Read Online The Black Witch of Mexico by Colin Falconer - Free Book Online

waiting, an SUV. She got in. Her driver helped him put his cases in the back. His name was José, and he was a good deal friendlier than Jamie Fox Garrido.
    Adam jumped into the back.
    “Are we headed there now?”
    “Hardly, it’s a ten hour drive. I’ll take you Saturday. I’ve booked you a room at the Hilton Reforma for tonight. They’ll just need your credit card.”
    She went back to texting.
    Welcome to Mexico.
     
    * * *
     
    José drove as if he was trying to make up ground in a demolition derby. Traffic was backed up all the way into the city. If anyone flashed their indicator, he sped up, jammed his fist on the horn and went bumper to bumper with the car in front to stop them changing lanes. He squeezed into every gap he could.
    Jamie finally looked up from her cell phone. “Traffic can get a bit heavy this time of day.”
    Adam sat white-lipped in the back seat and said nothing. He didn’t expect to be treated like the Pope, but he had hoped for more hospitality than this. He was giving six months of his life for nothing, and now they were booking hotels he had to pay for. The girl was insufferable. He hoped she hadn’t gotten her manners from her father.
    But what really unsettled him was how much she looked like Elena; from the colour of her hair, the way she wore it, to her choice of perfume. He had come here to try and get Elena out of his head and the first thing life had done was put him in a car with a blonde who looked just like her. She even had the same figure, slim and long-legged.
    He touched the button beside him and the window slid down. They were on Paseo Reforma: a long tree-lined avenue punctuated with traffic circles and glorieta. Angels, Aztecs and conquistadores rose like ghosts from the smog. There were Starbucks and Consulates. The air smelled like fried diesel oil.
    He stared at Dutch tourists in harem pants and backpacks, shoeblacks buffing the shoes of suited businessmen, at secretaries hurrying to and from their offices in the Zona Rosa.
    He had calmed down enough to try to break the ice again. “Do you work for the clinic?” hesaid.
    “Do I look like I work for the clinic?”
    “Not really.”
    “Well there you are. I’m an IT consultant. I help out my father when I can, but I don’t have the milk of human kindness in me like he does.”
    “Really? I didn’t pick up on that.”
    She turned and gave him a chill smile. She was going to drive him to Santa Marta tomorrow? Ten hours in a car with this woman? It was going to be a long trip.
    “Have you been to Mexico before?”
    “No.”
    “What made you take on my father’s little project? It’s hard work.”
    “Being an ER physician isn’t exactly a cakewalk.”
    “But at least you get paid.” Her phone trilled. Another message, busy girl. She glanced at it and said. “He told me you that you had some problems in Boston.”
    “It’s personal,” he said.
    They had stopped at lights. A ragged swarm rushed from the sidewalks and the median, waving loose cigarettes, phone cards, newspapers. A clown holding a detergent gun filled with soapy water approached their car and José frantically waved him away. He sprayed the windshield anyway and wiped it with a small cloth and a rubber scraper.
    Jamie wound down her window and held out some coins.
    “Why did you do that?” he said. “The windscreen was clean.”
    “He’s just trying to make a living,” she said.
    A few minutes later José pulled into the driveway of the Hilton, she walked Adam inside and spoke to the clerk behind the reception desk in Spanish. He found Adam’s reservation on the computer and handed him a registration card.
    He was a little surprised to see her still waiting for him after he finished checking in. “If you go out, watch out for beggars, some of them can be a little aggressive. And keep your wits about you. A friend of mine had her laptop snatched out of her arms around here, and it wasn’t even dark. If you go into the Zona Rosa at