T. Parker - The Jaguar

“Throw in the plate,” he said.

She held the plate in both hands, testing its weight and balance, then reached back and unleashed it like a flying disc. It sailed briefly then sliced into the water and was gone.

“Good,” he said.

“Yes.”

“There is bad news about Charlie Bravo.”

She felt her anger spike and her exhaustion return, but she said nothing.

“He was difficult to understand on the telephone. Evidently he became lost in Mexico. He mistook Monterey for Merida and now the hurricane has closed the highways. So he cannot be here on the agreed day. Of course, he cannot get on an airplane with such money. He begged for your life.”

“What did you tell him?”

“Mrs. McKenna, I have never in my life been untruthful to a promise.”

“So, on that day you kill me.”

He looked at her for a long moment but his back was to the lowering moon and she couldn’t see his face. “However I am now willing to negotiate with you.”

“So, negotiate.”

“I will give Charlie Bravo one additional day to get here if you will write and record the song. It is to be about me and this time and place in which we live.”

“I’ve never written a song in three days.”

“The studio would be yours.”

“The greatest narcocorrido ever written. In three days.”

“Yes.”

“What if I fail? What if you don’t like it?”

“I ask for a work of your heart. Not for the heart itself.”

“Or you take my skin.”

He nodded as if annoyed. “Maybe you would like to walk from your room to the studio when you desire. Then go back to your room when you desire to go. You would have Owens to be your escort for these small journeys. And perhaps this freedom would help you write.”

Erin felt emotions trying to form-hope, joy, gratitude, exultation. But they were only partial, still paralyzed by her fear. One more day to live was one more day to escape. One more day for Bradley to get here, if he was having any trouble at all. Take the day, girl. “You leave me no choice. Yes.”

“I am very pleased. We shall now celebrate with a very good dinner. You will tell me about being a girl in Texas. And I will tell you about being a boy in Veracruz. Did you know that Veracruz means true cross? Because Cortez landed there on Good Friday in fifteen-nineteen. Four hundred and ninety-three years ago-the first European city in Mexico. Cortez brought flamenco and folklorico and violins and cellos and guitarons! Or, perhaps these came later. We will talk and talk and talk. Then you will begin the writing.”

The next morning Hood walked through the lobby of the Merida Hyatt Regency, then into the growing heat of the city. Twenty-four hours in Merida and nothing, he thought. Didn’t Armenta want his cool million? The thought crossed his mind that Armenta may be playing him like a starting pitcher, letting him go as long as he needed before bringing in the closer-the sicarios would just swarm in, take the money and kill him once and for all. He was in the heart of the Gulf Cartel’s turf, at Armenta’s mercy.

He lost himself in the sidewalk crowd and called up to Luna again. Then he went to the street corner and bought another cup of iced coffee from a vendor and walked back the way he had come, past the lobby, to the next intersection. He stood and watched the cars and trucks go by. He bought a pack of gum off a cart. Merida was a colonial city but the hotel was in the newer financial district. Ivana had trampled the northeast and now the weather was hot and humid. There were still downed trees and power lines and a shortage of fresh water in parts of the city but Merida was back to business so far as Hood could see.

He took his time walking back to the lobby, where he got another newspaper and tried to remain obvious and approachable. He got his boots shined and ate breakfast in the hotel cafe while he tried to read the paper. The satellite phone buzzed on his hip.

“Has he called? Where are you?” asked Bradley.

“Hold.” Hood pocketed the phone and went into the men’s room, bolting himself in a private stall at the far end of the row. “Merida. Nothing from Armenta. Silence.”

“Wednesday’s the payday, Charlie. Day after tomorrow. You can’t stall out in Merida.”

“I can’t just show up at the Castle, either. I’m not supposed to know where she is, remember? He’d kill me on principle, and probably her too. Where are you?”

“Close to her. Two-point-four miles of jungle away. I got in yesterday. I’m a gringo fisherman staying at the Hotel Laguna in Bacalar. Cleary is my fishing bud and Caroline Vega is his girlfriend. We’ve got a rental car and a rental motorboat and tackle for tomorrow. For tarpon fishing off Cayo Lobos, you know? But if Erin can hit her mark, the four of us will be across the Bacalar Lagoon and headed for the airport in Chetumal. We’ve got Fidel and his men for protection. We’ll be in the air about the time Armenta knows she’s missing. Now, if something happens to me or she can’t get away to find me, that leaves you one day to get the money to him. You’re the clean-up hitter, Charlie. If you can’t deliver, we’ll have to use force.”

“Where are Fidel and the men?”

“Camped in the jungle between here and her. We were ambushed in Campeche. Five dead. Nineteen of us left. They’ve got food, water, guns, and ammo. They’re ready if all else fails, Charlie.”

“Don’t storm the Castle.”

“I will if I have to. What else can I do? Tell me.”

Hood considered. If something went wrong on Tuesday, and Armenta didn’t bring Hood to the Castle with payment on Wednesday, as agreed, what other choice was there? “If it comes to that, you’ve got two more guns.”

Bradley was silent for a beat. “You really do love me, don’t you?”

“Call me when you have her and I’ll try to get back to the United States with your money. If I don’t hear from you or Armenta tomorrow, I’ll be at the Hotel Laguna before sunrise, day after. And we’ll break her out.”

“We’ve got three chances, Charlie. Only one needs to work.”

“I’m hoping for door number one.”

“So am I. Erin and I could be on a jet for LAX by tomorrow morning.”

“If you are, give her my regards.”

“Casita four.” Bradley hung up.

Hood put the phone in his pocket and walked back to his table. He glanced at the newspaper on the table before him, asked for another cup of coffee. The waiter brought the coffee and the check without Hood having to ask for it, which was unusual in Mexico. A muscular man in running sweats walked casually into the room, carrying a leather messenger’s pouch. He came toward him and Hood wondered if his luck had just changed.

The young man glanced at Hood through dark glasses, reached into the bag, drew a cell phone and plopped into a seat with his back to Hood, signaling the waiter with sharp waves of his arm. Suddenly, as if he felt Hood’s eyes on him, the man wheeled and pulled off his glasses.

“Can I help you?”

“Sorry. I mistook you for someone else.”

“Mexico is no place for mistakes.”

Hood paid and browsed the gift shop and the newsstand. He bought Beth Petty a small stone replica of a Mayan temple. She was a collector of rocks and fossils and she would appreciate it. He had the clerk wrap the box in shipping paper and he walked it to the nearest post office and mailed it to her.

He strolled the neighborhood, napped upstairs, read, and watched TV and played peso poker with Luna and waited.

Late that evening as the darkness weighed down on the eastern sky Hood felt it descend on his heart as well and he began to believe that Erin McKenna had only two more days of life on Earth.