Assuming Names: a con artist's masquerade (Criminal Mischief Book 1) Page 19

  But I couldn’t slow down because Miguel and Hector were following. There was no other explanation for the lunacy of this chase.

  We had sped through the outskirts of Cancun and were now about thirty miles away, passing through sporadic jungle, scrub, and then random roadside businesses in low cement buildings. The high and low beams were still flashing up and down in the mirrors, and the effect was approaching something close to a strobe light as the car shook against the speed.

  Various road signs whizzed by but I had no idea what they meant. The warning of tope would have meant nothing to me even if I had seen it, but I didn’t think there was any advance warning. The thing was stretched across the road and beside it was a sign with an arrow pointing down at it, declaring: Tope. There it is. Two twelve-inch speed bumps laid down right in the middle of the open highway, one after the other, and my speedometer was maxed-out buried.

  I knew the car following had hit the brakes, and that probably should have told me something, but I was driving fast to put space between us and they were dropping away.

  I was watching the distance expand in the rearview mirror, feeling pretty good about things, then wham!, my hands were off the steering wheel and I was on my back, staring straight up into black.

  For the briefest moment, I lost all sense of what was happening. It wouldn’t have surprised me to look over and see Ed sleeping in our bed. I had no idea of anything much less that I was in Mexico, in a stolen car, driving through the jungle with lunatics in pursuit. Then it all came back with the sound of a vehicle losing control in the gravel. I knew the sound well.

  I had regained enough of my wits to know the car was speeding forward, ripping through the rocks on the shoulder and about to go wildly off road. Struggling against momentum, I was trying to rise up from the broken seat to grab the wheel while also feeling my foot across the pedals for the brake. Adding to the pandemonium, the driver’s door was swinging free, escalating the sound and throwing dust into my eyes.

  I’d never had a wreck like this: one I couldn’t see. But I couldn’t get up to take control of the wheel because the car was bouncing over uneven terrain, slamming me back into the flattened seat, jarring loose everything the tope hadn’t broken. The transmission was in fourth, and I had just found the brake when the car plowed into something dense that yielded and caught under the tires. The car stopped and the engine stalled.

  I was still on my back, watching a tire ricochet off a roof and then bound back for the windshield. It filled me with dread but I couldn’t look away. I was thinking, This is going to hurt. But the trajectory was high and it slammed off the roof, then shot off down the road.

  I looked up to the rearview mirror, but the mirror was gone. The tire I could hear bouncing down the road and with it two doors opening. The pursuing car’s headlights were steady on high now, illuminating the interior, and I was looking over into the passenger seat for anything I might be able to use as a weapon. The glove box was open and had thrown papers across the empty seat but it offered nothing. Dazed and a little weak, I was rolling for the ground outside the driver’s door, thinking if nothing else, I would be shot defending myself with a stick.

  But I was moving slow, so before I could get my legs to follow my face, there were feet outside the driver’s door. I was looking down into delicate toes in feminine sandals and behind them another woman was streaming Spanish outrage.

  She pushed past her quiet friend to reach into the car and begin a detailed list of everything that had fallen to the tope. Yanking the driver’s seat up, she let it drop to show it was past repair and then cussed me out. She stretched across my lap, knocking me flat again, to flap the glove box door against its broken latch, and then cuss me some more. Slamming closed the driver’s door, she pointed out it wouldn’t catch either and then really let me have it. I imagine the next bit was all about the mirrors because the door had lost one and the rearview was somewhere on the dark floorboard with the baby.

  I was staggering out of the wreck explaining, “It’s okay, this is how I always park.” But my exit just let her demand the location of the lost hubcap.

  I had plowed into a massive stack of tires which collapsed across the hood and hid the broken headlight but not the dent in the roof. The concave pushed her to a new extreme. Of all the words chasing each other out of her mouth, I understood only two: “Ramiro,” who I assumed knew these ladies, and “Puta,” which I assumed was me.

  There’s only one way to deal with people like this: escalate.

  I went full-scale American nuclear. I was taller than her and I was louder than her, and by the time I chased them back to their car, I was angrier. I was also shouting five words she understood: Miguel, Hector, and Ramiro, you fucking bitch.

  ~~~~~~

  It wasn’t like that crazy woman wasn’t going straight to Ramiro for an explanation anyway. I hoped Candy and Bunny weren’t around, because she sounded like a girlfriend. Maybe even a girlfriend that had let Ramiro borrow her car.

  The distance put me a good hour ahead, but that didn’t make me safe. I knew I could make that Mercedes do an easy 140 miles per hour, and if I were pressed, because someone had just abducted my monkey baby, I’d push German engineering close to flight.

  They had the biggest advantage of knowing the road and I couldn’t guess how many more of those damn invisible speed bumps were going to be spread across the highway.

  I learned about topes like a laboratory rat learns not to touch the red button.

  The Carmen Ghia backed out of the tires and impressed me by holding herself together, but she was a mess. I jammed a piece of roadside wood under the driver’s seat to hold it upright, and then used the strap on my shoulder bag to tie the driver’s door closed.

  One light shining through the dark jungle night, I tried to figure out the symbol for impending chaos. I was super aware of every sign and mark on the road, but it still took a while to learn. At first I thought it was the white zebra lines painted on the asphalt that predicted my teeth were going to be scattered across the dash, but I’d stomp on the brake and no speed bump would appear. Then I’d head slam into one doing 100, certain there had been no suggestion whatsoever that it was there. For a while I thought it was the pedestrian-crossing sign, but that wasn’t a consistent indicator for the brutality either.

  Finally, an hour outside Merida, I made the association between the word tope and smashing havoc. It was a pretty innocuous looking word that at least deserved an exclamation point.

  I’d had the Carmen Ghia for less than four hours but by the time I entered Merida, it looked like something from a demolition yard. The second tope had smashed the driver’s window into little granules of glass, and I hadn’t noticed which tope broke the emergency brake so that it lay limp in the cradle. It still had one hub cab but I’d had to stop to take the shoulder strap off the door because it was more important to tie down the hood, so the last hour had been particularly jarring.

  My body felt as mistreated as the car, and I was shaking with fatigue. I was looking for the airport but was utterly lost. Whenever I saw a food vendor or little shop, I would stop to ask for directions but I was mangling that, too.

  I couldn’t remember how I knew the phrase, but I was certain the way to ask if someone spoke English was “¿Hablo Ingles?” There was absolutely no doubt in my mind that this was correct. So, I spent several hours in Merida confidently walking up to strangers and inquiring, “Do I speak English?” and then not liking how the dialogue proceeded.

  At wits end, I had the conversation again. I had stopped at a road side stall to ask a teenage boy and girl, “¿Hablo Ingles?”

  They looked at each other and then stared at me. I asked again, “¿Hablo Ingles?”

  The boy turned his head and ventured a somewhat stressed, “Es posible.”

  Trying to limit the available responses, I asked, “¿Hablo Ingles? Sí or no?”

  He took an uncertain stab at it, “Sí.”

  I rambled
out, “I’m sorry to bother you, but I am lost and need to know where the airport is.”

  But they just returned expressions of incomprehension, so I demanded with irritation, “¿Hablo Ingles?”

  Now it seemed like I was issuing a strange test, and they both studied me for the answer. The boy was none too certain but raised his brows to guess, “¿Sí?”

  I started in again, “I just need to know where the airport is. The airport? With the planes? Where is it?”

  They were starting to look alarmed and I didn’t know why they were toying with me. I was angry, snapping harshly, “¿Hablo Ingles?”

  With perfect conviction this time, the boy was emphatic, “Sí.”

  The girl agreed, “Sí, hable Ingles.”

  “Then will you kindly speak it?”

  Confusion as they turned their heads for understanding.

  Blessed hell, why did every one say they spoke English when they didn’t?

  I drove around Merida making an ever-increasing ass of myself until inadvertently seeing a sign for the airport.

  I needed rest but there was a flight into Mexico City in an hour and I wasn’t lingering to have Miguel, Hector, or Ramiro catch me. I couldn’t sleep sitting upright, so I’d been awake for thirty-six hours when I arranged the next flight from Mexico City into Dallas. And that flight had been full, too, so I hit US Immigration and Customs like I’d just taken four blue pills of stupid.

  Mexican Pot

  I was a single woman traveling alone out of Mexico City with nothing more than a shoulder bag of books and an ugly terracotta pot. It was not an ideal way to approach US Customs. Single women traveling unaccompanied are marked as drug mules. I knew this because I had been pulled aside countless times and told this by uniformed agents. They were always openly confounded as to why I was traveling alone when I clearly had no drugs.

  The ball of bubble wrap was going to be suspect, and I had a different opinion than Miguel about how to smuggle. I had no experience with smuggling, but I was quite familiar with concealing things: You either buried it or hid it right out in the open.

  I unwrapped the pot on the flight into Dallas and then spent exactly ten seconds on the rest of my plan.

  I already had the problem of being a woman traveling alone, but not even a man could expect to walk unquestioned through US Customs without luggage. Because it was unusual, it was going to cause issues. But my ten-second plan was to handle it with a little innuendo about the pot. Perhaps it would go along the lines of, “Who needs luggage when you’ve got pot?” Then I’d turn on the charm and win the agents back.

  I’d probably explain my lack of packed clothes with a bit of truth from another occasion, pulling on the time I had left all my dresses and cosmetics with a less fortunate friend. But I didn’t really think any of this out. I didn’t practice any part of the exchange in my head because I intended to play it like I always did, all on impulse, fresh in the moment. I’d zing out something provocative, and then sweet-talk my way clear of trouble.

  But I’d lost my fresh, clean charm sometime in the previous night. I was approaching 48 hours awake and was having a hard time exchanging basic pleasantries.

  I exited the plane without even glancing at the baggage turnstile and approached Customs with the bag of books over one shoulder and the pot under my arm.

  The agent held me back saying, “You need to wait for your bags.”

  “It’s fine. I don’t have any.”

  He didn’t think I understood. He stressed it with irritation, “You have to wait for your luggage before you can proceed into Customs.”

  “I have no luggage.”

  He pulled back with a scowl. “You don’t have any luggage?”

  “No.”

  “Ma’am, why don’t you have any luggage?”

  “Because I left all my marijuana at home.” I’d been waiting to make my pot joke and there it was, funny as a guillotine. I quickly tried to put my head back on. “No. No, that’s not it. I actually brought my marijuana,” and put forward the monkey pot. “No, that’s not it either,” and pulled it back. “It’s pot,” that was the joke, “I have a lot of pot. No, wait, that’s not right either.”

  “Ma’am, will you step over here?” Into that special place where the agents congregate with seam rippers and gloves. The three agents who had been watching were now beside him. He asked, “You want to explain again why you have no luggage?”

  “I don’t need clothes.”

  “I think you do, ma’am.”

  “Not like others do.”

  “Others?”

  “Mmm,” I agreed.

  “Others, like me?”

  “Well, if I had another dress you could have it.”

  “I don’t need a dress, ma’am.”

  “It’s okay. I don’t mind. I left my lipsticks with a man.” I was so fuck-ton tired, I could not claw my way into making sense.

  The agent squeezed his eyes to become a mind reader. He guessed, “Did you leave your clothes with someone else?”

  “Yes. Thank you,” for getting that out of my head.

  “Oh. Kay. Moving on.” Motioning for my shoulder bag, he looked inside at the three remaining books. He asked, “Are you carrying any drugs or weapons?”

  “Drugs, yes, drugs, I have drugs.”

  All the agents widened their eyes and nodded at my enthusiastic reply. One said to the others, “I’d have never guessed she was carrying drugs.”

  My agent asked, “Would you like to tell me where?”

  “In the zipper.”

  Opening the internal pocket, he held up the prescription bottle. “What is this for?”

  “Herpes. No. Leprosy.”

  Fingers splayed wide, the bottle was dropped and he was firm, “Ma’am, you can go.”

  I opened my mouth to speak, but he stepped back and pointed to the glass doors, “Go.”

  I could have had three pounds of cocaine in the monkey, but he didn’t care. He didn’t look. Didn’t want to look. Didn’t want to exchange one more word with me.

  ~~~~~~

  The second Laura Jackson in Fayetteville got a strange call from a payphone in Texas. “Hi, Laura, this isn’t going to make any sense, and I can’t explain it right now, but if unknown Mexicans come to your house, you might want to call the cops. It could get violent. They may want to kill you.”

  “Uh, do I know you? Who is this?”

  “I know this sounds like a crank call, but I’m quite serious. Mexicans: Bad. I intend to fix it, but for the next few days …”

  “Mexicans? I don’t like being threatened. Who is this?”

  “Laura, you’re having an adventure. You didn’t ask to come along, but here you are. There’s nothing you can do about it at this point except catch up with the plot. There are some Mexicans that think you’re a lesbian… Well, no, wait, I never actually said you were into women.”

  “This is not funny.”

  “I said it was an adventure, not a comedy. Now listen, you need to be careful. Lock the doors, load the gun, and be prepared to call the cops. Maybe you should just go away for a few days.”

  “Are you being serious?”

  “Well,” I wish I weren’t, but, “yes, and I am so sorry. I’m really much smarter than this, but I wasn’t thinking straight. I swear, I’ll have it sorted by the end of the week. Until then, remember: Mexicans want to kill you.”

  The Devil’s Forked Tongue

  Ed asked, “Where were you?”

  And I said, “Home.”

  “I called every day of the week but you never answered.”

  “Oh, sorry, I turned the ringer off.”

  “Why?”

  “I didn’t want to be woken up and then I forgot to turn it back on.”

  He rolled his eyes at my absentmindedness and asked, “Where did you get all these bruises?”

  Remembering another accident from months before, I laughed, “I was picking flowers on the side of the road and fell down the em
bankment.”

  “You are so clumsy. Are you alright?”

  “Perfectly fine.”

  The monkey pot was on the top of the liquor cabinet in the living room. Ed looked at its wide eyes, flared nostrils, and oval mouth. He said, “I see Shawn gave you one of his pots.”

  “Mmm,” I agreed.

  Shawn was an archeologist that made pots that worried his colleagues. They thought his work could pass as genuine Mayan artifacts and didn’t want them out in circulation. For fun, Shawn had aged a couple of his creations, and while it brought an appreciative grin to his face, it served only to further stress his associates.

  I preferred Shawn’s work, but I saw the similarity.

  He could have identified the pot, but I tried to protect Ed and our dearest friends from having to make unpleasant ethical decisions. And I didn’t want to wrestle Shawn over a monkey when I had Laura to worry about.

  And besides, the pot’s identity was not as interesting to me as getting it to Tony in Atlanta. The Cancun boys would never expect it. The act would leave them mystified for the rest of their lives, and I’d get to spend the rest of mine imagining their befuddlement every time they thought of Willow.

  ~~~~~~

  Peachtree Street sounds lovely but I was in an ugly block of brick and concrete offices. Tony was a financial advisor in one of them and his beautiful secretary didn’t like the look of me. “He won’t see you. He’s not expecting you.”

  “You’ve made it more than clear he is a busy man, but if you’d just kindly tell him I have come with a monkey, we’ll let him decide if he has the time.”

  She looked at the ball of bubble wrap in my arms and thought less of it than me. Getting to her feet, her smile was forced and her words were sharp with disdain, “Tony is not in the monkey business.”