by Carmen Amato
As she turned onto Castillo Bretón, one of the semicircular streets north of the CICI Water Park, she noticed a gray sedan. It was three cars back, but she was sure it was the same car that had been behind her as she had come off the busy Lomas del Mar road near the golf course.
Emilia wound her way through the mixed residential and commercial area. The gray sedan kept with her, occasionally disappearing from her rearview mirror, but always popped up again at an intersection two or three cars behind. Emilia abruptly turned left onto the narrow Niños de Veracruz, which led her into a hilly neighborhood where the streets spewed in all directions. After a dozen twists and turns, the gray sedan was nowhere to be seen. Emilia pulled to the side and switched on her phone’s GPS. If the gray sedan had followed her, the driver was either extremely familiar with Acapulco or hopelessly lost.
She got herself out of the winding neighborhood and eventually made the turn onto the Costera near the Torre Metropolitano construction site. Only partially finished, the building’s angular steel beams elbowed into the sky. Just past the construction site, a median split the Costera, which changed names to the Carretera Escénica.
This far from the popular water park, the traffic was much lighter. The Suburban picked up speed as it rumbled south. Emilia checked her mirrors.
There it was, two cars behind her. The gray sedan must have doubled back and waited, betting that she’d come out of the hilly neighborhood where she did.
“Madre de Dios,” Emilia swore out loud. She tried to think straight, not let panic take over. If this was going to be a cartel hit, they would attack where the traffic was the lightest, on the cliff above Punta Bruja or closer to the turnoff to Punta Diamante where the road was a simple ribbon of tarmac carved from the mountain without guardrails or a safety net.
She took her foot off the accelerator and the Suburban slowed. The car in back changed lanes and passed on the left. The gray sedan braked to stay behind Emilia.
Only a driver was in the sedan. The lack of shadow on the passenger side was a good sign. One man in a sedan wasn’t the usual assassination profile. If she was worth killing, there’d be a truck or an SUV full of sicarios with long guns.
Emilia eased the Suburban into the left lane and shoved her foot on the brake. The gray sedan slid by on her right, followed by a family minivan. Emilia sped up and kept pace with the van.
The gray sedan gradually pulled away and Emilia was able to see the plates. She read the placa number out loud to herself as a means of committing it to memory.
The gray sedan stayed ahead of her as the road unwound around the side of the mountain. Emilia focused on her driving rather than on the dramatic view of ocean far below as lines of white froth skimmed toward the shore. She passed the Las Brisas hotel on her left and considered turning in, but she was too curious to end the game now. Plus, she had the advantage of the heavier vehicle if it came to a duel on the highway.
If the driver knew her habits, they’d know she would need to get into the right lane for the turn onto the road leading down to Punta Diamante. As Emilia drove the familiar curves and the turnoff neared, she found herself holding her breath and waiting for the sedan to make its move.
But nothing happened. The sedan stayed a fair distance ahead of her and in the right lane. The minivan passed Emilia on the right, as did a truck loaded with chickens in cages. Emilia eased into the right lane behind the truck and immediately swore. The cages blocked her view of the vehicles ahead.
As she slowed in anticipation of the turn, the truck jolted into the left lane, the abrupt movement sending a gust of feathers across Emilia’s windshield. Even so, she could see that the gray sedan was smack in front of the Suburban, nearly dead in the road. Emilia yanked the wheel to the right. The Suburban jumped the curb and bounced into the turnoff. As Emilia stood on the brake to prevent the vehicle from slamming into the scrolled iron privada gate that kept the unclean from the exclusive Punta Diamante area, the gray sedan continued along the Carretera Escénica.
Thanks to the Palacio Real sticker the Suburban had been wearing for the past few months, the guard swung open the gate and Emilia guided the SUV onto the steeply pitched cobbled road. It led down to the water, linking private villas, a luxury condominium building, and the Palacio Réal hotel complex.
As Emilia gave the Suburban over to the valet and grabbed her shoulder bag, her hands were shaking and damp. The lobby was crowded with people. She stopped by the elevators to get her breathing under control, then got out her notebook and scribbled down the placa number for the gray sedan. She’d find Kurt, let him know she was there. When she went up to the penthouse to change she could call dispatch to run a trace on the car.
She walked through the lobby and down a few steps into the vast central expanse of multi-level terraces open to the ocean. A white grand piano usually anchored the space but had been moved to the side so as to accommodate a scale model of the America’s Cup racing yacht. The Pasodoble Bar was on the left side of the lowest level, a blue mosaic of its name fronting the long mahogany bar. Emilia recognized the bartender as he sliced limes from behind the counter. He returned her lifted eyebrows by tipping the point of his knife toward the beach. Emilia waved and passed through the bar, skirting the knots of people sipping tall drinks and having noisy conversations.
The beach below the bar was set up with a buffet. The steel drum band was keeping things lively. With his blonde hair, wide shoulders, and white Palacio Real polo, Kurt was easy to pick out. He was near one of the buffet tables talking to two waiters. Christine Boudreau, in a white bikini top and gauze pareo around her hips, was by his side.
Emilia wiped her palms on her pants, gripped her shoulder bag a little more tightly, and marched across the sand. She’d worn the clothes she’d need for Monday—loafers, skinny jeans, tee shirt, black cotton blazer, gun in a shoulder holster—and was sweating like a stevedore before she’d made it halfway across.
Christine saw her first and said something to Kurt, who turned to greet Emilia with a smile. “Hey, Em,” he said. “You finally made it.”
“Hi.” Emilia stretched up to give him a quick kiss. “Let me go change and make a phone call. Then I want to hear how the regatta is going.”
Kurt frowned and touched her cheek. “Everything all right?”
Emilia nodded. “I’m fine. Yesterday was crazy.”
“This place would have been crazy yesterday, except for Kurt,” Christine said. Her Spanish was good but bore the traces of her native language, whatever that was. “He’s an exceptional organizer.”
“I’ll want to hear all about it,” Emilia said sweetly.
Kurt winked at her. “Go change for lunch,” he said to Emilia. “But let’s plan for a swim later. I’ll need to burn off some energy.”
Emilia gave his hand a brief squeeze. Energy was their code word for stress. “Me, too,” she said.
“I’ll be around.” Kurt lifted his chin at the buffet tables. “But if you can’t find me, send a text.”
“Okay.” Emilia felt Christine’s eyes on her as she plodded back across the sand to the bar.
Once in the penthouse, Emilia shucked off her jacket, holster, and shoes, got herself a mineral water from the refrigerator, and called dispatch. She gave the sergeant on duty the plate number from the gray sedan, along with the make and model of the car and asked for the registration information, including the owner’s cédula. The cédula was the national identity card and the fastest way cops had to track someone via the national database. The sergeant promised to call her back quickly.
She sat down in front of Kurt’s computer. It was sleek and new, as were all his electronics, and the connection was three times as fast as the one internet-capable computer in the squadroom. Kurt had a norteamericano keyboard, however, which meant there was no ñ key and Emilia never could remember how to find symbols like the @ sign.
The first search she typed was for Blandón Hernandez. The first few pages were worthless, but as sh
e refined the search by adding terms like “antiques” and “religious” she got more hits that made sense. The dealer had donated a cross to a seminary, received an award from a Catholic newspaper, been an advisor to a museum Emilia had never heard of. He was listed in several online directories of antique dealers.
In short, he looked as legitimate as all the other companies Emilia had encountered over the years that masked illicit transactions behind real and very successful enterprises.
From that search, Emilia segued into companies that insured antiques. Although the insurance courier described by the receptionist at Blandón Hernandez’s office complex could well be Denton’s forger, it was hard to be sure.
She kept at it until her cell phone rang. It was the dispatch sergeant.
“Car is registered to Bandera Rentals,” he said. “They’re out at the airport.”
“Who is the car rented to right now?”
“Juan Colón Sotelo. Mexico City address.”
Emilia felt marginally better. The Knights Templar or Sinaloa cartels didn’t send sicarios from Mexico City to rent sedans when they wanted to kill cops. Maybe this had been nothing more than a lost tourist. “Give me his address and cédula number.”
“I got the address. You didn’t say you wanted the cédula number.”
Yes, I did. Emilia bit back a snarky comment about police incompetence and scribbled down the address; she could look up the cédula information in the office on Monday.
She drank some mineral water and opened a new search. Time was forgotten as she found the website of Acapulco’s unidentified dead. As Prade had said, she had to create an account before being shown the pictures. There were only six faces of men whose bodies were presently awaiting identification in the morgue. None were of the Salva Diablo gang member found dead on the Pacific Grandeur. Emilia didn’t know any of them. At least Yolanda Lata’s face wasn’t there.
Somehow, one search led to another, and Emilia discovered the Flores family. No wonder Denton had asked if Flores was “related.” Madre de Dios, he was related to half of Acapulco’s real estate.
Flores had made the news a dozen times, all associated with musical performances. He played the oboe, of all things. Notices in society columns and music festival websites mentioned his appearances with youth orchestras in both Mexico and the Estados Unidos. In one account, Flores was mentioned in conjunction with his father, Rigoberto Flores, who had underwritten a concert tour.
A search for Rigoberto Flores returned scores of hits. Rigoberto Flores was a real estate speculator connected with several major buildings in Acapulco, including the new hotel and apartment complex at Playa Revolcadero on the beach beyond the Palacio Réal, the Torre Metropolitano skyscraper, and plans for a floating casino off Isla la Roqueta. All of the projects were high risk in terms of location and complexity of the architecture, not to mention getting approval from the city. But they were also big, dramatic projects that would change both the landscape and economy of Acapulco.
Emilia clicked through the articles until she simply couldn’t stand it any more. She closed down the search program, confused and angry. If Flores had a rich father willing to support his love of music, why bother to become a cop?
Maybe it was different with money. She’d fought to get where she was every step of the way, clawing her way up the police wage scale, driven by basic needs like food, shelter, and medical attention for her mother. She’d faced outright opposition, physical risk, and intentional career sabotage. She’d wept over the unfairness more times than she could count.
In contrast, Flores wanted to play out a childhood fantasy of cops and robbers and was rich enough to do it. His family had simply bought him the job he wanted. It didn’t matter that Flores wouldn’t be properly trained, that he endangered his colleagues by being clueless. Never mind that everyone else had had to work their asses off to get where he’d gotten. No, with enough money, anyone could buy anything. Even Chief Salazar’s soul.
She was suddenly glad that Silvio had trashed the expensive music player and headphones.
With a start, Emilia realized she’d been sitting in front of the computer for five hours. She hastily changed into her bathing suit, the expensive red one that Kurt had given to her on their first date, grabbed her cell phone and a towel, and left the penthouse.
☼
The buffet had been cleared away and the beach was nearly deserted. Emilia wandered around, inwardly fuming at herself. She considered going back into the hotel and checking Kurt’s office but that would mean she’d tracked him down twice in one day, like a nagging wife. Christine might be there, too, and Emilia wasn’t sure she could deal again with the sight of the concierge oozing charm at Kurt.
She sent him a text saying she was on the beach. When he didn’t reply, she left her cell with the bartender in the Pasodoble Bar, dropped her towel on the sand, and headed for the water.
The hotel’s floating dock was anchored about 500 meters offshore and Emilia made for it with deep strokes. She’d always been a good swimmer but tonight she churned through the water, not aiming for speed, but to release the anger and resentment that had been building all week and had been brought to a head by what she’d found out about Flores.
The water was gray this late in the day. The horizon was gray, too, as the sun hung low. Emilia stopped to tread water and get her bearings. The dock appeared just beyond her, its white edge rising and falling against the dirty sky. She kicked hard and shoved herself through the swell.
Emilia reached the dock and pulled herself up. There was no one else there, no jet skis tied up to the big platform. She sat near the edge and hugged her knees as the breeze cooled her wet skin. The week had been a catalogue of things she’d never wanted to happen. Padre Pro’s finger was likely that of a woman being held for ransom. Yolanda Lata was dead and the last possible link to Lila Jimenez Lata was gone. A murder case they could have solved—and not many fell into that category—had been snatched away. Flores had appeared out of thin air to turn her and Silvio into professional babysitters.
Plus, she’d lied to Kurt last weekend when they were sitting in the car in front of Villa de Refugio. For no good reason except embarrassment and worry that he’d think less of her. They’d argued over the relic, only to have Prade’s results show how wrong she’d been. To complete the litany of stupidity, she shouldn’t have sent Kurt that awful text, forgotten to drive to the hotel last night, or stood him up for the regatta event today.
A few people crossed the beach, their shadows stretched across the sand by the setting sun. Torches marking the perimeter of the Pasodoble Bar were lit by a staffer in the hotel’s trademark blue printed shirt and khaki pants. A tall figure with yellow hair, wearing a white shirt and board shorts, stopped to speak to the staffer. When the conversation was over, the man peeled off his shirt, dropped it on top of Emilia’s towel, and waded into the water.
She watched as he swam directly to the dock, powerful arms thrusting the water away, his face barely visible. His kicks created a wake of spume. The dock rocked as he hauled himself over the edge.
“Hey there.” Emilia tried a smile. “Did you get my text?”
Kurt shoved wet hair away from his forehead and squatted down next to her. “Where were you?”
“What?” she stalled.
“You said you were going to change and make a phone call,” Kurt said. Water from his shorts dripped onto the dock next to her leg. “You missed lunch, the awards, the whole afternoon. Where were you?”
Emilia squinted up at him. “Upstairs. Work stuff. I had to get a trace. Do some research online.”
“It couldn’t have waited? You had to do it this afternoon?”
“Kurt, don’t make a big deal out of it,” Emilia groused. “I lost track of time. You were working, anyhow.”
He dropped into a sitting position next to her and leaned back on his elbows. “You know, Em. These weekends of ours. They’re important to me. I live in this hotel, which mea
ns I’m always at work. But when you’re here with me, it’s not so much like work.” He waved a hand at the beach in the distance. The tiki torches were bright spots against the darkening sky and the glow from the bar illuminated movement and faint music. “This weekend was a big deal and I was really looking forward to sharing it with you. Showing you off a little, too. Banquet, dancing, concerts on the beach, a lot of interesting people. Stupid me, I actually thought you’d have fun.”
“Sorry,” Emilia said, torn between guilt and resentment. Other women handled relationships; why couldn’t she? Madre de Dios, she didn’t know there was anything wrong with herself until Kurt Rucker came along.
But there he was, the setting sun turning his wet body into molten gold, and Emilia wanted nothing so much as to throw herself at Kurt, beg him not to be angry with her, tell him she’d do anything to make things right between them. That she cared more than he knew and never wanted to let go.
“You were right,” she said instead. “About the Padre Pro relic. According to the morgue it’s a woman’s finger. We’re treating it like a kidnapping case.”
Kurt jerked himself upright. “Don’t change the subject. We need to talk about us, Em. Not work. For five minutes.”
Emilia squeezed her knees, scared of the way her heart clenched in her chest, scared of the commitment he was always seeking and that she ran away from every time. “Look, I said I’m sorry. It’s been a bad week and time got away from me. End of story.”
“That’s all you have to say?”
“What do you want me to say?” Emilia demanded. “That I’m not good at being a girlfriend? It’s not like that should be any big surprise. I stink at this. I stink at being a girlfriend.”
Kurt stood up and the dock surged against the water. “Maybe if you practiced,” he said tightly. “You’d get better at it.”