Six Bad Things Part 6

--It's no big deal. The guy was clumsy, he fell, the cops will investigate, and it will be over.

I drink my seltzer and Pedro drinks his beer.

--But I've been thinking about taking a trip.

--Claro.

--Maybe you could talk to Leo, tell him I might want some help.

--Claro. Cuando?

--Soon.

--American time, si?

--Yeah.

--OK.

I help him dump the water from the ice tub and offer him a ride in the w.i.l.l.ys. He declines and pedals off on the tricycle. I drive over to my bungalow. I take my groceries, the tape gun, and the cardboard box inside. Bud is restless and darts around the room when I come in. I can see a little pile of cat p.o.o.p in the middle of the room. He never does that.

--Not getting enough attention these days, guy?

He looks at me like he doesn't know what I'm talking about, which I suppose is literally true, but he knows, he always f.u.c.king knows. I clean up the c.r.a.p, open a can of cat food, and sit on the floor next to him while he eats.

--Better?

He makes a little rumble in his throat that I interpret as a yes, so I flip on the boom box and put in Wish You Were Here. "s.h.i.+ne On You Crazy Diamond" starts playing and I get to work.

Out to the back porch. I open the footlocker and grab the shovel. It's developed a thin sheen of rust, like many of my tools. I should really keep them oiled, but I like the rust. It reminds me of old farm equipment piled in the yards of houses on the outskirts of my hometown.

Home.

I push that thought back down. Soon, but not yet, I can think about home.

I go back in, drop the shutters, and drag the bed into the middle of the room. I put a candle on the floor and feel around for the crack between the tiles.

WE HAD a great time building The Bucket and my bungalow, me and Pedro and Leo and a couple of their cousins. We hung out on the beach, working hard in the morning, taking a nice long siesta, then more work, then kicking a soccer ball around for an hour or two while the sun went down. Then everyone else would head home and I'd camp out to keep an eye on the tools and materials.

The Bucket was a breeze. We dug the holes for the pilings by hand, sank them, buried them, and built the roof frame. Then we built a box frame for the squared horseshoe of the bar, faced it, and anch.o.r.ed it to some four-by-fours we also sank in the sand. And that's about all you want to do for a beach bar because the whole thing is gonna blow away every few years when a hurricane blasts through. The bungalow was a bit more involved. We hired a guy with a Cat to come down and drill our piling holes extra deep, framed the roof and floor, nailed plywood over the floor, and planked the walls. Then the pros came in.

The pros were three brothers, their father and grandfather, and about ten of their little kids. These are the guys who do the palm thatching. They came in, took one look at the roofs we'd framed, tore them apart, and put them back together. Then they spent two days walking around up there, bundling and tying palm fronds together in such a way that a trapeze artist could drop on them from five stories and wouldn't break through. It was cool. The plumbing and sewage guys came during the next week and put in the water tank, toilet, sink, shower, and septic tank. And all that was left was the tiling, which I did myself.

I FIND the crack.

I keep a flat, stainless steel bottle opener on my keychain, but I don't use it for opening bottles. It's there for one purpose only, and this is its first time doing the job. I slip it into the crack, flex it, and pull slowly upward. The edge of a square of tile and plywood lifts away. I wedge my toe against it before it can fall back. I drop the bottle opener, get a fingertip grip on the panel, lift it up, and set it off to the side. Now comes the fun part: standing in a s.p.a.ce not quite a yard square and shoveling sand in the dark.

I first dug this hole on one of the nights I spent alone on the beach. We'd staked out the frame for the bungalow, but hadn't started building it yet. I picked the spot where I planned to put the bed, dug a hole, and got a big box from the bed of the w.i.l.l.ys. Then I lowered it into the hole and filled it in. After the bungalow was done, I built the secret panel into the floor. Of course, I didn't realize then that when the time came to dig out the box I'd be doubled over with my back in knots, rapping my knuckles on the edge of the hole in the floor with every stroke of the shovel. It takes awhile.

The shovel clunks into the top of the box. It's one of those indestructible packing cases rock bands use to haul their equipment in. I get down on my knees to clear the sand away from the lid and twist and flip the clasps. The top pops off and there's a Hefty bag inside. I squat, grab the top of the bag, heave it out of the box, up through the hole, and into the bungalow. I put the top back on the box and jerk the handle side to side, wiggle it free of the sand, and into the bungalow. Then I push the sand back into the hole, which leaves me with an only slightly smaller hole because the box is no longer in it. I end up slithering around under the bungalow, scooping sand to the hole to fill it in. Once again, it takes awhile.

When I'm done with the sand I put the plug back in the hole in the floor, push the bed into place, and open the Hefty bag. The money belt is on top, prepacked with a hundred grand American. I put that to the side. Underneath is a Ziploc bag. I put that to the side. I'm not ready yet. Beneath that is a huge block of plastic-wrapped money. And seeing it for the first time in around two years, I remember just how confusing dollars can be when there are over four million of them together in one place.

You really do get more for your dollar in Mexico. After I leased my beach property, built my bungalow and The Bucket, and put a nice chunk in a bank up in town, I still have just about four million right here.

My mad money.

And I am mad now, make no mistake, I am mad as h.e.l.l.

THERE WAS a moment as Mickey fell away from me, arms outstretched, hands grasping, where I might easily have grabbed him and pulled him to safety. But I didn't try. I watched his body twist in the air and his arms flail as he tried to brace himself for the first impact. He crashed against the steps and his head jerked and slapped the stones. He bounced and tumbled all the way down, blood pinwheeling from his body.

And right there, I answered the old question, What would you do if someone threatened your family?

I'd kill him.

I PUT the money back into the packing case, cut the cardboard box so that it lies flat on the floor, then place the case on top of it. I wrap the case in cardboard and enough reinforced packing tape that you'd have to saw your way through. That done, I get into the shower and rinse off all the sweat and sand stuck to my body. Finally, when all the cleaning is done and the box is standing near the door and I've tugged a sarong around my body, I take the lantern out onto the porch, light a cigarette, and open the Ziploc.

The first thing I pull out is the police photo of the bruises on Yvonne's dead body. Nowhere to go from there but up.

I haven't looked at the photo for years. I haven't needed to. I can see it whenever I want to, just by closing my eyes. Now, I look at it, study it, close my eyes and see the same pattern of bruises flashed against the inside of my eyelids. I will never look at it again. With my eyes still closed, I tear the photo into eighths. I open my eyes, put the pieces in my ashtray, and set a match to them.

--Sorry, baby.

But I don't really need to apologize. Not to her. Not for this. She would have approved of this gesture, would have done it herself long ago. Yvonne Ann Cross, not one for carrying ghosts around.

Next are three business cards.

First: Detective Lieutenant Roman. Roman, the hero cop gone bad who orchestrated the slaughter at Paul's Bar. A snapshot from my memory: a pile of bodies, my friends, on the floor.

Second: Ed. Brother of Paris. The DuRantes. Bank robbers. Killers. A s.n.a.t.c.h of brain-movie: In their car, bullets from my gun erasing Ed's face. Paris's last word, his brother's name.

I toss the cards on the tiny fire and look at the third.

Third: A glossy black card with the name Mario embossed in gold gothic script. I smile, remember pot smoke and disco music in the back of his Lincoln as he drove me to the airport and the plane that brought me to Mexico. Nice guy, Mario. I burn him.

I take an envelope from the bag. Inside: the ID and credit cards of John Peter Carlyle, a man who never was. The custom-made ident.i.ty I came to Mexico with. I won't be able to travel in Mexico as the man I've been for two years, not while the cops are looking into Mickey's death. My real name isn't an option. But I might be able to get away with being Carlyle again. I flip open the pa.s.sport, look at the photo. I'm twenty pounds heavier now, an even two hundred, bulked up through the shoulders and chest from all the swimming, but with a little roll of rice and beans around the middle. The hair that was buzzed and bleached in this photo is now a sun-lightened brown and collar length. Once clean-shaven, I now have a short beard. And the tattoos. Tattoos scattered across my chest and down my arms, tattoos that were meant to help hide me, but have become a way of marking the pa.s.sage of time. I don't look anything like this photo. I can cut my hair and shave so I look more like Carlyle, but I will also look more like the man I was, the man wanted for murder. f.u.c.k it, the pa.s.sport's date of issue is years old, there's no reason I shouldn't look different. I stuff it and the rest of Carlyle back into his envelope and set him aside. There's only one piece of paper left in the Ziploc.

United Flight #84 12/20/00.

Depart: New York JFK 8:25 AM Arrive: Oakland 11:47 AM A ticket home, old and out of date. It had been meant to get me there for Christmas. I didn't make it that time, maybe this time I will. It burns quickly.

I FILL out the International Airway Bill, stopping for a moment when I get to the boxes where I'm supposed to write in the total value for carriage and customs. If I value this thing at less then two hundred bucks, it may very well zip past customs with nary a look. Then again, in the U.S.A.'s current state of heightened security, some clever boy could notice that a guy in Mexico has paid more to s.h.i.+p this box than the stated value of the contents. And that is an invitation to have this thing ripped open by people wearing yellow biohazard suits. Option two: value it at a couple grand, fill out all the supporting doc.u.mentation, have it go through customs the old-fas.h.i.+oned way. Of course, this involves someone picking it up at a post office in the destination city to pay the duty fees. A great way to get ambushed by Feds. Tricky. This is why I'm at the Pakmail in Cancun, talking to Mercedes. She is going to help me s.h.i.+p four million dollars to America via FedEx.

I finish the Airway Bill, putting the value at two thousand and listing the contents as books. I take a piece of paper from my wallet. It lists the t.i.tles of a number of difficult-to-find to semi-rare Mexican art and history books I've been collecting. The t.i.tles, that is, not the books. I write those t.i.tles on the Pro Forma Invoice. To make things extra special tidy, I also have a Certificate of Origin that I had notarized earlier when I stopped by my bank to pick up a few things.

I lift the box onto the scale and Mercedes makes a little woof sound when it tips in at over sixty kilos. She makes the sound again when I hand her the Airway Bill and she sees the destination. Like most service workers in Cancun, her English is good. She says everything with a little song. I like it.

--Lotta money.

I sing back at her.

--Lotta money. You got that right.

She giggles, smoothes the various s.h.i.+pping labels onto the box, hands me my copies, and rings me up for something more than two thousand pesos. I pay in dollars. No big deal in Cancun. She takes another look at the invoice.

--Your friend likes to read.

--I don't know, he just bought 'em from me.

--eBay?

--Yeah.

--I love eBay. Bought these on eBay.

She's pointing at her earrings. I bend down to get a closer look. They're little Miami Dolphins dolphins, leaping through the air, wearing tiny football helmets.

--Fins. Alright. h.e.l.l of a year, huh?

--Oh sure, but now . . .

--Yeah, I know, late season, but they look good with Taylor.

--Oh!

She jumps up and down a little.

--Miles! I love him! He's so cute.

She stops jumping.

--But his ankle now.

--What?

--His ankle.

Oh no.

--Please don't tell me.

--On the TV last night. Sportscenter. Very bad.

The Pakmail is right in the middle of a giant strip mall, so it only takes a minute or two for me to find a news kiosk with a copy of today's Miami Herald. It's on the front page: "Taylor's Ankle Fractured, Docs Say Four Weeks Minimum."

THE FOOTBALL season is a long season. It's not as long as the baseball season and they only play a tenth as many games, but the abuse your average starting football player absorbs in one game is at least equivalent to what a baseball player suffers in ten or twenty. Thus, one of the keynotes of prevailing wisdom among NFL coaches: as the season waxes, the practices wane.

--So this moron, this spastic that they actually pay to coach the team, decides the guys weren't hitting hard enough on Sunday when the Pats were making their run. So what's he do? He calls contact drills. Contact drills in f.u.c.king December! So the starting defense is out there, running around, knocking the s.h.i.+t out of the scout squad. And you know those poor chumps are hating it. I mean, these guys get paid about minimum wage and now they have to run around and get the c.r.a.p pounded out of them by a bunch of psychos who're p.i.s.sed at the feeb who's running the show. Meanwhile, the starting offense is down on the other end of the field, shooting the s.h.i.+t, and running pa.s.s drills in their shorts, right where the defensive guys can see them. Now tell me, you ever heard of a guy named Dillon Walker? No, you haven't. The reason is that Walker was a hundredth-round pick defensive back who, until last Sunday, was a scout scrub himself. However, due to a series of injuries that have ravaged the secondary, he has been elevated to backup and even has a slim shot at starting free safety this Sunday should the G.o.ds not smile on Terrence Lincoln's severe turf toe. Needless to say, this is a man with something to prove. And he's proving it, flying around the field, hitting anything that moves, trying to show Coach his heart. For example, the scrubs run a little out, and they complete it. This is an out mind you, a play within ten yards of the line of scrimmage, a play the free safety should not be anywhere near. And he's not, he's ten yards away when the receiver steps out of bounds. Ten yards away, running full out, helmet down so he can launch himself at the poor scrub five yards out of bounds. And standing right on the other side of this scrub, who is standing there? Standing there and, I don't know, talking on his cell to his agent about how he's gonna spend all his bonuses or maybe chatting up a cheerleader, setting up a threeway with her and her fifteen-year-old sister or whatever the f.u.c.k twenty-two-year-old millionaires do on the sideline at practice, standing there is Miles Taylor, who is promptly crushed beneath the scrub and Dillon f.u.c.kstick Walker.

I pause long enough to light a smoke and inhale half of it.

--Walker bounces right back up and heads for the field, s.h.i.+t-eating grin on his face, ready to huddle up with the D and brag about the ma.s.sive knock he just put on that p.u.s.s.y scrub. Dumb s.h.i.+t can't figure out why everyone is standing around on the field, their faces white, staring at something behind him. So he turns to take a look and gets steamrolled by the entire starting offensive line, who have just watched him take out their bread and b.u.t.ter, the guy who has been helping them to earn their bonuses. And all those D boys, the ones who have been running around hitting in full pads while the offense took it easy, they take serious f.u.c.king umbrage. Riot. The O and D go at it; starters, backups, everyone except the scrubs, who wisely clear the field. And in the midst of this melee, as the coaches are screaming and trying to pull everyone apart, Miles Taylor stands up to announce that, hey, he's fine, right before a huge ma.s.s of three-hundred-pounders lurches onto him and crushes his ankle.

I inhale the second half of my cigarette.

--I swear to G.o.d, I swear to f.u.c.king G.o.d, if I ever see that f.u.c.king r.e.t.a.r.d coach walking down the street, I'm gonna stab him in the neck with a f.u.c.king fork. I hate football, I hate it.

--So is that what you called to talk about?

I breath deep and get my s.h.i.+t back together.

--No, Timmy, it's not.

--Oh. So what's up then?

--What's up is I'm sending you a package.

--You're sending me what?

--I'm sending you a package.

--What package?

I'm standing at the pay phone in a Pemex near the Cancun airport. From here I can see the billboards for T.G.I. Fridays, Senior Frogs, the Bulldog Cafe, etc., that line the road to downtown. My pulse is still racing from my rant about Miles Taylor's ankle, so I light another cigarette. 'Cause, hey, that'll calm me down.

--Timmy, I'm sending you the money.

Silence.

--Timmy?

--Are you f.u.c.king nuts?

--Look, I've thought about this.

I have thought about it. A lot. And it breaks down like this: A) Tim is an ex-junkie. He is an alcoholic. He is a deliveryman for a drug dealer. He lives in Las Vegas. He is clearly the last man on earth any sane person would send four million dollars to.

B) Tim knows where I am. He knows about the money. He knows about the several rewards available for information leading to my capture. He knows about the money the Russians would pay for my head. And for the years he has been privy to this information, he has kept his mouth shut.

C) I am going to cross the border into the United States illegally. I cannot be caught with the money. If I am caught with the money all bets are off. If, however, the money is out there, I will have something to bargain with. I will have a tool with which to bargain for the safety of my parents.

D) I. Can. Not. Be. Caught. With. The. Money.

--I DON'T care if you've thought about it, I don't want that s.h.i.+t anywhere near me. This is f.u.c.king Vegas. Did you know people out here train themselves to smell money? No f.u.c.king joke, I mean, I was happy to get outta Gotham and lie low and all, especially seeing as it's on your dime, but I am not planning to spend my life here, because, basically, this town sucks. People are f.u.c.ked up here. It's all the money floating around, they can see it and play with it, but they can't have it and it just makes 'em want it more. So the minute they smell it on you they come after it. Do not send me that f.u.c.king money, because I love you, you know that, but there are f.u.c.king limits to what a man can do. OK? Are we cool on this?

--I already sent it.

--What?