Just Deserts (Hetta Coffey Series, Book 4) (4 page)

“And that?”

“The valley of the Rio Sonora.”

“A big river?”

“Oh, yes. It is in a beautiful valley, with much vegetables. I am from the village of Arizpe, near the river.”

“Maybe I’ll drive down that way one of these days, check it out.”

Her face clouded. I’ve learned that Mexicans, who can be almost childlike in their honesty, do not like to give out bad news, or contradict you, so I asked, “Is that a problem?”

“No, but you should not go alone. It is a very…solitary road.”

“But you go home to visit, right?”

“Yes, but I take the bus. It is safer.”

The phone rang and I didn’t get to ask, “Safer than what?”

What I should have asked was, “Safer
from
what?”

Hotel Afrodita had the appearance of a drive-thru fast food joint, but at the frosted window, instead of taking my order, they handed me a drawing with my room and parking place Xed in. My parking space turned out to be a garage, and as soon as I eased the car inside, the door slid down. A dim light marked an unlocked door into a room decorated in early ugly.

It was a fairly large room, as motels go, and ornamented entirely in whorehouse red. Even the ceiling was red, except for the portion covered by a huge round mirror. Dusty velvets covered the bed and windows. Sliding open what I thought was a closet door, I found a whirlpool tub. The decorator had evidently tired of vermilion, for the heart-shaped tub was bright fuchsia.

Hearing a knock, I opened the door to the garage, found no one there, then followed the rapping sound to a wooden slide-up window where, once opened, only the chest of a man was visible. A hand appeared with an invoice, and what looked like a menu. I took the menu, set it aside for later, handed over a five-hundred peso note, got two hundred back, and the window slid shut.

I put a six-pack of Tecate I’d purchased, along with some ham and cheese, into the mini-fridge, then dug out a pair of disposable rubber gloves, and the bug and disinfectant sprays I never travel without. I stripped off the ratty bedspread and a suspicious looking blanket to find clean sheets, which I covered with my own linens and the blanket I also travel with. I’m no Howard Hughes, but when I can, I take my own stuff.

Chores done, I sat on the bed, flipped on the TV, and grabbed the menu. Maybe I wouldn’t have to settle for a cold sandwich, after all.

The first page indeed offered food and booze available for delivery through that sliding window, after placing an order on the—what else?—red phone. I was trying to decide between cheese enchiladas and
carne asada
when a moan caught my attention.

On the fuzzy television screen, two hairy beings, genus and sex indecipherable, groaned and panted while performing indeterminable things on one another. Then the camera panned out and my mouth fell open. Diving for the remote, I quickly surfed through at least eight more porn channels before finding the nightly news from Mexico City. The commentator, a buxom blonde in a low cut sweater, spoke slowly enough so I caught important details. A commercial boomed on after yet another curvy gal gave the weather, so I turned the menu’s page, and lost all interest in world events.

At first I was confused by what I saw, but then I’m sure my eyes bugged when it became apparent what I was looking at. Photos of sex enhancement devices, along with instructions for their use, were available from room service, through that same sliding window. I’d heard many a dildo joke, but never actually seen one, and certainly not a dozen configurations. Who knew they came in colors? This called for a beer and some serious reading. Getting my Spanish/English dictionary from the car, I worked my way through the confusing contraptions, ointments, and potions never covered in your average high school Sex Ed class.

Deciding on a ham and cheese sandwich after all, I briefly considered the whirlpool, but thought better of it. Considering this room obviously normally rented by the hour, Lord only knows what was in the water. I took a shower instead.

I’d had a long day and dozed off just after eight. Good thing, for I managed only a couple of hours sleep before business picked up. The bang of garage doors and sliding windows, creaking bedsprings, and vocally satisfied clients passed through the paper thin walls all night. I finally grabbed a few Z’s toward dawn, when the passionate returned to their dispassionate wives.

I later learned that love hotels in Mexico are designed for maximum discretion and security. One’s car is hidden from the street, and a back exit affords the ever-changing clientele’s undetected egress, safe from prying eyes of wives, husbands, boyfriends, and the local clergy.

Sleep deprivation does not set well with me, and I was on my second day. This, coupled with that long drive and an exhausting few days of putting the boat in the yard, took its toll. When the morning cadre of lovers catching a quickie before work arrived, I gave up on any more rest, packed up, and drove to the mine.

The same old man and dog snoozed at the gate. I was beginning to suspect they were dead, stuffed, and placed there for effect.

As Maria told me the day before, the office door was unlocked. I grabbed a pillow and blankie from the car, threw on a Mexican poncho to ward off the chilled office air, and curled up on a dusty leather sofa. I was dead to the world when Maria showed up at nine. I sat up and blinked, startling her.

“Oh,” she gasped, then realized the poncho-clad person in her office wasn’t some kind of bandito. “Café, you are here.”

“What, you didn’t expect me to live through the night?”

“Your hotel was so bad?”

“It depends on your definition of bad. Believe it or not, I’ve been in worse. Once in Sumatra, for instance.”

Not getting my sarcasm, she smiled. “Oh, I am so glad.
Señor
Orozco was very upset with me when he found out where you were staying. He has instructed that I ask you to take today, and tomorrow if necessary, and find a place to live across the border. He feels you will be happier there, even if you have to drive thirty miles each morning.”

Who was I to argue, especially since I had already reached the same conclusion?

I rifled through a few file cabinets, took a couple of plot plans, packed up my gear, told Maria I’d call her, and drove to the Naco, Arizona, border crossing. At the U.S. checkpoint, I handed over my passport and asked the customs guy where I could get some decent food. He directed me to Turquoise Valley Golf Course, less than a mile away.

Expecting a snobby atmosphere and exorbitant prices, I was delighted to find a clubhouse with cheap food and the ambiance of an old bay area yacht club, like the ones Jenks and I haunted. Even better, cowboys bellied up to the bar, half the early lunch crowd chatted in Spanish, and everyone was friendly.

Had I taken a wrong turn and ended up back in Texas?

Seated at a table with a golf course view, I practically chugged one ice-cold mug of beer, then ordered another to wash down all five million calories of enchiladas,
chiles
rellenos
, refried beans smothered in melted cheese, and tortillas. As stuffed as the
rellanos
I’d devoured, I waddled to the bar for a dessert beer, and to check out the local classified ads for rentals.

Engrossed in marking mostly dubious possibilities—in my book buzzwords like cozy and charming are euphemisms for tiny and full of spiders—I was startled when the bartender asked, “Looking for a place to live?”

“Yep, something preferably without black widow spiders?”

“You’ve obviously rented here before.”

I laughed. “No, but I’ve lived in other so-called historic abodes and had my share of shacks. I’d like something built during, say, this half of the century?”

She grinned. “That could be a tall order. Heck, even the golf course is over the century mark. And this clubhouse? A 1936 WPA project. If you want new, you’ll probably have to head for Sierra Vista.”

I shook my head. “Nope, I need something right here, and right now. I’ll be working in Cananea, driving down there a few days a week.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “What? Why?”

Pleased I could surprise a bartender, most of whom have heard it all, I sized her up.  My age or thereabouts, dark hair and eyes, pretty face with startling green eyes. Her slight southern drawl matched her nametag: Georgia Lou.

“Georgia Lou, if I tell you, I’ll have to kill you.”

That comment drew a snigger from a few eavesdropping bar dwellers. The cowboys had moseyed off, replaced by golfers. Georgia drew me another beer. “Sorry if I seem nosy. The reason I asked is—” She halted mid-sentence, looking past me. I followed her gaze. Two nattily dressed black men glided by. Young, maybe under thirty, sporting those nifty short haircuts I associate with Denzel Washington.

Both men wore dark suits, brilliant white dress shirts adorned with blue bow ties, and very hip dark glasses. Something about them struck a familiar note with me, but one thing for sure, they stood out in this setting like proverbial turds in a punch bowl. Passing behind me, they headed for a table in the dining room.

Georgia stared after them, then checked her watch. “Like clockwork,” she muttered.

“What?”

“Oh, nothing. Sorry, where was I?”

“You mean before,” I jerked my head towards the dining room, “the men in blue?”

She had the good grace to chuckle. “They’re new around here. Pulled in with a fancy RV, California plates, a week ago. I heard they’d reserved the space since last summer, paying all along, but just arrived. Not what you’d call real social, stick to themselves.” She shrugged, “I guess I wonder why they’re here. Don’t play golf, but rent a cart. Eat breakfast and lunch in our restaurant every day, take something to go for dinner.”

“Jeez, you got ‘em under surveillance?” I asked, impressed with her nosiness, which rivaled my own. This was a very small town, so I wondered what the locals would think when they got wind of
me
.

“Naw, they’re parked across from my RV, and after a week you’d at least expect a howdy. Just a little…strange.”

“Don’t get a lot of black people down here, I guess?”

“Oh, no, it’s not that. We’re a pretty diverse population, what with a military base in Sierra Vista and all the feds around.”

“Think they’re G-men?” I whispered in my best James Cagney imitation.

Georgia’s face lit with delight. “Ooh, I loved Cagney in "G-Men". They just don’t make ‘em like that anymore. Anyhow, anything and anyone is possible around here. Being right on the border, we have government types galore. See, hunks, three o’clock.”

Sure enough, three uniformed border patrol agents, one black, one white, one Hispanic, all burly, strode through the door. They greeted Georgia by name, then noisily scraped back chairs at a table next to the black men. I watched all this in the bar-back mirror and drawled, “Makes me downright warm and fuzzy, just knowing there are armed men about.”

Georgia nodded and winked. “Trust me, ninety percent of the people in here are packin’. Cochise County’s citizens take their guns right serious-like, and are some of the most heavily armed in the United States.”

“I knew I was gonna like it here.” She gave me a high five and went to wait on the other end of the bar.

I watched for any interaction between the BP guys and the men in blue, but they made no eye contact. One of the border agents gave the pair a once over, but since the bow ties did not look as though they’d recently vaulted the fence, his glance was cursory.

Georgia returned. “What I was going to tell you is, there are a few winter rentals around here. One of them is a new house, and I think it’s available. Owners live in Mexico this time of year.”

“Who do I talk to?”

“Hang on, I’ll find out.” She called someone from the phone behind the bar, and thirty minutes later I was on a guided tour of a fully furnished, all bills paid, hacienda-style home with mountain and golf course views to die for. The gourmet kitchen was right up my alley, but the pièce de résistance had to be the twelve-foot wide wraparound verandah. Taken as I was with the place, I was pretty darned certain it carried a price tag way over my budget.

However, hope springs eternal, so I continued ogling the house while the manager parleyed with the owner who was, indeed, in Mexico. When he shut his cell phone he told me the house was available for the next four months. I crossed my fingers in hope and asked, “How much?”

He told me, and added, “When you do the math, cheaper by the day than a local hotel.”

There is a God, and She’s on my side today. “When can I move in?”

“Got references?”

I gave him my business card and the Trob’s phone number, not his private one, but the main switchboard that routes calls to the big wigs through a long line of minions at Baxter Brothers. These folks’ jobs seem to be weeding out unworthy callers, so I figured the agent would be duly impressed. He was, but also exasperated with being switched through line after front line. I could have cut through all the crap for him, but wasn’t about to give him the Trob’s private number, and my own American cell was not activated as yet.

I took the phone from him and gave the next annoying foot soldier Wontrobski’s direct extension. My mentor clinched the deal for me by giving the property manager a name and number in Bisbee, assuring him that within ten minutes I’d be vouched for. Sure enough, a word from the local office of one of the biggest mining companies in the world, and quicker than one can say greased wheels I was no longer homeless.

Because I am a single woman, a non-smoker with no pets, and had corporate backing, they’d settled for a month-to-month rental, plus a thousand dollar deposit. The Trob even agreed to foot the grand, and thanks to the wonders of electronic age banking, the deal was done, I had a key, and was left to unpack. Hot damn.

Unloading my meager belongings into what seemed palatial digs after living on a boat took only a few minutes. I set up my computer, connected to the home’s high speed Internet service, added five hundred minutes to my old prepay cell phone, emailed the marina office with that number, and called the Trob back to thank him.

“Blue,” he said.

Sigh. “Like to elaborate on that?”

“Bisbee blue. You can send me some for my rock collection.”

“They have blue rocks here?”

“Bisbee blue turquoise. Has chocolate brown veining.”

“You’ve got it. Thanks again for the job, and the neat house. Bye.”

“Bye.”

My new home, although built in the middle of a cow pasture bordering a golf course, had everything I could ask for. Unlike most golfing community tract homes, this one sat alone, on a private, unpaved road. Peace and quiet reigned.

Five miles up the main highway, at a small shopping plaza, I opened a bank account, then headed for Safeway. Gawking like a starving cat in a seafood store, I cruised the aisles. So many choices. More than one brand of bread; what a concept. My cart soon runnethed over, crammed to the gunwales with stuff I didn’t realize I’d missed in Mexico.

Feta cheese, sourdough bread still warm from the oven, ice cream, and several other items that would not meet the approval of my diet conscious friend, Ms. Jan. However, my best friend, with her meddlesome calorie counting ways, was still in the Baja and I was here, surrounded by a king’s ransom of refined sugar, processed foods, and empty calories. Yippee.

Anxious to get home and tear into my cornucopia of goodies, I was at first puzzled, then annoyed, to find the little dirt road leading to my new abode blocked by a large black van. Although facing me, its darkly tinted windows prevented my seeing the interior, so I sat a minute or two before my patience, never on the long side, ran out. Backing up a few feet, I was cutting through the desert, around the annoying vehicle when, out of a deep arroyo fifty feet to my left, at least a dozen people, dressed in dark clothes and holding hands, bolted in front of me.

Jamming on my brakes, I barely avoided colliding with the group. They ran past me toward the van. In my rearview mirror I watched as the back doors of the vehicle sprang open and runners leaped in. The last one was pulled roughly inside, the doors slammed shut and the truck took off, hell bent for leather, toward the main highway.

I sat, taken aback by what I’d witnessed.

On one hand, I am sympathetic to people who are so desperate for work they risk all to get it. On the other, when that van’s rear doors flew open, I caught a brief glimpse of a large automatic weapon. It happened in a flash, but I was convinced there was a moment, just before the doors closed, when that barrel was aimed directly at me.

Had I just escaped becoming collateral damage in the drug and human smuggling war plaguing both sides of the border?

I dialed 9-1-1.

Welcome to Arizona, I told myself as I unpacked my groceries.

Here only one day and I’d had a close encounter with a dozen obvious illegals, and a gun-toting smuggler. When reading reports of the border struggles, I hadn’t envisioned myself as being affected, but how wrong I was.

By late afternoon, despite a chill in the air, I sat on the verandah, sipping a rum and coke and wondering where that van was by now. And how in the hell had those illegals crossed the border, right here, not in some isolated no man’s land?

A golf cart swished by, clubs clanking. The driver waved.

As the sun set behind the snow-capped Huachuca—pronounced Wah-choo-kah—Mountains to the west, another hilly range to my north glowed pink and orange.

The San Jose Mountains, in Mexico to the south, and between me and Cananea, took on deep purple tones. The only sour note was a rusted iron, butt-ugly, evidently ineffectual, fence running as far as I could see in both directions. Behind it, a huge Mexican flag flapped in the breeze.

Sounds from Mexico wafted north. A loudspeaker-equipped car announced either a carnival coming to town, or a sale on chicken, by the few words I caught. Dogs on both sides barked sporadically at each other, probably discussing how much noise they could generate by teaming up around midnight.

Soaring over the snowcapped Huachucas, the blimpy thing I’d seen from Cananea glowed white in a coloring sky. My view was a panorama of sand, yuccas, cactus, and mountains, all contrasting with the vivid green of the golf course.

I mixed another rum and coke and threw on sweats and a heavy sweater, determined to stay outside until the cold drove me in.  Tomorrow night, I decided, I’d fire up the outdoor fireplace to kill the chill. I’d already learned that my new digs were at near five thousand feet and air temps dropped into the thirties almost every night in February, even sometimes diving into the teens. As I’d witnessed at lunch, though, by noon snowbirds in shorts chased that little white ball, and their dream of shooting their age. Later in the afternoon, locals in tee shirts and baseball caps and even cowboy hats showed up, getting in a few holes after work. Evidently they never heard of a dress code down here. Good.

Tired but content, I watched a sky streaked with ever more intense peach, that fleeting beauty of an Arizona sunset. The tranquility of the late afternoon was occasionally broken by the distant whack of a golf ball, followed by a cheer or curse.

Then, something out there moved.

And it wasn’t a golf cart.