Flirting with Disaster (11 page)

“We’re there. I’ll have us out of here in a couple of minutes.”

He reached under the dash, flicked open the gas tank cover. He stepped out of the car and had just pulled the nozzle off the pump when he was greeted by a stubby little Mexican man wearing a greasy denim shirt. The name
Fernando
was embroidered just above the pocket.

“Buenos días,” he said with a gregarious smile, taking the gas nozzle from Dave’s hand. “No es necesario hacer nada. Esta es una gasolinera de servicio completo.”

While Dave’s command of Spanish was somewhat conversational, most of the time it was limited to
Yes, you were
speeding
and
Drop the weapon and put your hands behind
your head
, so he wasn’t exactly making out what the guy was saying.

“No hablo espa’nol,” he told Fernando.

“Ah, you are American,” he said, smiling even more broadly and talking a little louder, as if Dave had a hearing problem to go with his language barrier. Fernando eased the gas nozzle out of Dave’s hand. “What I say is that I am happy to do. I will put gasoline in the car.”

Customer service? Dave hadn’t counted on that. Then again, Fernando’s enthusiasm probably stemmed from the fact that Dave was driving a sporty late-model car. Such vehicles seemed to be a rarity in Santa Rios. Fernando probably assumed Dave had a few more pesos than his average customer and a tip might be on the horizon, a tip that would grow in proportion to how much he engaged in chatty conversation.

“The car, she is
very
good,” Fernando said, parking the nozzle in the gas tank with a soft clatter. “A Mustang, yes?”

“Yes,” Dave said. “It’s a Mustang.”

Fernando left the nozzle in the tank, then ran his fingertip back and forth over the side panel of the car. “She is red. That is very hot. A red car is like a sexy woman. She moves so good, and the eyes—they fall on her and you cannot remove them.”

Or he couldn’t take his eyes off it. Something like that. Unfortunately, Fernando was loaded with bad English and wasn’t afraid to use it.

His gaze lingered over the side panels, then slid along the downward curve of the hood. Then he lowered his head to glance through the driver’s side window. “The seats? Leather?”

“Yeah,” Dave said, moving in front of the window. “Leather.”
Just be still, Lisa. Be very, very still.

“Ah,” Fernando said, breathing deeply to make his point, “leather smells like perfume. The perfume of a sexy woman.”

Right. Eau de Cowhide. Sexiest scent south of the Rio Grande.

Fernando circled to the back of the car, teasing his fingertips over the rear spoiler, wearing an expression of sheer bliss. He compared cars to women. Dave wondered if he told women that they reminded him of cars. He glanced at the man’s left hand. No wedding ring.

Probably.

Fernando walked around to the opposite side of the car, then bent over a rear fender, spending an inordinate amount of time admiring one of the tires. Apparently Firestones were as sexy to this guy as high arches in stiletto heels.

The gas pump clicked off. Fernando came back around the car to extract the nozzle from the tank, moving slowly, regretfully. A drop of gasoline fell onto the car and slithered downward. He removed a handkerchief from his pocket and gently wiped the gasoline away, then flipped the hankie over and buffed the paint with a slow, circular polish. Now, if only he could refrain from lighting two cigarettes and handing one of them to the car, maybe they could get the hell out of here.

“Much fortunate man you are to have this car,” Fernando said, his smile positively orgasmic. “Much, much fortunate.”

Dave noted the outrageous price of the gasoline and pulled enough money from his wallet to cover it. Fernando went into the station, and after a few minutes he returned with Dave’s change. Dave gave him a few extra pesos for his trouble. Fernando thanked him profusely for his generosity and started back toward the building. But just as Dave was getting back into the car, the man stopped by the right rear tire, a look of horror on his face.

“Señor!” he called out. “Come! A problem!”

Shit. What now?

Dave circled around to the right rear fender. Fernando pointed at the tire, and Dave stared in disbelief.

A flat tire? How in the hell had that happened?

“A beautiful tire,” Fernando said with a sorrowful sigh.

“And now she is dead.” Then a smile popped back onto his face. “No problem. I will fix.”

God, no. If he let the Metaphor Man jack up this gorgeous red vehicle and fondle her tires, they’d be here all day.

“No, that’s okay,” Dave said. “I can change it myself.”

“But, señor, I can—”

“No,” Dave said. “I can handle it.”

Fernando looked longingly at the car for a moment more, with the dejected expression of a dorky guy who’d been turned down for a date with a gorgeous woman. Finally he turned and walked back toward the station.

Dave slid into the driver’s seat, putting his wallet into the glove compartment so he could clue Lisa in on what had happened.

“We’ll be here a minute more,” he said quietly. “We’ve got a flat tire.”

“A flat? How did that happen?”

“Given the road we drove down here on, I guess I’m surprised the other three aren’t in the same condition.”

“I’m suffocating under this blanket.”

“I know. I’ll get the tire changed as fast as I can and we’ll be out of here.”

Aside from a man who had parked near the building and gone inside for a Coke or a pack of cigarettes, the station wasn’t busy, so Dave popped the trunk and removed the jack and the spare with the car still sitting at the pump. He changed the tire in record time.

Then, a few minutes later, as he was tossing the flat tire into the trunk, he spotted the problem. He hadn’t picked up a nail or run over a sharp rock that had penetrated the tread.

The tire had been slashed.

Dave was in the process of putting two and two together, but he hadn’t quite reached four when he felt something cold and hard just beneath his left ear.

A gun.

chapter six

Dave’s attacker slammed him down on the trunk of the car, the spoiler jamming him in the ribs and knocking the wind out of him. The guy reached into Dave’s pocket, grabbed the car keys, then gave him a hard shove sideways. He stumbled a yard or two and went down hard, whacking his shoulder on the pavement.

What the
hell
was going on?

Dave instantly leapt to his feet, but not before his attacker slid into the driver’s seat of the Mustang and slammed the door.

Carjacking?

Shit.
Lisa was in the backseat.

Dave raced around the car just as the guy flicked the door locks and started the engine. Dave grabbed the nozzle off the gas pump, spun around, and smacked it through the driver’s window. The glass shattered and sprayed. Dave had just flipped the door lock when Lisa flew up out of the backseat and wrapped the blanket around the guy’s head, pulled him back hard, and pinned him against the headrest. Dave flung the door open and yanked the gun out of the guy’s hand. Grabbing him by the wrist, Dave hauled him out of the car and threw him onto the ground.

The guy swatted the blanket away and started to rise, but Dave gave him a smack across the face that sent him tumbling backward onto the pavement. Dave leapt into the car, tossed the gun into the passenger seat beside him, jammed the Mustang into gear, and took off.

“Lisa?” he said, breathing hard, searching for her face in the rearview mirror. “You okay?”

She looked up from her sprawled-out position in the backseat. “Yeah. Sure. Plane crash, carjacking—I’m doing just great.”

“Nice move with the blanket.”

“It was all I had. I had to improvise. Problem, though.”

“What?”

“I know our carjacker. Ivan Ramirez.”

“The guy you talked about earlier? The one who’s part of a local gang?”

“Yeah. That’s the one.”

“Does he know who you are?”

“Yeah. He knows.”

“Did he get a good look at you?”

“Eye to eye as we were pulling away.”

Shit.
“Do his criminal skills go beyond carjacking? Say, to drug counterfeiting?”

“This isn’t a very big town. I’m betting he’s into everything illegal he can get his hands on. But even if he’s not involved with the counterfeiting, all he’s got to do is tell somebody that I’m alive and it’ll eventually get back to Robert.”

“Then we need to hotfoot it to Monterrey. And I still want you to stay down. No need to push what little luck we have left.”

Lisa slid onto the floor of the backseat. “Speaking of lack of luck, what are the odds of Ivan coming into that station and grabbing the car we’re trying to get out of town in?”

“Pretty good, since the flat was no accident.”

“What?”

“The tire was slashed.”

“What?”

“Nice system they’ve got going. Fernando spots a nice late-model car. He flattens the tire, then phones his partner. During the time it takes to change it, the other guy gets there. He grabs the car, and Fernando gets a cut of the profit.”

“And since Ivan is into all things criminal—”

“Guess who showed up.” Dave shook his head. “Unfortunately, I didn’t spot the scam until I saw the tire. By then it was too late.”

Dave braked at a stoplight, an antsy feeling crawling up the back of his neck. Pedestrians crossed the street in front of them. He found himself searching every face for anyone who looked a little shady, which was pointless. Hell, right about now, everybody in this town looked like a criminal.

He hit the gas again. Before long they approached the northern edge of town. One more stop sign, and nothing but open road lay ahead. As Dave brought his car to a halt, another car pulled up to the stop sign on the cross street.

A patrol car.

“Lisa, we may have a problem.”

“What?”

“Just stay down. No matter what happens, just stay down.”

Dave began to pull away from the stop sign, only to have the cop on the cross street hit the gas hard, wheeling his car in their direction.

“Damn it!”

“What?” Lisa said.

“Just stay down!”

The patrol car cut in front of Dave, screeching to a halt only inches from his front bumper. A cop leapt out, his weapon drawn.

“¡Salga del carro!” he shouted. “¡Manos arriba!”

Dave understood that loud and clear, but he had no intention of getting out of his car and putting his hands up, now or anytime in the near future.

He threw the car into reverse, swung it around 180 degrees, then hit the gas, tires shrieking against asphalt. In his rearview mirror he saw the cop get back into his car. He took off after them, lights flashing and siren wailing.

“What the hell is happening?” Lisa shouted.

“We’ve got a cop after us.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Tell me this is how they treat traffic offenders in this town. Tell me he’s not chasing us because Ivan made a phone call.”

“I think Ivan made a phone call.”

Shit.

Dave sped down the street, heading back into town, but traffic thickened, slowing them down. When he came to a stop sign, he wheeled around the car in front of him, barely missing another car coming across the intersection from his right. Tightening his grip on the steering wheel, he stomped the gas pedal to the floor. A shot exploded, blasting the rear window of the car, showering glass on both of them.

“Stay down!” Dave shouted.

The moment the traffic cleared on the opposite side of the road, Dave hit the brake and wheeled hard to the left, spinning the Mustang around in a one-eighty to head back north. When he passed the police car still traveling south, the cop took another shot. The bullet narrowly missed them, taking out a storefront window instead in an explosion of glass. In his rearview mirror Dave saw the cop pull the same one-eighty he had, and within seconds he was half a dozen car lengths behind them again.

“Damn it!” Dave said. “I can’t shake him!”

“Any cars between us and him?”

“Nope. He’s coming right up behind us.”

“Is that gun up there loaded?”

“I have no idea.”

“Let’s find out.”

Suddenly Lisa rose from the backseat, leaned over into the front seat, and grabbed the gun. Before Dave knew what was happening, she’d spun around and pointed the gun out the back window. Three shots exploded in quick succession.

“What the hell are you doing?” he shouted.
“Get down!”
A second later, Dave heard a crash behind them. Looking into his side mirror, he saw that the police car had crossed traffic, jumped the curb, and smashed into a lamppost.

“Bingo,” Lisa said, turning back around and slumping wearily in the seat. “Got his tire. And his radiator for good measure.” She was breathing hard, still clinging to the gun. “Adrenaline. Amazing stuff.”