by Rick Copp
“I guess I always knew, but there were so many people in my life who couldn’t accept it. They filled my head with all sorts of horrible thoughts to keep us apart. But I can’t deny your love for me anymore. You do love me like any true soul mate would. And I love you too.”
I threw my arms around him and squeezed tight. At first he tensed up, but as the reality of what was happening sank in, he burrowed his head in my chest and sobbed. In his mind, I had finally come around.
I glanced back at Bowie, who had quickly caught on to what I was doing. He gave me an encouraging wink.
I carefully lifted Wendell’s head off my chest and tenderly raised it up so we were face to face. I offered him a warm smile. He sniffed and cleared his throat and squinted his eyes to rid them of the onslaught of tears.
“The truth shall finally set us free, Jarrod,” he said, beaming.
“I know, Wendell, but this guy here, this evil man, will never let you go until you tell him what he wants to know.”
“I don’t know . . . He wants me to go back to prison. I don’t want to ever go back, do you hear me? I wouldn’t make it, “ he said, his voice shaking.
“We’ll tell him what he wants to know, and then we’ll go away. We’ll leave the country. Make a new life somewhere else,” I said, ready to shoot my hand out to accept that elusive Emmy Award that I had been chasing after for so many years.
Wendell scanned my face, not a hundred percent ready to believe I was sincere. I had to seal it with a kiss. I softly brushed my lips across his cheek and whispered in his ear, “I just want to be with you, away from all this like we’re meant to be.”
Wendell took a deep breath, and released it, allowing years of frustration to escape his body. After all this time, his soul mate had finally come home. He then turned to Bowie and said, “A tool shed.”
“Where?” Bowie barked.
“I didn’t have to drag him far. It’s right near—”
A burning smell wafted up, and I stood up and looked around. “What is that?”
Bowie took a whiff and then, with a start, flung his body forward. “Jarrod, watch out!”
I caught sight of the lighter pressed into the palm of Wendell’s hand too late. It must have been in his pocket, and he managed to get ahold of it and burn right through the ropes binding him. He freed himself, and shoved me aside as Bowie pounced on him like a cougar. Wendell head-butted Bowie with such force, he flew back, smashing against the wet bar, jostling it enough so that bottles of scotch, tequila, and vodka tipped over and fell, smashing Bowie over the head. Glass shattered everywhere, and Bowie, half-conscious, drooped down to the floor.
Wendell was out of the chair like a shot, and took advantage of the opportunity to flip Bowie facedown on the floor, and quickly bind his hands together with the singed rope.
“I’m tired of listening to you,” he said as he picked up the roll of duct tape off the coffee table, tore off a nice long piece, and pressed it over Bowie’s mouth. Wendell stared at Bowie for a moment, debating on what to do next, and then he marched over to the kitchen area, scrambled around in a drawer, and studied the blade of a sharpened steak knife. He walked back over to Bowie’s prone body and hissed, “Don’t you worry, Jarrod. He won’t be bothering us anymore.”
Straddling Bowie, he raised the knife in the air. I sprang across the room and grabbed ahold of his arm. “No!” I yelled, trying to pull him off Bowie. He swatted me aside like an annoying housefly.
“Boy,” he said sternly. “Stay out of my way.”
He raised the knife again. This time I hurled myself between Bowie and the blade, hoping to dear God he would stop short of stabbing his “soul mate.” Luckily he did.
I had to give the performance of a lifetime. “Wendell, listen to me, please,” I said. “We don’t need more police chasing us. If you keep killing, we’ll never have any peace. And isn’t that what we both want? To be left alone in peace?”
Wendell’s stone face relaxed into an admiring smile. “You’re right, Jarrod. You’re a good boy. Smart boy. I’m so proud of you.”
“The people on the other boats may have heard all the commotion. Someone might have called the police. We should leave,” I said, motioning him to join me. I just wanted him to step away from Bowie before he changed his mind and plunged the knife deep into his back.
We walked outside, and Wendell veered toward my rented Taurus. He had been following me for so long he knew exactly what kind of car I was driving in Miami. Wendell opened up the driver’s side door to get in, but noticed me hanging back.
“Come on, boy, what are you waiting for? Let’s go.”
I hesitated. Every childhood fear was rising up inside of me. I was about to get in the car with the man who had stalked me for over two thirds of my life and had tried to kill me twice.
Wendell could smell my fear, and he melted. “Being scared is nothing to be ashamed of, Jarrod. We’ve all got things we’re afraid of,” he said with an understanding smile. “And I know you’re worried about all the people who are going to chase us and try to separate us again.”
I nodded, playing along for lack of a better plan.
“Chances are we will get caught eventually and they will take you away from me. But there’s one surefire way to make sure that never happens.”
“What’s that?” I asked, not sure I wanted to hear the answer.
“The only way we’ll be safe and together is if we leave this world. Right now.”
I shuddered. This was the Wendell Butterworth I knew and loathed.
“I’ll kill you first. Nice and quick. You won’t feel a thing,” he said as he reached into his pocket and pulled out the steak knife. “And you wait for me at the light. I’ll be right behind you.”
Chapter 30
Wendell took a step forward, raising the knife over his head. I slowly began backing away.
“Don’t be scared. You won’t feel a thing. I promise,” he said. And that’s when I turned and hightailed it out of there. I bolted down the sidewalk running along the marina, yelling at the top of my lungs for anyone who could hear me. I wrenched my head around and caught sight of Wendell, huffing and puffing, as he chased after me.
“Jarrod, come back!” he bellowed before he had to stop and catch his breath. It was my dumb luck that Wendell hadn’t spent his long years behind bars working out at the prison gym. I was in much better shape from my many hikes in the Hollywood Hills with Snickers. I stayed well ahead of him.
I spotted a pair of headlights in the distance and debated whether or not I should run out into the road, but the car was coming too fast and shot by before I had a chance to get the driver’s attention. I heard Wendell wheezing a few hundred feet behind me as he closed the distance between us. Instinctively, I sprinted to my right, but quickly discovered I was running down a dock slip housing a line of expensive yachts. When I reached the end, there was nothing but Biscayne Bay ahead of me. I could hide on one of the boats. Wendell would be hard pressed to find me. Screaming for help at this point might not be the smartest move. Most of the owners were out dining at the finest restaurants South Beach had to offer, and it would only lead Wendell to me. I spotted a darkened white cruiser with the name CHARLIE’S ANGEL stenciled in blue across the bow. It was enormous and easily worth a couple of million. It probably had a lot of compartments and closets for me to hide. I made a dash for it, but stopped suddenly when the moon illuminated the big, bulky form of a man gripping a steak knife. Wendell stood motionless at the other end of the dock, trapping me.
“Why are you running from me, boy?”
I whipped my head from side to side, searching for some way, any way, to escape. Wendell cautiously started to walk toward me. The only sound I could hear was the rocking of the wooden dock against the gentle waves lapping into shore and the steady approach of my stalker’s footsteps.
There was nowhere to go. I knew it. Wendell knew it. I turned and sprinted straight off the dock in a swan dive, silently prayi
ng Wendell had never learned how to swim. I hit the bone-chilling water and swam for my life, as far out as I could. Other than fishing Dominique out of the surf, I hadn’t swum since I played the son of a Midwestern tourist who accidentally steals a cache of diamonds from the Hawaiian mafia in a Magnum, P.I., episode in 1984. One of the native gangsters tries to drown me off Waikiki Beach as a warning to my father, but I manage to swim away from him. It took nine takes to get right. I nailed it every time. The guy playing my attacker had had too many mai tais at lunch and had trouble hitting his mark.
My arms and legs ached after a few minutes, and I stopped and treaded water while I tried to rest up. I looked back at the dock, maybe a hundred feet away. Wendell stood forlornly at the edge, staring out at the moonlit bay.
“Jarrod? Jarrod?” he wailed.
I bobbed up and down in the waves, trying to keep my breathing steady. Don’t panic. Just stay here, and pretty soon he may give up and leave and I can swim back to shore. I worried my legs wouldn’t be able to tread much longer. I was spent. What a choice. Stabbed by a stalker or death by drowning.
A light hit my eyes, blinding me. I squinted and tried to focus. Had I already drowned and this was the light where I was supposed to meet Wendell? I heard the rumble of an engine and smelled gasoline as a motorboat pulled up in front of me. A hand reached out, hauling me up over the side and into the boat. I had been rescued.
Coughing and sputtering from the salty seawater, I said, “Thank you so much for picking me up. There’s a guy on the dock who—”
For the first time I was able to see my rescuers. Two giants. One Caucasian and one Hispanic. Martinez’s henchmen. I spun around to jump over the side, but the Hispanic grabbed a fistful of my shirt and yanked me back, shoving me down on a hard wooden seat in the back of the boat.
“Relax, will you?” he barked. “Enjoy the ride.”
I sat silent, staring at them, wondering how far out we would go before they tied a cement block around my ankle and sent me hurtling to the ocean floor. But after a brief ten-minute ride, we drove up alongside an impressive cruiser, nearly twice the size of all the other boats docked in the marina. On the bow, I saw the name VIVECA II in big bold lettering. He’d named a boat after her, and she still felt the need to go sleep with a sleaze like Juan Carlos. But who was I to judge? The two henchmen wore loud flower print shirts and khaki shorts. Not exactly the butchest bad guys you would ever run across. But what they lacked in fashion style, they made up for in pure bulk. They hustled me up the ladder, and I braced myself for my first face-to-face meeting with Javier Martinez.
I was led into the private quarters and through to a back office deep inside the boat. I didn’t see any other people aboard except for us. Viveca and the kids were probably in town wondering what had happened to their beloved paramour. The Caucasian rapped on a shellacked wooden door with a gold plate that said PRIVATE, and a gruff voice said, “Bring him in.”
The door opened to reveal a brightly lit space with a glass-top table and high-back chair, four televisions, computer, phone, fax, everything. Rupert Murdoch could run his corporation out of this place. Javier Martinez in an open floral print shirt and white slacks, a look only an intimidating mafia don could ever get away with, stood up and offered me a warm smile.
“Well, Mr. Jarvis, at last we meet,” he said. “Can I offer you a cocktail? I make an excellent margarita. My entire family swears by it.”
“I’m fine, thank you,” I said, a little confused by his hospitality. “First of all, Mr. Martinez, I want you to know I appreciate your . . . associates . . . picking me up when they did. They saved my life.” I went on to explain my history with Wendell Butterworth and his endless pursuit of me leading up to the last few hours. Martinez listened to my story, wide-eyed and fascinated. When I’d finished, he took a big gulp of his tequila sunrise and set the glass down.
“Sounds like a very nasty business,” he said dryly.
“Oh, I’m sure it doesn’t even compare to what you’re used to,” I said, instantly regretting it. Here I was on his turf, surrounded by his thugs, and I was being flippant like Bruce Willis in his umpteenth Die Hard sequel.
“You’d be surprised,” Martinez said with a smile, his eyes downcast. “I’m not as brutal and ruthless as most people think. Nobody’s going to do a show on HBO about me anytime soon.”
“Why did you bring me here?”
Martinez looked up at his goons and waved them away. They turned and walked out, closing the door behind them. “You’ve been following me. You and that private eye, what’s his name, Bowie something . . .”
“Lassiter,” I said.
“Right. And I want to know why.”
“Okay, um, well, I’m not sure really where to begin, but a dear friend of mine recently married someone you might know . . . Juan Carlos Barranco.”
Martinez picked up his glass and squeezed it so hard, I waited for it to crush in his hands. But he caught himself, and finished off the drink with one swig. “Yes, I know him. Too well, I’m afraid,” he said.
“Well, another man connected to you, Austin Teboe, died of poisoning at Juan Carlos’s wedding, and the trail has led me here . . . and to you.”
“You think I’m behind Teboe’s murder?”
I awkwardly shifted position. “Well, um,” I said, “he did work for you. And he did betray you by leaving. And you do have a reputation for . . .” I stopped myself. This wasn’t exactly my smartest hour accusing a mobster of murder. But I had to know the truth.
“I had no reason to get rid of Austin. Yes, he left me high and dry to go work in some restaurant. But he came crawling back, wanting his old job. I said no. It was a question of loyalty. He had disappointed me once. I was not going to let him do it again. But I never held a grudge. Now the other one, the actor, now that’s another story.”
“He’s dead too.”
Javier raised a brow, genuinely surprised. “Really? How?”
“Poisoning. My guess is it was the same kind used to kill Austin Teboe.”
A sly smile crept across his face. “Well, I may be guilty of a lot of things, but lately my biggest crime has been just trying to make my family happy.”
“What do you mean?”
“My daughter Dominique was dating that Barranco character. I never liked him, or the effect he had on her. He got her all excited about the movie business to the point where she had stars in her eyes. She wanted to be an actress. She heard some low-rent horror movie was in town looking for funding, and she came and begged me to invest. She figured it would ensure she get a part in the picture. It’s hard to say no to your only daughter. In fact, I’ve never said it to her, so I agreed. Then, before I knew it, my wife came to me and told me not to write the check until the director promised to cast her in a role too. It was turning into a damn Martinez family production.”
“Did you know Juan Carlos was playing the lead?”
“Of course not. I hated the bastard. I would’ve shut the whole damn movie down if I had known. Viveca and Dominique went to great lengths to hide that key piece of information from me.”
“So when did you find out?”
“That self-promoting son of a bitch couldn’t resist announcing in one of the local papers that he was back in town starring in a new film. A member of my household staff saw it and brought it to my attention. He had already broken Dominique’s heart once, and I was afraid he would try again. I told him if he ever came near my daughter again, I would cut off his head, so I had my boys follow him around to make sure he didn’t try to contact her . . .” His voice trailed off. He stared out a portal at the vast ocean.
“They saw him up north,” I said. “At the Sand Drift Motel, with—”
“David,” Martinez choked out. “My son.”
We stood silent. Martinez poured some more tequila, stirred it around with his forefinger, and raised the glass to his lips. “I was ready to kill him right then and there. But things only got worse . . .”
<
br /> “Viveca?”
Martinez nodded. “She left clues all over the place. And there was a lot of tension between her and Dominique, so it was only a matter of time before I put two and two together. At that point, the sick mother fucker had signed his death warrant.”
“So you had him killed?”
Martinez shook his head. “No.”
“Mr. Martinez,” I said. “You have a history of offing men who cross your family.”
He stared at me blankly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Your daughter Dominique’s ex-boyfriend Calvin. He mysteriously disappeared after breaking it off with your daughter. Are you telling me . . . ?”
Martinez laughed. “I didn’t kill him. I just threatened him. Told him if I ever saw his face again, I would slaughter him and his entire family. He ran off scared. Last I heard he was working as a bartender in Havana.”
“But why hasn’t he tried contacting his family? They’re worried sick.”
“He will eventually. When he thinks it’s safe. I can have a certain effect on people,” he said proudly.
“So you had nothing to do with Juan Carlos’s murder?”
“I’ll be honest with you. I had every intention of doing it. And I wanted to do it all by myself. I wanted him to see my face as I squeezed the last bit of breath out of his skinny, weak body.” He snapped out of his fantasy and looked at me. “But I guess someone else got to him first.”
I believed him. There was no reason for him to lie. He could’ve confessed and then just fed me to the sharks.
“Jarrod, I respect your need to find out what happened to Austin and the actor. I have no problem with that.”
“Okay,” I said warily.
“But let’s set the record straight. Feel free to poke around all you like, and solve your little murder mystery. But when you dig for your information, just be sure you don’t come across anything that could prove hazardous to your health.”
