Bad Juju & Other Tales of Madness and Mayhem Read online

  Suddenly, Pablo jerks to a seated position, his mouth opens and he vomits. Clots of viscous blood spew across the floor. And a small leather bag soaked in magenta gore, its drawstring pulled tight.

  As if he has achieved some final resolution of his sorry-assed existence, life swirls out of Pablo like an exhalation. He falls back into Bill’s arms, stone cold dead.

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” Bill says in amazement. He’s never had anyone die in his arms before. He lowers Pablo’s corpse to the floor.

  “Live by the sword, die by the sword,” says Yvette.

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Pablo was not a nice person.”

  “But he served his purpose.”

  “Only because you weren’t on the receiving end of his brass knuckles.”

  Yvette’s knees crack as she bends down and reaches out for the leather bag. Bill slaps her hand away and scoops it up.

  “Ow!”

  When he releases the drawstring, more than a dozen jumbo rough-cut emeralds, like the multifaceted eyes of a greenhead fly, tumble into his palm. His hands are stained with blood from the bag.

  “You’re right, he was a bastard,” Bill says. “But at least he delivered the goods come Hell or high water.”

  “And whoever punctured his tire won’t be far behind,” Yvette says, sucking on her teeth.

  “Don’t get nervous, pet.”

  “Most assuredly I’m not your pet.”

  Yvette takes a Beretta 9mm from her purse, confirms the clip is full; then ratchets a shell into the firing chamber.

  “Keep an eye out, while we give Pablo a quick funeral,” Bill says.

  Together Bill and Fidel heft Pablo’s cadaver into the alley and on the count of three hoist it into a dumpster. Fidel wheels a bucket and mop from the storage room and soaks up the pool of Pablo’s blood.

  Bill’s Rolex shows 10 minutes to midnight. He stands behind Fidel, squeezing and releasing his shoulder blades. Fidel is as tense as an alley cat dropped in a cage of pit bulls.

  “We’ve got a party to go to,” Bill says gaily. “Take two aspirin and get some rest, pal. Everything’ll look different in the light of day.”

  They zoom through midnight streets, where a light rain has left puddles capturing the red filigree flash of sudden brake lights, the neon yellows, crimsons, blues and purples of cheap pleasures and promises not kept.

  A glistening black Land Rover 4 x 4 follows each twist and turn of the Lamborghini. Never too close, never too far behind. Yvette keeps looking back at the tailing lights. She spits through the open passenger-side window. The noxious fumes of fear waft from her armpits.

  They’re bound for the birthday party of the American consul, born at 12:13 a.m. fifty-seven years ago. Ahead, outside the consul’s official residence, a line of expensive cars weave through a maze of steel & concrete anti-tank barriers and snarls of razor wire.

  Security is extra tight after the earlier bombing of the U.S. embassy. Marines in full-combat gear flash light beams in the faces of the guests, bark incomprehensible questions, paw through car trunks and under seats.

  They confiscate Yvette’s 9mm, handing her a numbered claim ticket. When she starts to make a fuss, they threaten a strip search. Bill feigns a limp and they let him keep the blackthorn cane.

  Yvette wonders if the young Lego-jawed Marine would be as good in bed as she imagines.

  The consul’s party spreads like pasteurized honey across the lawns of the official residence, which roll like black velvet down to the edge of Lake Maracaibo. The main house is a blaze of light. Flickering tiki torches illuminate the ebb and flow of the guests.

  Women, gorgeous and plain, stacked and flat-chested, lesbian and straight, mingle and collide like stars in a night fisherman’s net. The men, all in dark suits, puff on Cohibas and talk money, whores and fast cars, not necessarily in that order. A mariachi band strolls and strums amid the throng.

  Bill swoops up two flutes of champagne and hands one to Yvette. They tap glasses. Down the hatch.

  “You know I’m crazy about you,” he says.

  Her shimmering cobalt eyes give him her reply.

  Behind them, the tailing Land Rover disgorges three lugubrious travelers before being whooshed away by a valet. The driver’s face is instantly recognizable as Agustin Rios, the gangster, flanked by two flunkies. He produces an engraved invitation. No one checks them for guns or similar paraphernalia.

  Meanwhile, Bill and Yvette flit among the flotsam of guests and party crashers. Bill goes back to drinking rum. Yvette munches on chunks of iceberg lettuce provided by some hapless assistant to the salad chef. A DJ spins salsa tunes by the pool. A notorious female drunk sheds her clothes and dives in. When she climbs, dripping, up the chrome pool ladder, Bill hands her a towel.

  Impelled by an instinct for survival at all costs, Bill glances behind. Light glints off the lapels of Agustin’s sharkskin suit, as he repels toward them through the riffraff. Grabbing Yvette by the elbow, Bill spins her into the night.

  Hand-in-hand they scoot to the bottom of the sweeping lawn. On a pier at the lake’s edge, a clique of pleasure seekers waits to board a classic 1949 Chris Craft Sportsman bound for an oil rig a quarter mile out. There a famous Argentine dance band plies its vibes.

  Just as the lines are cast off, Bill leaps aboard, pulling Yvette with him. She gives a B-minus imitation of a Marilyn Monroe squeal. They totter on the stern as the twin 120-hp Evinrudes rumble. Once they’re safely in the cockpit, Bill bends her backward, a blade of grass in Lake Maracaibo’s fume-choked air, and kisses her deeply. The varnished mahogany decking of the motorboat shimmers like ancient gold.

  Agustin rushes up to the edge of the dock, but comes up short. The launch is already twenty yards out. “Fuck!”

  When the second launch, inbound, arrives at the shore-side dock, the trio of badasses leaps aboard with amphetamine-enhanced impatience. They elbow through the disembarkees. Eyebrows are raised. A foolish man steps toward Agustin, who knees him in the nads.

  As the launch heads out to the oil rig, someone calls security.

  Meanwhile, back at the rig, the band struts its stuff under the stars. The music is pure orgasm. Yvette goes wet between her legs for the second time that night. Bill’s feet won’t stand still. A dozen pairs of dancers swoop and glide across the rude planks of the rig. Overhead fog lights drape the scene in a talcish light, blanching the dancers to a corpse-like hue, the dancing dead.

  The band transitions into a Joao Gilberto bossa nova tune amid scattered applause. The dancers just keep going, segueing into the new beat. This is serious business.

  “They’ll be on the next boat,” Bill says.

  “What shall we do?” Yvette says.

  “Let’s dance.” Bill takes her hand and slow samba’s onto the floor. There, things heat up. Yvette spins and gyrates. Bill moves with gravitas, a legacy of living in the Spanish tropics.

  Suddenly Agustin splits through the audience. In his hand, a silver chrome Browning 9mm.

  “I want the fucking emeralds,” he shouts, shattering the rhythm of the band.

  The mood changes from gay to tragic in a heartbeat. The crowd and the other dancers draw back in alarm. Only Bill and Yvette hold the floor. The band takes up a tango.

  Bill and Yvette lock eyes. His right arm reaches around her back, pulling her close. Her bosom rises and falls with emotion. They begin to dance. Legs bent, torsos tight together. They move effortlessly. Slowly, then faster and faster.

  “Stop!” screams Agustin. He levels the pistol at Bill.

  As they swirl and swivel toward the gangster, Bill swings Yvette aloft, turning her almost upside down across his right shoulder. One long sumptuous leg points at the moon, her body is parallel to the floor, the other leg bends across Bill’s chest. Her dress falls away. In the V between those stunning legs, she’s naked as a jaybird.

  Poor Agustin. It’s as if he’s never seen a quim before. For a split second,
he’s utterly distracted by this most hush-hush item of female anatomy.

  Time enough for Bill to swing the blackthorn shillelagh in a withering overhead arc, slamming it full bore into Agustin’s right temple. Skull bone cracks like an egg. Brain matter liquefies. Agustin sways; then

  crumbles

  down

  dead.

  Yvette continues her bare-assed flip, landing in a perfect split, just in time to snatch Agustin’s gaudy 9mm as it spins across the planked surface. Blam. Blam. Good-bye bodyguards.

  Bill pulls Yvette to her feet. The band breaks into a classic tango tune. Pugliese’s La Yumba! With a wave to the onlookers, Bill and Yvette do a crossover tango walk to the waiting motor launch. Aboard, they disappear into the gloom of the vast lake, never to be seen again on the streets of Maracaibo.

  Dog Daze

  Cy looked up at me with his one huge wondering eye; then stuck his foot in his ear and began to scratch. A slow, languid scratch that seemed to use up all the time left in the universe.

  When I first saw Cyclops at the pound, he already only had one eye. The other was a white sightless orb. A creature from Greek mythology half-blinded by some jealous demigoddess bitch he’d sniffed up too close and personal. The tag on his cage said his name was Jake, age 4. I didn’t want a Jake. That name always made me think of the crappy sequel to the movie Chinatown. But I wanted this dog.

  So I paid my hundred twenty-five dollars and renamed him Cyclops. According to the SPCA clerk, they’d found him wandering in a neighborhood of warehouse businesses and Korean restaurants. Dumped. “Get out of the fuckin’ car!”

  In that neighborhood it was a wonder he hadn’t ended up as stir-fried japchae.

  “What kind of dog is he?” I asked, taking his vaccination papers from the unbelievably long fingers of the volunteer SPCA associate.

  “You’ve already adopted him and you don’t know what breed he is?” In her eyes I was a walking pile of bat guano. Dr. No—you remember him—died buried under a couple tons of the stuff. In the book; not the movie. We don’t get much call for bat guano at the BANK. That’s why I always retool my deodorant during my lunch hour.

  The BANK.

  That’s where I work as a teller and part-time junior assistant vice president.

  If you bank at the Gulf Drive branch, I’ve probably processed one of your deposits or withdrawals. Does that sound right?

  We’re located in the only strip mall on the five point three miles of Gulf Drive. The rest of Gulf Drive is lined with mid-century homes and older, some of architectural significance. Many in significant disrepair. All with views of the Gulf of Mexico.

  “So what kind of dog is he?” I repeated.

  He was a brindle-colored creature, floppy-eared and stubby-legged, his hair cut Twiggy-short. He weighed maybe eleven pounds, stood nine inches tall at the shoulder, with a tail that curled into an elaborate quill. Cy’s laid back nonconfrontational personality reminded me of the shrink my parents took me to back in high school. But I knew the shrink was faking it. Inside he was wound up tight as a virgin asshole.

  Not Cy. Cy was 100% genuine.

  The intern rubbed Cyclops behind one ear. “I’m not sure.” She looked across two alleys of cages, a stray-cats-and-dogs Ramallah, to a tall skinny young man in a green T-shirt and jeans who was scrubbing out a cage.

  “Larry,” she yelled. “What kind of dog is this?”

  He twisted the hose nozzle into the off position and looked at the dog I was holding up.

  “What’s his name?” Larry asked.

  “Jake,” said the pale-cheeked intern. Her skin exuded the scent, texture and absence of color of an albino rose petal.

  “Cyclops.” I said.

  I wondered if she liked to fuck on her lunch hour. That would require some serious deodorant retooling. But the SPCA was too far away from the BANK where I worked. I’d end up spending too much time driving to and from fucking.

  “Jake’s a purebred Shih Tzu,” Larry shouted above the sudden barking of dogs.

  Cy and I stepped outside. It was a perfect Saturday morning in March with a breeze whipping off the bay carrying the tang of salted dead fish and marine oil. Clouds like the torn insides of a stuffed toy animal skidded across the sky. Cy looked up at me and winked.

  When Amber moved in, Cy and I had been living together for about four weeks. By then we’d established an acceptable working relationship. We took walks three times a day, a bath once a week, using the same lavender bath gel. Cy ate dog crackers mixed with water. I ate frozen chicken or steak dinners and drank sweet tea by the gallon.

  Sweet tea was a habit from my student days in the Deep South. I’d quite smoking three or four times, but I could never get off sweet tea.

  We both liked Law and Order and Nip and Tuck. Cy slept on the extra pillow on my queen-sized bed.

  When Amber moved in, that became a problem because now Amber used my extra pillow. Cy tried two or three times to sleep on Amber’s head. In response Amber locked Cy out of the bedroom. He sat by the door, barking.

  As a compromise I moved Cy to a doggy pillow in one corner of the bedroom. He wasn’t all that happy with my solution. But I told him he didn’t have a choice.

  Amber liked Cy well enough.

  But after the pillow dispute they remained suspicious of each other. Cy was the old family retainer. Amber the blonde gold digger with the hot body.

  Amber loved blow and giving blowjobs.

  That’s how we met: sharing a few lines laid out like runways on the chocolate Naugahyde dashboard of my Mustang, after which she brought me to the point of ecstasy. This happened at dusk in the far back corner of the H-E-B supermarket parking lot near the recycling dumpsters. Afterward we went to Al’s N.O. Grill and sucked down fried oyster po’boys and Bud on tap.

  But blow was expensive.

  So a week after Amber displaced Cy on my extra pillow, I started siphoning small sums of cash into my front pocket rather than into my cash drawer at the BANK. This was facilitated by the fact that I handled mostly commercial deposits involving large quantities of cash and numerous small checks. Under these circumstances there was always room for discrepancies.

  I became adept at fudging the numbers on deposit slips. Before taking a late lunch, I’d stash a couple of that morning’s deposit slips between the pages of the paperback novel I was reading. Alone in the employee break room, with a meatball sub, chips and a Diet Coke spread out as camouflage, I’d ease the slips from between the leaves of text and carefully change a three to a two or a five to a four. Back at my teller station I pocketed the extra hundred bucks.

  The BANK’s privacy policy prohibited surveillance cameras in the break room or the bathrooms. And I was careful never to steal from the same account twice in the same week.

  It was a bright June Tuesday around 1:30 when Mora, the head teller, barged into the break room. I was hunched over a deposit slip, pen poised like a tattoo artist. At the click of the door opening, my other hand flew willy-nilly, colliding with the meatball sub, sending meatballs flying. Tomato sauce dripped from my fingers onto the deposit slip. In the confusion, my pen fell to the floor and I kicked it under the table.

  Mora stood at my elbow.

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  “What?” I replied.

  “That.” Mora’s plastic glitter-nail decorated index finger pointed accusingly at the soiled deposit slip.

  “The receipt for my lunch?” I said without conviction.

  “No, it’s not. It’s a deposit slip.”

  We both stared at it. Sweat poured from my armpits.

  “It must have gotten caught in the pages of my book.” A pocket edition of The Snows of Kilimanjaro & Other Stories with meatball lay next to the meatball-less sub roll.

  “Bank documents are not permitted in the break room,” Mora said. “You know that.”

  “It was an accident.”

  I dabbed at the tomato stain with a napkin imprinted with t
he sub shop logo. Mora grabbed the deposit slip, holding it aloft like a winning lottery ticket.

  “I’m writing this up,” she said and walked out.

  That night I told Amber I was done with embezzling. Working at the BANK was a good job. The best I’d ever had. No way was I going to jeopardize that over her drug habit.

  “I’ll think of something,” Amber said.

  Her words followed me down the front steps like a curse, as I took Cy for his before-bedtime walk. Outside Cy stopped and stretched; yawned and gazed up at me. Then raised his leg and urinated. Not a care in the world.

  A week later Amber and I lay in a sweaty, naked post-coital heap on the sisal rug in my darkened living room. Amber leaned sideways, picking sisal fibers out of her ass. The lights from occasional passing cars sent weird heffalump-ish shadows rummaging across the ceiling.

  The weather had turned hot and steamy as a Chinese laundry. That’s how it would be from now until mid-November. I’d cranked the window air-conditioning unit up to High but it didn’t make much difference.

  “There’s this house on Gulf Drive,” said Amber. “I’ve been watching it every time I drive you to and from the BANK. I think it’s closed up for the summer.”

  “That’s nice.”

  Amber’s fingers ran playfully across my chest.

  “No … listen … There’s probably some really good stuff in there. Stuff we could boost and unload in one of those consignment shops.”

  I sat up, the tip of my dick tingling. It wasn’t a sex tingle.

  “You mean as in breaking and entering?”

  “I’m sure the window locks are all rusted out from the salt air. And there’s an overgrown camellia hedge between the house and the one next door. At night no one will know we’re there.”

  “What about alarms, attack dogs, security guards, cops with guns?”