Orange Blossoms & Mayhem (Fantascapes) (6 page)

Since Cuzco’s most unique hotel, the Monasterio—where we’d booked theArendsens, and where I’d dropped my suitcase on my way to Inca Explorations—was only a few blocks away, I decided to walk back. The Monasterio, as the name implies, was once a monastery. Built in 1592, it is now a distinguished hotel, with rounded arched ceilings, refectory tables, and galleried walkways around a flower-filled central courtyard. It even has a chapel, ornamented with enough gold to make a thief bawl in frustration. All part of the Fantascapes package and, lucky me, I got to stay there too.

I was almost out of the narrow street and into the central Plaza de Armas—where the great cathedral allegedly holds the body of Francisco Pizarro, whose conquistadores put paid to the Inca empire—when it hit me. The dreaded
soroche
. Mountain sickness. I couldn’t breathe. My knees threatened to buckle, my stomach roiled. People who live at sea level are not supposed to dash off an airplane at an altitude ten thousand feet higher than they’d been an hour earlier in Lima, taxi into town, and take care of business without a pause for adjustment—usually coca tea and a couple of hours in bed, but today I hadn’t had time. I leaned against one of the Inca stone walls while my lungs gasped for air. Laine Halliday, clever, sophisticated troubleshooter, reduced to a puling infant. Thank God no one was looking.

There was a singing sound, a whirring—I thought it was my head until something whizzed by my hip.
Thunk. Splat
. By the time the odd contraption settled onto the cobbled sidewalk, I was four feet away, with my back flat against the solid Inca stonework. I stared. Uncomprehending.

Sorry, wrong word. I knew what I was seeing. I simply didn’t believe it.

A ragged coil of rope lay on the cobbled sidewalk. Three ropes, actually, bound together with a ball at the end of each. A
bolas
. Someone had thrown a
bola
s at me. And missed. Miraculously, for I’d been a fixed target. I scanned the narrow side street. Nothing moved. Nothing visible but me and the
bolas
.

Splat?
Not the sound I’d expect from wood or stone balls. I stepped forward, picked up the
bolas
. The balls had been fashioned from some kind of gourd, and were now smashed almost beyond recognition. If they’d hit me, they might have left a nasty bruise, but a lethal weapon they weren’t. Which meant . . .

Somebody resented well-dressed
turistas
? The highlands of Peru had been a hot bed of Mau-inspired revolution only a decade ago

Or, put together with our recent problems in Peru, Fantascapes had an enemy. Most likely a rival who wanted to scare us off.

Or was it personal?

No way. My stock in trade is an ability to get my way without ruffling feathers, particularly sensitive male feathers. I almost never piss people off. I was in the
holiday
business, not . . .

Oh, shit!
The brothers. Logan and Doug could easily have enemies lined up from Terra del Fuego to Archangelsk. From Dublin to Peking. And if any one of their enemies wanted revenge, guess who was the youngest, most visible, most vulnerable link in the Halliday chain.

Since I didn’t fancy being anyone’s pound of flesh—I mean, if someone wanted payback on the Hallidays, the least he could to do to demonstrate his machismo was tackle the ones over one-fifty. With penises.

Yuck! The thought of my brothers as anything but asexual was enough to overcome my altitude sickness and propel me down the block, across the Plaza de Armas and into the lobby of the Monasterio.

My weak knees stiffened still further and my heaving stomach froze to ice when I caught sight of a familiar face. Not the Arendsens, whom I’d never met, but Arlan Trevellyan, slithering owner of Personal Genie, one of Fantascapes’ rivals. He’s based in Toronto, and if I jumped to instant conclusions about what he was doing in Cuzco, it was no one’s fault but his.

Arlan saw me and dashed over, oozing a greeting. “Laine, darling, imagine meeting you here!” He embraced me in a cloud of sickeningly sweet men’s cologne. I gritted my teeth and oozed right back. Arlan is a smarmy type, who, I suspect, swings AC-DC. If you don’t know him well, it’s easy to miss that he has the instincts of a piranha and the ethics of an inside trader. I was willing to bet he was guilty of swinging the
bolas
in some kind of
a twisted joke
that had come a trifle closer to me than planned
.
Hey, Laine, welcome to Cuzco!

Light dawned. Arlan was likely responsible for the Arendsens’ troubles, from the airplane in Nazca to the canceled permit for the Inca Trail. He denied it, of course.

He’d heard about the Arendsen’s problems, he admitted, unctuously sympathetic. I wanted to drop-kick him all the way to the bar. Unfortunately, that wouldn’t fit the Fantascapes image. I returned his false smile with a smirk of my own, as if I knew something he didn’t, and enjoyed his puzzled frown as I waved bye-bye. For a man who seems to be such a dim bulb, I’d often wondered how Arlan could think up so many ways to cause trouble.

A half hour later I joined Max and Hildy Arendsen in the hotel dining room. My lingering headache was more likely the result of my brain’s whirling speculations than Cuzco’s elevated position on the Andes plateau. I was Laine Halliday, on-site rep for Fantascapes, and I would grovel and smile and grovel as much as it took to smooth the ragged edges of Arendsen’s trip and nudge them back into the world where dreams were fulfilled. To do so, I was even authorized to offer what I considered a shockingly large refund. But Dad had decreed, and I’d comply. Glitches were not allowed, and the Arendsens had been beset by two of them.

Wait ’til Dad heard about the cancellation. And the
bolas
. I’d like to keep the thunk-splat to myself, but
professional
had been drummed into me for years, which meant I didn’t hold back what might be important information from the Boss. Still . . . Dad was so overprotective that twenty-seven-years-old or not, I’d likely be grounded ’til the next millennium. And who knew, besides me and the guy who threw it? It wasn’t as if he’d meant to kill me . . .

Max and Hildy Arendsen were typical Fantascapes clients. He, a self-made multi-millionaire—the manufacturer of pipe in every size and shape, as I recalled; she, the woman he’d married on the way up. No trophy wife, but a solid salt-of-the-earth mid-Westerner who had hired us to arrange her husband’s dream trip for a fiftieth birthday present. All she knew about the Nazca lines was that there were people who thought E.T.s made them. And to Hildy Arendsen, Machu Picchu was as fictional as Shangri-la. But that’s what Max wanted to see, and that’s what Max was going to get. Even if she had to suffer through every boring, incomprehensible minute of it.

Hildy had contacted us through our web site, with all details handled by phone, mostly by Karen, my mother. Mom’s the one who suggested adding the Inca Trail. So Hildy had gulped, and said, “Hey, why not?”

And now here they were, far from home, depending on me to come through with their fantasy, as planned. The maitre d’ pulled out a chair for me, bowed himself away. Max was what you’d expect of a successful exec. Bright, confidant, attractive. And in his case, well-built, even if his salt and pepper hair was thinning a bit on top. (A thorough physical was a requirement before we book our clients on a four-day walk that includes a pass at 14,000 feet.) Hildy, though, was a surprise. I’m not sure what I expected, but it wasn’t this nicely put-together package that looked closer to forty than fifty, her short dark hair topping a figure I’d be grateful to have when I hit her age.

I made Fantascapes’ apologies and followed with Dad’s discount offer. Max and Hildy accepted the apology, refused the discount in perfect counterpoint. Peruvian red tape was not our fault. And look how I’d come all the way to Cuzco just to straighten things out. And, besides, they were having a great time. Glitches just added a bit of spice.

I smiled sweetly and decided I could cross the Arendsens off the list of people who might have hired someone to bean me with a
bolas
.

Max was also delighted to eat the teeny tiny octopus in my
seviche
. He ate Hildy’s too. Our main course was less startling, though tasty. While we waited for dessert, Hildy gave me the ladies’ room high sign. Oh-oh. Maybe nothing—simple good manners dictated she include me. Or maybe . . . ? Excusing myself to Max, I followed her from the dining room.

Hildy took her time drying her hands on one of the individual thick white towels provided in the ladies’ room. Her shoulders were tense, her head down. I knew it, I just knew it. There was a problem.

“
Laine . . . I know you’re going to think me foolish,” she said, clutching the towel like a talisman, “but tomorrow we’re going to hop on a train to nowhere. I mean, Karen did a great job of briefing us—the whole idea of the Inca Trail is the grand adventure of being so far from civilization. Of seeing the Andes up close and personal. ‘On the rim of the world’, she called it. But . . . honey, I’ve got to tell you, more and more I’m seeing it as a hike with a bunch of men in the middle of nowhere. I mean, I know there’re no trees that high, so where do I pee? Are there boulders to hide behind? Do the men just turn their backs? You got to help me here, Laine. I told myself I’m not going to spoil Max’s fun, but I’m shaking in my boots.”

“
Hildy”—I blinked, took a deep breath—“You didn’t call Inca Explorations to cancel the trip, did you?”

“
Me?” she squeaked. “I’d never do that to Max.”

Of course she wouldn’t. As for finding a private place to pee on a hike with all men . . . oh, yeah, I knew the feeling, and it was downright squirmy. “Hildy, would you like to stay in Cuzco and take the train up to Machu Picchu to meet Max?”

Slowly, she shook her head. “The truth is . . . I really want to do the hike. Your mom sold me on the glory of it, but I don’t want to be the only girl. Would you go with us, Laine? Please? Pretty please.”

And that wasn’t my last surprise of the day.

After a fast trip to a trekking outfitter—my expenses this trip were going to send Grady into meltdown!—I called Dad to report the change in plans. He agreed I had no choice but to go. I was about to tell him about the
bolas
—really I was—when he hit me with the news back in Golden Beach. A body had washed up at Paw Park, just south of the fishing pier. Scared the hell out of the playful poodles, he said, and even had the pit bulls on the run.

“
Viktor’s mugger?”

“
Who knows,” Dad drawled, “but he had a fish-knife sticking out of his chest.”

Chapter Four

For the third time in fifteen minutes the train to Machu Picchu—the “local,” filled with natives and a few determined backpackers like us—shuddered to a stop. A pause while a switch was thrown and our train reversed, shuddering “bass-akwards”(as my Grampa Blaine used to say) up the next zig-zag switchback in its complex climb up to the rim of the bowl in which Cuzco is built. We were already high enough up that a sea of red tile roofs stretched out below, their color dulled by the gray light of predawn.

Early mornings are high on my hate list, and the local train to Kilometer 88 set out in what I considered the middle of the night. Yet here I was, if with but one eye open, because abandoning Hildy Arendsen to her all-male escort was unthinkable. But what I’d give for the cup of coffee I hadn’t had time to drink before I left the hotel.

I pried both lids open and peered at the crowded seats around me. Sturdy mountain women in dirndl skirts, most in traditional hand-woven wool, a few in the garish colors of fabric woven from modern synthetic yarn. Some, sadly, in fabric that had never seen a hand loom. Gone, too, were the towering class distinction of top hats—white for
mestizas
, black for full-blooded Quechuas—that I’d seen in my mother’s photos. The hats had been replaced by floppy-brimmed leather headgear in brown and gray that tended to look like the women were wearing giant misshapen mushrooms on their heads. More PC maybe, but ugly as sin. The men conformed even more closely to modern coastal dress, with only a few in ponchos and colorful vests. Their heads were bare or topped by the ubiquitous lopsided floppies that seemed to be unisex. Only a few of the older men wore the peaked knit caps with ear flaps that had once been the hallmark of Andean men.

The train shuddered to a halt, paused, then proceeded in a forward direction. Good. I didn’t like traveling backward. Even when I knew the train was moving in the direction we needed to go, it didn’t feel right. Like we were going eight steps forward, then ten steps back. But, amazingly, we finally reached the rim of the bowl and set off on the slow journey that took us to every small town between Cuzco and Machu Picchu. The smell of the trays of unidentifiable goodies being hawked at each stop was torture, but I resisted the urge to jump off and buy. Who knew if my pampered North American stomach was ready for food direct from South American natives so agriculturally savvy they’d made potatoes, tomatoes, beans, chocolate, and peanuts a daily part of our lives. And then there was that leafy plant called
coca
.