Just Add Salt (Hetta Coffey Mystery Series (Book 2))

by Jinx Schwartz

  “In a manner of speaking, they are. After you sign, the Capitanía will release your boat and crew papers. Within a short period of time, you could be, as your American movies say, sailing off into the sunset. What you hold in your hand is a simple release, finalizing the Tanuki permit.”

  “Why do I need to sign this? My contract is with Tanuki. I’ll send them my findings, which they will present to whoever they have to. I have no authority to sign what looks to be a legal document, which, by the way, I can’t read. Besides, when I took this job I didn’t know the pipeline intersected a whale entrance, so more studies need to be done.” Why should I let this slime ball know that Chino really didn’t think the pipeline would make any difference at all to a whale?

  Dickless became smileless. All pretense of civility evaporated as he hissed, “Miss Coffey, you do not understand. Unless you sign this now you will be forbidden to leave this bay.”

  “Ah, the assistant port captain, your brother.”

  “Temporary assistant port captain,” Jan corrected. Lujàn shot her a foul look.

  Jan drew to her whole height, moved next to me and towered over Lujàn. “Hetta, I do believe Dickless is threatening us.”

  Lujàn tried to look unthreatened himself by effecting a what’s-a-guy-to-do-who-is-sooo-misunderstood look. “Such a strong interpretation, ladies. Perhaps my meaning is lost because of language?”

  Two can play misunderstood. “Perhaps, but while your English is impeccable, you must realize that you are asking me to sign an official document in the Spanish language. A legal document, I might add. Hell, I can’t decipher the fine print in English legal babble, much less Spanish. Perhaps I can have Chino or Fabio read this, then return it to you later?”

  “I think not.”

  “Then, I think not, too. Please, let me show you to your panga.”

  He lost it. His face went magenta. He snatched the papers from my hand, and spat, “You will regret the day you met me.”

  “Oh, I’m way ahead of you on that.”

  He spun on his lifted heels and stomped back to his boat. His henchman started the motor and they roared away, but then turned back and closely circled the boat several times, their wake tossing everything not secured inside the boat first one way, then the other. Fabio and Chino rushed into the saloon, but I motioned them back. I didn’t want Dickless to know his threats were witnessed.

  Another fine mess I’d gotten us into.

  Chapter 26

  So, just exactly why were we being threatened by a local slime king? And forbidden to leave Mag Bay? Okay, so I refused to sign whatever it was that Dickless asked me to, but something stunk. This jerk knew more than he was letting on. And if so, how?

  While I stewed and tried to figure out what came next, Jan watched Lujàn’s panga dock, then tracked him up the street with our binocs. “Okay, he’s back in his office, so I can’t…hang on, he’s on the roof. Shit!” She jumped back into the cabin and ran to a window. “Hetta,” she whispered, “he’s watching us.”

  “Screw hi—”

  Jan clamped her hand over my mouth. “Shhh.”

  “Why are you whispering?” Why was I whispering back, for that matter?

  Jan pinched her lips together with her thumb and forefinger, and once she saw I got the message, handed me a walkie-talkie and put on her own headset. I followed suit.

  “What?” I whispered.

  “He’s got something big attached to that telescope, and it’s aimed at us. What if it’s some kind of listening thingybobby?”

  “Is that a technical term?” I grabbed the binoculars. “Looks like a satellite TV dish. Keep an eye on him while I go online.” It took me three minutes to find it: a parabolic sound amplifier that could listen to conversations three hundred yards away. And we were only two hundred yards from shore. I grabbed Jan and showed her the website.

  “Let’s give it a test,” she said. “Say something that’ll get his attention. I’ll watch him, see if he’s listening, if that’s what that contraption lets him do.”

  “Hookay, you got it.” I slipped off the headphones and walked to the aft rail. “You know, Jan,” I said loudly, “that Lujàn? He sure is macho. I like a man who takes charge, shows me who’s boss. Makes me hot. Hell, if he’d come back out here to the boat, we could both give him nice juicy...” I garbled a couple of words. “He’s sooo sexy.”

  I turned away from the telescope’s view and stuck my finger down my throat.

  Jan giggled, and yelled from inside. “Yeah, I could use some fun for a change. Do you think he would like to, you know, watch us? I mean, if we ever hear from him again.”

  “Gee, maybe. Let’s send the guys in for supplies, then get naked and make our own fun.”

  I rounded up Fabio and Chino from their natural habitat in the engine room and asked them to go look for Lonesome. If they thought it was an odd request, they didn’t say anything. Three minutes after they left, Lujàn called on the VHF.

  “Raymond Johnson, this is Ricardo,” he oily-cooed.

  We didn’t answer the radio, but we had our answer. He must have heard everything I told Jenks on the phone. That meant he knew of the astrolabe find. Maybe Jenks was right, it was time to get out of Dodge, paperwork or no.

  As soon as Fabio and Chino returned to report the lack of Lonesome, I called an emergency confab in the engine room, the most secure place I could think of.

  It was time to come clean. “I think we are in danger. Dickless Richard may have overheard me telling Jenks about the galleon, and you heard him threaten us.”

  Chino looked puzzled. “Dickless Richard? You mean Lujàn. Oh, he is a very nasty man, but was he actually threatening you? I thought he sounded mad because you didn’t care for him, and wouldn't sign his papers. Wait a minute, you told someone about the astrolabe?”

  “Not just someone. Jenks. My, er, boyfriend. He’s in Kuwait, for crying out loud. Who was he going to tell?”

  “I do not understand,” Fabio chimed in. “Why is this man, this Lujàn, a danger to us?”

  “Because,” Jan blurted out, “he’s got these little bitty hands and beady eyes.” We all looked at her. She shrugged. “Well, first impressions, you know. Besides, he listens.”

  I backed her up. “We’re pretty sure he has one of those telescopes with a microphone. We aren’t absolutely certain if he heard me talking to Jenks, but we do know he can hear us when we’re out on deck.”

  “How do you know this?” Fabio asked.

  “You don’t want to know. Bottom line is, I think we gotta leave. Like tonight, before anyone realizes we’re gone. Chino, do you want to go with us? I’ll fly you back to Ignacio from Cabo.” Chino, agitated, tried to stand up, but hit his head on a stringer.

  “No, I must stay. If word of a possible galleon discovery is already in the wrong ears, it could be a disaster for the Mexican people. I know this Lujàn, he is not a nice man, but what has he to do with the Tanuki project?”

  “He is buying up property from the…whatever those people are that have land given them by the government.”

  “Ejídos.”

  “That’s it. He’s managed to get his little paws on all the beachfront property between here and Ignacio, from what I hear. When Tanuki starts pumping water north, Lujàn will own some of the most valuable property in Baja.”

  “And,” Chino spat, “as usual, the poor ejídotarias will be screwed. I do not know who I hate worse, the Japanese, or these crooks who steal from their own.”

  “Truth is, I don’t know if Tanuki even knows what Lujàn is doing, as far as the land thing goes, but the Japanese are rarely careless. Lujàn must be giving them something valuable in return. But what? How much can salt sell for? And what will it cost a ton to make? I’ve done the numbers, using information on existing desal plants and salt mining operations and they don’t add up. Unless, of course, Lujàn is a strawman for Tanuki.”

  “What’s a strawman?” Jan asked.

  “I read a thing
on the Internet. Strawmen are Mexicans who front for foreigners who are not allowed to buy a lot of waterfront property. Mexican law limits the number of acres, or hectares, or whatever, one individual can own if they are not Mexican citizens. These guys, these strawmen, are fronts.”

  “I have heard of this,” Chino said. “But quite often, it is the foreigner who loses. The Mexican strawman can simply buy the property in his name and keep it.”

  “I doubt Lujàn is stupid enough to cross Tanuki, but even then, even with a lot of valuable land, the money doesn’t make sense. It has to cost at least fifty mil to build the desal plant and pipeline. And that ain’t pesos.”

  Fabio had been silent, seemingly deep in thought, but suddenly his head bobbed up. “Madre mia. I think I know something.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “As you have learned, I was the commander for a Tanuki fishing fleet.” He glanced at Chino, who looked like he might bite him. “We were gathering tuna, for tuna farms.”

  “Tuna farms?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Chino said. “The Japanese are farming tuna offshore, on the west coast of Baja. They trap schools, then fatten them up in huge enclosures. The long term environmental impact is unknown, but anything that will lessen the fish they plunder from our waters cannot be all bad. Even if the Japanese are involved.”

  I was missing something here. “How does rounding them up lessen the plunder?”

  “Tonnage. They get more per fish.”

  “Oh. Go on, Fabio.”

  “As you also know, I ended my job with them, for they wanted us to take the whales. Not too many, so anyone would notice, but one at a time. There was a special ship that trailed the fleet, the Tanuki Maru. It was called a processing ship. If a whale is captured, it can be taken inside the hold, slaughtered and put into the cans. I refused to take the whales.”

  “Good for you,” Jan cheered.

  “Not so good for me. I never again work as a fishing captain. I had the black balls.”

  Jan giggled. “You were blackballed?”

  “Sí. They told others I was a bad captain. Not even Mexicans would hire me. So I take gringo yates, like this one.”

  A properly indignant Jan told him, “Screw them. We’re glad to have you.”

  “Siss, boom, bah. Done?” I teased Jan, the ex-cheerleader. She tossed her head, and I turned to Fabio. “So, what does this have to do with what’s happening right now?”

  “I do not trust these Japonés.” He pronounced it Happonays.

  “And if they come here, it must be bad. And a danger to you.”

  “Danger to me? Why?”

  Mexican sigh. Mexican shrug. “I hear of another ship. It traps ballenas. It has noise. I do not know the name in English.”

  “High frequency sonar,” Chino said glumly. “Messes up a whale’s sense of direction. Some suspect that navy ship sonar is the reason many whales beach themselves all over the world.”

  “Sí, that it is. Sonar. But more. The ballenas follow to a trampa. Bajo el agua.”

  “An underwater trap?” Chino asked. “Actually, I heard rumors, but thought them to be just that. Did they say where this trap would be used?”

  “Aquí. Baja California.”

  I noticed that the more agitated Fabio became by a subject, the more he lapsed into Spanish. Speaking to Chino in rapid fire Spanish, but giving me nervous glances as he did so, he told what he knew about the floating whale trap.

  I only caught about every five words, but a little light went off in my head. “So, Fabio, you heard of this ship which traps whales and when Wontrobski called you to captain my boat, you took the job to stop me? Or is this a chicken and egg thing? Wontrobski called you because he knew you knew that Tanuki might not be completely honest about what they were up to down here? And why am I feeling exceedingly bullshat upon?”

  Jan frowned. “That’s just so underhan—” A wake rocked us, then another, then something banged up against our hull. “What the hell? Did Lonesome find us again?”

  Scrambling to get out of the engine room, we all jammed into the little door, then Fabio managed to get through, with the three of us hot on his tail. Before I could see what was going on, I heard Fabio say, “Oh, chit.”

  I couldn’t have said it better myself.

  Two pangas bristling with armed men roared close by. One of them took a position in front of us, and another, with old Dickless himself aboard, came alongside. He cradled a mean-looking weapon and was surrounded by mean-looking men. Some of the meanies looked suspiciously Asian.

  “Uh-oh,” Jan breathed, in perhaps the understatement of the year. Lujàn stood up in the panga and grabbed our rail.

  I painted a big smile on my face and, in two swift strides, was outside. “Good evening, Mr. Lujàn. To what to we owe the pleasure of your company? And where’d you get the little Nippers?” The little Nippers got meaner looking.

  “I thought to join you and your friend, Miss Coffey. For a drink and some fun.”

  “Great. You’ll have to check your guns at the door, of course. House rules. Not that I mind guns. I love guns. What kind are they?”

  He got a sly grin on his face. “Big ones.”

  “Oooh, my favorite kind. But you know, can we get a rain check on that drinkypoo? We have a headache.”

  “Oh, I do not think so. Please step back, as my men are coming aboard.”

  “Oh, I do not think so,” I parroted. I was stalling, hoping Fabio had a plan, because I damned sure didn’t.

  He did.

  Just as Lujàn walked his panga back to our boarding ladder, both engines on Raymond Johnson roared to life and we lurched forward, hitting the panga in front of us with a satisfying crunch.

  Startled yells in two languages, followed by curses and splashes, gave hope that at least one of the bastards had hit the drink. Behind us, the sudden prop wash almost swamped Dickless’s panga and he, one foot on my swim platform and the other in his boat, did a momentary split, then took a dive between the vessels.

  I ran inside just as Fabio threw us in reverse without reducing throttle. Raymond Johnson’s transom dived underwater and I prayed I had closed the portholes above my bed; bloody little bits of Lujàn would really screw up my silk duvet.

  Our boat went almost airborne in reverse and when it came back down, my dive platform landed smack dab on Lujàn’s panga, which, in a tribute to the strength of fiberglass, first went under, then spit out behind us, spewing would-be marauders in the process.

  As we continued racing in reverse, the anchor chain clanked loudly as it played out. We were quickly and literally reaching our bitter end. At this rate of speed, we were seconds from disaster. The chain was bolted to the hull inside the chain locker. When we hit that u-bolt with this much torque, something had to give. Maybe the entire bow of Raymond Johnson.

  Rushing for the chain locker, I found Chino already there with a huge bolt cutter. With only two feet left until it hit the stops, he chopped through a 3/8-inch triple-B galvanized steel holding bolt like a hot knife through lardo.

  “Free!” I screamed up to Jan, who screamed it at Fabio.

  “Hold on,” Fabio yelled back as he pushed the engines into forward again, and the throttles to their stops. We literally flew for a few moments, then crashed down in a bow-burying splash. The props dug in and we tore off, leaving bobbing meanies and two partially sunk pangas in our wake. As dark fell, Fabio slowed and threaded us out the channel and into the bay.

  “Gee,” I said as we assembled on the flying bridge, “that went well.”

  Chapter 27

  Fabio brought Raymond Johnson to a halt an hour after our nasty encounter with Lujàn. He cut the engines and we all went out on deck.

  Enshrouded in a kind of blackness you only experience in the middle of nowhere, we listened for motors. Nothing but water lapping the hull and an occasional fish splash disturbed the quiet.

  A blanket of brilliant stars embedded in a velvet sky looked close enough to pl
uck, and, five miles in the distance, the lights of San Carlos twinkled like fireflies. If a bunch of jerks weren’t trying to off us, we’d be having a Pirates of the Caribbean kind of evening.

  One thing puzzled me, though. The showdown itself. “Why do you think they didn’t start shooting? I mean, even with Fabio’s surprise ramming of both pangas, there were a few seconds there when they could have gotten off a shot or two.”

  “Too close to town,” Chino said. “I think they just wanted to come aboard, take the astrolabe, and then slit our throats. It is the Mexican way.”

  “But wouldn’t there be witnesses? Someone surely saw them coming out to our boat.”

  “They probably hid the guns, then, as we were so far off shore, no one would see them assault us. The whole incident would be credited to pirates. That’s what they always do.”

  “Always do? How often does this shit happen around here?”

  Chino shrugged. “Not so frequently, but pirates get blamed for just about every marine-related disappearance or death. Right, Fabio?”

  Fabio nodded and growled, “I hope we chopped that pendejo, Lujàn, into hamburguesa.”

  “No such luck,” I told him. “Dickless bobbed up in one piece. I saw him swimming for a panga.”

  Jan agreed. “Me too. Uh, anybody got any idea what comes next?”

  “I know what I want to do,” I said, pointing to Orion, which pointed due south. “I wanna follow that star.”

  “Constellation,” Chino corrected.

  I glared at him, but Fabio backed Chino up. “South is the one way we cannot go.”

  “Why not?”

  “We do not have exit papers. If we are stopped, they will require we return to port.”

  “And Lujàn,” Chino added.

  I didn’t want to hear that. “Can’t we call the cops?”

  “Oh, no,” Chino blurted. “Two of the men in the pangas were officials.”

  “Official what?”