Psychedelic-40 by Louis Charbonneau

Author:Louis Charbonneau [Charbonneau, Louis]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-936535-79-8
Publisher: Jabberwocky Literary Agency, Inc.
Published: 2014-06-11T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

“Does the Del Pacifico approve of your having overnight guests?” Rand asked idly.

“Baja is a pleasure colony, Mr. Rand.”

He didn’t ask whether she had tested the hotel’s tolerant policy before. “La Luz seems different,” he said. “Different from most of Baja I’ve seen.”

“They’ve tried to keep it the way it was down here before the Pump went in.”

“How did you find it?”

“It was recommended to me by—a friend.”

“An old friend?”

“A temporary one.”

“I see.”

“No, you don’t, Mr. Rand.”

After a moment’s silence he said, “My name is Jon. Though nobody ever seems to call me that.”

“Then I’d like to.”

“Some people are last-name types,” he mused.

“That’s because you’re a Sensitive.”

He glanced at her in surprise. Maybe the observation was true, though he had never really thought of his Sensitivity as making him aloof, someone normal people could not get close to.

It was almost midnight. They had talked little since their escape from the rooftop of the exotic club where Rand had been held prisoner. No one had tried to stop them—Rand’s last minute terrorizing of the man he called Roman-nose had proved effective. Taina Erickson had her own car, a small, sporty two-seater with a gasoline-powered rear engine. Rand had enjoyed the wild ride, in spite of—or rather, because of—Taina’s personal control of the vehicle. He liked watching her quick reactions, her smiling absorption with the task of driving. In her communion with the car, her pleasure in it, she was like Miguel Huerara.

An hour later the staccato drumming of the little engine had subsided to a growl as the car nosed into a quiet resort town north of Mulege on the road to Santa Rosalia. La Luz had a carefully preserved Mexican atmosphere, reflected in the adobe-walled, tile-roofed resort hotel where Taina Erickson was staying. In addition to the main building, there were, scattered over the huge palm-shaded grounds and overlooking the blue gulf, a series of private cottages, also red-tile-roofed, with brick lanais across the front. Taina had one of these.

She had insisted on preparing a meal herself, humming as she worked in the tiny kitchen. Rand relished the solid meal. Afterward they carried coffee out onto the patio. There, in comfortable silence, they had listened to the rhythmic roll and slap of waves, the night calls of birds, the clatter of palm fronds rustling in the wind.

Without Rand’s noticing, the night had turned cooler. Taina saw him shiver. “We’d better go inside,” she said. “You’ve been through more than you realize.”

“Don’t make it sound heroic.”

“You’ve been gassed, tied up, slugged on the head, seduced—”

“Not seduced,” Rand objected. “Not yet, anyway.”

Rand followed her into the thick-walled cottage, his mind still filled with the image of her sitting close to him on the patio in the semi-darkness, her full mouth warmly inviting—yet remote. They dropped into native chairs, baskets of plastic leather hung in wooden frames, and looked smilingly at each other.

Rand wondered if it was time to talk. They had not even discussed her fortuitous intervention to aid his escape, and her revelation of herself as at least a Sensitive on a level equal to Rand’s.

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