Songs for Perri (5 page)

At least he'd been rudely discouraged by the stranger so that he wouldn't bother her. It would be too much to expect that she had somehow managed to discourage the stranger himself.

To finalize the break, Perri avoided Junior's gaze, turned her back on him and went with Anna and the bellboy to the nearest bank of elevators.

The doors opened and the three of them stepped inside.

Anna brushed at some dirt on her beige blouse, remarking to Perri how she loved to be in Mazatlan again. Her two camera cases outshone Perri's well-traveled suitcase, and she probably was wondering what Perri was doing in such an expensive hotel with only one bag...but was sufficiently well mannered not to comment.

Perri noticed the contrast, thinking that to stay here, she should have bought five pieces of luggage and assumed the air of a wealthy socialite.

"How long have you been in Mazatlan?" Perri asked.

"Several days. I'm an amateur photographer. I take pictures of anything and everyone. Even the "pest." He doesn't like to have his picture taken, but he got so rude about it I took more, just to spite him."

"Did you take pictures at the airport?"

"Of him? No. A friend was supposed to come in, so I went all prepared, but she didn't make it. This is from her...too late to catch me." She waved the message paper.

They arrived at the second floor and Anna stepped out. "Call if it's convenient. Room 220. Bye."

Perri continued to the fourth floor and stepped out into the hall. The hotel was one of rambling luxury, with endless corridors and a complicated numbering system; ornamented with heavy-looking replicas of Mayan carvings.

The key worked smoothly and the bellboy stepped into the mid-sized room, darkened by thick drapes pulled to shield out the heat of the midday sun. He flipped on the light switch, set down her case and held out his hand with a smile, pocketing her tip smoothly before leaving. Now feeling irreversibly committed, Perri shut the heavy door behind him.

She had arrived...and she was alone.

A large double bed with carved headboard dominated the room. On her left was a closet, then a connecting door that would convert the room into a suite if unlocked. The floor was covered with marble, hard and cold. Like standing on a tombstone.

For a moment Perri let her shoulders slump. It would be so much better after Walt arrived. Right now, whatever she did or did not do, she had to wonder if it was the right thing. Had she already made a mistake...such as telling those people her name?

A long shower might help. She had to loosen up somehow or she'd be exhausted before she even began. Already her muscles ached from tension.

To her right a door opened into a bathroom with a tiled shower stall large enough to be a walk-in closet. Turning around to pick up her suitcase, Perri stopped.

A letter-sized envelope lay on the floor next to the wall, the pure white rectangle contrasting sharply with the light gray marble.

Hurriedly Perri ripped the envelope open. Inside was a single item: a ticket to a performance by a rock group in the main hotel lounge. A reserved table. On the inside flap of the envelope a time was boldly printed in an unfamiliar scrawl: "9 p.m. tonight." There was no signature.

Her contact. Perri's spirits lifted, soaring like a bird on an updraft. Uncertainty no longer gripped her. Now at last she could find out what was going on. It was terrible, not knowing.

It was only three p.m., giving her plenty of time to shower, change and get something to eat. Hopefully she wouldn't run into the pest from the airport.

He never had mentioned his name, she realized, although it wasn't important. In spite of the impact of his looks and personality, he wasn't important. Owen had priority over all else right now.

Owen. As Perri showered, she worried about him. His smiling face, so like Walt's, drifted across the visual memories of her mind.

Crystal and Walt had married when Owen was sixteen and Perri was twelve. Delighted in obtaining an instant sister, and one that was part tomboy, Owen had taken Perri skiing and fishing, and as she got older, taught her to drive. He’d tried to get her to go parachuting and hang gliding, but anything higher than six feet caused her to panic, so he'd given up on those sports.

He'd been all an older brother should be, honest and strong, with a sense of humor that never required someone else's pain for its pleasure.

Walt and Crystal had had to keep him in hand, or he would have spoiled his new sister rotten. When she was at Virginia Tech, he had visited a few times, and instantly impressed all her friends. He had double dated with her and her cousin, Stormy, and a young man Perri was going with at the time. The man didn’t match up with Owen, and she soon dropped him.

Where was Owen now?

Leaving his room, Hugo raced down the nearby stairwell, resuming a normal pace once he opened the doors to the lobby. He could outrun the elevator, a fact that would probably come in handy often this trip. He crossed the few blocks to Walt's hotel and slipped a piece of paper with his name on it under the door. A second later the door opened. If anything, Walt looked even more haggard than before.

"How did it go?" Walt asked.

"A disaster," Hugo declared, stepping inside. "The female photographer, the one I was telling you about...."

"Yes?"

"Well, she showed up at the airport and followed me out to the cabs."

"You couldn't shake her?"

"Perri invited her into the cab with us."

Walt grinned, shaking his head. "Ah, that must have cramped your style."

That's the most genuine smile I've seen this trip,
Hugo thought. He'd never seen Walt so low; his old friend was taking this hard. He grinned back. "Somewhat. Your stepdaughter is quick-thinking."

"Pretty, too, isn't she?"

"Like you said. Prettiest woman on the plane." He paused, remembering the way his heart had soared when he saw Perri. Not just pretty, but stunning. Beautiful. She looked and talked so much like Crystal, whom he had always admired, that he’d had to watch himself not to call her that. "She didn't like Hugo Brandt, but I invited her out to dinner anyway."

"She accept?"

"No."

Walt frowned, his eyes puzzled. "Then what makes you think she'll go?"

"I lifted her credit card."

"Hugo!"

Feeling no remorse, Hugo grinned widely. Walt had wanted him to stick close to Perri. The only way he could figure out how to do that was to create some kind of immediate crisis in her life; one he could rescue her from. "The lady in distress. I'll be the gallant knight," he said.

Walt didn't seem impressed. "She's traveled all over the world. She won't be distressed. You had better contact her again, as Joe."

"You don't think she'll figure out it's the same person?"

"Not with you doing it."

"You have a lot of faith. Perri strikes me as a sharp-eyed woman who tends to look beyond the surface. She'll tumble after awhile."

"Don't worry. She won't be here that long. I'm drafting a letter."

Hugo looked at the wastebasket full of wadded up paper. "For the past three hours?"

"Yes."

"Can I see it?"

"It's not written yet. And stop grinning. I'll send it to her when it is."

"Then I had better get moving. Perri must meet all my disguises immediately."

"All?"

"The more, the better. The theory is that when you meet several people at once, you might notice some similarities but don't think that much about them."

"Then it's no problem."

"Depends. It's harder to maintain the differences if you spend much time with any one person. So you better get her headed home fast."

"I will." Walt sat down at the small table, propping his injured leg up on the chair he had placed nearby. "I'll get this ready, then send it over. What's the number of her room?"

Hugo picked up a pencil and wrote down two numbers. "This is mine. This is Perri's."

"You think it's wise, being that close?"

"Of course. I don’t want to be running down the hallways. How's your leg holding up?"

"Better now I've rested. I'll go downtown and stand on a busy street corner and wait for Owen to come to me."

"Take it easy. You can't help Owen if you're unable to move. You've got to remember—”

"I know. I know." Walt tapped his fist sharply on the table. "How can I forget? Carlos might just as well have killed me, for all the good I am sometimes. If I had been standing a little closer when Paul started my jeep, I'd have died in that jungle, with him."

"Carlos is dead, isn't he?" Hugo said, reminding himself how touchy Walt was about his injuries. As he had heard it, Carlos had everyone fooled into thinking that he was an honest freedom-fighter. Walt was the first one to discover the truth, and Carlos tried to kill him to keep his secret.

"Yeah. His plane crashed. I hate double-agents. He acted so sincere. A devoted anti-Communist. My ‘good friend.’" Walt laughed bitterly. "Might as well have killed me," he repeated.

"You would never have met Crystal. Or Perri."

"No. You're right." Sadness darkened his features. "Take care of Perri for me."

Perri slipped on a light pink cotton shell, white denim skirt and sandals. The heavy drapes kept the room cool, but they made her feel oppressed and enclosed, so she drew them aside. The sliding glass door opened onto a sunlit balcony with a panoramic view of the Pacific Ocean. Her room was situated above a narrow strip of sand lying between the hotel wall and the water. She took one glance downward and stepped hastily back.

A room one or two stories down would not help her, it had to be right on the ground. She'd need to stay away from the rail and focus her eyes outward. Out and up. Walt had always told her, "Don't look down," and it helped when she followed his advice.

From here the sunsets would be spectacular. If she had any free time after Owen was safe, she was going to enjoy the smell of fresh salt air while watching the sun set.

If he made it. Her stomach tightened again. Would they be able to rescue him?

Thoughts, thoughts, thoughts...running uncontrollably through Perri's mind. Try as she might, she couldn't banish them for more than a minute. She was getting no rest at all, remaining here idle. The nervous strain pressed in on her, increasing in its intensity.

Perri closed and locked the sliding doors, paced five times around the room, then picked up her purse and key and went down to the main lobby. She needed movement; distractions.

The pest wasn't in sight. She checked at the desk for a message from Walt. Finding none, she strolled around the various public rooms, wandering in and out of the small shops, looking at the clothing and Mexican jewelry on display.

Perri didn't need to buy an outfit for the concert, having followed her usual packing procedures and thrown in her champagne crepe dress. Long and gossamer, looking dressy but not garish, it was one of those outfits that would carry a woman through a range of situations, fitting well into a formal dinner or an evening out on the town; dressed up or down with accessories.

Coming out of a store, she stopped abruptly. Anna was off to one side, her camera focused on her. Had she taken her picture? Perri smiled and waved at the woman. The redhead waved back, then went outside.

Perri found the hotel's lounge and stepped into the room for a quick look around. It was already set up for the concert, with ample seating and a small stage, ornately decorated. The rock star, Donegal, was performing from nine to eleven. Pictures of the longhaired singer were posted on a billboard next to the doorway. He looked cheerful, although his dark scraggly locks covered his head like a mop, coming down past his eyebrows.

The show would be a good place to meet, she decided. The music would be so loud no one would hear, even if she were planning to blow up the town.

A few tourists joined her, wandering around the room or crossing to exit through the opposite door. Their excited comments revealed that Donegal had suddenly replaced a mediocre group performing there.

"Um...hi. Uh...you a fan, too?" A clean cut, extremely good-looking young man appeared beside her, and Perri almost lied and said yes. She had a feeling she had seen him before, or someone like him; the tilt of the head as he spoke alerted her subconscious to take note of him.

With thick eyebrows and clear gray eyes that viewed her with charming good humor, a firm jaw line and short brown hair, he was the antithesis of the pest. The only thing they had in common was a slightly sunburned nose and well-muscled body—yet there was something about the one that reminded her of the other.

Or...of someone else; a forgotten TV actor perhaps, Perri decided, wrestling with her subconscious linkage of the two men.

This neatly dressed man in his early thirties was instantly impressive. Her heartbeat registered an immediate attraction to the strong all-American look of him. A sudden wave of awareness swept through her, but she refused to let it reflect in her manner.

"No," she said. "I have to admit...I've never heard of Donegal."

He stared at her in open-mouthed astonishment. "Never heard of Donegal? Where have you been? Lost in the Rockies?" His voice was soft and pleasantly easy to listen to, with an almost Irish lilt to it, and she waited for a second, hoping to hear him speak again.

He didn't, so she shrugged, self-consciously. "Not quite. I've been flying all over the world. I lost touch with the rock scene. Actually, I never was much interested in it to start with." Even as Perri spoke, she realized it was the wrong thing to say. She might have to sit through two hours of rock tonight. "I'll go and see what I've been missing," she added quickly and was rewarded with a responsive twinkle from the laughing gray eyes, as if he had guessed her reluctance.

"You a jet-setter?" he queried with suspicion, eyeing her hairstyle.

"No." His far-out guess made her grin wryly. She should never have allowed that beautician in Paris to talk her into such an unusual cut. It was so far removed from Perri's old hair style, it still had the power to startle her whenever she looked into the mirror. One thing though, it did attract men — which could be a problem for her while looking for Owen. "Nothing as grand as that, I'm afraid. I'm a buyer for a department store. Decorative accessories."