Steve Martini - The Arraignment

In the center of the room is a large desk on the Mexican tile floor. There is a man seated behind it with his back to us, typing, hunt-and-peck style, on a computer keyboard.

I look along the partition and see the edge of Herman’s forehead taking in the same picture I am.

There is a door to another room on Herman’s side. Nothing on mine but more glass. For the moment, the other door is closed.

We pull our heads in, backs against the partition, and look at one another. Herman gives me a strange expression, shakes his head, and shrugs. How do you figure, drug lord at the keyboard? It’s as if neither one of us wants to be the first to shatter his serenity. Man lost in his own thoughts.

But time is running. We step around opposite ends of the partition at the same moment. Herman clears his throat.

The man at the computer stops, lifts his head, and turns. When he sees the guns, his eyes widen. He reaches for the desk.

Herman lowers his muzzle on him. “Not ’less you wanna be changing out all those nice windows behind ya.” The man leans back in his chair and raises his hands above his shoulders. Whether he understood Herman or the gun isn’t clear.

“Se habla ingles?” says Herman The man doesn’t answer.

“Shit,” says Herman. “How’s your Spanish?”

“You got mine beat.”

The man behind the desk is small, slight of build, no more than five-foot-six. His black hair is graying at the temples; I would say he’s in his mid-sixties. His dark eyes are wide at this moment, taking in Herman and the submachine gun.

“Listen fuckhead, you better start saying somethin’ I can understand or I’m gonna shoot ya,” says Herman.

“I speak English,” he says.

“Good for you. I wasn’t lookin’ forward to callin’ an interpreter. Where’s that door go?” Herman sweeps the closed door with the muzzle of his cannon.

“To living quarters.”

“Who’s in there?”

“No one.”

“You wouldn’t be bullshittin’ me?”

“Perhaps a maid. I don’t know.”

“Anybody likely to come through there?”

He shakes his head. “I left instructions not to be disturbed.”

“Good, cuz if somebody comes walkin’ in that door unexpected, they gonna be gettin’ one hair-raisin’ shock. And it ain’t gonna be doin’ your wall no good either. You Pablo Ibarra?”

He doesn’t answer, just looks back and forth at Herman and me, my shotgun pointed at the floor.

“Who sent you?”

“Why, you expecting someone?” says Herman.

He doesn’t answer.

“I ain’t exactly sure who sent my friend over there. But you might say whoever the god is handles revenge had a hand dispatching me.”

“Herman.”

He looks at me. “What?”

“Let the man talk.”

“I’m tryin’. Fucker keeps askin’ questions,” says Herman. “Where I come from, one’s gots the guns gets to ask the questions. Motherfucker lookin’ down the barrel’s the one’s gotta answer.”

The Mexican in the chair is looking back and forth as we argue, probably wondering if we’re high on something.

“What do you want to know?” he says.

“Your name for starters. Make sure we get it right on the headstone,” says Herman.

The man hesitates.

Herman clicks the safety off on his spray gun.

“Herman. That’s enough.”

“Maybe we take him outside, see if he wants to do some window washing,” says Herman.

“I am Pablo Ibarra,” he says. He closes his eyes as if waiting for the impact of the bullets.

“Father of the two assholes in the trailer down in Tulum?” says Herman.

He opens them again. “They are my sons. Did they send you?”

Herman gives me a look. “Must be a cordial fuckin’ family. Can’t wait to meet the mother of your children.”

“My wife is dead,” he says.

“Oh. Sorry. Natural causes or did one of the kids shoot her?”

“Cancer,” he says.

“Too bad, but that ain’t the death I’m here for right now. Why did you kill Julio?”

“Who?”

“Don’t you make like some fuckin’ Mexican owl to me. You know who I’m talkin’ about. Julio Paloma. Big guy. Used to have a forehead without a hole in it.”

“I don’t know this man.”

“You may notta met him, but you sure as shit had him shot.”

“Why would I do this?”

Herman looks at me. Rolls his eyes. “See? Keeps askin’ more fuckin’ questions.” He has his finger inside the trigger guard.

“I have never heard of this man.” Ibarra looks at me. “Please. I don’t know who you think I am. But I have never had anyone killed. I am a businessman.”

“You wanna ask him about this Rosen shit before I shoot him?”

“Calm down, Herman.”

“You calm down. Right now I’m worried about how many keys been given out to that door behind us.”

“Mr. Ibarra, my name is Paul Madriani.”

“Yes.” His eyes latch onto me like I’m a lifesaver.

“I was supposed to have a meeting with you tonight, at six-thirty. Myself and a man named Adam Tolt.”

“Cut to the fuckin’ chase,” says Herman.

“We talked with one of your sons yesterday. Arturo.”

“Yes?”

“This morning Mr. Tolt was taken from his hotel room and a note was left, telling me that unless I appeared at a place called Coba tomorrow morning with something called Mejicano Rosen, Tolt would be killed.”

“Why are you telling me this? Why don’t you go to the police?”

“Because I think you know what Mejicano Rosen is.”

Ibarra looks at Herman, then at me.

“Enougha this shit,” Herman goes over and grabs Ibarra by the back of the collar, nearly lifting him out of his chair.

“What are you doin’?” I ask.

“No,” says Ibarra. “I will tell you.”

“Fuckin’A, you will. And you,” he says to me. “No wonder costs an arm and a leg to hire a lawyer. Ask a couple a questions, takes forever. Coulda shot the fucker, been outta here by now. But, nooo. You wanna talk. So you wanna talk? Consultation room’s this way,” he says.

With his forty-five making a dimple in Ibarra’s back, and the long guns in the linen bag, Herman marches Ibarra to the service elevator and pushes 8 to go down.

We drop two levels. Herman takes a quick look out. We brush by a maid on our way out of a service area and out onto the eighth floor.

Each level forms a kind of open terrace, hanging gardens of Babylon, looking over a vast atrium that forms the interior of the pyramid.

Halfway down the hall, a young couple comes breezing out of their room.

Ibarra sees the open door. His thought is nearly palpable, and for an instant I freeze, afraid he is going to run for the room and Herman will shoot him.

Herman nudges him with the gun. “Don’t even think about it.” He has a towel over the pistol, draped across his arm as if he should be carrying a finger bowl in the other hand.

As soon as we are past the couple and out of earshot, he talks to me from the corner of his mouth. “Be easier just throw the fucker off the balcony,” he says. “Score him on his swan dive in the lily pond down there.”

“Herman, we don’t know that he killed Julio. And even if he did, it’s a matter for the police.”

“I didn’t.” Ibarra waddles in front of him with the gun in his back.

“You gonna be walking with your ass on your shoulders, you don’t shut up,” says Herman.

A few doors down I find the number that matches the one penciled on the little envelope with the key card I got when I checked in downstairs.

I slide it through the lock and hear it click.

Inside with the door closed, Herman checks the bathroom and the closet, then pulls the curtains closed on the window and pushes Ibarra backward onto the bed. “Now I wanna hear you talk.”