To Finn, the looming hotel looked like an upended cruise ship with its glass-rich facade, myriad balconies and abundance of white-painted metalwork. The lapping sea directly across the road helped cement the look and the modern structure certainly stood out against the seemingly endless neighboring buildings that stretched along the shore of the Caribbean Sea. This part of the resort city of Cancun was clean, tidy, high-end. Not a bad place to call home for a while, Finn felt.
Or a new place to stay at least, if not really a home. Finn didn’t consider anywhere home anymore. Despite his nomadic outlook, he wouldn’t have said he was that well-travelled, really, but he did remember coming to Cancun when he was a kid, with his brother and parents, twenty or so years ago. The scale of rapid development since those days surprised him.
Had this stretch of sand had any buildings on it at all back then? Who’d profited most from the growth, he wondered?
Not that he found the changes that unusual. Most recently he’d spent time in Abu Dhabi. Before that Oman, Dubai, Qatar. All countries, or cities or emirates or whatever they wanted to call themselves, that had seen big changes and quick expansion and modernization in a relatively short period of time. In all cases spurred on by one thing. Money.
Greed too, perhaps, but then those two things had been intrinsically linked for millennia, if not always.
In the Middle East, the source of the money remained the dark stuff underground, the wealth created from the export of oil enabling cities to spring up from the desert like mold spreading across a heavily decayed carcass. Oil was the source of the riches, but the economies of those new urban centers evolved all the time, the construction of skyscrapers in many ways a spur for their economies itself with tens, even hundreds of thousands of jobs on offer across the wage spectrum. Ridiculously low-paid jobs with slave-like conditions for many, but also opportunities higher up the food chain – the greed ladder – for others to take advantage of.
Finn had been on hand again and again to do just that. Not in a corrupt way like so many others, particularly those right at the top; he’d simply piggy-backed, here and there, taking what he could before moving on.
This time to Mexico, the Yucatán Peninsula and, specifically, Cancun. A very different feel here to the Middle East, and certainly no oil sheikhs in sight. But still plenty of money being thrown into development, much of it coming from tycoons from north of the border who could still take advantage of the relatively cheap real estate on offer and the far cheaper costs of construction – labor, in other words – to build luxurious hotels and apartment complexes that sold for Western prices to generate mega profits.
‘Cynic,’ Finn muttered under his breath, as though he didn’t benefit from it all too, offering his expertise and ‘talents’ to the big companies and rich businesspeople.
He approached the rotating entrance doors of the hotel where a uniformed bellboy greeted him with a nod, then he continued across the lobby and through to the hotel bar, a plush, chrome-heavy corner at the front of the hotel selling hellishly expensive cocktails. But not as expensive as the food at the grill restaurant directly adjacent in the open space, where overpriced steaks and seafood – probably frozen and shipped in from somewhere even cheaper than here – dominated the menu.
Finn took a stool at the bar and gazed around. There weren’t many people about in the early afternoon – at least not inside. The rooftop pool bar would be much busier, he knew. He saw only three other people drinking in the bar and four tables taken in the restaurant and, given the formal attire of the diners, all looked like groups enjoying corporate-account nourishment rather than tourists.
‘Good afternoon,’ the bartender said, an American edge to his accent even if English clearly wasn’t his native tongue. Lucas, his name badge read. Finn had met him before. ‘How can I help you today, Mr Delaney?’
‘Just a beer, please.’
Lucas set to it and moments later a tall, frosted glass, beer frothing at the top, stood on the shiny bar top.
‘You’d like a tab today, Mr Delaney?’ Lucas asked.
‘Sure,’ Finn said, before taking a large drag from the ice-cold beer. Delicious.
He turned to scan the room once more. Not trying that hard to be discreet. He didn’t stare directly but kept his focus mostly on the group of six people in the restaurant on the table closest to him. Five men, one woman. He recognized them all, even though he’d never spoken to any of them face-to-face.
He finished his beer within fifteen minutes, even though he’d tried his hardest to nurse it. Lucas brought him over a second before he’d asked. No harm in having another, he decided.
He took his time with that one. Still had more than half remaining nearly forty-five minutes later when the woman from the table stood up and moved toward the bar area. Finn noticed two of the guys from her party give her a sly eye as she walked away, clearly checking out her ass in the tight-fitting skirt she wore. Even before that moment he’d noticed the whole table had become more animated since Finn had arrived, and they’d worked through several bottles of champagne in that time. How many more did they have planned before they decided to call it time and go back to their jobs?
The woman neared Finn and he did his best not to catch her eye, wondering for a moment whether she was actually headed for him.
No. She carried on past, into the lobby, reaching in her bag for a packet of cigarettes.
Old school. For some reason he quite liked that.
He picked up his glass and stood from the stool.
‘You’re finished, Mr Delaney?’ Lucas piped up.
‘No, probably not,’ Finn said, before casually walking toward the exit.
He squinted a little as he moved outside to the front patio where a line of cream sofas sat in the bright sunshine. A few tourists were there, sipping on brightly colored cocktails, but the woman from the restaurant stood alone in a corner under the shade of an awning, puffing on a cigarette as she scrolled on her phone with her other hand.
Finn walked over to her. She glanced up once, stiffening a little when he didn’t alter his line of approach, ending up right next to her.
‘Hi,’ he said.
She looked up from her phone. ‘Can I help you?’ she asked, her tone unwelcoming.
‘I left mine in my room,’ he said, patting his shirt pocket. ‘Do you think I could…’
He indicated the smoldering cigarette in her hand.
She rolled her eyes as if she didn’t believe his patter, but still reached for her packet and held it out for him to take one.
‘No light either, right?’ she said. Her English was smooth but carried an unusual lilt to it. Definitely English-English, rather than American, but he couldn’t pinpoint the origin.
He shrugged and smiled. She flicked the flame on and as he leant forward to light the cigarette in his mouth he caught a whiff of her perfume.
Roses, he thought. Something flowery, anyway. It matched her look. Sweet, seductive. But with a thorny edge. The edge drew him in more than anything else.
‘That’s a really shit line, by the way,’ she said.
She put her phone away and glared at him.
‘Line?’ he asked, playing dumb.
‘You don’t smoke, do you?’
He took a puff and did his best not to cough, then decided there was no point in pushing it and he jabbed the lit end into the ashtray on the table.
‘Never been my thing,’ he said.
‘What, smoking? Or lying about smoking to give you an excuse to chat to women?’
‘Both, really.’
He smiled and rubbed the back of his neck, feigning nervousness. But really, he was enjoying the moment.
‘But you didn’t tell me to get lost,’ he said.
‘Call me curious. And in three minutes I’ll be back inside with my colleagues anyway, so what the hell.’
‘Work lunch?’ Finn asked.
‘Yeah. Whereas you’re sitting drinking on your own at the bar watching for women to approach. Bit creepy, isn’t it?’
So she’d spotted him before she came outside. Interesting. He ignored the dig. He didn’t sense any real animosity in it, despite her hard words.
‘I’m Finn,’ he said, holding out his hand.
‘Mariana,’ she said. She gave a surprisingly firm shake. ‘Very formal.’
‘What?’
‘A handshake? For someone you’re trying to flirt with?’
‘Flirt? I wouldn’t know where to start.’
She laughed at that, though it was quite scathing. ‘You’re something.’
They both fell silent. He kept his eye on her. Not trying to creep her out, just taking her in. To say she was attractive was an understatement. Not tall, five six maybe, with flowing dark brown hair to match her eyes. Every aspect of her face was just… nice. He’d observed her curvy figure too, though hadn’t made such a meal of noticing, not like the way her drunken work colleagues had ogled her.
But he liked her confident and assertive manner most – perhaps because he hadn’t expected it, especially not with such a sharp edge.
‘You’re English,’ he said.
‘I’m only part English actually.’
‘Which part of you?’ Finn asked.
She rolled her eyes but then laughed. Finn was sure she’d tried her hardest to stifle the laughter by the way she turned away from him.
‘Jesus, Finn, where are you going with this?’
She stubbed out the end of her cigarette, a sign that she was almost done talking to him.
‘I’m part English too,’ he said.
‘You don’t sound it.’
‘Born there. Didn’t live there a long time, though. Moved to the States when I was a kid.’
She said nothing to that, as though she couldn’t care less.
‘You live here?’ Finn asked.
‘Yeah. Live and work. You? Looking for a quick holiday fling?’
‘No. I work here too, actually.’
She looked a little surprised at that and glanced back through the window toward her table.
‘It’d be nice to take you for a drink some time,’ Finn added. ‘When you’re not so busy.’
She scrunched her nose up, looking unimpressed. ‘Nah. I don’t think so. This isn’t how I do things.’
She made to move away but Finn shuffled across to hopefully stop her.
‘You work with Victor Travers, right?’
‘How do you know that?’
‘I’ve seen you in here before, with him.’
She caught his eye. That scathing look again.
‘So that’s it. You want an autograph or something?’
‘No.’
‘Then what? Wait… Journalist?’ She spoke that last word with real disdain.
‘Not that either.’
‘Then what?’
‘I dunno,’ he said, with another nonchalant shrug. ‘What’s he like to work with?’
‘Seriously?’ she said, a smile ready to break on her face once more, though he wasn’t sure if she was amused or something else. ‘You’re… weird.’
Finn laughed and her smile came out. ‘Maybe. But seriously, what’s he like? What do you do for him?’
‘You really want to know?’
‘I do.’
‘My technical title is operations manager.’
‘Operating what?’
‘Whatever he asks me to.’
‘I’ve always wanted to work for someone like him,’ Finn said. ‘Rich, powerful. Self-made man who sees the world for what it is but who’s never forgotten where he came from. Someone who actually wants to make a difference.’
‘You definitely haven’t met him then,’ she said, with a wink.
Finn laughed.
‘What should I know, if I were thinking of getting a job like yours? Give me your top tip for getting along with Victor Travers.’
‘My top tip?’ She looked away for a moment as though deep in thought. ‘Here’s two for you. One, don’t harass his female staff in bars, or his male staff for that matter, hoping for an easy way in. It’s just… creepy. Two, call a recruiter and get yourself a job the old-fashioned way.’
She squeezed past him, their shoulders brushing as she went.
‘Nice chatting to you, Mariana,’ he said.
She paused and turned and held his eye for a moment. Finn was sure she was about to say something else. Then she carried on inside, out of sight.