Cinco de Mayhem

by Ann Myers

  Chapter 20

  By late afternoon I’d run out of preparations for my home-cooked meal. I’d grated cheese, separated eggs, and twice checked my roasted chiles to ensure that they weren’t firebombs in disguise. The soufflé required only simmering and assembling the cheese sauce, whipping the egg whites, and folding everything together. Oh, and saying a prayer to San Pasqual the kitchen saint that the soufflé would rise and stay risen. I once again rehearsed my culinary game plan. While putting together the soufflé, I’d roast fresh spring asparagus to golden brown. When it was done, I’d pop in the soufflé, along with a gratin of sweet cherry tomatoes tossed with garlic, olive oil, Parmesan, and crusty baguette cubes. Right before the soufflé came out, I’d drizzle the asparagus with a French-Mex vinaigrette of lime, cilantro, and Dijon and top it with crispy tortilla strips and toasted pine nuts. Then, voilà, as Brigitte would say. Dinner would be ready to serve.

  I looked around the small living room, wondering what I’d forgotten. I’d already tried on half my wardrobe and settled on a soft charcoal gray dress that felt like a T-shirt and yet looked dressy casual with black tights and a new yellow belt that Celia claimed made the outfit “pop.” I’d removed cat fur and magazines from the sofa, brushed Hugo, sipped calming tea, and paced not so calmly. There was one big problem. I still had no word from Linda or from Jake.

  I checked my watch for the millionth time. How long did getting arrested take? Would Linda have to stay in jail?

  It was my own fault that I knew little of arrest procedures. I’d been married to a cop for fifteen-some years. Why hadn’t I learned more about Manny’s work? I’d always asked him about his day. “Fine,” he’d usually say. Sometimes I tried to dig deeper, but truth be told, I hardly wanted to know. For most of Celia’s childhood, we’d lived in a leafy suburb of Chicago. Manny, however, worked in urban neighborhoods that too often made the nightly news, and not in a good way. He’d told me some about the gangs he dealt with and sad tales of neglected kids and senseless deaths. I sympathized and still did, even if Manny and I didn’t see eye-to-eye. Being a cop anywhere can be tough, dangerous, and scary. To a lesser extent, so is being a cop’s spouse.

  Readjusting the oven rack to soufflé height, an image of Linda behind bars flashed before me. I pictured her in an orange prison jumpsuit, languishing in a dingy cell, eating awful slop from a tray. No, that wouldn’t be Linda. Linda would set up a literacy program and teach other inmates to make wholesome slop. She’d be calm and helpful, like I wished I could be. I picked up a mewing Hugo and paced. Maybe Flori had heard something and forgotten to call. I doubted this, but with Hugo purring in one ear, I dialed Flori’s number. Her daughters bought her a cell phone last year, insisting she carry it for safety. She carried it, but the phone faced the most danger. Flori tended to drop it into stew pots, and just last week she’d nearly roasted it with a pork shoulder.

  To my surprise, she picked up after the second ring, answering with a “Shhhh” followed by rustling.

  I automatically whispered back, “Flori, what’s going on? Are you in the library?”

  “Rita? Is that you?” she said, voice still low. “I thought I was quieting the ringer, not answering.”

  “Thanks a lot,” I grumbled.

  “Now, now,” my friend chuckled. “I intended to call you later. Any news from your handsome Mr. Strong?”

  “None! I hate waiting! I want to do something.” More rustling ensued on Flori’s side of the line. “What are you doing?”

  “Spying, of course,” she replied. “I couldn’t sit around waiting either. I didn’t invite you along because you have a hot date tonight. Did you come to your senses and make chocoflan?”

  I had half a mind to cancel the date. How could I think of fun, let alone romance and soufflés, if Linda was in jail? I pushed aside these thoughts and focused on a more immediate concern. “Spying on whom?” Her target couldn’t be Jenkins. He was probably still in the hospital and low on our suspect list, unless he’d poisoned himself on purpose or accident. My stomach flipped, dreading what I knew Flori was about to say.

  “Don Busco. I’m hiding behind some chamisa along the side of his house. He really should prune them so he gets better blooms.”

  I wasn’t worried about Don’s shrubbery maintenance. Chamisa, or rabbitbrush, was hardy. It grew in wild pastures and along roadsides, erupting in gorgeous yellow blooms and sage-green feathery leaves. “Flori, what if Don is the killer?” Another thought struck me. “What if he’s a poisoner too? That would mean he’s escalating, like the psychokiller he keeps trying to pin the crime on. You should get out of there now and—”

  My octogenarian pal cut off my protests. “I’m just fine. Don’s sitting at his computer with his back to the window and doesn’t know I’m here. If he weren’t so big shouldered, I could get a view of what he’s so interested in on that machine.”

  Short of driving over to Don’s and abducting Flori, there was no way to dissuade her. Still, I gave it one last try. “What if he does look out and see you, Flori? You should get out of there.”

  Her “pah” expressed what she thought of that. “I have my pepper spray and handcuffs and police whistle and this phone you girls insist I carry. I’m fine. I’m sitting near an ant mound, that’s my only problem. Ants everywhere.” Slapping sounds ensued and Flori hung up.

  When the phone rang again, I expected Flori and an update on ants or a murderer. Instead, Jake’s name flashed across the caller ID.

  My relief spilled out. “Jake! Are you two free? I mean, is Linda free? How is she?”

  His drawn out, “Well . . .” sent my excitement level plummeting.

  “Well?”

  “We’re going to be stuck here awhile longer,” he said slowly. “I’m cautiously optimistic that I can get her out on bail, or maybe even on her own reconnaissance. I’m waiting on a judge who’s been delayed. I’m so sorry, Rita. About tonight—”

  Getting Linda out was all I wanted to hear. I cut off Jake’s apologies. “Of course! We should postpone in any case. Linda’s all that matters. Can I bring you anything? Food? Walk Winston? Anything?”

  He said a neighbor kid was entertaining Winston. He also declined food. “I wouldn’t waste your fine home-cooking on this dismal place. I am sorry. I was truly looking forward to this evening.”

  So was I, I realized when I hung up. “Oh well,” I said glumly to Hugo. “You and me, buddy.” He purred as if this was the best news since his last tuna treat.

  I texted Celia, telling her to be safe and have fun with her friend Rosa tonight.

  Linda? She texted right back.

  In a message she’d usually laugh off as too long, a “mom text,” I explained that Jake was still working to get her out.

  Her SORRY came with a glum-faced emoticon.

  Yeah, I was sorry too, most of all for Linda. I slumped on the couch, Hugo still latched onto my shoulder, and turned on the TV. I was flipping through my dozen free-access channels, half of which were in Spanish, when a horn beeped in the driveway. Hugo launched himself off me, all claws out, and sped down the hall.

  The beeping sounded happy. Could Jake have sprung Linda early?

  The female voice and British accent dashed that idea. So did the old panel van airbrushed with images of the Union Jack, the Queen, and corgis. Addie waved from the vehicle she called the Queen Mum. “’Ello, Rita! I’ve come to collect you for a wee bit of spying!”

  Miss Flori heard from Mr. Strong,” Addie said after I’d apologized to Hugo, changed, and locked up. Anything was better than sitting around waiting, I’d rationalized. Well, almost anything. Addie turned on an Adele CD and pumped the gas.

  “The Mum’s a bit temperamental in springtime,” she informed me, right before letting up the clutch and punching the accelerator. We barreled up the driveway and sped across town. “Miss Flori told me to hurry and collect you. I left her out in the shrubbery. No place for a lady.”

  That was for sure. I hoped that a
nts were still the worst of Flori’s problems. When we turned onto Don’s street, a few blocks west of downtown, we found Flori standing in the street waving her arms.

  “Just in time!” she said, sliding open the side door and climbing in. “He left a minute ago, heading thataway, toward Guadalupe Street, I’d bet.”

  “Right’o! Buckle up!” Addie declared, and we zoomed off thataway.

  Despite the jerks and jolts of Addie’s driving, I relaxed in her tartan-covered passenger seat, confident that we’d lost Don Busco. Yes, I’d wanted action, but not the risk of chasing a suspect. When Flori and Addie accepted that we’d lost him, we could go out for pizza or crumpets and discuss our next move. I reclined my seat a few inches and watched adobe and brick storefronts go by. Barbecue at Whole Hog would be fun. Or Fire and Hops, which served local brews and tasty nibbles, although Flori gets rowdy on even a thimbleful of beer. If we did go out, I planned to call Cass to see if she could join us. With all the activity of this week, I hadn’t seen much of my best friend.

  “There he is! The red truck at high noon!” Flori crowed from the backseat.

  “Tallyho!” Addie declared, stomping on the gas and crushing my hopes for BBQ.

  The Queen Mum isn’t a subtle spy van. Its base color is royal blue, which could blend with the turquoise New Mexican sky. Its embellishments, however, make it stand out, to say the least. Addie’s cousin Jesús, a true master of automotive airbrushing, had gone wild on the Mum. Queen Elizabeth waves from the hood, ringed by fluffy-hatted Royal Guards. The side panels feature corgis, the Queen’s favorite dog, romping with sheep and bagpipers over fields of heather. Union Jacks grace the roof and rearview mirrors. Only on its back doors does the Queen Mum slightly blend in with the landscape and other painted vehicles. There, Jesús painted a southwestern scene of red buttes and blue skies, above which floated Addie’s name in flowery cursive script.

  “We should stay far back. We’re easily identifiable,” I said, pointing out the obvious. Don barreled up the entrance ramp for the freeway, headed toward the pretty village of Tesuque and the world-famous Santa Fe Opera.

  Addie stayed several cars behind. We passed the opera house, an amazing, open-air structure tucked amidst rolling hills. Cass had gotten tickets one summer and we’d gone on a warm August night to see Carmen. I’d been as entranced by the lightning flashing over the distant Sangre de Cristo Mountains as by the flamboyant costumes and booming voices.

  “Never did understand opera,” Addie remarked. “But those girls do belt it out. I like that.”

  “What will we do if we catch up with Don?” I asked, changing the subject back to the tailing at hand.

  Rustling in the backseat suggested that Flori had come prepared. “We’ll observe first. I have my zoom lens,” she said. “In case he meets up with a co-conspirator.”

  Who would he be meeting out here? We were near some reservation lands, and farther north, the turnoff to Los Alamos. The government laboratory town, perched high on the Pajarito Plateau, had remained shrouded in secrecy during World War II as its scientists worked to develop the atomic bomb. If a whole town and the deadliest of weapons could be kept secret, what hope did we have in figuring out a dead man’s secrets? Or Don’s?

  “Heads up,” Flori said from the backseat. “Our target is turning right . . . right into our hands.”

  Chapter 21

  Addie swung into the parking lot of the Golden Owl Casino and Resort, and I had a flashback to a Thanksgiving about seven years ago. This was before Manny and I moved permanently to Santa Fe, and we’d come to visit his family. Manny, however, soon tired of family festivities and decided we needed to do something “fun.” He’d settled on a boxing match out here at the Owl. Boxing will never be my idea of fun, especially when I could be blissing out on Thanksgiving leftovers. Seeing the two-story owl outlined in flashing gold lights, I remembered my disgust midway through the first round or bout or whatever the initial flurry of punching was called. I’d slipped away to the Owl’s museum, a fascinating collection that included ancient Pueblo cooking pots and utensils. I’d enjoyed that, although Manny grumbled all the way home that I didn’t support his interests.

  “Oooo,” Addie said as the Mum jolted into lower gear. “It’s Friday, isn’t it? They have heavy metal cover bands here on Fridays. They’re a hoot. I saw a group doing KISS a few weekends ago.”

  “Ha!” Flori said. “A hoot! Good one, Addie. The Owl’s buffet is something special too. Before I put my foot down about gambling, Bernard used to drive us out here for the weekend buffets. They had crab legs by the bucket.”

  I felt that I should say something nice too, so I made a pitch for the Owl’s museum.

  “We’ll come back, let’s promise,” Addie said. “And we’ll bring Junior and Jake and Bernard and Cass and play no more than five dollars each in the machines.” She slowed, hesitating as Don parked by the entrance.

  “How about over there, behind that tour bus by the putting green?” Flori suggested. We pulled up between a towering bus with Texas plates and the edge of the golf course. Don shrugged on a leather jacket with so much fringe it reminded me of Flori’s donkey piñata. He added a matching buckskin cowboy hat and headed for the casino.

  Flori got out first. “Okay girls,” she said. “Let’s blend in.”

  Blending wasn’t necessary in the main room. No one gave us a second, or even first, look. There was so much else to look at, like the flashing machines and disco ball chandeliers and chaotically patterned carpet. Flori, Addie, and I stopped in a rare empty spot amidst the machines.

  “Do either of you see him?” I asked. A big man in a cowboy hat would typically be easy to spot. Not here. At least a dozen men, probably some of the tour-bus Texans, sported similar outfits.

  “There!” Addie said, pointing to doors on the far end of the room. “He just went through those doors. I recognized his fringe.”

  We wove through the slot machines to gilt-framed doors. A young man with an owl embroidered on his suit jacket stood in front of the doors.

  Flori stepped up. “Thank you for getting that door for us, dear,” she said, playing her grandmotherly card.

  The doorman didn’t move except to say, “This is the members-only Golden Feather poker lounge. Are you Gold Owl Supreme Club members?”

  “Yes, that’s us, supreme owls,” Flori said before I had time to worry about lying. “Addie, Rita, did you bring our owl cards?”

  “There are no cards,” the man said, backing up against the door handle.

  Flori took this setback in stride. “Silly me,” she said. “Well, no matter. We need to get inside. Addie’s husband needs her at the card table for good luck.”

  Addie nodded vigorously. “Yep, me husband. I’m a lucky charm, I am!” she exclaimed, sounding more faux Irish than her usual British.

  The door guy—rightfully so—looked unconvinced. Luckily for us, four men in slick suits had stepped up, along with one guy in torn jeans and an Isotopes baseball cap. Door guy sprang into action. “Mr. Robbins,” he said, bumping me aside as he swung the gold door open wide. I expected one of the suits to step forward. Instead, the kid in grungy jeans slouched by with a tip of his chin to the doorman.

  “We’re with him,” Flori said, and we and the businessmen piled through.

  Once inside, I silently thanked the grungy guy. If he hadn’t been there, I could have won the worst-dressed prize. Following behind him, I looked straight ahead, trying to pretend I knew what I was doing. This worked until the kid reached a velvet-topped table, where he was once again welcomed effusively.

  “Time for us to find Don,” I said to Flori.

  “We already have,” she said, nodding to the next table over. Don, seated, would have been looking right at us if he wasn’t staring at the cards in his hand. I instinctively shrunk back. Addie and Flori, however, were already approaching Don’s table.

  “You guys,” I whispered, catching up with them next to a rock column. “What a
re you doing? He’ll see us, and none of us have the money to gamble. I overheard a guy back there saying the chips are a hundred dollars, minimum.”

  Flori was undeterred. “We’ll get behind him. He’s not looking.”

  Skirting wide around Don’s table, I saw him shove forward and promptly lose a stack of chips. His face crumpled. Had he really just blown four hundred dollars? Hot dogs must pay a lot more than café tips. Either that or he had a side business, one involving Gerald Jenkins, perhaps?

  Don reached into his jacket pocket, and I grabbed Flori by her sleeve. “Look! That’s the envelope! The one that Junior passed to Don. I’m sure of it.” Don extracted a wad of cash and exchanged it for more chips.

  Flori reached for her bag. “Gotcha,” she said, raising her camera and snapping a bunch of photos.

  Except we were the ones gotten. The security guard stomping toward us was big, bald, and outfitted in all black, right down to the earpiece bulging from his left ear.

  “No pictures in the poker room,” he said, reaching for Flori’s camera. He didn’t add please to his request or his expression.

  “Sorry!” I said, mortified for all our sakes. “We’re leaving, right ladies?”

  “Not until you delete your photos,” the big guy said. He touched his earpiece, which was probably demanding the same thing, or confiscation of Flori’s camera.

  Flori sniffed loudly. “Terrible customer service. We’ll be telling our entire tour group to avoid this room. In fact, we’ll go to Apache Nugget or Buffalo Thunder next time.” She moved to step around the big man, whose bald head glowed in a threatening shade of red.

  Mom hadn’t taught me casino manners, but I suspected that bringing up rival casinos was a big faux pas. “Shh . . . don’t upset him,” I urged Flori. To the big guy, I said, “We weren’t taking photos of the casino or cards. They’re of a guy. That guy.” I pointed with my right index finger, hiding the gesture behind the palm of my left hand.