"Yeah, well, I didn't exactly plan on it either," he said sullenly.
"You didn't plan on much, did you?" Maggie snapped.
"That's enough, Maggie," said Lucy. "Beating up on him now isn't gonna solve anything."
"That may be easy for you to say, Lucy. You’ve got your story. But I've got some dead friends in Santa Fe, and my little brother helped kill them."
"Shut the fuck up, Maggie," Nathaniel snarled. "I didn't kill anybody, goddammit."
"Hey, hey," said Rosa. "This fingerpointing is stupid. He's right, Maggie. He didn't kill those guys. I can understand why you're angry, but what's the point? We've got enough problems without you two shouting at each other. Like what are we going to do?" She looked at Lucy. "Hey Luce, the question is, what now? What next? You think you have enough info for your story, or perhaps you would rather mess with Jack and Lewis again? I personally would prefer to get my surnburnt buns back to Santa Fe and get on my horse and ride about nine million miles into the desert and hide out for a few weeks on solid ground. No waves, no water, and no bloody pre-Colombian art." She burst into tears. "Jesus Christ, we were dead out there today, Lucy! Dead!" Lucy went to her, and put an arm around her.
"I know, Rosa, I know. If I hadn't seen those guys in the boat—I was going down when I heard them." After a moment, as Rosa calmed down, Lucy glanced over at Nathaniel. He was looking at the table. "So where is the little woman, Nate?"
He met her gaze. "Starfish? She's supposed to show up here tonight."
They heard the Harley from quite a distance, and calmly moved out onto the patio, where the three of them sat in darkness facing the black sky and sea. Nate stayed in the living room to greet her, play the game out, see where it took them.
Inside, he picked up the horn and played a soft jazzy riff as Starfish came in the front door at the other end of the house. "Nate?" she called urgently, all sweet concern. "Baby, you here?"
"Back here, babe," he said. They heard it all, sitting on the patio in silence.
"Nate, my God, when I heard—I was down at Kentucky Fried when I heard they found the skiff." She rushed into the room sounding breathless. "Your boat capsized out there. Baby, did you hear? Did you hear what happened today? Nate, Margaret and her friends were out there, and—"
"And I swam in," Lucy said, filing into the room followed by Margaret and Rosa. Starfish was wearing skintight black leather pants with fringe down the sides, and a black leather jacket unzipped, with a black bra. She looked like the perfect embodiment of violent sex, nasty and dangerous.
"Omigod," Starfish shrieked. She went white under her tan for an instant, but didn't miss a beat. "I'm so glad to see you. I was going to come back for you out there today but I couldn't get away from Jack and Louie, those guys are so crazy but I had to pretend that I was into it, too, you know, so that they wouldn’t—I was gonna get another boat but Jackie, he—"
"Please be quiet," Maggie said calmly. "There's nothing—not a single thing you can say, Starfish, that will change what happened out there today. You know that."
"But I was coming back. Honest I was." She looked at Nate. "Nate, you don't really think that I would be party to—"
"Sure, Babe," he said wearily. "Whatever you say."
"Isabel Chapin," said Lucy. "I probably should have had my DEA friend check on you when he checked out Partridge and Mon. Maybe then I wouldn't have missed you in the bar the other night."
"DEA, huh." Starfish was beginning to see how this was going to play out. She looked at Nathaniel, and got tough. "Nate, I've gotta get my things. I'm going back to Texas tonight. They're waiting. Call me in a couple of days."
"They know, Babe," he said.
"Know what?" she said.
"About the deal. The Texas deal."
"What? You told them? You stupid fuck, Nathaniel," she snarled, then turned on Lucy. "There's nothing you can do to. Nate doesn't know who the buyer is, so if you mess this up, you'll wish you had gone down out there, ladies. You understand?"
"Hey, back off, bitch," said Lucy. This woman definitely irritated her. "We don't have any interest in screwing up your ugly little deal. But let me tell you this, Star fucking fish. I'm going to nail you, and your friends, one way or another. You understand, Sweetheart?"
Starfish just smiled at her. "I'm going to get my things. Been nice meeting you all. Nate," she tuned in on him, and her voice sharpened.
"Yeah, Babe."
"Call me in Dallas. And don't mess this up, darling."
"Fuck you," Rosa shrieked as Starfish strode across the room. "Fuck you wherever you live and forever," she shouted fiercely as the black leather-clad bitch headed upstairs. "God, do we have to just let her go?" Rosa asked.
"What else can we do?" Lucy said.
"I don't know," Rosa said. "Maybe rip her tits off and feed them to the sharks?"
"I don't think they'd be edible," said Margaret. "Otherwise I'd say go for it."
The three of them checked out Nate. He looked like a traumatized rubber man, spineless, collapsing in on himself.
"You sure know how to pick 'em, Nate," said Margaret.
Starfish roared off an hour later without further words with any of them. They had talked of detaining her, or perhaps shooting her dead, but decided against it. Instead, Maggie posted workers with machetes at the gate, on the beach, and around the house.
Rosa left the next morning. She'd had enough. She missed her man, her horse, her dogs, and the desert. Nathaniel was to leave later that day, while Maggie had agreed to stick around with Lucy for another day or two of research in Ticul. They were going to try to find Alberto Gutierrez, his man Tomas, and the private museum in Merida Nathaniel had described.
Before he left, Nathaniel said just one thing to Lucy. "You can do what you want with what I've told you, Lucy, but if you publish my name in your article I'm a dead man."
"Even in Raratonga?"
"Even in Raratonga."
They couldn't find Tomas, who hadn't been seen around the studio for a couple of days. The house where Lucy had seen the deal done was empty. Gutierrez was off "somewhere in Oaxaca," an assistant said, visiting a silver mine. Nor did anybody at the studio know anything about a private museum in Merida. They had a good look at some of Gutierrez' amazingly authentic forgeries, but otherwise, the trip produced nothing. And so, after one day on the road and a last quiet day under a palm tree on the beach, Lucy and Maggie headed back to Santa Fe.
CHAPTER SIX
LUCY IN LOVE
Lucy, on a red eye east out of Albuquerque, stared out into the frozen blackness and contemplated the complicated aftertaste of Santa Fe. After eleven hours of fly-then-wait through Merida, Guadalajara, Dallas, and Albuquerque, she and Maggie had arrived at the Santa Fe Airport close to midnight two days back. Jedediah Crowtooth met them in the truck.
Back at Maggie's house on the mountaintop a string of messages from Rosa awaited her, conveying with some urgency that Quentin Washington had called repeatedly. Lucy called Rosa, and woke Darren. "Yeah?" he muttered.
"Um, hi, Darren, it's Lucy."
"It's late, Lucy. She's asleep. Can't it wait till tomorrow?" He was rather snappish.
"You tell me, Darren. I was calling because my friend Quentin's been calling you—Rosa that is—the last two days and she left a message up here—I'm at Maggie Clements' house—that it was important. Several messages, I should say."
"Oh." he paused. "Sorry. Just a minute." He dropped the phone on the bed. "Rosey. Hey, Rosa, wake up. It's Lucy. I guess they're back."
Lucy waited. After a few seconds Rosa came on. "Hey, Luce, sorry, we went to bed early. I was riding all day."
"Fine, sorry I woke you, but tell the boy he needn't be so gruff. You only left six anxious messages up here, Toots."
"I know, I know. He's not good—Darren, that is—late at night. Anyways, yeah, your friend Quentin kept calling. He sounded freaked."
"Did he say what was up?”
"I asked but he s
aid it was confidential."
"OK. Well, I should call him." She paused. "Um—so how are you doing?"
"Not bad. Felt great to be back in the saddle."
"I bet. No rising tides in the desert, eh?" She paused. "You and Darren doing all right?"
"What do you mean? Yeah, we're fine. Why?"
"I was just a little worried. I mean, he didn't really want you to go, remember?"
"Right. Well—" she hesitated. "I guess in a way he was right, wasn't he?"
"What do you mean?"
"What do I mean? What do you think, Luce? We almost died down there. If I hadn't been there it wouldn't have happened."
"Hmm. Yes, I suppose that’s one way of looking at it. On the other hand maybe he’s just bummed that now you won’t want to go there for your honeymoon."
"He’s right about that. But I think he had Paris in mind anyways."
"Paris sounds a lot nicer to me at the moment, I must admit. It’s going to be a while before I miss the Caribbean again.”
“Mexico is definitely off my list.”
“Hey, I'm going back to New York day after tomorrow. So let's get together for lunch, eh?"
"Aren't you going to stay with us tomorrow night?"
"Maggie says I can stay up here. She's got a ton of room, and Claud's really happy here."
"That’s right. You’ve joined Dog Nation. But I really wanted to prove to you that I finally learned how to cook. Kind of, that is. I do killer fish tacos anyways. You want to come for lunch mañana?”
“You don’t need to cook for me, Rosie. I know it’s not your strong suit.”
“Hey, watch it, Luce,” she laughed. “But you know what? You’re right, and you talked me out of it. Let's hook up at the Badger Bistro instead. One OK? I want to put in some studio time in the morning."
"Sounds good. See you then."
“It’s across the square from the Anasazi. You can’t miss the giant blue badger holding a wine glass on the sign.”
Next she'd called Quentin Washington in New York, who launched into a tirade even though it was three o'clock in the morning back there. "Lucy, is that you? Finally! Jesus these motherfuckers threatened my wife. My wife and child, for God's sake! What the hell is going on, and how the hell did I get involved?! My God, Lucy, I have a family, for crying out loud. How dare you—"
"Hey, hey, wait a minute, Quentin," Lucy finally got in a word. "Now tell me what's up?"
He calmed a little. "I got this call—some guy, won't say his name, says if I don't authenticate those damn fakes or at least keep my mouth shut about it I'm in deep shit, like, he goes into this creepy singsong voice, you know your old friend Calvin Hobart, Quentin, and I said sure, and he said, well, you know what happened to him, don't you? Hell the way he was talking I figured I'd better play along so I said, sure, and he went well, how are the apartments at 716 W. 189th St., are they spacious and nice, and then, how's young Hannah doing these days? and your pregnant wife Beth, how is she? Jesus, Lucy, he knew everything about me. So he gets off the phone and after several sleepless hours I called around to find out. Christ, why didn't you tell me what had happened to Calvin? He and his partner are dead, for God's sake!"
"I know, I know, I was going to tell you but I never got a chance to call. I met the bad boys that did it, I think, down in Ticul."
"So you saw Gutierrez? What do you think of his operation? Is there a connection? Are those guys the same ones that called me? I phoned Rooney to tell her to call her goons off and she claimed she had no idea what I was talking about. She does do outrage convincingly, doesn't she? What a snake! Jesus, I don't know who's behind these dudes if it isn't her, but they sure sound nasty."
"They are more than that, Bub. I'll tell you about it in a day or two when I get back. I don't know if it's the same guys, to tell the truth. Of course Rooney's playing dumb, what else could she possibly do? Threaten you herself? That ninety pound nightmare? Fat chance. What's the latest on the fakes?"
"Last I heard was Forte's going to do her bidding."
"So what do they want from you?"
"Like I said, basically they want me to keep my mouth shut."
"You have a problem with that?"
"Well, not exactly, except that I already told a couple of people at work about the scene at the gallery the other day, so it's a little late for secrecy. And the pre-Colombian art world is pretty ingrown."
"Yeah, well, it may be ingrown but from what I've seen, it's plenty nasty too, man."
"You just came in on the wrong end of a deal."
"No shit, Quentin. So what are you going to do?"
"Man, I don't know. These guys know my family, they know my address, they even know I got popped for selling hashish in Austin in 1975. I mean, it was a set-up, I had like six grams and they called me a major distributor, but it's still on the record. I had to cop a plea to get out of jail."
"They knew that?"
"They're fucking with me, Lucy. Threatening a scandal to ruin my career. In this bullshit time we live in it could happen. And I could even handle it, but the way they talk about Hannah and Beth just scares my ass. If I lose my shot at the Vermont gig because of this, well, Christ, I don't know what I'm going to do."
"No shit." Lucy pictured Partridge and Mon, grinning as they sped away in their cigarette boat. But how could they know about Quentin? She hadn't explored the possibility of a link between that end of the deal and this. Quentin's phone call certainly raised the issue. But maybe the link didn't exist. Maybe Madeleine Rooney had hired someone to harrass him. She seemed capable of it. "Was it just one guy on the call?"
"Yeah. He was talking like this." He lapsed into a hoarse whisper. "So between that and the singsong I couldn't really get a fix on his voice."
"Well, we'll sort it out, like I said. See ya in a couple days."
"Right Luce. And keep me posted, for God's sake. There's some heavy shit going down here, and I don't want it landing on my family."
When Lucy had called to confirm lunch in the morning, Darren, speaking for Rosa who was out on her horse, said she wouldn't be able to make it because his parents were coming to town on short notice and they had to drive to Albuquerque to pick them up. And so Lucy and Rosa didn't get a chance to see each other again, or even to say goodbye. Lucy felt that as a little void in her heart. For some reason she hadn’t quite nailed down, she was deeply worried about Rosa.
She dozed off, dreaming of female shadows tumbling in graceful slow motion through the depthless water, and woke with a start as the descent into LaGuardia was announced. She fished out her make-up bag and freshened lipstick and eyeshadow, brushed her hair, and studied herself in the mirror. Red eye woman on a redeye jet, praying for a lover in baggage claim.
After the interminable LaGuardia taxi and hold, Lucy wearily rose with the late night stragglers and filed off the plane and into the antic flow of New York, dragging her camera bags. She wore an elegant new Western-style black silk shirt Maggie had given her, along with black jeans and the jean jacket Harold had given her. Dressed in gifts, she was alone, exhausted, and depressed. There would be no one there to meet her. There never was. At least Señor Claud would be with her, eager to get out of his traveling cage and home to his life in loftland. Her new true blue love, Claud the Poodle.
Through the gauntlet of limo hustlers and into baggage claim to pick up a bag from the carousel and a dog from the special claims area Lucy trudged, dragging her two camera bags all the while. She found her bag, then found the counter behind which waited the poodle in a cage; a moment later, on a brand new leash Maggie had given her, she had the dog too, and she headed out, bent under the load of luggage, dragging a cowering, half-stoned dog who'd never lived anywhere but the wild high desert and now wandered through LaGuardia Airport leashed to a woman he hardly knew.
Lucy stepped out into cold spring air and airport racket, preparing herself for the battle she would probably have to fight to get a cab. In a mood verging on despair she wonde
red why she hadn't just ordered up a limo—those guys wouldn't mind a dog, long as they got their fifty bucks—and searched the street for a gypsy cab, some line-jumper who'd just dropped somebody off and was willing to risk a quick passenger grab to avoid waiting. Then she saw a limo driver in his black suit holding up a card with her name on it: L. Ripken. He stood in front of a black Cadillac stretch limo. She went over. "I'm Lucy Ripken. Are you here for me?" Could it be possible? Her heart lifted. Her spirit soared.
"And a dog named Claud," the driver said; at that moment, the passenger door swung open, and from the depths of the car came a mock Eastern European voice.
"Velcome to my automobile, Ms. Ripken. And Monsieur Claud."
"Harry!" she cried, dropping her bags. "Harry, you made it!"
He leaped out of the back of the limo, and swept her into his arms. Claud instinctively rose up onto his hind legs, and they pulled him into the hug, two people and a dog embracing, while the driver carried Lucy's bags to the rear and loaded them into the trunk.
Shortly thereafter they were en route down the BQE, Lower Manhattan-bound, Lucy drinking vodka, Harry drinking seltzer—he'd been on the wagon for a week now—and Claud on the carpeted floor, eating gourmet dog biscuits from a silver bowl. The stereo played late Talking Heads, music from Lucy's first years in New York which she loved to hear every time she headed into town from the airport. They had finished with catch-up talk, and kissed enough times to know Harry would help her carry the bags up and stay the night unless he said something extremely stupid between now and then. He fished out the prints made from the memory card Lucy had sent him. She turned on a light and had a look at one—a transaction shot through the window of a Mexican house—then handed it to him. "So what else should I know about these dudes, Harry?" she asked.
He peered at the print. "Yep. Mon and Partridge. Doing a deal, eh? Nice surreptitious shooting, Luce, but you realize you are risking your butt here. These guys are major Dallas bad boys. Dope, extortion, gun-running, maybe a little CIA back door contra work mixed in with the dope and guns, you know how the eighties went down there. These are the kind of people that leave bodies behind."
Mexican Booty: A Lucy Ripken Mystery (The Lucy Ripken Mysteries Book 2) Page 14
