"Forget the phone call. No time. Do it after we get back. Just be out front in exactly nineteen minutes. This is not a dry run. The train is leaving. I'm outta here now."
There was a click and he was gone.
I sat there a moment staring at the floor. What was I getting into?
Well, there's one way to find out. Play their game and beat them. There's no better way to get inside what's going on.
The first thing I did was call Steve's hotel in Belize City. Of course he wasn't there, but I left a long message to the effect that I was taking a "sightseeing" trip up to the Peten with Alan Dupre today because of unforeseen new circumstances. The reasons were complicated, but I'd watch out for myself and therefore he shouldn't worry.
That out of the way, I looked around the room. It was a disaster, but I quickly began cramming things into the small folding backpack I always took on trips. Then I rang the kitchen and told them to make up a quadruple egg sandwich (quatro huevos, por favor) to go, along with a large bottle of distilled water.
By the time I got to the reception desk and explained I wasn't actually checking out for good, Alan Dupre was already waiting outside in his battered green Jeep, cleaning his scratchy shades and leaning on the horn.
Let him wait. I wrote out a long note to Steve, on the chance he might come looking for me. Then with deliberate slowness, I wandered out to where Alan's Jeep was parked and tossed my backpack behind the seat.
"First things first." I climbed in and handed him the address of Ninos del Mundo I'd copied onto some hotel stationery. "This is where we've got to go."
He stared at it a moment, puzzling, and then seemed to figure out where it was.