Читать книгу The Luck of the Maya - Theodore Brazeau - Страница 5

LUCY 1978

That must be the place, I thought, squinting in the sunlight. It’s ugly enough. The bar had been pointed out to me some time ago. I wasn’t sure I’d remembered correctly and there was no sign to help out.

How can you have a place of business with no sign, I thought.

I parked the dumpy little Office car I was driving and hoped it would be stolen. Then they would have to get a new one and I could help pick it out.

I was dressed very ordinary that day, in practical clothes. Jeans and boots, with one of my Mexican blouses and a little silver. Not trying to impress. Not looking for trouble, either, and I didn’t expect any, even though this was a kind of sleazy part of Houston. I wasn’t even armed.

Avoiding the worst of the trash in the street, I went to the supposed bar and pushed open the door. It was so dark I couldn’t see a thing. I stood for a minute while my eyes adjusted to the gloom.

Sure enough, it was a bar. A few barristers slouched up to the bar, sitting crookedly on stools. A couple of them stared at me owlishly, blinking at the bright doorway, the rest stared at their drinks. If I wanted any trouble from this bunch I’d have to help them off their stools.

Now I could see a little better and I spied my guys in the back booth with a few empties on the table. I hoped they weren’t too far gone into the beer. I wanted to talk to them.

I’d never met these two before, but I knew who they were. I’d seen them at a disco some months ago. They were sitting at a table on the upper level and caught my eye. I don’t know why, maybe just because they were kind of cute.

At the time, I was at the disco with Martin and my cousin Gonzalo and I had asked. Gonzalo didn’t know them, but Martin had worked with them a couple of times down on the border. He filled me in a little, and I was surprised to learn we had acquaintances in common. I even knew the uncle of one of them, who had done some cattle business with my father years ago. Martin said they did some low level smuggling out of Brownsville. No drugs, just miscellaneous stuff. Good guys, he said.

I hoped so, because here I was.

They were staring at me as I walked over and sat down. They continued to stare, so I said, “I am not a whore,” just to start the conversation.

CARLOS 1978

Jeb and I were sitting in a no name bar in Houston, in the far left booth by the back door. The bar would have had a nice view of a street lined with junk cars if it had had any windows, but that would be far too luxurious for this establishment. It was crummier than most, but Jeb and I hung out here from time to time. We didn’t really like the place, no one could, but the beer was cheap and it was handy. Besides nobody here ever asked any questions. No one was ever sober enough to think of one, and that included the bartender.

We were on our third beer and hashing out our last job. Semi-successful we concluded. Successful because we made out like the bandits we were and our pockets and bank accounts were fuller than they deserved to be. Unsuccessful because it would be a long time before we’d be able to work or even show our faces in Matamoros. Or even Brownsville. I was crying in my beer about that. Brownsville is my hometown and what little family still speaks to me is down there. Well, Jeb had said, you can write, they can read. A lot he cares, he’s an orphan anyway. We had a good start on some dandy beards and mustaches, but I didn’t think they were good enough to keep us out of trouble on the border.

And not only on the border, we’d had a little trouble the night before, right here in Houston.

We’d planned to meet at a bar—not this one—a slightly more upscale one where you might actually find a girl.

“I had just parked the car,” Jeb had told me at the time. “I looked around and saw this Ford wagon picking up speed and coming real fast toward me. I saw a gun poking out the window, pointing in my direction, so I dove down and rolled between the parked cars. They shot, hit the two cars, and they were gone.” He showed me where his new shirt was torn, and the dirt stains.

Did you see them? I had asked. Or was it too dark?

“Not too dark with all the neon, but it happened too fast, and I was too busy crawling around in the dirt. It’s got to be that bunch from Matamoros, who else?”

We were hashing it over again, but I thought he was right. It wasn’t random, and they were on to us.

The street door opened and some of the barflies looked up. So did we. This was unusual. Her eyes adjusting to the gloom after the Houston sunshine, a striking looking woman stood just inside. In here? Never happen.

She stood there for a minute, adjusting to the dimness, and headed right for our booth. She sat down next to Jeb, across from me. This couldn’t be a whore, I thought, not in this place. The few whores that came in here looked more like trolls. This was not a troll.

She was a little taller than average. A cloud of jet-black hair surrounded an oval face with commanding black eyes and nicely curved lips. Her skin was a translucent brown that exuded good health. I wanted to touch her, just for a minute. Or longer. She was dressed simply. A Mexican blouse, blue jeans tucked into boots, silver Mexican earrings and a wide belt of silver disks to match.

She looked great!

“I am not a whore,” she said. Does this woman read minds? I kept my mouth shut to see what would happen, but Jeb started babbling. A beautiful woman turns him to jelly. Hell, any woman does. I kicked him under the table and he gave me a look, but tapered off on the nonsense.

“I have a job for you,” she said, “good money.” Jeb and I had just been saying we wouldn’t have to work for a good while, that last gig being what it was. And couldn’t if it involved Matamoros or anywhere in the state of Tamaulipas. Or South Texas. Maybe not Houston, either. But, if this woman was in the mix, it might be worthwhile.

I doubted she was any kind of cop, but who knows. Why us? I asked, suspicious. “You come recommended,” she said, with a funny kind of off-center smile. Who would do that? I asked. She named three names. I knew two of them. They’re all dead, I said. I had even attended the funeral of the two I knew. From a distance, that is—we were trying to keep out of sight as much as possible after our recent activities in Matamoros. But I had grown up with them and wanted to show a little respect. If that’s the word.

“When, where and how much?” Jeb said. One good thing about Jeb, he recovers his equilibrium when money is mentioned.

“Right now, mostly México, and you split two hundred thou,” she answered, the little smile still in place. I asked where in México, wondering if it could be somewhere we dared to go. “The place is southern Campeche and Quintana Roo, maybe Guatemala.” I thought the location was fine, about as far as you can get from Matamoros, but we needed a whole lot more information before we went traipsing off.

What’s this all about, I asked. The little smile disappeared. “It’s about luck, good and bad. Suerte, buena y mala.” Could you be a little more specific? I asked.

“There is an item somewhere in that area that needs to be delivered to a place in Houston. We make our money finding it, bringing it to Houston and delivering it. Simple enough,” she said, and the smile was back.

‘Somewhere’ covers a lot of territory, so does ‘Simple’, I said. And we can’t bring anything through Matamoros or Reynosa, too risky for us.

“No es problema,” she said and the little smile held on. “You like Juárez and El Paso?” Might work, I answered, but I’m still hung up on ‘Somewhere’ and ‘Simple’.

“The ‘Somewhere’ is part of our problem, where we earn our keep, but I have a pretty good idea where we’ll need to go. The ‘Simple’, I’ll admit is a bit of an understatement, it won’t really be all that simple. We will have generous seed money and contacts that know the area. The rest is up to us.”

You’re assuming there is an ‘us’. We’re still a little short on detail, I said. How do we get to ‘Somewhere’? What do we deliver? Who do we deliver to? Who else is involved? And, who are you?

I was afraid this was about drugs. Jeb and I don’t get into that, not because we are such saints, but because it’s not worth it. Being a mule to cross drugs doesn’t pay much and, once you get involved with those guys, your life expectancy starts getting shorter and shorter. We just stay out of their way and do our own thing.

“I’ve got our route all planned out. Trust me on this part for the moment. I’ll fill in the details in a while, but getting there is the least of our worries.” I could believe that.

She pulled out a Triple-A map of México, folded it to show the Guatemala, Belize and México border region. Pointing to a blank area on the map, she said, “We start here.” I looked more closely. There was a tiny spot there with a name. ‘El Hormiguero’ I read. ‘The Anthill’. Great. “No,” she said, “there’s a little place near there called ‘Los Muertos’. That’s where we start.” Even better: ‘The Dead’.

What do we do when we get there, I asked. I didn’t think this was going to work out.

“We head south,” she said. “We’ll get most of our gear in Campeche. I have contacts in the area. These contacts will help and most are people I know. I don’t want them to be any more involved than they have to be. Some will be, though, can’t be helped. They’ll be with us, and they know the area.”

“As for me, I’m Lucy,” she said as if expecting that to explain everything. “María Lucinda Montalvo y Carranza, a su servicio.” She shook both our hands Mexican style. I thought Jeb held on a little too long. I know I did. I asked for more information. You can never have too much information, even if you don’t believe any of it.

“Se me han contratado,” she said, speaking Spanish now, “I have been contracted to form a small expedition to go into the Petén forest in this area.” She pointed to the map. “There are hundreds of Mayan ruins there and among them are three small pyramids that we are interested in. They are unnamed and unknown even to archeologists. Of course, local people know they exist and they try to avoid them. They say they can feel the old gods there and they don’t want to anger them. Even most of those local people are vague on the exact locations. I have seen only one of the three. The ‘Item’ is at one of them, but we don’t know which one yet. It varies.” Varies? I thought. That implies someone is doing the varying and that someone may not be happy with us butting in and carrying off something. I said as much.

“This is true. There may be some local objections. There is some controversy,” Lucy said, “but it is minor. More important, I should tell you we are not alone. There are others with the same idea. They are not very nice people. I’ve met some of them. Briefly.” The off-center smile returned.

“Because of these people, we should move fast, and even faster on the way back. We leave two days from today.” I looked at Jeb. He shrugged, his usual response. Lucy explained our route, crossing at Laredo/Nuevo Laredo, then south and east to Veracruz. At least we would avoid Matamoros although not by as much as I would like. Nuevo Laredo is still in Tamaulipas.

Maybe it was the beer, we were on our fifth by now (only two for Lucy), More likely it was Lucy herself. I am normally a rather suspicious person, not to say paranoid, but Lucy has what you might call a Presence that seemed to override a lot of that. Also she has a look to her that makes a man feel silly all over.

She gave us some names. Mutual acquaintances, she said. Check me out, she said. We have been, I thought. I looked over the list. As far as I knew them, these were good guys, stand up guys. Hell, one was my uncle in Brownsville, the one who was still speaking to me.

“We’ll need some basic jungle gear, but we’re traveling light, so don’t go overboard. We’ll get most of what we need when we get to Campeche,” she said. Car? Guns? I asked. Even though I hate guns, don’t even like to touch them, sometimes they’re your best buddies.

“No guns for now,” she said, “the fun won’t start for a while. I’ve got the car. You’ll love it.” She pushed a shopping list across the table and handed a wad of cash under the table. You don’t wave cash around in a seedy Houston bar. Any Houston bar. “We’ll meet here at noon the day after tomorrow.” Lucy left. Jeb and I thought about shopping. About going south. About getting rich. About getting dead.

LUCY

I told them I had a job for them, and that it was good money. They were a little reluctant at first, but I thought they would come around

They didn’t know me, of course, and would want to do a little research. I gave them some names I knew they knew, including Carlos’ uncle in Brownsville. I remember the uncle from years ago in Chetumal when he was buying and selling cattle with my father. A large man, I recalled, with a big laugh.

We ordered beers, and I gave them the condensed version of the job. It was too unlikely and too complicated to lay the whole thing on them at once. I didn’t get much into the stories and legends surrounding the ‘Item’, or, as it is often called, the Lobil—the Badness. It brought bad luck, or good luck. Usually bad, often very bad. I was hoping for the good. It wasn’t that this was secret, or even confidential. It was just too weird and they wouldn’t have believed any of it. Ancient Maya folklore, they would have said. Superstition. Nonsense. They would have written me off as crazy and that would have been the end of it.

“We’ll meet here the day after tomorrow,” I said. “At noon.” I left them to their beer. I had things to do and time was short.

CARLOS

I called a couple of the guys on Lucy’s list. They were out. I called my uncle in Brownsville, asked him about María Lucinda Montalvo y Carranza. He shouted (exuberant guy, my uncle), “Lucy? You should be so lucky! I knew her Dad. I knew her Mom, Consuelo. Most beautiful woman I ever met. Only bad thing was she was married to Lucy’s Dad. Whatever it is, go for it, Chucho, she’s the best. That whole family is.” He always called me Chucho, I never knew why, no one else ever did. He also told me the Matamoros people and their Brownsville friends were thinking Houston in terms of their affection for Jeb and me. I told him we’d already noticed that. He suggested a vacation. Maybe in China. Inner Mongolia was beautiful this time of year, he said. Especially right now.

That pretty much decided it. Lucy’s plan was starting to look a lot better. We were on our way.

LUCY

First of all, I had to get the truck away from Archie. That wouldn’t be easy. It wasn’t really his, of course. It belonged to the Company, but it was his hobby. He’d been tinkering with it for years: souped up the motor, put heavy duty suspension and tires on it, special things I don’t even know about, the whole enchilada. That’s why I wanted it. But the truck was his baby and he didn’t want to part with it. Not to anyone, much less to me with my track record on vehicles. This was going to take a lot of sweet talk.

Then I was going to have to replace a lot of stuff. We had lost most of our equipment on the last venture, when Gonzalo and Martin and Larry were killed. Whenever I think of them, I try not to cry. I get furious instead. This wasn’t over yet and there was going to be payback. Someday.

So I had a long list of things to get, places to go, people to see, and I’d better get started.