Rich Man Dead Man (John Standard Book 4)

Book summary

John Standard is the only one who knows how billionaire Proctor Scofield really died, but after four years, a persistent lawyer seeks the truth in Zihuatanejo, Mexico. As Standard tells his tale, a dark story of murder, betrayal, and a two-decade-old conspiracy is revealed. RICH MAN DEAD MAN is a gripping crime thriller set in Mexico.

Excerpt from Rich Man Dead Man (John Standard Book 4)

Playa la Ropa, Zihuatanejo, Mexico

It took a while for John Standard to find out someone was looking for him.

All he had been doing was sitting on the beach and soaking up the sun while word filtered down in slow subtropical fashion through a sleepy but reliable network of bartenders, waiters, and taxi drivers. The news was eventually delivered in person by a beach vendor named Aurelio who sold homemade cheese out of a plastic bucket to skeptical tourists. In broken English, Aurelio said he didn’t know who the man was other than a “norteamericano” who had been walking around town wearing a baseball cap, long-sleeved white shirt, slacks, and dress shoes.

“Some say the man looks like an el empresario,” Aurelio said. “He carries a maletin. You know? Briefcase.”

“What kind of businessman?”

“No sé, Señor Juan,” Aurelio said. “Seguro, maybe?”

That made no sense, Standard thought. Why would some insurance salesman from the States be wandering the streets of a Mexican beach town looking to sell him home-and-auto or term-life coverage?

“Did he say why he wanted to find me?” Standard asked.

Aurelio shook his head. “He only says he will give money to anyone who tells him where you are. No one has, so far.”

“How long has he been here?”

“Two days, I think. Soon someone will take his money and tell him where you are. What is it you Americans say? El dinero habla.”

Standard sighed. “Yeah. I know. Money talks.”

Since arriving in Zihuatanejo eleven months earlier, Standard had tried to do little more than mind his own business by hanging out on the beach or in bars and restaurants. While there had been a couple of brief moments of panic and violence, he’d managed to navigate all of it without getting himself or his girlfriend, Emma Parrish, killed or hurt. He’d just come close a few times.

Now it was mid-October. The rainy season was over, the sun was out, and he was back to spending his days at his favorite beachfront hangout, an outdoor restaurant called The Tortuga. So far, the only people looking for him had been kids selling Chiclets, women hawking hand-painted plates, and an old man selling bootleg mescal.

That an insurance salesman from the States was on his trail came as a surprise, assuming it was true. Chances were it wasn’t. Rumors in Mexico tended to take on a life of their own. Either way, there wasn’t much he could do about it. After all, Zihuatanejo was populated by a revolving cast of tourists fueled by liquor, shrimp, and gossip. Best just to wait and see what happened.

He thanked Aurelio. “Let me know if you hear anything new.”

With a polite “gracias,” Aurelio headed off in search of any adventurous tourists willing to take a chance on handmade cheese from a plastic bucket.

Standard pulled a chair into the shade and took in the ever-changing scenery. Playa la Ropa, the half-mile beach that stretched along the east side of Zihuatanejo Bay, was empty except for a few elderly couples out for a morning stroll. He knew that would soon change. The tourist season was just getting underway. Hotels and condos, shuttered since the previous spring, would soon begin filling up. Same with the restaurants and gift shops. The city he came to know the previous winter was returning after enduring a scorching spring and a soggy, monsoon-drenched summer and early fall.

His decision to stay in Mexico for the rainy season was more the result of inertia than a desire to endure two months of daily downpours. Emma thought he was nuts. In her fifteen years of living in Mexico, she had stayed for one rainy season with no intentions of living through another. After wishing him luck, she left in July to visit family in Montana. She was due back in another two weeks for her favorite Mexican holiday: Dia de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead.

Left alone, Standard did little but idle away the days and nights in the palapa house the two of them shared in the jungle above the beach. He watched the rain while reading a few dozen humidity-soaked paperbacks and reaching level 875 on Candy Crush. With most of the restaurants closed, he was left to fend for himself. He cooked a few meals but switched to frozen dinners purchased at the supermarket rather than cope with constantly cleaning the kitchen to keep the insects at bay.

Now, with the rain over and the skies clear, came rumors that an alleged insurance salesman was trying to find him. Maybe it didn’t have to change things for the worst, he thought. Maybe the guy wasn’t selling insurance. Maybe he wanted to deliver a check from a long-lost relative who’d died. Maybe it was the overdue and heavily litigated severance package from the newspaper back in Oregon that fired him five years earlier. No way could he be a cop. Standard hadn’t committed any crimes in the States that he knew of and certainly none that justified sending a one-man search party to an obscure Mexican beach town.

Whatever it was, the more he thought about it the more it pissed him off. Who was this guy and where did he come from? What gives him or anyone else the right to track him down when all he wanted was to be left alone? He came to Mexico to hide out and put the past behind him. Was that too much to ask? Apparently, it was.

He could only sigh, order another beer, and wait to see what happened.

Two days later nothing had changed. Standard was still hanging out at The Tortuga, looking out at the same bay with the same sailboats bobbing in the same anemic swells working their way in from a placid Pacific Ocean. He ate the same breakfast, drank the same bad coffee, and ate the same stale bread served by Pablo, the same long-suffering waiter. At least the beer was cold and the tequila passable.

He had ventured into town for a couple of hours to see how much of the sleepy city had come back to life. He went home after a few hours convinced that things were only a few days away from getting back to what he considered normal, which meant his favorite bars and restaurants would once again be open for business or close to it.

Back at The Tortuga, even the people walking the beach were starting to look familiar, there were just a few more of them, only now they included a man who looked totally out of place.

Even from fifty yards away, the gnomish figure with a doughy complexion and meaty midsection looked like he hadn’t taken a taxi to Playa la Ropa so much as jogged along beside it. The sleeves of his dress shirt were rolled up above his elbows. Rings of sweat stained his armpits. He had a big, friendly face—the kind found in photos of past presidents of the local chamber of commerce. It was flanked by large ears and adorned with thick glasses on a narrow nose. Taken all together it gave Standard the impression of someone who had just parachuted behind enemy lines.

Insurance, Standard decided. Definitely insurance. Someone fun at the office Christmas party, but not much help in a bar fight.

The man was sticking close to the wet sand, skirting the weak waves making scallop marks as they worked their way up the beach. He wore a bright-blue Seattle Seahawks cap. His dark brown dress pants rolled up to his knees revealed legs that resembled the white out-of-bounds stakes at a local nine-hole muni. He was barefoot, but holding a pair of sand-encrusted penny loafers in one hand. In the other, a well-worn leather briefcase.

When he reached the beach in front of The Tortuga, he dropped the briefcase, pulled out a handkerchief, and ran it across his face as if trying to wipe away the weariness and frustration along with the sweat. When he took off his hat, he was bald except for a ring of thin, sweat-soaked graying hair that drooped over his ears and down the back of his neck. He ran the handkerchief across the top of his head and squinted into the sun as if looking for something or someone. Spotting the sign for The Tortuga, he picked up his briefcase and began slogging through the heavy sand above the waterline. When he saw Standard sitting in the shade of one of the restaurant’s thatch-roofed cabanas, a look of relief joined the beads of sweat running down his face.

“Are you John Standard?” he said when he reached the table.

“Guilty,” Standard said.

“Thank goodness,” the man said with a look of relief. “Mind if I sit down?”

Standard motioned to the chair on the other side of the plastic table.

“Thank you.” The man sat down so hard he almost fell over backward. He dropped his briefcase in the sand next to his chair and went back to wiping away a new layer of sweat. He took off his smeared glasses and cleaned them with the same handkerchief. It didn’t seem to help. He put them back on and looked around. “I don’t suppose I could get a glass of water?”

“The waiter will be around soon,” Standard said, “or maybe not.”

“You’re a hard man to find,” the man said, stuffing the handkerchief in the pocket of his pants.

“Apparently not hard enough.”

“So you knew I was looking for you?”

“Jungle drums.”

“At least you’re not hiding out.”

“Should I be?”

“No. No. Of course not,” the man said. “Let me introduce myself. My name is Harrison Grimes. Most people call me Harry.”

It was early afternoon on Playa la Ropa. The late October sun high in the western sky, the temperature a sticky eighty-five degrees. The gentle breeze coming off the waters of Zihuatanejo Bay wasn’t doing much in the way of cooling things off. Frigate birds circled overhead. Pelicans skimmed the surface of the water. Barefoot locals kicked around a soccer ball. Others sailed Frisbees back and forth. Little kids played in the surf. Further out, an elderly couple bobbed up and down in the bay’s gentle swells. The oily smell of suntan lotion mixed with the sweet scent of bougainvillea and wood smoke. Even though the rainy season was pretty much over, ominous dark clouds still hung on the mountain tops to the east, poised to invade the city at any moment.

“How many bartenders did you have to bribe to find me?” Standard asked.

Grimes looked surprised for a second, then smiled. “Not that many, actually. I met this nice man in a bar downtown. An American. He told me where I could find you. I gave him five-hundred pesos, although I’m not sure how much that is in U.S. dollars. The bills down here look a lot like Monopoly money.”

“This nice man have a name?” Standard asked.

“Yes. I have it right here.” Grimes reached down to dig around in his briefcase then pulled out a beer-stained business card. “Here it is. Donlan. Richard Donlan. Says he’s a vacation consultant and that you and he are a team. Something about having worked some cases together, although I’m not sure what that means.”