“What gives?” Cross demanded. “My assistant and I are going to a PIPA management seminar at Mazatlan. There’ll be hell to pay if we miss our plane.”
“Your airplane flies to Mexico City,” Hector said.
“We were going to catch a connecting flight at Mexico City.”
“From Mexico City you can catch a connecting flight to anywhere in the world,” Hector said, taking his arm. “You will talk now, fly later.”
They escorted Cross and Hortencia to seats and asked people in adjacent seats to please move. Travelers sensing a real life Mexican drug bust obeyed promptly. At a safe distance they removed cameras from carryon luggage and recorded the drama.
“Talk to us about Ralph Taggert,” Hector said.
Cross shrugged, sighed, and said, “That topic’s getting old, guys. I’d love to help but—”
“We’ve talked to Beth and Corky,” Luis said. “What did Taggert buy from you with the Lamms’ money?”
“Okay, I didn’t tell you the complete story. Taggert worked for me. I fired him. He was lazy and dishonest.”
“Taggert’s dishonesty offends you?” Luis said. “Ironic.”
Cross lunged out of his chair. Luis blocked his path. Cross swung. Luis ducked, assumed a crouch, and took a solid blow to a shoulder. He drove a fist into a midsection softer than it looked. Cross made a noise like an airlock in a science fiction movie and slumped into his chair.
Shutters clicked. Film-advance motors whirred.
Cross was momentarily speechless. Hector spoke gently to Hortencia, “Your lover boy is foolish, and you are too lovely to languish in my filthy jail.”
“Ask me anything,” Hortencia said.
“He bought Hawaii,” Luis said.
“How did you know?”
“It is farther from Cancún than any other resort Paradise Investment Properties Associates sells.”
“A Maui condo. Taggert was coming by to sign papers today, but he didn’t show.” She canted her head at the hyperventilating Cross and wrinkled her nose. “My hero. He panicked. He said there would be trouble and that we had to leave. He was right. The old gringo lady, Helen, she worried him.”
“Why?”
“She came to the office yesterday. Chet told her the lies he told you. She refused to accept them. She said she would stand outside and sob and complain to everybody that PIPA was crooked. She would carry a sign and picket. She is made of iron. Chet gave her what she was after, and she went away.”
“Which was?”
“The truth about Ralph. And his address.”
“Do you have the money?”
Hortencia took an envelope from Cross’s bag. “Fifty thousand. Chet was going to wire the money to our Maui office when Taggert signed. No Taggert, so we kept the money. Chet said it was a blessing in disguise.”
“The other ten thousand?”
“Ralph had problems,” Hortencia said. “He snorted cocaine and gambled.”
“Expensive problems,” Hector said, taking the envelope.
“Very expensive problems,” Luis said, taking the envelope from Hector. “I suppose the Lamms should feel fortunate to recover a penny.”
“You will have to mail it to them,” she said. “They didn’t see us, but we saw them an hour ago. They flew out on United, to Chicago.”
Hector and Luis looked at each other. Hortencia had been looking at Ricky out of a corner of her eye. Ricky kissed her hand and presented a business card. Hortencia flushed and smiled. Chet Cross threw up on the floor and in his own shoes.
Shutters clicked. Film-advance motors whirred.
Assisted by a bank, Luis Balam sent forty-nine thousand dollars to Bud and Helen Lamm. He split the fiftieth thousand equally with Ricardo Martinez Rodriguez and Hector Salgado Reyes. It came to three million pesos, a million each.
Hector said his share would be devoted to unspecified administrative costs connected with the prosecution of Chester Cross. Hortencia would be his chief witness. Luis bought tires and a tune up for the Golf. Ricky treated Hortencia to a lavish evening of dinner and dancing in the Cancún hotel zone. Hortencia treated Ricky to a night upstairs. His legal fee thus exhausted, Ricky’s romance with Hortencia stalled.
Luis in retrospect was not surprised when the body of an unidentified white male was found in the Xelha cenote. It had not yet been ravaged by black vultures beyond recognition. The true surprise was the facial expression, an eternal countenance of amusement and shock. The federal judicial police and the state judicial police investigated. The localized break in the back of the skull, a button-sized fracture that had thrust bone fragments into the brain, was the stated cause of death.
The police interviewed the Xelha caretakers, who did not recall seeing the victim. They did remind the police that the ground surrounding the cenote was treacherous because of moisture and exposed tree roots.
A homicide required blatant clues. Murder was as bad for Yucatan tourism as a hurricane. The death was ruled accidental.
Luis interviewed the Xelha caretakers. Although they answered him, they were ambiguous. An older woman limping on a cane might have rendezvoused with a younger man early that morning. But who really notices those things?
Helen pressing Taggert into a private encounter, insisting on a refund. Taggert laughing at a little old lady, turning his back on her — pure speculation, Luis thought. He ruled the death accidental.
In a month a package and letter and photograph came to BLACK CORAL. The photo was of Helen and Bud on a Hawaiian beach. They were grateful for the money and had applied it as a down payment on a marvelous townhouse with an ocean peek-a-view.
Bud had cut back to two packs a day and walked his daily eighteen holes rather than riding a cart, and was the picture of health.
Bud looked to Luis like the same Bud. Helen appeared haggard, as if she had been sleeping badly. The package was a macadamia nut gift assortment. Luis tried one and thought that it was tasty, but a bit waxy. He did not have an opportunity for a second opinion. Esther and Rosa loved them and polished them off before the day was done.
The Man on the Stair
by Bryce Walton
Richard Brocia III squirmed with fury on the couch, kicked his stumpy legs, pounded a chubby fist against the wall, and continued his familiar chant.
“—and then I’ll kill him. I’ll kill him. I’ll kill him...”
The doctor curled deeper into his chair behind the head of the couch. He was touching his thinning gray hair, then his thin face, finally massaging his left temple gently with the tips of two long tapering fingers that quivered very slightly on the ends.
The old aching blood-throb was coming back. He squeezed shut his eyes and snapped them open, resisting a stupor of bored impatience the way a late-night driver desperately battles road euphoria’s deadly spell.
One must hang in there, of course. Wait, listen sympathetically for clues, wait for Richie’s defense to break — and it would. It always breaks if you wait patiently enough, and Richie’s defense — this rigid, obsessive, repetitive account of his wife’s imagined affairs with ghostly lovers — must wear itself out like the groove of a stuck record. Then the shriveled and desiccated fragments of Richie’s personality could start limping out into the open.
Only we mustn’t draw it out too long, Richie. Three months isn’t really long, not in here. Three months is only a beginning when the path leads to the end of darkness; but you haven’t moved at all, Richie. You revealed so little, then stopped there in the groove and it just goes round and round and round; Lara and her demonic fantasy lovers and your plans for sweet vengeance. That’s all I know, Richie, and I must know more; a great deal more about many things.