The Great Shark Hunt Part 30

"Let me just put it to you this way, my friend. How 'bout a G.o.dd.a.m.n fish-off? fish-off? Just Just you you and and me me -- for a thousand bucks, eh? Yeah, how 'bout it?" -- for a thousand bucks, eh? Yeah, how 'bout it?"

People were lurching around in the sand with plates full of cold macaroni and shrimp sauce. Every now and then, somebody would jerk one of the giant turtles out of the tank on the patio and thrust it in the face of some bleary-eyed bystander, laughing wildly and struggling to hang on to the thing, big green flippers clawing frantically at the air and las.h.i.+ng a spray of stale turtle water on everybody within a radius of ten feet. . . "Here: I wantcha to meet my friend! She'll do a real job on yer p.e.c.k.e.r. How h.o.r.n.y are ya?"

It was not a good scene to confront with a head full of acid. We drank heavily, trying to act natural, but the drug set us clearly apart. Bloor became obsessed with the notion that we'd stumbled into a gathering of drunken greedheads who were planning to turn Cozumel into "a Mexican Miami Beach" -- which was true, to a certain extent, but he pursued it with a zeal that churned up angry resentment in every conversation he wandered into. At one point, I found him shouting at the manager of the hotel he was staying in: "You're just a bunch of G.o.dd.a.m.n moneygrubbing creeps! All this bulls.h.i.+t about tourism tourism and and development development -- what the h.e.l.l do you want here, another Aspen?" -- what the h.e.l.l do you want here, another Aspen?"

The hotel man was baffled. "What is is Aspen?" he asked. "What are you talking about?" Aspen?" he asked. "What are you talking about?"

"You know G.o.dd.a.m.n well what I'm talking about, you sleazy b.a.s.t.a.r.d!" Bloor shouted. "These dirty concrete hotels you're building all over the beach, these dirty little hot-dog stands and --"

I hurried across the patio and grabbed him by the shoulder. "Never mind Yail," I said, trying to focus at least one of my eyes on whoever he was talking to. "He's still not adjusted to this alt.i.tude." I tried to smile at them, but I could sense it wasn't working. . . a drugged grimace, wild eyes and very jerky movements. I could hear myself talking, but the words made no sense: "These G.o.dd.a.m.ned iguanas all over the road. . . we did a one-eighty back there at the U turn. . . Yail grabbed the emergency brake when he saw all those lizards, jerked it right out by the root. . . Thank Christ we had those snow tires. We live at five thousand feet, you know, d.a.m.n little air pressure up there, but down here at sea level you feel it squeezing your brain like a vise. . . No way to escape it, you can't even think straight. . ."

n.o.body smiled; I was babbling out of control and Bloor was still yelling about "land rapers." I left him and went to the bar. "We're leaving," I said, "but I want some ice for the road."

The bartender gave me a Pepsi-Cola cup full of melting shavings. "We'll need more than that," I said -- so he filled up another cup. He spoke no English, but I could grasp what he was trying to tell me: There was no container available for the amount of ice I wanted and they were almost out of ice anyway.

My head was beginning to pulsate violently at this point I could barely keep a focus on his face. Rather than argue, I went out to the parking lot and drove the Safari through a screen of small beach trees and up onto the patio, parking it right in front of the bar and indicating to the stunned bartender that I wanted the back seat filled with ice.

The Striker crowd was appalled. "You crazy son of a b.i.t.c.h!" someone yelled. "You mashed about fifteen trees!" I nodded, but the words didn't register. All I could think about was ice -- throwing one cupload after another into the back seat. The acid, by this time, had f.u.c.ked up my vision to the point where I was seeing square out of one eye and round out of the other. It was impossible to focus on anything; I seemed to have four hands. . .

The bartender had not been lying: The Punta Morena ice vat was virtually empty. I sc.r.a.ped a few more cuploads out of the bottom -- hearing Bloor's angry cursing somewhere above and behind me -- then I jumped over the counter and into the front seat of the jeep.

n.o.body seemed to notice, so I gunned the engine violently and leaned on the horn as I crept very slowly in first gear through the mashed trees and shrubbery. Loud voices seemed to be looming down on me from the rear and suddenly Bloor was climbing over the back, yelling, "Get moving, G.o.dd.a.m.n it, get moving!" I stomped on the accelerator and we fish-tailed out of the deep-sand parking lot.

Thirty minutes later, after a top-speed, bug-spattered run all the way to the other side of the island, we rolled into the parking lot of what appeared to be a night club. Bloor had calmed down a bit, but he was still in a high, wild condition as we lurched to a stop about five feet from the front door. I could hear loud music inside.

"We need a few drinks," I muttered. "My tongue feels like an iguana's been chewing on it."

Bloor stepped out, "Keep the engine running," he said. "I'll check the place out."

He disappeared inside and I leaned back on the seat to stare straight up at the star-crazed sky. It seemed about six feet above my eyes. Or maybe 60 feet, or 600. I couldn't be sure, and it didn't matter, anyway, because by that time I was convinced I was in the c.o.c.kpit of a 727 coming into L.A. at midnight. Jesus, I thought, I am ripped right straight to the t.i.ts. Where am I? Are we going up or down? Somewhere in the back of my brain, I knew I was sitting in a jeep in the parking lot of a night club on an island off the Mexican coast -- but how could I really be sure, with another part of my brain apparently convinced that I was looking down on the huge glittering bowl of Los Angeles from the c.o.c.kpit of a 727? Was that the Milky Way? Or Sunset Boulevard? Orion, or the Beverly Hills Hotel?

Who gives a f.u.c.k? I thought. It's a fine thing to just lie back and stare up or down at. My eyeb.a.l.l.s felt cool, my body felt rested. . .

Then Bloor was yelling at me again. "Wake up, G.o.dd.a.m.n it! Park the car and let's go inside. I've met some wonderful people."

The rest of that night is very hazy in my memory. The inside of the club was loud and almost empty -- except for the people Bloor had met, who turned out to be two half-mad c.o.ke runners with a big silver can full of white powder. When I sat down at the table, one of them introduced himself as Frank and said, "Here, I think you need something for your nose."

"Why not?" I said, accepting the can he tossed into my lap, "and I also need some rum." I yelled at the waiter and then opened the can, despite a rustle of protests around the table.

I looked down at my lap, ignoring Frank's nervous behavior, and thought, Zang! This is definitely not not Los Angeles. We must be somewhere else. Los Angeles. We must be somewhere else.

I was staring down at what looked like a whole ounce of pure, glittering white cocaine. My first instinct was to jerk a 100-peso note out of my pocket and quickly roll it up for snorting purposes, but by this time Frank had his hand on my arm. "For Christ's sake," he was whispering, "don't do that s.h.i.+t here. here. Take it into the bathroom." Take it into the bathroom."

Which I did. It was a difficult trip, through all those chairs and tables, but I finally managed to lock myself in the toilet stall and start las.h.i.+ng the stuff up my nose with no thought at all of the ominous noise I was making. It was like kneeling down on a beach and sticking a straw into the sand; after five minutes or so, both my nostrils were locked up like epoxy and I hadn't even made a visible depression in the dune right in front of my eyes.

Good G.o.d, I thought. This can't be true. I must be hallucinating!

By the time I staggered back to the table, the other had calmed down. It was obvious that Bloor had already been into the can, so I handed it back to Frank with a twisted smile. "Be careful with this stuff," I mumbled. "It'll turn your brain to jelly."

He smiled. "What are you people doing here?"

"You'd never believe it," I replied, accepting a tall gla.s.s of rum from the waiter. The band was taking a break now and two of the musicians had wandered over to our table. Frank was saying something about a party later on. I shrugged, still fighting to clear my nasal pa.s.sages with quick sniffs of rum. I sensed that this latest development might have serious consequences for the future of my story, but I was no longer especially concerned about that. . .

From somewhere down deep in my memory, I heard a s.n.a.t.c.h of some half-remembered conversation between a construction worker and a bartender at a bar in Colorado. The construction man was explaining why he shouldn't have another drink: "You can't wallow with the pigs at night and then soar with the eagles in the morning," he said.

I thought briefly on this, then shrugged it off. My own situation was totally different, I felt. In about three hours, I was supposed to be down on the docks with my camera and tape recorder to spend another day on one of those G.o.dd.a.m.n boats.

No, I thought, that geek in Colorado had it all wrong. The real problem is how to wallow with the eagles at night and then soar with the pigs in the morning.

In any case, it made no difference. For a variety of good reasons, I missed my boat the next morning and spent the afternoon pa.s.sed out in the sand on an empty beach about ten miles out of town.

By Friday night, it was clear that the story was not only a dry hole but maybe even a dry socket. Our most serious problem had to do with the rat-b.a.s.t.a.r.d tedium of spending eight hours a day out at sea in the boiling sun, being tossed around on the bridge of a high-powered motorboat and watching middle-aged businessmen reeling sailfish up to the side of the boat every once in a while. Both Bloor and I had spent a full day at sea -- on the only boats in the tournament getting any real action, Sun Dancer and Lucky Striker -- and by dusk on Friday, we had pretty well come to the conclusion that deep-sea fis.h.i.+ng is not one of your king-h.e.l.l spectator sports. I have watched a lot of bad acts in my time, from tag-team pro wrestling in Flomaton, Alabama, to the Roller Derby on Oakland TV and intramural softball tournaments at Scott Air Force Base in Illinois -- but I'm d.a.m.ned if I can remember anything as insanely f.u.c.king dull as that Third Annual International Cozumel Fis.h.i.+ng Tournament. The only thing that comes close to it, in recent memory, is an afternoon I spent last March in a traffic jam on the San Diego freeway. . . but even that that had a certain adrenaline factor; by the end of the second hour, I was so crazy with rage that I cracked the top half of the steering wheel off my rented Mustang, then exploded the water pump by racing the engine at top speed and finally abandoned the mess altogether in the outside lane about two miles north of the Newport Beach exit. had a certain adrenaline factor; by the end of the second hour, I was so crazy with rage that I cracked the top half of the steering wheel off my rented Mustang, then exploded the water pump by racing the engine at top speed and finally abandoned the mess altogether in the outside lane about two miles north of the Newport Beach exit.

It was Sat.u.r.day afternoon, I think, when the brain fog had cleared enough for a long, clean focus on our situation -- which had been drastically altered, at that point, by three nights of no sleep and a handful of spastic confrontations with the Striker crowd. I had been thrown out of one hotel and moved to another and Bloor had been threatened with jail or deportation by the manager of his hotel on the midtown square.

I had managed another zombielike day at sea, with ma.s.sive aid from Frank's can, but our relations.h.i.+p with the Striker people was apparently beyond redemption. n.o.body connected with the tournament would have anything to do with us. We were treated like lepers. The only people we felt easy with, at that point, were a motley collection of local freaks, boozers, hustlers and black-coral divers who seemed to collect each afternoon on the porch of the Bal-Hai, the town's main bar.

They quickly befriended us -- a sudden s.h.i.+ft in old relations.h.i.+ps with the island that caused me to begin signing all the tabs, splitting them about half and half between Striker and P PLAYBOY. n.o.body seemed to care, especially the ever-growing crowd of new friends who came to drink with us. These people understood and were vaguely amused at the idea that we'd fallen into serious disfavor with the Strikers and the local power structure. For the past three sleepless days, we'd been gathering at the Bal-Hai to brood publicly on the likelihood of ma.s.sive retaliation by local n.o.body seemed to care, especially the ever-growing crowd of new friends who came to drink with us. These people understood and were vaguely amused at the idea that we'd fallen into serious disfavor with the Strikers and the local power structure. For the past three sleepless days, we'd been gathering at the Bal-Hai to brood publicly on the likelihood of ma.s.sive retaliation by local jefes, jefes, incensed by our rotten behavior. incensed by our rotten behavior.

It was sometime around dusk on Sat.u.r.day, hunkered down at a big round table on the Bal-Hai porch, that I noticed the pea-green Mustang making its second pa.s.s in less than ten minutes. There is only one pea-green Mustang on the island, and one of the divers had told me it belonged to the "mayor" -- a heavy-set young pol and an appointed, not elected, official who looked like a beer-bellied lifeguard on some beach at Acapulco. We had seen him often in the past few days, usually in the late afternoon and always cruising up and down the seaside frontera. frontera.

"That son of a b.i.t.c.h is beginning to make me nervous," Bloor muttered.

"Don't worry," I said. "They won't shoot -- not as long as we're here in a crowd."

"What?" A gray-haired woman from Miami sitting next to us had caught the word shoot.

"It's the Striker crowd," I explained. "We hear they've decided to get heavy with us."

"Jesus Christ!" said a retired airline pilot who'd been living off his boat and the Bal-Hai porch for the past few months. "You don't think they'll start shooting, shooting, do you? Not on a peaceful island like this!" do you? Not on a peaceful island like this!"

I shrugged. "Not here. They wouldn't shoot into a crowd. But we can't let them catch us alone."

The woman from Miami started to say something, but Bloor cut her off with an outburst that spun heads the length of the porch: "They're in for the shock of their G.o.dd.a.m.n lives, tomorrow," he snarled. "Wait till they see what gets off that G.o.dd.a.m.n ferry from Playa del Carmen in the morning."

"What the h.e.l.l are you talking about?" the ex-pilot asked.

Bloor said nothing, staring blankly out to sea. I hesitated a moment, then instinctively picked up the thread: "Heavies," I said. "We made some calls last night. Tomorrow morning they'll come off that boat like a pack of G.o.dd.a.m.n wolverines."

Our friends at the table were glancing nervously at one another. Violent crime is almost unheard of on Cozumel; the native oligarchy is into far more subtle varieties. . . and the idea that the Bal-Hai might be the scene of a Chicago-style shoot-out was a hard thing to grasp, even for me.

Bloor cut in again, still staring off toward the mainland. "You can hire just about anything you want in Merida," he said. "We got these thugs for ten bucks a head, plus expenses. They'll crack every skull on the island if they have to -- then burn every one of those G.o.dd.a.m.n red-neck boats right down to the waterline."

n.o.body spoke for a moment, then the woman from Miami and the retired airline pilot got up to leave. "See you later," the man said stiffly. "We have to get back to the boat and check things out."

Moments later, the two divers who'd been sitting with us also left, saying they'd probably see us tomorrow at the Striker party.

"Don't count on it," Bloor muttered. They grinned nervously and sped off down the frontera frontera on their tiny Hondas. We were left alone at the big round table, sipping margaritas and staring out at the sunset over the Yucatan Peninsula, 12 miles across the channel. After a few long moments of silence, Bloor reached into his pocket and came up with a hollowed-out gla.s.s eye he had bought from one of the street peddlers. There was a silver cap on the back and he flipped it up, then jammed the straw from his margarita into the hole and snorted heavily before handing it over to me. "Here," he said. "Try some of Frank's best." on their tiny Hondas. We were left alone at the big round table, sipping margaritas and staring out at the sunset over the Yucatan Peninsula, 12 miles across the channel. After a few long moments of silence, Bloor reached into his pocket and came up with a hollowed-out gla.s.s eye he had bought from one of the street peddlers. There was a silver cap on the back and he flipped it up, then jammed the straw from his margarita into the hole and snorted heavily before handing it over to me. "Here," he said. "Try some of Frank's best."

The waiter was hovering over us, but I ignored him -- until I realized I was having problems, then I looked up from the eyeball in my hand and asked for two more drinks and a dry straw. " "Como no?" he hissed, moving quickly away from the table. he hissed, moving quickly away from the table.

"This thing's all jammed up from the moisture," I said to Bloor, showing him the powder-packed straw. "We'll have to slice it open."

"Never mind," he said. "There's plenty more where that came from."

I nodded, accepting a fresh drink and about six dry straws from the waiter. "You notice how fast our friends left," I said, bearing down on the eyeball again. "I suspect they believed all that gibberish."

He sipped his own new drink and stared at the gla.s.s eye in my hand. "Why shouldn't they?" he mumbled. "I'm beginning to believe it myself."

I felt a great numbness in the back of my mouth and my throat as I snapped the cap shut and handed the eyeball back to him. "Don't worry," I said. "We're professionals -- keep that in mind."

"I am," he said. "But I'm afraid they might figure that out."

It was late Sat.u.r.day night, as I recall, when we learned that Frank Oliver had officially won the tournament -- by one fish, ahead of the b.a.l.l.s-out poor-boy crew on Lucky Striker. I wrote this down in my notebook as we roamed round the dock where the boats were tied up. n.o.body urged us to come aboard for "a friendly drink" -- as I heard some of the anglers put it to others on the dock -- and, in fact, there were only a few people who spoke to us at all. Frank and his friend were sipping beers at the open-air bar nearby, but his kind of hospitality was not in tune with this scene. Jack Daniels and heavy petting on the foredeck is about as heavy as the Striker crowd gets. . . and after a week of mounting isolation from this scene I was supposed to be "covering," I was hung on the dark and ugly truth that "my story" was f.u.c.ked. Not only did the boat people view me with gross disapproval but most of them no longer even believed I was working for P PLAYBOY. All they knew, for sure, was that there was something very strange and off-center, to say the least, about me and all my "a.s.sistants." All they knew, for sure, was that there was something very strange and off-center, to say the least, about me and all my "a.s.sistants."

Which was true, in a sense, and this feeling of alienation on both sides was compounded, on ours, by a galloping drug-induced paranoia that honed each small incident, with every pa.s.sing day, to a grim and fearful edge. The paranoid sense of isolation was bad enough -- along with trying to live in two entirely different worlds at the same time -- but the worst problem of all was the fact that I'd spent a week on this G.o.dd.a.m.n wretched story and I still didn't have the flimsiest notion of what deepsea fis.h.i.+ng felt like. felt like. I had no idea what it was like to actually catch a big fish. All I'd seen was a gang of frantic red-neck businessmen occasionally hauling dark shadows up to the side of various boats, just close enough to where some dollar-an-hour mate could cut the leader and score a point for "the angler." During the whole week, I'd never seen a fish out of the water -- except on the rare occasions when a hooked sailfish had jumped for an instant, 100 or so yards from the boat, before going under again for the long reeling-in trip that usually took ten or fifteen minutes of silent struggle and always ended with the fish either slipping the hook or being dragged close enough to the boat to be "tagged" and then cut loose. I had no idea what it was like to actually catch a big fish. All I'd seen was a gang of frantic red-neck businessmen occasionally hauling dark shadows up to the side of various boats, just close enough to where some dollar-an-hour mate could cut the leader and score a point for "the angler." During the whole week, I'd never seen a fish out of the water -- except on the rare occasions when a hooked sailfish had jumped for an instant, 100 or so yards from the boat, before going under again for the long reeling-in trip that usually took ten or fifteen minutes of silent struggle and always ended with the fish either slipping the hook or being dragged close enough to the boat to be "tagged" and then cut loose.

The anglers a.s.sured me it was all a great thrill, but on the evidence, I couldn't believe it. The whole idea of fis.h.i.+ng, it seemed to me, was to hook a thras.h.i.+ng sea monster of some kind and actually boat boat the b.a.s.t.a.r.d. And then eat it. the b.a.s.t.a.r.d. And then eat it.

All the rest seemed like dilettante bulls.h.i.+t -- like hunting wild boar with a can of spray paint, from the safety of a pickup truck. . . and it was this half-crazed sense of frustration that led me finally to start wandering around the docks and trying to hire somebody to take me and Bloor out at night to fish for man-eating sharks. It seemed like the only way to get a real feel for this sport -- to fish (or hunt) for something genuinely dangerous, a beast that would tear your leg off in an instant if you made the slightest mistake.

This concept was not widely understood on the dock in Cozumel. The businessmen-anglers saw no point in getting the c.o.c.kpits of their expensive tubs messed up with real blood, and especially not theirs. . . but I finally found two takers: Jerry Haugen on Lucky Striker and a local Mayan captain who worked for Fernando Murphy.

Both of these efforts ended in disaster -- for entirely differrent reasons and also at different times; but for the record, I feel a powerful obligation to record at least a brief observation about our shark-hunting expeditions off the coast of Cozumel: The first is that I saw more sharks by accident while scuba-diving during the daylight hours than I did during either of our elaborate, big-money nighttime "hunts" off the fis.h.i.+ng boats; and the second is that anybody who buys anything more complex or expensive than a bottle of beer on the waterfront of Cozumel is opting for serious trouble.

Cerveza Superior, at 75 cents a bottle on the porch of the Bal-Hai, is a genuine bargain -- if only because you know what you're getting -- compared with the insanely and even fatally inept "deep-sea-fis.h.i.+ng and scuba-diving tours" offered at dockside shacks like El Timon or Fernando Murphy's. These people rent boats to dumb gringos for $140 a day (or night) and then take you out to sea and dump you over the side with faulty diving gear in shark-filled waters during the day, or run you around in circles during the night -- a Fernando Murphy specialty -- while allegedly trolling for sharks about 500 yards offsh.o.r.e. There are plenty of bologna sandwiches while you wait for a strike, unable to communicate verbally with the guilt-stricken Mayan mate or the Mayan captain up top, who both understand what kind of a shuck they are running but who are only following Fernando Murphy's orders. Meanwhile Murphy is back in town playing maitre d' at his Tijuana-style night club, La Pinata.

We found Murphy at his night club after spending six useless hours "at sea" on one of his boats, and came close to getting beaten and jailed when we noisily ruined the atmosphere of the place by accusing him of "outright thievery" on the grounds of what his hired fisherman had already admitted he'd done to us -- and the only thing that kept us from getting stomped by Murphy's heavies was the timely popping-off of flashbulbs by an American photographer. There is nothing quite like the sudden white flash of a professional gringo camera to paralyze the brain of a Mexican punk long enough for the potential victims to make a quick, nonviolent exit.

We were counting on this, and it worked; a sorry end to the only attempt we ever made to hire local local fishermen for a shark hunt. Murphy had his $140 cash in advance, we had our harsh object lesson in commercial dealings on the Cozumel dock -- and with the photos in the can, we understood the wisdom of leaving the island at once. fishermen for a shark hunt. Murphy had his $140 cash in advance, we had our harsh object lesson in commercial dealings on the Cozumel dock -- and with the photos in the can, we understood the wisdom of leaving the island at once.

Our other nighttime shark hunt -- with Jerry Haugen on Lucky Striker -- was a totally different kind of experience. It was at least an honest value. Haugen and his two-man crew were the "hippies" of the Striker fleet, and they took me and Bloor out one night for a serious serious shark hunt -- a strange adventure that nearly sunk their boat when they hooked a reef in pitch-darkness about a mile out at sea and which ended with all of us up on the bridge while a four-foot nurse shark flopped crazily around in the c.o.c.kpit, even after Haugen had shot it four times in the head with a .45 automatic. shark hunt -- a strange adventure that nearly sunk their boat when they hooked a reef in pitch-darkness about a mile out at sea and which ended with all of us up on the bridge while a four-foot nurse shark flopped crazily around in the c.o.c.kpit, even after Haugen had shot it four times in the head with a .45 automatic.

Looking back on all that, my only feeling for deep-sea fis.h.i.+ng is one of absolute and visceral aversion. Hemingway had the right idea when he decided that a .45-caliber submachine gun was the proper tool for shark fis.h.i.+ng, but he was wrong about his targets. Why shoot innocent fish, when the guilty walk free along the docks, renting boats for $140 a day to drunken dupes who call themselves "sport fishermen"?

Our departure from the island was not placid. The rough skeleton of the plan -- as I conceived it with a head full of MDA on the night before -- was to wait until about an hour before the first early-morning flight to Merida on Aeromexico, then jump both our hotel bills by checking out in a raving frenzy at dawn, at the end of the night clerk's s.h.i.+ft -- and signing " "PLAYBOY/Striker Aluminum Yachts" on both bills. I felt this bogus dual imprimatur would be heavy enough to confuse both desk clerks long enough for us to reach the airport and make the escape.

Our only other problem -- except for connecting with the black-coral wizard who was expecting at least $300 cash cash for the work we'd a.s.signed him -- was dumping the Avis rental jeep at the airport no more than three minutes before boarding time. I knew that the local Avis people would have me under observation by the same shadowy observer who'd nailed me on the broken-winds.h.i.+eld charge, but I also knew he'd been watching us long enough to know we were both late risers. He would set his psychic work clock, I felt, to coincide with our traditional noon-to-dawn working hours. I also knew that the hours he'd been keeping for the past week were so far off his normal wake-sleep schedule that by now he was probably a nervous, jabbering mess from trying to keep up with a gang of wild gringos fueled from an apparently bottomless satchel full of speed, acid, MDA and cocaine. for the work we'd a.s.signed him -- was dumping the Avis rental jeep at the airport no more than three minutes before boarding time. I knew that the local Avis people would have me under observation by the same shadowy observer who'd nailed me on the broken-winds.h.i.+eld charge, but I also knew he'd been watching us long enough to know we were both late risers. He would set his psychic work clock, I felt, to coincide with our traditional noon-to-dawn working hours. I also knew that the hours he'd been keeping for the past week were so far off his normal wake-sleep schedule that by now he was probably a nervous, jabbering mess from trying to keep up with a gang of wild gringos fueled from an apparently bottomless satchel full of speed, acid, MDA and cocaine.

It boiled down to a question of armaments -- or lack of them -- and their long-term effects in the crunch. Looking back on my experience over the years, I was confident of being able to function at peak-performance level, at least briefly, after 80 or 90 hours without sleep. There were negative factors, of course: 80 or 90 hours of continuous boozing, along with sporadic energy/adrenaline sappers like frantic, rock-dodging swims in the high surf at night and sudden, potentially disastrous confrontations with hotel managers -- but on balance, I felt, the drug factor gave us a clear-cut advantage. In any 24-hour period, a determined private eye can muster the energy to keep pace with veteran drug users. . . but after 48 straight hours, and especially after 72, fatigue symptoms begin manifesting drastically -- hallucinations, hysteria, ma.s.sive nerve failure. After 72 hours, both the body and the brain are so badly depleted that only sleep will make the nut. . . while your habitual drag user, long accustomed to this weird and frenzied pace, is still h.o.a.rding at least three hours of high-speed reserve.

There was no question in my mind -- once the plane was finally airborne out of Cozumel -- about what to do with the drugs. I had eaten three of the remaining five caps of MDA during the night and Bloor had given our hash and all but six of his purple pills to the black-coral wizard as a bonus for his all-night efforts. As we zoomed over the Yucatan Channel at 8000 feet, we took stock of what he had left: Two hits of MDA, six tabs of acid, about a gram and a half of raw cocaine, four reds and a random handful of speed. That -- plus $44 and a desperate hope that Sandy had made and paid for our reservations beyond Monterrey, Mexico -- was all we had between Cozumel and our refuge/destination at Sam Brown's house in Denver. We were airborne out of Cozumel at 8:13 A.M., A.M., Mountain Daylight Time -- and if everything went right, we would arrive at Denver's Stapleton International Airport before seven. Mountain Daylight Time -- and if everything went right, we would arrive at Denver's Stapleton International Airport before seven.

We'd been airborne for about eight minutes when I looked over at Bloor and told him what I'd been thinking: "We don't have enough drugs here to risk carrying them through Customs," I said.

He nodded thoughtfully: "Well. . . we're pretty well fixed, for poor boys."

"Yeah," I replied. "But I have my professional reputation to uphold. And there's only two things I've never done with drugs: sell them or take them through Customs -- especially when we can replace everything we're holding for about ninety-nine dollars just as soon as we get off the plane."

He hunkered down in his seat, saying nothing. Then he stared across at me. "What are you saying? That we should just throw all this s.h.i.+t away?"

I thought for a moment. "No. I think we should eat it."

"What?"

"Yeah, why not? They can't bust you for what's already dissolved in your belly -- no matter how how weird you're acting." weird you're acting."

"Jesus Christ!" he muttered. "We'll go stark raving nuts if we eat all this s.h.i.+t!"

I shrugged. "Keep in mind where we'll be when we hit Customs," I said. "San Antonio, Texas. Texas. Are you ready to get busted in Texas?" Are you ready to get busted in Texas?"

He stared down at his fingernails.

"Remember Tim Leary?" I said. "Ten years for three ounces of gra.s.s in his daughter's panties. . ."

He nodded. "Jesus. . . Texas! I'd forgotten about that."

"Not me," I said. "When Sandy went through Customs in San Antonio about three weeks ago, they tore everything she was carrying apart. It took her two hours to put it back together."

I could see him thinking. "Well. . ." he said finally, "what if we eat this stuff and go crazy -- and they nail us?"

"Nothing," I said. "We'll drink heavily. If we're seized, the stewardesses will testify we were drunk."

He thought for a moment, then laughed. "Yeah. . . just a couple of good ole boys O.D.'d on booze. Nasty drunks, staggering back into the country after a shameful vacation in Mexico -- totally f.u.c.ked up."

"Right," I said. "They can strip us down to the skin. It's no crime to enter the country helplessly drunk."

He laughed. "You're right. What do we start with? We shouldn't eat it all at once -- that's too heavy."

I nodded, reaching into my pocket for the MDA and offering him one as I tossed the other into my mouth. "Let's eat some of the acid now, too," I said. "That way, we'll be adjusted to it by the time we have to eat the rest -- and we can save the c.o.ke for emergencies."

"Along with the speed," he said. "How much do you have left?"

"Ten hits," I said. "Pure-white amphetamine powder. It'll straighten us right out, if things get tense."

"You should save that for the end," he said. "We can use this c.o.ke if we start getting messy."

I swallowed the purple pill, ignoring the Mexican stewardess with her tray of sangria. sangria.

"I'll have two," said Bloor, reaching across me.

"Same here," I said, lifting two more off the tray.

Bloor grinned at her. "Pay no attention. Were just tourists -- down here making fools of ourselves."

Moments later we hit down on the runway at Merida. But it was a quick and painless stop. By nine A.M., A.M., we were cruising over central Mexico at 20,000 feet, headed for Monterrey. The plane was half empty and we could have moved around if we'd wanted to -- but I glanced across at Bloor, trying to use him as a mirror for my own condition, and decided that wandering around in the aisles would not be wise. Making yourself noticeable is one thing -- but causing innocent pa.s.sengers to shrink off with feelings of shock and repugnance is a different game entirely. One of the few things that can't be controlled about acid is the glitter it puts in the eyes. No amount of booze will cause the same kind of laughing, that fine predatory glow that comes with the first rush of acid up the spine. we were cruising over central Mexico at 20,000 feet, headed for Monterrey. The plane was half empty and we could have moved around if we'd wanted to -- but I glanced across at Bloor, trying to use him as a mirror for my own condition, and decided that wandering around in the aisles would not be wise. Making yourself noticeable is one thing -- but causing innocent pa.s.sengers to shrink off with feelings of shock and repugnance is a different game entirely. One of the few things that can't be controlled about acid is the glitter it puts in the eyes. No amount of booze will cause the same kind of laughing, that fine predatory glow that comes with the first rush of acid up the spine.

But Bloor felt like moving. "Where's the G.o.ddman head?" he muttered.