Just Needs Killin (13 page)

That little incident ended our country girl phase—and any alfresco peeing—as if it was the good old boys' fault asps hang out in the pasture.

"Okay, let's call it a night " I said, making a note to self to buy a port a potty if we were going to continue this sleuthing thing. "At least we learned—"

"Hetta, look!" Jan hissed.

We saw movement near the Navigator, then the door opened on the driver's side and someone got in. In the moment before the interior light went out, we clearly made out Lava Lava.

We froze in place and about thirty seconds later, several recognizable men stepped into the driveway lights. Tadashi Fujikawa shook hands with Luján, and got into the back seat. After Lava Lava drove off, one of Luján's goons that I'd photographed lugging a body bag on the night of Ishikawa's murder, held up his hand and aimed it at the gates, closing them with what was evidently a remote control.

Much to our physical distress, we forced ourselves to wait until the outside lights went off before racing through the streets of Constitución for the nearest Pemex station.

It was nearing midnight by the time we called our snoopery a night, and our twelve hours at the hotel were up at six a.m. We had to leave by then anyway, in order to get to La Paz, hit Sam's Club and Walmart, drop off Granny's van, and return to
Nao de Chino
before dark.

As tired as we were, we agreed our little night of detective work was well worth losing a couple of hours sleep. We now knew for sure where Luján was, and even though we had suspected it to be so, we'd proven to ourselves without a doubt that there was a definite connection between Ishikawa, Dickless, and old Tadassan. But, what were they up to? And why had they offed Ishi? And, what had they done with his body?

We discussed all of this ad nauseam during our drive, but didn't come up with any definitive answers.  When we were almost back to Lopez Mateos, Jan called Chino so he could send in a panga for us. Instead of just saying, "Hi, Horny, I'm home," like she usually does, she stayed on the line and listened to something Chino had to tell her.

After a minute or two she asked, "Well, what are we supposed to do about it? I'm sorry if that sounded pretty unsympathetic, but, really what can we do? And if we
can
do anything, can't it wait until tomorrow? We're freakin' beat."

I guess he said yes, and she ended the call.

"You are not going to believe what Chino just told me."

"Try me. I'm pretty gullible at times."

"Mrs. Ishikawa called Chino with some very bad news. Seems her husband may have died."

"I wondered when that might come up, seeing as how he's been dead for a couple of weeks now."

"Yabbut, get this. The plane he was on disappeared, along with everyone on board. Ring a bell?"

"Lemme guess. Malaysian Airlines?"

"Yep."

"Pretty slick. But how do you add someone to a passenger list after the plane crashes? Or in this case, vanishes?"

"Who the hell knows? But that tells us something. Whoever
they
are, they have connections and power. And
we
are playing with friggin' fire."

"Another fine mess you've gotten us into, Ollie," I said, mimicking to the best of my ability Stan Laurel, from the old Laurel and Hardy skits.

Instead of reminding me, once again, of all the messes I'd gotten the two of us into over the years, she sighed. "I think we're about even now."

Finally back on
Nao de Chino
, I forwent dinner, which in itself should have raised alarms all over the boat, and opted for the peace and quiet of my cabin in order to think about all I'd learned, and what it meant. Po Thang was not at all happy with this lack of consideration on my part, what with him not being able to beg diners for handouts like he usually does, so I gave him half the ham sandwich Rosa brought me. She also reached into her apron pockets and handed me two ice cold Tecates.

Those, I did not share with my dog, even though he gave me the evil eye when I finished off the second one, which he clearly considered his.

By eight I was long since asleep, but sometime in the middle of the night I awoke with a start. Had I heard a noise? Po Thang snored softly on the top bunk, so I discounted any disturbance capable of waking me while not even getting his attention.

I was turning over, hoping to go back out quickly when a thought jolted me wide-awake.

What connection did all of these men have in common?

Japan.

And who, or whom, did we have on this very ship?

Two, count 'em,
two
,
Japanese
scientists.

Coincidence?

You be the judge.

After breakfast the next morning the expedition for exploration and recovery officially began, so we were all busy bees. By early afternoon of the first day, only Fabio, Rosa, Jan, Po Thang, and I remained on board. All the others were out and about in pangas, either diving or mapping. The ship moved slowly around the bay, executing a grid and testing our towed array equipment.

My job was to monitor screens as totally boring underwater footage drifted ever so slowly across them, looking for stacks of gold coins. In my dreams. I was actually making sure the graph on another monitor reflected my visuals. Later on, when Chino compared film against graph, he'd hopefully spot anomalies suggesting something buried under all that sand, but I failed to see how that worked.

The task I was assigned was so stultifying I was seriously considering brushing off my resume and applying for a more exciting job, like maybe an assembly worker in a car factory. Thankfully Jan showed up to relieve me after a couple of hours, and it was the first time I'd had a chance to tell her my thoughts regarding Kazoo and Moto.

"So, let me get this straight, Hetta. Just because these guys are Japanese, you think they might be guilty of something? You ever heard of profiling?"

"Think about it. Who sent them?"

"Well, whoever put up the hundred grand, I guess. I thought it was Ishikawa, but after what we saw in Constitución, maybe you're on to something here. But what?"

"I dunno, but if Ishikawa had lived, you two could have gotten tight and you'd be able to grill him. And, we'd be fifty grand richer. I mean, come on, you'd just be doing what we've been giving away for free since we were twenty-one."

"Sixteen."

"What?"

"I gave it up at sixteen."

"You never told me that."

"Because you were so high and mighty about being a college-graduate virgin."

"That was only because no one tried."

"No surprise there. You scared the crap out of those Texan boys, and evidently a bunch of Europeans."

"Yeah, I guess. Thank goodness Jenks is descended from hearty Norwegian Vikings."

"And, at least he has you worried. Not enough to totally clean up your act, of course, but you're enamored enough with him to worry he might dump you, like all those hundreds did in the past."

"Hey, I—oh, never mind, let's get back to Kazoo and Moto. If they are, in fact, here because of some association with our den of thieves, why? What do they want? Some cannon balls?"

"Chino told us chances of finding any real treasure are slim to none, and even if we do, we're not talking a fortune. Certainly not enough to go to such lengths, including cutting off someone's head, to get it."

I rolled my own head, trying to work out a kink in my neck. "You're right. And why kill Ishi in the first place? What could he have done to make them so mad?"

"I dunno, but I sure don't want to piss 'em off. I like my head right where it is, thank you."

The whole time we were talking, we were watching that boring screen, but suddenly it was alive with a school of bright blue fish. We oohed and ahhed for a few minutes, and then they were gone. If spotting a school of fish now and again was the highlight of the day, we were in for one dull summer.

On the other hand, we might break the monotony a bit by running Luján to ground, chopping him up into tiny pieces, and feeding him to Abuela Yee's hogs?

Nah, it would spoil the
carnitas
.

Experienced divers will tell you that looking for a sunken ship is exciting, but frightening. Searching for treasure on a monitor? Just plain boring.

As Chino told us, if there was anything to find, it was most likely buried under several feet of sand or mud, and looking for a bump in the bottom of the ocean is right up there with watching paint dry. After the third day of charting a small area, I was so annoyed I almost volunteered to join the dive team.

I say almost, because as I'll readily admit, scuba diving under the best of circumstances scares the crap out of me, and I never underestimate the power of fear. Or my ability to panic. Way too much equipment is involved, and in Mag Bay the water clarity isn't anywhere near my very high standards. I'd been down eighty feet off Aruba, but there, if you sit on the bottom and look up, the boat appears to be floating on glass.

Even then, I made the mistake of looking out to sea, instead of up or down, and it took two instructors to keep me from shooting to the surface in sheer panic. Nope, my diving skills would only be a liability to the expedition, so I was stuck with monitor duty.

It was on the fifth day of mind-crippling monitor-gazing when a flash of bright blue yanked me out of a near coma. I leaned forward, thinking maybe those cute blue fish were back, but at sixty feet? I'd only seen them in shallower water before, hanging around rocks. We were scanning the smooth, boring, sand in the south bay that seemed to go on forever, like an underwater Sahara Desert, but Chino wanted to start there, because it was where we'd dredged up that astrolabe the year before.

Whatever caught my eye, it was gone in a flash, so I scooted over to another monitor Chino, Kazoo and Moto use in the evenings to review the day's scan. This way we had eight sets of eyes—six of them infinitely more experienced than mine—on the daily watch. I hit playback and blue flashed by again. Freezing the screen I zoomed in and my heart took a leap. I whacked a big red button faster than a
Wheel of Fortune
contestant does when they know the answer to a toss-up round. 

Fabio immediately stopped the ship, and within a few minutes the divers—they were working with metal detectors in areas of the bay too shallow for
Nao de Chino
to navigate—heeded Jan's radio call to return. Meanwhile, Fabio had maneuvered the ship back over the exact location where I'd seen something, and was holding position with the engines, as we didn't dare drop an anchor into what might be a treasure trove. 

Our divers got ready for the sixty-foot descent, which necessitated all kinds of equipment changes. The tension and excitement on the boat was palpable, and now I fully understood why people spend a lifetime of countless unfulfilling hours, days, even years, in search of treasure.

"Ya know, Hetta, this is kinda like when we were fixin' to go into a brand new bar back in the day."

I nodded, knowing exactly what she meant. We used to love walking into an unknown bar, saddling up on a stool, and giving everyone in there the pleasure of meeting us. And buying us drinks. There was always that anticipation of meeting men, of course (which we rarely did, but hope springs eternal), but also something exciting in the doing. We could have saved a great deal of money and aspirin by taking up something less risky, like, say, ice hockey or skydiving.

We watched, tension building, as Kazoo and Moto, one holding a hand-held metal detector, descended slowly toward the location of my blue find.

"Chino, can they grab it if it looks like a relic?"

He shook his head. "No. Our permit only allows us to locate, photograph, and mark anything that might be from the galleon."

"What if whatever it is isn't from a galleon? I mean, if we don't bring it up, how will we even know what it is, or its origins. And, by the way, who's gonna rat us out if we grab something by mistake?"

"We are on the honor system, so far."

"So far?"

"Yes. When we do report a major find, they will send in an inspection team. In fact, they are allowed to search our vessel with no notice."

"Who the
hell
is they?"

"Mexico City."

"Gonna get a little crowded on here if Mexico City shows up, don't you think? Last I heard
they
had a population of about twenty million people."

Chino smiled, but never took his eyes from the bank of four monitor screens. Two showed views from the divers' head-mounted cameras, another sent back a moving video from the ship's towed digicam—now hovering over my find—and another monitor relayed images from a Remote Operated Video/Vehicle. This nifty little ROV was being controlled by Jan from an iPad. We looked downright National Geographic-like.

The divers reached my find, gave us a thumbs up and moved to the side so Jan could zoom in and capture a closeup. Chino leaned in, then let loose a mighty whoop. "Chinese porcelain? And no shard, either! Maybe even intact, if we're lucky."

"Porcelain?" I asked. "How come we got a reading on the magnetometer? Glass ain't metal."

"I would guess it was once packed in a wooden box held together with iron nails. The wood is gone."

The divers moved in and waved their dive gloves above the find, displacing sand and revealing more and more blue and white, until it became obvious we had a large vase on our hands, and so far, no visible cracks. After a few more minutes, an entire vase lay on the bottom, and Chino declared it might even be from the Ming Dynasty era, which would have put it at the right time to be on a galleon en route to Acapulco.

Much to my disappointment, the divers covered the vase with a steel cage, and began their ascent.

"They're just gonna leave it there?"

Chino nodded. "Have to."

"But, it's my vase. I found it."

"Hetta, you have a lot to learn about underwater exploration, especially when it comes to artifacts."

"I know, I know, you've told us all this stuff. And it even sounded logical until we actually found something!"

He just shook his head, went to a printer, and removed a photo of the vase so he could hopefully identify the dynasty.

Jan came over and patted my hand. "I don't think you were cut out for this kind of bidness. You're used to, you know, kicking ass and taking names. Doesn't work that way on Chino's expedition. You should be happy you'll get credit for spotting the first find."

"As I've said before, I'd rather have credit at the bank." I then feigned nonchalance and added, "Oh, well, it's just an old vase, anyhow."

Jan's eyes narrowed slightly at my sudden change of attitude. "Yeah, just an old vase," she drawled, her suspicion evident.

A Ming Dynasty vase, which the guys measured out at eleven inches tall, could draw millions according to a search I did on the Internet the minute I got back to my cabin. And with a provenance of originating from a Manila Galleon? Katy bar the door!

Our search with the ship now was concentrated on the area of the vase. It wasn't long until the divers marked another piece of pottery, a small bowl they found under a foot of sand, six feet from my vase. We had magnetometer hits all day, but didn't find out what was setting them off. Darkness soon put a stop to our search, and besides, everyone onboard was exhausted. We moved a quarter mile away from the site to an area where we'd had no hits, and anchored in twenty feet of water for the night.

Tired or not, everyone was in a state of high anticipation as we gathered around the dining table for Rosa's famous
chiles rellenos.
Even Po Thang seemed excited. Probably, however, because Rosa makes a mean
relleno
, and he always begged enough to send him into a near coma right after we ferried him to the beach for his last pee and poo of the day.

When we beached the panga, he took off like a flash, running joyfully into the edge of the water, then up onto the beach and back like a wind-up toy. Being cooped up on the boat all day, he'd slept between begging handouts and occasionally barking at birds, and all that pent up energy was now unleashed. Jan and I finally gave up tracking him with our flashlight.

We heard him crashing around, then stop, crash, and stop. I assumed the stops were dump sites, but had no way of knowing until the next morning, when we would repeat this little foray during daylight, and I could pick up his leavings.

"Here he comes again. Maybe he's done. I hope so, I'm beat," Jan said, yawning and stretching.

"Me too, I—" a loud yelp stopped me. Jan and I both leaped from the panga and ran toward the pitiful howls. Po Thang limped into the flashlight's beam, sat, lifted a paw and howled some more. As I took his foot for inspection, blood ran over my hand. Jan held the flashlight for me as Po Thang, who was obviously in pain, nevertheless allowed me to raise his leg and check the paw further.

"Stingray. He never learns."

We called the boat on our handheld, and by the time we got back, Rosa met us on deck with a large pot of one hundred ten degree water. Po Thang, still whimpering, ran over and put the paw in the water without any coaxing. For some reason he just couldn't learn to leave stingrays alone, but did know that when he put his foot in the water, the pain stopped. Evidently his doggy brain couldn't grasp the concept of cause and effect when it came to stingrays, but got the idea that hot water stopped the pain. Go figure.

Po Thang, now relatively pain-free, dozed off with his foot still in the water, while his humans fretted and watched as the milky venom and more blood leached from the wound—both good things in the treatment process. Rosa added more hot water every so often for the next hour, then finally declared we'd done enough. Chino smeared antibiotic on the wound, and wrapped it in a bandage, which I knew would be chewed off by the next morning. 

"Okay, Po Thang, it's Astroturf for you for the next week," I told him as Jan and I walked him back to my cabin. "You just never learn."

"Well, hell, he's your dog. Why shouldn't he mimic his master. Mistress? Whatever?"

"I'm capable of learning," I protested. "I got an engineering degree."

"We're talking life lessons here, and since when has that ever happened?"

"Since, uh, well it
has
happened."

She rolled her eyes and headed for her cabin.

"Well, it
could
happen," I yelled after her.

"In the meanwhile, you and that dawg of yours had better keep the kettle hot, Chica."