Three times during the performance, she lifted the tube and showed Shelby her sagging tits. He stuck a dollar bill inside the waistband of her shorts every time she did it, and went “Wooooo!” ending in a giggling, high-pitched snuffle.
Her number consisted of sliding each foot six inches back and forth out of time to taped soft-rock music that Shelby couldn’t identify. After a thirty-minute set she shuffled off the stage and disappeared into a closet-sized dressing room.
Shelby slipped another bindle out of his boot and dropped his head below the stage level. When he came back up he downed a tequila and sucked the juice from a Mexican yellow lime protruding from his beer bottle.
Then he grinned and said, “My old lady got better hooters, but I bet that dancer’s a nicer person. Right now, I’ll settle fer anything wet and warm with a pulse.”
Abel looked at his watch, drank his tequila, and said, “We go now, Buey.”
Fin Finnegan got up from his stool at the opposite end of the long bar, put three dollars next to his glass, and followed the truckers out into the vanishing twilight.
Nell and Bobbie spotted the truckers and quickly turned their backs, examining a sidewalk display of black-velvet paintings: Madonna, Elvis and Batman. Nell picked up Batman and turned it toward the light inside the shop.
Abel and Shelby walked directly behind her, and she heard Shelby Pate say, “Know what, dude? This town ain’t half as grimy as L.A., and it’s gotta be a lot safer, right?”
Fin trotted up to Bobbie a few seconds later, saying, “Let’s give it no more than an hour. Okay?”
“Then what?” Bobbie asked, as Fin went scurrying after the truckers.
“Then we go home and we bust them Monday morning like responsible mature investigators,” Nell informed her.
Nell and Bobbie had to trot to keep up with Fin, who was threading his way through the early Saturday evening mob of U.S. teens and young adults who descend on Tijuana to get drunk, slam-dance in nightclubs, fight, bleed, vomit, and in general, have a wonderful time.
CHAPTER 23
The thing was, nobody would do a serious investigation into the death of a Mexican citizen on Mexican soil, Jules was certain of that. He was not going to have to face federal officers, or San Diego police, or even that busybody bitch from the District Attorney’s Office. It would just play itself out and pass from his life. A pity that the Mexican kids had been contaminated, but there was nothing he could do about it. Everything would work out just fine.
Sitting in the hot tub, Jules took a sip of Scotch and for a brief instant convinced himself that things simply couldn’t go wrong. Except that there were several layers to the rotting onion that Shelby Pate could drop into his soup. In the first place, if Southbay Agricultural Supply was brought into it, Jules was sure that Burl Ralston would panic and confess. For an agreement to testify, the authorities might give immunity to the old bastard. They might even grant immunity to the idiot truckers who caused this whole misery. That, in order to convict a real environmental threat: the owner of Green Earth Hauling and Disposal. Jules could become a sacrificial lamb to the green administration of Clinton-Gore: a prosperous and greedy waste hauler who illegally manifested hazardous waste that ended up killing a child of the Third World. Good press for the new administration.
Jules thought about offering Shelby Pate $10,000, more than that imbecile had ever seen in his miserable lowlife existence. Jules might even raise it to $20,000 if he could be guaranteed that both Durazo and Pate would maintain their silence. But what if they turned over the manifest to Jules only to blab to the authorities at a later time? Burl Ralston would then be contacted and he’d spill his guts the first time a cop mentioned jail. If Burl Ralston had a fatal heart attack it would be very helpful to Jules’s predicament. If Shelby Pate and Abel Durazo died suddenly it would be a time to rejoice.
If Jules paid extortion money, what would be his assurance that six months down the line he wouldn’t get a visit from Pate and Durazo showing him a photocopy of the manifest? A little something they’d set aside for a rainy day. The fact was, Jules’s only real safety lay in the destruction of the manifest, Pate, and probably Durazo, in that order. There was no other way. How could he come this far, with his entire life about to be transformed, only to let it all be controlled and ultimately doomed by two morons?
Even though he had no experience whatsoever with acts of violence, Jules Temple felt certain that he could do what he had to do. They had forced this course of action. There was only one question left in his mind: How?
Abel and Shelby were working on their second drink, but still Soltero hadn’t arrived. The Bongo Room was a cut above the last bar they’d visited. At least this one had some bamboo paneling nailed to the walls, and some blinking colored lanterns hanging from the ceiling. There was a similar stage and a similar long bar, and all too similar women sitting in booths and tables, not looking hungrily at gringos with bucks, only looking shabby and tired.
So much so that Shelby turned to Abel and said, “I think they feed downers to the babes around here. Or maybe they’re all shootin that Mexican tar heroin. Now that’s bad stuff. Me, I never even shot meth. I’m scared a needles.”
With that he leaned over and snorted what was left of a bindle of methamphetamine.
“Hey, Buey!” Abel said. “We got work to do!”
“I kin handle it, dude,” Shelby said. “Anyways, I think there’s somethin wrong with this cringe. I ain’t feelin a rush.”
But Abel knew that was a lie. The ox was twitchy. He kept looking around, twisting up his cocktail napkin, blinking, sniffling.
“Hey, baby!” Shelby yelled to the waitress. “Bring us two more mega shooters!”
After the tequilas arrived, a man slid into the seat beside Abel and said, “I am buying your tequilas, please.”
“What’re you, a fag?” Shelby wanted to know.
The man smiled and spoke to Abel in Spanish. Shelby recognized one word that was uttered several times by both men: Soltero. Abel looked like he was getting mad, but the man raised both palms as if to say, “It’s not my fault.” Then he got up and left the saloon.
“What the fuck’s goin on?” Shelby demanded.
Abel said, “He say we see Soltero een one more hours at club by pasaje on other side of Revolutión. He say we see Soltero there.”
“Hope it’s better than this joint. One hour?”
“Ees okay. There good theengs to buy down below avenue. Many many shops down there. We go now and look at leather jacket. We stop dreenking tequila.”
Shelby said, “Know somethin, dude, when we git our money tonight, I might jist reach over and snatch that Soltero’s ponytail right off his skinny little head, that’s what I might do.”
Abel watched in dismay as the ox gulped the last tequila and reached inside his boot for his stash of meth. Abel Durazo was getting a very bad feeling and wanted to get outside pronto.
This time Nell and Bobbie were ready for them when they came out of the bar. Abel walked, Shelby weaved.
“He’s amped,” Nell said to Bobbie.
She and Bobbie were standing next to a donkey cart. The sad-eyed animal was painted black-and-white like a zebra, and gringo tourists wearing huge sombreros posed for photos while seated in the donkey cart.
“Where’s Fin?” Bobbie wondered aloud.
Bobbie looked worried, and that made Nell ask, “Do you two have something going or what?”
“Whaddaya mean?”
“Whaddaya think I mean?” Then Nell added, “Of course it’s none of my business except I hate to see a girl like you get all messed up with a guy like Fin.”