Just Different Devils (23 page)

I was still stuck sleeping on the settee, but I had to admit I was soothed some by Jan, Chino, and Nacho remaining on board. There were still too many unanswered questions, and possibilities for trouble, for me to feel totally at ease hanging out for no apparent reason, waiting for heaven only knew what.

But, a deal is a deal.

And, Mac did mention making me rich. 'Course, him being dead might put a kink in that scenario, but hope springs eternal.

Going over the timeline, cast of characters, and possible reasons for the whole mess, didn't do much for my sleep patterns, and I found myself at all hours on the Internet, researching people, boats, agencies, and even giant squid rumors—anything at all connected to me for the past month.

When I did finally drift off, Po Thang invariably snored, twitched, and dream-yipped. At one time I let him have the settee and caught an hour or so on the floor. I awoke feeling like I'd slept on a floor. Go figure.

Back at the computer, I started to Google, for at least the fourth time, Doctor Artherrrr MacKenzie Gra-ham. This time, however, I left off the
Doctor
title and, on page four, hit pay dirt. Art Graham had competed in the 1996 Olympics in, of all things, long distance swimming. Hello? The guy who wanted me to think he was going to drown when I threw him off my boat? That Art Graham? I read more. Yep, that be he.

I added this interesting, but useless, information to my growing file, made a note that Dr. Graham is a sneaky devil, and went on to look into Javier's group, the PGR, and what the Justice Department in Mexico actually does. What a surprise: they investigate stuff.

"What are you looking for?" Nacho said over my shoulder, danged near scaring the pee out of me.

"For crying out loud, don't do that!" I screeched. Po Thang looked guilty, and Nacho backed away, hands up defensively. "I am sorry."

"You sure are. Make coffee, at least."

He hurried to the galley and, while loading the coffee pot, asked,  "Did you know, Café, that the PGR is headed by a woman?"

"You were reading over my shoulder. Not nice. Isn't having a woman as the head cop a bit progressive for Mexico? And anyhow, what's that got to do with anything?"

"Many did not like it when she took over."

"Dissention in the ranks?" 

"Yes. They think she is soft on crime."

"I'd say that wouldn't be one of the best qualifications for the head of the Justice Department. So, is she soft on all crime, or just the cartels?"

"Ha. Without the cartels, Mexico would just be a nation of petty criminals. I long for the days when all you had to worry about was your hub caps."

"Those guys all moved to East LA."

"Hey, I resemble that remark, Café."

"Speaking of that, just where are you from? Your fake drivers license says Los Angeles. But then again, that one has a fake name, as well."

"If I tell you, I will have to kill you."

Jan wandered in. "Thank goodness. Someone needs to."

"What did I do now?" I demanded.

"You ate all the ice cream."

"I did not!"

"Then where is it?"

I went to the galley and rummaged in the freezer. No ice cream.

Po Thang followed on my heels and I almost stepped on him when I turned back to Jan. "That rat, Mac. He ate it all! If he wasn't already dead, we'd have a case for justifiable homicide on our hands!"

"We could dig out the ice cream maker, but I need cream to make French custard," Jan said, "and milk. I need fresh milk, not canned."

"Or," Nacho suggested, "we could do without ice cream for the next two or three days?"

"Blasphemy!" we shouted.

"Ooor," Jan pointed at Nacho, "
one
of us could make a run into La Paz. It's not like you have anything else to do. You can fish on the way and, quite frankly, we're tired of you hanging around here all day. Take Po Thang and Chino with you so Hetta and I can have some girl time. Maybe we'll take a nice beach walk."

He sighed in resignation. "Do you want fresh cream, canned
crema
, or milk?"

"All. One cannot be too penurious in such matters."

After our trio of guys left, one of them wagging his tail in glee at the prospect of a boat ride, Jan and I gathered up all the gear required for a day at the beach. It was easier without a dog to pack for, so I decided to do some fishing, maybe even catch something. Hey, it could happen.

"Okay, Hetta, we'll drag a line around for awhile, but, in the off-chance you catch something besides bottom, you clean it."

"Deal." I stuck my handy filet knife in my pocket. "I'll get us the bait. We have some squid in the fish freezer," I volunteered, even though the idea of squid was not all that appealing after all the horror stories of late. On the other hand, maybe there was a
soupçon
of justice there?

I dug down into the chest freezer, holding my breath because of the lingering scent of old seafood that no amount of cleaning gets rid of, searching for a bag of squid pieces. At the very bottom I found cartons of designer ice cream. What kind of idiot puts ice cream in the fish freezer? Especially when a pint of the stuff costs twelve dollars in Mexico?

"Hey, Jan, I found the ice cream. It's in the bait freezer."

"Well, yuck. Why on earth did you put it there?"

"I didn't." I took out the cartons, but they didn't feel right. "I'm almost afraid to open this. God knows what fishy ice cream smells like."

Jan grabbed one. "I'll do it, you chicken. Crimeny, Hetta. You eat kimchi, how much worse can this smell?"

She ripped off the top and almost choked.

"Ha! Told you."

She gagged again and held out the carton. "Look!"

I held my nose and moved closer. Nestled in the carton were bits of previously rotted oyster that, even frozen, stank worse than, well, Po Thang's farts.

And there were pearls.

Lots and lots of pearls.

We completely forgot about going to the beach.

We soaked all those lovely pearls in a bucket of salt water, then cleaned them carefully, one by one, rubbing them with table salt and a towel to remove oyster yuck. Once they were dried, we put them into a good-sized plastic mixing bowl. It took a couple of hours to complete the job.

"Holy moly, Hetta, we gotta have several hundred pearls here. Maybe a thousand. Wanna count 'em?"

"I
told
you Mac said he'd make me rich. And the last time I saw him—" I had a flashback of Mac swimming away from the boat, and calling me a name. "Oh, my, God! He yelled at me and I thought he had come up with something more colorful than hoor. He shouted, 'Haggendass.' Haagen-Daz! As in, ice cream! Where are those cartons?"

"In zip-bags. I wrapped them in garbage bags, then in zip-bags, and they still stink, so I threw them into
DawgHouse
. I'm gonna take them to shore and burn them."

"We need to see if we missed anything. He knew if I found them, he was probably a goner. In that case, don't you think he'd leave a note of some kind?"

"Get out the rebreathers if we are to survive."

Even breathing oxygen, the rotten oyster smell sneaked through, but at least it wasn't as bad as first hand. On the bottom of the first carton we found written, with a black marker pen, the name, Johnnie, and a boat name,
Pelicano
. That shrimper again.

"You think he meant to tell us they have Johnnie?"

"That's my guess. It's all about pearls, Miz Jan. Pure and simple. Gathering pearls is illegal and, obviously, they are doing it on a grand scale. If this is only a smattering of the take, there's enough moola involved to make any lying, murdering, kidnapping, schmuck salivate."

"You're drooling, schmuck."

I wiped my mouth. "Oh, hush. Let's check the other cartons and then get to countin'."

The second carton was marked, HETTA FOR EXPENSES, the third, CHINO: NOT THE SQUID, PROVE IT.

"Uh, Hetta, we mixed the cartons up and dumped them together. How do we know which is whose?"

"Elementary, my dear Watson. We sell them all and divide by three."

"What if we can't find Johnnie?"

"We will because now we know where to look."

"The shrimp boat,
Pelicano
. As soon as Nacho gets back, he'll know who to contact to find that boat. I'll betcha, since he was held prisoner on it, he already has someone tracking them down. He's not one to take being kidnapped lightly. What time is it?"

Jan gave me a crooked lip twitch. "You got a train to catch, Chica?"

"No, smarty pants. I was just wondering how long the guys have been gone."

"Lemme think. About three hours. They should be back any time now."

"The sooner the better. I have the distinct feeling that if Johnnie is still alive, her time might be running out."

"I agree. What can we do right now?"

"Drink wine and count our good fortune?"

"No, silly. I'll try to call Chino on his cell phone and tell him what we found, meanwhile…hey, isn't that Javier's blue panga?"

I followed her gaze. "Yes, it sure is. Jan, hide the pearls somewhere good. He'll be here in a couple of minutes."

Jan was back just as Javier rushed up the ladder.

"Hetta, Jan, you must come with me! There has been a terrible accident!"

"What? Where? Who?"

"Calm down, Jan. Let the man talk. What? Where? Who?"

"Chino and Nacho have been gravely injured."

"Oh, no! What about Po Thang?"

He shook his head and my heart stopped. "I do not know."

"What do you mean, you don't know?"

"He has not been found."

We quickly closed up the boat, grabbed extra jackets, a first aid kit, and backpacks before jumping into the panga with Javier.

As we sped away from
Raymond Johnson
, Jan sobbed loudly, but I was too numb to do anything except pat her shoulder and say everything would be all right.

When Javier turned right, and north, out of the anchorage, I worked my way next to him. "Where are you going?"

"The
bajo
. That is where they are."

"What the hell are they doing there? They went to La Paz."

"I do not know. We received a call. Perhaps they decided to go there on the way back from La Paz."

"Oh, okay." I sat back down next to Jan, but something was off.

I leaned in close and said into Jan's ear, "Go smell Javier."

Her reddened eyes widened and she honked into a piece of paper towel. "What? Are you nuts?"

"Just do it."

Even though the water was fairly smooth, our speed made for a bumpy ride. Holding onto a rail for support, she reached Javier's side and leaned into him, asking a question.

He answered, she nodded, and then worked her way back to me and sat down.

Holding her nose, she said, "Shrimp."

"That's what I thought. Nacho said even
being
on a shrimper for any time made you smell like the little critters. Coincidence? You be the judge."

"Wanna take him down now, or wait?"

"Let's see where we're going first. Maybe Chino and Nacho are actually out here and in trouble. You got the gun?"

"Is there a .30-30 in Texas?"

"Uh-oh. Speaking of shrimp." She jerked her head toward the front of the boat.

I stood and looked forward. About two miles away was a shrimp boat that looked like the
Pelicano
, right on top of the
bajo
.

"How we gonna play this? There are only two of us and heaven knows how many of them."

"You take his right, I'll take the left. You distract, I'll grab the wheel. We have to take him down fast. He's a trained cop, but we have the element of surprise."

"We do?"

"Yep, Miz Jan, we do. He doesn't know we suspect a thing. Or that you were a goat ropin' champ and have blue ribbons in hawg tyin'. Military training's got nuthin' on 4H."

Per our quickly hatched plot, I untied a line from an aft cleat and handed it to Jan, who looped one end and tied a lasso. Or a hanging noose. Whatever floats your goat.

As it turned out, Javier never knew what hit him. When he woke up, he'd easily figure out it was a 9mm semi-automatic barrel, since I probably wouldn't have time to clean off the blood.

He fell toward Jan, so she obligingly stepped back to let him hit hard on the deck. I took the wheel, she dragged him out of my way, and trussed him up tighter than a gobbler on Thanksgiving morning.

"What now, Hetta?"

I slowed the boat. "Uh, I have no idea. Maybe we should—"

Jan cut me off. "Listen!"

Throttling back even more, I shut down the motors. A breeze blew our way, and sound carries well over the water. "What did you hear?"

"Shush."

We drifted, waiting. Then I heard it. "That's Po Thang! I'd know his bark anywhere. He's on that shrimp boat!"