by Joan Rylen
“So how long have you known Julio?” Lucy asked them.
One of them answered, “Long time.” Then they both got up and went to the restroom.
“Guess they’re on the buddy system, too,” Lucy said.
“Yeah, even with their men,” Kate said.
Wendy looked around to see if Shorty was close by. “We need to have another code word tonight. Any ideas?”
“How about ‘pizza’?” Lucy offered. “We can say, ‘I sure would like a slice of pizza,’ and it won’t sound suspicious.”
“That works,” Vivian agreed. “Hell, a big pepperoni slice sounds good right now. I’m tipsy.”
Shorty came out of the door and walked back to the table. “You have good time?”
“That we are!” Vivian held up her No-Name drink in emphasis.
Lucy finished off her drink, slammed it down and looked around at all of them. “I want to get a tattoo.”
Shorty didn’t look phased by her announcement, but Vivian was shocked. Kate and Wendy looked it too.
“Excuse me?” Vivian did a mock cough. “Did you just say you want to get a tattoo?”
“I did. I’ve been thinking about it for a while. Why not get it now?”
“Es place down street,” Shorty said. “I know guy. Es bueño.”
“Well, there you have it. If Mr. Tiempo Loco Tequila Man said it’s good, it’s gotta be. Let’s go.” Lucy pushed back her chair abruptly, causing it to fall backward. She stood up, wobbling a bit. “And I’m doin’ it!”
“We can’t let her permanently mark herself under the influence.” Kate waved around Lucy’s empty glass and looked at Vivian and Wendy.
“You sure you want to get a tattoo now, in Mexico?” Wendy asked.
Lucy nodded, then poured herself a tequila shot, spilling some in the process. Liquid courage.
“Let’s just go.” Vivian stood up. “Maybe she’ll change her mind once she gets there and sees the needle.”
Since when does Lucy trust Shorty? Vivian thought. I guess somewhere in the middle of that last drink.
“Es that way.” Shorty pointed to the left. “Maya Tattoo. Ask for Dragón.”
Dragón. Oh Lordy.
CHAPTER 45
THE MAYA Tattoo’s big neon sign flashed erratically and Vivian heard the buzz of electricity as she passed by it. The girls looked at the dozens of pictures boasting satisfied customers in the front window.
They went inside and were greeted with a silent stare from a hefty guy behind the counter. “I want a tattoo. Are you Dragón?” Lucy said.
“Si.” He was covered in tattoos, at least the skin they could see. The silver looped nose ring was not sexy, nor were his giant, disgusting earlobe expanders. Vivian couldn’t believe Lucy was about to let this guy touch her.
“Wonder how he got his name,” Kate asked just loud enough for Vivian and Wendy to hear. “Do you think he breathes fire?”
“Shh!” Wendy looked at Dragón to see if he had overheard Kate. He had not, so Wendy said, “Let’s not find out.”
Dragón pointed to a notebook filled with pages and pages of artwork. Lucy began flipping.
“I can’t believe we are letting her do this,” Kate said a little louder and with more urgency.
“We aren’t ‘letting’ her do anything,” Vivian took up for their tipsy friend. “She’s an adult. She can make up her own mind.”
Lucy looked at them. “Hello! I can hear you. And besides, it’s no crazier than riding back to Playa on a boat, by ourselves, with someone who might have murdered Jon.”
Maybe she’s more sober than I thought, Vivian thought.
After looking for a while, Lucy picked out an ancient Mayan symbol that meant “survivor.”
Vivian looked over Lucy’s shoulder. “Interesting choice.”
“¿Dónde lo quieres?” Dragón asked.
Lucy looked to Wendy for help.
“I think he wants to know where you want it,” Wendy translated.
“Put it here.” Lucy tapped the outside of her left ankle.
Dragón pointed Lucy into a reclining chair, then got out his equipment, needles and all, and carefully wiped down her ankle with alcohol.
“Have you sterilized those needles?” Lucy asked. “My life’s at stake here.”
Dragón nodded and Vivian, Kate and Wendy took a seat over by the windows as he got to work.
Lucy was pretty calm and didn’t seem to be bothered by the pain. Of course, she was probably numb from the yard-long hurricane, the tequila and the No-Name drinks. She was chatty, talking to Dragón about anything and everything. It was mostly a one-way conversation.
About halfway through her survivor symbol, Lucy got quiet. Vivian walked over to check on her. “How you doin’?”
Lucy’s face had turned pale. “It’s starting to hurt a little now. Maybe I could use another drink?”
Dragón gave a slight shake of his head and grunted.
Vivian thought a distraction was in order. “Remember the time I was going to color my hair and we decided you needed dramatic blonde highlights, like me?”
“How could I ever forget? That was one of the worst nights of my life! I ended up with orange hair.”
Kate looked up from the tattoo artist magazine she had been skimming. “This sounds good, do tell!”
“Okay, but keep in mind this was back in college.” Lucy let out a sigh and adjusted herself in the chair. “I was with Viv when she picked up stuff to highlight her hair. I’m not sure what possessed me, but I decided that I should highlight my hair, too.”
“Which she had never done before,” Vivian said.
“I grabbed the same box, labeled ‘Dramatic Blonde Highlights,’ and we went back to her house to get things developing.”
“This is where it started going bad.” Vivian covered her mouth with her hand.
“Viv put on the shower cap looking thing and began pulling her hair through the holes. I have a lot of hair, so her mom offered to help me. She pulled and pulled and pulled, Vivian warned her that it was too much, but I wasn’t worried; I was excited to have ‘dramatic blonde highlights.’ ”
“Mrs. Hammonds put on the chemical gloves, whipped up the stuff and applied away. A few minutes into our waiting time, my scalp started to burn.”
“Oh no,” Kate said. “Not good.”
Dragón glanced up and shook his head. He put his hand on Lucy’s leg, indicating she needed to hold still.
“Viv didn’t seem too worried, so I dismissed it as normal,” Lucy continued. “Ding! I went to wash my hair and use the conditioning treatment. Finally, the time had come, so I took the towel off and looked in the mirror. All I could think was, ‘they weren’t kidding when they wrote “dramatic” on the box. Being an eternal optimist, I was confident that once I dried my hair it would look better. Those bright yellow, chunky streaks all over would blend to create a perfect highlighted hairdo. Right?”
Vivian let out a little giggle. Lucy ignored her.
“I frantically started drying my hair, but the more I dried, the worse it got. Vivian was chomping at the bit to see. She knew something was wrong from the tone of my voice through the bathroom door.”
“She wouldn’t come out for an hour,” Vivian said, holding in the howls of laughter about to explode.
“There was no way around it, so I opened the door.”
“It was horrific.” Vivian couldn’t contain it any longer. “Like a clown.”
Lucy held her hands out, Vanna White style, toward Vivian. “Much like she is right now, she burst into laughter, and I don’t mean a little supportive ‘it’ll be all right’ chuckle, I mean a doubled over in tears guttural laugh.”
“I fell on the floor actually, rolling around. The image of her orange hair will forever be burned into my brain.”
“Bad friend, Vivian.” Kate wagged her finger like she was scolding a dog. “Bad friend.”
“Wait,” Vivian said. “It gets worse.”
; Dragón glanced up at Vivian. His cheeks were flushed, from holding back laughter, she presumed.
“Oh no,” Wendy said.
“Oh yes,” Vivian said. “We came up with a new plan to try to return her hair to its normal color and went back to the store to get more dye.”
“I wore a scarf to cover up the monstrosity that was my head. Viv told me to sit on a bench close to the door and that she would buy the new color. She paid and walked toward me and, once again, burst into laughter and pointed.”
Tears rolled down Vivian’s face. “Your crazy hair under that scarf, and you’re sitting on a bench next to cheerful, clown-around Ronald McDonald. I almost wet myself!”
Kate held the magazine up to her face so only her eyes showed. Wendy covered her mouth with her hand.
“It was now after 2 in the morning, but I was desperate to remedy this situation. We got back to Viv’s house, and she waited up with me while I processed, assuring me that everything would be fine. This time, though, my scalp really burned. After I rinsed off the dye, the new color covered the dramatic blonde highlights and appeared to be close to normal. I was exhausted but relieved, so I went to bed with my hair wet, even though my scalp still burned.”
“This does not sound good, Lucy,” Wendy said.
“The next morning I looked in the mirror and was horrified! My hair was not a normal color. It was tangerine orange and I had red, burning blotches on my scalp. I scrambled into Viv’s room and woke her up, and she started laughing again. I made an emergency appointment with my hair stylist who told me the burning sensation was an allergic reaction. If I had done anything else, my hair might have fallen out. She worked on me for hours doing scalp and conditioning treatments and was forced to cut off more than six inches.”
“Is this when you had that burgundy hair color?” Wendy asked.
“Yep.”
“I always wondered about that,” Kate said. “And you straightened your hair then, too, right?”
“Not on purpose! It took my hair more than a year to recover the curl.”
“That’s a lesson, ladies,” Vivian said, wiping the tears from her eyes. “Burning is bad.”
Dragón put down his instruments and gave the new tattoo a final swipe with alcohol. “You like?”
Lucy looked at her new tattoo. “It’s perfect. Thank you, Dragón!” She threw her arms around him and gave him a big hug.
He grimaced, so Vivian got out her camera just in time to snap his picture. He didn’t look too happy about that, either.
“We’d better head back to the bar.” Vivian walked to the door. “We don’t want Julio to leave us here tonight.”
“Yeah.” Lucy gave Dragón a final squeeze. “We might have to stay with Dragón tonight if we got left.”
He grunted again, obviously not pleased at the prospect of house guests, even if they were four hot babes.
That’s okay, I don’t want to set foot in the dragon’s lair anyway.
CHAPTER 46
VIVIAN HAD a feeling someone was watching her as she opened the door to the No Name. She glanced into the alley directly across the street as she held the door for the girls. Behind a five-foot stack of wooden pallets she could make out the orange glow of a cigarette butt. The moonlight gave off just enough light to reveal the person behind it. His hair was pulled back, and he had a jagged scar down his left cheek.
She hustled inside. “Oh my god! I just saw Ponytail across the street.”
The girls stopped just inside the door and turned to face her.
“What?!” Lucy exclaimed.
“He’s hiding in the alley.”
“Who is he spying on, us or Shorty?” Kate asked.
“I have no idea, but he chased us.”
Wendy opened the door a crack and peeked outside. “That’s him all right. I can see why he’d spy on us, but why spy on Shorty?”
“Maybe he’s spying on Shorty for the same reason we want to snoop around on his boat.” Kate pulled the door closed. “To see what, if any, connection there is to Jon’s death.”
“We need to watch ourselves.” Lucy made the sign of the cross. “I don’t trust Shorty 100 percent, and I sure as heck don’t trust Ponytail.”
Shorty walked up, tequila bottle in hand. “Hola, señoritas. Everything okay?”
“We were just deciding what to do tomorrow,” Vivian said and nervously tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. “Lie on the beach or go snorkeling.”
“Beautiful beaches, beautiful water, es all good.”
Shorty led them back to the table they had vacated earlier and grabbed for the shot glasses.
Vivian waved her hand to stop him. “Thanks, Julio. No tequila for me, but I’d definitely like another No-Name drink.”
“I’ll take some tequila and a No-Name. I need to numb the tattoo pain,” Lucy said.
Shorty looked her up and down. “Where?”
She held her leg up and proudly showed him her new tattoo. “What do ya think?”
“Es bueño. Dragón do good job.”
Vivian could tell he wasn’t all that excited about the symbol, probably not his style. He seemed more like a snake-and-fangs-tattoo kind of guy.
Vivian was unsettled at seeing Ponytail across the street and wondered what he was up to. Would he barge in there and demand something or attack them? Would he just watch in the shadows all night? She didn’t know what to expect because she didn’t know what “organization” he was involved with.
The girls managed to chit chat with Shorty while they finished their drinks, then Vivian asked, “Do you mind if we head back to Playa?” She pointed to Lucy, who had started yawning. “I think some of us are done for the night.”
“No problemo,” Shorty said, then pushed back his chair.
Vivian reached in her purse to pull out some money but he waved her off.
“You no pay.”
“But what about a tip for the waitress?”
“I her customer, es her lucky day.”
On their way out Vivian looked in the alley for Ponytail but saw no one. She noticed the full moon which would offer plenty of light on the boat ride back, but in her book it also meant the crazies were out. Can’t win for losing.
As they made their way to the marina, they walked by street vendors selling tacos and other meats on a stick. The smells were intoxicating, but the girls were leery. It could be dog or cat tacos for all they knew. They ignored the offers of food and moved on, Kate checking behind them periodically and Vivian looking down every alley.
Everyone they passed recognized Shorty. They would look at him and nod. Almost like a respect thing.
Shorty, hand in pocket, approached four guys. He said something to a guy in a black t-shirt with red and orange flames on it. Flames slipped his hand in and out of his pocket and they shook. From Vivian’s vantage point it looked like some sort of exchange took place.
“What was that about?” Lucy whispered.
“Just chill out,” Wendy said. “Let’s not speculate.”
“We don’t want to piss him off. We’ll be fish food.” Kate said.
“It’ll be fine,” Vivian said, though she was a bit nervous after seeing that. “At least we haven’t seen creepy-Ponytail-stalker-guy.”
Deal done, Shorty grabbed each of his women by the waist and said, “Vamanos!”
The marina was just down the street and the girls shuffled along behind, glancing at each other nervously.
Shorty grabbed the line and pulled his boat close to the pier, then helped The Ladies aboard. They disappeared below, into the cabin. He looked up expectantly at Vivian and crew, who still stood on solid ground.
“Guess I’ll be first to walk the plank,” Vivian joked and walked slowly down the pier. Behind her Lucy hummed a funeral dirge.
“Stop that! I’m about to push you in the water,” Wendy muttered from behind her.
Kate choked back a laugh.
Vivian reached the boat and Shorty held his hand
out.
She took a deep breath, grabbed his hand and climbed aboard.
CHAPTER 47
SHORTY HELPED Lucy, Wendy and Kate aboard Belize It!, and got busy readying the boat for departure. While he scrambled around untying lines, he told them they could find snacks and drinks in the galley.
Lucy wasted no time. She went below and The Ladies came up carrying plastic cups. Vivian, Wendy and Kate took turns on the ladder leading into the cabin.
“Wow. This is pretty freakin’ awesome.” Wendy glanced around the galley which was at the foot of the stairs. It was complete with little fridge and microwave.
The head was just opposite the kitchen and had the necessary amenities, but no shower. A seating area and table were between the kitchen and an oval opening that contained the V-berth. The bed didn’t reach all the way into the V of the bow, but almost. Shorty’s boat was pimped out. He even had a flat-screen TV above the galley, visible from the bed.
The engines roared to life and the boat started moving. The girls exchanged nervous glances.
“Saint Michael, protect us on this journey with a could-be killer, a probable drug lord and a definite crappy decorator,” Lucy prayed.
“It’s fine.” Vivian tried to reassure them. “We’ll be fine.”
“Just in case it’s not, I’m helping myself to a rum and Coke.”
Kate unscrewed the lid to a bottle of rum sitting on the counter and glanced up, into the berth. “Holy crap, that’s some of the tackiest bedding I’ve ever seen.”
They all looked over at the bed. Lucy gasped. “Wow, I hadn’t seen that yet.”
The bedding was satiny black with little white Playboy bunnies. The bunnies were extra illuminated due to the red mood lighting. Shorty must have had 10 pillows on the bed, each with white bunny tails as fringe. The crème de la crème was the huge, life size bunny, right smack dab in the middle of the bed. Bunny was on her side, looking like she was ready for, well… snuggling, spooning and Vivian didn’t want to imagine what else.
“Holy guacamole. That’s bad,” Wendy said, shaking her head.
