Lockestep Read online

  Amadeo asked, “You wanna beer?” and when I nodded, led the way to the lounge upstairs. Here I was back in my own language level. Amadeo took a table overlooking the runway while I went to the bar and said, “Buenos días, dos cervezas, por favor.” I think cerveza was the first Spanish word I ever learned

  I went back to the table with a couple of Superiors, and Amadeo said, “This all they got? It's the worst beer in Mexico."

  "They didn't have any Bohemia. Figure they don't need any-thing in here, there's no competition."

  "You been here before?"

  "Yes, I was in Zihua a few times. I like it."

  "It's deader'n hell,” he said, and sipped his beer. “Me, I like Mexico.” He pronounced the x as an h, and I knew he meant the city, he was talking like a Mexican now.

  "That where you generally stay?"

  "Except when I see Maria.” He didn't volunteer anything else and I didn't pump him. I'd already proved to myself that questions shut him up. I branched out onto an oblique track.

  "I didn't realize Mexico was big in your line of business. I thought it was all grease and hash oil produced here."

  He looked at me, and his face was expressionless. “Contacts,” he said.

  So that was it. A Colombian connection. Certainly it would be no trouble to bring coke in here, and since Zihuatanejo was a port, it must be a staging stop on the run from the Andes to Yonge Street in Toronto. I said “Oh,” round-mouthed and polite, and he said no more until we had finished our beer and been called back onto the flight.

  Five

  The passengers beside Amadeo had got off in Manzanillo, and he had a girl sitting next to him for the twenty-minute hop to Zihua. He used the time well, chatting to her about the country and her trip, pouring on a kind of gutty charm, full of growly chuckles and dry comments. She was sorry to see him get off when we reached our destination.

  We came down the ramp into the sunshine, and this time I was working, not watching the vultures but scanning the balcony around the top of the terminal for any sign of a gun barrel. I didn't really expect one, any enemies of Amadeo's would have better chances to kill him in town, where they could melt away while a crowd gathered, but I was here to bring him back to Toronto, and I started earning my keep.

  A bored official with a luxuriant mustache checked our entry forms and waved us through to pick up our bags. The other Sunbird passengers were milling about, excited by the atmosphere and the warmth, clustering around the Mexican hostess in her orange Sunbird costume, making inquiries about buses. Amadeo was cool, he went and stood by the baggage carousel and I went with him, waiting for our bags. Mine was down early, and I opened it and discreetly transferred my knife to my pocket. His must have been the first bag aboard, it was one of the last off, and then we walked out past the customs men, who waved us by. Outside there was a smell of good cigar smoke overlaying the tropical flower-and-dust smell, and you could see all the pale Canadians stretching and expanding like flowers in the warmth.

  In front of the concourse there were buses lined up. Two were for Ixtapa, the other for Cuatro Vientos. I glanced around, looking for my contact. At the airport, Cahill had said, and I was here, on schedule. The sound of Spanish everywhere and the languid warmth of the early afternoon were reminding me that I was a long way from home and I had a job to do.

  The perky little hostess called out, “All Sunbird guests, please,” she waited, then added "Por favor," and there was a chorus of giggling and we moved in closer to her. “All of you who are going to Cuatro Vientos, take the first bus, those who are going to Ixtapa, you take either one of the others, okay?"

  We went to the first bus and handed our bags to the driver, who stuffed them into the open belly on the side, and then I saw what I'd been looking for. A boy, about ten years old, carrying a basket of fruit.

  I moved out to the back of the crowd, keeping Amadeo in my peripheral vision. "Quiero las frutas, yo soy señor Locke." Not classical Spanish—I want the fruit, I'm Mr Locke. The boy looked at me, no doubt comparing me with the description he'd been given, then said, “Hola,” hello, and stuck the basket into my hands. It felt heavy, and he looked at me knowingly for a moment as I took the weight. "Bueno," I said, and gave him a thousand pesos. He nodded and left. I watched him, but he didn't get into a car, just wandered away. Pro, at ten years old.

  A large pale woman who looked as if she might teach music in a Toronto high school said, “Did you get that lovely basket of fruit for just a thousand pesos?"

  "Not exactly. I'm an agronomist, these are samples."

  "How interesting.” She was sizing me up. Her left hand was free of rings, and she was fortyish and handsome, wondering how lonely I was feeling, maybe. I smiled at her. Manners cost nowt, as a Lancashire corporal of mine had been fond of saying.

  "Are you staying at Cuatro Vientos?” I asked and she nodded. “Good, perhaps we'll meet in the bar,” I said and ushered her aboard ahead of Amadeo.

  He was looking at me contemptuously. “You're a genuine goddamn turista, eh? Can't wait to get off the airplane an’ you're buyin’ a buncha crap."

  "These are special,” I promised him.

  "Like hell.” He sighed. “This is gonna be a great week."

  The bus was air-conditioned, and there was a babble of comment from our fellow tourists as they chuckled about having come all this way from home to get cool, and then we settled down for the twenty-minute ride into Zihuatanejo. It took us past a few poor homes, typical farm community places with parched fields and orchards of palms and trees I didn't recognize. It was the wrong season for the jacaranda trees to be in bloom, but there were bougainvillea bushes everywhere and a few trees of the red and orange flowers that my father had called Flame of India on my first trip here, back when I was twelve and you had to come in by boat from Acapulco.

  The little mountains reached down right to the highway, covered with a sparse brush, leaves wrinkled and dusty in the heat. If a man had to fight over this land, his first and biggest need would be water, I decided.

  We slid into Zihua at the big highway roundabout, past the town's monument, a big phallic symbol made of fiberglass and plywood, a modern thing painted garish colors. It had developed a crack halfway up and was scaffolded with the irregularly shaped tree trunks they use for props and a couple of sheets of plywood. It looked like a Martian prepped for major surgery. Nobody was working on it. I guessed it was a mañana project, they would get around to it some tomorrow as yet unspecified. And anyway it was nearly 1:00 p.m. now, siesta time. Only the farmers were working, nobody with an hourly paid job was out in the heat.

  Cuatro Vientos is a big terraced hotel. You get to it by driving the road around Zihua Bay, with a view over the town if you want to crane and look back. The rocks and sand and few rich people's homes are down to your right, hanging on the cliffs. Beyond them is the width of the bay, possibly three-quarters of a mile to a narrow, quarter-mile gap and beyond that, the Pacific, with nothing of importance between you and Japan. To the right, where very few of the tourists bothered to look, was the local landmark, the Parthenon. It was built as a copy of the original by the crooked copper Cahill had mentioned, in his last days before the new president of the country made his attempt to clean up the corruption. Now it was deserted except for a crew of security men with war-surplus American Ml rifles. On a previous trip I had met an American Viet Nam avoider, married to a local girl, who claimed to have been to a party there. A swinging party, he had assured me, while his wife was out in the kitchen of their little restaurant, all the coke a nose could hold. I glanced up as we passed, the same chains were in place across the driveway, still off limits, I guessed.

  The bus swung to the right, through the flower-draped gateway of the hotel and down the steep little run to the office, located at the topmost level of the building. We got off the bus and filed inside. There was the usual excitement at the check-in counter. People were promising to meet one another on the beach when they had freshened up, b
ellboys were lugging suitcases and the first-time guests were oohing and aahing over the view. The pale woman smiled at me as she went off with a clone of herself, saying, “In the bar, remember.” She was looking at Amadeo a little doubtfully, and I realized that two guys traveling together are going to narrow the eyes of any normal woman. He was not doing my reputation any favors, but there wouldn't be time for any romantic interludes anyway, I was going to need all my faculties, all the time. Ah, well, man must work sometimes.

  We checked in and were given the keys to room 612, on the top level, the best view but the farthest distance to climb up and down to the beach. I was glad of that. I wouldn't have any chance to run, but I could keep in shape by doubling up and down the steps while Amadeo picked his way to the beach and back.

  The room was huge, stretching the width of the building, from the narrow access balcony at back to the broad, luxurious front balcony with its hammocks and potted plants and chaise longues. The room was typical for the region, tile floor, with the beds and cupboards built in, out of concrete. It sounds like hell, but it's cool and enables the chambermaid to wipe the floor down with a mop, the most efficient way of keeping a place wholesome and free of cucarachas, the big brown cockroaches of Latin America.

  Amadeo threw his bag down on the bed nearest the front balcony. “I need a drink,” he announced.

  "Yeah, in a minute.” I dumped my own bag on the other bed and started lifting out the fruit. There was a pineapple surrounded by oranges, and a prickly guanabana, like a huge green gooseberry to look at, but perhaps the most delicious fruit in the world to eat.

  The basket had a false bottom, and underneath that I found my gun, a snub-nosed Colt.38, and a box of shells.

  The gun was a disappointment. The barrel is too short for accuracy, and I don't like revolvers anyway, it takes time to reload them. I prefer an automatic where you can slam in a second magazine and carry on firing.

  Amadeo didn't have the same preferences. “Shit, you got a piece?"

  "Yeah.” There was a lightweight holster with it, again, not my choice, a shoulder holster, painfully slow. I would be better with the gun in my pocket.

  I tried the action on the gun, it was hard, a new weapon usually is, but the double-action worked perfectly, turning and presenting a new round after every firing. Then I loaded it and slipped it into the pocket of my cotton windbreaker.

  "Now I'd like to shower first, then have that drink,” I said.

  "I'll shower later. I'm gonna have me a tall margarita an’ a swim,” he said.

  "So kick back for five minutes,” I told him. “And now we're on our own, let me give you the rules. If I'm going to stop somebody hitting you, it needs cooperation. Your job is to listen when I tell you something and not make any moves I don't know about, okay?"

  "Yeah, sure. Why'd ya think I'm payin’ ten grand? I'm gonna buy a dog an’ do my own barkin'?” He waved me away. “Go shower, I'll wait here."

  He sank down on his bed, arms behind his head. I took my clean shirt and shorts and the windbreaker with the gun in it and went into the bathroom, leaving the door open.

  The bathroom was typical. The whole room was tiled and had no divisions, no shower curtain. I put my clothes in the sink and slipped quickly under the shower, then dried and changed. Amadeo was still on his bed, arms behind his head, eyes closed. After all the arrogance he had shown on the plane, I was waiting for the other shoe to drop, but for the moment I relaxed and put on a pair of white socks and my running shoes. When I was ready, I said, “Okay, you gonna change into your swimsuit?"

  "Yeah.” He rolled off the bed and changed. I looked him over as he did, his body was lean but not well muscled. He must have played soccer as a boy, he had good legs still, but there was a puffiness to him that would turn into real fat before he reached thirty-five. He looked up and caught me watching him. “You queer?"

  "Sorry to disappoint you, no."

  "I figured you was a Limey, you'd be queer."

  "You'd be surprised how many of them aren't,” I told him.

  His swimsuit was skimpy, and when he picked up his towel and headed for the door, I stopped him. “Listen, I know it pays to advertise, but you can't go into the bar like that. Stick your pants back on or the locals are gonna think you kick with the wrong foot."

  "'S matter with the swimsuit?” He looked down at himself in surprise. “I wear it all the time."

  "If you're going to make it through this week with your head still on, you're going to have to be inconspicuous. Put your jeans on and a shirt."

  Surprisingly, he did it, sighing but not complaining. While he zipped up, I transferred my passport and cash to a plastic case I always use overseas and stuck them into the left-hand pocket of my shorts. It's a good trick, either you leave your valuables in the hotel safe or you keep them with you at all times. Even a trained man can have his pocket picked, but I'm right-handed, and a pickpocket would go for the right-hand side. I don't think even the best of them could hit a second pocket before I caught him, so I always keep small bills in the right-hand, heavy duty valuables in the left.

  Amadeo didn't bother. He watched me and shook his head. “Don’ trust nobody, do you? I've stayed here before, it's safe as a church."

  "Good, then your gear will be okay. Let's go."

  We went out the front way, onto the wide balcony that faced southwest and was flooded with brilliant sunshine. Amadeo walked to the rail and looked out over the bay. It was the first casual move he had made, and I watched him as he leaned on the rail, I glanced all around, seeing only an elderly couple at the far end of the balcony, sitting in the shade of the overhang, sipping tall drinks and reading pocket books. They were burned mahogany-brown, and the woman looked up and waved. I waved back, then joined Amadeo and looked down on the bright beach and the gentle rollers breaking on the sand. Pelicans were gliding along the crests of the waves, moving laterally with them as they rolled up the beach, rising every now and then to gain height for a quick plunge, coming up again with their bills convulsing as they swallowed their catch. Long-tailed frigate birds were floating high over the water, looking for boobies and gulls they could bully into dropping their fish. Out on the water lay a clutter of yachts, most of them with American flags at the stem, courtesy Mexican flags on the mast.

  "Why the hell would anybody live where we do?” Amadeo asked. “This place is heaven."

  "Great for a few weeks, but you'd go crazy living here, no books, nobody to talk to, no choice of food."

  "I got plenny o’ people to talk to. I speak Spanish.” He straightened up, turning away from the rail, “So let's get that margarita."

  We walked back around the end of the balcony and took the steps down to the ground floor. The bar was set up outside, under an awning of banana leaves. It had stools all around it, but most of them were vacant, it was still siesta hour, and the guests were up in their rooms biting one another's ears, or snoring.

  The bartender was a good-looking kid in a crisp white shirt with a plastic name tag that said Manuel. Amadeo took over, ordering two margaritas in Spanish. His accent was Mexican enough that the boy immediately started chatting to him animatedly and poured us extra-strong drinks, not that they bother much with measuring in Mexican resorts, the local liquor is cheap enough that they don't have to keep count the way North Americans do. A gringo can buy a liter of tequila for three bucks, the hotels probably pay a third of that.

  The drink was excellent. Normally it's not smart to take ice, but I figured that a tourist resort like this one would use purified water. I usually stick to beer in Mexico, even clean my teeth in beer if there's no bottled water available. That way I've stayed clear of trouble. I raised my glass to Manuel. "Muy bien."

  He showed a wonderful set of pearlies and said "Gracias.” That's another thing I like about Mexico. They don't lisp their esses there, the way they do in Spain.

  A couple of minutes later the two women from the bus arrived. The one who had spoken to me looked g
ood in her swimsuit and was proud of it. I imagined she did sit-ups every day to retain her waistline. The other one was sliding down the hill toward a lifetime membership in Weight Watchers. I stood up when they came in from the sunshine. “Hello, you're all settled in?"

  "Yes.” She smiled at us both. “It's our first time here, isn't it just marvelous?"

  "The nicest place I've been in the whole country. My name is John Locke, this is Greg Amadeo."

  Perhaps because there were no other women around, Amadeo made an effort. He stood up for them, and we shook hands all around and learned that their names were Beth, the one I'd met first, and Kelly.

  Amadeo ordered them a margarita each, and Manuel, with a Latin male's eye for the main chance, served them a solid double. They weren't his generation, but he thought he would oblige us. Beth said “Gracias” to him, Kelly just nodded and took a good slug out of hers. I guessed that Beth was the go-getter, Kelly the passenger, a lot of twosomes of women are like that.

  "Are you an agronomist as well?” Beth asked Amadeo.

  "Agronomist?” He looked at me, baffled.

  "No, Greg is an importer of vegetable extracts,” I said. “We work together.” Amadeo grinned. I suppose he'd never thought of his trade in that way.

  "How interesting,” Beth said. She was smiling, too, a nice smile that didn't look practiced. I wondered if her students appreciated her efforts.

  "Let me guess, you and Kelly are teachers,” I said.

  "I am,” Beth admitted. “Kelly is a librarian."

  "How come you've managed to sneak away, is it the midwinter break already? I thought that came in March."