Five minutes in and my knuckles were screaming louder than the piece of meat they’d been entertaining themselves with. The meat, Benny, slumped in the chair like he’d found out his new calling in life was to be a prisoner’s asshole, so I let up. Besides, he looked ready to talk and I felt ready to listen. I’m nothing if not reasonable.

“Whatcha know, Benny? Anything?”

Benny tensed up at ‘Whatcha’, staying tight around himself, which was kinda funny––it’s not like he had a heart to protect.

A pack of smokes lied on the floor among the scraps he’d turned out of his pockets earlier. One was peaking its little head out from the pack. I couldn’t resist, so I helped myself––the day was going that good.

Benny pried a swollen eye open on hearing the match come to life and kept it on me while I took that first indecent drag. I’d gone cold-turkey six-months before, so every little bronchial hair that’d dare to grow since, shriveled up and died in that moment, leaving me guilty and satisfied in the same pull. I didn’t need to talk to Benny: I needed to confess to a priest.

I shook another loose from the pack, holding it out to him and he winched up again.

“Jesus, Benny, it’s not gonna bite cha. Come on, let’s take a break.”

Believe me when I say Benny was free to take the smoke––as far as I’m concerned, any punk that ties his jobs down for his dirty work isn’t worth the shit he’s shaped from––but he didn’t take it.

“All you have to do is tell me where the gold is, Benny. It’s that simple.”

I could see him rollin’ it over in his head; hell, could almost hear the marbles bouncin’ off each other, his eyes shiftin’ from me to the floor, back to me. He wanted to puke it all out and be done, but I know fear when I see it and it wasn’t me he was scared of. Finally, he garbled something outta his mess of a pie-hole.

“What was that,” I asked, thumbing an ear his way.

He spit the blood out, teeth tinkling over the cement. “He’ll kill me,” he said.

“Who’s gonna kill ya, Benny?” I took a look over each shoulder. “No one in this ol’ warehouse but you and me, buddy. Hell, nobody on the wharf either. Not at this time of night.”

He shook his head like a kid refusing to take medicine.

I took the last luxurious pull on the smoke then tossed it as I stepped toward him. “You’re the best importer in L.A., Benny. You could sneak corned beef under an Irishman’s nose in a narrow hallway during dinnertime on Paddy’s Day, but we’re not talking corned beef here and I’m not Irish. The Boss wants what’s his; what you were paid for.”

 Benny laughed. It would’ve been funny if it weren’t for the fact that his mouth looked like a cemetery after a mudslide.

Tears laid fresh track over the old as he cackled until blood rose up and the coughing made him stop. He spit a mouthful out. “I got paid to bring the stuff in and I did.”

“Uhuh, and then it went missing on your watch.” I gave him a smack. “Just gimme a name, Benny.”

When his head came back around he said, “He’s got my kids! All right!”

Benny’s lower lip quivered, taking a life of it’s own, a life of pure anger. I knew we were getting somewhere.

“Who, then. Gimme a name, for Chris’ sake!”

“What? You think I’m stupid?”

He tried hard to get himself on his feet, but was makin’ a bad job of it and ate it. When he tried again, he made it, but looking like he’d just bought a new pair of legs and wasn’t quite sure how to work ‘em.

“He said this would happen, you know. Said this would be my test.  If I squeal, I loose everything. So you go to hell, but tell the Boss I never took his gold.”

I nodded. “All right. I can respect that, I really can,” I said, and fished around in my jacket until I felt my nippers and pulled it out. “But even if you’re square with me about the kids, who says you still won’t loose everything. Did you think of that?”

He eyed the nippers and swallowed down all the new found courage he had in his mouth. “Wa…wa…wait a minute, now. What if we make a deal?”

“What? You think I’m stupid?”

I grabbed the hand nearest to me.

He blurts, “I’ll give you my contact in Ecuador!”

And there it was, the shiny prize no self-respecting, shit-picking coolie like me can resist: the score that would put me on top. I eyed him. “Your gold connection.”

He nodded to beat the band and smiled with what was left of his pearlies. “There’s Nazi gold hidden in those hills worth a hundred-thousand times what I brought through. I’m done,” he said. “Importing is bad for my health. All I want are my kids and a ticket somewhere far away from crazy assholes like you. No offence.”

“None taken. What’s the catch? How do I know you’re not yankin’ my chain?”

“My book, there,” he said, nodding to the little black book on the ground.

I kept hold of him so when I bent, he came with me, squealing, “Montesano! He’s there! Just tell ‘em you’re handling things for me, now. He won’t care as long as he’s paid.”

The name was there, phone number, address, the brass ring.

“All right. Say we do this. What’s to stop you from makin’ me the stooge and you keepin’ the gold?”

“I don’t have your fuckin’ gold! I don’t have my goddamned kids! I don’t have shit! So what more do you want?”

“A name.”

He eyed me hard.

I said, “What’ll you care if you’re gone? I’ll make sure you’re square with the Boss as long as you stay gone. You contact me when you get your house-apes back, then I’ll give ‘em the name. Otherwise, he’ll always finger you for takin’ it and have me hunt you again. And it won’t matter where you go, I’ll find ya. Just gimme a name.”

He sighed hard and said “Von Karajon.”

I put his pointing digit between the nippers and gave a squeeze. “Gimme a real name.”

“That’s it, Jesus! Von Karajon! Von Karajon! I told him that was all that was found, but he took my kids anyway! Said he’d give ‘em back when I’d proven my faith!”

“And do you…have faith?”

Tears again. “I have to.”

“You ready to cut clean with the Boss?”

“I have to.”

“You ready to suffer for your faith, make it look good for Von Karajon?”

He eyed me, trying to get a good read, his eyes springing to saucer-size, and managing to get out, “N…” before I squeezed the nippers shut.

The Boss blew his freakin’ toupee over my version of the news. Mad over loosing Benny, madder about his money. But his money loss could’ve been worse and I knew it, it’s just that he didn’t know I knew. The score’d been quarter down for front money with the rest to be paid in full upon receipt. Benny could only get a little gold in at a time, but didn’t have the connections to liquidate it, so enter the Boss––the German, behind his back––the man on the West Coast. That’s what he goes by. Nobody knows his real name, and he keeps it that way. Anyway, Benny’s finger seemed to calm him down a little bit, but I got the feeling that I’d nipped off more than I should’ve, so I gave him the name Von Karajon to even things out and he goes Casper all over.

Finally he whispers, “I’m letting this go.”

“What?”

“I said drop it! Let it go! Forget any of this even happened. Now get the hell outta my site!”

“No problem, Boss,” I said, and walked out of his office for the last time.

***

I might as well come all the way clean and admit I’d put my money down, betting all I had on hating Ecuador, but Quito turned out to be my kinda town. Instead of a jungle-version of Tijuana, I found myself roaming streets lined with enormous stone buildings from some European Spanish city, where beautiful girls could be had cheaper than the price of a drink at the Ritz in Pasadena. A gringo could retire a king there, a gringo king sitting on a stash of Nazi gold. Hell, I’d’ve even learned Spanish for that.

I found Montesano easy enough, and found it even easier to explain the new arrangement.

“There’s nothing to explain, Senor,” he said. “In this business, I see many faces. You say you’re taking over for Benny; you’re taking over for Benny. Your money spends the same as his.”

My money was right, my life’s savings. That’s what I had on the table.

“So let’s get down to business, then. Where is it?”

He blinked twice. “It…is…not in the city, Senor,” he said. I knew he was trying to gauge how much I did or didn’t know, and I was starting to feel those same little pangs of doubt I usually feel about decisions made during deep, dark drunks.

“I didn’t say it was, but let’s…go…see it,” I said, poking fun with him.

He relaxed a bit. “Of course, Senor, but it’s too late in the day, today. Shall we start first thing in the morning?”

“You’re the boss, Monte.”

“I’ll need a thousand up front, then. Please.”

I patted him on the back and laughed. “Of course, of course, but let’s get some dinner and drinks first, eh? I’m starvin’.”

He laughed right along with me–all but his eyes, like the muscles in his face stopped at the cheekbone. Built like a scarecrow’s shadow, he was skittish and sweaty, even though I’d bet his hands had never touched anything rougher than a silk hanky. A shiver ran up my spine like it was being chased by the devil. I should’ve paid attention to that.

 

The morning sun’d just started kissing the tops of the mountains when Montesano came knocking. “Time to go, Senor.”

He drove us south in a surplus jeep, the paved road giving way to gravel, the gravel disappearing into mud ruts that jarred my ass into my shoulder blades, making me pray for gravel again. Each town we passed through got smaller and shittier until they vanished altogether into the forest. I snuck a peek at the odometer and figured we’d gone about a hundred and fifty miles in four and a-half hours.

“How much further?”

“Another fifty miles or so.”

‘Or so’ it turns out was Spanish for seventy-plus miles of swamped-up jungle roads that’d disguised themselves as foot trails to discourage jack-asses like myself from going up them. But there I was without my St. Christopher medal, wondering if I should send my ass a get-well-soon card or maybe some flowers to say I was sorry.

We stopped when the jungle won and there was nothing but primeval wild as far as the eye could see. I felt grateful for the pistol under my jacket and the peashooter at my ankle, but at the same time…helpless––tree fallin’ in the woods helpless.

“We walk from here,” he said.

“Oh, ya think?”

He pulled out two packs, passing one to me. It was empty.

“What’s this?”

“For the gold, Senor. How do you think we’ll get it down? Do you think I’d hire men? No, too much questions and talk. I’d have to kill them. Besides, with you I get more from the States that I would here. Here, I’d get a bullet for my trouble and some rich official would get richer.”

“Naturally. Lead on then, Monte.”

“One thing, Senor. Here, we must tread very carefully. Keep our wits about us and our eyes around us.”

I pulled my .45 service revolver from its shoulder rig and chambered a round. “No problem. What is it, one of those spade mountain lions I saw in National Geographic? Whatcha call ‘em…eh, jaguar!”

“The jaguar is the least of our worries here. This is the Amazon. We tread the borderland of the Jibaro––headhunters,” he said, voice lowered in a whisper I’d expect to hear in mass. “I’ve dealt with them some, trading mostly, but always with their smaller bands on the outposts. Bloodshed and war is their business, so I bring them guns now and again and they let me pass.”

I laughed. I couldn’t help it. “Headhunters!”

He reached into his pack and pulled out two bunches of what looked like horses manes, handing one to me. I felt something hard at its center the size of an orange and cleared away the hair to see.

“Jesus,” I said, dropping it. Monte picked it back up by its long scalp, handing it back. It looked like a doll’s head, run afoul of some rotten little brother, it’s skin charred black, its eyes, mouth and neck sown shut with rough, hand-rolled twine.

He said, “Tie it to your pack. It’s a sign of great honor to them. They’ll think twice about attacking you. But if you see anything, let me deal with it. Okay, Senor?”

“Okay,” I said, and tied it on before following him up the jungle mountain.

Twenty minutes up, I ask, “How did the Nazis even get it up here?”

“They enslaved men from local towns, had them haul the gold up the mountain, then shot them all.”

I laughed, thinkin’ I’d caught him in a tall tale. “Then how do you know about it?”

He stopped and turned to me, hikin’ his shirt until I saw an ugly pucker of an old bullet wound, just south of his heart.

“It’s still in there, next to my spine. Doctor said he can’t pull it, that I’ll probably die from the lead’s poison someday.”

“Sorry to bring it up.”

He shrugged and started up the mountain again. “It’s nothing now, but it took a long time to get strong again.”

We reached a rocky ledge and he dropped his pack, breathing hard to catch his breath before takin’ a healthy pull from his canteen. I followed suit.

“How much further?”

“This is it, Senor. We’re here.”

I looked around, expecting a sign of some sort–a cave at least.

“Where? All I see is vine and rock.”

“Here to the right at the end of this ledge. You’ll see.”

Sure enough, a jutting rock wall marked the ledge’s end, but there was a small foot-ledge continuing around its base. It would’ve been easy to miss. Carefully, very carefully, I held onto the rock wall, inching my way around until I could see the black mouth of a small cave just around the bend.

He handed me a flashlight, smiling. “Go ahead, Senor. There’s nothing like your first sight of it.”

It was crazy to think he would’ve brought me all that way just to kill me in a cave. Anyway, what he’d said made sense: he’d need me for his connection in the states. I took the light, returning his smile with interest before turning the corner.

Standin’ at the cave mouth gave me the willies, I don’t mind sayin’. It looked like the mouth of a giant caught mid-scream during dinner, vines and human bones scattered around its lips. I shook it off. In my business, dark doorways are avoided if possible, so I chalked it up to that. Besides, I’d seen worse than bones in my day. I steadied the flashlight against my .45, letting light and chrome lead the way as I ducked into the cave.

My peepers adjusted pretty quick to the gloom inside, and I made out more bones on the floor, the rags of their clothes still hangin’ off ‘em. I followed the cave another ten feet or so before I saw it made a sharp left. I turned the corner, the light falling on another skeleton before finding the golden pile that laid just past, filling the cave in the most unearthly glow I’d ever seen. Now, I’m not a man with a lot of poetic words in my vocabulary, so it’ll have to suffice to say it was beautiful. More beautiful that any sunset I’d ever seen or will ever see again. Something I could grow old staring at. Hell, probably would’ve if I hadn’t seen the skeleton move.

“AAAAAAAGGGGH!” it screamed and jumped at me, curling my stomach, turning my hairs on end from head to toe. I screamed back and fired one, two, three slugs into it before it kissed the dirt floor in a rush. I plugged it three more times.

“Senor!!” a voice called from behind.

I swung the light-n-chrome in the voice’s direction, still pumped from the kill.

He raised his hands. “It’s me, Senor, Montesano! What happened?”

“I don’t like surprises, Monte! What the hell is this shit?” I swung the light onto the heap of…it wasn’t bones at all.

“Senor, what did you do?” He went over to the body and rolled it over, the blood still pumping out over the white tribal paint that covered him to look like a skeleton. Monte looked up at me. He was scared, now. The man that survived a Nazi slaughter, jaguars and headhunters was scared. That scared me.

“What was I supposed to do? He jumped me!”

Monte threw the packs at the gold pile, cursing under his breath. “We have to hurry now. We’ll be lucky to make it to the jeep.”

“What’s the deal? Who cares about one dead native?”

“Listen, Gringo––”

“What happened to Senor?”

“Okay. Listen, Senor Gringo! That was a Jibaro! A Jibaro going through purification!” He loaded bars into his pack, so I did too. “The tribe will know where he is, and if any of them heard the shots…ha!”

“They got guns, we got guns. I’ll take my chances.”

Monte looked me square in the eyes. “The blood-revenge is strong with them. The tribes still sing of the day they wiped out 25,000 Spanish just for settling on their land in the 1500’s. What you think they’ll do to us now for that,” he said, thumbing at the corpse. “That’s enough gold. Otherwise we’ll be too slow. Come on!”

Out the cave, ‘round the outcrop, down the side of the mountain we went, half sliding, half rolling and one hundred percent shit-scared. Monte stopped twice to listen to the jungle, chewing his lip while running out ‘Hail Mary’s’ as fast as he could.

We made it down in fifteen. Out of breath, muddy and bleeding, but we made it.

Monte yelled, “The jeep! Ha ha! The jeep,” and doubled his pace.

Fear gripped me, like when my ma made good on her threats and left me where I stood, so I hurried too and got careless, catching my foot on a something, taking a header.

My slide would’ve been the talk of the ballpark had it been in a game, but I was a long way from the ballpark and this wasn’t a game. I got up, surprised to find an audience had caught my brilliant slide anyway.

Nobody was cheering.

My hands were empty; guns lost in the fall, so raising them skyward seemed the right thing to do.

“Monte?”

Nothing.

“Monte,” I tried again, taking a step.

Blowguns pointed at me from all directions for my trouble and I froze. I could see Monte at least. He was face down, a foot from the jeep, a hundred or so darts in his back, looking like he’d tried using a porcupine to scratch an itch before taking a dare on what dirt smells like.

That’s when the sting came, and the world turned to black.

***

“So that’s it. That’s my story,” Tony said with a nervous laugh, finishing the tale for the fourth time, trying in part to get someone’s––hell, anyone’s––attention, but mostly to keep it straight in his mind, to keep the fuzziness he felt at the edges of his memory from sinking any further.

A figure passed by, the narrow horizontal slits of his cage registering the shadow like a blink from too much sun.

Tony yelled, “Hey,” and waited, hearing nothing but the murmur of the Jibaro as they worked.

“Come on,” Tony said to himself. “Get a grip. You’re in the deep-end now. Try, damn it!”

And for the hundredth time since he woke up, Tony tried.

He tried to move his legs––nothing.

He tried arms next––again, nothing.

“Come on!” he said, straining to move his head, but feeling…nothing.

I can’t feel my face, the dark thought said, not even when I talk! But he pushed it away, didn’t want to think about it––he couldn’t.

“Hello!” Tony screamed, panic closing in again.

Footsteps answered, closer and closer until Tony made out the torso of a Jibaro dressed in a tattered shirt, followed by another man…a well-dressed man.

“Who’s that? Help me, please!”

The Jibaro handed the man a gun.

“Hey, that’s mine,” Tony said.

Dressed man handed the gun back to the Jibaro. “Keep it,” a familiar voice said. “It’s the least I could do. You’ll find more in the jeep for your trouble. Is this him? Really?”

“Si, Senor,” said the Jibaro. “He no bother you, now, locked up in there. Take him.”

The dressed man bent down into Tony’s view and waved, his index finger missing out on the fun. “Hi ya, Tony. How’re things?”

 “Benny! I’ve never been so glad to see anyone,” he said. “Get me outta here! I’m beggin’ ya!”

Benny laughed. “I must confess: I’m surprised you got so far. You played it smart…well, up until a week ago, anyway. It seems you’ve been very naughty––killed one of their tribe.”

“A week ago? It was just yester…Wait, wait, wait! Benny! I’ll do whatever you say! Turn me loose in the jungle if you feel that’ll even things up, I’ll take my chances, but I’m beggin’ ya, don’t leave me here! Don’t let them cut off my head!”

“Well,” said Benny, shaking his head. “That’s their price for the life you took. Technically you’re getting double charged for the life you took: one gun and one head, but they are very insistent on their prices, considering the work involved.”

“Benny!”

“Oh, don’t worry,” said Benny, reaching for the cage. “It’s over. You’ll be riding in style soon!”

Tony saw the world spin through the slits in his cage but couldn’t feel it, like being weightless inside one of those gyroscopes he’d seen in the store, but that didn’t matter now, he didn’t care.

“You won’t regret this, Benny! I swear!”

When the motion slowed, Benny raised him up and looked at him again through the slits. “Von Karajon doesn’t share with the likes of the Boss,” he said.

“Benny?”

“Not with his old wounded guides…” He swung Tony into the jeep.

“Benny, how are you doing this?”

“And especially not with you.”

“Benny, can you hear m––” Tony caught his reflection in the rear-view mirror as Benny hoisted him up. A scream froze in his throat.

No! Tony thought. No! That’s not me!

With a short drop and a sudden stop, the image of the shrunken head disappeared. The scene inside the jeep rocked back and forth as he hovered in the impossible space between the dash and the rear-view.

“I hope you like the view,” said Benny, laughing. “’Cause if what they say is true––that your soul is trapped in there…” Benny shook his head, starting the jeep. “Jack-ass. I don’t even have kids.”