Planet Willie (14 page)

“One last
question, professor, and then I’ll let you get back to work. These fakes you’ve
been examining – in your judgment are they well done?”

“They’re not
bad at all,” he says, pursing his lips and squinting through the eyeglasses. “The
ones I’ve seen appear to be done by the same hand, and whoever he is, he does
appear to be at least relatively well versed in the style of painting used
during the Renaissance. The brushwork is not obtrusive. The layering of colors
is consistent with what we see in Botticelli’s school. The problem, in my
judgment, is the colors themselves. They show no signs of aging – they have no
depth
– and if we took them into the laboratory, a carbon test would confirm that
those paints are synthetic and likely bought at a common supply store not more
than a few years ago.”

“Professor,” I
say, “I want to thank you for explaining all of this to me. I’ll leave you Mister Shore’s number in case anything interesting comes up.” I take a pen from his desk,
scratch out the number on a copy of the Rocky Mountain News, and stand to shake
his hand.

“I most
certainly will, Mister Lee. I most certainly will.”

Then I slip
out of the office before he goes scientific on me again and take the stairs
back down to the kitchen.

“Any luck?”
Bella says. She’s at the table with another gin and a cigarette. Mindy’s
nowhere to be seen. May be out doing the shopping or paying the bills, for all
I know. The girl appears to be running the place.

“Luck’s not my
strong point, Bella.”

“That’s before
you met me,” she says.

“Maybe so,” I
say, “but I’m investigating these fake virgins and am hitting the road again.”

She pouts
those lips a little, shaking her head. “What is it with these virgins anyway?”

“It’s a scam,”
I say, “and some people are trying to make money off of it.”

“Well good for
them,” she says. “I’m getting my first vacation in years thanks to it. They’re
flying him down to authenticate one of the Madonnas.”

“Where’s that,
Bella?”

“Mexico. We’re
making a week of it in a five-star hotel. Thirty years of marriage, and I
finally get a five-star hotel. I plan on sitting by the pool until I’ve got one
killer tan.” She slips the flowing dress from her shoulder until I can see most
if not all of one fine large breast. “No tan lines in Mexico, Willie. They let you go topless down there.”

“And where
would this be in Mexico, sweetheart?”

Acapulco, she
says, and I can’t help recalling Harry Shore saying something about his
daughter Lulu and her little orphans living down that way. It’s probably a
coincidence, but then rule number one of the private investigating business is never trust a coincidence, which is a rule that comes in handy when I find Kafka and Twiggy
standing out on the sidewalk, and Ralph and my El Camino nowhere in sight.

Kafka’s slumped
across Che Guevara on the hood of the Volkswagen. He’s wearing a black leather
cap and looking more than a little hungover. Twiggy’s dressed in black leather
head to toe. Today’s theme must be Village People.

“Find out
anything interesting?” Twiggy says, apparently having decided to ignore our
morning wrestling match.

“What the hell
happened to Ralph and my car?”

“Who’s Ralph?”
they say in unison.

“Big fella
sitting behind the wheel of an El Camino?”

“Oh,” Kafka
says, slumping back down across Che. “We told him we’d just seen Fernanda over
in the food court of the Cherry Creek Mall, and he took off.”

“Not bad,” I
say, agreeable surprised, for once, by their ingenuity. “Ralph’s a very
dangerous art thief, and we’d do well to steer clear of him.” Kafka hardly appears
to hear this. He’s leapt up to open the hood as an old woman in a gray sweat
suit approaches on the sidewalk, walking her dog. In the trunk, or whatever
they call it on a Beetle, he’s got what looks like at least twenty Madonnas
stacked side by side. “Merry Easter,” he says to the woman as he hands her a
painting.

“Well isn’t
that
lovely
,” the woman says before muttering off down the sidewalk with
the painting in one hand and the leash in the other.

“We’re taking
it to the next level,” Kafka says to me, looking a bit embarrassed about it if
you want to know the truth.

“Fair enough,”
I say, “because so am I. How’d you find me this time, if you don’t mind me
asking.”

“We paid off
the concierge with a painting,” Kafka says. “And then you weren’t too tough to
follow in that El Camino piece of crap.”

“This from a
man driving an airbrushed Volkswagen,” I say.

“Enough,”
Twiggy says, turning to face me with her legs set wide like she’s ready for
round two. “What brought you here? Who lives in that house and what’s he got to
do with our paintings?”

“My
paintings,” Kafka says. Twiggy winces but doesn’t take her eyes off me.

“He’s just an
old high school buddy of mine,” I say. “We were planning our thirtieth
reunion.”

“Enough,”
Twiggy says again. “We have a proposition to make. We can just keep following
you, which will be even easier now that you’ve lost your ride. Or you can start
working with us.”

“We split the
painting in two once we find it?”

“You can have
the painting,” she says. “We want the money coming to Fernanda.”

“Why should I
work with you two characters?” I say, choosing for the moment not to mention
that no money’s likely to come near Fernanda anytime soon. “I doubt Kafka could
find a painting in that trunk if you asked him to do it again.”

“Then we keep
following you,” Kafka says, smiling under the brim of his leather cap. “Try not
to walk too fast. Also, Twiggy thought to steal your suitcase out of the
backseat of the El Camino, but we’ll be sure to hold onto it for you.”

Admittedly
they’ve got a few points, and I’m not intending to wait around for my wheels
when they’re being driven by an irritable angel named Ralph. I wonder how many
hours it might take to get to Acapulco in a Volkswagen Beetle. I wonder what
the Albanians might know about Alberto’s cocaine. I wonder if there are angels
in Mexico. I wonder if I’m ever going to get back to South Texas and ask
Caroline who shot me. But as the little Dutchman wrote, if you keep thinking
about what you want to do or what you hope will happen, you won’t do it, and it
won’t happen. So I tell Kafka to fire up the Volkswagen, and then I tell Che, “Viva
la revolucion.”

17

As far as I’m
concerned, the only hard rule in life is that you’ve got to live it, and that’s
a rule you’ll particularly want to keep in mind when you’re travelling across
the deserts of northern Mexico in a Volkswagen Beetle. It the sort of situation
that really obliges a man to find the silver linings. I’m talking enchilada
extravaganzas whenever we can find an excuse to stop. I’m talking making a
point of sampling as many tequilas as possible, since we learn pretty quick
that there are over a hundred varieties. Every once in a while Twiggy even
cracks a smile, and I actually manage to get her to dance to a salsa tune I put
on the jukebox in a Juarez cantina. Later that night, I think I spot Ralph in a
passing truck and experience a few moments of mild panic, but Kafka makes a
fair point: even if Ralph miraculously managed to tail us to the border,
there’s no chance an American like him would ever have a passport. When I point
out that I’m an American too, he says I’m more
international
, which I
guess I take as high praise. “Also he doesn’t have any school of Botticelli
Madonnas to bribe his way through the border without a passport the way you
did,” Kafka says, and in truth it’s unbelievable the number of laws you have to
break to do God's bidding.

The kids hand
out paintings in El Paso, they donate them to strangers in Chihuahua and Mexico
City. Along the way we talk the missing original through every which way. They
insist that Alberto never did drugs and that the cocaine must have been planted
on him, but they have no idea why. The trip takes us three long days, and I
wouldn’t want to repeat it, but then I could name you thousands of worse ways
to spend three days. For that matter, I could name you a worse way to spend
eternity.

Once we hit Acapulco,
we check into a five-star Hyatt, courtesy of Harry Shore. I figure we deserve
it after all the money I’ve saved him traveling such distances in an automobile
airbrushed with a man in a beret. Immediately we decide to put one of us at the
airport to follow the Farsinellis once they arrive, and to hopefully find out
how a painting worth authenticating got all the way down here. Meanwhile the
other two will scour the streets for orphans and Lulu Shore on the off chance
she might provide a few clues of her own. Twiggy doesn’t want to be left alone
with yours truly, which puts her at the airport, leaving orphan duty to Kafka
and me. We keep Che in the hotel garage and enjoy sunny Acapulco on foot, since
that’s really the way you want to do it. Mariachi bands, taco stalls, college
girls wrapped up tight in beach towels. The suit just seems to move easier in
that warm seaside air.

We take our
investigations into the bars and down onto the beach. Kafka’s not much of a swimmer
himself, but I buy myself some swimming trunks, and it causes quite a stir, the
streamlined self, as I cruise across the sand looking for an unoccupied lounge
chair. I mean these shorts would be snug on a eunuch, so you can imagine. Sort of
like a Speedo that had too much to drink and lost a bet. Make enough friends in
thirty seconds to last a lifetime, though to be honest most of these are
seventeen-year-old fellas selling shell necklaces, coca-colas, parasailing
tours, or whatever they’ve got. Don’t take no for an answer, really. Tend to
congregate around the lounge chair, such that if you get more than a sentence
read in the ol’
Praise of Folly
without interruption, it’s a near
miracle. Makes you wish you spoke a little more español, or at least a few more
synonyms for
no
, but unfortunately little Mindy Farsinelli, my synonym
queen, is presumably back in Denver keeping house. Finally we just give up and
cruise the beach with the fan club, popping up occasionally to one of the hotel
bars overlooking the bay to bring down beers for the whole gang.

People want to
know what two guys like us are doing in Acapulco. We tell them we’re
philanthropists,
philanthropicos
, who love the little orphans of Mexico and want to help out where we can. This turns out to be even more effective at
drawing a crowd than the swimsuit. Turns out a greater part of the population
of Acapulco is orphaned. We meet orphaned alcoholics, orphans in gold chains,
and several orphaned retirees. Eventually we meet Cipriano and El Gordito, who
at least have the virtue of being twelve and thirteen. We come across them out
on the strip that runs past the tourist hotels and the souvenir shops. They’re
holding out baseball caps and begging for small change, El Gordito the muscle,
Cipriano the charm. The discussion gets around to the kind of money they could
pull in with my hat and Kafka’s leather cap, although if they’re not managing
to fill those baseball caps with pesos, it’s hard to see how they could fill
The Kid. Both boys are clean and well-dressed, and Cipriano speaks perfect
English. I ask him how he learned it, he tells me they teach it over at the
church. Kafka’s a religious man, I tell the boys, and would be interested in
seeing that church. They’re not too crazy about the idea. Even start denying
they were ever orphans in the first place. We end up having to buy them ice
cream to get the story straight. What comes out is that the nuns over at the
church have forbidden them to beg for money. Cipriano and El Gordo have been caught
for it once and don’t intend to be caught for it again. Last time they ate
beans for a week and were forced to do hail marys into the wee hours of the
morning, which I can’t imagine ever did wonders for a soul.

“How much do
you fellas manage to get in those hats on any given day?” I ask.

“Maybe a
hundred pesos,” Cipriano says.

“Hundred,
hundred ten,” says El Gordito, which are the first words we’ve heard out of him.

“Then how
about Kafka and I just give you each a hundred ten pesos without your having to
beg for it, and you two take us over to the church to meet the nuns.”

“You two crazy
hombres,” Cipriano says, shaking his head like he’d just as soon not earn his
money in this ignoble way. “Alright then,” he eventually says. “Let’s see the
money.”

I show it, and
he leads us into the old town, to a little plaza and a small whitewashed church
with a façade shaped like a bell. We walk up some stone steps to a wooden
doorway open to the dim sanctuary of Santa Pulcheria. Inside the air smells
like a cave, damp and cool. Cipriano and El Gordito get to trembling just
walking into the place. They lead us up the center aisle to the altar, which
looks more like a flea market. I mean crucifixes and candles of every color
imaginable, gaudy Marias, flowers plastic and real, hard candy and home-baked
icons, incense smelling of wildflowers and sweat. Religion Mexican-style. All
sorts of odds and ends get mixed up in it, which seems to me a hell of a lot
closer to the chaotic way it really is than the organized way people want it to
be.

The kids lead
us off through a door to the right of the altar and into sort of an office
area. A nun in a habit sits behind a desk. She’s got a hard, heavy face, thick
black-rimmed eyeglasses, and answers to nobody’s fetishes. Kafka is looking as
nervous as the kids. Cipriano mumbles some introductions. Sister Margarita,
she’s called, and the sister has some fiery looks for Cipriano and El Gordito,
whose other name is apparently Juan. They scamper off through another doorway
like Kafka and I never existed, and Margarita says in English that she knows
we’re no
philanthropicos
, so how can she help us?

I tell the
sister we’re looking for Sister Lulu, who’s the sister of a friend. “Biologically
speaking, I mean. We were hoping to have a word with her.”

Margarita
tells us that Lulu works mostly out in the plaza, ministering to the young and
the homeless, offering the little orphans a proper meal and a place to stay.
She says that if we must speak to her, we might find her out there. We thank Margarita
for her time and head back out into the plaza, where it’s not too hard to spot
the nun in the crowd. She’s standing by the central fountain looking around
anxiously, like maybe she’s not making her quota of orphans for the day. Even
with the scarf over her head, I recognize her as Fernanda’s sister. Dark blonde
hair pokes out at the edges of the scarf, and she appears to have those same
green eyes. Eyes of a Southern girl, they are, but she’s been away for a while
and is made of sharper lines than any Texas debutante. Cheeks like knife edges
and a mouth clamped shut like a seam. With looks like that, she’d make a better
New York art dealer than Fernanda will ever be.

“What do you
call that thing they wear on their heads, Kafka?” I say.

“A wimple,” he
says. “You really think she knows something about that painting?”

“That’s why
we’re here, isn’t it? Let’s go find out. Might even be edifying for a young man
like yourself. After all, Twiggy’s over at the airport, isn’t she?”

“The woman’s a
nun, Willie.”

“Never say
never,” I say, as we walk across the cobblestones towards Lulu. I introduce myself,
and I introduce the kid. “Kafka here lost his folks at an early age and was
wondering if you might take him in personally, Miss Shore.”

“Who are you?”
she says, trying to hurt us with those hard eyes, but they’re so nervous they
keep glancing off without making any real contact. Kafka’s blushing like he’s
been hit anyway.

“Two orphan
lovers like yourself, Lulu,” I say.

“I happen to
live for these poor children,” she says, some holy conviction finally allowing
her to fix me with a stare.

“Blessed be
the children, for they shall inherit the earth,” I say.

“That’s the
meek, Mister Lee,” she says. “You’ve got your verses mixed up.”

“Call me
Willie,” I say, as Kafka kicks his heels on the cobblestones. “And I guess I
could never see the meek getting much of anywhere, although that may be a personal
inclination. But talk of inheriting the earth gets me to thinking about inheritances
in general, which gets me to thinking about your father, who’s hired me as a
private detective to find a piece of his inheritance that’s gone missing. Mind
if we go over to that bar and talk this thing through?”

“My work is
not in bars,” she murmurs, glancing back at the church.

“It was a
Madonna painted by the school of Botticelli, and seeing as how you’re of the
Madonna persuasion yourself, I thought you might have some suggestions as to where
we might find her.”

“You came all
the way down here to ask me that?” she says, tucking some stray hairs back
under the wimple.

“That was the
first question,” I say. “We’ll put that one aside for a moment if you like. The
second one was about a man named Ricardo Queso. He’s a Mexican businessman, and
I was wondering if you might have come across him in your ministries here in Acapulco.”

Her mouth
snaps shut, and her hands ball into fists so tight she begins to shake. Mister
Queso has touched a distinctly uncharitable nerve. “I don’t have to stand here
and be addressed this way,” she snaps. “And if I see you and your friend
anywhere around this place, I will immediately call the police. Do I make
myself clear?”

“All too
clear, Lulu,” I say. “Exceptionally clear, in fact.” Then she turns and scurries
off across the plaza to the church door, where she disappears.

“Good job,”
Kafka sitting down on the fountain’s edge, looking a little depressed by the
results of our conversation. Water spurts up and falls behind him in a steady
splash.

“We found out
what we wanted to know, didn’t we?”

“She’s a
nun
.
You don’t talk to nuns that way.”

“She’s a nun
who knows Ricardo Queso,” I say, “and we’re going to have to keep an eye on
her. If she knows Queso, she knows where that painting is.”

“You think she
stole it?”

“No. I think
your friend Alberto did, and then I think Queso got it from him. But your nun’s
involved somehow.”

Kafka sighs.
“She’s not my nun.”

“You need a
drink,” I say, and so we take it over to the other side of the plaza to a bar
they call El Loco. From the bar we’ve got a good view out past the terrace to
the church, so if Lulu makes another move, we’ll see her. Also Coronas are a
dollar a bottle, which makes ten dollars for ten, and pretty quick Kafka and I are
heavily invested. Then we meet Pepe, who introduces us to a cocktail they call
the Cosmetic Surgery. They serve it in a fishbowl, and at two-fifty a pop it
seems like a good investment opportunity, so we shift our assets from Corona over to said Surgeries, a decision that will prove to be a mistake, at least where Kafka
is concerned, not that you can’t eventually learn something from your mistakes.

In the
meantime, Pepe speaks pretty good English, learned strictly via pillow talk if
you can believe Pepe, and he starts telling us about how he makes his living
diving into the Pacific from the cliffs west of town, like Elvis in that movie
from the fifties, I forget what it was called. I’ll have to remember to ask
Darling next time I speak to him on the phone. Failing Darling, I’ll have to
ask Caroline. What I’m asking myself at the moment is how a man can set out to
live for the simple things but nonetheless get mixed up with competition divers
everywhere he turns. I’m wondering if this might be a sign, but honestly I’ve
got no idea what to do with it if it is.

Pepe’s been
cliff diving since he was fourteen. He’s had three broken collar bones to show
for it but supposedly ten times that many women by way of compensation. That’s
just if you’re counting tourists who saw the show. Inspirational show,
apparently. When I ask if he’s heard of an American diver named Rock Lightford,
he just laughs and says Americans don’t know how to dive. He says he’ll take us
over there one afternoon to watch him do it Mexican-style. They’ve also got a
night show with torches. Then he asks if we like to gamble. I tell him I
thought gambling was illegal in Mexico. Not if you know the right places, he
tells me. By this point Kafka’s downed his Surgery in a gulp and is checking
his wallet to see how much he’s got left to invest.