Chapter Thirty-One
Vallarta airport departures are like cattle drives. Herded into a windowless box to await buses with armed guards to haul them out to the runways, the tourist clump up like a hungover beach party taken hostage, or a concentration camp forced to run through a lobster cooker then put on humiliating clothing.
Doc knew enough to keep the Guanajuanto girls in the outer lobby until the bus actually pulled up at the runway door. Which left time to draw out goodbyes to the excruciation level. “So don’t go back,” he joked, trying to lighten the oppressive mood, “Stick around and get jobs selling fish kabobs on the beach. Sell your bodies. Or rent them out as billboards.”
It fell flat. He didn’t know what the heaviness that descended around them was, but he could feel it. He reached out to Blanca, but she stiffened slightly, gave him a tight smile and said, “Goodbye, Doctor. Thank you so much for the time of my life.” She looked at Doc like a stranger, but silently put her hand on his cheek, then slid it slowly off as she pulled away. She was back home already, facing whatever was there for her. Doc could feel the trace of her touch like the fading taste of a kiss. Whatever her situation, it was obvious that the vacation was over.
Amparo dithered, torn between her farewells to Primo and her duty to her friend. She glanced at Doc and said, “You understand, her mother is so ill…” She gave up and turned to Primo, who took her into a long, silent hug. Doc walked across the terminal to where Blanca stood. He took her hand and they stood silently side by side, barely touching, until it was time for her to join the herd on bus.
Standing in front of the windows in the upper lobby and watching as the passengers climbed the stairs into the plane, Primo said, “You know how it is with Mexicanas. They’re bound to their family duties until they marry.”
Still watching the plane as the ramp was pulled away and the doors dogged shut, Doc said, “I can’t understand why she doesn’t get married. Or why she isn’t already.”
They stood silently while the plane slowly turned, heading for the runway. Then Primo said, “Those girls would have come here on the bus. You paid for air tickets so they could stay another day, didn’t you?”
“Domestic flights are pretty cheap.”
“Whatever they cost, it was a bargain. Those girls were very nice company. I think that, of the two, I would prefer Blanca if I had my choice again. She’s very smart. And a spirit, wouldn’t you say?”
Doc says, “Yeah, it was all very sweet.”
Primo, noticing something, “But not totally to your taste?”
“Very nice girls,” Doc agreed. “If I had a brain left, I’d marry that Blanca and have a bunch of rugrats and build a house down here.”
“But you won’t.”
Doc stirred a little, felt an urge to say something he didn’t really understand. “I wish women were…” He thought a moment, “Well, it’s like they’re fragile. You have to watch out you don’t hurt them, like kids. They don’t stand up to any rough treatment, I guess I’m saying. You can’t really be yourself, relax and let go.”
Primo suddenly saw Doc in a new light, like a big kid playing ball with little kids; having fun but not really enjoying himself because he had to hold back to avoid hurting the others. And it probably wasn’t just women he had to be careful with. “I can see it a little now,” he told Doc.
Doc gave him a sidelong glance. “Dare I ask what?”
Primo said, “Why when you aren’t laughing you look so sad.”
Doc snorted, then looked away. “Look who’s talking, Chico,” he said softly, “Look who’s talking.”
The plane was moving very fast now, rushing along the runway like it was doomed to hit the palms at the other end. Then it was safely in the air, lifting its nose and pouring on the power, lunging up into the air.
Primo realized something about all of Doc’s friends that he had met. They were all durable people. Who could take punishment. Actually, it was a comforting thought.
The plane tilted in the sun, angling off towards the Northeast. Doc and Primo stood watching it fly out of sight over the jungly green foothills of Nayarit. Doc turned to see Primo staring off into the fuzzy green hills and the misted mountains behind them. He said, “Well, pardner. Looks like vacation’s over.”
Harvey was waiting in the load zone, snoozing in a Jeep Wagoneer that looked like it had been dragged the length of Baja upside down. But the colorful serape-upholstered seats were comfortable and in minutes Doc knew it had a souped engine, a transmission way too smooth to have been made by AMC, and a custom suspension. Doc would have bet his cameras that there were other modifications. Particularly caches for the big-bore revolvers Harvey was so partial to. He’d once told Doc he felt most comfortable with a gun that could instantly stop a car by drilling a round right through the engine block, a specification that tended to favor sidearms chambered for .357 and .44 Magnum cartridges. Harvey scoffed at Doc’s bent for shotguns and backed it up with impressive offhand accuracy.
The car also featured an expensive Nakamichi tape player hidden in the glove compartment, which had a huge welded hasp for a bombproof padlock. Cracked plastic grilles on the rear wheel humps obviously concealed top grade speakers. Primo lounged in the back seat rubbernecking and listening to a rock tape while Doc and Harvey played their game of “who’s still alive and free?” As they bumped off the cobblestones onto the highway heading north, Primo leaned forward and asked who was on the tape, which Harve said was “Missing Persons” and Doc said sucked.
“Do you have any American jazz?” Primo asked. “Or would you mind playing it?”
“He’s studying our tribe,” Doc explained.
“Not a problem at all,” Harvey said in his supercilious, snotty Argentine accent. “I’m surprised Doc didn’t ask first, being such a jazz hag.”
“If I’d asked first you’d have put on Demented Sister’s Greatest Shitfits or something,” Doc growled. Harve clucked sympathetically as he ejected the tape and slid in a new one, drenching the car in shimmering electric guitar as they passed the marina and headed for the state line. Primo slipped down in the middle of the back seat, rested his head on the soft upholstery, closed his eyes and put on a smile.
Harvey glanced at him in the mirror and said to Doc, but loud enough to be heard in the back seat, “That’s why I like primitives. They’re so easily pacified by simple rhythms and technological trinkets.” Primo kept smiling at the chiming notes of “San Lorenzo”.
“Who is the guitarist?” Primo asked when the tape ended. “It is a guitar?”
“Pat Methany on electric guitar, Lyle Mays on piano,” Harve said. “You like it?”
“It’s quite amazing. How does he get that tone, like burnished gold?”
“He’s an alien,” Harve said. “Which reminds me, we’ll have to play you some Joe Satriani on the way back. That’s the signature Methany tone. No gimmicks, just technique.”
“Very amazing,” Primo said. “Very beautiful.”
“You like Sonny Rollins?” Harve switched tapes again. “Speaking of burnished gold, by the way…” He dipped into his pocket and handed Doc a small golden amulet the size of a pecan. It was generic Aztec work, damaged and defaced, but still powerful, lovely and obviously ancient.
“The best grift yet,” Harve snickered. “More valuable than clay and stone, smaller and easier for the marks to transport out.”
“You made it, then?”
“I had it made. It’s opening up a very lucrative new market. For me, bottomless. Care to take a guess?”
“The talisman fairy?”
“You get one clue. What is the only country whose women are more obnoxious, spoiled-rotten little bitches than American women?”
“Germany, unless this is a trick question?”
“Germany. A universally known fact. But guess what country produces men even more gullible, acquisitive and status-stoned than the U.S?”
“Also the Germans? How odd.”
“Yeah. All that precision and skepticism and stuff, right? They’re chumps for artifacts, pal. It’s almost like I hear some Teutonic twat bitching about what a crummy country this is, I walk over and meet her old man, and zowee, a sale.”
“Maybe they’re not really Germans, just Swiss from Zurich out gnoming up some gold.”
“That’s the best part, bro. It’s not even gold. I was using Bourget alloys like jewelers use, and some strange antiquing compounds, then I ran into these cool Japanese alloys. This is called Shakudo. Notice it looks old just as is. There’s another one called Shibuichi that’s a little redder, looks even more antique, but we haven’t got the proportions just right yet. It’s so damn sweet I could just whip my wire. Who the hell would assay an artifact? Especially an illegal one?”
“Just watch it with those Germans, Harve. It’s been fifty years since they’ve taken over the world and they’re about due.”
“I think they just do that to get away from their women.”
With Primo wrapped up in the music, Doc switched to English. “You piss me off, Harv.”
“Any specific reason, or just the usual penis envy?”
“Just jealousy, I guess. You’ve figured out how to do it, haven’t you? You’ve moved into a Bogart movie.”
“Yeah, I’ll cop. I didn’t know it at the time but it’s why I started running rocks instead of pimping stocks. Same daydreams as the rest of the guys, I just had to have mine come true.” He looked at Doc expectantly, “And you? Why did you ship to Nam? You were playing scholarship football as I recall.”
“There was a death in the family.”
“So why’d you stick around? Three tours, all those other fucked-up outfits you fought for? You just switched from warrior fantasies to the cynical reality O.D. Don’t I remember you as a Steely Dan fan?”
“So a couple of hardcases like us have just been out there being our own imaginary playmates? Is that it?”
“We all are, don’t you get it? Boys with war toys. Raiders of the Lost Childhood.”
“Okay, You, me, Jim Dandy: immature dopers out on a spree. But you might recall that our colleagues were mostly a pretty no-nonsense breed of cat.”
“Hey, how Bogart can you get?”
“Well hell, Harve.”
“Only difference is I know what I’m doing and fess up to it. Now you’re starting to tumble. Let me tell you something. A man hits his forties he starts getting some insight and perspective and inner wisdom about his life. And it’s really dangerous shit. I can’t recommend it.”