Getaway (16 page)

He grasped the beer with one hand. Patted his pants pocket with the other.

“Oh, don’t worry about it,” Michelle said.

“I’ll get you next round, then, okay? I’ll put it on my tab.” Now he patted his other pants pocket. “Thought I heard my phone.”

Michelle rested her elbow on the table, her chin on her hand, the watch pointed at Ned. It was easy to press the button by the stem. Easy to turn and face Charlie and press the button again.

There. She’d done it. She felt a shudder in the pit of her stomach. The kind of fear you felt at the top of a roller coaster. A rush.

“So how’s business?” Charlie asked Ned.

“Oh, you know, slow this time of year, like everyplace else. But I’m running some great specials. Hey, you should come by. I’m doing two-for-one dinners.”

“You going to close for the summer?”

“Yeah. Maybe. I’m not sure.”

Charlie focused on Michelle, squinting a bit into the sunset. “So how is Danny? He get out of the hospital all right?”

“He’s fine. Just a couple stitches.”

“Did they catch those guys?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Ah, well. Unfortunately, they hardly ever do.” Charlie paused to light a cigarette, sucking in smoke until he started coughing, and drowned that with a swallow of beer. “Thankfully, most of the time you run into trouble here, you have to go looking for it.”

“I wasn’t,” she said. “Looking for it.”

Charlie had lifted his beer bottle halfway to his mouth. It paused there, his arm in mid-arc. He put the bottle down.

“Sorry, my dear, I didn’t mean to imply that you were. I just
meant that you can’t expect too much from the police here. But in the normal course of things, you don’t have to. This really is a pretty safe place for foreigners, as long as you’re sensible. You’ve just had a run of bad luck.”

Ned laughed nervously. “Yeah. Lady Luck’s a bitch, you know?” He sucked down a few more slugs of beer. “So do you think Danny’s going to come tonight?” he asked Michelle.

He really is a wreck, she thought, watching his leg bounce up and down. He seemed in much worse shape than he had a week before.

What was it that he hoped Daniel could do for him?

“I think so.”

“I guess I can wait a little longer,” Ned said, checking his watch.

“Robberies aside, I hope you’re enjoying the town,” Charlie said. “I’m guessing you must be, or you wouldn’t still be here.”

Oh, yes, I had a lovely visit to the scenic dump yesterday
.

Probably not the best answer.

“Parts of it I’m enjoying a lot,” she said.

“Danny’s an entertaining guy.”

Did everyone know everybody else’s business here?

She didn’t hide her irritation well, apparently, because Charlie suddenly grimaced. “Sorry,” he said. “I guess I should’ve warned you, gossip is the town sport.”

“You must be a mind reader.”

“No, just an aging drunk with a tactless streak.”

Michelle laughed. She was starting to like him, nicotine stains and all.

“We’ve only been out on a couple of dates,” she said, “but aside from, you know, the armed robbery, it’s been fun.”

“He really is an interesting fellow,” Charlie said. “Seems to have his fingers in a lot of things.”

His tone was deliberately noncommittal, she thought, or was she reading too much into it?

“I don’t know him that well, actually,” she said, leaning forward a little. Act like you’re confiding in him, she told herself. If gossip
was the town sport, Charlie had to be a player. “I don’t really know that much about what he does.”

“Ned knows him better than I do,” Charlie said. “Right, Ned?”

“We hang out sometimes.” Ned sounded proud saying that. Like the high-school loser who every once in a while got to sit at the lunch table with the quarterback.

“What is it you need to talk to him about?” she asked. “Is there something I can tell him for you? In case you miss each other tonight?”

He flinched, like a startled cat. “It’s just some … some business stuff. You know.”

Charlie wheezed out a chuckle. “Hiring a private jet, Neddy? You’re moving up in the world.”

“Hah. No. But he … you know, does some consulting and stuff.”

What was it María had said?

Transportation and … logistical arrangements
.

“I’m going to get another beer,” Ned said. “You guys want anything?”

She’d barely touched her wine. “Not yet, thanks.”

“Ah, Ned,” Charlie said with an exaggerated sigh, watching him make his way to the bar.

“He seems a little nervous.”

Charlie snorted. “It’s his nature. He’s perpetually in over his head.” He took another long pull on his beer. He had startlingly blue eyes, Michelle noticed. He must have been attractive once. She could still see it when he smiled.

“A restaurant’s a hard business to make work,” she said.

“That it is.”

“Hopefully, Danny can help him out,” she said, watching him.

Charlie lifted an eyebrow. “Let’s hope.”

She waited for him to say something else.

“Speaking of,” he said, glancing toward the beach.

She could just make out Daniel coming up from the shoreline, silhouetted against the last rays of the sun.

• • •

“Hey,” he
said, sliding into the chair next to her.

“Hey yourself.” They stared at each other a moment. She found herself smiling.

He leaned in, and they kissed briefly, just long enough for her to want more.

Okay, so you’re attracted to him, she thought. She already knew that. She had been since she’d met him.

Just don’t turn it into anything else.

“How was the sunset?” he asked Charlie.

“Oh, fair to middling,” Charlie said. “I’d give it a seven.”

“Sorry I missed it.”

“There’ll be another one tomorrow, most likely. You’re feeling all right, I take it?”

Daniel touched the square of bandage on his forehead. “Oh, yeah. No big. Already got the stitches out.”

“Hey, Danny!”

Ned had returned from the bar, a beer in hand.

She could feel the weight of the watch on her wrist.

“Man, I’m so glad I caught you.”

I have to, she thought. This was the kind of thing Gary would want to know about. Wasn’t it?

“Hey, Ned,” Daniel said. He didn’t try to keep the irritation from his voice.

“You want a drink? I’m buying.”

Daniel made a show of checking his watch. “Wow, and happy hour’s even over. Sure. I’ll take a beer.”

Ned handed him the one he’d just bought. “Here. Take this one. Get you caught up.” He laughed, and it sounded desperate. Michelle was starting to feel sorry for him.

“Thanks.”

Ned pulled the chair that he’d vacated over to Daniel’s side and sat.

She pushed the button. This time the rush was definitely nausea.

“So there’s this deal I was wondering if I could talk to you about.”

Daniel let out a hard sigh. “Ned, I’m pretty busy right now, and I’m not looking to get involved in anything else.”

“No, that’s not …” Ned perched on the edge of his chair, leg jumping. “I mean, I just need some advice. Because, you know, I’ve got this thing going on, this little sort of side thing, you know? And the situation is, these new guys—”

“This isn’t a good time.”

“But the thing is—”

“Do you not get English?”

Ned froze. Just like a scared little animal in the middle of the road, Michelle thought.

Then Daniel smiled. “Okay, look, we can talk about it. How about I call you tomorrow after lunch? All right?”

“Yeah.” Ned nodded so hard that Michelle thought he’d give himself whiplash. “Yeah, that would be great.”

She leaned over, opened her tote, pretended to hunt for something. Switched off the watch.

She couldn’t wait to take the fucking thing off.

“Sorry about that,” Daniel said after Ned had left.

“It’s okay.”

She’d seen that side of him before, when he’d caught her in his apartment.

“Ned’s just kind of high-maintenance.” Daniel grinned and rested his hand on her knee. “And I don’t like having my date night interrupted.”

The way he could turn it on and off so easily, she hadn’t seen that until now.

All the while Charlie had leaned back in his chair, watching them. The kind of “aging drunk” who didn’t miss much, Michelle guessed.

“You up for some dinner?” Daniel asked her.

“I am.”

“Good. I’m starving.” He drained his beer in a few gulps. “I’ll catch you next week, probably,” he said to Charlie.

“You two have a lovely evening,” Charlie said, lifting his shot glass.

• • •

They went
to El Dorado, sat under a
palapa
on the beach with their feet trailing in the sand, had grilled fish and vegetables, watched the anchored boats bobbing up and down in the moonlight. A part of her made small talk while the other part of her sat back and monitored the results. She thought she’d done pretty well. He’d grinned and laughed and at one point stretched his hand across the table to twine his fingers in hers.

She’d laughed, too. He was fun to be around.

As long as she pretended, everything was fine.

“Where to?” he asked after he paid the bill.

“Maybe a nightcap?”

“Let’s go to my place. I’ve got drinks.” He leaned over. His lips brushed against her ear. “I even have a blender.”

She hesitated. “I don’t know.…”

“Come on, I got the flies out. Promise!”

“My place is closer.”

“When we’re at your place, I feel like if we make any noise, we’re gonna give some old lady a heart attack.” He kissed her neck, at the crease of her jaw. “Besides, at my place I can make you breakfast.”

“You cook?”

“Well, a few things. Huevos rancheros. Bloody Marys …”

It wasn’t a good idea, she thought. At his place they’d be alone. With no witnesses.

Away from Hacienda Carmen, where people were watching.

Or was that a good thing?

If she said no, if she turned him down, then what?

What was safer? She couldn’t tell anymore.

“You sure you got the flies out?”

Don’t think
. Just do. Quiet the monkey mind. That was what she needed right now, to shut up the chatter in her head, to just forget about everything. To pretend it was all going to be okay.

“So are you into this?”

“What?”

Even in the dark, she could see the concern in his eyes, the worry—that he wasn’t pleasing her, maybe?

“Are you kidding?” she said, trying to keep it light.

They lay side by side on Daniel’s big bed, which after the hard pallets of both her hotel rooms felt almost decadent, like being gently held.

“You’re kind of tough to read,” he said.

They were touching, her knees brushing his thighs, his hand resting on her hip, their faces inches apart.

You can’t panic, she told herself.

She hadn’t given him any reason to suspect … well, anything.

At least she didn’t think she had.

She felt the pulse beat in the back of her throat.

“Look,” she said. “I’m sorry if I seem … I don’t know, distant. I’m not always very good at showing how I feel, I guess. But it’s great being with you. It’s the first time in a long time that I feel like I’m getting out of my own head. And with the stuff that’s in my head … believe me, it’s great not to be there.”

She thought she sounded convincing. She was mostly telling the truth, which helped.

Daniel frowned and then nodded. “Yeah. I hear you. Sometimes it’s good to just get away from yourself.”

He had
that
right, she thought.

She needed to get the focus off herself. Off her drama. He must be sick of it by now.
I’m
sick of it, she thought.

“What about you? I mean … are
you
into this?”

Maybe he wasn’t anymore, and that would be her out.

Funny. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that.

He laughed a little, reached over and touched her cheek. “Yeah. You’re just not catching me at my best. Sorry. I’m kind of an asshole sometimes.”

Weren’t you supposed to believe what men said about themselves?

All she knew was that he didn’t seem like one now.

“You’re not,” she said. “And you don’t need to apologize. I’ve been so wrapped up in myself, I haven’t even asked …” She hesitated. But it was what you’d ask in a normal situation, wasn’t it? “What’s going on with you?”

“Just a bunch of shit I never should’ve gotten involved with,” he said.

They lay there in silence for a moment, and she thought, Do I ask?

His eyes left her face. Looked down. He skimmed his fingertips over her breast. Lightly rubbed her nipple. Her breath caught.

“Let’s just forget about all of it right now.” His eyes held hers again. His hand moved along her ribs, lower, to the crease of her thigh, his fingers gently probing inward. “How’s that sound?”

She moved against his hand. “It sounds good.”

[CHAPTER SIXTEEN]

Daniel made her breakfast
, like he’d promised. Huevos rancheros and Bloody Marys. They sat out on his balcony and ate.

“Really good,” she said, because it was.

When he finished his, he pushed his plate away and leaned back in his chair. Stirred his Bloody Mary with a celery stick.

“So what do you think?”

She was still eating. She put down her fork. “About what?”

He shrugged. “Are you going to be sticking around for a while?”

Funny, she thought. Was he really that interested? She wasn’t sure. He wasn’t smiling the way he usually did. He looked, if anything, thoughtful. Maybe a little sad.

He’d enjoyed himself last night, she was pretty sure. She had, in spite of everything.

She’d managed to forget, for a while.

They were quiet together. Tender, almost. And she’d fallen asleep, which she hadn’t really expected to be able to do, and she’d slept well.

She’d woken up to an empty bed, a clatter of pans, and the faint
smell of coffee. He’d put a folded robe on the pillow where he’d been, which was a nice gesture, she thought.