Fun In Acapulco

By Michael Rymaszewski

A disgraced rock star smuggling fifty kilos of cocaine in a rented car.

A beautiful red-headed journalist on her way to cover a celebrity wedding.

A fun-loving millionaire hoping to kill the former, and fuck the latter.

A professional hitman determined to kill all three.

A devious public relations agent enacting a very personal agenda.

A former Penthouse Pet enjoying herself, and her boytoy.

A Mexican drug baron fretting over his daughter's marriage.

As their paths collide one fateful weekend in Acapulco, some of them have to answer a difficult question:

Does feeling you are in heaven mean that you are dead?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Barfly Books
• Release date: Feb 1, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224057504

Michael Rymaszewski

Michael Rymaszewski was born in Poland, grew up in Ghana, and spent most of his working life in Canada. He writes in not just one but two difficult languages: Canadian English, and Polish.

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

Rudolph Stalin, former lead singer of Stalin and the Stukabombers, stood at the top of a steep street in San Miguel de Rimarro breathing Mexican mountain air. It was thin and unsatisfying, and unpleasantly spiced with an aroma of mammal excrement. He was stoned, and surrounded by stone: stone houses (although the local grocer, a reliable source of Indio beer, resided and did business in a square bungalow of concrete blocks); stone pavement (but a couple of plates that had cracked had been replaced with sloppily poured squares of concrete); and all the round cobbles dotting the sloped street were stones, some grey, some pink, some black; the sky above was unclouded blue stone, with a hole pierced through to the inferno that raged beyond. It was simply preposterous to imagine that he, Rudolf Stalin, could continue to exist under such circumstances.

But Rudolph Stalin persisted in existing, even though it stretched the boundaries of his own credibility. He checked: he was wearing a purple Hawaiian shirt decorated with yellow parrots over a pair of blue jeans: in the plate glass window of the house across the road, he saw the shirt and the jeans were worn by a fairly tall, thin idiot with long black hair and a goatee. It was him, Rudolf Stalin! Him, him again! And he wished so hard to be someone else, to be somewhere else... He started walking down the stone street, making sure he didn’t step on any of the replacement concrete slabs. He thought: these are my old cowboy boots. This stone wears leather to tatters, new soles every month. Why does it have to happen to me?

It was a good question. Rudolf Stalin and the Stukabombers had achieved instant fame with their very first single, Gettin’ Blitzed. The simple, honest lyrics penned by Rudolf resonated in every teenage American heart, and the Stukabombers took off on a tour even before they released their first album.

The tour had started in Alabama, and right after the second show a local deputy sheriff caught Rudolf copping head from a fifteen-year-old girl. STALIN—CHILD MOLESTER! screamed one newspaper headline. Another announced: STUKABOMBERS CRASH AND BURN. It was true. Tearful protestations from the Stukabombers had no effect. They never pulled out of their dive, and Rudolf spent three months languishing in a county jail, waiting for his trial.

The trial went extremely well: Rudolf was saved by the deputy sheriff’s courtroom testimony. The deputy testified a) Rudolf was too drunk to maintain contact with reality, and that b) he’d heard Rudolf say, Don’t do that. Please stop. No. The actual words had been, Ow! Don’t do that. Please stop. No. Don’t stop now, but the deputy happened to be fond of spending weekends with a twelve-pack of beer and a three-pack of porn videos (Weekend Orgy!!! 3 Hot Pix Two-Day Rental For Only $4.95!!!). Thus, he felt a certain kinship with Rudolf and anyway, the girl was coloured. And so Rudolf walked after paying a hefty fine, and listening to a finger-wagging speech from the judge.

Now, six months later, Rudolf was still walking. All this walking, he was continually walking every waking hour, or so it seemed, walking on the thin skin of solid stone surrounding a gigantic ball of liquid stone (stone again!), which was continuously spinning round and going round in a circle to boot, thus erasing all his efforts to get somewhere, to become someone. How can anyone hope to get anywhere, Rudolph thought, then tried to perform some rudimentary calculations in his head: he was walking at, say, four miles per hour, he was a good walker, always had been; but the globe, the thing he was walking on was spinning fast enough to make an immobile tree move at a thousand miles per hour; and then it was also going round the sun at, well, many thousands of miles per hour; and Rudolph, as he walked along the stone streets of San Miguel, wasn’t even sure in which direction the planet, and thus himself, and thus everyone, was travelling. And wasn’t the whole galaxy supposed to be travelling too, travelling at millions of miles per hour, travelling nowhere, into void and nothingness? How could he, Rudolph, possibly hope of arriving anywhere?

But in spite of this, or maybe because of that, a few minutes later he found himself right in front of El Incendio, a San Miguel bar patronized by members of the young intelligentsia, largely because it had cheap beer. Rudolf entered, walked up to the bar, and ordered a beer in his joke Spanish. He looked around and counted three girls: one average, two ugly. The average-looking one was talking to a guy. Life was so cruel sometimes! Life could be so sad! Then someone said:

Aha!

It was said very triumphantly, and the exclamation was punctuated by a heavy hand falling on Rudolph’s shoulder. Rudolf bristled—but the hand on Rudolf’s shoulder persisted; its fingers contracted slightly, exerting the friendly pressure of a well-disposed brother ape.

Comrade Stalin! the voice said.

He’s dead, Rudolph said and finally turned his head, stretching his lips in what he hoped was a smile. He said:

"Miguel. Hola." He thought: how dares he. How dares he to dress in a white shirt and black leather jeans and black pointed boots, and creep up on me and paw my shoulder, and call me Comrade Stalin! He said:

Buy me a Dos Equis, will you? Buy me a goddamn beer and I’ll tell you all about Comrade Stalin. Miguel raised his palms in apology and surrender.

I know, I know, he said, throwing Rudolph a look full of sympathy. You had a great band going. I admire you for that. I just can’t resist making this silly joke. What can I say? I’m just a silly Mexican man. This was exactly what Rudolph thought from time to time, so it shocked him into a guilty silence. This silence went on for a while—but it must be understood that it was Rudolph’s private silence; it wasn’t shared; the two ugly girls at the end of the bar were chattering incessantly, and one chose this moment to utter a piercing giggle; and Miguel was busy uttering a variety of sounds too, thoughtful, well-organized sounds that resulted in the barman setting down two bottles of dark Dos Equis in front of Miguel and Rudolph.

Let’s drink, my friend, said Miguel. They did. Then Miguel said:

What are you up to tomorrow?

Don’t know yet, said Rudolf. Why?

Miguel became uncharacteristically solemn.

"Because I have plans for you, amigo, he said. Big plans."

Rudolf’s heart missed a beat: he clearly felt it. Miguel was one of the few Mexicans who were aware of the Stukabombers. He’d told Rudolf Gettin’ Blitzed was one of his favourite tunes of all time, capturing perfectly the affection he, Miguel, felt for that activity. He’d also told Rudolf that he would do his best to arrange for Rudolf to perform at a suitable venue, with a substitute band if the scattered Stukabombers proved hard to reassemble. They’d even already agreed to split the proceeds fifty-fifty!

But that had been four months earlier, and Rudolf’s entire artistic output since consisted of a drunken rendition of Happy Birthday at one of the parties that seemed to be taking place practically every day. San Miguel de Rimarro had a large expatriate community, mostly consisting of Rudolf’s fellow Americans, but with all of its members sharing two distinct traits regardless of nationality. The first of these was everyone’s belief in their own artistic talent or, when its absence was particularly striking, an artistic soul. The second trait was a desire to consume as much cheap booze and/or drugs as the devalued peso would allow. Rudolf was an important member of this community; getting his dick sucked by a fifteen-year-old mulatta made him interesting; people wanted to meet him. He was invited to many parties.

Sadly, no one ever invited him to sing. Of course he was subjected to innumerable recitals and guitar solos from stoned would-be rock stars, torture sessions which he usually sat through in an embarrassed silence (if very drunk, he would shake his head from time to time and say, that’s cool). Depressingly, no one had ever played Gettin’ Blitzed, neither on the guitar nor on a sound system. But Rudolf Stalin persisted in existing, and every existence contains a big helping of hope that things will get better, and so in spite of all the bad portents and smelly karma Rudolf still hoped. When Miguel spoke of big plans, all his bottled-up hope began fizzing so violently that it hurt. His voice sounded thin and brittle when he said:

How much does it pay?

Miguel raised a warning finger alongside the neck of his Dos Equis.

"Momentito," he said. Then he turned to the barman and didn’t even have to speak: two fresh Dos Equis, matte with moisture, were instantly set on the counter. Rudolf watched Miguel pay. It struck him that Miguel was tense; his smiles didn’t linger in the corners of his mouth like they usually did; the fingers of his beer-free hand beat out a soft tattoo on the bar counter as he waited for his change. One of the ugly girls at the end of the bar decided it was the right moment to attract attention, and called out to the barman, then sent Miguel a big and unexpectedly charming grin. Miguel turned his back on her and said to Rudolf:

Let’s sit there. He pointed his warning finger at one of the semi-enclosed booths lined up against the wall. Obediently, Rudolf got up from his stool and walked towards the indicated booth. But all was not well; he had bad associations with these booths, although they were very comfortable; their dark wood and veloured seats reminded him of plush-lined coffins. Miguel had called two booth conferences previously. During the first, Rudolf learned that he’d have to pay a little more for his weekly bag of pot. The second conference was held to inform a well-oiled Rudolf that the girl he’d been pawing at the bar was the temporarily estranged girlfriend of the local karate champion, and that the champ had just entered El Incendio in a fittingly incendiary mood. The dark, soft booths were bad news in Rudolf’s mind, and suddenly the prospect of playing a gig seemed very remote. He hoped he wouldn’t hear of another price increase... Plans! Miguel specifically mentioned big plans! But would they pay?

How much? he asked again the moment Miguel was seated across from him, and quickly lifted the bottle to conceal his nervousness. He nearly choked on his beer when Miguel said:

Twenty five thousand pesos.

Twenty five thousand pesos! At the current exchange rate, that was roughly three grand in good old American dollars. He could live for half a year on this money. No, he would pay off some of his credit card debt, and live for a couple of months on this money. Then doubt struck, as doubt often does whenever happiness beckons, and Rudolf asked:

You get twenty five too, right? Or is it twelve and a half each?

I get nothing. It’s a favour for a friend, said Miguel. You get twenty five. Five now, twenty later.

For myself and the band?

For yourself. We’ll take care of the band.

After the gig?

After the gig.

He had a gig! He would be making music again! Rudolf was flooded with warmth and quickly raised his bottle to stop himself from grinning like the village idiot. And thus he didn’t notice that Miguel didn’t grin, that Miguel stayed quite solemn in fact, and remained so as he tossed the following items onto the table: car keys, transparent plastic wallet with what looked like car rental documents, and finally two wads of red hundred-peso notes. He said:

Take this. Quick. Rudolf complied, starting with the money. He hesitated briefly as he took the car papers; when he picked up the car keys, he let them dangle from his finger and said:

What’s this?

These are car keys, Miguel said, looking straight into Rudolf’s eyes. The car’s a Volkswagen. Light blue. At six o’clock tomorrow morning, it will be parked across from the El Sol newspaper office in Paseo de la Presa. You will pick it up and drive it to Acapulco. At the northern end of Avenida Juarez there’s a housing colony called Hoyos Colorados. Leave the car in front of house number ten and drop the car papers and the keys into the letterbox in front of the house. Then you rent another car, get on a bus, whatever you like. Once you get back here, I’ll pay you twenty thousand pesos. You understand? I can repeat if you like, but don’t write anything down.

Rudolf stared back into Miguel’s eyes. Then he let the key ring slide off his finger. He said:

No fucking way.

Miguel leaned back in his seat and grinned.

Half an hour later, Rudolf emerged from El Incendio and stopped next to the doorway, blinking uncertainly in the slanting sunlight. He didn’t want to be alone with his thoughts, because they kept returning to what he’d just agreed to do: drive a car loaded with drugs across half of Mexico—well, a good quarter of Mexico, anyway. This involved passing through at least half a dozen checkpoints, maybe military, maybe police, maybe military police, maybe all three. Rudolf’s gringo status was supposed to get him waved through as a carefree tourist off to visit a vacation hotspot in the New World, driving leisurely in a rented car.

Rudolf had checked the car papers and found that the car was indeed property of the local Hertz agency; however, he was far from sure he could pull off the relaxed tourist act. He was an artist, nervous by nature, and the prospect of playing the carefree americano, cruising through the country in search of gratification in all of its shapes and forms, this normally attractive and pleasant prospect was very unattractive. It is not easy to be relaxed and carefree when talking to a policeman, military policeman, soldier—the Law, while sitting in a car loaded with drugs. But Miguel had arguments, powerful arguments that made the drug run an offer Rudolf could not refuse.

What Miguel did was conduct a startlingly accurate review of Rudolf’s financial situation, each of its highlights a punch to Rudolf’s guts. Miguel began by reminding Rudolf he was nearly two months in arrears with rent for the top flat in a modest but comfortable triplex, which was owned (Miguel coughed discreetly and refreshed himself with some Dos Equis) by someone who, let’s say, had an interest in the Volkswagen’s cargo. The postman had already remarked on the number of registered letters from Visa and Mastercard that Rudolf had been receiving in recent weeks; Rudolf’s local grocer had confessed he occasionally let Rudolf have a few Indios on credit, and that the number of outstanding Indios had climbed into the double digits. Señor Morales, the assistant manager at the local branch of Banco Commercial, had on more than one occasion expressed quiet concern about the cash flow into Rudolf’s account... Of course in confidence, and only to a few select friends.

Rudolf mechanically raised the bottle to his lips after each new revelation. He didn’t bother explaining that his quarterly songwriting royalties cheque would be arriving shortly; he knew well it would barely cover the minimum payments on his maxed-out plastic. Then Miguel threw a particularly effective punch: did Rudolf happen to have the hundred pesos he owed for his last bag of pot? Rudolf knew there was no point in pulling out his wallet in a show of indignation; it contained exactly sixty nine pesos; over the last couple of days, he had been tentatively exploring various conversational openings with Miguel, diverse verbal gambits that would result in obtaining a second bag of pot on credit while paying just half of what was owed for the first one. He said:

What happens if I still say no?

Miguel’s eyes turned opaque; his sensuous, Indian-full mouth (and he claimed he was an español!) quivered with a fine, possibly Castilian, distaste. He said:

That would be unfortunate. That would be very unfortunate. His tone made it clear that Rudolf would be the receiver of bad fortune.

Rudolf didn’t ask further. He knew the bad fortune wouldn’t be of the comfortable North American variety involving a few terse letters, and the eventual loss of his credit cards. It would be Mexican bad fortune, and it would involve plenty of blood and pain. He poked the car keys with his forefinger and said:

It’s coke, right? Thirty. Ten up front. I need to pay off all these obligations you just listed. Miguel’s eyes regained their sparkle and he said:

Twenty five. But all those little matters we just talked about—we can forget those. Treat them as settled.

Rudolf hesitated. But the folded wads of hundred peso notes felt warm and plump against his thighs, and he knew his loose shirt, his yellow parrots would hide them from sight. He said:

Okay. Run it past me again. A Volkswagen, right?

And so, thirty (going on thirty one) minutes later, he stood in front of El Incendio, his head and jeans heavy with recent acquisitions, his brain repeatedly failing to take him up the Avenida Juarez to Hoyos Colorados number ten because of his defective imagination obstinately cutting in with images of uniformed men, some wearing sunglasses, some not, some grinning, some grim, but all pointing guns at him as he got out of the blue Volkswagen with his hands high up in the air.

What could he do? He had been postponing the inevitable, he had been living on a dangerous diet: beer, marijuana, and hope. Could anything good ever come out of a mixture like that? Rudolf blinked in the late afternoon sun and suddenly his malfunctioning head stopped its paranoid stutter and became clear. He had a party to go to that evening! What was more, it was a party at the resplendent villa belonging to one Zack Homer, San Miguel’s resident retired American millionaire. Plenty of San Miguel expatriate notables would be present. How could he fail to find help at a party like that? Parties had always brought him good luck, with the possible exception of the post-second-Stukabomber-show party. Why, the very last party he’d attended netted him nearly three hundred pesos in short and mid-term personal loans!

It was a little early, just a few minutes past five. But some early boozers were bound to arrive by seven, and so would he if he walked all the way there at a leisurely pace. Walking, again! Rudolf grimaced and briefly thought about taking a shortcut through Monteverde, a conspicuously grey hillside strewn with trash and unpainted cubes of concrete block housing. Then he brushed the lumpy money in his pocket with the back of his hand and decided against Monteverde. Monteverde was dangerous—drunk, broke Indians and packs of homeless dogs—he didn’t want to die on Monteverde.

He would take the long route through the city centre, then laboriously climb yet another hillside, no trash, very few pedestrians, trees shading the pavement, silent stone streets occasionally whispering with the approach of an expensive car... That would let him arrive just after seven, and thus ensure an excellent starting position for the hors d’oeuvres without being offensively early. In a rush of generosity, Rudolf decided he would purchase a really pricey bottle—for example, Johnnie Walker Black. Why, carrying an expensive scotch—it cost a fortune in Mexico!—would make his arrival welcome at any hour.

And so on the stroke of eleven minutes past five that afternoon, Rudolf Stalin set out with a determined step to what (his paranoia whispered) could be his last party in a long, long time. See how he walks with somewhat mincy steps (jeans stretched tighter by their new load, by the fat money), the car rental agency wallet in his back pocket creaking every second step, beating out a plastic rhythm as Rudolf travels towards destination: destiny, and the planet, the galaxy, the universe travels with him, at four miles per hour, everything right there in his throbbing head.

Rudolf Stalin strayed from his predetermined path at three minutes to six, as the sky overhead darkened with the approaching night and the invisible new moon glided silently into Cancer. He had just left a small supermarket with a white plastic bag lumpily stretched by a big bottle of Black Johnnie Walker. His shirt pocket had been reloaded with a fresh pack of non-filter Delicados, and he’d had a grand time fanning out a few red hundreds on the cashier’s counter. The power of money! I have class again, thought Rudolf, and the yellow parrot on his right shoulder seemed to nod in agreement when he slid his newly fattened wallet into his back pocket.

It was this new self-confidence that made Rudolf stop at the foot of yet another steep, stony street, and gaze up its slope in a calculating manner. He was getting tired of all this walking—are you surprised?—and it appeared turning into that street would shed a few minutes of walking from the schedule. It seemed to curve left at the top—aha!—most likely, it would take him right to Paseo de la Paloma, which would in turn take him right up to Zack Homer’s villa.

And so, at three minutes to six, as the sky darkened etc., Rudolf Stalin turned into Calle de los Desperados, and began climbing yet another stone slope. Somewhere nearby, a dog barked: three guttural coughs that were the harbinger of the nightly dog concerto: an opera barked, bayed, and howled by the thousands of musical canines that seemed to inhabit every Mexican town. But the battle-cry went unanswered; Rudolf’s cowboy boots clonked on the stone in a sea of silence; wait, was that a tune heralding the start of a movie with guns, beautiful women, and dashing, handsome men? Rudolf’s expert ear picked out crooning saxophones; then a dramatic clash of cymbals; then a male voice said something Spanish in an aggressive manner. A car engine started up—and then its sound drifted away as Rudolf kept walking, walking further and further away from the happy family sitting in front of the TV set, the father a burly mestizo with a big bottle of Carta Blanca in his blunt fist, his plump little daughter sucking her thumb as she clutched her mother with her other hand, the wife’s heavy, tortilla-padded Indian features ennobled by the bluish glow of the cheap black-and-white set... Rudolf started humming a tune that described the picture that had formed in his mind, a new tune, it sounded good, it had a funky backbeat that would make it a good dance tune, he was getting really excited about it when he approached the bend at the top of the Calle de los Desperados and saw the dogs.

The dogs saw him too: all the snouts were pointed at him unwaveringly. There were about ten dogs—no, a dozen—no, around fifteen; homeless, bony, hungry Mexican dogs. Rudolf had seen homeless dog packs before, but always in full daylight with plenty of people nearby, and from a safe distance, too. Right now the distance was no more than a few paces, and it didn’t feel safe to Rudolf.

He looked at the dogs and the dogs looked at him. They can feel my fear, thought Rudolf, and a telepathic dog, probably the leader of the pack, stepped forward on stiff legs. It was a yellow mongrel—big body, big jaw, short sandy hair, alert ears whose tips tipped over comically—but there was nothing comical in the way it looked at Rudolf. He met its eyes and instantly the yellow dog’s chops wrinkled, revealing big, very sharp-looking fangs; it growled. Then it took another step forward.

Obediently, the other dogs advanced too, and Rudolf felt a silent sob rising in his throat. He saw the yellow dog’s fur rise in a ridge along its spine. He looked left—a high, whitewashed wall topped with broken glass; he looked right—two dogs moving on stiff legs to flank him. He looked straight ahead and saw the yellow dog tighten its haunches for its spring.

The priceless value of instinct! Without thinking, Rudolf took a swift step forward and kicked—the point of his cowboy boot was aimed at the yellow dog’s jaw, but even as Rudolf’s foot swung, the yellow dog sprang. The tip of Rudolf’s veteran cowboy boot, decorated with a metal toecap featuring dark curlicues, buried itself in the dog’s belly. It was so painful the dog didn’t yelp—it turned a silent somersault in the air and slammed down on its back right at Rudolf’s feet, hitting the stone with a crunchy smack. It flopped over onto its side and lay still.

The rest of the dog pack had been advancing towards Rudolf with stiff, cautious steps; now all the dogs froze as if on command. One—a terrier-like cur with an incongruously long tail—stretched its furry snout to sniff the fallen leader, and whimpered softly.

HA! shouted Rudolf, and stamped his victorious foot, and the dogs scattered. Leaderless, they split up: the two that had been trying to outflank Rudolf raced down the street, towards Calle del Eduardo el Magnifico. Others ran up and quickly disappeared from sight behind the crest of the steep slope. Within a few seconds, all the dogs were gone—except for one.

It wasn’t big, but it was black, so black Rudolf had to strain to make out its features. He saw unexpectedly docile, floppy dachshund ears, foxy muzzle, spindly legs, short curved furry tail—it reached no taller than halfway up his calf, and if he kicked it properly he could probably send it into outer space. He stepped forward to turn thought into action and the fucking thing skittered out of reach. He swung around and kicked the dead yellow dog instead. It slid sideways, smearing the stones with dark blood.

HA! shouted Rudolf again and charged the black dog. It ran away. He chased it for maybe twenty steps, his expensive bottle swinging crazily in its plastic cradle. But the dog ran much faster than Rudolf could with his precious burden, and as soon as it disappeared from sight Rudolf stopped, took the last-but-one cigarette from his old pack of Delicados, flicked his plain silver Zippo (object of much envy in Mexico), and took a deep hit. He felt sanity returning, advancing timidly yet determinedly like water at high tide.

He smoked and looked around. Nothing! No one! Ten-foot walls, a heavy gate here and there—higher up across the street, someone got fancy and put in a tall wrought iron fence topped by wicked curving spikes—but the house it protected was hardly visible: a rooftop, a window glimmering intermittently through the moving foliage of a lush garden. He could be murdered here, and no one would turn a hair! Trembling slightly, he resumed his journey which, he hoped, would be henceforth dog-free, and with a happy ending.

The signs were auspicious. Just as he had guessed, Calle de los Desperados curved to join Paseo de la Paloma. When Rudolf emerged onto the familiar street, he turned right—another slope! another climb! He stopped to ventilate his hard-working lungs with another Delicado under the statue that most likely gave the street its name: a big white stone dove perched atop a slender column, wings oddly outstretched as if it were making a slightly panicked emergency landing. There was a bronze plaque attached to the column, and Rudolf stooped down to read its rather lengthy text.

He’d attempted to read it before; this time around, the monument appeared to commemorate earthquake victims. On previous occasions, Rudolf had had the impression (respectively) that the white dove was there to honour world peace; that it was dedicated to a local Mother Theresa character who’d spent her life doing good; that it was a posthumous monument to a young girl who’d been tragically killed in a road accident; and finally, that it was a memento of the Olympics in Mexico City. Rudolf’s Spanish wasn’t good;