“Craig, come look at this.”
He read Jan’s email. “Can we call her?”
“It’d have to be on Chino’s cell, and her second message says not to call.”
“I guess that answers that.”
“Okay, if, like she says, she caught the Friday night ferry, she arrived in Guaymas Saturday morning, so there’s no use driving down there now. First off, it’s a really bad idea to drive at night in Mexico, especially on the road from Cananea to Imuris, and we’d probably cross paths. We just have to sit tight and wait until we hear from her again.”
“Maybe she called when you weren’t in Guaymas to pick her up. She has your new cell number, right?”
“I haven’t checked my messages yet.” As I turned on the phone, I pondered aloud, “I wonder what’s wrong now? Last time she bailed on Chino was because she felt uneasy with their age difference, but I thought they’d worked that out. Now she says she needs a place to stay and is headed here, but why?”
Craig stared at the computer as if demanding an answer. “I still think I should call Chino.”
“Can’t you read? Jan says no.”
“Well then, what do we do?”
“We wait. No messages on my phone yet. Maybe the ferry was cancelled or late. Who knows? She has my address and she’s a clever girl, so she’ll find us, I’m sure.”
Sure or not of Jan’s abilities, it worried me that she was somewhere, alone, in Mexico. I don’t like my friends or family unaccounted for, which is odd, considering I spend a lot of my life being unaccountable. With two of the most important people in my life amongst the missing, I was on edge, waiting for both Jan and Jenks to call. After tossing and turning most of the night, I was in a deep sleep a little before nine in the morning, which is, of course, when the phone jangled me awake.
Craig got to the phone first because, anticipating a call, I’d taken the phone to bed with me and it was now lost in the jumble of covers heaped up after a night of restlessness. By the time I found it, Craig was saying, “The bus station in Naco?”
Jan said yes, he said we’d be right there, and hung up.
I didn’t even know there was a bus station in Naco, but we found it, and a bedraggled Jan, fifteen minutes after Craig hung up the phone. Dressed in a ragged gray hooded sweatshirt and even rattier pants, my friend carried her belongings in one of those colorful plastic mesh bags that serve as Mexican suitcases in one hand and, incongruously, a large designer purse in the other.
As we hugged, she broke into sobs and wailed, “Hetta, they shot him.”
Craig and I exchanged a look of alarm. “Someone shot Chino?” I asked.
Between little gasps, she managed, “No, not Chino. The bus driver. Right on the main highway, in broad daylight. Saturday morning.”
“Is he dead?”
“I don’t think so. At least he was alive when the ambulance took him away. A car forced us off the road, and when we stopped this thug walked up to the driver’s window and opened fire. I thought they were going to kill us all, but they jumped into this SUV and took off.”
“My God, what is Mexico turning into? Colombia a few years ago? It’s all about drugs and gang warfare. Oh, boy, wait until this hits the international news. Our parents will have a cat.”
Jan’s face went gray, then white. “Hetta, get me home. Now. I’m really sick.”
We hustled her into the car.
“Sick, as in how?” Craig asked. He put his hand to her forehead. “No fever.”
“Nope, the runs, cramps, and my chest is killing me. I don’t know what’s wrong, but it isn’t good. Can’t keep anything down, and only massive doses of Imodium got me here without embarrassing myself. That Montezuma’s a vengeful bastard. What I need is a lot of sleep and a ton of water with, what a concept, actual ice cubes. In fact, I think I’ll bathe in ice cubes. Better yet, just stick me in the freezer.”
Something about Jan’s bus story was bothering me. “Jan, seems to me you are lucky you’re not on ice…as in a Mexican jail. You’re a witness to attempted murder, and their method of making sure witnesses don’t take a powder is to lock ‘em up.”
“The cops never showed, just an ambulance. I didn’t wait for a new bus, I caught a ride as far as Imuris with a couple of guys on their way to Tucson, got a room in Imuris and the earliest bus here. It’s been a hell of a trip. Are we there yet?”
Craig handed her a bottled water. “Almost. We’ll get some aspirin in you, and after a little rest you’ll be brand new. Uh, have you been keeping up with the news lately?”
“Hell, no. How could I, stuck in the middle of friggin’ Baja nowhere. Why?”
“Guess you haven’t heard of swine flu?”
“I don’t care if pigs get sick. Or whales, for that matter. I’ve had it with animal life. Doctor Chino can take his friggin’ job and shove it. I’m sick of whales, sick of living on fish tacos, sick of Doctor Chino Yee, and more importantly, just plain sick. What’s swine flu?”
“Jan,” Craig told her, “there is an epidemic, actually a pandemic, of this new flu strain. From your symptoms, I don’t think you have it, but you’d best look sharp at the border.”
“Naw, I don’t think I have the flu, just amoebas, as they say in Mexico. That’s their answer for everything.”
“Think you can make it through the border crossing without throwing up? They might quarantine you if you barf in their booth.”
“I’ll do my best. Just get me to a hot shower and a bed. I think that alone will cure me.”
“Sure, hon, comin’ up. The house is only a hop, skip, and a jump from the border.”
Jan moaned. “Please tell me there isn’t a long line to cross, cuz I feel a heave coming on.”
“I’ve never seen more than four cars, except after church lets out on Sunday. That’s when everyone heads for the shopping mall at Sierra Vista.
Jan let out a sigh of relief, then asked, “Uh, you don’t think anyone will recognize us, do you?”
“I’ve gone through several times and haven’t seen a familiar face. More importantly, no one seems to know me. They must have rotated all our old buddies out of here.”
Of course, Craig wanted to know what we were talking about, so I told him about a past adventure, when Jan and I ended up in deep caca with authorities, local and federal, on the U.S. side, and were accused of bird smuggling.
“So,” he said, “let me get this straight. You two drove through the border fence, got arrested, then liberated a parrot that Fish and Game had in custody. Good for you. Were they really going to euthanize that bird? That’s ridiculous, and if I had been here…whoa Nellie, lookee what we have here. What do you wanna bet neither one of them is her brother.”
“What are you—” I was cut short by my own amazement. There was Sonrisa, all three feet something of her, riding down the main boulevard in the back seat of a tricked out Jeep Rubicon, actually smiling, and chatting away with the driver and passenger. At one point they all laughed.
The bright yellow Jeep, headed out of town, was driven by none other than the X-Boys. “Well, doodness dwacious, doesn’t our little Miss Sonrisa have the knack for hitchhiking? I hope she doesn’t end up dead in a ditch, cuz she shore ain’t picky. I’ll call Ted soon, make sure she arrived home safely. Just because I don’t like the little shit doesn’t mean I want to see her harmed.”
Craig nodded. “Not a bad idea, but looks to me like she’s having a fine old time in the company of those Black Muslim dudes. Odd combo, to say the least.”
Jan, curled up in the rear seat as best as her five-eleven frame allowed, popped up. “What? Where?” Evidently nosiness instantly overcomes nauseousness.
“Later,” I told her. “First, let’s get you home. You look like something the cat dragged in.”
“Thanks, Hetta, I can always count on you to cheer me up.”
“Hey, what are friends for?”
By late afternoon, it was obvious Jan needed more medical attention than
a veterinarian and an engineer could administer. She’d spent the better part of the day making best friends with the toilet bowl and a bucket, and was badly dehydrated in spite of drinking glass after glass of water.
Since she’d let her American health insurance lapse, I decided she needed to do what the uninsured do: head for an emergency room. Craig offered to drive her there, but I didn’t think showing up in a brand new Porsche with an indigent in tow was a great idea. My old VW was far more suited to the task.
Jan, doubled over in pain as we entered the Copper Queen Hospital, made for a chair in the reception area, while I went to the desk.
A sweet-faced woman whose desk nameplate identified her as Patricia Norquist, handed me a clipboard with a bunch of forms attached, and told me what she’d need from us. I took the forms back to where Jan slouched and moaned.
Rummaging through her handbag, I came up with her Mexican driver’s license, then filled out the paperwork while she made a dash for the loo. She returned, pasty faced, just as I finished. I asked the few questions I didn’t know the answer to and returned to the desk.
The woman perused my handiwork and sighed. “No insurance?”
“Nope.”
“She lives in Mexico?”
This question peaked the interest of others in the waiting room, who stared suspiciously at poor Jan, since the swine flu outbreak had originated south of the border.
“Yes,” I said loudly, “she arrived, sick, from Mexico. Today.”
Several people quickly left, improving our odds of getting Jan in sooner by leaps and bounds.
The woman checked the list of Jan’s symptoms again, seemed satisfied my buddy wasn’t Piggy Mary, and gave me a wry grin. “I don’t suppose you’d care to take responsibility for the bill?”
“Sorry, I’m broke. Uh, Sister Jan wouldn’t want me to tell you this, but, well, she belongs to a religious order and has taken a vow of poverty. They would have helped her out in Mexico, but up here….” I let that hang.
The woman looked past me at Jan’s gold handbag with its distinctive Fendi logo and drawled, “A designer order, no doubt?”
Dang, Ms. Patricia Norquist might work for a small hospital, but she knows her Fendi.
“Actually,” I said, thinking fast, “it’s The Sisters of Perpetual Poverty, a small convent headquartered in the Bay Area. So obscure that only the Pope knows about it.
“It’s a refuge for nuns who have, shall we say, strayed into unabashed materialism. Kind of a nun rehab.”
Ms. Norquist rolled her eyes at my unintended pun.
“They send them off to count whales and live on fish. You know, make them appreciate being nuns again. Anyway, they obviously have no medical insurance. And then there’s the fact that the Sister is a, shall we say, fugitive from political oppression in her home country of…Cuba.”
She fixed me with a cynical smile. “Okay, take a seat, we’ll call you.”
After another half hour went by, with only one person called into the inner sanctum, I mumbled a curse. A skeletal, scabby-faced woman leaned over the empty seat between us. Judging by the looks of several others in the waiting room, Meth is the drug of choice in these parts. “Your friend looks too good,” she said, showing a mouthful of blackened, ragged teeth.
It took a great deal of control for me not to run away from her. “Excuse me?”
“She looks, like, healthy.”
For my money Jan looked to be knocking on death’s door, but compared to this meth head, she did look way too good to get fast attention. “Believe me, she’s really, really, sick.”
“I don’t suppose your friend is also an addict?”
“Would it help move her up the line?”
“Only if she’s suffering from severe withdrawal.”
“Like if she hasn’t had a fix in at least….”
The stringy haired woman, who could have been twenty-five or sixty-five, smiled that horrible smile and winked. “Forty-eight hours is the magic number.”
If that woman hadn’t looked so much like a Halloween ghoul, I would have kissed her. Instead, I slipped her a twenty. She took the money and left, no longer in need of meds, now that she could get right. I should have felt guilty, I guess, but desperate times and all.
I went back to the reception desk. “Uh, did I mention that Sister Jan is an addict, and hasn’t had a fix in forty-eight hours?”
I was rewarded with an angelic smile. “My, but aren’t you a fast study? And, thanks for making what promised to be my otherwise boring day. Someone will be out to fetch Sister soon.”
Within minutes, Jan was hooked up to an IV, and a couple of hours later we were at home armed with a bagful of free meds, and a referral to a rehab counselor. While Sister Jan had vehemently denied dabbling in illicit drugs, I gave the doctor a meaningful look and took the stack of twelve-step literature offered.
Tests were done to rule out amoebic dysentery, giardia, and other stuff, but the doctor said it was likely just plain old Montezuma’s revenge, which, because of her rundown state, was fairly fierce.
Chapter 21
Jan, after two days of mostly sleeping and watching TV in bed, was still pale but up to a cocktail or two on the verandah. Craig and I had waited until now to grill her like a red snapper for the down and dirty details of this latest fiasco, and why she was here in Bisbee, instead of with her amour, Doctor Brigido “Chino” Yee, at his campsite in the Baja.
While tossing dog biscuits to Blue, she got down to the good stuff. “I don’t care if I ever see another whale, or Chino either, for that matter.”
“But why, Jan? What did he do to you?”
“Nothing.”
“Oh, well, that explains it. No wonder you slunk off in the dead of night. The bastard!”
Craig laughed and Jan looked sheepish. “Put that way,” she said, “it does sound a little ridiculous. Call me self-centered, needy, whatever, but I would like, just once, to take precedence over a barnacle-encrusted behemoth.”
“Hey,” Craig protested, “I was a behemoth. What we lack in beauty, we make up for in cuddly.”
“You men always stick together.”
“Jan,” he reasoned, “you knew Chino was a dedicated marine biologist when you met him. What did you expect him to do during peak whale calving season? Take you to the Four Seasons for dinner? Shower you with roses?”
“Ha! There isn’t a flower within fifty miles of that friggin’ shack we live in. And no, I don’t expect the princess treatment, but a little attention on occasion would be nice. He needs an assistant, not a girlfriend. I’m tired of counting whales, talking whales, freakin’ dreaming whales. I am whaled out.”
“So,” I asked, “I can rule out fish for dinner?”
“Whales ain’t fish, but close enough. I may never eat fish again, ever. I’ve lived on fish tacos and refried beans for months now. If it wasn’t for limes, I’d probably have scurvy to complement my runs.”
Craig looked thoughtful, then told Jan, “I think you need a thorough physical. A real good going over.”
“I ain’t got no insurance, remember?”
“I’ve been thinking about that. I need a marine biologist on my staff.”
“You want to hire Chino?”
“No, you.”
“Oh, come on, you know damned well I’m no marine biologist.”
“It’s on your resume, you know,” I chimed in, earning me a squinty frown.
“Oh, yeah, from another time I let you drag me into something smelly. You needed a marine biologist for a project, and presto chango, I was one.”
“So versatile,” Craig teased. “Never mind about that, I think your time on the Baja is qualification enough. First, though, you’ll need a full checkup, as required by my insurance company. Actually, I’ve already called the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale. I know someone there. They can take you.”
We both stared at him. This was an incredibly generous offer, and one she couldn’t turn down, but Jan looked
stunned, and a little frightened. “You think I might have something really bad wrong with me?”
“No, sweetie, I’d just feel better if we ran you through the clinic. What do you say?”
“Well, heck, why not? I still feel puny, anyhow. When do we leave?”
“Day after tomorrow. We’ll be in Scottsdale a couple of days, then back here before you know it.”
We discussed this turn of events, then returned to the subject of Chino. Craig was especially interested in daily life at the whale camp, and the research they were doing. “You know, after the Mayo Clinic, I think I’ll go over to the Baja and give Chino a hand, since his assistant’s pitched a little Texas hissy and run off to Arizona.”
“Hmph,” said Jan. “You go right on ahead. I’ll stay here with poor Hetta.”
“Hey, what’s this poor Hetta thing? You’re the drug addict with no job and no health insurance. And, I might add, now you’ve even been kicked out of the convent.”
When Jan and Craig returned from Scottsdale she was a mite frazzled from all her tests. She even had a nuclear stress test where they detected an anomaly in her heartbeat, but they didn’t find anything serious. She started describing the details of the tests, but I cut her off. I hate needles and don’t even want to hear about them. I did, however, comment on that new glow she had about her, especially in the dark.
She was deemed healthy, if a little anemic. Even though now on Craig’s payroll, her salary of one dollar a year isn’t going to go very far toward more designer bags.
While my friends were off getting Jan examined by the best, I needed something to take my mind off Jenks. To push away the almost physical pain of worry about him, I threw myself into stacks of drawings and operating manuals, pulling together a big fat report for mine management that I hoped would justify keeping me on the payroll, even though the shutdown dragged on.
Craig, upon their return, decided he would definitely visit Chino in the Baja, probably to get a break from living with two women, especially Jan and me. His thankless job of playing the highhanded drill sergeant, and our threats to mutiny, were taking a toll on him. He accused us, on more than one occasion when he’d been at the library all day, of having enchilada breath. Go figure.
Just Deserts (Hetta Coffey Series (Book 4)) Page 13
