Chapter 12

THOUGH AN HOUR HAD PASSED, the Cantina de Espejos was still without customers, and the band still hadn’t managed to get in tune.

The haphazard musicians saw Yaquita reenter and began to play with terrified enthusiasm. They didn’t sound any better after all their practicing, but Yaquita ignored them as she marched past the mirrors and up the curving stairs. She strode through the balcony door into the bedroom.

Smith lay where he had fallen unconscious on the floor, in exactly the same position. Yaquita closed the door, locked it and stared with lip-curled disdain at him.

“Pedrito!” She spat in his direction, but decided not to throw anything else, for now. She glared for another moment, filled with repugnance which turned to resignation. She was a passionate woman, but she wondered how she could ever have been passionate with Pedrito. Still, those had been some fun times. . . .

She shucked off her trench coat, then tossed it into the closet alcove on top of her hundred pairs of shoes.

“I do my duty for the revolution,” she sighed, “even if it is with him.”

* * *

Working with brisk movements, all business, Yaquita set an enamel coffeepot on the small bedside table. Her own special brew, the coffee steamed a pungent aroma that should have been enough to wake a man from the deepest coma. She splashed a big white china cup halfway full of the inky black liquid and added hot foamy milk from another pitcher.

Smith still sprawled on the floor, snoring. A swollen egg on his forehead marked where the brass pitcher had smashed him. Yaquita knelt beside him, adjusting her boots and tight black pants, then tilted the cup to dribble some of the potent coffee into his mouth. Groaning, Smith swallowed — but even the coffee didn’t wake him up.

Yaquita looked at the red-haired man intently and shook her head. All right, she would have to try more desperate measures. She stood, straightening her pants, then looked with narrowed eyes around her room. Luckily, she had many contingency plans.

Reaching under her pillow behind the enamel coffeepot, Yaquita drew forth a fifth of black rum, glanced at the label and pulled the cork out of the bottle with her teeth. She poured half of the contents into the coffeepot and sloshed it around.

“Try this, Pedrito. I guarantee it’ll have some effect.”

Yaquita took Smith by a handful of his hair and tipped his head back. His mouth fell open in a faint moan, and she mercilessly dumped the hot, rum-drenched coffee down his throat.

That worked.

Smith surged forward, his eyes bugged wide open. He gasped, trying to get his breath, coughing coffee. He grabbed at his head with both hands, pressing against the big lump.

“I’m glad you like it.” With a satisfied smile, Yaquita poured the rest of the rum into the pot and stirred it with the bottle neck. She filled the cup again. “Have some more.”

Still trying to shake off the disorientation, Smith staggered around the room, holding his pounding head. “This is the second time in two days I’ve woken up on the floor of a hotel room. Who are you, anyway, and why did you attack me?”

Forcing a smile, Yaquita gave him a push. He stumbled backward onto the bed and sat down heavily.

Yaquita thrust the refilled coffee cup into his hands. He drank it down reflexively. Bleary-eyed, Smith lowered the cup and peered into it. “Hey, that’s good coffee,” he said. “Mellowed with chicory?”

“It is a local blend grown in the Andes,” Yaquita answered, taking the empty cup and handing him a new one. He drank it down.

Now even more disoriented because of the effects of the rum, Smith reeled as he sat on the bed. “Funny, coffee usually wakes me up. But now I just feel . . . strange.”

Yaquita sniffed at the comment. “Pedrito, you act as if you’ve never been drunk before.”

He blinked at her innocently, working his lips until the slurred words finally came out. “Drunk? Drunk?” He closed his eyes, but the room still spun. “This is embarrassing. I don’t drink.”

Yaquita leaned against the side of the wardrobe with her arms folded. She looked at him in a deadly way, then steeled herself and made up her mind. “For the revolution . . . and for old times’ sake.” She ran her fingers along the edges of the black bolero jacket that barely covered her breasts.

“Pedrito, the only thing you were ever good for was bed,” she said loud enough for him to hear. She slid off the skimpy jacket. In keeping with her habit of throwing things, Yaquita even hurled her clothes across the room, one item at a time. “So get in bed.”

Smith stared at her aghast as she pushed him backward onto the mattress. “But, miss, I’m not —” Then he forgot the rest of his sentence. He couldn’t control his blinking eyes, nor could he focus on the multiple images of the devastatingly lovely naked woman who climbed onto the bedspread with him. . . .

* * *

Yaquita’s clothes and boots lay strewn across the floor. So did Smith’s khaki safari clothes, shoes and skivvies. The headboard of the brass bed shook, then went still. It shook again. And went still again.

Yaquita sat up, raising her head and bare breasts, glistening with perspiration. She gripped the brass headboard with a wide-eyed expression on her face. “Ai! This isn’t the same Pedrito I remember!” Her long black hair was mussed and her lipstick was smeared.

Beneath her, Smith still tried to say something, but Yaquita wouldn’t let him get a word out. “Oh! Ai, Pedrito!”

The headboard began to shake once more, briskly enough that another few knickknacks fell from shelves to floor. Neither Smith nor Yaquita paid any attention.