Caribbean's Keeper

by Boland, Brian;

  He stood back against the bar and watched the crowd for any signs of trouble, but saw none. Taking a beer with his right hand, he cupped his left hand around the neck to wet it, then pressed his palm against his head. It felt cool for just a second and it was enough to give him a pause to gather his thoughts. He wondered if the cops had found the car yet. Perhaps someone had called the police by now about gunfire. Perhaps not. It was Panama, after all.

  If anything, the cops would collect the dead like they did every night and bring them downtown. They would gather their evidence and Cole knew he had left spent brass cases. He tried hard to think if he had touched anything on the street or the car, but was confident he hadn’t. A gun was easy to replace, and if need be he would lose the Glock on his hip for another one. He’d have to tell David and this was certainly going to escalate things again. The thought made him take a deep and reluctant breath.

  Cole also knew he’d just won a gunfight, and with that thought he finished off the beer with a second long sip. He ordered another, took a smaller sip, and suddenly felt that same tingling feeling from when he was on the open sea. It was nothing to celebrate, but being alive always felt better when death had just moments ago been so close. The beer didn’t stop the pain from spreading beyond his shoulder. And unlike crossing the reef off Key West or shaking the P-3 in a thunderstorm, this time Cole was left in bad shape. This time there were consequences and the warm blood against his back reminded him of his own mortality.

  He took a deep breath and another sip from his Dos Equis. Maria caught his attention from a table in the middle of the fray. She was sitting with another girl and they were sipping Red Bulls. She smiled at him and mouthed something in Spanish. He smiled back and walked a direct path to her and pulled a chair in close. Sitting down, he put one hand on her lower back and leaned in to her ear, whispering, “Vamanos.”

  She sat back and looked at him with an inquisitive smile and asked, “Donde?” She shook her head just a bit with the question and her long hair swayed with it.

  When she said it, she curled a finger around the ends of her hair and couldn’t hide her curiosity. Cole leaned in again, a bit unsteady, and spoke in English, “Let’s go.”

  She was still playing with her hair and looked at him with a suspicious grin, before she spotted the blood on his shirt and her jaw dropped. Her eyes stayed locked with his for several seconds as she went back and forth in her head before she mouthed, “OK.”

  They both stood up and Maria left her Red Bull on the table, bidding goodnight to her friend. Cole walked her across the street and into the Marriott. The air conditioning gave him the chills immediately and he realized how much he had sweat over the past 15 minutes. His shirt was soaked. Maria walked by his side through the lobby and held his forearm with her soft hand as they made their way to the elevator. As it started climbing to Cole’s floor, she grabbed him close and they faced each other.

  “Are you OK, cowboy?” she asked as she turned Cole a bit to look at his left side. As she tilted her head to one side, Cole ran his fingers behind her ear and tucked some of her hair away from her face.

  “Stop it,” she said as she examined his left side. “You’re bleeding, Cole.”

  She was leaning in close to him, her chest pressed against his, when the elevator door opened and they walked side by side down the hallway to his room. Cole was starting to feel dizzy, perhaps from the beer, or the loss of the blood, or the air conditioning chilling his soaked skin. She held his right arm and leaned in to support his body against hers as they walked into the room.

  Closing the door behind them, Maria took Cole to the bathroom and helped him get the shirt off his back. She cursed in Spanish and with the mirror, Cole could see a good-sized gash behind his left shoulder. It must have been one of the first shots that got him, or maybe even a ricouchet off the cement wall, but it had nicked him bad enough to be a concern. Cole knew he was lucky. It hurt like hell, but it could have been far worse. If he’d crouched a foot in the wrong direction when the car passed, he’d likely be dead.

  Maria went out of the bathroom to the phone by the bed and called someone. Cole didn’t know who nor did he care. He pressed both his hands against the counter of the sink and dropped his head down, closing his eyes and gritting his teeth. He was in bad shape. He sat down on the edge of the bathtub and worked his boots off with his right hand. His socks took longer to pull off with one hand. Maria came back and in and helped him to his feet.

  “I called a doctor,” she said while kicking Cole’s boots out of the way.

  Cole looked at her and asked, “How long?”

  Maria patted him on his back and replied, “Soon. He is a friend and will help you. Why don’t you try to take a shower and clean up a bit?”

  Cole nodded his head in agreement. With that, Maria went back into the main room and Cole slowly worked his way into the shower. He tried to clean the wound, but it hurt beyond his tolerance even to get wet, so he left it alone, opting to wash away the sweat and blood from the rest of his body.

  When he finished, Cole dried off as best he could with his one good arm and awkwardly held the towel around his waist as he walked out of the bathroom. Maria’s dress was on the floor by the bed. He stopped in his tracks and found himself dizzy once again, this time in a good way. Turning away from the bed, he saw that Maria had pulled on a pair of his boxers and one of his Delaney t-shirts. For the first time since she’d seen his wound, she smiled and laughed, saying, “Don’t get any ideas, cowboy. You’re in no shape for anything.”

  Cole laughed because Maria knew the thought had crossed his mind. She brought him a pair of shorts and helped him pull them on. With his right hand, he cupped the side of her face and stared at her until she looked away.

  “Thank you.” It was all he could manage. Maria held his hand and helped him lie down on his side. She then sat with him until someone knocked at the door. Cole had left the gun in the bathroom and sat up quickly to retrieve it. Maria stopped him and held his shoulder until he laid back down.

  She answered the door and brought in a middle-aged man with a duffel bag. Introducing himself as a doctor and friend, Cole relaxed enough to let the man examine his shoulder. Maria and the doctor spoke some more before the man patted Cole on the shoulder and assured both him and Maria that he could stitch Cole up with no problems.

  On his side facing away from Maria and the doctor, Cole could only guess that it was iodine that burned on the open wound. Maria reached across his chest to hold his hand. Stitches followed and Cole passed out before the work was done.

  g

  He woke the next morning with daylight creeping through the curtains and saw Maria laying next to him. She was on her side facing him and her arms were curled around a pillow. She was still asleep, and Cole didn’t want to wake her. He stayed in bed for some time, in and out of sleep himself with his one good arm intertwined with hers. When she finally did wake up, Maria was quick to smile at him, and Cole wondered if she hadn’t been up for some time and had simply kept her eyes closed to avoid the morning. Cole smiled back at her and paused to take in her pretty features. His left shoulder was stiff, but his arm didn’t feel all that bad.

  He fired up the coffee maker by the mini-fridge and made two cups. Passing one to Maria, the two sat in bed sipping their coffee and touched their feet against each others under the covers, laughing when they did. It was close to noon by the time Maria put her dress back on and fixed her hair as best she could in the bathroom. When she came out, Cole watched her around the room as she looked around for her things. He tossed the Delaney t-shirt she’d worn the night before back at her, saying, “Keep it.” She smiled and stuffed it into her purse.

  He asked, “How much do I owe you?”

  Maria looked back at him, stopping momentarily before putting her shoes back on. She walked back over to Cole and sat on the side of the bed with him. “Nothing.”

  Cole asked, “But what about the do
ctor?”

  Maria shook her head, “He is a friend. There is no charge.”

  She got up to leave and Cole grabbed at her hand. “Don’t leave. Please.”

  The truth was Cole didn’t want to be alone. With a bullet hole in the back of his shoulder and no one he could trust, Maria was all he had and he owed her dearly. Maria nodded that she would stay and sat back down on the bed.

  She smiled and asked, “So what do we do now?”

  He flashed a grin and said, “I think I’ve got a plan.” Cole stood up, walked over to the phone, and dialed David.

  Before Cole could get a word out, David asked in a sharp tone, “Are you part of this shit, Cole?”

  Cole was not entirely surprised that David already knew something had gone down. “Would you rather me have rolled over and died?”

  “Damn it, Cole. You’re more trouble than you know.”

  Cole laughed to himself. “What did you hear?”

  David replied, “What did I hear? What did I hear? I hear that some fucking cowboy is killing guys down dark alleys. I hear that some guy is shooting at the Coast Guard and then comes back to Panama and turns the city into the Wild West. That’s what I hear.”

  Cole quipped back, “Yeah, because Panama was so peaceful until I got here.”

  David calmed down a bit and said, “You sit tight. I fucking mean it. I’ll be over in a bit.”

  Cole hung up the phone and remembered that he hadn’t reloaded from the night before. He took the gun from the bathroom and the bag of cleaning supplies over to the table, unloaded it, and gave it a quick run through with the oil and rags. Whatever pain meds he had from the night before were starting to wear off. Maria offered to get some more, but Cole preferred to tough it out and keep his senses sharp. Loading the gun again with a full magazine, he put his jeans back on and a new shirt then tucked the gun back in its holster. With gauze and tape over the stitches on his back, he buttoned his shirt, snugged up his belt to hold the gun’s weight, and sat back down with Maria, waiting for David.

  He looked at her, sitting next to him on the bed and thought for a long second before he spoke. “I owe you a lot.”

  She shook her head back and forth playfully. She could tell his arm was starting to hurt. “We should go and I can get you some more medicine.”

  Cole declined, saying, “No, there’s something else I want to do. Just give me some time.” With that, she leaned against his good side and they talked like they had so many times before. Maria didn’t know it, but Cole had a plan in his head to repay Maria’s kindness.

  g

  Two hours later, David knocked at his door. It was after three in the afternoon. The two shook hands, and Cole pulled two beers from the refrigerator, passing one to David. David eyed Maria and looked back at Cole with a grin. Cole locked eyes with David and said, “It isn’t what you think.”

  David laughed. “It never is.”

  Cole replied, “I mean it. Don’t say a word.”

  They both took large sips and got down to business. “Cole, I won’t lie to you. You pissed off the other cartels with the shooting at the Americans. You’ve disrupted a balance that we all like down here. On the plus side, you brought in some good cash that we would have lost otherwise, so my boss is still OK with everything, but some of the others are not so much.”

  Cole processed for a moment and asked, “So who the fuck tried to kill me, David?”

  David took another sip and paused. He looked at Cole as if to suggest he was going to say something heavy. “You gotta get the fuck out of town for a while.”

  Cole was looking back directly at David. “OK. How the fuck do you suggest I do that?”

  David laughed. “No worries, my friend. We’ll get you out of here. You go sit tight and let this thing settle down. You’ve got some cash; there are plenty of places to sit and be comfortable. We’ve got a plane going out tonight if you’d like.”

  “Where to?”

  “A couple of places, but he’ll end up in Martinique, I believe. Maybe Aruba on the way, just to drop off some things.”

  Cole figured it was another run. With his shoulder, he was in no shape to push through the night. “Are we moving stuff?”

  David shook his head and answered, “No, no, we don’t use planes much right now for that kind of business. The Colombians have gotten too good at shooting them down. All of it is legit, or at least as legit as it gets for us.”

  Cole accepted the offer. “When do we leave?”

  David finished his beer. “Now.”

  Cole thought for a moment, looked at Maria, and replied, “We gotta run by the bank first.”

  David asked, “Why?”

  “Something I need to take care of.”

  David looked back at Maria, then at Cole. “Does this have something to do with her?”

  Cole nodded, “Yup.”

  From the bed where she sat, Maria tilted her head as if to ask Cole what he was up to. Cole just smiled at her.

  Cole packed up a few of his things, including some extra tape and gauze the doctor had left, and they all set off. David had a van waiting, and Cole climbed in with Maria, the two of them sitting in the backseat. David climbed in up front. She seemed uneasy and Cole reassured her with his hand on her knee. It was mid-afternoon, and Cole scanned Habana’s one last time as the van pulled away.

  It felt like he was geared up for another run north, but the van took different turns as it made its way through town. Cole remembered the drive in on his first night and found himself almost nostalgic for the past few months in Panama. Part of him wanted badly to turn and drive north to set his hands on a panga again or spend a lazy morning in a hammock in Nicaragua sipping a rum drink. But with each adventure, Cole knew he was only deeper into a world from which he may not get out. Am I simply another cog in the wheel, or am I actually part of the problem? He questioned his decisions and he didn’t like the answers that festered in his mind.

  He pushed those thoughts away as the van pulled up to a large bank. Maria, Cole, and David all stepped out and walked into the air-conditioned lobby. Cole asked Maria to wait for them up front, and David walked with Cole up to a well-dressed middle-aged woman seated at a desk in a corner. Cole explained to David that he wanted to sign his account over to Maria. David shook his head to say no, telling Cole it was a mistake. Cole persisted and reluctantly David translated Cole’s request.

  As the woman drew up paperwork, David again tried to talk Cole out of it. “Cole, you’ve got a lot of cash here. Don’t be stupid because of one night. There are a lot of pretty girls here.”

  Cole gritted his teeth. He’d made nothing but mistakes in Panama. Left for dead and unwilling to trust even David, Cole wanted nothing to do with the money he’d made over the past months. He looked over his shoulder at Maria. She was seated facing away from them and he thought back to how she’d held him up the night before. He thought about their first conversation and how she’d explained that one day she’d bring back her money to her family in Colombia. There were lots of pretty girls in Panama, but he held a special place in his heart for Maria. Not only had she been there for him at his lowest point, but Cole had gotten to know her over the months and, to him, she was so much more than just another working girl.

  As the woman finished the paperwork and turned it around on the desk for Cole to see, he asked David to go get Maria. David shook his head one last time and stood up. “You are nuts, Cole.”

  “Just go get Maria. Please.”

  Maria walked over a few moments later and Cole asked her to sit down. The woman behind the desk sat expressionless as Cole took Maria’s hand.

  He asked her, “Maria, would you leave Panama if you could?

  She smiled a nervous smile and replied, “Well, one day, yes. Why?”

  Cole pointed down at the papers. “I want you to have this.”

  She looked down and saw a cash value of just over $120,000 at the bottom o
f the page. Confused, she looked back at Cole.

  He explained it to her. “I’m leaving, but I want you to have this. I want you to go home, if that’s what you want to do. Or go somewhere, anywhere. Start a new life. Do you understand?”

  Maria looked back down at the paper, then at Cole. “But why, Cole?”

  Cole paused for a second, then answered, “Because I want to know what it feels like to do something good.”

  Maria started to cry. She wiped the first tears away, but couldn’t hide her emotion. “Why me?”

  Cole smiled at her, saying, “You’re the only good I’ve known in the world in a long time and it would make me happy to know you’re happy.”

  From her seat next to him, Maria wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him in close, pressing her face against his neck.

  Cole laughed a bit. He hugged her back and held her for a moment to take in all of her charm. “Come on now, sign the papers for me.”

  Maria complied and the woman took the papers off, leaving Cole and Maria to themselves.

  Maria was still fighting back tears.

  Cole asked, “Will you leave?”

  She nodded yes. “I will go home, to Colombia.” When she said the word Colombia, she teared up again and Cole knew Maria meant it.

  The woman returned with a credit card and a checkbook, discussing it for a minute with Maria in Spanish before all three stood up and shook hands. Outside the bank, Maria hugged Cole and didn’t let go for some time. Cole embraced her firmly with his good arm and managed to wrap his left arm around her as well.

  Cole asked, “Are you good to go from here or do you need a ride?”

  Maria replied, “No, I’m good. I’m going to get my things and say goodbye to some friends. I will fly home tomorrow, maybe the next day.”