The Dogs of Mexico (11 page)

The small villages they drove through reminded Robert of dusty little towns in the Mideast.
 

In midafternoon they drove into the town of Chilpancingo.
 

“We can stop if you’re hungry,” Robert said quietly, not to wake Helmut.

Ana leaned forward. “Nothing for me,” she said softly. “But if you want something, it’s my treat.”

He could have eaten but he wasn’t hungry enough to wake Helmut and then have to put up with him. “I’m set,” he said, maneuvering the Nissan through the erratic traffic.
 

On the outskirts of the town, he vaguely registered the fact of a white Chevy at a Pemex station—then snapped alert, not only registering the familiarity of the car, but the incongruous figures standing alongside—a large platinum blond and a thin little boy. He sensed it was the same Chevy that had followed him to Taxco the previous afternoon, the same woman, the same boy. Ana was looking out the side window, oblivious. Helmut was still asleep. In passing, Robert looked again at the twosome alongside the Chevy. The woman was barrel-bodied, awkward-looking in a bright orange blouse and a red leather miniskirt. She wore blue pumps and black net stockings. The boy wore jeans, a T-shirt and cowboy boots. They were occupied with a food vendor who had pushed a cart up alongside. Robert saw now that the boy wasn’t a boy after all, but a man—thin little arms blurred with India ink tattoos. And the woman, he realized with a jolt, was actually a man too. When he picked them up in the rearview mirror, he saw them turn, watching until he lost them in the traffic.
 

His first thought was that they might be kidnappers—but then they would have made a move on him the evening before on the road to Taxco when he was alone. Surely Fowler wouldn’t hire two sets of watchdogs? In any case, there was more to those two than met the eye. Mexico was beginning to feel downright crowded.
 

A half hour later, he was still mulling it over when up ahead he spotted a jeep and a truck parked under a stand of trees just off the road. A dozen soldiers lounged in the shade of the tarp-bedded truck. Two uniformed men stepped out onto the pavement. One carried an automatic weapon. The other, an officer, lifted his hand for Robert to stop.
 

As often as not, both cartels and kidnappers posed as police and military. Just as often the actual police were involved in trafficking. But right now the .380
in the paper bag was his biggest concern. He could shove it under the seat, or jam it in the back of his belt, but Helmut was waking up and would see him for sure.
 

“You’ll need your passport,” Ana said tersely. She took hers and Helmut’s from the purse on the strap around her neck. It struck Robert that for all he knew she and Helmut could be running drugs. That would be ironic—down here on a multimillion-dollar diamond deal, getting busted over someone else’s nickel bag of weed.
 

He braked to a stop, then reached across and took his passport from the glovebox. The officer stepped to Helmut’s window. The other soldier stood back, rifle butt on his hip.

“Buenas tardes,” the officer said, looking them over, each in turn.

Ana lowered her window and handed her and Helmut’s passports over.
“
Buenas tardes, señor. Qué pasa?”
 

“Turistas?”

“Sí. De Estados Unidos.
 

The officer looked the papers over. He squinted at the luggage in the backseat, then turned and shouted and two soldiers jumped up from the shade and came on the run. The officer spoke rapidly in Spanish. One of the soldiers opened Helmut’s door. Helmut fumbled his way out and stood back, unsteady. Ana stepped out as the second soldier hurried around and opened Robert’s door. Robert slid out over the paper bag crammed between the seat and the rocker panel.
 

The officer said something to Robert in Spanish.

“He wants you to open the trunk,” Ana explained.
 

The soldier on the other side of the car reached inside, opened and closed the ashtray.
 

Robert leaned back inside and pressed the trunk release. The trunk lid popped open. One of the soldiers reached in, took up the paper bag and hurried around the car with it.

“
Deténgase!
” the officer shouted at Robert.

The soldier with the weapon threw the safety off.

“Subir las manos!”

Robert froze, his gaze fixed on the paper bag.
 

“Put your hands up!” Ana cried.

She had lifted her own hands above her head, explaining to the officer, “Es Americano, no habla español.”
Robert slowly raised his hands.

The officer plunged his hand into the bag and withdrew a banana, reached in again, took out an orange.

Robert stared
.

One of the soldiers laughed, but quickly composed himself when the officer tossed the fruit into the front seat and smashed the bag between his palms. The officer shouted at the soldiers. They hurried behind the car and dragged Robert’s carry-ons in their plastic bags from the trunk. The officer shouted again and the soldiers hauled Ana and Helmut’s luggage out of the backseat onto the roadside. The few passing trucks were waved around them.

Robert stole a look at Ana. She was expressionless. Helmut lumbered about, mumbling in an incoherent mix of Spanish, English, and German.
 

The officer laughed. “This one, he is have a little drink I think.” The officer opened Helmut’s luggage and lifted out an almost empty bottle of tequila. Laughing again, he held it up for the other soldiers to see. He picked through Helmut’s folded clothes and opened his shaving kit. He took a quick look at Helmut’s laptop and put it back along with the tequila. Then he rifled through Ana’s suitcase, inspecting the few cosmetics in a plastic zip-bag, grinning as he held up a box of tampons for the other soldiers’ entertainment. Ana maintained her composure, grim, expressionless.
 

The officer stepped behind the car and took Robert’s camera out of the carry-on, the projector from it’s case.

“Una filmadora,” Ana said.

The officer opened Robert’s second carry-on, brightening as he removed an unopened bottle of brandy. Somewhat amiable now, as if the bottle was what he had been looking for all along, he shouted orders. The soldiers hurriedly repacked the bags and stowed them in the car. The officer, still holding Robert’s brandy, spoke to Ana in Spanish.

“He says we have provided a pleasant distraction. We are free to go.”
 

Robert opened the front passenger door for Ana. Helmut was already fumbling his way into the backseat.

The officer made a sweeping bow as Robert started the car and pulled out onto the highway.
 

“Boy Scouts,” Helmut mumbled. He put his glasses in his shirt pocket and rested his head against the luggage. Soon his face went slack.

 
Ana sneaked a look back at Helmut, then fixed her gaze on Robert. “Who are you, anyway?”

“I was about to ask you.”
 

“What’s with that in the bag?”

He glanced in the mirror at Helmut, gave her a quick look. “You took it?”

“When I got in the backseat at the service station, it had slid out on the floor at my feet. I went to put it back and saw what it was. Yes, I was afraid.”

“Why did you replace it with the fruit?”

“You would have noticed it was missing.”

Robert grinned a little. “Boy. That was a kicker. I couldn’t believe my eyes.”

“It isn’t funny.”

“Well, I don’t know. It’s kinda funny, now.”

She studied him. “Why do you have it?”

“This is Mexico. Right over the hill there they’ll kill you just because you have green eyes and can afford to eat three squares a day.”

“I thought you didn’t know anything about Mexico?”

“I saw the movie.”

“Cute,” she said dryly. “What’re you doing here, really?”

“I told you. I sell boats.”

“Sure you do.” She took another look at Helmut, then lifted her shirttail, withdrew the holstered .380 from inside the waistband of her jeans and handed it over. There was something about the shared taboo of the gun, something in the gesture of her submitting it to him that charged the moment with a kind of erotic electricity.
 

Her eyes lingered on him in the electrified air. “I hate guns,” she said coolly, erasing any hint of intimacy. “No good has ever come from guns.”

“You might change your mind under the right circumstances.”

“I doubt it.”

“The great equalizer. Helps puny little girls take down big fierce men.”

She gave him a sharp look. “You think I’m puny?”

“No ma’am. You ain’t no little girl, either.”

Her expression lightened before she turned away, as if on the verge of a smile.
 

“Where are you from in the States?” he asked.

“Denver.”

“Mind if I ask how you ended up down here?”

“How about you?” she countered. “I asked last night if you had family. You never answered me.”

“Divorced. A long time ago.” He saw by her one raised eyebrow that she doubted him.

“Children?” she asked.
 

He said nothing, but gazed down the highway ahead.

“Well,” she said after a moment. “That rang your bell.”

Still he said nothing.

“I went into the Peace Corps right after college,” she offered. “I was in Guatemala for a time.”

He wondered if she and Helmut were affiliated with the Company. The Peace Corps, working for Fowler—it was a logical assumption.

The countryside grew more rugged. More primitive. A smoky haze blanketed the mountains from the slash-and-burn farming.
 

“Look at that,” he said, gesturing at a mountain slope where a man struggled behind an ox-drawn plow. “How can anybody make a living farming those little patches? We waste more than that along the turn-row.”

She gave him a quizzical look. “Turn-row?”

“You’ve got to get in and out of the field, turn around, get from one side to the other with tractor and equipment. You go around the fence line, the turn-row.”

“How do you know about farming?”

“I worked a little land once.”

Ana studied him across the seat. “You don’t look like a farmer.”

“No? What, you expect some barefoot hayseed munching on a straw?”

“How long have you been selling boats?”

“Not long. Why?”

“Your hands. They don’t belong to a salesman.”

“I don’t look like a farmer. I don’t look like a salesman. Actually I’m a Krispy Kreme representative down here to undermine the tortilla industry.”

She lightened, a trace of a smile. “I think you’re a standup comedian.”
 

“Where are you two staying in Acapulco?”

“We haven’t any plans, not that I know of.”
 

“You live a hell of a life.”
 

She was about to reply, but Helmut stirred and began to stretch awake. Ana gazed down the road ahead, silently fingering the buttons on her shirt.

Robert glanced in the rearview mirror as Helmut took his glasses from his pocket and polished them on his handkerchief. Without glasses his eyes looked small and weak, unrelievedly sad. Robert wondered whether he might have been awake, faking sleep, listening all along.

IN LATE AFTERNOON
they began to see coconut palms. The air freshened with the smell of the sea. They drove into Acapulco, sunlight slanting sharply through the palms.

“So, where can I drop you?” Robert asked.

Ana looked over the seat at Helmut.

Helmut shrugged at Robert. “Can you recommend a hotel?”
 

“I don’t know this town at all.”

“Really? Where are you staying then?”

Robert smiled inwardly. “Acapulco Princess. I bet you’d like it there. Right?”

Helmut shrugged again. “Sounds agreeable.”

“Sounds expensive,” Ana said.

“It is only one night,” Helmut said. “We will take the bus to Tapachula tomorrow.”

Ana looked at Robert, a small frown. “That okay with you?”

“Why not?” He nodded at the glovebox. “There’s promo material from the Acapulco Princess with directions. If you’ll be good enough to navigate.”

She took the folder out and they followed the highway around the bay. Flashes of the azure-blue Pacific glimmered between Miami-style hotels and Spanish Colonials. Coconut palms shot up around them like lazy explosions.
 

The Acapulco Princess stood silhouetted against the sea in the shape of an Aztec pyramid. Robert drove in and stopped on the tarmac under the entrance canopy. Half a dozen uniformed bellmen rushed forward, opening doors, snatching up their luggage. Robert removed his two carry-ons and the military document case with its projector from the garbage bags in the trunk. A valet took his keys and tore off a receipt for the parking.

The hotel’s interior boasted a vast pyramidal atrium. Balconies around each of fourteen floors tiered up over the concourse, converging at the top in a spectacular skylight. Intricate streams and waterfalls gurgled throughout the enormous complex. The guide’s promotional material declared:
there are three Aztec-inspired buildings on 480 acres overlooking Revolcadero Beach,
a wide choice of restaurants and bars, five freeform swimming pools, and a golf course.
Not to mention
gardens with swans, flamingos and tropical birds.
Only the reception desk looked even remotely businesslike.
 

Helmut stopped near a canister ashtray and lit a cigarette. One of the bellmen waited nearby with their luggage cart while the other went with Robert and Ana to check in.

“It’s impressive,” Robert said. “But I like the old Hotel Victoria better.”

“This is so
glitzy
,” Ana said, gazing about with an amused expression.

Robert laughed. Then, studying her intently, “I’m glad you didn’t insist on the bus.”
 

Her smile faltered. She turned quickly and began the business of signing in. The registrar handed the bellman their keycards.