Puerto Vallarta Squeeze (7 page)

“Well, then what would you call it?” Desert boot tapping on the dash, cigarette ashes flipped into the wind.

Danny listened to the hum of Vito’s tires. He jerked the wheel and took the Bronco around a bad hole in the pavement, settled
down again. Looked at his watch and couldn’t see the dial in bad light.

“It’s almost six,” the shooter said. “I’ve always been fascinated with writers. So if it’s not writer’s block, what is it?”

Danny had started out to interview the shooter. But the shooter was curling things back around on him, doing a neat Socratic
sideslip.

“Like I said before, calling it writer’s block kind of lets you off the hook. When I’m writing and get stuck, I prefer to
think of it as a conceptual problem I have to work out. Intellectual gridlock you’ve got to get by.”

“I like that.” The shooter unscrewed the top of a water jug and took a long drink, replaced the top. “Puts the responsibility
back on yourself rather than thinking some mysterious outside force is in control of your destiny.”

“You don’t believe in outside forces? In bad luck?”

“Not much. I suppose it happens. But a whole lot of people blame their predicaments on bad luck rather than taking responsibility
for the situation they’ve gotten themselves into and for getting out of that situation and on to something better, You‘re
about entitled to what you get and not too much more.”

Danny tried to climb back on top of the dialogue, ’”fou travel a lot in your line of work?”

“Quite a bit. How’d you end up in Puerto Vallarta? Not running from the IRS, I hope.”

Damn, if this was some kind of Socratic game, the shooter was good. One of Danny’s old professors in journalism school used
to say, “Ask short questions, keep
them
talking, avoid the tendency to get into a lecture yourself.”

“Got divorced a while back. Running from her and the memories, not the IRS. Looking for warmer weather. Just drifted down
here. Where do your travels take you?”

The shooter flipped his cigarette out, and Danny could see sparks in the rearview mirror where it hit the pavement. “Wherever
there’s something gunking up the system. Like I said, garbage cleanup. What do you think of those two guys back in Puerto
Vallarta… Willie and Lobo? Like their music?”

““feah, how’d you know?” Danny looked over at him, looked quick, then stared at the road.

“Saw you and her in a place the other night.” The shooter canted his head back toward where Luz was sleeping. “Seemed like
you were having a good time, dancing around the tables and all that. What’s that place called? Seafood soup, green salads…”

“You mean Mamma Mia?” Danny had a strange feeling that someone was swinging a big stick from behind him where he couldn’t
see it coming.

“That’s it… Mamma Mia. I thought the music was pretty decent. Has a certain power, certain energy to it, don’t you think?
What kind of music would you call it? Never heard anything quite like it before.”

“I don’t know. Willie and Lobo call it ‘gypsy-jazz’ or something along those lines.”

They were running hard down a long hill, coming into Santa Cruz, jungle giving way to fields. In spaces between the trees
Danny could see breakers hitting the shore a few miles west of them. Farther out and beyond mountain shadow, the ocean was
colored soft rose. A hundred miles south of them, Walter McGrane’s Learjet was beginning its descent into Puerto Vallarta.

The shooter bent over, reached in a side pocket of his knapsack, and took out a fresh pack of Marlboros. “The world can never
have too much gypsy music.”

Danny thought about that and it seemed right, some elemental truth. Seemed like there was something in what the shooter had
said that went beyond music. Something to do with firelight and fast guitars and the stamp of bare feet near painted wagons
that would roll when morning came. Something to do with moving quick and living off your wits, like the shooter was doing,
like Danny was trying to do.

The road curved west for a mile and took them down to the outskirts of Santa Cruz. Danny turned right and ran parallel to
the Pacific, which was a block or so to their left, past cottages for rent and cottages for sale. Mexican tourists came here;
so did a few gringos. In the mirror, Danny could see Luz sitting up.

He looked over at the shooter. “Think maybe we ought to stop, get a little rest? I’m feeling sort of numb and scratchy.”

“Sounds right to me. I’m tired myself. Know any place to stay?”

“Yeah, there’s two or three places in San Bias, as I remember. One called Las Brisas is pretty nice. The others are a little
rough, but okay.”

“Let’s try the better one.” His choice made sense. Stay where the gringos were mostly likely to stay, be less noticeable that
way.

Las Brisas had its doors open, but the desk was closed. Luz talked to an old man tending things, came back to the Bronco,
and said there wouldn’t be anyone there to check them in until eight o’clock, an hour and a half farther on. The shooter was
watching uniformed navy personnel from the military installation in San Bias walk by the Bronco, on their way to defend the
shores of Mexico. Somewhere back in the hotel grounds a parrot was jabbering.

“You said there’s another place?” The shooter looked dying tired, the lines under his eyes fanning out into concentric semicircles.

“Yeah, a few blocks from here. The best part about it is the stuffed crocodile in the lobby and an old copy of the buccaneer’s
creed of freedom etched on the wall. San Bias has a colorful history, not to mention the worst bug problem of any place you’ll
ever be. The damn bugs can drive you crazy.”

“Let’s find some breakfast, then come back here and check in.” He was still watching military people walking by.

At eight-fifteen they were back at Las Brisas. Still no desk clerk. Luz told the night boy, who was about eighty, that her
gringo friends were getting tired and cranky. A few minutes later a woman in a nightdress and bathrobe appeared and checked
them in. They’d gotten her up, and she wasn’t happy about it. Danny took a room for Luz and him, another for the shooter.

They were a bad-looking outfit, wrinkled and beat, sweat coming heavy again in the humidity of the Mexican coast and streaking
down through the dust in which they’d bathed at the road construction site. The woman behind the desk studied Luz’s “Puerto
Vallarta Squeeze” T-shirt, then glanced at the ceiling for a moment, thinking social changes were definitely needed but maybe
not quite so much all at once.

Danny slept until a little after four in the afternoon. He woke up blinking, feeling grungy and groggy. Luz came out of the
bathroom, naked, hair wet, and grinning at him. She had slightly oversize breasts for her general overall proportions and
carried them high. They pulled up even higher when she reached behind her neck with both hands and twisted her hair. Along
with good oP Missy Morganthal back in his undergraduate days, who’d have shucked her jeans in the student union if he’d asked,
Luz could get Danny up and rolling faster than any woman he’d ever known. But in that moment of waking and blinking and giving
out dusty coughs, he needed coffee and a shower more than he needed Luz. Before he could even mention it, Luz stepped into
underthings and said she’d run down coffee while Danny showered.

When he came out of the bathroom, the coffee was there and Luz was gone. He got dressed and stood outside the room, steaming
cup in his right hand and a lazy sun headed toward evening. Luz was thirty yards away, sitting by the swimming pool, talking
to someone in the water. Danny walked over.

The shooter was paddling around, doing a capable breast stroke. He pulled himself up and sat on the edge of the pool, looking
good in his red-and-blue boxer trunks, looking in the body like he wasn’t as old as his face indicated last night. Maybe six
three, and lean, but strong in the shoulders and still having a pretty good chest and no belly at all. His knapsack was sitting
near the edge of the pool where he could keep an eye on it.

“Buenas tardes,”
said the shooter, pushing back his wet hair until it lay straight and flat against his head.

That’s when Danny noticed the scars on his legs, running all the way up his thighs and disappearing under the swim-suit. Mean,
ugly scars, as if they’d come from a dirty knife and had never healed properly. More scars on his back and chest.

Danny recovered and said good afternoon back to him, then found a chair in the shade and brushed away no-see-ums that returned
only a moment later, starting to sweat again in high coastal humidity.

The water had some appeal, but Danny hadn’t brought a swimsuit. Neither had Luz, but she’d rolled up her jeans and was sitting
on the edge of the pool, swishing her feet back and forth in the water. For some reason, she was smiling.

The shooter stood up, getting ready to go back to his room, knapsack dangling in his hand. “How about staying here for the
night. Get rested, make good time tomorrow.”

Danny said that was fine with him. Mexican highways at night were just too much work.

“You’ve been here before?” The shooter was running a towel over his hair.

””feah, once… in San Bias, that is. Several years ago, when I was drifting south. Stayed at the place with the stuffed crocodile
and fought off bugs all night. The screens had holes in them.”

Danny hadn’t met Luz at that time and had spent an evening in an upstairs gringo bar, a place called Tacky Chuck’s, looking
out the window. Some kind of celebration had been going on, people marching around the plaza, a band playing. He’d talked
with a young American woman named Stacie—50 percent of young American women seemed to have that Christian name—who came from
LA. and whose conversation mostly consisted of “like… uh… you know.” She told him she didn’t believe… like, uh, you know…
in institutionalized religion, that she worshiped God in her own way.

She’d asked Danny what he thought about the whole religion-God deal. He’d told her she was about as deep as sweat, philosophically,
and paid his bar bill. He knew she’d eventually get hustled by some handsome Mexican waiter who’d tell her if he just had
a little money, he’d be able to buy a motorboat and make a good living as a fisherman. After he got his boat, he’d beat her
around until she took her fouled-up life down the road. It happened all the time.

But they kept coming down for more, the blondes and redheads and all other colors, divorced or on spring break or bought off
by their parents to get the hell out of everybody’s life and smoke their dope or take their troubles elsewhere. A fair number
of them came to San Bias. Something to do with pirates, Danny figured, and some strange kind of female yearning for abuse,
too. He’d once sat at a beach restaurant south of Puerto Vallarta with a woman who pointed out to the little cove nearby and
said, “See all those boats bobbing out there? I think I bought every god-damned one of’em.” She’d been good-looking at one
time, but the effects of sustained boat buying for fishermen who formerly had been waiters were showing on her. She’d been
broke, and he’d treated her to a fancy tourist drink, for which she’d eventually been more than appreciative.

The shooter was cleaned up and walking across the Las Brisas courtyard toward Danny and Luz. His jeans and a khaki shirt both
were holding a decent press in spite of the evening heat and humidity. The guy knew how to pack, that much was clear.

They drank in a little restaurant bar attached to the hotel, overhead fans pushing the same warm, damp air around and over
them. Since the shooter was buying, Luz drank margaritas, sitting there in her jeans and sandals, white off-the-shoulder blouse.
Danny ordered a beer and nursed it, working on staying reasonably alert.

The shooter took out his Marlboros, offered the pack to both Luz and Danny. Luz said no thank you, and Danny took one, saying,
“I stopped smoking two years ago, then started again and quit and started. Now I’m quitting, but bumming.” Mumbling, mumbling
crap, said Danny to himself, and telling his mind to get steady.

After the shooter had lit his own cigarette, he slid the silver lighter toward Danny.

Danny lit his and handed the Zippo back to the shooter. “How long you been in Mexico?”

“Few days. Like I said last night, friend dropped me off his sailboat. Got our signals mixed, and he didn’t come back for
me.”

Danny had noticed earlier the heavy bracelet on the shooter’s right wrist but could see it better now. It had a large, deep-blue
stone embedded in the silver, and Danny asked if he could take a closer look. The shooter took off the bracelet and handed
it to him. Danny was surprised at its weight and said as much.

The shooter put it back on his wrist and shrugged. “Lots of silver in it, I guess. Bought it in the Middle East.”

“When you came in by boat the way you did, how’d you check in with immigration?”

“I didn’t. Didn’t feel like bothering them.” The shooter tilted up his Pacifico, Adam’s apple working as the beer went down.

““You don’t have a tourist card, then?” Danny already knew why. No tracks, no evidence he’d been in Mexico. Still, why risk
being picked up for something like that, when he could have cooked up false papers? Unless he’d had to come in fast and didn’t
have time for paper shuffling.