CLUE BUS
Here’s a Quarter, Go Buy a Ticket to the Clue Bus – Pt. 5
Previously:
My good friend and client, Nando, had lured me to his home in Punta de Mita by faking a system emergency. Following a series of bizarre mishaps, I stumbled onto a room containing in excess of a million bucks worth of mostly factory sealed audio and video equipment. After faking an absence, Nando had conveniently appeared and explained to me that this “Temple of Doom” was a stash of shame; a collection of all the equipment he had hoped to, but never been able to set up, integrate and ultimately enjoy.
The next in an ongoing parade of surprises came in the form of a visitor, who, it turns out, had an appointment with Nando. Said visitor was Chad Boyce, a slimy rich kid punk who had spent the better part of the last year trying to steal my clients from me with ridiculous lowball bids and even more insane promises of services to be rendered that were way beyond the scope of his non-existent abilities. The appointment with Chad, I was told, was to get us both on the same page in helping Nando sell the contents of the Temple of Doom. After dropping this bomb into our midst, Nando led Chad down the hallway to his bedroom suite, his hand on the young stud’s butt. Commented Manny, Nando’s partner, “Hermano mio, I think we are both royally screwed.”
“Actually Manny, there are three of us getting royally screwed here tonight, but one of us doesn’t know it yet.” I replied, raising my eyebrows in the direction of the “royal” suite. Manny was looking thoroughly confused and a bit miffed. I can’t say that I didn’t feel likewise. As if the shock of having my nemesis show up at the doorstep of my most valued client wasn’t enough, I now had to deal with the fact that he was about to consummate the deal in a manner I could never consider.
Manny was thinking along the same path, “Hermano, no way that maricon is really a maricon! I got his vibe right away and I sensed immediately you knew him and didn’t like him. I’ll tell you what; I may be a little confused with everything that’s happened here this afternoon, but my gaydar is working just fine, I mean there’s no way that kid is, well, you know…What is Nando thinking?”
My head was spinning. Besides trying to not think about what a sleazebag Chad was to pass himself off as gay in order to get into Nando’s good graces, was the fact that, slime ball or not, he had known of the Temple of Doom before I had and more importantly, had come up with the notion of helping Nando liquidate the assets, so to speak. My sole consolation being that I, unlike the Chadster, would at least involve a charity in the process. Wow, get that “Man of the Year” award ready…
As the two of us sat in the Living Room sulking, a loud thud echoed down the middle hallway. I’d all but forgotten about Marta and Boo who were last seen playing hide and seek and generally behaving like little kids even though Marta was a 15 year old and Boo was a Newfoundland dog.
“I better go see what they broke this time,” huffed manny and as he got up, I did likewise. I really didn’t want to hear any noises that might come down the hallway from Nando’s room. As we rounded the hall corner by the oversized Guest Bath (The Shrine of Bathing Arts & Sciences, I had dubbed it) we came to the still open door to the increasingly infamous Temple of Doom. Inside, sprawled on the floor, sat both Marta and Boo with a huge carton overturned alongside them.
“Desculpe, Manny. Estoy…” and the rest went too fast for my gringo brain to process, but the gist seemed to be that she was stupid, careless, not responsible (after all, in Spanish, a box falls by itself, does it not?) and never will play in the room again. Fat chance, I thought. The only part of this room that doesn’t look like a museum is all the black Newfoundland hair on the floor. This was obviously Marta and Boo’s secret playroom.
“Excuse us, hermano. I’m going to take La Diablita y el Demonio Negro to their room for the evening”. He cast what he thought was a scornful look at Marta and she suppressed a giggle, but nonetheless let him think she was being punished and dealt with, adult style. I always enjoyed Marta’s innocent comprehension of things. I had once watched her fend off the lecherous advances of a straight business associate of Nando’s without ever letting the clueless Baby Boomer know that he was being played. He left thinking he was The Man and she didn’t stop laughing for hours thereafter. Quite the worldly 15 year old.
Once the trio had left, I decided to deal with the overturned carton. It was a brown cardboard carton with the Infinity® logo on it. Model Intermezzo 4.1T was indicated below the logo. The box was roughly 5 ft. by 2 ft. by 30 inches and lay lengthwise on the floor. If memory served me correctly, this was a rather unique beast; a combination main floor standing speaker with a full sized subwoofer built into the same assembly. The speaker was constructed of metal to eliminate the resonance found in all wood cabinets thus allowing the speaker drivers themselves to produce the “voice” of the unit.
I leaned over to right the carton top to bottom, picked up the top of the box and lifted. The first thing that struck me, besides the 100 plus pounds of the carton was the nature of the weight as I lifted it. Because of the distinctive design of this speaker, with the12 inch subwoofer at the bottom and a thin column of smaller drivers extending upwards, the top should have been considerably lighter than the base. Yet, as I lifted it, I sensed a solidity throughout that perplexed me. In all of my years hefting electronics in cartons, uneven weight distribution is a given, and you poise yourself for surprises as you lift the various boxes. This box didn’t feel right.
I decided to indulge my curiosity, Nando be damned. I found an X-acto razor knife on a nearby shelf and very cleanly scored the shipping tape across the top of the box and folded back the carton flaps, removed a cardboard sheet and looked into the box. I meticulously unwrapped the plastic wrap which revealed a solid grey. I probed with my finger and felt a fiberglassy, Styrofoam resilience. I presumed this was the end cap covering the top of the speaker within, so I slid my hands between the packing and the cardboard sides and yanked.
Sometimes, as with say, a refrigerator, the box, rather than the contents, is removed, in essence peeled off. I obviously couldn’t do that here, so I kept pulling and eventually, the huge mass began to shift and slowly slide out. I had thought the speaker would be floating within the packing, but it was looking like the entire unit was encased in the packing. When at last the full length had slid out, I began to look for the seam that defined the two halves to open the casing and reveal the speaker within. But there was no seam. Nor was there any hole or other indication of contents within. I was staring at a 105 lb. square plastic column. No speaker.
I went to a shelf and pulled down a sealed box marked by the manufacturer, Marantz® SR-19 Dolby Digital Surround Receiver. I used to own one of these so I knew what to expect. I scored the tape and opened the flaps and was presented with a grey plastic rectangular box. No receiver. But the plastic definitely hefted at about the right weight. I reassembled the two boxes, working up a decent sweat getting the “speaker” back into the box. I then put the two back in their respective resting places on the well organized shelves of the Temple of Doom. A mischievous thought played at the funny bone of my brain, and I put it on hold while I sorted through some other matters, namely, what to do about Chad.
I exited the Temple and headed down the hall towards the kitchen. As I rounded the hall corner a furry black mass collided with my left side sending me sprawling on the tile floor. I had been knocked over by the rushing 130 lb. bulk of Boo, apparently making a hasty retreat from Manny who followed quickly behind and then Marta who skidded to a halt to help me up. “Señor Landon, don’t let him hurt Boo. He just make a little Boo boo, you know? In the shoes of that gatito wanna-be?” I burst out laughing and Marta winked at me. What Marta was telling me in her unique way, was that the dog had crapped in Chad’s shoes, and that she, too, didn’t think for a minute that he was gay.
“Marta. I’ll take care of Manny, and leave the shoes as is. But why do you say he’s a wanna-be?” I asked.
“I see that hijoputa at Punta de Mita all the time trying to pick up the local girls, and even though he never does the score, there is not a way he is de doble tracción!” she replied. Translation: no way he went both ways. I had seen enough of Marta’s smarts to know she had him pegged correctly, as had I. Chad was playing Nando, and I had to do something about it. Just as I was having this brilliant thought, Manny came back down the hall, panting.
“How can such a big dog find so many places to hide?” he asked as he wiped his brow. “And why do you keep all those doors open?” he gazed with annoyance at Marta in another failed attempt at intimidation. Considering that Boo probably outweighed Manny, it was hard to take his macho swagger too seriously. Manny was just one of those guys who had to confront each and every situation until his version of things prevailed.
“Mañuelito, I leave those doors open so that the rooms don’t get all humido like mi madre has told us all a thousand bazillion times. And it make it more easy and fun when Boo and I play the hide and seek!” she laughed and skipped off down the other hall to the guest casita and her room. Probably to write a novel or publish a few websites, maybe make a summer blockbuster movie for that matter. Nothing this kid couldn’t do once she put her mind to it.
Manny, not happy at being Mañuelito-ized by a teenaged girl was huffing around the kitchen trying to avoid the crapped upon shoes at the front door and looking for an object on which to vent his frustration. He grabbed a bottle of wine and exclaimed, “Can you believe that poser brought this as a ‘gift’ for Nando?” It was a bottle of Carlo Rossi Chenin Blanc. Chad was an Orange County Southern Californian who should probably be excused for not having a clue about wine. His idea of good wine was probably Gallo Vin Blanc with a cork instead of a screw-off cap.
Nando, on the other hand (and Manny by association) was a wine connoisseur, having grown up in California’s other wine paradise, the Salinas Valley. His father had owned, operated and made a prosperous living managing vineyards in the region. This bottle of CR was destined for cooking or maybe disinfecting hot spots on Boo.
“Listen, Manny, forget the vinegar,” I posed, “while we wait for whatever is going to happen, to happen, let’s just leave those shoes just like they are. Why don’t you pour me a tall frosty Peñafiel and make yourself one of your famous mojitos?” Manny was the Mojito King of Punta de Mita, frequently hired by vacationing billionaires in the swank burb to add that extra touch to their lux gatherings. His talent was innate; his father was in fact a very celebrated bartender in Havana and Manny was simply carrying the Cuban flag as long as he could remain in Mexico. I had heard various stories of his struggles to remain in Mexico and knew he had no desire to return to Castro Cuba where being gay could be fatal.
“Comin’ up hermano. Excellent suggestion. It’s about time I forgot about all this BS going around and took care of moi,” he announced and the “moi” was never going to sound French; his CubaMex accent giving it a harshness that would send a Parisian screaming to the Metro. “How’s your mamacita these days? Sold any houses out here, ‘cuz no one else has.” He was referring to my wife, Pix (nickname derived from “Big Pix”, her name in an NFL betting pool) who dabbled in real estate just as I dabbled in custom home audio and video projects. We made it work somehow with our modest nest egg and ever-decreasing investment portfolio.
“Of course she hasn’t sold any houses in Punta Mita lately, who the hell has? Even the crappy little condos out here start at $600,000 and if you want a casa, start at 1.5 mil before you add tile and a kitchen sink. Not likely in this booming economy.” As I was musing on our financial gloom, I heard laughter from the hallway to Nando’s suite. It was high pitched and nervous, not the laughter resulting from a good joke, but rather the “yeah, if you think that’s funny-I’m laughing too” type of chuckle. And for sure it was coming from the Chadster.
Time to steel myself for phase 2. Or was it 3? Or 4? Whatever. We were somewhere between the “should I kill Chad for posing as a gayboy to get Nando’s money?” phase and “what the %&*@ is up with the boxes of mystery matter in the Temple of Doom?” phase. The only little detail being that Nando was holding the entire deck of cards on this one and I had to tip-toe so as not to alert Chad. To what, I didn’t yet know,
Nando rounded the corner from his MBR suite hallway and eyeballed us. “Bros,” (rhymes with prose) “…how’re we doing? Everything good? Chad just let slip that he may not be of the gayish persuasion after all. Go figure. Wasn’t up for the Mondo-Nando slipshot in the side pocket. I can’t begin to tell you what a grand disappointment this is, BUT, we shall make the best of it. Manny, pour young Chad a glass of that fabulous wine he brought over. I’ll have a Peñafiel rocks con limon por favor,” and he gracefully deposited Chad with a cute little butt pat at the counter across from Manny, walked alongside me, threw an arm around my shoulders and herded me off down the now all-too-familiar hallway to the The Shrine of Bathing Arts & Sciences and the Temple of Doom.
“Follow my lead, bro’ and just keep quiet until we get down the hall,” he whispered sideways out of his mouth in a surprisingly ventriloquistic manner. “We’ll be right back,” he glanced over his shoulder back at Manny and Chad who were looking at each other like specimens plopped into a zoo exhibit, unsure of what the other creature might do. “Those two should hit it off ace,” he chuckled as we continued past the Shrine. “Listen up, we’ve only got a few minutes. I knew Chad was faking the gay pretty boy thing. I had to force his hand before we could move on, so I need you to get over THAT. What you should know, and not question me about, is that he and his father are going to pay dearly for a big mistake they made a few years back. And I need YOU to help me pull it off. Are you in?” Email to a friend
- to be continued
Landon Hollander
E-mail: landon5123@mac.com
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Landon Hollander consults, designs and sells audio and video systems (landoplan.com) and handles sales in the Riviera Nayarit for the PVMirror. He can be reached at: landon5123@mac.com. Landon is currently teaching his dogs French to see if they will obey commands in this language as they appear not to understand English or Spanish.
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