The Seduction of Goody Two-Shoes

Chapter 3

McCall was packing it in early. Business had been slow all morning, which was more or less normal for the day after a cruise ship dropped anchor. Today was everybody’s day to be off in the jungle swatting mosquitos and climbing pyramids or bird-watching in the biosphere reserves, or, for the younger and more athletically inclined, diving the wrecks and reefs offshore. Tomorrow there’d be another big flurry of shopping just before the ship set sail, everybody stocking up on trinkets and souvenirs to take home, put away in a drawer somewhere and eventually forget all about. But right now the heat and tropical-storm humidity were settling in and siesta time was coming on. He figured he’d just as well call it a day.

He was working up a sweat in the late October heat, trying to wedge the last of his canvasses into his ancient faded blue Volkswagen when he heard a sound that made his blood run cold.

“Taxi? Excuse me, senor…por favor, is this, uh…?este…esta un taxi? ”

There was no mistaking that raggedy voice.

Sure enough, across the street at the taxi stand near the entrance to the plaza, the cinnamon girl was attempting to rouse the driver of the lone cab parked there from his noonday siesta.

Oh Lord, McCall thought, what’s she up to now?

But as much as he tried, he couldn’t keep himself from stopping what he was doing to watch her. It didn’t help that she was wearing a bright yellow tank top with one of those wraparound things that can’t decide whether to be shorts or a skirt, this one in a loud Hawaiian print-hibiscus blossoms and palm fronds in clear shades of red, green and yellow-something like his own paintings, in fact, only a lot prettier. It would probably have hit her a couple inches above the knee if she’d been standing up straight, but since she was bending over to talk to the cab driver through his open window, McCall’s view of her legs was extended considerably, and most pleasingly. All in all, she looked like a walking ad for some kind of tropical suntan lotion, and yummy enough to make a man’s mouth water.

Except for the big clunky running shoes and the dorky-looking hot-pink sunshade on her head, anyway. McCall couldn’t understand why so many tourists wore those sun visor things; he’d never seen a woman yet who looked good in one. Though Cinnamon Girl came close.

Those thoughts were distracting enough that it took him a moment to realize that she was having some trouble making the taxi driver understand where she wanted to go. It looked like she’d given him a piece of paper with the address written on it, but in spite of that the driver kept shaking his head and gesturing in a decidedly negative fashion. Even from where he stood McCall was getting his message loud and clear: Lady, you are loco!

In her exasperation, Cinnamon Girl snatched back the paper and read what was on it in a loud voice, the way people do, for some reason, when they try to communicate in a foreign language-as if they think deafness is the root of the problem. When she did that, her words carried clearly to McCall’s ears, and what he heard made him swear out loud.

What was the woman trying to do, get herself killed?

There had to be some mistake. Either that or she was crazy. That was obviously the taxi driver’s opinion, and McCall was beginning to think he might have the right idea. No one of sound mind, certainly not a foreigner- definitely not a woman-would be caught dead in the area she was asking to be taken to. Well, maybe dead was the operative word, all right. What it was, was probably the meanest slum in the whole Yucatan, brush and tin shacks on baked-dirt streets, the principal inhabitants of which seemed to be drug dealers and their customers, and roving bands of mean, scrawny dogs and even meaner and scrawnier children. The few “legitimate” places of business made Jose’s Cantina look like the Ritz; next to their clientele, the two rowdies who’d accosted Cinnamon last night were the Hardy Boys.

The taxi driver was dead on. Clearly this woman was loco.

None of my business. Live and let live.

McCall told himself that, standing there in the street beside his jam-packed VW Bug and shaking his head, for about as long as it took the cab driver to give a classic Latino shrug of surrender as he accepted a handful of dollar bills; for Cinnamon to climb into the taxi’s back seat and for it to pull away from the stand with a clashing of gears that clearly expressed its driver’s opinion of the whole enterprise.

Well, hell. The only thing McCall could think of that would be worse than wading into this lady’s business once again was the way he was going to feel when her cute, tidy little body washed up on the playa. Not to mention how bad a murdered turista would be for business.

He fought the impulse for a moment or two longer, grinding his teeth on the butt of his cigarette and muttering a few extra choice swearwords. Then he spat what was left of the cigarette into the sandy gutter, shoe-horned himself into the VW and slammed the door. As usual, it took several tries and more swearing before the engine fired, by which time the taxi was long gone. Not that it mattered. With some expressive gear-grinding of his own- and a few silent prayers to the gods who protect fools and children-McCall headed for the wrong side of town.

“Are you sure this is the right place?” Ellie asked, peering through the film of dust on the taxi’s window.

The driver pointed toward a jumble of scrap lumber and tin on the opposite side of the rutted dirt road and muttered something Ellie couldn’t understand.

With a sigh-really, the crash course in Spanish she’d been given in preparation for this assignment was proving worse than useless-she opened the door and stuck one foot out. Then for a moment she hesitated. She could still call this off. Go back to the ship, notify General Reyes and let him take it from there.

But…no. A sense of failure washed over her and when it receded she felt more determined than ever. Her parents hadn’t raised her to be either a coward or a quitter. She’d worked too long and hard on this mission-cared about it too much-to let everything fall apart now. Resolute once more, she got out of the taxi.

She’d barely slammed the door behind her when she heard a terrible sound: the roar of an engine and the gnashing of gears.

“Oh-wait! Please-I wanted you to wait for me!” She grabbed for the door handle, but it was too late; the taxi jounced off, leaving her sputtering in its dust cloud.

For a few moments, then, she just stood there, too stunned to think. Fear came slowly, creeping insidiously into her consciousness disguised first as anger, then as a cold little sense of shame. How could I have done something so stupid? And after what Mama said about me having such a good head on my shoulders. She and Dad will be so disappointed in me.

Keep your wits about you, Rose Ellen Lanagan.

Take a deep breath. Think, Ellie. Think.

First things first. She’d come here to do a job. She’d come here to make contact with some people. And that was what she was bound and determined to do. She’d worry about how she was going to get back to the plaza later.

Maybe I should have left a trail of bread crumbs, she thought.

And for some reason, remembering that, remembering last night and the artist named McCall, made her smile. She even caught herself looking around, squinting in the noonday glare, with the thought in the back of her mind that he might magically turn up again, just in the nick of time. And then she laughed at herself for the twinge of disappointment she felt when she didn’t see a slightly disreputable and untidy form shuffling toward her, wearing a loud shirt and a Panama hat, sandals slapping dust and teeth clamped on the butt of an ever-present cigarette.

But…it was siesta time; except for a skinny brown dog that growled at her from between the slats of a fence that looked far too fragile to contain it, the street-using that term loosely-was deserted. There’d be no miraculous rescue today.

Well. So be it. Resolutely, she straightened her sun visor, took a good wrap-grip on the strap of her shoulder bag and started toward the ramshackle building indicated by the taxi driver.

She could see now that it was actually a cantina, of sorts-at least that was the indication of the cardboard signs advertising beer tacked to the walls on either side of a door opening, some so sun-faded they were all but unreadable. That made her feel a little better, actually. At least it appeared to be a legitimate place of business.