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Keeping the sun off.
It s more like an eclipse, Leonard. It looks like something goes on a stick
over a table by poolside.
You wanted one.
Did not.
Did too.
I wouldn t be caught dead in something like that.
It s just that I ve got the balls to do what I want and you don t, that s
what s got you irritated.
I m not irritated.
Are.
Are not.
It was just one of our usual goofed-up days. We might as well have been home
in the States. We were unpopular and pissed off wherever we went.
About four we went down to the dock to catch the tender back to the ship. The
tender was there with our original pilot standing on the deck, helping people
on board, but out in the bay, no ship. Least not our ship.
We talked to the pilot. Our Spanish sucked. His English was good. He told us
the Sea Pleasure had left at three-thirty. For a moment I thought we hadn t
changed our watches, crossed a zone or something, had lost an hour. But we had
the right time.
Leonard said to the pilot, You re sure?
The guy, who was short and gold-toothed, said, You see the ship you want,
señor?
Leonard took a theatrical look out at the water.
Nope.
The pilot shrugged.
Could it have sunk? Leonard asked.
Funny, you are, señor. I got to take people out to the real cruise ship now.
And whatever you pay for that hat, it is too much.
We walked back up the dock, stunned.
That lying little ferret, Leonard said. I gave him an opening and he took
it and told me the wrong time. I see him again, I m gonna beat him until he
has flashbacks.
Of what?
Me beatin him.
Can I hit him a couple of times?
If there s anything left, of course. You are my best friend.
11
WE DECIDED we might as well plan on being in Playa del Carmen for a day or
two, so we ended up at a little pink stucco hotel where we rented a double.
The room smelled of damp carpet and the bathroom smelled of urine beneath the
warped linoleum.
Upstairs we sat on one of the beds and sorted our money. Most of what I had
gotten for my heroic deed was back home in the bank, but I had more in
traveler s checks in my luggage on the ship, right next to my clean underwear
and socks. I had some bucks in my wallet, two hundred dollars in traveler s
checks, and a charge card with a low limit on it. Leonard had a hundred
dollars in assorted bills and a very ugly hat.
Okay, we got enough for a couple nights, maybe three we need to spend them,
I said. That also includes food, phone calls we need to make, and maybe some
clean underwear.
I didn t know you changed yours, Leonard said.
I ignored that, said, Okay, so what s first?
I vote on the underwear for you, but I suppose the thing to do is call John,
get him to arrange some plane flights, nearest airport and all that, then we
find a way to get to the airport, fly to New Orleans, get a cab to where the
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ship will dock, get our luggage, cripple the asshole who lied to us about the
departure time, break his dick in three spots, cover his balls in peanut
butter, pack his asshole with a pound of pure cane sugar, and hold him down in
an ant bed.
Might I point out this is all your fault.
That so?
If you hadn t fucked with him in the first place this wouldn t have happened.
All you had to do was put on a jacket or go to the buffet.
I didn t want the buffet, and I didn t want to wear a jacket.
And you see the results.
That pompous motherfucker just thinks he got off scot-free with me. Besides,
you said you wanted to hit him some.
I want to hit you some too. But we ll make a phone call instead.
We looked around the room. No phone. Downstairs they wouldn t let us use the
one in the office and there wasn t a pay phone. Suddenly there was a language
barrier. The desk clerk indicated he had no idea where we might find a phone.
I asked him if there was a Holiday Inn anywhere near. He just grinned at me.
Now I was the Ugly American.
We went outside and around the corner and started walking in the direction of
the post office. Had we seen a pay phone in the post office? We were
uncertain. As we walked, Leonard s hat provided me with a lot of shade. Which
I needed. I was pretty warm. Not as humid as East Texas, but still warm, and
by this time it was late afternoon.
The post office was closed.
What the hell? I said.
They keep their own hours, Leonard said.
We walked along the littered beach a ways and actually found an old-fashioned
phone booth. But the phone was missing. Someone had torn it out. Some of the
phone-book was there, though, just in case it was needed.
Maybe we could just put a message in a bottle, I said. Toss it in the
ocean.
I m game, Leonard said.
The beach was nice, and we decided for no good reason at all to just keep
walking along it. I think, subconsciously, we were trying to get away from
town, as if that would take us away from our miseries. There was a long wooden
dock, and we walked on the sand next to that and watched the boats, some with
sails, some without, bobbing in the slate-colored water like tops. Above us
seabirds soared, made noises like insane laughter.
As we walked, no phone booth materialized but we saw three men coming toward
us. They were stocky guys. One of them wore a coat, which seemed odd for the
weather. We veered left around them and they turned and spread out and said
something in Spanish.
One of them, a guy with a thick mustache, showed us a knife and a big grin. He
said something in Spanish we didn t understand, but the big knife was speaking
loud and clear and needed no translation.
It was at that moment that I remembered some of the literature I had read on
the boat: Don t wander off from the main areas. Play del Carmen is a
beautiful, quaint little town with the amazing ruins of Tulum nearby. But off
the beaten path, thieves often rob tourists at knifepoint on the outskirts.
Bad day for this, Leonard said to the trio, but they just smiled at us. I
watched carefully. The other two didn t pull knives, but one of them did pull
a machete from under his coat. I had sort of thought that coat was suspicious.
I didn t feel up to fighting a machete, but I didn t feel all that inclined to
give them my money.
Dinero, one of them said.
We ve already eaten, Leonard said.
He means money, I said. Not dinner. Dinero.
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