“Nope. The scouts aren’t sanctioned. They’re just people who work for the university and occasionally field information of a dubious and illegal nature. Lot of things you see in museums came through university contacts that weren’t on the up-and-up. It’s a coup for the university as well as the museum. Though it’s harder to pull that kind of thing off these days. Used to, there wasn’t much to stop that kind of commerce. That leads us to the rest of the story, as old Paul Harvey is fond of saying.
“Well, the university offers a whole shitload of money for this thing, and the looters say yippie. We’ll bring it as far as Playa del Carmen. You come get it. Secretly, of course.
“Here’s the corker. The looters load this stuff on trucks and arrive at the pickup point, just outside Playa del Carmen, and the university people don’t show. They’ve gotten cold feet. New attitudes are in place, and what was once smart archaeology is now considered looting. Not only by the obvious looters, but by the university and museum folks as well. That’s always been the attitude, openly, but underneath, this kind of thing was okay as long as no one got their tail in too tight a crack.
“University decided it was putting the tail of its reputation in just such as crack, and they backed out. So guess what? The looters decided to hide the stuff away and sell it to another bidder. They decide to hire a boat. Ferdinand’s boat. They moved the stucco facades by boat to an island Ferdinand knew. He occasionally took people there to fish, and the looters were paying pretty good money, and he thought he could put this money away and add to it later to pay off what he owed Juan Miguel.
“How am I doing, Ferdinand? Am I telling it right?”
Ferdinand nodded.
“So, Ferdinand, with the help of his daughter, transfers the facades to this little island, hides ’em away, then on the return trip the looters decide – or have already decided – they don’t really want Ferdinand and Beatrice to go back with them. In fact, they don’t want them to go back at all, and they don’t plan on leaving them on the island to Robinson Crusoe it. They decide to use machetes and chop the old man up.”
“Well, seeing that he’s here, and having seen him in action,” I said, “we know how that turned out.”
“Exactly. There were two of them. He took the machete away from one of them and killed them both. Dumped them in the ocean. Is that right, Ferdinand?”
Ferdinand nodded.
“You are one bad dude,” Leonard said.
“They did not expect one so old to be so willing,” Ferdinand said. “And they did not know that I grew up training with the machete.”
“Not something you’d expect,” Brett said. “Machete training. I thought you just chopped with it.”
“Whatever,” Jim Bob said. “He and Beatrice survived. So now Ferdinand and Beatrice have an ace in the hole. Or so they think. Beatrice goes to Juan Miguel and tells him she knows the whereabouts of these facades. She believes that the University of Mexico will be interested in them, and that they will pay heavily. She offers to trade the facades to Miguel to sell to the university for the cancellation of her debt.
“Juan Miguel is a nut not only for money and meanness, but dig this – if you’ll pardon the pun. He loves archaeology. He likes to think he’s adding to the world’s knowledge in this area. You know, loan shark a little, kill a little, and do a little archaeology. Or rather buy a little archaeology. He sees himself as a Renaissance man of sorts. So, he agrees to go with Beatrice. He contacts the Mexican university, and sure enough, they will pay for these facades. And considering they don’t have to be sold out of the country, it’s a legal deal.
“But in the meantime, Beatrice decides she’s screwed the pooch. She should have offered to sell them herself, cut out the middleman. This way, she thought, she could pay off Miguel, and come out with enough money to take her and her father to the States.
“Now we have Juan Miguel having negotiated with the university through his contacts, and suddenly, when he’s ready for the information to reveal the location of the facades, Beatrice isn’t talking.”
“I did not know she had done this thing,” Ferdinand said. “I would not have let her. Sell them to Miguel for our debt, yes. But to double-cross him… no.”
“Juan Miguel was,” Jim Bob said, “to put it in casual terms, about ready to piss vinegar and turn it to wine. He was embarrassed. He’s like a kind of mafia don in Mexico, and all the underworld knew he was brokerin’ this deal, and now some woman, a former prostitute… No offense, Ferdinand…”
“It is the truth,” Ferdinand said. “But when she goes to the university, she leaves this life behind. Until this man Billy… Please, continue, Senor Jim Bob.”
“Well, he doesn’t like it that she backs out on him and throws shit in his face. He is not a happy little criminal. He’s as embarrassed as a priest caught jacking off during a confession. He goes to Beatrice and says, Hey, we had a deal, and she lies and says, I have another deal in place, and I’ll have all the money I owe you, promise. You won’t get the facades to give to the University of Mexico, I’ll do that, but you will get your money in toto. Juan Miguel doesn’t like this, but he accepts. But, to make sure Beatrice understands he’s tired of dickin’ around, he has his man cut off the tip of her little finger.”
“She told me it was a fishing accident,” I said.
“She lied,” Ferdinand said. “I would have killed this man had I been there.”
“Maybe not this guy,” Jim Bob said. “Maybe not any of us this guy. But I’ll come back to him. So he cuts off Beatrice’s finger, tells her he’ll kill her and her father if she fucks this up.
“Beatrice isn’t through, however. She meets you and Leonard. And you get involved, and then she meets this Billy. Billy’s a blowhard and as full of shit as Beatrice. No offense, old man. But it seems your daughter had enough bullshit to fertilize about half the globe.”
I saw Ferdinand’s eyes glow, but only for a moment. He hung his head.
“She wants what she wants so bad she will deal with the devil,” Ferdinand said.
“And she did,” Jim Bob said. “And besides the devil, she dealt with Billy. Billy says he’ll pay her a lot more than three days of fishing are worth if she throws herself in and agrees to do whatever he wants her to do.
“As I said, before she went to the university Beatrice was a call girl in Mexico City. She’s not afraid of this deal. She’s seen some things, done some things. It turns out Billy, who is Billy Sullivan, is full of it and doesn’t really have any money. He’s a blowhard but Beatrice falls for it. He gave a little down payment, but the rest of it he didn’t have and wasn’t about to ask his father, who, though not rich, is fairly well off.”
“Know what,” I said. “I never did call his old man. I forgot all about it.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Jim Bob said. “He finally got in touch with him and his father came down with lawyers and money and got him out of jail and took him home. I traced him down when I got back from Mexico. And, guess what? He’s dead. Someone went all the way to Indiana, which is where he’s from, and cut him up. Same way as Charlie.”
“Poor old Billy,” I said.
“Fuck Billy,” Leonard said. “I wouldn’t have shit a hot meal in his hand if he was dying of hunger.”
“Way I figure it,” Jim Bob said, “Beatrice gave names or had addresses on her, something. Somehow she led them to you, Hap, or rather Charlie. I don’t think they knew the difference. Then they went to Indiana and got Billy. For all I know, they got all your addresses from the police and Beatrice didn’t give them shit. Enough money, information tends to change hands. And not just in Mexico.”
“But why would he want us?” I said.
Jim Bob shrugged, said, “Juan Miguel wanted vengeance and he thought you and Billy were in on the scam. Maybe Beatrice, to prolong her life, told them that. How’s that for a guess? I think it’s that simple. Juan Miguel, he doesn’t like taking a fuckin’, and if he does take one, then he makes sure whoever gave it to him takes it up the ass as well. A sort of permanent fuckin’. ’Course, could be he thought you or Billy, or both of you, knew about the facades and maybe he thought he’d find that out. He’d still want them, I think.”
“What about Leonard?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Jim Bob said. “No one tried to kill him, so maybe she didn’t give his name, died before she could. I don’t know. No way of knowing.”
“I gave my address,” Leonard said. “Not where I was staying, with John. The ironic part is after Charlie was killed I moved John and me out to my house for a while, because I thought it was safer.”
“By then it was,” Jim Bob said. “The killers had gone home. Maybe they decided they had the main two, and after torturing Charlie and Billy and getting nothing, they decided neither of you knew dick about the facades.”
“That seems like a pretty good guess,” I said.
“And Ferdinand?” Leonard said.
