Puerto Vallarta Squeeze (3 page)

Or, haul ass off into the Mexican night with a killer who might just put a pencil-size hole behind your right ear somewhere
out on the road. At that level, bad choice. Still, five thousand for the ride plus another ten for the serial rights plus
a book would sum to plenty of long, easy nights of Willie and Lobo, not to mention Luz, who could get especially willing and
somewhere on the far side of enthusiastic with lobster and drink swirling around in her soft brown tummy. And maybe a few
dollars up to Chicago for Janice and little Robbie, show good intentions and that sort of thing. Besides, Danny figured the
shooter had no quarrel with him, and professional hit men don’t hit anybody they don’t have to. That’s one of their survival
tactics, which is something Danny knew from his newspapering days on the streets of Chicago.

So there was the business of money—the compulsions of greed or necessity, usually indistinguishable—plus the tequila in Danny’s
head and the consequent upward slope of his risk curve toward imprudence. Not to mention ill-considered wed to misguided and
penny wise cum imbecility. Later on, Danny Pastor would know Proust had it right: “It is always thus, impelled by a state
of mind which is destined not to last, that we make our irrevocable decisions.”

Some years before, Janice, Danny’s first and only wife, had said it differently, “Danny, make it a personal rule never to
make decisions when you’re drinking. They’re always bad ones. Tattoo that rule on top of your thumb so you’ll see it when
you lift the glass.”

As they used to say, and put on T-shirts now, tequila has four stages:

I’m rich,

I’m beautiful,

I’m bulletproof,

I’m invisible.

Danny was at stage three and climbing when he decided to take the shooter north, toward wherever it is men go when they’re
out of their minds or in need of money… which amount to the same thing most of the time.

D
anny’s ’68 Bronco, torn seats and modified to three-on-the-floor with a choice of either two- or four-wheel drive, was boxy
and high set and pretty much a rolling disaster. Standard issue for the expats who hung around beach towns. He’d bought it
when he’d first come to Puerto Vallarta three years before, from another gringo down there squandering life. Salt wind and
gritty dust had taken the original brown paint, and where you couldn’t see primer you saw rust, and where you couldn’t see
rust you saw holes. After holes, infinity. It was parked under two scraggly almond trees, by the side of the building where
Danny and Luz had an apartment on the second floor.

The shooter stared at the Bronco. “Kind of a forlorn old sailor. Think it’ll make it to the border?”

“With two days to get it ready I’d say the chances would be pretty good. Pulling out like we are, middle of the night and
all, it’s anybody’s guess. I’ve got some new plugs and an extra fan belt in the house. I’ll bring ’em along.

“Luz, start filling up those empty plastic water jugs we’ve been saving; we’ll probably need to top off the radiator more
than once.”

“How many miles on this thing called Vito?” The shooter touched one of the Bronco’s fenders.

“Engine was replaced in seventy-six. Hundred and twenty-seven thousand on this one.”

When the three of them had left El Rondo, Felipe, in a condition of studied lassitude, not to mention squinch eyed and feigning
disinterest, was wiping off tables and his face with the same towel. Felipe was getting on, but he hadn’t lost his taste for
pretty senoritas, and the gringos came and went, leaving young Mexican women behind and in need of counseling or a place to
stay. One never knew. He’d gone to the door and watched the rear of the señorita’s lavender dress until they’d turned a corner
and headed down Juarez, ducking back inside for a moment when the tall man in a blue shirt had turned and glanced at him.

Danny had taken them down darkened back streets, past closed restaurants and tourist markets and small hotels with neon vacancy
signs missing a letter or two. Danny and Luz had walked ahead of the shooter, who paused at each street crossing before stepping
out and catching up, moving on long, easy strides of the kind that were soundless and a throwback to the veldwalkers who measured
their distances by days and lifetimes. Later on, Luz would remark on that, how the tall, thin man hesitated at street crossings,
as if he were afraid of being seen, how he covered ground like a big cat, like
el gato
walking soft in a mountain night.

Halfway across the bridge on Insurgentes, they’d gone down stone steps to an island cutting the Río Cuale in two. The island
was dark, and a short way along it was a suspension bridge crossing the south half of the river. A drunk had been hanging
over the western bridge cable, vomiting into the river. They’d passed around him and cut down Constitucion to Madero and the
apartment.

In a state of tequila decline, mouth dry and nerves wobbly, Danny Pastor moved around the Bronco, checking tires, aware of
the shooter standing a few feet away. Someone was playing a guitar in a nearby building, slightly out of tune and sounding
muffled and distant and being just about the perfect launch music for Danny’s version of a run to
el Norte.
On a Tuesday night, with tomorrow a work day, it was mostly quiet along Madero, except for a group of people gathered at
the end of the block, talking fast and pointing uptown where sirens were going off.

“What else we need?” The shooter was leaning against one of the trees by the Bronco, looking up and down the street, then
at Danny.

“I’m not planning on camping out,” Danny said. “There’re resthouses, hotels, and other things of various stripes in the larger
towns along the way. Depends how fancy you want to get. We’ll take some food, drinking water, and tools in case Vito decides
to get balky, “fou got a hat? The sun’s a cannibal during the day.”

The shooter gave his knapsack an easy slap. “Everything I need is in here.”

Danny was pretty sure that was as true and profound as language got.

“Where do we pick up the food and water?”

“It’s a little this side of eleven-thirty. There’s a couple of small stores on Insurgentes that stay open late. We’ll get
some things on our way out. “You sure must be in a hurry.” Danny wished he hadn’t said that, about the shooter being in a
hurry. Not that there was anything wrong with it—a little off-the-cuff remark that might be expected—but it didn’t need to
be said. Don’t say any more than you have to say. Stay back, stay quiet, watch and listen.

“Not that much of a hurry. I finished up some business here tonight, and I’m restless. Got to see a man in Dallas in a few
days, like I said, but I should make it all right. I thought if we got under way pronto, it might give us time to take a more
scenic route on the way up.”

“Mister… hell, I don’t even know your name. Mine’s Danny Pastor.”

“You’re right, not very mannerly of me. Peter Schumann, here.”

Danny didn’t believe him and went under the hood, checking the distributor wires
_p
adjusting the carburetor. “Like I started out to say before we got into introductions,
any
way up to the border is the scenic route.” His voice was reverberant in the closed space between hood and motor. He turned
the carburetor screw, and the engine revved up for a moment before he leveled it back down.

“You’ve obviously never seen the Mexican highway system. Not bad in parts, pretty raw other places, holes in the pavement
that’ll break an axle if I hit one in the dark, cattle standing in the middle of the road when you come around a corner. At
night a whole lot of the Mexicans drive with their lights off for reasons that’ve never been all that clear to me. It’s a
mess. Decided where you want me to drop you off, which border town?”

“Still thinking about it. Got a map?”

“Damn!” Danny had skinned two knuckles on his right hand yanking out the oil stick in the dark. He straightened up, wiping
his hands on a greasy cloth. “There’s a good Mexican road map under the driver’s seat. Little torn and smudged, but still
readable.”

The shooter pulled a small flashlight out of a side pocket in his knapsack and unfolded the map.

Vito turned over, rough and noisy, billowing blue smoke into the black night, bringing down a curse on Danny’s head from the
apartment building next door. He shut off the engine just as Luz stumbled out of the house with a gallon water jug in each
hand, long-billed fishing cap on her head and sweater over her shoulder. She’d changed into old jeans and a white T-shirt
with “Puerto Vallarta Squeeze” printed in faded green letters on the front and featuring two halves of a lime lying over the
appropriate parts of her chest along with what was supposed to be a rendering of lime juice dribbling down between those parts.

“Wait a minute,” Danny said. “You don’t think for a minute you’re going along.” Risking his own hide for a story was one thing.
Bringing Luz under that cloud was something else again.

She nodded. “I want to see
el Norte”

“Luz, we’re not going to the United States. I’m dropping Mr. Schumann off at a border town and heading straight back here.”

She looked up at Danny in a way that promised double helpings of whatever she could invent that was new and different and
depraved, if he’d just take her on this voyage. That kind of skin-soft persuasion wasn’t good enough, not this time.

Still, explaining why she couldn’t come along was going to be tough. For all she knew, the shooter was just some crazy gringo
who didn’t like airplanes and had business in Dallas. If Danny told her about him, she’d know something she didn t need to
know, something that could hurt her if the shooter found out or if the
federates
started asking her questions for whatever reason. The
federates
had ways of getting information when they wanted it, especially from a woman.

On the other hand, if this was simply a delivery job to the border, there was no reason why she shouldn’t go. And if Danny
said absolutely not, no way, she’d piss and moan and cry and maybe just take off somewhere, the way she threatened to do whenever
they had a serious scrap. On top of that, she’d tell everyone they knew about this safari into the high North. It wouldn’t
take overriding genius for someone to pull the shooting together with Danny leaving in the middle of the night accompanied
by a strange gringo who had to get to the border fast and didn’t like airplanes. Even the
policia
could figure that one out.

“It’s okay with me if she comes along.” The shooter studied the map while he talked, face thin and shadow-lit by the flashlight
reflecting off the map. ’You drive, she handles food and water and communications problems or whatever, I watch the horizon
for bandidos and other perils of the road. It’s a nice three-legged stool of mutual support.”

“See, it all right with him if I go along.”

Shit. Getting complicated, as if it weren’t already complicated enough. The shooter had practically invited her, and Danny
had no way of explaining why she couldn’t come without taking her inside and whispering in her ear. In that case, she’d tear
her hair and plead with Danny not to go. The sum of all these little pieces was the shooter would sense something was wrong
and maybe do bad things to both of them.

Danny gave it another try, a feeble one. “Luz, the Bronco has only two seats… no place for you to sit. The back’ll be filled
with gear.” She’d worked that out already and said she could sit on the sleeping bag and stack the supplies around her.

She went back up the stairs for the sleeping bag and three cans of Pennzoil stashed under the sink. The shooter had to use
the bathroom and followed her inside. Somehow, in a way Danny couldn’t quite get hold of, the situation was taking on a life
of its own. Things had a way of doing that when you hadn’t thought them through ahead of time. It was called the
Qué Será, Será
school of planning, the wrinkled blueprint for Danny’s life over the last few years when he’d decided, without deciding,
to let the tropics have their way with him.

Danny slammed the Bronco’s hood and watched Luz come out of the apartment building. She walked over to him, carrying a sleeping
bag, a big flashlight, and a small duffel bag of clothes for Danny. An overweight couple stopped and asked how to find a bus
out to the Sheraton. The woman, with blue curled hair underneath a beribboned straw beach hat, spoke with a grating nasality.
Danny glanced at their name tags carrying a “Snap-On Tools” logo and suggested they walk down to Insurgentes and find a taxi,
easier this time of night. They moved on, complaining to each other about bus service in Mexican towns.

He checked the building’s doorway, no sign of the shooter, then spoke low and hard to Luz. “Don’t say
anything
about us being in El Niño tonight or about the shooting. Got that?
Nothing
I’ll explain later.” She nodded, obviously confused but trusting him and glad to be going along. The shooter came out of
the building’s doorway, looking up and down the street as he walked.

They closed up the apartment, piled in the Bronco, and backed onto Madero. Luz burrowed in behind Danny and the shooter, nesting
in a melange of water jugs, cans of motor oil, and other gear.

The shooter handed Danny twenty-five one-hundred-dollar bills.

“That’s a lot of cash to be carrying around, particularly in Mexico.” Danny was shifting into second and rolling toward Insurgentes.

The shooter took a navy blue ball cap from his knapsack, bent the bill into a half oval, and pulled it low over his eyes.

“I have my quirks. I don’t like airplanes, and I don’t like traveler’s checks or credit cards.”

Danny handed the money back to Luz. “Stick this way down inside the sleeping bag. If we get stopped by the
federates
or the judicial police, I’d prefer not to have my pockets bulging with American
dinero.”

He glanced at the shooter. “Aren’t you afraid of being rolled, carrying around that much cash?”