DJ focused himself. He had to stay on the mission. He got down on his hands and knees, peering under the car and across the backside of the house. He saw the patio table lit from a yellow glow spilling through a frosted window.
Dos Santos was in the bathroom.
Not wasting a second, DJ sprang up. He ran around the front of the car, but as soon as he did, something else caught his eye. A length of rope. The same kind of rope they’d used to kill Blunt. It lay on the car’s dash, for anyone to see. The son of a bitch had balls the size of Jupiter, DJ had to give him that.
Instead of running to the back door, DJ made a short detour. He walked over to the passenger side of the car and checked the handle. The door opened.
How could anybody leave their car unlocked at night in a neighborhood like this? Then again, DJ would bet that everybody on the block knew Adrian Dos Santos was the kind of cop that’d cuff you before he bashed your head into the wall.
He grabbed the rope off the dash. Must’ve been ten feet of it. DJ coiled it around his chest so that it ran from his left shoulder to the opposite hip.
That done, he aimed himself toward the back door. Seeing it there, knowing what he was going to do, made his nerves hum and his lungs gulp for air.
DJ was a door kicker again. Just like every other time, this might be the last time ever. He felt charged, energized.
He stopped a few feet from the door, then pivoted so that his left shoulder propped against the wall closest to the knob. He held the Mossberg out from his body, left hand on top of the barrel, right hand gripped tightly to the pistol grip, fingertip on the forward part of the trigger guard. He aimed where the door met the frame, just beside the doorknob, and his finger moved to the trigger.
The shotgun roared and swung backward in his arms like a battering ram on the rebound. Buckshot hammered the door, the sound bouncing off the neighbors’ houses and cars, startling a yappy dog next door. The door stubbornly held fast. DJ pumped the shotgun, then adjusted his grip on it once more, and squeezed the trigger. This time, the door reared back and the knob cracked clean off.
Salsa music blared out louder than the last Megadeth concert DJ had gone to in Fort Lauderdale. He wondered if Dos Santos even heard the gunshot, but it was smarter to work on the assumption he had.
Before entering, DJ glanced around the corner. Ahead was a small kitchen, and beyond it the front of the house. To the left, a doorway to another room. No Dos Santos. Every moment DJ hesitated gave advantage to his enemy. So, he rushed in, took the doorway left, and found himself in a small hallway. The only light came from a door to his left. He opened it up.
Dos Santos was naked, leaning halfway out of the shower. He’d been caught completely unaware and unprepared. Probably the music inside the house was so loud, he either didn’t hear the shotgun blasts, or mistook it for something else.
But now that he and DJ were eye to eye, Dos Santos put it together.
“En serio?” His lip curled at DJ.
“Oh, I’m serious, man. Believe that.” DJ motioned with the shotgun, signaling him to step out of the shower.
He did. One heavy leg at a time, his eyes transfixed by DJ’s shotgun, as if he’d spot the buckshot flashing out and sidestep it in the same instant. He raised his hands until they were even with shoulders the size of cannonballs.
Funny, as big of a guy as he was, having him stand there completely naked, alone, and dripping with water, he looked more like a scared kid caught out in the rain.
“That’s a good start,” DJ said. “Now, I want you to take this rope, and put it around your neck.”
Dos Santos shook his head. “You’re making a mistake, acho. I’m not some nobody you can roll up on and rob. I’m connected.”
DJ smiled at him.
“What a small world it is. Turns out I’m connected too, acho. I’m connected to the guy you strung up last night.” DJ tossed the rope at his feet.
It didn’t take long for Dos Santos to connect the dots.
“Wait a minute.” He backed into the wall. “That wasn’t my idea. I’m a working stiff, bro, and your buddy was unlucky, and I was doing what I was told—man, you don’t know the whole story.”
“Tell it to me,” DJ said. “Let me hear the whole story, and maybe I won’t blow your ass through that wall behind you, and you can get back to getting squeaky clean.”
The color blanched out of Dos Santos. He looked like he was going to throw up.
“Go on, friend. Tell me your story. You asked me to wait a minute, and I’m waiting.”
“I’m sorry about your buddy, okay? I never wanted to hurt nobody. But man, I got a job that needs to be done. All right? It’s nothing personal. I’m just trying to survive like everybody else—like you, right?” He kept his hands up, but Dos Santos would’ve gotten down on his knees, kissed DJ’s rings and paid for an indulgence if he thought it’d get him out of his bathroom alive.
“I got bills to pay. I got alimony, child support—I gotta think about retirement. I gotta hustle and do everything I can do to make ends meet. Okay, man? I’m sorry about your friend, I truly, deeply am, but he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and I had business to do. Plus, you know he wasn’t clean. We knew that too. He’s with Garner’s people. He knew the risks.”
“Garner?” DJ’s hand squeezed the shotgun’s stock. “Did he put you up to this?”
By his expression, Dos Santos knew he wasn’t getting his point across to DJ.
“There’s all kinds of madness in this world, man,” Dos Santos said. “I know I’m a bad person. But you ain’t clean either, right? What’s the difference between what I did and what you’re doing? You don’t think I got friends that’ll miss me?”
DJ only stared at him.
“We were just gonna shake your boy down—keep a felony over his head to make sure he stayed quiet—that was the plan from the start, but she said she didn’t—”
“Who said?” DJ said, as softly as he could over the salsa music.
The tips of Dos Santos’s fingers nervously bobbed in the air. He’d blurted out too much, and he knew it.
“Let me go, and I’ll tell you,” he said.
DJ laughed. “You know I got a few double-aught shells in this thing, right? And they’re pointed right at your gut. How about you tie yourself a noose and put that thing on, then we’ll talk.”
The dynamic of their negotiation must’ve finally hit home with Dos Santos. Because he slowly bent over, checking with DJ whether or not he was moving too quickly, then picked up the rope at his feet, and tied it into a perfect hangman’s noose.
When that was done, Dos Santos seemed to have lost the inches of nerve he’d built up. He looked at DJ, silently begging for him to stop.
“Did you have something you wanted to ask me, Officer?”
“Man, we don’t have to go this far. You got a problem? Let me pay you for your troubles, okay? Nobody has to know—”
DJ squeezed the trigger of his sawed-off. Buckshot turned a handful of white tiles on the wall behind Dos Santos into ringlets of dust, and the man’s entire body clenched up. Having never shot at a naked man, DJ had never seen how the muscles from a man’s feet to his neck rippled and tightened when they were energized with fear.
“I won’t miss next time!” DJ roared. “Count on that.” He racked another round into the chamber. The spent shell fell into the open toilet. “Now put that rope around your neck.”
Dos Santos clenched his eyes shut as he brought the rope over his head. He let it rest on his shoulders.
“Good boy. Now tell me about that lady you mentioned.”
Conversation wasn’t coming so easily to Officer Dos Santos now. His eyes were wide and his chest was heaving like a dying buck. DJ had never seen a naked man piss himself, but he might yet.
“What do you want to know?” Dos Santos barked.
“Who is she?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know her name, man. I swear to Christ I don’t kno
w it. She pays good, that’s all I need to know. Names stay out of my head.”
“Then who in your crew knows her name? The leader? The white guy with the slicked-back hair?”
Dos Santos’s muscles tightened across his body as soon as DJ asked about the leader—he was right on the money. Questioning a naked man apparently had its advantages.
“Okay, so he’s the point man,” DJ said. “How do you know he was dealing with a woman?”
Dos Santos hesitated. He thought he could get away with teasing DJ with tidbits of information—like DJ would let him go without finding the things worth knowing. So, he aimed the gun at Dos Santos’s foot and pulled the trigger.
The man collapsed to the floor, writhing silently. DJ walked closer to him.
“I didn’t come to your house for the tunes,” DJ said as he racked the shotgun again. “Tell me who wanted my friend dead.”
“Some executive!” Dos Santos hissed. “I don’t know her name, man, I swear to God! She’s a CEO or something! She works at Hildon!”
Hildon.
That word put DJ’s brain in a chokehold. A pharma company wanted Markel dead. They used one of Blunt’s boats to get to Markel’s house, then, after the deed was done, they snipped Blunt to cut off any loose ends. He shut his eyes and saw Blunt’s purpled face, the corners of his mouth stretched back in mute horror, eyes bulging from their sockets.
Before he realized it, his emotions had roped him. They’d pulled him forward until he could see the broken vessels in the end of Dos Santos’s nose—until DJ was standing over him with the shotgun inches from the back of Dos Santos’s hand, cradling his head in fear.
“Did you kill the doctor?” One word had put DJ into a frenzy. Spittle came off his mouth, leaping onto Dos Santos’s forehead. “Who else did they pay you to kill?”
“I had nothing—”
DJ jammed the gun against Dos Santos’s head.
“Don’t lie to me! Don’t you lie to me, I’ll blow your brains out, I’ll kill you right here, and I won’t—”
A hand clapped across DJ’s chin. He’d let his emotions get the better of him, and they’d led him into making a fatal mistake by getting too close—why did he need to be this close to Dos Santos? He had a shotgun; he should be across the room. What was he thinking?
Nothing.
And that left him open to getting this whole thing turned around on him.
When Dos Santos struck him, DJ’s body tensed in shock. Including his finger on the trigger of his shotgun.
That was the end of Officer Adrian Dos Santos. He would not have an open casket.
DJ stumbled back, nearly falling, except for the sink and cabinet behind him.
Whatever information Dos Santos had in his head was now spread across his bathroom wall.
While DJ stood with the Mossberg in his hands, his brain struggled to take in all the carnage.
Then one neuron connected with another, and he pumped the shotgun in a daze, ejecting the last shell. He bent and picked it up, dropping it in his pocket. He picked up the empty shells too, even the one in the toilet, and put them all in his pocket.
The shotgun itself was unregistered; serial numbers scratched off with a Dremel tool. Bought from a guy who knew a guy for about ten times its value. He left the shotgun on the bathroom floor.
DJ retraced his steps through the house. When he stepped out to Dos Santos’s backyard, he scanned to his left and then his right. None of the neighbors were outside. Either they didn’t hear the shots or didn’t want to get involved. Possibly they knew who the shot was for and didn’t want to stop a good thing from happening.
DJ stooped and picked up two more shell casings before moving quickly to the corner of the yard. There, he climbed the fence, bracing his good foot on the concrete post. He ran back to the truck across the street and grabbed his sea bag, removing the shells from his pocket and dropping them inside. Then he pulled the string and put the strap over his shoulder. He’d call a cab from the bar he’d hung out in this afternoon.
Then, he’d find Hildon Pharmaceutical’s CEO.
Wayward floated sedately in the mooring field near Vieques.
As soon as we got back, Alicia parked herself at the built-in desk in the starboard hull, popped her earbuds in and started in on the files on Dr. Markel’s laptop.
My part was to keep an eye on Flor. I wasn’t used to being the nurse, and I think Flor understood that. She went easy on me and by early in the afternoon, she dozed off. While she slept, I took the dinghy back to shore and picked up some supplies. Mostly groceries.
When I got back, everything was the same as when I left, except for Alicia’s cup of tea. I put another kettle on for her, letting it heat up while I loaded the supplies, including some fresh-caught shrimp and a pair of red snappers I bought straight off the docks.
After slipping a fresh cup of Alicia’s preferred brand of tea—Tazo Passion Fruit—next to her on the desk, I seasoned the shrimp and put them on the cockpit grill along with some fruits and veggies.
I took a plate back to my wife as soon as dinner was ready. Then, I woke Flor. She sat on the cockpit couch while I plated her fish and shrimp straight from the grill. Outside the awning, the afternoon sunlight glared down on the light chop stirred up by other vessels coming in and out of the bay. A breeze blew out of the southeast, crossing Vieques, before it swept over Wayward, and straight on to Puerto Rico.
I set her plate, with half a snapper fillet, an equivalent amount of shrimp, and some grilled vegetables, on the cockpit dinette. She looked at it like she didn’t know what to do.
“That’s red snapper,” I said. “Good protein, low fat. Lots of B12 and omega-3 in that. Should be safe to eat since you’re done with chemo.”
Flor picked up a shrimp and absent-mindedly nibbled on it, her attention more focused on a superyacht lumbering into the bay than on me.
“I picked that fish up especially for you,” I said. “No need to thank me.”
She sighed, her sunken eyes sprawling over the bay. “So, this is life for you?”
Hearing something that blunt escape the lips of a twelve-year-old girl made me stop short. I knew what she meant. The crystal blue waters, the boats, the luxury of idle moments. What she didn’t consider was the dull moments being cleaved in two by absolute chaos and murder.
“Cooking shrimp and chasing murderers?” I shrugged. “Sometimes I switch it up. I prefer to catch crab near the beach behind my house.”
Flor smirked at her shrimp. “Must be a fun job.”
“I’m certainly not in it for the money,” I replied.
She snorted.
As she worked on another shrimp, I noticed her fingernails. The polish she and Alicia had applied yesterday looked like the slats of an abandoned house. I’d been with Alicia long enough to know that a coat of good polish stayed for three or four days before it started to chip.
I remembered my father’s fingernails when he went through chemo. The way they flaked and cracked.
“You know, B12 is good for your nails.”
Flor pursed her lips and glared at me as if I’d threatened to leave her mother to rot in jail. I wasn’t sure where all this static was coming from. Maybe it was typical of a pre-teen girl, maybe it was something else. In either case, I didn’t deserve flak.
“Is there a problem?” I put on my best Dad voice.
Her eyes widened, but she kept her attention on her shrimp.
“No, sir,” she said. “This is all perfect. Not a problem in the world. I’m on the back of some rich guy’s boat, eating grilled shrimp on a perfect day, talking about B12.”
Before I gave her a piece of my mind, I looked away from Flor, watching a racing cat lift one of its hulls out of the water as the vessel turned toward Puerto Rico.
What the hell did she know, anyway? She was just a kid. When I was twelve, I didn’t give much thought to anything outside of surfing, soccer, and keeping Gene out of my room.
“Sure, it’s
a perfect day, kid. Remember it. Because when you’re older, you’ll look back and thank your lucky stars I came along.”
She looked past the stern to her right, at the same superyacht. She quickly wiped a tear out of the corner of her eye. Part of the nail on her index finger was simply not there.
Flor needed a wide berth. She could have been bathing in champagne, and she wouldn’t be feeling right. For God’s sake, her mother was in jail, and I’d helped put her there. What in the hell was I getting so worked up about? I needed sleep.
“Look, I know things are sideways, but I’m going to right the ship. I’m not going to quit until your mom is back. I’ll get the both of you squared away, and I won’t quit until I do.”
Tears flowed freely out of Flor’s eyes now.
“Don’t worry about it. Don’t worry about me at all. Okay? I’m out of here. I’ll just—” She sat up and searched the cockpit for a way out, like a mouse trapped in a bucket. “Please take me home.”
“I’m not doing that.”
“You can’t keep me here—I don’t want to be here.”
“You may not want to be here, but I can keep you here.”
She turned around on the cockpit settee, got on her knees, and cupped her hands around her mouth. “Help!” she screamed. “Help me! I’m being kidnapped!”
Alicia rushed out to the cockpit. “Jerry, what’s going on?”
“Flor’s having a teenager moment,” I said, barely keeping myself from rolling my eyes. “She forgot how lucky she is to be here.”
“I’m lucky?” Flor asked. “I didn’t want any of this, Jerry.”
Her paisley headband had slipped downward, resting on her bony shoulders. I saw the patches of naked skin in her scalp, her uneven hairline, the hurt in her tear-filled eyes.
She was right to be mad. Life had not been kind or fair to her, and, thoughtlessly, I wrote her problems off. I was ashamed of how callous I’d been.
“I’d like to go lie down in my room for a little while.”
Wayward Sons Page 31
