3 Crystal Blue

by John H. Cunningham

  It was Boom-Boom and his trusty shotgun. He glanced around in all directions. “No more bullshit, Reilly. You’re taking me to Christiansted, now.”

  “We’re having a meeting here in the War Room to try and figure out what the hell’s going on. Come on, join—”

  “I got no time for this shit!”

  “One of your friends is in here,” I said.

  I opened the door and Boom-Boom entered first.

  The sound of multiple guns being cocked and the ear piercing sound of people shouting sent us both diving for cover.

  “THE HELL’S THAT BUTCHER doing here?” Diego said. He had a Kimber 1911 .45 pointed at boom-Boom’s chest. Brass Knuckles had a Mac 10 aimed at our faces.

  I tried to speak, but only a bleat came out. I swallowed dust and cleared my throat.

  “Relax, he’s with me.”

  “Like I give a shit?” Diego said. “Motherfucker’s cost me a lot of money—for all I know he’s connected with the bastards who killed some of my people—”

  “Killed my people too, brudda,” Boom-Boom said. “We both been squeezed out.”

  A slow smile crossed Boom-Boom’s face. He sat up, shrugged, and reached a hand into his shirt—

  Diego thrust his gun forward. “Unh-unh!”

  But Boom-Boom had already pulled a fat blunt from inside his shirt.

  “Let’s have a toke, brudda.” Boom-Boom lit up and passed the blunt to Diego.

  “Guys?” I stood up. “Now that Stud’s been found, the show’s going forward—”

  Diego pointed his gun at me. “Only reason I’m here’s for you to fly my ass out—”

  “Not before me,” Boom-Boom said.

  The shriek of what sounded like a wounded animal turned all our heads. After a pause it sounded again, closer to the shack. We all looked at each other.

  The door flew open and Crystal Thedford ran in, carrying a small box. Her face was bright red and she was crying so hard she wasn’t making a sound—until another shrill wail erupted.

  “Crystal!” I grabbed her and held her by the shoulders while she shook. Another shriek filled the room as she expelled every bit of air from her lungs.

  “What’s wrong?” I said. “What’s in—”

  “They’re killing him!”

  The box shook like a rattle as she jerked it up.

  Ray Floyd must have wet himself after the guns came out, because I smelled urine. Lenny was peeking up from behind a chair. Boom-Boom and Diego looked relatively unfazed—and why not? They had the weapons, and they had a fresh buzz.

  I caught Crystal and half carried, half dragged her to the chair Ray was crouched behind. She collapsed into the seat and clenched her fist between her teeth. Somehow the box wound up in my hands—I was surprised at how light it was.

  “Open it up, man,” Diego said.

  I pulled the lid open on what I realized was a fast food hamburger box.

  Another shriek from Crystal while I was flinching myself from the sight of the contents.

  It was a finger with a ring on it.

  “That’s John’s wedding ring!”

  I wrapped an arm around her shoulder and pressed my jaw next to her soggy cheek.

  “What’s in the box?” Ray said.

  “Crystal, listen to me,” I said.

  She continued to wail.

  “Crystal!” I shook her. “This must mean that John’s still alive! Okay? If it’s his finger—”

  “Finger!” Ray squealed.

  I kicked him. “Then that’s more like a serious message. Was there a note?”

  Her hand shook like a Parkinson’s victim as she reached into her pocket and removed the crumpled paper. I unrolled it, surprised that it was on linen—high quality stationary. The note was brief and in blocky letters:

  LAST WARNING, STOP PARTY OR

  HE IAT SCHIT FOR ALWAYS!

  “What’s it say, man?” Lenny said, his lips curled at the sight of the finger caked with dried blood.

  I read it aloud, paused on the misspelling, then read it phonetically. “Eat shit?”

  “They gonna make him eat shit?” Brass Knuckles said.

  Crystal moaned. Diego jerked his head around and glared at his lieutenant, who held his palms up and stepped back.

  “It’s like some kind of bad translation,” I said.

  “From Russian, maybe?” Boom-Boom said.

  The linen stationary wasn’t the size of a typical letter, and I noticed the top had a jagged edge. It had been torn. Had there been a logo on top?

  Scarlet, Crystal’s assistant, came running into the shack. She glanced around at the unsavory group, then gently urged Crystal forward.

  “Don’t give up, okay?” I said. “I’ve got all these guys here to help me find John. They’re not pretty but they’re connected.”

  She pushed past me without a word and walked out of the shack. Scarlet gave me a sidelong glance and a raised eyebrow, then she too brushed past me. My hands clenched into fists. I felt helpless—and worse, useless.

  “Ain’t looking good for her man,” Diego said. “These people ain’t fucking around, whatever it is they want.”

  Boom-boom blew out a ring of smoke. “Telling you, brudda, I heard the Russians had the dude, so maybe—”

  “Same bastards that wiped us out?” Diego said.

  Both men looked at each other, then me.

  “As in the Russian mob?” Ray said.

  I felt a pressure building inside me that threatened to explode. I couldn’t just sit in here.

  “I need some air—be right back.”

  I stumbled outside and slammed the door.

  “Buck!” Ray and Lenny called out, but I was already jogging toward Foxy’s.

  The bar was crowded and the energy palpable. Uniforms and familiar faces from the silver screen, CD covers, book jackets, and the nightly news clustered in groups, laughing, talking, and milling about. But there was no sign of Booth.

  Of course as soon as I need him, he’s nowhere to be found.

  Dammit!

  I slumped onto a bar stool and covered my face with both hands. My skin was gritty, my hair slick, my shirt pasted to my back.

  I’d failed Crystal. The whole event, for that matter. If it went forward John Thedford would be—

  “Hey, good-looking,” a familiar drawl sounded behind me.

  I glanced over my shoulder.

  Avery Rose. Short shorts, tight tank top, snakeskin boots, straw cowboy hat with black hair down to her shoulders.

  “Can a girl buy you a drink?”

  “Thanks, Avery, I’ll take a rain check.”

  She put her hand on my shoulder and squeezed. A pleasant, relaxed feeling moved all the way to my feet—

  An idea popped into my head and I got off the stool, fast.

  “Whoa, cowboy!”

  “I’d much rather take you up on that offer, Avery—but later!”

  I raced back to the shack—empty. Where had everyone gone? My flight bag was on the floor and Crystal’s phone was still inside. There was only one battery bar lit. I punched in the New York phone number.

  “Harry Greenberg.”

  I explained what had been going on since we last spoke.

  “I saw you on television after rescuing the actor, dear boy. Quite dashing. Too bad e-Antiquity isn’t still traded, the stock would have soared.”

  I almost smiled. “So of all the groups we discussed before, it seems the Russians have jumped to the top of the list.”

  “Makes sense. They’re highly liquid, ruthless, and would logically go after the shipping routes for illicit goods in the islands.”

  “But adoption, Harry?”

  “Not directly, perhaps, but the oldest—well, the second oldest criminal profession is the flesh trade. The Russians are big into that now, probably the biggest, and from what my people tell me their mafia was behind the Russian government’s abolishing overseas adoption.”

  “But why?”

&nbs
p; “Supply and demand, dear boy. People always pay more for scarce items. Babies are no different. From what you’ve told me of Adoption AID, their goal of making adoption more accessible would be a direct threat to the Russian’s move to increase demand and control the market. American babies only account for a small fraction of all adoptions, and that likely won’t change—”

  “Unless Adoption AID succeeds.”

  I let our conversation and speculation sink in.

  “One last thing, Harry?”

  “As usual.”

  I swallowed. “Just to try and confirm that the Russians are behind all this, can you have someone check a translation for the phrase ‘eat shit?’”

  Harry asked me to repeat it, so I spelled it the way it was written on the note. He promised to call or text me if he learned anything. I thanked him, asked him to note the number I’d called from, and hung up.

  Russian flesh trade? Really?

  DOWN THE BEACH WAS Hellfire, holding up a sign amidst the other protestors. It was too far for me to read the placard, but he was moving funny—dancing? Yes, with a young woman who also held a sign.

  No way he was involved with cutting John Thedford’s finger off.

  “Reilly!”

  Booth pushed his way through the party atmosphere and made a beeline for me. Hundreds if not thousands of people had arrived on Jost Van Dyke now that the start of the show was just hours away. The harbor was full, the bar was packed, and people everywhere were blissfully unaware of Crystal’s pain or John Thedford’s minced finger. Stud Mahoney’s resurrection couldn’t have been better timed.

  “What’s this I hear about a severed finger?” he said.

  “The final warning, Booth. None of the law enforcement efforts have produced a thing, and if the kidnappers are for real and the show goes on tonight, John Thedford will be killed.”

  Booth looked to the left, then the right. His eyes were pinched, his lips pursed, and he had a tic in his cheek I’d never seen before.

  “I tried to have it cancelled.” His voice was a whisper.

  “Tried?”

  “I demanded the concert be cancelled but your lady friend said no and the television network pulled rank on me and contacted the Director.” He swallowed and pressed his lips together.

  “Crystal said no?”

  “Wants to do it for her husband, no matter what. The damn media says this show’s going on, dead promoter or not.”

  I almost laughed at the thought of Booth’s being muscled out by a woman and a few TV executives, but this was bad news. It eliminated whatever urgency there might have been amongst the collective law enforcement agencies to find Thedford.

  “Yo! Buck!” a voice called out from the water.

  I turned toward the voice—and in the dim light of dusk saw a red Cigarette boat rumbling into the harbor, its triple monster engines vibrating and spitting water into the air.

  Baldy’s boat.

  Valentine Hodge was at the helm. He steered the Cigarette toward the end of the dock and waved me over. Just past him was another boat heading out to sea—it was a sleek, blue-hulled speedboat, and with all the boats coming in, it was the only one leaving. I couldn’t make out the name, but the typeface looked familiar. There were two men in matching blue shirts and an old bald guy who stood facing back toward the island. He looked familiar, but in the fading light I couldn’t make him out. I turned back to Booth.

  “If the show’s on, you better keep an eye on those celebrities,” I said. “If the kidnappers realize Thedford’s expendable, they may up their ante.”

  He hesitated only a second, then ran back toward Foxy’s.

  I headed for the dock. I passed Hellfire on the beach with his followers, but they’d leaned their signs against palm trees and settled into a party atmosphere. Past them, up on the road, were Boom-Boom, Diego, Lenny, and Ray—almost jogging parallel to me, away from Foxy’s.

  I called out with a shrill whistle and they hustled toward me as I reached the dock, which had so many boats tied off it looked like a hundred-foot-long mother hog nursing swarms of piglets. I looked out to open water. The speedboat was now a blue speck moving at high speed out of Great Harbor.

  “Everyone’s given up on finding Thedford,” I said. “If the kidnappers are serious—”

  “I’d say that finger in the burger box qualifies them as serious,” Lenny said.

  “—he’ll be dead in a few hours.”

  Boom-Boom held his hands up and turned his head at an angle.

  “Told you, brudda. It’s the Russians. In fact, me and my friend Diego—”

  “Friend?” I said.

  “Merger.” Boom-Boom smiled. “Bruddas vs. Bolsheviks.”

  “Perfect,” I said. “Come on, we’ve got some news out here.”

  I jogged toward the end of the dock and arrived just in time to catch a line from Valentine as he squeezed between two boats. My old friend might be ancient, but as a native of the BVI, he’d been traveling these waters his entire life.

  “You find Baldy?” I said.

  “Who’re your friends?” He wasn’t smiling.

  “These guys have been helping me search—”

  “They’re hoodlums,” he said, “some of the worst in the islands—your islands.”

  He wasn’t whispering, and he clearly had no fear of these men. He stared at them a long moment, then finally stood up. I helped him off the boat and onto the dock.

  “My legs mighty stiff,” he said.

  He glanced toward Foxy’s and raised an eyebrow at the hordes of people crawling over the dirt road and beach on their way to the main event.

  “Where’d you find the Cigarette?” I said.

  “Soper’s Hole.” He shrugged. “Keys were in it, so I figured I could strand him over there and come find you.”

  I smiled. “You think he’ll stay there?”

  “Not for long.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Valentine pointed at the horizon. The moon was now in view above the water. It looked huge now that the sun had nearly set.

  “Full moon,” he said. “Baldy never misses the full moon party at the Bomba Shack. Sells mushroom tea, gets tourist women all trippy and takes ‘em down the beach for funnin.’”

  Light was fading fast. “Can you get us there in the dark?”

  “Shoot, boy.”

  Right. I smiled and turned back toward my team of misfits. Moment of truth.

  “You guys ready for some action?”

  Boom-Boom and Diego looked at each other, then turned back to me.

  “If Baldy can lead us to the Russians,” Diego said, “we’re in.”

  “Long as my shit’s safe in your piece-a-shit plane, damn straight, brudda,” Boom-Boom said.

  “Right.” I said. “Here’s what we’re going to do.”

  VALENTINE NAVIGATED BY MOONLIGHT so bright it seemed like silver daylight. Ray and Lenny remained on Jost Van Dyke in case celebrities needed to be shuttled off later, but it would have to be by boat since Lenny had spotted the bales in the plane. His political aspirations and Ray’s spastic colon made them risk averse. They had no intention of going near my old Goose.

  Once we cleared Great Harbor, Valentine pressed the throttles down and the Cigarette surged forward. Whether it was from the wind or the thrill of driving the water rocket, my octogenarian friend smiled. The rest of us were pressed into our seats and holding on for dear life as the boat cut through the water and roared like the start of the Indianapolis 500. The dark hulk of Tortola filled the western horizon, with only a smattering of lights on the otherwise colorless silhouette. Valentine didn’t need lights, and he didn’t need GPS. He knew every road, hill, and contour on his native island, so he aimed the Cigarette toward Capoons Bay, the location of the Bomba Shack. The moon had risen well off the water now and lost that trompe l’oeil effect when close to the horizon. The night was clear, warm, and would have otherwise been a wonderful one for Adoption AID.

 
The armada of lights coming toward us from other boaters on their way to Foxy’s left me hollow. Not for me, but for what Crystal must be feeling with her show going forward while her husband was being diced up. I wondered if she felt a twinge of guilt at letting it go forward, but Crystal was Crystal. If the price of realizing hers and John’s dream was his being tortured and killed, so be it.

  I was surprised at the sudden glow cast off the white beach of Sandy Spit ahead. The moon’s brightness should draw Baldy to the Bomba Shack. Every muscle in my body felt knotted as the zero hour for the concert got closer. We had to find Baldy and get a lead to Thedford before the show started, and the burden was on me. That’s all there was to it.

  The North Shore of Tortola consisted of several wide and loosely defined bays. Capoons Bay was in the middle, and as we got closer to the island, Valentine steered us hard to the south. After running in that direction a few minutes, I tapped him hard on the shoulder and leaned in close—

  “Where’re you headed?” My words were lost into the roar of wind.

  He squinted at me and shook his head. I yelled my question again.

  He pulled back on the throttles and everyone fell forward out of their seats.

  I pointed east. “The Bomba Shack’s that way—”

  “We go straight there, Baldy’ll see us and know to skedaddle,” Valentine said. “He ain’t stupid and you can’t hide this devil machine.”

  “So what’s the plan?”

  “My car’s over at the West End ferry dock.” Valentine smiled. “We can sneak in from the road a lot easier.”

  With that, Valentine jammed the throttles forward. After we passed the western tip of the island, he again cut the wheel and aimed us between the mainland and Little Thatch Island. Just past that, the bars, restaurants, and marina of Soper’s Hole lit the southern area of the bay.

  “What makes you so sure Baldy wouldn’t still be at Soper’s Hole?” I said. “Wouldn’t he be trying to find out who stole his boat?”

  Valentine shook his head.

  “Didn’t steal it. Left word with the dock boy I was borrowing it. Good or bad, everybody knows me on this island, so no way I could sneak off with the boy’s boat.” He shrugged. “Anyways, he knows the police been looking for him, so not like he was gonna call them.”