Just Add Salt (2) (13 page)

Chapter 17

Puerto San Carlos should be renamed Puerto San Maytag. It didn’t seem to matter which direction the wind came from, roiling currents kept us broadside to the fetch. I was thinking, hotel, until Fabio finally put out a stern hook and we quit agitating.

Even if the conditions had been ideal, tying up to the dock was not an option. Unlike docks back home, this stationary structure used by rusty steel shrimp boats for refueling was lined with old tires guaranteed to smear black gunk all over my nice white gel coat.

As the men predicted, our big blue buddy didn’t follow us into the shallow channel leading into San Carlos harbor. We could occasionally see him spout in the distance as he patrolled the bay, waiting, probably pining for nice rub up against
Raymond Johnson
’s voluptuous bottom.

As soon as we were secured at anchor, Fabio and Chino took off to get up close and personal with Lonesome while Jan and I did womanly things. In this case, washing the decks and cleaning house. Deck mop in hand, Jan stared out to sea. “My,” she breathed, “isn’t he a hunk?”

“I dunno. Looks like any other whale to me.”

She took a swipe at me with the soggy mop. “You know who I’m talking about.”

“Miz Jan, does the name ‘Lars’ ring a bell with you?”

“Lars who?”

“Jezebel.”

“Am not.”

“Are too.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not the one who is practically salivating over the hired help.”

“Snob. And I am not salivating. Admiring is not drooling. And besides, I sort of have Jenks, and Fabio has a wife.”

“Mmmm-huh.”

“Mmmm-huh, what?”

“I was just thinking. Lars and Jenks are halfway around the world, probably frolicking in some harem. What’s the harm of a little innocent dallying on our part?”

“As long as it stays at dalliance, I guess there’s no harm, but for some reason I feel a little guilty. I must be losing my touch.”

“Well, I don’t feel guilt. Chino is a doll. And he’s a doctor.”

“He’s a whale doctor.”

“Mother wouldn’t care.”

“And my parents would boil me in oil if I dragged home a Mexican boat captain. They adore Jenks.”

“I might remind you, Hetta, that so do you.”

I sighed. It was true. I was smitten, madly in love with Jenks. However, my falling in love with someone has been, historically, a strong signal for my sig-other to take a powder. Disappear to someplace like, say, Kuwait, from whence he would never return. Maybe I was flirting with Fabio to cushion the blow of what I fully expected to come.

“Jenks is coming back,” Jan insisted. “I guess Lars will, too, but I think we are, like, losing interest? Not like you and Jenks. You two are good together. After all, not every man would be willing to put up with the likes of Hetta Coffey.”

“Hey!”

“Come on, you know you’re bossy and irascible.”

“Am not.”

“Are too.”

“I am not naturally irascible. It’s not all that easy to piss me off.”

“Yeah, but Katy, bar the door if someone does.”

She had a point. I do have a temper, but I also have a long fuse. I don’t get mad, I get pay back. Which brings to mind whoever put the kid in Ensenada up to sending me the URPHAT message. I decided to call Martinez before Fabio and Chino returned. He was in his room for a change. “Anything new, Marty?”

“Naw. Kid has sent three more to you, but I guess you know that. I advised him not to call you P-H-A-T again if he wanted to see twelve. So, what’s with you?”

“We’re anchored in San Carlos and Doctor Yee, the marine biologist, is on board to deal with our whale. Jan’s eyeing Yee like a seafood platter.” She shot me the finger.

Martinez chuckled. “You know, I still don’t know what you two are really doing down there. It just might help if I did.”

If I couldn’t trust Martinez, I couldn’t trust anyone.

Besides, he was looking for someone who threatened me and it was time to give him the whole story. Screw Tanuki. What could they do for us if something went wrong down here? And though I would have preferred to talk to Martinez in person for security reasons, he was many miles away, on the job in Ensenada. I quickly filled Martinez  in  on the proposed desalination plant at Magdelena Bay, and the pipeline destined to provide water along the west coast of Baja.

“The desal bi-product, sea salt, will be shipped to Japan on barges. They have these specially build barges made to navigate just inside Mag Bay, in fairly shallow water. I haven’t seen any barges yet. Anyhow, what they really want to know is whether there’s any negative talk in town about the project. They’re trying to come in really low key, get set up before some rich Mexican gets wind of the undertaking and tries to profit from the info.”

“Too late, Hetta.”

“Huh?”

“You remember when I retired? I told you I’d spotted a great place to build my dream home on the Pacific? Well, I got down here, went back to the guy I was going to buy the land from and he had already sold it. And everything else he owned. Actually, this guy was head of an
ejido
, kind of a family or community group who were given land after the revolution of 1910. Anyhow, nobody had any interest in buying the land for over a hundred and fifty years before me, but then this other guy shows up, snaps up everything in sight on the cheap. Poor old guy who sold it never knew why. Wanna guess the why?”

“Water?”

“Clever girl. I was already looking into a personal desal plant and a solar still, because there ain’t no stinkin’ water for miles. That’s why the land was going to be so cheap.”

“So, someone bought up all the land for peanuts. From Mag Bay to where?”

“I checked it out. All the way up to the village of San Juanico.”

“Hang on while we get a map.”

Jan was way ahead of me and smoothed out a Baja road map.

“Okay Marty, where was the place you had your eye on for your retirement dream home?”

“It probably won’t be on your map. Closest place is a small village called San Jorge. I figured if all else failed, we could truck water in from La Purisima. They got a river. Anyhow, doesn’t matter now. Dude got all the land sewn up.”

“You know who?”

“Sure do. I tracked him down and asked if he was willing to sell or lease me an acre or so on the beach.”

“And?”

“He plans to develop later, but he would give me an option on a thirty-year lot lease. For a mere hundred thou.”

“Dollars?American?”

“Yep.”

“Sooo, Tanuki just
thinks
they have this project under wraps. Sounds like their pipeline’s sprung a leak. But how?”

“¿
Quien sabe
? as they say down here. Keeping a secret in Baja is well-nigh impossible.”

“So it seems. I’ll talk to you later. By the way, what’s this guy’s name? The one buying up land?”

“Ricardo Lujàn.”

“He must be rich. Even if it was cheap by the acre, there’s over a hundred miles of beachfront involved. God knows how many acres.”

“My guess is Lujàn only paid those poor suckers a fraction of what land was worth, even without water. When you’ve never had two pesos to rub together, any money is better than none. After all, these
ejido
guys are fishermen, so what did they care about the land as long as they have a place to put up a shack. They aren’t looking to the future. Things move so slow down here that even with water, it’ll probably be twenty years before the fish camps have to move to make room for houses. Typical Mexican deal: the poor get poorer and the corrupt get richer. The way it works. If you have anything of value, some jerk will take it away from you.”

“Don’t the poor ever get fed up? Fight back?”

“Yep. Last time was 1910. After the revolution, the new, so-called reformed government took away their guns.”

Our men, as we were beginning to call them, returned from their whale inspection before dinner. When a panga came calling that afternoon, Jan and I swapped two cans of Spam for four big lobsters. It was another of Jenks’s smart suggestions to bring baseball caps, canned meat, videos in Spanish, and Playboy magazines for trade. By dinnertime the air turned balmy, the wind died, the boat quit rocking, a full moon shown and the four of us, showered and dressed in tropical attire, sat down for a civilized meal. It was a Mexican Chamber of Commerce moment.

Chino, after admiring our table setting, complete with candles, cloth napkins and crystal, seated Jan and me, then began pouring our wine with a flourish. Napkin draped nattily over his arm, he camped it up while chattering effusively about Lonesome’s odd behavior. At least until he lost his train of thought, distracted by Jan’s décolletage. I cleared my throat to put him back on track. Giving me an unabashed grin, he gushed, “A fine specimen.”

“Why, thank you, Chino,” Jan cooed.

“Oh, you also. But I was speaking of the whale. I think he’s about ten years old and bigger than we thought. Seventy-five feet, at least. Magnificent.” I have never seen a man so euphoric over a large hunk of blubber.

Maybe there is hope for we chubbettes of the world.

Chapter 18

“So Hetta, what’s wrong with this picture? Two single women, on a yacht in Mexico, a full moon overhead, two handsome men on board. And what happens? The women, who are straight, leave the men and crawl into bed together? We must be getting older than I thought.”

I smeared extra wrinkle cream around my eyes. “It is disgusting, isn’t it? I miss Jenks. What’s your excuse?”

“I don’t want to appear loose,” Jan said loftily.

I snorted derision, and the last of my Chardonnay, through my nose. “Loose? I don’t suppose Chino thinks you’re a vestal virgin.”

“Well, no. But he does know I date your fiancé’s brother.”

“Date? You live together. And my fiancé? You and Lars are the only ones who’ve actually discussed the M word.”

“Talk is cheap. Lars isn’t ready for matrimony.”

“Miz Jan, you might want to deliberate a tad before you do anything rash with Chino. Can you truly picture yourself living in a palapa on the beach, counting whale sperm?”

“You have no romance in your soul.”

“You have no brain in your head.” I turned out the light. A wash of moonlight flooded the cabin. Upstairs, Chino and Fabio talked quietly while finishing off more wine. In the distance, Lonesome blew. Gee, so many choices, so little time.

I was dozing off when Jan tapped my shoulder. “You awake?”

“Barely.”

“What do you think I should do about Lars?”

“Maybe you owe it to him to let him know it’s over before you jump Chino’s bones, but what the hell, would he give you the same consideration?”

“I’d like to think so.”

“Well then, there you go.”

“Fooey.”

It was time to give Tanuki something for the scads of moolah they’d dropped to date, but first I had to know precisely what they thought they were paying for.

All I had so far was an overview, no details. Ishikawa’s message told me to collect a package, hopefully one with an in-depth job description, from an office in Puerto San Carlos. Early the next morning, Jan and I set out to do just that, as well as register the paperwork required by the Mexican government to cruise their waters. Since this was our first port of entry, we had to make our presence legal. Fabio had done all the form-filling and copy-making, put the whole thing in a envelope, and told me to give it to the Port Captain, who would give me back stamped copies of what we needed.

We left Fabio and Chino, who were over-served at dinner, on board nursing hangovers. As we dinghied to the pier Jan and I decided, what with the cyber-age and all, Miss Manners might approve of an on-line breakup with Lars.

“I guess the question is, does Lars have any idea that you have grown weary of his attentions? Or lack thereof?”

“Before he and Jenks left for Houston, I asked him if we should discuss some kind of permanent relationship. He told me he had his whole life planned and commitment isn’t in it.”

“Doesn’t get more plain than that. You practically ask him to marry you and he turned you down? I’d take that as carte blanche to look elsewhere. I’m not even sure he warrants a dump notice. Why didn’t you tell me this before? Weren’t you still planning on this Mexico trip with the guys until they took off for Kuwait?”

“Yes, I was. Silly me, I guess I thought the cruise would draw us closer. Maybe give Lars a change of heart? Nuts to that, he’s only called me once. Every other time I’ve talked to him, either we called Jenks, or Jenks called you.”

“True. So just what is Lars’s life plan?”

“Uh, well, uh, nothing important.”

Jan does not waffle well. She wasn’t telling me something. “You aren’t telling me something.”

She also folds easily. “Lars said he and Jenks were going to travel extensively and that they couldn’t do that if they were committed. I didn't want to tell you, but....”

My heart froze. My hand, the one on the outboard throttle, was equally frozen.

“Uh, Hetta, don’t you want to slow down a little before we, like, hit the dock?”

I couldn’t speak or move.

“Hetta!”

Her shriek finally broke through my shock and I realized we were bearing down on the pier, and the large shrimp boat tied to it. I swerved at the last minute, sideswiping the barnacle encrusted hull and then doing a one-eighty.

We hit our own wake and were almost launched, ass over teakettle, into the harbor. As I pitched forward, the safety lanyard on my wrist wrenched the dead man key from the outboard, and it instantly died fifteen feet from the pier. A giggle made me look up. Lining the pier was a worried looking man in uniform, some stoic fishermen, a tittering group of small children and a couple of smiling dogs.

With as much dignity as possible, I shook my head, reinserted the safety, restarted the outboard and putted to the boarding ladder.

“Sorry, Hetta. I probably could have picked a better time to tell you the Jenkins brothers’ life plan. You okay?”

“Yeah, just heartbroken. I wonder when Jenks was going to get around to telling me?” I looked up at the smirking males on the dock. “Men. I hate ‘em. Do you think it’s too late to become lesbians? Or nuns?”

“Count me out.”

“Some friend you are. All I ask is one lit-tle thing, like change your sexual preference, or join a nunnery, and look what happens.”

By the time we climbed up the ladder from the dinghy to the top of the pier, we were cackling wildly. Our audience, including the insolent dogs, wisely scattered.

Using Fabio’s directions, we headed for the
Capitanía
, the Port Captain’s office, to check into the country. Even though it was his job, Fabio seemed reluctant to go into town. I told him I wanted to do the port clearance, anyhow, for the experience, but I had another motive: San Carlos is a small town and I wanted to orchestrate my cover story, which would spread like wildfire. By now everyone in town knew there was a gringo yacht in the harbor, which wasn’t all that unusual. However, sticking around for more than a day or two was.

If I thought I’d have trouble convincing the man behind the desk that we were just two ditzy boat broads waiting for our boyfriends to show up so we could fish our way down to Cabo San Lucas, I was dead wrong. I recognized him from the pier when I made that amateurish landing.

“Welcome to San Carlos,
señoras
,” the man said as I handed him our papers. He was dressed in crisp khakis, epaulets on his broad shoulders. Shortish, darkish, probably thirtyish, he had cow eyes to die-ish for.

I stuck out my hand and gave him the full benefit of my four hundred dollar tooth-bleaching. “
Señoritas, Capitán
,” I purred. He gave my hand a little squeeze before letting go, all the while ogling the entire length of tall, blond, blue-eyed Jan who, as per our plan, giggled and batted her eyelashes.

Reluctantly returning to his duties, he shuffled through our papers.  “I see,” he observed in heavily accented, but grammatically correct English, “you have an American boat captain, Ernesto Garcia.”

Huh? I saw Jan opening her mouth to say her own, “Huh?” so I preempted her. “Yes, sir.”

“And the boat, I see she is yours, Miss Cow-fee.”

I tried to blush. “Well, you know, a present. From my boyfriend. He’ll be here in a week or so.”

“A very nice present. When he arrives, you must add him to your crew list. I do not see your other passenger’s name on your papers.”

Rats. Chino said he was born here, so this guy probably knew damned well who was on our boat. Enter Hetta Coffey, valley gal. “Oh, him. He’s not crew. My boyfriend? He was, like, afraid we’d be bored and get in trouble? So he hired Dr. Yee? To tell us girls all about whales and maybe take us snorkeling? Marine biology is sooo, interesting, right Jan?”

“Oh, yes,” she breathed, overdoing the Marilyn Monroe bit in my opinion. But not Sebastian Lujàn, as his badge read. He was eating it up.

Being the clever girl I am, I deduced that since our admirer’s name badge didn’t match the one over the door, he wasn’t the real port captain, but an assistant. Lujàn, Lujàn, where had I heard that name?

“Please,” he offered, “let me be of service. I will make certain you are not bored.”

“Why, thank you. What a sa-weet man you are.” I elbowed Jan. Enough was enough.

He tore his eyes from Jan and began stamping papers. I surveyed the sparse office, checking out a large map of Baja marked with ports-of-call, a calendar featuring semi-naked Tecati girls romping on a beach, and what appeared to be a printout of a satellite shot of the eastern Pacific. I took a closer look at the two cloud swirls showing prominently far to the south of us. The sat shot was dated the day before and the swirls had names: Monika and Russell.

I tapped the printout. “Capitán, are these what I think they are?”

He glanced up. “Hurricanes,” he said matter-of-factly, and went back to his stamping.

Jan’s eyes grew large. “Hurricanes? Two?”

He put down the stamp. “Do not worry,
señoritas
, they are far to the south. In fact this one,” he got up and pointed to Monika, “has been out there for ten days. We thought she was going on to the west, as they always do, but then she stopped. Now,” he grinned a sly grin, “Monika seems to be waiting for Russell.”

Playing along, I asked, “What happens if they, uh, marry.” His leer widened. “Most likely, they will continue on out into the Pacific, until they encounter cold water and disappear.”

“Happens in the best of marriages.”

This got me a hearty haw-haw. “You are most amusing, Miss Cow-fee. I think you will enjoy Mexico very much, as we Mexicans love to laugh.”

Glad to be of service. “So, these storms are no danger to us?” Somewhere in the back of my head several gringo boat captains singsonged: “Told ya so, told ya so.”

We got the Mexican shrug. “Not as yet.”

I didn’t like the “as yet” part. I intended to check Monika and Russell out on the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration’s weather site as soon as we got back to the boat.

After thoroughly pummeling our paperwork with myriad stamps in two colors of ink, he finally placed them in front of me and asked for my signature on seven copies. “I am sorry, but you will have to return for your copies, as the port captain is out of town today and he must sign.”

Knew it. “No problem. By the way, my boyfriend sent me some mail here to San Carlos. He has a friend who has a friend who has an office in San Carlos. Where can I find…” I pulled a piece of paper from my pocket, “…110 Calle del Mar?”

He smiled broadly. “That is my brother’s address. Just up this street. I shall escort you. How interesting that your boyfriend knows someone who is a friend of my brother, Ricardo. Come, I will take you to his office.”

Ricardo Lujàn? There’s that name again. But from where? It’s not like I knew a whole lot of people in Baja. I racked my brain while we trekked out the front door and one block up the street to a two-story building. To my amusement, the sign in front read:
Century 22 Real Estate, Ricardo Octavio Lujàn
. Well, the Century 22 was amusing. I wasn’t wild about the Ricardo Octavio Lujàn part because I remembered who he was: the very man who bought Martinez’s land out from under him. The plot sickens. The shady character who is buying up all the beachfront property because of insider info is not only the assistant port captain’s brother, he turns out to be the mail drop for Tanuki. Coincidence? You be the judge.

Ricardo Lujàn was older, shorter, and pudgier than his brother and had these tiny little hands. What’s that old adage? Small hands, warm heart? Small hands, tiny…oh never mind.

We were barely in the door when he was sizing up Jan’s butt and my boobs. Maybe if he’d been enamored with my rear he wouldn’t have snapped my judgment, but I doubt it. My bad guy antennal detectors vibrated wildly, registering a ten pointer on the Richter scale.

Struggling to put up a cool façade, I sucked it up, made friendly noises during introductions. He strutted around showing us his office, which was on the second floor of the building, and then led us upstairs to the roof. From this rooftop perch, you could see for miles around the bay and village, but I was more interested in his impressive antenna array and huge telescope. I’d damned well pull my cabin curtains shut from now on. Unless, of course, it suited me otherwise. “Wow, what a huge thingy you have.”

He looked startled, then saw me admiring his telescope. “For the whales,” he explained, then added with a leer, “I like to watch.” Yeah, I’ll bet he does. I wondered what species of whale hung out inside the window the scope was trained on. Lujàn followed my gaze and had the good grace to blush. After some more small talk, I asked for my mail, which Lujàn made a great show of asking his secretary to find. Like he hadn’t even known it was there and had most certainly not opened it. I could practically hear the flap of pig wings.

“Well, thanks for the tour and my mail,
Señor
Lujàn,” I said, with a valiant attempt at civility. I must have succeeded somewhat, because Jan, who had been eyeing me warily, let out the breath she’d been holding. She was premature.