“So we will be posing as con men.”
“In a sense, yes. Cynicism will be more convincing than an air of earnest integrity.”
When we were bowed out by the headwaiter, a small, dark, burly Mexican thrust a pamphlet at each of us. It was a single sheet, folded. It invited us to free drinks and snacks from four to six o’clock any day at the Azteca Royale, a brand-new apartment building designed for vacation sharing. Absolutely free, without obligation. On Fridays the freebies would include a ride in a launch around the Nichupte Lagoon. Come to the reception desk outside the public lounge near the model apartment.
“This is what we were talking about,” Meyer said. “And they will know Willy No-Last-Name.”
“If Cody Pittler was not lying, Willy was selling time shares right here in Cancun the first two months of this year.”
Twenty-one
THE AZTECA Royale was under construction farther out along the island chain, out beyond the turnoff to the Hotel Camino Real, almost to the shopping plaza that served the hotel district, and not far from a convention center and a native crafts center.
In the morning we had ridden on out to the end to where a gate and a guard barred the way to the Club Mediterranee, bribed our way past the guard, bought twelve dollars’ worth of beads, and sat at an outdoor bar with a good view of the pool, drinking a brace of rum punches while we admired the pleasantly tanned mammary equipment of the younger lady guests. The bartender took three onedollar beads for each drink so two apiece was all our beads would buy. Bright sun, dark shade, ample drinks, and firm bobbing boobs splashing around in the blue water tended to stimulate erotic imaginings. This was what vacations are for.
After a light lunch and a nap back at Dos Playos, we were ready for the sales pitch. The public lounge with the model apartment beyond it was at the right, or east, side of the structure that was going up. It had little brown men crawling all over the reinforced concrete beams of the basic framework, hauling up buckets of this and that on frayed ropes, their muscular brown backs clenching and shining in the afternoon sunlight.
It was five after four. A handsome young man in an elegant linen suit sprang up from behind the reception desk, hand outstretched, smile wide. “Welcome!” he said. “Welcome! We have marvelous things to show you, gentlemen.”
“Bet you do,” I said.
He handed us each a batch of pamphlets and directed us into the lounge. It was large. There were little conversational islands of chairs placed on rugs at random around the large tiled floor. A maid in uniform, her eyes half closed, stood leaning against the wall behind an improvised bar, a long table covered with sheeting. Two more elegant men and two handsome young women were talking together. They all turned to stare at us, and after a murmured discussion, the taller and better looking of the two women came striding toward us, turning to pop her fingers at the maid and jolt her out of her trance.
“Welcome!” she said. “Welcome, gentlemans. Welcome to the luffly Azteca Royale!” She wore a white blouse with a little black string tie, and dark red slacks closely fitted. She had a fine walk and lots of eyelashes.
“What would you like for drinking, please?”
I had a small dull headache from the rum, and asked for a beer. She turned and said some machine-gun Spanish across the room to the maid, who delved into an ice chest and came on the run with two opened bottles of Carta Blanca and two frosty mugs. The girl asked our names and told us hers was Adela and looked down and pointed to her badge, which did indeed say Adela thereon. She guided us over to one of the little chair groups, and the maid put the beers, coasters, and paper napkins on the table. Adela said she was sorry she could not join us in a beer, but she would have a Fresca, and her steely look at the maid sent her scampering off to get it.
“So!” said Adela. “What do you say? Here is looking on you?”
“Looking on you,” said Meyer, and we sipped. “What a wonderful opportunity this is for you mens! Now we are having the preconstruction pricing. And we can offer some of the best times in the year. The Christmas and the New Year’s is gone already. But there is a nice week from the middle end of January, or two weeks if you like that. Do you like that, Mr. Mickey?”
“McGee. Miss Adela, I think maybe we are here under false pretenses.”
She looked blank. “What is this pretenses?”
“My partner here, Mr. Meyer, and I, we thought we might come down here and sell some of this time sharing to the tourists for you.”
She stared at us and then shook her head slowly from side to side. “Oh, no! This is a most bad season for selling. More people selling than buying. You have no papers to work here?”
“No, we don’t.”
“It is very hard to get them. Very long time. You have to have a… how you say, abogado?”
“Lawyer,” Meyer said.
“Yes, and is much, how you say, bite for you to get papers.” She rubbed her thumb and two fingers together in the time-honored gesture which means bribery.
I smiled at her. “Now suppose I went right out and sold three weeks for you and came back with the people and you signed them up. Wouldn’t you give me a little gift?”
She chewed at her underlip. “But I could cheat you, no?”
“A nice woman like you wouldn’t cheat us.”
“I am not the jefe here. I couldn’t say. You have experience?”
“Mucho!” I said. “Millions. But maybe we ought to get in touch with a fellow I know down here who’s in this line of work. Willy. I can’t remember his last name.”
“Willy?”
“Another friend named Evan Lawrence was working with him, and Evan didn’t have any papers either.”
“Oh, what you mean is Weelliam Doyle, from Yooston.”
“That’s who I mean.”
“Oh, he is gone a long time, that one. Many weeks: Too damn bad. My fren‘ thinks he comes back. I don’t think so. She’s a very high-class lady even if she’s Indio. She’s still living in his place, waiting for Weelliam.”
“Would she know where Evan Lawrence is?”
“Who can say? I do not see him any more either.”
“Where can I find this woman? What’s her name?”
“Barbara. Barbara Castillo. The place, it is down that way, toward the land. You will see it on the right hand. La Vista del Caribe. Apartments. His is ground floor on the front, no view. Ring the bell on Doyle.” She looked at her watch. “But Barbara is not coming there yet from work. She is running a reservation computer at Hotel Camino Real every day. And waiting. Maybe after six, a little bit after.”
“Thanks. Sorry we weren’t in the market to buy.”
She gave a shrug, made a funny little gesture with her hand. “So if it looked like you could buy, the other girl would be here, no? She is working longer than me.”
We got to La Vista del Caribe shortly after six. It was already almost dark. I would never, by choice, live just over a time line, on the west side of the line. All year long, your days are too short.
There was no one at the desk. Little kids were racing up and down the corridors. We looked around the ground floor until we found the right place: number 103. He had cut down an engraved calling card to fit the name slot. William Devlin Doyle, Jr.
The bell was underneath the name slot. I pushed it three times without result. As we were discussing what to do next, the door suddenly opened. She was tall and slender. She wore a robe and held it closed around her with her left hand. Her smile of greeting disappeared abruptly. She wore a black shower cap. There were droplets of water on her face.
“I was… who are you?”
“We’re from Houston, Miss Castillo. We’re looking for Willy. My name is McGee and this is Meyer.”
I was trying to look my ingratiating, foot-scuffing, awshucks best as she looked us over. “Come in, then. Please.” She led us into the living room. It was a small room, the furniture spare and gleaming, two unusual primitive paintings on the white wall, a bookshelf with books, small pieces of sculpture, two masks.