by Guy Adams
Rodriguez pocketed the notes, scratched at his beard and then pulled out a piece of paper from the pocket of his shirt. Rex could see it was an advert for a local nightclub, nothing more. Rodriguez pretended that wasn’t the case, scrutinising the paper for a while and then looking back at Rex. ‘Yes I did. But I have no idea where they went.’
‘You let them drive off with your truck without taking an address? I don’t think so.’
‘The American man,’ Rodriguez smiled, ‘had a trustworthy face.’
‘And a bigger wallet than mine?’ asked Rex.
‘Much bigger.’
‘How much would it take for you to remember, do you think?’
Rodriguez thought of a number and doubled it.
Rex nodded. ‘I could pay that,’ he said, ‘or I could physically drag you over to the port authority and have them search you for marijuana. How would that work? Still pretty flaky about pot here, aren’t they? What would you be looking at, ten years? Twenty maybe, depending on how much is in that pocket you keep rubbing.’
‘You wouldn’t do that,’ said Rodriguez, whipping his hand away from his jeans and suddenly all charm. ‘I am just a businessman, doing nobody any harm.’
‘My friend,’ said Rex, ‘I have known you all of a couple of minutes, and I would already beat you to death with that deckchair if it meant I could get the address I want. I am a very driven man.’
‘You are a son of a bitch.’
‘That too. Now give me the address, or for the next ten years you’re going to be eating burned rice with one hand while the other covers your asshole.’
Rodriguez gave him the address.
Mr Wynter’s new employee was called Famosa, and he was the proud owner of his very own car. A yellow and green Chevrolet that wore its rust and dented bodywork as proud scars of battle.
‘This thing’s older than me,’ said Mr Wynter as he climbed into the passenger seat.
‘It goes forward and back,’ said Famosa with a laugh, ‘but the exhaust leaks inside so keep your window open, I do not wish to be poisoned.’
Mr Wynter shook his head in disbelief and kept his hand over his mouth as the car pulled out into traffic.
Famosa drove to the edge of the old town, following Mr Wynter’s directions. Eventually, they were at the end of the track leading to the Hernandez House.
‘Stop here,’ said Mr Wynter. ‘I want to walk up alone.’
‘What’s to stop me keeping the money you’ve given me and driving off?’ asked Famosa.
‘Greed,’ Mr Wynter replied, stepping out of the car and walking along the track.
After a few minutes, he came to the little house belonging to Angelo’s grandmother. The boy was sat on the front porch, poking at a gecko lizard with a stick.
‘Hello, young man,’ said Mr Wynter, his Spanish accent good enough to hide any hint of his being American. Mr Wynter was the perfect chameleon when he wanted to be. ‘I wonder if you’d like to earn a few pesos?’
Rex pulled his little car up at the address Rodriguez had given him and looked out of the window. It was a gap between buildings, the result of old bomb damage at a guess.
Never really doubting it was a waste of time, he got out of the car and walked over. The rubble-covered ground was thick with weeds, grass and trash. Bags of it had been dumped there to cook in the sunshine.
‘Maybe the American wasn’t that trustworthy after all,’ he said. He went back to his car and drove back to the hotel
Mr Wynter stood in Angelo’s bedroom and looked out of the window towards the Hernandez House. There was no sign of movement, but the chain on the gates and the tracks in the dirt backed up what the boy had told him. For sure, this was the place. Now all he had to do was form a plan of action.
He looked around Angelo’s room for a piece of paper. Eventually he settled for pulling a poster of the footballer Lester Moré from the wall above Angelo’s bed and tearing a piece off it. Turning it over to write on the blank reverse, he jotted down the address of Angelo’s grandmother’s house plus a few general directions. He then folded the piece of paper and dropped it into his waistcoat pocket.
Arriving back at Famosa’s car, the Cuban was resting on the bonnet, taking in the sunshine.
‘Come on, my friend,’ said Mr Wynter. ‘I have just one more job for you to do, and then we can call it a day.’
The Cuban smiled. ‘Easy money.’
‘Don’t be so sure,’ said Mr Wynter, patting the Cuban on the back and slipping the piece of paper into the pocket of the man’s shirt without his noticing. ‘We’re at the “beating people up” part of the deal.’
‘It’s not a problem,’ insisted Famosa. ‘I told you I’m good at that, didn’t I?’
‘So you did, so you did,’ Mr Wynter replied.
Back at the hotel, Rex ordered a cold drink from the bar and took it straight up to his room. He wanted to cool down and clean up. Maybe, once he felt a bit more human, he’d head back into town and grab some food. Act like a tourist for the rest of the day – there seemed little else he could do right now.
He necked the soda in a couple of long draughts and then went through to the bathroom to check out the shower. After a godawful – and hardly hopeful – groan from the water tank, the water began to flow and Rex was relieved to find it both hot and strong.
He stripped off, climbed into the bath and pulled the shower curtain across.
For a few minutes he just stood there, letting the water gush over his head and down his body. He felt the last couple of days go with it. A sense of calm pouring over him.
The water might be hot for now but only a fool would be optimistic for the long term, so he grabbed the soap and lathered up, scrubbing hard until his skin tingled. He looked around for shampoo and saw nothing.
‘Typical,’ he sighed, pulling the curtain aside to look across to the sink in the hope of spotting a complimentary bottle there. He came face to face with Famosa, who was stepping through the bathroom door, a stubby pocket knife in his hand. Famosa looked just as startled as Rex, though not for long. He lunged at Rex who jumped sideways to avoid the knife, slipping in the bath and tumbling against the far wall.
He snatched at the shower curtain, twisting it over the extended knife and throwing all his strength at spinning Famosa round so he would have his back to him. Famosa moved more easily than Rex had expected and, as he reached around to put a choke hold on the man, he found out why. Famosa grabbed Rex’s arm and threw him over his shoulder. Rex crashed against the bathroom door banging it closed.
‘Hey,’ called an English voice from next door. ‘Keep the noise down, would you? Some of us are having a siesta!’
Lucky old you, Rex thought, rolling towards the sink as Famosa uncurled the shower curtain from his knife hand.
‘You should just relax,’ said Famosa. ‘Let me kill you quickly.’
‘Of course I should,’ said Rex reaching for the large round shaving mirror hanging above the sink. ‘What great advice.’ He unhooked the mirror and swung it towards Famosa, who kept backing away, the wind whistling as Rex swept it back and forth. Rex swung the mirror at the knife and managed to knock it from the man’s hand. Famosa shrugged, raised his hands in the air and charged at Rex. Rex ducked and thrust the mirror, sideways on, so that the frame jabbed the big Cuban between the legs.
Famosa grunted and twisted to Rex’s left. Rex brought the mirror up and smashed it down on the Cuban’s head. It shattered, and cut a line in Famosa’s forehead that instantly began to bleed.
Famosa swore at Rex, one hand shooting out and punching him in the face. Rex staggered back against the bathroom door, vision blurring and head spinning. He heard, rather than saw, the Cuban charge at him. He stepped to the side and was relieved to hear Famosa’s fist burst through the cheap, chipboard panel of the bathroom door. Rex knew he had to keep moving while he had the advantage. He opened the door and swung it back so Famosa was trapped behind it, wedged against the wall. Rex yanked
the door and then slammed it again and again at Famosa, whose wedged arm swung around through the hole in the door, bloodied fist opening and closing as he tried to get a grip on Rex.
Rex’s feet slipped in water spilling from the still-running shower, and he lost his momentum. Famosa’s free hand snatched at the back of his head and pulled it forward to slam against the door. Falling to the floor, Rex just managed to scoot backwards into the bedroom as Famosa yanked his arm out of the hole in the door, crying out as the splintered wood gouged a rut along it.
‘Seriously,’ came the English voice again, banging on the wall. ‘Whatever you’re doing in there, I’m sure it’s great fun but the rest of the hotel doesn’t need to hear it.’
‘Great fun,’ Rex murmured, getting to his feet and looking around for his gun. Famosa lunged forward, and Rex moved to one side, grabbing the back collar of the man’s shirt and using it to yank the man backwards. Famosa fell to the floor with enough of a crash to make a decorative vase on the sideboard jump up in the air and smash on the floor. Rex punched down into Famosa’s face as hard as he could, slamming the palm of his hand into the bridge of the man’s nose. Not waiting to see if that was enough, he yanked the disorientated man forward, slipped beneath him and twisted his neck around as hard as it would go. There was a low crunch and Rex fell back onto the floor, the now dead Cuban lying on top of him.
‘Sorry,’ he shouted after a second. ‘Slipped in the shower.’
‘How many times, for Christ’s sake?’ asked the neighbour before moaning quietly to himself, the words too low for Rex to hear.
Rex got to his feet and dragged Famosa back into the bathroom. There was a knock on the door.
Rex picked up a piece of broken mirror and checked his face, turning the shower head towards it to wash away some of the blood, before turning off the faucet and walking back through to the bedroom.
‘Hello,’ called a woman’s voice through the door. ‘It is the manager, we hear a lot of noise.’
Rex opened the door a crack and stuck his head through. ‘I fell in the shower,’ he said again. ‘Couple of times actually. Everything’s fine.’
‘Really, sir?’ the woman looked down a huge hooked nose at him, clearly not convinced. ‘I suppose you wouldn’t mind if I took a quick look?’
Rex swung the door wide open and stood there naked in the doorway. ‘Kind of a bad time,’ he said, as the manager put her hands to her face. ‘Maybe a little later? Everything’s fine though. I broke the mirror but I’m happy to pay. You want the money now?’ He patted his right buttock as if checking for a wallet. ‘Oh, right… wrong pair of pants.’
‘Later!’ the manager said. ‘Go and cover yourself! Never have I seen such a thing.’ She stormed off.
‘Nose like that, I can well believe it,’ Rex muttered and stepped back inside.
He went through to the bathroom and crouched next to Famosa’s dead body.
‘So who were you, then?’ Rex asked, rifling through the man’s pockets. He pulled out a battered old wallet, stuffed with a good deal of cash. ‘Paid you well,’ said Rex as he ran his thumb along the notes. There was a driver’s licence and ID Card giving the man’s name as Eduardo Enrique Famosa.
Rex threw the wallet to one side and checked the rest of the man’s pockets. In his shirt there was a piece of paper with an address and some vague directions on it. ‘Where you met your employer, maybe?’ said Rex, taking the piece of paper through to the bedroom and slipping it into the pocket of his jeans.
He went back into the bathroom, pulled Famosa’s body out by his feet and dragged him over to the far window that overlooked the trash. He opened the window and took a quick look: there was nobody around. He hoisted the dead body up, lifting him by his armpits. Famosa’s head lolled from side to side on its broken neck. Rex poked the head through the window and then lifted, straining against the dead weight. Slowly he fed the body through the window until, eventually, there was enough weight dangling outside to pull the rest after it. There was a soft crunch as the body bounced off one of the brimming dumpsters and fell behind it.
‘Perfect,’ said Rex. He closed the window and gathered up the pieces of broken vase from the floor. He took them into the bathroom and dumped them in the sink, adding the pieces of broken mirror. He looked at the door. Not a whole lot he could do about that except claim he’d broken it when he fell. Hell, give the woman enough money and she’d believe whatever he wanted her to.
He got back into the shower and quickly soaped himself off. He was bleeding from a number of places but nothing too major. Once clean, he towelled himself dry and got dressed.
Pulling the piece of paper from his jeans he looked at the address.
Dinner could wait, first he’d see if he had better luck here than at the address Rodriguez had given him.
Mr Wynter was sitting in the central courtyard again when Rex came out of his room and down the stairs.
The old man had listened to the fight with some amusement. For a moment or two, he had wondered whether Famosa might get the better of Mr Matheson; he had hoped not, naturally, but the noises had gone on long enough for him to be far from sure.
He watched the man walk through to reception where the manager, clearly still incensed with the disturbance, went from red-faced and loud to demure and obsequious as soon as Rex handed over a large roll of banknotes. Probably the money I paid to Famosa, Mr Wynter thought with a smile. So long as it went to a good cause.
He lifted his face into the late-afternoon sun and closed his eyes for a few minutes, enjoying the warmth, letting Mr Matheson have a brief head start. After all, Mr Wynter knew exactly where the man was going.
Seven
All we have to do is learn how to control it, he had said, and wasn’t that proving to be a greater battle than he had hoped?
Gleason closed his eyes, felt the tingle of the weed fronds in his hands and tried to find that sense of understanding he had achieved before. He and Mulroney had gathered a selection of test objects from around the house and, one by one, Gleason had made them disappear.
But that had been the limit of their tests. Who knew where the objects had gone? There was no way of knowing whether they had been sent back in time or simply shifted in space. Gleason knew which he had been aiming for, focusing his mind on the desired goal and letting his fingers move amongst the weed fronds in response to his subconscious.
To begin with, that alone had been an almost impossible task; Gleason was not a man who found it easy to relax, certainly not with a gun in his hand. That done – and he was finding it easier each time, relaxing into the firing of the weapon, relaxing into the imagined act of violence – he needed to stretch the weapon’s capabilities and his own ability to control them.
Mills couldn’t have knocked on the door at a better time.
Corporal Owen Mills had always been a dreamer. He had filled a childhood in Des Moines with Big Plans for the future. These had included all the usual clichés: air pilot, astronaut, cop, football star… Most kids hit a point where, tired of the real world not living up to the Technicolor fantasies, they surrendered to reality. Not Mills. He spent so much of his time dreaming that the real world passed him by.
So, with a below-average education and parents that had long since washed their hands of their fantasist son, he found himself watching the American forces in Iraq and thinking: here’s another dream, one I might just be able to achieve. Owen Mills decided he wanted to be a hero.
He enlisted, he trained, he shipped out to Afghanistan.
And, against all expectation, Mills had found something he was good at. He obeyed orders and kept a clear head; he could aim a rifle when the world was falling in around him; and he survived. In conflict, that will always be the greatest achievement of all. He developed a solid reputation throughout the ranks, and when Colonel Cotter Gleason found himself a man down and looking for new blood, he found it in Owen Mills.
Gleason had always had his doubts about the boy �
� and even though he was in his mid-twenties Mills would always be a ‘boy’ to Gleason – not concerns about his ability to fight, but rather his politics. Mills was an idealist, still chasing that heroic dream. To Gleason that was a bump in the road they were bound to hit some day. He couldn’t bring himself to dismiss the boy for his beliefs – how the hell could he? – but he had always known that one day he might have cause to regret them.
Mills, for his part, had done his job within Gleason’s unit as well as he had elsewhere. However much he may have clung to his principles, he soon found, like most of us, that it was easy enough to justify almost anything if you looked at it the right way. Mills never stopped dreaming as his finger pulled the trigger.
But this was too much.
He had spent the time since Gleason’s announcement sitting on his own at the top of the house trying to rationalise and justify the things his commanding officer was suggesting. He wasn’t an idiot, he knew that going against Gleason would almost certainly be a risk to his wellbeing. The Colonel was not a man who accepted not getting what he wanted. Still, he couldn’t see another option. He either stood up for himself or became something he couldn’t bear to be.
Having worked up his courage, he walked down to the wine cellar and put his ear to the door. He could hear Mulroney and Gleason talking. He took a deep breath, reminded himself why this was something he had to do and then knocked on the door.
After a few seconds, it was opened by Mulroney.
‘What do you want, Mills?’ he asked. ‘We’re kind of busy here, you know?’
‘I know, sir.’ Mills swallowed down his nerves. ‘But I need to speak to the Colonel.’
Mulroney stared at him for a moment, trying to read the young man’s face. ‘You sure about that, Mills?’ he asked.
‘Quite sure, sir.’
Mulroney nodded and stepped back so that Mills could enter.
