The Sea Horse Trade

by Sasscer Hill

  “Excuse me,” I said and walked away from Currito, down the shedrow to La Bruja’s empty stall.

  Except it wasn’t empty. Victor stood in the shadows, turned so his side faced me. I stared as he snorted the contents of a rolled bill up his nose. Jesus Christ, no wonder Currito was upset. Who wouldn’t be, with an idiot “relative” like this snorting what must be cocaine? Anyone on the backstretch could have peered into the stall and seen him.

  Victor still didn’t notice me as he wiped two fingers under his nose and let the hundred-dollar bill unroll in his other hand. I could see the white powder from the stall entrance where I stood. I remembered what Jim had said about substance transfer. Had it been Victor that day? Had he rubbed his hand on Diablo? Touching Diablo would have been enough to transfer the drug into the colt’s system.

  “Listen, you idiot!” I said. “Get that crap out of my barn. Now!”

  The guy turned his head toward me slowly, not in the least alarmed. “Or what? You’ll tell Currito? He is my uncle. He will do nothing.” His lips spread in a slow, arrogant smile.

  “Victor!” Currito had moved silently to stand behind me. “You dishonor your family! I have warned you about this before. I will not tolerate your disrespect.”

  “You think you are the great man,” Victor hissed. “I could tell her things about you. I could tell her—”

  Currito rushed past me. “Enough!” he yelled, then slapped Victor’s face, the sound ringing in the narrow confines of the stall. “You want to end up like your father?”

  Victor’s eyes smoldered with a low-burning hate, but he followed his uncle from the stall. I seemed unable to breathe until the two of them disappeared from the barn moments later.

  My head spun with questions like a slot machine until it settled on a triple jackpot. Was Victor the son of Currito’s dead brother?

  CHAPTER 41

  By the time Orlando and I fed our four horses, finished cleaning the shedrow, and hung up our freshly washed bandages and saddle towels to dry, the sun had moved well toward the western horizon. To the east, between two tall condos, I glimpsed a half moon rising over the ocean.

  Stretching, I savored the mingled scents of fresh laundry, liniment, and molasses. Watching Diablo snatching wisps of hay from his net was both familiar and comforting.

  Orlando leaned his wheelbarrow against the shedrow wall and hung his rake upside down on a nail driven into the wood siding.

  “So, Nikki, you work things out with Señor Maldonista?”

  “He wasn’t really mad about the race,” I replied. “I think it was something else.”

  “Si,” Orlando said, “he not happy with the guy he bring with him. I think this man is the one we see here before Diablo’s race.”

  No flies on Orlando.

  “You could be right,” I said, watching him, curious about his thoughts.

  “This sobrino. How you say, nephew?”

  I nodded. “Yes.”

  “This nephew, he very angry with Señor Maldonista. I think he rub cocaine on Diablo to hurt su tio.”

  To hurt his uncle. It made sense. People could be vindictive. And maybe in this case it was warranted. Except Victor had taken it out on the horse, too.

  “So what do you think, Orlando?” I asked.

  “Me?” He flipped his hair back on one side, then shrugged. “I think we no get involved. We do nothing wrong. The policia have no case against us.”

  I couldn’t blame him for his response. His green card was not the same thing as citizenship, and he didn’t want to be shipped back to Mexico.

  “Okay,” I said. “Let’s forget about it for now.”

  “Bueno.”

  My cell began vibrating. Glancing at the ID, I took the call from Carla.

  “Hey,” she said. “I hear it will be warm this evening. We should try Azure here at the Diplomat. You want to come down for dinner?”

  Azure. The outdoor bar and restaurant I’d glimpsed through the glass wall of the Diplomat lobby. It wasn’t like I was having dinner with Will or anything. He hadn’t called again, and I was damned if I was going to call him.

  “Sure,” I replied. “Let me finish some paperwork and clean up. Meet you in an hour?”

  * * * *

  I walked through Diplomat’s lobby and stepped onto the rear terrace. The light had begun to fade, but when I paused at the top of a tiled staircase, I could see the ocean foaming to the shore farther down. Though the raw scent of saltwater and sand hung in the air, the hotel had tamed the beach with terraces, dining areas, swimming pools, and concrete planters overflowing with tropical flowers. For all these efforts, the ocean crashing against the shoreline below remained wild and unruly.

  One terrace down, I spotted Carla in a plunge-neck white dress. She sat on a wicker chair at a low table, where candle light reflected off the glasses of two cocktails. No surprise to see Rick seated there, too.

  Carla and Rick belonged on a nineteen forties movie set. Approaching them, I wondered how he paid for his wardrobe on a Vice cop’s salary. His tropical-blue tee shirt looked like silk and so did his white jacket and pants. Fabric didn’t flow and drape like that if it wasn’t expensive.

  After greetings, I sat, and Rick ordered me a drink.

  Turning to him, I said, “I was wondering what happened to Lena. Is she okay?”

  His jaw tensed slightly. “She’s fine.”

  “Can I see her?” My question popped out, surprising me as much as it seemed to startle Rick.

  “No.” His voice held more patience than annoyance. “I can’t really talk about her. Immigration is involved now. Suffice it to say the girl is foreign and will be going home.”

  “Really?” Carla asked. “Don’t you need her to testify at a trial or something?”

  He smiled. “You two are relentless. Let it go, okay?”

  “Okay,” she said, “but you better be more forthcoming about my daughter than you are about Lena.”

  “You know I will,” he said, leaning toward her, his hand closing over hers. “I already promised you.”

  The waiter broke the silence by appearing with my drink. Carla watched me take my first sip, and I could see her little mental cat feet changing direction. She was about to pounce.

  “Nikki, have you seen Will?”

  “No.”

  Carla waved an impatient hand at Rick and me. “I could grow old and die before I ever dragged information from you two. What is up with Will, anyway?”

  “Nothing,” I answered and switched to one of Carla’s favorite subjects—clothes.

  “Rick, that is one nice suit you’re wearing.”

  “Isn’t it gorgeous!” Carla said. “Can you believe it used to belong to a drug dealer?”

  I stared at Rick. “You got that out of a drug bust?”

  He grinned. “Well…it might have originally belonged to a wealthy Cuban currently enjoying the hospitality of the US federal prison system.”

  Apparently closed cases made safe subjects, and he warmed right to it, leaning back in his chair. If he’d had a cigar, he would have struck a match and fired it up.

  “You wouldn’t believe how cheap we can get confiscated items.”

  “And first pick, too,” Carla said.

  “Anyway,” he continued, “these crooks are not exactly rocket scientists. I was working a working a case with the DEA, right? We bust this character, Larigo. He’s got a ton of cash in his suitcase and enough cocaine to elevate half of Fort Lauderdale.”

  Rick was having a good time, and Carla’s eyes glowed as she listened to him.

  “So, Larigo, he starts yelling, ‘I’ve never seen this money before. I don’t know how it got in my suitcase.’ But he wants a receipt when we confiscate the cash, right? So I write him one for a hundred and fifty grand, and he looks at it and freaks. Starts yelling, ‘This is wrong! There was two hundred and fifty-seven thousand, five hundred dollars in that suitcase!’”

  Carla burst out laughing, and I may have s
nickered. Rick continued telling war stories, a nice enhancement to the dinner that followed. I enjoyed myself and relaxed. When we finished our plates, Rick excused himself to make a phone call.

  Carla stretched in her chair, causing the tops of her breasts to round and gleam in the light from the candles. “I really like Rick.”

  “You should,” I said. “He’s funny as hell. Cute, too.”

  She grew quiet for a moment. “So tell me about Will.”

  I pushed my empty plate away. “How would you like it if you’d been going out with Rick, thinking the whole time he was in the hotel business only to find out he’s an undercover cop? That he lied to you?”

  “I see your point,” she said. “But, Nikki, I think you have a lot of trouble trusting men in the first place.”

  I couldn’t argue with that and shrugged.

  “After the way you ran out of that motel room, he might be afraid to call you right away. I’m telling you, this guy is crazy about you, Nikki. Call him.”

  “I’ll think about it,” I said.

  Rick’s cop tales were more fun than Carla’s questions. I was afraid the subject of Jade would come up again, too. Carla might read me and know I was holding out on her. I didn’t want to lie to her again, but how could I tell her where I was going with Klaire in about twenty-four hours?

  Damn. Apparently I was going to the auction.

  “Carla,” I said, placing two twenties on the table. I didn’t want her paying for my dinner on top of everything else. “I’m really tired. Would you say goodnight to Rick for me? I’ve got a big day ahead of me tomorrow.”

  “Sure.”

  When I hurried up the steps, I could feel her watching me walk away. I retrieved my Toyota from the parking lot. Driving along South Ocean, I flipped on the radio. Some guys who sounded like they’d been on a three-day bender were singing a mournful song about a “memory motel.”

  I hit the steering wheel with the side of my fist. Damn Will Marshall, anyway.

  CHAPTER 42

  I tried not to squirm as I sat at Klaire’s vanity table. Her bedroom was another surprise in her outwardly dilapidated and seedy home. At the back of the house, invisible from the street, the room rose to a cathedral ceiling, punctuated with skylights. Klaire’s cottage took “shabby chic” to new extremes. Through the room’s tall French windows, just visible in the dusk outside, thick hedges and palms shielded this part of her house from her neighbors’ eyes and the street.

  Klaire stood next to me attaching another auburn-and-copper-streaked extension to my hair. She’d rinsed it earlier with copper color.

  She wore a head cloth and peasant outfit in dusky purple-and-black. She had a can of mace on the table and had armed herself with a full set of astrological rings and necklaces. A large leather bag lay on the floor next to her. I didn’t want to know what was in there.

  “You make a pretty gypsy woman,” she said, studying me in the vanity’s mirror. “The men will flock to get their palms read.”

  “But I don’t know anything about reading palms.” In vain I tried to scratch the back of my head. Klaire had sprayed, ratted, and pinned my hair to death.

  “It’s very simple. Let me explain it to you again,” she said patiently. “Read their dominant palm.”

  “I know, I know. Ask them if they are left handed or right handed.” I was going to be so busted when I tried to do this.

  “Exactly. Tell them lines are not written into the human hand without reason. Get them in the mood.” She grasped my left hand, pointed at the marks she’d inked into place earlier. “Life, head, and heart,” she murmured.

  The astrological symbols she’d drawn on the “mounts” of my palms looked like art from a medieval scroll. I especially liked the little quarter moon she’d inked onto my “luna” mount, the area near my wrist below my little finger.

  “Won’t they think I’m using a cheat sheet?” I asked.

  “No. They’ll love it. It validates you in their minds. Gives them something to focus on, encourages them to reveal themselves to you.”

  Nikki Latrelle, con artist.

  * * * *

  By the time Klaire finished with me, coppery hair cascaded down my shoulders, over my low-cut peasant top. I wore a turquoise plastic wrist band that identified me as a party employee, a long blue skirt, moccasin-boots, and a heavy necklace made of astrological symbols. Beneath the skirt, I wore nylon cargo shorts. Side slits hidden in the folds of the skirt allowed access to the pockets of the pants.

  Klaire had spread grease paint the color of café latte over the pale skin of my face, neck, and chest, and smoked my eyes with dark blue shadow, heavy black liner, and mascara. I looked pretty cool, but was too nervous to enjoy it.

  It hadn’t helped when Klaire told me she’d been receiving dark messages from the other side. She’d refused to tell me what they were, other than we had to be very careful. Carla, too. Hadn’t helped when she’d given me a small dagger, a tiny vial of knock out drops, and a little can of pepper spray to stash in one of the pockets of my cargo pants. The other was loaded with a handful of three-quarter-inch cherry bombs.

  What was her plan? Knock everyone out and blow the place up?

  As she finished her own makeup, I pulled the two-inch glass vial from my cargo pocket and held it up. “Will this stuff really knock someone out?”

  “Cold enough to take their money or anything else you want. One drop will do it.”

  “What happens if I spill it? Will it absorb through my skin?”

  “Better you don’t find out,” Klaire said.

  CHAPTER 43

  It was almost dark when Klaire and I walked between the huge stone columns supporting the portico of a mansion. Modeled in the classic style of the Romans, the structure stood by a lagoon of the Atlantic Ocean. The double entry doors stood wide open. We passed through into a broad hallway of green-and-black marble where our footsteps echoed off the cold, polished floor. Reaching the hall’s end, we entered an enormous ballroom with a domed ceiling featuring a fresco of lecherous gold satyrs and shy nymphs.

  To the immediate right of the entrance, a magnificent stone staircase with a carved marble balustrade climbed to a gallery that ran at right angles to the front and rear walls. A single arched door led from the gallery into the building behind. Two men dressed in white robes stood in this doorway and peered down at us.

  I stared back at them, then whispered to Klaire. “What is this? A toga party?”

  She gave me a warning glance and nodded in the direction of a gauzy, white tent that looked like it had been stolen from a movie set about Cleopatra.

  “That’s where we set up,” she said.

  As we moved toward the back of the room, Klaire told me the party—a celebration of the fiftieth birthday of a local billionaire also connected to the flesh trade—was cover for the auction. Apparently most of the attendees didn’t even know an auction was taking place.

  Our twenty-foot-wide tent stretched between two green-and-black marble columns. There were a number of these columns and they formed a ring inside the square room. Looking up, I saw they supported the massive dome. I got dizzy staring at one of the satyrs who leered down at me from the ceiling so far above.

  I took a steadying breath and followed Klaire into the tent. Two small tables inlaid with zodiac signs stood before a curtain.

  “Do we sit at the tables?” I asked.

  “No, you sit at one, and the man who handles my visitors sits at the other.”

  “Who is he?” I asked.

  “A friend. He’ll be here shortly.”

  I’d lay odds the gold curtain behind the tables was there to separate Klaire’s section from us underlings.

  Noise from the ballroom made me glance back. Workmen rolled boxes of liquor and setups to a bar on the left side of the room. Caterers worked at large tables decorated with glittering candelabra and arrangements of red roses. They placed trays, bowls, chafing dishes, and plates laden with food among the
flowers and candles.

  To the right beneath the gallery, a stage held a piano, speakers, numerous microphones, and a drum set emblazoned with the name “Dagger.” I hadn’t known the rap artist who’d performed the night of Jade’s disappearance would be the evening’s talent. No way this was a coincidence. A roadie on the stage tested a microphone. His electrified voice echoed eerily from the domed ceiling.

  Behind me, Klaire was leaning a placard against my zodiac table. The sign read, “Zayna, Palmist Extraordinaire.”

  “Cool,” I said. “How much do I cost?”

  “You don’t,” she said. “You’re the free come on. I’m the main event.”

  She parted the gold curtain, revealing a long gilded table with curlicues carved into the front edge and legs. Her crystal ball sat dead center. A throne-like chair stood behind the table facing one of her sphinx-headed client seats.

  “When did you bring this stuff in?” I asked.

  “Earlier. The man who will sit next to you brought it in.”

  “So, does this guy have a name?”

  “Today his name is Ajeet.”

  * * * *

  A while later, Ajeet—a slender Indian, or maybe Pakistani, of indeterminate age—swayed near the top of a stepladder that wobbled in front of Klaire’s curtain. He wore a turban and robe and carefully hung a gold-and-black sign advertising, “Klaire Voyante: Renowned Mystic, Channeler, and Psychic.”

  Since no one was looking, I allowed myself an eye roll. Then Ajeet climbed down from the ladder, which he folded and carried away.

  I stared at my inked hand for the hundredth time, muttering, “The lines on the hand are not written without reason.” I examined the markings nature had drawn on my left palm. Did the X on my heart line represent Will? And what about the crooked, deep cross on my lifeline that seemed to coincide with the present time? Did it suggest serious trouble?

  Ajeet returned and saw my face. “It will all work out.”

  “Sure,” I said.

  When he lit several sticks of incense in a ceramic burner on his table, I waved away the smoke. The gold curtain behind us parted, and Klaire stepped out just as a pungent whiff of spices drifted to me from the food tables. It mingled with the heady scent of roses, freshly sliced bar citrus, and Ajeet’s choking incense.