Nine
Clarity, Lanai and LT spent some time walking the narrow backstreets of Acapulco until nightfall, and they took a taxi to Carretera Escénica, the Eastern part of Acapulco. Clarity pushed open the door of Senor Toad´s and found herself in the middle of a rowdy atmosphere which reminded her of her own spring break vacations a few years earlier. The place was small but vey cozy, and full of road signs and other physical memorabilia picked up from various states in the U.S. It was nearly eleven o´clock and the place was reaching climax in terms of its party energy.
They made their way to a table that became free after two college students stumbled to their feet, one of them carrying a glass full of beer in his hand. Clarity sat down last in a small booth and felt something fall on her head. She looked up and saw an attractive girl dressed in a scanty swimsuit, shaking a small glass for shots with one hands and holding a helmet made of plastic on her head with the other.
“Buenas noches, my name is Katia, I bring the luck of your threesome to your table, start the night with a nice muppet and who knows, it could turn into a foursome with me!” Clarity felt her helmet pushed down by the waitress and her hand run across her own back, including a slight pull on her bra. She knew that a muppet was a shot of tequila added to a shot of lemon-lime soda, pounded on the table and drank. Ever since the end of college, when she had had not so pleasant experiences with whisky, gin, and vodka mixed with various soft drinks into a potent jungle juice punch, she had decided to stop drinking alcohol. She took off the plastic helmet politely and pressed the sexy waitress for a fruit smoothie. Lanai ordered a piña colada and LT ordered a Michelada, a beer mixed with tomato juice and Worcester sauce.
“Yuck,” said Clarity, “and you can drink that.”
“It´s an acquired taste,” said LT. “I don´t see my friend, he must be on his way.”
When the bar´s hi-fidelity system played Let´s Get Loud by Jennifer Lopez, people started dancing on the tables, as if awakened by a crazy urge to let all their accumulated emotions of the year out in one night.
“And we have a winner over there hiding by the booth!” said a man´s voice from behind the bar, pointing towards Lanai “that lovely lady with black hair sitting with the other lovely lady with a ponytail and the lucky man in between has won a free dinner here tonight at Senor Toad´s. Come here and get our very own Tampiquena dish, fresh Rajas, skirt steak and enchilada.”
Clarity saw Katia pull Lanai towards the bar counter and even though the girl from Hawaii insisted that she really preferred to order something else, the music, the sultry voice from behind the bar, and the cheers of encouragement made her taste the food in chunks slightly bigger than she normally would have tasted. A few seconds later, she came running back to the booth, her voice whispering the same word.
“Hot…hot…hot” she said, before drinking a whole jar of water on her own. People cheered for a few seconds and the man behind the bar came sitting with them.
“This is my friend Trecker Adams girls,” said LT with a wide grin on his face, “I think he put slightly more hot chilly peppers than expected on Lanai´s dish.”
Lanai glared at him for several seconds until the effects of the peppers had passed. After a few minutes of conversation, Clarity heard Lanai forgive LT´s friend and the four of them engaged in a lively conversation.
“I can´t believe what you´re saying,” said Trecker, “somebody set you up for theft here, that woman Miss Tik sounds devious, and I don´t recommend staying too close to police, most are corrupted.”
“And all that for a cocktail,” said Lanai.
“People love our cocktails here,” said Trecker, “management accepted today to test a new computer system to gather information on cocktail consumer preferences. It´s a new system, very innovative as for what they say, it will feed directly onto our fruit suppliers and we´ll be able to practically make to order any cocktail ordered a day in advance by the customer. A woman known as a super taster came here today with a computer expert to sell it to us. They want to place their system in all Senor Toad´s locations in Mexico and the Caribbean”
“A super taster, that´s Ms. Avenworth,” said Clarity, “the woman whose money was stolen tastes and creates drinks for a living. Is there any way to get in touch with that computer expert?”
“I have his card, I suppose I could call him for a drink,” said Trecker.
“Tell him we´ll go meet him in his place, we´ll bring a late take out dinner from here without the jalapenos,” said Clarity.