Orange Blossoms & Mayhem (Fantascapes)

by Blair Bancroft

  My cell phone sounded its cheery tinkling chime. “Did you get any sleep?” I asked Flint, keeping my voice cool while certain parts of me slithered into a tango.

  “Couple of hours. How about pizza and a movie? Tonight.” Evidently, the sergeant wasn’t much given to small talk.

  I opened my mouth to say I was busy, consigned my family to limbo instead. I told him I’d love to. Mm-m-m, great. Things were back on track.

  Mom was understanding when I called her. Too much so. Almost like . . . thank God Lainie’s got a date. We’d begun to worry.

  The next time my cell rang, I was up to my neck in bubble bath. If it was Viktor, I was going to shred his blasted eggs before they got off the drawing board.

  It was Max Arendsen. Direct from Cuzco, bypassing Paolo Jimenez. “Miss Halliday, Fantascapes came highly recommended, but let me tell you two mix-ups is completely unacceptable—”

  Uh-oh. “Tell me what’s happened, Mr. Arendsen. I assure you Fantascapes will take care of it.”

  “The authorities in Cuzco say we have no permit for the Inca Trail.”

  “Mr. Arendsen, I spoke to the UGM personally nearly two months ago, confirming the guide’s request. It’s got to be some kind of mistake. Bureaucratic nonsense.”

  “Yeah, well, when I told them that, I got the blank stare,” Max Arendsen snapped. “And when they repeated they couldn’t find the paperwork, I figured cash might work. Damned near got tossed in jail for my so-called effrontery. Hildy and I are scheduled to take the train to Kilometer 88 day after tomorrow, so what now?”

  Max Arendsen could be forgiven if his voice rose on the final sentence. If I were the client, I doubt I would have been so polite.

  “Mr. Arendsen, I’m going to catch the next plane to Peru. I should be in Lima tonight so I can make a few calls to the right places first thing tomorrow morning. If all goes well, I’ll be in Cuzco by noon. Meanwhile, adjust to the altitude, enjoy the sights. You won’t believe the size of the stones at Sacsayhuaman. It must have taken an army to move them into place.”

  He actually chuckled. “You’re good, Ms. Halliday, I’ll give you that. You may actually pull this off. To Hildy’s disappointment, I might add. She’s been a sport about it, but I’m afraid she didn’t fancy this trip the way I did.”

  “Make that present tense, Mr. Arendsen. The best is yet to come. I’ve seen Machu Picchu and I guarantee it. As Fantascapes guarantees its arrangements. Come Tuesday, you’ll be on the Inca Trail.” Given the inevitable combination of government red tape and intractable obstinacy, I was really sticking my neck out with that one. I could picture Dad shaking his head.

  After I hung up, I closed my eyes for ten seconds, wondering what I’d done to piss off the gods of good fortune. Since Peruvian adventures were one of Fantascapes’ favorite offerings, I knew the flight schedules by heart. Less fortunately, making the 4:42 out of Miami was going to be tight. A brief call to Dad to report the bad news. A call to our faithful flight mechanic who lives across the street from our local Class D airport. A call, just as brief, to Flint.

  So much for my love life.

  Since I keep a bag packed with essentials and travel clothes in a special spot at one end of my closet, I was out the door in under thirty minutes. (Why, at the last minute, I squeezed in my hiking boots, I can only chalk up to one of my weird premonitions.) The drive to the airport took all of five minutes. (Golden Beach is a very small city.) The Fantascapes Beech Bonanza was fueled and ready when I got there. I climbed in, threw my bag in back, settled in the pilot’s seat, and closed the door. Slipped on my head phones and mike, checked the instrument panel. Kicked over the engine. While Bella warmed up—I’ve heard it’s sexist these days for machines to be female, but Bella and I are old friends. She’s got a bit of age on her, but it was all Dad could afford back then, and she’s like that old shoe with the good fit. I graduated from a Cessna Skylane to Bella and never looked back. (If I failed to mention my flight lessons, I apologize. Just something to keep me out of trouble over my college summers, Dad said.)

  And I’ll let you in on a deep, dark secret, though I’ve never admitted it to a single soul since my teenage self chose her name. Bella is really BellaDonna. I’ve always enjoyed the private joke of flying a beautiful lady who is also the most deadly plant known to mankind. Laine Halliday and BellaDonna, a lethal combination, even if I’d never fired my gun at anything but a paper target.

  Anyway, while Bella warmed up, I filed an IFR plan with Flight Service for Golden Beach (HHA) to Miami International (MIA), then did a visual check of our waterfront airport directly behind the restaurant where Flint and I had our adventures last night. It wasn’t somnolent on a Sunday afternoon—we have a lot of weekend pilots—but at the moment both ground and air were clear. I taxied out to Runway 2 and gave Bella the gun. She zoomed off, straight and true, over the gulf.

  It was a short flight south to the Viola Intersection where I picked up Fort Myers Approach. I spoke into my two-way. “This is N73 Charlie Romeo at Viola Intersection, turning onto Victor Airway 579. Destination, Victor Airway 7 to MIA.”

  “N73 Charlie Romeo, acknowledged.”

  Basically, a flight from Golden Beach to Miami is a run of a hundred miles south and ninety miles east, but Bella and I were doing it along well-defined flight corridors that cut the sharp corners. I was handed off to Miami Approach in no time at all, the only tricky part of the flight fitting little Bella in between all the Air Buses, 747s and sundry other monster-sized airplanes circling, taking off, and landing at Miami International. Sure, it was Approach’s job to tell me when and where, but I always ended up wondering if the controller had had a fight with his or her spouse that morning or if someone in the family had died, or . . .

  Troubleshooters aren’t supposed to have nerves, but I was always glad to be on the ground in Miami.

  I taxied to my usual parking spot on the airport’s fringes, flashed my best smile at the mechanic who would care for my baby until I got back, then cadged a ride to the main terminal. I may not have arrived the required two hours early for an international flight, but I flew out of Miami often enough to make me a familiar face. Some joker might suggest a strip search, but I doubted it. That sort of thing was left to machines these days.

  I skidded to a halt at the solid mass of people waiting in the security line. Ah, the latino temperament—at least half the passengers were checking in late. For the first time since Mr. Arendsen’s call, I felt tension drain away. Sure, it was just another assignment—something I’d done so many times I’d lost count—but the pressure for perfection never let up. It was Laine Halliday to the rescue, no excuses allowed. So it was a relief to know that for a few hours I could relax, because there was absolutely nothing I could do except stay in line, board the plane, eat, drink, and watch the sun set over the Pacific. By shortly after nine o’clock, I’d be in Lima. I’d catch some sleep at an airport hotel, make my phone calls in the morning, and be in Cuzco for lunch.

  So far, so good. The Arendsens need not fear. Fantascapes’ troubleshooter was on the way.

  My first phone call the next morning was so successful I decided not to rattle any more cages at the moment. An unfortunate mistake, Ms. Halliday. It will be dealt with immediately. But not so unfortunate an error, my contact in the tourist ministry added silkily, if it brought the lovely Laine Halliday back to Peru. Even if I were unkind enough to go straight to Cuzco.

  “Carlos, my angel,” I returned in my best imitation of sultry, “next time I’ll stop in Lima, I promise. Hasta lo vista y muchas gracias.

  Cuzco, the Rome of the Inca Empire, lies in a deep bowl ringed by high plateaus and precipitous hillsides. Its red tile roofs topped original Inca walls and lesser structures created by rolling stones down the mountain from the great fortress of Sacsayhuaman. Cuzco abounds in genuine Inca walls, perfectly fitted without mortar, plus buildings created in the Spanish style by descendants of the Conquistadores, and bastard examples of cultural amalgam
ation, such as the sad fate of the great Inca Temple of the Sun.

  Thirty minutes after landing, I walked into the office of our preferred local tour company, Inca Explorations. I’d dressed for the occasion in the same clothes I would have worn if I’d taken Carlos up on his offer of Pisco Sours and seviche at one of Lima’s finest old hotels. Slinky black slacks, gathered at the waist and falling full over my shiny black leather half-boots. A matching hip-length jacket, buttonless over a sparkling white silk shirt fastened at the neck by a black lace jabot. My bronze hair was slicked back in an Evita Peron chignon; my earrings solid gold, and looked it. Big City Girl. Not from Cuzco. Certainly not from Golden Beach, Florida. For the men of Peru, the holders of power, I was suitably feminine. I was also a Somebody, with power of my own.

  Damn right.

  The Inca Explorations office is on a narrow street, flanked by Inca stonework, not far from Cuzco’s central Plaza de Armas. I was expected. Apologies, apologies. Abject apologies. A grave mistake. A phone call had come, ten days ago, canceling the Arendsen’s trek. Undoubtedly, a nasty joke. Perhaps a competitor? But since Fantascapes was such a good friend to Peru’s tourist industry, an exception had been made. All would be ready for the Arendsen’s departure tomorrow morning.

  I stared at the ageless owner of our favorite local tour company, a mestizo who possessed a name so unpronounceable by a non-Quechua that nearly everyone settled for Roberto. “You’re saying someone canceled our booking?”

  “Si.” Minus the headfeathers, Roberto was doing a nice imitation of an antique wooden cigar-store Indian.

  “That’s absurd.” But I’d have to accept it and move on or the Arendsens were going to be taking the tourist train to Machu Picchu without ever setting foot on the storied Inca Trail. “Sorry,” I said, summoning a weak smile, “I’ll deal with that problem later.”

  I inquired after Roberto’s wife and children and a favorite guide who had recently retired. Sympathized with some juicy political maneuverings between the high Andes and the alleged idiots on the coastal plain in Lima. When all the amenities had been properly observed, we went over the Arendsen’s schedule for the next week—four days on the Trail, three days at Machu Picchu, then back to Cuzco on the late afternoon tourist train.

  I shook Roberto’s hand, thanked him for deftly juggling his guides and porters in order to save Fantascapes’ bacon, and headed back to the hotel where I was scheduled to meet the Arendsens for a late lunch. (I’d learned to switch to Spanish time when operating in Peru. Otherwise a girl could embarrass herself looking for food three hours before the kitchens were ready to serve.)

  Since Cuzco’s most unique hotel, the Monasterio—where we’d booked theArendsens, and where I’d dropped my suitcase on my way to Inca Explorations—was only a few blocks away, I decided to walk back. The Monasterio, as the name implies, was once a monastery. Built in 1592, it is now a distinguished hotel, with rounded arched ceilings, refectory tables, and galleried walkways around a flower-filled central courtyard. It even has a chapel, ornamented with enough gold to make a thief bawl in frustration. All part of the Fantascapes package and, lucky me, I got to stay there too.

  I was almost out of the narrow street and into the central Plaza de Armas—where the great cathedral allegedly holds the body of Francisco Pizarro, whose conquistadores put paid to the Inca empire—when it hit me. The dreaded soroche. Mountain sickness. I couldn’t breathe. My knees threatened to buckle, my stomach roiled. People who live at sea level are not supposed to dash off an airplane at an altitude ten thousand feet higher than they’d been an hour earlier in Lima, taxi into town, and take care of business without a pause for adjustment—usually coca tea and a couple of hours in bed, but today I hadn’t had time. I leaned against one of the Inca stone walls while my lungs gasped for air. Laine Halliday, clever, sophisticated troubleshooter, reduced to a puling infant. Thank God no one was looking.

  There was a singing sound, a whirring—I thought it was my head until something whizzed by my hip. Thunk. Splat. By the time the odd contraption settled onto the cobbled sidewalk, I was four feet away, with my back flat against the solid Inca stonework. I stared. Uncomprehending.

  Sorry, wrong word. I knew what I was seeing. I simply didn’t believe it.

  A ragged coil of rope lay on the cobbled sidewalk. Three ropes, actually, bound together with a ball at the end of each. A bolas. Someone had thrown a bolas at me. And missed. Miraculously, for I’d been a fixed target. I scanned the narrow side street. Nothing moved. Nothing visible but me and the bolas.

  Splat? Not the sound I’d expect from wood or stone balls. I stepped forward, picked up the bolas. The balls had been fashioned from some kind of gourd, and were now smashed almost beyond recognition. If they’d hit me, they might have left a nasty bruise, but a lethal weapon they weren’t. Which meant . . .

  Somebody resented well-dressed turistas? The highlands of Peru had been a hot bed of Mau-inspired revolution only a decade ago

  Or, put together with our recent problems in Peru, Fantascapes had an enemy. Most likely a rival who wanted to scare us off.

  Or was it personal?

  No way. My stock in trade is an ability to get my way without ruffling feathers, particularly sensitive male feathers. I almost never piss people off. I was in the holiday business, not . . .

  Oh, shit! The brothers. Logan and Doug could easily have enemies lined up from Terra del Fuego to Archangelsk. From Dublin to Peking. And if any one of their enemies wanted revenge, guess who was the youngest, most visible, most vulnerable link in the Halliday chain.

  Since I didn’t fancy being anyone’s pound of flesh—I mean, if someone wanted payback on the Hallidays, the least he could to do to demonstrate his machismo was tackle the ones over one-fifty. With penises.

  Yuck! The thought of my brothers as anything but asexual was enough to overcome my altitude sickness and propel me down the block, across the Plaza de Armas and into the lobby of the Monasterio.

  My weak knees stiffened still further and my heaving stomach froze to ice when I caught sight of a familiar face. Not the Arendsens, whom I’d never met, but Arlan Trevellyan, slithering owner of Personal Genie, one of Fantascapes’ rivals. He’s based in Toronto, and if I jumped to instant conclusions about what he was doing in Cuzco, it was no one’s fault but his.

  Arlan saw me and dashed over, oozing a greeting. “Laine, darling, imagine meeting you here!” He embraced me in a cloud of sickeningly sweet men’s cologne. I gritted my teeth and oozed right back. Arlan is a smarmy type, who, I suspect, swings AC-DC. If you don’t know him well, it’s easy to miss that he has the instincts of a piranha and the ethics of an inside trader. I was willing to bet he was guilty of swinging the bolas in some kind of a twisted joke that had come a trifle closer to me than planned. Hey, Laine, welcome to Cuzco!

  Light dawned. Arlan was likely responsible for the Arendsens’ troubles, from the airplane in Nazca to the canceled permit for the Inca Trail. He denied it, of course.

  He’d heard about the Arendsen’s problems, he admitted, unctuously sympathetic. I wanted to drop-kick him all the way to the bar. Unfortunately, that wouldn’t fit the Fantascapes image. I returned his false smile with a smirk of my own, as if I knew something he didn’t, and enjoyed his puzzled frown as I waved bye-bye. For a man who seems to be such a dim bulb, I’d often wondered how Arlan could think up so many ways to cause trouble.

  A half hour later I joined Max and Hildy Arendsen in the hotel dining room. My lingering headache was more likely the result of my brain’s whirling speculations than Cuzco’s elevated position on the Andes plateau. I was Laine Halliday, on-site rep for Fantascapes, and I would grovel and smile and grovel as much as it took to smooth the ragged edges of Arendsen’s trip and nudge them back into the world where dreams were fulfilled. To do so, I was even authorized to offer what I considered a shockingly large refund. But Dad had decreed, and I’d comply. Glitches were not allowed, and the Arendsens had been beset by two of them.<
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  Wait ’til Dad heard about the cancellation. And the bolas. I’d like to keep the thunk-splat to myself, but professional had been drummed into me for years, which meant I didn’t hold back what might be important information from the Boss. Still . . . Dad was so overprotective that twenty-seven-years-old or not, I’d likely be grounded ’til the next millennium. And who knew, besides me and the guy who threw it? It wasn’t as if he’d meant to kill me . . .

  Max and Hildy Arendsen were typical Fantascapes clients. He, a self-made multi-millionaire—the manufacturer of pipe in every size and shape, as I recalled; she, the woman he’d married on the way up. No trophy wife, but a solid salt-of-the-earth mid-Westerner who had hired us to arrange her husband’s dream trip for a fiftieth birthday present. All she knew about the Nazca lines was that there were people who thought E.T.s made them. And to Hildy Arendsen, Machu Picchu was as fictional as Shangri-la. But that’s what Max wanted to see, and that’s what Max was going to get. Even if she had to suffer through every boring, incomprehensible minute of it.

  Hildy had contacted us through our web site, with all details handled by phone, mostly by Karen, my mother. Mom’s the one who suggested adding the Inca Trail. So Hildy had gulped, and said, “Hey, why not?”

  And now here they were, far from home, depending on me to come through with their fantasy, as planned. The maitre d’ pulled out a chair for me, bowed himself away. Max was what you’d expect of a successful exec. Bright, confidant, attractive. And in his case, well-built, even if his salt and pepper hair was thinning a bit on top. (A thorough physical was a requirement before we book our clients on a four-day walk that includes a pass at 14,000 feet.) Hildy, though, was a surprise. I’m not sure what I expected, but it wasn’t this nicely put-together package that looked closer to forty than fifty, her short dark hair topping a figure I’d be grateful to have when I hit her age.