Just Add Trouble

by Jinx Schwartz

  “Chur. Hey, guys,” he yelled, “the ladies are with me. Lead the way.”

  Still thinking it was a really bad idea, but totally out of my own, I climbed into the jump seat in the extended cab while Jan hoisted herself into the passenger side bucket seat. Even as worried as I was about our chances of surviving another day, I had to admire the interior. It was immaculate, with snazzy black carpeting and leather seats.

  Nacho started the truck, waited until Paco’s red Jeep disappeared over the hill, then rolled forward. Jan scooched closer to him—no easy task with the gear shifters rising from the floor—put her hand on his arm, managed a delicate cough, and gave his bicep a squeeze. “Can’t we wait for their dust to blow away?” she purred, “it makes me all yucky.”

  “Chur. Don’ want you yucky, Blondie.”

  “And I could use some water. How about you, Hetta?’

  “Chur, Blondie,” I growled.

  Nacho cranked up the sub-woofers to the threshold of pain before hopping out and heading toward the cooler in the truck bed. His feet had barely hit the ground when Jan slid over the gear shifts, into the driver’s seat. Catching her movement in his peripheral vision, Nacho whirled around and frowned, but Jan threw those long legs out the door while managing to hike up her shorts. “Hey,” she said, “could you make that a beer, if it’s not too much Trouble?” She yelled the Trouble part, then let loose with an earsplitting wolf whistle, which Nacho seemed to think was meant for him.

  “No problem,” he said with a grin, and managed a half-turn towards the cooler before he was whacked in the forehead with enough force to knock him backward, onto his butt. He cursed and groveled around on the ground, swatting at the blur of gray that continued to pummel his ears and neck.

  Jan swiveled back, threw the Toyota into gear, yelled, “Hetta, fasten your seat belt, it’s gonna be a bumpy ride,” and punched the gas.

  Rocks and sand spat into Nacho’s face as the oversized tires dug in, He stumbled around while Jan executed a sharp U-turn and headed straight for him. In the nick of time, he saw us coming and dove to safety.

  I felt like I was riding with Steve McQueen as Jan expertly downshifted, then maneuvered us along the rocky road at death-defying speeds. At least, I hoped they were death-defying.

  Leaving old Nacho in a cloud of dust and feathers, she had us back to Mex 1 in minutes. Banking into a sharp left, we hit the blacktop on two wheels, wove dangerously from side to side, then settled out.

  Blondie McQueen screeched to a halt, ordered me into the front seat, then burned rubber while chanting, “Jan, Jan, she’s our gal. If she can’t do it, no one shall!”

  Chapter 18

  I had to remember to ask Jan where she learned to drive like that, but first, we had more pressing business.

  “Hey! Loreto’s the other way,” I yelled over the roar of the big engine and the boom of the woofers.

  She didn’t hear me. I found the right knob, killed the stereo and repeated myself.

  This time she nodded. “I know. That’s exactly where they’ll look for us. We’re headed the other way, to Chino. He’ll help us.”

  “But my boat. What about it?”

  “Those guys don’t know your boat’s in Santa Rosalia. Well,” she giggled, “unless they get CNN International. You don’t suppose we hurt Nacho too badly, do you?”

  “Depends on your definition of hurt. We certainly put one big dent in his overblown ego, but other than that, he’ll live. Who cares, anyhow?”

  “Oh, I just kinda think he’s cute, in a criminal sort of way. Anyhow, since he ain’t dead he’s gonna be looking for us, and since we mentioned Loreto, my money says that’s where he’ll start. Maybe that gives us enough time to get to Chino and ditch this truck.”

  She was right on all counts. Nacho was cute in a criminal sort of way, and we had to get this big yellow SOB off Mex 1 ASAP, find a safe place to ditch it, and get a less conspicuous mode of transport. “Do we know where to turn off?”

  “Yep, Chino and I went to Ciudad Constitución one day, so I know the way. I can get us to the dive boat, for sure.”

  “Do we have enough gas?”

  She peered at the gauge. “We have a quarter tank, but don’t know what this baby burns. I know there’s a gas station in Insurgentes, not too far up the road. You have any money?”

  “I have…” I rummaged into my pocket, “two hundred pesos, a couple of bidness cards, some lip-gloss and my driver’s license. I left everything else on the boat. How about you?”

  “Nada. Everything was in my bag. My burned up bag. Dammit! I don’t have anything. No driver’s license, passport, Mexican visa, credit card, nada. And to make matters worse, that bag was a Manolo Blahnik.”

  “Designer bags are overrated for living in a beach hut, anyway. Let’s concentrate on our immediate crisis. I have enough pesos for some gas and a couple of tacos, but do we risk pulling into a Pemex station? This truck stands out like a nun in a strip joint.”

  “Or you, anywhere.”

  “You can talk. At least I’m short. We need hats.” I dug around in the cab and found a handful of baseball caps under the seat, a Baja 1000 sweatshirt, and a Hussong’s Cantina tee. After almost running off the road a couple of times trying to dress on the run, Jan pulled over, donned the tee shirt and cap. I was stuck with the sweatshirt, even though the temperature as we crossed the desert was at least eighty. In our new togs, with our red and blonde hair pushed up under caps, I hoped we’d be taken for just another couple of off-roader California dudes in a bright yellow wanna-be Baja 1000 knockoff, seeking fun, babes, beer and adventure in Baja.

  Just as we were ready to get going again, a loud squawk caught our attention, and a very tired and thirsty Trouble landed in my lap. Spreading his wings and panting, he drank the water I offered, then gave us a serious cussing before falling dead asleep. Hot as it was, I nonetheless stuffed him under my sweatshirt, lest he get bounced out. He slept soundly, not even rousing when we stopped for gas. The Pemex gas station attendant cast a wary eye at the lump under my shirt that moved and bird-snored, but I gave him a ten peso tip for cleaning the windows so he smiled and waved as we left.

  We stopped again to pick up fish tacos from a roadside stand before speeding towards Chino, and our salvation. Our plans changed abruptly when I spotted a black and white lurking near the left fork in the road, the one that led to Cuidad Constitución, and then on to San Carlos, and the dive boat. “Cop! Stop!” I yelled.

  Startled, Jan hit the brakes. “Where?”

  “At the intersection, behind the sign.” I pointed. “He’s probably just sitting there to slow down traffic, but I’d rather we didn’t roll by him.”

  “Okay, then, we’ll go to Lopez Mateos. It’s only a little over twenty miles, we just take the right turn instead of the left.”

  “Then what?”

  Jan smiled. “Hey, I have family there, remember?”

  Jan’s new familia in Lopez Mateos included Chino’s cousins, about twenty of them, a few aunts and uncles, and some relatives I never quite fit into the family tree. They hid the truck without asking any questions, and agreed to go get Chino via panga. We stayed behind, declining a boat ride into San Carlos; the last thing I needed was for Dickless to spot me on his own turf.

  Exhausted, Jan and I headed for garden hammocks, and naps. I crawled into mine, made myself comfortable and drifted off, until some subliminal curiosity roused me. “Jan, you awake?”

  “Hmmhmm.”

  “Where did you learn to drive like that?”

  “While you were in Japan, that guy I dated from Vegas? He had a couple of these things he raced in the desert. He let me drive once in awhile.”

  “You did good.”

  “I did, didn’t I?”

  We both conked out for an hour, until Trouble sang us awake. I’d put him in an empty cage Juanita, Chino’s second or somesuch cousin, had on her patio. Trouble was less than happy about being treated like any old bird after his hero
ic attack on Nacho, but since there were Mexican men about, and Jan wanted to keep up good family relations, he just had to suffer. We covered his cage with a towel and he quieted down long enough for us to catch a couple of winks. Truth be known, I think he was as pooped as we were, because his protests were short lived.

  Now, after we’d all copped some zees, his dulcet tones brought other family members about, all in awe of his singing and talking abilities. One cousin offered me fifty bucks for Trouble, and I have to admit I was tempted. We were flat broke and without transportation. With fifty bucks, I could catch a bus back to Santa Rosalia.

  “Hetta, you aren’t really considering that offer, are you?” Jan asked, her voice dripping disapproval.

  “You think I can get more?”

  She gave me a look of disgust.

  “Okay, okay, just kidding, but if he ups it to a hundred…” I waggled my hand. “Or even better, I could pull a Skin Game.”

  “What’s that?”

  “There is this old movie, one of my dad’s favorites, with James Garner and Lou Gossett. Garner and Gossett play con men who hit on the perfect con. They ride into town, Garner sells Gosset off as his slave for big bucks, then Gossett either escapes or Garner springs him, and they go to the next town. Trouble could easily spring himself.”

  “That’s brilliant, but I won’t let you do it to these nice folks. However, it’s an idea if we get stuck and need dough.”

  “We are stuck and we do need dough.”

  “Chino’ll be here soon. He’ll come up with something.”

  “Meanwhile, we need to consider our options.”

  “What options?”

  “Dunno. Let’s see if there’s a map in that yellow bomb.”

  There was, a good one which showed back roads, like the one to Agua Fria. “Look Jan, at all these roads. Well, some of them are marked as paths but, with the right vehicle, we could get all the way back to Santa Rosalia without taking Mex 1. We sure have the right vehicle. All we need is gas, food, and—”

  “—a miracle? What if we blow a tire, or break down?”

  “Call Triple A?”

  “My point, exactly.”

  “I didn’t say it was a good option.”

  “I’ll take my chances with Chino. He’ll know what to do.”

  Chapter 19

  So there we were in Lopez Mateos with a stolen truck, no money, and on the lam from some very nasty characters. I sincerely hoped Jan was right, and Chino would know what we should do next.

  But when he showed up, and we told him our story, he shook his head. “I have absolutely no idea what to do next. You stole the guy’s truck?”

  Jan huffed, “Stole is such a harsh word, Chino. And I would expect that you would be more concerned as to why we had to escape him.”

  “What I meant was that stealing a truck could earn you a one-way pass into a Mexican jail.”

  “Hey, he tried to kidnap us.” Jan’s lower lip quivered, which had the desired effect.

  Chino patted her hand. “Mi corazon, of course you had to take his truck. I’m just having trouble adjusting to the fact that while I thought you were safe and sound on the other side of the Sea of Cortez, you were not only taking a boat ride to Santa Rosalia in the middle of a storm, but then you had to go looking for trouble.” He gave me a meaningful glance. Meaning it was all my fault.

  “Ya know,” I said, “speaking of Trouble, I think I’ll just let the little bugger out of his cage.”

  “No!” Jan squealed, evidently not wishing grave bodily trauma upon her fiancé, even if he was being less than understanding.

  Chino, startled by her outburst, put his arm around her and babytalked. “My poor darling. You’ve had a terrible day and here I am being an old meanie.”

  His little darling, all five feet nine of her, leaned into him and shot me the evil eye before I could gag. She did that lip-quiver thing again. “I have had a horrible day.”

  “Oh, not me,” I said. “I’ve had a grand old time. Wrecked a friend’s car, blew up another, stole a third and now have a bunch of thugs hunting for me. Gosh, darling, it’s been a blast.”

  Jan, unable to hold the pouty pose any longer, broke out laughing. “It did have to be up there in our top ten, huh?”

  Chino was not amused. “I appreciate that you tried to find my grandmother, but now I am more worried about her than ever. Tell me about these chaps you encountered.”

  I grinned at his choice of words. Once in awhile his British education surfaced. Deeply tanned from his work as a whale specialist, Chino was over six feet tall, and very handsome. If there was any Yee left in him, it was his beautiful coal-black hair that he wore slightly longer than I like on my men, but for him, it worked. For living on the beach, a ponytail is infinitely practical. To his credit, he shaved daily even if he had to use seawater, and his clothes, although wrinkled, were always clean. And let’s face it, he and Jan made a very attractive couple, in a primitive sort of way. I wondered, though, how they’d fare together in Jan’s world.

  Jan launched into a description of Nacho, Chingo and Paco, with me filling in details as I remembered them, then Chino went out to check our steal of the day. He whistled when he saw the yellow truck.

  “This is some vehicle. You know what you have here?”

  “Uh, a fancy yellow truck?”

  “This is a Toyota four by four, all fixed up for off-road, like the kind they race in the Baja 1000. This thing can take on just about anything the Baja roads throw at them. Man, would I love to have one like it.”

  “Consider it done. It’s all yours,” I said. “Heck, by tomorrow morning I’ll bet some mechanic cousin of yours could have this thing repainted, the identification number removed, new Mexican plates on that fancy bumper, and if need be, I have friends in low places who can have it registered in your name.”

  I could tell, by Chino’s hesitation, that he was sorely tempted. On his salary, he could never afford such a vehicle. “I do have this cousin…” he started, then shook his head, “but, no, that would be wrong.”

  “What do you bet, if I ran the VIN on this baby, it would come up missing in Los Angeles? If it is, why shouldn’t you keep it?”

  “The vehicle identification number? You could find out if it is stolen? How?”

  “I there an Internet Café in this berg?”

  “Better than that. My cousin, Juan Yee, has high speed service at his house.” He shook his head and looked sad. “That is, unfortunately, how we lost my grandmother.”

  Jan and I exchanged looks. I shrugged, but she asked,

  “Would you like to elaborate on that?”

  “My grandmother, Abuela Yee, met someone on the Internet. A younger man from Agua Fria. Next thing you know, she ups and goes walkabout. Needless to say, the family is upset, but what can we do? After she left, she wrote that she was so happy with Arturo, we didn’t try to interfere any longer.”

  The look on Jan’s face was priceless. Somewhere between moronic and stunned. She struggled to speak, but failed, so I stepped in.

  “Let me get this straight. Granny Yee hooked up with some guy on the Internet, then upped and took off to live with him?”

  “Yes.”

  My preconceived vision of Grandmother Yee—a tiny gray haired lady dressed in black—went up in smoke. I broke out in a guffaw, Jan joined in, until we both came close to peeing in our pants. When she could finally speak, Jan asked, “How old is your grandmother, for pity’s sake?”

  “Let me see,” Chino paused as he calculated, “she had my mother when she was fourteen, my mother was fifteen when I was born, and I am now twenty-six, so my grandmother is fifty-eight.”

  Well, well, well. I shot Jan an evil grin. “Gee, Chino, how old is this Arturo, her younger boyfriend, do you figure?”

  Chino drew to his full height and snorted indignantly, “At least ten years younger.”

  Well, well, well, well. “Ten whole years? An abomination, don’t you think, Jan?” />
  Jan somehow managed to close her mouth before a large fly landed on her tongue. Her expression went from stunned to venomous, with the venom aimed in my direction. No doubt, should I pursue this age difference thing for one more second, she would spit in my eyes and blind me. Judging by her reaction, I surmised she had no freaking idea she was ten years older than her dearly betrothed. Was I gonna have fun with this or what?

  “We can run a trace for under thirty bucks,” Jan stammered.

  The fast change of subject confused Chino. “On my grandmother?”

  “No, silly,” she said, “the Vehicle Identification Number on the truck. We go online, put in the VIN and see what pops up on CARFAX. Problem is, I don’t have a credit card. Mine was burned up.”

  “And I do not own one,” Chino said.

  Jan Sims, of the I-shop-exclusively-at-Niemans-Sims, has a boy toy without a credit card? This was getting better and better. “Not to worry,” I said with a happy grin, “I have several.”

  Jan frowned. “I thought you left everything on the boat. You used my card to rent the car.”

  “I didn’t say they were mine.” I reached in my pocket, pulled out a wallet and flipped it open with flair. Several credit cards and a California driver’s license showed through the plastic pockets. “Courtesy of Lamont Cranston, AKA, Nacho. AKA, The Shadow. Oh, this is rich. Not only is Nacho cute, he’s funny, in a criminal sort of way.”

  “Shadow?” Chino asked.

  “Only the Shadow knows. He was a character in a very, very, old radio show starring a rich playboy, Lamont Cranston, with an alter ego, The Shadow. I’m sure Jan can tell you all about him.”

  “Oh. As far as using his credit card, I do not think—”

  “Not to worry, Chino. Jan and I are experts at this sort of thing, what with all our years, and years, and years of experience.” As I said that last years, Jan reached over and viciously yanked my hair. “Ouch!”

  “Just plucking out a gray hair, Hetta dear. All gone now. Okay, Chino, lead us to Juan’s computer.”