The Dogs of Mexico (32 page)

“Of course,” Helmut said. “Only a big old boy like you could handle a big old gun like that.”

Geraldo paused in midstride. “I think your mouth is what is big.”
 

Unperturbed, Helmut took the yellow-handled knife from his pocket and handed it to Geraldo. “Another bastard finds its luckless father.”

Geraldo took the knife, watching Helmut, uncertain. There was a squeezed-down brightness to his eyes and he had the jits. Robert recognized the symptoms—crystal meth. A speed freak.

Helmut took Robert’s brandy from his carry-on and set it on the table alongside two more bottles and a couple of black pottery cups. He poured a little into one of the cups, then tapped a cigarette from his pack and turned his attention to Valdez.
 

“Señor Valdez”—Helmut put the cigarette in his mouth, lit up and took a drag, holding it backward between thumb and forefinger, index finger in the splint, a red stain showing—“these friends say you
do
have the film. They say you gave them twenty thousand dollars for it. And”—he exhaled with a long sigh—“they
do
have twenty thousand dollars. I say this looks very bad for you. Ja?
What do you say?”

The clumsy man in the wig ruffled his fingers through Valdez’s hair, almost gently. “Ja?
What d’ya say to that, hot cakes? Ja?”
 

Through the grotesque makeup, Valdez cut Robert with a fierce stare. “Hah! I never see these people before.”

“Helmut,” Ana whispered urgently, “look at that poor man. How can you do
this?”

Helmut sighed. “Ah, well. Bring up the luggage. Let us see if we missed something.”

The big
 
man cleared the tabletop, he set Ana’s purse and the liquor bottles underneath with care.
 

Geraldo stood back, suddenly disengaged, peering up into the vine-clogged tin roof. His arms hung slack, little-boy shoulder blades thin as hatchets under his T-shirt. He stared at a hummingbird—a blue-green blur making a
de-jit de-jit
sound in the honeysuckle. He snapped out of it when Helmut swung Soffit’s aluminum case up onto the table and released the locks. Helmut removed the haversack and set it aside. Otherwise there were only a few articles of clothing Ana had purchased the evening before and a small zippered cosmetic case.
 

Geraldo sneered. “I think Jinx like to wear the little panties, eh Jinx? You like these pretty things?”
 

“That’s enough,” Helmut said.

“Helmut,
please,”
Ana begged
. “
Think of what you’re doing.”

He raised one shoulder at her in a kind of self-protective, imperious gesture. “It is not a personal thing. Only the work I do.”

“And just what
is your work?” she said. “Murdering children?”

“These men, their methods are not mine.”

“I suppose you have nothing to do with Valdez here, either,” she replied.

Helmut made a dismissive gesture with a sweep of his hand. “I am not so barbaric.”

“Ja!” Geraldo mocked. “We are all inferior to the civilized German. Ja!”

“You are each and every one a prince among men,” Valdez said hoarsely. He sagged on the rope, knees barely touching the ground, arms drawn up behind in a painfully agonizing posture. Even with his clownish face, he looked on them with dignity, with an air of superiority.

“Gentlemen,” Helmut said, addressing Geraldo and the one he called Jinx, “I believe you have been properly chastised.”
 

They looked at one another, certain only that they were being further ridiculed. “He is the one who hang naked like a pig!” Geraldo shouted.

Helmut swung Ana’s new carry-on up onto the table and zipped it open.

“Sunglasses!” Jinx exclaimed, snatching a pair from among Ana’s things.

“Ah, sí, sí,” Geraldo taunted. “For a woman. These are for you, Jinx.”

“Put them back,” Helmut ordered.

Jinx pouted, but replaced the sunglasses with care.
 

Apparently satisfied that there was nothing of interest in her things, Helmut repacked the bag. Geraldo and Jinx stood by as Helmut picked through Robert’s carry-ons.

Robert’s head throbbed. One eyebrow had swollen, a shadowy overhang visible above his right eye. He scanned the yard, but saw nothing to work with, nothing to suggest a plan. The old woman knelt in a little patch of shade beneath the arbor, seemingly oblivious. The dog looked on from his dust hole, indifferent. The glare of heat in the yard smelled of honeysuckle, cheap perfume, urine, sweat.
 

There was a mud kiln and a mound of charcoal piled against the back wall under the tin roof connecting the two rooms. The upper part of a chicken roost—a grid of poles lashed together and slanted against the inside wall—was visible through a sashless window in the nearest room. Robert had an oblique view through the doorway into the second room where Jinx had gone for the rope, but all he could see was a calendar on the wall, and part of what might be a cornhusk mattress on the floor.
 

Helmut went through Robert’s new carry-on again, then cut the lining out and tossed it away, along with his clothing. He then placed the maroon carry-on on the table and dragged the contents out onto the tabletop. He unzipped the shaving kit and dumped it—safety razor, comb, nail-clippers, scissors, toothbrush, floss.

Geraldo showed his blackened teeth in a grin. “You like
these pretty things, eh Jinx?”
 

Jinx ignored him, sullen.
 

The Ziploc with Mickey’s finger in the handkerchief fell out. Helmut opened the Ziploc and shook out the handkerchief. Mickey’s shrunken finger plopped on the table before Geraldo.
 

Geraldo stared for a moment, then leaped back with recognition. “Santo Dios!”

“Geraldo,” said Helmut, “this finger, it will come and visit you at night when you sleep.”

Geraldo’s pinpoint eyes fixed on the finger. “Hah. I am not so superstitious…but it is bad luck to have this thing.”
 

“You carry your bad luck up here,” Helmut said, gesturing at his head.
 

Helmut rolled Mickey’s finger back into the handkerchief and put it away. He ripped the lining out of the second carry-on. The two remaining cardboard rectangles laced with
cartridges fell out. Helmut smiled at Geraldo. “For your abuela to kill las cucarachas.”

Geraldo stared at Helmut, though his gaze was vague and could just as well have been fixed on some indeterminate point in the distance.

“No sunglasses,” Jinx muttered gloomily.

Robert could only watch as Helmut pulled the projector out of the haversack and began removing the rear plate.

“Santo Dios!” Geraldo muttered as Helmut slid the canister out. “Contrabandista?”

Jinx gazed at Robert with something like new respect. “God damn, son. Cocaine?”

Helmut set the canister on the table and inspected the housing.

Geraldo cut his grin toward Ana. “Ah. We take a little taste to see the quality, then I think we have a little party.”

“Like hell!” Jinx said. “That’s not what we’re here for.”

“Jinx, he is jealous of the señorita’s
sweet red tits, ’ey?”

“Geraldo, that is enough,” Helmut said. “Jinx, bring the tire up here.”

Geraldo and Jinx exchanged looks. Jinx picked up the heavy tire and plopped it on the table with a solid thud. Helmut pressed the knife’s leather punch into the valve stem. Jinx leaned his weight on the tire. A little air whistled out, then the seal popped free around the rim. Helmut opened the knife’s serrated blade and sawed back and forth, cutting a C into the sidewall. He pulled the flap up, shoved his hand inside and withdrew a fistful of hundred-dollar bills.

“Santo Dios!” Geraldo whispered.

“Hah! I think you are all in big trouble now,” Valdez mumbled with effort.

All eyes turned to Valdez.

“You think Geraldo will not kill you for the drugs? And now so much money as this? Hah!”

Geraldo sprang at Valdez, swung his foot back and kicked him in the face as if punting a football. Valdez’s head snapped back. His bowels let go and bile ran down his legs. He hung quivering on the rope, blood gushing from his mouth. “Son of a pig!” Geraldo positioned himself to kick Valdez again.

“Stop!” Helmut held the .22 wavering over Geraldo. “He dies, so do you.”

34

Geraldo

“S
HOOT HIM!”
Robert cried. “Shoot him!”

Geraldo’s yellow eyes shimmied and locked on the gun. “It is a good thing to have one’s life insured by the great CIA of US America, eh, Herr Heinrich?”

“Untie him,” Helmut said. “Take him out in the yard and clean him up. Jinx, give him a hand.”

“Helmut, are you crazy? Shoot him while you still can!”

Geraldo’s rage-filled eyes dwelt briefly on Robert before he took the yellow-handled knife from his pocket and cut the rope near the engine block. Valdez dropped face-first into the dirt.
 

Jinx untied Valdez’s hands. “I think his arms are already dead.”

“Then pick up the already dead arm!” Geraldo shouted.
 

“Hey! Watch your mouth.” Jinx, wig skewed, took Valdez by one arm while Geraldo strained on the other. They dragged Valdez across the yard on his stomach, indifferent to the debris, and let him down by the arbor.
 

Geraldo shouted at the old woman in Spanish. Heedless, she poured a soupy mixture into a plastic bucket and covered it with a damp cloth. “Chingar!” Geraldo shouted, and kicked the bucket across the yard, the yellow mix stringing out.
 

“Hey!” Jinx shouted. “What the hell’s wrong with you?”
 

“I tell her to get water, she sits.”

“So? She’s old. What d’you expect?”
 

“I don’t like this old Indio
with her ugly face!”

Jinx took two plastic buckets and started toward the gate. “You don’t like anything. You make yourself crazy. You make us all crazy!”

“Watch your tongue!” Geraldo shouted after him.

The old woman sat still, her small, flesh-enfolded eyes fixed on the cakes on the sheet-iron before her.

“Helmut,” Robert said, “can’t you see he’s totally nuts? He’s going to kill us all, you included. If you don’t care about yourself, at least think about Ana.”

“I am in charge here.” Helmut dumped the clothing Ana had purchased the day before from the aluminum case and began filling the case with money from the tire. “You do not tell me what to do.”

“You get any drunker and we’re all dead.”

Helmut looked up, weaving a little. “So. Is the brave man afraid to die?”
 

“I’m not as eager as you seem to be.”

Ana stared at Helmut. “Did I ever mean anything to you? Ever?”
 

“Ach. Women are such egotists. They each think the world revolves around them only.”

Jinx came through the gate with the two buckets filled with water. Geraldo stood back. Valdez stirred as Jinx dribbled water over him.

“He’ll die out there,” Robert said.

“He is stronger than you think.”

Helmut finished repacking the money, then poured himself a drink and sat on one of the two chairs.

“Helmut, you did good work once,” Ana said earnestly. “We had good times. We have a history together. Doesn’t that mean anything?”

“You.
You
had good times. You
,
Florence Nightingale of Central America. Oh, you had good times. You and the señor Rivas. Yes, very good times.”

Ana’s eyes pooled with emotion. “You… You promised…”
 

Helmut removed his glasses, wiped his eyes on his shirtsleeve. “Ana, Ana, Ana. Your little indiscretion with Rivas meant nothing to me. Neither does your current affair with this mentally ill Robert person.”

“It should have. If you really cared for me it would.”

Helmut poured another splash into his cup. “I am not one to waste time on a woman who leaves me.”

“I came back. I left him and came back.”

“He threw you out. Then you came back. Yes.”

“Remember that festival in Rio? The puppets? Remember? Or the Hotel Marbella in Honduras with all those reporters and politicians?” A note of desperation had crept into her voice. “And how about that party when you and I slipped out with the caviar and gave it to the beggars? Doesn’t any of that mean anything?”
 

Helmut raised his hand, indicating the uselessness of further conversation.
 

Normally Robert would have found this exchange more than interesting. But now, the situation being what it was…

“How did you know I was going to get those photos?” he said to Helmut. “I didn’t even know that.”

Helmut shrugged. “We knew you were getting the canister from Soffit, but we didn’t know where he was.”

“And how did you know about the diamonds?”

“So, you think the container is full of diamonds?”
 

Robert searched his face.
 

Helmut sighed. “Life is simply the pursuit of one illusion after another. And then, we die—as you Americans like to say.”
 

“What are you getting at? What do you think is in that canister?”

“It is a mystery, is it not”

“A pig smells better,” Geraldo shouted from under the arbor. He and Jinx lifted Valdez to a sitting position, one leg on either side of a corner-post. Jinx tied Valdez’s hands around the post to his feet. Valdez stared, stuporlike, bloody drool glistening from his broken mouth.

“You’re saying, what? If not diamonds, what?”

Helmut smiled his imperious smile, poured another splash in his cup.

“You know you’re killing that guy out there, murdering him. And you know the little guy is going to kill you in turn, and yet, you’re doing nothing about it.”

“Do not concern yourself. I am the one in charge.”

“The hell you are. You’re falling-down-drunk-on-your-ass.”

The old woman shoveled cakes out of the oven and covered them with a cloth in a straw basket. Heedless, she labored her way to the altar and placed them among the flowers and candles.