The Dogs of Mexico (14 page)

“He didn’t die. He was murdered. And as far as I know, you’re the last person to have seen him. What does that tell you?”

“B–but I didn’t do it,” she blubbered.

He unzipped the utility compartment and dumped the contents onto his bed—junk jewelry, mini first-aid kit, tampons, a bar of soap and a wad of Kleenex fell out along with a clean pair of cutoffs and a camisole, panties and bra.
 

Her freckles stood out like ink spatters as he unzipped the main compartment—filled entirely with Soffit’s big aluminum case.
 

“Oh god,” Mickey whimpered, hands covering her face.

The canister was lodged among the bundled bills along with Soffit’s .45 and a Bible. He removed the clip from the gun and pitched both components on the bed.

“Where’re the rest of your clothes?”
 

“I had nothing to do with what happened to him. Really.”

“Your clothes?”
 

She held one hand flat above her breasts, fingers spread; the other cupped her forehead. With her dark mascara-smudged eyes, she reminded him of a damsel in distress from one of those old silent movies, overacting.
 

“T–the incinerator, a–at the end of the hall,” she stammered.
 

A few sheets of stationery were scattered among the paper-banded bills. Except for a single envelope addressed to Norman Soffit in care of the Hotel Acapulco Princess, the stationery was blank, envelopes and letterheads from various hotels in Honduras and Colombia. Robert tossed the papers back in the case for the moment.
 

“I’d never hurt him,” Mickey said. She held up two fingers in a V. “Swear to god, honest.”

He let himself down in the other chair and fixed her with a look. “Who’s in this with you?”

“I took the money when he went in to shower, but I didn’t have anything to do with him dying. I swear it!”
 

“You’re telling me he went in to shower and left you alone with all this?”

“That’s the way he was. Besides, we’d been together almost three weeks, and he…he didn’t think…”

“Think what? That you’d steal from him?”

She blotted her eyes with the heels of her hands, smearing her mascara further.
 

From what he had seen, Soffit might very well have done something just that stupid. Soffit had been too damn loose about everything. If she was telling the truth, then someone had killed him in the few minutes after she skipped out with his money and when Robert collared her coming out of the elevator.

He peeled the plastic wrapper off the titanium canister. At first glance it looked seamless, but on closer inspection a hairline was visible around the circumference, three small rectangles burnished into the surface. Probably some kind of electronically keyed lock. He shook it. Soundless.
 

“What is that?” Mickey asked.

“Mexican tar.”

She blinked. “No way.”

“No?”

She let herself down in the chair. “But he…he was a missionary…”
 

“Yeah, he picked you up, treated you well and this is how you repay him.”

Her eyes watered up again. “I was broke.”

“You were going home.”

She took tissues from the bed and blew her nose. “I don’t have a home. My family, they’re all dead.”

“Yeah, right.”

“I made it up. I’ve never even been to Berkeley. And Mr. Soffit, at first I thought he had killed himself because I took his money. Then I realized: he wouldn’t do that. Not him.” She shook her head. “I can’t believe it—
him
, into drugs.”

“You just never know, do you.”

She squinted from mascara-streaked eyes. “Why did you see Mr. Soffit, really?”

“DEA
. Undercover.”
 

She paled again. “You mean… Aw Jesus…”
 

He picked up a packet of money and began counting: one hundred hundred-dollar bills in each packet, seventy-six packets, plus seventy hundred-dollar bills secured with a rubber band. He pitched the last packet on the bed.
Seven hundred and sixty-seven thousand dollars.
His heart rate picked up. A sensation akin to sexual arousal pulsed through him.

Mickey leaned forward. “How much is it there?”
 

He took the envelope with Soffit’s name on it from the case, removed the single sheet and read to himself:

Mr. N. Soffit:

You have acquired a Bible from
 

Eduardo Agustino, the man you
 

have displaced. We are prepared
 

to exchange twenty thousand dollars
 

US for delivery of this Bible within
 

three days. Ask for señor Valdez
 

at the souvenir shop in the Hotel
 

Camino Real in
Oaxaca. We trust
 

you will find it prudent to act
 

immediately.

Señor Renaldo Salinas Valdez

It was a one-two punch. First there was the name, Eduardo Agustino, a fellow operative from Robert’s early days in the Company. Then there was the second name, Valdez, the same name Soffit had mentioned in relation to the photo delivery. And the word,
displaced
.
Equally troubling, Fowler knew Eduardo well and he hadn’t mentioned him in regard to this operation.
 

He narrowed his gaze on Mickey. “You run across any photos in that case?”
 

“How much money is that?” she asked again.

He thumbed through the Bible, turned it upside down, shook it and thumbed through it again. “You ever hear Soffit mention the name Eduardo?”

“Not that I remember.”

“He say anything about a guy named Valdez?”

“What are you talking about? Who are these people?”

Robert checked the Bible over again.

Mickey stared at the money. “What’re you gonna do now?”
 

He considered the question. On the bed lay seven hundred and sixty-seven thousand dollars in cash, a titanium canister full of rare diamonds, and in his hand a King James translation of the
Holy Bible
that might be worth twenty grand.
 

Then there was Mickey.
 

He wiped his forehead with his handkerchief. It was this damn country all right—the bleeding Jesuses, the pained saints and mangy dogs. The open sewers, the poverty and the rotten smells. A land of low vibrations, inconsolable spirits. A man couldn’t think straight.

He paused. The Bible’s back cover felt unnaturally thick. He saw that a second piece of heavy black paper had been glued inside. He pressed open a slot at the top and turned it upside down. Six four-by-five-inch Ektachromes fell out. One by one he held them up to the light—head-shots of Arab men in traditional Afghan clothing.
 

“What’s that?” Mickey wanted to know.

He looked the photos over, then replaced them.
 

“I’m giving you some money,” he said. “I want you to get out of this country. Go home.”

“Yeah? How much money?”

“Two thousand dollars.”

“Two— Hah! That big pile? I guess you would too!”

“I’m turning the money in. And that dope’s going in your incinerator.”

“Oh, sure. You think I was born yesterday?”

“Just about.”

“Show me your ID. Your badge or whatever.”

“You know we don’t carry that stuff undercover.”

She picked up the brandy, took a good drink, and wiped her eyes again. “I’m sticking with you,” she said, choking a little.
 

“See those photos? Major drug lords. That’s what got Soffit killed.”

“So, then? What’re you gonna do?”

“I’m gonna look into it. That’s what I’m gonna do.”

“Geez. You sound like government all right.
I’m gonna look into it.
Well, I’m looking into it with you.”

“I’ll have you locked up.”

She finished off the remaining brandy in the glass, eyes watering. “I’ll raise holy hell all over this fucking hotel. They’ll arrest you for killing Mr. Soffit and attempting to rape me.” She dabbed at her eyes with tissues, further smearing her mascara. “Tomorrow, ace, you and me, you’re gonna give me my half, and then we’re gonna load out of here. You go your way, I’ll go mine.”

He was beginning to see the kid in an entirely new light.
 

“Well,” he said, “looks like you’re the one in the driver’s seat.”
 

No use making a scene,
he thought to himself.
Not yet anyway.

15

Slip out the Back Jack

R
OBERT PRETENDED TO
sleep but Mickey wasn’t buying it. She sat in the chair with the light on. She had stopped with the brandy, but too late and just before dawn the sandman did the kid in. An inability to hold their booze—a definite disadvantage to the very young. She slept, knees drawn up, bare feet in the chair’s seat, arms folded under her breasts.
 

He eased out of bed, took the folded money from his pocket and stuck it in one of her Converse sneakers on the floor near her chair. He slipped his own shoes on, then picked up his carry-on and the aluminum case and stole quietly to the door. He let the carry-on down, then softly turned the handle and drew the door back. He took a last look at Mickey—innocent, one step removed from a Gerber baby food ad—then slipped both bags into the hallway and smoothed the door closed behind, letting the latch ease silently back into place.

Daylight was just breaking, a faint colorless glow behind the black silhouette of Acapulco in the east. A few tourists and businesspeople were already up and about, some going and coming from the restaurant, others checking out, bellmen pushing luggage carts, flagging taxis, valets bringing cars around to the front. Apparently the police were no longer holding the guests hostage.
 

The two registrars were in their place behind the check-in counter. Robert stood in line behind a stately man in a dark suit, silver hair combed straight back from a high forehead, laugh lines fanning around prominent cheekbones. When the man bent to pick up his bag, his jacket gaped open, a badge visible, clipped to his belt.

When he moved on, Robert stepped forward and handed an envelope to each of the two concierges. “I want to thank you for the excellent service.”
 

The older concierge bowed almost imperceptibly. “Gracias, señor.
It has been a pleasure. Shall we have your car brought around?”

“Yes. Thank you.”
 

The woman placed the credit-card voucher before him. He worried Fowler had cancelled his Visa, relieved then when it went through without a hitch. She handed over his receipt. “May you have a safe journey,” she said.

“Gracias, señorita. And you, señor.” He kept one eye on the annex behind.

“Visit us again soon,” said the woman. Neither asked about his absent niece.
 

A bellman took his bags—the one carry-on and the aluminum case.
 

The light in the east was tinting rose when a valet whipped the red Nissan in under the entrance portico and squealed to a stop. Robert had the bellman put the luggage in the backseat, tipped him, and when the valet handed over the keys, tipped him also.
 

He was about to slide in behind the wheel when she came charging out through the entranceway, her big backpack hugged in both arms.

“Uncle Otis! Wait! Don’t leave me!” Attendants and guests alike turned to stare as she ran to the passenger door, eyes trailing comet-streak tears.

“Goddamn you,” she breathed, slamming the car door shut after herself, wrestling the clumsy backpack over into the backseat.

DUANE FOWLER WAS
still walking the floor, sleepless, when Helmut finally called.

“Where the hell’ve you been?”
 

“I have been right here,” Helmut muttered.

“The canister, who has it?”

“There is a problem.”

“What do you mean, ‘problem’?”

“I sent the men, but Soffit did not have the canister. We don’t know where it is.”

Duane’s mind jimmied. “The
men
?” he bellowed. “
What
men?”

“The men. I hired two men to give me a hand with Soffit.”

Duane couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “You hired two— You’re drunk! That’s why you didn’t report in. Dammit, Helmut, do you realize how you’ve jeopardized— Wait a minute—” Duane stared at the composite maps on the split screens. “That sonofabitching transmitter’s moving out, down the coast…”

“What? What are you saying?”

“Helmut,” Fowler said evenly, “you let him get away with that canister, you’re one dead duck.”

“Not to worry. The situation is well in hand—as you Americans like to say.”
 

“No, we don’t say
vell
in hand, we say
well
in hand.” Duane could practically hear Helmut’s fury in the silence that followed.
 

“Do not concern yourself,” Helmut said after a moment, speaking precisely. “We are taking care of it.”

Duane paused again, newly startled, not by the sending unit moving out on one side of the screen, but by a faint blinking still repeating from within the hotel.
 

“Helmut,” Duane said, his voice hoarse with intensity, “apparently he has discovered one of the transmitters. One is moving out, but the other is stationary. That son of a bitch, he’s trying to pull one on us.”

Helmut was quiet another moment. “I am only one person. I cannot be in two places.”

Duane suffered briefly the humiliation of having to reverse himself. “Okay, what’s the story with the two men you hired? Can they be trusted?”

“Oh, I believe they are exactly your kind of people.” There was no mistaking the sarcasm in Helmut’s tone.
 

“Listen,” Helmut, “you handle this. Whatever it takes. But you have one more drink before I get that canister, they’re going to find what’s left of your fat ass in some back-alley pigsty. I’ll come down and personally take care of you myself.” Duane slapped the phone shut.