Captains Outrageous

31

We 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. Cesar 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,” Cesar 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, Cesar 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 Cesar’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.