42. Welcome to the Hotel (Baja) California

When I woke up there was a fat Mexican woman pointing at me and screaming, so I pointed at her and screamed back. "El fantasma!" she shouted. "El fantasma está despierto!" That one stumped the panel. Did she just call me a ghost?

Another sizeable señorita came running in, followed by another. Bearing a striking family resemblance -- sisters, maybe -- the large and lovely trio bounced and spun around the sunny room, taking turns to pause from a safe distance and check my pupils. "Usted viva," declared the youngest and largest of the three. She was a dark-eyed beauty, despite her enormous girth, with bee stung lips and glossy black hair. "You are alive."

"Tell that to the loud one," I said. "Where am I?" When I bolted upright in bed, the plush threesome pushed back in a thick wall of perfumed flesh. "Rápido, encontrar el jefe!" each of them ordered the next, marching off on one anothers' heels. "Someone go find the boss!"

I couldn't imagine how big the boss was and I didn't plan to stick around to find out. Whoever these enormous people were, I couldn't take my chances on being turned back over to the federales. Seriously, if they couldn't figure out whether I was a prison inmate or a kidnapped hostage, I had no use for Mexico as a vacation destination, no matter how attractive their government officials. 

Then again, I wasn't sure who I could trust, even if I did manage to slip home across the border. My new plan was to just show up right back at my desk at Hollywood Division after this über cray-cray Baja getaway. What were they going to do, kill me in the coffee room?

Maybe all of this had been an elaborate hazing exercise to test the ditzy little records clerk and her loyalty to the brotherhood after she saw something she shouldn't have. Fingering the safe deposit key around my neck, I had survived with my job, my life and my diamonds. If those bitches at the FBI still didn't want to pursue the rest of the evidence I had locked away for safekeeping, I'd just have to do it myself, on nights, weekends and holidays.

Jumping out of bed and opening a mammoth wooden wardrobe, I discovered my clothes hanging cleaned and pressed. Puzzled by the awesome service provided by my latest set of captors, I realized that the whole set-up was suspiciously nice. Situated on the second story of a sprawling hacienda, my suite had huge picture windows opening on to a terrace -- all overlooking an endless, hilly expanse.

Grabbing a few bottles of water set out on the bathroom sink, I also stuffed my pockets with some green apples overflowing from a wooden bowl of fruit. The place really wasn't looking so bad -- until I heard yelling outside -- some kind of orders in Spanish. Ducking behind a curtain, I heard footsteps pounding by, making what sounded like a forced march into the desert. There were snapping whips and sickening grunting sounds. Torture? Oh hell no. Suddenly it hit me. This was some kind of a work camp -- where I was brought to be the generale's pampered plaything! I was an award-winning 60 Minutes story waiting to happen.

I tied a few sheets together -- Egyptian cotton, I couldn't help but note, with a very high thread count -- looping the improvised rope over a banister. Dangling off the side of the balcony for a moment to start shimmying to the ground, I noticed a bud vase by the bedside with a familiar sprig of lavender. The captain! I thought I'd hallucinated his daring desert rescue of me before I lost consciousness days earlier -- but it was really true. He was still alive, and he still loved me.

I tried to hoist myself back onto the balcony, feeling above head along the painted ceramic floor tiles. My hand landed on a man's boot, and then another -- attached to a set of manly ankles and shins. "Captain?" I said, meekly. "Is that you?"

Needless to say, given my luck so far -- that plus my nasty habit of misjudging things on account of I'm not all that smart -- it wasn't.