Robert Browne - Down Among the Dead Men

They were young and loud and Vargas marveled at how Americans seemed to lose all sense of decorum when they were drunk and on vacation, coming into a foreign country as if they owned it and had the right to be served, screw anyone who got in their way.

Vargas himself tried to blend in whenever possible, no matter what country he might visit. And he was sure there were many Americans just like him. But the loud ones always got the attention and helped generate the anti-American sentiment that pervaded so many countries.

Stalled on the sidewalk, waiting for a crowd of oncoming tourists to pass, Vargas felt a tap on his shoulder and turned, hoping it was Beth.

Instead, he found a couple of glassy-eyed twenty-year-olds staring up at him, both wearing tight black dresses, their faces painted white, with smudges of black around the eye sockets.

“Aren’t you that guy?” one of them said.

Vargas was at a loss. “Guy?”

“The one from that Desperado movie.”

“Antonio Banderas,” the other one said, running a finger suggestively along the line of her cleavage. “You’re him, aren’t you? Is it true Salma Hayek is only like five feet tall?”

“No habla ingles,” Vargas told her, then turned and continued up the street.

Two blocks later, he saw it. A leather-goods shop directly across from an enclosed oblong structure jutting out from the curb, crowded with diners.

Vargas searched their faces, saw no sign of Beth, then crossed to the leather-goods shop and went inside.

The place was jammed with tourists looking at handmade jackets and belts and handbags and luggage. Vargas worked his way to the register, told the woman behind the counter who he was looking for, and did his best to describe Beth.

The women eyed him as if he were a crazy man and gestured to the half-dozen Beth look-alikes who crowded her store.

Nodding, Vargas went back outside.

Next stop: Armando’s.

Armando’s Cantina was an institution in Playa Azul. Opened in the late 1800s, it had seen the town grow up around it, turning into a thriving seaport.

But the moment Vargas stepped inside, he knew he had wasted the trip. Not only was Beth not here, but the place was so crowded, the music and conversation and laughs so loud and obnoxious, that if she had bothered to come by, he was pretty sure she would have fled immediately.

As he stepped back out onto the sidewalk and closed the door behind him, a thought occurred to him:

Seaport.

The cruise liner.

He’d seen it docked in the harbor when they drove into town.

If Beth was in a bad way, if she was-as Pasternak had told him-reliving the same two days over and over, wasn’t it possible that she would have gone to the ship thinking that she was still a passenger?

Cutting across the street, he headed in the direction of the harbor. But as the ship came into view his cell phone rang.

He answered it without looking at the screen. “Vargas.”

“Hey, pocho, you’re on for midnight.”

“Little Fina?”

“She didn’t want to talk to you, but I told her you were writing a book and might make her famous.”

Vargas hesitated. “How did you know I was writing a book?”

“Come on, genius. Your cousin Tito, remember? You think I’m gonna sell merchandise to a guy, I don’t know something about him? He told me your whole sad story.”

“I’ll have to remember to thank him for that.”

“You can thank me, too, while you’re at it. Where you staying? I’ll pick you up around eleven forty-five.”

“You don’t need to do that. Just tell me how to get there.”

Ortiz snorted. “It don’t work that way, pocho. I drive or it don’t happen.”

“Okay, fine,” Vargas said, then told him the name of his hotel. “What kind of car do you drive?”

“Look for a blue and white taxi.”

“You’re a cabdriver?”

“Hey, man, you think I can make a living selling popguns to cheap bastards like you? Tourism, baby. That’s where the real money is.”

They hung up and Vargas continued west, waiting at the light to cross Avenida Reforma toward the Playa Azul port terminal.

Up ahead was a road leading directly to the ship. The road was gated, with a security guard standing watch.

And there was Beth, yelling at him.

Vargas couldn’t hear what she was saying. But the moment the light turned green, he darted across the street and approached them, Beth’s voice coming into range:

“What do you mean, you can’t let me in? I just got off the ship this morning.”

“No seafare card,” the man said in broken English. “No seafare card, no enter.”

“I told you, I lost it. Now, if you can’t-”

“Beth.”

She turned, saw Vargas approaching. Squinted at him. “Yes?”

“It’s me. Nick.”

She just stared at him. “Nick? Nick who? How do you know my name?”

He gestured to the guard, said in Spanish, “It’s okay, she’s with me.”

The guard nodded and turned away, going back to his booth.

“What did you just tell him?” Beth snapped. “Who the hell are you?”

Vargas moved in close, took hold of her shoulders, but she jerked away. “Let go of me!”

He reached for her again. “Beth, it’s me. Nick.”

“What the hell are you doing? Let me-”

“Stop. Listen to me.” He grabbed her shoulders and held firm. “You didn’t just get off that ship. You haven’t been on it in months.”

“Get the hell away from me, you fucking perv-”

“ Listen to me, Beth. You’re not well. Your head was injured and you haven’t been thinking straight. We came to Playa Azul to try to help you remember.”

“What are you talking about? Remember what?”

“ Concentrate, ” Vargas told her. “Look at me and concentrate. I’m Nick Vargas. I’m writing a book about you and your sister, Jen.”

At the sound of her sister’s name, Beth’s eyes came into sharp focus and she stared at him. He could almost see her mind trying to put it all together.

Then there was a sudden shift in her gaze, a look of recognition, then realization, and she stopped resisting.

She was back. “Oh my God…,” she said. “Oh my God…”

“It’s okay.”

Her eyes filled with tears. “I can’t believe…I…”

“It’s okay,” he said again, then pulled her into his arms, letting her cry against his chest. “Don’t worry about it. I’m here. You’re gonna be fine. We’re gonna be okay.”

And as she continued to cry, he wondered if that would ever be true.

“I’ve never been so embarrassed in all my life,” Beth said.

They were back in her hotel room now, and she didn’t seem to be able to look him in the eye. She stood by the window, staring out at the courtyard, silhouetted against a darkening sky.

She looked waiflike, vulnerable. But now that her headache had cleared and she’d regained her mental faculties, she sounded exactly like the hardened prosecutor she once was.

“I’m lucky that poor guard didn’t have me arrested.”

“It’s not like you jumped up on a table and did a striptease,” Vargas said. “There’s nothing to be embarrassed about.”

“That’s easy for you to say. You weren’t the one wandering the streets like a crazy woman.”

Vargas sighed. She had a point.

On the walk back, he’d been trying to figure out the best thing to do-what was best for her — and he’d come to only one conclusion.

“Listen, Beth. Maybe I should take you back to the clinic.”

She turned, looking at him now. “Forget it.”

“You’re not well,” he said. “And as much as I hate to say it, you need supervision. God knows what would’ve happened if I hadn’t found you.”