“He was going to kill Ferdinand too, but Juan Miguel made the mistake of not sending the Jolly Green Giant. They sent some everyday fucker, and guess what? They sent him to do it with a machete. It’s kind of their trademark, death by machete.
“Guy comes to get Ferdinand on his boat. Ferdinand disarms him, beats him like a circus monkey, makes him tell why he’s come. That’s how Ferdinand finds out about Beatrice.
“Then, Ferdinand ties up his attacker, takes him out to sea, and dumps him in the ocean.”
“Tied up?” John asked.
“Yes,” Ferdinand said. “That way he cannot swim.”
“Yeah,” Leonard said, “tied up cramps a fella’s breast stroke all right.”
I thought, Damn. This is one mean old man.
“How the hell did you find all this out?” Brett asked.
“Hey, I’m a detective, lovely lady. And I had some help. Guy down there, a Mexican, runs a little private eye agency. I’ve worked with him I don’t know how many times. I heard this name, Juan Miguel, I thought it rang a bell. My acquaintance down there, Cesar, he had a partner who met a nasty end not long ago, and the whole thing’s connected with Juan Miguel. That’s where I had heard the name, year and a half ago. It didn’t mean much to me then. Just something they had got themselves into.
“I didn’t know the details, just that some gangster named Juan Miguel was responsible for Cesar’s partner’s death. The partner I had met, but hadn’t dealt with much. Not directly. I always dealt with Cesar. Fact is, Cesar helped me find Ferdinand.”
“How did you find him?” Leonard asked.
“Me and Cesar found him by finding the boy you told me about. Jose. The one helped him fish. He didn’t know Ferdinand was in trouble, just that he was gone, and Cesar simply asked him did Ferdinand have a place he went that few people knew about, and how about three hundred dollars if he told us. He was loyal to Ferdinand for about five minutes, then he was loyal to three hundred dollars. For him, that’s like a thousand, at least.
“The boy told me about a little island. Said that was where Ferdinand sometimes went to fish for himself and to be alone. Said he had gone with him a couple times. No one else had asked Jose that. No one else had offered him three hundred dollars either. No one thought or knew to ask him the question. We told Jose he should say nothing else about it to anyone. Cesar rented a boat and we went out there, found Ferdinand. And the facades. That’s the island where they’re stored.”
“What about what really counts to us?” Hanson said. “Justice for Charlie.”
“There’s the rub,” Jim Bob said. “We might could put together some pretty good information for the Mexican police. But in that little town of Playa del Carmen, Juan Miguel’s pretty much the man. He’s pretty much the man throughout Mexico when it comes to crime and payoffs in cocaine, money, and poontang.”
“So,” Leonard said, “might we assume you’re saying that would be a worthless approach to taking care of Charlie’s killer?”
“Right.”
“I say we go to Mexico and get the sonofabitch,” Hanson said. “Him and this giant. Or whoever gets in the way.”
“First off, you’re not going anywhere,” Jim Bob said. “No offense, but in your state you’d just fuck up the mission.”
“All right then,” Hanson said. “What are you and the others going to do? And how can I help?”
“I like Hanson’s idea,” Leonard said. “We kill the sonofabitch.”
“It’s an idea,” Jim Bob said, “but not an easy one to pull off.”
“I been in on a designed killing once, and I didn’t like it,” I said. “I’m still dealing with it. I just don’t like the idea of a guy pisses you off, you kill him.”
“Pisses you off,” Jim Bob said. “He killed Charlie, man. I’m more than pissed off.”
“You want justice for your friend, Charlie,” Ferdinand said. “I want justice for my daughter. We all have a price to pay. Vengeance is a price, but it must be paid.”
“Not me,” John said. “You know how I stand. I’m an observer. And not a happy one.”
“Killing him seems awful heavy to me,” I said.
“You’re fuckin’ me,” Leonard said. “What do you suggest, we humiliate him? Shame him? Bad dog. Smack him with a rolled-up newspaper? I think you ain’t got no peas for your pea shooter, Hap. Why don’t we just call him a bad name or knock his hat off?”
“Or write he sucks dicks on some bathroom wall,” Jim Bob said. “Hey, meant nothing by that, Leonard. John. Anyone else in here suck dicks?”
Brett raised her hand.
Jim Bob burst out laughing.
“Listen,” I said. “I was thinking we get some photos of these facades. We say to Juan Miguel we got these facades and we’ll sell them to you for such and such, and then we spring the police on him. You know, have them in waiting, so they got to arrest him when he shows up to buy them.”
“They’ll arrest us for setting up the scam,” Jim Bob said. “It implies we stole the facades in the first place, even if we didn’t. And if it did work, you keep forgetting, he’s got the Mexican law’s dicks in his pockets. It’s a stupid idea, Hap.”
“So we have to kill him?” I said.
No one said anything for a time. Finally Jim Bob said, “Before we start passing out the ammunition and a sack lunch, might be a good idea I tell you a little about this guy Juan Miguel, and his main henchman.”
“Henchman?” Leonard said. “Shit, I just love that term. I think I used to read that in the Fu Manchu books. Henchmen.”
“Cesar helped me find out a lot of stuff on this dude. Juan Miguel is rich because he’s run more drugs than Johnson and Johnson. He started out a petty thief, worked himself up to a higher level, killed off the right guys in the Mexican mafia, and eventually, he’s head dick. Got him some class along the way. Money buys class, you know. And very expensive suits, in all shades. When he wears a suit. He’s a practicing nudist much of the time.”
“A nudist?” Brett said.
“Yep. A classy nudist. At least in his own eyes. In reality he’s about as classy as a ball peen hammer to the back of the head. Which is something he’s done. Used a ball peen on his enemies’ skulls. But he’s too cool for that now. He’s got hired hands that do that.”
“The henchmen,” Leonard said.
“That’s right.”
“Is he hard to get to?” Hanson asked.
“He’s got a little fortress of a house in the hills surrounding Playa del Carmen. Nice pad. You can drive a car right up to it, but there’s guys with guns to greet you. One of the guys, according to Cesar, is about six eight, weighs about three eighty-five, and only the bits between his fingers and toes is fatty.”
“Sounds like hyperbole,” John said.
“Could be,” Jim Bob said. “They call him Hammerhead.”
“An old family name,” Leonard said. “Surely he’s a junior.”
“Point is,” Jim Bob said, “what we got here isn’t a cakewalk. This guy is dangerous. The people who protect him are dangerous. We can’t drive up to his house, knock on his door, ask if he can come out to play and shoot him in the head.”
“Any weaknesses?” I asked.
“Maybe at bridge,” Jim Bob said, “not much else. Well, there is one thing. A mistress. A real stunner. She lives in a fine house with some pretty nice guards herself. Provided by Juan Miguel, of course. She likes to travel to Mexico City and shop in expensive shops. We followed her three times in one week to the airport. And we even got on the flight once. The guards were with her. She shopped Mexico City to death. Only thing she didn’t do was buy the coats off the bears at the Mexico City zoo. She had the two plugs with her carrying all this shit. Clothes. Shoes. Whatever the crap is women buy, and I bet me and Cesar sat outside those stores in a rented airport car most of the day. We didn’t even eat lunch.”
“She’s the key,” Leonard said.
“Yep,” Jim Bob said. “I suppose so.”
