Lone Star 03 (16 page)

When Salazar had gone, Jessie and Ki stood looking at the table, trying to decide whether to sit opposite their unexpected companion, or beside her. Adelita Mendoza settled the matter. She indicated the two chairs across from her.

“Please, sit down,” she said. She waited until Ki had held Jessie's chair and taken the one next to her, and then, in excellent, almost unaccented English, she went on, “Don't be worried by Pierre. He has French blood, you understand, which makes him excitable. Now tell me, where in the United States do you live?”

“Not too far from here,” Jessie replied. “A cattle ranch about forty miles east of the Rio Grande.”

“Then we have something in common to begin with. My father also breeds cattle, though I doubt that they're the kind you have on your ranch, Miss—”

“Starbuck,” Jessie said.

“I wasn't sure, after hearing Pierre say your name.”

“What kind of cattle does your father breed, Miss Mendoza?” Ki asked.

“I used the word loosely,” Adelita replied apologetically. “He breeds fighting bulls for our
corrida de toros.”

Ki had been studying Adelita Mendoza while she talked. She seemed to be in her mid-twenties. Her chin robbed her of a claim to true beauty; it was too long and narrow for the rest of her face. Her brow was high, an oval rising smoothly from coal-black eyebrows to equally black hair. Her eyes were large and strangely light, a violet-hued blue, set between long lashes. A thin, straight nose with flared nostrils dominated her face. Her cheekbones were high and thin, her lips a wide red gash, parting when she smiled or spoke to show small, perfect, and gleaming white teeth.

She had on a dress of light blue silk and a rebozo of white lace draped around her shoulders. Ki wondered if she'd pull the shawl up to cover her head when she went on the street, as did the women he'd seen in the plaza.

“They're not quite the same as beef cattle, I'm sure,” Jessie smiled.

“No. Much more beautiful, of course. I always feel a bit sad when we ship a consignment to a
corrida.
You have seen our
corrida,
of course?”

Jessie shook her head, and Ki answered, “No. That's something I've missed.”

“You must plan to attend one while you are in Mexico, then, Señor—” Adelita paused and then said, “I'm sorry, but I didn't hear your name when Pierre made the introductions.”

“My name is Ki.” When Adelita said nothing, and Ki saw that she was waiting for him to give his surname, he told her, “That's all the name I have, Miss Mendoza. Ki.”

“Oh. I see,” she said, though it was clear she did not. “But you are not from the United States, are you?”

“I am now. But I was born in Japan.”

“Oh.” Adelita was obviously embarrassed; speaking rapidly, she went on, “It is odd how the custom of names is different in different places. I have six names, and my father has nine. He only uses one, of course, and his last name is very seldom spoken, since everyone simply calls him Don Almendaro.”

Jessie and Ki exchanged quick covert glances. After having so recently realized that Buell Henderson had pronounced “Guzman” as
goose man,
they reached the same conclusion almost simultaneously. Henderson's dying words,
all men,
could well have been the beginning of “Almendaro.”

Chapter 11

So brief was the exchange of glances between Jessie and Ki that Adelita Mendoza was not aware it had taken place. She chatted on, “When we moved to the ranch—I was a very small child, then—I remember my mother and father arguing whether he should name this hotel Almendaro or Mendoza. But, as you've seen, my father had his way. He usually does, of course.”

“Do I understand that your father owns the hotel?” Jessie asked.

“No longer, Miss Starbuck,” Adelita replied. “It was the Mendoza family home, you understand, before my father decided we should move to the ranch. I think my mother did not want to move, or to sell the home here in San Pedro, so father made it into this hotel. Pierre managed the hotel for him. Then, soon after my mother's death, my father sold it to Pierre.”

“It must be pleasant at your ranch, though,” Ki said, trying to keep the conversation on the topic of ranches until he had a chance to ask Adelita about a ranch with
tres
in its name.

Adelita grimaced. “Every day is the same. The same house, the same rooms, the same trees seen from the same windows.”

Ki asked the question he really wanted to. “Your father has several other ranches, I suppose.”

“Oh, he has much property, but we live at the Rancho Mendoza because it is nearest to San Pedro.”

“And you never travel?” Jessie asked.

“Father dislikes travel, Miss Starbuck. When he transacts business with others, they come to him. And the only traveling I do is an occasional trip from the ranch to San Pedro. But as father doesn't approve of me riding horseback, I must make even that trip in our carriage, which is very old.”

“Is that the landaulet I saw in the courtyard?” Ki asked.

“Yes. It is in good condition, but not very comfortable.”

“Even if you don't travel, you must have quite a few interesting visitors at your ranch,” Ki suggested.

Adelita shook her head. “No. Very few. Most of them are beyond my age and only interested in money. I enjoy most the season before the
corridas
begin, when the
toreros
come to test the bulls. They are ... well, it is a time I enjoy.” She looked at Ki as though seeing him for the first time, and her dark eyes seemed to become opaque for a moment. “The way you move, you remind me of some of the
toreros,
Ki.”

“If that's a compliment, I thank you, Miss Mendoza,” Ki said. “But bullfighting is something of which I know little.”

They were interrupted by a very young waiter bringing their dinners. There were boned chicken breasts, a mildly spiced rice, and brown beans mashed into a thick paste seasoned with strips of large, mild red peppers. A tall pillar of thin tortillas, wrapped in a large napkin to keep them warm, took the place of bread.

Conversation languished while they ate. Efforts by both Jessie and Ki to begin a line of talk leading up to the information they wanted failed to draw more than a few words from Adelita. She seemed to have pulled into a shell after what they'd considered a promising beginning.

Jessie and Ki had worked as a team for so long that they could communicate by a look, a raised eyebrow, an imperceptible nod or headshake, the movement of a hand or even of a finger. They agreed by such signals not to push too hard for the information they were after. They'd learned nothing new when the waiter cleared away the dinner plates, brought individual
flan
shells filled with a cinnamon-topped custard, and placed a silver pot of coffee on the table.

They had barely tasted the dessert when Salazar came in and whispered into Adelita's ear. She nodded and stood up.

“You will excuse me, please,” she said. “I have a small duty to perform. Perhaps we can talk again at breakfast.”

Jessie and Ki were seated with their backs to the arched door that led into the lobby. They watched Adelita until she was almost to the door, then returned to their dessert.

Jessie said, “Obviously the girl knows nothing about her father's business.”

“I understand it's not the habit of Latin men to discuss business matters with the women of their families.”

“I'm glad Alex wasn't that way. If he hadn't started teaching me about his business when I was young, the cartel would have swallowed all the Starbuck holdings by now.”

“We should ask Salazar about the Mendoza ranches, Jessie,” Ki suggested. “Perhaps you'd better do that tomorrow. He looks down his nose at servants, as I guess you've noticed.”

“Yes. But I don't see why I should wait until tomorrow. We've almost finished, and he was here just a moment ago, so he must still be in the lobby. I'll ask him when we go upstairs.”

Jessie glanced over her shoulder, into the lobby. When she did not turn her head back at once, Ki asked, “Do you see him?”

“No. I was looking at Adelita. Evidently her father tells her something about his business, because she was talking to a man twice her age, much too old to be a suitor or a sweetheart.”

Ki turned to look, but saw no one.

Jessie said, “You missed them. They both walked away, right after the man handed Adelita something. I couldn't see clearly what it was, but I'm positive it wasn't a love note.”

“A message to her father, I'd imagine,” Ki said. “But if our suspicions are correct, Jessie, it might be something we'd be interested in. What did the man look like?”

“Stout. Not very tall. A rather coarse face, though I just got a glimpse of it. He was very well dressed, judging by the gold embroidery on his coat sleeve, which was about all I could see when he handed Adelita whatever it was he gave her.”

“Ask Salazar about the man, when you talk to him, then.”

“I will.” Jessie pushed her chair back from the table. “We'd better go, Ki. We're the last ones here, and if we wait too long I might miss Salazar.”

When they went into the lobby, though, it was deserted. They looked at the several doors that opened on the lobby, and Ki shook his head. “Salazar could be behind any of those doors, and I don't think we want to make too much of a point of asking him questions about Mendoza. Why not wait until breakfast?”

“No matter what we might find out, there isn't anything we can actually do tonight,” Jessie agreed. “And after the past few nights, I'm going to enjoy that comfortable bed upstairs.”

“So will I, after I soak off the dust that I picked up on the way here. We'll decide what to do at breakfast tomorrow, then, after you've talked to Salazar.”

 

 

Ki was sleeping as soundly as he ever did when on a mission and in strange surroundings, but the almost inaudible scratching on his door brought him instantly awake and alert. He knew it could not be Jessie summoning him; she'd simply open the door between their rooms and call him. As was his habit, Ki had been sleeping naked. When the scratching was repeated, he draped his shirt over his shoulders and padded barefoot to the door that opened on the hallway.

His mouth close to the panel, he asked in a half-whisper, “Who is it?”

Adelita Mendoza's voice was pitched at the same low tone in which he'd spoken. She said, “Ki?”

“Yes.”

“Won't you invite me in?”

Ki opened the door a crack. Adelita stood in the dimly lit corridor. She was wearing a loose, filmy white robe that billowed below the cloud of dark hair drifting over her shoulders. Ki opened the door wide enough for her to slip inside the room.

“I didn't dare say anything to you at dinner,” she said. “I wasn't sure whether there was anything between you and Miss Starbuck. I'm still not sure, but I decided to find out.”

Adelita was standing close enough to Ki for him to feel the warmth radiating from her body. He said, “There isn't anything between Jessie and me except deep friendship.”

“I began to see that, just before Pierre came to tell me the man my father sent me here to meet was waiting for me. When I looked back in the dining room, you and Miss Starbuck were leaving the table, and I didn't want to talk to you in the lobby.”

“You didn't come here to talk now,” Ki said. “Did you, Adelita?”

“No. And please call me Lita, Ki. I won't feel that we're such strangers, if you do.”

“Of course, Lita.”

She went on, “I tried to give you a hint at dinner, when I told you that you remind me of the
toreros
who visit the ranch.”

“I got the idea you were more than just friends with some of the bullfighters, but I didn't take that as an invitation.”

“It wasn‘t, Ki. My being here now is one.”

Lita slid her hands through the unbuttoned front of Ki's shirt and ran them lightly down his ribs. Ki took his cue from her move, and stroked her cheek softly with the back of his hand. He was moving his fingers down to caress the sensitive area that lay just under the smooth skin at the side of her neck when Lita grasped his wrist.

Pressing the palm of his hand to her lips, she began running the tip of her hot moist tongue in a circle around its center. Ki's hand was too heavily muscled for the caress to be effective, and when Lita did not feel it moving in response to her efforts, she took his fingers into her mouth one by one and began to lick and suck on them.

Ki recognized her signal, but ignored it. He slid his free hand along her shoulders and pushed the filmy material of her robe away from them. She shrugged and the robe slid down to fall in a heap on the floor. In the dim light that filtered in from the room's wide windows, Ki could now see the dark rosettes of her firm high breasts outlined against their creamy skin. He bent down to kiss them and Lita rose on tiptoe, arching her back to make the quivering globes easier for him to reach.