Captains Outrageous

27

We arrived in Cancun, rented a car, headed off toward Playa del Carmen. As we neared the town, a slice of sunset the color of a fresh-sliced salmon fillet stained the horizon. As we watched, darkness corrupted it, then it all sank away as if into a tar pit.

It was a night full of clouds and no visible moon. Darkness dripped over the car like ink poured from a jar, but as we neared the city pinpricks of colored lights jumped into view. We cruised past a McDonald’s and a T-shirt shop and on into town.

We ended up staying at a nice hotel near the sea. Brett and I took a room, Jim Bob, Leonard, and Ferdinand took one together. Leonard ended up on a roll-away.

In our room we opened a window, pulled back the curtains, let the sea air in. There was a palm tree near our window. The limbs and leaves scraped the wall like a cat scratching. There were lights on poles along the edge of the beach and they made the sand and water and the pedestrian walk, Fifth Avenue, look like one of those paintings you do by numbers.

Seabirds were coasting low over the water, dropping birdshit like napalm, hoping for a late fish snack before hanging it up for the day.

People walked along Fifth Avenue, talking and laughing.

“Since this is gonna cost us anyway,” Brett said, “what say we order room service, enjoy that, then fuck like two rabbits in a lab experiment?”

“That’s my kind of night,” I said.

We ordered room service, but what we ended up doing was not fucking like rabbits in a lab experiment, but lying in one another’s arms watching a late movie, The Man With the Golden Arm, starring Frank Sinatra. It was in English. Something cabled in for the tourists, I guess.

Next morning we got up early, had room service, then went with Jim Bob in the rental to meet Cesar. Leonard was walking a little funny. I thought maybe his bad hip was acting up.

“You all right?” I asked.

“It’s not my hip, if that’s what you’re thinking. It’s that damn roll-away. I fought that motherfucker all night. It finally threw me. I ended up sleeping with a blanket and a pillow on the floor. Now I know how those poor racked sonofabitches felt during the Inquisition.”

We piled into the car. As we drove near the beach, I saw Ferdinand look out at the sea. I said, “Where’s your boat?”

“I sold the boat,” he said. “Some rich American who wanted his own fishing boat.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I needed the money… I know what you must think of me, senor. All of you. But I did what I could do. I tried to help my daughter. I did not make her a whore. She chose that for herself. When I thought she could get the money needed to keep her from dying, I let her do what she had to do. It was never for me. You must understand I was only letting her do what I thought she must do. It is all nothing now. She is dead. I am dead.”

“Time heals things,” I said.

“No, senor. It only heals some things. An open wound heals. This, this does not heal. But I can put salve on it. I can help kill this man who had my daughter killed.”

“If it’s any consolation,” Leonard said. “Knowing now what you were up against, I understand why you did what you did.”

“It is something, senor. It is something.”

Cesar’s place was very nice. Nothing like what I expected. It was nestled amongst palms and foliage, one long story made of wood and stone, not far from the beach. The garage contained a Jaguar and an older-looking dirt-brown Plymouth.

“Looking through people’s windows, prowling through their underwear drawers, seems to pay pretty good,” Leonard said.

Jim Bob looked at Leonard and smiled. Leonard may have forgotten that Jim Bob and Cesar were in the same business, but I doubted it.

We walked up a little crunched seashell path, and before we could knock, the door opened and a little fat man in a red shirt opened the door. He looked to be in his late thirties or forties, had very little hair, and what hair he had was black and gooey with oil. He had a face that would have looked at home on the Buddha, providing the Buddha had one cauliflowered ear. He shook our hands and hugged Jim Bob and Brett.

“Would you come in,” he said. “It is so good to meet you, senores, and it is even better to see this delightful senorita. Or is it senora?”

“Senorita,” she said.

“Surely, you are but an angel visiting from heaven.”

“That goes without question,” Brett said.

Inside the house it was also very nice, with colorful Mexican rugs hung on the wall, fine furniture, and nearby a young Mexican lady with blond hair and black roots. She stood near a stone fireplace, almost at attention. She wore a white pants suit with a long, near-waist-length strand of black beads that had gotten slung sideways, so that against her white suit it looked as if she were a cracked porcelain doll. She was pretty, but the look on her face was like that of someone who had just discovered her asshole has been sewn shut.

“This is my wife,” Cesar said. “Her name is Hermonie.”

“Is Hermonie a Spanish name?” Brett asked.

“I have no idea,” Cesar said. “She is very shy… Ah, Jim Bob.”

He and Jim Bob embraced. “Didn’t we just do this?” Jim Bob said.

“What?” Cesar said. “It is not as good the second time? Come, I have had a late breakfast prepared.” He spoke pleasantly to Hermonie in Spanish.

She led us out the back way, as if leading us to our execution. Leonard leaned toward me, said, “I don’t think these two are a love match.”

We ended up at a table under a canopy. The table was covered with fruit, fried meats, and eggs. There were tortillas and coffee. There were also a few flies, but Cesar brushed at these with his hand as if they were but part of the ambience.

“Please,” Cesar said. “Sit. Eat. Drink. Talk.”

We sat. Jim Bob said, “Actually, Cesar, we would like to get right to things. We’re on a limited budget and we’ve got time restraints.”

“Ah, you Americans. You do not understand time. Time is time. It has no movement. Revenge is revenge, now or later.”

“Drive-through burgers, drive-through pharmacies, and drive-through revenge,” Jim Bob said. “That’s us.”

Cesar grinned. “Of course. Try the cantaloupe. All the fruit is fresh.”

Hermonie went away, then showed up with a small pitcher of cream, sweeteners for the coffee, then she disappeared again.

“Will Hermonie be joining us?” Brett asked.

“Actually,” Cesar said, looking sadly, “she is shy, and she hates Americans. For that matter, she is not too fond of me. She married me because she thought I had money. And I do, but not the sort of money she is looking for. She wants big money for big cars and big things. I make money that allows the middle-sized things. She made a mistake.

“But that is all right. I tolerate her and she tolerates me. She is as lovely a woman as an ugly fat man like myself will get, and I am most likely as rich as she will find. And I love Americans. My good friend, Jim Bob, I love him.”

“I’m a Texan,” Jim Bob said.

“Texas was stolen from Mexico,” Cesar said. “It should not be part of the United States.”

“Mexicans helped steal it,” Jim Bob said.

“Would it be okay if you two didn’t fight the Alamo all over again?” I said.

“Ah,” Cesar said. “I love this guy. He loves me.”

“Well, before you and I mate, Cesar,” Jim Bob said, “maybe we should get right to it. We have a plan, and being no friend of Juan Miguel, we thought you might help us tweak this plan.”

“I am certainly no friend of this man, Juan Miguel. I have been waiting until my time is right to do what I need to do. Waiting, and praying to God to help me have my revenge.”

“He helps in those matters?” Brett asked.

“If he does not, then we will do it without him,” Cesar said.

Jim Bob briefly outlined our plan.

Cesar said, “Oh, you got some big stones, my friends. Big stones. Pardon me, lady.”

“Forget it,” Brett said.

“Let me tell you. We can do this. We must plan more carefully, but we can do this. By myself, I could not get even with this man. But with your help. Yes. I can. We can all eat a fine dish of revenge.

“Let me tell you about Juan Miguel, amigos. Many years ago a rich lady, a Mexican lady, she hires me to follow after her daughter who she thinks is being naughty with a man in Mexico City. Did I say she was a rich lady?”

“You did,” I said.

“She offered me very much to watch this girl. My partner, Tono, was to help me. We, how is it you say it… double-teamed her, you see. It is easier that way. One can rest while the other watches. After a day or two we determine that, yes, she is in fact being naughty. She is with another man. They are spending many hours together in his hotel room and they did not have cards or dice with them. They are certainly playing that other game we all like to play. Tono takes photographs of her and this man going in and out of the hotel. We think this is good enough to show the lady. Show her that her pretty daughter is in fact running with this man. And we find out who this man is. He is Juan Miguel’s son, Carmelo.

“We report all of this to the lady, and she sends her daughter away to the U.S. to study in the university, away from this man. So what happens? The girl, she pines for Carmelo and she decides to climb to the top of the University of Texas tower and jump.”

“Jesus,” Brett said. “I wanted a man that bad, I’d just hop a plane.”

“Who is to understand the thinking of the young?” Cesar said. “And there is another thing. When her mother sends her away, this Carmelo, he finds a new woman. It is not true love to him. It is true lust.

“But that is not all. The mother. She is distraught. She hires us to show her where this Carmelo is. And we find him again for her, and he is in a beach house near Cozumel, and we go away. And this woman, she comes back there another time, and you know what she does. She shoots and kills this boy.

“Then, she is not happy yet. A week after the boy is dead, she sends word to Juan Miguel she knows how his boy died, and he agrees to see her, and she has the photographs we took of Carmelo and her daughter, and when she explains the connection, so he understands, you see, she tries to kill him with a knife she has concealed, but they take it away from her. And then he tortures her. He wants to know how she killed his boy, how she found him. She tells them about us. She tells them Tono took the photographs. She mentions me, but she tells him Tono took the photographs. She remembers Tono because he wanted her. He wanted her badly. He tried to lie with her in his bed. It didn’t work, but I believe when it came time to call names, she called his because she knew him better. She said he took the photographs and that I worked for him.

“He cuts off her nose and sets her free. She does not go to the doctor. She goes home, she takes pills, and she is dead. She could not face having no daughter and no nose. Juan Miguel, he sends his men to see Tono. I do not know what happened to him. Not really. They come to see me and tell me they have killed Tono. They say I was Tono’s boss. I was not the one who took the photos, but in case I should ever want to bother in their business, they would leave me a reminder. This big one. Hammerhead. Or Oso as I called him. He beat me. He cut off the tip of my finger.”

Cesar held his right hand up. The tip of the little finger was missing, same as Beatrice.

“And he gives me this ear. Here. He hit me so hard with a slap he did that. I do not hear as well in that ear anymore. They let me live. That was a mistake.”

“Did you try the police?” Brett asked.

Cesar shook his head. “No. I know this place too well. Many of the policemen, they are good. They would do the law. But Juan Miguel, he owns those at the top. They run things as they see them, and they see them with money.”

“We’re sorry about your friend,” Brett said.

“Sorry is not important. Tono worked for me. He was not a friend. I did not like him much. He was good at what he did, but he was no brother. What I am mad about is my little finger and my ear. Juan Miguel, he will pay. But, unlike the woman, I do not go off half-cocked. I have waited my time. And now, with this tragedy of the woman…”

Cesar reached out and patted Ferdinand on the arm, “… and the tragedy of your friend, the time is correct. He shall now pay. Tell me more of your plan.”

“We thought we’d kidnap his mistress,” Jim Bob said, “but we need you for that. We need to corner her somewhere. As for the bodyguards, you got me, Hap, and Leonard to take care of them.”

“No offense, gentlemen,” Cesar said, “but are you capable?”

“I’d bet my life on them,” Jim Bob said.

“Oh, you will,” Cesar said.