“Jesus,” he said as he eyed my chest and abs.
I looked down. Sometimes I’d forget about my tattoos. Or rather I’d forget that not everyone had them. “Not a fan of tattoos, Gus?”
“Not after seeing you wield a needle,” he said and motioned for me to turn around. I did so, not feeling shy in the slightest. If there was anything I loved to talk about it, it was my tattoos. And, well, I’d been working out pretty much every day for the last seven years. My body was hard and ripped as shit and it felt good to make Gus take notice, to let him know that I wasn’t some pushover, that I could do more than hold my own in a fight.
But I guess I already proved that the other day.
“These are something else, you do them yourself?”
“Only the ones I can reach but I’ve drawn them all. I have a few artists in Palm Springs that I trust to carry them out.”
“Are they everywhere?” He was wincing as he said it.
I winked at him. “I think that’s between Ellie and I.”
He gave me an unimpressed look then went over to the door. “I’ll go get us some breakfast for the road. Can you be ready in five? We’re meeting someone.”
I nodded and ten minutes later we were back in the GTO, munching on a doughy pastry, the smell of hot dirt blowing in through the open windows.
“Who is this someone?” I asked, crumbs scattering in my lap.
He said, “An old friend.” Wasn’t that always the case? The old friend. That was the case between us right now. Me and Ellie’s old friend.
We drove for some time, flipping through an assortment of Spanish radio stations, before the air began to lift a bit and the sharp bite of salt hit us. The Gulf of Mexico sparkled amid refinery plants as we hit Tampico. We went through the city sprawl, the startling amount of Starbucks and Burger Kings and Walmarts, before we entered the real Mexico again and were hurtling down a pale dirt road, dust flying behind us like flour, dodging giant potholes and overhanging branches.
We eventually arrived to a little piece of paradise. A cream sand beach was lapped by azure water while a beach shack stood nestled in a crop of palm trees. Gus pulled the car up beside a mud-splattered Jeep just as a man with an even bigger mustache than his came out of the house, arms wide.
“Gus!” the man cried out. Gus gave me a sheepish look.
“This is Dan,” he explained. “He’s very … affectionate.”
We got out of the car and Dan immediately embraced him. I held back a chuckle as Gus awkwardly hugged him back. Gus then waved me over.
I shuffled through the sand, absently enjoying the breeze that washed over me while keeping my senses on high alert. As nice – or huggy – as Dan seemed, I wasn’t one to trust the old friends. Sometimes I wondered if I even trusted Gus.
“Hello, Camden,” Dan said, taking my hand in a two-handed shake. He was about a foot shorter than me, in his early fifties, with a huge handlebar mustache and fake Ray-Ban sunglasses. His hair was cropped short and unusually dark and he had pock marks on both cheeks left over from bad acne. His teeth were yellowed. Overall the vibe was genuine and I was glad for the lack of hostility so far, even though I knew things could always turn.
If they haven’t turned already. Gus’s phrase repeated in my head.
“Hello, Dan,” I told him, trying to make my smile look easy. “Beautiful little spot you got here.”
“You like?” he said, eyes gleaming. “Oh you must come inside. I’ll get you Americans some beer. Real beer, you know?”
We went inside and sat down on his small screened porch that faced the incoming surf and chugged back three Bohemias. The small talk came first, Gus and Dan catching up on old times while Gus would occasionally fill me in as Dan smoked like a chimney, one cigarette after another. They knew each other when Dan used to live in San Diego, illegally, and Gus’s ex-girlfriend and his wife were friends. Dan eventually got deported, even though Gus tried to pull a few favors for him with the LAPD, and settled here to open his own business renting kayaks to tourists. I didn’t know what happened to the business since I didn’t see any kayaks and the Tampico area wasn’t a big tourist attraction. But fronts were fronts and I knew how to spot one.
Dan’s wife was now dead, something he glossed over very quickly and I knew from the way his eyes burned at the mention of her that it wasn’t accidental. The drug cartels had their fingers in absolutely everything here.
“Now, Gus,” Dan said, his face growing serious after he finished off the remainder of his beer. “You know I love to see old friends. When I heard what happened to you …”