Making Waves (16 page)

“Wait,” Phyllis said. “Am I the mistress or the wife?”

“Definitely the mistress,” Jake said.

“Um, how about if you just ask for a room,” Alex said, waving as another cab zipped past. “A cheap one.”

“And it’s important to stay inconspicuous,” Juli said, stooping to study the sign on the little roadside stand behind them. “Oh, look—they have fresh pelau.”

Cody looked delighted, ducking his head to look inside the booth at the menu scrawled on a blackboard. “Breadfruit cou-cou? Ohmygod, you have
got
to give me the recipe!”

“Inconspicuous,” Alex muttered. “Right.”

***

By the time they’d all trooped into the room—a free upgrade to a luxury, multi-room suite for the moony-eyed lovers—Alex was getting edgy. Edgy and irritable.

He was sitting in the room next to the window in a chair with one leg shorter than the others, peering past the curtains at the ocean. Jake and Cody and Phyllis were out on the balcony, but Alex felt safer being inside. Every few seconds, he’d stop scowling at the ocean and start scowling at the portable FHS radio.

When he wasn’t scowling at the radio, he was stealing looks at Juli, alternately enjoying her cleavage and wondering what the hell it meant that the niece of Frankie-Two-Toes had stowed away on his boat. Something was going on, but he didn’t have a clue what it was.

“Why aren’t they saying anything else?” he muttered, fiddling with the radio. “It’s been almost ten minutes since the last transmission. They should be coming in soon.”

He glanced up at Juli, who was rubbing her wet hair with a fluffy white towel, looking unconcerned. He tried not to notice the way her robe gaped open a little in front, revealing a lovely triangle of flesh beneath her collarbones.

Juli noticed him not noticing and rolled her eyes, pulling the robe closed with one hand. Strolling over to him, she grabbed the radio out of his hand and set it on the windowsill.

“Gee, maybe because they’ve stolen a boat and don’t feel much like chatting about childhood memories over the radio?”

Alex frowned. “You’re sure you heard that last transmission right?”

“Well, they either greased the palm of the customs guy and arranged to pull the boat into that berth you guys were talking about earlier, or they were sharing a recipe for banana bread. Of course I’m sure, Alex.”

She draped her wet towel over his knee and put one hand on his shoulder, using him as leverage to peer around him out the window. This time, Alex could see right down the front of her robe. He felt his mood improving as all the blood left his brain.

“So that’s where they’ll be coming in, huh?” Juli said, nodding out the window toward the water. “Pretty nice that Jake talked the receptionist into giving them a room with such a great view of the harbor.”

“I’m not sure it was luck,” Alex replied, fixated on an entirely different view. “I think they were just eager to do whatever it took to make sure Jake and Phyllis didn’t start necking in the lobby.”

Juli angled her body away from the window and looked at him. She was so close she was practically in his lap.

“So they played the illicit lover thing well?”

“I’m not so sure it was acting. I think they might actually have the hots for each other.”

She shook her head. “You’re just now figuring this out, sailor boy?”

There was a distinct buzzing in Alex’s brain, and the smell of her shampoo was giving him a craving for lemon and coconut and something else he didn’t want to admit. The sight of all that flesh moving beneath the robe was making him dizzy.

You can’t trust her
, a voice reminded him.
Just get the damn diamonds and get out of here.

God, he hated that voice.

Alex stood up, glancing at his watch before moving past her and out onto the balcony where the others were gathered.

“Hey, guys? I know it’s nice out here and everything, but don’t you think you look a little conspicuous?”

Three pairs of eyes looked up at him with expressions of identical puzzlement. At least he assumed that was puzzlement behind their gaudy plastic sunglasses. Cody picked up his virgin daiquiri from the arm of his Adirondack chair and nudged the pink umbrella out of the way, taking a big gulp. Phyllis and Jake shrugged and went back to smearing suntan oil on each other’s legs. Alex sighed.

The floral shirts they’d purchased in the hotel gift shop were so bright he couldn’t stare directly at them. And Cody’s garish orange sun visor was covered with pictures of copulating flamingoes.

“We’re incognito,” Cody insisted, slurping on his drink. “We’re just tourists looking at the ocean.”

“Yeah,” Jake agreed, smiling down at Phyllis’s calves. “Regular old tourists.”

“With high-powered binoculars?” Alex asked. “And a GPS tracking device?”

Jake shrugged. “We’re well-equipped tourists.”

“Come back inside,” Alex muttered. “We can see just as well from here.”

There was much sighing and grumbling, but all three filed back through the sliding glass door. All at once, the radio squawked to life. Alex snatched the radio off the ledge.

“What are they saying?” he snapped, thrusting the radio at Juli. “What was that all about?”

“They’re approaching the harbor,” Juli said, glancing out the window. “Hey, look! Is that them?”

Alex stared out on the horizon. An enormous gray cargo ship was barely visible, sliding through the crevice between blue, blue sky and even bluer ocean.

Portelli’s ship.

The radio squawked again and Juli listened as the voices chattered.

“They’re thanking the customs guy who, um, greased the skids,” Juli translated. “They’re laughing about it. They’re being subtle, not really saying anything outright, but it seems like they’re implying something’s going on.”

More words over the radio, more laughter. The boat was drawing closer. Alex looked at Juli. She was scowling now.

“What?” he asked. “What are they saying?”

Juli’s frown deepened. “Well that’s not very nice.”

“What?”

She waved at him to shut up, a gesture that might have annoyed him if he weren’t relying so completely on her translation skills.

“Juli?”

She made a squeak of indignation and glared at the radio. “I don’t believe it!”

“What?” Alex asked. “What’s going on?”

“Honestly, is that all you guys think about?” She turned her scowl on Alex, then at Jake. Jake, at least, had the good sense to look ashamed.

“Juli—”

“
Alex
,” she snapped as the radio grew silent again.

“What did they say? Please?”

Juli folded her arms over her chest.

“I’m not repeating most of the words he just said,” she said, meeting Alex’s gaze with fire in her eyes. “But I can tell you where our boys are headed the second they hit land. And I’ve got an idea what we can do about it.”

“Tell me again why you packed a bustier for this trip,” Alex said, staring at Juli as she tugged her curls into a complicated twist on top of her head.

“Tell me again why I’m wearing it,” Phyllis said, frowning down at her cleavage.

Jake was the only one not frowning. In fact, he seemed downright joyful with this unexpected turn of events.

Juli blinked at Alex through six coats of mascara, her blue eyes fringed with terrifying black spikes of lashes. “We’re giving them what they want. That’s it.”

“No kidding,” Jake murmured appreciatively, his gaze fixed on Phyllis.

Phyllis tugged at her leather miniskirt and scowled some more. Juli ignored Jake and directed her ire at Alex.

“They’re looking for hookers,” she said, grabbing hold of Alex’s shoulder to steady herself as she stabbed her feet into impossibly high heels. “At least that’s what the guy said on the radio. And from what the guy in the harbor said, there aren’t a lot of hookers in Barbados.”

“Pity, that,” Jake muttered.

Alex smacked his palms on the counter in exasperation. “So you think it’s your civic duty to fill the gap?”

“You have a better plan, sailor boy?”

Alex tried not to stare as Juli made a series of adjustments to the pushup bra that raised her cleavage to dizzying heights beneath her flimsy black cocktail dress. The straps on the dress were so thin she could floss with them after a meal.

“I just think this is a dangerous way to—” Alex sneezed, cutting himself off midsentence as he tried to dodge the cloud of perfume Juli was spritzing into the air.

“They’re coming ashore in search of hookers,” Juli said, setting the perfume bottle down. “If they don’t find them, they’re going to return to the boat. If they
do
find them, they’ll stick around awhile, maybe leave the boat unattended while they try to figure out the best way to conduct their illicit transaction.”

“It’s too risky,” Alex protested. “For both of you.”

“I can’t feel my left boob,” Phyllis muttered, tugging at the lacing on the side of her bustier.

Jake stood up, grinning like mad. “Here, let me help you feel your left—”

“Stop!” Juli said, throwing her hand up. “Nobody should feel Phyllis’s boob right now except Phyllis. We’re on a mission here, and Phyllis is a smart, sexy, confident woman who shouldn’t be groped while she’s getting ready.”

Jake looked forlorn. Phyllis looked conflicted. Juli sighed and looked back at Alex.

“You guys want to get onto that boat,” she said. “The crew is obviously coming ashore, but they’re not going to want to leave things unattended for long. If they don’t find what they’re after, they’re going back to the boat, right?”

Alex closed his eyes. “I don’t like this.”

“You don’t have to like it,” she said. “You just have to work with us here. I’m pretty sure we can keep these guys distracted for at least an hour. That gives you time to sneak onto the ship, disarm any guards they’ve left behind, figure out what happened to the original crew, check out the cargo, and get the hell off the boat without being caught.”

“Look, just put some clothes on and we’ll find another way to—”

“You want to wear the dress?”

Alex gritted his teeth as Juli stood back, surveying her handiwork with Phyllis. Alex had to admit he’d never seen her look quite so sultry. Come to think of it, he’d never seen her look like she wasn’t preparing to crush someone’s skull between her thighs.

Still, this was a crazy, risky plan. There was no way he could let them do this.

He turned his attention back to Juli, who was now slathering some sort of sparkly lotion on her bare legs. He stared, following the path of her fingers as they slid further up her thigh.

“I can’t believe Cody just happened to have a red leather miniskirt in his bag,” Juli was saying to Phyllis. “What are the odds?”

“I’d say pretty good,” Alex muttered, grateful Cody was in the shower and not here to witness this fiasco. He stared at the thigh-high, patent leather stilettos on Phyllis’s feet and raised an eyebrow at Juli.

“That’s not the boot you puked in, is it?”

Juli rolled her eyes. “No. The other boot was Prada. This is a Manolo Blahnik.”

“Duh,” said Phyllis.

Alex looked at her. “Two days ago, you asked if Manolo Blahnik was an appetizer or an entrée.”

Phyllis beamed. “I’m a new woman.”

“Just what we needed,” Alex muttered.

Phyllis tugged at the ruffled edge of her bustier. “Is it supposed to itch this much? Because it really itches.”

“It’s the price we pay for being desirable, sexy women,” Juli told her. “Discomfort, misery, and itchy boobs.”

“Speaking of the price you pay—” Alex began.

Juli turned on him. “We’re not actually going to accept money in exchange for sex, Alex. We’ll just titillate a little until we suddenly have an ‘emergency phone call’ we have to take care of. Then we’ll sneak out the back door and never see these guys again.”

“Titillate,” Jake repeated.

“Anyway, you’ll only be a couple minutes away on the boat, and we can radio you if anything happens,” Juli pointed out. “And it’s a public place. There will be tons of people there in the bar.”

“So one of us will go with you,” Alex said. “Just for safety’s sake.”

“As a pimp? No. Besides, you need all three of you to deal with any guys they may have left behind to guard the boat. You guys are walking into a much riskier situation than we are. You deal with that, and let us handle ours.”

Juli grabbed a hairbrush off the counter and made a few quick passes through Phyllis’s white-blonde hair, fluffing and teasing as Phyllis sat there looking amazed. “We’ll get out fast if things don’t feel right, okay?” she said, smiling at Alex.

“Things don’t feel right now,” Phyllis muttered, tugging at the bustier again. “Things are very itchy.”

Juli beamed at her. “You look amazing, Phyllis. Beautiful. Isn’t she stunning, Alex?”

Alex sighed. “You both look gorgeous. Really,
too
gorgeous. You’re going to give these guys a heart attack.”

Juli nodded. “So they said on the radio they were going to start off at that little tavern just down the alley,” she said, tucking her brush into a tiny silver clutch. “We’ll go work our magic. You guys work yours. And we’ll see you back here in an hour.”

“We don’t have to do it this way,” Alex argued, still not ready to surrender. “We have our paintball guns. We’ve got ski masks. We can do this by force.”

Juli shook her head. “I’ve got mace in my purse, and so does Phyllis. But anyway, you can kill more flies with honey than with vinegar.”

Cody stepped out of the bathroom and smiled, rubbing his head with a towel. “You can kill them with orange oil too.”

Juli grabbed her clutch and walked over to the bathroom door, where she stood on tiptoe to kiss Cody on the cheek. “We’ll keep that in mind.”

Alex stared after her as she flounced toward the door, key in hand. Phyllis flounced after her, looking fairly new to the whole business of flouncing. Alex resisted the urge to catch her when she tripped over her own boots.

At the door, Juli pivoted and looked at him. She smiled, making him want to run up and grab her and tie her to the bed so she wouldn’t take this crazy risk.

“Good luck getting the booty,” she said cheerfully, smiling at him.

“Good luck peddling yours,” Jake called back.

Alex shook his head and sat down on the edge of the bed, watching them strut out the door.

***

The throb of club music made Juli’s feet rattle inside her stilettos as she stepped into the darkened bar and looked around.

“See anyone?” Phyllis whispered, tugging at the bustier again.

“I’m not sure what we’re looking for,” Juli whispered back. “I think if we go sit down at the bar, they’ll probably just approach us.”

“Do we need to make up a ‘hookers for sale’ sign or anything?”

Juli swatted Phyllis’s hand away from the ruffled edge of her cleavage and shook her head. “Dressed like this, we don’t need to advertise. We just need to wait.”

Phyllis nodded, not looking convinced. Juli gave her an encouraging smile.

“You look totally hot, Phyllis.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I’d buy you. If you were really a hooker, I mean.”

“Thanks, Juli. That’s really sweet of you.”

The two of them strolled over to the bar, Phyllis wobbling a little in her high-heeled boots. Juli pulled out a barstool and slid into place, setting her clutch on the wooden surface. Phyllis followed suit, looking like a nervous pre-teen girl on a first date—if a nervous, pre-teen girl were allowed to dress like a prostitute.

“What do hookers drink?” Phyllis whispered as Juli tried to catch the bartender’s attention.

“I forgot to consult my
Guide to Hooker Etiquette
,” Juli whispered, directing a flirty little wave at the startled-looking man wiping a wet rag across the other end of the bar. “How about if we just wing it?”

“Wing it. Right. Maybe champagne? Or a lime vodka collins? Or how about a cosmopolitan?”

“We’ll have two gin and tonics,” Juli called, smiling up at the bartender as he approached them with a cautious expression.

“With a twist,” Phyllis added, beaming at him. “It’s a special night.”

“Really?” he said, his vaguely British accent offering an odd contrast to boyish features.

Phyllis beamed. “Yes. We’ve got some coochie for sale.”

The bartender dropped a glass. Juli closed her eyes.

“That’s the name of our boat,” she interjected, kicking Phyllis under the bar. “The
S.S. Coochie
. If you know anyone in the market.”

“A boat,” he said, staring at her in disbelief as he filled their glasses and anchored a lime twist on the rim of each one, pushing them across the bar.

Juli took a sip of her drink, choking only slightly as she tried to remember details from the sale flyers she’d seen posted outside the marina. “Right. A boat. It’s a beautiful sixty-nine-foot Steem AmShip Custom Built workship.”

“You’re selling a tugboat?”

“Um, yes. A tugboat. That’s right.”

“Named
Coochie
?”

Juli took another sip of her drink and shot a pleading look at Phyllis. “Great weather we’re having here, don’t you think?”

“Sure is nice,” Phyllis agreed, yanking at the edge of her bustier and turning to survey the crowd.

The bartender wandered away, shaking his head as Juli tried to decide whether to beat Phyllis over the head with her right shoe or the left one.

“For future reference,” Juli hissed when the bartender was gone, “I think we’ll be a lot more convincing as hookers if we don’t announce it to people.”

Phyllis shrugged and began nibbling the edge of her lime. “I don’t know,” she said, pointing across the bar. “Those guys seem to be buying it.”

Juli followed the direction of Phyllis’s finger and nearly choked on her drink again.

Seven of the biggest, meanest-looking guys she’d ever seen were staring across the room at the two of them, looking like they’d just spotted an all-you-can-eat lobster buffet with a blowjob station beneath the butter tray.

“Don’t they look like pirates?” Phyllis asked.

“They look like inmates,” Juli hissed, thinking perhaps Alex had been right about the absurdity of this plan. At the thought of Alex, Juli felt a pang of longing.

“Inmates, pirates—same thing, right?” Phyllis said. “And it looks like they’re coming over here. Is my lipstick straight?”

“You’re not wearing lipstick.”

“Oh. Right. Here they come. Look pretty.”

Juli felt every ounce of bravado evaporate from her pores as the men ambled toward them like an approaching team of defensive linemen. “I think I just wet myself,” she whispered. She thought about Alex and tried not to consider how disappointing it would be to end up dead in an alley without knowing for sure if the sex would be as amazing as she imagined.

The men lined up in front of them, their eyes hungry and mean. “Well, well, well,” said one of the men in a voice Juli recognized instantly as the one from the radio. “What are you sexy bitches doing here this evening? Looking for a little play? I think we can help you out with that.”

He reached out to grab her with a hand that looked like it hadn’t seen soap since the ’80s. Juli winced.

Suddenly, the man beside him whirled and punched him in the nose. The other men jumped back, dodging the body of their fallen comrade as he hit the ground in front of them. One man grabbed a napkin to staunch the bleeding, while the man who’d thrown the punch crossed his arms over his chest and stared at the rest of the men with a look of reproach.

“That is an entirely disrespectful way to communicate with a lady, Phillip,” he intoned in a voice more suited to a Rhodes scholar than a thug. “I insist that you apologize immediately for your barbaric behavior.”

The other man was on his feet in an instant, looking like a beaten cocker spaniel. He stared at the floor with remorse practically dripping from his forehead. “I’m sorry.”

The other man sighed and smacked him across the back of the head. “What are you sorry
for
, Phillip?”

“For my barbaric behavior.”

“And for your disrespect of the fairer sex.”

“And for my disrespect of the fairer sex,” he agreed, looking like he wished to be anywhere else.

So did Juli, frankly.

“Very good,” the man said, turning around and bowing slightly before Juli and Phyllis. “My name is Malcolm. And these are my brothers Blythe, Percy, Winchester, Prescott, and Pierson, and, of course, Phillip.”

“Um, pleased to meet you,” Juli said, extending her hand. Phyllis did the same, looking dumbfounded as Malcolm lightly grasped her fingers and planted a delicate kiss on the back of each of their hands.

“Please, allow me to apologize for my brother’s boorish words by purchasing the libation of your choosing,” he said, gesturing to the bartender. “Steven, we’ll have seven glasses of your finest sherry, and whatever these lovely and sophisticated ladies would like to drink.”

“Right away,” the bartender said, eyeing the lot of them as though he wished they’d all fall through the floor. Then Malcolm pulled out a wad of cash the size of his arm, and Steven suddenly looked a whole lot happier to be serving them.