Just Add Trouble (Hetta Coffey Mystery Series (Book 3)) (17 page)

“We are stuck and we do need dough.”

“Chino’ll be here soon. He’ll come up with something.”

“Meanwhile, we need to consider our options.”

“What options?”

“Dunno. Let’s see if there’s a map in that yellow bomb.”

There was, a good one which showed back roads, like the one to Agua Fria. “Look Jan, at all these roads. Well, some of them are marked as paths but, with the right vehicle, we could get all the way back to Santa Rosalia without taking Mex 1. We sure have the right vehicle. All we need is gas, food, and—”

“—a miracle? What if we blow a tire, or break down?”

“Call Triple A?”

“My point, exactly.”

“I didn’t say it was a
good
option.”

“I’ll take my chances with Chino. He’ll know what to do.”

Chapter 19

So there we were in Lopez Mateos with a stolen truck, no money, and on the lam from some very nasty characters. I sincerely hoped Jan was right, and Chino would know what we should do next.

But when he showed up, and we told him our story, he shook his head. “I have absolutely no idea what to do next. You stole the guy’s truck?”

Jan huffed, “Stole is such a harsh word, Chino. And I would expect that you would be more concerned as to why we had to escape him.”

“What I meant was that stealing a truck could earn you a one-way pass into a Mexican jail.”

“Hey, he tried to kidnap us.” Jan’s lower lip quivered, which had the desired effect.

Chino patted her hand. “
Mi corazon
, of
course
you had to take his truck. I’m just having trouble adjusting to the fact that while I thought you were safe and sound on the other side of the Sea of Cortez, you were not only taking a boat ride to Santa Rosalia in the middle of a storm, but then you had to go looking for trouble.” He gave me a meaningful glance. Meaning it was all my fault.

“Ya know,” I said, “speaking of Trouble, I think I’ll just let the little bugger out of his cage.”

“No!” Jan squealed, evidently not wishing grave bodily trauma upon her fiancé, even if he was being less than understanding.

Chino, startled by her outburst, put his arm around her and babytalked. “My poor darling. You’ve had a terrible day and here I am being an old meanie.”

His little darling, all five feet eleven of her, leaned into him and shot me the evil eye before I could gag. She did that lip-quiver thing again. “I have had a horrible day.”

“Oh, not me,” I said. “I’ve had a grand old time. Wrecked a friend’s car, blew up another, stole a third and now have a bunch of thugs hunting for me. Gosh, darling, it’s been a blast.”

Jan, unable to hold the pouty pose any longer, broke out laughing. “It did have to be up there in our top ten, huh?”

Chino was not amused. “I appreciate that you tried to find my grandmother, but now I am more worried about her than ever. Tell me about these chaps you encountered.”

I grinned at his choice of words. Once in awhile his British education surfaced. Deeply tanned from his work as a whale specialist, Chino was over six feet tall, and very handsome.  If there was any Yee left in him, it was his beautiful coal-black hair that he wore slightly longer than I like on my men, but for him, it worked. For living on the beach, a ponytail is infinitely practical. To his credit, he shaved daily even if he had to use seawater, and his clothes, although wrinkled, were always clean. And let’s face it, he and Jan made a very attractive couple, in a primitive sort of way. I wondered, though, how they’d fare together in Jan’s world.

Jan launched into a description of Nacho, Chingo and Paco, with me filling in details as I remembered them, then Chino went out to check our steal of the day. He whistled when he saw the yellow truck.

“This is some vehicle. You know what you have here?”

“Uh, a fancy yellow truck?”

“This is a Toyota four by four, all fixed up for off-road, like the kind they race in the Baja 1000. This thing can take on just about anything the Baja roads throw at them. Man, would I love to have one like it.”

“Consider it done. It’s all yours,” I said. “Heck, by tomorrow morning I’ll bet some mechanic cousin of yours could have this thing repainted, the identification number removed, new Mexican plates on that fancy bumper, and if need be, I have friends in low places who can have it registered in your name.”

I could tell, by Chino’s hesitation, that he was sorely tempted. “I do have this cousin…” he started, then shook his head, “but, no, that would be wrong.”

“What do you bet, if I ran the VIN on this baby, it would come up missing in Los Angeles? If it is, why shouldn’t you keep it?”

“The vehicle identification number? You could find out if it is stolen? How?”

“Is there an Internet Café in this berg?”

“Better than that. My cousin, Juan Yee, has high speed service at his house.” He shook his head and looked sad. “That is, unfortunately, how we lost my grandmother.”

Jan and I exchanged looks. I shrugged, but she asked,

“Would you like to elaborate on that?”

“My grandmother, Abuela Yee, met someone on the Internet. A younger man from Agua Fria. Next thing you know, she ups and goes walkabout. Needless to say, the family is upset, but what can we do? After she left, she wrote that she was so happy with Jorge, we didn’t try to interfere any longer.”

The look on Jan’s face was priceless. Somewhere between moronic and stunned. She struggled to speak, but failed, so I stepped in.

“Let me get this straight. Granny Yee hooked up with some guy on the Internet, then upped and took off to live with him?”

“Yes.”

My preconceived vision of Grandmother Yee—a tiny gray-haired lady dressed in black—went up in smoke. I broke out in a guffaw, Jan joined in, until we both came close to peeing in our pants. When she could finally speak, Jan asked, “How old is your grandmother, for pity’s sake?”

“Let me see,” Chino paused as he calculated, “she had my mother when she was fourteen, my mother was fifteen when I was born, and I am now twenty-six, so my grandmother is fifty-eight.”

Well, well, well. I shot Jan an evil grin. “Gee, Chino, how old is this Jorge, her younger boyfriend, do you figure?”

Chino drew to his full height and snorted indignantly, “At least ten years younger.”

Well,  well,  well, 
well
.  “Ten  whole  years? An abomination, don’t you think, Jan?”

Jan somehow managed to close her mouth before a large fly landed on her tongue. Her expression went from stunned to venomous, with the venom aimed in my direction. No doubt, should I pursue this age difference thing for one more second, she would spit in my eyes and blind me. Judging by her reaction, I surmised she had no freaking idea she was twelve years older than her dearly betrothed. Was I gonna have fun with this or what?

“We can run a trace for under thirty bucks,” Jan stammered.

The fast change of subject confused Chino. “On my grandmother?”

“No, silly,” she said, “the Vehicle Identification Number on the truck. We go online, put in the VIN and see what pops up on CARFAX. Problem is, I don’t have a credit card. Mine was burned up.”

“And I do not own one,” Chino said.

Jan Sims, of the I-shop-exclusively-at-Niemans-Sims, has a boy toy without a credit card? This was getting better and better. “Not to worry,” I said with a happy grin, “I have several.”

Jan frowned. “I thought you left everything on the boat. You used my card to rent the car.”

“I didn’t say they were
mine
.” I reached in my pocket, pulled out a wallet and flipped it open with flair. Several credit cards and a California driver’s license showed through the plastic pockets. “Courtesy of Lamont Cranston, a.k.a. Nacho, a.k.a. The Shadow. Oh, this is rich. Not only is Nacho cute, he’s funny, in a criminal sort of way.”

“Shadow?” Chino asked.

“Only the Shadow knows. He was a character in a very, very, old radio show starring a rich playboy, Lamont Cranston, with an alter ego, The Shadow. I’m sure Jan can tell you all about him.”

“Oh. As far as using his credit card, I do not think—”

“Not to worry, Chino. Jan and I are experts at this sort of thing, what with all our years, and years, and
years
of experience.” As I said that last
years
, Jan reached over and viciously yanked my hair. “Ouch!”

“Just plucking out a gray hair, Hetta dear. All gone now. Okay, Chino, lead us to Juan’s computer.”

Chapter 20

Nacho’s truck was not on record as stolen, and the VIN number actually matched the vehicle description. Go figure.

“So, now what, Sherlock Coffey?” Jan wanted to know.

Chino looked a little down in the mouth. I think he had warmed to the idea of owning the Toyota, if in fact it was stolen by someone other than Jan and me. Traceable, it lost its allure.

We sat glumly around the table until a young boy, breathless from running, rushed in and whispered something in Chino’s ear. Chino, obviously alarmed, stood and followed the boy outside. In five minutes, he was back.

“I have learned,” he told us with a frown, “that the man who threw me in jail, and tried to murder you when you were here with your yacht—”

“Dickless Richard?” I cut him off. “What now? I heard the SOB was out of jail.”

“He has evidently learned that you are here, in Lopez Mateos. He holds no grudge against my Jan, for she is part of my dive team, but I fear he will harm you if he catches you alone.”

“Why? He’s not in jail anymore because I didn’t return to testify against him. The creepy little bastard should be grateful.”

Jan couldn’t resist. “Gee, Hetta, let me think why he might be upset. All you did was blow up his panga, set him adrift at sea in a leaky boat, and then get him arrested for attempted murder.”

“He deserved worse.”

“I know that, and you know that, but looks like he thinks he has a score to even. Right, Chino?”

“I believe so. He told me he did not wish Hetta harm, but we all know he is not to be trusted.”

“I do believe it is time for me to ditch this joint and head for the hills.” I picked up a map. I couldn’t go back to the boat via Mex 1, the road Jan and I traveled with Nacho’s truck, because he and his thugs were without a doubt looking for me. It’s that old rock and hard place syndrome come to rest.

“Where will you go, Hetta?”

“Into Hell.”

“Huh?”

I stood and drew myself to full height, then quoted grandly from Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s Charge of the Light Brigade: “ ‘Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them, Cannon in front of them Volley’d and thunder’d; Storm’d at with shot and shell, Boldly they rode and well, Into the jaws of Death, Into the mouth of Hell
.’ In short, I am taking this fancy yeller truck and heading for the hills. Literally. Since I don’t dare return via Mex 1 past Agua Fria, I intend to take back roads most of the way to Santa Rosalia.”

Chino shrugged. “It can be done. It
is
done, all the time. Many ranchers, even in old vehicles, traverse these roads.”

“Are there any cop stops that you know of?”

He shrugged. “The military stops change, and the roads? They are dirt, gravel and sand, but no problem for that Toyota 4 x 4. My only concern is that since the hurricane last fall, there are massive washouts and the road is not clearly marked. Perhaps I should drive you.”

“
Ab-so-lut-a-mente
not. There is no reason to involve you any further in this mess.”

Jan grabbed my arm. “Chino, I need a word with Hetta.”

She pulled me out into the garden and whispered, “Surely you aren’t planning on going alone?”

“Don’t call me Shirley,” I countered, using the old saw from the Airplane movies, hoping to get a laugh. Didn’t work.

“No way. No how. It’s too dangerous. I won’t let you do it alone.”

“And how do you propose to stop me?”

“I’ll…I’ll…call your mama!”

“She’s on the road in the RV. No cell phone.”

“Then I’ll call Jenks.”

“And tell him what? Look, no sense worrying him. He’s halfway around the world. What can he do? By this time tomorrow, I’ll be safely back on the boat.”

“What about those thugs from Agua Fria?”

“Jan, they have no way of connecting me, or you, to a boat in Santa Rosalia. Anything that can ID us is toast. Even if they trace the burned up Neon to the rental agency in Loreto, there is nothing on the Budget paperwork that mentions the boat. As far as the rental folks are concerned, we flew into Loreto, then rented a car for a few days of touring. Hell, the car isn’t even overdue yet.”