Authors: Jinx Schwartz
“Unfortunately, almost everyone in Mexico knows by now, even though the tourist bureau would have it otherwise. They were most anxious to suppress details, but we, too, have a tabloid press.”
“Why did the Jenkins go to your brother-in-law?” Nicole wanted to know.
“John is their friend. And they do not trust the police.”
“That's smart,” Nicole said, drawing a sharp look from Jerry. She returned his look without a blink, thinking,
Evidently the Jenkins don’t feel all that safe in Jaime’s hands. Otherwise, why did they go to the Coast Guard after telling Jaime what happened?
Jaime caught the inference, but instead of being defensive, he said, “It is a sad state of affairs we have here in Mexico. I’m not even sure the Jenkins trust me, but John vouched for me. I find it,” he groped for a word, “uh, ironic? that the man who terrorized the seas and bars with Desi Arnaz is a now a character witness for me. Ah, we are here. Hotel Marinaterra. I suggest we get our rooms, then meet in the lobby around five o’clock?”
“Fine by us,” Jerry answered for both of them.
Nicole tilted her head at him, but said nothing.
Over a five course meal at El Patio, Jaime told amusing tales of John Colt’s heyday as Desi Arnaz’s boat captain. Jaime had gone along as a boat boy once or twice when he was a teen, and added colorful details about the life of the wild Cuban.
“Boy, those were the days. Great stories,” Jerry said, finishing his beer.
“If,” Nicole added, “one is amused by drunken, macho tales of fish slaughter and womanizing.”
Jaime’s face fell. “I am very sorry if I have offended you, Nikki. Sometimes we Mexicans forget how sensitive American women are.”
Nicole huffed, “Your own women would be sensitive too, if they were allowed.”
“That is zactly what my daughter, Monica, says. She is a lawyer in Mexico City, and she tells me, on a regular basis, what a pig I am. She would be delighted to meet you.”
Jerry gave Nicole a,
Now what do you say, you feminista smartass
?
look.
Nicole sighed. “I would love to meet her, Jaime, and I think I owe you an apology. Lack of sleep has stolen my manners as well as my sense of humor. I promise to hit the hay as soon as I get back to the hotel, and tomorrow I shall be restored to good spirits.”
“I can hardly wait,” Jerry said dryly. “But Nikki, it’s not even nine o’clock. The very shank of the evening. No wonder you’re still single. Nicole Kristin, last of the big time party girls.”
“You can talk,” Nicole shot back as she rose. “See you at breakfast.”
Jaime watched her leave, hoping he had just experienced the real Nicole. The ice queen he’d been dealing with all day was starting to get on his nerves.
Back in her room Nicole unpacked, then sat on her balcony enjoying balmy desert air tinged with just a hint of underlying coolness from the sea. Below her a sapphire rectangle glowed with underwater lights, tempting her to a swim. Maybe tomorrow. Before breakfast.
Beyond the pool, sailboats, motor yachts and small fishing skiffs dotted the marina. From a few vessels, laughter wafted upwards on the breeze.
Surprised to find herself wide-awake, she decided to check out the marina in hopes of walking off some nervous energy. Strolling along the docks, she soon discovered that the vast majority of the boats were of American registry, mostly from California, Oregon, Washington and Arizona, with a few thrown in from Texas. It crossed her mind that the
Hot Idea/HiJenks
affair could be a harbinger of dangerous times for American citizens cruising in the Sea of Cortez. And, as Jaime explained at dinner, anything that stems the flow of
Gringos
across the border is an economic disaster for the State of Sonora.
She recalled reading some desk jockey in Mexico City came up with the bright idea of every foreign vehicle entering Mexico’s interior having to post a several-hundred dollar bond. Cancellations for rooms in San Carlos hit ninety-five percent, the governor of Sonora flew to Mexico City to beg for the law’s repeal, and five days after enactment, the bonding idea died.
With all the publicity of drug cartel murders south of Texas and in southern Mexico already hurting tourism, she could only imagine what would happen if tourists thought they might be attacked with machetes. The Sonoran coast, thought by many as Arizona’s beachfront and the Southwest’s Riviera, would empty out in a big hurry.
A flurry of activity and lights pulled Nicole to the other side of the marina. “Good evening, sir. What’s going on?” she asked a Mexican sitting patiently astride a tractor hooked up to a strange looking lowboy trailer.
The man sized up this woman who spoke Spanish without an American accent and answered, “We are pulling a large sailboat out of the water,
señorita
. We are waiting for high tide.” He pointed to a boat in the middle of the marina entrance. “He will come in very soon. Right now though, he is aground because he tried to enter too soon. I said eight o’clock, but....” he shrugged a “they never listen” shrug and checked his watch.
Curiosity overcame her need for sleep, so Nicole sat on a seawall and chatted with a marina security guard until the sailboat floated free of the bottom and motored to the dock. The tractor driver skillfully backed his lifting device into the water, line handlers maneuvered the sailboat over it, and hydraulic powered octopus-like mechanical arms with carpeted pads closed to embrace the hull. After a diver whistled an “all clear” the tractor smoothly pulled boat and trailer onto dry land.
Impressed, Nicole sidled over to the sailboat’s American captain. “That’s a pretty slick operation, huh?”
She was rewarded with a hostile glare and a muttered curse. The furious captain stalked over to the tractor driver and began shouting, railing at the hapless man about damage to his keel. The Mexican listened patiently, smiled, shrugged, said, “
Oficina, mañana
,” and chugged away, the
Water Princess
in tow.
Nicole, her vanity smarting from the boat captain's rude rebuff, grinned. “Yeah,
mañana
for you, you rude son of a bitch,” she whispered to herself as he stalked off. I must be getting old. Can’t even compete with a boat. Old, and very tired.
She yawned and headed for the hotel, but slowed near steps leading to the lobby when she passed the
Water Princess’s
captain whining into a cell phone. She caught enough snippets of his conversation to garner he was speaking with a very angry boss.
Well, at least I was ignored by the hired help.
Back in her room, Nicole showered and punched her too-firm pillows into submission before slipping between cool sheets. Drifting off, she thought how great it must be to have a job where the worst thing in your day was having to call your boss and tell him the bottom of his yacht had a boo-boo.
She also wondered if the ever-so-handsome and charming Jaime, the so-called honest cop, wasn’t just a little too...honorable.
Chapter 23
There’s a quiet harbor somewhere For a poor a-weary soul.—H.H. Brownell
Jenks lifted the lid on the propane grill, waved the smoke clear, and then poked the chicken breasts. “Two minutes.”
“Aye, aye, sir.” Hetta went inside, filled two plates with rice and spinach, and returned to the aft deck for an early evening dinner al fresco.
“Here’s to being back on
HiJenks
,” Hetta toasted. She clinked wineglasses with Jenks, then swiveled her head when, a quarter mile away, a shrimp boat’s diesels coughed to life. She giggled.
God, sometimes I am
such
an idiot!
“What’s so funny?”
“Oh, nothing. Just happy to be here, with you, on our boat. And safe. Save the chicken skin for Canardly.”
Hetta, afraid Jenks would think her nuttier than usual, felt vast relief that her fears, which began with the bus trip back from La Paz, turned out to be an overblown imagination fed by paranoia.
“
HiJenks
here we come,” Hetta announced as soon as they settled into the bus at the La Paz terminal. “And none to soon for me. I’m tired and homesick.”
“We’ll be back for cocktails onboard. And I must say, this time we're traveling Mex 1 in style.”
“Well, for public transportation. I gotta say, though, this is more like it,” Hetta said as she relaxed, luxuriating in the sumptuous cushions of her airplane-style seat. Light years from the penurious plastic benches of the clunker they rode to La Paz two days before, the first class bus boasted individual air conditioning nozzles, onboard movies in English, with Spanish subtitles, and clean toilets. With toilet paper!
Bud, spirits buoyed by his make-up roll in the hay with Pam the night before, delivered them to the bus station and handed them bon voyage gifts before swaggering off. Hetta, wishing she didn’t know why he was in such fine fettle, vowed to quit being so nosy, then nosed into the grocery sack containing Bud’s gifts.
“Umm, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, potato chips and,” she pulled out a bottle, “every traveler’s staple, Wild Turkey. Bless you, Bud,” she said, waving a sandwich in the direction of the departed Jeep. “Want one?”
Jenks eyed the big bag. “Sure. Looks like we’ve got enough here to feed an entire Sanchez family.”
Hetta looked around the almost empty bus. “Won’t find the likes of them on this ride, way too expensive. But I, for one, refuse to feel guilty about going first class. Rule number two of foreign travel in emerging countries is go first cabin if you can.”
“You and your rules. That Hetta-rule number one about not letting passports out of sight just about gave me a heart attack. How come you were so scared of the helicopter, but then went toe-to-toe with an armed soldier?”
“Elementary, my dear Watson, those guys in the helicopter had something the soldier didn’t.”
“What?”
“Bullets.”
Jenks chuckled, then checked his watch when the bus’s engine roared to life and they rolled forward. “Right on time,” he said, wonder in his voice.
“
Milagro
,” Hetta whispered. “A miracle. Rats! Spoke too soon.” The bus jerked to a halt, reversed into the terminal, stopped, and the door flew open. A bus company employee boarded, said a few words to the driver and left. The engine died.
“Do I deign to try to find out why?” Hetta asked wryly.
“Dunno. How’s your blood pressure?”
Hetta giggled and went to talk to the driver. She was back in three minutes. “Silly me for asking,” she groused.
Jenks gave her a perfect imitation of the all-encompassing shrug he saw the driver give Hetta, and settled in for a nap. Hetta dug out a Sue Grafton novel—she was up to V—and was trying to second guess Kinsey Millhone as to whodunit when the bus rocked. Two swarthy men dressed in jeans and plaid shirts tramped up the steps and tossed plaid plastic mesh bags into an overhead rack. The doors whooshed shut, the engine roared to life.
Hetta watched the “plaid twins” bounce off seatbacks as the bus bounced over potholes. They staggered past, both giving her that annoying once-over many Mexican men felt their God-given right. Especially when the object of their visual groping was a
Gringa
whose husband slept soundly.
Hetta, a practiced duelist in these visual pissing matches, smote them with a disdainful glare that caused baseball cap bills to dip over suddenly routed eyes. But today her triumph was hollow for, in the pit of her stomach, a worm of unease wiggled. Where did these guys get the clout to hold up a bus?
She tried reading, but found herself rereading sentences. Her train of thought derailed, she sat back to watch the countryside roll by at a far greater rate than the “This is a 90 KPH Bus” bumper sticker on the back. Four hours later, after being waved right through two army checkpoints, Hetta saw the turnoff for Agua Verde and nudged Jenks. “Only a few more miles. We’d better get our stuff together. After the, uh, debate I had with the driver over making an unscheduled stop, we’d better be ready to exit.”
Jenks yawned and grinned. “Debate or showdown?”
“I appealed to his sense of practicality. I told him it didn’t make sense for us to ride past Puerto Escondido, then take a bus back. He saw the wisdom of my argument.”
“Impressive. How much the price of wisdom?”
“A hundred pesos.”
As Hetta and Jenks worked their way to the front of the bus, she risked a backward glance. The plaid men appeared asleep. At the Puerto Escondido turnoff, the driver screeched to a halt, bade them, “
Adios, y vaya con Dios
,” slammed the door, and left them standing on the deserted highway. They had walked but a few yards when a familiar van rattled up to meet them.
“They said on the ham nets that you two were taking the bus, so I figured you’d be along about now,” Al Kanady told them. “How was your trip?”
Jenks shook Al’s hand. “Okay, but we’re real glad to be back.”
“Hope you don’t mind, I gotta stop off at the tienda for a minute. You two can have a beer while I make a phone call.”
“No problem,” Hetta said, and got one foot into the van when her heart skipped a beat. Walking towards them from the highway were two plaid-shirted figures. She was reminded of a line from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid after Redford and Newman were pursued repeatedly by a band of riders: “Who are those guys?”
“Ever seen those two before, Al?” she asked.
Al squinted. “Nope, can’t say that I have. Guess we should give ‘em a lift.”
Before Hetta could protest, Al fired up the van, drove towards the men and offered a ride. While they replied with a polite, “
No, gracias
,” Hetta studied them. The men were taller than average, with short hair under their Padres and New York Yankees caps. Both wore tight, tan jeans. They refused to make eye contact with her in the presence of the men.
Chickenshits
. She added
shifty
to her earlier assessment of
swarthy
. Semi-swarthy, she revised. Their rolled up sleeves revealed very light skin on their upper arms.
“Well, shiver me timbers if that ain’t a first,” Al said. “In my ten years down here no one except
Gringo
health nuts ever turned down a ride.”
“Hey, Hetta resembles that remark. Since they don’t look much like striders, maybe they think you're some kind of roadside bandito, Al,” Jenks told him.
With mixed feelings, Hetta stared out the dusty back window at the men.
I didn’t want them in the van, but I still want to know who they are and where they’re going. God, I’m seeing bad guys behind every cactus. It’s amazing how a little thing like being machine-gunned by a helicopter can make one paranoid. But just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean someone’s not out to get you.
Located halfway between the main highway and the harbor, the
tienda,
a combination
grocery store, internet cafe, and snack bar, commanded a view of the road to the anchorage. Their beers had just arrived when the two men walked past, heading for the harbor.
“Something bothering you, Hetta?” Jenks asked, noting her fidgeting.
“No, not really. Just tired I guess. Maybe a little homesick? And very dry.” Turning up a bottle of Tecate, she chugged it in five gulps, slammed down the empty, stood, and announced, “You know, I need to stretch my legs. I’ll meet you at the dinghy dock.” She was out the door before her perplexed tablemates could respond.
“Jenks, is Hetta on some kind of medication? She seems a little, uh...strange, lately.”
“You mean more so than usual?” Jenks said with a grin, but thought,
What on earth is going on in that redhead’s head?
The Mexicans had a quarter mile head start on Hetta, putting them halfway to the harbor. She hung back, hoping they wouldn’t turn around and catch her stalking them.
“So, stranger, do I look anything at all like Ms. Kinsey Millhone, P.I.?” Hetta asked a stray dog who slinked up behind her. The dog half-wagged a hopeful tail, but kept his distance and wary eye. “Good lord, if you aren’t a pitiful sight,” she clucked, taking in his short, bowed legs, scruffy coat, and huge ears. His lower jaw jutted out, as did his ribs. Offered a piece of sandwich from her pack, his hunger overcame fear and he cowered and sidled, practically crawling sideways, to snap the food from her hand and scramble out of kicking range. Rather than risk a finger nosh, she tossed the next piece to him.
The men disappeared around a curve in the road, so she hastened to catch sight of them again. The dog followed. Down the road they went, first the plaid twins, then Hetta and, following a trail of sandwich bits, the dog. When the two Mexicans headed for the fishing dock instead of the dinghy landing, Hetta decided to follow, but heard the Volkswagen rattle up behind her.
“You and your dog want a ride?” Jenks yelled.
“Uh, you two go on to the dinghy dock. I see a couple of shrimp boats have pulled in and I’d like to buy some
grandes
for dinner tonight.”
“Okay, see you in ten,” Jenks said and waved as they drove away.
Hetta's prey was nowhere in sight. “Dammit dawg, did you see where the shifty brothers went? No? You don’t look much like a bird dog, so I guess I’ll have to go on down to the pier and sniff ‘em out myself. Pick up the pace or I’ll cut your rations.”
Nets spread like butterfly wings, two rusting shrimp boats lolled nose to nose at the pier, their unmuffled generators emitting a monotonous hum. Hundreds of gulls, pelicans and frigates glided, bobbed or hunkered nearby, hoping for an easy meal. Crewmembers slept or talked quietly on deck and, as Hetta and the stray neared, she spotted her quarry among them. They were unpacking. And suddenly looked less shifty.
Feeling foolish, Hetta veered off, forgetting she was supposed to buy shrimp. “Dog,” she muttered, “you are in the company of an
idiota
who is, quite possibly, the scardiest cat in Mexico. Those guys are just a couple of poor working stiffs. Come on.”
Tossing more sandwich bits, she wrote off the men and turned her attention to luring the dog to greener pastures. She'd give him the rest of the sandwiches at the dinghy dock and, if he was smart enough to hang out there, other
Gringo
boaters would soon give him daily handouts.
He was not the first dinghy dock dog, nor would he be the last. If he was really lucky, he'd get adopted by a cruiser. Hetta dubbed these mutts canardlys, because one can‘ardly tell from which breed they sprang.
Sitting on her own deck, munching on grilled chicken breasts, and taking in the beauty and tranquility of Puerto Escondido, her imagined “crisis” earlier in the day seemed silly.
After dinner, she and Jenks did the dishes, saving all scraps for Canardly. When Jenks went below to check out the engine room, she pulled out her computer.
Log of the
HiJenks
, Puerto Escondido
Wind: Starting to come up from the North, but not bad yet. Don Vincente, the weatherman/gardener, called this one wrong.
Sky: Clear
Water Temp: 75 F. (Cooling off)
Barometer: Steady
Back from La Paz today. It’s hard to believe that only a week ago we were bopping around, fat, dumb and happy, then we got shot at, and now it looks like we can go back to being fat, dumb and happy. At least that’s what the Coast Guard thinks. And so do John Colt and his brother-in-law, Jaime: a.k.a.
Comandante
Morales. Jaime seems to really care about us and he’s probably honest enough, but I wonder. Everyone agrees we should lay low right here in Puerto Escondido. Jaime is convinced he’ll catch the guys who killed Mary and Gary real soon, because he says there are few secrets that can be kept in the Sea of Cortez. I worry that our own secret might leak. So worried that I’m seeing bogeymen on buses.