Mexican Booty: A Lucy Ripken Mystery (The Lucy Ripken Mysteries Book 2)

by J. J. Henderson

  She had Eduardo hurry her back to town. Her friends had checked her into the hotel. She quickly found her room and locked herself in. She removed the memory card, then hid it under the mattress and put another one in the camera. She stashed the camera behind a pillow in the back of the closet, and prepared to wait for Nathaniel.

  After while she got restless, struggling to stay awake, and decided on a more direct approach. She put on a clean shirt and went to Room 17 and tried the skeleton key from her own room; enhanced with a bobby pin, it opened in a moment. The bedside lamp was left on. She locked herself in and had a look around. Clothes were strewn, as were cigarette butt-filled ashtrays and empty bottles. A pair of tenor saxophones rested in a chair, carefully placed. She threw some clothes aside and sat on the bed, contemplating his chaos. He showed up half an hour later.

  "Hi, Nate," she said, as the door swung open and she caught, for an instant, the wreckage of his face with his grinning guard down. Then he threw it back up.

  "Lucy. Why, Lucy Ripken," he said softly, smiling at her. His cheeks were bruised just slightly, not so you'd notice unless you'd seen him slapped, hard, by Jack Partridge. "How are you? Or maybe I should say, how did you get yourself into mah room, woman?"

  "I have my ways, Nate," Lucy said. "My wily ways."

  "Well, yes," Nate said. "I imagine y'all do." He came over and sat near her on the bed, all amorous intention. And pure presumption. "But what might a wily woman want, this time a night, with a sax man such as I?"

  "The truth, Nate," Lucy said sharply. "No bullshit. I know where you've been tonight, and I saw what that "friend" of yours Partridge did to you."

  "What the hell are you talking about?" he barked. "So that was you. I thought I saw somebody out that window. You followed me. You little bitch." He was enraged. "How dare you?"

  "Skip the anger, bud. You're wasting your time. This is my job. I'm doing research, so bag your attitude."

  "Shit," he said, getting up and grabbing one of his horns. "Can't a man do business without this kind of bullshit?"

  "The guy that slapped your face, man. Why aren't you pissed at him instead of me?"

  "Partridge? Oh, I'm plenty pissed at him, Lucy, but I also owe his people $75,000, see? So he wants to push me around a little I gotta keep grinning and take it. You wanna jump into this mess, go right ahead."

  "$75,000? How did you manage that?"

  "Gambling. I got in deep, kept playin' to get out, sure my luck would turn, but baby it didn't. So when I met a guy who knows where to get the pre-Colombian goods, I jumped into the business."

  "That's what you were doing tonight?"

  "That's right honey. Second trip. First was a trial run, did it for Maggie. And tonight little Jackie saw fit to slap me around because I tried to keep more than my shitty left-over share. I'd like to blow those fuckers away, if you really want to know, but I ain't capable of it and I think they are, which gives them a serious advantage."

  "Jesus," said Lucy. "It's beginning to make sense now. But why are they here with you, Nathaniel? Didn't you bring the last stuff over yourself for Maggie?"

  "Yeah, but these guys promised me they'd give me a break on my debt if I'd stop middle-manning it and let them directly at the source. Smuggling shit over the border's a walk in the park for dudes like them."

  "Doesn't sound like a very good deal to me."

  "Yeah, well, you take what Lewis Mon offers, Lucy. And I just want to get these guys off my case. Christ, so now what do you want? What do you want to do now that you've stuck your face into my business?"

  "Hey, relax, man, I'm not going to—"

  "What, turn me in? No, I guess not, not with all the quote evidence unquote you've amassed. Turn me in to who, anyway? My sister? Jesus, Lucy why don't you just butt out. Shut up and butt out and let me finish paying my dues to these guys."

  "Sure, Nathan, sure. Just keep hauling the precious historical art of Mexico out of the country so it can sit in living rooms on Park Avenue. Don't you see the wrong in what you're doing?"

  "Fuck no," he said. "It's just clay, for god's sake. Clay and stone. Sits in a room here, sits in a room there, what's the difference?"

  Good question. "So what about the fakes?"

  "Fakes? What fakes?"

  "The ones in New York."

  "I don't know anything about any fakes, Lucy. Stuff I took to Maggie was the real thing." He looked at her. "So now what?"

  "So I'm going to bed. We'll try to figure it out tomorrow." She left Nathaniel, his cool forever lost, and went back to her room. To think she'd seen herself in bed with him. But, like he said, now what?

  Upon opening the door, she discovered her room had been ransacked. She didn't have much in there, so things weren't all that torn up. They'd taken just one thing: the camera. They missed the memory card with all the photos on it. Game on.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  IN THE SWIM

  Upon awakening, Lucy was bewildered for an instant. What neat, anonymous room was this? Then her eyes fell on her suitcase, waiting like a dog by the door, and she remembered. She had cleaned up last night, after discovering she'd been robbed.

  On first discovering the crime, displaying the baser instincts of an idiot female she'd rushed to Nathaniel's room, seeking protection in the shadow of the nearest man she knew. What a blunder! Half-naked, he grudgingly accompanied her back to her room. Crashing hard in a late night comedown, Nate had a complaint for a face, a flabby stomach, a farmer's tan, and foul breath from booze and cigarettes. Absorbed by his own troubles, he had nothing to offer—no sympathy, no explanation, not even a flicker of interest in what had happened in her room. He acted as if it had nothing to do with him.

  Now came another day. She got out of bed, and watched the pale drapes warm with early light while she dressed. A knock came as she put on her shoes. She unlocked the door. Rosa was there. "Come in. Hey Rosita, how are you?"

  "He's gone."

  "Who's gone?"

  "Nathaniel. Maggie went to wake him up, and found the room empty. At 6 a.m. What a weasel!"

  "Gone? What the hell!" Lucy said. "Where's Maggie? You won't believe what happened last night. Damn, to think I thought that guy was so cool."

  "Hey, he looked good from afar," said Rosa. "He had me fooled."

  Upon hearing Lucy's story, Maggie said, "Well, now you know why I haven't seen much of Nate these last few years. He's gotten—"

  "Rotten," said Lucy, interrupting. She felt angry and judgmental. "Corrupted by his own bad habits."

  "Yes. I guess so," Maggie said, sadly. "From irresponsible to thoughtless to corrupt. My brother, the king of bad karma."

  "But he's a hell of a musician," Lucy added. "That counts for something."

  Lucy packaged the memory card in a mailer and addressed it to Harold Ipswich in New York. She left it, and twenty dollars, with the desk clerk, who promised it would go out that day.

  They were back at the ferry by noon, and reached South of Carolina around two o'clock in the somnolent heat of the afternoon. Neither Nathaniel nor Starfish had been around, according to the staff. The house was completely put together, and looked wonderful, fresh and light and airy. Even the pool had been emptied and cleansed of slime, and a man busily repaired cracked tiles. One of the workers had gotten the skiff cleaned up and its motor working, so they decided to visit Maggie's secret reef that afternoon to do some snorkeling, and forget about pre-Colombiana for a few hours.

  They motored straight out from the beach in front of the house around three o'clock in the afternoon. Low tide was due close to four, and the reef lay about twenty minutes to the southeast. They would reach their destination, anchor, and orient themselves, then get into the water as the tide bottomed out and the coral came close to the surface, providing ideal conditions for free diving.

  As they putted along, surging over the wind swells, Maggie ran the skiff and talked about the reef. She had named it La Mancha because at the age of fourteen she had been reading Don Q
uixote when she discovered it one day on a boat trip with her mother. She didn't think anybody except the locals knew of its existence. None of the charter dive operations from Cancun or Isla ever brought people there. At least not in the old days. La Mancha lay so close to the surface that it occasionally emerged at minus tides.

  For fifteen minutes or so they cruised southeast across a mile wide, deep water channel through which a slow southerly current pushed. Then the deep blue lightened up, the bottom rising to meet them. Through the clear jade water Lucy could see sand and rocks and coral below. On Maggie's command Rosa threw the anchor over, and a few seconds later it caught. Maggie turned off the motor. They sat quietly in the gentle roll of the surf, protected from the larger swells by the reef.

  They re-greased with sunscreen, then put on fins, masks, and snorkels. Maggie described the reef: "It stretches a couple hundred yards north to south and fifty yards or so across. You can float along this side, and the current through here will carry you south. When you get to the end—it drops off pretty abruptly—swim back on the other side. Be careful over the middle, there's a couple of shallow spots, and the coral is sharp."

  Over the side she flopped backwards. Rosa followed. Lucy gave a last tug on the anchor chain, then went overboard into the warm, clear water.

  She swam side-by-side with Rosa, floating along behind Maggie, parallel to the edge of the reef. They drifted on the surface in twenty or thirty feet of water. Purple sea fans waved in slow motion on the bottom, amidst enormous clumps of brain coral. Large fish darted from cave to cave amongst the rocks, and hundreds of smaller fish swirled in rainbow-hued schools. Lucy lifted the lower rim of her mask to let a little water in, then swished it around to clear the glass. The current carried them slowly along. On the right, the sandy bottom dropped away into deeper water, with schools of big fish darting, glinting in the eerie blue-gold half-light. Brilliantly-colored fish and plants and coral reeled past in a slow underwater ballet, a luminous and thrilling dance. Lucy, hearing nothing but the sound of her own breathing, fell into a trance, hypnotized by the interplay of color, motion, and light.

  Maggie swerved left, pumping harder with her fins over a shallow stretch of reef. Lucy and Rosa followed, skimming coral which appeared to thrust close to the surface. Glittering fish scattered before them. After a moment they slowed and found a footing on a smooth rock ledge. The water was thigh deep. Perched like ungainly birds on their flippered feet, they pushed up their masks and spit out their snorkels. "Incredible," said Rosa. "Did you see all the angel fish?"

  "I can never remember their names," said Lucy, "But there were so many. The colors are amazing."

  "Psychedelic," said Maggie. "Especially the parrot fish. Isn't this great?" she exclaimed, taking in the vast blue surroundings. "We are standing up in the middle of the ocean! Damn," she added, squinting into the distance to the north. "Here comes a boat. What a rude racket!" They watched as a fast-moving speed boat approached, banging aggressively over the swells, engine roaring. Their own little boat was 200 yards away, at the other end of the reef. "I guess La Mancha is a secret no longer."

  "Oh well," said Lucy. "It has been ten years, Mags. Everything changes."

  "Hey, what are those people doing?" Rosa said. The speedboat—one of those cigarette models that look like big streamlined dicks, make a lot of noise, and go nine million miles an hour—had pulled up close to the skiff. A man jumped from the cigarette into the skiff, and quickly tossed a line back. Then he untied the smaller boat's anchor line and threw it overboard. He jumped back into the cigarette boat, and after a moment it started moving again towards them. Tied on, the skiff bounced along behind it.

  "What the hell," said Maggie. "Hey," she yelled, waving her arms. "Hey, down here." They all shouted and waved. "Well, they're coming our way," Maggie said. "But why'd they cut my anchor loose?"

  "Damn," said Lucy. She was the first to recognize them, because she'd seen a lot more of them. Jack Partridge and Lewis Mon. "I think we got trouble, girls."

  The boat roared up, stopping thirty yards away in deeper water. "Everything all right, ladies?" Mon called out pleasantly. "Having a good dive?"

  "That's my boat," said Maggie. "What do you think you're doing with—"

  "Hi ladies," said the black-haired woman who'd been seated with her back to Lucy at Mon's and Partridge's table last night, now popping into view on the deck. She abruptly threw off her black wig, took off her shades, and shook out her long blond hair. Starfish, in a bikini bottom and nothing else. "How're the fishies? Are they biting?" She smiled, her teeth gleaming.

  "Starfish!!"

  "That's right, hon. The one and only." She slipped her shades back on and put an arm around Jack Partridge. "Now, just so you know what's going on, Margaret. Lucy Ripken here was following your dear brother Nathaniel, and Jack and Lewis last night, when they had some business to transact over there in Tikiville. She took some pictures she really shouldn't have taken. But the smart little lady didn't know that I followed her; and I tried to get the film, only she was so clever she had already taken it out of the camera. So if you'll be so kind as to let us know where that film is, Lucy Ripken, we'll leave your boat and be off to fetch it."

  Rosa and Maggie looked at her. Lucy said, "I don't know what you're talking about." Damn, she didn't have a clue. What to say? Where was Harry when she needed him? How had she missed Starfish at the Villa Maya? Truth or not? She blurted out, "It's in the house. I gave it to—"

  "Uh uh," said Lewis. "No good. We already looked around. And checked with the staff."

  "I sent it to New York. It wasn’t film, it’s a digital camera and I sent the memory card with the images to a friend. With instructions not to do anything without hearing from me."

  "That was a bad idea," said Starfish. She talked babytalk when she talked tough. "A very bad idea."

  "Well, tide's out. You enjoy your dive now, ladies," Lewis added, revving up the engine of the cigarette.

  "Wait a minute," Maggie said. "You can't just drive off and leave us. The tide's going to come up and—"

  "Your little yacht here will be found capsized somewhere, oh, not too far away," said Jack Partridge. "All that's left after a very unfortunate boating accident."

  "Unfortunate indeed," added Lewis Mon.

  "Nathaniel is going to be sooo upset," Starfish cooed. "I'll have to take care of him."

  "You're not going to get away with this," Lucy said bravely. "There's no way." So now she knew the bad bad guys do. Kill people who threaten their interests; and do it rather blithely.

  Lewis Mon wheeled the cigarette boat around to the north. "Here's lunch," Jack Partridge laughed, emptying a plastic bucket of chum—bloody fishguts and heads—overboard as Mon accelerated and they zoomed away, the little skiff bouncing along behind. The three women watched their Panama hats blow out of the skiff. The speedboat veered off to the northeast . Stunned at the abrupt turn of events, they stared until it disappeared. It didn't take long.

  "Shark bait," Maggie said. "What the hell."

  "Oh my God," Rosa wailed, fighting back tears. "Now what are we going to do?"

  "Stay right here for now," Maggie said. "It's too shallow for sharks. By the time the tide's come in the chum'll be gone, and we can—" she left the sentence unfinished. They stood on a little reef in 30 inches of water, a mile offshore, with a deepwater channel separating them from land. Inevitably, the tide would rise.

  "We can what?" Rosa cried. "What are we gonna do? Jesus, Lucy, why did you have to go sneaking around?"

  "I’m sorry, Rosa. I was just doing my job," Lucy said. "I had no idea—damn, look at that!" A shark fin surfaced about fifty yards away, headed straight for the chum, and a second joined it. The fins reached their goal, the water boiled, then stillness returned.

  "Oh my God," moaned Rosa. "What if they're coming this way?"

  "Don't worry," said Maggie. "They won't come up on the reef. It's too shallow. At least we can be thankful for that."

/>   "I'm going to swim to the island," Lucy announced.

  "Swim?! Get serious, Lucy," said Maggie. "It's miles away."

  "The tide's going to rise in a couple of hours, and then what?" Lucy said. "I swim nearly a mile in the pool almost every day back in the city. What is it across the channel, a mile? Mile and a half? I can do it. You guys wait here, I'll get a boat and come back for you."

  "If the sharks don't get you," Rosa said.

  "They won't bother me before nightfall. That's when they normally feed," Lucy said. "Once all that crud dissipates they'll be gone."

  "Yeah, hope so," Maggie said. "Well, the current moves that way," she added, nodding south. "So you'll have to point up there." She indicated the north end of the island.

  "Right. I'll use the fins but not the snorkel and mask. Too bulky."

  "Hey Lucy," said Maggie. "I'd go, but—"

  "I'm a strong swimmer," Lucy said. "It doesn't make sense for two of us to do it."

  "Right," said Maggie.

  She handed Rosa her mask, then hugged her. "If there was a horse to ride you'd be going, Rosie. But I’m the swimmer here. Well, no time to waste, I guess." She gave Maggie a quick hug.