Money, Guns, and Lawyers
Here’s a sneak peak at my upcoming book Money, Guns, and Lawyers, Book #9 in the Senor Bueno Travel Adventure Series. This is Chapter 1, entitled Spy. I hope you love it!
Mazatlan, Mexico 2007
“Uh-oh, I think that man is following us,” whispered Gloria.
“Which man?”
“That one over there,” said Gloria without pointing, nodding, or giving me any other clue.
We were in the Mazatlan airport terminal, so that narrowed the choices down to a couple hundred guys.
“Over where?”
“Don’t look.”
“Okay, jeez. No need to pinch.”
“Have you seen him before?”
“How am I supposed to know?”
Gloria sighed as if I was making things difficult and dragged me behind a potted palm. Pointing through the fronds, she said, “That’s him there, the one with the guitar.”
“The blind guy with the parrot and seeing-eye dog?” I gotta admit, I was a little skeptical.
“Si.”
“He’s following us from in front?”
“He is a tricky one, no?”
“Um. . .”
“I bet Felipe sent him.”
By Felipe, Gloria meant Felipe Calderon, newly elected president of Mexico. Representing her family’s business interests (many millions in ill-begotten gains), my pro-active girlfriend had made it her job to get close to Felipe. Just as she had with previous president Vicente Fox.
When I complained, she said, “It’s nothing personal, amor.”
“It kinda is, at least to me.”
“Don’t be silly. I have no feelings for Felipe; it’s a matter of keeping your enemies close.”
“You have to seduce every new Mexican president?”
Gloria shrugged. “Now that the PRI is out of power.”
I sighed.
“I don’t like it either, but business is business. If I want to run for governor I’ll need his support.”
“But. . .”
“You can’t expect my brothers to do it. After all, they’re in prison.”
She made a good point, but still. . .
My partner Bighead (AKA: Big Ed Head—but only to his face) agreed with Gloria. “There’s an upside to sharing your girlfriend with el presidente—we’ll get all the inside dirt on his war against drugs. Some of which might protect our crops. Not to mention, save our lives.”
Bighead’s point was also good. Felipe Calderon wasn’t kidding when he said he was going to war on the cartels. We weren’t exactly a cartel, but we did want to grow tons of marijuana. Which put us right in Felipe’s sights.
Gloria had added a codicil to the upside—especially the part about saving my life. “As long as Felipe doesn’t find out about you and me, amor. Because then. . .”
Bottom line, with Felipe a jealous man and us on vacation, Gloria was concerned with secrecy. Also, maybe a little paranoid. With a reputation as the infamous master criminal Senor Bueno, a person of interest in just about any major crime, so was I. Back in 1971 President Nixon (AKA: Uncle Dick), mad about me getting stoned in a White House bathroom, had declared the War on Drugs. And now, despite my efforts to raise world consciousness, the hypocritical George W. Bush, a regular party animal before he turned square, carried the torch. As did my sister Director Bonnie, now head of the DEA. Then there was the CIA, the FBI, the NSA, Homeland Security, Customs, and, well, you get the idea. I didn’t need Felipe Calderon mad at me, too.
I took another look at the unlikely spy. Sporting dark glasses, a brilliant aloha shirt, and a red macaw on his shoulder, he played a lovely version of Guantanamera on an antique Martin guitar. A regular Jose Feliciano. The parrot, also wearing dark glasses, did the vocals. When I played Guantanamera on my Gibson it sounded much different. Going by snarky comments from unappreciative listeners, I suspected it wasn’t my guitar’s fault. At the guitar-player’s feet sat a cup for spare change. At his side sat a German shepherd with a harmonica, matching dark glassses and aloha shirt, and his own cup. I noticed the dog had more money in his. Apparently, they’d been there a while.
Doubtful the guy was a spy, I said, “Unless that’s a great disguise, he’d make a shitty spy.”
Gloria shrugged. “He looks familiar, but perhaps I’m mistaken.” Then, brightening up, she said, “I can’t wait to see Don Alberto and Dulce again.”
Neither could I. Don Alberto was better known as El Brujo. The Magician. A man who could snap his fingers and make people disappear—and yet, as long as you got along, El Brujo was great company. I could say the same about our mutual friend Bighead, who wanted the three of us to partner up. Gloria and I had vacationed with Bighead, El Brujo, and their wives at Felony Flats, Bighead’s resort community on the Sea of Cortez in October. While there, Don Alberto and Dulce had invited us to their beach estate in Mazatlán. With them as guides, we’d enjoy the best of Mazatlán—gorge on fresh seafood, go clubbing, hit the beaches, take a cruise on El Brujo’s yacht, the works. That would be the part Gloria loved. After a week of that, while the ladies stayed in Mazatlán, El Brujo and I would check out fields of ripening marijuana. That’d be the part I loved.
El Brujo, like his cousin El Chapo, had enormous plantations in the mountains of Sinaloa. Also, one right outside his village. When El Brujo said it was his village, he really meant it.
__ __ __
I was eating shrimp ceviche at a beachside restaurant, working on my second margarita when Gloria asked, “How long will you guys be gone?”
“Just a few days,” said El Brujo. “Will you ladies be able to stay out of trouble?”
The ladies passed a mischievous look. “I guess we’ll see,” teased a giggling Dulce.
El Brujo considered that and said, “In that case, I’ll leave La Tortuga with you.” Only he wasn’t teasing.
La Tortuga, an enormous man with the inability to smile, the knife wounds hadn’t healed well, and the complection of a sponge, was what I’d call more intimidating than sexy.
Smiling over the top of his margarita, Don Alberto added, “You’ll feel safer that way.”
“No need, amor,” said Dulce.
“Senor Bueno and I will feel safer that way, too.”
I had to agree. Two unattached ladies looking like Dulce and Gloria would attract swarms of men. In fact, they already did. With slimy beach gigolos a dime a dozen in Mazatlán, our table was getting plenty of stares—each leer promising the ladies sleazy fun. Then there were curious looks at our bullfighter outfits.
Seeing El Brujo attired the previous summer in a toreador outfit, I’d become curious and asked if he had an appointment with a bull. He’d explained that cartel leaders, like bullfighters, produce tremendous amounts of testosterone. Nodding towards his crotch, he said, “There are certain side effects.”
My friend Dee, perhaps jealous, asked, “You get really well hung?”
“More like low-hung,” admitted El Brujo, not sounding happy about it. “Which is why I need a special pouch for my huevos.”
“No kidding?” said Dee.
“Would you like to see?”
Sorry he’d asked and no longer jealous, Dee turned down the offer, saying he already had the saggy picture.
“The crazy stuff you do, Senor Bueno,” said El Brujo, “you must have the same problem.”
I didn’t, thank God, but to save face, I’d lied. “You bet. Where can I some of those pants?”
When El Brujo and Dulce gave me a bullfighter costume for Christmas I was thinking: Me and my big mouth.
Which is why, like El Brujo, I was eating sashimi dressed in a bullfighter’s outfit. Gloria’s idea, not mine: “You don’t want to appear ungrateful, amor.”
Not that I felt like a total geek or anything.
“You ladies don’t get tired of all that gawking?” I asked.
“Never,” said Dulce.
“That’s the price you pay for having such a gorgeous girlfriend,” joked Gloria.
“How about you, Mikey?” teased Dulce.
“You mean the gawking?’
I took her laugh as a yes. I wasn’t a glamorous hottie but I was getting plenty of stares myself. All of them amused. Then there the snarky comments. . .I wanted to disappear.
A few minutes later, while mariachis played Guanatamera for the table next to us, Gloria whispered in my ear, “There he is again.”
“Who?”
“The spy from the airport.”
Mr. Discrete, I looked around for the blind musician with the dog and parrot, but couldn’t spot him. “Where is he?”
Another whisper. “The guitar player.”
The guitar player lacked a parrot, a dog, and the aloha shirt and dark glasses but he’d gained a mariachi band. Like his nine bandmates, he wore a fancy mariachi outfit, with all kinds of embroidery and silver medallions, a puffy white shirt, and a big black hat with those little dingleberry deals hanging around the brim. Pretty much the same stuff El Brujo and I wore.
“He’s been staring at us.”
“Every guy stares at you.”
They couldn’t help it. It was as natural as breathing.
El Brujo asked, “What’s up?”
“Gloria thinks she recognizes the guitar player.”
He looked over. “From where?”
“Mikey thinks I’m silly,” said Gloria, “but I think Felipe is having me followed.”
“A la verga,” said El Brujo. “We can’t be having that, not on your vacation.”
“We’re not really sure,” I said.
“No? Why not?”
“Well, the last time Gloria saw the spy he was a blind guy with a parrot and a dog. Ouch.” Rubbing my shin, I added, “Then again, both guys have an antique Martin guitar.”
Gloria’s subtle smile acknowledged she’d made her point. I just wished she didn’t use her pointy shoe to make it.
El Brujo said, “Hmm. . .that is suspicious,” then whispered something into La Tortuga’s ear. What with the missing tongue, he’d bitten it off rather than snitch on El Brujo, La Tortuga couldn’t speak, but his hearing was superb. With a nod he walked off.
A few minutes later, while I started on my grilled ahi, I noticed La Tortuga escorting the guitar player down the beach. And by escorting, I mean carrying.
El Brujo shrugged. “Better safe than sorry, no?”
“Um. . .”
La Tortuga returned ten minutes later, minus one mariachi but with a Martin guitar and a cell phone in his hands.
“Now we can relax and enjoy ourselves,” said El Brujo. Picking up the pitcher, he asked, “Who wants another margarita?”
After an exhausting night of clubbing we crashed at El Brujo’s beach pad, breaking waves and too much tequila putting us to sleep.
Brujo remembered the mariachi’s cell phone at breakfast. “Let’s see what’s on here.”
After a bit of scrolling, he handed the phone to Gloria. “I guess you were right.”
I watched as Gloria scrolled through several screens—shots of Gloria and me at the Mazatlán airport, getting into El Brujo’s Range Rover, having drinks. . .
“This can’t be good,” I said.
“I guess I wasn’t silly, after all,” said Gloria. “I knew Felipe was acting suspicious.”
“I guess that worked both ways.”
Gloria sighed. “Apparently. Let’s see if he’s already sent these to Felipe.”
As it turned out, he had. Also, an unfinished text saying, “Uh oh, I think they’re on to. . .”
I pictured a jealous Felipe using a Ricky Ricardo voice. “Gloria, you got some ‘splaining to do.”
I hope you enjoyed the sample of Money, Guns, and Lawyers! I should have the book ready for you before too long.
Meanwhile, you can enjoy all my other books for free with Kindle Unlimited.
Click here to check out the entire Senor Bueno Travel Adventure Series!