She was a little surprised and annoyed when she saw that the light shining down on the Bus had burned out. Things like that happened, of course, but she thought she was going to have a hell of a hard time finding the keyhole in the door.
When she actually got to the Bus, it was worse. Some sonofabitch-one of the valet parkers, probably-had parked a Peugeot sedan so close to the left side of the van that there was no way she could get to the door without scraping her rear and/or her boobs on either the dirty Peugeot or the Bus, which also needed a bath.
She walked around to the right side of the Bus and with some difficulty-for a while she thought she was going to have to light her lighter-managed to get the key in the lock and open the door.
She was wearing a tight skirt, and the only way she was going to be able to crawl over the passenger seat and the whatever-it-was-called thing between the seats to get behind the wheel was to hike the skirt up to her crotch.
First things first. Get rid of the purse, then hike skirt.
She opened the sliding door and tossed her purse on the seat.
The front door suddenly slammed shut.
What the hell?
She looked to see what had happened.
There was a man coming toward her between the cars. He had something in his hand.
What the hell is that, a hypodermic needle?
She first felt arms wrap around her from behind, then a hand over her mouth.
She started to struggle. She tried to bite at the hand over her mouth as the man coming toward her sort of embraced her. She felt a sting on her buttocks.
Oh, Jesus Chri… Four minutes later, a dark blue BMW 545i with heavily darkened windows and a Corps Diplomatique license plate pulled out of the flow of traffic on Avenida Libertador and stopped at the curb. It was a clearly marked NO PARKING NO STOPPING zone, but usually, as now, there were two or three cars with CD tags parked there.
In the rear seat of the BMW, Jack Masterson turned to Alex Darby.
"Now that your car has joined mine in the shop, how are you going to get to work in the morning?"
"I can have one of my guys pick me up," Alex replied.
"Wouldn't you rather I did?"
"I was hoping you'd ask."
"Eight-fifteen?"
"Fine. You want me to send this one back here after he drops me off?"
"No. Betsy has the Bus. Send this one back to the embassy." He raised his voice and switched to Spanish. "Make sure the dispatcher knows I need a car at my house at eight tomorrow morning."
"Si, senor," the driver replied.
"That presumes," Masterson said to Darby, "that I'm still alive in the morning. She who hates to wait is going to be highly pissed."
Darby chuckled.
Masterson got out of the car and half-trotted across the sidewalk to the Kansas entrance. He pushed his way through the crowd of people waiting to be seated and went up the shallow three-step stairs to the bar.
Betsy was nowhere in sight, either at the bar or in one of the half dozen booths.
Shit!
One of the bartenders caught his eye and held up his hands in a helpless gesture. Jack walked to him.
"You just missed her, senor," the bartender said. "Not two minutes ago, she left."