THE BITE

by Charles Schaeffer

Like theater-stage fog, cigarillo smoke seeped into the nooks and crannies of the Taberna Pimienta in Harlingen , Texas . Dim, orange lighting turned barflies' faces into Halloween masks. Across the beer-stained table, Paul McGiver wrinkled his thin, hooked nose over a margarita.

“Never could figure it,” McGiver said. “What the hell is the salt on the rim for?”

Gomez frowned. “Why don't you drink beer like the rest of us?” Gomez wore a silver-tipped bolo around his black shirt collar, which snugly encased a thick neck. His long, delicate fingers, clashed with his six-foot hulk, topped by a head of pepper-and-salt hair combed straight back.

McGiver's pale, sunken, unwrinkled face was unmarred by the bright sunlight of border town Texas . Slighter than Gomez by fifty pounds, he frowned at the choking smoke and coughed. “What a dive?”

“Just right for our deal.”

“Okay, you called me. An el pronto job. You want to make sure my border papers are kosher. ”

“Are they?”

“Yeah, the works, passport still good from our last fandango in Tijuana . I got no gun, no knife. Got my Valium, industrial strength. Like you reminded me. I'm also wearing the same sneakers.”

“The ones that set off the airport metal detector at San Diego International. Copies of the ones I'm wearing now.”

“Yeah, that's when we found out there's a thin metal brace under the insoles.”

“Only this job is going to be trickier. Mucho trickier. We've got a third partner, who's picked up a dangerous tail, a third party with a different kind of profession. Angel phoned this morning. Complications. We got to shake her ‘shadow'. We need a third pair of eyes. Maybe some risks, but how do you like the sound of the stakes--- $500,000 big ones, cut three ways, for just turning over a valuable trinket?

“An offer I can't refuse, huh? But it's already 9 p.m. Where's this so-called third party? And I hope her different profession's not what I'm thinking.

Gomez glanced away from McGiver, then turned back, and said, “Speak of the Deviltress.” Materializing from the gloomy haze, a woman, encased in a tight scarlet dress, showing off abundant sexy curves, all in the right places, stopped and looked down with dark, luminous eyes at Gomez, then McGiver. Gomez slid over in the booth to make room. Bienvenido, senorita,” Gomez said, then spoke a few more words in Spanish.

“Angel, Angel Escobar,” Gomez said, “This is my amigo, Paul McGiver.”

McGiver's eyes scanned Angle Escobar up and down like twin, beady searchlights. “I guess we really have picked up a tail.”

Angel glowered at McGiver, then at Gomez. “If this is our low-rent lifeline, I'm worried.”

Gomez turned peacekeeper. “Now, folks. Save your fight for later. We got lots to do, and and not much time.”

Angel sat next to Gomez, her two-inch stiletto heels tucked under the bench. Gomez ordered a margarita for her. “No,” she said, looking at McGiver's drink. “I'll take a Dos Equis. No, make it a Negra Modelo.”

“You've got the trinket?” Gomez said after the beer arrived.

Angel reached into an oversized, brown leather purse, glanced around the room to make sure they were out of other customers' vision, and opened her fist. A fifty-cent sized gold coin glimmered in the sick, orange light.

Gomez grinned, as he palmed it from her open hand. McGiver looked skeptical. “Five hundred K for a rinky-dink coin?”

They had been talking low, but now Gomez dropped to a whisper. “You don't know the half of it. No, not even the quarter of it. To coin collecting crazies, this little bauble is worth, maybe, six million big ones.”

McGiver's expression shifted to neutral. “Yeah, I heard of such things. Always believed somebody was putting the public on.”

“Not this time, amigo. We hold a 1933 twenty dollar double eagle gold beauty. So why is $20 now worth $6 million? Remember, the Depression? People hoarded gold, including coins, ruining the economy. Bingo, President Roosevelt takes the country off the gold standard, ordering people to turn in their gold. Can you believe it? Most of them did, and the stuff was melted down.

“But not all of it. Long story, short. After the order to stop producing gold coins, the mint knocked off another 400,000 or so. Government didn't get the word. Just like today. Believe this, if you can? One of the mint's trusted big wigs pocketed ten of the golden discs. They nailed him, got back all but one, which the late King Farouk made a pass at but missed. Number ten landed in the hands of a Brit coin dealer, who sold it after a legal fight to the US for half of the price---seven million--- it fetched at a Sotheby auction. Just two weeks before 911, the Feds yanked it from storage at the Trade Center and stashed it at Fort Knox .” Gomez paused and turned to Angel.

“Now we've got one of its brothers that escaped the 30's holocaust. Thanks to our Angel, who knew just where it was among the antiques and stuff belonging to the late Abigail Crandall.”

“Late?” McGiver said.

“Yeah. Dead at age 91, a retired doctor, over in San Benito , turned eccentric collector. An overdose of sleeping pills. Quiet, painless. Coroner hasn't ruled out natural causes.”

“Our Dark Angel of the night,” McGiver said with a touch of newfound respect.

“Correct. You might say Angel saw it coming. She's a medium.”

“Medium?”

“Yeah, somebody who helps the living palaver with their dead relatives.”

“You mean someone who raises tables and sets banjos and stuff flying around the room.”

“Hey, that's a schlock act,” Angel cut in. “I arrange dignified contact between people here and those in the hereafter.”

“Stop smirking,” Gomez ordered McGiver. “Angel's the one who figured the coin was in the house. She's good enough to dial up the voice of the old dame's late husband and shock her into a seizure. Sort of a bonus we weren't even counting on. Made the overdose all the easier.

“A couple of months ago I learned Abigail Crandall lost faith in a two-bit fortune teller she brought in to communicate with her late and lamented spouse. There was a job opening, so to speak, so I tipped the lovely senorita Escobar. We go way back. But she tells me our future is bright.

“ Last week, before the seance, Angel overheard Dr. Crandall and her brother talking about the doctor's will. Both of them knew the double eagle was worth plenty, because they'd read about the Sotheby auction.”

McGiver's eyes shifted to Angel, whose scarlet lips, matching the color of her formfitting dress, wore a Mona Lisa smile.

McGiver fingered salt off his drink, swallowed half of the liquid and said, “Now we got an illegal coin and a suspicious death.”

“Maybe here, but how about in Mexico , where I already got a greedy millionaire collector on the hook? Easier and safer dinera than dealing cocaine. But two catches. Executor of Dr. Crandall's estate, a San Benito bank, already knows the coin is missing. They suspect Angel but don't know where she is. Our ace in the hole. The executors can't call the cops, because owning the coin's illegal. The joker: Three of Dr. Crandall's green-card hombres know Angel's got the coin. They're shadowing her, waiting for the right time to pounce.”

Angel nodded grimly. “They followed me here in their junker truck.”

“Listen up, Gomez said, “leaning into McGiver's sweating face. “We're on a short fuse here. My pickup truck's outback--

“The same one we used on the TJ drop off---?”

“Yeah, but don't interrupt. We're crossing over into Matamoros . We all got papers, passports. We can do this on the tourists' passes I've finagled. Angel's green card is up to date. But there'll be a second check point since were traveling more than 50 miles into Mexico .”

Gomez sighed. “ The border's changed lots since the old days. Drug dealers and busts now. Along the US side even trigger-happy vigilantes, self-appointed militia, called the ‘America Defenders' intercept illegals. People get killed. More. Sympathizers like the Shepherding Angels, out of LA, drop supplies and stuff to the illegals. Supposed to be noble, yeah, but insiders call them “goons,”out to protect the drug traffic. Sad. No imagination.” Gomez went on with how their own dash for the border would work.

“Gotta question?” McGiver said. “I like your charity instincts, but why are you dealing me in?”

“Hey, haven't we've been amigos on other jobs? Besides, we need a third. You'll be the designated smuggler of the golden goose.” Gomez instructed McGiver to take off a shoe, pry up the insole and slip the disc underneath, out of site, and refasten the slit with glue handed to him by Gomez. If anything splits us up, we'll meet noon a week from now in the Cantina Grande in Brownsville .”

Gomez went back to logistics, explaining how the cover of night favored them. They would drive the main road past San Benito and Rancho Viiejo, straight to the US border at the bridge crossing the Rio Grande to Matamoros . Gomez assured his cohorts the papers and identification of three tourists looking forward to a Mexican vacation would get by Mexican immigration, customs and any border cops. If they run into a second checkpoint, step out for a pat down, or wand scan, so what. Gomez and Angel are clean. If the scan beeps McGiver, there's the handy explanation of the metal insole, which worked at TJ. If things get tight, well, there's ‘mordida', the ‘bite', the reliable, ultimate passport, a roll of US cash, easily slipped from one fist to another. Want your tourist pass extended? ‘Mordida.' Want out of jail? ‘Mordida.'”

* * *

On the highway, fifteen minutes passed before Gomez spotted their ‘shadow', a battered pickup, keeping its distance, but close enough to reveal the faces of three Mexicans in wide-brim hats.

“That them? The Crandall house three amigos? Gomez asked.

Angel turned and looked through the rear window. “Yes.”

“Goat ropers,” McGiver said.

“Yeah, but greedy ones. I'm figuring we can beat them to the border checkpoint. We'll get a leg up in the clearance backup on the bridge. Angel says the amigos got border papers, but once across we'll have a lead on them and we'll clear Matamoros , head for Monterey , and my contact for the big payoff. He said a few words to Angel in Spanish.”

“Hey, only English,” McGiver said. “You know I don't savvy that gibberish.”

The bridge traffic lineup to cross crawled.

“Looks like trouble,” McGiver said.

“Don't worry,” Gomez said. When they reached the checkpoint, Gomez shook hands with the border agent, who smiled as he pocketed Gomez's token of appreciation, took a cursory look at the truck, his two passengers and their passports, and them waved them through.

* * *

Matamoros drowsed in the pre-midnight hours, empty of tourists, taking to heart warnings about hitting the streets after dark. McGiver glanced down at the truck's speedometer. Hey, speeding down here means big trouble. What's the rush? We shook the tail.”

“Take a look behind you. I've been watching them catch up. They just pulled in and parked behind us in the next block.”

A siren and blinking lights cut the humid night air. Gomez eased the pickup over to the curb in front of the Presidencia Municipal, the courthouse. Two Prevention cops ordered the trio out of the truck. They spoke Spanish. Gomez answered, then Angel. The cops looked at McGiver, who shrugged, “No hablo espanol,” one of few phrases he'd picked up.

Gomez explained to McGiver that they'd have to go with the police car to the station house. The police eyed their IDs and other papers, walked suspiciously around the truck and did a patdown. One of the cops came up with an ah-ah look of triumph, holding out McGiver's Valium bottle like a gold nugget.

The cop spoke to Gomez, who translated in English for McGiver. “He says you're carrying a controlled drug. You got it in the States, not from a Mexican doctor. That's not good. I forgot about that. Too much else to think about. We'll play it by ear from here.”

In front of the Magistrate, McGiver watched the proceedings, all in Spanish, in dumb silence. When the talking stopped, a station-house uniform led McGiver to a cell. Inside, he grabbed the bars and looked out desperately, trying to catch sight of Gomez and Angel. Nothing. Maybe in different cells. Maybe the cops were cutting off talk between the three.

McGiver tossed and turned on the hard bunk, waking from a doze at dawn to hear Gomez talking to the jailor. A bleary-eyed McGiver gasped, “Are you getting me out of here?”

Gomez said, “I'm working on it. Remember the ‘mordida'. I used the bundle bailing Angel, me and the truck out. I've got to round up some more cash. Getting out of a Mexican jail's not like opening a bag of tortilla chips.”

He looked down at Gomez's sneakers. “I've already told our friendly jailor here we got our identical sneakers mixed up. Take off yours and well exchange them for mine.” The jailor opened the cell. McGiver, darting a suspicious glance at Gomez, removed his sneakers and traded them for the Gomez's.

“Be back as soon as I can,” Gomez promised. “Adios for now.”

* * *

Gomez and Angel rented a hotel room. For five days, they idled around town, with one of the three amigos never far behind in the street. The trio, with Juan, the leader, by Angel's say so, brazenly ate in the same restaurant, the Cantina Matamoros.

At dinner on the fifth day Gomez watched a sombrero-bedecked strolling guitar player, who stopped and delivered a couple of chords for the amigos, as he had on other nights.

“Why didn't I think of it before?” Gomez said, putting down a fajita.

“What?” Angel said.

“Wait till the guitar player takes a break. Follow him to the back where they can't see you.” Gomez handed her a roll of bills, and whispered a message in her ear.

* * *

Next day, bound for Monterey , Carlos Gomez gazed down at the trim legs of Angel Escabaro, seated next to him, her red skirt hiked several inches above her knees. “Juan went for it. Cops went for it, the whole enchilada,” he said, glancing at Matamoros fading in the rear view mirror.

“All of it. ”

“All of it,” he repeated “Getting McGiver's sneakers back was a baby-candy snatch. Even though it took a big chunk of my ‘mordida' stash. So did our special request for the strolling guitarist. No crap, babe, you were good, real good.”

“I always wanted to be an actress. What's a few lines like I passed on to the guitar player? How did they go? ‘Senor, the cabelleros you sometimes play for. The ones who never tip. They are our friends, but no longer, and they won't go away. Tell them, por favor, you overheard us, saying that we've learned the police have found the coin they were looking for hidden on our friend, the gringo, McGiver. They have confiscated it and are holding him, who knows how long. What else can we do but leave Matamoros '?”

Angel turned to Gomez and laughed. “And Senor McGiver will have a long time to think about carrying drugs into Mexico . You set him up so he'd get busted for the Valium.”

“Just insurance. Needed a safe harbor for the coin until I figured how to shake the amigos for good. Didn't think it would take a whole week.”

She glanced out the window at passing scenery. “Hasta la vista, Matamoros . Hola, Monterey and the USA .”

“And what do you see in our future, sweetmeats?”

Angel gazed ahead unblinking in a concentration act she'd performed for many a client. “I see...I see, yes, it's becoming clearer. A villa in the hills overlooking Spain 's Costa del Sol .” They both laughed.

* * *

At a prearranged secluded spot outside of Monterey a tall man wearing a spotless white suit and Stetson, watched through mirrored sunglasses as Gomez and Angel approached. Beside him, a short, bald man, sweating in khaki, fanned away an insect with a magnifying glass. At his feet rested a small scale, a large, battered soft-side suit case, and another box bound with cord. Gomez hopped out of the pickup. “Hot, even for Mexico ,” Gomez small talked.

“Yes,” said the tall man. “The object? You have it? "

Gomez nodded. “The money? "

The tall man gestured toward the suitcase. “No one will notice here. You may count it, randomly serialized $100 bills.”

Gomez stooped and thumbed quickly through the greenbacks. “I trust you.” He opened the box, revealing two sets of old clothes, garb of lower-class working Mexicans. He pried the double eagle from McGiver's sneaker and handed it to the sweating man, who weighed it on the scale, then studied the coin for minutes under the magnifier before nodding approval.

“You've arranged our exit contact at Villa Acuna.”

The tall man nodded.

The pair got into a black Jaguar and drove off in the dust.

“Okay” Gomez instructed Angel, “into the truck, out of those fancy duds, and into work clothes. When she finished, Gomez traded his own sport shirt and slacks for work pants and denim shirt. Switching on the pickup's ignition, he said, “Now it's official---we're illegal aliens.”

* * *

On the road north to Laredo , Gomez explained the last phase of the double eagle coin caper. “We'd be loco trying to cross with a suitcase full of cash at a guarded checkpoint.

“Our friendly coin dealer figured it all out in advance. Hook us up with a contact, savvy about smuggling illegals over the border and trucking them, under cover, to transfer stations in the United States . All for a price. Chump change out of our trove.”

The idea, Gomez explained, is for both of them, dressed as illegals, to meet the smuggling hombre at Villa Acuna near the Rio Grande . He will get the two across the river, then to a waiting truck, where they will merge with illegals, destined, after a circuitous double back, to a drop-off near Carrizo Springs, north of Loredo. From there, everybody's on their own.

“No problemo,” Gomez said, winding up the strategy, “we change back to ‘legals', rent a car and hit the road north.”

“Are you sure about all this?” Angel said. “I have this funny feeling.”

Gomez smirked. “Not that medium thing--”

“You may laugh. But there have been times when I've been certain of a presence from the other side. I do have a gift, even if you don't know it. I've done private sittings and readings.”

* * *

With Villa Acuna in their sights, Gomez and Angel dropped the debate and focused on the directions from the smuggling boss. When they found him, ‘mordida' spoke again. The no-name smuggler began herding Gomez and Angel into the truck with the pack of desperate humanity.

No-name's mental radar clicked on as he scanned the nighttime landscape. He pressed a forefinger to his lips. “They're people out there,” he whispered. Suddenly, lights flooded the staging area. A voice in Spanish, amplified a hundred times, thundered: “Illegals, stop where you are! We are armed members of “ America 's Defenders'. You've all violated our country's borders. Turn around, pronto, and return to Mexico .”

No-name waved the frightened mass back into the truck. Overhead, a helicopter's blades thwacked the air. A spotlight from the chopper lit up faces of the Defenders' brigade, and an amplified voice countered the militia's order. “Mexican citizens. We are your Shepherding Angels. The Defenders are empty bags of wind. Welcome to jobs in our Land of Liberty !”

Gomez dragged Angel away from the mass of frightened illegals crowding back into the truck. “We gotta separate fast from these losers we've been riding with.” He reached into a pant's pocket, groping for his passport, shouting in English, and running toward the militia's lines. “Not illegals. We're Americans.”

“In your nightmares,” an ugly voice shouted. A shot from the Defenders' line exploded. Gomez staggered backwards, blood spurting from his forehead. The suitcase fell from his hand. A second shot spun Angel around in her tracks. Flood lamps snapped off. A light-bathed landscape vanished in darkness of the night, leaving just glow enough to outline dimly the figure of the smuggling boss as he crept forward, seized the suitcase and fled towards the truck.