"There are certain things I don't even want to know," she warned me. We were lying on chaise lounges on a waterfront balcony down in Baja, listening to the sounds of the Pacific. "Like why you don't trust the captain, for example. This thing you say the two of you cooked up after Hollister was arrested -- all that's between you and him.""I think it might be a felony, though."
"What did I just say?" She took a weak slug of tequila from the bottle we were passing back and forth. She could pretend she was a man all she wanted but she drank like a little boy. "You don't know about the blue line yet, I'm not here to be your teacher. The doer is dead, case closed. At least until after the election."
"The election, right," I said sarcastically. "Blondes with big mouths are so inconvenient this time of year."
"You think I like all the lies, and the posturing, and the politics? I've got a career going here, so if you want my help getting you out of this alive, you're going to have to play by my rules."
"Rita gave me those diamonds," I said, snatching back the tequila to show her how the big girls do it. "Well, I mean her ghost did, in a naked sleepwalking dream. Repeat any of that and I'll call you a liar."
"That's called receipt of stolen goods. Especially if they're blood diamonds and you were helping her smuggle them in.""I told you I wasn't in that. She'd bring me another shiny string bikini and I'd put it on. How was I supposed to know I was crossing the border with a million bucks up my butt crack?"
"The point is they weren't hers to give. Sounds to me like that's exactly what got her killed." "Finally!" I said, raising my arms in victory. "Somebody believes there's more to the story!"
"A.K. always believed you," she said. "You came to the right place. There's a lot you don't know and I'm not at liberty to tell you."
"Unless I get you drunk again and coax it out of you. Oldest story in the book, even if I am too dumb to sit down and read one of those."
She wrinkled her freckled nose and giggled like a schoolboy. You don't hear a lot of giggling out of your average G-man. "Come on," she said, "let's go for a swim." She stepped inside the open sliding glass door to change into her suit.I got up and poked around the captain's condo, decorated like a page out of the Crate & Barrel catalog. Even with his closeted wife's private blessing, I'd never be what he needed. I'd had enough of a dress rehearsal to know what the press would do if "El Capitan y la Ditzy Blonde" ever took center stage. "Last time they shipped me down here it was to keep me quiet when the fireworks went off." I called out to Jane. "Here I thought it was because he wanted me."
"Maybe he does. You should know this was his idea -- well before you called us." I could see her skinny, half-dressed reflection, posturing in front of the mirror. If she were a boy, she'd be super cute. Then again, I was drunk. "Doesn't matter any more," I lied. Jane came back outside wearing a backwards cap and a pair of knee length swim trunks. I laughed, licking salt and lime from my hand before knocking back another slug. "You look like Justin Bieber."
"It's all I have," she said, self-consciously. I slipped out of my own clothes, flinging them piece by piece over the balcony -- then stood there completely naked, silently challenging her. "You're a little tease, aren't you?" she said."It's a living." I grabbed her hat and ran off with it across the sand. "Come on," I called back. "It's just us girls." If only that were true. When you're being stalked south of the border by someone with more reason than ever to want you dead, the trouble with skinny dipping -- alongside the federal agent sent to protect you -- is there's no place to hide the gun.
