Bond looked at us, said, “You do whatever you want. I won’t even cut your pay.”
“You don’t owe me that,” I said. “You sure don’t owe Leonard that.”
“Thanks,” Leonard said.
“No,” Bond said. “I do owe you that. Go with my blessing.”
“I want you to know I’m not trying to take advantage of you,” I said. “Something really did come up.”
“I believe you. Go with my blessing. And the assurance your jobs are waiting.”
“How is Sarah?”
“She’s much better. She has been moved to a less critical wing of the hospital.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
“She’s talking now. Some of her old spirit is back. She speaks highly of you, Hap.”
“That’s kind of her,” I said.
Bond was starting to look teary. We got up to leave. Bond said, “Hap. Leonard. I got an idea you two aren’t just going on a hunting trip.”
“Actually,” Leonard said, “that’s exactly what we’re doing.”
“Be safe.”
We thanked him and left.
Jim Bob booked me, Brett, Leonard, Ferdinand, and himself on a flight to Cancun for the next afternoon. I took Brett to a nice store in Tyler and bought her an expensive outfit or two. Still, we packed light.
That night we slept hardly at all, got up early, muddled about. Hanson came by to wish us off. Told us to keep him posted. Early afternoon, we headed for Houston Intercontinental in Jim Bob’s car, the Red Bitch.
“What about guns?” Leonard asked.
“Cesar,” Jim Bob said, switching lanes to the sound of a car horn blaring. “He’ll provide what we need. He has his own grudge he’d like to take care of. He’s been nursing it for years, and now he’s ready. You brought some of that money you got, didn’t you, Hap?”
“I did.”
“I sold some hogs cheap, fired all my help, so now I got some extra bread too.”
“I brought some,” Brett said. “But I didn’t have much. I plan to suck off Hap when we get home.”
“That sounds enticing,” I said.
“You know what I mean,” Brett said.
“I didn’t bring any money,” Leonard said. “I don’t even know what color a dollar bill is anymore.”
Jim Bob changed lanes so close had the car behind us had another coat of paint, it would have been in the back seat of the Red Bitch.
“You are one scary driver,” Brett said.
“I’m just getting you folks primed for the really scary stuff.”
27
We arrived in Cancun, rented a car, headed off toward Playa del Carmen. As we neared the town, a slice of sunset the color of a fresh-sliced salmon fillet stained the horizon. As we watched, darkness corrupted it, then it all sank away as if into a tar pit.
It was a night full of clouds and no visible moon. Darkness dripped over the car like ink poured from a jar, but as we neared the city pinpricks of colored lights jumped into view. We cruised past a McDonald’s and a T-shirt shop and on into town.
We ended up staying at a nice hotel near the sea. Brett and I took a room, Jim Bob, Leonard, and Ferdinand took one together. Leonard ended up on a roll-away.
In our room we opened a window, pulled back the curtains, let the sea air in. There was a palm tree near our window. The limbs and leaves scraped the wall like a cat scratching. There were lights on poles along the edge of the beach and they made the sand and water and the pedestrian walk, Fifth Avenue, look like one of those paintings you do by numbers.
Seabirds were coasting low over the water, dropping birdshit like napalm, hoping for a late fish snack before hanging it up for the day.
People walked along Fifth Avenue, talking and laughing.
“Since this is gonna cost us anyway,” Brett said, “what say we order room service, enjoy that, then fuck like two rabbits in a lab experiment?”
“That’s my kind of night,” I said.
We ordered room service, but what we ended up doing was not fucking like rabbits in a lab experiment, but lying in one another’s arms watching a late movie, The Man With the Golden Arm, starring Frank Sinatra. It was in English. Something cabled in for the tourists, I guess.
Next morning we got up early, had room service, then went with Jim Bob in the rental to meet Cesar. Leonard was walking a little funny. I thought maybe his bad hip was acting up.
“You all right?” I asked.
“It’s not my hip, if that’s what you’re thinking. It’s that damn roll-away. I fought that motherfucker all night. It finally threw me. I ended up sleeping with a blanket and a pillow on the floor. Now I know how those poor racked sonofabitches felt during the Inquisition.”
We piled into the car. As we drove near the beach, I saw Ferdinand look out at the sea. I said, “Where’s your boat?”
“I sold the boat,” he said. “Some rich American who wanted his own fishing boat.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I needed the money… I know what you must think of me, senor. All of you. But I did what I could do. I tried to help my daughter. I did not make her a whore. She chose that for herself. When I thought she could get the money needed to keep her from dying, I let her do what she had to do. It was never for me. You must understand I was only letting her do what I thought she must do. It is all nothing now. She is dead. I am dead.”
“Time heals things,” I said.
“No, senor. It only heals some things. An open wound heals. This, this does not heal. But I can put salve on it. I can help kill this man who had my daughter killed.”
“If it’s any consolation,” Leonard said. “Knowing now what you were up against, I understand why you did what you did.”
“It is something, senor. It is something.”
Cesar’s place was very nice. Nothing like what I expected. It was nestled amongst palms and foliage, one long story made of wood and stone, not far from the beach. The garage contained a Jaguar and an older-looking dirt-brown Plymouth.
“Looking through people’s windows, prowling through their underwear drawers, seems to pay pretty good,” Leonard said.
Jim Bob looked at Leonard and smiled. Leonard may have forgotten that Jim Bob and Cesar were in the same business, but I doubted it.
We walked up a little crunched seashell path, and before we could knock, the door opened and a little fat man in a red shirt opened the door. He looked to be in his late thirties or forties, had very little hair, and what hair he had was black and gooey with oil. He had a face that would have looked at home on the Buddha, providing the Buddha had one cauliflowered ear. He shook our hands and hugged Jim Bob and Brett.
“Would you come in,” he said. “It is so good to meet you, senores, and it is even better to see this delightful senorita. Or is it senora?”
“Senorita,” she said.
“Surely, you are but an angel visiting from heaven.”
“That goes without question,” Brett said.
Inside the house it was also very nice, with colorful Mexican rugs hung on the wall, fine furniture, and nearby a young Mexican lady with blond hair and black roots. She stood near a stone fireplace, almost at attention. She wore a white pants suit with a long, near-waist-length strand of black beads that had gotten slung sideways, so
