Eddie looked like he was struggling mightily, but obviously, Court was right. Finally, Eddie nodded. “I’ll find a hide for you. Cover you up and mark the spot somehow. I’ll go for help, come back, and get you as soon as I can.”
Court could tell Eddie did not believe Gentry would survive the night out in the elements. “Get over the river into Thailand. Tell your people where you left me. My people will come and get me.”
Gentry tried to sound convincing, but it was a lie. No one would come for him. He knew it, and surely, Eddie must have suspected it.
Twenty minutes later the roof of the Chinese sedan sunk below the surface of a pond. Air bubbled out of the car with a gurgling sound, and soon the water stilled and lily pads returned to cover the breach near the bank created by the vehicle’s entry into the water. Court Gentry lay nearby on his back, twenty-five feet from the water’s edge and fifty feet down a steep slope from the road, his body shielded by tall grass. Eddie had covered him in banana leaves and surrounded him with a small makeshift wall of stones and branches. Just a few feet away a small footpath ran off to the south past the pond, in the direction of the Mekong River.
Gentry was invisible from the road above, but if anyone ventured down the hill, they would likely notice the man-sized anomaly in the grass.
Eddie knelt down next to Gentry; they could barely see each other through the foliage.
“There’s going to be UXO out there,” Court said weakly. Eddie knew that UXO was unexploded ordnance. “We dropped more bombs on this country during Nam than we did on Germany in WWII. A lot of those bombs didn’t explode; they’re just out in the jungle, waiting for someone to come by and kick them. You do not want to go off the beaten path out here.”
Eddie looked down the trail. “Good advice. I knew I brought you along for something.” Gamble’s tone turned serious. “You won’t have any food, but H2O won’t be a problem. Just keep your mouth open and let the rain drip from the banana leaves.”
“Okay.”
“I’ll make sure someone comes back for you, I swear.”
“Sure. Thanks for everything. Someday you’ll make someone a hell of a wife.”
Eddie nodded. Hesitated. Clearly, he was torn apart about leaving his former cellmate behind. “I’ll see you in a couple of days, tops. You’ll be at a hospital in Bangkok hitting on exotic nurses, and I’ll stop in and bring you something. Any requests?”
Court smiled. He’d play along with this fantasy if it would help Eddie save himself. “A root beer would kick ass.”
“You got it.” Eddie patted Court on the forehead through the leaves. “See ya soon, homes.” He stood and began walking towards the pathway to the south.
TWELVE
Court looked down at his watch and found it was past nine o’clock. Some of the dinner guests had drifted away; others were sitting around in clumps in the back garden, on the driveway by the boat, and throughout the downstairs of the house. The local police wandered around on the outskirts of the event. Laura and Elena had brought each of the cops a big plate of dinner and a tall plastic cup of iced horchata, a cinnamon-vanilla flavored drink made from boiled rice and sesame seeds. The cops ate while standing, careful to keep one eye out the gate towards the street.
Court took another sip from his fourth sweating bottle of Pacifico and began wondering about where he would sleep tonight. Bus service in San Blas had surely halted for the evening, and he did not have money to blow on a hotel. He figured he’d find a bench in the little central park a few blocks to the north, then be on the first bus out in the morning back to Puerto Vallarta.
There was another option. He’d learned through others that the retired U.S. Navy man, Captain Cullen, lived down in Puerto
Vallarta. Court considered asking him for a lift back to PV, but only briefly. A ninety-minute car ride with the icy geriatric was more scrutiny than the international outlaw wanted to subject himself to.
Gentry was pleased to notice that the rest of the crowd had forgotten him; he sat alone at a small picnic table near the back wall of the compound, away from the rows of lights strung over the garden and the flaming torches stuck into the ground here and there, and away from the conversations going on all around him. He eyed the back gate. It was closed but not locked; the darkness beyond called to him.
He’d make an invisible escape now; he’d come to pay his respects, and his respects had been paid. Now it was time to disappear.
Standard operating procedure for the Gray Man.
Court finished his beer. Stood slowly.
“Why is it I find myself so curious about you?”