Just Deserts (Hetta Coffey Series (Book 4))

by Schwartz, Jinx

  Ted pried the flare gun from my clenched hand and knelt in a classic firing position. I closed my eyes, because everyone knows that keeping one’s eyes clamped shut stops not only bullets, but also monsters that snatch you by the feet from under your bed. I missed my blankie.

  Inappropriate laughter shoved me back to reality. Had Ted gone round the bend?

  Opening my eyes I saw him standing, gun lowered, pointing with his other hand. “Oh, yeah, baby. It’s my man, Booger Red, and he’s got those assholes on the run. And, here comes the cavalry. Time for us to split, because those guys are way too busy to mess with us anymore. Hetta, you lead. Over the edge, for now.”

  We scrambled for the bluff and crouched on a ledge to watch the show. When I looked back and down, only a plume of dust marked where my car ended up. Sigh.

  A brigade of farm trucks, tractors, Jeeps and an ATV or two had arrived, and armed ranch hands sped toward the center of the runway, while Booger Red charged from our end. Caught in the middle were the three assailants, who threw their guns down and hands up.

  Booger Red, who evidently missed that class regarding the rules of the Geneva Convention, and the niceties of surrender, didn’t even slow. Two thousand pounds of red-speckled fury mowed the kneeling, terrified men down with a bone-crunching wallop heard even above the airplane’s engines.

  Bodies flew, but not so far that six-foot horns couldn’t reach them. Tossed over and over into the air like rag dolls, the would-be hijackers endured several more minutes of abuse so violent that Ted actually called for the brindle to stop.

  Finally hearing Ted’s voice above his rage, Booger Red went suddenly still. Standing over his victims, bull snot dripping on his foe, he bellowed a victory bawl or two, stomped a hoof, and was turning to leave when one of the men on the ground made a bad mistake. He moved. Once again, the bull head-butted that man, then bulldozed all three for several feet before giving their unconscious bodies a final toss. Stomping one last time, his hoof perilously close to an unconscious attacker’s head, he then casually loped off, tail held high, bloody pieces of camouflage cloth streaming from his horns like Milady’s scarf on her gallant knight’s lance.

  “Good bull,” I cheered.

  He stopped, turned his head my way, stuck his nose in the air and, I swear, took a bow.

  Chapter 29

  The wounded assailants, bound with rope, had been placed, none too gently, onto a wooden truck bed, then hauled off to the winery barn, since Nanci absolutely, positively refused the bastards a bed in her home.

  She did, however, go along with rendering what first aid we could until a local doctor arrived, mainly because we all wanted them alive and explaining. When we went to check on the plane and get our belongings, all the battered men were still breathing and even letting out an occasional moan, but they were in sorry shape.

  “What a freakin’ mess,” Ted lamented, pretty much summing up our day. “Well, at least the plane is undamaged, but can’t say the same for your car, Hetta. And now we’re gonna have to call the damned cops for sure, like it or not.”

  I know how much people hate sending for the law in Mexico, but it was unavoidable, whether the men who attacked us lived or died. If they live, what do you do with them? Likewise, if they die? Okay, you could bury them out in the desert, but in this case there were way too many witnesses.

  “Since they tried to steal your plane,” I said, “I doubt the police will be very sympathetic with them. Besides, it was Booger Red who attacked them, not us, and they did have automatic weapons.”

  “What automatic weapons?” Ted asked.

  “The ones…oh, I see.”

  Jan didn’t get it. “The ones they shot at us with.”

  Ted grinned. “Nope, never a shot fired. Not a hole anywhere on the plane, or elsewhere. We must have just imagined they had guns, right?”

  Jan still looked puzzled. I think the shock of the incident left her unable to grasp subtleties. “Jan, Ted is right. No guns. There. Were. No. Guns.”

  Her frown finally relaxed. “Oh. Oh! Ted’s keeping the guns, right?”

  “Keeping what guns?”

  A quick meeting was convened, all players in attendance except those guarding our captives and a couple of men posted along the road to guide the doctor, and make sure we didn’t have any more unwelcome company.

  Most of the Mexican workers looked to be in shock, none more than Sonrisa. She was literally quaking. I almost felt sorry for the tiny turd. Nanci put her arm around the little Indian and spoke softly in Spanish, reassuring her she was safe, the danger had passed.

  Ted, having secured his plane in the hanger, joined us. He spoke in Spanish, with asides to Jan and me as necessary. The gist was that he was reluctantly calling in the law, so anyone who wanted to should scram before they arrived. He would stay put out of necessity, but Nanci, Jan, and I were to hightail it for Bisbee in Nanci’s SUV, pronto. Anyone who chose to stay were not to answer questions from the authorities, but to refer all inquiries to him. From the looks of dismay on the workers’ faces, Ted was going to be a very lonely guy for the next few days.

  Sonrisa, once she understood that we three women were driving to the border, asked if we could drop her off in Naco to see her brother. Maybe she was smarter than I gave her credit for.

  By the time we were loaded up and ready to roll, the doctor arrived. The would-be hijackers, conscious and belligerent, were pronounced by the doc fit enough to be beaten up by the police when they arrived. He then took a powder before the heat showed. Mexican police, it seems, are highly unpopular, avoided by both bad guys and the innocent alike.

  Ted doubled-secured the hijackers with tie wraps and searched them. They carried no identification, and sullenly refused to talk, which, Ted assured us, would change with a little police brutality, Mexican style.

  Before leaving for Bisbee, we drove to the end of the runway, peered over the bluff, and said a final farewell to what was left of my poor Volkswagen. Losing her was like losing my dog, RJ, all over again. Oh, how I longed for one more Sunday afternoon drive with him, his head hanging out the passenger window, splattering drool over cars behind us, and me with my window down in a futile attempt to dissipate seriously lethal dog farts, a direct result of our weekly Mexican food brunch.

  We gals left Ted with the perps and a rapidly vaporizing employee pool.

  We spoke little during the trip northward. I drove, because Nanci was too upset. We were almost to Cananea when we met two Mexican police cars, lights flashing, headed south, most likely for the winery. Sonrisa instinctively slid down in her seat, and Nanci ducked her head.

  Nanci was rattled, worried about what would happen at the winery when the cops arrived, and fretting over the missing Rosa. Ted, as patrón, would be treated with more respect by the fuzz, but she also knew that others, the few men who loyally remained with Ted, would fall under a veil of suspicion in both Rosa’s disappearance, and the attack by hijackers. In a country where everyone is considered guilty until proven innocent, is it any wonder witnesses are hard to come by?

  On the other hand, justice is swift and evidence need not be too conclusive. For example, there was the case of the Canadian tourists who were robbed at gunpoint in a Puerto Vallarta park, and the perp was handily caught because he was “not from around here,” and deemed guilty by virtue of the five-hundred peso note found in his pocket. Police were quick to point out that a man of his sort had no business with five hundred pesos. Case solved.

  Sonrisa sat in the backseat with Nanci and never uttered a word the whole trip. I glanced at her in the rearview mirror a few times, sizing her up. Those eyes, black and, in my mind, snakelike, fit well with her pulled down lips and chiseled features. Stone carvings of her Mayan ancestors came to mind. Credit where credit is due, though, as shaken as she was immediately after witnessing the hijack attempt, she was now downright stoic, while I was still weak in the knees.

  We dropped Sonrisa off near the church, then headed for the g
ateway to Heaven, or so the US border seemed to us. Eager to be on good old safe American soil, I pulled up next to the customs agent and was handing over our passports when all hell broke loose. Suddenly ordered from the car by yelling agents, we were quickly herded into that now all-too-familiar holding room and left, stunned, to puzzle out what went wrong.

  “Damn, Hetta, think they realized who we are?”

  Nanci tilted her head. “What the hell does that mean?”

  “Oh, nothing, really. Jan and I had a little misunderstanding at this border before Christmas, but it was all cleared up.”

  “So you say,” she said dryly, “I can’t wait to hear this story.”

  I was recounting our bird smuggling incident when a female officer stuck her head in and told us we’d set off CBP’S PRD. In English, that’s the Customs and Border Patrol officer’s Personal Radiation Device, and we would be individually scanned. She left us more bumfuzzled than ever.

  “Uh, Nanci, we did consume a lot of irradiated wine the past two days.”

  Nanci shook her head. “If that were the case, every baby in Mexico would set off the sensors. The milk is irradiated.”

  “Have you transported cobalt rods in your car?”

  “Never.”

  The agents returned and escorted me to another room for further scanning, They were closemouthed, but since I didn’t register as hot, I was taken outside. Nanci’s SUV had been moved into an area normally reserved for trucks, so I assumed it, too, was being given a going-over on a larger scale.

  Nanci was next to be released, but after another hour we still had not seen Jan. By now, Nanci’s SUV was swarmed by all sorts of agents with mysterious instruments, then, as suddenly as we’d been detained, Jan appeared and we were all let go. Not ones to question freedom, we loaded up and hauled ass for my house.

  Turns out, Jan forgot to get a note from her doctor.

  “Let me get this straight, Jan,” I said. “That nuclear stress test they gave you at the Mayo Clinic set off a Geiger counter, adding to our already impossibly crappy day?”

  “Yep.”

  I rubbed my tired eyes. So far we’d been attacked by would-be hijackers, held as possible threats to national security, and then, to top it all off, locked out of my house. My garage door opener was still in my VW, now at the bottom of a cliff, and the front door key was inside the house, in a drawer, because I always entered through the garage. After a couple of false starts, however, I finally remembered the code for the garage door keypad and we got in.

  Once in, Nanci placed calls to several high-ranking folks in Mexico City, apprised them of the hijacking attempt, and asked them to use their clout to help her and Ted out of this sticky situation. In Mexico, victims of crimes are held in high suspicion, no matter how innocent. If someone attacks you, they reason, you must have something to hide, otherwise, why would you be attacked?

  We all took long hot showers, grabbed some wine and cheese, and headed for the verandah, where Nanci called Ted for an update. The police had, at first, bullied and hectored everyone in sight, but after a phone call originating from Mexico city, they turned downright solicitous. They hauled the bad guys off and promised to make inquiries about the missing Rosa.

  Nanci laughed as she told us the story. “You know, I almost feel sorry for those thugs. They probably know nothing about Rosa, but by the time the cops get through with them, they’ll make something up.”

  I had my own calls to make, namely to the prince and the Trob. Hmmm, sounds like the title to some new off-off-Broadway production. Maybe by now one of them knew where in hell Jenks got off to.

  The Trob did not answer. In all the years I’d known him, this was a first.

  I called Allison, his wife, my friend and sometimes lawyer. No answer.

  I called the prince. Ditto.

  Frustrated beyond belief, I let loose a primal scream, which of course scared the hell out of Nanci and Jan, who rushed in to find out what was wrong, then gave me a good cussing for the fright. I apologized and told them we all needed a good howl, so we headed for the verandah to do so.

  Several late afternoon putters threatened us with great bodily harm, which we found hilarious.

  Coyotes in the brush yipped answering calls. Neighborhood dogs responded in kind.

  Blue trotted up for a treat, cocked his head at our howls, threw his bushy tail into the air, and sashayed off as if to say, “Someone around here needs a modicum of dignity.”

  We laughed, drank our wine, and howled ourselves silly in some kind of posttraumatic hysteria, until the cold drove us inside.

  I turned on the fireplace, asked if anyone was hungry, but all agreed wine and more Brie was sufficient. Not a great idea, but by then we were way beyond good ideas.

  The phone rang and I dove for it. “Hetta?”

  “Trob?”

  “Is she there yet?”

  I tried to think, but wine overload has a way of making that difficult. She? Who?

  “She? Who?”

  “Allison.”

  “Your Allison?”

  “Yes.”

  “Hang on for just a minute.” I put down the phone, drank a large glass of water, thinking it might dilute some alcohol. Didn’t work.

  “Wontrobski, start over. Slowly, please.”

  “Is. Allison. There. Yet?”

  This was beginning to have a who’s on first Abbot and Costello flavor.

  “You know, I can normally translate your language, no matter how esoteric, but help me out here. Where is Allison supposed to be?”

  “She should be at your house by now.”

  “Why would—?”

  The doorbell rang and Jan trilled, “Allison, what on earth are you doing here?”

  “Ah’ve left Wontrobski.”

  “Trob?” I said into the phone.

  “Yes.”

  “Yes,” I said, leaving him with a good dose of his own cryptic medicine.

  We hustled Allison before the fire for a grilling. Since she was several months preggers, she refrained from joining our quest to drink all the wine in the house, but she didn’t seem to mind that we were half-past tipsy. I made her a cup of tea before we settled in to hear her story. More surprising to me than her marrying the Trob in the first place was that she’d now left him.

  I waited until she took a sip of Earl Grey, then demanded, “Okay, what’s wrong?”

  “D-d-dubai,” she blubbered.

  Jan handed her a tissue. “Gesundheit.”

  “No, Dubai. He wants us to move there.”

  Now that was a shocker. Wontrobski, leave the city of San Francisco? My God, I can remember when he’d hardly leave the Baxter Brothers building. When I first met him, he worked eighteen hours a day, then walked a short distance to his hotel room. That was the sum total of his world. After he married Allison, however, he’d expanded his horizons slightly, but actually getting on an airplane? No way.

  “Allison,” I took her hand, “you can give us the details later, like when we’re sober enough to remember them, but for now, I don’t think you have a thing to worry about. Fidel Wontrobski will never, ever, board an airliner.”

  “You’re right, he won’t. They’re gonna take us there on a big ship, along with everyone else. Baxter Brothers is moving their headquarters to Dubai.” She suddenly looked alarmed. “Oh, crap. That’s a major secret. You can’t tell anyone, okay?”

  Not tell anybody? She had to be kidding. I couldn’t wait to get to the phone. First I’d go on line and buy all the stock I could afford, then call Dad and tell him to do the same. Then drop a dime to Fox, CNN, and all the rest. Delusions of riches garnered thanks to insider info danced in my head, and I counted my future fortune faster than you can say Martha Stewart. Okay, maybe that’s not the best example, but I was calculating how much moola I could get my hands on to invest when Allison tapped my shoulder.

  “Snap out of it, and forget what I said, okay?”

  I crossed my fingers behind my back
. “Sure, sure, Allison.”

  “I mean it, Hetta. I could go to jail for telling you about the move. And so could you if you do anything, like buy stock.”

  Is this woman a mind reader, or what? Rats. “I promise not to tell anyone or do anything to enrich myself. Is that good enough?”

  “Uncross your fingers.” Double rats.

  I held out my hands. “All right, all right. I gather you do not wish to move to Dubai?”

  “I told Fidel when I agreed to marry him that I never wanted to leave the Bay Area. I mean, I was even entertaining a run for mayor of San Francisco, until I got pregnant.”

  Jan took a sip and focused, with some difficulty, on Allison. “How did that happen?”

  “Jan,” I scolded, “don’t you think that’s just a lit-tle too personal?”

  Jan spluttered a giggle. “Silly, I meant, how is it Allison almost ran for mayor?”

  For that story, we decided to light a firepit and brave the chill to watch the last ray of the day fade behind the purple silhouetted Huachuca mountain range. Bundled into sweats, we crowded around the crackling firelog and listened as Allison gave a quick rundown on being approached by the local politicos who saw her as mayoral material, and she, flattered, almost went for it.

  “Had they met your husband?” Somehow, I couldn’t picture the Trob in a photo op, unless they were selling zoo tickets, since he closely resembles a buzzard. A loveable buzzard, but certainly not GQ material.

  “Well, no. I kind of kept him under wraps. I think they thought, since he is a big wig at Baxter Brothers, I would appeal to both parties or something.”

  “Oh, gee, I didn’t realize there was a Klingon Party in San Fran,” I quipped, drawing appreciative cackles, even from Allison. “I thought they were all in Berkeley.”

  A golf cart skidded to a stop, and we, expecting to be shushed, were surprised to see the Xers gawking at us. They gave the new kid on the block, Allison, a look, but did not acknowledge our cockamamie greetings as they sped away.