Rum Luck Page 11

  “See?” he said. “That’s probably Miguel and Enrico right now.” Ben planted his hands on his knees and rose from his chair. After a quick look at his shirt for stains, he strode to the front entrance to meet their very first client, Ana and Victoria at his heels.

  He found himself staring at a search warrant instead.

  “I will see that safe now, Mr. Cooper. And the rest of this bar,” Detective Vasquez said.

  Ben gritted his teeth. With everything that had happened yesterday, he’d forgotten Vasquez was determined to see inside the safe.

  An officer came up and spoke to Ana in Spanish. Ben opened his mouth to tell her not to give in, then closed it when he spotted a second officer holding an acetylene torch. Ana recited what sounded like a stream of numbers. Perhaps giving the detective the combination wasn’t such a bad idea, after all.

  An officer herded the three of them back to the lounge area. Victoria looked daggers at Ben, as though willing him to ride this out. He met her gaze and gave her a small nod.

  They were joined moments later by Luis and Oscar, both visibly shaken. Luis was still wearing soapy gloves. Perhaps even more surprising, Oscar was without his ever-present tool belt. They sat down next to Ben and the rest and studied the floor intently.

  Vasquez shouted something from Ben’s office. Their guard glared at each of them in turn, barked a few words at Ana, and disappeared inside.

  Ana stared at the table, her face grim. “He say that if we move, we will be sitting on the floor in handcuffs instead of in these nice, comfortable chairs.”

  Ben raised both eyebrows but said nothing. He had searched the safe himself late last night, but found only what Victoria had already described. What on earth was Vasquez looking for?

  Victoria slowly turned her head, stealing a glance at the office door. She then gradually undid the latch to her purse and began sliding out her phone.

  Ben heard footsteps coming up the front path. “Psst!” he whispered as loudly as he dared, and gestured toward the main entrance with his head.

  She snapped her purse closed. An older man, short, rotund, and with half a head of curly gray hair, wandered over to them. Dressed in a rumpled brown suit stained with coffee and fast food, he looked every inch a burnt-out detective.

  Ben snapped. “Who the hell are you?”

  The man took a short, sharp breath and drew himself up to his full five feet, five inches. “Who am I? Who am I? I am Enrico Morales, and this is my bar.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The cantina was an utter disaster. Most chairs had been knocked over and their cushions cut open by the police during their search. All of the bar’s drawers had been pulled out and their contents dumped on the floor. The newly painted and prepared storerooms had been turned inside out, and even the already wrecked men’s bathroom was in worse shape.

  What concerned Ben most, though, was that Detective Vasquez had walked out the front door clutching an evidence bag wrapped around a crowbar. He looked angrier than usual, were that possible. Enrico’s eyes had grown to the size of dinner plates at the sight of the fuming detective, evidence clutched in his massive hands.

  It was not the welcome Ben had planned for their first client. A relaxing drink in front of the ocean, perhaps. A leisurely tour through the tidied office and freshly painted bedrooms, yes. But had Ben been asked to rank all possible welcome activities, a vindictive police raid would have ranked near the bottom, right between a bout with dysentery and a jaguar attack.

  A line of customers was already out front, eager to see the great Enrico Morales in person. Enrico Morales, on the other hand, seemed only interested in seeing the bottom of a rum bottle. And the bar was due to open in fifteen minutes.

  Enrico took a long pull from his glass and glared at Ben. “Where is my nephew? What have you done to my bar?”

  Ben bit back a retort. This was what clients were paying for. Would be paying for. With luck. One day. Apparently, some would take their pretend-ownership seriously.

  Instead, he took a deep breath and said, “We seem to have lost Miguel.”

  Enrico’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean, lost him?”

  “We’ve looked everywhere, but we can’t seem to find him anywhere.”

  “I’m familiar with the concept of losing something, Mr. Cooper. No, I’m curious as to how you could manage to lose a person.” He sneered. “Particularly someone as large as Miguel.”

  Ben found himself at a loss for words.

  “They didn’t really lose me. I was just . . . misplaced for a bit,” Miguel said from the doorway. All eyes turned to him.

  “Miguel!” Ana cried. She gasped, then covered her mouth with her hands. “Diay! You look worse than Ben!”

  Even Ben nodded in agreement. Miguel’s right eye had turned a nasty shade of purple and the front of his neck was covered with angry red welts. His upper body was dusted in a fine, white powder. He seemed to be trying to keep his weight off his right foot, favor his left shoulder, and look nonchalant, all at the same time. He was doing a pretty poor job of it.

  “What on earth is that white powder?” Ben asked.

  “Airbag dust. There was a small accident. Can someone help me bring in the boxes from the car?”

  They all got up to help, but Miguel held out the flat of his bruised palm to stop Victoria and his uncle. “Victoria, would you mind showing Enrico his office? We can handle the grunt work ourselves.” Miguel’s look urged her to play along; she nodded in reply.

  “But I haven’t even had the chance to greet my favorite nephew.” Enrico strained his arm upward and pinched Miguel’s bruised cheek.

  The former soldier winced, but managed a small grin. “I’m your only nephew, Uncle.”

  “Even if I had a dozen, you would still be my favorite.” Enrico gave him an indulgent grin.

  Miguel gestured toward the crowd outside. “We need to open, Uncle. There will be plenty of time to catch up later.” After a few false starts, he managed to give Enrico a broad smile.

  “Mr. Morales, if you would come with me, please?” Victoria’s voice was soft as velvet.

  “I never could say no to a beautiful woman,” he said with a shrug, then followed her into the ransacked office.

  Miguel fell to his knees the moment his uncle turned the corner.

  Ana rushed to his side. With Ben’s help, they managed to drag him to the lounge area and lower him into one of the few undamaged chairs. Ana fetched a bag of ice.

  “What happened?” she asked, handing it to him.

  Miguel gasped as he placed the ice on his right knee. “First you need to get outside and empty the hatchback. What’s left to unload, at least.”

  That didn’t sound good. Ben tried not to think of how many thousands of dollars of bar stock Miguel was supposed to purchase that morning. And now there was the massive cost of repairing the damage inflicted during the raid to add to the tab. Did they still have enough to pay for the new fridge? What about operating costs for the next six weeks?

  Ben snorted, disgusted with himself. His best friend had almost been killed in a car accident and here he was, counting pennies.

  He and Ana went out to the car. He expected to have to push through a thick crowd of customers, but the line was almost nonexistent. Then he noticed that the crowd had gathered in the middle of the parking lot. Again.

  They shouldered their way through and had a look at the rental car. “Baskets of bastards,” Ben said, breathless.

  The poor hatchback looked as though it had gone through a drunkards’ demolition derby. The driver’s-side mirror dangled by a single wire. The passenger-side panels were completely crumpled. A deflated airbag hung from the steering wheel. The windows—those that weren’t shattered—were rolled down, and the car reeked of liquor. Only the graffiti remained intact.

  Ben covered his face with both hands. “What is that smell?”

  Ana wrinkled her nose. “Tequila.”

  He tried valiantly to tame his l
urching stomach, plugging his nose as he threw open the back of the hatchback to reveal a mess of soaked cardboard and shattered bottles. He thrust his head back inside the vehicle once more, then drew back in disgust. The stench of hard alcohol mingled with the stink of airbag gunpowder. The miracle was not that Miguel had survived the car accident, but that he had driven the rental back to the cantina without suffocating.

  Ben took a deep breath of fresh air before leaning in to help Ana sort through the mound of glass for intact bottles. He kept an eye on the curious onlookers as he worked. They seemed content to stand back and watch while he and Ana unloaded unspoiled boxes from the hatchback. Were it later in the evening, he’d worry about some enterprising bargoer trying to squeeze one of the floor mats into a shot glass. Not that they would be serving better drinks if they couldn’t salvage a few more bottles.

  In the end, the damage seemed worse than it was. Most bottles were wet but unbroken, particularly the more expensive spirits. Ben sighed with relief when he found that the bottle of fifteen-year-old Macallan Highland single malt was still intact, though he wondered what Miguel was thinking when he bought a hundred-dollar bottle of Scotch. Then to his shame he remembered last night’s argument. Miguel was likely still angry with him—which would also explain the heavy crystal bottle of Patrón next to the Macallan. Ben’s eyes narrowed. Fair enough, he supposed. This time.

  Ana stood guard as Ben used a dolly to shuttle the bottles back behind the bar. It took four trips.

  “That’s the last of it,” he said, stacking the final two damp boxes. The crowd was starting to mutter about the delay.

  Ana gestured angrily at the rental car. “Are you going to call the police?”

  “If Miguel hasn’t already called, he’s got a good reason for it. Let’s hear what happened first.” He lifted the boxes. “Listen, Ana—I know you’re worried, but we need to open now or we’re sunk. Can you run the bar while I figure out what’s going on?”

  “I can do that, if Victoria can bring the spare cushions from the storage room and clean up the mess,” Ana said. “Will you make sure he sees a doctor tonight? He needs to be checked out.”

  “I’ll drag him there myself if I have to.”

  Ana strode up the walkway to the front entrance, Ben close behind. She flipped the wooden sign to “Open” as she passed, and the crowd surged past them into the bar.

  He put the final boxes down behind the bar and glanced at Miguel, who looked as though he was going to fall asleep in the chair, even with the bag of ice on his knee. Ben clenched his hands.

  A swarm of patrons was already three deep at the bar. He let out an exhausted breath. With Miguel out of commission, he’d have to get behind the bar himself tonight. First things first, though. He grabbed one of the new bottles and a couple of glasses from the bar, took them over to Miguel, and poured a healthy measure into each glass.

  Miguel roused himself and picked up the amber tumbler of Patrón. “Have I gone to heaven?” he said with an attempt at a smile. “Or have you? You always said we’d share a glass of tequila over your dead body.”

  “I’m starting to regret my choice of words,” Ben said. “Any particular reason you sent Enrico off with Victoria?”

  Miguel took a healthy swallow of tequila and breathed a heavy sigh. “I didn’t want him to see the car. He’d worry.”

  “I’m worried,” Ben said. “What happened?”

  “I think I was being followed.” Miguel winced as he shifted his weight in the chair.

  Ben gazed at the smashed car. “Looks like they followed rather closely.”

  “I let my guard down. It won’t happen again.” He told Ben about his trip, up to the point where he was sideswiped.

  “The driver sped off before I could get a look at the license plate,” Miguel finished.

  “You think it was the Jeep that followed you?”

  “Maybe. I’m not sure.”

  “Now’s not the time to second-guess yourself, Miguel. I trust your instincts.”

  “That’s good. One of us should.”

  “This isn’t your fault.”

  Miguel put his glass down. “The bar isn’t ready for Enrico. Half of the bottles are broken. We’re short a bartender and our rental car is a total write-off. It won’t even go above first gear. If this isn’t my fault, whose is it?” Miguel scoffed and his expression darkened. “What does Victoria like to say? ‘Success has many parents, but failure is an orphan.’ ”

  “Don’t you think you’re being a bit hard on yourself?”

  “This is my fault, and I’m going to handle it.” Miguel closed his eyes and sighed. “We don’t have insurance on the rental, do we?”

  Ben shook his head. Miguel had argued for the coverage, but he had insisted they save a whole ten dollars a day. On the bright side, that didn’t qualify as his worst financial decision of the week; it would be hard to top buying the cantina in the first place.

  “More tequila?” Ben tilted the bottle toward Miguel’s empty glass.

  “Please.”

  Ben refilled both glasses. “Did you call the police?”

  “I was going to. Then I smelled the broken liquor bottles in the back. If Vasquez took the call, I’d have been arrested for drunk driving. Not that I could have called them if I’d wanted to. The crash wrecked my phone, too.”

  Ben rubbed his forehead. “We can’t pretend this never happened, Miguel. If nothing else, we can’t afford to keep renting a wrecked car for the rest of our lives. We need to tell the police about this.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Not at all,” he admitted. “But I’m sick of digging ourselves deeper into the same hole. For all we know, the whole point of this hit-and-run was to rattle your cage and put us at odds with the police.”

  “Mission accomplished.” Miguel poured himself another slosh. “I’m feeling pretty rattled right now.”

  “We’ll get Captain Reyes to come out and have a look first thing tomorrow.” Ben slid the bottle back a few inches. “That meeting will go better if you’re not sweating tequila.”

  “How do you know he won’t send Vasquez?”

  “I don’t.” Ben exhaled heavily. “We’ll find a way to make sure it’s Reyes who comes out. I can tell him I have some more information about the death threat, that it’s something I need to talk to him about in person. He’ll understand, once he sees the rental.”

  “Sounds good.” Miguel raised an eyebrow. “Was Victoria’s flight cancelled? I thought she was leaving this morning.”

  Ben told Miguel about his conversation on the beach with Victoria.

  “She really said that, about the tissues tied together?” Miguel laughed, then clutched his side. “Oh . . . ow . . . my ribs!”

  “You don’t mind that I made her a partner without asking you first?” Ben asked. “That’s your decision as much as mine.”

  Miguel held the glass up to catch the sunlight glinting off the Pacific. “When someone smashes into the side of your car and leaves you for dead, it tends to put things in perspective. I trust you, Ben. I hope you trust me, too.”

  “I do.”

  Miguel met his eye, and they buried last night’s disagreement with a nod.

  Enrico and Victoria stepped out of the office. At least, Ben assumed Enrico was with Victoria; presumably she wasn’t holding the door open for an imaginary friend. Then a bushy tangle of gray hair appeared above the bar. That was Enrico, all right. Even though Victoria towered over him, she had to lengthen her stride to keep up. He and Victoria fought their way through the growing crowd and sat down next to Ben and Miguel.

  “How are you settling in, Enrico?” Ben asked.

  “It is good to be back, Mr. Cooper.” He frowned. “I must say, though, I am not at all pleased with how you managed the bar while I was away.” He looked around the cantina before shaking his head. “The cantina is a complete disaster. Very bad for business.”

  Ben bit his cheek. It had taken him the past few days
to get used to being the bar’s owner, and now he had to play the role of Enrico’s obsequious assistant. “I’m very sorry, Mr. Morales. I am sure our situation will improve with you back at the helm.”

  Enrico smiled. “I think so.”

  “Has Victoria shown you to your room?”

  The smile quickly disappeared. “Not as such. Ms. Holmes did show me a room, but not my room. My room will be at the Tamarindo Diria.” He grabbed Ben’s glass of tequila and knocked it back. “I hear they have such wonderful amenities there these days. Running water, for instance.” He raised an eyebrow and waggled the empty glass in front of Ben.

  Ben sighed as he picked up the bottle of expensive tequila and refilled his former glass. This was not going as planned. Not at all.

  Enrico smiled. “Besides, I will need some space to think if I am going to solve the murder of my former bartender.” He gave Ben a wink.

  Ben squinted at his client. “Uh . . . pardon?”

  “You know, the murder?” He winked again.

  Victoria was raising both eyebrows up and down repeatedly, as though trying to transmit a vital message via eyebrow semaphore.

  “Yes . . . of course . . . the murder,” Ben replied slowly.

  “Very good.” Enrico winked at him once more. “If that’s all, then, I’ll go and see if Ana needs a hand behind the bar. Mr. Cooper, see that my bags make it to the Diria, will you? They’re in the red Mercedes parked out front. Victoria has the keys. I’ll be back in a few minutes to have a drink with my favorite nephew.” He slapped Miguel on the back, spilling tequila in the process, then made his way to the bar, taking his glass with him.

  Ben glanced at Miguel, who seemed as puzzled as he was. So he turned around and asked Victoria what the hell that had been all about.

  It was the first time Ben had seen her blush. “Enrico was getting a bit anxious about the state of the bar. And the office. And the murder. And Miguel.” She took a deep breath. “I may have hinted—hinted, mind you—that this was included in his ownership experience. Part of the game, as it were.” She deflated in her chair. “Is there any tequila left?”