“Damn sure beats a double-wide, don’t it?” Jim Bob said.
“I once knew a fella fastened two double-wides together,” I said. “That was pretty nice.”
Jim Bob chuckled.
The door opened and two guys in tan suits came out on the stone porch. From where we sat, they looked like two fleas standing on canvas, about to go through their act. They were the two guys we had beat and tied up at the hotel in Mexico City.
As we got out of the car, Jim Bob said, “At least there are two people here who know us.”
“They are sweet,” I said, “but my guess is neither of them will be bringing pot luck lunches to Mensa’s next Christmas party.”
The air was stuffed with the smell of fresh-mowed grass and recently manicured shrubs. There was a touch of chlorine from the pool. If it had been daylight I’m sure a butterfly and bluebird would have lit on my shoulder.
The two came down the great steps carefully, as if they were afraid their pants might rip. It seemed to take them forever to cross the green, clipped lawn, make their way over to meet us. First thing they did was clobber the both of us. I took an uppercut in the belly and went down. I wanted to fight back, but didn’t. I took another clip to the side of the head, was yanked up and kicked in the ass. I made a note to remember that kick in the ass. Not to mention the fact I had a headache about the size of Alaska.
A moment later we were searched and four pesos I had in my front pocket were taken and Jim Bob lost a pocketknife out of the deal. We should have put those under the seat.
Next Jim Bob and I were hustled in front of them, toward the pool. Jim Bob had lost his hat in the beating, and it had been stepped on before he recovered it. As he walked along he was at work straightening it.
“They took it personal,” he said.
“Looks like.”
“I didn’t take the beating personal myself,” Jim Bob said. “But stepping on my hat was just mean, and I won’t forget it.”
“You’re like Leonard about his hats,” I said.
“I’ve never seen him in a hat.”
“They get stepped on.”
We went through a gap in the wall of shrubbery, between palm trees with lights on them, out to the side pool, which was bordered by copper-colored tile and on the far side there were plenty of bushes and trees and a fountain in the shape of an angel with wings spread wide. There was plenty of light on the sapphire pool and someone was in it, swimming. We were taken to a glass table, pushed down into white plastic chairs, spoken to in Spanish.
“They want us to stay,” Jim Bob said.
“I figured that much. Goddamn, my gut hurts. That fucker has quite a punch.”
“My guy hit like a sissy,” Jim Bob said.
“You’re lucky,” I said. “He hit any harder than he did, you’d look like E.T. on that side of your face.”
The person in the pool was obviously Juan Miguel. He swam a couple more laps just for show, then climbed out. He was butt-naked. One of the buffaloes gave him a long white towel and he went to drying himself.
He came over, flipping his dick and balls with the end of the towel. I didn’t know if he were merely drying himself, or if it was some kind of greeting.
Up close I could see Juan Miguel was older than he had appeared through the telescope. He was in good shape, with a slightly protruding belly, but solid muscle tone. He had all his own hair and certainly dyed it. He was probably about five ten, one ninety and proud of himself.
“Que pasa,” Juan Miguel said, and he smiled so big the light bouncing off his teeth nearly put my eyes out.
“How’s it hanging?” Jim Bob said.
Juan Miguel thought about that, then slowly he laughed. “How is it hanging. That is good. How is it hanging. As you can see, my man, it hangs quite well.”
“Yeah. It almost looks like a real dick.”
Juan Miguel said something in Spanish. One of the buffaloes stepped forward, slapped Jim Bob so hard he was knocked out of the chair and the chair went spinning. He lost his hat again. It rolled backward all the way to the shrubbery.
Juan Miguel looked at me. “Do you have a comment, sir?”
“I’m cool,” I said.
Jim Bob got up, straightened his chair, recovered his hat, sat back down. “Where do you get these guys? A girls school?”
Juan Miguel made a movement with his mouth that wasn’t quite a frown or a smile, but was certainly unpleasant. I thought Jim Bob was due for another slapping, or worse, but Juan Miguel took a breath, looked down at his package and continued drying it as if he were polishing a precious stone.
“Do you find nudity unpleasant?” Juan Miguel asked us.
“Yours, yes,” Jim Bob said. “But your woman, hey, I think she looks pretty good.”
Juan Miguel snapped something in Spanish, and this time both buffaloes jumped on Jim Bob. I wanted to help him, but I knew that wasn’t our game. Jim Bob took a short but rapid beating from their fists, then lay on his side and was kicked for a while.
I said, “You do that much longer, I can assure you, you’ll never see your mistress again, unless it’s in a ditch with a zucchini stuffed up her snatch.”
“Alto,” Juan Miguel said.
Jim Bob lay awhile longer this time, but finally he got up, brushed himself off, righted his chair, recovered his hat, which was the shape of a paper wad, and sat down. “The two of them together, working hard, are almost a man,” he said.
“You are crazy,” Juan Miguel said. “You want to die. And you will.”
Jim Bob spat blood on the stones. “Not unless you want that mistress to end up like my partner said. Only I’ll make sure she gets a zucchini in every hole. Maybe even a melon. No more beatings. No more bullshit. You listen to us. We don’t come back soon, call in, your girlfriend, she’s gonna end up in a bad way. You hear me, you cheap-ass Mexican Godfather wannabe. We’re just hired help, and it don’t mean a thing to us one way or another, except we want to come out of this alive and happy, and if things work out, you get your bitch back alive and happy, and we come out of it with some money. And let me tell you, I’m gonna talk to you, you get some drawers on, or wrap that towel around that limp piece of spaghetti, sit down and listen.”
“You are on my turf, you American turd. Nudity is healthy. I am sixty years old, and I know I do not look it. It is the nudity. The fresh air, the sun. I swim nude every night in this pool, and it has done wonders for me. Man was meant to have fresh air, sunlight, and exercise.”
“It’s dark,” I said.
“Yes, but there is the night air,” Juan Miguel said.
“We’re on your turf,” Jim Bob said, straightening his hat, “but we’ve got your muff. Let me tell you about nudity for health, Zorro. Tried it when I was twelve. Stripped off and played Tarzan. Climbed up in a tree and got a sunburn, damn near fried my pecker off, turned my ass the color of a Washington apple. I didn’t find it so healthy. You get a good sunburn on your general and it starts to peel, let me tell you, it’s highly uncomfortable.”
“You idiot,” Juan Miguel said.
“You gonna sit and deal, or you gonna bore me with your lifestyle choices?”
“You fool,” Juan Miguel said. “You think I am losing true love here? My wife, she is my true love. Ileana, she is a dalliance. A hobby. A pastime. She is one of many.”
I felt my stomach go sour. What if Ileana didn’t matter to him? What if he had women all over Mexico?
Then I thought: Like Ileana? Not likely. Who the hell was he fooling?
“I think we’re wasting time,” I said. “You want her, we best get to talking, and talking now.”
Juan Miguel studied us, as if to be certain we weren’t mirages, some stupid dream. He wrapped the towel around his waist, pulled out a chair and sat down. No sooner had he done that, as if on cue, out of the darkness near the pool, on the far side, something moved.
At first I thought one of the palm trees had come loose of its roots and was about to topple, but the base
