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  Baja Get Away

  JINX SCHWARTZ

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  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  A Note of Gratitude

  Books by Jinx Schwartz

  Excerpt: Just Add Water

  Copyright © 2018 Jinx Schwartz

  Chapter One

  I know, I know.

  I oughtn’t a been there in the first place, as my grandpa would have put it.

  Even as I crawled onto that barstool at the Giggling Marlin, “…looking for love in all the wrong places”—my favorite line from one of my film favs, “Urban Cowboy”—earwormed its way into my head despite a bajillion decibels of Mexican pop music blaring from huge speakers.

  Been there, done that, failed badly.

  Not that I was on the prowl for another future ex. Far from it. I was after a cold beer or six to drown my miseries. Love stinks, anyhow.

  It wasn’t as though the popular Cabo San Lucas bar was unfamiliar to me; it was my hangout and a fairly safe haven. My, “where everyone (at least the regulars and bartenders) knows your name” kinda joint.

  Since I’d bartended here and there all over the Baja to make ends meet, including at some upscale resorts, I was attuned to all the local scuttlebutt on where to drink and, more importantly, where not to.

  What with the American news media and even the State Department warning tourists of gang warfare, and the kidnapping, drugging, raping, and occasionally offing of foreign visitors at Mexican resort areas, I picked the Marlin as the best place to blot out my sorrows without getting mowed down in a crossfire. I also knew where the back exit was, and how to get there in a hurry.

  My main gig in Cabo, however: hawking timeshares to tourists. Yep, that annoying person. However, because I never quite mastered the art of luring tourists into purchasing a piece of Mexican paradise by offering them a free breakfast and quick tour of whatever place we were pushing, I’d probably run up the most abysmal sales record in the whole of the Baja peninsula.

  My boyfriend, Barry, swore I couldn’t sell icebergs in Saudi. Luckily, he’s my boss.

  Make that EX: both boyfriend and boss.

  I’d learned that EX part about an hour before straddling that barstool at the Giggling Marlin. I should have smelled a skunk when Barry, the cheapskate, uncharacteristically took me to an upscale restaurant that didn’t comp him. Concerned that he was going to do something stupid, like propose marriage, I’d obsessed over a suitable reply all day. Something diplomatic enough to delay a commitment until I could find another place to live and secure a new job. I’m romantic that way.

  However, contrary to my expectations, the jerk plied me with fine food and wine and pronounced me dumped and fired.

  Jeez, he could have waited until after dessert.

  That disastrous dinner date with Barry explained why I was spiffed-up in a shortish sundress, espadrilles, and sported a smattering of face paint when I mounted my favorite barstool at the Marlin, instead of wearing my usual uniform of shorts and a tee shirt.

  My normally wild hair was somewhat tamed into an Evita-like do, or had at least started the evening that way. Cabo’s humidity had other ideas and I could practically hear the sprong! of tendrils busting loose.

  Pushing to half-standing on the barstool’s foot-rings, I steadied myself on the sticky wooden bar top with one hand while snatching a couple of cocktail napkins from the server’s station. Dabbing my eyes and cheeks, I checked for mascara smudges. Why, I have no idea, because I had yet to shed a single tear over Barry, the blackguard. I’d cry for myself, and maybe Argentina, later—after I’d rendered myself properly sloshed. I was already halfway there.

  “Enrique! Pacifico, por favor,” I yelled above the music.

  He gave me a thumbs-up, and a galvanized bucket with six unopened pony bottles artistically arranged in a mound of ice arrived in front of me, along with a plate of lime wedges.

  Even though there was a bottle opener attached to the bucket, I pulled a key ring from my purse and used my own. Orange, with a Longhorn logo, it played the “Eyes of Texas” when it touched the cap. I hummed along. I wasn’t just being patriotic; I’d lived in Mexico for enough years to know it paid to watch out for those dastardly amoebas lingering on publicly used…anything. And those lime slices? Lord only knew where they’d been.

  A guy slid onto the barstool next to me and let out a snort loud enough to be heard above the musical din. “You always carry your own opener?”

  “You ever mind your own bidness?” I snarled.

  He gave me a lopsided grin, raised his own beer in a salute, and sucked down half of it. Corona? Spare me! A friggin’ tourist. Obviously one who had been overserved enough not to recognize a blatant invitation to buzz off when he heard one.

  As he leaned in closer, a hint of aftershave titillated my nose. It had been a long while since I’d smelled it, and I suffered a moment of homesickness. I almost said something nice to him, but then, of course, he ruined the moment. “Let me guess, Red. You’re a Texan?”

  I was contemplating eviscerating him with my handy bottle opener when a cheer arose on the dance floor. He stood, turned away from me, and took a couple of steps toward the hubbub. Little did he know his curiosity probably saved him from a couple of stitches, what with the mood I was in.

  As he moved away, I couldn’t help but notice he was tall, maybe six-two to my five-six, and his sandy-reddish hair with scattered strands of gray brushed his shirt collar. Tourist, for sure. Locals who hang out at the Marlin don’t wear shirts with collars. And they danged sure don’t look or smell like this hunk.

  I mentally slapped myself upside the head. BAD Becky!

  Swiveling back to my beer, I took a slug when warm, slightly minty breath tickled my ear. “Hey, Tex, did you see that?”

  First I’m Red, and now I’m Tex? Us Texan gingers are not partial to strangers taking liberties with monikers. And, I was miffed he’d picked up on my accent—one that I’d done my best to lose. I must be drunker than I thought. Alcohol had obviously paved an escape route for my drawl.

  I shot my practiced blasé look of dismissal that should have put the skids to any further conversation attempts, but he waggled his phone and showed me a photo he’d snapped of a young woman hanging by her feet like a landed marlin while bar staff poured tequila down her gullet. My new wanna-be BFF tapped out a text message and showed me the screen: That girl is going to be seriously hung over, pun intended, tomorrow.

  So what? So am I. And who in the hell doesn’t use shortcuts in a text message?

  Are you going to drink all that beer by yourself?

  I nodded, turned away again, and opened myself another.

  Now that we were once again sitting side-by-side, my ill-behaved peripheral vision went rogue. Those crawdad eyes, as Daddy calls them, have a mind of their own and were sizing up the man hitting on me, despite me telling them he was of no interest. At least, they reported, he was a clean-cut looker, instead of one of the shaggy-haired, scruffy-bearded, cheap-tequila-quaffing sailors or slacker expats who populate Mexican beach towns like Cabo.

&n
bsp; Sapphire-blue eyes, smartly cut longish sun-bleached sandy hair, tall, no beer gut or overt signs of debauchery told the story: definitely not a local. A little older than my mid-thirties, he was dressed in an expensive Hawaiian shirt and sharp chinos. My rascally eyes also noted the fit of those chinos when he’d turned to watch the wet-shirted tourist being tequila-boarded. All in all? Not my usual type.

  But then again, my type was usually bad for me.

  He stuck his phone screen in front of me again.

  I’ll buy another bucket if you’ll share that one.

  I shrugged, pulled a pony from the ice, popped the cap, and handed it to him. He took a lime slice, rubbed it around the bottle’s lip, and then squeezed juice into the beer.

  I sighed. Amateur!

  Mr. GQ hoisted his beer in a toast. I raised mine in a half-hearted response, careful not to touch the possibly germ-laced lime juice on his bottle’s top. I’m no germaphobe, but after a while in Mexico one learns the wily ways of Montezuma’s revengeful tactics.

  He put down his beer and tapped his phone again. Sorry if I’m being a pest, but I have had a really bad day.

  He’s had a bad day? I’d see his bad day and raise him one.

  I gave him a non-committal grimace that might pass for sympathy, but didn’t encourage him to share whatever pitiful tale he had to tell. This was my pity party, no crashers allowed.

  The crowd roared, “¡Arriba!” goading another hapless tourist into being hoisted by their own drunken petard.

  My barstool buddy finished off his beer and took the last one from the slushy ice. He raised his arm to signal the bartender for another bucket, but I shook my head. Somewhere in my wine-and-beer-fogged noggin a voice of reason reminded me I had to find somewhere to crash for the night, now that I was homeless.

  Barry hadn’t exactly drop-kicked me to the curb, but I sure as hell wasn’t going back to his condo in the mood I was in. The last thing I needed or wanted was a confrontation with him that might escalate, grabbing the attention of the local cops.

  “No more beer? It’s early!” Aloha Shirt yelled, pointing to his expensive watch on a tanned arm. His arm hair was bleached to a rosy blond. Not that I noticed, mind you.

  I walked my fingers along the bar, towards the door.

  “Oh, okay, then. Thanks for the beer and good company.”

  I shook my head in disbelief. This guy must have had a Godzilla-tromps-your-butt kinda day if he considered me good company.

  ***

  Outside the Giggling Marlin, I shivered as a cool Pacific breeze wafted away stuffy barroom air. And after the boisterous carousers insisting they were having fun inside, I relished the relative quiet on the street.

  I say relative because there was plenty of traffic, both foot and motored, what with it being high tourist season. “Okay, Becky,” I mumbled to myself, “let’s find us a room.”

  I carried a credit card in my smallish evening bag but was loathe to use it, since it was my mom’s, only to be used for dire emergencies. However, I always keep at least two hundred dollars’ worth of pesos tucked into my bra, making the size of my décolletage dependent on the exchange rate. With the peso at almost twenty to the dollar, I was sporting solid Cs.

  Aiming myself at a hotel just down the street, near the marina, I struggled to look dignified—as drunks will do—but there was a definite hitch in my gitalong.

  Us timeshare hawkers get a huge discount on rooms in town, so I figured I could afford an upscale hotel for at least one night instead of ending up in some fleabag dump with a bunch of college kids.

  Relieved to see a guy I knew manning the front desk, I greeted George like my very best friend in the whole world and told him I was in need of a room.

  “When?” he asked.

  “Tonight?”

  He convulsed with laughter. Once he caught his breath, he said, “Very funny, Miss Rebecca.”

  “I’m serious. I really do need a room.”

  “Sorry, Chica. I thought you were joking.”

  “Nope. And please, call me Becky.”

  “Okay, Becky. But get real. You know how packed it is here during Spring Break. And this year, Break overlaps with Semana Santa. Half the Latinos in California are down here for All Saints Week. Hell, I’ve rented out my own house for a week for more than my uncle pays me to work here at the hotel in two months. I’m sleeping in my car.”

  “Your uncle is the manager?”

  “Nah, my uncle owns the joint. He’s actually my great-uncle, but he and my grandmother are tight, so she greased the wheels. Anyhow, you might check out San José del Cabo for a room, but my guess is they’re booked solid, too.”

  Yeah, right. Like I was gonna drive over twenty miles, in the dark, on a Mexican highway, during the two biggest drunken-tourist draws of the year, when I could barely walk?

  Anyhow, my car was still parked at Barry’s condo. I’d stormed off in a huff, leaving the jerk sitting at the restaurant table, and headed straight for the Marlin instead of doing the sensible thing of returning to the condo, fetching my ride and belongings, and then hitting a bar.

  Now that I’d had some fresh air, I realized that was a big mistake, since I didn’t want to take a chance on Barry being home. I had a condo key, but unless I wanted to gamble on running into the jerk, I’d have to retrieve my car and clothes while he was at work the next morning. Crappola.

  I plopped down on a tufted leather lobby couch. “I need to think about what to do next.”

  “Why don’t you just go home?”

  “Because Barry, the A-hole, dumped me.”

  “Bummer. Took him long enough.”

  “I guess—Hey! What do you mean by that?”

  “Nothing against you, Becky. It sounds like Barry’s MO.”

  “He has a modus operandi? And it’s familiar enough that you know about it?”

  He shrugged. “It’s just…well…you lasted a long time.”

  “Longer than…what?”

  “The other bim…uh, girls.”

  I chose to ignore the bimbo thing. After all, he did sorta call me a girl. Laughing, I joked, “So, what’d he do with my fellow bimbos? Bury them in the backyard?”

  He beamed, looking relieved that I hadn’t taken issue. “He replaced them with new arm candy,” he snapped his fingers, “just like that.”

  I raised an eyebrow. I think. One is never quite certain how clever one is being while tipsy.

  “Oh, I didn’t mean you’re arm candy.”

  Jeez, George. Open mouth, insert foot! “You don’t think so?”

  “Well, you are, uh, awful pretty, but….”

  He let that hang, and I was really interested to hear what the “but” was about, but he was starting to sweat. I’d love to get him in a high stakes poker game.

  I waved my hand in dismissal and smiled. “Just messin’ with ya, George. So, about how many of these dumpees are we talking about here?”

  “Well, let’s see.” He started counting on his fingers. “There’s you…”

  He’d named off six when I rolled my eyes. “Cut to the chase!”

  “Okay, okay. I’ve known him for about ten years, so maybe a dozen or so.”

  “And he’s still alive?” I blurted. “I’m surprised someone hasn’t offed him. What a bastard!”

  “You aren’t the first to call him that. And worse.”

  “And yet, no one bothered to warn me about him?”

  “Hey, Barry has clout around here in the hospitality industry. And no one really knew who dumped who, because none of the other gals stuck around to bad mouth him. Poof, girls gone. Probably right back where they came from.”

  Now that was a sobering thought if there ever was one. Back where I came from? Where? La Paz? Texas? “You mind if I hang here in the lobby for a bit? I gotta think.”

  “No problemo. Just don’t pass out, because the boss might stop by. Here, take these timeshare brochures. If el jefe does drop by, make it look like you’re at work. W
e kinda let Barry’s people sell from the lobby if they’re discreet.”

  I made my way to a posh leather chair partially hidden by a couple of potted palms and stared at my phone. Who could I call? It was almost midnight, and even though I’d been in Mexico for five years and had friends—more like acquaintances—scattered all over the Baja, most of them were vagabonds like me.

  I sighed and regretted leaving the Marlin and all that nice cold beer.

  Chapter Two

  There’s nothing like being suddenly dispossessed, in an already dilettantish (if that’s even a word) town like Cabo San Lucas, to realize what a rootless and superficial existence you’re leading.

  Like many who drift into resort areas and stay, my life was a day-to-day carrousel, with just enough work to have spending money, and enough partying to play like life is a cabaret.

  However, unlike most of them, I actually stashed my pesos, because deep down I guess I knew living with Barry was temporary. We’d never even been all that lovey-dovey, even in the beginning. Barry blamed his lack of ardor on being work-stressed due to crappy sales—which I certainly did little to improve—and fears someone would move in on his marketing team. For my part, Barry was a big yawn, but I needed a job and a place to live. How’s that for being shallow and opportunistic?

  After exhausting my phone’s favorite’s list for possible contacts who might have an extra couch in Cabo, it became evident I was out of luck. I decided to just go get my car, no matter if I had to confront Barry. My VW hatchback’s rear seat folds flat: curl up and crash space in a pinch.

  I was backing out the hotel door while thanking George for giving me a temporary place to sober up, when I collided with someone and fell forward, right onto my noggin.

  “Oh, m’god! I am so sorry. Lie still.”

  Despite my pain, I growled, “Just help me up, okay? I’m fine.”

  Four strong arms reached down and lifted me. Next thing I knew, whoever I knocked into, and the desk clerk, were guiding me to the lobby sofa. I wasn’t sure if my spinning head was a result of falling or too much booze, but I leaned against the backrest and closed my eyes. Raising my hand to gingerly feel my forehead, I probed for blood but didn’t find any. At least that.