Wolf in the Shadows - Marcia Muller [111]
“I’ll pay you back.”
“That’s not the point.”
“Good God! A few whips and some bare buns don’t add up to a full-blown perversion. I was curious, that’s all. It’s not like I rushed out and bought a whip, then limbered it up to use on your buns.”
He looked so morally outraged that I started to laugh. Here we were in the middle of the most dangerous undertaking of our lives—well, mine, anyway—and we were arguing about him spending my seven dollars and fifty cents to watch a dirty movie. Hy stared at me as if he feared I’d cracked under the strain, then started to laugh too. Soon we were giggling and snorting and hugging each other, our laughter burning off some of the excess tension that fueled it.
“Jesus,” he gasped, “don’t ever bring me to a place like this again, I’ve already drunk three beers from the mini-bar and charged a steak to room service. To say nothing of renting a car that stops just short of being a limo.”
The mention of the car sobered me. “We’re all set?”
He sobered too. “Yeah.”
“It’s got a cellular phone?”
“Uh-huh, and they assured me that its range is wide enough. How about your end of it?”
“It’s a go.”
“What’d Renshaw say?”
“I’ll tell you later. Right now we’d better get on with it.”
Twenty-Seven
A heavy cloud cover overhung the Baja coast that night, blacking out the moon and stars. We cruised through the commercial district of El Sueño at around ten, the gray Cadillac Seville that Hy had rented riding so smoothly that we seemed to be scarcely moving at all. This car, I thought, was protective coloration in more ways than one. Not only did it look as if it belonged in this exclusive enclave, but it faded into the murky night.
I hung up the cellular phone and said, “The rental agency didn’t steer you wrong; we’re well within range.”
He didn’t reply to that, merely muttered, “Where’s the goddamn turnoff for Vía Pacífica?”
I peered through the passenger-side windshield. “It’s coming up pretty quick now … yes, here.”
He negotiated the turn with the clumsiness of one not used to power steering. “Frankly,” he said, “I’d rather be driving my Morgan.”
I agreed, in spite of the low-slung old sports car’s potential for ruining my spine. “I’d rather be driving my MG. Or taking off in the Citabria.”
“Or doing anything except what we’re about to.”
“Right.”
“Not much more to get through now, McCone.”
“No, only the hard part.” The dangerous part.
We passed the beach access; soon Fontes’s villa appeared on our right. The auto gate was shut, but otherwise it looked much the same as it had the night before, lights blazing in all the barred windows. The Volvo still stood in front of the garage.
“Navarro’s there,” I said.
“Unless she’s gone someplace in his plane or another car.”
“Well, there’s only one way to find out.”
Hy kept driving until all the houses were behind us, then U-turned where the dirt track veered off into the riverbed. He retraced our route, slowing again as we passed the villa. “I don’t see any guards,” he said. “Wish we could’ve checked at the airstrip to see if Fontes’s Cessna’s being used.”
“As you said last night, strangers attract too much attention at these little airfields.”
We continued in silence to the beach access. Tonight no vehicles except the cannibalized sedan were parked there. Hy stopped next to the beach path and shut off the ignition.
“Car’s going to be pretty obvious, sitting here all by itself,” he said. “Security patrol’ll probably check it out.”
“Maybe not. It’s expensive enough that they’ll probably just assume it belongs to one of the residents. Given where it’s parked, they might not check it out for fear of interrupting a tryst.” I reached into the backseat for Hy’s extra sweater—a dark blue one, fortunately—and pulled it over my head. Before we left the hotel in Tijuana, I’d changed back into jeans and athletic shoes.
Hy didn’t respond to my somewhat shaky logic, just reached under the seat for his revolver.