Christopher Buckley - Wet Work

Felix opened his New England journal of Medicine and scanned an article about a surgical procedure developed by doctors in Belfast, Northern Ireland, to repair kneecaps shattered by IRA bullets. The article interested him more than most, being familiar himself with the geography of knees owing to his own torn cruciate ligaments, but he was soon lost in the technicalities of the protocols and thumbing listlessly through learned articles on hyperthyroidism, shingles, and sundry -ectomies and -omas. Finally he switched to his concealed Sports Illustrated and read with fascination an article about a Mexican priest who supported his orphanage by wrestling professionally under the name Fray Tormenta-Brother Storm. Every Saturday Fray Tormenta would hitchhike into Mexico City from the town of Xometla and earn fifty dollars for getting into the ring and being brutalized by gigantic Aztecs with names like El Insolente and Torquemada. Felix learned that in Mexico wrestling is not faked; ears get bitten off, limbs broken, genitals… At dawn Fray Tormenta would return to the orphanage, usually unconscious in the back of a pickup truck, in time to say morning Mass for his orphans. Felix's eyes were burning by the end of the article. He was tearing it out to show to Charley when his beeper went off.

They did regular beeper checks, so he walked to the phone with no particular urgency. He dialed and reached Bundy in half a ring. Bundy's voice was urgent. He said, "He's moving. Two cars. The Package and a girl up front, three goombahs following. They just turned right on Sixty-second Avenue. He's heading your way."

Felix hung up and walked back to his table. He sat down and noticed that his hands were trembling. Ignacio appeared.

"Your fish, Doctor. Aren't you well?"

"Fine."

"You've been working too hard. That's no good. Who's going to take care of us when the doctors get sick, eh?"

Felix poked at his fish. It was pointless putting any in his mouth, since it had gone completely dry. Barazo was headed for the restaurant, would walk in any moment, a man who beat up teenage girls, cut off the heads of animals to propitiate Afro-Caribbean gods, put plastic cocktail swords into people's eyes. Felix explained to himself that it was entirely rational to be scared of a man like this, but this didn't help.

Jesus Celaya Barazo made a Miami entrance a few minutes later. First to enter was one of the bodyguards, two hundred and fifty pounds or so of Ray-Banned malevolence, followed by another of similar aspect, followed by the Package and his woman. She was dark and beautiful in the conventional way, but it was the dress that demanded attention, if it could be called that. Generically it seemed more of a wet suit, though one designed to attract, rather than repel, sharks: shocking white, with a neckline that plunged itself below the navel, clearly designated by means of a conspicuous opal. The lower half of her outfit consisted of rubber hot pants and the stays of a garter belt that stretched taut a pair of black nylons studded with rhinestones. Her five-inch heels made her taller than Barazo, and forced her to walk somewhat like a circus clown on stilts. The third goombah followed behind, meting out mind-your-own-business stares to those male diners unable to concentrate on their food. The rubber left little to the imagination, and Barazo's face showed his pleasure at the libidinous fission triggered by his woman's colliding nuclei.

He was himself a heavyset man somewhere on the dark side of forty with a short ponytail and, somewhat oddly, the mustache now permanently associated with Hitler rather than with Oliver Hardy. The rest of his face was concealed under a three-day beard and oversized red sunglasses. It was a face not open to the general public.

The maitre d' created deferential bow waves as he led the party to the corner banquette that Chin had told them was reserved only for him, much the way Jilly's in New York always keeps a table for Sinatra, even if he's singing in Australia that night. Two bodyguards took up positions on either side of the booth, hands thrust into shoulder bags that Felix recognized as the rig used by the Secret Service to deemphasize their Uzi submachine guns. The third kept by the door, scowling at anyone who entered.

Champagne arrived at the table. Felix watched over the top of JAMA , heart beating loudly in his ears, trying to keep his hands from rustling the pages. The girl sidled up against Barazo. From his own table, he could see beneath Barazo's table and what he saw alarmed him. Fear seized him. A man who has his female companion administer manual labor under the table while he contemplates a dish that would make most stouthearted men gag is no man to be trifled with. Felix wanted to get out of there, right now; he reached for his wallet to pay. They could dig a tunnel or drop a hydrogen bomb on him, but this was not going to work. My God, look at him. She's… Ignacio, quickly, the check. She's finished. A finger bowl? With flower petals in it. Now she was licking the fingers ostentatiously. Classy.

Felix opened his wallet to get money and there she was, looking up at him from her high school graduation picture, taken a few days before that night in the clearing on the island. He stared. He took it out of the sleeve and turned it over and read what she'd written there, ironic words, given what had happened a few days later: "To my best friend in the world, love, T." Felix turned it over and put it back in the sleeve and when he put the wallet away his hands were no longer trembling and his heart was quiet in his ears. When he looked back at Barazo's table he saw the maitre d' nodding with a smile that could have lubed the chassis of a half dozen stretch limos; and pressed the timer on his watch. During two weeks of ordering, he and Rostow had devised a squid algorithm. The calamares should arrive on Barazo's table in six minutes.

Felix waited three minutes and got up and started walking as if he were going to the pay phone. When he passed the counter on which the cooks set the dishes to be picked up by the waiters, he stopped. He peered over the counter. The kitchen was a sweat hive of activity. One of the cooks stood nearby, hunched over, clobbering the claws of stone crabs with a wooden mallet.

" Hola ," said Felix. The cook looked up and nodded politely. Felix said in Spanish, "The food is good here, really good."

" Gracias. "

Felix reached inside his pocket and flipped open the lid of the saltshaker. "I've eaten here every night for two weeks and each dish is better than the one before."

The cook smiled again, this time more easily. He said, "You must be getting pretty sick of it, then."

" Al contrario. " Felix beamed. "I only hope I can eat my way through everything before I leave town."

"Have you tried the grouper? It's good. We poach it in a scallop broth with cilantro. It's nice."

"You know, what I really want to try is the calamares en su tinta . I bet that's really good."

The cook shrugged. "Well, if you like that sort of thing."

"You know, I'd like to try it, but I'm a little, you know, I didn't eat my first raw oyster till a few years ago. What's it look like?"

"Someone's just ordered some." He shouted, " Oye, Milton, dame los calamares. " He set the dish on the counter in front of Felix. "Here," he said. "It's peasant food."

Felix leaned over to smell, the shaker ready inside his hand. "Urn," he managed. " Sabroso. " The cook turned back to his half-hammered crabs.

A moment later a hand whisked the dish off the countertop.

"So," said the cook, looking up. "Are you going to order calamares? "

"I think I'll go for the grouper, thanks." Felix smiled.

"Good choice," winked the cook.