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. They’ll have a phone, Ellie told herself, ever the optimist. Yes, surely they would. She could call for a cab after her business was concluded.
If… If they show up at all. If they’ll even talk to me, a woman….
Roused by that thought, she snorted defiantly and stepped through the doorway.
The dimness and the smell inside the cantina hit her like a physical blow. It smelled like old outhouses. New vomit. And a sweet smokiness she remembered from her college days that was either incense or hashish—she never had been certain which. Fortunately, Ellie wasn’t squeamish; between her farm upbringing, her crusades on behalf of endangered wildlife and a chosen profession that involved animals at all stages of life and death, she was accustomed to sights and smells some would probably consider revolting.
After that reflexive pause and another moment to let her senses adjust, she crossed the room to a wooden bar that was leaning drunkenly against the back wall. A man sat there on a high, three-legged stool, elbows propped on the bar, drinking a milky liquid from a bottle and lazily smoking a brownish, handrolled cigarette. Perhaps the source of that cloyingly sweet smell? Ellie decided she’d rather not know.
“Señor Avila?” she asked, placing the note with her handwritten instructions on the bar.
The man regarded it with silent disdain, one eye closed against curling smoke.
Ellie was about to resort to her extremely limited knowledge of Spanish when inspiration struck. Feeling quite astute, she reached into her handbag and found the crumpled bills she’d thrust there after paying the taxi driver. She pulled one out and laid it on top of the note-paper. A ten, she noticed with some chagrin; probably a five would have been more than enough. Oh well.
The man slowly picked it up and stuffed it into the pocket of his sweat-stained blue shirt, then jerked his head toward the front of the cantina.
Turning, Ellie saw for the first time that there were three men sitting silently at the table in the corner, half hidden in the shadows behind the shaft of sunlight slanting in through the open doorway. A little chill shivered down her back as two of the men rose and moved unhurriedly to form a silhouetted phalanx across the entrance, blocking her only escape.
McCall drove slowly down the deserted road, squinting into the midday glare and mentally gnashing his teeth. Not a creature was stirring, save for one evil-looking dog shambling idly from one disgusting discovery to another, pausing to sniff them all and occasionally eating one. On the one hand, McCall figured that was a good sign; at least, all things being equal, he thought he could probably handle the dog. On the other, it was obvious the taxi had departed for safer pastures, with or without its passenger, it was impossible to know for certain.
Or rather, there was only one way to know for certain.
Resigned to the inevitable, he parked the Beetle next to a more-or-less vacant lot, arousing the immediate interest of the dog, who shuffled over to investigate and wasted no time in marking this new addition to his territory. With a sigh that was more like a growl, McCall locked up the VW—aware that it was probably going to be futile—and crossed the road to the cantina.
When he stepped through the doorway, he really believed he was ready for anything. A nice little tickle of adrenaline was making his skin tingle in a way that wasn’t entirely unpleasant; probably if he’d been of a species possessed of hackles, they’d have been rising. He felt like Clint Eastwood walking into one of those dusty desert bars looking for bad guys to shoot—except that the way he remembered it, Clint never had to contend with the effects of that glare, which made the inside of the cantina black as a cave and McCall consequently blind as a bat for as long as it took his eyes to adjust.
But as it turned out, there was probably nothing that could have prepared him for what did happen.
His first warning was a little rush of air, a