Green Ice (6 page)

Wiley mentally pinched himself.

Incredible. There she’d been, this lovely creature, standing on the roadside, miles from anywhere, halfway down the coast of Mexico. Asking for a ride. And he’d almost passed her by. Almost. Maybe his luck was changing. He wished she’d say something. He waited a while longer before asking, “Where you coming from?”

“Puerto Vallarta.”

“What’s up there?”

“It’s just a place.”

“Aren’t you afraid to be hitching around alone?”

“No.” Definitely.

“I thought you were a guy.”

“You can still think so.”

A cold one, Wiley thought. That was all right. He wasn’t feeling any too warm toward the opposite sex either. He lighted another cigarette from the stub of the one he’d been smoking. She glanced at the cigarette, disapproving.

He took a deep drag.

She sighed tolerance.

He noticed she had a small drawstring leather pouch tied to her belt. For safekeeping pesos or possibly a stash. It appeared fat, heavy.

“Your car?” she asked.

“A rental.”

“I thought so.”

“Why?”

“People usually match their cars. You and this one don’t go together.”

“Right now we do.”

If she asked what he meant by that, he was ready to tell her some about himself and his circumstances. He needed ventilation.

She closed her eyes, lowered her head, chin to chest.

Taking a nap? No one could just drop off like that, Wiley thought. She was shutting him out. He could feel it. She was probably the sort who never got beyond herself. To hell with her. He watched the countryside, hummed fragments of another song. But several times he had to hold himself in check from saying such things as “Hey, look at those burros” or “That cloud formation over there looks like a man with a hat on” or “You have lovely hands.” Her hands in her lap lay lightly one upon the other, palms up.

Wiley wished he had something special to place in her hand, to surprise her with a tribute, from stranger to stranger, something of exceptional value that would awaken her, and from then on she would be whatever he ever wanted a woman to be, even if only for the next thirty miles.

He hummed louder.

She licked her lips.

He kept on humming.

She kept her eyes closed but smiled.

Next thing she was kneeling on the seat, reaching back for her duffel bag and saying, “I’m Lillian Holbrook.”

He told her his name. For some reason it sounded a little better to him.

“What do you like to be called?” she asked.

“Anything but Joseph.”

“I hate Lil, always reminds me of a Hong Kong hooker.” She removed a canteen from the duffel bag. “Want some water?”

She unscrewed the cap, and he took a swig. Then she took a swig, and it occurred to Wiley that her lips were touching where his had touched. It wasn’t like him to have such a thought. He was probably suffering some kind of shock from yesterday.

“In case you’re wondering about this water, it’s bottled, Evian. Guaranteed not to contain any little Mexican trotting bugs. Are you hungry?”

He wasn’t sure. He related his breakfast experience, the hot sauce.

She told him: “In Mexico I make it a rule never to eat anything red, not even if it looks like cherry ice cream. I still get fooled, but it’s about ninety percent insurance.”

He decided he was hungry.

She took a papaya from her duffel bag. And a knife. She pressed on its handle to make a six-inch blade snap out. “Switchblades are illegal in the United States,” she said.

“I know.”

“Down here you can buy them anywhere. With a regular kind of knife I always break my nails trying to pull the blade open.”

There was an incongruity to seeing her with the knife in hand. It was a weapon, not a utensil.

She sliced the papaya in half.

“Look.” She held up half for him to see its inner perfection. Black seeds like shiny buckshot in a precise arrangement against the vivid yellow flesh of the fruit.

“A shame to disturb it,” she said. “Want to just look at it a while?”

“Sure.”

She studied the papaya halves, apparently fascinated by how beautiful and exactly alike they were. When she held them up for him to appreciate, it seemed she was being generous.

Wiley’s stomach growled.

She suggested they eat one half and admire the other. She scraped the seeds out and cut a chunk that she offered to Wiley on the point of the knife. He had to be careful. Hit a pothole he’d lose his tongue.

The papaya was bland, disappointing. No temptation to eat the other half. She placed it on the dashboard, propped against the windshield on its side like an exhibit.

“What will you do in Las Hadas?” he asked.

“I’ll find something.”

“Does that mean you’ll be hunting?”

“I suppose. How about you?”

“I’ve been invited.”

“Really?”

“In a roundabout way.”

She nodded as though she knew exactly what that meant.

Wiley decided it would be best if he told her the truth, no matter what. A good clean start, he’d keep it that way. He told her about Mrs. Gimble. He didn’t mention the new ambitions that lady and Las Hadas had brought out in him. Didn’t have to.

“There’ll be a lot of money there,” Lillian said.

“Probably.”

“For sure. A wonderful unhappy hunting ground.” She beamed.

“Are you hoping to hit it rich?”

“Aren’t you?”

“It never occurred to me,” he said.

“Bullshit.”

“Why bullshit?”

“You’re attractive … no, that’s a self-conscious understatement. You’re extremely attractive and even without trying you have a sort of charm about you. That’s exactly it, you’re charming. And here you are on your way to the gold mine in a rented VW.”

“You were hitchhiking.”

She thought about that. “I’m not denying anything.”

“Neither am I.”

“So, as it turns out, we’re both going to Las Hadas to take care of business.”

“Okay, Lil.”

“Not that kind of business.”

“That’s what it gets to eventually, doesn’t it?”

She shrugged. “No less for you.”

He was suddenly depressed again, further down than before, but now for an altogether different reason. Lillian. He had an impetuous notion to tell her to hell with Las Hadas, they could turn off before there or go on by. Together.

She seemed to sense his change in mood. “Don’t worry about it,” she said brightly. “It’s a nice dishonorable profession.”

They remained silent for a while. He lighted another cigarette, and she returned to looking straight ahead. The road was just barely wide enough, had narrow soft shoulders that dropped off into ditches on each side. A line of palms grew along there, and many of another kind of tree.

“Those are cork trees,” Lillian said.

“Most people think cork comes from the ocean.”

“And jellyfish come in flavors.…”

He didn’t even smile.

“You’re a mopish son of a bitch,” she said.

She was right, he thought, laugh it up.

He told an off-color joke, his all-time best.

She laughed so hard she got a side pain. Contagious laughter. He could hardly steer. They both ended up weak and teary-eyed.

They passed through a town. No sign of its name. It was merely a couple of small houses, a
cantina
, and, of course, a church. Not a person in sight, nothing moving until the speed of the VW caused some chickens to flutter up.

A half mile farther down the road a black car, a six-year-old Dodge, overtook the VW, came alongside. It was so caked with dust that the insignia and the word
Policia
were hardly visible on its door.

Wiley pulled over. The police car pulled up in front.

“Now we’ll find out who you really are,” Lillian quipped.

Wiley had lost his humor. He got a flash of himself in a smalltown Mexican jail, eating
cucaracha
sandwiches. He’d heard they locked you up for hardly any reason and forgot which key. He hoped to Christ it wasn’t a stash of grass Lillian had in that drawstring pouch.

Two policemen were coming toward the car. They looked very much alike, narrow-shouldered and fat-waisted. Both were out of shape, but they were wearing revolvers. In the States, as a measure of caution, one would have remained in the police car, Wiley thought. Why not here?

“
Buenos días, señor.”

“Buenos días.”

One of the policemen had collar burn, the skin of his neck inflamed, a pimply rash. The other had hair growing out of his ears.

Sore Neck asked to see Wiley’s driver’s license.

Wiley handed it out along with his passport.

Lillian was amused.

Wiley hoped the policemen didn’t notice.

“La velocidad máxima es cincuenta kilómetros,”
Sore Neck said.

Wiley gave the excuse that he hadn’t seen any road signs saying fifty was the limit.

“The wind blows them down,” Sore Neck said.

Wiley doubted that.

Hairy Ears went around the VW, thumping on it with the heel of his fist as though searching for a secret compartment. Meanwhile Sore Neck took another look at Wiley’s license and passport. And another.

Lillian began clicking her teeth.

Hairy Ears got down and examined the VW underneath.

“Muy malo, señor,”
Sore Neck said, his lower lip over his upper.

It seemed to Wiley that Sore Neck was trying to appear grim. Trying.

Lillian was still clicking her teeth. Better that than an offending laugh, Wiley thought.

The two policemen stood side by side, their heads cocked a little, looking at Wiley with what he translated as a trace of expectancy.

Lillian clicked some more and nudged Wiley.

He thought he heard her whisper: “Hundred pesos.”

Did he dare? For trying to bribe an official, they might give him four life sentences to be served consecutively. He smiled weakly at the policemen.

They didn’t smile back.

He took out 100 pesos.

“Each,” Lillian whispered.

He held his breath as he extended the two 100-peso notes out the window.

Sore Neck took his. Hairy Ears took his. All smiles now.

Hairy Ears said the VW was leaking a little brake fluid underneath but—thumping on the fender—it was a good car.

Everyone said
gracias
five or six times.

Afterward, when they were under way again, Wiley asked Lillian why all that clattering of teeth?

“I thought you’d get it.”

“Get what?”

“La mordida.”

“The bite?”

“They were only putting the bite on you. They count on it as though it were part of their salary. Now they’ll go back to the cantina, stand drinks for everybody and probably won’t stop anyone else for at least three or four hours.”

“For a while there I thought maybe that’s how you got when you got nervous, or you’d suddenly developed an awful chill.”

“You’re not as sharp as I thought.”

“How come you know so much about Mexico?”

“I’ve been here,” she said ambiguously. “Besides, didn’t it give you a sense of power—not a big one, but at least a taste—buying those policemen off like that?”

“No,” Wiley replied too quickly.

Lillian’s glance told him she knew better.

“About ten miles to go,” he said.

It was midafternoon. The hottest part of the day was over, but the temperature was still hanging near ninety.

“We’re practically there,” he said.

They passed a man on a burro, slouched, hat down over his eyes, arms limp as though riding asleep. A woman, walking behind, had hold of the burro’s tail.

Lillian grunted.

“Only fifteen minutes more,” Wiley said.

“We might stop for a swim,” she said, matter of fact.

It was like a reprieve, but he said, “Maybe you want to wait until we get there. I mean, it’ll be more convenient and everything, won’t it?” Say no, he said inside, say absolutely not.

“Probably,” she said.

“Yeah.”

“But then there’ll be all that bother with getting settled in first … and everything.”

At that point the highway didn’t run right along the ocean because the coastline jutted out. Wiley slowed the Volks, found a side road. It was overgrown and rutted, but it took them within a few feet of the beach. Fine white sand, not a mark on it except tiny starlike tracks of birds. The Pacific licked up, slicked and darkened, then slid back into itself. On the shoulder of the beach was the deposit line, where shells and other little sea things had been washed up.

Lillian found a driftwood stick.

She removed her shoes, trousers, and shirt. All she had on then was a pair of white bikini underpants. She was neither shy nor shameless. Her attitude was one of unconforming independence, a confidence in herself that included her body. Hers was hers. Provocation wasn’t her intention, or at least it wasn’t uppermost in her mind.

Wiley managed not to look at her as she undressed, told himself he’d see her soon enough. He kept his undershorts on. He looked up to see her, faced away, walking toward the water. She had the stick in hand. She used it to scratch a line in the sand from the shoulder of the beach all the way to the reach of the surf.

She turned, told him, “That side of the line is your beach. This side is mine.”

Wiley nodded.

This was the first time he’d stood beside her. She was taller than he’d thought. About five-eight barefoot.

“And, remember, the line goes out for a long ways,” as she indicated the sea.

Wiley tried not to look directly at her breasts. Her skin was equally suntanned there. Pink nipples. He’d never known a brunette with such pink nipples. It made them look innocent, like the tips of a baby’s fingers.

She strode to the water. It came to meet her. She went right in, swam straight out until she was over her head, had to tread. She looked back to the beach. Wiley was still standing there.

“Can’t you swim?” she shouted.

He didn’t reply. He’d been caught up by the sight of her.

“At least you can wade.”

He ran into the surf, dove in and swam to within twenty feet of her. They treaded and swam and floated, keeping their distance.