I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but Deborah’s glare got meaner and angrier. She opened her mouth to say something back, and I’m sure it would have been a real doozy.
But I was actually more interested in preventing doozies and promoting an atmosphere of willing cooperation. So I jumped in before she could say something that might collapse our alliance before it even started. “It doesn’t matter,” I said. “We still have to try, right? Now, what can you tell us about this yacht, Brian?”
Brian sat in an equally flimsy chair, without taking his eyes off Deborah. “I have seen it,” he said. “I’ve even been on board once.” He glanced at me, then quickly back to Debs. “The Nuestra Señorita. It’s a very nice boat,” he said. “Very nice.”
Deborah snorted. “Nice. Thanks, that’s really helpful.”
As I said, it was all up to me. “Could you sketch out a floor plan, Brian?” I said. “Debs, maybe you could get paper and pencil?”
She clearly didn’t want to look at anything but Brian, but she took a step back and turned quickly to a drawer in the counter behind her. Brian tensed as she reached into the drawer, but Debs turned back around holding only a notebook and a badly chewed ballpoint pen. Still watching Brian, she dropped them on the table in front of him and then, at last, she sat down right across from him.
“Good, thank you,” I said in my best bright and cheerful Mr. Rogers voice. “Brian?”
My brother picked up the pen, flipped open the notebook, and then, slowly and reluctantly, dropped his eyes from Debs and onto the paper. “Well,” he said, beginning to sketch quick lines, “as I said, it was only once. But what I remember is this.” The lines became the back end of a large boat, superstructure looming above. “The rear end…” He looked up at me. “The stern,” he said happily. He made a few quick lines. “Like this. I think they call it stepped?” He glanced up for confirmation. I nodded. “You know,” he said, turning to Debs, “it’s much lower to the water than the sides. So you can get on and off to go swimming. And onto the launch—there’s a beautiful launch that hangs on these hooks on the back.” He tapped the drawing with the pen. “That’s the easy way to get on board.”
“No good,” Debs said, spitting the words like they tasted bad. “If there are guards, that’s where they’ll be.”
“Oh, there are guards,” Brian said, just a little too cheerfully. “Lots of them.”
“About how many, do you think, Brian?” I said.
“Why, I don’t really know,” he said.
“Terrific,” Deborah muttered.
“But I think we can count on ten or twelve,” he said. “Plus Raul, his captain, probably a few mujeres from his harem.” He smiled again, and it was inappropriate as well as being poorly executed. “Raul is really quite the ladies’ man.”
“They won’t all be on deck,” I said. “Not if we get there before first light.”
“Mmm, nooo,” Brian said thoughtfully. “I’m sure most of them will be asleep. I mean,
I hope so.”
“Great,” Deborah snapped. “You can’t tell us how many or where they are or anything except that we should hope they’re taking a siesta?”
“I would guess two on deck, probably at the back,” I said, as if we were having a reasonable chat. “And maybe one up on the bridge. What do you think, Debs?”
She looked at me and chewed on her lower lip for a second. Then she nodded. “That makes sense,” she said. “That’s how I’d do it.”
“Of course, technically,” Brian said thoughtfully, “you aren’t actually a Mexican drug lord.”
I suppose Brian wanted to prove he could snark, too, and it worked. Debs whipped back around to face him, and once again I had to leap in and keep things moving in a positive direction.
“How high off the water is the bow, Brian?” I said.
“Oh, well, I don’t really know, much higher than the stern,” Brian said. “But I was mostly downstairs.”
“Okay,” I said, and nodded at the pen and paper. “Give us an idea of what that’s like.”
“Hmm,” he said, picking up the pen and frowning. “I seem to remember…a really big lounge area, like a living room.” He flipped to a new page and drew a wide space, with sofalike benches along the sides. “A big flat-screen TV. Wet bar, kitchenette—just for snacks. The main kitchen is downstairs.” He smiled at me conspiratorially. “The galley.”
“What else?” I prompted.
Brian tapped the paper thoughtfully. “Well,” he said, “at the far end, toward the front of the boat…” I waited for the terrible smile and the word bow, but apparently he didn’t think of it, and I was spared. “The stairs go down to the cabins,” he said.
“How many stairs?” Deborah snapped.
“Oh, not that many,” Brian said. “Five or six? Not many.”