Good Night Sun: A Mike Dodge Mystery

“Oh my God, just look at that sunset!”

Mike stirred, swallowed a sigh with a residual essence of his morning chorizo, and lowered his Kindle.

Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye. While he’d read the thing a dozen times over the past 40 years, Mike’d downloaded it that morning after listening to some $300 haircut with a New York honk mangle a cordial “muy bien” into a preening “muy bueno” to the inscrutable delight of the lobby breakfast host. Mike understood maybe one word of the host’s sardonic response to a server before he spotted the tubby Illinoisan. Mike grinned and shrugged– a secret between dos conspiradores -- and the host relaxed, winked, and choreographed an arriving church group in matching polos.

Something about the bargain-package decadence, the socioeconomic dynamics playing out subtly, obliviously, tugging at the seams when a bill was disputed or a massage misscheduled, hastily mended with currency and loaded smiles, frayed where the all-inclusive’s white sands surrendered to cracked cement and the playa’s DMZ of cheap tchotchkes and comfortably Mex-Texed platters supersized with copious agave. Chandler seemed about right after a day of communing with dolphins (according to the Google, the rape-y frat boys of the sea) in a dolphin toilet.

“Yeaaah,” Mike breathed as he stared dutifully at Sarah’s salmon/gold miracle and the orange ball he’d been urged not to ogle from childhood. To Dodge, it was a sherbet reminder of the fragility of a system designed around a ball of burning hydrogen so fucking inconceivable you could blind yourself three planetary exit ramps away. Life had been pressing its luck for three billion years, and that tab eventually had to come due.

“It’s really awesome,” Mike concluded, returning to his Marlowe after an appropriate interval. Then, Sarah squeezed his shoulder, and he thrummed on the Kindle as he refocused on the searing death star.

“Get a picture,” Sarah ordered.

Mr. Dodge unholstered his iPhone and added yet another 10 raspberry-tangerine specials to his Camera Roll. Someday, he’d reel in a favor from the Chicago Art Institute and do a soft gallery opening of The American Sunset and Fireworks: A Study in The Same Old Shit.

Finally, as the sun dwindled to a cocktail wedge on the rim of the Earth, Sarah settled back into her lounger, and Mike resumed Kindling. Dinner was still about an hour off. Italian tonight. It was the second time around at the Playa del Oro, but the Disneyfication had begun even 15 years ago, when they’d married off Melanie with a lavish beach reception still cheaper than a three-meat option back home. The all-inclusive had gone all-out trying to keep the estupidos norteamericanos from confidently blundering into nocturnal local shit that might shut everyone down, and thus last night’s Teppanyaki had been muy bueno.

“Holy shit!” Metal scratched loudly on tile.

It was a male voice, young, and Mike peered at the fourth-tier balconies to either side. A lanky kid with a Momoa man-bun and calf-length trunks was leaning over the rail to the left. It pressed into his thighs, and what remained of Mike’s huevos y jamon shifted acrophobically.

“You okay?” Mike called.

Man-Bun’s eyes were locked on the horizon. “It’s coming up! It’s fucking coming up!”

Mike hoped the folks below had already gone Viagra-and-T-shirt shopping. “Uh, you need some water or something?”

“Dude. The sun. It’s fucking unsetting!”

**

For the second time that evening, Dodge looked into the sun. The orange wedge was now a quarter-submerged Valencia.

“The fuck,” he muttered. Sarah was now at the rail, and a couple of other turistas wandered onto their hotelbalcon drawn by Man-Bun’s commotion, trying to comprehend what fresh climatological/ecological hell was threatening their Thursday ruins tour or playdate in the dolphin piss-pool.

Mike’d felt a bit unfocused most of the day – he’d wondered if maybe he was nursing a mild dose of salmonella from the porpoise potty. He consulted his earlier photos, to see if perhaps he was sunsetting, but indeed, there was now more sun.

“You see that?” he asked Sarah. She squinted, frowned.

“I don’t know…” she drawled. “It looks…kinda higher…”

“It’s unsetting!” Man-Bun insisted, loud enough to turn a few heads on the beach below.

“Sure as fuck is,” the robed man on the balcony to his left marveled, as if the Playa del Oro had arranged a little something especial for the Wednesday supper crowd.

“You’re full of shit,” his apparent partner breathed, perhaps the slightest hint of apprehension.

“What the hell’s going on?” a middle-aged woman to Dodge’s right whispered, as a stockier version of her shook her head disgustedly. Murmurs, whispers, wonder, fear circulated above and below their balcony.

“I just don’t know,” Sarah stated.

**

Nuevo Italia would provide some surprisingly awesome veal piccata but no sanctuary from the second act Stephen King roadshow. Word had spread rapidly among the Oro guests and staff, and although the sun finally had stayed down, “American” and Canadians and Brazilians and Japanese mobbed the sands beyond the plate glass, and servers and bussers periodically peeked toward the now-hazy glow at the edge of their world. The parties around the Dodges were either subdued and sober or animated with theories and not a few apocalyptic admonitions. Mike recognized the leader of the church group, and judging from the scale of her cross, his wife.

“I just didn’t see it,” Sarah said. 

“You’re on record,” Mike noted. “How’s that bucatini, Champ?”

Man-Bun, AKA Nathan, nodded a strand of hollow pasta vanished. “Awesome. Thanks for letting me crash dinner, you guys. That was fu--, sorry, ma’am, freaking crazy. But you saw it, right?”

Dodge speared a caper. “Well, I saw something, and photos don’t lie. So, who’s up for some tiramisu?”

“I wonder if it was climate,” now V-necked Robe Guy ventured, leaning over with a forkful of chicken.

“You are so full of shit,” Snarky Partner muttered. “You know, this is not vegan alfredo.”

“Didn’t think there was such a thing,” Mike murmured.

“The guy said. Oatmilk or something. I’m getting a distinct dairy vibe. Victor, by the way. And Greta Thunberg over here is Louis. So you think, what, ozone depletion caused some kind of solar yoyo effect?”

“I never said that,” Louis said through his teeth. “I was merely thinking this might be some kinda optical illusion – solar rays refracting through greenhouse gases. Ever heard of the green flash?”

“Wonder Woman’s boyfriend?” Mike asked as his veal cooled. “The one who recycles pizza boxes really, really fast?”

Louis gave Sarah an empathetic grimace. “It happens at the moment of sunset or sunrise, if the conditions are right. You see a green spot or what looks like a green ray shooting from the sun for like a couple of seconds. Like a prism effect – the atmosphere causes sunlight to separate into component colors. So what if what you saw was sunlight refracting through CO2 and methane and shit, above the actual sunset?”

Mike nodded appreciatively, as Nathan processed the science. Victor rolled his eyes and waved the young waitress over. I recognized her from the breakfast buffet. Sarah nudged a truffle from her rav.

“Maybe it’s one of those signs of the apocalypse, lakes of blood shit,” Victor smiled. “Hey, maybe everything rebooted. Wouldn’t that be nice?” 

“Maybe it’s a glitch in the space-time continuum,” Nathan said with stunning sincerity. Then he straightened abruptly. “Hey, thanks, guys. I’m chill now, but I think I better hit it.”

“See what you started, Neal deGrasse Tyson?” Victor scolded as the kid shuffled off.

Mike took advantage of the Great Alfredo Battle to saw at his supper.

“I think you guys were seeing things,” Sarah scoffed. “It went down and stayed down.”

“Photos don’t lie,” Dodge oversimplified for the second time.

“So what do you think happened?”

“Don’t ask me. Better call Sol. You know, Sol, the sun--”

“I’m going to the ladies’. Order one tiramisu to split, and don’t go wandering off to theorize.”

Mike dredged his last sliver of veal through lemon sauce, but before it reached his lips, he recalled the morning’s exchange between the dining room host and the serve, the single Spanish word he’d grasped. The waitress had delivered a fresh bowl of fettucine with olive oil and basil to Victor, and Dodge waggled fingers. 

“Did you enjoy your meal?” she inquired warmly.

“Oh, yes. You been on since breakfast? I saw you this morning.”

“Oh, no. I work the breakfast, then I help my father in the farmacia and come back for dinner.” She eyed Dodge curiously. “Can I bring you anything else?”

“Yeah, we’d like a piece of tiramisu, please, two forks? You know, the thing is, I had a question.”

“Yes?” Warily.

“I had a little, well, dispute today with a gentleman I saw at breakfast, and was wondering who he is. I think the host said something about him to you. See, I don’t want to make a complaint, start trouble if this guy’s some kind of VIP.”

The young woman leaned in. “Senor Rilke is with the hotel people – you know, the New York hotel people. ‘La marca de excelencia’?”

Even Dodge could suss that one out. “Highmark Resorts?”

She glanced nervously about, and he checked he nametag. “I should not tell you this…” Mike flashed the palms-up White Dude Confidentiality Pledge. He was relieved to see Sarah at the rear of the dining room, talking to the sisters from the next balcony. The skeptical sibling was waving off her sister’s dramatic recounting of the unsetting sun, a glucose monitoring disc floating like a buoy on a sea of flabby cellulose. The missionary dude and Mrs. Missionary Dude sat silently, absorbing it all with pinched smiles.

“They’re here to see if they maybe will buy del Oro, and the staff is very, ah, nerviosos – nervous. I am just saying this is not a man to make angry.”

“I got a sense your coworker wasn’t any too fond of Mr. Rilke. All I could make out was something about the sun…?”

Ana’s forehead wrinkled, then she laughed lightly. “Renaldo thought you heard him, that you might report him.” Mike semaphored discretion. “It is like a joke between us. ’Piensa que el sol sale y se pone sobre él.’ Mr. Rilke believes the sun rises and falls on hi—“ Anxiety flushed her cheeks, and she beamed even as he eyes darted toward the horizon. “I saw on the guest list it is your anniversary?”

“Thirty years.”

She clapped her hands together. “I shall bring you two tiramisus and also some of our vanilla helado, ice cream. It is made with fresh beans from a granja lechera near Cancun.”

Dessert was gratis, anyway, but Dodge could not refuse such a hospitality. He hoped Sarah would see it the same way. She soon plopped back into her seat.

“Sorry, I got trapped. The drama queen next door’s one of those psychic types – the Tarot cards and the crystals and all that, and a Trumper to boot, and she thinks the whole thing’s some kind of native curse.”

“The hell’s she even doing down here?” Mike frowned.

“What do you think? The pharmacy’s at the end of the main drag, and I saw her this afternoon with a bag big enough to start her own CVS.”

“Which reminds me, you sure you didn’t go over the Premarin limit today?”

“Why don’t you put it on the hotel PA system? Half the people here probably come down for cheap drugs.”

“Yikes, phrasing. By the way, what’d the rollers think about tonight’s solar event?”

“Said they’d pray.”

“Sounds right.” Sarah looked up as Ana deposited the tiramisu, arched a brow at Mike. “Happy anniversary, Baby,” he beamed.

**

As Sarah began her protracted evening maintenance regimen, Mike googled, then returned to his Chandler. He retired to the balcony after Sarah drifted into kitten-like snores.

By about midnight, the badges were trying to railroad the only Latino in the room. “’They’d hang it onto you and love it. Just the kind of smokescreen that would make them grin with delight.’” Less enlightened time, Dodge mused.

A disembodied cough started Mike, and he moved to the rail to ID the body responsible. “Can’t sleep, either?” Nathan jumped, then took a hit off an e-pipe.

“Guess I’m still kinda freaked.”

“Don’t be,” Dodge advised. “No, I mean it. You ever hear of folie a deux?”

“Man, I only know enough Spanish to ask for a lawyer.”

Mike let it go. “A delusion shared by two. Except this one turned into a pandemic. Half the folks down from the U.S. are here for or at least scoring drugs. Cheap vejayjay ointment, Viagra, diabetes meds that would cost them a fortune back home. And my guess is, some folks come for the non-prescription stuff. Nathan?”

“You DEA or something?” Nathan finally whispered.

“Yes, I’m DEA,” Dodge said. “Standards aren’t what they used to be. You know one thing Quintana Roo is famous for besides ruins, manatees, and kickass margaritas? A little cactus called peyote. Shit-ton of mescaline -- one of the oldest highs around. The Native American Church still uses peyote in religious ceremonies, and during the Civil War, Texas Rangers on the Confederate side soaked peyote buttons in water to get through the long and lonely nights in Union prison camp. Peyote’s a hallucinogen -- altered realities, paranoia, confusion, sound distortions. You ever see Altered States? William Hurt?”

“The dude in The Hulk?”

“Ah, sure. Part of what makes peyote such a happening religious trip is shared consciousness. There’ve been documented cases of groups of users experiencing similar hallucinations or delusions if they take peyote or other hallucinogens in a similar setting. Nathan, you ever partaken, maybe today?”

The young man planted his elbows on the rail, and Mike’s gut rolled again. “Shit. OK, I did score a little, just to take the edge off. But that was this morning, and I just took, what do they call it, a micro-dose?”

“And you got this from who, a hotel employee?”

“I don’t want to get anybody…”

“Won’t happen, I don’t think anyway. See, I think you got a little more than a micro-dose. I think your cabeza was playing tricks with you.”

“But, dude, you saw it, too. ‘Photos don’t lie,’ right?”

“Well, not without some help, anyway. But the brain can be one duplicitous bitch. Wish I had an egg and a non-stick pan to demonstrate. But in short, Dude, we been trippin’.”

**

“Bien,” Dodge answered the host. The dapper young man smiled approvingly.

It was business as usual at the Playa del Oro – Norte Americanos and Brazilians and Germans and Japanese fueling up for a day of Aztec history, dolphin-hugging, trinket and pharmaceutical shopping, or just a coma on the beach. The dining room was abuzz with the previous evening’s cosmic event, but by the time jets touched down in L.A., Indianapolis, Rio, Tokyo, Berlin, Toronto, the Night The Sun Unset would be urban legend the resort would happily never confirm nor deny. The buffet crowd was light this morning, Dodge assumed, because of the assorted upsets and allergies the affected guests would have attributed to Montezuma’s sadly most vaunted accomplishment.

The news on CNN and Azteca Uno didn’t seem to darken or remotely impact the collective mood. The CEO of a major U.S. resort chain arrested south of the border for attempting to molest a housekeeper and a hotel security guy, seemingly in a drug-induced haze, wasn’t their circus. If anything, Raymond Rilke’s purportedly Weinsteinian history and Highmark’s battles with the SEC and FBI seemed to merit a nice bit of karma. Except to FOX News, which sputtered over “the retaliatory framing of a distinguished U.S. businessman.”

“How’s the chorizo today?” Mike inquired. The host turned back, studying Dodge’s reciprocally smiling face. “That’s how I figure you did it. My wife didn’t see last night’s miracle, but then, she only ate some scrambled eggs and a little fruit at breakfast yesterday. Victor two rooms down is vegan, and he didn’t see anything either. One of the two ladies in the next room over has a glucose monitor – her sister saw the sun unset, but she didn’t. Chorizo is high in calories, fat, sodium – awesome for me, but not so great for a diabetic. I guess Ray Rilke was really partial to your chorizo, which is understandable.

“My guess is you and Ana just wanted to lower Rilke’s natural inhibitions a bit with a teentsy dose of mescaline buffered with, what, a little oxy or salvia or some other psychoactive from Dad’s shop? Rilke’s an animal, and I saw him on CNBC about wanting to give U.S. and European tourists ‘a safe Mexican travel experience.’ I can imagine what that would mean for the existing staff and the local economy, especially if Highmark wants to cash in on the wall-builders.”

Renaldo was still smiling, but with a higher iron content. He’d gradually backed into an alcove across the hall, nodding a waiter into host duties.

“If a few guests felt a little under the weather afterwards, they’d assume it was just a bad melon or sausage. But Ana was doing a little pharmaceutical business on the side. Nathan, the nice stoner boy next door, took what he didn’t realize was his second hit of peyote for the day. When he hallucinated the sunset rising, he tripped some kind of shared delusion among his drugged neighbors, including me. That domino effect spread, and even those who didn’t see the sunset bought into it. So my question is, how’s the chorizo today? We good?”

Renaldo glanced toward the dining room, then remembered to exhale. “Yes, sir. We had a problem with our regular supplier, but all has been corrected, and we have a fresh supply. Soooo, we are good?”

Dodge smiled, and looked to his frowning bride, spooning huevos onto her plate suspiciously. “Bueno.”