Not that the customs inspectors in Costa Rica would ever search her bags. Harrassing incoming tourists was not the deal here. They just wanted to make sure the Norteamericanos had money to spend and a ticket out of town. But answering the question—she wrote in the figure of $1,000, a reasonable amount for a three week trip for a credit card-carrying North American tourist—reminded her that her black suitcase contained not one thousand but one hundred thousand dollars, in packs of crisp new twenties. Now that she was on the ground in the Third World, it seemed like a lot of money.
She got through the entry shuffle and headed towards the doors. Outside she could see the usual chaotic horde of taxi-drivers and tour operators and airport scroungers waving signs and clamoring for attention. She stopped short, looked around, and spotted a bank of phones. She went over and after a moment of haggling in broken Spanish managed to get an international operator to ring up her loft. Harry answered on the first ring. “Hey, that you?”
“Yes, it’s me,” she said. “How’s Claud?”
“The dog? He’s fine. He misses you. So do I.”
Here we go, she thought. Our little minefield. “Hey. I miss you too, but Harry, it’s nice to be elsewhere for a change.”
“Yeah, yeah, I noticed. You needed a break.” He paused. “I guess I was hoping that maybe I’d be in on the break.”
“Sorry, Harry. I just felt the need to—you know, I vant to be alone,” she vamped.
“Hey, no sweat,” he said, but she could tell he wasn’t happy. “I’ve been known to disappear a while myself, now and then.”
“That you have.” She sighed to herself. Their relationship did not include vacations together. So far anyways. Investments, perhaps, because she trusted him that way. Nights together, definitely, because she loved sleeping with him. Vacations, no. Not since Jamaica, when they’d met on a press junket. Not just yet. This was a working trip, and the idea of Harry showing up for a little r&r after she’d done the guidebook work just hadn’t felt right. Plus as too frequently happened he had drunk too much at the farewell dinner party, and she’d ended up shipping him home in a cab, in a state of maudlin near-incoherence.
“Well, in any case, Luce, I hope you have some fun.”
Too weary to contend with subtextual accusations, she changed the subject. “So tell me again what I’m supposed to do with this money, Harry. I need some inspiration.”
“There’s a small hotel on a beach in Guanacaste. Two Germans own it but they miss their bratwurst and Kraut beer so they want to sell out and head home to the fatherland. They’ll like your style and you’ll make an amazing deal. I can feel it.”
“I wish I shared your confidence.”
“You’ll be fine.”
“Hope so.” She shifted gears again. “Well, listen Harry, don’t worry, all’s well, see you in a few weeks, call you in a few days, pet the poodle for me, I love you.”
“Love you, Luce. Bye.”
“Bye Harry.” She hung up, took a deep breath, and headed over to the money-changers. She got a hundred dollars worth of colones, stashed the rest of her personal bucks in her daypack, got a good grip on her suitcase, and headed out into the fray.
She was greeted by balmy tropic air overlaid with the stench of diesel fumes, and the not-so-balmy din of unmuffled trucks and buses and cacophonous horn honks from the nearby highway. Half a dozen limo and cab drivers got in her face. No big deal for a New York girl. Expertly not seeing that which she did not wish to see, she elbowed her way through the crowd and hailed a taxi for the rush hour ride into San Jose, her small fortune tucked into her suitcase.
You can find the rest here…
X Dames: A Lucy Ripken Mystery (The Lucy Ripken Mysteries Book 3) Page 19
