Just Different Devils

by Jinx Schwartz

  Both Jan and Po Thang cocked their heads, Jan in question, and the dog maybe thinking my excitement involved food, or a walk, or something other than the boredom of hanging around on the boat with a couple of chatting chicas.

  "Double-Oh-Dawg. Critter cam, and chip."

  "Genius! Po Thang, how would you like to go for nice long boat ride with your Uncle Nacho mañana?"

  "Woof."

  Po Thang has the distinction of not only belonging to moi, he is also imbedded with a state-of-the-art GPS tracker invented by his Uncle Craig, veterinarian extraordinaire. These gizmos are normally implanted in large farm animals so ranchers riding souped up ATVs can run 'em to ground. However, when Po Thang exhibited a propensity for straying like a free range dogie—which I suspect is how he ended up stranded on the lonely mountainside on Baja's Mex 1 where we found and rescued him—we chipped his wayward rear end.

  I'd tried a collar unit, but it didn't have the range and wasn't completely waterproof, so when he went to the beach I had to remove it. Po Thang, after all, is a water-lovin' dog. Now, with his embedded chip, and if he's within ten miles, I can find him with my handy dandy tracker unit.

  And, when he took to diving for gold coins during our summer expedition/treasure hunt with Chino last summer, we also fitted him with a critter cam, just in case he tried to skim off the top.

  And now he had a new mission: Agent Double O Dawg.

  Chapter Sixteen

  "¡No, absolutamente no!" Tio Nacho declared.

  "Aw come on, Nacho. Po Thang likes you, and he's stuck on the boat because he can't go ashore, which, after all is your doing because you want us to anchor here. Before you start fishing, you can run him over to the coast or another island and let him run on the beach for awhile. He won't be any trouble."

  "And besides," Jan whined, "we're stuck here all day, cooking and cleaning, while you go off for a fun day of fishing."

  "You sound like my first wife. Nag, nag, nag."

  Jan and I exchanged a look. Nacho was married at some point? What about now? "First? How many wives have there been?"

  "None of your business. ¡Jesus y Maria! help me, I feel like I have two of them now."

  "Poor baby. Let me fetch your slippers, pipe, and a nice drink of something tasty. Say, arsenic?"

  Nacho stomped off to his cabin. We heard the galumph of the shower's water pump, the length of time he showered grating on my nerves. Water conservation on a boat is important. I flipped off the water pump at the master, thereby ensuring his uber shower didn't last more than three more gallons.

  When he emerged ten minutes later, thick black hair water-sparkled, I expected to get an earful, but instead a wide smile revealed extra-white teeth against that beautiful café au lait complexion of his. Either he had hatched a shortened shower-inspired plot to tie me to the anchor and pitch me overboard, or his mood had altered. He shook the note he'd left under his mattress for me to find. "I can see you got my message. You never disappoint."

  Rats, he'd booby-trapped his billet-doux so if it moved he'd know it. I handed him a glass of water. "Hemlock?"

  "I think I prefer a mojito, which I shall make myself so as to control the contents. Anyone else care to join me?"

  While suspicious with his turn of temper, I also love mojitos so agreed it was a grand idea. He took his time conjuring up a large pitcher full, carefully bruising mint leaves in blue agave syrup, then adding dark rum and fresh squeezed lime juice.

  We moved to the back deck, where he added ice to glasses, and poured us each a drink, garnishing them with mint leaves.

  I took a delicate belt and, never one to back down from an unsettled issue, I first complimented his prowess as a muy macho mojito maker, then followed up with a, "So?"

  "So, what?"

  "You gonna take our poor pitiful pup on a boat ride tomorrow? Po Thang, look pitiful."

  It had taken me two days, several pounds of chicken, and a ton of patience on the dog's part for me to train him to stretch out his front legs and bow, letting his head droop to his paws, then look up with those begging eyes. Okay, I didn't teach him the beg bit, and in his doggie mind he was probably begging for chicken, but the act was comical. And almost always worked.

  "No. And if you don't stop this alliteration thing, I may take you, instead. On a one-way ride."

  "Please do," Jan said.

  "Alliteration, Nacho? How very…educated, for a drug dealer. But forget me. It isn't Po Thang's fault that you stick us here on the boat all day, every day, with no damned dinghy for shore trips." I jerked my head at Po Thang and used my "pitiful" hand sign. "Just look at the poor, pitiful—"

  "Stop! I give up. I'll take him with me tomorrow. But just this once."

  "It's all I ask."

  Jan and I blew up an inflatable kayak Jenks bought me that had never until that day seen a breath of air. I hate kayaks. Then we launched the paddleboard he figured I'd need. I also hate paddle-boarding. Jan agreed to paddle the kayak and drag me ashore on the paddleboard so we could go for that hike.

  Before they left, we outfitted Po Thang in his life vest, complete with hidden critter cam, and tested the GPS chip. We could get minute by minute updates for the GPS locations from the handheld gizmo Craig gave me, but once the Critter Cam left wi-fi range, which was two minutes after the panga sped off, we'd have to wait for video downloads until they returned. Jan had planted the pen and recorder in the panga, but we weren't sure they would work over the outboard noise, since they were sound activated.

  The camera lens in Po Thang's collar was almost undetectable if you weren't looking for it, and Nacho had no reason to look. By tonight, we'd at least know where Nacho and Po Thang went today.

  Jan packed up food and water and I loaded up notebooks, pens, and the like to record the track of their trip as long as we could.

  The minute they left, Jan paddled us for shore, and we raced up the highest hill to get a better handle, and maybe even a visual on our quarry. Luckily Nacho took his time leaving the anchorage, putting along baiting fishing lines and feeding them out.

  We, on the other hand, almost broke our necks scrambling up the treacherous volcanic rubble pathway. By the time we reached the top, Nacho was out of sight, but we immediately picked up a GPS reading and Jan marked her chart. Twenty boring minutes later, the boat stopped for a brief ten minutes, then took off like a bat out of hell. So much for Po Thang's long romp on some beach.

  Another hour went by. "Hetta, he's running a grid. Look here."

  She'd connected the X's she'd made on the chart. "He started here," she pointed to a place on the chart marked as a bajo, or underwater sea mount, "and is running a pattern from there. What do you figure he's got on the bottom of that boat besides a depth sounder?"

  "Magnetometer? Who knows? He takes his iPad with him, maybe he has something that connects to it."

  "I think that's to keep our grubby paws off it."

  "There's that. Betcha a peso he's taking underwater videos."

  "We'll know more tonight."

  By the time Nacho sidled his panga alongside the swim platform late that afternoon, we were back on board anxiously awaiting the results of 00Dawg's first day as an unwitting undercover operative. Po Thang scrambled up onto the main deck and sat, waiting for the mandatory desalting wash down before going further. While Jan concocted his dinner of chicken meat and Kibble, I carefully removed his life vest, rinsed it, and him, and pocketed the camera out of sight of Nacho.

  Leaving both the vest and tired dog out in the sun to dry, Jan and I feigned fatigue ourselves, and told Nacho we were going to my room for a pre-cocktail hour shower and nap. He headed for his own cabin to do the same.

  Craig, my vet friend in Arizona, had upgraded my critter cam to last five hours on batteries, and Jan and I had integrated the camera into his life jacket so it was barely visible. We knew we had five hours of data to run through, but with a fast scan, we got maybe halfway through in less than an hour, but most of it was useles
s. There was that brief romp on the beach, then we started tracing their trip by landmarks and the GPS marks on the chart, but really there was nothing but water, water, and more water.

  Po Thang's habit of doing his Titanic-nose-point in the bow of the panga was useful until he got bored and curled up for a nap. The only thing we learned from the camera is that he has a propensity to lick his nether parts a lot. He did catch one interesting shot of Nacho taking a whiz overboard—no close up of Nacho's nether parts, much to our dismay—and later landing a fish for dinner.

  "We need more," I said, shutting down the video.

  "We certainly do. I've always wondered what Mr. Macho had in those shorts."

  "That is not what I meant. Besides, I don't care what he has in his drawers."

  "Liar."

  "Just stop it. What I meant about more, is we have to talk Nacho into taking Po Thang with him again tomorrow. Whatever he's looking for didn't get found today. Po Thang looked at him a lot, and even though I couldn't hear Nacho over the engine and water noise, I could tell he baby talked Po Thang. Wish I could read lips. I've gotta get those voice recorders you planted on his boat. Maybe while Nacho makes drinks? Anyhow, since der dawg behaved himself, maybe Nacho actually liked having the company."

  Jan was studying the chart we'd marked up. "This bajo," she tapped the paper at the underwater sea mount location, "was his focus today. If he goes somewhere else tomorrow, and runs another grid, we'll know he's on a search for sure. But for what, and why so secretive? Seems to me he'd ask us to help."

  "I'd say he don't want no stinkin' help."

  "One thing we do know."

  "What?"

  "We're gonna have some seriously buff legs from running up and down that damned hill every day to track him."

  "Yeah. Let's carbo-load."

  Chapter Seventeen

  We gathered on deck for cocktails at five, Nacho having volunteered once again to concoct something exotic: Mango daiquiris, with his secret ingredient, a dash of cayenne pepper. ¡Fabulosa!

  Sipping and chatting while keeping an eye out for fish, diving birds, all the usual animal life that being on a boat in the Sea of Cortez offers up each and every day, I noticed a dinghy coming our way from the direction of a group of boats at the other end of the anchorage. As they neared, I recognized Karen, Kevin and Puddles the Poodle from the sailboat, Raisin' Cain.

  Po Thang went all wiggly at spying one of his dock buddies, and I waved to them, hoping maybe they were going somewhere else. No such luck. "Follow my lead," I said to Jan under my breath.

  "Hetta!" Karen yelled. "Nice to see you out here." They sidled up next to us and the dogs whined at each other and the large standard poodle reared up and put his paws on the rub rail. Po Thang leaned out for a nose touch.

  "You guys going out for a cocktail cruise?" I asked, hoping it was so. I wasn't really up for company, or explaining Nacho.

  "Yeah. I see you traded up," Kevin teased, nodding at Nacho's super panga. "Or did Se Vende get an extreme makeover?"

  "Se Vende is history, but the new dinghy I'm having built at the panga factory isn't finished yet. This is a…loaner."

  While we were talking the dogs continued yipping at each other and our visitors craned their necks at Jan and Nacho, waiting for an intro.

  Crap. "Uh, this is my best friend, Jan, and our—"

  Nacho stood, rushed over and reached his hand down. "Jenks Jenkins. Nice to meet you."

  The couple exchanged a look, then Kevin recovered and shook his hand. "Well, gosh, Jenks, Hetta has told us so much about you. It's nice to finally meet you. How do you like living in Dubai?"

  Nacho didn't miss a beat. "Hot."

  The couple chuckled at Nacho's ever-so-clever response, and Kevin said they needed to move on.

  "Sure you don't have time to come aboard for a drink?" Nacho asked. Drink came out as dr-INK when I stomped his bare foot.

  "Maybe another time. We're heading for the beach around the corner to let Puddles puddle, and take an illegal run. The park patrol hardly ever come out this late."

  "Great," I said, a little too gleefully. "Y'all have fun."

  "You want us to take Po Thang?"

  "Not today. He's already had a run, and we just got him cleaned up, but he'd love a rain check."

  Po Thang gave me a dirty look.

  Kevin started his outboard and gave us a wave. "Later." They sped away, and over the engine noise we heard Karen say, "Funny, he doesn't look Scandinavian. Maybe he's some kind of Norwegian gypsy?"

  Jan howled and I scowled at both her and Nacho, the latter of whom was trying to look innocent.

  "What the hell were you thinking?" I demanded. Po Thang, hearing the threat in my voice, sidled over, leaned up against Jan and looked as culpable as the real culprit should have.

  Nacho shrugged. "It just seemed the easy thing to say."

  "Yeah, you're probably right. I was going to introduce you as our boat boy."

  His eyes narrowed. "I think there is a racial insult in there."

  "Yep."

  Dinner was broiled snapper, polenta with garlic and sundried tomatoes, and julienned carrots. The atmosphere was a tad strained after Nacho introducing himself as Jenks, but since that faux pas had Nacho on the defensive, I used it to my advantage and dove in for the kill while we dug into Jan's famous flourless dark chocolate cake.

  "Jan this is fabulous. Too bad we can't continue to eat like this every day."

  Nacho's head jerked my way. "What do you mean?"

  "Taking that hike today reminded us we needed more exercise, but Po Thang is a problem. Jan and I can get to shore, but leaving him on the boat is just inhumane, if you know what I mean. Besides, he'll disturb the entire anchorage, howling to beat the band."

  As if to confirm this, Po Thang let out a little arf.

  "Bottom line? We're gonna have to cut the calories on this ship. It'll have to be salad from here on out," I declared, cashing in on the old adage, the way to a man's heart is through his stomach.

  "Salad?" Nacho squeaked.

  "Yep, rabbit food. Veggies. Low carb veggies, at that. No starchy stuff like Jan's excellent polenta here. Maybe we'll celebrate every day or so with a strawberry or two."

  "What? I hired this boat and with it, meals and crew."

  "Well, of course you did. But we didn't provide a menu, did we? Or, who would do the cooking. I think I'll step in and take over the kitchen to make sure we don't all pork up from lack of exercise. Okay by you, Jan?"

  She bobbed her head.

  Do we know how to nail a guy where it hurts, or what?

  Nacho certainly looked to be in pain. "Perhaps," he said, "I should take Po Thang with me again tomorrow. You two take a hike," he looked like that might be a double entendre, "and then Jan will cook?"

  Hook, line, and sinker.

  Boat boys can be so gullible.

  Day two of Deputy Dawg's surveillance garnered more of the same boring run. Nacho ran another grid pattern, boosting our suspicion that he was on the search for more than fish.

  Before dinner—which Nacho would be vastly relieved to see was much more than rabbit food—we downloaded the critter cam video and finally something new popped up.

  Almost halfway through the day's cam results, I was roused from an almost comatose state while watching the same water world—and the boat's floorboards every time Po Thang got bored and took a nap—when the picture boggled as my spook jumped to his feet.

  Another panga came into camera range and headed straight for Nacho's boat, and our Po-parazzi's critter cam. I couldn't hear his barks, but from the way the camera jerked, he was giving someone an earful. I called Jan over to watch with me.

  "That panga look familiar to you?"

  She gave me a thumbs-up. "Absolutely. Not many powder blue super pangas around here, and this one is a dead ringer for the one that charged around rocking the anchorage and pissing everyone off right before Nacho showed up."

  "Yep, that's what
I thought."

  As we watched, the blue panga came alongside Nacho's boat. Po Thang scrambled to that side of the boat and was, from the earthquake of movement, raising a ruckus.

  "We gotta get a critter cam with sound," Jan grumbled.

  I paused the video. "Have you downloaded both our sound recorders yet?"

  "Yes, but everything is really muffled. Almost useless. I'll try to tweak it later."

  I resumed the video. Po Thang was suddenly jerked back and sat, probably still rumbling but not enough to shake the camera that much. Nacho's hand came into view as he threw out a fender, then caught a line from the guy in the blue panga.

  The driver was Hispanic, thick hair cut short, dressed like a yachtie in a tee shirt reading I HEART BAJA, cargo shorts, and a baseball cap. Dark glasses covered his eyes, but even if they hadn't, I knew he was no one I recognized.

  Po Thang's head swayed back and forth, following a brief conversation we couldn't hear, and capturing the handoff of what looked like a waterproof bag, and a large red snapper. Po Thang forgot about the interloper long enough to follow that snapper, trying to grab it before Nacho put it on ice and slammed the cooler lid, almost whacking the nosy dog in the snout. We didn't see where Nacho put the bag, because our agent lost interest and went back to terrorizing the panga's driver.

  Nacho untied the blue panga and it sped away, and we didn't catch the name because Po Thang was bouncing off the gunwales, showing Nacho what a great guard dog he was now that the threat was gone. We could, however, just make out "La Paz" painted near the stern.

  I turned off the video. "Curiouser and curiouser. I'd kill to know what's in that bag. Did you notice Nacho bringing it on board when he and Po Thang got back?"

  "Naw, I was being mauled by a large wet dog," Jan said, "but I did notice he had his backpack in hand. Betcha it's stashed inside."

  "Most likely. So, we'll have to distract Nacho long enough to search his cabin. We won't need more than a few minutes. You got any ideas?"