The Mexico Run (7 page)

    A little more than a half hour later, I was having another drink of straight tequila and she was sitting on the bed, pouting and looking unhappy. The taxi hadn't shown up, so I went over to the phone to call the desk to check on it. I was lifting the receiver when the knock came on the door.

    I figured that the driver had by-passed the desk clerk and come directly to the room. I called out, "Come in."

    There were two of them. Both short, heavy-set, in uniforms, wearing dark glasses. It occurred to me, for no reason at all, that I had never yet seen a Mexican policeman who wasn't wearing dark glasses.

    The one with a Zapata moustache closed the door and stood with his back to it. The other one, the tougher-looking one, with acne scars marring his face, took a couple of steps into the room.

    "I should like to see your identification, senor."

    I stood up and took my wallet out of my pocket and searched until I found my old army driver's license and the registration card which I had picked up two weeks ago for the Jaguar. I handed them to him silently.

    He stared at them for a moment or two and then reached back and gave them to his partner with the handlebar moustache.

    I was still holding the wallet. His eyes went to Sharon.

    "And your identification, senorita," he said.

    She looked at him blankly and I was beginning to wonder if she had any identification, when she shrugged and her hand went into the bag which hung on her shoulder. She took out a worn, man's leather wallet and rifled through it. She found a rectangular card and handed it to him.

    He studied it for a moment, then looked up at her.

    "Sharon Cameron, seventeen years old." He hesitated a moment. "You crossed the border with this man, senorita?"

    I didn't know what it was all about, but I cut in before she had a chance to answer.

    "We met at a bar downtown and…"

    I got no further.

    "If you wish to remain healthy, senor, you will keep your mouth shut."

    He turned back to Sharon. "You will answer my question, please."

    She hesitated for a moment, looking toward me, but there was nothing I could tell her.

    "Like he said, we just happened to run into each other and then, well…" She was picking it up better than I thought she would, but he didn't give her a chance to finish.

    "And you spent the night in the hotel with him here, didn't you senorita?" His eyes went to her suitcase.

    She looked at him dumbly and then half-nodded. He tossed her I.D. card back on the bed and turned back to me. I was still holding the wallet in my hand.

    "Your wallet, senor."

    I handed it to him and he rifled through the bills, his face expressionless. He closed the wallet and passed it to his partner, who was still standing at the door.

    I was beginning to take a slow burn.

    "Now see here, officer," I began.

    It was a mistake. Out of. the corner of my eye, I saw his partner take the gun out of the holster he wore on the ammunition belt around his waist. The one who had been doing- the talking took a quick step toward me. He gave me a stinging blow on the side of my face with his opened hand and I guess he must have been a Grade B movie fan, because the hand was going back and forth as he struck first one side of my face and then the other, eight or ten times.

    It left me groggy.

    "Stand up," he said, "and face the wall. Raise your hands over your head, step back from the wall, and lean against it. Spread your feet."

    He probably watched TV shows, as well as Grade B movies, but I didn't argue with him. The search was thorough, but not gentle. When he finished, he told me to turn around and sit down in the chair.

    He nodded to his partner, who put his gun back in the holster. The partner went through my opened suitcase, and when he came to the.45 automatic, he looked up and then carefully removed the ammunition clip and the shell from the chamber. He tossed the empty gun on the bed.

    When he finished the suitcase, he went through the rest of the room. He didn't, however, bother with Sharon's luggage.

    No words were spoken.

    The bathroom came next and he was in it for less than a minute when he returned holding a flip-top, Marlboro cigarette box in his hand. He opened it and dumped out approximately a dozen, tightly rolled, thin cigarettes.

    They weren't Marlboro's, and I didn't have to be very bright to guess what they were.

    My eyes went over to Sharon, and she was looking at me with a sort of dumb, baffled expression. She shook her head back and forth a couple of times.

    For some reason, I believed her. It was a plant. I was beginning to guess what it was all about. I recognized the uniforms as belonging to the Tijuana city police department. These were not narcotics agents, nor were they immigrations or Federals. It was very obviously a routine shakedown. They had my wallet, they had checked its contents, knew that it held the two five-hundred-dollar bills, as well as several hundred in small assorted bills.

    I figured there was only one thing I could do.

    I was getting ready to make my pitch when the one who had struck me in the face spoke.

    "Narcotics," he said. "Illegally bringing a weapon into the country. Crossing the border with a minor for immoral purposes."

    He shook his head, sadly. It was a shakedown all right.

    "We all make mistakes, officer," I said. "If you would just let me have my wallet back and the one or two hundred dollars in it to take care of my hotel bill, I would be glad to…"

    He didn't let me finish.

    "You are already guilty of serious crimes," he said. "Are you now attempting to bribe a Mexican police official?"

    I was beginning to wonder what in the hell he did want, and I was also beginning to wonder what I could do about it. It just didn't seem possible that I had run into a couple of honest Mexican cops. If I had, it was an impossible situation. I could let them take me down and book me and then I could probably try and get hold of Morales and see if things couldn't be fixed.

    I would hate to do this. I was pretty sure Morales wouldn't be happy about it.

    But the more I thought of it, the more I doubted the honest cop theory.

    Someone had planted that pack of marijuana cigarettes in the bathroom. I was positive that Sharon didn't know about them, and I couldn't see when Morales could have had the opportunity to plant them or why he would have wanted to. I couldn't figure the whole thing out, unless they were holding out for more than the money that was in my wallet. Or possibly they were just trying to save face before they left.

    I decided the best thing to do would be to test the honest cop theory.

    Looking up, I shrugged and said, "All right, if I have violated your laws, I suggest we let a judge make the decision. But one thing I would like to say. The cigarettes you found belong to me. This girl didn't know anything about them."

    I was not necessarily being chivalrous. I was sure the cigarettes were a plant and I could see no point in both of us being thrown in jail. I knew what Mexican jails were like. I also knew how long it might take to make bail, and I can't say that it gave me any particular pleasure to think of Sharon having to go through the experience.

    Acne-face walked over and stood in front of me. He looked dangerous.

    "Are you trying to tell a Mexican official how to perform his duties, senor?"

    I was suddenly tired of being pushed around. The sons-of-bitches had my money, what the hell more did they want? I stared back into his face. When I spoke, my voice was controlled, but it was a controlled fury.

    "No, officer," I said, "I am not trying to tell a Mexican police official how to perform his duty. I am telling two greasy, crooked cops to take their dirty shakedown money and get the hell out of this room."

    It was another mistake.

    This time he didn't use his opened hand. He used his closed hand, and it was closed on the slender end of a blackjack.

    Except for the first two blows, I don't know how many times he hit me. The first one I partly ducked, and it opened up a gash next to my right ear. The second one must have caught me along the side of the head.

    There were others, but I didn't find out about them until I came to some hours later and was able to make an inventory of my battered body.

    

    

    It seemed to take forever for me to come to, and I had no idea how long I had been out. Even when ultimate consciousness came back, I just lay there, thinking I was reliving one of those old nightmares which had been bothering me over the months.

    But there are no physical pains in a nightmare. You don't have a head that feels as though someone has been using it for a battering ram. You are able to open both eyes, not just one. You don't look down and see dried blood across your naked chest.

    My one good eye finally went from my chest to the four white walls of the room. There was a window, high in the wall, opposite the narrow cot on which I lay, and there were bars across it. The door was solid. It looked like metal. There was no doorknob, no keyhole.

    In one corner of the room was an enamel pot.

    I was lying on an old army-blanket, and I could feel the springs through it. There was no pillow. Looking back at the window, I could see it was still daytime.

    The floor was cracked concrete, and there was no furniture but the cot. No electric light-bulb. It was a jail cell, but I didn't believe it was in Tijuana. The jail there was behind the police station, in a relatively modern structure.

    This cell, even for Mexico, was the bottom of the barrel.

    My head ached. I ached all over. Gradually I was remembering why. I shifted onto my side in the bed, trying to sit up. I didn't make it. I couldn't make it. They must have done a complete job on me after knocking me out, probably with boots as well as blackjacks.

    I lay back, closed my one good eye. All I wanted to do was go back to sleep, so the waves of nausea would go away.

    I must have passed out again, because the next time I awakened, the room was in total darkness. This time I made it to a sitting position. I moved a finger, an arm, a leg. Painful. But nothing seemed broken. I felt over my body, and just about every place I touched was sore. After a couple of tries I managed to stand up and take a step or two before I staggered and almost fell. I went back to the cot and lay down again. My head ached as much as ever.

    My throat was dry and raw, but I was too weak to go over to the metal door and try and attract attention.

    I threw up on the floor next to the cot. When I finally fell asleep again, I didn't awaken until the following morning. The sun was shining brilliantly through the barred window in the wall.

    I was sitting on the edge of the bed taking inventory. My head was better, but I still ached all over. I was dying of thirst and was getting up my strength to struggle over to the door and bang on it. They couldn't just let me lie here and die of thirst.

    As I got to my feet there were sounds outside the metal door, and I could hear a bar being drawn back. A moment later the door opened outward.

    It took me a second to adjust my eyes to the light, and then I saw there were two of them. The one holding the tin tray in one hand, the bucket of water in the other, was a bare-footed Indian, wearing surplus khaki-pants, a blue work-shirt, and a beaded band around his forehead. Next to him was a short, squat, heavy-set Mexican with a comic-opera uniform and a tin badge. He actually wore a sombrero, and had the crossed bandoliers with the bullets and the twin six-guns in the side holsters.

    The' Indian came into the cell, and the Mexican, who must have been the jailer, stood well back, his hands resting on the pistol butts. He wasn't taking any chances.

    I could see a segment of the room he stood in, and it was almost as bare as my cell, except that there was a scarred desk, with a girlie calendar on the wall behind it. A brass spittoon and a broken-backed rocking chair. I guessed it was the office.

    I was one up on him if it was. My floor was concrete- his was dirt.

    The Indian put the tray on the cot and the bucket of water on the floor. There was a tin cup on the tray, and I grabbed it and scooped up some water. My throat was so dry I don't think I could have spoken without the drink first.

    The Mexican was watching me with flat eyes, neither friendly nor unfriendly.

    "Look," I said. "I'd like to know what I am doing here? And where am I?"

    He shrugged, hunched his shoulders and lifted his hands, palms up. He shook his head.

    
"No hablo ingles, senor."

    I doubted if my Spanish was any better than his English, but I gave it a try anyway. I didn't have much option.

    
"Donde estoy, capitan?"
I said.

    He shrugged again, nodding at the cell behind me. I guess he figured it would be useless to tell me I was in jail if I didn't have enough sense to figure it out for myself.

    
"Puedo usar el telefono?"

    He shrugged again, and looked sad. Shrugging was getting to be a habit.

    
"No telefono, senor,"
he said, almost apologetically.

    I thought I'd try him on one more. A lawyer would be better than a phone call anyway.

    
"Puedo acupar un abacado, capitan?"
He was no captain, of course, but I thought the title might make him feel good. It was all I had to give him.

    This time he just shook his head. He said something to the Indian in a dialect I couldn't follow. The Indian left the cell, closing the door after himself. I could hear the bar which guarded it falling back into place.