Just Add Trouble (Hetta Coffey Mystery Series (Book 3)) (23 page)

I waited. Finally, Jan answered, “
Raymond Johnson
,
Manga Manga
here.”

“Switch to eighty-eight?”

“Eighty-eight.”

“How many beers?”

There was a delay, as if she were asking for a beer count. “Just one.”

If I’d hoped for a clue, that wasn’t it. “Okay, uh, stand by on eighty-eight.” By now, surely we had radio lurkers galore. Sunday’s a slow news day.

I threw the mic back in the door, pulled the tape over the transmit button on my handheld, scurried to the dock, dashed across, and leapt aboard
Manga Manga
. The sailboat rocked violently while I, hoping for an element of surprise, launched myself down the stairs, into the saloon.

As my eyes adjusted to the gloom, I saw a pale-faced Jan seated at the nav station, radio mic still in hand. Scoady Toad perched on the edge of his settee, blotchy faced and rather green. Unhappy, I’d guess, but then maybe he always looked that way. I took two steps in. “Now, what…?”

The cold steel of a muzzle nuzzled my neck, and a hand slid around to muzzle me. I was twice muzzled, and not feeling all warm and nuzzled. Pushing me forward, my attacker shoved me rudely into Jan, then reached down and turned the VHF radio volume up. I was standing practically nose to nose with Jan, whose eyes were like saucers. I mouthed, “Who?”

Her bottom lip quivered, but she didn’t answer.

Behind me, a familiar, gruff voice said, quite loudly, “Yes, we had a great crossing, Hetta. Good to be back in San Carlos again. Hey, thanks for the beer.”

His seemingly innocent statement boomed from my pocket. Whirling me around, he motioned a gimme sign, and put his finger to his lips to make sure I didn’t yell for help. I reluctantly handed over the radio, which he turned off. He then turned off
Manga
Manga’s
radio.

“There, that’s better, a little privacy. So, Red, did you miss me?”

I gaped at Nacho, who was probably the last person on earth I missed, or wanted to see ever again.

“
Merde
.”

Chapter 28

Nacho grinned. “You gonna hurt my feelings, chica. Here I come all this way, and that’s all you got to say? ‘
Merde
?’ How ‘bout somethin’ like, ‘Nacho, I been keepin’ your wallet for you?’”

“What wallet?”

I can be so clever in a pinch.

“The stinkin’ wallet that you took from my stinkin’ truck.” He pulled Jan next to him and nudged her ribs with what looked like a Glock, for cryin’ out loud.

“Oh,
that
wallet. It’s in a safe place. If I give it to you, will you get lost?”

“It ain’t that easy, Red. You gotta pay.”

“Hey,” Scoady Toad piped up, “if you’re gonna do something kinky, can I watch?”

Nacho gave Scoady a look of disgust. “Shut the hell up. I shoulda dumped your scrawny ass overboard when you put your filthy hands on,” he nodded at Jan, “her beautiful ass.”

Jan perked up and smiled. “Thank you for almost breaking his arm, Nacho,” she purred.

Gag me. We’re stuck in a smelly old sailboat with a pervert and an armed drug runner, and she’s flirting? And what now?

“Okay, Don Quixote, what now? I give you the wallet, and…?”

“And we take a little trip.”

“I’m low on diesel.”

“We don’t need no diesel, we need a car. You have one? After all, you used the hell out of my pickup. I got it back, by the way, but you still owe me.”

“I don’t got no stinkin’ car.”

“But, Hetta,” Jan chirped, “what about the Thing? Give him the keys and let him skedaddle.”

“Jan, he said
we
.
We
take a little trip. Unless he has a cockroach in his pocket, I believe that means us.”

Nacho nodded.

“Oh? Where? And why do we have to go?”

“I need…actually, we all, with the exception of the perv here, need to get the hell out of Mexico,
pronto
.”

He had that right, but not with him. No way.

“Why do you need to get out of Mexico? What’d you do? Snort up all of your thuggy friends’ dope? And why take us?”

“None of your business. We’ll just be three tourists going back to Arizona after a weekend at the beach.”

“More like two Gringas picked up a wetback for a souvenir.” Even I couldn’t believe I said that, but then, Nacho brings out the best in me.

Nacho actually laughed and looked skyward, as if asking for divine deliverance.

“Don’t bother calling on someone who doesn’t know you. If you don’t like our company, let us go.”

He chose to ignore me. “Let’s get ready to roll.”

“What about him?” I pointed at the Toad.

“He’s staying. And he ain’t calling no
policia
, either, are you,
pendejo
?”

The sullen Herbert shook his head and his lips moved.

Nacho cupped his hand to his ear. “I can’t
hear
you.”

“No.”

“No, what?”

“I von’t be callink der cops.”

“And why is that?”

Toad mumbled something unintelligible.

“I can’t
hear
you.”

“If I do, you’ll send der video tapes to das
federales
.”

“And what tapes would those be, you sick asshole?”

“Der boyss.”

“The little boys, and you. Little Mexican boys,
cabron
. I think you know how long you’d last in a Mexican jail. They don’t have no stinkin’
pervertivo
protective custody bullcrap south of the border. We Mexicans cherish our children, and not the way you and your ped friends do.”

As Jan and I listened to this exchange, my stomach quivered and my nerve ends sang. We were, for reasons unknown, being taken hostage, and our only hope for rescue rested on the bony shoulders of a depraved sicko who had everything to lose if he tipped anyone off that we were kidnapped. If there was a glimmer of anything good in the situation, it was that Nacho was taking us to the border, and if anyone on earth knows how to get across without a passport, it’s a drug runner.

“This is all very informative,” I said, hoping my voice didn’t give away the nervous breakdown I was on the verge of having, “but let’s work out some plan. One that doesn’t include anyone getting hurt, okay? Well, anyone except the perv, there. You can go ahead and shoot Herbert now if you like.”

Herbert scowled, but Nacho actually smiled. “Too much noise. Okay, everyone to the big boat, and not one word to anyone on the dock, or that someone will not be happy. Easy does it.”

He motioned for the perv to lead, then me, then Jan. Indian file, we exited the boat, then headed across the dock to
Raymond Johnson
, but someone yelled, “Hetta!”

We turned as one as Smith raced toward us. “Hetta, have you seen Maggie? I’ve looked everywhere. She on your boat?”

“Don’t think so. I’ve been on
Manga Manga
.”

“Can we take a look?”

I heard Jan let out a little mewl, probably because she’d been goosed with a Glock. I turned to Nacho, who was indeed cozied up to Jan’s backside, and raised my eyebrows. He gave me an almost imperceptive nod.

“Sure, Smith, after you.” I waved him ahead, then followed. Once aboard
Raymond Johnson
, he turned to wait for me, but I instinctively knew that Nacho wasn’t about to let me go into the main saloon alone with Smith. “Go ahead, check for her. We’ll be there in a minute.”

Smith stepped through the open door and began calling Maggie. It wasn’t unusual for her to sneak aboard. I’d found her snoozing in my bed several times. Not today, though, by the disappointed look on Smith’s face when he came back out. He said a distracted, “Thanks,” and took off in search of his errant pooch.

Deflated that a chance for salvation was gone, we trooped onto
Raymond Johnson
, where Nacho wasted no time.

“Wallet.”

Seeing no reason not to, I crossed to my desk and handed him his wallet. He flipped it open, checked his credit cards, and for cash, which was gone.

“Oops, I had to use your cash for gas. Oh, and your credit card for that new mink coat.”

“I know what you used it for. I have Internet banking.”

Dope dealers got Internet banking?

Chapter 29

Nacho flipped his wallet shut and shoved it into the back pocket of his jeans. I noticed Jan taking note of their snug fit, and inwardly groaned. He shoved Herbert the Pervert into a chair and waved the Glock at me. “Okay, Red, let’s pack up that car of yours and get ready to roll for the border. Gimme the keys.”

“They’re in the closet.”

Jan looked longingly at the galley locker where, back in the States, I’d kept my arsenal. Unfortunately, when we decided to make a trip south of the border, our hired captain forbade us firearms on board. I considered ignoring his no-gun rule, but Jan had pitched a hissy and insisted, because of the severe penalties for possession of guns in Mexico, that I leave them at home. See if I ever listen to her again.

Snatching the car keys from their hook, I threw them at Nacho. He handily caught them in a graceful one-handed move that reminded me of a baseball pitcher from the Dominican Republic I once dated. Oh, boy, was that Rudy a looker, in a tall, lanky, Hispanic way, much like Nac….I mentally slapped myself back to the present. “Pack, you say? What?”

“Food, water. Don’t want to stop for nothin’ or nobody. How much gas you have in your car?”

“Actually, it isn’t my car. It’s a sort of rental.”

“Damn. What kinda plates?”

“Sonora.”

“Double damn. Mex plates get too much attention at the border crossings.”

“Yeah, well, so do Mexicans, so nothing personal, but Jan and I would prefer to walk across without you. Better yet, I’m getting a lit-tle tired of you, Nacho. What if we just decide, right here and now, to refuse to go with you at all? What are you gonna do? Off us right here, what with all these people in boats around us for witnesses? And what good would it do you? Just take the car and go.”

“Ain’t that easy, Red. For one thing, while popping you might make my day, that’s not what’s gonna happen. Maybe I’ll just make you, or Blondie, wish you’d never met me.”

“Too late. We already do.”

He smiled a mean smile. “And then,” he growled, “there’s always Maggie.”

I did a double take and Nacho nodded. “When we get to the border, I’ll make a call, and Maggie gets released. If not, she goes to bow-wow heaven.”

I couldn’t believe my ears. Nacho somehow had Maggie? “But how—”

“I have friends.”

“In very low places, no doubt? Like Herbert here? He seems an appropriate
amigo
for someone like you.”

Nacho shook his head in disgust. “You just never let up, do you?”

“It’s my nature,
pendejo
,” I spat, using the word he’d called Herbert. I wasn’t sure what it meant, but it sounded properly disrespectful.

Nacho threw his arm out, the gunless one, his forefinger ending up not an inch from my nose. I was proud of myself for not flinching. “That’s it. From now on, Red, not one word from you, unless I ask you a direct question. Not. One. Single. Word. Keep that smart mouth of yours shut, or I will make Blondie hurt.”

Jan’s head jerked up. “Hey! How come if she mouths off, I get hurt?”

“Peer pressure, kitten. Makes it your job to keep a muzzle on your bulldog.”

I opened my mouth to protest being referred to as a bulldog, but Jan stomped my foot.  “If you utter a syllable, Hetta, I swear I’ll borrow that gun and shoot you myself.”

Like I said before, a friend in need is a pest.

Before we left San Carlos, I had a whole new appreciation for mimes. Every time I turned around, someone asked me a question I was forbidden to answer.

We packed up bottled water, clothes and all the road food in
Raymond Johnson
’s cupboards. As more and more of my secret junk food stash was revealed, Jan’s snidely comments increased, and I couldn’t even snipe back.

“Ya know, Nacho, you may be a bad ass, but you sure know how to show a girl a good time,” Jan said. “Muzzling Hetta is ever so much fun.” She found a bag of Cheetos in the far reaches of a cabinet and shook it at me. “Hoarding for a bad food day, Hetta?”