Dial (7 page)

“There was no harm done, Jo, I assure you,” Uncle Sam soothed. “But I
am
wondering what went down at the end of the night.”

“Their convo was all in Portuguese,” Caylin informed him. “I couldn't understand a word.”

“Jo, were you able to hear what Diva said to this man Armand? Was it something to allay any of his remaining fears or questions about associating with you three?” Uncle Sam asked.

“Sort of,” Jo replied. “Basically Diva said, ‘Just get them set up. . . . It'll all be over soon, anyway.' ”

Theresa frowned. “Doesn't that sound just a tiny bit suspicious?” she asked the group at large. “I mean, I'm not thrilled with the idea of us being so-called set up.”

“Diva is on the level,” Jo insisted. “I'm as positive about that as I am about my own dress size.”

Uncle Sam cleared his throat, interrupting Jo's defense of Wonder Diva. “Let's not speculate too much. It's safer to act based on what we know. And what we
know is that everything is going according to plan. At least for now.”

“Amen to that,” Caylin piped up.

“Get some rest, you three. You're going to need all of your strength.” With that, Uncle Sam hung up with his usual lack of the niceties.

Jo reached over and squeezed Theresa's shoulder. “Don't worry, T. Diva's a stand-up chick. Like we said ­earlier, she could practically be a Spy Girl herself.”

She was right. Diva had all of the qualities that made a good spy. She was smart, she was likable, and she had an innate ability to lie through her teeth. And
that
was what made Theresa so worried.

Caylin didn't want to open her eyes. She was in the middle of a particularly delicious dream starring herself, the lead hunk from the daytime soap
Pacific Sundown
, and a long, white, sandy beach. There was also a certain amount of suntan lotion being bandied about. Mmmm . . . Unfortunately, someone was pounding on her head. Wait, no. It wasn't her head. It was the door. Somebody was banging—loudly—on the front door of the mansion.

Caylin pried open her eyes and slid out of bed. She grabbed the fluffy terry cloth bathrobe hanging on the back of her bedroom door and stumbled into the hallway. From the other bedrooms, she heard the sounds of Theresa and Jo's soft snores. Lucky girls—probably still dreaming about superhotties of their own.

“I'm coming!” Caylin yelled as the pounding
continued unabated. “And if you're selling magazines, we don't want any.”

Caylin stumbled, still half asleep, to the bottom of the staircase. Now that she was at least semiconscious, she realized that this was one of those moments when a Spy Girl was wise to exercise caution.
Anybody
could be on the other side of that door. Then again, if someone really meant to burst in and slit her throat, he probably wouldn't announce his presence with such a flourish.

“Who is it?” Caylin called.

“I am Rocky,” a guy called back. Okay, that was sort of a weird Brazilian name, but hey, what did she know?

“Uh, what do you want, Rocky?” Caylin asked. At least he spoke English—dealing with that pesky language barrier was a struggle she wasn't up for this early in the morning.

“I have an important message, miss. Please open the door.” He sounded harmless enough. Brutal killers didn't usually say “please.”

Caylin opened the door and tried to look as dignified as possible, considering the fact that she was wearing a bathrobe and fuzzy bunny slippers. “Yes?”

Rocky's eyes flickered down to her feet, then snapped back up to her face. He nodded formally. “My boss has requested the presence of Miss Corinne, Miss Trixie, and Miss Jacinta for lunch this afternoon.” Ah. Rocky was obviously yet another emissary of the Big Boss. “He has business issues to explore with you.”

“Will we be meeting your boss face-to-face, then?” ­Caylin asked. Her heart began to hammer within her chest as she realized that this might be It.

“A car will pick you up at one o'clock,” Rocky said, ignoring her question. “Good day.”

“Wait—” Caylin called. Where was the meeting taking place? How long would it last? Should they bring the money? She had a million questions, but Rocky was already jogging toward a large black Cadillac parked in the circle drive.

“I guess that wasn't an invitation,” Caylin said softly, to no one but the grandfather clock in the front hall. “It was an order.”

•  •  •

At 1:15 p.m. Jo sat in the back of the longest stretch limou­sine she had ever seen. The black leather interior was
decked out with a TV, a high-tech stereo, and even a full wet bar. She felt like a cross between Princess Kate and a rock star's girlfriend. The girls were definitely traveling in style. And they were dressed to the proverbial nines. Each girl had picked out her best “power” suit and a strand of real pearls. Hello, Rodeo Drive!

“I hope our lunch is
satisfying
,” Caylin commented, breaking the silence.

“Our host will probably be quite . . . uh, something,” Theresa said, glancing at Jo.

Jo leaned back against one of the windows so that she could get a better look at the driver. Unlike most of the guys they had dealt with, the driver wasn't incredibly young and hot. He was more of a grandfather type—hopefully a grandfather who was losing his hearing.

Jo tapped on the glass. “Do you know where we're going?” she loudly asked the driver in Portuguese.

“Lunch,” he answered in the same language, and Jo passed the news back to the peanut gallery.

“Do you think it's okay to
talk
?” Caylin wondered aloud.

Jo shrugged at Caylin and Theresa. “A lot of people in
Brazil speak English,” she said pointedly. “So if we
talk,
maybe we should include them in our conversation. Would you like that?”

“This sucks,” Theresa whispered. “I feel like we're lambs being led to the slaughter.”

“Well, let's be quiet lambs,” Caylin suggested.

Jo agreed. Even if the driver couldn't understand their conversation, it was very possible that the Big Boss had his limo bugged. And Jo wasn't about to blow the whole mission because the three of them couldn't keep their mouths shut for a short car ride.

For several minutes the back of the limo was quiet except for Caylin's whistled rendition of “Don't Cry for Me, Argentina.” The tension was mounting by the second. At last the driver cleared his throat.

“Here we are, ladies,” the driver announced in perfect English a few minutes later, parking the car on a deserted residential street.

Oops. Good thing they hadn't blathered on about the mission. Spy Girl Lesson Number 402: Assume everyone speaks English.

As the trio climbed out of the car, Jo stared at their luncheon spot in shock. If this was the Big Man's house, he wasn't doing as well as they all thought. Yeah, the house was on the large side. And certainly the porch wasn't sagging and the roof tiles weren't falling off. But the place was hardly a palace. The girls' HQ was way ritzier. Like, about a hundred times way ritzier.

“Somehow I don't think there's an indoor pool here,” Theresa whispered to Jo as they walked up the path to the front door.

“What's going on?” Caylin hissed. “I'm getting a bad feeling about this friendly little lunch.”

Jo forced herself to smile brightly in case someone was watching them from inside the modest home. “Well, it's too late to back out now.”

The front door opened before they had a chance to knock. Standing on the other side was a pleasant-looking man in his late sixties. White hair, a small potbelly . . . this was Grandpa Number 1. He looked even older than the driver. Jo suddenly felt extremely conspicuous in her hot pink Chanel suit and matching pumps. Grandpa was
wearing a cheap-looking seersucker suit and a pair of eyeglasses that looked as if they had been purchased circa 1965.

Jo was positive that Caylin and Theresa were thinking exactly what she was. Was it possible—at
all
—that the mild-mannered man standing before them was the Big Boss?

“Hello, girls!” he greeted them enthusiastically in English. “Corinne, Jacinta, Trixie, it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

Enough with the polite salutations already. Jo was ready for some
action.
“Hello, sir.”

He smiled. “Please, call me Chico. All my friends do, yes, you understand?” He stepped away from the door and ushered the trio into the house.

Jo studied their surroundings as she followed Chico—whose walk bore a distinct resemblance to a duck's ­waddle—down a short hallway. The house wasn't ostentatious, to say the least, but it was clear that the people who lived there took great care to make the place homey and comfortable. There was children's artwork on the walls, crocheted throw rugs on the floor, and antique clocks tucked into many of the corners.

“Thank you for having us to lunch, uh, Chico,” Theresa said as they walked into a small, cozy dining room. “This is quite an honor.”

“The honor was ours,” Chico responded, beaming from behind his thick eyeglasses. Okay, his English wasn't superb. But he had said “ours.”

Ours.
That could mean only one thing. Jo fully expected the Big Boss to emerge from another room with a sack full of white powder. Okay, maybe not the sack—the girls were strictly playing investor. But she at least expected to see The Man Himself at long last.

“You eat, yes?” Chico gestured toward a table laden with delicious-looking home-cooked food.

Jo could practically feel the pounds collecting on her hips. She exchanged glances with her fellow SGs as they took their seats around the table.

“Is anyone else joining us?” Caylin asked after an awkward moment of silence.

“Eat, eat,” Chico said. He gestured toward the food, grinning and smacking his lips. “Is good, yes?”

Okay, it was beyond obvious that this guy wasn't the
Big Boss. There was just no way. It was also obvious that he wasn't going to impart any information that he didn't feel was absolutely necessary.

“You heard our host,” Theresa said firmly. “Let's eat.”

Chico sat down at the head of the table and piled his plate high with rice, beans, and beef. After a few minutes of enjoying his meal, he patted his chin with a white linen napkin.

“So, you tell me your plan, yes?” He looked from one girl to the next, awaiting their response.

Jo considered responding in Portuguese, then decided against it. Letting Chico believe that none of them spoke his native language could turn out to be an advantage. One never knew what kind of conversations one might overhear. . . .

“We have half a million dollars of disposable income,” Jo said, getting right to the point. “We would like to . . . make an investment.”

“Ah, yes, wonderful, wonderful.” Chico beamed at them, but it wasn't clear whether or not he had understood a word of what Jo had said. The expression on his face was somewhere between “addled professor” and “beatific monk.”

Covert mission or no covert mission, this situation was
beginning to border on the absurd. “Um, can you tell us what our next step is?”

Understanding flashed in Chico's electric blue eyes. “Yes, yes, soon,” he responded. “Things take time, yes?”

Jo sighed. Talk about frustrating! The waiting was nothing short of excruciating. She would feel that way even if she really
were
a rich debutante looking to get into the drug business. Jo Carreras was
not
one to appreciate being lopped off on some dough-brained underling. She wanted to meet the Big Boss!

“No worry, Jacinta,” Chico continued. “I think the boss like your plan, yes? You will meet him very soon. Very soon.”

Jo took another bite of her black beans. That meeting better be worth the wait. She was beginning to feel as if the Spy Girls were playing an elaborate game of cat and three blind mice.

•  •  •

El Centro was a totally different place during the day. ­Theresa couldn't believe this was the same club the girls had visited their first night in Rio. The silence was almost eerie as the girls walked inside and called out for Diva.

She appeared at the bottom of the staircase that led to the DJ booth, dressed down in a pair of slacks and a scoop-neck T-shirt. “So? Tell me.”

“We just came from a meeting with Chico,” Theresa blurted out.

“Yes?” Diva said breathlessly. “And?”

Jo shrugged. “Well, according to Chico, we're a go.”

“Great!” Diva smiled, but she made a quick watch-what-you-say gesture with her hands. Naturally. Now that the business transaction was switching into high gear, they had to assume that almost any place could be wiretapped.

“We'll be meeting our . . . benefactor . . . very soon,” Jo said to Diva. “And we can conduct our . . . uh, stuff.”

Diva's excitement was evident from the bright flush that had come to her cheeks. “This calls for a shopping trip!” she exclaimed. “I will take you all to the best shops in Rio.”

Theresa wasn't usually prone to spending sprees, unless they involved gigabytes and megahertz. But hey, they were American debutantes. It would seem strange if they
didn't
go drop a load of cash on fancy shoes and Brazilian knickknacks.

“Sounds good to me,” Jo said. “I think there's a dress for doing the samba with my name on it.”

“I think the votes are unanimous,” Caylin said. “Let's hit the shops!”

Once the girls were outside El Centro, Diva pulled them aside. “May I go with you all for the exchange?” she asked. “More than anything, I would love to see the Big Boss go down,” she added fiercely.

Theresa's instinct told her to say no. But she saw from the look on Jo's face that protestation at this point would be fruitless.