Sister of a Sinner Page 17

  Hiding from her gaze, Indio moved away from the bed into a shadow cast by the late afternoon sun. “Your opinion does not matter. To honor your sacrifice, you may request whatever you want to eat, drink, wear, or bring you amusement, but you will remain here alone in this room until it is time to go to the sacred place.”

  Xochi drew on the attitude of the tough child she’d once been to quell her fear. She peeled back her lips into a snarky grin. “You could start by releasing me, but first I want you, personally, to pull up my panties. Then, I need my clothes from the ship. I hardly think Ix Chel approves of the way I am dressed now.”

  “Ix Chel is a fertility goddess, not a nun. However, we do as you ask for now. On the night of the event you will have proper attire to honor her.” The Indian approached and hooked his fingers in the sides of her panties, drew them up, and let them snap against her skin, a petty punishment for ridiculing him perhaps, but he did not touch her flesh.

  The cuffs came off. Xochi sat up and crossed her legs beneath her skirt. “Say, any of you want to rape a virgin, or would a substitute be too hard to find on the island? None of you have a sister or daughter to fill the bill?”

  She saw the rage that filled Indio at her mockery. El Animal seemed ready and willing to comply. He rubbed a hand over his crotch. Diaz showed no emotion at her taunt.

  “Out, out, all of you! Only I will hold the key.” Don Esteban—a man who felt his power waning by the minute and so frail that any of the men might have knocked him down and taken her at will—gestured wildly at the door.

  Perhaps, long-term loyalty or the promise of great rewards made them file silently from the bedroom, leaving Xochi alone with the man who’d had her parents killed. Certainly, if one had raped her, she might be killed immediately as useless or be spared to be sold into sexual slavery, both preferable to allowing evil incarnate to have his way.

  She lay back on the copious pillows of the bed and exposed her shapely legs to the devil. “I believe I’d like surf and turf for my dinner, baked potato with butter, a fresh green salad, and strawberry-topped cheesecake for dessert. See to it, Esteban.” Xochi dropped his honorific and closed her eyes, wondering if he would strike her, bruise her. But no, Esteban Miro left the room without a murmur, leaving her to dream of a lovely meal hopefully served with a steak knife that might be of use later.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The would-be rescuers steered Wideout through the night, the nearly full moon making a pathway on the surface of the sea, as if guiding them to Xochi. Tom explained the guidance system of the boat and showed them all how to hold the course when he rested. They feed themselves with spicy Mexican lasagna, sweet bread pudding, leftover sandwiches from lunch, and handfuls of baby carrots and fruit from the plastic bag. Junior feared they wouldn’t get to the island fast enough. The taste of bile filled his mouth, the bitter salt air his nostrils.

  They fueled the boat from the cans of gas that made up most of their cargo. Wideout possessed a powerful engine. Its owner wouldn’t have it any other way, but it did gobble fuel. Thanks to the calculations Dr. Bullock did on his iPad, he got them there with half a can left at a good rate of speed in late afternoon of the third day. Once docked, Tom ceded his leadership to role Tony Ancona who slung the weapons bag over his shoulder and went out to meet the customs officials descending on the boat. Connor lugged the medical bag. As the men rummaged through it, he insisted, “Doctor, el doctor. Supplies for the clinic,” improvising on the fly. He showed his passport. Tom and Junior did as well. They received their white tourist cards for a stay on the island.

  Tony flashed his badge, let them paw through the firearms he claimed to own, and explained the situation. “We’re looking for a kidnapped American girl we believe is on the island. These are friends and relatives who can identify her.” He jerked his curly head toward Tom, Connor, and Junior. “Any of you have a picture?”

  Tom and Junior instantly moved a hand toward their wallets and flipped them open to a photo of Xochi taken for the college yearbook her senior year, no cap and gown, posed in a simple black drape that the dark waves of her hair cascaded over. “Muy bonita” the port officials agreed, but they had not seen her. Tony appropriated Junior’s wallet, stuffed with bills for the trip from the ATM at the convenience store in Chapelle. He drew out a reasonable bribe. “Now have you seen her?”

  Their heads still shook no, but one added, “Yesterday, so many girls like her come on the ferry to meet Los Siete Pecados when she docked. A big fiesta for the men aboard and then all go to one of the hotels on buses to continue the party.”

  Tony got the name of the place, Casa de Luna, and headed toward a road to hail a taxi. A customs man called after him, “You gonna contact the policia, no?”

  “Absolutamente,” Tony said as a cab pulled over, and they crammed inside to place their rumps on bulging springs covered with a Mexican serape.

  “Really? We’re going to get bogged down with the local cops,” Tom complained.

  “Nope. Car rental, por favor.”

  On such a small island, nothing was far away. Tony plucked a ten from Tom’s wallet, paid, and got out without waiting for change. “I’ll get the cars. Look around if you want, but don’t go far. And Tom, cover up that red hair. You stand out like a stoplight from a mile away. At least, that sunburn you got helps you to blend in with the other tourists. Not much we can do to disguise Junior, but black jeans and the Sinners tee is good. I like that snarling red devil on the chest. Intimidating. Doc, get a black shirt instead of that yellow Izod thing you got on. You own a pair dark jeans? We might have night work to do.”

  Connor considered his polo shirt and pressed khakis donned prior to docking as if trying to figure out what he’d done wrong. “Yes, I have jeans with me. I’ll buy what is necessary.”

  “Great, pick up a T-shirt for me, size medium.”

  All three purchased black caps embroidered with palm trees flanking the word Cozumel, and Connor bought two Tshirts that matched. As Tom shoved his curls beneath the cap, he caught Junior eyeing a poster of a bare-breasted Mayan woman with aggressively protruding nipples. Kneeling, she held a red rose in her hand. Her wavy black locks, crowned by a serpent knotted twice around itself, fell down her back. Everything about her proclaimed sexual fecundity.

  “Looks like Xochi,” Junior said, the longing in his voice hard to hide from Tom.

  “How do you know what Xochi’s breasts look like?” Tom snapped.

  “I don’t, but I have an imagination. I wanted one of these posters when your dad took us on vacation here years ago. My mama wouldn’t let me buy one.”

  “Ah, senores, that is our beautiful island goddess, Ix Chel. All of you are old enough to take her home now. Five dollars. We have her on soft, soft velvet for ten,” the unctuous store owner tempted as he stroked his hands together.

  “No, she’s not Ix Chel. This is the real fertility goddess, an old hag with the feet and ears of a jaguar and a snake on her head.” Connor passed around his iPad. “See, she’s pouring out the water of life from a pot, or maybe it’s amniotic fluid considering she oversaw childbirth.” He appeared pleased to gross out Tom and Junior.

  Jangling two sets of car keys, Tony joined them and took a look. “If I saw that when I came from the womb, I’d crawl back inside. Weapons are stowed in the trunk of my car. Let’s get to the hotel, Tom with me, Junior and Doc in the other. Medical kit rides with you two.”

  They obeyed the pairings, but not happily. Chagrined, Junior slammed his car door. “You really love stomping on other people’s dreams, don’t you, Connor? I’m getting one of those posters before we go home.”

  “Boys will be boys, I guess.” The doctor put the emphasis on boys. “And facts are facts. We have to face them, unpleasant as they might be. We might be too late to save Xochi.”

  “Tom would feel it—I would feel it if she were gone.” He truly believed that. They had a special connection whether Xochi acknowledged it or not.

 
“Doubtful, but believe what you want. I’ll wait and see for myself.”

  The rivals fell into silence until arrival at the hotel sporting a tasteful Mexican colonial décor with not a single velvet painting of Ix Chel on its walls. Tropical flowers in hammered cooper bowls adorned the tables. The lobby seemed rather full of loitering single men, but otherwise very nice. Ancona stood in front of the marble counter already speaking to a desk clerk. They moved to stand near him and Tom.

  “No, we don’t want a room right now. Have you seen this woman?” He nodded for Tom to show Xochi’s picture again.

  “No, senor. But, see the concierge if you want one like her for the night.”

  Tony automatically put a hand on Tom’s arm as if preventing a grenade from going off. “Policia.” He brought out his badge again. “This U. S. citizen has been abducted and brought to the island. Very bad for Cozumel and this hotel if she’s found here without your cooperation.”

  “So I have heard from the others.” The clerk nodded toward the men filling the lobby. “I tell them all the same—many such women are staying here.”

  “Guests of Esteban Miro?”

  “I cannot tell the names of our guests. Jobs are hard to find on a small island.” The man, slight of build and making up for that with a huge, slicked back pompadour, shook like a nervous Chihuahua. He lowered his voice to the faintest of whispers and tried to speak without moving his lips. “Some of these men are his. Always stays in the penthouse.” Back at full volume, he offered the men a room again. “You will pay in cash?”

  “Junior, pay the man for our room.”

  “Will you not want two?”

  Junior forked over the money, which disappeared under the desk. They went through the motions of checking in and getting key cards before settling into ample leather chairs gathered around a small marquetry table with their travel bags at their feet. “Keep your eyes open for any of the guys in the cab with Xochi. Doc, I know you’d recognize Diaz again.”

  “I think I could identify Miro for you. His face is burned into my brain,” Tom offered.

  “Doubt it. The NOPD has recent pictures of him. He took chemo for his cancer in Argentina. We hoped he’d try to get into Ochsner so we could nab him, but he’s too wily to make that mistake. Anyhow, the chemo really fried him. Looks like a dying old man now—which he is.”

  Time passed slower than a turtle race. Tony bought a pack of cards at the gift shop and organized a game of gin rummy played for pocket change. Any time an elevator opened or a person entered the lobby, their eyes swung from their hands to the new arrival, never Xochi. Junior, not usually bad at cards, lost hand after hand, many to Connor Bullock. How could the doctor be so unaffected by the situation? As for himself, he wanted to charge the steps that would take him to Xochi, but Tony eyed him every time he started to stand, a silent command to stay put.

  One of the conservatively dressed men lurking here and there behind potted palms and in the darker corners of the lobby with their backs to the walls and their eyes on the doors stopped by their seating area and watched the game for a while. “Buy you folks a beer?” he offered.

  “No, thanks. We’re all recovering alcoholics,” Tony lied.

  “Look, I can always pick out a fellow lawman. This is an FBI affair. Let us handle it.”

  “What have you done so far to recover the girl? Miro’s men slipped her by you, didn’t they?”

  “Yes, a clever ruse that party.”

  “A clever ruse? Who are you, Sherlock Holmes?” Tony wisecracked. “You blew it.”

  “We couldn’t separate her from the crowd, but she’s here, you bet, probably in Miro’s suite. Neither maids nor room service is allowed inside. And the name is Agent Baldwin.”

  “Why don’t you go and get her!” Tom interrupted.

  “Might get her killed if we move in too fast. This is why we don’t work with amateurs.”

  “The way I see it you can always use more eyes. We’ll be staying.” Tony shuffled the deck for another round of rummy. “We got key cards and a right to sit here all night if we want.”

  “Just stay out of our way when it goes down.”

  “Gotcha. Go sit and stop calling attention to us.”

  The agent offered his card. “In case you get in over your heads.” When Tony failed to accept it, Baldwin tucked it into Ancona’s jacket pocket and went back to his chair where he picked up a fat Ludlum novel and pretended to read again.

  Their group, two by two, took turns getting a light dinner at the hotel restaurant. “Nothing that’s gonna give you gas, stay away from the frijoles and cheese. No booze. Remember, this is a stakeout. I’m going for the fish tacos and fries myself,” Ancona advised. “Doc, why don’t you change into your dark clothes in the restroom after you eat?”

  “Why not give me a room key now?”

  “Because what we bought was information, not fancy accommodations. I doubt the key cards work.”

  Connor nodded. He went to dine with Junior, still deeply unhappy about the pairing. Not much conversation over Junior’s jumbo shrimp skewers and the doctor’s grilled mahi-mahi with rice. When a room service trolley passed filled with domed platters, Junior said, “I hope they’re feeding Xochi.”

  “Not if they want her too weak to resist.”

  “She will resist, weak or not.” Junior felt sure of that.

  Connor blotted his lips on a napkin. “That might not be the best idea. I’m going to change now.” He returned in dark clothes like most of the men in the lobby. They relieved Tony and Tom to get their plates of fish tacos.

  The bulge of his shoulder holster a little more noticeable, Tony came back wearing the black T-shirt under his jacket and a thoughtful look on his Italian face. “Any of you guys have a phone that works on the island?”

  Connor held his up. “I have international calling because of the overseas medical conferences I’ve attended.”

  Junior, not to be outdone, said, “So do I. Not the medical conferences, but when Xochi studied in Spain, I wanted to keep in touch. I promised my dad I’d work extra hours at the ranch if I could get international calling and I’d pay the bills, so he let me. Believe me, I earned it clearing brush and mucking stalls.”

  “She couldn’t even get away from you in Europe,” Connor felt moved to say.

  Junior drew back a fist. Both Tony and Tom hung on his arm to stay the blow.

  Tony reorganized once the moment passed. “New partners, then. Doc with me; Tom and Junior together. That way we can keep in touch by phone if we get separated. You good with that?”

  “About time,” Junior said.

  The man who had accosted them earlier strolled by and hissed, “Amateurs,” on his way to the restroom. Junior sat down hanging his head for losing his cool as if he’d just been benched for a penalty.

  The clock crawled toward eight p.m. like a dying man trying to reach water in the desert. Sunburned tourists returned from snorkeling or a day of scuba diving and went to their rooms. An old Mexican woman toting a large bag from a gift shop hobbled across the lobby around seven-thirty and got into the elevator. A half hour later, she returned without the bag. So much for any action. Getting on their nerves, Tom tapped his foot incessantly. Junior stilled the nervous leg. “Pretend we’re at a Sinners game waiting to be called up. Play it cool, Tom.”

  “Wish I could kick some asses into a net. I’d feel better,” he muttered.

  The sun set, and the full moon rose in the sky. Junior jumped up when an ambulance screamed to a halt outside the hotel doors. What if her captors had injured Xochi so seriously they’d called for medical assistance, an idea he could not tolerate? Tony flicked him a look, but did not dare tell him to sit again.

  Medics unloaded a gurney and dashed for the elevator. Within minutes, they returned with a man, face like a mummy, draped in sheets and moaning pitifully. Diaz, El Animal, and the Indian followed their boss into the emergency vehicle, one of them, Diaz, with a garment bag slung over his should
er as if El Jefe might need his tuxedo for a formal affair later in the night. Four more of the drug lord’s henchmen sitting in the lobby dashed to a van in the parking lot.

  “Miro,” Tony stated.

  “I can’t believe that’s him,” Tom said.

  “Believe it. This might be our chance to search the penthouse. I don’t care if we have to shoot the lock off the door.” Tony rose ready for action, then hung back as Agent Baldwin led his men toward the stairs and elevators.

  “Tell you what. Tom and Junior, you follow the ambulance at a safe distance. Xochi could be in there or the van. Take the car with the weapons. I have my own on me.” He exchanged keys with Junior. “Doc might need his medical kit if we find her or some of the Feebs get injured. Go, go, go! Bullock stay behind me.” They bolted for the elevators—and had to wait for their return from the penthouse floor after delivering the FBI agents.

  Tom and Junior extended their long legs and crammed them inside the small car. “Go faster,” Tom ordered once they were on the road.

  “We can see the ambulance lights from here. If we get too close, they’ll notice us.”

  “Hey, the van is peeling off toward the docks. Maybe Xochi is still on board the yacht, and we could…”

  Junior put on his game face; his I will not be moved face. “Ancona said to follow the ambulance. He knows what he’s doing. We don’t. Besides, I am sure the FBI already checked the ship.”

  “Lots of hiding places aboard, Tony said. Maybe they didn’t find the one where Xochi is being held. I vote for the boat.”

  “This isn’t a democracy. It’s Car and Driver, and I’m the driver. You think we could do better than the FBI?” Junior clung to the steering wheel, his brown knuckles knotted in case Tom tried to take control. He had a hunch, a feeling which vehicle to follow.