by dannal
Chuy and Tito came up and sat at the table. Marquise finished his call and sat down at the round patio table as well.
“How about ten thousand, Max,” Walsh said. “I know you’re good for it.”
Max nodded, and de Losa pushed a pile of chips across the table toward him.
“Somebody tell Coyo to get some of Max’s rum up here,” Walsh said, almost sounding irritated that he had to ask. “Maybe some daiquiris or something.”
The five men played cards for several hours. None of them saw Max stick the microphone bug to the underside of the table. Of course they wouldn’t. They were too drunk, too high on coke, and too comfortable with Max to notice anything.
It was two a.m. when the Chris-Craft dropped Max on his dock. “Thanks, Tito. See you, Chuy,” Max said, as if he were speaking to two of his new greatest friends in the world. He exchanged waves with the other men as they motored away back toward the Snowy Lady.
Max reached the porch of the villa before he encountered Josue. The young Haitian still wore his tight-fitting black wetsuit. He looked somber. “Are you all right, Boss? You look very pale.”
Max leaned forward, doubled over like he was about to throw up. He placed a hand on the wall by the villa’s front door. He looked up at Josue, seeing the concern in the younger man’s eyes.
“I shook the hand of the man who killed my family,” Max said.
Max wandered into his office as if he were lost. Josue stayed close by, walking no more than two or three steps behind his shell-shocked friend and business partner. Max stepped up to his desk and placed both palms on the cluttered desktop. His head dropped, and his breathing became shallow.
“You okay, Boss?” Josue asked. He placed his hand on the other man’s shoulder.
Max took a deep breath and let it out slowly as he turned to face Josue. “I met de Losa,” he said, his voice holding back all of the rage, the sadness, and the sheer gravity of his encounter with the violent murderer. “Marquise de Losa is the name of the man who shot my babies; the man who put bullets in my wife’s body; the one who took away all of their lives.”
“Boss,” Josue said.
“And I shook his hand!” Max screamed. He pulled the Smith & Wesson pistol from his holster and held it flat by the side of his ear like a cell phone.
Josue stood by with moon-shaped eyes, likely wondering what Maxwell might do.
“It’s going to be okay,” Josue said, and Max figured he was probably trying to talk him down from harming himself. “We have plan. We follow plan.”
Max set the pistol down on his desk.
Bitter tears of rage welled up in his eyes, but they didn’t fall. “I shook his hand,” Max said, this time in a frightening and hushed whisper.
Max drew his FNS .40 caliber pistol from his right hip and began firing.
Crack, crack, crack. Ear-splitting eruptions of thunderous sound echoed inside the confined space, as bullets ripped holes through a red silk armchair. They peppered the wall. They exploded an antique vase, showering the floor with its jagged shards.
Max squeezed the trigger until the last shot left the smoking barrel, and the pistol’s slide locked open. He threw the pistol down onto the floor.
Josue clearly didn’t know what to do or say, but Max didn’t care. He grabbed hold of a floor lamp with a long lathe-turned maple base. He gave it a yank and ripped the cord out of the wall.
Max broke the wooden body of the lamp over his leg. He used it to bash the antique bottles of rum which sat on the desk. Sixty-, seventy-, eighty-year-old bottles of JM, Saint-James, and Clemént rum shattered, their antique glass raining in all directions, their sweet ancient liquid spilling into nothing more than a priceless stain on the office’s hardwood floor.
Max grabbed the underside of the heavy oak desk and heaved with an explosion of power only a man coursing with adrenaline could accomplish. He threw the desk, toppling it over on the floor. Max’s box of Don Legado cigars tumbled over spilling the foul cigars all about the space.
“Boss?” Josue asked.
Max put his hands against the wall to support himself. He bowed his head deeply. “I feel better now, Josue,” he said. Max gasped, panting for breath. “I feel better.”
“Come,” Josue said, leading Max to the bathroom halfway down the main hallway of the villa. The Haitian rifled through the medicine cabinet, reading the labels on several orange, white-capped prescription bottles. He handed Max two Ambien tablets and drew him a glass of water. “Take these. You feel better, get sleep.”
Max didn’t argue, he just took the pills, and drained the glass.
“Come,” Josue said, suggesting that he was more of a mother than a friend and business partner to Max, “we’ll sit and have a punch. Then you sleep.”
Max just nodded. He and Josue sat on the porch sipping glasses of Ti’ Punch Josue had made with La Favorite rhum vieux. Max held quiet for a time before he finally said, “I’m sorry, Josue. I lost control. How did you make out with your surveillance of Walsh’s yacht?”
“No one was standing guard,” Josue said, showing bright white teeth in a broad smile. “I brought the dinghy alongside and boarded yacht.”
“You boarded the yacht?” Max asked, incredulous. “While I was eating dinner?”
Josue nodded. “I poked around, found the engine room. The cases of rum stolen from Jacques and Susan were in small utility room next to engine. Also found piles and piles of bundles of white powder. Cocaine, maybe? I took two bundles, think they were kilograms. I found a bag in the room of the heavy fellow.”
“Chuy?” Max asked.
“Yes, that’s correct. Bag full of clothes, soap, deodorant. Overnight bag. Figure he going ashore at some point to spend night. I place two kilos of cocaine in bag. Then use diver knife, punch hole in bottom of bag, through bundle. When he tries to go ashore, he leaves trail of powder.”
Max burst out laughing. In spite of the strong sedative starting to work on his brain, he leapt out of his wicker chair and grabbed Josue by the ears. He kissed him on the forehead.
“Awww,” Josue said, facetiously wiping his forehead with his sleeve.
“You’re a ninja, my friend,” Max said. He felt energized. Things were finally set in motion. “Great thinking on your part. Walsh suspects Chuy tried to steal his snow, well…I shudder to think.”
“Hope this help, Boss,” Josue said in his usual tone of great humility.
“It will help a lot, Josue,” Max said. “I’m certain of it. The whole crew, I’m assuming; Walsh, de Losa, Chuy, and Tito will all be coming, they’ll arrive around eleven. I’m going to offer to make special rum drinks for the group. That’s when I’ll slip the ricin powder into de Losa’s drink. By the time he realizes he’s sick, it’ll be too late to save him.”
“What about the others?” Josue asked.
“Honestly, my friend, I’ve been considering for years what I would do to each man. Now that things are happening, I think we’ll improvise. Just be ready when I give you instructions, all right? Oh, and call Maisie in the morning, have her bring over lunch at noon. Pay her whatever she wants.”
Josue nodded. “Bed now for you.”
Just as he turned onto his side in his bed, having just fallen asleep, Max felt two hands pressing down on his arm. His hand slipped under his pillow and reached for his FNS pistol. He pointed it toward Josue, who was shoving Max, trying to try to wake him up.
“Easy, Boss,” the slender Haitian said. “Boat will be here soon. Time to get up.”
Max looked at the gun. He thought back to the previous night. “Did you put this here? Did you reload it?”
Josue nodded. “I clean and reload.”
“Wow,” Max said, dumbfounded.
He got out of bed and got dressed as Josue rushed downstairs to prepare a tray of breakfast and coffee. Max looked down at his right forearm before he buttoned his black shirt over his wrists. The reckoning was coming for de Losa. And it was coming soon.
; Max checked both of his pistols and holstered them. He didn’t care if Walsh had him patted down today. This was his own domain. And Max would be damned if anyone tried to disarm him on his own property.
He sat in the kitchen and ate breakfast with Josue, who kept a keen eye on the large tablet’s bright display. Josue toggled between several cameras, doing his best to ascertain what he could of Walsh and his men’s current movements.
“Oh, almost forget. I have surprise for you, Boss,” Josue said. He tapped the tablet’s screen and brought up an audio clip that had been previously recorded only hours earlier. “Listen.”
Josue played the audio clip which featured silence for about ten seconds before Everest Walsh’s voice could be distinctly heard, saying, “What the hell is this, Chuy? There’s white powder spilling out of your bag. Is this—?”
“This recorded shortly after you got home and boat got back to yacht,” Josue explained.
“This is blow!” Walsh’s voice could be heard screaming as the audio clip continued. “Where does this trail lead? It leads all the way back to your room. Give me the bag, Chuy.” Walsh sounded livid. Two sharp gunshots cracked on the recording.
“Now look at this,” Josue said. He showed Max a video from the small camera Max had placed on the bookshelf in the yacht’s great room. The camera pointed across the room toward the hallway where Chuy and Tito’s rooms were located. As they watched the video, Walsh appeared from the darkened end of the hall, looking at the ground all the way. He was following the trail of powder, and he walked right into Chuy’s room, followed by Chuy himself, who looked as much confused as anything. Then two bright flashes of light illuminated the hallway, and Everest Walsh stepped out into the hallway, swinging a small pistol by his side.
In the video, Marquise de Losa and Tito rushed down the hall to investigate the commotion.
“He ordered them to get rid of Chuy’s body,” Josue explained. “Look.” He rolled another video, but this one came from a FLIR thermal imaging camera. The yacht appeared as a hulking gray mass in the video. Suddenly a door opened and two white, glowing forms appeared on screen. The brightness showed their body heat, and as they approached the railing at the rear deck of the Snowy Lady, it was clear they were carrying a long bundle, wrapped up tightly, that was quickly changing from dull white to bright gray as it was being dumped into the ocean.
“They dumped Chuy’s body into the Atlantic,” Max said, his eyes peeled as he watched the surveillance footage. “Chuy’s body is sitting there, just below the yacht. They must have wrapped it tight and weighted it down. They only need it to stay put until they leave the island. If the body washes up on shore down the road, I doubt they would even care.”
Max wasn’t sure how he would feel when the men responsible for the deaths of his family met their ultimate fates. Now that the first one was dead, he was still not certain. There was a hint of relief, but also a tinge of remorse. Max guessed it had something to do with the sense he got at a life being wasted, even if it had been Chuy who had chosen to waste his by associating with Walsh and de Losa.
“Well that’s one down,” Max said, matter-of-factly. “Three to go. The most important is de Losa. I don’t much care what happens to Walsh or Tito compared to that black-and-white-haired demon.” Max pulled a small metal twist-top vial out of his pocket. It was the kind heart patients used to keep their nitroglycerine tablets undamaged.
“The ricin?” Josue said.
Max nodded. He had grown his own castor bean plant to harvest the toxic seeds in order to produce the highly poisonous powder that now resided inside the stainless steel vial. “Once de Losa realizes something is wrong it will be too late. He’ll be dead within three days.”
Josue’s body gave an involuntary shudder. “Cold way to kill someone.”
Max tucked the poison back inside his pocket.
“Nearly eleven,” Josue said, turning his attention back toward the video feeds on the tablet. He adjusted one of the pan, tilt, zoom cameras on top of the lookout to zoom in tighter on the outer doors of the Chris-Craft’s “garage.” He took a sip of his coffee, and then bit a croissant. Almost as if it were an ordinary day.
About ten minutes later, Josue slapped Max on the arm. It was good, because Max had nodded off; likely the aftereffects of the sedative that had put him to sleep the night before. “Boat’s coming out, Boss.”
“Who’s on it?” Max asked severely.
“Looks like…Walsh, Tito…that’s it,” Josue said. “De Losa’s not on the boat.”
Max brought his fist down so hard on the kitchen table, a small stress fracture appeared where his hand had been. “Can you run through last night’s footage? See if you can spot de Losa going anywhere? It’s possible he stayed behind to guard the yacht.”
Josue set about reviewing all of the surveillance video from the last twelve hours, as Max prepared himself for his meeting with Walsh. “I’ll be at the dock,” he said. “If you find anything you can pursue, then pursue it, but don’t do anything dangerous without me.”
Max and Josue clasped hands. “I promise, Boss,” Josue said, showing his brilliant white teeth. “You don’t want me to hang around? Shadow you?”
“No,” Max said, frowning as his mind drifted into deep thought. “No, I’ll be all right with Walsh. He just wants a tour of the distillery, and I’ll give it to him. I intend to string him along as long as I can. I want to play his men against each other as best we can. Getting Walsh to kill Chuy was priceless.”
Max opened a little box on his kitchen table and took out the earpiece he wore to send and receive communications to and from Josue. He screwed it into his ear.
“You don’t think it’s too risky to wear a wire?” Josue asked.
“No. I’m Walsh’s new best friend.”
Max headed down to the dock. He slipped on his tortoise wayfarers as he walked the length of the long white pier. At the end, he leaned on a piling as he waited for Walsh’s boat to arrive.
Max looked down into the pure tropical water by the dock. Little fish swam by under his very feet. It was so beautiful here, Max thought. Such a sad waste of beauty.
Everest Walsh’s highly-polished runabout approached and Tito pulled it up close to the dock. Max helped keep the boat from hitting the dock, and he tied off the bow, while Tito tied off the stern. Everest Walsh stepped out of the boat. He wore a long, bright yellow shirt with rolled-up sleeves and a white newsboy cap that made him look a bit like Chef Paul Prudhomme. The rich plantation owner also wore wide wraparound sunglasses, the kind you got when your pupils were dilated by the optometrist.
Max offered Walsh a firm handshake and was even bold enough to reach in and give the wealthy cocaine trafficker a manly half-hug. He did the same for Tito. We’re like family now, Max thought. As dysfunctional as a family comes.
“Where’s Chuy and Marquise?” Max asked.
Walsh didn’t skip a beat. “De Losa had some other business today. And Chuy had to run back to the D.R. Mama’s in the hospital. Cancer. I’m afraid you won't be seeing anymore of him this trip.”
Max laughed inside his head. And unless he is resurrected from the bottom of the Atlantic, I suppose he won’t be seen much on his next trip either.
“Yeah, he’s a good man,” Walsh said. “Real shame he had to go.”
“Let me show you around, Mr. Walsh,” Max said.
“Everest.”
“Everest,” Max said, trying to contain his fox-like grin. “My distillery is actually underground out behind the villa. If you and Tito would like to follow me, I’ll give you the two-dollar tour.”
“You’re not gonna show us the villa first?” Walsh said.
Max’s mind raced back to the night before. In a moment of utter meltdown, Max had trashed his office, turned over his desk, and shot holes in his walls and furniture. He knew that if Walsh were to see it, he might find it at least a little bit suspicious.
“Certainly,” Max said. “I just didn’t think
it would interest you much. Seems rather pedestrian compared to the Snowy Lady.
Walsh smiled. “I love these old Martinican buildings. Ripe with history. Looks like you did an outstanding job fixing it up. Did you do the work yourself?”
“Yeah, most of it,” Max said. “With the help of my business partner, Josue.”
“Is Josue around?” Walsh asked. “I’d like to meet him.”
“No, he had to run some errands in town, and he won’t be back until late,” Max almost kicked himself for mentioning Josue’s name. He didn’t want to endanger his friend by getting him involved with the likes of Everest T. Walsh.
“Cigar?” Walsh asked. He pulled out a leather cigar sleeve and slipped out a couple of Don Legado cigars.
“Sure,” Max said. “My favorite brand.”
“Now Max,” Walsh said, placing his hand on Max’s shoulder and gripping down firmly. “Don’t go and say a thing like that if you don’t really mean it. I only surround myself with loyal people because they aren’t going to go and say something just because they think it’s what I want to hear. Do you get me, son?”
Max nodded.
“Good. Now let’s get on with that tour. I’m eager to get a glimpse of your setup.” Walsh tucked his oversized sunglasses into his shirt pocket.
Max led Walsh and Tito into the front door of the villa and began to show them around. When they reached the kitchen, Max tried to emphasize the view of the backyard through the kitchen window. “The distillery is just out there,” he said.
“What’s down here?” Walsh asked, pointing down the hall toward Max’s office, where the door hung slightly ajar.
“Oh, that’s just my old accounting office,” Max said. First Travere, and now Walsh. What is it with my office? “I don’t actually do any accounting in there. It’s sort of a…front…in case anyone comes poking around. I’m an accountant, not a rum runner.”
