by Carmen Amato
The woman made change. “Franco’s okay. Nobody pushes him around.” She gave Emilia a hard look. “You tell your worthless husband to place his own bets. A pretty thing like you should be home making babies.”
Emilia smiled coyly and left.
Silvio’s house was one of the few that had been whitewashed recently and the gate looked new and very heavy. Unlike the others, however, the gate was open and a heavyset woman was scrubbing the sidewalk in front with a broom that she occasionally dunked in a bucket of water. A couple of small children hung around by the wall of the neighboring house, watching the woman and giggling from time to time. She looked up once and smiled and waved at them before continuing to scrub the path.
Emilia stayed on the opposite side of the street, eating her chips and drinking the cold sports drink. There was a small florista stand with a large dented Herdez vegetables sign over it. Emilia lingered, ostensibly looking at the blooms. She wasn’t sure why she’d come or what she’d thought she’d see. She finally bought two ginger stems and crossed the street, planning to pass the house and the industriously sweeping woman.
As she passed the gate she saw that the courtyard space between the gate and the house was full of plastic tables and chairs, almost as if it was a restaurant.
“You’re welcome to come.” The woman with the broom stopped sweeping and came to the gate. She looked at Emilia critically. “If you have children to bring.”
“I’m sorry?” Emilia paused with the gate between them. For some reason the woman made her feel guilty for indulging in the sports drink and chips.
“You don’t have to hang around like you’re afraid to ask.” The woman was at least ten years older than Emilia but still striking. Her eyes were dark and intelligent and her hair was glossy and thick. There was a weariness about her, however, and her polyester dress was old and bagged out of shape. She wore plastic flip flops that were worn down at the heels. “Food’s only for the children. Tuesdays and Thursdays. Whatever you can pay. It doesn’t matter if you can’t.”
“Oh.” Emilia was nonplussed. “I thought . . . I didn’t . . . I thought this was the place to make bets.”
“Oh,” the woman said. “Come back on Friday for that.”
Emilia smiled and walked on, needing to escape the poverty and the fear and the whole hideous investigation.
The rest of Gomez’s money was in her bag. It was time to go shopping.
Chapter 21
“Is this a school party?” Sophia asked as she zipped up Emilia’s new skinny black dress.
“Yes, Mama.” Emilia stuck her gun and cell phone into her Sunday purse. She bit her lip, deciding, and finally added a comb and a clean pair of underwear. The events of the last two days had left her in a reckless mood. She’d spent the rest of the money she’d taken out of Gomez’s pocket on some music CDs to play in the car, the cocktail dress and a pair of red high-heeled sandals. “It might be a sleepover kind of party.”
Sophia nodded vaguely and left Emilia’s bedroom. Emilia heard her calling to Ernesto in the kitchen as she went. Emilia went into the bathroom and got her toothbrush to add to her purse.
She got to the Palacio Réal about 7:00 pm. Kurt met her in the lobby and ran an appreciative eye over the outfit. “Thank you for coming,” he said formally.
“Thank you for inviting me,” Emilia said. His look made her feel decidedly female and it was a very good feeling. “Nice shirt.”
He was wearing a shirt with initials on the cuffs and as he grinned she knew he’d worn it on purpose. “Shall we have a drink?” he asked.
“Yes.” Emilia let him lead her through the lobby and to a table near the grand piano, but not so close that the music impeded conversation. “Can I recommend a mojito?” he asked as he pulled out a chair for her.
“You may,” Emilia said. She couldn’t remember the last time a man had pulled out a chair for her.
The mojitos came and they toasted each other and watched yet another spectacular Acapulco sunset. The Pasodoble Bar at night was even more elegant than it had been Sunday afternoon. It was a million miles away from her mother and Ernesto Cruz and poor Bruno Inocente trying to protect his pendejo brother’s children. Even further from Los Bongos and crumbling neighborhoods where everybody knew Franco the bookie.
“So tell me how things are going,” Kurt said. He leaned back in his chair, obviously comfortable in his luxury hotel and tall frosted glass.
“I don’t want to talk about work tonight,” Emilia heard herself say. “I’m off duty.”
“I like the sound of that,’ Kurt said. “Tell me what you like to do when you’re off duty.’
Emilia looked away from him. The waves drummed up on the sand, slid away, drummed up again. There were still a few people skipping in and out of the surf; a bronzed couple held hands and flirted with the water and each other. As the rum and mint and lime juice kneaded her muscles and the tide rinsed the sand Emilia thought about his question. “I have no idea,” she said after a while. “I haven’t been off duty in years.”
“Let me guess,” Kurt said. “You’re very bad at relaxing.”
Emilia sipped her mojito and looked at Kurt out of the corner of her eye. “I usually don’t try.”
“Tonight is different?”
“Maybe,” Emilia admitted.
The corner of Kurt’s mouth turned up. “How can I help?” he asked.
A heavy wave foamed in. The young couple on the beach clung to each other and laughed. Emilia shook her head. She’d thought she could put aside everything tonight but the conversation above Los Bongos and Silvio’s duplicity were still running through her head. “It’s hard to shut off work. This investigation.” She gave Kurt a feeble grin. “That sensation of diving headfirst into the rocks.”
“It’s not going very well, is it?”
“Actually, I’ve had a couple of breakthroughs,” Emilia admitted.
“Really?”
“I think Silvio’s involved in the death of Lt. Inocente.” Emilia hadn’t meant to say that, but the words spilled out.
“The senior detective?” Kurt frowned. “The one you thought should be in charge of the investigation?”
She nodded, desperately needing a sympathetic ear. “Victor Obregon, the union chief, warned me about him. But I think that . . . I don’t know what I think. But this could be bad.” She realized that she was gripping her hands together so tightly that her knuckles were white. “Really bad.”
“Let’s go someplace more private,” Kurt said and stood up. “Talk this out.”
“I’ve ruined the evening already, haven’t I?” Emilia said.
“There’s nothing you could do in that dress that would ruin this evening,” Kurt said, sliding out her chair and Emilia smiled in spite of herself.
He picked up both their glasses, made eye contact with the bartender, and led Emilia through the hotel to an elevator. They went up to the fifth floor and he led her to a small efficiency apartment. “This is home,” he said.
Emilia looked around. “It’s nice,” she said. The decor was simple and impersonal, just what a hotel apartment should look like, but the two racing bicycles by the door and some framed pictures of yellow-haired people connected it to him. The space was furnished with a kitchenette and small seating area with a loveseat, two armchairs and a television. A king sized bed with matching bedside tables was pressed into a wide alcove. Kurt opened glass doors, revealing a broad balcony overlooking the bay. Far below Emilia could see the bar they’d just left.
They settled into two chaise lounge chairs with the drinks on a low table between the seating. “So tell me about Silvio,” Kurt said. “Why would he be involved?”
“I got Lt. Inocente’s phone records. He was the last person to call Lt. Inocente’s cell phone.” Emilia sucked down some more mojito, very conscious that she had seen Kurt’s bed. “The maid said Lt. Inocente got a call about 10:00 pm and left the apartment. Silvio was that call.”
“You f
ound this out from phone records?” Kurt was incredulous. “You mean this guy’s never said anything?”
“Nothing,” Emilia said. “It’s been a week and he hasn’t said a word.”
“I see your concern.” Kurt sat sideways on the chaise, elbows on knees, his entire attention focused on her. The evening breeze ruffled his hair. It was just long enough to curl.
Emilia recounted the conversations she’d had over the past two days. Without appearing bored, Kurt listened to her story about the breakfast date with the mayor, the brief excitement they’d had when they connected the fingerprints to the two hookers, the fact that Ruiz had probably been a member of the El Machete gang and that at least the cousin knew that Ruiz had carried counterfeit money. The words spilled out in a relieved gush; Obregon’s suspicious motives, the mayor’s pressure, Bruno’s offer, Silvio’s cell call to Lt. Inocente. That spiraled into Silvio moonlighting as a bookie, the fact that he’d been seen with a wad of the same counterfeit money used to ransom the Morelos de Gama child, and how he’d responded to the dispatch message about a possible counterfeit bill discovered by the Bancomer Bank.
“So that’s your case?” Kurt asked. “Silvio and Inocente were in this together, kidnapped the child, somehow got paid in counterfeit, and then had a falling out? Or that Silvio was set up?”
“It could be either.”
“Do you think Silvio killed Inocente?”
“Rico didn’t buy it.” Emilia toyed with the straw in her mojito glass. “His wife feeds street kids twice a week. Everybody in the neighborhood knows when the free meals are offered and that Silvio runs a book. Bets on Friday, payouts on Monday.”
“You’re saying that woman isn’t married to a killer.”
“I don’t know.” Emilia finished her mojito. “The security guard at the marina said he saw Lt. Inocente take the boat out alone. He punched in the code to open the boat gate and left. No one has said that a person matching Silvio’s description was near the marina.”
Kurt ran a hand through his hair. Emilia’s fingers itched to do the same. “Maybe the phone call was just talking about work and Silvio forgot to mention it,” Kurt said.
“The other angle is this water company.” Emilia put her empty glass on the low table. “The Inocente family sold Agua Pacifica water to the father of the kidnapped child we found in the car. Bernal Morelos de Gama. He owns Lomas Bottling. Both his brother Bruno and the family lawyer said they sold the company to use the money to pay off el teniente’s gambling debts.”
Kurt’s eyes widened in surprise and for a moment Emilia forgot about everything else. “That’s all a little too coincidental,” he said. “You sure the gambling thing isn’t the key here?”
“That’s what we thought.” Emilia nodded. “Because he’d owned money to El Pharaoh. And . . . used . . . girls from there. But we can’t make it fit.”
There was a discreet knock on the apartment door. Kurt left the balcony and came back with two more mojitos. Emilia accepted one and sipped. The second mojito was even better than the first; cold and crisp and tart.
“Did you say they sold Agua Pacifico?” Kurt asked when he’d settled onto the other chaise again.
“Yes.”
Kurt shook his head. “I tried to change the hotel’s water vendor a couple of months ago. Price had gone up and it’s a major expense for a place as big as the Palacio Réal.”
“Did you change to Agua Pacifico?”
“No,” Kurt said. “Got a recorded message. You know, press two for whatever. Pressed all the buttons and finally got a blurb that they cannot accommodate new customers at this time.”
“That’s odd.” Emilia thought back to the conversation with Licenciado Hernandez. “There are two water purification plants, both with brand new equipment. The one we saw is turning out 500 jugs an hour and the manager said they’re actively seeking new customers.”
“They aren’t going to get them that way.”
“Silvio accused me of not knowing what I was doing,” Emilia said. “He thinks the water company is a dead end.”
“Or like you said. He doesn’t want the investigation to go near the water company because he’s involved.”
Emilia sighed and looked out over the bay again. She’d messed up the first date she’d had in a million years. A date with the most interesting man she’d ever met. One who listened to her, took her seriously, a man she didn’t have to fight in order to gain his grudging respect. A man with yellow hair and the body of a triathlete. Of course she’d ruin the evening.
“It’s not all bad news,” Emilia said with a weak attempt at humor. “The food thing worked. Had everybody at the meeting this morning.”
“What did I tell you,” Kurt said.
The sun had set over the bay. Below the balcony, the waves made foamy white lines across the sand as the tide rolled in. The muted sounds of piano music and low conversations carried to them on the night breeze.
“How about a swim before dinner?” Kurt asked.
Emilia gave a laugh. “A swim?”
Kurt stood and pulled her out of the chaise. “It’s impossible to brood about work while you’re swimming.”
“I didn’t bring a suit,” Emilia protested.
“It comes with dinner.”
Kurt was strong and still had his hands on her shoulders, keeping Emilia close to him in the narrow space between the two chaises. The two mojitos had done an excellent job and she knew she wouldn’t say no to anything he suggested. Maybe the evening wasn’t ruined after all.
Twenty minutes later Emilia followed the woman who ran the hotel spa to the pool on the second level. Kurt had taken her to the spa and turned her over to Gloria, an older woman who helped Emilia pick out a dark red two-piece bathing suit from the spa boutique. It wasn’t a bikini but it wasn’t a grandmother suit either and Emilia knew she looked good in it. The manager wrapped a sheer red and gold pareo around Emilia’s hips and tied the ends together in a knot so that it formed a long straight skirt, then carefully folded Emilia’s clothes and put them in a Palacio Réal shopping bag.
A table next to the secluded pool was set for two. Candles flickered in the night air, the flames reflecting off wineglasses and heavy silver.
The deck around the pool was lit by enormous pillar candles. The wicks were low, making the cylinders of wax luminous with a faint yellow glow. Big pots of bougainvillea were lit from below and their blooms were faint pink smudges against the night sky. A waterfall spilled into the pool from the level above them. The water at that end was so deep that the cascading water seemed to be absorbed into it, turning the tall rush of water into a quiet churn.
Kurt sat on the edge of the pool, his feet dangling over the side. He wore some type of long dark shorts. In the candlelight the tanned skin of his chest and arms was bronze and his hair was a halo.
“I thought you might like a bite of something first,” he said and Emilia realized there was a plate of appetizers on the edge of the pool next to him. “But seeing you in that suit . . .” His voice trailed off.
Emilia put down her purse and the shopping bag and unfastened the pareo. She laid it carefully across the back of the chair by the table.
There were stairs into the pool by the waterfall. She stepped into the water and then dove, reveling in the silk of the water over her skin and the feeling of freedom she always had underwater. She scissored her legs and bobbed to the surface to see Kurt watching her from his perch on the edge of the pool.
“You’re a good swimmer,” he said.
“I grew up in Acapulco,” Emilia said and dove under the water again.
There was a splash and by the small lights on the bottom of the pool Emilia saw Kurt twist gracefully under the water. He was a strong swimmer, the muscles of his shoulders and chest rippling. He reached out for her and she grabbed his arm and rolled, somersaulting both of them through the clear water. Emilia felt his hands on her wet skin and it was shatteringly exquisite. They whirled together und
er the water until her lungs were bursting and she had to push upwards. Kurt came with her and they broke the surface at the same time.
The pool was deep and she had to tread water. Kurt pushed wet hair off her face and then he kissed her.
It was a glorious kiss, the deep open-mouthed kiss she’d been waiting for. Emilia wrapped her arms around his neck and felt him grin against her mouth. Kurt pulled them both under the water without breaking the kiss. The slide of his wet body against her own was almost more than Emilia could stand.
They surfaced again, this time inside the dark grotto created by the curve of the waterfall. Kurt’s mouth was insistent and Emilia felt strong and sexy and crazy and reckless. She ran her hands over his shoulders and down his arms, reveling in the way he felt and responded to her. He was by far the best kisser she’d ever encountered, not that she’d had time for many, and she felt as if she could drink him in all night.
They found air at the same time. Emilia broke away and under the waterfall, feeling the water pound her back and legs as she swam through the rough water where it cascaded into the pool. She was aware of Kurt beside her, his body long and straight and more pale than hers.
They surfaced at the other end of the pool, near the table set for dinner. Emilia held onto the side of the pool with one hand and to Kurt’s shoulder with the other. As their lips met again the distinctive ring of her cell phone broke through the rush of the waterfall and the thunder in her head. Emilia wiped wet hair off her face and gave Kurt a rueful look. “So close.”
“Get it,” said Kurt.
Emilia hauled herself out of the pool, found her phone and hit the talk button. “Bueno?”
It was Alan Denton, the Pinkerton agent. His Spanish was roughly accented, not half as good as Kurt’s, and he was clearly unhappy about speaking with her. Emilia had a difficult time understanding his words and he asked her twice to repeat herself before the conversation made any headway.