“Have I just landed in the middle of a mafia showdown?” María José asked in a deadpan voice.
With a slight grimace, she stirred the machine-made coffee in her flimsy plastic cup with a thin wooden stick. She glanced at the soggy, boxed sandwich whose contents were impossible to identify by color or texture. The thick, heavy buzz of the airport irritated her, as did the chaotic mix of languages she couldn’t make sense of. She didn’t hear a single word of Spanish, English, or German around her.
“Don’t exaggerate, Majo. What are you talking about?” Carlos chuckled nervously.
“What am I talking about?” the old woman snapped, raising her eyebrows angrily. “Maybe about the fact that the last thing I remember is you inviting me to dinner, and then—who knows how much later—I woke up on the other side of the world. And you think I’m overreacting! How often does this sort of thing happen to you, Carlos? Because for me, apparently, it’s once every seventy-five years.”
The retired pastry chef shot him a look that could kill.
“That’s not what I meant,” Carlos stammered. “I’m just trying to calm you down because I know our lives aren’t in danger. Besides, people usually don’t walk away from a mafia showdown,” he explained. “If they wanted to hurt us, we’d either be dead or lying in intensive care right now.”
“And who exactly are we talking about?” María José asked in a cold, firm voice.
“I have no idea.”
“Oh, I don’t buy that,” she snapped. “I think you know exactly whose toes you’ve stepped on.”
“Oh, come on—look who’s talking!” Carlos shot back, clearly offended.
“Me?”
“Yes, you! With your little game,” Carlos grumbled. “Or have you forgotten that you ‘accidentally’ stole Ted’s notes from me?”
“And who do you think that could have hurt?” María José demanded, her tone accusatory.
“I don’t know. But you weren’t the least bit surprised when you saw that box floating in the pool—the one you took the notes from? Didn’t it occur to you that it didn’t just jump back in there by itself? I think it was meant to be a message for you. Just like the other things floating in the water for the others.”
“What kind of message?”
“To stay out of other people’s business.”
“Oh, please, Carlos—that’s ridiculous!”
“Yeah? Says the woman sitting in Bangkok airport, sipping machine coffee and clutching a plastic-wrapped sandwich. Congratulations,” he mocked. “There’s a real private investigator buried deep inside you. Very, very deep.”
“You’re the one who took me to dinner—this whole mess is on you!”
“If they didn’t have a problem with you, you wouldn’t be here. They could’ve knocked me out just fine without you.”
“Carlos,” María José began in a lecturing tone, “do you seriously think that half-wit, neurotic idiot Ted could organize something like this? He’d have a panic attack just thinking about it and an ambulance would have to haul him away!”
“I never said Ted was behind this,” Carlos protested. “I said whoever is after Ted is behind it.”
“Who the hell would be after Ted?”
“Could be anyone.”
“Oh, now I get it,” the woman jabbed.
“Look, Majo, Ted’s probably some kind of con artist. It’s very likely he scammed someone financially, and he ran off to the island to hide. This person wants to catch him—and you’re busy stealing things from Ted that might be exactly what this guy is looking for.”
“And you? What exactly have you been doing with Ted, if I may ask?”
Carlos’s face turned beet red. How on earth was he supposed to tell her that he and his private investigator buddies had been tracking Ted constantly—and that he’d even planted a listening device in Ted’s living room?
“You know, Majo, sometimes I mess with him a little, just like I mess with everyone. Maybe he misunderstood.”
“Do you take me for an idiot?” María José shot to her feet.
Her sudden movement sent coffee splashing all over her blouse.
“Oh, great, just perfect! Now I get to travel looking like a senile old fool who can’t even manage to drink a bloody cup of coffee!”