Joe Lansdale: Captains Outrageous

I said, “Here are our demands. And we want you to know our reasons. So just listen. And tell Gorgo here to go play somewhere. He makes me nervous.”

Juan Miguel spoke something in Spanish. Hammerhead’s face stayed just the same. Not a flick of an eyelash. He went to the pool, dove in, began to swim.

“Because of his size, the way he looks,” Juan Miguel said, “you might think he is a fool. He is not. He is very strong. And very loyal. He would do anything I ask. I want you to keep that in mind as you deal with me. You must prove to me that Ileana is alive. That she is okay. That she is unharmed merchandise.”

“We can do that,” Jim Bob said. “That’s how we’ll begin the down payment, with proof she’s okay.”

“What kind of proof?”

“A phone call. She can speak to you to let you know she’s all right. We come back here, you give us half the money.”

“How much is this half?”

“This half is two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. The other half, well, obviously we’re talking half a million here. But you try to be smart. You try to get by not paying the money, I’ll send her head home to you in a box. Comprende?”

Juan Miguel said, “Very well. But what has this to do with the people you named?”

“You’re making me mad,” I said.

“That bothers me so greatly,” Juan Miguel said.

Jim Bob looked at his watch. “We’re not back in half an hour, they kill the girl. So you had best listen and cut with the shit. Tell him, Hap.”

I gave him a brief outline of the events I thought he needed to know, and when I was finished, Juan Miguel said: “That was a personal matter. She had it coming. She lied to me. She did not do as she said. That I cannot allow. I will not allow it with you. Do you understand?”

“What about Charlie, the man you killed because you thought it was me?”

“I thought you had helped her to try and con me. I did not like that. The same with this Billy. Mistakes. I can see that now. I was angry. I like to make a clean sweep, as you Americans say. I have her killed. She gives your name. They find this other man’s name on a card. I send Hammerhead to the States. He does the job. He comes home.”

“That’s it?”

“That is it, senor. Nothing mysterious. That is all.”

I wondered how a giant like Hammerhead had wandered around LaBorde without the cops hearing about him from some source. Juan Miguel must not have been kidding about him being smart.

I suppose I had wanted there to be more, some semi-valid reason for all the deaths, but there was none. It was as Jim Bob had figured. Juan Miguel cleaning up after himself, not wanting any messes left over from his dealings with Beatrice.

“So, this is your plan,” Juan Miguel said. “I could hold you, of course. I could make sure you do not leave.”

“We been over that,” Jim Bob said. “Fuck with us, the woman’s dead. For whatever reason, even if the reason belongs to someone else, you fuck up, she’s toast.”

“Toast?”

Jim Bob slapped the back of his hand into his palm. “Burned. Done. Wiped out.”

“Very well,” Juan Miguel said. “But do not make a mistake. Take care of Ileana. Very good care. And when I get her back. When you have your money. Please run. Run very far. For I will be at your back, my friends.”

“We’ll remember that,” Jim Bob said.

“There’s just one more thing,” I said.

“There always is,” Juan Miguel said.

“The archaeological items you wanted from Beatrice. They are real and they are available. They are for sale.”

“You must be out of your mind,” Juan Miguel said. “I would not buy them from you.”

“Well, you see,” I said, “they sort of go with the deal.”

“Then we are not talking half a million of your dollars, are we?”

“I suppose not. I will reveal the location of the facades when I see the money.”

“I no longer want them.”

“That doesn’t matter. You’ll pay for them anyway. And then I won’t give them to you. I’ll donate them to the Anthropology Museum in Mexico City.”

“How much?”

“That’ll be another half million.”

“A million American dollars. That is outrageous. No woman is worth that.”

“Well, considering you can buy pussy for about two dollars in some places, I reckon you’re right,” Jim Bob said. “But if this woman is someone you like specifically, and can’t be replaced easy – and let me tell you, she looks to me hard to replace under any circumstances – well, then, at least to you, she’s worth a million dollars. It was me, and I was in your position, I’d buy her back. Oh boy, would I. And you want her, good buddy, you better let us leave in less than five minutes so we can stop and make a phone call along the way, say the deal’s on so she doesn’t get snuffed. And don’t follow. I wouldn’t like it.”

“My men could work on you until I knew what I wanted to know,” Juan Miguel said. “They are very good at that sort of thing.”

“That’s nice, but we made a pact with our group. We don’t know anyone’s real names. That way, you can torture us all you want, and we can’t even tell you where each other lives, except the two of us. We know each other. But you got us. So how would that help? And it don’t matter we did know, we told you where she is. By the time you get through doing what you got to do, it’ll be way too late. I can hold out that long, I promise you.”

Juan Miguel looked at his men, then he looked at us. I tried to remain cool and calm. I glanced at Jim Bob. He looked like he was waiting on a waiter to bring him a beer.

“Go,” Juan Miguel said. “Go. I will be waiting for her call. And she must answer me. It cannot be thought to be a recording. I must ask a question and she must answer so that I know she is alive and unharmed.”

“Fine,” Jim Bob said. “Remember, we’ll be listening. And I better not see your men, or your giant, anytime during the dealings. And when it comes time to trade, you’ll do it our way. Just you. And dress up, would you? And by the way, before we leave I want my pocketknife, and he wants his four pesos back.”

We went out to the car. Jim Bob drove us out of there. When we were away from the house, he checked the rearview.

“Well?” I asked.

“No one’s following.”

“Good,” I said, letting it out like a sigh.

Jim Bob held out his hand. It was shaking violently. He said, “Will you look at that?”

I held up my own shaking hand.

“Twins,” I said.

That night, in the hotel, Brett and I sat by our window in chairs pulled close together. I had wrapped some ice in a towel, and was holding it to the back of my head, trying to bring the swelling down on a knot one of Juan Miguel’s Golems had given me.

We sat there with the shades wide, looked at the pedestrian walk and the sea beyond. The water looked oily and there were a number of dead fish washed up close to shore and they too were covered with something dark and slick.

The moon was a nasty slice of limburger, spotted by clouds that looked like soggy boles of field-spoiled cotton.

Jim Bob had dropped me off and driven out to Cesar’s.

“You really think Juan Miguel will come through with the money?” Brett asked.

“Truthfully, I don’t know. And it doesn’t matter. We don’t want the money.”

“But he might come through with it.”

“You want the money, right?”

“Of course not. It’s blood money. I don’t want that. But what if he did come through with the money?”

“We meet him, he has the money, we kill him. We leave the money.”

“It would be a shame to leave all that money. A quarter million first time, right? I mean, that’s a lot of money to just leave lying around.”