J is for Judgment Read Free Page B

of her cheek as though she were checking her gums. Her brow lifted slightly. “It’s your money, I guess.”
    “Actually, it’s someone else’s money. This is business,” I said.
    She nodded, clearly unconvinced. She occupied herself with her magazine, a look on her face like she was trying not to butt in. After a moment I saw her murmur a comment to the man on her right. Her traveling companion, in the window seat, had a wad of Kleenex hanging out of one nostril, stanching a nose bleed that had apparently been induced by increasing cabin pressure as the plane prepared for takeoff. The twist of tissue looked like a fat hand-rolled cigarette. He leaned forward slightly to get a better look at me.
    I turned my attention to the woman again. “Really. Is there a problem?”
    “I’m sure it’s fine,” she said faintly.
    “Depending on how you feel about dust, humidity, and bugs,” the man interjected.
    I laughed …heh, heh, heh …on the assumptionthat he was kidding. Neither one of them cracked a smile.
    B elatedly, I learned that
viento negro
means “black wind,” a fair description of the blizzard of dark lava soot that swirled up from the beach late every afternoon. The hotel was modest, an upside down U-shape painted apricot yellow with little balconies across the front. Alternate patios had planters affixed to the railings with bougainvillea tumbling down in a waterfall of magenta. The room was clean but faintly shabby, looking out across the Gulf of California to the east.
    For two days I cruised both the Hacienda Grande and the town of Viento Negro, looking for anyone who even halfway resembled the five-year-old photographs of Wendell Jaffe. If all else failed, I could try to quiz the staff in my amateur Spanish, but I worried that one of them might tip him off to the inquiry. If he was there, that is. I hung out by the pool, loitered in the hotel lobby, took the shuttle into town. I tried all the tourist attractions: the sunset cruise, a snorkling expedition, a bumpy ass-agonizing jaunt on a rented all-terrain vehicle, roaring up and down dusty mountain trails. I tried the two other hotels in the area, local restaurants, and bars. I sampled the nightly entertainment at the hotel where I was staying, all the discos, all the shops. There was no sign of him.
    I finally managed to get a call through to Mac at home and filled him in on my efforts to date. “This iscosting a lot of money if he’s already blown out of here…assuming your friend actually saw Wendell Jaffe in the first place.”
    “Dick swore it was him.”
    “After five long years?”
    “Look, just keep at it for another couple of days. If he doesn’t turn up by the end of the week, you can head home.”
    “Happy to oblige. I just like to warn you when I don’t get results.”
    “I understand that. Keep trying.”
    “You’re the boss,” I said.
    I learned to like the town, which was a ten-minute taxi ride from the hotel down a dusty two-lane road. Most construction I passed was in a state of incompletion, raw cinder block and rebar abandoned to the weeds. A once stunning view of the harbor was obscured now by condominiums, and the streets were filled with tots selling Chiclets for a hundred pesos apiece. Dogs napped in the sunshine, sprawling on the sidewalks wherever it suited them, apparently trusting the local citizens to leave them unmolested. The store-fronts that lined the main street were painted harsh blues and yellows, bright reds and parrot greens, as gaudy as jungle flowers. Billboards proclaimed far-flung commercial influences from Fuji color film to Century 21 real estate. Most cars were parked with two wheels on the sidewalk, and the license plates suggested an influx of tourists from as far away as Oklahoma. The merchants were polite and responded with patience to my halting Spanish. There was no evidenceof crime or civil rowdiness. Everyone was too dependent on the visiting Americans to risk offense. Even so, the goods