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