Encrypted (24 page)

U
.
S
.–
Mexican Border

7:03
p
.
m
.,
MST

Zach stepped on the gas
.
They watched the sun go down as they wasted over an hour at the border
.
His generous three-hour buffer had been whittled down to barely an hour
.
And with this traffic
?
He would be lucky to make it to the rendezvous
on time
.
Up ahead
,
a streetlight flashed red as car horns blared in the evening air
.
Zach felt his hands tighten on the wheel.

Nearly three hours of rap would have tested his patience on a good day
.
But today
?
Yet another Nelly song came on
.
The pulsing rhythm did nothing to soothe his agitation
.
He was ready to punch Grant in the face and shove his body from the car, but that might give away the fact that he was a bit on edge
.

“Is that aftershave you’re wearing?”

“Shut up.”

“Dude, I am telling you
.
The chicks at this party won’t even require you to bathe.”

Zach shook his head
.
“You are pathetic.”

“I am telling you
,
man, that’s why your cousin is having the party on this side of the river
.
These whores, they’ll do anything you ever read in
Hustler
,
and for dirt cheap.”

“I’m so glad you are helping counteract that whole American pig tourist image we have,” Again
,
Zach regretted that tonight
,
of all nights
,
Grant had decided to tag along.

Grant punched him in the shoulder
.
“No, dude
.
I was telling you this so you will relax
.
I know you’re shit with the ladies, but tonight
,
t
onight
,
you are guaranteed a score!”

If only Fifer knew what he was talking about.

* * *

“What did I tell you about frowning?” Quirk asked Ronnie as he elbowed a nice
,
little old Mexican grandmother out of their way, bringing them almost to the front of the plane
.
How long
would
it take to taxi and empty out a plane, anyway?

“We’re going to be late,” Ronnie said, echoing Quirk’s internal impatience
.

But Quirk couldn’t let her know
that
he was
just
as worried as she was
,
so he tugged the edge of her dress to bring the V-neck down so it just kissed the top of her lace bra
.
“As we should be
.
Now think only neutral thoughts.”

Ronnie didn’t quite smile at that, but at least
she wasn’t
frowning
as the knot dispersed
.
Quickly
,
they made their way down the staircase to the tarmac
.
His boss was right, of course
.
They were going to be late, but Carson
Kressley
himself would pull the fashion laurels from Quirk’s head if he did not complete the ensemble.

“Over here,” Quirk urged as he pulled away from the crowd rushing
toward
the gate
.
Once away from prying eyes and cell-phone cameras, he pulled out a pair of stilettos
.
“Put these on.”

“No
!
Quirk, damn it, we’ve got to
—
”

Before his boss could launch into an Aristotle
-
length diatribe about how late they were, Quirk pulled out the ultimate couture weapon
.
A mirror
.
But this was no ordinary mirror
.
He had obtained this precious object backstage from Ver
s
ace himself
.
He unfolded it once,
and
then pulled out leaf after leaf until they interlocked into a nearly full-length mirror
.
The sight of herself dressed for a night out on the town shut Ronnie up in a big hurry
.
A hand flew to her lips in surprise.

Quirk gently urged the appendage away from her face
.
“Now, now
.
We have to watch the lip
liner.”

* * *

Zach gagged back a retch as they entered the “bar.” Brothel, landfill dump, or pig farm would also have been accurate descriptions. He had to avert his eyes more than once as strip
pers bounced their wares
rather enthusiastically.

“Zach! My man!” his cousin
Skip
slurred
,
as he stumbled over to him. “You came.”

Not for you
, Zach wanted to say, but didn’t want to ruin the sixth-time
-
to
-
the
-
alt
a
r buzz that
Skip
had going on.

“And you brought an
amigo
!” his cousin shouted
,
even though he was standing all of two feet away.

“He’s not my friend,” Zach stated
,
but the two were already in a BFF hug.

Skip
tried to draw them deeper into the debauchery. “Come
and
meet Consuela. She’ll do all three of us for twenty bucks!”

Zach resisted the urge, which turn
e
d out not to be that difficult at all.

Instead
,
he let his cousin relieve him of Grant and searched the bar for Ronnie. Of course
,
he had absolutely no idea what she looked like,
but
he didn’t think Ronnie was any of these washed up
and
dragged out “women
,
” though.

Or at least he
hoped
not.

* * *

“
Andale
!
Hurry!
” Ronnie shouted as she hit the back of the taxi driver’s seat. She hated to be
that
American tourist, but exactly how long could it take to get across town?

It must have been nearly eighty degrees
,
and even with all the windows rolled down, sweat trickled down her back. Horns sounded all around them
,
making it feel like they were center
-
stage in a circus than the city’s main thoroughfare.

“What did I tell you about frowning?” Quirk sai
d
as he powdered her forehead once again. “I’ve put wrinkle-filling foundation
on you
, but darling, it can’t overcome furrows.”

Well, then
,
what did glaring do for her makeup
?
Ronnie wondered as she shot Quirk a harsh glance. “
Andale
!”

The dress constricted her midriff. She could barely feel her legs anymore.
And the shoes?
She had walked
,
like
,
two steps in them
,
and she swore that she had the beginnings of bunions. Each time she looked up she felt like she had blinders on, but they were just the false eyelashes Quirk had applied.

He,
he
was happy for the delay.
All the more time to make her into Frankenstein’s monster.

She looked
at
her watch again. Eight thirty
-
five. She had kept Zach waiting for over a half an hour. Would he wait for her?

As the taxi finally moved forward another two and a half feet, they could finally see what had caused the traffic jam.
An overturned goat cart.
Yes, a cart pulled by goats. This wasn’t happening. She could not possibly miss her one chance to meet Zach over
an accident with
goats.

She smacked the driver’s seat again.

Please don’t let it be over
because of
goats.

* * *

“Honey, honey,” Quirk tried to reassure her. “Girls are allowed. No. Girls are
expected
to be fashionably late.” He eased her back into the seat. “Plus
,
putting on lip liner and shouting orders are mutually exclusive.” When she went to argue he cocked his head. “So
,
stop with the talking!”

He could feel her squirm
,
though. She was a bundle of nervous energy as the hairs on her forearm stood up and her jaw moved without her saying anything. Had he known traffic was going to be like this
,
he would have dropped a Valium, or two
,
into her drink on the plane. Hell, he would have dropped one himself.

Before he could stop her, Ronnie leaned forward and punished the poor plastic seat again. “
Andale
!”

“Hon, I don’t even think that’
s Mexican.” He did his best to quiet her. “Settle down, darling. You are going to mess up your hair.”

Did she not understand that perfectly coiffed hair required absolute stillness? In this humidity
,
they would be lucky to get an hour out of the two bottles of hair
spray
that
he put on that mane of hers.

They rolled, gaining speed until the car in front of them slammed on the brakes. They crashed into its rear bumper. Quirk barely kept the powder from spilling all over Ronnie’s smoking
-
hot black dress. He was not going to let a little traffic accident ruin that couture.

Their driver launched out of the taxi shaking his fist, yelling something about a “
bendajo
.”

“That’s it!” Ronnie said as she opened the car door.

She was out of the car, wobbling down the street.

“You can’t run in stilettos!” Quirk yelled after her as he gathered their thousand bags.

Throwing payment onto the driver’s seat,
he
hightailed it after Ronnie.

Heteros
.

* * *

“Look over here!” Grant yelled.

However
,
it wasn’t so much “over here” as it was right in front of Zach on the bar. Grant doing Jell
-
O
shots off of one of the working girl’s…Well, “leaving nothing to the imagination” was coined for just such an occasion. Some things you just couldn’t
unsee
.

As much as you wanted to.

He checked his watch again. Eight forty-nine. There was late
,
and then there was “stood up” late. Zach dug his iPod out from his pocket. It still just showed Poison’s
“
Every Rose Has Its Thorn
”
waiting to be
cued
up. No message from Ronnie.

Not that he expected there to be. Communications outside their scheduled times was strictly on a 9
-
1
-
1 basis. He’d barely avoided having his hand blown off last night just trying to explain to Ronnie about
Julia
.

Was that why Ronnie wasn’t here?
Julia
? Had Ronnie had second thoughts about meeting a guy who had ditched his fiancé
e
for a voice over the line?
A felon’s voice
,
no less?

The guy next to him coughed and coughed until he hacked up something onto the bar. Awesome. And if Zach spent much more time in here with the smoke and grime, he too would be
coughing
up some asbestos lung cheese. To help Zach make up his mind
,
someone lit up a
stogie
. The acrid smoke
stung
his eyes.