Even Money

by Stephanie Caffrey

  “That would mean admitting I had a problem.”

  He chuckled. “You sound like a man.”

  “Thanks.”

  We shuffled off the plane, and then after a quick potty break, I paid an outrageous price at the gift shop for a tiny bottle of ibuprofen. There was a line to get through customs, but we moved through without incident and then bumbled around the airport to find the taxi line, which wasn’t clearly marked. Carlos made use of his Spanish-speaking skills, and soon we were on our way.

  “Your Spanish is terrible, by the way,” I said, smiling.

  His eyebrows shot up. “How would you know?”

  “I took Spanish in high school. I can’t speak it at all, but I know a crappy accent when I hear one.”

  He frowned. “That’s what my abuela says. She says I speak Spanglish like a gringo.”

  I chuckled. “Well, if it’s any consolation, I don’t speak Gaelic or German or French or any of the languages my people spoke before they came to this country. It’s bound to happen in one generation or another.”

  He nodded, seeming to lose interest in the topic of his language skills. “It’s freaking hot here,” he said, wiping his brow.

  “It’s like Vegas in June but with triple the humidity,” I agreed.

  The taxi was taking us onto what seemed to be the main drag between the airport in San Jose del Cabo and the city of Cabo San Lucas. Our destination was about three-quarters of the way to the city, along a corridor of elegant hotels and resorts, and Carlos informed me that it would be about a half-hour drive. Outside, an afternoon squall had sprung up, seemingly out of nowhere, and kids were happily playing around in the rain as though it was nothing.

  I dozed off again, still feeling the effects of my triple martini. It wasn’t the gin, I knew. It was the fact that I’d quaffed it on a nearly empty stomach. What I needed, I realized, was a triple-sized plate of enchiladas to settle that stomach, which didn’t seem to like the fact that I’d popped three ibuprofens either. But I toughed it out, zoning in and out of sleep, until we arrived at the hotel. Or should I say palace.

  The Hacienda del Mar was a blindingly white edifice built in the Mediterranean style, with stout but elegant columns holding up a massive red tile roof. It looked like a high-end Tuscan winery, complete with marble floors in the lobby and attractive female employees flitting around, doing very little but looking pretty doing it. Carlos checked us in.

  I suppressed a giggle as he attempted to speak Spanish.

  “Yes, sir,” the clerk said, ignoring Carlos’s effort to speak the local language.

  He shot me a look. “Shut up,” he mouthed.

  I rolled my eyes. After a few hundred clicks of his computer, the clerk began frowning and looking a bit confused. Apparently he hadn’t realized that we had booked separate rooms. Carlos began grinning, sensing that we might “have” to share a room.

  “Don’t get your hopes up, Romeo,” I muttered, elbowing him in his side.

  “Ah, here we go,” the clerk said triumphantly in perfect English. “You will be on the same floor, same wing, but not right next to each other. Is that acceptable?”

  “Yes!” I said, before Carlos could utter a word of protest.

  He slumped his shoulders in defeat, and then we both signed a few papers and received our keys.

  We declined the help of a bellman and then hauled our suitcases into the elevator. “You’re sure you remember what Aaron looks like?” I asked.

  He nodded confidently. “He came into the club like three times per week. I’ll recognize him, no doubt.”

  “And he won’t recognize you?”

  He smiled. “He didn’t go to the club to look at the bouncers, I’m pretty sure. He was distracted every second he was in that place. The guy dropped a few bucks in there, too, so I’m sure he got some special treatment. Plus, my people all look alike to people like him.”

  We parted ways and found our separate rooms, promising to meet up in a half hour. My room wasn’t even listed as a suite, but it must have been six-hundred square feet, which was bigger than several apartments I’d lived in over the years. I had a balcony facing the ocean with a partial view of the pool. In the distance a few dozen brown pelicans soared just inches over the water, searching out their afternoon snacks underneath the calm surface of the Sea of Cortez.

  I changed into something more appropriate for the hot and sticky weather and then helped myself to a huge bottle of minibar water, afraid to look at how much money that was going to set me back. I didn’t care. I needed to hydrate, and I needed food.

  Carlos knocked on my door sooner than we’d planned.

  “You ready yet?” he asked through the door.

  “Sure. Come on in,” I said, undoing the lock.

  He immediately began frowning. “How come you get ocean view? I have to look at a bank of giant air conditioners.”

  He had found his way out to the balcony where he was taking in the view and the cooler breeze off the ocean.

  “Just luck, I guess. Or maybe the checkin guy liked me,” I added.

  He snorted. “Actually, the checkin guy was checking you out.”

  I guffawed. “Was that a pun? From you? Now I’ve heard everything. Let’s go,” I said, shooing him away from the balcony. “I’m starving.”

  “What else is new?” he asked.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Carlos and I found our way downstairs to one of the resort’s eight restaurants. It was an odd time of day, so the place was deserted, but one of the busboys spotted us and told us to wait for a minute. I was wearing a pair of oversized sunglasses in an effort to disguise myself, not being overly concerned that Aaron would notice me. The two times Aaron and I had met, it had been in the darkened casino sports book or the even darker club where he hadn’t spent much time looking at my face.

  After a minute a haggard looking waiter appeared out of the back room and offered a pained smile. Dinner service wouldn’t normally start until five o’clock, but he would make an exception for us. Translation: we better leave a big tip. I thanked him, and then Carlos and I followed him to a table at the edge of the restaurant which was open to the beach and pool. A light breeze blew in from the sea, taking the edge off the day’s heat and humidity.

  “I could get used to this,” Carlos said. “Living in a desert has its drawbacks. I could see myself living here.”

  “You’d have to learn Spanish,” I kidded.

  He shot me a pained look.

  Our waiter reappeared and took our drink orders. Without looking at a menu, I ordered shredded beef enchiladas with verde sauce.

  “We just landed, and I’m very, very hungry,” I explained self-consciously. Not that it was any of his business.

  “Of course, miss,” he said and then disappeared before Carlos could order.

  “What about me?” he asked, pouting.

  “The waiter correctly appraised the situation,” I explained, taking a swig of ice water.

  “Which is?”

  I smiled. “Which is that I’m in charge. And when the boss is hungry, you hop to it.”

  “You’re in charge, are you?” Carlos, ever the alpha dog, seemed skeptical.

  I shrugged. “This whole thing’s my crazy idea, which makes me the boss, like it or not.”

  “Not,” he muttered, turning to look at the water. “So since you were passed out for the entire flight, we never really got to talk about what your plan is. Boss.”

  I chuckled. He had me there. “Plan? I thought you knew me better than that,” I said, grinning.

  He sighed. “I should have known, I guess.”

  I got serious for a second. “The plan is this. First, find him. If we can find him, that’s half the battle. If we can locate him, then we’ve got half a shot at finding the money, too. The way I look at it is that we’re doing the work of the FBI or whoever else would be investigating him.”

  Carlos met my eye. “So you’ve set the bar pretty low, it sounds li
ke.”

  I smiled. “Not exactly. I mean, if we’re right that this guy is running a Ponzi scheme, then he’s a felon who’s fled the country. Just finding him would be a huge deal. Catching him? Let’s leave that to someone else.”

  Our drinks arrived courtesy of a boy who looked to be about thirteen, each drink a lime-green concoction in a bulbous glass the size of a bowling ball. I had ordered a margarita on impulse because what the hell else are you going to drink at a schmantzy resort in Cabo San Lucas? But upon examination, I wondered whether tossing off a giant, nine-thousand calorie alcoholic beverage was the best idea at the moment. My head was still foggy from my flight, and most of my body ached.

  Then again.

  “Cheers,” I said, hoisting the glass with two hands.

  Carlos lifted his own glass, examined it with unmitigated alarm, and then clinked it into mine. For a moment I feared that the collision of the two massive glasses would result in an explosion that would be picked up by satellites and seismometers, but we were spared.

  “We’re supposed to drink this whole thing?” he whispered. “There must be twenty-four ounces in here.”

  “Most of it is probably just crushed ice and margarita mix,” I speculated, taking a sip. “Then again, maybe not. This tastes pretty strong.”

  Carlos took a sip out of his straw. “You’re right,” he said, pushing his towards the center of the table. “That could be dangerous.”

  Our waiter returned and took Carlos’s food order, and then Carlos looked at me.

  “What?” I asked, uncomfortable under his gaze.

  “So we just hang out here for a few days and hope we see this guy?”

  I shrugged. “It’s a resort. He wouldn’t come here if he didn’t want to use the pool or sit on the beach. If he’s here, he’s not just going to hang out in his room the whole time.”

  “Unless he’s a wanted criminal,” Carlos muttered.

  I smiled. “But that’s just it. If I were him, I’d figure I had at least a few months before people really got nervous and started asking questions. We are way ahead of the curve on this one. He probably figures he’s got a nice little grace period before he has to go underground.”

  Carlos considered it but still looked skeptical. I sensed that his enthusiasm for the entire project had dampened considerably since I’d announced we’d be sleeping in separate rooms.

  “Well, it’s your money,” he finally said.

  “Meaning?”

  He leaned over the table. “Meaning, I don’t think you’re going to find this guy just sunning himself on the beach.”

  “Well, it’s the best I got,” I said. I had pushed the margarita away from me but now found myself reaching for it. Carlos flashed me a look.

  “I’ll behave. Don’t worry,” I said.

  He smiled. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

  My famished stomach had begun digesting its inner lining by the time my enchiladas arrived, and so I wasn’t shy about attacking them with abandon when the waiter placed the piping hot plate on the table in front of me. I didn’t care that the melted cheese was scalding my mouth, I just needed that mixture of meat and green sauce and cheese to slide down my throat to appease the hunger gods.

  When I looked up, Carlos was staring at me in horror.

  “What?” I asked, wiping sauce off my mouth with the back of my hand. “I said I was hungry, and I meant it.”

  “But still,” he said. “My ears are popping over here from all that slurping you’re doing.”

  I shrugged. “Is it really that bad?”

  “No. It’s worse.”

  I sighed. “You’ve got a whole ocean to look at right there,” I said, gesturing with my fork, “and yet you have to watch me eat enchiladas? Why don’t you eat your own damn food?” I asked.

  “If you call that eating,” he said. “I call it demolishing.”

  “You’re like one of those drivers on the freeway who slows down to watch a nasty accident scene,” I said. “You ruin it for everybody else.”

  He shrugged. “I feel more like a guy on a safari watching some kind of exotic beast devour her prey.”

  “Shush,” I said, returning to my plate. “Anyway, I have a backup plan. Plus-sized models are big right now.”

  He chuckled. “They’re always big,” he said. “That’s why they’re plus-sized.”

  I wanted to slap him, but I just rolled my eyes. “You know what I meant,” I said, my mouth half full.

  He looked away, but when I stole a glance at him, his face was still frozen in a kind of half smirk. I put him out of my mind and got down to business. I couldn’t think well on an empty stomach, so there was no sense depriving myself, I figured. Finally, when I had scraped the last evidence of food off of my plate, I sat back and put my fork down.

  Carlos was genteelly munching on his salad, one forkful at a time, as though he didn’t have a care in the world. He noticed me watching him and then smiled.

  “You want dessert, don’t you?” he asked accusatorily.

  I blushed. Somehow he had read my mind perfectly.

  “That margarita was probably a thousand calories on its own. Plus the enchiladas were—”

  “I don’t care,” I said, cutting him off. “I can’t think straight if I’m constantly hungry. I don’t know how you do it,” I said.

  “Sensible meals. That’s all. No binge-eating,” he said, sipping at his ice water.

  I shook my head. “You might as well just take me out into the ocean there and hold my head underwater,” I said resignedly. “I can’t live like that.”

  “You just need more exercise then,” he added, trying to be helpful. Helpful was not what I wanted at the moment. What I needed was someone to lie to me, to tell me I hadn’t gained fifteen pounds in the last few months.

  “Let’s just drop it,” I said. He was taking forever to finish, so I began fiddling with the dessert menu. Just, you know, to have something to occupy my mind.

  The waiter returned and busted me with the menu in my hand. “And which dessert have you decided on?” he asked, smiling.

  The guy was good—I had to admit. Most waiters ask you if you want dessert, which means it’s perfectly reasonable to simply say no. But by asking which dessert I wanted, he’d cornered me. His premise was that I wanted dessert, and the only question was which one. It would seem quarrelsome to decline, even rude. He had already made the if decision for me. Which I appreciated.

  “Torta de leche,” I said, pointing at the photo of a delicious-looking white cake doused in condensed milk and covered with caramel sauce.

  “And for you, sir?” he asked.

  Carlos looked at me and frowned. “Just bring me an extra fork,” he muttered.

  The waiter looked injured but not upset. “Very well, sir.”

  I glared at Carlos. “When your extra fork comes, I’ll show you exactly where to put it,” I said, pointing my own cheesy fork at his left eye.

  Carlos looked serious for a second but then burst out laughing. “You’re very sexy when you’re drangry.”

  “When I’m what?”

  “Drangry. Drunk and angry,” he explained.

  “That’s not a word,” I protested. “It’s not even one of those fake words that come from the internet.”

  He shrugged. “We’ll ask our waiter. He seems to like you, by the way.”

  I folded my arms. “He should like me. I’m a likeable person. Unlike some people who feel the need to act like sourpusses all the time and never let other people have any fun.”

  At this, Carlos tossed his head back and let out a loud belly laugh. When he settled down, he smiled at me. “I think maybe tonight should be an early-to-bed night. Don’t you?” he asked. “You don’t exactly travel well.”

  I sniffed in mock protest, but I knew he was right. I was being a baby, mostly as a result of drinking on an empty stomach, flying on an airplane, and now drinking on an empty stomach for a second time. It was also partly because
I was a baby, of course.

  “But it’s only five o’clock!” I protested.

  “Pacific time,” he said.

  I chuckled. “I’m not that drunk, Carlos. Las Vegas is on Pacific time too, smart guy.”

  “Okay, champ,” he said, “so what do you want to do?”

  I thought about it for a second. “Eat my fricking dessert. That’s what. And then…” I trailed off and looked out at the Sea of Cortez where a bunch of brown pelicans were chowing down on a school of fish. “And then I’d like to take a little nap.”

  “See?” he asked triumphantly. “We’ll go for a walk on the beach and then call it a day. How about that?”

  “If I can still walk,” I murmured.

  My dessert arrived, and for some reason it was three times as large as it looked in the photo, taking up almost the entire plate. It was gooey and wet, the perfect combination of once-firm cake oozing with the condensed milk and caramel that made it melt in my mouth. Carlos was grasping his fork as though he actually wanted to put it to use.

  “Looks good, doesn’t it?” I asked, taunting him.

  He frowned. “You’re not seriously going to eat that whole thing, are you? I mean…”

  I shrugged but then admitted defeat. “Dig in,” I said, sliding the plate over to him.

  He dug in, gingerly at first, and then once the endorphins in his brain had been triggered, he became the same kind of sugar junky I had long been. I felt a little like a crack dealer, to be honest, but it was a good feeling—that feeling of co-dependency. For once, I wasn’t the only one pigging out.

  “Hey, slow down!” I said, grabbing the plate back.

  He reached across the table and began sawing the cake in half with his fork, and then he picked it up with his fork and a few fingers and hoisted it onto a napkin, the goo dripping all over the table and his shorts.

  “Nice,” I said.

  With our own personal half cakes, we spent the next few minutes in gluttonous but peaceful silence, and then almost in tandem, we put our forks down and leaned back in our chairs. I was expecting a kind of sugar buzz to kick in, but the opposite was happening.

  “I think you were right,” I said. “Early to bed for me tonight.”