Nightlife

by Brian Hodge

  Holding tightly to the rope, he held his breath in anticipation and pushed free of the dock. Legs drawn up so as not to splash down into the water. He dangled for a moment, waiting until momentum died. Then pulled himself hand over hand up and across to the side of the Estrella. Once he was nearly adjacent to it, he planted his feet against the hull and hauled himself the rest of the way toward the deck like a mountaineer scaling a cliff face.

  He pulled up and over, crouched just inside the railing of the rear deck. Watchful, listening. Nothing. Yet more tales of daring to tell his children and grandchildren.

  Kerebawa untied his arrows, rubbing where the twine had creased the flesh. He unslung his bow. Decided to hold the machete in his teeth. Too much to carry at once, but no telling which he might need.

  The fore end of this rear deck was bordered with a series of sliding glass doors, curtained from the inside. Disaster to try entering from here. On either side, a rubber-stripped stairway led to the upper deck, half open and half enclosed by the dark-glassed cabin. Again, risky, but he was betting that if guards were up and around, they would likely be watching the front to see if anyone should come from shore along the docks.

  He crouched up the starboard stairway to the upper deck. Empty, save for the reclining chairs the women had used earlier, a cooler full of melted ice. The cabin sat like eyes behind dark sunglasses, not hinting if they were open and if they were, where they gazed.

  He could creep along no longer. Now the real risks would begin.

  Kerebawa sprinted along the right side, crossed the upper deck. Launched himself to plant feet on the gunwale just behind the upper cabin. Pushed off to land on the roof, cushioning the landing with flexing knees to reduce the noise to a soft slap of his feet.

  He froze. Waiting for any possible alarm to be raised. One minute, two. Still as a stalking panther. Nothing.

  He crept around the perimeter of the cabin roof, perhaps twenty feet wide by twenty-five long, and curved at the front. It was like a giant platter. Unobstructed except for a sprouting of antennas and horns and such near the front, and a back-tilted flagpole with an American flag. There was a door to the cabin at the front port side. Now. How to draw a guard out.

  The flag…

  Kerebawa rested his bow and arrows. Duck walked over to the flagpole and used his machete to slice through the nylon rope. Freed the flag, carried it back to a position directly above the cabin door.

  He let it dangle half over the window, draping it onto the black glass with a gentle slap. Blown by sporadic winds. Slapped it again. Slid it farther down. Slap. Let it go, to fall to the deck.

  Held his machete aloft and waited.

  Several moments later he heard the clicking of the door latch. A softly grumbling man opened it, stood just inside the doorway for a few seconds. Out of range. Then he saw the top of the man’s head pass beneath him. The man stooped to retrieve the flag, and when he straightened, Kerebawa hooked the machete out and down, then sharply in. It whacked dead-center into the guard’s face with the sound of a melon being halved. The blade held fast, anchored into bone, cartilage. He uttered a choked cry, dropped the flag as his hands flailed at the blade sunk into his face.

  Kerebawa leaned and reached, pulling him back with the other hand. His right held fast to the back of the blade, directly over the man’s split nose, and he seized a fistful of hair with the left. Gave a savage twist that snapped the man’s neck, and he went limp.

  Kerebawa, looming over the doorway like a gargoyle, pulled him up and onto the roof. Wriggled the blade back and forth to free it from the man’s face, now a wet sticky mess.

  Kerebawa curled over the roof far enough to peek inside the cabin door, head upside-down. So far, so good. Nothing but the confusing controls that navigated this huge canoe, and beyond that, a large room, full of plush furniture and carpeted and decorated as fine as any building he had ever seen beyond the jungles of home. With a narrow doorway leading down below.

  He gathered his belongings and dropped to the deck, slipped through the cabin door. No sound, above or below. He notched an arrow into his bow, held it ready to draw.

  And then he went belowdecks.

  The narrow, twisting stairway led him to a central corridor. Plushly carpeted, paneled, ornate brass light fixtures barely glowing low and warm upon the walls. Several doors branched off from either side.

  Including a set of double doors, intricately carved, facing him from the opposite end. Little doubt as to who slept behind them.

  Kerebawa eased forward. Some of the stateroom doors were open, and each of these was empty. Behind a closed door he found a sleeping guard, snoring gently into his pillow. He slashed the man’s throat in his sleep, clamping a hand over the struggling mouth while his life bled out to be soaked up by the sheets.

  In another he found a guard who awakened as soon as the door was opened and the wedge of light fell within the stateroom. Good reflexes. The man groped for a pistol on his nightstand, and Kerebawa loosed an arrow. At less than ten feet, he could not miss. He skewered the guard’s skull through an eye socket.

  Satisfied that he was now alone with Escobar and his women, Kerebawa set his sights on the carved wooden doors. Three people behind them. Stealth was fine when the enemy were handled one at a time. But this? This was riskier, even if two of the three were his women. Three against one meant confusion, diversion of attention that might be costly. Keep his eye on one, another might find a gun.

  There had to be another way. He lingered in the hall. Considered various options, ways to increase the treachery. Discarded most. Then he remembered the sliding glass doors opening onto the lower deck, how they would no doubt lead into this room. A back route escape. He remembered the flag rope he had cut on the roof.

  And knew that among the three dead men, he was bound to turn up what Angus had called a cigarette lighter somewhere.

  Luis Escobar floated in the arms of Morpheus and the lap of luxury.

  Within his darkened stateroom, triple the size of the next largest on the Estrella, he slumbered on a king-size waterbed between two of the finest knockout women he’d ever had the pleasure of encountering. Vanessa, the brunette, lay at his right. Redheaded Tracy at his left. They had seventy-four inches of bustline between them, and a pair of mouths that grazed on each other as happily as they did on him. A nice arrangement. Once he drained his scrotum into one or the other and needed a little rest, they could always put on enough of a show that he didn’t get bored.

  As players went, in the upper echelons, Escobar was one of the more rugged-looking. His heritage reflected more peasant Indian stock than refined Spanish. A wider face, broader nose and cheekbones, thicker hair, though immaculately styled. Just a bit coarser overall, and this was the way he liked it. It instilled more respect and fear than pretty boys — like, say, Antonio Mendoza — were ever likely to command.

  It gave him an additional edge too. More people than would care to admit sometimes thought brains the exclusive province of the classy-looking. As if superior intelligence couldn’t reside behind more rugged faces. Underestimating was their mistake. And sometimes, their loss.

  You had to have brains to move the kind of weight Escobar did. In coke alone he pulled into Miami better than eight hundred keys a month. He did his business on the high seas. Brought on his well-paid captain of the Estrella and crew — heavily armed, of course — and out they went to nautical coordinates arranged the day before. Just them and the other ship, or seaplane, or pontooned chopper. Nice and private. The DEA would need a submarine to sneak up on them, and even then, the blow could quickly get turned into fish chow before anyone could board.

  Here it was cut and repackaged, and off they sailed for other coordinates, other meets. Move it in, move it out. Or divided up into parcels of varying size so smaller boats could run them to any of several beachfront safe houses. At any rate, its actual time in Escobar’s immediate vicinity was minimal. While the rewards went on and on and on.

 
; Rarely was he called upon to make a decision like he had a couple of weeks ago.

  Some new product, up from Vasquez in Colombia. Something the old man had brought out of the jungles, theorizing that everybody was up for the idea of a new high now and then. Widen that product line. Tribal rain-forest stuff, visionary. Refined, of course, to winnow out the impurities.

  Escobar had been cautious. Vasquez had only managed an initial shipment of six keys, so investment was negligible. He was, however, reluctant to turn it loose within his own area. Should it turn out to be poison, it was best not to foul one’s own nest. Exporting it at a distance seemed best. Move it up to Tampa. If soft American systems couldn’t handle the stuff, he’d hear about it. And be insulated from the fallout. If it went over as big as crack, fine, he could handle that and pump a lot more into the pipeline.

  Where to funnel it — that had been the only real debate. Tampa’s kingpin, Rafael Agualar, had been out of the question. Should it turn out to be bad news, future relations with the Agualares would be strained, to say the least. Not healthy for business. On the other hand, a midlevel distributor like Mendoza was a calculated risk. If Tony went down for poison stock, Escobar knew he himself would never be implicated. And if everything went smoothly, someone like Mendoza would not be bad to have in the pocket for future consideration. Especially with Agualar snorting his way to an early retirement. Because somebody had to replace him, and while Mendoza was a punk, he was a punk with brains and the real vicious streak so crucial to a rewarding career.

  So far there had been no news to indicate anything amiss in Tampa. However, word had it that Hernando Vasquez had messily departed this world, along with a houseful of aides. No more green powder likely to come in, and that was too bad, but then, it wasn’t like there was established demand already. No, he was more concerned with the circumstances behind the Vasquez slaughter.

  Fingers down in Medellín had been pointing in lots of directions, while nobody seemed to know a thing. This was strange. The Cartel had eyes and ears and feelers everywhere. Moves just weren’t made in that town without somebody knowing about it. Bartenders, bellhops, taxi drivers, airline clerks, baggage handlers, hotel desk staff — the network was like a hydra. Cut off one head, and two more would grow in its place.

  Some said rival exporters in Cali had done it. Others said the Vasquezistas had been betrayed by one of their own, ready to assume control of the organization; possible, since his woman had disappeared. Still others spouted off about covert DEA raids in tandem with the leftist guerrillas. That a single gunshot had not been fired was most interesting. Poison, machete wounds, and apparent arrow wounds — with the arrows removed, by the way. Escobar himself threw his hands up in surrender. Either a real wild card had been tossed into the game, Or more likely, the real culprits had gone to a lot of trouble to use methods that would confuse the rest and shift blame elsewhere.

  Whatever. Medellín was a crazy town. He was glad he lived in the USA. You had rules here.

  And as he slept very late on this Sunday night, naked and sated and worn out from the incredible three-way geometrics Vanessa and Tracy had inspired, events in Medellín could not have been farther from mind.

  He was awakened by a smell. Faint at first, then growing in strength. Bad stuff. A hot, sweetish, smoky smell. His eyes fluttered, and with greater awareness, his heart skipped a beat. Smoke. Why hadn’t the bozos he paid to keep an eye out for such things raised some sort of alarm? It was going to take some fancy talking to save somebody from wearing his balls for earrings.

  “Hey. Wake up. I think we got some problems.”

  Escobar put a hand on the girls’ shoulders, gave them each a shake. They murmured, they mumbled, they burrowed into the sheets. Lazy bitches. He slapped rumps, and that got them moving. He was up and into his pants before they asked him what was wrong. He clicked on a lamp and told them to shut up.

  “I smell something burning,” Tracy said. She wrinkled her nose, and the waterbed sloshed beneath her as she reached for her panties.

  “Yeah, no shit.” Escobar glanced at her, shook his head. He grabbed the phone on a bedside table to ring the upper cabin. The phone chirped in his ear three times before he gave up in disgust. Maybe the guy was alow, fighting fires or something.

  While at the table, Escobar reached into the drawer to pull out his weapon of choice. He had a thing for Lugers. Precise German craftsmanship, and the romance of a relic from the world’s most badass army. In their heyday, at least.

  “What’s wrong? Why do you need that?” Vanessa this time. Her eyes had gotten very large.

  Escobar ignored her and went striding to the sliding glass doors opening onto the rear deck. Parted the curtains just enough to peek outside and ascertain the deck was empty. Nothing but moonlight on white. Silver night. He unlatched the door lock and tried to open them. They gave maybe a quarter inch. If that.

  He rattled them again, this time with more force. No good. He was starting to feel a hammering in his heart that the smoke smell alone had not caused. He looked at the outer handles through the polarized glass—

  And saw they had been bound together with nylon rope.

  Situation had just been upgraded from serious to critical.

  Escobar looked at the carved double doors across the stateroom. Only way out of this place. Because every bit of glass around — sliding doors and side windows alike — was bulletproof. He couldn’t even shoot through them to untie the rope.

  He whirled around, and the girls were struggling into their clothes. Designer wrinkles.

  “Luis, that smell’s getting worse.” Vanessa again.

  She was right. He padded over to the doors, touched a finger to their knobs. Brass. Should conduct the heat quite well if there was a major fire in the hallway. They were faintly warm, but not enough to drive your finger away. Not like touching a hot iron.

  This could change, of course. Depending on the fire. And if it grew, they could be trapped. The idea of cooking inside this stateroom was worse than facing whatever lay on the other side.

  Vanessa was nearest the stateroom’s private bath. He looked at her. “Go soak three hand towels, get ‘em nice and soppy.”

  While she did that, Escobar listened beside the doors. Heard a faint crackle of flames, grew increasingly repelled by that burning stench. All at once it seemed very negligent not to have had a peephole installed in at least one door. He left them long enough to kick his bare feet into a pair of deck shoes.

  Vanessa came back with the wet towels. He took one, and Tracy took the last, and they put them before their faces to filter out smoke, possible toxic fumes. He tied his like a bandit’s mask from an old Western movie.

  He wrapped his hands on the knobs, Luger still in his right.

  Why the hell hadn’t his men raised a fuss? Anybody still sleeping was a dead man. Shark bait, next run out to sea. Escobar opened the doors, and immediately a nauseating wave of foul smoke was in his face. So was its source.

  The short, loud scream that escaped him wasn’t the most macho response. But it was involuntary. And very heartfelt.

  Propped against the right door was Jess, one of his men. At least the size indicated Jess. There was a lot wrong with him.

  The arrow shaft poking out of his eye, for one thing. That he was ablaze was another. A flaming shroud of bedsheets was wrapped around him, and the visible flesh was roasted and blackening. His hair was charred stubble. As soon as the doors opened, his flambé body slid along the carved wood and thudded to the floor at Escobar’s madly dancing feet.

  Yes, he shouted. Completely blew composure. And let surprise get the better of him, if only for a second or two. Because somebody up the hallway suddenly leaned from a right-side doorway to fire something at him.

  And son of a bitch, did it ever connect.

  The infiltrator had planned well. With Jess’s body at right, Escobar had reflexively jumped left. Opened himself up to more vulnerability to someone in a right-side stateroom
.

  The next thing Luis Escobar knew, a monstrous arrow — an arrow, of all things — had hit him in the gun shoulder. The pain was sharp and deep, like a scalpel rammed in to the hilt. His arm spasmed, and he fired a wild shot that cracked into the paneling before him, and then the Luger thumped to the floor.

  Escobar grunted and staggered back into the left door, aware of Vanessa and Tracy shrieking behind him, pain in his ears. He was about to bend over for the Luger when the bastard fired again. At maybe fifteen feet, this was probably point-blank range for arrows. This time he took it in the left side of the gut. No bones here to stop the shaft. Just tight skin, firm muscle, and soft organs. He screamed. And knew before he tried to move that it had gone all the way through.

  Not only that.

  It had nailed him to his own bedroom door.

  This guy — this wild card — knew his business.

  Paradise had gone to the province of nightmares in a matter of minutes. Skewered to the door. Jess burning near his feet. The Luger on the floor a maddening three feet before him. He would have to tear his own belly open to bend that far.

  And trouble had quickly gotten a whole lot worse. Someone was quickly closing the gap with a machete.

  “Get my gun!” he screamed to Vanessa, to Tracy. He didn’t care who. “Get my gun!”

  From the corner of his eye he saw Tracy start for it.

  “Don’t touch it,” the bowman said, and the bitch chose to obey him instead of her meal ticket. If he got out of this alive, she was shark bait too.

  Escobar couldn’t believe his eyes. This man before him wasn’t like any he had ever encountered. South American Indian — he recognized that immediately. Bronze skinned, naked, straight hair still wet. With dark eyes that looked as if they’d never heard the word mercy. All at once the news about Vasquez flashed again through his mind, and the gap between Miami and Medellín narrowed to inches. Long-forgotten Catholic prayers and novenas surfaced in memory, all but spilled from his mouth.