Doc - 19 - Chasing Midnight

by Randy Wayne White

  No one bullies with more ravenous expertise than those who have been bullied, and it was sickening to watch. Soon, it would be impossible. Arms taped behind me or not, I would have to do something. Tomlinson, standing on the other side of the room, was reaching his breaking point, too. I could tell by the way he closed his eyes, seeking some inner peace that was impossible to access, and so began banging the back of his head against the wall.

  “Leave them alone!” he yelled finally. “If you want to hurt someone, try me!”

  Which got Odus’s attention but only caused him to grin before he looked at Umeko and me and yelled, “If you two don’t do what we say, they’ll all die!”

  Do what? If the lunatics had some plan that included Umeko and me, they hadn’t said a goddamn word about it.

  Behind us, Geness was thinking the same thing because he surprised everyone by speaking for the first time, saying too softly for his brother to hear, “Odus. You didn’t tell the slavers what we want them to do. Odus? Exodus!”

  Odus responded with a confused expression that asked Huh?

  Geness raised his voice above a whisper, “Your iPod. Turn down your iPod.” Then he repeated what he’d said. “Once the things understand, you can kill one. But until then—”

  Nodding, Odus finished his brother’s sentence, saying, “Until then, it makes no sense. Okay, okay, but here’s the deal, Geness”—the twin’s face reddened—“I want to shoot one of them now, goddamn it! I’m sick of waiting!”

  Geness had his eyes closed, which could be something he did when communicating with the dead triplet, or pretended to communicate—no telling what was happening inside his head—then he translated in a voice that was flat, emotionless. “It is not time yet, Exodus. Later, shoot the blond thing. But not now.”

  The blond thing was Sharon Farwell, who turned to me, eyes pinched. I winked, trying to reassure her, which is when the front door of the lodge opened and Kahn and Trapper came charging in, ripping their ski masks off before greeting the Neinabor twins. I expected locker-room laughter and high fives, but Geness retreated instantly into some silent sphere while his brother became guarded but willing to do the talking. It was repellent to watch, a reunion of misfits, but I took in every nuance as they exchanged information.

  When Kahn told the twins that Bohai had been shot, he did it in a way that insinuated he and Trapper had killed the man, then flashed Umeko and me a look, warning us not to contradict him.

  A minute later, Kahn ordered Trapper to the balcony to stand guard, then I listened to Odus Neinabor describe how he had attacked two men at the marina, saying, “I hit one of them for sure. Maybe both. I think they were Kazlov’s men—maybe Kazlov himself, I don’t know. I hope so, because Geness took a shot at that Russian leech when the power first went out but missed. Didn’t you, Geness?”

  Geness didn’t bother to respond because his brother was already explaining, “It’s so dark out there, man, it was hard to score—even with my laser sights. I caught these two guys at the dock and they were, like, firing back two rounds every time I pulled the trigger. But finally, I took my time and—whap!—one of them went down in the water. After that, though, they snuck off into this sort of swampy place, probably hoping to ambush me. Like I’m stupid or something.”

  I’d learned something. Despite the lie that Vladimir and I had returned fire, it confirmed who had attacked us, and also provided a couple of surprises. Kazlov hadn’t been shot during the first minutes of the power outage? I looked at Tomlinson, who shook his head in reply, which seemed to be good news, until I realized he might have been telling me No, the twin didn’t miss.

  Either way, the news wasn’t as bad as it could have been. After all that gunfire, Third Planet members could boast of shooting only one, possibly two people—both Russians. And Odus hadn’t finished the bodyguard with two shots, as I’d guessed, or he would be bragging about it now.

  The bloodbath I’d feared had yet to happen. Maybe there was still a way to turn the night around.

  As I listened, though, my optimism faded. I became convinced of one key dynamic: the Neinabor twins actually were insane. Maybe temporarily because of whatever drugs they were on—something potent enough to cause hand tremors and a diaphoretic sweat that made their baby-pink faces glisten like boiled hams.

  More likely, though, the brothers had repressed so much rage for so many years that some fragile thread had finally snapped. Now a pair of monsters had been set free into a virtual world of their own making and they’d brought the ghost of their dead brother to guide them. These two were the type who strapped on bandoliers and trotted down high school corridors shooting at their classmates.

  As Third Planet members traded stories and bragged, they all also confirmed their cowardice. Odus told Kahn that he’d scouted Talas’s end of the island, but the gunfire was “wicked.” Kahn lied and said the same was true of the north end of the island, and that he and Trapper had decided Lien Bohai’s corpse was proof they’d taken enough chances for one night.

  “I shot him—hit him the first time,” Kahn told the room.

  To me, the men were only proving the obvious: they wanted to believe they were gunfighters but knew secretly they were incapable of taking the risks that shooting an armed enemy required. If the twins had a plan that included Umeko or me, my guess was that their own cowardice was the source of the plan’s creation.

  I also began to suspect that the Neinabor twins had another hostage, maybe more, who they’d isolated in a nearby room. Odus was making veiled references to his “private trophy room.”

  If there was another hostage, I hoped it was Vladimir. Irrational, maybe, but that’s the way I felt. He had tried to kill me, true, but the man had proven his toughness and professionalism when we were on the run. And he was certainly more admirable than the man-child who had shot him. But the prospect that Vladimir had been allowed to live was unlikely because the twins were so eager to prove themselves killers.

  I held on to the possibility, though, until Densler stumbled in from the dining room so drunk that she slurred her words when she complained, “The man just pissed his pants, for God’s sake! You expect me to clean it up?”

  A few minutes later, I found out the truth when Geness shoved and prodded me down a hallway to the manager’s office, then nudged open the door.

  Inside, a gigantically fat man dwarfed the swivel chair in which he had been bound and gagged. When he recognized me, his facial expression changed in a way that reminded me of the hope I’d seen in Sharon Farwell’s eyes.

  Cowards or not, the Neinabor twins had somehow managed to take down another one of the Big Four.

  I was in Odus’s trophy room. The trophy was Darius Talas.

  Stashed beneath a desk, I also noticed, was a red-and-green computer bag, the first three letters of Super Mario visible.

  I was impressed by how remarkably calm the fat man remained as he listened to Odus argue with Kahn, the twin red-faced and screaming, “It’s our plan, he’s our hostage! So just keep your mouth shut and let me dictate the goddamn letter!”

  From the doorway, behind me, Geness spoke for only the second time that night, which caused the room to go silent. “We don’t listen to you anymore,” he said to Kahn. “We’re too strong for you now.”

  Kahn and Geness glared at each other through the candlelight. It took several seconds of silence before the twin’s craziness won out; a silence dominated by his lingering certainty and metronomic way of speaking. It was the voice of someone who hears voices and records them with the indifference of a computer chip or an android. There was no fakery or theatrics, which was unsettling in itself, but it was Geness’s confidence that, at once, was repellent and chilling. Finally, it was confirmed that the chubby blond twins—once the butt of Kahn’s jokes—were now in charge.

  Talas, who’d been gulping water since his gag had been removed, understood the significance because he attempted to undermine the twins’ power by saying, “I will do wha
tever your organization asks of me, of course. And I believe Mr. Armanie will be cooperative. We only want what’s best for the Caspian Sea. But for one person to dictate the demands as the voice of an entire organization”—the fat man shrugged as if the unfairness was obvious—“well, I don’t think it will be as convincing. You are, after all, asking Mr. Armanie to entrust his life to the integrity of your organization.”

  I watched Kahn’s nostrils flair, aware of Talas’s obvious attempt to manipulate. But he also realized that Talas was trying to help him stay in power, so he said to Odus, “Why not let Winifred decide? She’s chairperson. I mean, I hate this fat leech as much as you do, but he’s got a good—”

  “I’m dictating the goddamn letter!” Odus yelled, still staring at Kahn while his head bobbed to the rhythm of his earbuds.

  The two activists continued to argue, volleying threats and insults, until Geness, still in the doorway, said, “No more talking. It’s settled.”

  And it was.

  Although composed, Talas looked pathetic, with his glistening jowls and his urine-stained slacks. The twins made him nervous, and Geness scared him. It was in his Sydney Greenstreet chuckle that dismissed the brothers as children but also conceded their new power. So, when Kahn and Odus stopped arguing, Talas took a pen in his sausage fingers and did what he was told. He squared a sheet of Vanderbilt Lodge stationery in front of him and said, “I’m at your service. What do you wish me to write?” A moment later, though, he sealed Kahn’s demotion by ordering him to bring him more light.

  Odus, whose mood seesawed between rage and euphoria, was too combustible to dictate anything. He began badly, saying, “Okay, get this down, the exact words. ‘This is to inform Abdul Armanie, the, uhhh… the Iranian douche bag criminal!… that his criminal friend, uhhh…’ What’s your freaking first name, you fat leech… ?” Which is when Geness proved who was really in control by taking over, telling his brother, “Abraham says I should do it.”

  Invoking the name of the dead triplet got instant results. The twins changed places, and soon Geness was instructing Talas, “I want you to write in English. Nothing else, understand?”

  “Whatever you say, of course,” Talas replied, “but it might make Armanie suspicious because—”

  “No, it won’t,” Geness said and, with no change in facial expression, hammered his fist against the back of Talas’s head. The twins were barely five and a half feet tall, but they were a chunky one-seventy, one-eighty. The shock wave rippled through the fat man’s neck to his cheeks and caused his eyes to spark with anger—a spark that Talas managed to hide as Geness continued talking as if nothing had happened. “You’re lying,” he said. “Today, at the pool, I heard you both talking in English. You’d better not lie to us again. Understand?”

  Talas nodded, showing no emotion—the response of a powerful man who was patient enough to wait for his revenge.

  Then Geness began to dictate, saying, “‘My dear Abdul…’ No… wait. ‘My respected associate, Armanie,’” which frightened me as much as anything the Neinabors had done so far. It proved that Geness, at least, was not only perceptive, he was shrewd and calculating. Armanie never used his first name and he had no friends. Geness understood that to begin the letter any other way would warn Armanie that he was being lured into a trap.

  That’s what the letter was: a personal invitation to Armanie, and his bodyguard, to come to the lodge, unarmed, and meet with Talas.

  “To discuss what?” Darius Talas asked, touching the pen to his silver mustache.

  The twins nodded at each other before Geness said, “To talk about a computer hard drive that was taken from Viktor Kazlov’s boat today. And about a thousand baby sturgeon that will die soon when the boat’s batteries go dead.”

  Fingerling sturgeon?

  Talas was nodding as Odus yelled, “Hurry up, lard ass! After this, you’re writing a letter to Kazlov. He’s the criminal who brought all those innocent fish. We’ve got to make goddamn sure he doesn’t miss the boat.”

  Miss the boat?

  Was he speaking figuratively? I wondered about it as my eyes moved from Talas, who was giving Geness a sharp look, to Kahn, whose face showed surprise, then skepticism. Maybe the twins were lying or maybe they’d actually stolen the hard drive. Either way, it was news to Kahn. Probably news to their drunken chairwoman, too, but Tomlinson didn’t appear surprised. He was looking at me with his wise old eyes as if to confirm it was all true.

  Talas hunched over the desk, the pen a rhythmic instrument in his hand, as he added a few sentences, then asked, “And what about Mr. Lien Bohai? If we’re meeting, shouldn’t we invite our Chinese colleague? Asians aren’t particularly emotional but they are easily slighted.”

  For an uneasy moment, I was afraid Talas was going to mention Bohai’s young wife and daughter, too. But Kahn jumped in and tried to regain respect by saying, “The old man’s dead. I shot him myself. Bohai didn’t cooperate with us and that’s what happens. We’ve got his assistant in the dining room right now.”

  Once again, I felt a building tension as Talas reflected on what he’d just heard. “Bohai’s assistant, you say?”

  “A woman named Umeko. What? I thought you TRs knew everything about each other.” Kahn was searching the fat man’s face, suddenly suspicious.

  Talas was still giving it some thought but then defused it all, saying, “TRs?”

  “Yeah, it means ‘assholes’—asshole.”

  The fat man nodded. “I think you’re talking about one of Bohai’s concubines. Forgive me for laughing, but Lien always travels with at least two women. No idea how he introduces them to outsiders. But let’s just say they aren’t paid to sit at a desk and read reports—old men have their needs, too, you know. On every trip, there’s always one woman who’s quite beautiful and another who is… well, presumably, she is quite skilled at—”

  Geness, becoming impatient, interrupted him, saying, “No more of your filthy sex talk. Write the exact same letter to Kazlov. No tricks—hurry up!”

  When Talas had finished, both twins looked the letters over before Odus said, “Okay, now put them in envelopes and write each leech’s name on the front. Like, we want it to look official. Then we’ve got a serious question for you.”

  Geness Neinabor nodded, already looking at me. “Tell us what you know about this dude, Ford.” As Geness stared, his eyes sparked, then oscillated with twin images of the candle flame twitching and flaring on the desk nearby.

  Talas swiveled the chair around. He said, “Dr. Ford, you mean,” then threw his hands up to protect himself as the twin used the pistol this time to hit him. The muzzle caught Talas on the side of the head, which caused a rivulet of blood to race down the fat man’s cheek.

  “Ford. Plain Ford,” Geness said, enjoying himself. “The days of rich men using titles is over. Vanity is the vexation of all liars.” Then his eyes swung to Odus before he nodded at Tomlinson, who was standing near the window.

  Odus took over. “Ford’s friend is a traitor, a Judas. Our brother, Abraham, figured it out. See that black eye he’s got? Our brother insisted, so Geness used his fists. We’re going to execute him later.”

  Odus was smirking at Tomlinson as he continued, “But right now, here’s our problem: we don’t know if the asswipe traitor told us the truth about Ford. The asswipe claims Ford’s like this military special agent who could, you know, tell us how to take down this island. You with me so far?”

  Talas nodded quickly as he explored the side of his face with massive fingers.

  “Of course, this was before we figured out the freaky-freak guy is a traitor. Plus, my brothers and I didn’t have one bit of trouble taking down this island all by ourselves, did we?” The twin aimed a cutting look at Kahn before he went on. “Now, though, there might be a job Ford can help us with. So what do you know about him?”

  Talas produced a monogrammed handkerchief from his pocket and concealed his anger with a glowering silence as he dabbed at the bl
ood on his face. Finally, he said, “You are looking for someone to deliver these letters, I take it? And, perhaps, kill Armanie and Kazlov—as they read the letters, perhaps? That’s the only reason I can think of why a skilled military person would be of use to you. Which means he would have to kill their bodyguards, too, of course. Which won’t be easy, you need to realize. Kazlov’s man especially. He’s captained Viktor’s various yachts over the years and he’s very devoted.”

  The fat man was talking about Vladimir.

  The twins used their eyes to communicate before Odus said, “We never thought of making him shoot the caviar slavers, too. But it’s an interesting idea—”

  “It’s a bad idea,” Geness interrupted without inflection.

  Odus said, “Yeah, a shitty idea. Ford wasn’t sent here to judge anyone. My brothers and me, we’re the judges.”

  “And executioners,” Geness prompted.

  “And executioners. We know why we were sent here. All we want from you, leech, is tell us what you know. You think Ford can get these letters to Armanie and Kazlov without getting killed?”

  Talas was giving it some thought as Odus kept talking but not so loud now. “We’re sending someone with him, too, ’cause at least one person has to make it back here to let us know they’re coming. And we only have”—the twin checked his watch, which caused him to lose his temper again—“Shit! We’ve got only two hours! They’ll have to bust their asses to do it, considering no one knows where your goddamn parasite friends are hiding!”

  It had to be close to one in the morning. I was wondering why the twins wanted Kazlov and Armanie in the lodge before three, as Odus calmed down a little before he said, “At least one person needs to have some experience at this sort of stuff. You heard all the guns banging away out there.” He glanced at Kahn. “Unless Rez and Trapper want to volunteer and prove they’re not a couple of pussies.”

  That got him laughing, and it started Geness laughing, and then they both lost it in a two-minute laughing jag that bordered on hysteria. Finally, as Odus regained control, his laughter assumed a childlike quality that was perplexing. I glanced at Tomlinson, who was shaking his head, a sad look on his face, which is when I realized that the twin was weeping now, on an emotional descent.