The Night Charter

by Sam Hawken

  She might have heard him gasp. She didn’t know for certain. “Dead? How? When?”

  “It was a couple of days ago,” Lauren said. “I think he was shot.”

  “You think? Jesus, Lauren. Where are you now? Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. I’m staying with a friend of my dad’s. But I need someone to come and get me.”

  “A friend? Aren’t the police looking after you?”

  “It’s kind of hard to explain,” Lauren said. “But I’m safe. The police are trying to find out who did it. I need someone to pick me up, Uncle Richard. You’re the only one who can. If you don’t, they’re going to put me in care.”

  “Put you in care,” Richard said. “What does that mean? Like protective custody?”

  “No, like a home for kids with no families. I have a family, though: you.”

  Richard sounded less breathless now. “Lauren, I’m all the way out in Texas. Are you and Parker…I mean, are you still in Miami?”

  “Yes. I really need you to come, Uncle Richard. I know it’s been a long time, but I don’t want to go back into care. I want to be with a real family.”

  Emotion welled up in her. She remembered Camaro and placed a barricade between her outward self and her inward self. This was hard enough without bawling into the phone.

  “I don’t know how I’d get there,” Richard said. “I want to, but I don’t have money for a plane.”

  “Please, Uncle Richard. I need you now.”

  “Shit,” Richard said.

  Lauren poured all the energy she could into her next words. “Will you come?”

  “Aren’t the police going to want you to stay put?”

  “They won’t stop me from going with you,” Lauren said.

  “I have kids of my own, Lauren. There’s not a lot of room at home.”

  “I have to get out of here,” Lauren said. “Please.”

  A long, long time passed. Lauren clung to the phone with both hands. “I can drive,” Richard said at last. “But it’s gonna take a while. A couple of days maybe. Can you hold on that long? Will you be safe? They won’t try to make you go anywhere, will they? Not if they know I’m coming?”

  “I won’t go anywhere.”

  “Where are you, so I can find you?”

  “I’m not sure where I’ll be in two days,” Lauren said. “Call this number again when you’re close to the city. I’ll tell you then.”

  “Lauren…am I walking into some kind of trouble there? Your dad…”

  “It’s okay,” Lauren said. “Everything will be okay if you come.”

  “I’ll leave as soon as I can get home and get packed,” Richard said.

  The tension fled her. “Thank you, Uncle Richard. You’re saving my life.”

  “Just don’t go getting yourself into trouble. Steer clear of whatever the police are doing. I’m going to want to know all about it when I get there.”

  “I’ll tell you everything,” Lauren said. “Good-bye, Uncle Richard.”

  “Take care, Lauren.”

  They hung up. Lauren clasped the folded phone between her hands as if praying, and then put it away. She picked up the bags from the drugstore and the grocery and went back to the motel.

  Chapter Sixty-Five

  CAMARO WOKE AT the soft knock on the door. She brought her pistol with her as she checked the peephole. In the bathroom, Chapado was awake and watching. Lauren stood outside. Camaro let her in.

  “I got what you needed,” Lauren told her when she put the bags on the bed. “And some other stuff.”

  “How did it go?” Camaro asked her. She put the Glock at the small of her back.

  “No one cared I was out there,” Lauren said.

  “Good. Did you see anyone hanging around? Watching the motel?”

  “Nobody.”

  “Okay,” Camaro said. She looked in the plastic bag from the drugstore. All the things were there. She went to the bathroom and brought out the key to the handcuffs.

  Chapado exhaled with relief as she let him loose. His wrists were red, despite the relative looseness of the cuffs, and Camaro was reminded that long use of cuffs like these could cause nerve damage. If she’d had another way to secure him, she would have used it. But that was not going to happen.

  The man shook his hands out and rubbed at his wrists. “Thank you,” he said.

  “You’re going back in them when we’re finished. Sit on the edge of the tub.”

  He did as he was told. Camaro brought the supplies in. She ran the sink until the water steamed and washed her hands before filling the basin. She soaked a small towel in it. When that was done, she indicated that Chapado should put out his injured arm and let her lay the towel on it. He hissed when the hot cloth touched the raw wound.

  “That’s just to soften things up a little bit,” Camaro said.

  She let the cloth sit for a couple of minutes and then lifted it off and cast it into the sink. The white was stained by leakage from the wound. If it was not cleaned thoroughly, it would get worse.

  A pair of medical scissors were in a plastic bubble on a piece of cardboard. Camaro popped them out. There was no sterilizing them, but she let them rest in the sink until they were warm to the touch, then washed them in isopropyl alcohol. Two pieces of skin had been peeled free of Chapado’s forearm. Camaro scissored them away, exposing the raw layer underneath, and then put the scissors aside.

  There were cotton balls in the bag and hydrogen peroxide. Camaro let a couple of balls absorb the liquid. Then she knelt in front of Chapado to apply the peroxide to the wounds. Immediately, there was a sizzle and white foaming. “It stings,” Chapado said.

  “It might a little. But it’ll help bring up any debris down in the cuts.”

  The stink of Chapado was still intense, especially so close. Camaro ignored it. Once the bubbles died down, she used a washcloth steeped in the scalding water to wipe down the injury. Chapado made a low, pained noise, but that was all.

  More cotton balls, this time carrying a charge of the alcohol, gave the wounds a second cleaning. Chapado kept his silence then, though Camaro knew this must have been the most painful thing of all.

  She was applying a layer of antibiotic ointment when Chapado spoke again. “You are a nurse?”

  “No.”

  “You were a soldier?”

  “I was once.”

  “It was there that you learned this?”

  “Yes. I can take care of a lot worse.”

  “I thought you might be a soldier. The way you killed that man. No hesitation. No remorse.”

  Camaro glanced up at him. He was watching her closely. “Killing somebody is easy,” she said. “You pull a trigger.”

  “I think we both know that is not the case.”

  Camaro washed her hands again before opening up a package of gauze. “It doesn’t matter. I did what I had to do to get you out of there.”

  “But why? To get money from Clifford?”

  “I don’t want any of his money.”

  “Then money from my people?”

  “I don’t want their money, either,” Camaro said.

  “Then what is it? Why don’t you let me go?”

  Camaro covered the wound with a double layer of sterile gauze and then used medical tape to secure it on all four sides. “I’m doing something I don’t have to explain to you. All you need to worry about is getting to your friends in one piece. When all of this is over, that’s what will happen.”

  “When?”

  “Soon. I have things to take care of first.”

  “I’m not afraid to die,” Chapado said.

  “Are you sure about that?” Camaro asked. She looked him in the face.

  He turned his head. “I try not to be afraid.”

  “There’s no harm in being afraid. I’m afraid.”

  “You don’t seem to be.”

  “That’s the difference between you and me.”

  “If I must die,” Chapado said, straightening, �
�then I would prefer to die on my feet. Not begging. Can you promise me that will happen?”

  “Nobody’s going to die,” Camaro said. “Nobody we care about, anyway.”

  “Then who?”

  Camaro stood up. She brought out the cuffs. “Time for lockup. Get down on the floor.”

  Chapado did as he was commanded, and Camaro cuffed him in. “I never learned your name,” he said.

  “No,” Camaro said. “You didn’t.”

  Chapter Sixty-Six

  IT HAD TAKEN only two phone calls to get a return call from Hugo Echave. The first calls had been brief ones, the people on the other end guarded when they learned Ignacio was calling from the police. But eventually they had given him a number where Echave could be reached. Ignacio was forced to try three times before he finally got an answer. “Mr. Echave, my name is Detective Ignacio Montellano of the Miami Police Department. I have some questions concerning the death of Pablo Marquez.”

  “I have nothing to say,” Echave told him.

  “I thought you might say that, but I think you do.”

  “I’m telling you I don’t.”

  “Then how about this: you answer my questions about Alpha 66.”

  Echave went silent. At long last he said, “We should not talk on the phone.”

  “Then where?”

  “Come to my home this evening. Five o’clock.”

  “Just tell me the address.”

  Echave did and Ignacio wrote it down. After that it was simply a matter of waiting until the appointed hour.

  Echave lived on Palm Island in Miami Beach. Driving through the neighborhood made Ignacio feel like the poorest man on earth. Great gates and walls cordoned off huge houses, and palm trees sprouted everywhere, making a lush jungle of greenery that spread out on every street.

  He found Echave’s home without trouble and stopped his car at the gate. A box with a button and a grille on it stood waiting by the drive. A camera watched from the wall. Ignacio pressed the button and waited.

  “Who is it?” asked a man’s voice from the grille.

  “Miami Police Department. I have a meeting with Mr. Echave.”

  “What is your name?”

  “Ignacio Montellano.”

  “Please wait.”

  A minute passed in silence. All the air conditioning escaped from Ignacio’s car, and now he sweated. He pressed the button again. “I have an appointment,” he said.

  “Please wait,” the voice replied.

  Another minute passed. Ignacio was poised to press the button again when the gates began to swing wide. There was no further instruction from the voice.

  He went up the curving drive to a white house with ceramic tiles on its roof. It had large windows designed to be thrown open wide and catch the breeze, though there was no breeze today. A black Mercedes sedan was parked near the front door. It was identical to the one left in Liberty City, the one owned by Álvaro Sotelo’s dealership. The Álvaro Sotelo who was a part of the upper ranks of Alpha 66.

  An obvious bodyguard in a suit emerged from inside as Ignacio unfolded himself from his car and came up the steps. The bodyguard held the door for Ignacio. Inside it was wonderfully, blessedly cool, almost to the point of chill. The foyer was broad and long and tiled with a beautiful pattern that circled around a centerpiece table with a perfect bowl of fruit in its middle. Ignacio took off his hat.

  “Wait here,” the bodyguard said and left Ignacio.

  It was close to five minutes before the bodyguard returned. With him was Hugo Echave. The man was older than in his photograph, expensively dressed, his wide body tailored into an immaculate suit. “Detective Montellano,” Echave said. “Welcome to my home.”

  They shook hands. “I’m here,” Ignacio said.

  “Yes. Come into my study. We will talk there.”

  The study was in the north wing of the house. Ignacio immediately saw that it was a shrine both to old Cuba and to a new life in America. Echave waved him into a leather chair before taking his own. The bodyguard stood by the door.

  “Before we begin, could I have something brought for you?” Echave asked. “Lemonade? Tea? Coffee?”

  “I wouldn’t mind a lemonade.”

  “Nicolao, fetch the detective some lemonade.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The bodyguard left, leaving the door partly open. Ignacio glanced at the empty space that promised the man’s return. “Is he part of Alpha 66?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Echave said. “His grandfather was a good friend of my father’s. They both came from Cuba after Batista was driven out.”

  “Old times,” Ignacio said.

  “For some. Not for us. You are Cuban?”

  “No.”

  “Then you wouldn’t understand.”

  “I’d like to,” Ignacio said.

  “It’s not something that can be taught,” Echave said. “You must be born to it.”

  “Okay, then, let’s forget about learning the history. It’s not like there’s a whole lot to catch up on anyway. Cuba’s full of communists. You hate communists. Sometimes you have Cubans killed, and other times you play soldiers out in the swamps. Is that about the size of it?”

  Echave frowned. “There’s no need to be rude, Detective.”

  “Sorry. My BS levels are way off the charts this week.”

  “It’s true that we hate the Castroites,” Echave said. “And it’s true that people have died. I will not admit to the killing of anyone, not even a Cuban national. So if you’ve come to arrest me for committing the crime of murder, you will be disappointed.”

  “Maybe you didn’t commit murder, but some people under your employ did,” Ignacio said. “That shoot-out in Liberty City? And we have a couple of dead bodies we pulled out of a self-storage place that I bet I could trace back to you if I tried. Guys in suits getting shot aren’t too common around Miami these days.”

  “The men of Alpha 66 aren’t my employees,” Echave said.

  “What are they then?”

  “They are my brothers.”

  “Well, somebody’s killing off your brothers by the barrel. Like Pablo Marquez. I’d like to know why. And don’t give me a whole bunch of runaround, because I know more than you think I know.”

  The bodyguard, Nicolao, returned with the lemonade. He put it on a coaster at Ignacio’s right hand, on an antique table that could have cost thousands of dollars.

  Echave sat with his hands folded across his belly until Ignacio finally took a drink from his glass. “Do you think Cuba is a great friend to the United States?”

  “I don’t know what to think. We’re friends, we’re not friends…it’s not really my department. People seem real happy to get their hands on Cuban cigars.”

  “So they are. As if that’s all that matters. Business and tourism. While the communists squeeze Cuba more tightly than ever.”

  “Like I said, I don’t know anything about it. I’m all about clearing cases in Miami, not about what’s going on two hundred miles away in another country.”

  “What I tell you is not to be used against us,” he said when Ignacio was finished.

  “I’ll be the judge of that.”

  “I could tell you nothing.”

  “Then I’d start hauling your asses downtown to face charges of conspiracy to commit murder, just for starters. Like your friend Álvaro Sotelo, who supplies your vehicles. Yeah, that’s right, we figured that one out.”

  Echave looked pained. “We are acting as patriots.”

  “American patriots or Cuban patriots?”

  “Both. Cuba’s interests are America’s interests.”

  “Tell me,” Ignacio said, and brought out his notebook.

  Chapter Sixty-Seven

  IT WAS ONLY after a long while that Camaro decided it was safe enough to leave Lauren alone with Chapado. First she gagged the man with a clean washcloth, and then she admonished Lauren to run if there was any sign of trouble. She rode off to Homestead then and stopped
in a discount clothing store, buying an outfit she thought might fit Chapado, plus clean socks and underwear. After that she swung through a McDonald’s and bought food for all of them.

  She came back to the same scene she had left. Chapado had not moved, and Lauren was watching TV. Camaro dropped the food on the bed and went to Chapado. She ungagged him, uncuffed him, and gave him the clothes. “Change into these. We’ll throw the others out.”

  “You are too kind to me.”

  “Maybe. I’ll close the door for a few minutes so you can use the toilet, too. Take a shower if you want. Just keep that dressing dry.”

  With the door closed, Camaro went to the bed and sat next to Lauren. They ate and had some of the warm bottle of Coke Lauren had bought at the grocery. Chapado ran the shower for five minutes, and then she heard him dressing. He opened the door carefully, slowly when he was finished.

  She gave him food. “Sit on the floor and eat,” she told him. “When you’re done, I’m locking you up again.”

  “I won’t run.”

  “I can’t take that chance. Eat.”

  He was eating when the call came from Ignacio. Camaro cursed quietly and then answered. “I don’t have anything else to say,” she said.

  “I do,” Ignacio replied. “What do you know about Sergio Chapado?”

  Camaro froze. She closed the door. “Where did you hear about him?”

  “Never mind that. I asked you a question.”

  “If you’re asking me, then you already know. Matt Clifford has him.”

  “Does he? Or are you and he working some kind of scam together?”

  “I’m not working with him,” Camaro said.

  “Do you know where Matt has Chapado?”

  “No.”

  “You have to stop lying to me sometime, Camaro,” Ignacio said. “I’m way out on this one. Way out. You wouldn’t believe how far. And now there’s kidnapping involved? This is FBI shit. Pardon my language.”

  Camaro sat on the edge of the tub. “What does the FBI know?” she asked.

  “You’re asking me to be truthful with you now?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, I’ll trade. I tell you something, and you tell me something. How about it?”