“Where’s Adam and Julio?”
“That’s a good question.”
I flag a cab in front of the hospital and head back to the hotel. By the time we get to the intersection leading to the driveway up to the Casa Turquesa, the crowd out in front is gone. A motorcycle cop is standing at the driveway entrance, screening traffic in and out.
The sun is searing. I glance at my watch. It’s nearly two o’clock. I’m feeling nauseous. I have a headache. I haven’t eaten since last night. The blood from my ear is dried and caked, but the sweat running down my face in the cab, which has no air-conditioning, causes the salt to burn in the wound.
The cop at the gate will see the blood all over the front of my shirt as soon as we pull in, and the inquisition will start before I can get out of the cab.
Rather than go up to the hotel, I have the driver go past the entrance and take a left behind Kukulcan Plaza.
Up on the bluff behind the shopping center, overlooking the beach, are apartments and condos. Julio’s firm has rented space in one of the less expensive condos so that they could park the big Surburbans in the underground garage. The rest of Julio’s team, when not on duty, has slept in the condo upstairs. Herman pointed it out to me on one of our trips.
I have the cab driver drop me off in front of the place.
The two-story building houses a half dozen units with stairs out in front leading to the units on the second story. Each of the units look the same.
As we drive up, I see the driveway to the garage, a concrete ramp at the side of the building leading down underneath. So I head toward it and down the ramp.
I am looking for Julio’s man, the one who’s supposed to be watching the cars, hoping he has a radio to contact his boss. If not, maybe there is a phone in the condo upstairs. I can call Adam and find out what’s happening in the hotel, have them bring me some clean clothes. If I’m lucky, by now Adam and Julio will have answered most of their questions. I can fill in a few blanks, get a meal in my room, and nap before we meet with Pablo Ibarra; that is, assuming the meeting is still on.
After the events of this morning, I’ve become a convert to Harry’s way of thinking. As soon as I button Adam, I plan to lay heavy hands. When Harry is ready to travel, we should hop on the plane and hightail it home. It’s one thing to look for answers as to who killed Nick. It’s another to meet them.
Even though it’s dug into the earth like a bunker, the underground garage is warm and humid.
I turn the corner and see the cars. Two of the Surburbans are there. One is out. The one on the right has its engine running, fouling the garage with fumes.
The man watching them is sitting inside, listening to music, with the air conditioner running. I hear the muted vibrations of low notes, pounding out a bass in a monotone. I’m waiting for the car to sprout hydraulics and start jumping in place.
As I slide up along side, I see the familiar five o’clock shadow in the side-view mirror. I’ve been looking at it for two days in the car. Julio sitting behind the wheel. I tap on the glass of the window behind him, but he doesn’t hear me. I open the driver’s door.
“Where were your people…” The words aren’t out of my mouth when I see the splatter on the windshield like rust-colored stucco. Spider-legged fissures in the windshield fan out from a crater in the glass a few inches above the steering wheel.
The side of Julio’s face is an ashen shade of blue, cyanotic. His eyes are half closed in a death daze. In the center of his forehead is the exit wound the size of a quarter, the edges swollen, already congealed with blood. This has run down his face in rivulets around his nose, covering large areas of his shirt and pants.
I stand there with my mouth open, the sweet metallic taste of monoxide in my throat. The mind-numbing music and the fact that I’m standing inches from a dead body in a foreign county tends to focus the mind. Quickly I scan the garage to make sure I’m alone.
I search through the pockets of my shorts for a piece of cloth, paper, anything. I find a folded cash register receipt still damp. I open it up and using it between my thumb and forefinger, I carefully reach under the steering column, find the key, and turn off the ignition. The deafening silence causes me to flinch, look around, make sure I’m still alone. Then I close the car door, wiping the handle with the tail of my shirt.
It takes me five minutes to make my way back up the hill. I cross the empty street behind the plaza, take off my shirt, and drop it into a trash can at the curb on the other side. I enter the shopping center through a door on the back side. The cool, dry atmosphere of the air-conditioned plaza washes over me as I catch my breath inside. Except for the blood on my ear, I look like a tourist who forgot his shirt back at the pool, shoes without socks and beads of sweat.
Against the wall just inside the door is a pay phone. I fumble with Mexican coins, trying to figure which one to use for a local call. I end up dropping a ten peso piece, then dial the hotel. A few seconds later, I get the front desk.
“I’d like to speak to Mr. Adam Tolt. He’s a guest.”
“One moment.”
I hear voices. The clerk speaking in Spanish to someone else. I hear him say ‘Senor Tolt,’ a rubbing sound, his hand covering the mouthpiece, the word Ingles. Then another voice comes on the line. “Hello, who is this?”
“I’m trying to reach Mr. Tolt. Adam Tolt. He’s a guest at the hotel.”
“Who is this?” The voice speaks with the tone of authority.
A half hour ago, before finding Julio’s body, I would have given him my name, crossed the street, and talked to the cops. Instead I don’t say another word. I hang up.
The hotel has a small desk with a single phone. If I call again, the clerk will recognize my voice.
At a counter a few feet away, there’s a young girl offering sample scents of perfume from some atomizers. I step over and tell her I’ve had a little accident, pointing to my ear. I ask her if she wouldn’t mind placing a phone call for me in Spanish. It would only take a moment.
She smiles and steps around the counter. I drop another coin in the phone and dial again.
“I want to talk to one of their guests. An African-American gentleman. A black man. His name is Herman. I’m afraid I don’t remember his last name, but there are only a few guests at the hotel.”
When the clerk answers, the girl speaks in rapid-fire Spanish. They go back and forth a couple of times. Finally she hands me the phone and smiles. “His last name is Diggs. Herman Diggs. They are ringing his room now.”
“Thanks.” I take the phone, listening as it ringing. Three times, no answer. On the fourth ring, “Hello.”
I recognize Herman’s voice.
“Herman. Paul Madriani.”
“Well, shit, ’bout time somebody called. Where the hell are you? I been lookin’ all over. Go to sleep, wake up, and everybody’s gone. Startin’ to think somebody called an audible and I missed it. Can’t fine Julio, any of the rest of the crew. And some clerk downstairs says your partner got shot. Some shit about airplanes.”
“Herman!” I have to raise my voice to stop him from jabbering.
“What?”
“Go find Adam Tolt. I tried to call him a couple of minutes ago and the cops cut me off.”
“No shit, Sherlock? Tolt’s gone.”
“What do you mean, he’s gone?”
“Vanished, disappeared, vamoosed, gone. I went to his room. The place is all fuckin’ tore up. Cops are down there wrappin’ the place early for Christmas. All kinds of yellow tape across the door. It was Ibarra ’n’ his bro. They snatched Tolt right under our nose. This morning while their fuckin’ air force was busy shootin’ up the pool.”
“How do you know?”
“Cuz the brothers turned Tolt’s room upside down lookin’ for somethin’. When they didn’t find it, they took Tolt and dropped me a note. They want a meeting tomorrow morning early. At dawn. At some ruins. Place called Coba. Some temple. Just a second, I get it.” He leaves the phone to get the note and comes back.
“Here it is. Something called the Doorway to the Temple of the Inscriptions. I looked on a map. Coba’s in the middle of the fuckin’ jungle. They holdin’ Tolt as collateral for this Rosen shit, whatever it is. So I hope you got
