With a shrug, the bartender continued wiping.
Alana gritted her teeth and waited for Chase to continue.
“Were you here?”Chase asked.
Again, the bartender shrugged.
After a quick glance around the bar, Chase leaned forward.“Was there a fight?”
The man nodded, glanced around the interior of the bar, just like Chase had a moment before, and leaned closer.“We had a visit from the Jalisco cartel.Raul Delgado, one of the leaders of the cartel, got into a fight with a tourist.The tourist beat the shit out of Delgado.Delgado wouldn’t back down.He was very angry that he got bested in front of his men.”
“Why didn’t his men stick up for him?”Alana asked.
“They did,” the bartender said.“Only the tourist they targeted was a better fighter than Delgado and his men.”
“Good to know,” Chase said.“Does this cartel hang out here often?”
“Delgado likes to flirt with the pretty tourists,” the bartender said.
Alana tilted her head.“The Cabo police don’t keep them out?I thought they were pretty good at protecting the tourism trade.”
The bartender snorted.“The last policeman who dared stand up to Delgado ended up hanging from a bridge.”
Alana swallowed hard.With all the nice trappings of the tourist hotels and resorts, there was a seedier side to Cabo San Lucas.And it appeared that seedier side was infiltrating the tourist haunts.“Do you know how many people are a part of the Jalisco cartel?”
“One, maybe two hundred,” the bartender said.“And that’s just in the Cabo area.”
Her belly knotted as Alana fought to stay upright.“Do they ever show up in the same place all at once?”she asked, her voice squeaking slightly.
The bartender’s eyes narrowed.“Why so much interest in the cartel?The cartels are part of life in Mexico.We learn to stay clear or give them the payola they demand to leave us alone.”
“Is that what you do?Pay the Jalisco cartel to leave you alone?”Chase asked.
A frown settled on the man’s thick brow.“You ask too many questions.If you don’t want another drink, you go.We don’t want trouble here.”
Chase slid an American one-hundred-dollar bill across the counter.“Thank you for your time.”He got up, helped Alana off her bar stool and walked out of the bar.
“I remember what happened last night,” Chase said, his jaw tightening.
“Why is it you can remember, but I can’t?”
He touched a hand to his bruised cheek.“I remembered a Hispanic man hitting me.When that memory returned, I remembered why he hit me.”
Alana stopped and faced Chase.“Why did he hit you?”
Chase cupped her elbow and steered her around the back of the building.
“Where are we going?”
“I need to know the layout of the building and the surrounding area.”
Alana dug her heels into the ground and stopped.“You’re not actually considering showing up for Delgado, are you?”
“If I want him off my back and yours, I may have to confront him.”
Her pulse quickened, and her chest grew tight.“You heard the bartender.And you’ve seen news reports.Confrontations with the cartel don’t end well.”
Chase didn’t look at her.He scanned the immediate vicinity, studying it as if committing every nook and cranny to memory.“He won’t leave us alone unless I show up here.”
