Down Among the Dead Men (A Thriller) (30 page)

She hadn’t had any since her episode last night.

So she closed her eyes, hoping the headache would go away without incident.

But when she opened them again, she was back on the deck of the cruise liner, looking out at the rolling ocean.

69

Vargas

H
E FOUND THE
house without difficulty, using Google maps on his cell phone to guide him to a neighborhood crowded with parked cars, some of which looked as if they hadn’t moved in a couple decades.

The Corolla fit right in.

The roads in this part of the city were graded but unpaved, and the houses all had rings of dirt around them, looking worn and well lived-in.

Back in LA, as Vargas had waited for Beth to pick out clothes at the thrift store, he’d made a call to his cousin Tito in Tijuana, who had hooked him up with a contact here in Playa Azul.

The contact, a guy named Ortiz, was said to be well connected in the area. But if Ortiz was making any money through those connections, it sure as hell didn’t show in his choice of houses.

Vargas parked his car out front and emerged to find a couple of teenagers squatting in the front yard, smoking cigarettes. One of them eyed him suspiciously, then jumped to his feet and ran around the side of the house.

As Vargas worked his way up the drive, the kid returned, accompanied by a hulk in a wifebeater T-shirt.

“You Ortiz?” Vargas said in Spanish.

The hulk replied by stopping him in his tracks, then spun him around and patted him down.

Satisfied that Vargas was unarmed, the hulk gestured for him to follow and they walked around the side of the house to the backyard, where a cluster of men were seated at a beat-up picnic table passing a joint and drinking bottled beer.

The hulk made eye contact with one of them—a small, muscular guy—who looked up at Vargas and smiled.

“Hey,
pocho,
you finally made it.”

Pocho
was not a term of endearment. It was a slur against Mexican-Americans—which was ironic, considering Ortiz was a transplant, born and raised in San Diego. But Vargas let it pass.

As if he had a choice.

“Traffic,” he said. “I assume you’re Ortiz?”

“That’s me,” the guy told him, then got to his feet and shouted toward the back of the house, “Hey, Yolanda, open the shed!”

A moment later an attractive girl with a neck tattoo and a permanent scowl on her face emerged carrying a key dangling from a leather strap. They followed her across the yard to a walk-in shed, and Vargas couldn’t help but notice that her jeans had been airbrushed on.

“Don’t be staring at my cousin’s ass,
pocho.
She’s likely to take a razor to your
albóndigas.
”

He smiled as he said it (Ortiz seemed to be one of those guys who were always smiling), but the threat was clearly sincere and Yolanda looked like just the girl to carry it out.

Averting his gaze, Vargas waited as she unlocked the shed, threw the door open, then turned on her heels and headed back to the house without a backward glance.

Ortiz stepped inside and flicked a light switch, revealing what looked like a typical toolshed with a variety of gardening and mechanic’s tools lining its walls.

There were a couple of large, flattened cardboard boxes on the floor, and Ortiz shoved one of them aside, then reached down, flipped up a small metal handle, and pulled, grunting as he opened a hatch.

A short set of steps led downward, and Vargas realized that this was a bunker, not a shed, a nice, convenient hidey-hole for Ortiz’s wares.

They went down the steps, moving into a room that wasn’t much larger than a walk-in closet. There were tools on the walls in here, too, but you wouldn’t be repairing a car or raking the yard with any of them.

There were enough knives and guns here to start a revolution. And win.

“Make your choice,
pocho.
We have a discount today on small-caliber weapons.”

Gun laws in Mexico were strict. Licenses to carry were not only mandatory but also difficult to get, and weapons could only be purchased at a specific government-run store in Mexico City. Not that this kept the locals from buying and trading at will.

For tourists, however, carrying a gun was next to impossible. The fines and prison sentences were hefty for anyone caught bringing a firearm or even ammunition into the country without prior consent, and Vargas hadn’t been willing to cross the border with one in his possession.

But last night Mr. Blister’s men had tried to kill him, and now that he was potentially traveling in La Santa Muerte’s playground, he wasn’t about to continue this journey without some kind of protection.

He needed something small and easily concealed, and found it hanging from a hook directly in front of him.

A Beretta Tomcat.

“How much?” he asked, indicating his preference.

“Is that how you start a negotiation,
pocho
? ‘How much?’ Why don’t you make me an offer, instead.”

Vargas did and Ortiz laughed. “Now I understand why you asked how much.”

He made a counteroffer and Vargas thought it was a bit steep but didn’t feeling like quibbling over it.

“Sold,” he said, and Ortiz laughed again.

“You’re too easy. And you don’t even try before you buy.”

“All I care is that it puts a hole in somebody when I need it to,” Vargas said.

Another laugh.

“It’ll do that,
amigo
. That much I guarantee.”

70

W
HEN THEY WERE
done making the exchange, Vargas tucked the Tomcat into his waistband, then covered it with his shirt and said, “Tito tells me you’re pretty well connected down here.”

“I know a few people.”

“I’m doing a favor for a friend. Looking for someone who disappeared here a little less than a year ago.”

“A year?” Ortiz said. “Might as well be a century.”

“Yeah. I’m sure this is a long shot, but maybe you know something about her.”

He took the photo of Beth’s sister from his back pocket and handed it to Ortiz. He’d bought some Scotch tape at the supermarket in LA and taped the two pieces together.

“She was a cruise ship passenger. The sister says she disappeared after going into a leather-goods shop downtown.”

Ortiz studied the photo. “Nice piece of ass, but she doesn’t look familiar. You’ve seen one
turista,
you’ve seen them all.”

“How many of them disappear without a trace?”

“Do I look like a statistician? This place is just like any other. Shit happens.”

Oh well, Vargas thought. It was worth a try.

Ortiz started to hand back the photo, but Vargas didn’t take it.

“Do me a favor and keep that for now. Pass it around, see what you can find out. I’ll make it worth your while.”

Ortiz shook his head. “I ain’t your errand boy,
pocho.
”

“As a favor to Tito.”

Ortiz snorted. “You speaking for Tito now? That’s a pretty bold move,
amigo
. He may be your cousin and all, but I’m not sure he’d appreciate you using his name like that. I know Yolanda wouldn’t. Man racks up a debt, he should at least know about it, don’t you think?”

“You’re right,” Vargas said, then nodded to the photograph. “I’m just trying to find out what happened to her.”

“You sure she wants you to? Maybe she’d rather not be found.”

“That’s a possibility, but I doubt it. She and her sister were pretty tight.”

Ortiz looked at the photo again. “Like I said, a year is ancient history. But maybe Little Fina knows something about her.”

“Little Fina?”

“She runs the local skin trade. And if this one got involved in anything kinky—voluntary or not—she’d have to go through Fina.”

“So where do I find her?”

Ortiz laughed. “You don’t. But I can make some calls, see if I can set up an introduction. You got a way for me to reach you?”

Vargas gave him his cell phone number. “Thanks. I appreciate it.”

“Don’t thank me too soon,” Ortiz said. “Little Fina makes Yolanda look like a blushing schoolgirl. And that ain’t easy to do.”

71

H
E STOPPED AT
a nearby taqueria before heading back to the hotel. All they’d had to eat and drink on the drive down were chips and sodas and coffee, and he hoped that some real food might help put a little color back in Beth’s face.

She had looked pretty pale when he left, and he wondered if bringing her down here had been not just a bad idea but also a colossally stupid one.

Detective Pasternak had told him that she’d had trouble staying in the here and now, and while she’d seemed fine at the rehabilitation clinic and during the drive, that headache she’d complained about worried Vargas.

Was he being irresponsible?

Should he have ignored her request and gone straight to Ciudad de Almas as he’d originally intended?

Had he let his desire for a story or—worse—his attraction to her cloud his judgment?

It was too late, he supposed, to be asking such questions. He had always been a man who relied on his instincts, and sometimes he got it wrong.

Best to just leave it at that.

But if she did become a problem, what would he do? What
should
he do? Take her back?

Pulling into the hotel parking lot, he grabbed the sack of
taquitos
and
burros
from the passenger seat and headed up the steps to their rooms on the second floor. Letting himself into his own room, he went to the adjoining door and gently rapped on it, not wanting to startle her.

There was no answer.

He tried again. Waited.

Still nothing.

He knew he should let her sleep, but he was concerned about her. He’d been gone almost two hours.

“Beth?”

Again, no answer.

Slipping his key into the slot, he opened the door a crack and peeked inside.

The bed was empty. His netbook lying atop it.

“Beth?”

He pushed the door wide, saw no sign of her. The bathroom was open, but he checked in there anyway and found it empty.

Moving to the nightstand, he picked up the phone and dialed the front desk.

When the clerk answered, Vargas said, “Have you gotten any calls from this room?”

“Senor?”

“This is my friend’s room. She’s not here and I’m worried about her and I’m wondering if she may have called you, had some kind of problem.”

“No,
senor,
I’ve been here all afternoon and no calls. Would you like me to send security?”

“No,” Vargas said. “I’ve got it.”

Thanking the man, he hung up, then left the bag of
taquitos
and
burros
on the nightstand and headed out the door.

Five minutes later he was on Avenida Lopez Mateos, the heart of downtown Playa Azul.

72

T
HE DAY OF
the Dead festival didn’t officially begin until tomorrow, but that didn’t keep the tourists from starting early.

The streets and bars were packed shoulder to shoulder with people dressed in black, some of them wearing skull masks, others sporting hoods, almost all of them half-drunk and getting drunker.

By nightfall, a good portion of them would be back in their hotel rooms or on board their ship, decorating the carpet with the contents of their stomachs.

Pushing his way through the crowd, Vargas saw no sign of Beth, but he hadn’t really expected to. Instead, he narrowed his focus on finding the restaurant she’d told him about. Where she’d last seen her sister.

Problem was, he knew there were at least a half-dozen outdoor cafés along the main drag and finding the right one, especially in this crowd, could prove to be difficult. And even if he
did
find it, there was no guarantee Beth would be in the vicinity.

Maybe he was concerned for no reason. Maybe she had simply gotten bored and decided to go for a walk, hoping to jar some of the memories that evaded her. For all he knew, she could be back at the hotel by now, climbing the steps to her room.