Troubled Sea (18 page)

“Not zactly. But I cannot blame the impoverished Mexicans,” Jaime said. “They get letters and money from relatives who crossed over and are earning five or six dollars an hour. Even three dollars an hour sounds like a fortune when you consider the minimum wage in Mexico is around seven dollars, not an hour, but a day. Even our police are paid so poorly it is no wonder they turn to crime themselves. If my son’s wife were not a doctor, they would have to live with me forever. He could not afford a house on his salary. As it is, they will have their own home soon.”

Nicole filed away the information. Again, no mention of a
señora
Jaime Morales, and Jaime said “live with
me
,” not
us
.

“You know, though, I think part of the problem on both sides of the border is the breakdown of the old family system, when several generations lived under the same roof,” Jerry said. “If our families in the United States were stronger units, I don’t think we'd have a national drug habit that demands such a huge supply. We’re trying to get a grip on something that’s out of control.”

Nicole listened to the men talk, and bobbed her head in agreement. “We had three generations living together when I was a girl, so I was raised like Bill Cosby likes to say he was; any grownup could whop me. But when I was a senior in high school everything changed. My grandfather...well, when he died the family sort of fell apart. My parents divorced, Mother moved out and went to work. My little brother was sort of left on his own and overdosed at thirteen. Turns out he got the stuff in the schoolyard. The guy who sold it to him was only sixteen himself, and never spent a day in jail because he was a minor. But they did get the guy who sold it to the sixteen-year-old. He’s doing twenty, but I wish they had hanged the bastard.”

If Jaime was surprised by her bitter, hardliner reaction, he didn’t show it. He was getting used to her style. When Nicole was just being conversational, she had an almost prim, old-fashioned manner, but when it came to work and drugs, she was as hard as they come.

“I’m sure you do. There are times when I wish we had the death penalty in Mexico. I sense, Nikki, that you do not approve of the ways in my country, but we still live under the Napoleonic Code. One is guilty until proven innocent. I am sure that one day this will change. The Little Emperor is long gone, so should be his archaic laws.”

“Just how does that work?” Jerry asked.

“Let us say a man is driving his car down the road and he hits and kills a donkey. The owner of the car is unhurt, but his car is wrecked. He accuses the farmer who owns the donkey for the loss of his car. The farmer, on the other hand, blames the driver for the loss of his donkey. Under Mexican law, they are both considered guilty until one is proven otherwise. Unless they can work it out between them. Once, in my youth, I had just such a case. I threw both men in a cell with the dead donkey. It was a very warm day and the men reached an agreement by the next morning.”

Jerry and Nicole laughed heartily. Then Nicole said, “In the States the Humane Society would get in on the act, claiming the donkey had a right to better company. Oh, yeah, and PETA and the SPCA would have a field day.”

“And,” Jerry added, “a lawyer would crawl out from under a rock and represent the donkey’s family, suing for millions for loss of the wage earner.”

Jaime, enjoying himself, said, “Also, do not forget your ACLU. Everyone’s rights will have been trod upon because violence was done. And, of course, all parties had underprivileged backgrounds.”

“Civil rights don’t warrant a gold star in Mexico, that’s for sure. When we train your new agents, we have to deprogram them, teach them how to get a confession that will stick in court without beating the crap out of the suspect.” Nicole said this without rancor, surprising herself. In real life, she worried about personal freedoms, but didn’t feel like ruining the moment of levity.

“Yes, Nikki. Many say we Mexicans lack...finesse,” he said with a sly grin, “but I am not so sure your country has not finessed itself into protecting the rights of the guilty.”

“You won’t get any argument here,” Jerry said glumly. Their humorous interlude slightly tarnished, the trio split up to do work on their parts to ensure the success of Operation Black November.

Nicole, who was having some serious reservations about the entire operation, went to her work center to engage in some research. Four hours later, frowning, she pushed her chair back and tore her eyes from the screen. Over her career she developed her own database that tracked and analyzed drug tips, busts, and results. She’d detected a definite pattern in the way these things came about, and everything about Black November was screaming TILT. She was filling her coffee mug when Russell Madden joined her.

“Uh, none of my business Nikki, but maybe you’d like to trade in that java for some water. The techies here tell me we’ve only got nine percent humidity today and the normal human requires eight ounces of water an hour to cope with it. Otherwise your brain turns to dust and your skin turns all alligatory. That’s a medical term.”

“Why, thank you, Doctor Russ,” Nicole said, trying to sound friendly, but failing.

Russell grinned. “The first thing to go when you’re dehydrated is your normally sunny personality.”

Nicole put down the coffee cup and grabbed a small bottle of spring water from a tub jammed with ice and soft drinks. “Sorry. It’s more than water deprivation that’s making me edgy. Is it just me, or is everything going just a little too smoothly?”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t really know. Maybe it was the tip? Too easy?” she said.

“Or maybe the source?”

Nicole bristled. “What do you mean?”

“Well, we both know it wouldn’t be the first time some Mexican cop has led the DEA down the garden path while the real party was happening back at the gazebo.”

“You mean Jaime?” she asked.

“I didn’t say that.”

“But you thought it.”

“And so have you,” Russell said, and walked away to answer his phone.

Nicole whispered, “Zactly.”

Chapter 28

The shore has perils unknown to the deep.—George Iles

“Gimme the AT HOME section, will ya?” Hetta held out her hand.

Jenks gave her a look over his glasses and put his book aside. “Do you miss newspapers?”

“Nope. You miss TV? Sunday football?”

“Nope. Golf.”

“You can play on the course between here and Loreto.”

“Too expensive. Besides, I don’t have any clubs. That’s the first treat I’ll give myself when we get back and become gainfully employed.”

“Back.” Hetta said it like a curse.

“Yes, Hetta. Back. We can’t last much longer. We agreed when the money ran out, we’d return to the real world, and that day is fast approaching. Unless we want to become those barnacles you talk so kindly about. We can live, but this boat needs some serious maintenance. Very expensive maintenance.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“We have to.”

Hetta stood up and left the main saloon, throwing back over her shoulder, “No. We. Don’t.”

She stomped to the back of the boat, jumped into
Jenkzy
, pumped the bulb on the gas line, pulled furiously on the starter cord, and left Jenks standing on deck.

“Hey, where are you going?” he yelled, but Hetta either didn't hear him over the motor noise, or chose not to answer.

Hetta motored toward the main harbor while Jenks, stunned by her uncharacteristic fit of temper, watched until she turned the corner behind a seawall. He shrugged.
She’ll cool off soon. I might as well catch some bass as a peace offering.

He baited two lines with bits of leftover bacon, dropped them sixty feet to the sandy bottom of the Waiting Room, and set the reel. If they were biting, he’d have enough sand bass by noon for dinner.

While he fished, he admonished himself for the way he approached Hetta with the taboo subject of their return to the States.
By the time she gets back
,
I'll have everything on paper, with a timeline for when we can return to Mexico and cruise again. That'll appeal to her engineer's logic.
Hetta, not partial to surprises, liked tangible plans.
She'll balk at first, but then her practical side'll kick in.

By the time Hetta reached the dock, she was feeling rotten for acting like such a brat. And Canardly did nothing to make her feel better. He waited expectantly at the top of the steps, wagging his tail in anticipation of the treat she failed to bring. “Shit, dog, looks like I’m not worth a damned to anyone today.” She dug into her pocket and found twenty pesos. Hot dog money. “Come on, let’s take a walk to the store and I’ll buy you a goody, okay?”

Canardly led the way, occasionally running ahead and performing a little dog dance. Amazing what a few good meals and a little kindness will do for a hangdog attitude.

After Canardly devoured a five-pack of raw hot dogs, Hetta decided on a quick walk to think things over before returning to the boat. She knew she should call Jenks on the marina's VHF radio, tell him she's sorry, and would be back in an hour, but she didn't want the entire fleet in on their business. And she needed to think.

Five years earlier they had planned on a six-month sabbatical, a cruise back to Mexico where she'd been before they got married. She was the one who fell in love with the Sea of Cortez, and once there, pushed to stay. She knew it was not practical. She knew it could not last. But what she did not know was why the idea of going home put her in a panic. Yes, there was the fact that she could still imagine her mother alive in Texas as long as they lived in the never, never land of cruising, but there had to be more. As she walked, she mulled it over.

“Canardly, what if I can’t find a job? What if we have to live, well, like we do here? I mean, down here it’s fashionable to live poor.” In fact, any boater who flashed wealth was looked upon with scorn, a kind of reverse snobbery. But back in the States things were different. Hetta gave up her fairly high-paying consulting firm, and would probably, if she was lucky enough, face working for some corporation. Could she return to that kind of high stress? And would anyone even want her? Technology had grown by leaps and bounds in the past few years. Could she learn fast enough to bluff her way back in? Jenks could, she knew. But she’d already lost the impetus to succeed. The edge needed to fight the good fight.

Will I end up slinging burgers at some fast food joint?
She loved her life here. That was just it. If they returned to the rat race they might get caught up in the very life they sought to escape.

“You know what Lily Tomlin says, don’t you?” Canardly stopped and waited. “If you win the rat race, you’re still a rat.” No hot dog materialized, so he raced ahead, no longer a cringing starving mutt, but a playful, happy dog. With only three days of regular meals.
And here I am, bogged down in self-pity because when I go home I might not have a new BMW. Everything’s relative.

They were following a path through the desert that circled a hill leading to Rattlesnake Beach, a strip of rocky coastline south of the Waiting Room. From there she could see
HiJenks
, but without her handheld radio, couldn't call to let Jenks know where she was. Another screwup.

Canardly barked, so Hetta picked up her stride, thinking,
Good, maybe there’re some campers around, and I can use their radio.
Then another thought:
Oh, God, what if that dumb dog has run up on a rattlesnake?
She broke into a trot, crashed through a few scraggy mesquites and came face to face with the two Mexicans from the bus, Plaid and Shifty. And they had guns.

Hetta froze in mid-stride as the Mexicans, caught by surprise while frying eggs over their campsite fire, gaped at her. Canardly stopped barking and growled. Hetta growled and barked, “You two! Oh, shit.” Then flight overcame fright and she turned and ran. For over a mile.

A walker, not a jogger, Hetta nonetheless ran. Flat out. Not until she reached the dinghy dock did she stop, just before she thought her heart would. Gasping, she staggered down the steep steps, vaulted into
Jenkzy
, and pulled frantically on the starter cord three or four times before she remembered she had to squeeze the bulb to inject fuel into the carburetor. When the Evinrude coughed to life, she put it in reverse and was almost thrown into the water when the dinghy reached the end of the line she left tied to he cleat. Taking a few deep breaths as she released the painter from the dock, she then took off at full throttle. When she looked back, Canardly stood, alone and dejected, on the road above the dock.

Jenks heard a motor and saw Hetta streaking towards
HiJenks
at full tilt, not something she normally did. He went to the swim platform to meet her, and had to jump back when she rammed it, almost catching one of his bare feet. “Hey, take it easy, Hetta. What’s wrong?” he asked, grabbing the dinghy’s gunwale while she clambered aboard.

She fell into his arms and broke into tears. “I want to go home,” she choked out between sobs.

“Wow, was it something I said?” Jenks said in amazement. He’d never won an argument with Hetta this easily.

Despite her fear and fatigue, Hetta had to laugh. Then she started to babble. “Those men from the bus? They’re on Rattlesnake. They’re not shrimpers at all. And I just know they followed us from La Paz. They even looked guilty when I saw them just now. They have guns. What do they want?”

Jenks, who had no idea what she was talking about, gently pushed Hetta into a deck chair and told her to calm down and tell him what happened. After listening to her suspicions during the bus trip from La Paz, he asked, “Hetta, why didn’t you tell me then? You followed then, even when you that they might be dangerous?”

“They
are
dangerous. But then I thought you’d think I was being paranoid. I had myself convinced they were working on that shrimp boat, and it left. And if I hadn’t seen the guns and those guilty looks just now, I probably could have convinced myself they were just G.O.F.s.”

Jenks smiled. “Why don’t we go ask them if they’re just Guys Out Fishing?”

“What!”

“Let’s get in
Jenkzy
, go over to Rattlesnake Beach, and ask them.”

“Are you nuts? I told you, they have guns. What if they’re here to kill us?”

“Hetta, calm down. What kind of guns?”

“Looked like Glocks.”

“Did they threaten you?”

“I dunno.”

Jenks waited.

“Well, no. The guns were tucked into their pants. You know, kinda like this,” and she poked her hand into her waistband.

“Did they chase you?”

“I dunno. Well, no, I don’t think so. I ran and didn’t look back until I got to
Jenkzy.
”

“Look, I know you've had a scare, and I’m not saying those guys aren’t everything you think they are, but shouldn't we find out for sure?”

“I can’t. I’m skeered.”

He smiled at her. “Then I’ll go.”

“No! Not alone. Besides, they might not speak English. We’ll both go.”

“Atta sea wench. Now, cool down, drink some water, then we’ll go run the dirty buggers to ground.”

“Let's take the flare gun, so I can knock their dicks in the dirt. Dammit, I'm tired of living where I can't have my guns.”

Thirty minutes later,
Jenkzy
ground to a halt on the empty gravel beach at Rattlesnake Beach. The two men, and their camp, were gone.

Jenks began to think Hetta wasn’t paranoid at all.

“Jenks, I’ve been thinking.”

“I hate it when that happens.”

Hetta smiled in spite of her unsettling morning. She was still upset by her encounter with the gun-toting Mexicans on Rattlesnake, and all afternoon she’d kept watch on that area. There was no sign of the
los dos
shiftys.

While she peered through her binoculars, Hetta mulled over the events of the past few days, starting with the helicopter attack. Trying to make some sense of it all, she came up with a supposition. “The way I see it, there’s only one person I can think of who could have put these bus goons on us:
Comandante
Jaime Morales, the so-called good cop.”

“Hetta, that’s ridiculous. First of all, we’re not absolutely positive they are...what’d you call them?...goons? Where do you get these words? Anyhow, what have they really done? Nothing. Pointing an accusing finger at Jaime over something that we don’t even know is a reality is not based on logic.”

“Logic? What’s logical about anything anymore? We’ve been downright terrorized. And don’t forget, someone killed us!”

“Uh, we’re not dead.”

“You know damned well what I mean. They
thought
it was us. I want to go home.”

“We don’t have a home.
HiJenks
is our home.”

Hetta glared at Jenks. “Are you being intentionally dense?”

They faced off for a minute, and then Jenks asked, “Is that a trick question?”

Hetta stuck out her chin, planted her hands on her hips, then threw up her arms in surrender and guffawed. She took Jenks’s hands in hers. “But I meant it, Jenks, I'm ready to go home. To the States.”

“Honey, I know I should be overjoyed you finally agree with me about heading north. And soon. But I don’t think we should because of some jerks.”

“Well, bully for you, macho man. I do. Cowardice runs real strong in these veins, and right now showing up on Monday morning to a regular desk job is lookin’ mighty good.”

“You never had a regular desk job. Never mind. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I think we should stay.”

“Fine. Then fix it,” Hetta demanded.

“Huh? Fix what?”

Hetta waved her hands around. “This. Everything. Fix it. Make the bad guys go away. I want my life, our life, back.”

Jenks saw she was getting upset again, so he put his arms around her and whispered into her hair, “I will. If the dirty bastards cross our path again, I’ll smite them with my magic sword.”

“Yeah, well, where will we be if they chop off your magic sword with a machete? Can we at least leave Puerto Escondido and go to La Paz? I’d feel safer there. Maybe we can park the boat at Marina del Cortez for awhile and catch a plane to...anywhere.” The boat rocked as a wake hit them broadside and Jenks sang a verse of “Don’t rock the boat, dear, keep our love afloat, dear,” to make Hetta laugh.

“That’s better. Okay, we'll check out of here when you're ready. Even if we get a blow we'll ride it south.” He looked outside as if to check the weather and saw a shrimp boat tying up at the dock.

“And look, Hetta, things are looking up already. Instead of Spam Helper, maybe shrimp for dinner? In all the excitement I forgot to tell you I didn’t catch any bass. But now the shrimpers are back. Good, huh?”