Authors: Jinx Schwartz
On another front, I’ve been doing some soul searching (there’s nothing like a near-death experience to bring you to it) about why I’m so afraid to return to the “real world.” Part of it is mother. After she died I pushed Jenks to make this trip. Like if you run from life, or death, it can’t catch you. Down here, with iffy phone service and little mail, I can almost pretend she’s still in Texas. Dumb, I know, but I don’t want to give her up. Calling Dr. Freud!
We’re feeding a stray dog (so what else is new?). He’s a pitiful sight right now, but we’ll fatten him up. I wish I could take him in, but our future is way too uncertain, in more ways than one!!! A little gallows humor there. H.
Jenks came up from the engine room, announced all looked good, and he was too tired to even watch a movie. They secured the boat, turned out the lights and went below.
As
HiJenks
went dark, two men dressed in plaid watched from the fishing pier.
“I think she’s suspicious. What should we do?”
“We’ll call the boss later. Our job is only to follow and watch. For now.”
Chapter 24
I begin to smell a rat.—Cervantes,
Don Quixote
“Captain Xavier, in grateful appreciation of your undying loyalty and uncommon valor in the assistance of citizens menaced by scoundrels in the Sea of Cortez, the United States Coast Guard, and I, hereby grant you a morning’s liberty. It’s guys like you who make me proud to be an American.” Bill saluted himself in the mirror and, leaving murder, drugs, and dastardly deeds unpunished behind, left
Endeavor
.
In La Paz, as in every port visited, he was lured by the siren’s call of marinas. One day, he promised himself, he’d sail toward the horizon, master of his own ship. It was to this end he spent his free time checking out boats and talking to their owners. In each marina he met cruisers, like Bob and Hetta Jenkins, who were living his dream. And, he thought, working his jaw, if someone tries to stomp on my dream like some jerks have done the Jenkins's, I’ll be thoroughly pissed.
Marina del Cortez, with its deceptively funky atmosphere, appealed to Xavier’s traditionalist spirit. He found the wooden, but well-constructed, docks more to his taste than the concrete sterility of newer marinas. He didn’t trust a dock that didn't sway in a wake.
“Well, hi there, sailor,” Martha said when Bill entered her office. “Heard you were in town.” The phone rang, she held up her thumb and finger in the
momentito
salute, rattled something in Spanish, switched VHF radio stations, and glared at a dinging fax machine. All at once. November was a month of chaos for the marina staff. Bill spotted a Warning to Mariners notice posted on the wall regarding the
Hot Idea
incident, and was reading it when Martha came out from behind the counter.
“Welcome back,” Martha said, sticking out her cheek for a peck.
“Good to be here. Place looks great, Martha,” Bill commented, “as usual.”
“It’s a battle. One hurricane gave us a few days of cleanup this year, but it was nothing like Marty.
Bill frowned. "I heard what happened. I'm amazed at how fast you've rebuilt. That was some hurricane.”
"Thank goodness no one at the marina was hurt, but we lost a lot of boats along with the docks. So, what are you up to? Still looking for that dream boat of yours?”
Bill nodded. “Got time for a walk?”
Martha smiled. “Certainly not. But I’ll take time.”
They strolled the docks, Martha’s sharp eye inspecting as they went. She ran a tight ship and little escaped her attention. A slack line, a carelessly placed bicycle, and an unleashed dog were quickly squared away. Bill saw her eyebrows shoot up, and figured she’d spotted another transgression. Following her glare, he saw a couple of dinghies parked in an area clearly marked No Parking.
Xavier chuckled. “Same thing every year, huh? New class to slap into shape?”
Martha, an ex-schoolteacher, laughed softly and asked, “Anything you can tell me about
Hot Idea
?”
“Hey, that was my line,” Bill said. The Jenkins’s revelations were being held under tight guard, so he added, “Nothing new. You knew the Goodalls?”
“They stayed here for two years. No trouble. Drank a little too much at times, but basically nice people.”
“No drugs?”
“Not that I heard, and as you know, I hear almost everything. When we do have that kind of problem, they usually move on,” Martha said, indicating the anchorage with a tilt of her head. “You just looking at boats? Or working?”
“I guess a little of both. Goes with the job. Any boats around I should be interested in?”
Martha stopped walking and lowered her voice. “You might take a sharp look at a Westsail 32.” Then louder she added, “Well, I’d better get back. Nice to see you again.”
“Thanks, Martha. Tell Mark hello for me. And thanks for the info.”
There were three thirty-two foot Westsails in the marina, but it didn’t take Bill long to figure out which one Martha thought might pique his interest.
Buzz “Gibby” Gibbs, his longish sandy hair stuffed into a rolled red bandanna, lounged in the cockpit of
Water Witch
, a cigarette in one hand, a beer in the other. Still slightly drunk from the night before, and logy after only four hours sleep, he was trying to decide whether to get more sleep or just get drunk again.
“This a Westsail?” Bill asked, looking at the boat, but also sizing up its owner.
Gibbs squinted at him through red-rimmed eyes. “You wanna buy it?”
“Maybe. Is she for sale?”
“All boats are for sale, just depends on the offer,” Buzz said, eeking out a smile. “Wanna beer?”
“Little early for me. How long you been down here?”
“Couple of years.” Gibbs lit a fresh cigarette from the old and tossed the butt overboard. “You?”
Bill watched the cigarette filter float by, marring otherwise pristine water. A couple of sergeant majors checked it out and swam away. He wanted to smack the SOB, but kept his tone casual and friendly. “I’m just visiting, but one day I’m gonna buy me a boat and head out. Maybe come down here.”
“Shit, I’ll sell you this one, and it’s already here. Save yourself the trip.”
“Sure wish I could, but gotta do that ‘W’ thing for a while longer. But just in case, why don’t you give me a name and maybe a number in the States. I’d give you mine, but I’m kinda between places, if you know what I mean.”
“Sure do, buddy. Been there, done that. Hold on a minute.” Gibbs wrote down his name and his mother’s address and phone number in Los Angeles. Not that he really gave a damn about selling
Water
Witch
, but a yacht salesman, ex or not, never lets a live one get away.
Continuing his walk, Xavier made a few mental notes to add to Mr. Buzz “Gibby” Gibbs’s info. As he ticked them off, something nagged at him, something he could not quite put his finger on. Something that screamed bad apple. Chastising himself for not being able to leave his work behind, he sighed and was turning to go back to
Endeavor
when he saw
All Bidness
, sterned in. He whistled under his breath. The sleek fifty-eight footer, with an almost twenty-two foot beam, dwarfed the sailboats flanking her. Pam and Bud sipped coffee on the “verandah.”
“Mornin’,” Xavier called.
Bud nodded and smiled. “Mornin’.”
“Are Hetta and Jenks on board?”
“Naw, I put ‘em on a bus for Puerto Escondido early this morning. They were anxious to get back to
HiJenks
. You a friend of theirs?”
“Sort of. We belonged to the same yacht club back in the Bay Area,” Xavier improvised.
“The Jack London? I guess you and me never managed to meet. I was a member for a few months before I came on down here. Well hell, come on aboard and have a cup. Or a beer.”
“I’d love to, but can’t. I’m on the Coast Guard cutter,
Endeavor
, and I gotta get back.”
“Well, it’s real nice to see you boys down here. If you get a chance, come on back and we’ll have a drink or somethin’. What’s your name?”
“Bill Xavier.”
“Sorry you missed Jenks and Hetta, Bill. My name’s Bud Killebrew and this here’s my little filly, Pam.”
Pam cut her eyes at Bud, shot Xavier a saccharine smile, stood, and sashayed away, offering the men a good view of long tanned legs below very short shorts.
She’s a looker
, Xavier thought.
Surly, but
a looker.
Bud watched her leave and sighed. “I wish she was as long on temper as she is on legs, but shoot, a man cain’t have everything.”
You couldn’t prove it by me
, Bill thought.
“Anyhow, Bill, like I said, we’re open for drinks or even dinner anytime you want. How long’ll you be around?”
“Not sure, maybe a week. Or we could sail anytime. Thanks for the invite. If it works out that I can drop over, I’ll give you a call on the VHF. You staying around?”
“Me and Pammy’ll be here at least a couple more days, then we’re going north. If we see
HiJenks
, I’ll tell them you was looking for ‘em.”
“Thanks, Bud. Well, duty calls. If I don’t see you again, have a nice cruise.”
“Likewise and—” the distinctive ring of a cell phone interrupted him. “Pammy,” Bud bellowed, “that’s your phone.” The ringing stopped.
Bill waved and turned to leave when it hit him. Gibbs had a fancy cell phone in the cockpit of
Water Witch
. That was what was bothering him: a bad apple with an expensive toy. He turned back to Bud. “I thought most folks came down here to get away from phones and the like. Cell service must cost a pretty penny down here, huh?”
“Not as bad as it used to be, but still ain’t cheap, so of course we’ve got two of ‘em. Do your bank account a favor, Bill, and stay away from leggy blondes.”
Bill chuckled. “Good advice, I guess. It was nice meeting you, Bud.”
Xavier messed around the marina a little longer, chatting with cruisers readying their boats for the winter migration to the Mexican mainland. He could almost tell by talking to them which ones were in danger of becoming Coast Guard statistics. Many of them should never have left their marinas up north. They sailed south in flotillas for safety, but then, left on their own a thousand miles from home, some became potential problems for the Mexican government and the experienced cruising fleet. Amateurs looking for a place to sink.
“Cap’n, have a good walk?” Arrington asked when Xavier returned to
Endeavor
.
“Yep. La Paz is growing, but it’s still a real nice place. I went over to Marina del Cortez. Am I just getting old, or does the cruiser crop get greener every year?”
“I blame it on the GPS. Folks who wouldn’t even think about sailing down here a few years ago buy a boat and sail off into the sunset. Half of them don’t have any idea how to dead reckon. I know plotting your course and estimating your position is old fashioned by today’s standards, but it’s still a useful skill. Some boats have a spare in case their GPS goes out, but heaven help us all if something happens to the satellite signal.”
“I saw that boat the Jenkins were staying on,
All Bidness
. She’s a beauty. Owner’s a typical good ole boy Texan with the mandatory young blonde on board. This one’s a real looker.”
“The boat or the broad?”
“Hey, the boat’s not bad either. But the blonde....” Xavier whistled and waggled his hand in appreciation.
“Yeah? Tall, legs for days, bright green eyes?”
“How’d you know?”
Arrington shrugged. “How many of ‘em can there be in town? Saw her last night in a bar on the
malecòn
. She was all over that Texan of hers. Heck, we were making bets whether they were gonna strip down and do it right there on the table.”
“Really? She sure wasn’t that friendly this morning. Maybe they had a few too many tequilas last night.”
“Could be, there was a lot of that going around,” Arrington admitted. Then wistful, he said, “Don’t you just hate guys who have it all? Big boat, big-boobed blonde. How does a fella as young as he is get enough money to drop out and buy a yacht? Some guys got it made.”
“Young? He’s gotta be in his mid-sixties. How many tequilas did you have last night?” Xavier laughed.
“Not so many that I couldn’t see straight. The guy is tall, thin, dishwater hair. Good lookin’ I guess, in a California kind of way. Has a beard.”
“Bandanna headband?”
“Sure as shit. Let me guess. Bandanna Head is not your Texan, huh?”
“Not even close. I’d say that ole Bud is riding for a fall. As the saying goes, there’s no fool like an old fool.”
“Hope that Texan doesn’t get wise and shoot bandanna dude through the balls while we’re in town. For a semi-official visit, looks like we’ve already got our hands full,” Arrington said, handing Xavier a piece of paper. “The Jenkins’s report gave the DEA enough evidence to tie the
Hot Idea
murders to drug traffickers. That cavalry you called in is about to cross the border, and we are officially on alert pending further orders.”
Xavier read the message, then sighed. “Jerry Fisher, huh? I thought he'd retired from the DEA by now.”
“You know him?”
“Sure do. He’s a good guy, as well as an excellent agent. We’ve worked together on a couple of busts,” Xavier said, digging into his pocket. He took out Buzz’s scribbled address and phone number, and added,
Water Witch
, Westsail 32, California Registration, CF4838GC. He handed the piece of paper to Arrington. “Send this to your buddy, Jerry.”
Arrington read the note. “Buzz Gibbs? Who’s this?”
“Bud Killebrew’s worst nightmare.”