The Dogs of Mexico (15 page)

He stared at the monitor. The signals from inside the Hotel Acapulco Princess had never been strong, and now it weakened and died altogether.
 

Nothing.
 

Duane reasoned that it wasn’t a failing battery; those were good for at least a month. For a while intelligence had ordinary Pakistani citizens dropping them at Taliban safe houses wrapped in cigarette papers for drones to zero in on when deemed appropriate. But, paid by the drop, some individuals began placing them indiscriminately. No, Duane reasoned, it wasn’t the battery, it was a damn double-cross.

16

Abandoned

“Y
OU WONKY IN
the head, or what?” Mickey stood alongside the Nissan’s open trunk, arms crossed, clutching her elbows.

Robert had stopped near a drainage ditch on the outskirts of Acapulco and dragged the spare tire from the well under the dirty mat. He seated the leather punch from his Swiss army knife into the valve stem, letting the air out. It wasn’t something he would have chosen to do in Mickey’s presence, but as sure as there were checkpoints going into Acapulco, there would be checkpoints leaving, and opening the aluminum case full of money to the Mexican army was not an option.

He set the canister aside, then handed one of the packets of hundred dollar bills to Mickey. “Split that up. Half for you, half for me.” He began stuffing the rest between the wheel rim and the deflated casing.

She thumbed through the bills. “How much is in one of these?”

“Ten thousand. Five each.”

“What about all of that?” she said of the money he was stuffing inside the deflated tire.

“I told you. We’re turning it in.”
 

She looked on in silence as he pitched the tire in the trunk. He took the back off the projector and slid the titanium canister inside. Perfect fit.
 

Mickey frowned. “What’re you doing there?”

“Seeing to it you don’t get busted for smuggling drugs.” He replaced the projector in the document case.

Her eyes locked on him, her face pale. “You already had that set up. You’re in a drug cartel, you and Mr. Soffit both…” She covered her mouth with both hands, watching him with big frightened eyes.
 

“Get in the car.”

“You’re not gonna kill me, are you?”

“Get in.”

Mickey hurried around and climbed in. He got in and started the car.
 

She narrowed her eyes on him. “You’re not
really
cartel are you?”

“Split that money up like I told you.”

She hesitated, then tore the paper band off and divided the bundle into two packets. “Here,” she said, handing him one.
 

“There’d better be fifty bills here,” he said, folding them into his shirt pocket.

A mile down the road, he stopped at a Pemex station, had the tank filled, and aired up the spare with its load of money at an old thump-bumping air compressor on iron wheels. He tipped the attendant ten pesos, then took the Ivory soap and the face towel from his carry-on and washed his hands with mineral water from a plastic bottle.

He bought two more bottles of water and drove on down old coastal Highway 200. Mickey’s backpack lay in the backseat along with his maroon carry-on and Soffit’s aluminum case, the aluminum case empty now but for his seersucker jacket, two clean pairs of shorts and the Bible. Most of his clothes were still packed in the black carry-on, abandoned in the Princess’s hotel room when he tried to skip out on Mickey. He had made sure there was nothing traceable in it.
 

Midmorning heat shimmered on the narrow pavement. An occasional dirt road forked off, disappearing into the inhospitable terrain—coastal hills scruffy with rocks, cacti, scrub brush and Joshua trees. He could drive Mickey a short distance inland, force her out, and be free. He could, but then, thinking about it, he couldn’t. He had seen and done plenty, and while he wasn’t one to get all touchy-feely over causing someone a little discomfort, he wasn’t one to turn a kid out in such a merciless environment either.
 

She opened a Spanish-language newspaper she had picked up at the service station. “Where’re we going?”
 

“Down the coast.”
 

“No shit Dick Tracy.”
 

“Feel free to get out, anytime.”

“Gimme my half and I will.”

“You just got your half. Plus two thousand.”

“What about that dope?”

“It wasn’t the tar we were after.”
 

“We?”

“DEA
.”

She slanted a look over him. “Oh, sure. You’re
DEA
and I’m Tinker Bell.”

“You think I’m lying.”

“Exacto correcto.”
 

He gave her a quizzical look.

“Latin,” she said.

He grinned a little. She was an all-right kid. He regretted what he had to do.

She turned and knelt on her knees and removed a zippered case from her backpack. She took off her Converse sneakers and socks and, bare feet propped on the dash, began to trim her toenails with a pair of clippers. Her toenails were painted the same black with silver glitter as her fingernails, both beginning to chip.

“Geez,” he muttered, “you’ve got a lot of class.”
 

She spread one hand, observing her fingernails. “I need new acrylics.”

“Yeah, you could use a perm, too.”

She glanced at her watch. “I’m fuming on four, ace.”
 

“Latin again?”

“Hungry. I’d give twenty bucks for a Big Mac and a double order of fries.”

Robert tensed over the wheel, squinting down the road ahead. “Uh–oh. Here we go.”

A red flag on a wire stem jutted up from a small pile of rocks in the middle of the pavement. An armed soldier and an officer stood nearby, two tarp-covered trucks and a jeep behind.

The .380 was tucked under his shirt, Soffit’s .45 wrapped in a towel under his seat.
 

He brought the car to a stop. The officer stepped to Mickey’s window.
 

“Hey, general,” she said, bare feet still on the dash, a squinty smile, smacking her gum.

The officer glanced at their passports and tourist cards. He said something in Spanish. Mickey let her feet down and opened the ashtray; then leaned back over the seat and unzipped Robert’s maroon carry-on. “Una filmadora,” she said of the camera and projector.

The officer gestured at her armor of jewelry, buttons, pins. “Ah, much adornment.” He lifted his eyebrows pleasantly. “Famous actress in movies. Sí?”

Mickey squinted, slowly appraising his uniform, up and down, smacking her gum. “Listen general, we aren’t all into Boy Scout mode, you know?”

The officer laughed good-naturedly then gestured at the aluminum case. Mickey opened it. Soffit’s Bible lay under Robert’s jacket.

“Ah. La Biblia,” the officer said reverently. He returned their papers with a broad smile and motioned them on. “Say hello to Hollywood from Eugenio in México, sí?”

Mickey cracked her gum. “Sure general. I’ll do that.”

Robert let go a breath as they left the checkpoint. “Whoa. A Hollywood star now. How about that.”

Mickey sat erect, absently working a strand of beads around her fingers. “Kinda funny,” she said.

“Funny?”

“The DEA, sending a spook down here who can’t even speak the lingo.”

In Modern Standard Arabic, he said, “
You are much too naïve to be playing this game.”
 

She squinted at him. “Say again?”
 

“Arabic.” He repeated it in English, then again in Arabic.
 

She studied him, frowning. “You’re not a terrorist, are you?”

“I’m a DEA who speaks Arabic but no Spanish.”

She sighed. “Okay, chill. Forget the dope. Gimme my half of the money and I’ll split.”
 

“How many times do I have to tell you, I’m turning that money in.”

“Sure you are.” She had begun putting her nail polish away, but paused to wipe at her eyes.

“What’s this? You crying over the money? Forget it.”
 

“It’s that officer. He looked like my brother.”

“So? You’re brother looks like a Mexican?”

“My brother, he’s dead.”

“Sure he is.”

“He died with my mom and dad in a plane crash.”

“Right.”

“Of course
right.
Whadda you think? Like, I’m lying?”

“You? Lying? Perish the thought! You know, you should be in a foster home.”

“Yeah? What do you know about it? You ever been in a foster home?”

A LITTLE BEFORE
eleven, they pulled into the costal town of Santiago Pinotepa Nacional. Robert drove along the narrow street, sandwiched between multicolored two-story buildings, trucks and cars crowding either side. He turned in under a stone arch, H
OTEL
and R
ESTAURANT
lettered across in English.

“It’s not McDonald’s,” he said, “but you’ll have to make do.”
 

A pickup and a truck were parked on the cobblestones inside the high, mud-walled lot. A set of wide steps ascended to a second-floor restaurant, cool and spacious, open arches across front and back. The restaurant was empty but for an older couple smoking cigarettes with their coffee. They looked on in amusement as Robert led Mickey to a table alongside a balustrade at the rear overlooking a swimming pool of yellow water.

“You can order me a beer,” Robert said. “I’m going to the john.”

The toilet was only so-so clean. A small roll of brown toilet paper. The sink ran cold water. A stack of brown paper towels on a shelf.

He took an envelope from his pocket and counted ten hundred-dollar bills into it. This plus the seven grand he had given her earlier—two in the hotel and five back up the road—brought the total to eight thousand. It was just possible that her family really had died in a plane crash.

When he returned, she was giving her order to the waiter: Chiles rellenos de picadillo
—
poblano peppers stuffed with shredded pork, goat cheese, pinion nuts, onions and spices slathered in a tomatillo sauce.

“Make that two,” Robert said. “And dos cerveza.
Negro Modelo.” He frowned at Mickey. “I shouldn’t be buying you beer.”

The waiter stole a second look at Mickey before taking their orders to the kitchen.

“I’m going for a laugh at the carpet,” she said. “You know, the john.”

He watched as she jangled across the restaurant in her black Converse sneakers with the retro stars on the ankles, pink socks, chopped hair. The waiter watched too, exchanging discreet smiles with the elderly couple and the woman behind the cash register. Robert felt a stab of protective anger—these people making fun of Mickey behind her back. But then, she brought it on herself, intentionally, her chosen audience. And besides, he was lowballing her worse than any of them ever were. He placed the envelope on the table alongside her plate, then stepped past the waiter who stood alongside the woman at the cash register.
 

“I’m going to the car for something,” he said. “Be right back.”

He hurried down the outside steps, then quickly took Mickey’s backpack out and stood it against the stone banister at the foot of the staircase. He backed the Nissan around and drove out just as another car turned in. It took only a second to register—the same white Chevy that had followed him to Taxco, the same platinum wig glowing behind the windshield, the same little guy with the tattoos—none of which he might have noticed but for the Chevy braking to a quick stop, the pair gawking at him through the windshield.

Robert gunned the Nissan straight past the Chevy, burned out onto the pavement, and was almost hit by a brake-squalling truck before losing sight of the white car behind the wall. He made a hard right into the next side street. Dirt yards and drab huts blurred past behind crude stockade fencing of cacti, brush and scrap tin. He dodged rubble and potholes, looped around two long blocks, then back toward the highway. He brought the car to a stop behind a wagon with a palm-frond canopy, the bed filled with fruits and vegetables. An old man sat on a box in the shade alongside. From where Robert sat, he had a fairly good view of the highway beyond.
 

He took Soffit’s .45 from under the seat, unwrapped it from the towel and placed it at his side under Mickey’s newspaper. He glanced at his watch. And waited. His heartbeat had picked up considerably.

The old man got up and plodded toward him, a mango in each hand. He lifted them to Robert’s window and said something in Spanish. Robert shook his head, his attention on the highway beyond the wagon and on the road in his rearview mirror. The man trudged back to the wagon and returned with two sugar melons. Robert grabbed the melons and dropped them in the front passenger’s footwell. Then, eyes on the road, he took his tip stash from his pocket and shoved a five-dollar bill into the old man’s hand.

The man looked at the money. Shook his head. “Yo no tengo cambio.”

Robert handed him another dollar.
 

The man moved into Robert’s line of vision, shaking his head. “Esto es mucha plata.”

Robert lifted the .45 from under the newspaper. The man’s expression went flat. Robert shoved another five-dollar bill at him. The man stood still, looking at Robert, at the gun, the money. With a sigh, he took the bills, hobbled back to the wagon and sat down in the shade.

After a few minutes there was still no sign of the Chevy.
 

The old man looked on as Robert eased the Nissan around the wagon. Robert watched behind, to either side and down the road ahead as he drove out of town and down the coast toward Puerto Escondido.
 

This left a bad taste in his mouth, this abandoning kids in restaurants, yelling at old people in their own country, pointing guns in their faces.
 

At least there was no longer any doubt—the two men were tailing him. Which meant Fowler had planted more than one transmitter in the video equipment. Or Helmut and Ana had put a plant on the car.