“Hello?”
“Hello, little one.”
“Barb…”
“Shhhhh, let’s not use names on the phone.”
“What’s up, baby?”
“Tell me about you, first.”
“Oh, business is slow, and there’s not much love in my life at the moment.” Betty Shipp was a small, beautiful woman who liked sex of all sorts but preferred women.
“Not in mine, either.”
“Let’s get together, then.”
“I’m afraid I’m a long way from you right now, but maybe later. If business is slow, maybe you could use a nice chunk of money.”
Betty laughed. “Sure, who do I have to kill?”
Barbara said nothing.
“Oooooh, I was on the mark, huh?”
“You were.”
“Let me guess: the tall guy.”
“And his girlfriend. It’ll be easy; they live together.”
“When?”
“A Sunday morning would be perfect.”
“How?”
“Two each to the head would be nice. Something small will do, maybe a.22.”
“I never did two people before. Come to think of it, I’ve done only one just the one time, and God, the bastard deserved it. You’re the only one who knows.”
“I know; I was your alibi, remember? Here’s how you’ll do it.” Barbara explained in detail. “Got it?”
“Sounds simple enough. You mentioned money?”
“I’ll wire you twenty-five thousand today, another twenty-five when I read about it in the papers.”
“I’ll give you my account number.”
“No. Just go to the Western Union office on Cerrillos Road, you know it. Give me a couple of hours to get it there.”
“You got a deal. I never liked him anyway.”
“You’ll like her even less, baby.”
“When will I see you?”
“We’ll need to wait a few weeks for things to cool down, then I’ll bring you to a place you’ll love. Bye-bye, sweetie.”
“Bye.”
Barbara hung up and went to her suitcase for the cash.
JACK CATO WALKED through the Acapulco airport, his eyes darting everywhere.
Ahead and to his right a man in a red straw cowboy hat held up a sign. Jack caught his eye as he passed and nodded, then continued outside. He stood on the curb and watched the man cross the road to the parking lot, then he followed.
The man in the red hat walked to a van, opened the rear doors and got in, leaving the doors open. Jack looked around, then got in, too.
“Good day, señor,” the man said.
“Good day.”
“I got some things for you.” He unfolded a map. “You know Acapulco?”
“Pretty good.”
The man pointed with a stubby finger. “Here is the airport. You leave, turn right, take the coast road. A few miles, you pass a bar, El Toro Loco, then you take your first right turn and follow the road to the beach and turn left. It’s the boss’s house, número 1040. You can remember that?”
“Easy.” He remembered that he was going to have to do something about filing his tax return, unless he wanted another government agency searching for him.
“You park your car here,” the man said, pointing.
“Car?”
The man rapped on the side of the van. “Parked just here.” He handed over the keys. “Every afternoon, five o’clock, about, the two women go to El Toro Loco for a margarita, then they go to town for shopping, on this road, here. It’s a quiet road; you can hit them going or coming, take your pick. Must look like a robbery, yes?”
“Yes, I know.”
The man handed him a very small semiautomatic pistol. “Is.380, plenty big?”
“Yes.”
“Comes with this,” the man said. He handed over a Ziploc bag containing two magazines, a silencer and a pair of latex gloves, and, using a handkerchief, he dropped the gun into the bag.
“Gun and bullets don’t have no prints on them. You use gloves when you handle and when you drive car, got it?”
“Got it.”
“When you are finished, you drive into Acapulco and park car somewhere, walk away, leave nothing. Get a hotel. You call the man. He will arrange to meet you with the money; he will tell you where. Then you go back to Tijuana. Go now. Any questions?”
“Do the two women have names?”
“You know them: Tina and Soledad.”
He knew them. Wells was leaving no loose ends. He thought maybe he would like to fuck them first, as he had before. He took the plastic bag and his overnight bag, got out of the van and into the car, a well-used Toyota. He ignored the latex gloves and put on his own leather driving gloves.
First, he found the bar, then the house, then, using the map, he drove the road into Acapulco. There were two very sharp bends in the dirt road, a couple of miles from the bar, and a good ditch along the road. He saw only one car the whole time.
He didn’t want to be seen anywhere by anybody, so he avoided El Toro Loco and drove back to the beach. He found a narrow track off the road behind some bushes that gave him a view of the house. He backed in and left the engine running, the air-conditioning on. He checked his watch: three forty.
HE WAITED LESS than an hour before he saw the two women pull out of the driveway. He put the car in gear and waited until they passed and got some distance, then he followed. At El Toro Loco, they didn’t stop but turned toward Acapulco on the road he had just driven. He made the turn and accelerated to catch up; he wanted them at the first curve.
It was not to be; a battered pickup truck was passing in the other direction. Cato swore, then caught up for the next curve. As they made the turn to the left, he stepped on the gas and went for the “pit,” a maneuver he had used in the movies. He struck their left rear bumper hard enough to throw the rear end of their car off the road, which pitched the whole vehicle into the ditch, turning it upside down.
He took one last look around, then got out of the car and ran to theirs. “Tina? Soledad?” he called out.
“Yes, we’re in here! Who is it?”
“It’s Jack,” he called back. He ran around the upside-down car to the driver’s window and looked inside. The two women were still in their seat belts, their heads touching the ceiling.
“Jack,” Tina said, smiling, “I don’t know what the hell you’re doing here, but get us out of this car!”
“Don’t worry, Tina,” he said. He shot her in the side of the neck, under the ear. Soledad began screaming, so he shot her, too, near the heart. She kept moving a little, then stopped. He felt both women for a pulse and found none.
Their handbags were lying on the ceiling next to their heads. He grabbed them both and checked the road again for traffic. Nothing. He emptied both bags on the ground next to the car and took two wads of pesos and American currency, then tossed the handbags onto the pile of things. Then he remembered that Tina wore a gold Rolex that Don Wells had given her, and he went back and took it off her wrist.
A moment later, he was driving off toward Acapulco, and he didn’t see another car until he reached the outskirts of the city. He drove into the center of town, grabbed his overnight bag, stuffed the gun and the plastic bag into it, locked the car and walked away. He found a cantina with a garden and ordered a Dos Equis, then got out his cell phone and dialed Wells.
“Yes?”
“It’s done.”
“I told you to call me late at night.”
“Sorry, I forgot.”
“What else did you forget?”
“Nothing. It went perfectly.”
“Meet me at three o’clock tomorrow afternoon at the FBO next to the main terminal at the airport. Be there early. When you see me get off the airplane and enter the building, go to the men’s room. I’ll meet you there and give you your money.”
“See you then,” Cato said and hung up. I wonder what else you’re going to give me, he thought, seeing that I’m the last loose end.