The Mexico Run (15 page)

    My plans originally had called for getting rid of the jeep, climbing into the XKE and driving directly to San Diego. I had planned to pick up the charter boat on the following Monday morning. I had plenty of time on my hands, however, and so I did return to the Casa Pacifica.

    I think I was surprised, and perhaps a little relieved when I found Sharon sitting alone at the bar. She had a drink in front of her and she smiled when I entered the room. She reached into her purse and she took out an envelope and handed it to me.

    "The captain said to give you this."

    The note inside was brief and to the point. It read, "I strongly advise you to make no effort to take the senorita back to the States at this time. You may leave her here safely, and I assure you she will not be molested. Best wishes for your safe journey, and I shall look forward to hearing from you when you return to Ensenada." There was no signature.

    Wordlessly I handed her the note, and she read it. When she had finished she looked up at me, a baffled expression on her face. For the first time, she was no longer smiling that cute, knowing smile, and I believe she sensed as well as I did myself the subtle threat.

    "He told me he'd see me by the end of next week," she said.

    Her voice had a worried note in it. I took her by the hand, and we headed back to the yellow suite. I sat her down on the bed, after locking the door, and lighted a cigarette and handed it to her.

    "I want you to listen to me," I said. "I tried to get you out of here tonight, but our policeman friend outsmarted me. For some reason, for some reason that I fail to understand at this time, he wants to keep you here. And I simply can't believe it's for the very simple and obvious reason that he wants to bed you again. He has something in the back of his mind, and at the moment I can't figure out exactly what it is. But I do have the feeling that you may be in danger. I don't want you to panic, but I do want you to listen to me and listen carefully.

    "I'm going to be leaving tonight, and I'll be gone for somewhere between a week and ten days. I'd take you with me now, but I don't think there'd be a hope of getting you across the border and I don't think there's a chance that you could make it on your own. You say he told you he would be back to see you some time toward the end of next week? Is that right?"

    She looked at me, nodding dumbly. I think she was beginning to get the idea that Captain Hernando Morales was not exactly a simple little playmate with slightly bizarre sexual habits.

    "This is Saturday night," I said. "As I figure it, our captain will be around to pay you a visit probably by next Friday or Saturday. This time you might not get off with just some Mercurochrome and a couple of Bandaids."

    I didn't like to frighten her, but I had to impress her enough to make her follow my instructions.

    "Now here's what I want you to do. I want you to stay close by the hotel here for the next few days. On Thursday afternoon around four o'clock I want you to make a point of telling Billings, who owns this place, that you are bored and are going out for a walk. I am sure he has been instructed to keep an eye on you, so you will have to be careful not to arouse his suspicions. He must have no idea you do not intend to return. You understand so far?"

    "I guess so. But where am I going?" She seemed baffled, but I hurried on.

    "You will start for the main highway. Route 2 leading into Ensenada."

    "But that's miles," she protested.

    "Just listen," I said. "You will start for the main road, but you will just stroll along as though you had no particular destination. Once you are well out of sight, say some half mile away, you will come to a car parked beside the dirt road. There will be a man in it. The man I told you about. Angel Cortillo. He's going to take you somewhere where you will be safe, and he will hide you out until I return to Ensenada.

    "Our captain is going to arrive here at the hotel to find that you have disappeared. He's going to assume that you have run away and probably made your way back to the States."

    "But why would he…"

    "Don't ask questions, just listen. Do as I have told you. When Angel picks you up, go with him. You will be safe with him until I return. Then once I am back we will see to getting you safely out of Mexico. Now will you do exactly as I have said?"

    She still had that baffled, frightened expression on her face, but she was beginning to look a little more intelligent.

    "You must be very careful to arouse no suspicion.. When you leave here on Thursday to go into town, take nothing with you but what you can carry in your handbag. I don't want Billings getting any ideas in his head that you don't intend to return. Now do you think you can follow those directions?"

    "You think Captain Morales wants to hurt me?"

    "I don't know," I said. "I simply have a hunch that there is more to this man than I can understand at the moment. It doesn't make sense, and that's what worries me. A young blond girl down here has a certain cash value. Perhaps he merely wants to toss you into a brothel for what you're worth. Whatever he is up to, I can assure you it isn't good. Now do you think you can remember everything I've told you and follow my directions to the letter?"

    She asked a number of questions, most of which I couldn't answer, and we talked for a while, and I could see that she was becoming increasingly frightened. I didn't want her to panic, and so I tried to reassure her, but I also impressed upon her the importance of following my instructions. I particularly impressed upon her the.necessity of not arousing any suspicion.

    We had a drink then, and made love, and daylight was just beginning to creep over the eastern horizon as once again I climbed behind the wheel of the Jaguar and headed for Tijuana and the border.

    Driving north, I began to wonder if after all I hadn't acted a little foolishly. On the surface it seemed quite obvious what Captain Morales wanted, but a nagging suspicion lingered in the back of my mind. I couldn't help but believe that somehow or another it went beyond a simple desire for the girl. His unreasonable insistence that she stay with me struck a sour note. I had the feeling that I was involved in whatever plans he had for Sharon.

    It occurred to me that it may be that he wanted some sort of hold over me, and there was always the possibility that if she remained with me he could trump up some sort of morals charge: bringing an adolescent into the country for immoral purposes or something of the sort.

    If it were simply a matter of wanting the girl, he had already had her, and it must have been quite obvious to him by now that I would have raised no particular objections had she gone off with him. His insistence on her staying in Mexico and staying with me must have some logical explanation. Whatever it was, I knew that it could be of no benefit to Sharon and very likely of no benefit to me either.

    The safest thing was to see that she disappeared.

    Angel wasn't going to like it when I told him about it, when we met out in the open seas not too many hours from now, but he was a friend, and I knew I could count on him. I could also count on him to play it careful and to play it safe. He would probably hide her out with one of those numerous relatives of his until I would have a chance to have her smuggled back across the border. Not, however, at Tijuana.

    

    

    Saturday night I slept aboard the
South Wind.
I hit the bunk before eight o'clock, and I slept for a solid nine hours. I had had a busy day and I needed that sleep.

    I set the alarm clock for four thirty because I wanted to be well on my way by dawn.

    I had called Monahan when I arrived in San Diego and told him I was planning on taking off the following morning for a few days. I told him I planned to go up to San Pedro the first day and then over to Catalina Island where I'd spend the next two days. I planned to be back in San Diego no later than Friday, and I would give him a call when I returned.

    He kept me on the phone for a good half hour, giving me all sorts of advice before I finally got rid of him. It took me a couple more hours to gas up and check over the boat and get several day's provisions aboard. I had already purchased the charts that I would be needing. Among other supplies I put on board were a half-a-dozen heavy-canvas dufflebags.

    I put in a telephone call to the dockmaster at the public yacht-basin in Santa Barbara. I made a reservation for a slip for the next few days. The dockmaster was obliging, and looked in the Yellow Pages for the number of a truck rental company.

    I put a second call in and reserved a pickup truck. Around dusk I cast off the mooring lines and made a brief trip out past the channel. I wanted to familiarize myself with the buoys while it was still daylight.

    By the time I had returned and tied up again, I was dead on my feet. I cooked a light supper aboard the boat and then hit the deck. I had no trouble falling asleep.

    There was little traffic in the channel when I headed toward the open sea on Monday morning. A light six-or seven-knot breeze was blowing in from the north, and I cruised out some twenty miles due west before turning the bow of the vessel south and opening up both engines to twenty-two hundred rpm. There was a light sea as I started down the coastline out of sight of land.

    The sky was hazy, and I made excellent time. I wanted to reach the area of our rendezvous as soon as possible. I knew that the
Rosita Maria
would not be showing up until just before dark, but I wanted to be there several hours early.

    Some three-quarters of an hour after I had headed south by southwest a small twin-engined seaplane came out of the east and dropped down to circle overhead. I picked it up with the binoculars and saw that it was a coastguard plane, probably on border patrol.

    I continued at three-quarters speed for another ten minutes and then cut the engines and drifted. I threw out two trolling lines.

    The plane had gone into a cloud bank to the west of me, but a second plane flew over a half hour later.

    Again the pilot dropped down and buzzed me. Standing on the rear deck as the
South Wind
moved slowly at a trolling speed, I waved to the pilot. I couldn't tell whether he waved back or not. I couldn't tell whether I was in Mexican waters or in American waters without having to resort to celestial navigation, but as near as I could figure I was a few miles into Mexican territory.

    When the plane again disappeared I set the automatic pilot and went back into the cabin. Some twenty minutes later I was checking my charts when I heard the engines of an approaching vessel and I got up and went back on deck.

    A sixty-five foot, gray-hulled cruiser was approaching from the leeward, and I watched it through my glasses as it rapidly increased in size. A few moments later I was able to pick up a Mexican insignia on the midship mast, and I knew that it was a Mexican patrol boat.

    The pilot approached within two or three hundred yards and suddenly cut back his twin diesels. I put my glasses down as the boat was close enough for me to see a uniformed man standing in the forepeak surveying me through binoculars. They came closer, and I waved. No one waved back, but they circled me several times and then apparently satisfied, suddenly steamed off, heading back toward the southeast.

    By mid-afternoon, the seas were picking up a little and I checked the barometer. I was a little bit worried. I knew that making a transfer in rough weather would be almost impossible, but the barometer had not dropped and I crossed my fingers, trusting that the weather would hold for another six or seven hours.

    I returned to the cabin and again checked my charts and figured out my position.

    I had reset the automatic pilot and was making a large, three-hundred-and-sixty-degree circle and as near as I could tell I was at approximately the latitude and longitude where I had arranged with Angel to meet late that afternoon.

    I was expecting him to show on the horizon at any time. We had agreed that once we made visual contact we would wait until after dark until actually making the physical rendezvous.

    Twice in the mid-afternoon, Mexican commercial fishing boats came within sight, but neither was the
Rosita Maria.
One of the boats anchored some quarter of a mile away to bottom-fish, and I was hoping that it would leave before Angel showed.

    By five o'clock the wind had died down and the seas were again very calm. My friend the Mexican fisherman had pulled anchor and headed back south.

    Again I was getting a little nervous. There had been no sign of the
Rosita Maria,
and I knew that daylight would not be lasting for more than another two and a half or three hours at the very most. Finding each other in the dark would be impossible.

    Some half hour later I had the first strike of the day, and when I heard the reel singing Out on the port fishing rod, I quickly cut the engines and went for the pole.

    The line was still running out, and whatever had hit had taken the nine-inch, silver drone spoon and was well hooked. I gradually set the drag. It must have been big, because he stripped off some two hundred yards of line before I was able to turn him, and then for the next thirty minutes I was so busy that I wasn't aware of anything but the fish at the end of that line.

    I thought at first I might have hooked into a small marlin. The fish didn't surface, and by the time I'd managed to reel him in to where I could get a look at him, I realized that I had hooked a thirty or thirty-five pound albacore.

    It wasn't until I had gaffed him and was lifting him over the stern rail that I became aware of the boat which had approached while I'd been busy fighting the fish. I looked up, and there was the
Rosita Maria,
anchored less than a half a mile away. I dumped the fish into the tank, then I picked up the glasses and searched around the horizon.