T. Parker - Laguna Heat

No Señor Seely, they told him. And no Señor Mercante, very sorry. The desk clerk offered him a cancelation, but Shephard declined. He bought a can of Tecate beer from the cantina and a Panama hat from the gift shop before heading back out into the sweltering afternoon. Outside he took off his coat and draped it over his arm, feeling for a moment as though he had arrived in paradise.

He worked his way down one side of the main avenue, enquiring at the hotels after Señores Seely and Mercante. When he had exhausted the possibilities and found himself facing a pen fenced off from the ocean and filled with huge sea turtles, he crossed the street and worked the other side.

At the Mesón del Marquez, Shephard found that Frank Seely had checked in the night before.

The porter had snatched his suitcase away and was heading toward the hallway before Shephard could protest. He fished some change from his pocket as he followed the man down the hall to room 26, which was ground floor, facing the main street. The porter set down the suitcase and smiled, not counting the coins that he slid into a pocket in his shirt. A moment later, looking haggard and scared, Wade opened the door, smiled, and stood back as worry overcame the smile.

“Tommy, what are you doing here? Are you okay?” Shephard saw that his father had been lying on the bed, reading the Bible. The look of control, compassion, still hadn’t returned to his face.

“He knows you’re here, pops. He flew down last night, from L.A. You’ve got bad security leaks.”

Shephard called room service for a bottle of Scotch and ice, which was brought ten minutes later by the same eager man who had carried his bag. He pushed the cart into the room with some ceremony, arranged the ice tub on the desk beside the window, and presented Shephard with a bottle and a bill. When the door closed behind him, Shephard made sure it was locked, poured himself a stiff drink, and told his father about the near death of Francis Rubio and the grim room at Valentine’s. Wade sat on the bed, listening intently, looking out the window with newfound anxiety.

“So?” he said finally. “What do you propose to do?”

“You’re going out the way I came in,” Shephard said.

“No I’m not, son. That’s something I can’t consider. He’s crazy. You’ll need all the help you can get.”

Shephard drank from the Scotch, then put his face in front of the air conditioner. “This is the way I see it. He’s looking for you, one man alone in a hotel room. This is a little town. Word gets around who’s where, what they’re doing. If he senses anything wrong, he’ll never show himself. Point two, pop: you get mixed up in this now, it’s going to be real hard on you. Even if everything goes like I hope it goes, there’s going to be an arrest, extradition, publicity. Look real bad for you stateside, but bad down here, too. Who’s going to want your hospital here if you’re mixed up with some killer?” He stood at the window and looked out at the street, saw a fishing boat easing into dock in the shimmering distance.

Wade hadn’t moved. “You might need me, Tommy. Another body can be a help.”

“Another body is what Azul wants,” Shephard said quietly. “This is what I’ve learned to do, pop. You taught me some of it yourself. You had a chance at him thirty years ago. This one is mine.”

Wade rose from the bed and slowly paced the floor, his head down. “You’re remembering your mother,” he said.

“Aren’t you?”

“It’s too late for hatred, son.”

“It’s too late for a sermon.” Shephard sighed. “I’m sorry.” He picked up the telephone and called La Ceiba.

“You’re playing the dark notes, after all.”

A moment later, Shephard was put through to Marty, who was disappointed that his fishing trip would have to be canceled.

“Pop. You’re going back to Cozumel on the seaplane. You’re going to wear my clothes and sunglasses, and carry my bag. Here, wear this hat, too. If Mercante hasn’t seen either of us yet, it might help.”

Half an hour later, they stood facing each other in the small room, Shephard buried in his father’s white linen suit, Wade squeezed into his son’s clothes. Shephard helped his father pack the rest of his clothes into his own suitcase. With the sunglasses in place, the resemblance was close. He looked at Wade. When you go, I’ll be here. I’ll be the Reverend Wade Shephard.

He called the desk for a taxi back to the airstrip.

He checked out of the del Marquez at four that afternoon, lugging his father’s suitcase into the stifling heat of the island. The street was crowded with tourists and vendors. One withered old man approached Shephard with a collection of dried, shellacked sand sharks bobbing from a stick. Shephard bought a very small one, which looked like a goblin dancing on its tail. It satisfied his need for some local talisman. Inside his left coat pocket he felt the sea lion tooth given him by Jane, then slid the dried shark in to give it company. The Indians considered the teeth good luck, he remembered, issuing his own brief prayer that that luck would be with him in the next few hours. He had never thought of himself as superstitious, but the heat, the musical mystery of the language being spoken, and the heavy smells of this tropical Eden all condensed around him as a reminder that he was wholly out of his own context.

His first move was to arrange himself more visibly, and in a place where Mercante would have no trouble trying to kill him.

He strolled past the hotels and shops of the main street, wondering if Mercante had perhaps already seen him and was right now viewing him from some upstairs balcony, beer in hand, planning the logistics of murder. The thought unsettled him still more: he had never pursued a man of such brazen and unfathomable cruelty. He thought again of the cut spark plug cable lying on the seat of his motorcycle, an eloquent reminder that he had arrived late, anticipated poorly, and had been spared by only seconds the ordeal of having to stare into the lifeless face of the Fire Killer’s third victim. Shephard stopped suddenly and looked behind him, half expecting to see Mercante trudging a block behind, closing in. But the sidewalk was filled only with tourists.

He registered at the Serenidad, which overlooked the beach on the north side of town. He signed in clearly as the Reverend Wade Shephard and requested an upstairs room. The bellboy was a cheerful man with the high cheekbones and subtly upturned eyes of the native Indians. His name was Cantil.

“Cantil, isn’t that a snake?” Shephard asked as they headed for his room.

“Yes. Only a name for me. From when I was small.”

“Were you like a snake?”

Cantil set down the bag and opened the door to room 58. It opened with a stale, mildewed puff. “Very quiet,” he said. “Why Cantil, I don’t know.”

Shephard gave the man a dollar, asking for a bucket of ice and two extra pillows. “For my back, chum,” he said. “Gets sore in this heat.”

He unpacked the suitcase carefully, hanging up the extra trousers and shirts, which were heavily wrinkled from the hasty switch with his father. The Colt Python .357, wrapped in a bath towel with two extra cylinders, he slipped under the bed. He noted the layout of the room: the door opened to a small hallway, with a large closet on the right. To the left of the closet, a doorway opened to a bathing area, and behind that a toilet. Five steps from the doorway the main room began, a neat square with a single queen-sized bed to the left, a dresser opposite, and a small table and chairs placed in front of the window that overlooked the street. He drew back the curtains and looked down. The foot traffic below was minimal, with most of the shops and hotels a hundred yards toward the center of the town. To his right, he could see a stand of banana trees whose trunks vanished into the dense green of the jungle. Beyond the trees the water, the sand, the mainland.