ow!”

Luis grasped the knob with both hands, pulled, then slammed a shoulder into the door. It opened, splintered jamb and all. Luis said, “You loosened it for me, Hector.”

Nowhere in the three cramped rooms was spoiled food or Ralph Taggert. Clothing hung in the closet; suitcases were stacked on the shelf above. Travel brochures on Hawaii and the Mexican West Coast were scattered on a rickety dining table. Ralph Taggert’s wallet was in a drawer. It contained California and Quintana Roo driver’s licenses and a little cash. There was no other money in the apartment, not sixty thousand dollars, not a peso.

“Why would a person walk out without his wallet?” Ricky wondered.

“You’re forgetful when you’re in a hurry,” Luis said.

“He heard our footsteps or he made a recent transaction,” Hector said. “It became time to go.”

“Either path,” Luis said, “leads to the airport.”

In excess of a million people per year fly in and out of Cancún Airport. They tend to congregate in clumps, herded by flight schedules and the demands of Immigration and Customs bureaucracies.

The trio concentrated on the outgoing clumps, checking the identification of men who fit Ralph Taggert’s appearance. Given Bud Lamm’s “average Joe” description and the fact that they had never seen Taggert, it was a despairing task. They were about to send Ricky for Lamm when Luis pointed out a man and woman.

Hector muttered a curse and quickstepped toward them, parting the crowds as if he were a vehicle. They reached Chester Call-Me-Chet Cross and the beauteous Hortencia as they were handing their boarding passes to a Mexicana Airlines flight attendant.

“What gives?” Cross demanded. “My assistant and I are going to a PIPA management seminar at Mazatlan. There’ll be hell to pay if we miss our plane.”

“Your airplane flies to Mexico City,” Hector said.

“We were going to catch a connecting flight at Mexico City.”

“From Mexico City you can catch a connecting flight to anywhere in the world,” Hector said, taking his arm. “You will talk now, fly later.”

They escorted Cross and Hortencia to seats and asked people in adjacent seats to please move. Travelers sensing a real life Mexican drug bust obeyed promptly. At a safe distance they removed cameras from carryon luggage and recorded the drama.

“Talk to us about Ralph Taggert,” Hector said.

Cross shrugged, sighed, and said, “That topic’s getting old, guys. I’d love to help but—”

“We’ve talked to Beth and Corky,” Luis said. “What did Taggert buy from you with the Lamms’ money?”

“Okay, I didn’t tell you the complete story. Taggert worked for me. I fired him. He was lazy and dishonest.”

“Taggert’s dishonesty offends you?” Luis said. “Ironic.”

Cross lunged out of his chair. Luis blocked his path. Cross swung. Luis ducked, assumed a crouch, and took a solid blow to a shoulder. He drove a fist into a midsection softer than it looked. Cross made a noise like an airlock in a science fiction movie and slumped into his chair.

Shutters clicked. Film-advance motors whirred.

Cross was momentarily speechless. Hector spoke gently to Hortencia, “Your lover boy is foolish, and you are too lovely to languish in my filthy jail.”

“Ask me anything,” Hortencia said.

“He bought Hawaii,” Luis said.

“How did you know?”

“It is farther from Cancún than any other resort Paradise Investment Properties Associates sells.”

“A Maui condo. Taggert was coming by to sign papers today, but he didn’t show.” She canted her head at the hyperventilating Cross and wrinkled her nose. “My hero. He panicked. He said there would be trouble and that we had to leave. He was right. The old gringo lady, Helen, she worried him.”

“Why?”

“She came to the office yesterday. Chet told her the lies he told you. She refused to accept them. She said she would stand outside and sob and complain to everybody that PIPA was crooked. She would carry a sign and picket. She is made of iron. Chet gave her what she was after, and she went away.”

“Which was?”

“The truth about Ralph. And his address.”

“Do you have the money?”

Hortencia took an envelope from Cross’s bag. “Fifty thousand. Chet was going to wire the money to our Maui office when Taggert signed. No Taggert, so we kept the money. Chet said it was a blessing in disguise.”

“The other ten thousand?”

“Ralph had problems,” Hortencia said. “He snorted cocaine and gambled.”

“Expensive problems,” Hector said, taking the envelope.

“Very expensive problems,” Luis said, taking the envelope from Hector. “I suppose the Lamms should feel fortunate to recover a penny.”

“You will have to mail it to them,” she said. “They didn’t see us, but we saw them an hour ago. They flew out on United, to Chicago.”

Hector and Luis looked at each other. Hortencia had been looking at Ricky out of a corner of her eye. Ricky kissed her hand and presented a business card. Hortencia flushed and smiled. Chet Cross threw up on the floor and in his own shoes.

Shutters clicked. Film-advance motors whirred.

Assisted by a bank, Luis Balam sent forty-nine thousand dollars to Bud and Helen Lamm. He split the fiftieth thousand equally with Ricardo Martinez Rodriguez and Hector Salgado Reyes. It came to three million pesos, a million each.

Hector said his share would be devoted to unspecified administrative costs connected with the prosecution of Chester Cross. Hortencia would be his chief witness. Luis bought tires and a tune up for the Golf. Ricky treated Hortencia to a lavish evening of dinner and dancing in the Cancún hotel zone. Hortencia treated Ricky to a night upstairs. His legal fee thus exhausted, Ricky’s romance with Hortencia stalled.

Luis in retrospect was not surprised when the body of an unidentified white male was found in the Xelha cenote. It had not yet been ravaged by black vultures beyond recognition. The true surprise was the facial expression, an eternal countenance of amusement and shock. The federal judicial police and the state judicial police investigated. The localized break in the back of the skull, a button-sized fracture that had thrust bone fragments into the brain, was the stated cause of death.

The police interviewed the Xelha caretakers, who did not recall seeing the victim. They did remind the police that the ground surrounding the cenote was treacherous because of moisture and exposed tree roots.

A homicide required blatant clues. Murder was as bad for Yucatan tourism as a hurricane. The death was ruled accidental.

Luis interviewed the Xelha caretakers. Although they answered him, they were ambiguous. An older woman limping on a cane might have rendezvoused with a younger man early that morning. But who really notices those things?

Helen pressing Taggert into a private encounter, insisting on a refund. Taggert laughing at a little old lady, turning his back on her — pure speculation, Luis thought. He ruled the death accidental.

In a month a package and letter and photograph came to BLACK CORAL. The photo was of Helen and Bud on a Hawaiian beach. They were grateful for the money and had applied it as a down payment on a marvelous townhouse with an ocean peek-a-view.

Bud had cut back to two packs a day and walked his daily eighteen holes rather than riding a cart, and was the picture of health.

Bud looked to Luis like the same Bud. Helen appeared haggard, as if she had been sleeping badly. The package was a macadamia nut gift assortment. Luis tried one and thought that it was tasty, but a bit waxy. He did not have an opportunity for a second opinion. Esther and Rosa loved them and polished them off before the day was done.