Puerto Vallarta Squeeze Read Free Page A

concentrate on the other end and don’t look down.
    The shooter finished his drink, smiled again in that something less than genuine way of his. “I don’t like airplanes, never have. Friend dropped me off here from his sailboat. How much?” Now he was concentrating on Luz and her legs or the sandal dangling expectantly from her toe, or some or all of that.
    Danny sank back a little. This wasn’t working out quite the way he’d expected. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected, but this didn’t seem to be it. He was feeling somehow he ought to be more in control of the plot, yet the shooter seemed to be moving things along at his own pace. But there was something here worth the telling, something that could bring in some real money and a first-class piece of writing to boot. Danny didn’t know much about Mexican law, but in the States this would be called aiding and abetting. If he hauled this guy’s tail up to Laredo or wherever, would he be getting himself in serious trouble? Probably, but only if he actually knew the shooter had done something… which he did know.
    On the other hand, a writer’s got to take risks sometime, especially when you’re short and might have to take some kind of real job if things don’t pick up. Sit around on your can down at Las Noches and nothing happens. Rolling Stone would jump at this stuff if he did it as a Hunter Thompson gonzo kind of piece, or maybe it could be serialized in Esquire for ten grand and turned into a novel later on. Maybe a film option, too. Call it fiction or write it under a pseudonym. Or make up stuff and pass it off as true, call it “new journalism.”
    Danny’s agent was good at figuring out those details. He could hear her saying, “Go for it, Danny boy; this jerk’s nothing more than offal for the great American sausage machine called publishing. What’re you going to do with your remaining days, follow all the bullshit dictums of the careful life? Keep your hands in the boat, stay away from the road? Get a do-it-yourself will kit, have a V-8? A buck’s a buck, take ’im down. Besides, it’ll help with your support payments to Janice and little Robbie, which I understand you’re not making at the present time and better start making if you’re ever thinking about coming out of Mexico and joining the American parade again.”
    Something popped inside. “Three thousand American, plus expenses. Fifteen hundred up front.” Danny figured it was an absolute ripoff price, making it seem he wasn’t all that anxious to go north.
    The shooter didn’t even blink. “Done. When can we leave?”
    Caught on the stagger, Danny waited a second or two before answering, feeling his mind trying to make decisions without any help from him. Brain sent message to mouth, mouth talked. “Day or two. The Bronco needs a little work.”
    And while he was saying this out loud in a lurch toward high chance, he was also saying to himself, Back up, back down, get out and go home. Still, events have a force of their own once they’re under way, and it was too late, somehow. Somehow, too late. Confusing: tequila, money, Luz, back to el Norte and better things… no… yes… shit, what am I doing?
    “Would an extra two thousand plus twenty-five hundred front-end money get me a departure in the next couple of hours? I have to meet someone in Dallas.” Some part of Danny’s mind was working on the shooter’s accent, trying to place it. Mostly nondescript midwestern, with a hint of East Coast here and there on certain words.
    Somewhere in the middle of a tunnel closing behind him, Danny Pastor was looking backward and going forward at the same time. Mouth again: “The Mexican high-ways are messy, gets long and lonely out there, especially at night. Things can go wrong.”
    The shooter thought for a moment, then spoke slowly with an interior smile underneath his words. “Sounds like an overall description of life to me. What’s the problem, bad fellows?”
    “Maybe.