Just Follow the Money

by Jinx Schwartz

  Nacho and I glared at each other for a second, and then we both picked up our drinks and took a slug. “You’re right. I was out of line, Nacho. I’m sorry.”

  Nacho first looked suspicious, then grabbed his heart and feigned shock. “Someone! Please write that down? Hetta said I was right, and she apologized! This calls for another drink.”

  His antics broke the tension and everyone relaxed. We all headed for the bar and refreshed our drinks. I took my Campari Soda back to the settee and settled in, satisfied that I had disarmed Nacho with that fake apology. For the time being, because I needed him, I relegated the subject to a back burner. Or more like in the refrigerator, since revenge is best served cold.

  As soon as everyone gathered again, I asked, “Where were we before Jan threatened me and Nacho with dunce caps? Oh, yeah, now I remember. Chef Roberto, you said the man who is paying us is your grandfather? And he’s obviously a Mexican who can seriously carry a grudge since it’s been over a hundred and fifty years since the French invaded Mexico. By the way, you might not want to tell him that one of my Prussian ancestors worked as a mercenary for Emperor Maximillian I. Of course, he hightailed it across the border into Texas before they hanged the emperor, but with our jefe’s penchant for keeping score, he just might want his money back.”

  Martinez cleared his throat loudly and growled, “How about we can the history lessons and squabbling, find the girl, and get us all back home for Christmas?”

  Everyone, except for that stone-faced seal-type dude, started talking at once, and Fabio held up his hand for quiet. “I think we can all agree to that,” he said. “Except maybe for Hetta on the history thing. For those of you who have not had the privilege of being stuck on a yate for long periods with her, her family's historia is a constant topic of conversation.”

  Groans of agreement and head bobbles showed solidarity from my so-called friends. Even my best bud, Jan, looked like a bobblehead and I swear, so did my faithless dog. See what happens when you hang out with those of mongrelized backgrounds? “Hey, at least I know where I come from. Anyhow, this boss of ours, does he have a name?”

  “¡Caramba!” Nacho said, throwing his hands in the air dramatically. “I told Jenks sending you down here was a bad idea! He said he would make sure you stay out of our investigation. Read my lips. You. Do. Not. Need. To. Know. More. Comprende? Any leaks about the man’s true status in Mexico might...will...make my job much harder.”

  “Jeez, calm down, Ignacio. I get it. We’re just window dressing, and you’re the big bad dicks.”

  Even Martinez had to chuckle, but his came out more like someone drowning.

  Jan shot me a warning look. “Message received, Nacho. We’d never do anything to endanger that poor girl. Would we, Hetta?”

  “Of course not. So, all you want us to do is hang around looking cute and vapid?”

  “Not at all. Your job, and that of Jan and Rhonda, is to make yourselves quite visible while staying out of my way. And out of trouble. Our job,” he waved his arm at the men in the room, “is to remain invisible while executing our mission.”

  Jan and I shared a glance and Nacho caught it. “I mean it, you two. We had to move so fast on this we didn’t have time to get anyone else, and Jenks has assured us you will be more than willing to simply party, shop, eat, drink, and act like tourists.”

  “You can certainly count on Hetta to eat and drink. Put me down for that shopping part,” Jan said, “as long as it's with OPM.”

  “Yeah, Jan's an expert at spending Other People's Money.”

  Jan and I squared off, preparing for a spat, but Nacho interrupted. “Please, ladies. Let us stay on topic.”

  “Well, then, get to the topic, Ignacio,” I growled, using his despised first name again.

  Rhonda clapped her hands with glee and cooed, “Oh, this is going to be so much fun!”

  Chapter Eleven

  “So, what do we know? Give me words,” Jan said, waving her fingers in a come here motion.

  Po Thang saw the gesture and tried to crawl into her lap. He got rebuffed for his effort, lest he squash the laptop balanced on a pillow as Jan sat cross-legged on my divan. We were finishing off our pre-dinner drinks and discussing what we remembered from that less-than-informative earlier briefing.

  “I thought Nacho said we weren’t to do any sleuthing on our own,” Rhonda said, sounding all teacherly.

  Jan and I broke into raucous laughter.

  “Yeah, when pigs fly,” I said.

  “Or Hetta tells the truth for one whole day.”

  “Or hell freezes over.”

  “Or….”

  Jan was trying to come up with yet another cliché when Rhonda giggled and said, “Okay, okay, I get it. So, what are we really gonna do?”

  “It’s a tried and true word game we play when we go into nosy mode,” I explained. “We always start with the basics. It’s sort of a brainstorming session we use. We just think up key words and names from what Nacho told us, Jan will string them together and input them into Google. That way we’ll try to learn more about what we don’t know from what we do know. I’ll start. La Paz, Rogoff, restaurant. The granddad is a prominent Mexican, and his first name is Juan.

  Jan looked up. “Oh, yeah, there’s a clue for you. A Mexican named Juan.”

  “Hey, it’s all we have.”

  Jan tapped the keys and named the clues as she input them. “Here we go. Rogoff, La Paz, Baja California Sur, restaurant. I gotta put in the Baja thing or we’ll get routed to Bolivia.” After a pause, she said, “First hit: El Molokan restaurant, touted as the best eatery in the Baja, owned by the Rogoff family. Well, yippee for that. Rogoff ain’t no ordinary name in Mexico. I was afraid we’d be dealing with a Garcia or Lopez.”

  “I can see where searching for Juan Garcia in Mexico might be a bit vague,” I joked. “Onward.”

  She bent back over the laptop and pounded keys. “According to a newspaper article that popped up, El Molokan has been in the same family for four generations, so let’s assume our chef is in that forth gen. That would make his great-grandfather’s family the founders. Here’s something interesting, Chef Roberto Rogoff is an only child and was setting up to follow in the family tradition by studying culinary arts in France, then after a brief stint at El Molokan, he upped and joined the military.”

  I thought that tidbit interesting. “Hmmm. Family fallout of some kind? One do wonder why. And I also find it interesting that he’s an only child. Not exactly the norm for a Mexican family. I do believe we are on a roll.”

  “You stereotyping, Miz Hetta?”

  “Naw, it’s just that most of our Mexican friends have big families. Then again, I know some who are going to fertility clinics. Hold on a sec.” I extracted a tablet from my briefcase and drew a rectangle at the top of a page. In it I printed, Grandfather: Juan Rogoff. Above it I drew another square: G-grandfather?

  “Okay, one box sort of down, more to go.” Four boxes below I wrote in Chef Roberto’s name. And so it went, piece by piece garnered from the internet until Jan found Roberto’s uncle. “Bingo! He’s married, with...ha! One daughter, Juanita Anna Maria de Cortés Rogoff, who, according to another newspaper article in the La Paz Daily, celebrated her quinceañera three years ago. I think we have our vic.”

  “What’s a quincewhatever?” Rhonda asked.

  “Fiesta de quinceañera. It’s a celebration of a girl’s fifteenth birthday. It’s really a religious ceremony, but is now more of a big party. Juanita is a real doll.” She turned the screen, showing us a photo of a real stunner. I had been expecting to see a dark-haired beauty, but was surprised she was a blue-eyed blonde. Either great-grandpaw’s Russian genes were mighty strong, or there was more than one gringo taking a dip in this family’s gene pool.

  Jan noted my look of surprise and scrolled the screen. “Take a gander at the mom.”

  “Wow,” Rhonda said. “She looks like a movie star. Who is she?”

  “A movie star. Or w
as, when she was younger. After she married Chef Roberto’s uncle, she retired. She’s American.”

  “So if we’re on the right track, no wonder they want this kept quiet. We have a tabloid’s dream here. Missing girl from a prominent family, a celebrity mother, and a grandfather either high up in the Mexican government, or some kind of mogul. Most times they are both. So, who the heck is our boss? Where does he belong on this chart? He evidently ain’t no hash slinger.” I tapped my tablet with my pencil.

  “Dunno. I don’t think he’s the girl’s maternal granddad, cuz she’s an American. So, get out more laptops, gang, and let us find that bugger. I’ll stay with the immediate family. Rhonda, you run the mom’s career...you know, the celebrity angle. Probably plenty out there.”

  “What about me?” I asked.

  “Just in case I’m off on the wrong track, you do some looking into the victim’s mother’s family. Who is her father’s father? I doubt it, but he could be the grandfather who seems to be running this show.”

  Before getting out my computer, I pulled up my hand-written chart and added a box for the mom’s father, and drew a line to her.

  Rhonda, excited to be included in our cyber sleuth-fest, took off to fetch her own laptop.

  We were all busily snooping when the red phone rang, announcing dinner in a half hour.

  “Make sure your computers are shut down and password protected,” I said, “then let’s doll up for dinner.

  Rhonda questioned the necessity of all the security on our computers.

  “Because,” I said, “this bunch of men seems untrustworthy.”

  “Sneakier than us?” she asked.

  “In their dreams.”

  Just for fun, we showed up for dinner dressed in our belly dancer outfits, which prompted a round of hoots and smart remarks from the men we knew. The two new players, Roberto Rogoff and Joe Smith, looked like they didn’t know what to think.

  Nacho seemed delighted. “When I said we wanted you to be conspicuous, I didn’t quite have this sort of thing in mind. Then he added with a fake leer, “Not that I mind.”

  In my best German accent I replied, “Vee vere only followink orders.” Clicking my finger cymbals in his face, I created a melodic ringing that stopped abruptly with my middle finger an inch from his nose. He jumped back, making everyone hoot again. Po Thang, not liking those zills on my fingers, retreated to stand behind Fabio, his newest best friend.

  “Don’t mess with Texas,” I warned Nacho.

  “How you gonna eat with all those flimsy things on your face?” the ever-practical Lieutenant Martinez rumbled.

  I released my face veil and gave him a low bow that included a rolling arm flourish that dislodged my center veil. “Good point, Master Marty.”

  Jan grabbed the end of the loose veil and teased, “I dunno, maybe you should leave this one in place. That belly of yours is a mite on the plump side.”

  “Whoever heard of a belly dancer without a belly?”

  The men wisely made no comment or sounds, but Rhonda unsuccessfully stifled a giggle. I forgave her, for she didn’t yet know not to mess with Texas.

  With apologies, our gourmet chef served tacos, refried beans, and rice for dinner. “I brought the beans and tortillas with me, but tomorrow I will visit the markets in town and stock up with better fare.”

  “Are you kidding, Chef?” I asked. “This is a real treat for me. We’ve been eating French cuisine for far too long. Time for comfort food. Maybe I’ll make some mac and cheese tomorrow, if I can find cheddar. Chances of finding Velveeta here are probably nil to none.”

  Jan quipped, “Try the imported gourmet section at that big supermarket. They seem to have everything under the sun.”

  “I will,” I said, as I purposely planted myself next to Joe Smith, the mystery dude from the Mexican Navy who remained nameless lest he have to kill us. I turned to him and asked, “So, what can we call you? Somehow Joe Smith just doesn’t seem quite right.”

  He looked at me with shark eyes and the others fell silent, watching our stare down, waiting to see who blinked first. After a full minute that seemed like an hour, he said, “Whatever you like.”

  “How about Cholo?”

  “Hetta!” Nacho warned. “Do not be rude.”

  I continued to stare at Joe, who suddenly grinned. “Cholo! Yes, it is good. I was one in my youth.”

  His youth? He still looked like a baby to me. Albeit a very large, and dangerous baby, no doubt. And with those ear studs and shiny black ponytail, he sure as hell didn’t resemble any military dude I’d ever seen in Mexico.

  Jan, who was evidently as curious as I was about the guy asked, “You were a gangbanger? I can’t quite picture you in low rider jeans and a wife beater shirt.”

  Nacho interceded. “That is quite enough. The less you know about … Cholo,” he sniggered at the name and rolled his eyes, “the better.”

  Jan, not one to be shut down easily, said, “Ya know, Cholo, with the right clothes and accoutrement, you’d fit right in with the gigolos around here.”

  Nacho beamed. “¡Perfecto! He will be Hetta’s, uh, companion.”

  “What? Whaddya mean, companion?” I yawped. I hate it when I yawp.

  “Like I said before, you are to be seen, preferably in the right places, mingling with people who live here and know things. And you speak French, so you can eavesdrop on conversations of others around you. At that, Hetta, you are an expert.”

  Did he just call me a busybody? Since I couldn’t think of a comeback to what was so true, I shrugged. I actually liked the plan, sort of, because it would put me smack dab in the middle of the investigation they wanted me out of, and I could tell them whatever I wanted to, since I was the French-speaking busybody. I guess. “So, Cho, you don’t speak French?”

  “No. Only Spanish and English.”

  “Then I guess we’ll make the perfect team.”

  It only occurred to me later that everyone seemed to think I was suited to play the part of an older woman being squired by a paid pretty boy escort.

  How depressing is that?

  Chapter Twelve

  After dinner, Jan, Rhonda, and I went back to work in my cabin, while Nacho took Po Thang for a walk.

  In our sweats, computers on our laps, we continued the search for more information on Grandpa and the girl we assumed was the kidnap victim, hoping we were not off on some wild goose chase and tracking the wrong girl. Everything we’d found to date pointed to Juanita, but without any assistance from Team Nacho, we had to follow all avenues.

  “Keep in mind that Grandpa might have gone Mexican, since we can’t seem to find a Juan Rogoff. Our boss signed his name as Juan on the email he sent me while we were still in Paris, so we have to roll with it.”

  Both Jan and Rhonda looked at me like I had a little too much wine with dinner. And after.

  “You wanna ‘splain that?” Jan drawled.

  “What if his mother was a Mexican? It’s the custom to use her last name, not the father’s. And, back in the day, some Latinized their first names. Even Carlos Slim was born Carlos Slim Helú, using his mom’s last name, even though both parents were of Lebanese descent and still named him Carlos, probably so he would fit in with other kids. Who knows? So, maybe the old man stuck with the Mexican way, losing that foreign sounding moniker in order to fit in. Do we have a clue as to his first name?”

  We all went back to work, Googling our little hearts out until Rhonda landed on a story of interest. She was starting to annoy me with all that reference book knowledge of hers, and was, of course, the one to hit pay dirt first. “Hey, I think I’ve got the granddad!”

  “What? How?” I tried not to sound irritated.

  “I started inputting keywords, like you guys taught me to.”

  Jan gave me a snarky smile. She’d picked up on my annoyance and enjoyed seeing me doing my best not to snip at Rhonda. “That’s great, Rhonda! You are such a quick learner.”

  Rhonda wiggled like a
praised puppy, prompting me to blurt, “Oh, for crap’s sake, what have you got?”

  “Hmmm. Someone needs wine,” Jan suggested.

  “I do not. Okay, Rhonda, want to share with us which word did the job?”

  “Molokan.”

  “Molokan?” Jan and I asked at the same time.

  “The restaurant?” I asked.

  “Nope. Guess what a Molokan is?”

  “I figured the restaurant was named after some Aztec god or something.”

  “Well, it isn’t. A long time ago, around the turn of the century, some Russians, called the Pryguny, immigrated to northern Baja.”

  We nodded, but I twirled my hand impatiently at Rhonda to get on with it.

  “And they were called Molokans.”

  “And this leads us to grandpa how?”

  “Well, Roberto’s last name is Rogoff, which is of Russian origin, so I checked out Russians living in the Baja and found this article. From there, I re-entered Molokan and came up with Rancho Molokan, which is a huge agro consortium in central Baja.”

  “Well, for cryin’ out loud, we’ve driven by there a hundred times, Hetta. I’ve seen the signs.”

  I recalled a large billboard near Vizcaino, and just thought it was some indigenous name.

  “Anyhow,” Rhonda went on, “it says here about a hundred families, who fled Russia to avoid the Czar’s military draft, first went to Turkey, then on to the Guadalupe Valley in Baja California.”

  “I’ve driven through there as well,” I said. “It’s wine country. Really pretty. If you cross the border at Tecate, you take a winding road through mountains and valleys, and you end up near Ensenada. Beautiful drive, with all kinds of wineries.”

  Rhonda nodded. “Yep, they bought thirteen thousand acres and settled in to grow grapes and other produce. Built a community, complete with church and all. Unfortunately for them, they were pacifists, so when they were threatened by Mexican squatters in the 1940’s, they just walked away. I looked up the family names of the settlers and found Rogoff. That’s Roberto’s last name.”