Acapulco

By Alice Levine

It is the seventies. Bert Lev, World War II vet and retired New York City detective, is in Acapulco managing a small hotel owned by a wealthy man grateful to Bert for rescuing his kidnapped daughter. Bert, who has lost his wife and suffered a heart attack, is piecing his life together when he is faced with another crisis. He is asked to find another kidnapped girl. His budding romance with the beguiling Sabrina makes him reluctant, but he is soon enmeshed in a frightening and mysterious struggle.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 11, 2014
• ISBN: 9781499095166

Alice Levine

Author Bio coming soon.

Book preview

Copyright © 2014 by Alice Levine.

Library of Congress Control Number:          2014919097

ISBN:          Hardcover          978-1-4990-9514-2

                    Softcover           978-1-4990-9515-9

                    eBook                 978-1-4990-9516-6

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 11/10/2014

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Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter One

1975

T he sun had dropped behind the horizon only seconds before, but Acapulco was already nearly dark. Bert Lev parked his blue Volkswagen and approached the shack. As he did so, a short red pig trotted out through the open door. Inside, a young woman in a yellow nightgown and wearing a silk hibiscus blossom in her blond hair lay in a hammock suspended from the ceiling. Her face was as cold as the hard dirt floor, and her arm lay stiff under Bert’s hand. He didn’t consult the snapshot in his pocket; he was sure the girl was Marjorie McLaughlin.

Finding a telephone in that part of Acapulco was not easy, but he finally located a booth at the foot of Los Ninos Heroes and, after making change at the tortilla stand, put his call through.

Carlos? he said, running his free hand across his brown slightly graying hair. Bert Lev here. Let me speak to the senor. Learning that Senor Jerele was resting and couldn’t be disturbed, Bert frowned then asked that Carlos bring a car immediately. After hanging up, he remembered that Sabrina was expecting him for dinner. When he explained why he was late, he’d be forgiven, but meanwhile, she’d be furious. He fished out another coin and tried to call her; the line was busy. After three tries, he gave up and returned to the shack.

Marjorie was still there, the flower a silky flame against her polished blond hair. Outside, two roosters measured each other off, their feathers ruffled. The clouds were turning pink, and a faint breeze disturbed the tender fronds of a small banana tree at the corner of the shack. Nothing would ever disturb her again, Bert thought bitterly.

He was looking at Marjorie’s photo when Carlos pulled up in the Dodge. He reminded Bert of a bulldog with his heavy forehead and massive shoulders. He carried a blanket under his arm. Without a sign of emotion, he coolly wrapped it around the girl. Following his example, Bert tucked the fabric around her feet while Carlos lifted her head. They might have been loading lumber, except that one white hand refused to stay covered; it waved at them at each step until Carlos placed her in the backseat under a piece of canvas.

Halfway down the hill, they stopped for a light. At a glance from Carlos, Bert peered inside the tiny Gomez casket shop on the corner. On the top shelf was a yellow casket decorated with bright red flowers. Carlos’s eyes questioned Bert as they drove past, and Bert nodded his approval. A casket from the Gomez shop was as good a way as any to send Marjorie McLaughlin back home to her father.

He had met Marjorie’s father for the first time after receiving a long-distance phone call from his old friend Capt. Al Matthews of the New York City Police Department.

How ya doin’ down there in paradise, Bert? Al had asked in his familiar gravelly voice. Leaving the force was the smartest thing you ever did, ole buddy! (With Al, everything was always for the best.) And leaving New York was the next smartest, he added cheerfully.

Bert’s mouth tightened. It had nothing to do with smarts, as Al knew very well. When the department dropped the Jerele case, Bert got fed up and quit.

How’s the ticker? Al had continued, referring to the heart attack that put Bert out of action the week of his wife Jennifer’s accident, right after Bert had located Jerele’s daughter, Elizabeth.

Bert ran his finger along the rim of a favorite piece of blue tonala pottery, purchased from an old Indian in Guadalajara. I’m fine. Get to the point.

A gentleman from DC is going to call you today.

DC?

No one important. It’s not official. He’s got a personal problem.

Why me? And why you?

Because you’re in Mexico. You see, this gentleman with the problem …

Bert interrupted him. Still got nosy switchboard operators, I see.

Al coughed. This gentleman is a friend of Josephus Jerele. He insisted that we contact you. You’re some kind of hero to Jerele.

Why didn’t Jerele call me? He lives right here in Acapulco. I operate his hotel, you know.

We hoped we wouldn’t have to contact him. Jerele isn’t exactly on speaking terms with us since we dropped his case four years ago. Frankly, we were afraid you’d say no.

You were right! Bert slammed the phone down so hard it knocked the vase off the desk. He was still picking up the pieces when the phone rang again. Domingo, his servant, handed it to him. It was Josephus Jerele.

He got right to the point. Bertrand, the commissioner called me from New York. I want you to change your mind. Maurice McLaughlin is a friend of mine.

Maurice McLaughlin? Our ambassador to … ?

Please. Exercise caution in your conversation. Yes, he added. The same.

Bert grumbled, And Al had said he was not important. What’s his problem?

There was a pause. His daughter, Marjorie, is missing.

Bert felt himself gasp. I see.

You can’t possibly.

I know things are touch and go between the United States and the other nation. Has she been kidnapped?

We can’t discuss it over the phone. Maurice is flying down here to see you. He’ll be staying at the hotel Las Brisas. Your appointment is for three o’clock this afternoon.

But, Mr. Jerele, what about the Jacaranda? The click at the other end told him that Jerele hadn’t heard his last remark. Not that running his small hotel was real work, Bert admitted to himself. Jerele paid him handsomely, but it was Dolores who saw to it that the maids kept the eight rooms mirror-shiny, and her husband Domingo took care of the grounds. With the two of them covering the desk when he was away, Bert was about as essential to the operation as Captain Cook, their parrot. Maybe even less.

He considered the problem: he couldn’t say no to Jerele. He owed him too much. His future had looked hopeless when Jerele offered him this job. After the department gave up its search for his daughter, Elizabeth, Jerele thought he’d never see his daughter again.

It was Bert’s wife Jennifer who had urged him to quit the department and pursue the case on his own. Jennifer. If she hadn’t died, he might have stayed in New York and tried to be reinstated—at least until he was eligible for a partial pension.

But with Jennifer gone, he had lost his appetite for everything. He couldn’t sort out his life: he had a bad heart and only a small pension from an old war injury. Coming to Acapulco for a soft job and a good salary didn’t seem like a bad idea at the time, even though it meant leaving his own daughter, Judi.

At Jerele’s insistence, he had met the distinguished diplomat, Maurice McLaughlin, that afternoon. Thank you for coming, Mr. Mclaughlin had said. They told you about my daughter, didn’t they?

Actually, Bert hadn’t been told much of anything, only that McLaughlin’s daughter had disappeared.

Josephus Jerele advised me to see you, he enunciated carefully in his Harvard accent. He had been sitting at a glass table by the pool when Bert entered his hotel room. Every room at Las Brisas had its own pool. This one had a little pool inside the sitting room as well. Why would a man with his problem check into this honeymooner’s paradise? Bert asked himself. And when McLaughlin placed his Bausch and Lomb binoculars on the table, Bert wondered what he had been looking at from this high spot.

This was about as far up as you could get in Acapulco. Down below, the city gleamed with the chalk-white hotels standing watch on the horseshoe-shaped beach. Only the chapel above them was higher; at night, everyone in Acapulco could see the big cross on the top. Bert was sure the ambassador hadn’t been thinking about the city’s sights. He was a diplomat, all right. The hand that gripped Bert’s was wearing an enormous diamond, but there was nothing condescending in his manner—slim, tanned, and elegant in white slacks matching his manicured hair, only his worried blue eyes seemed wrong.

Marjorie has fallen in with a bad crowd here, he told Bert. Probably using drugs, he said grimly.

That was only two days ago. Now as he and Carlos bounced along the bumpy streets, he thought about the tender young face under the canvas in the seat behind him. He was sure he wouldn’t find puncture marks on her slim pale arms; he was certain that that clean-cut figure didn’t belong to the drug scene.

His thoughts were interrupted when Carlos’s brakes screeched as he stopped suddenly at the light. Bert spotted an empty phone booth near the corner and jumped out. Wait for me across the street, he snapped before Carlos could object. Sabrina’s line was clear, and Natalie, her maid, took Bert’s message, but as he turned toward the sidewalk in the half-light, something caused him to trip. In the next moment, he felt a searing pain in his left arm, and a sensation of being surrounded.

He was back in Luxembourg when machine guns sprayed him, shattering his leg …

He saw Carlos coming to a stop across the street. Instinctively, he doubled over and pushed his elbows outward. With his head shoved forward, he rammed his way out of whatever or whoever was trying to hold him and barreled across the street. Only when he fell into the seat beside Carlos and felt the Dodge shoot ahead did Bert look back to see two figures disappearing into the shadows. The second one turned as he fled; his face was an unnatural dark gray.

Carlos regarded Bert for a moment then pointed with his chin; a red clot was forming on the seat between them. Bert looked down at his left arm where the soft underside above the elbow oozed blood from a short gash. Carlos gave him a questioning stare, which Bert ignored; then he shrugged and concentrated on his driving, carefully checking his rear mirror from time to time.

Using his teeth and right hand, Bert bound his arm with a handkerchief. His wallet was intact. Marjorie still lay in the backseat. This was no time to report an assault. Carlos grunted to get his attention. They had arrived at Jerele’s casa where a high brick wall enclosed the grounds. As they approached the massive gates, a short Mexican in a starched white jacket opened the gates. It was Jerele’s houseboy, Jose. Bert thanked him.

"De nada, it’s nothing," Jose replied and smiled, revealing one gold tooth on a strip of pink gum. The car pulled into the driveway under a brick arch and into a triple garage containing an old Mercedes and a red Renault. Jose locked the outer gates. Bert hurried out of the car, relieved to put as much space as possible between him and the dead girl in the backseat.

When he reached the carved front door with its silver monkey handle, Jose ushered Bert into the entrance hall. Bert had never got used to the luxury of Jerele’s house. As always, he stared in fascination at the dancing fountain in the patio and the pair of green and bronze peacocks strutting on the grass.

You should come here more often, said a voice from the top of the winding staircase. Bert started to assist him, but Jerele waved him down. Stay where you are. I’ll get there eventually. Clinging to the wrought-iron railing, he shuffled down the tiled steps—a debonair cadaver in a quilted satin jacket.

You should install an elevator, Mr. Jerele. That’s too many stairs for you.

Jerele chuckled. You’re right. I’m just too vain. The sick man waved a bony hand toward the long staircase with its bright tiles and delicate grillwork. I can’t imagine spoiling this magnificent line with an elevator. Can you? Finally, Jerele reached the last step and motioned toward his study beyond the fountain. I spoke to Elizabeth on the phone just now. She sends her love.

How is she?

She’s fine. Expecting the baby in August. A shadow crossed his face. She and Manfred are building a home in San Francisco.

I guess you’ll miss her, Bert mumbled.

The frail man brightened. My daughter is happy—and alive, he added. Thanks to you.

Please. That was a long time ago.

You’re a remarkable man. No one else was able to accomplish what you did. A look of pain contorted his face. Poor Marjorie. He grasped Bert’s hand with his blue-veined claw, and they both thought about poor Marjorie …

What happened to your arm? he asked, pointing to the bloody rag on his arm.

An accident, Bert muttered. It’s nothing.

A red-faced medic shot him full of morphine and piled him on to an open truck with the other casualties.

From behind them, Jose suddenly appeared and opened the door for his employer who dropped into a deep leather chair, pointing Bert toward its twin. The light from the wrought-iron chandelier gleamed on Jose’s gold tooth as he backed out of the room. Like an Oriental slave, Bert thought. As soon as the door closed, Jerele struggled to his feet, closed the shutters, pulled his chair close to Bert’s, and collapsed, eyes closed.

I have called Maurice, he said, eyes still closed.

How did you know?

Carlos told me before he left the house. Tell me how she died.

Bert shook his head. I can’t. There were no signs of violence. Her face was as peaceful as a sleeping child’s.

Jerele opened his eyes and looked at Bert without appearing to see him. My plane is flying her to New York tonight.

But the Mexican authorities …

My personal physician will arrange everything.

Then he can determine the cause of death.

I doubt it. Maurice refuses to allow an autopsy. The doctor will prepare all the necessary papers to avoid suspicion.

Bert’s face gave him away.

Yes, money can be very helpful.

The younger man squirmed. Over the fireplace, the carved ivory monkey seemed to mock him.

But may I remind you, Bertrand, that when my daughter was in such grave danger, my money failed to inspire either the New York Police Department or the FBI. He laid a withered hand on Bert’s. Only a man of good conscience was willing to undertake the impossible.

Acknowledging Bert’s embarrassment, Jerele withdrew his hand and shuffled to his desk, returning with a piece of paper Bert recognized as his personal check. Maurice has asked me to give you this.

Bert flinched. I can’t accept your money.

Maurice will repay me. He wants to be certain you will continue your investigation.

Continue?

The sick man tucked the check in Bert’s shirt pocket and sank into his chair. This affair goes far beyond Maurice’s personal life.

Bert had suspected that from the beginning. And even though McLaughlin had hired him to find his daughter, he mistrusted him from the start. There were too many important things that he hadn’t told Bert.

At their first meeting at Las Brisas, McLaughlin walked to the sitting room to answer a phone call. Bert moved to the far corner of the pool to give him some privacy and picked up his binoculars. They were good ones. He could see the tourists on the Hyatt a good mile away. Further west near the rock El Morro, a man waited on a raft while a plane lifted him