Wild Orchids

by Karen Robards

  “You ought to give it some thought, babe. Big man up there won’t be in charge forever. When my friends get here, everything’s going to change, and you better start thinking about getting on the right side.”

  “I am on the right side.” Lora moved away as she said it. She knew she ought to ignore Minelli, but he gave her the creeps. Having him in the cave was like having a fat white slug in a garden. She crossed to sit down next to Tunafish, who was munching his banana with a gloomy expression. Tunafish took another bite out of his fruit, then looked sideways to watch her peel her own.

  “You oughta tell Max if that slime-bag bothers you.”

  “You heard him, huh?”

  “Enough to know that he needs his mouth punched. Ordinarily, I’d be glad to oblige, but . . .” He gestured at his splinted leg. “But Max’ll take care of him for you.”

  Lora bit off a small portion of her banana and made a wry face. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

  Tunafish looked at her reflectively. “Afraid the boss might make it permanent, is that it? Well, you could be right. I ain’t never seen him protectin’ his woman before, but I once saw him break a man’s neck over an airplane. And a woman is a lot more important than an airplane.”

  “I’m not his ‘woman,’ Tunafish.” Her tone was repressive, and she concentrated on taking a series of small nibbles out of the side of her banana. She had always hated that term, and besides, it wasn’t true. And even if it was, she hated everyone knowing. Anyone knowing. She wasn’t comfortable enough with it herself yet. Anyway, true or not, she refused to be known as Max Maxwell’s “woman”!

  “Yeah. That’s why the two of you are always sneakin’ off someplace, and why Max ain’t had more than two hours’ sleep in two days, and why he was whistlin’ under his breath this morning. I didn’t even know the boss could whistle.

  “He was whistling?” Despite herself, she had to follow up on this. The idea intrigued her. If Max was whistling, it must mean he was happy, and if he was happy in their current predicament then she had to be the reason. And she liked knowing that she made him happy. It was a step in the right direction.

  “Mmm-hmmm. Sounded real cheerful. Ain’t like Max.”

  Lora thought about that, then smiled suddenly at Tunafish. “Thanks,” she said softly.

  “What for?”

  “For being such a nice man. For being my friend.”

  Tunafish looked suddenly embarrassed. His eyes dropped to his banana and he took a large bite.

  “ ’S okay,” he said around the mouthful. “Any friend of the boss’s, you know.”

  “Yeah, I know,” she said, mimicking his mumble. “Me, too.” And with another warm smile at him she stood up and went to join Max at the mouth of the cave.

  “You and Tunafish looked mighty cozy.”

  “Jealous?” The saucy question made him frown.

  “Nope.”

  “Good. Then I won’t have to worry about damaging your friendship when I tell you that I think Tunafish is a fantastic person.”

  “I think so, too. So does his wife, and three little kiddies.” Max was grinning as he produced this information like a conjurer pulling a rabbit out of his hat.

  “Tunafish is married and has children? You’re kidding!” Lora was amazed. “He’s never said a word!”

  “Well, if he’s not telling you about the wife and kiddies, then what does he spend so much time talking to you about?”

  Lora smiled naughtily. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

  Max shook his head. “I don’t think so. My ears burn whenever you two get together. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was filling you in on my misspent past.”

  “Would it bother you if he was?”

  “Nope. He doesn’t know the best parts.” He grinned down at her, looking piratical with those white teeth slashing out of the bristly black beard.

  “You’re scaring me,” Lora replied, and Max’s eyes narrowed wickedly.

  “I’d rather be doing something else to you.”

  “Oh?” Lora cast a gleaming look up at him. “Like what?”

  “I could show you, but Tunafish might be shocked.”

  “In that case, maybe you’d better not.”

  “I could show you in private.”

  “Sounds interesting.”

  “It will be. I guarantee it.” And he bent his head to whisper in her ear, telling her exactly what he had in mind.

  Lora tingled and blushed, and cast nervous glances at the three men behind them. Of course they could have no idea what Max was saying . . . ! But as she listened to his outrageous suggestions, and felt her body quicken she felt almost as exposed as if they were carrying out his indecent ideas in full view of everyone.

  “Stop it, Max,” she breathed when he got so explicit that she trembled.

  “Am I embarrassing you?” He looked down at her pink face and chuckled intimately. “I like embarrassing you.”

  “I always suspected you had a sadistic streak.”

  “I do. Didn’t I get to that part yet? I want to bare your delicious little bottom and spank it until you—”

  “Max!”

  “You’d like it. I promise.”

  “Max! I’m not kidding! Stop it.”

  He grinned, unrepentant. “Spoilsport.”

  “Hey, boss!” The call came from Tunafish. Both Max and Lora turned to look at him inquiringly, Lora wondering self-consciously if, at a distance of perhaps fifteen feet, Tunafish could tell that her face was red.

  “I’m on. You’re off. Go root us up something decent to eat. Like meat. I see another banana, I swear I’m gonna start swingin’ from trees.” Tunafish picked up his gun and got awkwardly up on one foot. Max moved to help him over to the mouth of the cave, and between the two of them they eased him into a position where he could watch both the valley below and the two men behind them, who watched the operation with sullen expressions.

  “You all set?”

  “Yeah. Get out of here. Catch me a fish. Or better yet, catch me a steak. As God is my witness, I’d kill for a juicy T-bone.”

  Tunafish rolled his eyes comically, and Lora laughed. The fire in her face had faded, and she felt comfortable again—until Max grabbed her hand and Tunafish grinned.

  “Don’t forget that steak!” Tunafish called after them good humoredly as Max pulled Lora after him down the slope.

  “I won’t—fillet of banana,” Max called back. As Max pulled her into the shelter of the trees, Lora heard Tunafish groan.

  “Where are we going?” Lord demanded, half laughing as Max dragged her through the jungle. A bright orange marmoset chattered down at them as it swung from branch to branch high overhead. Lora could just catch glimpses of it through the interlaced greenery. Moist looking green lizards flicked their tongues at her from the trunks of trees, but she barely noticed them either. She had become accustomed to such denizens of the jungle.

  “You’ll see,” he answered, sounding mysterious, but Lora already knew. They had traveled the path to the plane quite a few times since the first night he had brought her there. He lifted her through the hole with his hands on her waist, then swung up beside her to catch her in a ferocious kiss. Lora returned the embrace with abandon, loving the delicate war of lips and tongues, loving the crush of his body against hers, loving the taste of him. . . .

  “I thought we might try out some of my ideas,” he said with a teasing leer, thrusting a hand down the back of her jeans to caress her bare bottom as he spoke. Lora jumped, laughed, and submitted. He had her to the point where he could do anything he liked with her, anything at all.

  “You’re gorgeous,” he whispered moments later as he bent his head to press a kiss to the already aching tip of her breast. Lora felt the moistness of his mouth through the layers of her t-shirt and bra and squeezed her thighs together. Right this moment she was ready to take off her clothes and lie down with him. . . .

  “You’re too slow,” she protested with teas
ing breathlessness as he transferred his attention to her other breast, still without removing a single item of her clothing.

  “I thought women like a man with slow hands,” he answered, biting down on her nipple in punishment.

  “Not this woman,” she answered, her hands making two fists in his hair to tug his head upward. “Not right now.” She slid her hands under his t-shirt, stroking the satiny, hair-roughened muscles of his chest, tugging the garment upwards. He grinned and bent to catch her mouth with his, when suddenly he stopped in mid-motion and lifted his head.

  “Listen—do you hear that?” he demanded, his hands catching hers and stopping them from pulling his t-shirt over his head.

  “What?” Lora’s eyes were on the expanse of bronzed chest she had bared, and her response was absent. He glared down at her, removing her hands from his skin and pulling down his shirt.

  “Helicopters.”

  “Helicopters!” Now Lora was listening, too. And there it was, a faint droning, barely audible through the cacophonous jungle sounds. “Is that what that is?”

  “I think so. Come on, we’ve got to get back to the cave.”

  Lora made no protest as he jumped down from the plane. She joined him, her sneakered feet sinking soundlessly into the thick cushion of mulch as she landed.

  “Does this mean this is it?” Hope and alarm coursed in equal measure through her veins. The idea of rescue was dazzling. Civilization—she had almost forgotten about it! How wonderful it would be to eat a good meal—to take a bath—to sleep in a bed. With Max. She was very specific about that. But what did rescue mean to her and Max? She wasn’t ready—wasn’t nearly ready to put their relationship to the test. She needed more time. . . . Anyway, the coming of others need not mean rescue at all. It could mean violence, and death. . . . Her mouth went dry as she once again considered the possibilities.

  “Maybe. Maybe not. Depends on who this is. It could be Minelli’s friends, it could be the feds, it could be Ortega. Or it could be someone else. Or it could be someone who’s not even looking for us. We’ll just have to wait and see.” He was making his way through the undergrowth as he spoke over his shoulder. Lora’s hand was in his, but she practically had to run to keep up with him. She tripped over an exposed root and nearly fell. He slowed down, but not much.

  “Max, do you really think your idea is going to work?” The prospect of having to bluff an army of violence-prone men that she had banished so firmly from her mind was suddenly, terrifyingly at hand. Unless the new arrivals—if there were really new arrivals and the sound of the helicopters had not been just a figment of Max’s imagination, and if the new arrivals were after the drugs—agreed to Max’s deal, they all had very uncertain futures. In fact, it was quite possible that they had no future. The prospect made Lora feel suddenly icy cold.

  XXIII

  “Hit the dirt!”

  “Wha—” Lora was only half able to articulate the question before Max was thrusting her down into the softness of the jungle floor with his hand on the back of her neck. He crouched beside her, his hand still on her neck, keeping carefully behind a broad-leaved plant that bore some resemblance to a short tobacco stalk. She was just about to question him again, indignantly, when she heard it too: the faint squelch of footsteps in the loam.

  “Who—”

  “Shh!” He silenced her with a gesture, his face very grim.

  Lora took one look at that expression and cowered silently behind the sheltering foliage. She had never seen him look quite so ferocious. His hand was moving to the waistband of his jeans, stealthily extracting the pistol that he was never without. Lora watched him heft it and silently release the safety. The pistol was leveled at whoever or whatever was approaching through the undergrowth as the footsteps grew closer.

  Lora peered cautiously through the screen of sun-dappled leaves, her heart in her throat. What she saw was not as frightening as what she had been imagining: there were perhaps half a dozen men, clad in a miscellaneous assortment of gear that ranged from hiking boots and army pants to jeans and sneakers, advancing toward them through the jungle. One held a small box about the size of a transistor radio in his hand. The box emitted a continuous series of beeps that seemed to increase in volume with every step he took. What on earth . . . ?

  Lora cast an uncertain glance at Max.

  “Transmittor. They’re zeroing in on the homing device,” Max whispered out of the side of his mouth, the words hardly louder than a breath of air across Lora’s ear.

  Then he frowned at her fiercely, his eyes plainly ordering her not to move, not to make a sound. Lora was willing to follow his instructions, although the tantalizing vision of imminent rescue was still dancing in her brain. But until they found out who these men were, she knew it was wiser not to reveal themselves.

  They were moving in a straight line with perhaps twelve feet between them, their eyes darting nervously back and forth over the stunted plants and twisted vines and gnarled tree trunks that made up the rain forest. Every small sound of monkeys chattering or birds calling made one or the other jump and swing his rifle around. They were all armed with rifles, which they held at the ready as if expecting to open fire at any moment. At what? Lora wondered.

  “Quiet now. Don’t move.” Max’s words in her ear almost made her jump herself. The men were about ten feet away now, moving toward them in a line that would bring one passing within about four feet of them. The leafy bush would hide them—maybe. Lora looked down at her own bright pink t-shirt with something like horror. She must stand out against this background of emerald green like a parrot in a dovecote, and Max in his white shirt was not much better. Surely they would be seen. . . .

  Max motioned at her, silently directing her to curl herself into as small a package as possible. Lora huddled, head bent to her knees, arms clutching her shins, scarcely daring to breathe as the men approached. Beside her, Max crouched, motionless, pistol unwavering at the man who was now less than six feet away. . . .

  He was a white man with a swarthy complexion and oily black hair. Like Max, he had a mustache, a neatly trimmed, almost military looking affair that gave his full lips a cruel look. He was young, maybe twenty-five or- six at the most, and clad in army fatigues and hiking boots. His feet made crackling noises as he planted them one after the other in the soft carpet of rotting twigs and leaves. . . . He was almost directly opposite them now, his eyes swinging back and forth alertly, his hands keeping the rifle moving from side to side.

  What was he stalking? Lora wondered again as she shut her eyes with the foggy notion that if she couldn’t see him, he couldn’t see her. . . .

  “Ouch! Goddamn it!” The shout and curse came from a man farther to the left. Lora’s eyes popped open automatically to find that all the other men’s attention was momentarily centered upon the curser.

  “What the hell’s the matter with you, Jack?” This disgusted demand came from the man to their immediate left, the third man in line. The man on their immediate right, the one Lora had been studying as he approached closest to them, was shaking his head in disgust. Apparently, Jack’s yell had startled the entire company, and they were only just now recovering from it.

  “Damn branch. Walked right into it. For a minute there, I thought it was a snake.” Jack’s sheepish response was barely audible to Lora as he and the others moved on past without breaking their careful formation.

  “Keep it quiet!” came the stern warning from the man who was apparently in charge, and the footsteps moved off as the men melted into the jungle in the direction of the plane.

  “Who do you think they are?” Lora judged that it was safe to whisper once the men were out of sight. Max was crouched beside her, his shoulder brushing her arm. When he turned his head to look at her, Lora saw that his eyes were bright with an emotion she couldn’t identify.

  “Minelli’s pals. They aren’t Mexicans, that’s for sure, so that pretty much rules out the Federales or Ortega’s crew.” He smiled, but the sm
ile was as unpleasant as the hard, hot glitter of his eyes. “They think we’re all there in the plane waiting for them like sitting ducks, with the dope and the cash ripe for the picking.”

  “What’s going to happen when they find out they’re wrong?” Lora’s eyes were enormous as she tried to deny her own guess. After trekking all this way, she knew those men weren’t going to just give up and go home.

  “They’ll start looking for us,” Max said grimly, catching Lora’s hand and rising into a half-crouching position. “Which is why we better get the hell out of here while the getting is good. Come on.”

  He moved stealthily off through the tangle of vines and plants, keeping low to the ground, pulling Lora after him. She tried to move in that half-crouch too, and discovered that it was murder on the back. Murder—that was a word that she wished hadn’t come to mind. It seemed like a good possibility for her and Max’s and Tunafish’s ultimate fate at the hands of Minelli and DiAngelo and their friends. Lora thought about what Minelli and said in the cave earlier and shivered. Her fate at their hands would probably include more than murder. Minelli was the type to enjoy rape. . . .

  “Shit! Get down!” Max tugged her urgently down into the loam, and Lora dropped like a Raid-zapped fly. Her heart pounded in her ears as she looked fearfully over at Max. He was lying full-length beside her, his hand pressing her deeper into the earth. Here there was no convenient broad-leaved bush to shelter them. Here there was only the sparse cover of leafless vines and tree trunks. . . .

  Uniformed men on burros. Maybe a dozen of them, obviously Mexicans as they sat solemn-faced atop the long-eared animals. Lora would have laughed at the ludicrous picture made by men and beasts—the burros looked nearly as funny wearing saddles and bridles as the soldiers did riding such small, comical looking beasts—if the situation hadn’t been so deadly serious. Because, unless she was very much mistaken, these were the Federales, the Mexican Judicial Police.