Just The Pits (Hetta Coffey Series, Book 5) (7 page)

I grinned. "That would be a start. Making beds and flippin' torillas ain't her style."

He finished his beer. "Maybe I need to spend more time with her. I am getting a new assistant next week, so with another marine biologist on board I might be able to get away, take Jan on trips. She never said—"

Jan grabbed his empty and shoved a full bottle in his hand, "Hey! Am I the
she
of whom you are speaking?"

I barked a laugh. "Dang, Chino, we can't talk about
her
anymore. She's here."

Old sailors never die, they just smell that way.

Jan packed a bag and rode out of camp with me on Monday morning.

Chino waved a little forlornly as we drove away, even though the plan was for him to pick her up at my boat in Santa Rosalia on Wednesday, after he fetched his new assistant from the Santa Rosalia airport. She'd be gone only a few days, but I think he feared Jan would hop a plane out of Dodge before he could retrieve her.

Seeing the worried Chino in the rearview mirror, I told Jan, "You're gonna have to do something about this Chino thing. The way you're messin' with him isn't right, and not good for either of you."

"Hetta Coffey giving advice on relationships?" she scoffed. "That's rich."

I could have scoffed back, setting us up for a little dustup. Over the years we've had our moments, like sisters do, but sometimes no comeback is the best comeback of all. Besides, the washboard road, one of the worst I'd ever been on, didn't lend itself to conversation. I concentrated on keeping us from skittering off the road, and my teeth from cracking each other. My Ford Ranger pickup is built for roads like this, but the tight suspension is hell on the butt and gut. Jan stared out the window for the next hour, while I tried missing the worst ruts. It is no wonder Jan and Chino rarely go into town.

The asphalt, when we hit Mex 1 over an hour later, felt like Red Velvet cake does on the tongue. I decided to lighten the mood and punched on the stereo, finding "All the girls" with Willie Nelson and Julio Iglesias. This is one of my and Jan's favorite duets, and we've memorized all the words. I whanged the Willie parts, she crooned with Julio, then we harmonized. Where they sung about
girls
, we loudly overrode them with
boys
. Someone else's wife became someone else's strife. We just crack ourselves up.

When the song ended Jan punched down the sound. "You're right. I am messin' with Chino and I hate myself for it. What is wrong with me?"

"I don't have time to answer that. It's only another hour to the jobsite."

"Smartass."

"So if you don't know what's wrong in Chinoville, how can you fix it? I mean, other than acting right, which we both know ain't gonna happen so long as you're feeling sorry for yourself." I actually was feeling sorry for Chino. He is an honorable, hardworking man who adores Jan. The cad.

"I think I'm depressed. And since I've never been depressed before, I don't know what it feels like, but if this is it, I don't want it."

"There're pills for that."

"I don't wanna take pills, I want to be happy, not medicated."

"Medicated always works for me. Okay, tell me what's really bugging you."

"Thank you, Doctor Coffey. Here's the deal. I love Chino, but not enough to live in a fish camp the rest of my life. I wish I liked whales and all that marine stuff, but I don't. Hell, I don't even like salt water. I hate to snorkel, much less scuba dive. I'm such a mess the poor guy would be better off with
you
."

"Hey, watch it."

"You know what I mean. You like all that stuff."

"Yes, I do. Look, he's done everything he can to make you comfortable, far as I can see. Those new living quarters of yours are a sight better than many apartments we've lived in. And the setting! Falling asleep at night to the sound of waves that don't even come out of a machine. What's not to like?"

"Hetta, have you ever had to shake sand out of your sheets every night?"

"Uh, no."

"Well, let me tell you, it's hard to get real romantic with grit
every
where. We built an outdoor rinse down shower and that helps some, but sand gets
every
where anyhow. And I do mean
every
where."

"Okay, that’s way too much information. Let's talk about something else."

"How about your birthday?"

"How about you walk back home from here?"

My birthday.

It had to happen, of course, considering the alternative.

I read an article about women's fears of aging, and in a nutshell we are terrified of being old, broke and alone.

The old thing? With me, it's not vanity. As a matter of fact, I've always considered not being beautiful a good thing, having witnessed women who are, and what aging does to their egos.

Broke? I'm not the best money manager in the world, but it's not like I'll end up a Walmart greeter. I do have skills.

Alone? Been there most of my life.

So what is it about turning f-f-f…not in my thirties anymore that has me grabbing for the Pepto-Bismol bottle? I do know that anyone who tells you that fort…uh, over thirty, is the new twenty is full of refrieds, but that's certainly nothing to obsess over. My twenties sucked.

While surfing the Internet one evening, I found one of those How Long Will You Live Q & A things. I lied about my alcohol use and weight and found I'd live approximately forty-five more years. I did the quiz again, this time being as truthful as I am capable of, and lost three years. Heck, eating and drinking what I wanted and only losing three years off the end of eighty someodd years didn't sound all that bad. Of course, that same study nailed my age group with a 0.14% chance of dying this year, but the way my life has been going lately that number might be a tad low.

I hoped I'd upped the odds some by no longer riding with Pedro to work.

Gloom settled in my pickup cab as Jan and I headed for Lucifer, wrestling with our own personal devils.

As always happens when Jan makes an appearance, my pickup and office saw a sudden spike of interest from the male population. I took her around for intros, and even the Chicano purchasing manager I'd taken such a dislike to turned on the charm. I sometimes wonder why I hang out with her.

When I handed her my keys so she could continue on to the boat, she said, "Gee, Hetta, that Ozzie isn't nearly so bad as you told me."

"Here, let me wipe his drool off your chest."

"Silly. Okay, what time will you get back to the boat? I'll cook dinner. Anything in the freezer you want?"

"I should be there by five. How about some donkey dick?"

"Perfect.

I caught a ride back to the boat with Safety instead of Pedro. That .014% thing, you know.

While he wound down Hell Hill, I kept an eye peeled for the dog I'd seen stranded up there. What I'd do if I did see the poor thing, I didn't know. There was no place to stop and he'd probably bolt off the cliff if I tried an approach. We never saw him, but his plight haunted me. I sincerely hoped someone had picked him up.

Safety, for the first time, invited himself to my boat for a drink. What a surprise. We were on our second beer when John, a guy I hardly knew from work, showed. Another first. Said he had to check on the company fishing boat,
Lucifer
, on the dock across from me, but he never went over there. Before dinnertime, two more guys stopped by to check on
Lucifer
.

My, my, such a suddenly popular boat, that
Lucifer
.

Finally shooing off Jan's fan club, we grilled a whole Sonora beef filet (affectionately called donkey dicks by the Gringos) she'd stuffed with bacon and mushrooms. She'd also gone into town for fresh greens and ice cream. Maybe
I'll
marry her and put Chino out of his misery.

Sitting out on the covered aft deck, or sunroom as I call it, we finished our wine while watching pangas streak from the harbor in quest of fish and squid, or maybe a little drug running on the side.

Jan, who was unusually quiet, turned to me with tears in her eyes. "At one point I'll be in my seventies and he'll be in his fifties."

"Chino's only twelve years younger than you, how do you figure that?"

Ever the bean counter, she said, "He's actually eleven and a half years younger, but his birthday comes after mine. I'll turn seventy and he'll still be only fifty-nine."

And I thought I had an age obsession thing going. "Which is almost sixty. You're somehow turning a few days into twenty years? I think I'll get a new accountant."

"Hey, you're not the only one worrying about turning for—"

"Stop! This birthday is my crisis, dang it, and don't you horn in on it!"

For some reason we found this hilarious. Or maybe it was the wine.

Which, had we known what the evening held in store, we might have cut back on a smidgen.

TAKEN ABACK (Nautical term): Stopped by a sudden shift of wind; surprised by a discovery

Back when Jenks designed my boat's security system he wanted me to sleep well at night, secure in the knowledge that if anyone came aboard, I'd know it. I have two choices for being alerted: a raucous claxon mounted on the flying bridge and guaranteed to wake the dead, or a more subtle blinking light in both the main saloon and my master cabin.

When Jan and I turned in, I set the blinker system. I am a light sleeper and a flashing light will usually wake me, even after a bunch of wine. Besides, if the light didn't do the job in thirty seconds, a beeper sounded, growing louder every fifteen seconds.

The light started flashing at two AM, according to the senorita's belly. At first I thought my nemesis,
el mapache
, was back, but then remembered I hadn't set the outside motion sensors. That meant someone was inside the boat. Had Jan needed a glass of water and forgotten to disable the sensor in the main saloon? I grabbed my handy dandy flare gun and headed for my cabin door, which I had not set the deadbolt on because I had company. Crap.

Throwing open the cabin door I went into defense mode. I stepped back so I wouldn't be highlighted by the flashing light behind me and waited. Nothing happened, so I yelled, "Jan, is that you in the saloon?"

Nada.

"Okay, then, whoever you are, I'm armed and I will shoot." Like I'm gonna fire off a flare gun in my boat? Oh, well, it sounded good.

Nada.

I backed into my cabin and hit the remote to turn off the flashing light in my cabin, but left the one on in the main saloon. Once again I waited, but my patience was running low. I was on the verge of rushing out when I heard a loud, "Oof," and a thump. Time was up.

Holding the flare gun as though it were my .9mm Springfield XDM (oh, that it were!) I vaulted up the three steps leading to the main saloon as though storming Normandy.

Catching movement by the settee, I crouched and crept forward.

"Help!" a male voice cried.

Help?

"Got the bastard," Jan yelled. "Where the hell are you, Hetta?"

I flipped on the cabin lights. Jan had someone flat out on his stomach, with his arms pulled behind him at an odd angle. She sat on his butt, her feet planted firmly on his head, and she'd somehow managed to clutch his wrists and was shoving them at what looked like a seriously painful angle using her feet for leverage against his skull. Whoever the poor dude was, I sort of felt sorry for him.

"Whatcha got there, Jan?"

"Ain't no stinkin' raccoon, but he is kinda cute. Ya wanna shoot him?"

"I'd love to, but there's my carpet to consider." I nudged him with the barrel of the flare gun for effect. "Okay guy, who are you and what do you want?"

Our intruder's face was buried in the carpet, so his answer was muffled.

"I can't heeear you."

Jan roughly wrenched his neck to one side with her feet.

"Oowww!"

"You speak English?" Jan asked.

He didn't answer, so she jammed his face back into the carpet. "Shy, I guess."

"Hookay, then, we'll do this the hard way." Unwilling to free him from Jan's power hold, I fetched a piece of line from the back deck, we trussed him up proper-like and rolled him onto his side. He squealed like a stuck hawg.

While our captive gasped for air and spit carpet threads, I gave Jan a pat on the back. "Where'd you learn that nifty move? You had him good."

"Goat roping in high school. Comes in handy." She poked him in his unprotected gut, eliciting a loud gasp. "You breathing yet, buddy?"

"
Merde
," he gasped.

"
Merde
?" I repeated. "You French?"

"
Oui
."

"Well then, today's your lucky day, Mon Sewer. Hetta parlays French."

"I. Speak. English."

"Even luckier," I told him, "so do we. Wanna tell us why you broke into my damned boat? And if it was you who ate my Velveeta cheese, I'm gonna turn you in to Larousse Gastronomique. The French will surely revoke your citizenship for such a gastronomical infraction."

Jan and I found this worthy of a giggle. I can be so clever at times.

"Well?" I nudged him with my foot, very near his nuts.

"Please, I didn't mean any harm. I didn't know you had returned. I was hungry."

I looked at the guy a little closer. He spoke English like an American, said he was French? When a tear rolled down his cheek, my anger melted. Well, almost. There
was
that food stealing thing.

"We're gonna untie your feet and get you into a chair. Don't do anything stupid, okay? Oh, wait, you already did."

Jan gave me an appreciative grin. We shuffled him to a chair, tied him in across his chest and legs, then loosened his wrists. He moved his arms slowly forward and held them out for retying, but I waved them down. "That won't be necessary. For now."

"Could I please have some water?" he croaked. 

"Water, coming up." Jan went to the fridge for a small plastic bottle of purified water and handed to him. He drank gratefully, brushed a blondish lock of hair from his face and squinted at us. "I lost my glasses."

"That’s okay, you don't need to see, you need to talk, so start. I have to work in a few hours and have to decide what to do with you. Jan here would prefer, I'm sure, to truss you up like a hawg again and dump you overboard, but this being a piece of very expensive, high-tensile-strength line I'd just as soon not waste it on some punk."

"You women are amazing," he said with a shake of his head.

"Oh, you have no idea. So you say you came aboard looking for food? How'd you open the cabin door?"

"Your lock is cheap. I opened it with a my fingernail clipper."

"Isn't there food anywhere else in Santa Rosalia, for heaven's sake? Why my boat?"

"I was here on the dock anyway. I thought this boat was still empty."

"
Still
, huh? So it
was
you who snarfed my Velveeta? That alone is a hanging offense in my book."

"It wasn't very good."

"Okay, that's it. Overboard you go, hot shot."

He threw his hands in the air. "It was a joke. I will work for the food, I need a place to stay until…." He shrugged.

"Until what?"

He hung his head. "I am in trouble and I need help. I don't know where to go, or what to do. I have money in my room, but I cannot go there. People are trying to kill me. People," he looked at Jan, "
besides
you."

"You have any ID?"

"No. Lost."

"What's your name?"

"Russell."

"That ain't French."

"My father is American."

"And you're French?"

"I lied. I'm actually Mexican."

"Russell ain't Mexican, either. Get the old line, Jan. He's going overboard."

"No! Okay, my name is Rosario Pardo."

Oh no, this can
not
be happening.
"Rosario Pardo?"

"Yes, I used to work at Lucifer Mine and they tried to kill me. I came here because I know you were sent to find who was stealing money. I can help you."

Oh, crap. Now I really wanted to toss him in the drink, and maybe this time it would take.

Jenks had ordered me to stay out of trouble and here it was: A dead guy, in  living color.