Ocean Burning Read Online Free Page B

downtown Guadalajara. I didn’t have a passport, so they wanted money. I didn’t have any, so they put me in lockup.”
    “And then?”
    “And that’s it. I sat there in lockup. I’m sure they thought I was just another tourist whose husband would come running in with a fat wallet. I couldn’t call you—you never had a phone.” She wiped away some of the tears herself, started to laugh. “Probably still don’t.”
    I grinned and nodded.
    “Eventually I got my brother in LA to wire them some money, and they cut me loose. But that was four, maybe five days after they picked me up. And you were gone.” She looked at me, long and hard.
    I detected something like reproach in her glance, as though I’d abandoned her. Something caught in my throat.
    ”Long gone, Frank,” she said.
    “It wasn’t like that,” I said. “Two days after you disappeared, the Federales kicked down my door.”
    She sat up straight, reached out and grabbed my hand again. “What are you talking about?”
    “Someone tipped them off about the engraving plates. Not that Mexicans particularly care about someone counterfeiting American dollars, but who turns down a softball? They knew exactly where everything was. Miguel and I got interrogated together, then separately, for days on end. For awhile there I thought they were going to forget the investigation. Just forget about us, lock us up and throw away the key.”
    She leaned in across the table. “Who tipped them off?” she whispered.
    I liked that she didn’t skirt around the sixty-four thousand dollar question. Her face was open, her red red mouth a little “O” of surprise and worry.
    “Miguel was pretty sure you did,” I said, and sat back and waited.
    For a minute she said nothing, didn’t react at all. Then her face blended into confusion, then contorted into rage. She closed one hand into a fist and brought it down on the tabletop, rattling the silverware together. Everyone looked at us.
    “He said what?” she said, her voice much too loud.
    I put both hands out, palms down, and lowered them, signaling for her to lower her voice.
    “He said what?” she repeated, in a hoarse whisper that sounded like a growl.
    “He said that you did it, turned us in for the reward. Said that you were the one that introduced us, after all.”
    “And you believe him?”
    I studied her face, and went with my gut. It never let me down, and right now is was telling me Carmen was telling the truth. Either that or she was giving an Oscar caliber performance.
    “No,” I said, and she let out the breath she had been holding. “No, I don’t believe him.”
    “You really don’t?” she sighed.
    “No. You were always a terrible liar, Carmen. Remember my surprise party?” We both laughed. “Besides, Miguel was somehow walking around downtown by the third night after the raid, and someone shot him. They called it a robbery,” I paused, “but it seemed too much of a coincidence. The thing about cutting a deal with the Federales is that they never keep their word.”
    “And what about you?” she asked.
    “Me? I’m still sending an envelope of cash to a police lieutenant every month. I probably will be as long as I want to stay in Mexico.”
    “And you bought the boat?”
    “With everything I had left. They had me close enough to the prison that I could smell it, and that was enough for me. I mean, it was the building next to the station—I could actually smell the place, Carmen. Talk about a deterrent. I haven’t even dreamed about easy money since then.”
    She seemed to imagine me locked up in there, and her smile collapsed. “It was my fault,” she said, and another tear rolled down her cheek.
    I felt my face soften. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
    “No, really. If I had never met Miguel, if I had never let him convince me how simple the whole plan would be to pull off, if I had never even told you about it…we would still be together.”
    The two-step in my chest turned into a