The Mexico Run (13 page)

    "But what if he…"

    "Listen to me," I said. "Listen carefully. I am going to give you the name of a certain man, a real friend of mine. A man who can be trusted. I will tell you how to reach him if you have to. Should anything happen before I return, should you need help for any reason, you will contact this man. He will take care of you."

    I gave her Angel Cortillo's name and explained how she would be able to find him. I told her that if it were necessary to look him up, she should take a cab into town and be careful she was not being followed.

    "But only if you really need him," I said.

    "Is he a nice man? Will I like him?"

    "You like all men," I said. "But that is not the point. You are only to look him up if you need help. Now have you got that clear in your silly little head?"

    "You don't have to be nasty about it," she said.

    I wasn't going to argue with her.

    

    

    An hour later, I was wheeling the XKE northward toward the border. I'd paid a week's rent in advance at La Casa Pacifica and had left Sharon enough money to get by on until I returned. I made a short stop in Tijuana, staying only long enough to go to the bank and take the money I would need from the safety-deposit box where I had put it during my previous stay. That night, I checked into a motel on the outskirts of San Diego.

    The twin, sports fishing-boat I had looked at some two weeks before was named the
South Wind.
She was berthed at a private yacht-club dock off Shelter Island, and she was owned by a semiretired real-estate broker named Wilson T. Monahan. I telephoned his office the next morning at ten-thirty and found him in. I told him who was calling and reminded him that I had talked about chartering his boat some two weeks previously. I said that my plans had changed slightly, and that I would be wanting the boat on the first of the following week for a ten-day charter.

    "But I explained to you," he said, "I would have to have at least a month's notice."

    I could see that he was going to make it difficult. I asked him if the boat was chartered for the period I would be needing it, and he said it was not, but he just didn't like to do things this way.

    It took a little arguing, but finally he agreed that it would be all right for me to charter the boat. He insisted on one provision, however.

    "I will want to go on board with you before you take her out," he said. "I'd like to see how you handle her. Also, I would like to have an itinerary of where you're planning to use her."

    I explained to him that I was using it purely for sports fishing, that I'd hoped to go up toward Catalina, and that I might stay over for a day or two there and then come back.

    He wasn't enthusiastic about it, but, finally, I prevailed upon him to meet me at the yacht basin and talk it over. We made an appointment for two o'clock that afternoon.

    Monahan was a man in his late sixties; big, beefy, inclined to bluster. He was, however, a good sailor, and he knew what it was all about. He was also a stickler for details. The price we'd agreed on for the ten-day charter was $750, and I was to pay for all fuel and running expenses. I had to return the boat in the same condition in which I found her. He wasn't too happy at the idea of my taking her as far as Catalina, and kept insisting that I'd probably find better fishing off San Diego.

    "I like to see the old bucket back in her berth every night," he said.

    It was obvious that he would be wanting to check her out each day. When I insisted that I wanted to take off for several days, he then demanded an additional deposit of a thousand dollars against any possible damage.

    We checked the gas and topped off the water tanks.

    The
South Wind
was really a very beautiful boat and appeared to be very able. She looked as if she could take just about any kind of sea.

    Monahan insisted we cast off, and I tooled the boat around the harbor for approximately an hour before he was satisfied that I knew what I was doing.

    I returned to the motel, checked out, and started south once again. Once more I found it necessary to stop at the bank in Tijuana on my way through. Unfortunately, by the time I arrived in the town the bank was closed for the day, and I was forced to wait overnight. The following morning I withdrew the remainder of my money from the vault and put it in the money-belt that I carried strapped around my waist. Then I drove directly down to Ensenada.

    I didn't go immediately to La Casa Pacifica, but instead stepped into a phone booth and reached my friend Angel Cortillo. I asked him to meet me at the secluded bar on the outskirts of town where we had previously talked, and he said he would be there in a half an hour.

    I was relieved when he said nothing about Sharon looking him up while I'd been away.

    "Arrangements are about completed," I told him. "I have not been following the weather charts, but if things look right I think Saturday night Would be a good time. How will that work out as far as tides and so forth are concerned?"

    He told me that he would have to check, but as near as he could recall, the tide off our rendezvous cove would be high at approximately eleven o'clock on Saturday night.

    "I don't want to take a chance on finding the cove after dark,
amigo,"
he said. "If Saturday is to be the night, then I will plan to go down during the daylight hours and lay off shore and run across the sand-bar at high tide, which will mean I will be ready to pick up the cargo at roughly midnight. I will go back now and check my tide and current tables and also the weather predictions for this weekend. I will call you, if you like, this evening at La Casa Pacifica."

    I told him that that would be fine. We left separately, and I headed for the highway leading south out of town.

    Billings was behind the desk in the lobby when I entered. I spoke to him briefly.

    "I should like to contact the two gentlemen that I've talked to previously," I said. "How soon can you get in touch with them?"

    He looked at his watch. "If you will be in this evening after nine o'clock," he said, "I am quite sure they will be able to reach you."

    I thanked him and headed for the yellow suite. I was tired, both physically and mentally, and the tension was beginning to grow. I wanted more than anything else to get a good night's sleep and to relax.

    When I opened the door I thought at first no one was there. The living room was empty and the windows closed. I started for the bedroom, and it was then that I heard the water running in the shower.

    As I started across the room, the shower was shut off, and then a second later the door opened.

    Sharon stood there, stark naked, and I stopped and stared at her, wide-eyed. I didn't stare at her because she was naked; I had seen her naked before.

    She stood, one finger in her mouth, looking at me, completely without expression. Her lips were bruised, and there was a cut at one corner of her mouth.

    Slowly my eyes dropped. Her rather large, pear-shaped breasts were black and blue, and on the right one surrounding the nipple were teeth marks. She turned then, reaching for a towel, and as she did I could see that her buttocks were black and blue with bruises, and across her back were the parallel marks of a dozen or more lashes.

    Someone had beaten her, and beaten her brutally.

    She reached for a garment hanging on the back of the bathroom door, and when she came into the bedroom she was wearing a flowered-silk bathrobe which I had not seen before.

    She smiled at me, then, almost shyly, walked over to the dresser. She picked up something off the top of it, then turned toward me, still with that half-embarrassed, almost shy smile on her face.

    She said proudly, "Look what I've got."

    She held out her hand, and a gold-chained bracelet dangled from her fingers. At the bottom was a small platinum watch, or what I took to be platinum at the time. It turned out, actually, to be a rather inferior grade of Mexican silver.

    "I see what you've got," I said. "You got one hell of a beating. Who gave it to you?"

    She pouted.

    "Do you like my new silk robe?"

    "I asked who beat you up."

    She shook her head, and her voice was sulky, "I don't care about that. I want to know if you like my robe and my new watch and chain. Aren't they pretty?"

    "Oh, they're beautiful," I said. "And so are your tits and so is your ass. I'm asking you again. Who beat you? Who gave you that whipping? Who chewed on you? Was it the same guy who gave you those goddamned gaudy baubles?"

    She put the watch back on the dresser and drew the robe closer around herself.

    "You don't have to be mean to me," she said. "They're my tits and it's my ass. And I don't care about it. He didn't really hurt me. It's just that some men are like that. That's how they get their kicks. They just like to hurt a girl a little bit, but then they're willing to pay for their pleasures."

    "And you're willing to let them," I said. "My god, you disgust me. Now get your clothes on, and we're going to pack you up and get you out of here. If you haven't enough goddamn sense to take care of yourself, it's time somebody did it for you. I sure as hell don't want the job, but I'm going to get you out of here before you get yourself killed."

    "Nobody's going to kill me," Sharon said. "I just told you, didn't I? Some guys get their kicks that way."

    "Well, I don't get my kicks hearing about it," I said. "Now get yourself dressed."

    "I'm not going anywhere," she-said. "He told me that I had to stay here, and I'm going to stay here."

    "Who told you?"

    I didn't really have to ask. I knew who had told her. "Captain Morales told me," she said. "And anyway, I can't leave. I'm afraid to leave."

    "What are you afraid of?"

    "He told me if I tried to leave, he'd have me arrested and thrown in jail, and I'd never get out."

    I sat down on the bed and sighed. I shook my head. The little fool, I thought, the damned little fool. The trouble was that he probably hadn't been lying to her. He would have her picked up, and he could do it.

    I should have taken her out when I could have done so safely. The fact is, I never should have taken her with me in the first place. She'd have been a hell of a lot better off if I'd left her with her tough deputy sheriff outside of San Diego.

    I got up and went in and made a drink for myself, and when I came back she asked for one, so I handed her the one I'd made and went back and made a second one. And then I had a talk with her.

    "You've asked for this from the beginning," I said. "You seem to have a proclivity for finding guys who like to beat you. And apparently you can't distinguish between some simple oaf like your fat deputy sheriff and a guy like Captain Morales, who is really lethal. He's the worst kind: the man who will give you a beating not because he's annoyed with you, but because he gets his kicks out of doing it."

    "I didn't say it was Captain Morales," she said, pouting.

    "You didn't have to," I said. "Try and remember you're not in the States now. You can't call a cop. About the only person who can help you is yourself, and you're too stupid to know how to do it. I've got my own problems. I can't afford to have a run-in with Morales at this stage of the game. You're just going to have to sit it out, and from here on in, take my advice and do exactly what I tell you to do."

    She looked up at me then and half smiled.

    "I guess maybe you do care something about me after all," she said.

    "Don't kid yourself. I care about as much about you as I would about any broad who is willing to get herself screwed and half beaten to death for a few pesos, a handful of marijuana cigarettes, and some junk jewelry. What I care about is myself. I don't want a dead broad on my hands. And that's probably what's going to happen to you unless you come to your senses. It's probably too late to stop it now, but from now on you're going to behave yourself.

    "I can't guarantee to protect you, but if I am willing to try you're going to have to do your part. And your part is to stop flirting and stop messing around and stop asking for trouble. From now on, as long as you're with me-and, God knows, that's not going to be a minute longer than I can help-you're going to stay out of trouble. I got things to do, and I can't have you messing them up."

    It was a tough speech in a way, and in a way it did reflect pretty much what I was feeling. On the other hand, I had, in sort of a half-assed way, liked her. And still liked her. She was amoral, stupid, childish, but there were certain qualities about her that had gotten to me. I didn't like to see her hurt. And I knew that sooner or later it wouldn't be just a simple beating.

    I was vaguely tempted to pile her into the Jag, then and there, and try and get her across the border. But then I realized it would be a foolish move. It could very well jeopardize the entire operation. The safest thing would be to play it cool for a few more days and wait until I had arranged for the transfer of the marijuana and paid off, at which time the captain would get his cut.

    He was a man who liked money. And I rather doubted if he'd let one girl more or less interfere.

    Vaguely I began to formulate a plan. Trying to run her across the border could be a very risky thing. The captain had connections.

    Just getting her out of Ensenada might present a problem. But if we were to play it cool for a few days it occurred to me that it might be possible to get her aboard Angel Cortillo's fishing boat on the night he picked up the cargo.

    Later on, I would transfer her back to the States. I figured once it was an accomplished fact, Captain Morales might be pissed off, but he wouldn't let it interfere with future negotiations. I couldn't believe that the girl was that important to him. But the thing, to be successful, would have to be in the order of a
fait accompli.
I did not take Sharon into my confidence, however.