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Author: Guede Mazaka
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Will/Elizabeth, Jack/Will, some Jack/Jacques. Eventual Jack/Will/Elizabeth
Feedback: Good lines, bad ones, etc.
Disclaimer: Does not belong to me.
Notes: Ripping off every movie ever seen by the author that involved something going on beneath the U. S.-Mexican border. Modern-day AU. Jacques is a kind of fandom-owned original character that looks like Brad Pitt. José Gaspar was a real person; here he looks like Antonio Banderas just because the author said so.
Summary: Improbably coincidental meetings, rampant fades to black just as things get interesting, and much twisting of the plot.
***
As it turned out, they made their intended stop way before daylight ended after Elizabeth persuaded Will to just level the damn pedal. He’d pointed out that that might not work out—not because they could get a speeding ticket, but because the roads would mess up the transmission and Will hadn’t brought something or the other so he couldn’t fix that. Elizabeth had made a note that Will’s mechanical skills were apparently macro as well as micro and had argued for the physics of the cheetah, who could zoom over uneven savannah terrain without worrying about stepping in holes and breaking its ankle precisely because it went so fast. He hadn’t quite bought that she’d been premed for a year and that was how she knew, but they’d managed to compromise at going Roadrunner-speed instead of warp or snail.
Once they’d gotten into town, Will had insisted on checking into their hotel, but after that Elizabeth had put her foot down and insisted on some tequila. Will had been suspiciously agreeable.
The first bar they walked into was too busy. The second bar was too dead. Well, not quite that far. When Elizabeth peeked in, there was one living guy with a nose that could’ve hooked Jaws mopping up, and a stack of corpses in the corner. The walls looked like a drunken guy had taken a tank of red paint to them that was totally a clashing shade with the terracotta floor. “Ew,” she said.
Will poked his head in, made an intriguingly exasperated face, and backed out. He put his hand up to his mouth and chewed on his thumb as he walked to the corner, then came back. After a little more thought, he stuck his head back in the bar. The guy mopping the floor looked like he wanted to stack them in a corner. “We’re closed,” he snapped.
To which Will rattled off some extremely apologetic-sounding Spanish that made the guy with the mop turn white. The more he talked, the more worried the mop-guy looked, until finally the mop couldn’t take it anymore and came flying at Will. He ducked. Elizabeth picked up an ashtray from the nearest table and flung it back.
“Well, you didn’t knock him into the already-cleaned part,” Will said after a moment. “I’m sure the cartels will appreciate that.”
“If they’ve got any taste, they will. Come on. You promised me a good tequila story.” Elizabeth tugged at Will’s arm.
He still looked like he wanted to go in and question the unconscious guy, or maybe riffle his clothes, but he came along with her. Eventually they found a place that hadn’t just hosted a bloodbath of epic proportions in which to have dinner. Elizabeth wanted to get puerco pibil, but for some reason, it’d been crossed off the menu and the staff all looked terrified when she mentioned the dish. So she settled for a beef enchilada while Will ordered some regional specialty.
“So,” Elizabeth mumbled. “Where’d the car come from?”
Will blinked, then put down his fork. He twisted the cap off the tequila bottle and poured a pair of shots. After scooting one over to her, he took the other one and slammed it back with a brisk efficiency that made Elizabeth’s eyebrow rise.
“Did I mention I used to be bi?” He picked up his fork again and picked at his food.
“And what, you had a conversion? I’m flattered, but—”
It wasn’t quite an eyeroll, but Will’s eyes did twitch in that direction. He stuffed in a big mouthful and chewed, which was polite of him. Once he’d suppressed the clear urge he had to be interesting and snarky, he took up the conversation again. “The last time I was down here, my boyfriend was driving. The car’s his.”
“And…now it’s yours? Where’s the boyfriend?” Warning bells and hormones simultaneously began to go off in Elizabeth. On the one hand, she’d always wanted to take a walk on the dangerous threesome side, but on the other, she really wasn’t all that fond of getting stuck in other people’s drama. God knew planning her own took up enough time and effort.
Will did the thing with his shoulders that meant he didn’t want to talk about it. It took a moment for Elizabeth to get it because she wasn’t used to seeing guys do it.
“Ooooo…well, nice. You walked away from it with the car, which has to be a big plus,” she said. Her enchilada was pretty good, but Will’s food looked better so she snitched a little bit.
He saw it, but didn’t make a move to slap her hand. Actually, he started to slide the plate into the middle of the table, but she pushed it back. Food tasted better when sneaked off, and anyway, she needed to watch her figure. This was going to be a vacation, not a descent into eating to assuage guilt.
“Yeah, but the thing is, I have to give it back. That’s why I was going to Mexico in the first place.” The maps came out, but thankfully, Will limited himself to just unfolding one. He moved aside their shotglasses to make room; Elizabeth thoughtfully grabbed the bottle. “I’m supposed to meet up with him here.”
She had to stare at the map for a while. “Will, you’ve circled an entire Mexican state.”
Will looked pained. “I know. Jack’s a bit…vague sometimes. A lot of the time.” He absently picked up the shot he’d poured out for Elizabeth and downed it. “All the damn time, especially when it has to do with…oh, never mind. Oh, damn. That one was yours, wasn’t it?”
Elizabeth smiled and held up the bottle. “You can have the glass. I’m just fine.”
The grin tugged at the corners of Will’s mouth till he finally gave in and laughed. “Hey, take it easy. Otherwise I’ll go out and start tracking him down by myself and just leave you in the hotel room.”
“You wouldn’t dare,” Elizabeth said fiercely, leaning forward. She held her face till Will began to look worried, then giggled as she sank back in her seat. “So why does looking for this Jack involve knocking out people and checking on corpses?”
* * *
Jack was starting to get a bit tired of all the mess. It wasn’t like he was asking for anything difficult, really. Just directions to a certain person who might be high-ranking in terms of the Mexican underworld, which was really more like the world of Mexico, but that should’ve made things even easier. After all, it was a lot harder to point to someone that had hidden in a cave all his life than someone who’d single-handedly revived the apple as a symbol of sin and destruction.
He sighed and tapped the man lying beneath him with his pistol. “Listen, mate. It’s not like I’m all that fond of mashing up things. Well, except for possibly refried beans and rice, which is really how that should be eaten…but I’m digressing. Faces definitely don’t mash well, and so I’m not interested in doing that. I’m just asking a question, here.”
“Gurrrr…” went the man. When Jack tipped up the man’s chin, the fellow’s eyes rolled backwards.
Damn. So much for that one; Jack got up, dusted himself off and looked around for another nearly-dead barfly. He spotted one over by the jukebox and started in that direction. The man’s head lolled so he spotted Jack. His eyes briefly widened before the muscles around them went pointedly slack.
All right. There was a third one lying by the bar, but Jack had barely looked at him before he suddenly went off. Jack turned around and locked eyes with a fourth near the door, who promptly croaked.
Rolling his eyes, Jack crossed his arms. “Oh, come on.”
The last two gave their death rattle. Honestly, that damn mariachi band had wiped out the cream of the Mexican-thug crop, and the dregs that were left weren’t worth the dirt it took to make them look villainous enough. Everyone knew one guy was supposed to stay alive long enough to half-answer Jack’s question.
With another sigh, Jack bent over and began tucking his guns back into his clothes. He stopped once to stretch out his back, which had kinked up something awful from that backflip he’d had to do over the bar.
While he was bent over, a shadow passed over his right foot, through his legs and then stopped on his left. The high, ominous whistle of a Sergio Leone western filled the air. Not being an idiot, Jack kept on bending till he was squatting on the floor and facing the door. He noticed his case had slid to his right and carefully put out a hand to push it behind himself.
The case screeched on the tile. Jack winced. The shadow, which had been moving from window to window towards the door, stopped. The music didn’t.
After a pause, the shadow kept on going, and soon its source came sauntering towards the door. It was easy enough on the eyes to inspire a moment of sheer appreciation from Jack.
The man was Caucasian and blond, and his suit was nice enough to say he wasn’t just any casual tourist even though the whistling implied that he was a little light on the wits. He carried a black suitcase and had the faint outline of a gun plumping up the back of his jacket. A quick moment of deft fingerwork, and Jack had that gun out in time to point it at the man’s surprised face. “Good morning. Now, I’ve just the one question—”
“It’s four in the afternoon,” the man said in a quizzical voice. He had just enough of a French accent to sound as dessert-like as he looked.
Jack shrugged. “Ah, well, I’ve been a bit too busy to check the clock.”
This didn’t seem to clear up the man’s confusion very much. He frowned and lifted his hand towards the gun, which reminded Jack of something. Oops. Now the safety was off.
The man froze. “I, ah, don’t suppose you have any notion who my employer is?”
It was Jack’s turn to frown and move his fingers. The man’s eyes flicked to them, then flicked down to his suitcase, the lock of which was adorned with a skull with black pearls set into the sockets. A faintly mortified look came over the man’s face, then smoothed away into a businesslike air.
“Ah. Well, then, you do know. Bon. Then you realize this is utterly stupid of you,” the man said.
“Stupid’s a question of opinion most of the time. I prefer to think of it as being creative about the odds.” Whereupon Jack stepped forward and whapped the man on the side of the head with a shotgun butt while he was staring at the other gun Jack was holding. The man dropped forward, Jack tossed the shotgun onto a table and caught him just as the briefcase clattered to the floor. Jack winced.
Two minutes later, he’d decided the man had to be something decorative for the office—an accountant’s assistant, maybe. The briefcase hadn’t produced any nasty little explosions that were one of Barbossa’s trademarks, and Jack had gotten the man, all the guns, two cases of rum and both their cases loaded into the car before anyone came looking. If people were going to insist on not delivering their lines in the right setting, then he’d change the setting. He didn’t have the time to wait around till they got things straight.
The man woke up just as Jack and Anamaria—who was not happy about having it out in her apartment and surprisingly unappeased by the first-rate rum Jack offered her in exchange—were finishing up with knotting him to a chair. He took it fairly well, considering: blink, blink, and then he was looking up at Jack. “I think you’re a dead man for this.”
“Oh, he’s been that for a hell of a lot more than that mess,” snapped Anamaria. She yanked her last knot hard—the man hissed—then swiveled up from her squat. “Goddamn it, Jack.”
“Then you don’t want this?” Jack held up the bottle of rum.
Her snort could’ve cut steel, and it was a good thing he had a quick hand or else her nails would’ve done something fierce to him when she grabbed the bottle. “Never said that,” she muttered, stomping around him to start cleaning the guns piled on the bed. Though first she somehow felt the need to give him a good wallop on the cheek. “And damn it, I can get this for cheaper at the corner store. What I’m going to miss, y’damn fool, is their ceviche. Could’ve given me a warning so’s I could have a last helping there.”
“My sincerest apologies, Anamaria.” Rubbing his cheek, Jack went back to flipping through the man’s wallet. “Somehow I’m thinking your name is not Raymond Chandler.”
The man tilted his head. “No?”
Very coy. About five years ago, Jack might’ve been a bit too fond of that, and ten years ago he might’ve been studying the man’s technique, but today he had business to conduct. He dropped the wallet and slid off the bed to fiddle with the lock on the man’s briefcase. “No. And somehow I’m thinking it wasn’t your idea, either. Chandler’s a bit light on the words, isn’t he?”
“‘Stark,’ I think, is how most people describe it. My name is Jacques.” Pause, and then in a more concerned, less polished voice: “Could you please mind that? They’re expensive.”
Jack held up the pen, glanced at Jacques, and then expertly took it apart to flick out the tracking chip at Anamaria. She didn’t see it at first because she was in the middle of a Desert Eagle, but once she got done with the gun she looked over. Then she flipped over. “Goddamn it, Jack!”
He hadn’t been expecting her to take it quite that badly and had to scramble fast to get behind Jacques’ chair. “Now, Ana—Anamaria! Just take it on a whirl through town. It’s not like they’ve gone looking for him yet.”
“Excuse me?” Jacques wrinkled his nose as if someone had taken a blowtorch to a chunk of goat cheese. He twisted around and glanced at the hands Jack had put on his shoulders. “I’m not certain if you do actually know what—”
One useful thing about wearing a scarf was that whenever Jack needed a strip of cloth, he always had one to hand. He looked in satisfaction at Jacques’ disgusted attempts to spit out the cloth, then turned around at the sound of the door closing. “Anamaria?”
“Sloppy pig,” just barely made it through.
Which wasn’t entirely fair, since pigs were actually very clean animals and anyway, it wasn’t like Jack was making her share space with Gibbs any more. But there was no reasoning with Anamaria when she was in that mood, so Jack just hoped she’d walk it off and got back to Jacques. Or rather, he got on Jacques.
Conveniently enough, when Jack took off the gag, Jacques was so torn between saying something about the hair product that had rubbed off on the cloth—another unfair taunt because it was all naturally-produced oil and sweat, thank you—and something about having a man perched on his lap that he ended up saying nothing overall. Jack tossed the scarf into a sunbeam to dry and took out a gun, then waited.
After he’d gotten out the last of his sputtering, Jacques tilted his head again, but this time it appeared he was trying to get a better look at Jack. Considering that Jack was sitting on top of him, that didn’t seem to be necessary, but Jack supposed everyone had their methods.
“I’ve been meaning to have a talk with good old Hector,” Jack said. Then he glanced down because something was fiddling about between them.
As it turned out, those were his fingers playing with Jacques’ shirt-buttons. Jack pulled them away and gave them a sharp rap against the chair arms. If they wanted to play with anything, there was the gun and they could leave the hostage alone. This wasn’t the time to dilute down the business.
On second thought, that might be more effective than shooting if the amount by which Jacques’ pupils were now dilated were any measure. He coughed, blinked rapidly and resumed his former cool expression. “Many people wish to speak with Mr. Barbossa.”
“I know, but I’ve been waiting…” Jack counted up on his fingers just to make sure “…nine years. Gotten a bit impatient, you see.”
Well, Jack’s fingers had taken up the gun, but now the gun seemed to want to play with Jacques’ shirt. Jacques’ eyes began to lose focus again; he pursed his lips and had to make an effort to think.
“I suppose it couldn’t hurt to listen to your proposal. I assume you have one, yes?” Jacques finally said.
“I would. Mostly this part of it consists of me observing that your shirt’s nice but a bit old—” running the gun muzzle over a frayed section “—so I’m thinking your pay could be a bit better, and plus I doubt old Hector’s dropped his little habit of shooting people to make his temper feel better.”
Jacques’ expression briefly cracked to show remembered fear. Then it broke open wider to show about as much resistance to what Jack’s hands were doing in the vicinity of Jacques’ crotch as a cat would show towards having a bowl of cream slid over to it.
“Did you want to surprise…ah…Mon Dieu…surprise him, or schedule a reg—merde—regular appointment?” Jacques gasped.
The circumstances hadn’t really indicated to Jack which would be better yet, so he couldn’t come up with an answer right away. Anyway, his mouth was full.
* * *
Will still wasn’t sure whether agreeing to bring Elizabeth along had been a good idea. For that matter, he still wasn’t sure whether he’d ever actually agreed to bring her along. He had a fuzzy memory of a few conversations about hypothetical Spring Break trips after class, and one of her showing up at his door with a smile so perky it’d bounced out his recollection of what had happened between that and Elizabeth flirting so much with a border guard that he hadn’t even asked for their passports.
She was pretty handy with a gun, he had to admit. But he really could have done without her fatal attraction to every shopwindow and bar in town. “The last place had ones exactly like that.”
“No, not exactly,” she mumbled, pressed against the glass. The clerks inside were nearly dying with joy from how her cleavage looked that way. “See, these are purple and were made in Yucatan. The others were magenta and came from G—oooo, that place is playing my favorite song! We’ve got to go in.”
Elizabeth whirled around and pointed at one of a hundred clubs that were spilling out a line of scantily-clad people in various stages of illegally altered mental states. This club, however, was one that was on Will’s mental list of places where Jack had embarrassed him. He couldn’t help blushing, and that certainly wasn’t encouragement to go, but they basically had to check it out anyway since they were looking for word of Jack.
“All right,” Will said, resigning himself to at least fifteen minutes of gaily-colored bombastic hell.
He forgot to include getting yanked nearly off his feet by a blond bombshell. They were across the street in a flash and facing a bouncer the size of the Andes mountains before Will could think of a good reason for why they’d be jumping a line of wannabe gangsters and the girls they desperately needed to impress. “Um,” he stammered.
Without missing a beat, Elizabeth whipped out a dazzling smile and yanked down her skimpy shirt so the bouncer damn near got lost in her breasts. “Hi! I’m from USC in California and I’m looking for some real good tequila! Is there any here?”
Two seconds later, Will was stuffing his fingers in his ears against the cheesy Latino pop and squinting through the smoke. “I can’t believe that worked!” he yelled.
Elizabeth rolled her eyes and expertly guided them through the crowd. She was playing dirtier than one-on-one street basketball, but somehow her beaming, airheaded smile persuaded everyone else to let her get away with it. “Oh, Will. You so need to get out more.”
“Thanks, but I get out plenty—wait, this way.” He’d spotted a guy he knew and showed that she wasn’t the only one who knew something about crowds. Sometimes it was more useful to be able to get through one without being seen.
One of Jack’s better if underused tricks, Will bitterly recalled. Damn the man, damn the rum, and damn Will’s stupid decision to help out the guy with the incredibly gorgeous car stalled on the side of the road. It’d been the best vacation Will had ever had, and was also the reason why for the next twelve months he’d strictly avoided anything to do with Mexico, rum, drugs, and talking parrots.
“Hi!” Elizabeth said, bounding up to the table.
José’s eyes widened a little, but he finished downing his drink with all the grace and composure of a classical gangster. If Will hadn’t sworn off anyone he’d ever met through Jack, he might’ve been tempted.
Also if he wasn’t so damn embarrassed that he was contemplating thunking his head on the table. He grabbed Elizabeth’s arm a second before she adjusted her straps to plump out her breasts some more. “He’s got a brain, Elizabeth.”
“Gracias,” José dryly said. He crooked his little finger and a waiter came rushing up out of nowhere to plink down exactly what Will would have ordered if he’d had a chance to order. Judging by the look on Elizabeth’s face, the…monstrosity of little umbrellas and pastel layers of slush sitting in front of her was about the same. “The last time I saw you, you said you were never coming back to Mexico.”
“Well, then I got home and had time to poke around beneath the car’s hood. Plus Jack got hold of my phone number, email, mailing address…” He’d even got the number of Will’s pager. Will hadn’t had a pager till one day he’d woken up to it constantly buzzing.
José barely managed to hide an indulgent smile. He was a fixture of the Cancún scene, but exactly why was anyone’s guess. He wasn’t with the cartels, he wasn’t against them, and for some reason nobody seemed to want to kill him for that. He didn’t make sense and he miraculously didn’t piss people off because of that. Or maybe he was just really, really good at getting rid of the bodies.
In spite of all of that, Will felt an instinctive liking for the man. He had a private theory that José actually had a pretty tough personal moral code buried somewhere in there. At the very least, José usually gave Will a straight answer. “Speaking of him, have you seen Jack around lately?”
Instead of replying right away, José took a long swig of his drink. “When’s the last time you talked to him?”
Elizabeth hadn’t said a word since they’d sat down, but was sitting with her elbows on the table and her chin on her hands. Her smile was more vacuous than a doll’s, but her eyes were keenly watching every detail. The next time he was at a computer, Will needed to rehack some databases and figure out what the hell was up with her—he’d always figured she was a sorority girl that was slightly more intelligent than the median.
“Talked or yelled?” Will finally settled on. It was a little funny and didn’t reveal too much detail.
Half-smile on his face, José set his glass back down. A strip of hair fell across his face, giving him a vaguely demonic look. “Will, my friend, you have been too long out of town. Jack’s on the warpath.”
Which Will had figured from the people in the gas station blaming each other for losing a shipment to El Pirata, and from that one bar with all the bodies. Still, he’d hoped it would turn out to be just one of Mexico’s other vigilantes; killing criminals was damn near turning into a national craze. “Oh. Oh, well. Guess it’d be too hard to catch up on good times with him, then. He must be busy.”
“He’s up to half a million on his head,” José replied, half-smile gone ironic.
“Oh, yeah. Definitely. Well, that’s off the list of must-do’s.” Of course it wasn’t, and Will wasn’t doing nearly as well as Elizabeth when it came to telling lies, but fuck it. He was glad for that. It meant not that much of Jack had rubbed off on him. “Thanks anyway.”
“My pleasure.” José raised his glass to them as they stood up.
Will had been planning to head straight for the door, but the crowd had gotten a lot thicker and that slowed him down. He was staring around for a quick exit when an arm slid around his waist and a warm body crushed up next to him.
“You know, I think your friend wouldn’t have said no if you’d asked him to console you,” Elizabeth purred. Her hand ran down Will’s thigh, then flipped around just as he nervously twitched away. Somehow they managed to match the beat.
It’d look weird now if he left, so Will…he put his hands on Elizabeth’s waist. She wrinkled her nose at him and he slid them higher. No, they should go lower. Fuck. This was why he hated clubs.
“Just keep them moving, Will. This is salsa, not ballroom dancing.” She laughed into his cheek as her hips suddenly ground up against his, forcing them to move. She still smelled great, even though they’d been in the car all day. “So what’s his story?”
“José? No way, not a good idea. He can be a nice guy, but being around him’s not all that good for your long-term health.” So keep them moving. Right. Will could do that. It wasn’t like Jack hadn’t dragged him onto the floor a couple times, so he knew how this vertical simulation of sex worked—okay, Jack hadn’t had those.
Elizabeth grinned as she squeezed back up Will, her nipples just hard enough to be felt through their clothes. Her breasts rolled up at him and he couldn’t help looking. “Oh, totally not my type even if he does have that Latin-lover thing working overtime for him. Now tell me you aren’t enjoying yourself just a little.” Her hand went back down and Will swallowed hard. “Yeah, I’d say so.”
“What’s your story?” Will hastily said, twisting sideways. He pulled her hands back up and slid behind her to cradle her hips. Her breath caught a couple times and he hid a grin in her hair. He wasn’t that stuffy. “Most rich girls’ daddies hire them bodyguards, not firearms instructors.”
“My father’s a progressive. DIY, you know?” She shimmied around, every move grinding up Will’s interest another notch. “Me? I’m just looking for an uninterrupted good time and you know, guns in other people’s hands have a terrible way of doing that.”
Boy, did Will know.
Boy, did they both know a couple seconds later. Will pulled them down at the first pop, then snaked them to the door while the rest of the dancers were still trying to figure out that that was gunfire and not champagne corks. He glanced back just long enough to see that it wasn’t coming for them, then dragged himself and Elizabeth into the street.
“Time to hit another one?” Elizabeth yelled. Her fingers were digging a little too hard into his arm. In the yellow light of the streetlamps, her eyes were glittering with a surprisingly complicated mixture of emotions.
“You really looking for a good time?” They rounded the corner at a run and slowed down after that, since there were enough people milling around to keep tails from following. Or at least make them really obvious once Will had started glancing in the side-mirrors of the cars they were passing. “You should probably ditch me and hook up with some other American girls. It’s going to get more serious from here on out.”
She pointedly hooked her arm through his. When Will looked at her, some of the giddiness had faded from Elizabeth’s eyes. The curve of her smile was reminiscent of José’s. “But I like my driver. Even though you seriously need a couple more dances like the one we were starting back there, and that’s a damn good reason for keeping me around.”
“But I bet a possible run-in with the British covert intelligence isn’t something you’d want on your record,” Will said, glancing at another mirror. He nodded with his chin.
Elizabeth just flicked her eyes over instead of moving her head. She snorted. “Oh, God. They are so stuck in the early nineties when it comes to fashion. Big-ass shades like that are so dated—haven’t they seen the Matrix?”
Well, Will had been wondering when his urge to smack his head against the nearest hard object was going to come back. Around Elizabeth it was in rapid equilibrium with his urge to say to hell to sense and consider being a little more friendly to a girl he was quickly beginning to think of as Jack’s female, much blonder equivalent.
Okay, not quite. Elizabeth was a bit better at dodging them in and out of clubs. It was probably how she did her hair—loose curls snagged less easily than dreads and braids. “Elizabeth?”
“Hmm?” She suddenly twisted around and slammed them back into an alley. All Will could see of her eyes were two mad sparkles of blue.
And then they were kissing—well, Elizabeth was kissing and Will was belatedly screaming at himself to not bite her while he stifled his surprise. Also his discomfort, since whining wasn’t going to get her nails out of his side. He squirmed down a hand and moved her fingers.
“Oops, sorry.” Elizabeth slid her hand southwards and Will nearly bit her lip again for an entirely different reason.
Then she bit him, and he had to wonder why he’d held back. He tried to push her teeth away with his tongue, only to accidentally slip into her mouth and actually, it was quite nice in there. She tasted less like the tequila than he’d been expecting and more like honey with a tangy aftertaste. After a moment, Will decided he was enjoying this. After two, he suddenly remembered the man from which they’d been running. “Mmmph.”
“Mmm…” Elizabeth murmured along the line of his jaw. “He went by us a couple seconds ago. Give it another minute in case he looks back.”
“What are you? Was your father CIA or something?” Will attempted to pull back in order to gather his thoughts and instead ended up with a noseful of great-smelling but ticklish hair. He felt a sneeze coming on and made a frantic attempt to turn aside.
The hand that’d been playing over the button of his fly suddenly dove down his waistband; his sneeze croaked. He vaguely thought that that was one way to stop a mess from happening. This girl really, really wasn’t much like what she seemed.
Elizabeth giggled and gave him a sloppy kiss on the side of the neck, which contrasted greatly with the expert way her fingers were moving into his boxers. “No, that was my mother. Father was MI6.”
Will choked, and this time even the squeeze of Elizabeth’s hand around his cock couldn’t stop it. Well, not much. He still kept his head. Mostly. “What?”
Frowning, Elizabeth shifted her hand. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to grab that hard.”
A cough and Will’s voice had settled back in its proper register. “No, that was fine. That is, I mean it was—not that I—fuck—Anamaria!”
Of course, since that head really was Anamaria, Will’s relief at spotting her lasted all of three seconds. Then he was busy hiding behind Elizabeth.
* * *
Five minutes after she’d walked out, Anamaria was regretting it. Even if he was trouble, the man Jack had brought back was appealing to look at. And even if Jack was a guaranteed disaster of millennial proportions, he at least tended to make it fun for all sides. Wasn’t something Anamaria could say about the other side.
A half-hour later, she was riled up again and not only taking back her regret, but also planning ways to get Jack back for making her put up with loads of drunken tourists that couldn’t even throw up right: they always hit the damn wall instead of the gutter. If they were going to go to a place where the sewer system was still open, they could damn well learn to take advantage of it, but no…and Jack was back having himself a good time “questioning” Barbossa’s man. It really stuck in Anamaria’s craw.
She stalked into José’s favorite club with a face that told the bouncer to look to his own goddamn balls. José being a man of good taste, his favorite hang-out didn’t hire idiots. The bouncer let her through and the crowd scattered before her.
José spotted her through the curve of his shotglass and almost sputtered his expensive what-have-you all over his equally expensive suit. That was what it looked like to Anamaria, anyway; everyone else probably just saw a slight twitching. But she knew him.
It was clear he knew her, too, because by the time she’d sat down, he’d put down his glass, ordered her a drink and some food, and slipped out of his seat to pull out her chair for her.
“And how may I be of service, Anamaria?” he said. There was just enough smarm in his voice to make her snort and not quite enough to bring her arm up. Unlike Jack, José had an acute sense of when to stop. “What brings you down into the slums?”
“Slums? When you’re here? Tell me another one.” She refused the drink, but accepted a couple exquisite chili-spiked chocolates. Stalking around town was hard work.
Speaking of, she figured now would be a good time to get rid of that damn chip. It just was like Barbossa to routinely plant trackers on his men, as if a lackey looking like the one Jack got wouldn’t be easier to find in Mexico than an elephant in a herd of mice. Anamaria was less sure about whether Barbossa would be the kind of man that’d micromanage his men. She’d had a few run-ins with him, but not often enough to see much of his internal leadership technique—not that she was asking for more, mind. And Jack was less than helpful about recounting his own reads on Barbossa.
Well, Anamaria’s place was on the edge of the entertainment district—when he was feeling suicidal, Jack referred to it as pink-lighted—so a quick trip there wouldn’t seem out of the ordinary. And if José leaned forward just a little more, his nightly routine would take care of making it look like Barbossa’s courier was still out and about.
“Oh, now,” José laughed. He steepled his fingers over his drink and smiled conspiratorially at her. “I like to think I’m a man of expansive tastes.”
“The ‘expansive’s right,” Anamaria replied, smiling a little. She did like José; he was smart, practical, and minded his own business most of the time. Which was why she didn’t feel too bad about leaning forward to flash him some cleavage, since he should be able to get himself out of any mess. “Anyway, I was just in the neighborhood and was wondering if you’d gotten word.”
José blinked. His eyes had flicked downwards just long enough to signal appreciation without adding in lewdness. Now that they were back on her, they looked a touch suspicious. “Word? Anamaria, you do know that my preference is to not be a purveyor of sordid rumors and gossip.”
“As if you don’t lick all that up with a spoon.” She waited a beat, then pushed herself up from the table just as a burly man squeezed past, so in order to make room she had to lean a little further over José. A swipe and the chip was stuck to the inside of Jose’s coatsleeve. “Come on, José. You’re rooting for Jack, so you might as well.”
“I can neither confirm or deny what you claim as my preference,” José said with a smile perfectly balanced on the border between noncommittal and frightened. “But nevertheless, I wish you luck as I wish everyone.”
Well, that took care of that. Anamaria stopped off at the bar to grab a drink that she was certain wasn’t going to be adulterated, given the size of the gun she flashed at the bartender, and then headed onto the street. The churches were tolling the time, which was too damn early to go back to her apartment if she knew Jack. Damn him, she’d have to get a new apartment just be sure that she could sleep on the bed without catching something.
After a bit of thinking, Anamaria decided she might as well cruise the club scene while she was out, see what kind of bees’ nests Jack’s shenanigans had stirred up. Which was how she ended up diving for the throat of one goddamn stupid college boy on vacation. “Will Turner! You got some nerve, you—”
“Um, excuse me?” A blonde girl of the type that lived on booze and carrot sticks slid in between Anamaria. She was even smiling.
Out of respect for their gender, Anamaria stepped back. “Girl, you’d better move.”
The girl’s big blue eyes comically widened. “But—but this is my date! If you beat him up, then I’m going to be stuck in a foreign country with a dead body! That’s like, a total no-no.”
Anamaria opened her mouth, closed it, and just stared.
Will was staring as well. He stepped out from behind his dumpster and tapped the girl on the shoulder. “Er, Elizabeth? Let me introduce you to Anamaria. Anamaria, Elizabeth.”
“Great. Both you and Jack show up with blond bubbleheads,” Anamaria muttered. “What’s next? Gibbs finally gets a cheerleader to come back to his place and check out his pigpen?”
Elizabeth wrinkled her nose in a way that a lot of men probably found cute, but not Anamaria. “Well, I was never a cheerleader. Though I do admit to owning some pom-poms when I was little.”
“Good for you. Now move aside. I need to talk to Will, and I’m thinking you wouldn’t want to get your make-up smudged,” Anamaria said.
“What blond? With Jack?” Will said. He looked remarkably jealous, considering he’d been the one to go off ranting about cheating and time-sharing difficulties when he’d met Jack by stumbling over a couple in a backalley.
Rolling her eyes, Anamaria pushed at Elizabeth’s shoulder. “Excuse—”
Five minutes later, Anamaria was waking up in a familiar backseat and thinking maybe Elizabeth was actually one of those tennis starlets that were popping up like beans in Texas chili. She rolled onto her side, then sat up and rubbed at the fresh bruise over her right temple.
“Anamaria, I’m really sorry about that. Elizabeth can be a little quick to react,” Will said. A damp towel came into Anamaria’s field of vision, and when she took it, Will ducked down to stare up at her eyes. “Okay, you’re not concussed too badly.”
“Will, I’m concussed when I damn well say I’m concussed,” Anamaria muttered. She pushed him away, slapped the towel against her forehead and leaned back to get a better look at Elizabeth.
Still blonde and thin and pretty, but there was more than a little devilishness behind her blank look. She grinned at Anamaria, and when Anamaria grinned back, she only paused a second before smiling even wider.
“So, um…do you know where Jack is?” Will asked. He looked dubiously from Elizabeth to Anamaria and then back again.
“Guess I’d better, since this is his car.” Anamaria looked around it, then patted the top of the front seat. The leather whispered softly against her fingers so she almost forgot and didn’t whip away her hand. “Man, Will, you showed up at exactly the wrong time.”
He winced, then turned around to stare out the window. “Well, blame Jack. He’s the one that dragged me back here.”
The lines of his face shaded to bitter, and Anamaria couldn’t begrudge him that this time because she knew exactly how he felt. Jack could be like that wad of bubblegum on the sole of a person’s shoe that could never be completely scraped off. He usually made it up to people, but sometimes things happened that nobody could make up for.
“Where are we going?” Elizabeth said, voice much too bright. She bounced over to Will with an enthusiasm that Anamaria thought was going to get the girl slapped, but at the last moment, Elizabeth smoothed out to end up damn near cuddling Will. Her hand squeezed his shoulder. “So is it a good thing the shotgun’s still under the seat?”
Once again, Anamaria had to stare at her. Then Anamaria just shook her head, because really, it figured. If Will was the kind who’d get Jack’s attention, there was no way he could pick up a normal girl.
“I guess we’ll see. All right, Anamaria.” Will slid out of the back and got into the driver’s seat. He waited for Elizabeth to claim the…well, shotgun seat. “Let’s get this over with. The sooner, the better.”
* * *
James slid into the seat across from his contact and pushed away the glass of Madeira that’d suddenly appeared at his elbow. He clicked for the waiter and ordered a small glass of sherry, then turned towards José. “You look a bit rattled.”
“Do I?” The instant of surprise had long since vanished, and José was now his cool and composed familiar self. He adjusted his tie and smoothed back his hair. “I’ve had to change bars twice already due to various disturbances. I seem to be very popular tonight.”
“You’re the longest-serving bar storyteller in local history,” James dryly said. “Of course you are. Another year and I hear they’re going to nominate you for Outstanding Drama Catalyst.”
José produced a thin smile. “Please, compadre. Don’t flatter—I hardly say a thing.”
“Of course not. So you’re not about to tell me what Jack Sparrow’s been up to lately, and why one of my field agents just reported that that mysterious young man from last year’s been seen on the streets.” James adjusted his own tie, making sure to click on the tape recorder hidden in the knot, and then leaned forward. “Do tell.”
Which was when Barbossa’s men broke in. There was adequate time for James and José to melt back into the crowds, but when James had finally gotten free of the mob, José wasn’t there to meet him. And he should have, because as irritating as the man could be, José was an old hand at this sort of evasive maneuver.
James did a reconnaissance of the club, and so he was just in time to hear the sound of squealing wheels at the other end of the alley that ran behind it. He quickly stepped out of the way and into a doorway where he pretended to be lighting a cigarette. The wind of the car screaming by him blew out his match.
The car didn’t have any license plates, and was of the make and model that every mid-level cartel man bought as soon as he was promoted, so that was no help. For a moment, James dearly wished he hadn’t asked for a vacation. MI6’s idea of that clearly was to send their senior agents to the backwaters just as something was about to explode and then expect them to deal with it using only floss, a smile and possibly a spare bowl of potted beef. Someone really needed to tell the top brass to stop watching those damned Bond movies.
But duty was duty, so James refrained from doing more than making a quick face at the wall. He checked his wallet—not enough. These days, the street urchins were demanding at least five American dollars per tip. Some were even starting to charge by the minute instead of by a flat rate.
For England, James sternly reminded him. Then he rolled his eyes and started off to find a bank. He was on vacation; he could admit to himself just once that it was for the bloody chance to get a distinguished footnote in the archival records.
***