Weston Ochse - Age of Blood

Then he looked a little closer and he noticed the size of the pores on her face. He glanced at J.J. over her shoulder and couldn’t help but notice his knowing smile. Walker returned his gaze and took in the pieces of the woman, rather than the whole. He began with the hair. Blond with hints of gray. He’d taken it originally to be professionally coiffed, but now that he was looking at the individual hairs, they just seemed too thick. And the skin. The skin was too soft to be that of an elderly woman. He had to give credit. The application of base had made the skin seem old, but he could tell from where the makeup met the lower neck that the skin was younger than it appeared to be. And then he saw it. The Adam’s apple. The idea that only men had them was a fallacy, but it was true that men had larger laryngeal prominences, and this one was anything but subdued.

“And to whom do I have the pleasure?” Walker asked, holding out a hand.

She glanced at it, then glanced at Walker’s face before turning to J.J. “You’re an ass,” she said, in a voice painfully lacking in feminine qualities.

“I might be, but I need to talk to you.”

“And who is this, your new lover?”

J.J. glanced quickly at Walker, then grinned. “No. Just a friend.”

“So what do you want? I have business.”

“We do too. We need you to come with us.” Seeing the tightening of the shoulders, J.J. added, “We’ll make it worth your while.”

“You know who I work for, Jingo.”

“I do. And you know who I worked for. Isn’t that right, Jaime Gonzalez?”

Her eyes narrowed. “What’s going on?”

“Not here,” J.J. said. He stood and held out an arm, bowing slightly like an Old World gentleman. “Take my arm.”

“And if I won’t?”

“Then we’ll carry you out.”

“I might scream.”

“And when Bob here rips off your wig and shows the world who you really are do you think you’ll ever be able to come back?”

The tightness of the lips relaxed to reveal a man’s teeth, complete with a gold incisor. “You boys going to treat me like a lady?”

“Of course.”

Jaime Gonzalez gently closed his book. He stood and smoothed his dress; then he held out his left arm to Walker.

“I count on you to treat me with the respect you would your mother.”

Walker hesitated. “My mother’s dead and she never crossdressed.”

Jaime stared at Walker, then grabbed his arm. “You seem like one of the good ones. Too bad you’re hanging with this old fag,” he said, glaring at J.J. Then he let Walker lead the three of them from the resort.

Yank held on to the handlebars for dear life. He hadn’t ridden a motorcycle in several years, but the Suzuki dirt bike was necessary if he was going to keep up with the mark.

They’d approached him in the Nefertiti Hotel as planned with Ramon flanking one side and Yank the other. He’d have preferred a smash-and-grab, but Holmes wanted this low-key, so he had to act semicivilized. Juan Carlos was a Zetas cartel facilitator, in place to ensure that mafia members transiting through Cabo San Lucas, or those operating in it, had everything they needed. He wasn’t so much a criminal as he was a procuring agent. Whether it was booze, drugs, sex, or extravagant food, Juan Carlos could make it all happen with ease.

He wasn’t much to look at. He was about five foot five and balding, and his paunchy stomach and thin legs promised that his days of sports were long gone. So when he leaped up and took off like an Olympic sprinter after he saw Ramon, Yank couldn’t have been more surprised. Yank had taken off after him, but had found it impossible to keep up, soon tiring and slowing. But Juan Carlos kept on running. When Yank knocked down a motorcyclist, his first move was to grab the bike and use it to follow the man. And when he sped up, so did Juan Carlos.

Where did he get his speed? Yank wondered.

He cranked the throttle, leaned forward, and held on as the studded tires ate the ground beneath him. Sand and rock spit out the back end, firing indiscriminately into the crowds gathered at the outdoor tourist markets. Every so often, he’d spy the man still running up ahead of him. His arms were pumping, his legs were churning, and all the while he was moving forward as fast as he could.

They were nearing the water. Soon, the quay would be before them. When he saw that Juan Carlos wasn’t about to stop, he couldn’t help slowing the motorcycle. What was Carlos going to do? Go flying off the end like a stuntman?

As he slowed, he saw Ramon zip past, his legs propelling him as fast as the other man’s.

Suddenly Juan Carlos pulled up at the edge of the quay.

Ramon hit him square in the back, a move that took them both flying into the water.

Yank glanced behind him at the trail of upset Mexican peddlers and knew he shouldn’t be where he was. A pair of policemen were pushing their way through the crowd. One thing was sure, he couldn’t go back. He did what anyone would do in his position. He spun the throttle, shot forward, and flew off the end of the quay. As the bike began to fall first, he let go, letting it smash into the water. He flew another dozen feet, then hit the water as well, but he’d had time to arrange his limbs so that when he hit, it was sideways.

He sank and turned to his right beneath the water. He’d spied a sailboat at the end of the quay. It took all of his breath before he felt the stern rudder. Then, when he was certain he was amidships, with the bulk of the boat between him and the quay, he let himself come up for air. He wanted desperately to shoot to the surface and gasp in great gulps of oxygen, but he fought it. Instead, he rose slowly, letting air through his teeth to alleviate the burn in his chest.

He saw that he’d been right. The boat, which turned out to be a 2008 Beneteau 37, did hide him from view.

“What’s your name?”

He looked up and saw, leaning over the boat’s side, a head of blond hair backlit by the sun to create an almost blinding halo. He could just make out her face in contrast and tell that she was fond of piercings.

“Yank. What’s yours?” He held out his hand.

She shook it. “Mindy. What were you doing chasing that man?”

“He has something we need.” He changed the subject. “You sound like you’re American.”

“San Diego.”

“Oh yeah? Where?”

“Do you know San Diego?”

He grinned, enjoying the moment talking to an undoubtedly beautiful San Diego blonde on the tip of the Sea of Cortez after the end of a motorcycle chase to catch a superhuman Zeta facilitator. He knew San Diego like every SEAL knew San Diego. He could tell her about so many places. But telling her he knew San Diego he might as well say to her, I’m a U.S. Navy SEAL.

“No. Never been. Is it a nice place?”

She frowned. “It’s boring there.”

“Not so boring here.”

“Oh. It’s boring here, too. It’s just that sometimes I see things like you flying through the air.”

“Oh, really? So this happens often?”

She made a face. “Or something like it.” She turned back as someone called her name from on deck. “Listen, I have to go.”

“Okay.”

She disappeared for a moment, then popped her head back. “We’re going for some fuel. If you can hold on, we’ll bring you into the marina.”

“That sounds good, Mindy,” he said.

She tossed a set of boat fenders over the side, one with a trailing line. He submerged except for his face and grabbed the line. Soon, they were putting into the marina on the Beneteau’s diesel engine. Once they reached the docks, Yank let go of the line then dove, only coming back to the surface when he saw the lighted slats above him. When he did, he wished he hadn’t. Where the water in the lagoon was clear, down here was a collection of dirt and soot and trash, filmed over from lack of a current.