by Blake Banner
More things happened after that. I heard the tramp of feet, I was dragged across a floor. Voices shouted in Spanish. I was dropped violently and painfully. Then I was rocking and there was the sound of water lapping. More shouts, and for a moment I came close to real panic when I thought I had been dropped in the ocean. But then it was the hum of an outboard and the slap and wash of a speedboat across small waves.
Finally, we slowed and drifted to an unsteady stop, and after a series of clanks and clunks, I felt myself swaying and swinging, I heard the faint whine of a winch and I realized I was being lifted aboard some kind of boat.
I hit the deck with a violent smack and after a moment heard the rattle of a key in a padlock. Next thing, the blackness was replaced by a long oblong of perfect blue, late-afternoon sky, and standing silhouetted against it was Mendez, in his silk suit. Standing behind him were Hunter and Lovejoy, and crouching on either side of the steel trunk I was in, like a pair of gargoyles peering in at me, were Oswaldo and Jesus.
Mendez snapped, “Oswaldo, sáquele del baúl.”
The ape with the high cheekbones and the short hair reached into the trunk with one massive hand and hauled me out. In his left hand, he had a big, ugly knife. He showed it to me and spoke quietly.
“We are two and half mile off the coast of Mexico. If you try and swim, you gonna die. Probably you gonna drown, but you got six guys here with guns. You don’t got a chance. So be smart. Don’t try. Okay?”
I told him I wouldn’t and he beamed and spread his hands.
“Watcha gonna do? Right?”
“Yeah. Watcha gonna do?”
He cut my bonds and I stood, rubbing my wrists and having a look around. We were on a large, white schooner that was rocking and creaking slightly in a gentle swell. The shadows of the masts stretched long across a copper sea. There were four armed apes dressed as sailors standing around, ready to take me down if I tried anything. Running down the center of the main deck, there was a long cabin, and inside, through the long windows, I could see what looked like some kind of classy drawing room-cum-dining room, with a chandelier, a dining table and a bar. Near the door, there were also a couple of coffee tables with leather armchairs and sofas. To my right, at the stern of the yacht, was another large structure that I assumed was the kitchen or the sleeping quarters.
Toward the prow, there was a lot of deck space, with coils of rope and chain winches for the anchors.
I turned to Mendez. “What’s the big idea?”
He gave me his thin, Latin smile and said, “You will find out. I promise you. You will find out.” He turned to Jesus, the ape with the big mustache. “Take our friend the Verdugo to the guest suite.”
Jesus’s eyes creased painfully at the sides and his jaw hung slack. “Eh?”
Oswaldo sighed and gave me a shove. “Walk.”
They took me toward the prow. Now I could see that there was a raised hatch on hinges. Oswaldo opened it and reached down to flip a switch. A dim light came on below, casting a dull amber glow up onto his face. It made him look like a vaguely bored demon. He eased himself down and Jesus pushed me after him. I clambered down the steep, narrow steps and found myself in some kind of wooden hold, filled with crates and sacks. It was small and cramped, but I could just about stand upright with three or four inches to spare. Oswaldo and Jesus both stood behind me, and I was about to ask what happened next when Oswaldo kicked me expertly in the back of the knee and I went down on the boards.
I lay there a moment, waiting for the next kick. It didn’t come. I turned and looked up. He was wearing a smile that was cold and sadistic. He pulled a pack of Marlboros from his pocket and lit up with a pink, disposable lighter. I started to get up, and my face must have telegraphed what I planned to do, because I heard the click of a hammer. It was Jesus, the Ape Man, with an oddly serious expression in his eyes.
He said, “Take it easy. Don’t get mad. We doin’ what we godda do.”
Oswaldo let a trail of smoke snake out of his nose, spread his hands and grinned. “What to do?”
Jesus gestured with his rod. “Get up against the pipe.”
I stood and moved to the back of the hold. There, three metal pipes ran down into the floor. One of them was thick, about six inches in diameter. Oswaldo came and stood really close to me, looking into my eyes, with the cigarette hanging from his lips. There was a trace of a smile, but not much. His breath smelled of stale tobacco and onions.
He said, “Stand against the pipe, link your hands behind it.”
I had no choice, so I did what he said. He pulled out a couple of zip ties and went behind me. As he bound my wrists together, I tensed them and pulled against the restraints. It didn’t do me much good, but when he’d finished and I relaxed my arms, I had a little more play.
He came around to face me and I slid down the pipe to sit cross-legged on the floor, looking up at the dynamic duo.
“Now what?”
They didn’t answer. Jesus went and sat on a crate and lit up, watching me as he smoked. Oswaldo sat on another crate and took his time smoking. I guess they thought it was intimidating. After a couple of minutes, I heard a grinding hum from below and we started to heave gently and sway. They had started the engines and we were underway.
I knew Oswaldo was a dead loss, so I asked Jesus, “We going anywhere nice?”
He blinked slowly, but that was all the answer I was going to get. When I looked at Oswaldo, he was smiling gently at me. He nodded a few times and said, “You goin’ somewhere real nice. Real nice. You goin’ to swim with the fishes.” And he creased his eyes and laughed like a merry, giant Buddha. “But no point worrying. Relax. Everything out of control!” He giggled like it was hilarious and looked at Jesus, who smiled and nodded like he understood the joke.
Another twenty minutes passed with only the sound of the engine and the plowing of the yacht. Then I heard steps above, a rapid, strutting stride. The hatch opened and Mendez came tripping down the steps.
“What are you playing at, Mendez?”
He jerked his knees and stretched his arms in his sleeves. “Playing? You need to think again. This is no game.” He spread his hands wide, shrugged and pulled a face all at the same time, the way only Latinos know how. He seemed to say with his body that he himself was incredulous at how simple it was. “Is not complicated. Either your story is true, or is not. Logic tells that your story is too incredible to be true. So is not, and if your story is not true, you are lying. It is that simple.”
I nodded. “Theory always is.”
He ignored me and carried on. “If you are lying, this means you are in New Mexico to destroy my business and my network, to execute my distributors.”
I squinted at him like he was crazy. “I already told you that was so. I told you I was sent by the SEA…”
“Oh, yes, and you were very convincing, until you said that Paul O’Brien was the director of the agency.”
He watched me, waiting. I didn’t say anything—not aloud. Inside, I cursed myself for my carelessness and my stupidity, wondering what the hell had made me choose that name.
When I didn’t say anything, Mendez said, “Paul O’Brien was murdered almost two years ago. If he hadn’t been murdered, he would have been just the kind of guy to head that agency, under this administration. So now I am real curious to know what the hell you are about. Two things are clear. You lied to me, and also you have a lot of specialized knowledge. So you are gonna tell me everything you know.” He gestured toward the dynamic duo. “I am on my way to see Sole.”
I cut him short. “Where is she?”
He smiled. “She came out a little ahead of us. Yours is a tragic story of unrequited love, Verdugo. I can see that she gets to you. And I understand that. Latinas have a way of getting inside a man. Sole is something special. Unfortunately for you, she is crazy about me. Power is an aphrodisiac, and I got a lot of power. You…” He gestured at me with his open palm. “You are a pathetic piece of shit. You have no att
raction for a woman. She hates you, because you came between her and me, and now I am gonna have to torture her to make you talk.”
I shook my head. “You don’t need to do that. I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”
He stood staring at me for a long moment, then shook his head. “Too late. See, I am real good at reading people. And I get a kind of…,” he narrowed his eyes and wiggled his fingers, “cosquilleo…”
Oswaldo said, “Tingling, Boss.”
Mendez nodded at him. “Thank you, Oswaldo, exactly that, a tingling, that tells me you and Sole have some history. It is no accident that you showed up here when you did. I think Sole knows who you are. So I am gonna talk to Sole, alone, at my house here—I still got my papa’s house on the beach near the Bahia de Kino. I was always promising her we gonna go have a holiday there. So now we gonna have a chance to be alone and talk about her past.” His eyes had become hooded. He was calm—too calm—and beneath the surface, you could feel the madness of unbridled rage.
“When I am done, she will still be alive. I’m gonna make sure she ain’t so far gone that a good, private hospital in California can’t help her. Because I want you to know that if she dies, it will be your fault. I want you to know that you can save her, if you tell me the truth.” He took a step toward me and pointed at me. “I’ll get her story, and I will compare it with yours. And if they don’t match, you will both die real bad deaths. The only way you can guarantee havin’ the same story is tellin’ the truth. Am I right?”
I nodded. “Sure, you’re right. But you don’t need to hurt her. She is faithful and loyal to you. I caused these problems, take it out on me. I’ll give you information you can verify. Leave her alone. She is innocent.”
He laughed noisily and Jesus and Oswaldo joined him. “Women are born guilty, Verdugo. No, she will suffer. She will suffer pain tonight beyond what you can imagine, and she will be maimed and disfigured. When you see Sole again, she will not be the same woman.”
He turned to Oswaldo and gestured at me. “Diviértanse, pero no lo maten. Lo quiero vivo.” Have fun, but don’t kill him.
He wanted me alive.
Seventeen
He turned and climbed up the stairs. The hatch closed and I heard his feet tapping along the deck, receding toward the stern. Oswaldo was finishing his cigarette, watching me and smiling. After a minute, I heard the engine of the power launch roar, then slowly recede.
Jesus, the Simian Wonder, stood and looked down at his pal. “You wanna go first?”
Oswaldo nodded and Jesus labored up the steps, off to do what people with empty minds do.
Oswaldo crushed out his cigarette and got to his feet. He stood in front of me, cracking his knuckles and loosening his shoulders. The anticipation of pain made me nauseous.
He said, “Get up. If you stay sitting, I’m gonna kick you, and that’s worse.”
I pushed myself to my feet.
He was an accomplished martial artist. He wasn’t brilliant, but he was good enough and he was strong. He was enjoying his own skill as much as he was enjoying seeing the pain on my face. The first dozen blows were designed to soften me up without doing too much damage: alternating right and left crosses, jabs and open-handed slaps and back-handers that left my head ringing. I tried to roll with them and absorb them, but that isn’t easy when you’re chained to a pipe. The pain was debilitating, and I could taste the blood in my mouth.
His first serious punch went to my belly and half winded me. I groaned and vomited. He enjoyed that and his next punch went to my floating ribs. I was already weak from the blow to my head in the RV, and I began to wonder if I’d make it. I lifted my head to look at him and I knew from his stance and the position of his feet that the next strike was going to be straight to my jaw. It wouldn’t kill me, but I would be useless for hours, maybe even a couple of days.
I groaned, slid down the pipe to the floor and rolled my head around.
Oswaldo was breathing heavily. He said, “Come on, tough guy. On your feet. You can take this. You want me to kick you?”
I knew I had seen somewhere how, if your hands were zip-tied behind your back, you could bust the ties by smacking your wrists against your ass. I had been trying to pull my hand free while he was hitting me, and now my hands were both slick with blood, but they were not slipping through.
I looked up at him and began to struggle to my feet while he did a little Cassius Clay dance.
He made a little gesture with his two hands and mouthed, “Up.”
I braced myself against the pipe, leaned forward and pushed myself up, making a big thing of how weak I was. He didn’t disappoint me. He balled his fist expertly into a compact rock, took a step toward me and snapped his hip like a whip. The power and speed were impressive. Fortunately, believing I couldn’t move, he had telegraphed well ahead that he was coming. I dodged to my right, leaned forward and smashed both my wrists against the pipe, pulling apart as I did so. It hurt like hell, but the zip tie snapped at the very instant that Oswaldo’s fist smashed into the steel piping.
The blow was powerful. It dented the steel and jarred Oswaldo all the way up into his brain. His eyes bulged and his mouth gaped wide. I didn’t waste time. I rammed my left thumb into his right eye and secured my grip on his ear with my fingers. His breath screeched into his throat and his feet did a strange little jig. Before he was done, I had smashed his windpipe with the knuckles of my right hand. I released his head and kicked his legs from under him. He fell on his face, bleeding from his eye, and I put him out of his misery by stamping on the back of his neck. The last thing he ever did in this world was jerk his feet.
I took his Smith & Wesson from his belt, lifted the hatch a couple of inches and peered through. Dusk was shifting rapidly to night and a cold breeze was coming in off the sea. The front deck was empty on all sides. I pushed the hatch up all the way and pulled myself out. I ached all over and my legs were shaking. I lay still, looking and listening.
The main cabin was fifteen feet away. There were two long windows facing me and light was spilling from them onto the deck. I scrambled silently over and peered in. The saloon was empty.
I dropped back to the deck and crawled to the corner. Now I could hear voices. I couldn’t make out what they were saying, but they were laughing a lot and shouting. I lay flat and inched out so I could see where the noise was coming from.
It was a hot, sticky night and they had pulled a table out onto the deck. It looked like they were playing cards and drinking tequila. Some other day, at some other time, with the element of surprise on my side, I might have taken them on. Right then, with a head and body like a war zone, I didn’t like the odds. I pulled back.
Over the gunwale, about a mile away, I could just make out the lights of Mendez’s launch. It looked like it had arrived at the beach, and just beyond it, I could see the lights of a beach house, where I figured he had Sole.
I went back to the hatch, raised it and dropped it so it made a lot of noise. Then, in a voice I hoped was like Oswaldo’s, I called Jesus to come over, “Eh, Jesús! Venga acá!”
His voice came back as a kind of whine. “Que pasa? Estoy jugando a las cartas, pues!”
Something about playing cards. I hollered back, “Venga acá ya! Lo necesito!”
That was about the limit of my credible Spanish. If it didn’t pay off, I was in trouble.
After a moment, I heard him lumbering up the deck. I flattened myself against the wall and waited till he was just past me. Then I stepped up close behind him, put the muzzle of the Smith & Wesson into the small of his back and said, “Go ahead, make my day.”
He froze. “Mierda! How’d you get loose?”
I grinned. “I’m a ninja. Walk.”
“Walk where?”
“To the gunwale.”
He took a couple of steps to the side of the boat. A thin sliver of moon was just creeping over the horizon, casting small, liquid ingots on the water. The blow to the back of his neck snapp
ed his spinal cord, so he never knew he had died. Before he sagged, I grabbed his ankles and levered him over the side. Then I started hollering, “El Gringo! El Gringo!”
That was all that was needed. To the slobs playing poker, I had jumped overboard. For good measure, I put a couple of rounds into the sea, like Oswaldo or Jesus was shooting at me. The four guys still playing cards ran to the gunwale, weapons drawn, and started shooting into the darkness where they thought I was, kicking up small fountains of spray.
I slipped away to the opposite side of the yacht and sprinted past the cabin to come up behind them on the rear deck. When I got there, they had stopped shooting and were peering into the darkness, asking each other, “Can you see him?”
“Did you get him?”
“I thought I got him.”
Dead bodies don’t sink unless you weigh them down, so every now and then, the fragile moonlight would catch Jesus’s body with a gleam of reflected light and the boys would pepper him with shots, then excitedly ask each other again, “Did you see?”
“I got him.”
“Did I get him?”
I shot the four of them in the back where they stood, shooting their dead colleague, thinking they were shooting me. The first two went down before they knew they’d been shot. The other two were turning and I hit them in the chest, in the head and in the gut. And they all fell in an untidy mess on the deck, lying among a spreading black pool of blood.
When I had finished, I helped myself to a couple of Glocks and went and sat at the table where they had been playing cards. There was a bottle of tequila and another of whiskey. I poured myself a large scotch and drank it straight off. It made me cough, but I felt better. Out of curiosity, I had a look at Jesus’s cards. He’d had a winning hand that night.
At the back of the yacht, there was a Zodiac dinghy with an outboard motor. I lowered it to the sea, swung down and two minutes later, I was headed for the shore.
