'The part about Nelson Krumfutz and Hugh Myers, sure. I thought you'd be smart enough to be scared off by the whole drug-gang angle. These are not people you want to want to play with, even a little, and I wanted to impress that on you, Strachey. That's all I meant to do. And the Ramoses do have drug-gang connections. Not in Pennsylvania though. Just in Washington and Alexandria.'
I looked back toward the Ramos house. The two men were still seated, absorbed in whatever they were doing. 'Well, Jim, you miscalculated. You miscalculated badly.'
'They actually killed Nelson and Tammy Pam?' Suter said, spitting seawater.
'Well, of course they did! Somebody in Washington was telling them that I was not only competent but dogged, so they couldn't risk Nelson's coming up with a convincing denial. They had to kill Nelson and Hugh Myers, not because they were witnesses to drug smuggling, but because they were witnesses to your lie.
And the Ramoses decided that once 1 uncovered your lie, I would go after the real and even worse crime that the bunch of you were involved in. For Christ's sake, Suter, don't you understand how vicious and remorseless the Ramoses are? You tell me how savage they are, but you don't act like you really understand it. Jesus!'
Suter stopped swimming and looked at me. We were close enough to shore now for our feet to touch bottom. We stood there in the crystalline blue water, the Caribbean sun blazing down on us, and he said, 'You know what really happened, don't you?'
'A lot of it, yes. You can fill me in on the rest.'
'How did you figure it out?'
'A number of people provided information that I pieced together. That's usually the way an investigation goes-a lot of digging, a certain amount of luck. In my asking around about you, Jim, Carmen LoBello was especially helpful.'
Suter actually had the decency to blush. 'Carmen's pissed off at me, I suppose.'
'You don't suppose it. You know it. And let me tell you something else, Suter. I think I noticed a small sore on my upper lip yesterday. If you gave me herpes, the Ramoses are going to feel like Rosie O'Donnell in your life next to me.'
'I seriously doubt that,' he said mildly. 'Anyway, I wasn't oozing viral fluids on Wednesday, so you're probably safe. Look, Strachey, I've made a decision. It looks like I really have no choice. I'm ready to take you up on your offer. Get me together with some uncorrupted authority, if you can find one-I'll take a chance, I guess, on Janet Reno's Justice Department-and I'll tell what I know in return for a chance just to disappear and start over.'
'Oh, you've made that decision, have you? When did you make it?'
'Just now.' Suter looked back at the two men bent over the table on the Ramos terrace. 'I'd have made the decision an hour ago if I had known you were going to show up and rescue my ass. But I had no way of knowing you were going to find me irresistible a second time. I guess I'm just a lucky so-and-so. Now, how do we get out of here?'
I looked up at the men on the terrace and said, 'I don't know. How do we?'
'Is your car nearby?'
'Just up the beach.'
'Jaime and Ramon are absorbed in their dominoes. It will be fifteen minutes before they notice that I'm not here. Let's go.'
'You're naked.'
He shrugged. 'Have you got an extra pair of shorts and a T-shirt?'
'Sure. But I don't know about shoes that will fit. And whatever else we'll need to get you on a plane at Cancun. Your passport, for instance.'
Suter began to swim again, faster this time, and I swam with him. 'We've got one stop to make, 'where I can pick up clothes and documents. Anyway, we're not going to Cancun. As soon as they realize I'm gone, Jaime and Ramon will notify the Ramoses, and they'll be watching for me at the airports in Cancun and Merida and probably Chetumal. There's another way out of here that I've been working on since we spoke on Wednesday. It'll take more time than flying to Miami, but it's uncomplicated and I know the people involved-they're actually competitors of the Ramoses-and I know this will work.'
I said, 'Don't tell me. We're going to be driven for four and a half days in the back of a truck to the outskirts of San Diego, where we'll crawl under a chain-link fence by the light of the moon and hope we're not ripped apart by Border Patrol rottweilers.'
Suter looked at me as he swam, his wet locks gleaming in the hot light. 'No, what I have in mind is easier than that-and a lot more romantic. We'll be traveling by sea. We can cuddle naked under the stars, Strachey, and make love again.'
What a piece of work he was. 'Jesus, Suter, do you really call what we did the other night making love?' He seemed to hear what I said, but Suter did not meet my eye and did not reply. 'Anyway, I told my boyfriend I wouldn't screw around with you again. So that's that. Forget it. What we can do tonight is have a long, informative talk. With you doing most of the talking and all of the informing.'
'I can see that you're going to insist on being in charge. Doesn't your boyfriend get tired of that? It really seems to me, Strachey, that you've got some control issues to work out.'
I ignored this drollery-if that's what it was; you never knew with Suter-and soon we came to the deserted house where I had parked my rental car. We walked out of the water and across the beach. A small group of nude sunbathers lay on towels twenty or thirty yards away, some with their heads beneath makeshift palm-frond shelters, but none seemed to show any interest in us.
Suter and I shared the one towel I had with me, then quickly dressed, with Suter slipping into the extra briefs, khakis, and T-shirt I'd brought along. The pants were a little loose around his slim hips, so I gave him my belt to hold his drawers up. Suter crouched in the backseat as we passed the Ramos house. I stopped at the main highway while he hopped into the front seat, and I followed his directions north up Highway 307 toward the resort and retirement town of Playa del Carmen. I made a quick stop to return the snorkeling gear and retrieve my passport, and then-like all the other maniacal drivers on the two-lane highway-we moved fast.
Half an hour later, on the outskirts of Playa del Carmen, Suter returned to the backseat and crouched down again-he said the Ramoses had people working for them everywhere on the Yucatan coast-and directed me down a muddy road with ruts like canyons and into a compound where the road dead-ended.
Suter conversed briefly in Spanish with a middle-aged man in work clothes something about a boat and a trip and the weather. Suter told me he'd be right back, he had some phone calls to make-it did not reassure me that apparently I was not to overhear these conversations-and then he disappeared into a bright blue, one-story cement house with bars on all the windows.
I climbed out of the sweltering car and stood looking around. There wasn't much to see, just the house and a high cement wall around it with shards of glass embedded on top. The workman stood impassively next to the side door of the house, smoking a cigarette, and, it appeared, waiting for Suter.
I said, 'Buenas tardes.'
'Buenas tardes, ' the man replied.
I gazed some more at the wall.
Suter returned a few minutes later wearing his own khakis, T-shirt, and leather sandals and carrying a large black canvas suitcase. He handed me my clothes and said, 'Get your stuff out of the car. Manuel will return the Chevy to the rental agency. We're being picked up.'
'I believe I have to turn the car in. And under the terms of the rental agreement, I'm the only person authorized to drive it.' Suter smiled. 'Just give Manuel the keys. It'll be fine.' Suter pulled a roll of U.S. bills out of his pants pocket, peeled off four fifties, and handed them to Manuel.
'The keys are in the ignition,' I said. 'I guess I'm not the boss after all.'
'Sure you are,' Suter said, showing me his famous teeth- and cold sore.
Seconds later, a decrepit VW Bug, with one dented gray fender and one dented green one, pulled into the compound. The driver was a slender, tanned bleached blond in scruffy cutoffs. He had a tattoo of three intertwined nasturtiums on his left shoulder. He looked Californian, but Suter greeted the man in Spanish, which, when the blond replied, sounded like his native language.
I rode in the front seat with the driver and Suter slouched in the back, our bags upended on either side of him. After ten minutes of bumping and sliding up and clown a series of un-paved back roads north of town, we
