Joe Lansdale: Captains Outrageous

“When we get her to the room,” Brett said, “maybe you could tuck her in, give her a bottle.”

I made a snorting sound. “I hope you’re not jealous of someone we just tried to chloroform and hit on the head.”

“I’m jealous of someone who looks like a magazine cover, that’s what I’m jealous of,” Brett said.

Jim Bob knocked, Ferdinand opened the door. Jim Bob and Leonard dragged the guards inside. I carried the woman and put her on the bed. She had begun to stir. She opened her eyes. Brett, smiling, leaned forward and pushed the chloroform-filled towel over her nose. The woman struggled briefly, went out.

Brett pulled the towel away.

“Tie up and gag these mooses,” Jim Bob said. “And quick before they wake up. Tie her up too, and pull her dress down. I don’t need to see that. I like it, but I don’t need to see it. I better not see it. Damn, those panties are sheer…”

“We get the picture,” Brett said.

We bound them and gagged them with strips of sheets. We poured the chloroform down the sink, put the towel in the tub. The air was still fairly stout with it. We opened a window. We turned on the TV set, sat the bodyguards on the floor with their backs against the bed.

We found a Spanish game show. Jim Bob patted them on the head and we left out of there, the woman in the duffel bag, slung over Leonard’s shoulder.

We rode the elevator down. As Jim Bob and Brett stopped at the desk with our keys, prepared to check us out, Leonard and I walked outside to the curb. There was a black van there. Cesar got out of it, nodded at us. He opened the side of the van. Leonard put the duffel bag on the seat, closed the door.

“We will see you in Playa del Carmen in a while,” Cesar said. “We must drive the whole way. Where is Jim Bob?”

“Coming,” Leonard said.

Jim Bob and Brett came out. Jim Bob got in the van. Before he closed the door I looked at the duffel bag on the seat. “She’s moving,” I said.

Jim Bob reached inside his coat, pulled out the blackjack. With a motion a ballet dancer would have appreciated, he shifted in his seat and smacked the bag where the head was. The bag quit moving.

“Goddamn, Jim Bob,” I said. “It’s not her we want to hurt.”

“You want I should take her to a bullfight?” Jim Bob said. “A bump on her head is better than us in a Mexican jail. You should know.”

I closed the door, Cesar drove them away.

We had a slightly better ride to the airport than from it. I was able to get out of the taxi without feeling faint. Our life had only been in danger maybe half a dozen times.

We caught our flight out without incident, arrived that night in Cancun, took our rental back to Playa del Carmen. We didn’t have reservations, but we got our same hotel without trouble. Leonard got a room. Brett and I shared a room.

That night, when she finished brushing her teeth, Brett said, “Do you think that woman is beautiful?”

I was stepping out of the shower. “Ravishing,” I said.

“She was very pretty.”

“Ravishing.”

“Don’t overdo it if you want Mr. Happy to actually be happy tonight.”

“But with that knot on her head from the blackjack, not so beautiful. And you know what? Jim Bob may have hit her again. Maybe a lot of times. She could be real ugly by now.”

“That’s better. And dry under your balls. I hate it when they’re sticky on my ass.”

“You say the most exciting things,” I said.

“Do you know what they’re planning to do?”

“About as much as you do. They’ll drive her to Cesar’s, taking their time. Maybe stop along the way a couple of nights. Tomorrow, a couple of us go to see the man, tell him we have her, and then we lay the trap.”

Brett had slipped out of her clothes, and I was enjoying watching her pull on a nightie with no underwear. No underwear was always a good sign.

Three nights later, about three A.M., we got a call.

“Come over.” It was Jim Bob.

“On our way.”

I woke Brett up. Called Leonard’s room, fifteen minutes later we were in the rental, wheeling our way to Cesar’s house.

Cesar let us in. He was colorful as usual, a purple shirt with red and green parrots on it, white slacks and slip-on white shoes without socks.

Jim Bob looked his usual self, but for the moment, he was without his hat. I was surprised to discover he had hair.

Ferdinand was sitting quietly in a chair, hands rested in his lap. He looked calm, as if he were waiting to drop the lever on a guillotine. He smiled thinly at us, nodded his head.

Hermonie sat on one end of the couch, looking pretty and inscrutable in a pale yellow pants suit. When we came in, she didn’t speak, didn’t change her expression. There was nothing about her to acknowledge we had entered the room except a lifting of her eyes.

On the other end of the couch, her hands cuffed in front of her, a chain fastened to the center of the cuffs on her ankles, was the mistress. She looked like a goddess, except for a faint blue bruise above her right eye. I assumed, under that luxurious mane of black hair, would be at least one blackjack knot. She was smoldering. I half expected the couch to burst into flames.

On the coffee table in front of the mistress was a plate of food, untouched from the looks of it.

“More bastards!” she said. “You are all bastards!”

“Actually,” Brett said, “technically, I’m a bitch.”

“Bastards! All bastards!”

“Her English,” Jim Bob said, “is quite good, especially when it comes to cuss words. We took our time getting here, and we’ve had her here awhile, doing a bit of interrogation.”

“Juan Miguel will kill you,” she said. “He will have you skinned. He will nail your skins to walls and he will piss on them.”

“Do you want to be gagged?” Jim Bob said. “I’ll use my dirty underwear again.”

The mistress went silent, but the looks she gave Jim Bob were almost enough to skin him without Juan Miguel’s help.

“Her name is Ileana,” Jim Bob said.

“Fuck you, you pig,” Ileana said. “Fuck you. Fuck you.”

“Dirty underwear, dear,” Jim Bob said. “Ones with the Hershey stains in the seat.”

“Jesus,” Brett said. “You’re not even threatening to gag me and I’m scared.”

Ileana went silent again, but she wasn’t happy about it.

“What’s next?” I said.

“We have already contacted Juan Miguel,” Jim Bob said. “Told him we had his woman. He really wants her back,” Jim Bob said. “I don’t know he cares for her so much-”

“He loves me,” Ileana said. “He loves me much. He will hate you much.”

Jim Bob put a finger to his lips. “You be quiet now. As I was saying, I don’t know how much he cares for her, but he wants her back, talks like he’s lost a wallet or something and wants it back. He doesn’t talk like she’s a person.”

“Neither do you,” Brett said.

“No, I don’t, lady. It makes things easier not to. He wants her back, so I arranged a meeting. You and me, Hap. We’ll do it.”

“Will it be safe?” Brett said.

“Safe as we can make it,” Jim Bob said. “We got something Juan Miguel wants.”

Jim Bob stopped at a phone booth on the way into Playa del Carmen. He didn’t want to chance Cesar’s home phone or cell phone number. If the number could be traced, Juan Miguel might have the contacts to trace it.

Cesar had somehow gotten Juan Miguel’s number, either through research or from Ileana. I hoped he had not done anything bad to her to get it.

Jim Bob called and talked while I stood outside the old rickety phone booth. As he talked, three young Mexican men wandered over in our direction.