hung signs. You gave the cops their names at the hospital.”
Adam’s expression is one of approval, nodding as his eyes gaze down at the table, some restoration of faith in the system.
“And they’ll have the letter from Ibarra by now. I know because my ears have been burning for the last day,” says Adam. “That lieutenant, what’s his name?”
“Ortiz,” I say.
“He’s gonna be on the warpath when I get back. Wanting to know how long I had Ibarra’s letter. It’s why I haven’t called the office. I don’t want anybody there to have to say they talked to me, or that they know where I am. Better if I’m able to say I was out of touch until I got back.”
“Then what are you gonna do?” says Harry.
“Hunker down, take some official abuse I suppose. What can they do?”
“If they can prove you were sitting on the letter, plenty,” says Harry. “If it’s all the same with you, I’d just as soon be back in San Diego tonight, watching the Dodgers kick the crap out of the Padres on the tube. Instead we’re goin’ to see some guy, who if he’s anything like his kids, is probably gonna have his people kick the crap out of us. That’s if we’re lucky.”
“We’ll be home tomorrow,” I tell him. “You can read the box scores in the paper.”
“Which one, the Padres or us?” says Harry.
“That reminds me.” Adam is looking at his watch, holding it up to his ear again. “What time have you got?”
“A couple of minutes past nine,” I tell him.
“Oh, shit. My watch says eight-forty.”
“You should get that thing fixed,” says Harry.
“I’ve got to go, call the pilot and make sure he doesn’t drink anything at the bar today. Have him fuel the plane or we’ll be here all night.” Adam is out of his chair, halfway to the stairs, talking to us over his shoulder as he goes.
I watch him climb the steps, taking them two at a time, moving like a man in his twenties, all the way to the top as he disappears like a flash through the door to the lobby.
“Guess if the pilot drinks, we won’t be flying tonight,” says Harry.
“Looks like it.”
“How much do you think it takes to fill one of those things up?”
“Oh, I’d have to think a fifth of vodka would put any pilot I know on his can.”
“Be a smart ass,” says Harry smiling. “You know what I mean. The plane?”
“How would I know?”
“You think they have to wait in line? Get out the credit card?”
“Go ask Adam.”
He thinks about this for a second. “No. The steps are too hot. Besides, if I go back inside the air-conditioning, I’m done for the day.” He looks at the pool instead. “Think I’ll go back in the water. Why don’t you at least sit on the side, put your feet in?”
“Why not?” I grab my dark glasses off the table and slip off my running shoes.
“Besides, the sun might cook some of that lip off you,” he says. “A fifth of vodka.”
Harry is right. The water feels good. The pool is shallow, slightly more than three feet with little signs all the way around in feet and inches to keep their northern guests from diving in and breaking their necks. If you want anything deeper, the Caribbean is just down the steps and across the beach.
Another ultralight buzzes by towing its sign. Harry pops up in the center of the pool just in time to see it.
A few seconds later another one comes over, this time from another direction and maybe thirty feet above the rooftops, close enough that I can see the wire struts and hear the nylon fabric on its wings flapping as it buzzes past. Its shadow flashes over the deck and the pool and then is gone almost before I see it.
“Isn’t he a little low?” says Harry.
“Just a little.”
Harry, with a line of sight out toward the beach, has one hand up shading his eyes, watching as the plane heads out over water.
“Must be giving rides,” he says. “He had a passenger.”
I look up, but the building next door blocks my view. When I look toward Harry, he is back underwater.
There is a breeze off the sea, flushing some of the hot air from the patio. I wet my hands in the pool and prop them behind me on the hot deck, leaning back. I’m getting hungry, wondering how long Adam is going to be.
Out on the water the parasail boat comes by again, its engine winding up and then dropping RPMs like a Mixmaster as it bounces its way north against the chop. Behind it, nearly invisible at this distance, is the thin steel cable curving up toward the parachute, its rider, looking like a dot in the sky, hanging underneath.
I watch the parachute as it sails slowly past in the distance. Splashes in the water in front of me, sending up a spray. Harry’s throwing gravel. Wasps whine past my ear. I flick them away with the back of my hand. There’s a spark from the pool’s concrete coving, and something hits my cheek. I rub it. There’s an instant before the synapse in my brain fires after I see blood on my hand.
An image out of the sun, diving toward the plaza from over the roof of the Casa Turquesa behind me. It projects a shadow that crosses twenty yards of terraced foliage and the deck around the pool, before I can even turn my head. Kaleidoscopic silhouette-raptor racing across the ground. An instant later, the high-pitched whine of the ultralight engine-fleeting images of color, it fills my frame of vision for an instant and is past me almost before I hear it.
It sends me sprawling, rolling onto my side across the hot concrete. A rip of reports as it passes, jets of spray in the pool, shattered tile at the edge. A second later, a shower of spent brass cartridges hits the water while others click across the concrete at the far end.
As the plane wings out over the beach and pulls up, gaining altitude and losing speed, I see the pilot, both hands on the control stick, looking straight ahead. The plane is nothing but an open frame, the pilot’s feet in a set of stirrups. I can see him push one of these as the ultralight makes a slight turn to the right and climbs.
His passenger is in a kind of jump seat up behind him, sitting higher, the propeller pushing from behind. He is looking back to assess the damage, a set of goggles strapped to his head, shielding his eyes from the wind. In his hands, I can see what looks like a dark snub-nosed machine gun, moving it around, working at something. Then I realize he’s loading a magazine with fresh rounds.
I look for Harry, but I don’t see him. What I do see is the vaporous hue of blood drifting in the water out near the center of the pool. I track it to a dark shadow on the bottom, and before I can think, I’m in the water, kicking off the side, pulling with my arms.
Before I’m there, I fill my lungs with air, and on the next stroke I pull under the surface toward the shallow bottom. Silence, only the pounding of my pulse in my head and chest. Snagging Harry under the arms, around his chest, my feet under me, I shoot us to the surface. I can’t tell if he’s alive. His body is limp, chin resting on his chest. I grab his hair and pull his head back, look at his face. His eyes are closed.
Backpedaling with my feet on the bottom, I push through the water, towing Harry toward the stairs and the hotel.
In the distance, the ultralight circles in a broad arc out over the surf, turning, dipping its wing, wheeling around.
I’m concentrating on the plane when my feet hit the steps of the pool and I fall backward, end up sitting on the next step with Harry in my lap. I hang onto him and try to get up.
I see the waiter in his white linen jacket, facedown, hugging the tiled floor just inside the sliding door to the restaurant on the pool deck. But he’s not looking at me. He’s looking at the plane as it approaches.
I yell and wave for him to help.
Instead he gets on his feet and runs toward the kitchen.
I look down and see Harry’s blood on my shirt. The back of his head, his hair is matted. A head wound. Not good.
When I look back, the ultralight is bearing down, making speed with its tail now into the onshore wind. With
