on both sides of them and trees arching
over the road, making a gray green tunnel through which the mad trio rolled at sunrise, all with their own oblique purposes.
Luz was curled up in the back, sleeping, almost out of sight in the jumble of water jugs, food, and other gear. The daughter
of Jesús and Esmeralda Santos could sleep anywhere at anytime in anything.
The shooter lit another Marlboro, stretched, yawned.
“What business you in, Mr. Schumann, if you don’t mind my asking?” Country-boy language, casual approach. Danny watched the
road for serious potholes but was aware the shooter was looking at him for several seconds before answering.
“Consulting, You could say I’m a freelance specialist in crisis management.” Suitably vague, but the hair on the back of Danny’s
neck lifted up. He got hold of himself and pushed it a little further.
“Any special area in which you work? Construction, oil, any of that?”
“All of it. If there’s a mess, I clean up the trash, get rid of the garbage. It’s a dirty world, lot of messy accounts out
there.”
Danny was about to ask him what messy accounts had to be settled in Puerto Vallarta, just to see how he’d answer, but the
shooter spoke first.
“How about you, Danny Pastor? What’s your game?” He talked quietly, and it was hard to hear him over the roar of the wind
from their passing. Danny had to lean toward him to catch all the words.
“Aw, I just hang around Puerto Vallarta. Saved up a little money a while back, and I’m living on that.”
don’t do anything, then? Just lie around Las Noches with the rest of the gringos? I stopped in there the other day. What a
pile of dog crap that was—all of them flopped in beach chairs, stomachs bulging, drinking beer and telling lies. Looked to
me like kind of a kamikaze lifestyle. Ever go there?”
A feeling kept coming back to Danny that what he was doing was the wrong thing to be doing, that he might be in over his head.
“C’mon, Pastor,” his brain was talking again, “hang together, he’s just fishing. You’re a smart guy, dominate him. You know
the big secret about him. He doesn’t know anything about you. Do the kind of work you’re capable of doing.”
“Yeah, I go to Las Noches sometimes.”
“I had you pegged for a writer, something like that.” The shooter let a few seconds go by, then added, “I always thought I’d
like to put some things down on paper, “fou ever do any writing?”
Christ, this guy was unbelievable. Danny’s confidence was lurching back in the direction of shaky. He’d started out thinking
about the matchup between a robot assassin— cocky and crude like the wiseguys, but dumber, he figured—and a crack reporter,
which shouldn’t have been any contest at all. Yet Danny kept getting the sense of the shooter being something more than an
eye and a gun.
Danny’s old skills were latent, but back there someplace. He kept telling himself that. Still, the booze and sun and loose
life in general had dulled him. He’d been aware of that happening but never noticed how far he’d dropped until that moment.
He was feeling rusty and rattled but kept talking to himself: Get tough, get smart, get on top of him.
So what if you’re a writer. That doesn’t mean anything as long as he doesn’t catch on to what you know.
“I did a little writing once. Nothing recently.”
“Got a case of… what do they call it?… writer’s block?”
“I never much liked that term. It’s a copout way of looking at things, like some invisible force has a fist around your mind
and is squeezing it.”
“Well, then what would you call it?” Desert boot tapping on the dash, cigarette ashes flipped into the wind.
Danny listened to the hum of Vito’s tires. He jerked the wheel and took the Bronco around a bad hole in the pavement, settled
down again. Looked at his watch and couldn’t see the dial in bad light.
“It’s almost six,”
over the road, making a gray green tunnel through which the mad trio rolled at sunrise, all with their own oblique purposes.
Luz was curled up in the back, sleeping, almost out of sight in the jumble of water jugs, food, and other gear. The daughter
of Jesús and Esmeralda Santos could sleep anywhere at anytime in anything.
The shooter lit another Marlboro, stretched, yawned.
“What business you in, Mr. Schumann, if you don’t mind my asking?” Country-boy language, casual approach. Danny watched the
road for serious potholes but was aware the shooter was looking at him for several seconds before answering.
“Consulting, You could say I’m a freelance specialist in crisis management.” Suitably vague, but the hair on the back of Danny’s
neck lifted up. He got hold of himself and pushed it a little further.
“Any special area in which you work? Construction, oil, any of that?”
“All of it. If there’s a mess, I clean up the trash, get rid of the garbage. It’s a dirty world, lot of messy accounts out
there.”
Danny was about to ask him what messy accounts had to be settled in Puerto Vallarta, just to see how he’d answer, but the
shooter spoke first.
“How about you, Danny Pastor? What’s your game?” He talked quietly, and it was hard to hear him over the roar of the wind
from their passing. Danny had to lean toward him to catch all the words.
“Aw, I just hang around Puerto Vallarta. Saved up a little money a while back, and I’m living on that.”
don’t do anything, then? Just lie around Las Noches with the rest of the gringos? I stopped in there the other day. What a
pile of dog crap that was—all of them flopped in beach chairs, stomachs bulging, drinking beer and telling lies. Looked to
me like kind of a kamikaze lifestyle. Ever go there?”
A feeling kept coming back to Danny that what he was doing was the wrong thing to be doing, that he might be in over his head.
“C’mon, Pastor,” his brain was talking again, “hang together, he’s just fishing. You’re a smart guy, dominate him. You know
the big secret about him. He doesn’t know anything about you. Do the kind of work you’re capable of doing.”
“Yeah, I go to Las Noches sometimes.”
“I had you pegged for a writer, something like that.” The shooter let a few seconds go by, then added, “I always thought I’d
like to put some things down on paper, “fou ever do any writing?”
Christ, this guy was unbelievable. Danny’s confidence was lurching back in the direction of shaky. He’d started out thinking
about the matchup between a robot assassin— cocky and crude like the wiseguys, but dumber, he figured—and a crack reporter,
which shouldn’t have been any contest at all. Yet Danny kept getting the sense of the shooter being something more than an
eye and a gun.
Danny’s old skills were latent, but back there someplace. He kept telling himself that. Still, the booze and sun and loose
life in general had dulled him. He’d been aware of that happening but never noticed how far he’d dropped until that moment.
He was feeling rusty and rattled but kept talking to himself: Get tough, get smart, get on top of him.
So what if you’re a writer. That doesn’t mean anything as long as he doesn’t catch on to what you know.
“I did a little writing once. Nothing recently.”
“Got a case of… what do they call it?… writer’s block?”
“I never much liked that term. It’s a copout way of looking at things, like some invisible force has a fist around your mind
and is squeezing it.”
“Well, then what would you call it?” Desert boot tapping on the dash, cigarette ashes flipped into the wind.
Danny listened to the hum of Vito’s tires. He jerked the wheel and took the Bronco around a bad hole in the pavement, settled
down again. Looked at his watch and couldn’t see the dial in bad light.
“It’s almost six,”
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