Steve Martini - The Arraignment

“Zona Hotel-aaaara,” says Julio.

“Hey, whad I say? Listen, I do the white man talk, you do the spic shit and everything be fine. Stay cool.”

“Enough, guys. You’re making Mr. Madriani nervous,” says Adam.

“We just kiddin’,” says Herman. “Hotel-aareeya.”

“Aaara,” says Julio. He’s packing a bulge under the front of his coat that, when he sits forward and turns, swings open to reveal the metal clip slid into the handle of a heavy semiautomatic, all of which is cinched up high under his armpit in a worn leather shoulder harness.

Herman turns his head toward us and leans back again. “Ibarra’s office, just up ahead here a ways.”

We go about a half mile and off to our right is lush greenery the size of a golf course, a carpet of velvet grass rolling into the distance and, beyond it, an immense resort hotel in the shape of a pyramid, ten or twelve stories high, what the pharaohs could have done if they’d had smoked glass and twinkling lights. Out in front a Mexican flag the size of a runway rolls in slow-mo, undulating waves from the top of its pole, animated by the gentle Caribbean breeze.

“The old man own that?” says Adam. He sounds as if he’d like to pick up Papa Ibarra as a client.

“Perhaps,” says Julio. “Bet he has partners.”

“I’d like to be one of them,” says Adam.

“His office is on the top floor. The penthouse,” says Herman. “And nobody gets up there ’less they have an escort and appointment.” Herman sounds as if he’s tried. “Man’s a regular Mexican Howard Hughes,” he says.

“Who is this Joward Jewes?” says Julio. “You keep talking Joward Jewes.”

“Hughes. Hughes.” The sound whistles as air passes over Herman’s chipped front tooth. “Read my lips, you stupid spic. Why don’t you learn how to speak English?”

“Because we speak Spanish here,” he says. “No black jive.”

“Jive?” Herman’s voice goes up an octave. “You never heard no jive from me, cuz I be speakin’ the Queen’s English.”

“Which queen es that?” says Julio. “The one dances at the queer bar downtown?”

“Hey, man, now you gettin’ personal.” Julio leans over the seat and smiles at me, taps me on the knee. “Don’t pay attention to us. We do this always,” he says. “Besides, you no have to worry unless I pull this thing out and point it at his head.” He gestures toward the gun under his arm.

“What? That thing? Last time you try to pull that teeny weeny thing out, got caught in your zipper,” says Herman. “Had to fill his mouth with Kleenex, keep him from screamin’ free willie.”

“Don’t believe him,” says Julio. “He just jealous cuz I get all the good-looking women.”

“Right.” Herman ignores this. “Word ’round town is your man Ibarra’s strange. Lots of money but nobody ever sees him. Know what I mean? Just lets his money talk for ’im.”

Julio is on the small walkie-talkie now, communicating with the other drivers, something in Spanish, then listening, one finger to his ear, holding in the earpiece.

The lead car suddenly does a U-turn, and we follow, three dark vehicles, like a train in the middle of the boulevard. There’s a cop settled back on a motorcycle half a block up, his arms folded over his chest, one foot on the ground balancing the cycle. He sees us, looks, reaches for the handlebars. Then thinks better of it. He doesn’t move. His arms go back, folded against his chest.

You get the feeling that vehicles like this, rolling black power with smoked windows, driving on each other’s bumper, might be carrying some high government official, or worse, some patron who owns a chunk of the country. One look and the traffic cop has decided he will get his quota somewhere else tonight.

We drive back a mile or so and turn into a private driveway that snakes uphill. Finally we come to a stop under a canopied entrance to a small hotel.

Herman jumps out and opens the door. He can move for a big man. Adam gets out. I slide across the seat and follow him.

It’s like a blast from a sauna and into a refrigerator, as the automatic doors open and close behind us. Adam and I stand around in the small lobby while Julio introduces himself and does business at the antique, carved-oak desk just inside the door.

It’s a small European-style hotel. Adam tells me it used to be a private mansion, thirty-nine rooms of marbled luxury. Lost in a sea of glitz, large tourist resorts, their glittering lights with acres of gardens and lawn, no one would notice the Casa Turquesa, its gleaming floors and circular staircase tucked in along the beach and huddled up against the mall.

A few seconds later, Julio is back with room keys.

“You both on the top floor. Adjoining rooms. Herman will have the room on one side, I the room on the other. Two of my men will be down here, the others will stay with the cars.

The manager, accompanied by four bellmen, one for each bag, leads us to the elevator, and we head up.

Three minutes later, I am alone in my room, door closed with the air conditioner humming.

I close the curtains. I’m too tired to enjoy the view, and right now the king-sized bed looks more inviting than the pool down below. I take a shower, and a half hour later, I’m asleep.

A few minutes before nine in the morning, the lobby of the Casa Turquesa is empty except for a girl at the small desk by the door.

“Buenos dias.” She smiles and asks me if I want to take breakfast at the restaurant out by the pool deck.

Instead I order a cab.

Twenty minutes later, the driver drops me off in an area of old Cancun, on a street called Tankah Calle. Here the shops are not as glitzy as out near the beaches in the hotel zone. The buildings are mostly two and three stories, dingy.

Cancun is now a city of a million people and has the feel of a quiet, rustic town that may have grown a little too fast. There are modern shops jammed in between stucco buildings that look as if they date to the forties. The streets are crowded with cars, most of them honking horns, the Mexican equivalent of brakes.

I look for an address along the sidewalk and then realize the number I’m looking for is on the other side of the street. I hustle between cars and take a few honks crossing over, and then I walk half a block.

I see the name on a sign hanging out over the sidewalk before I see the number. ANTIQUITIES BIBLIOTECA.

Nick had misspelled it in his little handheld. I had gotten up early and checked the Cancun phone book this morning, suspecting that I would probably find it. The telephone number in the book matched the one in the memo pad of Nick’s device, if you ignored the international code for Mexico.

From out on the sidewalk I see an “open” sign hanging on the glass door, so I head for it. I can see a woman inside at the counter talking to a gentleman, his back to me.

My hand is nearly to the doorknob when he turns to give me a profile.

I pull my hand back in and walk quickly past the door and continue on until I find a newspaper rack three shops down. I drop a few Mexican coins in the slot and grab an edition of a Cancun paper I can’t read. I sit down on a bench and open it.

Six minutes pass before Nathan Fittipaldi comes out of the front door of the antiquities shop. He comes this way, so I hold the paper up in front of my face until he passes, crosses the street, and then I follow him.

Two blocks down, he enters a parking garage, walking down the ramp and disappearing into the shadows. I stand across the street from the exit with the newspaper and keep an eye. A minute or so later, a large Lincoln Town Car rolls up the ramp with a driver in the front seat. The back windows are tinted, but the driver has to stop to pay the charges at the exit booth.