Sayulita Sucker - Seven

A Luke Fischer Novella - Diminished 9th.

Sayulita Sucker - Seven

We arrived after a short drive in Lopez’s vintage VW Bug, which was the colour of rust and darker rust. Rattling down one of Sayulita’s corduroy dirt roads was a good body massage but didn’t lessen the tension coursing through me. I’d always had this ability to sense when something was going bad, even when I was a kid. Once during a pick-up baseball game I felt a twinge. Two full minutes later the thick as a brick 11-year old batter spun his Louisville and smacked the kid on deck square on the chops, eliciting a fountain of blood and a collective moan from the bench. I wasn’t even surprised. I knew it was coming.

Now walking into a low-slung structure, overgrown with Mexican foliage, I knew I wasn’t going into any kid’s ballgame. I also knew I wasn’t going anywhere good. 

Inside was less shabby than the outside. Light poured in the open windows, plants from the front yard had migrated and taken root in pots around the large square living space, their rich greens a stark contrast to the buttermilk walls. A blue curtain hung from a golden rod, sealing off a hallway that led somewhere I didn’t want to know. And then there was the scuzzy guy on the wicker easy chair smoking the stub of a cigar, the ring of smoke around him looked less like a halo and more like a swarm of bees. There was only a couple inches left, but I made out the red band of a Romeo  y Julieta, most likely courtesy of Lopez. Or possibly, Scuzzy-guy was the supplier to the whole show. The dude looked like an extra from a John Huston desert movie.

“Who’s this?” He growled his question around the smoke.

“Let’s start with who the fuck are you?” I asked.

Scuzzy scratched his beard, took a long drag, and blew out a cloud.

“Who is he, Lopez?”

“From the north.”

“California?”

Lopez smiled his bushy smile.

“Farther.”

Scuzzy considered this and I waited until a 10-watt light went off in his head.

“Oh. Canadian. All right, then. Let’s talk business or drink.”

“How about both?” I asked.

“So it’s true what they say about your kind?” Scuzzy asked.

“Every bit of it.”

The two men exchanged looks and I swear I heard Lopez’s eyebrows lift—even though I had no fucking clue what they were referring to.

The man on the wicker chair took a final drag before crushing the cigar in a nearby plant. There was a sound like sneakers on a basketball court, over to my left a bright green gecko high-tailed it up the wall.

“Esmerelda.” Scuzzy barked the name like it was a magic spell.

The woman from the beach bar emerged through the blue curtain that matched her intense eyes.

“Didn’t expect to see you here,” I lied.

“Do I know you?”

Her accent was definitely Latin, but somewhere farther south I guessed. Benno had an acquaintance from Brazil, and there was something similar in her tone.

“In the palapa,” I said.

A few moments.

“Where?”

“With the guitar player. You had a shaker.”

“Oh.” She glanced at Scuzzy. “You’re interested in a purchase?”

“Is that what you call it?”

Another glance.

“If you are already here, don’t waste our time,” she said. “No games.”

“Lopez brought me. Can’t say I know why.”

“You are looking for an,” she paused, “arrangement?”

Another sneaker sound from the wall, either the same gecko or another one searching for the same bugs.

“You know. Maybe you can help me. I’m looking for a young woman named Soleil. She might go by the name, Sunny.” I fished my wallet out and held up the small photo. “Maybe you want to pass this around?”

The room got way too quiet. I thought I heard a gecko tongue a bug.

“I do not think you are who you say you are.” Esmeralda spoke in a low tone matching the atmosphere that hung over the room.

“I didn’t say I was anybody.” I put the picture back.

Scuzzy let out a cracked whistle. Esmeralda looked behind her and we all watched the guitar player come through the curtain, weathered instrument in hand.

“Oh good. The band is here,” I said.

“Where did you find him, Lopez?” Scuzzy got out of the wicker and took a step toward me.

“He was in Las Sirenas. I thought that he—”

“Carlos!”

Everything moved two or three beats too fast. Esmeralda sprang up and took a fast step back. Carlos the guitar player swung for my head. I ducked, narrowly missing a face full of acoustic wood. When I spun out of the crouch, Scuzzy charged like a hairy rhino and slammed into me. Knocked on my ass and gasping for breath, I held up a hand.

“Hang on, I--”

Scuzzy cut my sentence short with a sharp kick in the ribs. 

“I am sorry. I did not suspect, Marko. How did you know?” Lopez looked confused.

“Why did he ask for her then?”

“Marko,” Guitar-Carlos began. “Who is this?”

“What should we do?” Esmerelda asked.

“Shh.”

Lopez raised his hand.

“Shut up Lopez. Let me think.”

So Scuzzy had a name too, and it seemed he was in charge. Pain radiated across my rib-cage, and I knew I needed to put something together damn fast. The next boot was probably going to be in my head followed by something pointy or something that fired bullets. The four of them started talking fast in Spanish. I couldn’t follow it, but I guessed I presented them with a problem. I didn’t know who they thought I was, but I was pretty sure they were discussing where to dig the hole for my body.

As good a time as any. 

I swung out a foot and caught Marko, who I still preferred calling Scuzzy, at the back of his leg. He cried out and fell to one knee. A quick step up, my weight on my back leg, and I slammed him with a hard right followed by an uppercut to his chin hard enough to make the geckos stop mid-squeak. I turned to Lopez who was fishing in his jacket. I didn’t want to know what it was, so I slammed in the gut with my fist. He let out a whoof, and then I finished with a haymaker that would have made my boxing coach in Montreal proud.

“Amigo!”

I took a fast step behind the timbering Lopez, surprised that Carlos had announced his presence as he came at me. Another swing of his guitar and this time I grabbed the neck and wrenched it out his hand.

“Hope you’ve got a back up.”

I whipped the guitar around and clocked Carlos on the side of his head. The wood split on contact and the strings rang out with a jazz chord. Sounded like a diminished 9^th, but how the fuck did I know. Carlos joined Lopez on the floor. Scuzzy was up again, so he was rewarded with a boot to the noggin and sent to the darkness.

“I guess it’s just you and me.” I took in a breath. My chest was sore, but it didn’t seem like anything was broken.

The woman with the striking blue eyes kicked off her sandals, crouched down, then started a slow spin, shifting her body from side to side. She planted her hands on the floor and flipped her body backward, scraping the ceiling with her feet.

“Oh, I see. Like that,” I said.