Here begins a highly unusual education. Jule goes to a specialized academy housed in a renovated mansion on an ordinary street in New York City. She learns surveillance techniques, performs backflips, and masters the removal of handcuffs and straitjackets. She wears leather pants and loads her pockets with gadgets. There are lessons in foreign languages, social customs, literature, martial arts, the use of firearms, disguises, various accents, methods of forgery, and fine points of the law. The education lasts ten years. By the time it is complete, Jule has become the kind of woman it would be a great mistake to underestimate.
That was the origin story of Jule West Williams. By the time she was living at the Playa Grande, Jule preferred it to any other story she might tell about herself.
Donovan stopped and opened the driver’s-side door. The light came on inside the car.
“Where are we?” Jule asked. It was dark outside.
“San José del Cabo.”
“This where you live?”
“Not too close.”
Jule was relieved, but it seemed very black out. Shouldn’t there be streetlights and businesses, lit up for the tourist crowd? “Anyone nearby?” she asked.
“I parked in an alley so you wouldn’t be seen getting out of my car.”
Jule crawled out. Her muscles were stiff and her face felt coated in grease. The alley was lined with garbage bins. There was light only from a couple of second-story windows. “Thanks for the ride. Pop the trunk, will you?”
“You said a hundred dollars American when I got you to town.”
“Of course.” Jule took her wallet from her back pocket and paid.
“But now it’s more,” Donovan added.
“What?”
“Three hundred more.”
“I thought we were friends.”
He took a step toward her. “I make you drinks because it’s my job. I pretend to like talking to you, because that’s my job, too. You think I don’t see how you look down at me? Second-best Hulk. What kind of scotch. We’re not friends, Ms. Williams. You’re lying to me half the time, and I’m lying to you all the time.” She could smell liquor spilled on his shirt. His breath was hot in her face.
Jule had honestly believed he liked her. They had shared jokes and he’d given her free potato chips. “Wow,” she said quietly.
“Another three hundred,” he said.
Was he a small-time hustler jacking a girl who was carrying a lot of American dollars? Or was he a sleazeball who thought she’d rub up against him rather than give him the extra three hundred? Could Noa have paid him off?
Jule tucked her wallet back in her pocket. She shifted the strap so her bag went across her chest. “Donovan?” She stepped forward, close. She looked up at him with big eyes.
Then she brought her right forearm up hard, snapped his head back, and punched him in the groin. He doubled over. Jule grabbed his slick hair and yanked his head back. She twisted him around, forcing him off balance.
He jabbed with one elbow, slamming Jule in the chest. It hurt, but the second thrust of the elbow missed as she sidestepped, grabbed that elbow, and twisted it behind Donovan’s back. His arm was soft, repulsive. She held on tight and with her free hand snatched her money out of his greedy fingers.
She shoved the cash into her jeans pocket and jerked Donovan’s elbow hard while she tapped his hip pockets, looking for his phone.
Not there. Back pocket, then.
She found it and shoved the phone down her bra for lack of anywhere else. Now he couldn’t call Noa with her location, but he still had the car keys in his left hand.
Donovan kicked out, hitting her in the shin. Jule punched him in the side of the neck and he crumpled forward. One hard shove and Donovan hit the ground. He started to push himself up, but Jule grabbed a metal lid from one of the nearby trash cans and banged it on his head twice and he collapsed on a pile of garbage bags, bleeding from the forehead and one eye.
Jule backed out of his reach. She still held the lid. “Drop your keys.”
Moaning, Donovan extended his left hand and tossed them so they landed a couple of inches from his body.
Jule grabbed the keys and popped the trunk. Then she took her rolling suitcase and sprinted down the street before Donovan could stand up.
