Just The Pits (Hetta Coffey Series, Book 5) (20 page)

The ordinary man is involved in action, the hero acts. An immense difference. —Henry Miller

I need me a hero!

The tap on my pickup window frightened me only slightly less than Nacho's phone call. How can a guy who calls you
corazón—
literally
my heart,
but really
meaning
my love—
instill such a frisson of both fright and lust just with words?

Dreading I'd been busted by one of what I now referred to as the Gang of Four, I yelled at Po Thang to shut up and reluctantly turned to see who was out there. I knew it wasn't Safety from Po Thang's frantic reaction.

Nacho waggled his cell phone at me and leaned down, an irresistible macho Latino smirk on his criminally handsome face. I hit the window button and it slid open as Po Thang lunged across me, came face to face with Nacho, cowered, and jumped into the back seat, all his bravado gone.

"I see you haven't lost your touch,
Ignacio
," I snarled, using the given name I know he hates. "You can still terrorize helpless women and dogs with a single look."

He laughed softly. "You do not look terrorized and surely you do not refer to yourself as helpless. Although, I am always pleased when you require me."

I sighed and unlocked the passenger side door. "Get in. I can't be seen lurking out here."

Nacho walked around to the other side of my truck, opened the door, and poked a warning finger at Po Thang, who had summoned the courage to let go with a less than hearty growl. He used the same finger to point to my missing overhead bulb. "I see you have been reading mysteries and taking notes."

I started the truck and rolled down the hill, away from prying eyes in the houses lining the street, especially the three housing my Gang of Four. At the bottom of the hill, I stopped and killed the engine.

"How did you find me? Are you following me?" I demanded.

"Always."

"Oh. Uh, Nacho, Jenks said I should contact you because of Lujàn, the guy he called you about. One of his men is dead, and I think he might be trying to frame me for it. A friend heard the police are asking around about me."

He smiled. "Rounding up the usual suspects?"

"I guess, and I'm scared."

"A rare admission from Hetta Coffey. But,
mija
, Lujàn will no longer be a problem for you."

The pit of my stomach went a little wonky, whether from fear, or maybe hope? "Did you do him?"

"Such talk. No, the
cabrón
still lives, but he has relocated rather than face murder charges of his own man."

"Luján killed the guy in the hot spring?"

"I cannot say. However, if he agrees to stay far away from you, his henchman's death will be ruled an accident."

"You can do stuff like that?" Despite my best efforts tears of relief stung my eyes.

Nacho took my hand. "For you. What happens in Mexico stays in Mexico."

I jerked my hand from his. "Well, nothing is going to happen with you and me, so there."

"You wound me,
corazón
," he gently brushed a tear from my cheek with the back of his hand
,
"but I see a fire for me in your eyes."

Doodness dwacious.

Jenks. Jenks. Think Jenks.

I was back on the boat, full of burning questions. Well, something was burning. My cheek, for instance.

Holy Moly, how can Nacho have such an effect on me? I'm in love with Jenks, for crying out loud. No wonder Jenks doesn't want Nacho within ten miles of me. However, Jenks was the one who told me to call him, right? And what harm can a little lust do, so long as I don't act on it?

After I jerked my hand away, Nacho had stepped out of the pickup and vanished into the shadowy night from whence he came.

I had one more thing to do before this extremely long and eventful day and evening ended, for when I opened my email I found out I was an aunt, sort of.

"How's daddyhood?" I asked the Trob when I called. I'd poured a large glass of wine for myself, and a small amount for Po Thang, to settle our nerves. Po Thang was still trembling after his encounter with Nacho, and so was I.

The Trob sounded like he was stifling a yawn when he answered. I know he stays up late, so I was surprised when it sounded as if I woke him. "Babies are cute, but they sure make a lot of noise."

"Earplugs and nanny," was my advice; what do I know about babies?

"Allison doesn't want a nanny. Says it's not good for bonding."

I could not believe the word, "bonding", came out of his mouth. Next thing you know, he'd be trying to get in touch with his feminine self. "Uh, well, send me pictures, okay?"

"I will, but she's not very pretty."

"What? Allison would murder you if she heard you say that about your own baby."

"She says it, too. She says the baby looks like me."

Now that
is
unfortunate. At a loss for something to say other than,
well at least she'll be smart
, I changed the subject to why I called. "What can you tell me about Safety?"

"Who?"

"Joe Francis, here on the site. The Safety Engineer."

"Never heard of him."

"What? When I met him my first day on the job he gave me the definite impression he not only knows you well, but also that he knew you had hired me and why."

"Sorry," Wontrobski said as he yawned into the phone. "Don't know him."

"Interesting. By the way, I'll be billing you for Topaz Sawyer's visit to Santa Rosalia. She's a cop and I want her here to pick her brain."

"Whatever."

Sometimes I love my job.

I hung up with the Trob and replayed in my mind the conversation I had with Joe Francis, a.k.a. Safety, that first day on the job. I have the ability to do that, almost to the very words spoken. I had warned Jenks when we first met that I rarely forget a conversation and if I get two pieces of information that do not match, my brain receives a flashing TILT signal like the one you get when you shake a pinball machine too hard. So far Jenks had never given me one single reason to doubt anything he told me. However, I now knew for certain the same could not be said for Safety.

When I'd thankfully exited Pedro's shuttle of doom on that first day at the Lucifer mine, Safety was waiting, and walked toward me. I immediately noticed he was tall and lanky, like Jenks, but with reddish hair worn long and curling out from under a gold hardhat plastered with stickers like MINERS DO IT IN THE DARK and MINERS DO IT DEEPER.

His freckled face was painted with a welcoming smile, and I couldn't help but notice his orange vest almost matched his hair. According to the name on his hat, he was Joe "Safety" Francis. I also recalled the frisson of surprise, and okay, the tingle of a warning, when he removed those sunglasses and momentarily transfixed me with bright blue Robert Redford eyes.

I recovered quickly and resorted to my usual smart mouth. "Let me take a wild guess here, Joe. You're a miner?"

He'd grinned crookedly—perhaps purposely bolstering that Redford personation?—stuck out his hand and told me everyone called him Safety. Then he said, if I remember correctly, "He said you were a fast study."

When I asked who he meant, he said, "Your boss."

I said something snarky in return, but then I shook his hand and followed him back to that big old dually truck of his, where I found a hard hat on the passenger seat. My hat was white, with only my name and no clever stickers.

When I made some smarty pants comment about why my hard hat was white while his was gold, he offered up an equally quick, "Because I'm a guy?"

I countered with a zinger which brought another grin and he said, "Your
jefe
also said you could be a pain in the ass."

I told him the Trob was always right. And now that I thought about it, Safety never said the name, Wontrobski. He said "boss" and "
jefe"
, which is boss in Spanish. I was the one who mentioned the Trob by name.

Oh, yes, the lowdown snake had, without a shadow of a doubt, intimated he not only knew the Trob, but was on the Trob team. When I'd told him that despite my job title of Liaison Materials Engineer, I don't liaise well with others, I think he thought I was joking.

Well, buddy, the joke's on you and it starts, right now.

The trouble with conspiracies is that they rot internally. —Robert A. Heinlein

I called Jan immediately after talking with the Trob. It was late, but I'd promised to let her know I was safely back onboard.

After sharing my suspicion that not only one, but four men from the project were somehow in cahoots, I ended with, "And now that I think of it, Safety looks more like Howdy Doody than Robert Redford."

"Oooh, someone almost had a crush, didn't they?"

"Certainly not," I huffed.

"Did too."

"Did not."

"Okay, enough about Safety, then. Let's discuss your
big
birthday party."

Jan's parting dig didn't put me in the best mood the next day at the office. I'd get back at her later when she returned to the boat for Topaz Sawyer's visit, but for now I had bigger fish to fry.

I once again left early to beat everyone into the office, and downloaded both Ozzie and Safety's bugs and replaced them. Rosario had given me a set of earphones for my computer so I could listen to the bugged conversations with no fear of anyone overhearing, so I put off dealing with both until later.

As Safety had been out of the office most of the day before, I didn't expect much from his side, so I played back Ozzie's bug first.  Nothing new there, except one little tidbit where he seemed to be arguing with someone. I had no way of knowing who that someone on the other end was, as I didn't have the phone bugged, just the office, so I only heard half the conversation. And, it was in rapid-fire Spanish.

I forwarded the conversation to Rosario for translation and also asked him if he couldn't do something about getting me phone bugs, as well.

I did find some good news when I checked my Facebook page. Russell Madadhan, the guy we were pretty sure was Rosario's long lost father, had friended me back. Now I was able to check his friend list, maybe get more info on his family and the like. The last thing I wanted to do was scare him off. Eventually I'd let Rosario know, if in fact this guy was his dad, but for now I was still checking him out.

Most of Russell's one-hundred and seventeen friends were men and when I had time I'd see what they were all about, maybe find that all important link to a misspent youth in Mexico. My hope, of course, was to ultimately reunite him with his son, Rosario, but since he didn't know he
had
a son, I thought I'd better tread lightly rather than do something like post a photo of Rosario on his Facebook page and say, "Look familiar?"

Checking his timeline, I was relieved not to find any messages like, "Yo Russ, we miss you back here in San Quentin," or the like.

I decided, now that we were such good friends, to send him a private message:
I am living and working in Mexico right now, so Facebook is my lifeline back to the Bay Area. Thanks for being my friend. I love Mexico, but where I live there are few Americans.
He didn't post often, so I didn't have great expectations of an answer anytime soon. I hoped, since we had zero friends in common, he didn't think I was some nut case and get me suspended by the Facebook police.

I also had an email from Topaz Sawyer saying she'd arrive on Monday and was
so
excited about a trip to sunny Mexico. She wanted to know if she should bring her bikini. I'd checked the water temp the day before on my boat's depth sounder: 69.5. It looked like a trip to Conception Bay was in order while she was visiting, as Geary was reporting seventy-three degree water, which is still too cold by my standards.

I guess a warm up in the hot spring was still way out of the question?

I fired off an email to Jan telling her of Topaz's arrival and asking her to beat feet over here by Thursday night and bring extra bugs I'd try to place on Friday morning. And to put Rosario on a mission of digging deeper into the backgrounds of my Gang of Four.

Now that I'd handed out assignments, I listened to Safety's bugged conversations and gleaned very little except that it was working.

Not knowing what to expect as a result of the tiff with Bert the day before, I was dreading his arrival. I was ready with an apology, but hoped Safety, when he'd seen Bert the night before, had explained I hadn't meant Purchasing with a Capitol P, thereby not besmirched Ozzie, a guy he'd personally hired. I'd seen what looked like Bert and Safety having their own set-to on the porch and wondered what that was all about.

Much to my relief, Bert headed straight for my office, said he was sorry he'd been rude and asked me to please forgive him. After he went on to his office I let out the breath I'd been holding.

I glanced out to see that Laura had visibly relaxed as well, and Safety gave me a smile and a thumb's up. The tension in the building disappeared like magic.  Even Ozzie offered a cheery good morning greeting.

Of course, all of this nice stuff raised my suspicion level a few notches, so I fired off another email to Jan, urging her to help Rosario expedite those background checks.

All I had at my fingertips were the standard resume-type stuff companies print on brochures for investors and for bidding on jobs. Useless fluff meant to impress. For example, mine reads:

Hetta Coffey holds a BS in Civil Engineering from ULB (Université Libre de Bruxelles) and has over twenty years of experience in the Materials Management field. She has been responsible for multimillion dollar Petrochemical and Mining projects in Japan, Mexico and the United States.

The way it should read is: Hetta Coffey can BS almost anyone and graduated from ULB by virtue of them giving her a degree to get rid of her. Since then she has managed to piss off people in Petrochemical and Mining projects worldwide, and five of those so-called twenty years of experience she worked for Daddy during the summer.

Like I said before, being nice in this industry is the kiss of death and that is why I was surprised Bert climbed as high as project manager for such a large job. Not that he isn't, on paper, qualified. And he had certainly showed me a not-so-nice side the day before. I anxiously awaited Jan and Rosario's report on him and the others.

Meanwhile, I decided to check out Rosario's alleged dad's friends.

One by one I looked at their Facebook pages, finding that most worked in high-tech. Some were married, some single. None of his friends seemed to be relatives. Bored silly with his friends' pages, I was about to chuck it when I hit on something interesting. The word, Baja, caught my attention, so I took a look at that friend's page.

Baja Gamer's photo was an Avatar, with the cartoon-like image of a Don Quixote character taking on what looked to be an army of mechanical creatures. Most of the posts had to do with gaming, none of which I understood. However, the fact that Rosario was also a gamer made it apparent the apple hadn't fallen far from the tree. Wondering where this Baja dude hailed from, I opened his album containing ten pictures and received a jolt; one of them was the faded snapshot Rosario had shown me of two love-struck teenagers, his mother and father, in Puerto Vallarta those many years ago when Rosario was still a twinkle in Russell's eye.

WTF?

I called Jan immediately and told her to pack a bag and that I'd be there in two hours to pick her up.

"What's the sudden rush, Hetta? I said I'd be there by Thursday."

Jan and I have a code. When there's trouble nearby, revert to pig Latin. "At-ray. O-nay English." I've never quite mastered pig Latin words when they start in a vowel. Besides, saying English-way didn't obscure a danged thing.

"And-stay eye-bay."

I heard a rustling as she moved about, then a door closing. "Ood-gay."

"Ug-bays! Ug-bays! End-fray ot-nay end-fray."

"Gotcha."

I picked up the conversation in plain old English. "I need those bugs so decided to drive out. Start packing. I'll explain later."

In a daring daylight raid, I removed the bug from Safety's computer while he was out of the office, then told Laura I would be back, but much later. If I were to pick up Jan, stop back by the office and get us to the boat before dark, I had to get a move on.

Jan and Rosario were working in the office Jan set up in her and Chino's spare room. Rosario was staying in the other large trailer, while Doc Di now had her own, smaller RV. The place was starting to look like a trailer park.

Rosario gave me the thumbdrive bugs and lamented he didn't have anything to plant in a telephone. "That's all right, these will do. Thanks. Okay, Jan, we have to get on the road. We're burning daylight."

"I sent you the information you wanted on Bert, Ozzie, John and Safety," Rosario told me, "When you return to the boat, it will be waiting."

"Nice work. Okay Jan, let's load up your laptop and roll. We have work to do. Rosario, would you get Po Thang rounded up for me?"

As soon a Rosario left the office I plugged the bug I brought from Safety's office into Jan's desktop tower and shoved it further under the desk.

Jan gave me a two thumb's up.

Ten minutes later we were back on the washboard road from hell, headed out to Mex 1's blessed pavement.

"Okay, Hetta, talk."

"Rosario is scamming us. I don't know how yet, but he is." I told her about the Facebook thing and that I suspected Baja Gamer was none other than our boy Rosario.

"But why would he tell us that fairy tale if he'd already found his father?"

"I have no idea, but one thing is for sure, he can't be trusted. Did you manage to get those files he has on our Gang of Four?"

"He copied me, so yes."

I thought about this as we bounded along at a kidney scrambling speed. We had four computers involved, five if you count my office desktop. "I have a sneaking suspicion Rosario has much more on his laptop than he's shared."

"I've had that feeling ever since you called a couple of hours ago. Which is why," she gave me an evil grin, "I sent our at-ray end-fray out to find Chino and tell him I was leaving."

"What's that got to do with the price of rice in China."

"Hetta, Hetta, Hetta. After all these years under your tender tutelage in wickedness, do you think I've learned nothing?"

"You raided his computer?"

"Faster than Po Thang can clear a fridge."

We stopped back by the office and found everyone gone for the day. I couldn't do anything about bugging John Warren's office, because he was in a small trailer attached to the Mechanics Shop deep within the project's interior. That little visit would have to take place on the morrow.

However, I downloaded Ozzie's bug and rebugged him and Safety before we headed to Bert's office. We were surprised to find it unlocked.

Canadians, you gotta love their trusting little souls.

Since I didn't have to get to the jobsite at the crack of dawn to download the bugs, Jan and I worked late into the night. As promised, Rosario had forwarded the dirt on our men. Or rather, he forwarded his version.

Then we compared what he sent with what Jan stole from his computer.

TILT!