The Night Cafe

by Taylor Smith

  “Just so you know I have a heart,” she said. “Good thing you wore comfy shoes, my friend. You’ve got a long walk ahead of you—if you manage to get free, that is.”

  “Please, señora, I am sorry. Do not leave me here.”

  She picked up his gun and stuck it in her waistband. “Let this be a lesson, Sergio. It’s very rude to hijack guests.” She waggled her fingers over her shoulder. “Adios, amigo.”

  Amateurs, she thought disgustedly, slipping into the Cadillac. She gunned the motor and headed back to town.

  Ten

  His other sins notwithstanding, Sergio had told the truth about the car’s air-conditioning. It was as dead as roadkill. With the Cadillac rocking down the washboard road, Hannah dropped both front windows and wriggled out of her jacket. Open windows meant breathing dust, but better that than passing out from heat exhaustion. April was the middle of the dry season down here anyway, and the Mexican Riviera was also suffering through an extended drought that hadn’t brought rain in over a year. Global warming would not be kind to Central America.

  She picked at her damp T-shirt, pulling it away from her skin. This trip was suddenly looking less and less like the quick turnaround she’d anticipated. She still had to find her way to Moises Gladding, who must be wondering by now where his painting had gotten to. As for planting the bugs that Special Agents Towle and Ito had given her…well, she’d cross that bridge when she came to it.

  “Try to get these laid in, no matter what else happens down there,” Towle had said. “Any problem, just give me a call.”

  Right. She pulled out her cell phone and glanced at the screen. She’d turned it on after her plane had landed, half-dreading more messages from Cal about problems with Gabe and what a lousy mother she was. She’d had a roaming signal at the airport, but her only message was a very bizarre one about kittens from someone named Monica who had a heavy Hispanic accent. Obviously a wrong number. Out here, she had bupkis—no messages and no signal. Sergio seemed to have taken her beyond the satellite footprint for her phone service. Murphy’s Law.

  She could try to reach Agent Towle from town, but there was no guarantee he’d be any more available now than he had been when she’d tried to call him that morning to let him know about her delayed departure. Then another thought struck her. She dragged her backpack across the front seat and rummaged in the side pockets, looking for the second business card Towle had given her the night before.

  “An emergency contact, in case you run into any problems down there.”

  At the time, she’d been a little miffed that he thought she might need help on such a routine job. On the other hand, she had been wearing Garfield flannel pajamas when they showed up at her door, so maybe they could be pardoned for doubting her competence. Now, she wondered if Towle had known more than he was letting on about what she might face down here.

  But with Gladding’s driver out of the picture, she had no idea where to find his villa. While she could have grilled Sergio for the location, he was just as likely to send her into the clutches of his sleazy cousin or the art fence. Better to rely on her own devices—or Agent Towle’s.

  It was a simple enough matter to backtrack along the path Gladding’s driver had taken from the airport, heading westward to the coastal road, then south again toward town. According to Towle, the local contact’s bar was on the boardwalk, not far from Puerto Vallarta’s main cathedral. She would head for the cathedral, then ask around for directions to The Blue Gecko.

  Finding the Cathedral of Our Lady of Guadalupe would be no problem. She remembered it from her last visit, a redbrick church at the heart of the old town with a crownlike tower that was said to be modeled after a tiara worn by the mad wife of Emperor Maximilian. The Austrian Hapsburg prince had ruled Mexico for a couple of years in the 1860s after he was drafted by conservative landowners hoping to spawn some local royalty and hold back the rising tide of democracy. Turned out most Mexicans didn’t want an imported emperor. They shot Maximilian, but the crazy Empress’s sparkly tiara must have passed muster, since they topped a landmark church with a facsimile.

  Hannah easily spotted the crown over the tiled rooftops and sparkling white adobe buildings of the old town. The Malecón, a brick-lined seafront strollway near the cathedral, was packed with tourists, but eventually she found a parking spot. She tucked Sergio’s gun into her backpack and locked it in the trunk of the Caddy, then shrugged back into her light linen jacket, checking her reflection in the car window to make sure it concealed the holster at the small of her back. The way her day was going, she was disinclined to venture out unarmed. Grabbing the leather portfolio from the backseat, she locked the car and headed toward the Malecón.

  She was about to ask a boardwalk street vendor hawking silver chains for directions to The Blue Gecko when she spotted a hand-painted sign with an indigo lizard cavorting in a sombrero. A striped blue-and-white awning shaded a broad patio packed with tourists nursing umbrella drinks while they ogled the colorful parade of strolling sightseers and the bikini-clad girls on the beach beyond.

  Inside the bar was another story. It was dimly lit and smelled of beer and whiskey that had probably been marinating the scuffed plank floors for decades. A few tables along the outer walls were occupied by middle-aged men with watery, bloodshot eyes, ropy bodies and weathered, leathered skin. No sweet mixed umbrella drinks in here. Every heavy Mexican glass tumbler held amber-colored liquid, straight up. The snatches of conversation she caught were all in English, but no one gave her a second glance. Not for this bunch the eager people-watching of the fanny-pack-wearing tourists.

  The Blue Gecko, she guessed, was the watering hole of choice for a certain class of American expatriate. If she had to guess, she’d say they were ex-military or special-forces types looking to stretch their pension dollars by retiring to Puerto Vallarta’s well-established “Gringo Gulch.”

  Under a faux Tiffany pendant lamp on the far side of the room, a lethargic game of pool was being played on a table that showed a couple of visible ripples in the green felt. Would make for some interesting bank shots, Hannah thought. A neon-rimmed clock advertising Dos Equis beer hung on the wall behind the table, its hands both dropped like those of a shy man caught naked in the shower. Hannah glanced at her watch. Just past five. Clearly, the clock was busted.

  High over one end of the dark wood bar stained by countless glass rims, a basketball game played out on a wall-mounted flat-screen TV. The bartender, middle-aged and obviously American, stood polishing a bubbled glass as he and a young blond guy on a bar-end stool ran a desultory commentary on the game. The blonde had a fat lip under a bruised and swollen right eye. Aside from the action on the ESPN satellite feed, the only real energy in the room came from the Mexican waiters running drink and food orders to the tourists out on the patio.

  Hannah settled herself on a stool at the opposite end of the bar from the guy with the fat lip, tucking the leather art portfolio into the space in front of her knees. The game on the television was Los Angeles vs. Dallas. A basket of corn chips and a small dish of salsa materialized in front of her.

  “Get you something?”

  The bartender was in his fifties, she guessed, broad shouldered and ruddy complexioned. Graying hair curled over the collar of his plaid shirt. The head of a tattooed snake peeked out from one of his rolled-back sleeves, while the other forearm sported the crossed swords and dagger logo of the Green Berets. Yup, just as she’d thought. A special forces kind of joint.

  “Can I get an iced coffee and some bottled water?”

  “You bet.” He went away and came back a couple of minutes later with her drinks. Setting them down, he followed her gaze up to the TV. “You like basketball?”

  “I like it okay. This is last night’s game, no?”

  He nodded and cocked his thumb at the guy who looked like something out of a hamburger grinder. “Kevvie down there is a big Lakers fan. Doesn’t have a TV at his place so he comes in to catch the games. Got in
to a little altercation last night, though, and missed the last half of the Dallas matchup.”

  “Missed the game, and now maybe he’s missing a couple of teeth, too?”

  “Yeah, well, only goes to show he should watch his mouth when there’s Texans in the place. Lucky for him ESPN was rebroadcasting today.”

  Hannah lowered her voice to a murmur. “So I guess I shouldn’t tell him the Lakers lost?”

  “Ah, no. Guy’s already hurtin’. That would be too cruel.” He watched her down the entire bottle of water, then turn to the iced coffee. “You sure I can’t get you anything else?”

  “This’ll do for now. Except you could tell me something.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Your name Donald Ackerman?”

  He seemed taken aback. “Yeah, could be. Who’s asking?”

  Hannah slid Agent Towle’s card across the bar. Ackerman lifted it up, read the engraved side, then checked the other side. “You’re Special Agent Joseph Towle?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, right. He gave me your name, wise guy.”

  “I don’t know the man.”

  “Funny, since he seems to know something about you.” She slid his own business card to him, the one featuring the same sombrero-wearing gecko pictured on the sign over the patio outside.

  A low roar went up from the arena crowd on the television, followed by a groan from the guy down the bar. Hannah glanced up. The Lakers were about to get their wiry little butts kicked. Poor Kevvie.

  Ackerman glanced around the room, then picked up her iced coffee. “Follow me.”

  Hannah grabbed the portfolio. He led her through a beaded curtain to the right of the bar. A short-order cook was in the kitchen grilling onions, peppers and chicken and folding them into tortillas as a waiter stood by with salad-loaded plates, waiting to carry the food out. What was it about the smell of fried onions? Hannah wondered, mouth watering. She hadn’t eaten since lunch on the plane (thank God for first-class service), and it was getting on to dinnertime. First things first, though.

  Ackerman continued on to a tiny office at the back of the kitchen. He dropped heavily into a rolling chair and shifted a stack of papers to make room on the desk for her iced coffee. Then he indicated a plastic chair for her.

  “So,” he said, “this Agent Towle said you should see me. I got no heads-up you were coming. What do you want?”

  “First of all, who are you?”

  “I’m a guy owns a bar. Who are you?”

  “My name’s Hannah Nicks. Who do you work for?”

  There was something unmistakable about your average former covert ops guy, she thought, a combination of world-weary cynicism and a body not quite gone soft. They had the look of characters who never entirely let down their guard. If she had to guess, she’d say Ackerman here had gone from the Green Berets right into the CIA.

  “I work for myself,” he answered. “Like I said, I’m just a barkeep.”

  “These days.”

  He shrugged. “These days. And you? Working for who?”

  “Also myself. Freelance security, usually. Courier work, at the moment. I’ve got a delivery for Moises Gladding but somebody tried to hijack the shipment. I need to get back on track.”

  “You making this delivery to Moises’s house?”

  “‘Moises’? He a friend of yours?”

  “I know lots of people down here. It’s a small community. Who did the hijacking?”

  “A driver named Sergio. Claimed to be working for Gladding but he tried to do an end run and steal the shipment I was bringing in.”

  Ackerman frowned. “Yeah, I know the guy. Sergio Chavez. Huh. Pretty dumb, trying to rip off Moises Gladding. But it makes sense, I guess.”

  “How so?”

  “Oh, his wife used to be the cook out at Moises’s place. Apparently she and Gladding’s mistress had a set-to, though. The mistress got her fired, I heard. Guess Sergio figured it was payback time. Still, only a moron tries to steal from Moises.”

  “Yeah, not to mention trying to mug me in the middle of nowhere. Thanks for your concern, though.”

  “Oh, yeah, well, that too, goes without saying. Sorry. You’re obviously okay, though.”

  She grimaced.

  “So what happened to Sergio?” Ackerman asked.

  “I left him tied up ten, fifteen miles outside of town. He may have worked himself free by now. He’s got a long walk ahead of him. Meantime, I need to know how to find Gladding’s place.”

  “He’s got a beachfront villa about five miles south of the city. I’ll take you there.”

  “No, I’d better go alone. He’s expecting me. Just draw me a map.”

  Ackerman still had Agent Towle’s card, and he tapped it on the table now. “You’re making this delivery for the feds?”

  She took back the card. The first rule of the spook business was “need to know,” as this guy well knew. Ackerman had no operational need to know what she was and wasn’t doing for the feds.

  “How about you just draw me that map? Much obliged.”

  “You should really think about backup, especially the way your day’s going.”

  “Yeah, thanks for the offer, but I can handle myself.”

  He shrugged and pulled a pencil out of a tin can and rummaged around on his desk until he found an old envelope. “Your funeral.”

  He spent the next few minutes scratching on the envelope and pointing out landmarks she should watch for. Then she followed Ackerman back to the front of the place. He returned to the bar, where Kevvie was complaining loudly about how much the Lakers sucked. Hannah headed out the door, but when she paused to hold it for a waiter going back in with a tray of dirty dishes, she happened to glance back.

  Ackerman was paying no attention to Kevvie’s critique of the Lakers. He was too busy dialing his cell phone.

  Eleven

  A wave broke on the rocks beneath the cliff, sending spray high into the air. Blinded by the mist on the windshield, Hannah scrambled to find the Caddy’s wiper switch without taking her eyes off the twisting road.

  If the inland terrain north of Puerto Vallarta was made up of dry, rolling plains dotted with small villages and rancheros, the southern terrain was more rugged. The Sierra Madre mountain range ran close to shore here, squeezing the highway between dense hillside jungle and jagged coastline.

  She could rappel up tall buildings or parachute out of an aircraft without hesitation, but careening around switchbacks that overlooked steep, rocky precipices was the stuff of her nightmares. Had Gladding’s driver not turned out to be a thief, she fumed, she would have spent the drive up the coast dozing in the backseat, thinking pleasant thoughts about ten-thousand-dollar paydays and canoodling with John Russo. Instead, she was white-knuckle hurtling along a narrow, roller-coaster road in a boat of a car, hoping the damn brakes had been serviced more recently than the nonexistent air conditioner.

  Nor could she take her time. The sun was beginning to sink and the transfer of the painting to its new owner was hours overdue. When she’d finally gotten a cell phone signal in town, she’d found a panicky message from Rebecca Powell, wanting to know where she was and, more to the point, why the painting hadn’t been delivered. No doubt Gladding had been in touch with his buyer, demanding to know the same thing. Hannah had tried calling back to relate what had happened, but she’d gotten the gallery’s voice mail. All she could do was leave a message, then bust her hump to hand over the canvas ASAP.

  She wondered about the return trip to Puerto Vallarta. Although she was bringing back his Cadillac sans chauffeur, Moises Gladding would surely feel obliged to arrange for her transport back to town, even if he had to drive her himself. Not her fault the household help was rebelling. This was an object lesson in trusting her gut, she decided. She hadn’t wanted to take this job, but she’d let herself be wheedled by her sister, by Rebecca’s hard-luck divorce story, and by her own anemic finances.

  An easy gig, my foot. First-class travel
, resort on the beach, fat paycheck. Yeah, right.

  No way she’d get in any serious beach time now. She was scheduled to fly back tomorrow at noon. If she got up early enough, there might be time for a fast swim and maybe picking up a souvenir for Gabe. At the very least, she vowed, she’d have a decent dinner tonight on Gladding’s tab. This resort where she was supposed to be checked in, would it have a spa? Open late, maybe, so she could get a massage to work out the insanity of this day? If not, she’d settle for margaritas and a Jacuzzi.

  When the road straightened a little, she chanced another glance at Ackerman’s map. The barkeep had said that Gladding’s villa was just past the turnoff to a place called Santa Rosa.