Nacho Unleashed

  PRAISE FOR LAURENCE SHAMES’ NOVELS

  “As enjoyable as a day at the beach.”

  —USA Today

  “Characters flashier than a Key West sunset and dialogue tastier than a conch stew.”

  —The New York Times

  “Funny, elegantly written, and hip.”

  —The Los Angeles Times

  “Funny, suspenseful, romantic, and wise.”

  —Detroit Free Press

  “Smart and consistently entertaining”

  —The Chicago Tribune Book Review

  “A clever premise is explored with delicious dark humor.”

  —The San Francisco Chronicle

  Works by Laurence Shames

  Key West Novels—

  One Big Joke

  One Strange Date

  Key West Luck

  Tropical Swap

  Shot on Location

  The Naked Detective

  Welcome to Paradise

  Mangrove Squeeze

  Virgin Heat

  Tropical Depression

  Sunburn

  Scavenger Reef

  Florida Straits

  Key West Short Fiction—

  Chickens

  New York and California Novels—

  Money Talks

  The Angels’ Share

  Nonfiction—

  The Hunger for More

  The Big Time

  Nacho

  UNLEASHED

  LAURENCE SHAMES

  Copyright © 2019 Laurence Shames

  All rights reserved.

  Cover art and design by Lon Shapiro

  DEDICATION

  Again, still, gratefully

  To Marilyn

  PROLOGUE

  S o it was just another gorgeous day in Key West. Breezy, sunny, mostly quiet though with a steady background hum of people doing stuff, having fun. Popping beer cans, revving scooter engines, singing along with the radio, that sort of thing. Harmless, goofy, peaceful stuff. No hint whatsoever that, before this day was over, it would turn into a life and death adventure of which I would be the unlikely hero. But we’ll get to that.

  In the meantime, the weather, which is after all a big attraction: The humidity was pretty low for Florida, which is to say cars didn’t get wet just sitting there. As for the temperature, it was warm enough for the tourists to go practically naked at Smathers Beach, though it was actually a little cool for my taste; but then, I’m of Mexican descent, bred to hot places. Not to make a big deal of the ethnic business, but come on, let’s be real. My ancestors came from the tropics. I prefer hot days. Coincidence?

  Anyway, Smathers Beach on that beautiful afternoon was a feast for the senses. The sand was hot and dry on top; it gave me a nice scratch on the belly when I wriggled up against it. But if I dug down even half an inch, I discovered a layer that was moist and cakey and smooth as dough. There were a few fluffy clouds drifting across the sky. From my low angle I could see them in 3-D, the way clouds look only at the beach, never over land. I could see which clouds were higher, which lower, which in front, which behind. They rode on different currents of breeze and slid smoothly past each other like people going in opposite directions on those moving walkways I’ve seen once or twice in airports.

  So, a feast all around, but it was the smells, as always, that I found most irresistible. There were, of course, all the familiar aromas of the seashore, the ones that everybody talks about. Salt, iodine, shells, decaying weed. But then there are all the others that you’ve probably never noticed but are an open book to me. Not to brag, but my nose has been estimated to be around ten thousand times smarter than yours. That’s a big number, and I don’t how scientists arrived at it or how exact it is. But suffice it to say I get a lot of entertainment and tons of information through my nose. Given the right circumstances, my nose can even thwart a crime and help prevent a tragedy. But we’ll get to that. In the meantime, I can recognize way more smells than you even have words for.

  For example, say a crab briefly pops up from a hole in the sand. I’ll pick up the iron smell of its briny blood from twenty feet away. Say a bee flies past; I can smell the pollen on its fuzz and tell you whether it’s been feeding on frangipani or cornflower or ylang-ylang. A woman goes by in a bikini. Want to know if she’s ovulating? Ask me. A guy is following her close behind. How attractive does he find her and what does he think of his chances? One sniff behind his knees and I could tell you. Pheromones don’t lie.

  But okay, I guess I am bragging about my schnoz. Maybe I should apologize, but hey, isn’t it natural to accentuate the positive about ourselves? We’re all born with certain advantages and certain disadvantages, we all have our strong points and our weak points, things we’re proud of and things that embarrass us, even when we won’t admit it. I mean, that’s life, right? So go with what you’ve got, what you feel good about. I hear people bragging all the time about the craziest things—how slow their resting pulse is or how they do crossword puzzles with a pen. Who gives a rat’s ass? Then again, what’s the harm? Me, I brag about my nose. What else, really, do I have to brag about?

  Wait—I started answering that question in my own mind before I even finished asking it. The other thing I have to brag about is my Master. (For the record, I don’t much like that term, Master. It makes the relationship sound much more one-way than it really is, much more hard-edged. It plays down the give and take, the friendship angle. But I don’t really have a better word for the person with whom I share my life, so Master will have to do.) Anyway, my Master is a wonderful, amazing, extraordinary man who smells delicious and complex and I love him more than anything on earth.

  But I don’t kid myself he’s perfect.

  Why would I? There’s a common misperception about this, and I really think we should clear it up before going any further. Dogs—and, yes, I am a dog, in case you haven’t figured that out by now—do not for an instant believe their Masters are perfect. I guess that whole idea is very flattering to human vanity but it’s a real slap on the snout to us canines. Do you really think we’re that gullible, that dumb? That we don’t recognize little faults and shortcomings? Of course we recognize them. But we accept them. We accept them without judging. Without blame. We admit flaws and love wholeheartedly anyway.

  Is this really so surprising? I’ve met a few happy human couples here and there. Isn’t that what they do? Come to think of it, there are a lot of similarities. Happy human couples are devoted to each other. They’re best friends. They love to be together, hate to be apart. But does any partner in a human couple believe the other partner is absolutely perfect? Please. So why imagine dogs do? Like I say, it’s an insult. Or maybe it’s just that we canines have a different and way more practical concept of what perfection is. Maybe, for us, perfection is what’s there.

  Anyway, back to the subject of my adorable though imperfect Master. He’s a quite old man; I’d put him at around fourteen in dog years. He’s tall and has white hair. He’s a bit vain and very proud. I know this because, when people are around, he stands up very straight and keeps his chin at a certain level angle; but when it’s just the two of us and no one else is watching, he tends to slouch a bit and move pretty slowly and sometimes his chin slips a little downward toward his chest. I respect the effort he puts into keeping up appearances and wish I could do more to help. But let’s face it, there’s only so much a pet can do to help its Master not be old.

  Old or not, my guy is a very snappy dresser and he keeps to that standard everywhere he goes. On the beach, he wears terry-cloth cabana sets in pale yellow or sea-foam green. Around town, gorgeous shirts of silk and linen, pants with perfect pleats, cardigans that drape just so. Old men, I’ve noticed, sometimes get a little careless or
a little lazy or, excuse me, just stop giving a shit about how they dress; not my Master. I’ve never once seen him put on clashing patterns or colors that didn’t go together. Again, a point of pride, a certain kind of dignity, something I respect. Now and then, he dresses up the two of us in matching outfits. Frankly, I think this is a little much, at moments sort of embarrassing, but it gives him pleasure so I go along.

  Sorry to go back to the nose thing again, but I have to say just a few words about some of the smells carried by his clothes. Nothing in his wardrobe, you understand, is of recent vintage. His garments have all been hanging in the closet many years, way longer than I’ve even been alive, so their odors tell a story. They smell, of course, of mothballs and mildew and sweat; that goes with the territory. But they also carry faint hints of rose and lavender and cinnamon—things that just aren’t guy smells, so I gather were put in the closet by a lady no longer with us. Some of his pockets also have a whiff of the kerosene-y smell of machine oil, along with a barely detectable tang of sulfur and phosphorus that is exactly like the stuff that stings your nose when someone strikes a match too close to it. What’s the story those aromas tell? That my Master owns a gun and has, at least on certain past occasions, fired it.

  People call him Bert and they listen when he talks. Sometimes they squint and tilt their heads a little to one side as they try to follow what he’s saying because his sentences tend to get very long and he can say a lot of words without taking a single breath in between. I can’t honestly say his voice is pretty, though it’s the sweetest sound in the world to me. There’s a rumble and a rattle to it, as if maybe he had some kibble stuck at the back of his throat. I don’t think I’ve ever once heard him talk loud.

  As for me, I’m a chihuahua. My name, given to me by a goofy kid who worked at the shelter where I was adopted, is Nacho. I’m not crazy about the name, but the kid meant it as a joke, however lame, not a slur, so I guess I’m fine with it. Besides, there are way more important things in life than worrying about what other people call you.

  Anyway, some vital statistics: I weigh around four and a half pounds. I stand eight inches high at the shoulder. When I’m feeling good about myself and stand up nice and tall, my total height reaches just over a foot, though I must confess that a lot of that is ears. My legs are three inches long, which leaves me ground clearance of about an inch and a half below my ribcage. This less than monumental stature, I admit, has its drawbacks. But let’s stay positive and consider the plusses. Porsches and Ferraris, after all, are low-slung too. Like them, I corner beautifully and can turn on a dime. Unlike them, I can hide under sofas and chairs and almost disappear when the situation calls for it. Unnoticed, ignored, my nose hoovering along just above the floor, I can even on occasion sniff out a tied-up friend in mortal jeopardy behind a guarded door. But we’ll get to that.

  In the meantime, there’s a pretty complicated story to be told, and I’ll need some help in telling it, so I’ll be sharing the stage with someone who I think is called a Narrator. I’ll put my two cents in as we go along; no need to worry about that. But whichever one of us is talking, there’s one thing I’d ask you to keep firmly in mind as you follow this adventure: The hero here is me.

  That’s right, me, Nacho, four-and-a-half pound dog of immigrant descent. I may be small, and I came from the pound, not some fancy breeder, but I’m loyal and I know my responsibilities and I’m fearless…No, wait, that last part’s bullshit. I have fears. Of course I do. Lots of them. Thunderstorms, I run under the bed. The sudden rev of a Harley gives me the shakes. I’m not too comfortable with heights, which, for me, means anything above four feet or so. So, yeah, I have fears. But the point is I don’t cave to them, I don’t let them stand in the way of doing what needs to be done. Certainly not where my Master and my friends are concerned.

  Frankly, I think a hero who isn’t terrified deep down is not a hero at all but an idiot who lacks imagination. How can you be brave if you aren’t also afraid?

  But okay, enough. On with the story.

  Two Months Earlier

  1

  R ita Janneau sat on the edge of the swimming pool, letting her feet and ankles dangle down into the water as she perused the Help Wanted ads in the Key West Citizen. She was new in town and needed a job, though she was not yet broke enough to take just any job. For the moment she could afford to be at least a little picky, and she was hoping to find something more interesting than waiting tables or pumping cappuccino. Something with a learning curve. Maybe even something she could get excited about and stick with for a change.

  “Here’s one,” she said, talking to the only other person out that morning in the shared courtyard of the compound where she’d been living for a week or so.

  His name was Albin Chastain. Albin, not Alvin. Never Albie, never Al. He was one of the first people Rita had met in Key West—met him on her move-in day, in fact, as she was settling her radically few possessions into the yellow cottage at the far end of the pool—and definitely the first who she might dare think of as a friend. Then again, there was a whole generation of people who’d passed through the funky, cozy compound on Watson Street and who would say that Albin had been their very first friend in town. He’d lived there more than thirty years and he’d been kind to everyone, though his kindness was sometimes delivered in a thorny wrapper.

  When Albin met a new arrival at the compound, he generally began by asking him or her just why they’d picked Key West. He’d heard a litany of standard answers over the years: The weather. The fishing. The bars. The sex. Because Hemingway had lived there and the new arrival hoped to be a writer. Rita’s answer had been a bit more original. “Why? Why not? My relatives probably won’t find me here and it’s a helluva lot prettier than freakin’ Perth Amboy, New Jersey.”

  Albin had decided right away that she would be an amusing neighbor.

  He was an elegant man, tall, no longer lean, exactly, but still with a certain angularity about him. He had hazel eyes, almost golden in certain light, and magnificently mobile eyebrows—eyebrows that often seemed to be making their own ironic comments in the midst of conversation. His forehead was high and he was bald on top, though with plenty of thick and curly silver hair still left on the sides.

  His cottage—there were five all together, and none of them even came close to matching—was the vaguely South Seas-looking one tucked off in a corner, with dark wood shingles mostly hidden behind a vast, contorted philodendron. Halfway between his cottage door and the communal hot tub was a small teak table where, dressed in soft slippers and a beautiful red satin robe, he had his tea every morning. Albin did things right. He carried the tea out in a china pot and let it steep a full five minutes before pouring it into a matching cup. He usually had with him a big fat leather book and most mornings he jotted at least a few words down in it.

  “Style Consultant,” Rita now read from the classifieds. “Help Our Clients Craft Their Ultimate Persona. Must Be Enthusiastic and Open-Minded. Apply in Person at The Chain Store, Appelrouth Lane. Gee,” she went on, “I didn’t think there were any chain stores in that part of town.”

  “Hon,” said Albin, “I don’t think they mean chains as in Walmart. Not on Appelrouth Lane, the Champs Elysees of the bondage set. I doubt the job’s for you. Then again, I don’t know you very well.”

  “Bondage, um, probably not.” She picked up a marker, frowned, and crossed out the ad. Her frown wasn’t a sad one, more of a facetious one, but not a hard-edged kind of facetious, more the kind of wry accepting look of a person who didn’t necessarily expect things to turn out exactly right or to be exactly what they seemed.

  She was twenty-seven years old, though in her tastes and outlook she sometimes seemed, to herself, either way younger or way older than that. Born too soon or born too late? She couldn’t tell which, she only knew that she didn’t seem to be interested in the same stuff as most of her peers. Gizmos, celebrities, posting selfies; she had nothing against those things, they just di
dn’t do much for her. Same with tattoos, piercings, face jewelry, gender politics—she’d avoided them all, and she couldn’t tell if this made her retro or next-wave. Her clothes didn’t settle the question either, since they were highly eclectic, in keeping with her knack for finding cool stuff in second-hand stores. She had black hair that she kept very short, shaved at the back of her neck, a cascade of bangs cut knife-edge straight across the middle of her forehead. Her eyes were dark blue and she had a way of looking at people for a long time without blinking. She wasn’t tall, and she was very lean but you wouldn’t call her slight. Slender strands of muscle moved in her arms when she gestured. Her calves looked sturdy as they slowly churned the water in the pool.

  “How’s this one sound?” she said, poring over another ad. “Sales and Marketing for Key West’s Best-Loved Cruises and Attractions. Work Outdoors. Earn Great Commissions in the Sunshine! That sounds kind of nice.”

  Albin was spreading marmalade on a piece of toast. The marmalade was in a little porcelain bowl, since he would have thought it barbaric to put the whole sticky bottle on the table. Dabbing his lips on a napkin, he said, “Work Outdoors. Translation: You’ll be sitting in a four-by-four wooden booth on Duval Street like you were selling tickets at a carnival, except you’ll be handing out discount coupons to people who already have pockets full of them and will dump them in the nearest garbage can as soon as they think you aren’t watching. Sorry to be negative, but you’d be bored to death. There must be something better out there.”

  She sighed, folded the paper for the moment, and looked down at her feet. They were starting to get pruny and this reminded her that, day after day, she’d been putting in a lot of time with the Want Ads, and so far she was neither making rent money nor having much fun nor meeting many people nor even yet seeing much of Key West. She said, “Jeez, Albin, this job hunting, it’s a little discouraging.”