Beneath a Panamanian Moon (19 page)

“You go, but watch your back,” Phil said. “Coop and I will check out some things while you're gone.”

Ren assigned me Zorro's place in the back seat. Sitting in Zorro's seat made me remember that last picture I had of him leaning back against the car door, his life bleeding into his shirt.

Ren looked at me. “By the way, brother, you look like you got kicked down a few flights of stairs.”

“Yeah, like you're Ricardo Montalban.”

Ren put the car into gear and said, “What the hell, hey? You gotta open yourself up to new things.” Ren smiled a Hollywood smile in spite of his swollen lip. “Otherwise, you get old, you know?”

“Ren, I have a feeling neither one of us is going to get old.”

We pulled up to the company's gas pumps and filled up Ren's tank, plus the gas can in the back seat.

“This is dangerous, Ren, carrying around a loaded jerry can in the car.”

“Man, my gauge is so fucked up I never know if I'm running low. I don't want to get stuck on one of these back fucking roads.” Ren ran through the gates and off toward town. After ten minutes my legs ached from holding Ren upright.

“Man, I'm dying back here.”

“Here, smoke this. It'll make you feel better.”

Like I said, I don't smoke, and I certainly didn't think it was smart to light a blunt while sitting next to a full can of gasoline. “No, thanks.”

“Suit yourself.” Ren put flame to the end of the joint and puffed. A cloud of smoke was sucked out the window and away in the jet stream.

I let the landscape roll by, the sun white-hot in a scoured blue, the green of the jungle so deep and prehistoric that I expected to see extinct creatures the size of houses come wading through the elephant grass. Ren and I small-talked about people we knew, soldiers mostly, and women. Some we knew, and some we wanted to know better. When I couldn't avoid it any longer I asked, “Why me, Ren? Why'd you recommend me for this job?”

Ren bounced through a pothole the size of Detroit. I held the chair upright and when the crisis had passed, he said, “You were the only guy I knew who played piano.”

“That's it?”

“Yeah, and, you know, you always seemed like a stand-up guy.”

“But you knew what I was stepping into, right?”

“When I gave 'em your name, I didn't know what kind of shit was going down.
Verdad,
man, the truth. But after Winstead, I knew.”

I wanted to ask what Ren had against me, but something else flitted across my mind. “Hey, Ren? This last guy, the piano player, did he have a name?”

“I don't remember. He wasn't here long enough.”

I thought about that for a while. At least I had a name. Monkeyman. Eaten by wolves. “So, Ren? This is what I need. I want a list of all the guests who've stayed in the hotel for the past year. Can you get it?”

“Sure, I can get it, but it won't help much. Because that's not what you need. What you need is a list of the students, and I don't have that.” He blew on the lit end of the joint, making the coal glow.

“Why do I need the students?”

“Because they're the ones you need.”

“But why? What are they going to do?”

“I don't know,” he said through another cloud of smoke.

Ren was too high, and already gone. Knowing the answer, I said, “You're getting ready to leave, aren't you, Ren?”

He caught my eye in the rearview mirror. “How'd you know?”

“You and Alonzo dropped the dime.”

Ren nodded; his eyes were back on the road but I knew he was seeing Alonzo. I knew because that's what I was seeing, too. It was impossible not to see Alonzo sitting against that car, all that blood thick on his shirt. Impossible.

Ren spoke quietly and I had to strain to hear him over the noise of the wind and the car. “Alonzo knew a guy in Washington, so we said maybe this place was worth a look, that's all. And then Winstead was getting us a layout of a site that Kelly had built in the jungle. That's when we knew something bad was happening, man.” Ren took another hit and flicked the roach out the window. “But they're not going to get me, because I am about to
vámanos
my ass outta here like pronto. I'm getting some money today from a guy who owes me, and after we run this errand, I want you to drop me off in town, okay? By tonight I'll be back in the States eating my mom's cooking.”

He reached across the car to the glove compartment, nearly toppling the kitchen chair sideways. The car swerved into the left lane, barely missing a truck full of chickens. Ren pulled out a .45 and threw it in the back seat.

“Hold on to this.”

“What for?”

“In case you need it, that's what the fuck for.”

“Like that dime in your ear.”

“A man never knows.”

Ren drove down the Avenue of Martyrs. He turned right, into narrow streets, the traffic slow with bicycles, taxis, buses, trucks, and cars. Ren turned right again, into a dirt street crowded with shacks made of flattened tin and scrap aluminum. We inched in and out of ruts, avoiding kids and dogs playing in the muddy pools of afternoon rain. As we passed by open doors the people watched from the hot darkness inside, their eyes white in the shadows.

“I don't like this, Ren.”

Ren stopped the car. “C'mon, man. Just be cool. Put your shirt over that gun. All I want you to do is stand by the door and look like a killer.”

“What if someone wants to come in?”

“Then you shoot 'em. Cock and lock, brother man.”

I pulled the slide, chambered a round, and locked the hammer. I snicked the safety up with my thumb and tucked the gun into my belt. I thought of Smith and how he worried about shooting off something he'd miss.

Ren wasn't tall, but he had to duck to get in the door. The tin house looked as if it might not make it past the next stiff breeze. I waited outside and tried to look hard. Kids gathered around me, curious about the gringo with his hand in his pants.

“Vamoose,” I said, shooing them away with my left hand. “Go away.” I looked up and down the street and wondered how I had gotten myself into this. If Smith had shown his saggy white ass in that alley that afternoon, I might have shot him. Maybe not to kill him, but shot him in one of those parts he was so afraid he'd miss.

I waited for what felt like days. Where was Ren? I poked my head in the door, just to see what was taking so long. It was dark, and my eyes hadn't adjusted completely, but I could make out Ren and another man. Then I saw that the other man had a gun. I watched the man turn and point the gun at me. I saw a flash of light, then heard the shot. Even in the tight chamber of the tin house, where the noise was amplified, the calm, analytical part of my brain registered it as small, possibly a .32. The wooden doorframe splintered and everything went from too slow to too fast. Far too fast.

I dropped in the doorway and struggled to free the .45 from my pants. Another shot sprayed dirt in my eyes. I pulled the big automatic clear but I didn't know where to shoot. The room was dark. I was blinded by the muzzle flash and people were moving. I didn't want to hit Ren. All I wanted was to get out of there.

That calm part of my brain, the part that had paid attention to all of my expensive training, told me to lay down suppressing fire. My vision returned enough to see Ren's shape in front of me, kneeling on the dirt floor with a small automatic clutched in both hands. Ren didn't shoot. The man turned and aimed his pistol at Ren's head. Ren still didn't shoot.

I pulled the trigger three times and the boom of the .45 rang the tin hut like a bell. I got to my knees, pulled Ren after me, and, one-handed, fired twice more into the shack. Big holes blew sunlight into the far wall.

“Go, man, go!” Ren was behind me now, up and out of the hut, running for the car. I saw the man's shadow rise up from behind the overturned table. He was a perfect silhouette, just like a range target. I pulled the trigger again and lost him in the lightning.

Ren had the engine started and I jumped headfirst through the open passenger window. I hit the kitchen chair with my shoulder and rolled into the back, onto the floor. The rear window exploded into a thousand sparkles of sidewalk diamonds. I blew my last two rounds into the alley just to discourage anyone from chasing us.

The Chevy jumped forward. The kitchen chair tipped and Ren fell back on top of me and hung there, a turtle unable to right himself, his arms and his feet waving helplessly in the air as the Chevy rolled down the narrow street, sideswiping tin. I hollered, “One of us has to drive,” and pushed Ren upright behind the wheel.

I put my head up slowly, and saw the man running, getting closer. He was shooting. Christ, he was shooting at me. A bullet thunked hard into the roof of the car. Thank you, Jesus, he was shooting high.

Ren, finally in control of the careening Chevrolet, blasted through the shanties, hanging on to the wheel, swerving between houses too close, rocking from one side to the next, a gutter ball scattering children like chickens. Ren spun the wheels, adding mud and dog shit to the open misery of these poor people's homes, and five minutes later we were back on the paved city streets. Ren parked outside an open-air bar. He turned off the engine and we both sat in the car, not talking and not really listening to the music from a jukebox down the street. My heart beat like a prisoner inside my chest, demanding a safer home.

“You okay?” I asked, afraid to look and see blood. Please, I didn't want to see any more blood, not for a very long time.

“Yeah, I'm okay.”

“What the fuck happened back there?” I said, my voice high on adrenaline. “I can't stop shaking. I'm shaking like a dog shitting cinders!”

“Shitting cinders? What the fuck's that? A dog shitting cinders?” Ren laughed. It was a high, tight laugh that danced away on the salsa.

“I don't know. What? You want to discuss regional idioms now? Is that it? Jesus Christ, we almost get killed and you turn into William fucking Safire?”

“Who?”

“He writes for the
Times
.”

“What are you talking about, man? What
Times
?”

“Forget it,” I said. I started to feel my limbs and lips again. I put my hand against my forehead. I was cold, near shock.

“Fuck, man,” Ren said, “you think you hit him?”

“No. I didn't hit him. Thank God I didn't hit him.”

“Whatta you mean? He was trying to kill us. Why didn't you waste him?”

I wanted to ask Ren the same question but I knew the answer. It's not easy pulling the trigger on another man, no matter how they make it look in the movies. “I just wanted it to stop,” I said. “That's all. I was scared.”

“No shit, man. You got that straight.”

“What happened?” I shook pieces of glass out of my hair.

“Dude wouldn't give me my money.” Ren held up a tight roll of bills. “But I got this. Looks like even more than he owed me, the stupid asshole.”

“You almost got me killed.”

“Nah.” Ren looked back at me and grinned. “Wasn't even close.” Then he took a deep breath and said, “You did okay, Monkeyman. You did okay. I knew you were all right.”

When I figured I could hold a drink without spilling it, we went into the bar. I ordered two scotches, on the rocks. Ren ordered the same. We sat and drank them in silence.

Finally, Ren said, “C'mon, man. We still gotta run the Colonel's errand. Then you gotta drop me off, okay?”

“I could take you to the airport,” I said.

“No, I can get a ride from one of the hotels.”

“What about your stuff? Your clothes?”

“In the trunk, my man, I am ready to fly.”

We got in the car and Ren drove to a square of warehouses on the other side of the Old City. The street ran three blocks to a chain-link dead end. Beyond the fence was the sea, and the water glittered, turquoise in the sun, and made the day seem innocent of shootings and squalor and espionage. Most of the warehouses were abandoned, their doors open on empty bays. Rust, the industrial moss, spread across galvanized walls and stained the concrete foundations with runoff. Weeds grew tall and litter piled in drifts against chain link. At the very end of the street, a military truck with no markings, its bed covered in canvas, sat backed against a loading dock. Several men in tan work clothes carried wooden crates out of the truck and into the hot shadows of a warehouse.

A man with a mustache stood near the tailgate, smoking a cigarette and occasionally checking items off on a clipboard. He had a .45 on his belt. I noticed another man near the front of the truck armed with an M-14 rifle.

Ren parked the car, got out and spoke in Spanish to the man with the clipboard. I crawled out of the back and walked up the street, away from the warehouse. The smell of gas in the car was making me sick. Still shaky from Ren's business, I needed a little open air.

A man came out from the warehouse with a cardboard carton the size of a shoebox. He carried it to the car and crawled into the back seat. Ren signed something on the clipboard. He waved at me and headed for the car. The other man got out.

“Hey!”

I turned around and saw Phil hiding in the narrow space between two warehouses, his back against one wall and out of view of the men loading the truck.

“Hey, Harp, don't look this way.”

I walked over to the warehouse wall and feigned taking a whiz. When I glanced over my shoulder I could see the man with the rifle watching me.

“What the fuck you doing here?”

“Running an errand for the Colonel. Me and Ren.”

“This is not the place to be, Harp.”

“I got that feeling.” The man was walking toward me now. He said something to the man with the .45.

“Just get in the car and get the fuck out of here.”

“Okay. Here comes Ren.” I pretended to shake it and zip. I waited for Ren to drive up the street so I could get in. I didn't want to walk any closer to the men with the guns. I'd had enough guns for the day.