“Come here and I’ll wiggle something. It won’t be so little, though.”
“Hey. You really know how to sweet-talk a girl.”
“Come on, baby. ¡Ven aquí!”
“After rehearsal. Go wiggle your little finger.”
“Why’re you being such a tease?”
“Because you don’t rehearse, Seb. And I paid for that damn guitar.”
“You mean you lent me the money for that damn guitar.”
Two years ago, she almost said. Wave bye-bye to five grand. She wouldn’t really give a damn if he’d just knuckle down.
She was beat. Her ears were buzzing. If she closed her eyes, she was still rolling over in a BMW outside the embassy. Running across Quito like a deer in those crap sneakers. And she couldn’t stop thinking about Kacha’s cousin, Tica, in some prison cell, some dank little hellhole outside Quito. And nothing getting done about it.
“I’m going to get a couple hours shut-eye,” she said, heading into the living room, collecting the empty bottles. “See you after rehearsal.”
His long arms stopped her, wrapping around her leg.
“Yeah, I’ll see you after rehearsal,” he said, firm bicep pressing up against her thigh, his hand cupping a butt cheek. “And I’ll see you before practice too. You need it. I can tell.”
Laughing, she pushed Seb away, but not quite hard enough. “Not any more. I banged a homeless guy on the way home from work.”
“On the street?”
“What do you think I am—some kind of tramp? No, a doorway of course.”
“Oh, OK. And his buddies, too? I hope.”
“Just the one who let me drink from his forty-ouncer.”
“Oh, so you’re all warmed up, huh? Cool. Saves me some time.” Seb’s strong fingers climbed her leg. Slid up underneath her dress and found that spot on her hip. The divot. He stroked it with his thumb and she could feel the edge of his guitar player’s callus moving gently up and down. Slowly, his hand glided down onto her montículo de venus.
She responded. Things were getting warm.
Seb pulled her down onto his lap. Bottles tumbled from her arms onto the Persian rug, clattering off onto the hardwood floor. Seb was already hard. She responded to that too. Moistness. He pushed his lips to her ear and started whispering in Spanish. Not the way he spoke to her in English. Calling her Chichi, nibbling her earlobe.
She ate it up.
Found herself spooned on him in the leather recliner. His hands all over her. And his mouth. Then her dress was quickly pulled up around her midriff and her panties down to her knees. Seb kneeled on the floor, lips on her thighs, making a lazy path for her concha.
“I need a shower,” she said in Spanish. It was their language when they were making love.
“No, you don’t,” he said. “Not at all.”
“Promise me you’ll go to rehearsal afterwards,” she said, tousling his hair.
“Yeah, sure,” he said, as he pulled her panties down her calves and off. “God, you’re beautiful. I’m crazy about you.”
“I mean it,” she said, settling in, gripping the armrests of the chair, getting ready.
“So do I.”
~~~
Maggie woke in a tangle of sheets, the curtains to her bedroom drawn tight against the Valencia Street racket several stories down. The antique clock on the nightstand told her it was late afternoon.
“Hey, Sebi?” she shouted. “You there, amor? Make some coffee, will you?”
No response. Cool. Maybe he’d actually gone to rehearsal after all.
She was alone, in that delicious dreamtime, which she seemed to remember from her childhood, but knew was time more imagined than anything else. It had only been a few hours, but the coma-like sleep felt luxurious and illicit, stolen from work, and on the tail of wicked lovemaking. She got up, wrapped her black-and-white kimono around her naked body, slouched into the front of the apartment to make café cubano.
And felt a little angry fire glow inside her when she saw Sebastian’s Les Paul still lying on the sofa, untouched, exactly where it had been when she came home that morning.
While coffee brewed, she set about picking up the living room. Cleaning out the full sink, flinging Seb’s dirty dishes into the dishwasher.
There were a couple of wine glasses already in the top rack. She’d been out of town, hadn’t left any dirty dishes. She could not stand the smell of a rank dishwasher, always ran it on a regular basis, especially before she left for a trip. She specifically recalled running it before she left for Ecuador. Maggie extracted a wine glass in front, brushed her hair out of her eyes to inspect it. She put the glass back.
Mami always told her never to distrust her man. Lot of good it did Mami.
Maggie picked up the other wine glass. When did Sebi start wearing lipstick? Pink in this case.
She opened the cabinet door under the sink and tossed the glass into the trash with an angry flip.
God. Damn. You. Seb.
The doorbell rang, making her jump. Fastening her robe, she thought of pink lipstick as she stormed to the buzzer, where she leaned on the intercom. “You didn’t go to rehearsal, you lazy bastard.”
“No, I did not,” a recognizable southern voice said. “And I’m very sorry about it, too, ma’am.”
Maggie flinched. It wasn’t Seb. But she knew that voice. John Rae Hutchens.
“No,” she said, laughing. “I’m the one who’s sorry—for making a freaking idiot of myself. Come on up. Third floor.” She thumbed the buzzer until she heard the front door slam down in the lobby. She pulled open her apartment door an inch and realized she was wearing her kimono and nothing else. Well, the two of them had practically died together—what was a little familiarity? She gave the living room a quick once-over while John Rae hurried up the flights of stairs. Scooping up her crumpled blue-satin panties from the recliner, she stuffed them quickly under a sofa cushion, then went into the kitchen and pulled out a box of brown-sugar cubes.
She heard John Rae reach the top of the stairs and stride up to her door. “It’s open!” she yelled.
His hand appeared around the door. Slowly it opened and John Rae entered, shut the door, stood in the hallway. He wore a slim, powder-blue poplin suit that fit his tallish frame well, with a crisp white shirt done up to the collar, no tie. Signature cowboy boots, gray and embossed with a curlicue pattern. His right thigh was padded, no doubt from a bandage over his bullet wound. His hair was slicked back behind his ears today and a serious bruise on his left cheek was turning an ugly purplish-yellow. More residue from the Ecuadorian oil party. But he looked pretty good, considering. He brandished a beaming smile. “You’re alive,” she said.
“Yeah, I think so. You too. Good to see you.”
“How’s the leg? Last time I saw you, it had a bullet in it.”
“I made it up the stairs.” He didn’t seem to be in any pain. She was impressed.
“And you know where I live.”
He hooked his thumbs in his belt loops. “I’m not really a stalker,” he said. “I was getting debriefed over in Oakland. Decided to take the liberty after your voicemail this morning.” He noticed her kimono. “Hope I didn’t wake you up.”
“Just catching up on my sleep. After that fiasco. But I was already up. Just made coffee.” She held up the pot. “High-octane.”
“Perfect.” He seemed to be averting his eyes, from looking at her legs. A gent? Who woulda thought?
“Make yourself at home,” she said. “I’ll be right back.”
In the walk-in closet of her bedroom that she had constructed at some expense, she tossed her kimono on the floor and slipped on a pair of ripped and faded jeans, going commando to save time. She topped it off with a soft loose gray alpaca sweater. No bra. She fluffed her hair as she strode back into the living room in her bare feet.
John Rae was standing by the sofa, hands in his pockets, gazing down at Seb’s guitar. Maggie poured coffee into demitasse cups.
&
nbsp; “Les Paul Gold Top,” he said, giving a low whistle, then looking at her with interest. “Do you play?”
“Belongs to a friend,” she said, bringing in cups of coffee from the kitchen.
He gave a quick nod at the word friend, took the coffee, sipped it. “Excellent.”
Maggie set her cup down on the glass top of the coffee table, picked up Seb’s guitar, leaned it against the wall, making room on the sofa.
“You’re allowed to sit down,” she said, taking her spot on the recliner.
He did so. They both drank coffee for a moment, while a bus groaned by on Valencia Street.
“So when did you get back?” She was beginning to wake up with the rich dark coffee flowing through her veins.
“Last night. Had to go through Colombia. What you did, though—with that goat truck? Creative.”
“Me and goats just go together. Took you longer than me, though.”
“Complications,” he said. “I felt a whole lot better when I heard from Field Ops that you got out. The last I saw of you, you were flying through a leaded-glass window in a dress that cost a week’s salary, into Beltran’s swimming pool. But I needn’t have worried, by the sound of things.”
“I was plenty worried, if that makes any difference.”
“Good way to be in a situation like that. But you can obviously take care of yourself. That little stunt in front of the embassy in Quito, for another example. Ditching that car the way you did. The Marine guards said you run like a gazelle.”
“Five miles a day,” she said, sipping. “Rain or shine. But do you have any idea who the hell my kamikaze driver was?”
He sipped coffee, shook his head. “It raises a few concerns.”
“More than a few. Are you suspecting a mole?”
John Rae gave a slow nod. “Somehow connected to Beltran.”
I killed him, she thought.
“Don’t let it bug you too much,” John Rae said, obviously reading her face. “It could have been you. But you were faster.”
“How did you get out of that party from hell, anyway?”
“Once I got hold of that gun, I held them off for as long as I could, to give you time to get away. Then it was a genuine standoff. There was no reason for them to shoot once you were gone. What was the point? Beltran wasn’t getting the money. So Achic and I walked out. Limped. Quickly. With guns on us.” He shook his head. “That op was my responsibility. And it went south.”
“You know, I’ve been told to stay away from this subject. I got my hand smacked. Pretty damn hard.”
John Rae drank coffee. “I can imagine.”
“I’ve been told it’s done, finished.”
He nodded.
“That I could face legal sanctions if I continue to pursue it.”
John Rae took another sip of coffee. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.” He raised his eyebrows. “If you still want to hear.”
A quick thrill shot through her, making her as nervous as it did excited. And they couldn’t put her in jail for listening. Maggie set her cup down on the floor by the recliner, sat up, met John Rae’s blue-eyed, steely gaze. “I’m all ears.”
“This is completely confidential. You can’t say a word. Whatever you decide.”
“Yes.”
“Even to Ed.”
“Got it.”
John Rae set his cup down on the glass coffee table, leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and folded his hands together. “I’m going back.”
-9-
“Going back? To Ecuador?” Maggie asked, more than a little surprised. And more excited, even though the subject was off limits, as far as work—and her future—were concerned.
“Not exactly,” John Rae said. “But close enough. I could really use your help.”
“Help you how?”
“I can’t say exactly until you’ve been officially cleared. But it would involve your financial expertise. Working your electronic magic. Another payoff. This time, though, you can manage your end remotely—from here. No physical risks.” He gave her an encouraging smile.
A ripple of disappointment washed through her. If she wanted to have an effect on what happened to Kacha and Tica, she’d be much better served down there. And besides, she didn’t like the idea of unknown assailants trying to pick her up and get away with it.
“What’s the matter?”
“I thought you’d need me to go along.”
“Hell no.” John Rae picked up his coffee. “With your photo burned into the brain of every poli in the country?”
“You know, the remote computer thing looks great in the movies—but it doesn’t work that way in real life.”
“We’re getting ahead of ourselves.” John Rae checked his watch. “You need to meet my handler.”
“And who might that be?”
John Rae shook his head. “I’ve already told you too much, Agent de la Cruz. I’d like you to meet him. Tonight. Eight o’clock. I’ll even let you pick the restaurant.”
The doorbell buzzed.
“Just a minute.” The doorbell droned three more times before she could set the coffee pot on the tile counter and get to the intercom. “Who is it, already?”
“Your little lique, baby. Ready for round two.”
Seb. Half in the bag by the sound of his voice. Maggie let out a sigh, then saw more red—a shade darker than the pink lipstick on the rim of the wine glass in her trash. “What happened to rehearsal?”
“Hey, chichi, I wanted to see you.”
“Well, chichi, I wanted you to go to rehearsal.”
“What’s your problem? Let me in, already.”
“I’m busy.”
“Busy how? Let me in. I’ll get my ax, go to rehearsal.”
“Like they’re going to be waiting for you, after all this time? Just go away, Seb. I’m not happy with you today. Not at all.”
Then she heard Seb talking to someone downstairs over the intercom. “Can you let me in?” she heard him say. “I forgot my key.”
Jesus H. She pushed the buzzer, left the door ajar, went back into the living room.
“Bad time?” John Rae said.
“Maybe,” Maggie said.
John Rae stood up. Seb’s boots stamped up the stairs.
“What do I have to say to change your mind, Maggie?” John Rae said. “About helping out on the op?”
“Take me along.”
“Besides that?”
The front door opened.
“Hey,” Seb said, a little breathless, obviously surprised to see that Maggie had company. Male company.
“Seb, this is John Rae.”
Seb sauntered into the hallway, eyes narrowing, looking tight around the shoulders. He jammed his hands in the pockets of his beat-up leather jacket.
Maggie saw their eyes meet, a little too long. Two dogs, out on the street, one about to lose it.
“Nice guitar,” John Rae said.
“Yeah,” Seb said. “What’s it doing, leaning up against the wall like that?”
“Not much, by the looks of things.”
“It’s bad for the neck.” Sebastian slurred the it’s and bad.
“Sorry about that,” Maggie said, heading over to the window. “That’s my fault.”
“I’ve mentioned that before,” Seb said. “That it’s bad for the neck.”
“I guess I didn’t hear you.” Maggie picked the Les Paul up by the neck, deliberately, strings tinkling in a haphazard thrum. She brought the guitar back, still holding it by the neck. Held it out to Seb. “Here you go, sweetheart.”
Seb glared at Maggie, took the guitar, leaned it against the wall by the entryway. The guitar slid a centimeter or two to one side.
John Rae drained his coffee, plonked it on the coffee table. “I better run.”
“Where do you know Maggie from?” Seb said to John Rae.
“I’ll let Maggie explain that to you.”
“I’m not asking her.”
John Rae s
uppressed a smile.
“Through work,” Maggie interrupted. “Now lighten up, Seb.”
“Oh, the stuff you can’t ever talk about?”
“Seb. Enough. You’re drunk. Or whatever.”
John Rae strolled over to the doorway. Seb blocked his path.
“No, I’m not,” Seb said, not budging.
“Thanks for the coffee, Maggie,” John Rae said, obviously waiting for Seb to move aside.
“You bet,” she said, not taking her eyes off Seb.
Seb’s hands were still planted in the pockets of his leather jacket.
“I need to get by,” John Rae said.
“What do you think I am?” Seb said.
There was a moment of tense silence. Somewhere out on Valencia Street, the sounds of a truck backing up were audible by an incessant beeping.
“I don’t really know,” John Rae said to Seb, not smiling. “And it’s really none of my business.”
“Damn straight.”
“Seb,” Maggie said. “Take your damn guitar and get out. We’ll talk when you’ve had your sixth birthday.”
Seb said to John Rae, “You take me for some kind of fool, man?”
John Rae’s mouth flattened into a line. “I think you might have gotten your chain wrapped around the axle. I worked with Maggie on a project. I stopped by to ask a favor.”
“What kind of favor?”
“Really?” John Rae let an irritated laugh flutter from his lips. “It’s work. And it’s confidential.”
“You mean it’s pure bullshit. I know what kind of favor you’re after.”
John Rae rubbed his face. “If you think she would even give me the time of day, you’re crazy. Besides, she’s got class. And you’ve just insulted her about nine ways. Now, how about you move aside and let me out of here before you really do make a fool of yourself?”
Seb stood rooted to the spot, feet apart, in a ready stance. “What is that little outfit you’ve got on? Seersucker? You going to the Kentucky Derby?”
“Good one.” John Rae turned to Maggie. “You OK here?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Sorry about all this. I’ll talk to you later.”
John Rae nudged Seb gently to one side, patting him on the arm.
The Cain File Page 9