Everglades df-10

by Randy Wayne White

  No problem.

  For his Easter Sunday’s fireworks-the grand finale-Izzy had drilled thirteen boreholes in a sequential pattern (“delay intervals,” the literature called them) and in the exact semicircle shape of the Cypress Ashram’s elevated stage. Even though each of the boreholes was more than half a mile away from the outdoor theater, the series of explosions would rock the place in precisely connecting gradients-and much of the Everglades as well.

  This was something else Izzy had learned: Water cannot be compressed. If he extended the boreholes below the water table, the power of the shock waves was quadrupled.

  In the Everglades, the water table was seldom more than a few feet beneath the surface. Swampland was a demoli tionist’s dream. So, this final blast would register way over the government’s line of acceptable level of disturbance. Which would invite all kinds of heavy investigation.

  Izzy didn’t care. He’d be on a plane, gone by late Sunday, never to return. He’d fly to Paris, stay long enough to switch passports, then fly to London, then back to Managua.

  Plus, he now had a fall guy.

  So there’d be a series of five substantial explosions, followed by a really big boom-the U-Haul truck packed with explosives, backed in tight against the wall of the old rock quarry.

  The typical problem with ammonium nitrate, though, was that it wasn’t easy to detonate. Use commercial blasting caps, only a third of the stuff would probably explode. Because the truck would be holding six drums of fertilizer mixed with fuel oil, Izzy had decided to use a high-voltage-capacitor-discharge mini-blaster to detonate the rig. That meant he’d have to leave the truck’s engine running, hardwired to the mini-blaster to provide the necessary voltage.

  The mini-blaster’s timer ran on a single dry-cell battery, but that was okay. He’d mount the timer and the dry-cell battery inside the truck so they couldn’t get wet. The other boreholes would be rigged to waterproof individual timers.

  All the timers worked on twenty-four-hour clocks. He’d set the first charge to go off at 19:48 hours-7:48 P.M. Maybe a minute or two earlier or later. It had to seem random. After that, there would be five more “tremors” approximately one minute apart.

  The last and largest explosion would be exactly at sunset, 19:57 hours. The truck going off. A ton of ammonium nitrate.

  To people half a mile away, it would be like the sun exploding.

  Religious types were big on sunrise, sunset. Same with the moon.

  Izzy liked all of it. Liked the complicated engineering, the precision work, making it happen, fucking with self-important weirdos and geeks like Tomlinson and Ford.

  Izzy was mostly happy about the money-his bonus-and moving to his island in Lake Nicaragua where he could afford all the women he wanted; get them to do anything.

  There was an idea. Start with his sweet little video of Mrs. Minster, the Merry Widow, in her bathroom, then expand the business. Down there in Nicaragua, no one would much care. No one would lift a finger to stop him.

  The image of Sally Minster, naked, looking at herself in the mirror, the color of her face changing, came into his mind.

  He felt his thigh muscles twitch.

  Izzy still had cameras and recorders hidden in her bedroom and bathroom, and he had a LACSA flight to Managua booked for late Sunday.

  So why not visit the pretty blond lady’s house tonight?

  Izzy was in the Bayliner, idling along Tahiti Beach and what looked to be some kind of county park-kids were necking in cars up there on shore, parked beneath coconut palms.

  It was sunset. Harsh light angled across Biscayne Bay, coating the high-rise condos and hotels in shades of neon pink and gold, setting windows ablaze. Windy, too. The wind seemed to blow right out of the sun.

  Izzy didn’t like being on boats when it was windy. It made him queasy, all the odors you never really noticed unless you were on a boat that was rocking. So he shoved the throttle forward and banged and splashed his way back to the marked entrance to Coral Gables Canal.

  Shitty, cheap boat. Waves coming over the front got Izzy’s sports jacket and gray slacks soaked.

  He idled west down the canal, pretending not to notice that the Italian, Frank what’s-his-name, was still parked outside the entranceway to Ironwood in his Lincoln Town Car. With the tinted windows and gold rims, the black car looked like some pimpmobile you’d find in Liberty City.

  Izzy thought, Typical guinea, irked that this guy was screwing up his plans.

  He’d rushed like hell mucking around in the swamp, mixing fertilizer in fifty-gallon drums, using a forklift to lift them into the U-Haul. Got all his work done, everything but the timers set. All ready for Sunday-which gave him a holiday feeling. His last two nights on American soil.

  So he’d showered and changed at the bachelors’ club, hopped in a company car and raced up to Coconut Grove to see if he might discover some more interesting video of the church lady having fantasy sessions in her bedroom. Or maybe even meet her in person.

  This late in the game, that would be okay, too.

  But now the big greaser was spoiling the entire evening.

  Izzy touched his left shoe to the ankle holster in which he carried a. 22 Beretta Model 71-a signature weapon of Mossad assassins.

  Why not? Why not tap on the window, look into the guy’s eye. Say something fun, like “Remember me?” then pop him. Or “Do you really want to find Geoff Minster? I can arrange it.” Then pull the trigger.

  Under the car bridge next to Cocoplum Plaza, Izzy put the boat in neutral, feeling the vibration of Friday-night car traffic rolling over him. He sat there thinking about it, smelling the exhaust fumes, wanting to do it, but not wanting to risk the noise.

  But then he didn’t have to worry about it anymore.

  He saw the lights of the pimpmobile go on. Then he saw Sally Minster’s blue BMW come through the electronic gate, then stop beside the pimpmobile. After a minute or so, both cars drove away, the pimpmobile following the Beamer.

  Perfect.

  The only trouble was, Izzy didn’t know how much time he’d have. So he couldn’t lie around on her bed, browsing through the new video. He’d have to snatch the cameras and recorders, then watch the tapes later in his apartment at Sawgrass.

  Or maybe… maybe he would wait for her to come back. When the guinea was on the job, he always stayed outside in his car. So how could he know what was going on inside the woman’s house?

  Izzy liked that idea. It made him twitch again, picturing it, imagining meeting the church lady in her bedroom, giving her a special farewell, seeing her naked in the flesh, the two of them together on the bed with the cameras rolling.

  How nice would it be to take that back to Nicaragua?

  And if the guinea followed her in?

  Izzy could deal with that, too.

  Wearing surgical gloves, Izzy entered through the pool area, jimmied the back lock, stopped and touched-in the security code.

  He liked the way the house smelled. It smelled of woman; it smelled like her.

  He’d been in the place so many times, he knew the layout as if it were his own home. He paused at the fridge, took an apple from the crisper. He walked up the carpeted stairs, munching away.

  At the top of the stairs, Izzy stopped. Stopped walking. Stopped chewing. Stopped moving.

  The door to the church lady’s bedroom was open.

  Odd.

  She was tidy, consistent in her habits. Sally Minster always kept her bedroom door closed. As if she didn’t want unexpected visitors to get a glimpse of where she lived her private life.

  There was something else, too. A different odor? Maybe. Something new added to the mix of fresh linen, makeup, shampoo and perfume.

  Izzy lifted his head, foxlike, and sniffed the air.

  Yep. He didn’t know what it was, but it was different.

  Izzy pulled at his trouser leg, squatted and unholstered the Beretta with his right hand. There was already a round in the chamber-the only
way to carry a weapon. He cupped the little semiautomatic in his hand, and moved cautiously through the door into the bedroom.

  He stopped again, eyes scanning, ears straining. He could feel his heart pounding in his chest.

  The two micro-cameras and both VCRs lay in the middle of the lady’s bed, wires black on the yellow bedspread.

  Shit.

  Izzy had the Beretta up now, locked in both hands, combat-position, as he began to back out of the bedroom. He was almost to the stairs when he heard movement off to the right. He had just enough time to turn slightly when something massive hit him from the side.

  It was like being hit by a car. Hands and feet flailing, Izzy felt himself go airborne, the gun tumbling from his hand and over the stairway banister, as he crashed into a wall.

  Sitting, dazed, Izzy looked up to see the short Italian private investigator coming at him.

  “Get on your feet, Mac. I’m gonna smack you around a little before I call the cops. You fucking little slimeball.”

  Izzy rolled hard to his left and stood, backing slowly as the Italian approached. During his four years in Israel, Izzy had excelled at martial arts. He’d once almost killed a man in a bar fight by slamming fragments of nose cartilage into the guy’s brain.

  Izzy crouched now, his right hand a fist, his left hand a blade, ready. When the Italian was close enough, he did a variation of a swing dance step, and kicked the man hard in the groin-or tried to.

  But it was as if the Italian knew exactly what he was going to do before he did it. The man caught Izzy’s leg, somehow dropped to one knee, and then, like a fireman carrying a kid, he had Izzy up on his shoulders, off the floor.

  Izzy was kicking and clawing, trying to gouge his way free as he heard the man say, “ Oh. You want me to put you down?”

  Then the Italian hammered him back-first onto the carpet.

  Izzy felt such a searing pain through his spine, he wondered if his back might be broken. But no, he could still move. He began to scramble toward the stairs as the Italian came at him again. The man grabbed him by the belt, lifting him off the carpet like it was nothing. Then the guy forced him to stand on two feet, and shoved him up against the wall, holding him by the throat with one hand. Izzy had to get up on his tiptoes to keep from being choked.

  He’d been in five or six fights in his life, and done some amateur full-contact tournament stuff, but he’d never before experienced what it was like to be physically dominated by another man.

  It was happening to him now. He was helpless.

  Terrifying.

  “You fucking little pervert Peeping Tom. On a lady as nice as her. What I maybe might do is break both your arms, then pull your kneecaps off.” The Italian was nodding, his expression crazed. “Yeah, both kneecaps. I’ll push ’em down by your ankles. Make it so you got to crawl around on your belly.”

  Barely able to breathe with the man’s hand clenching his throat, Izzy was shaking his head desperately. In a rasping whisper, he said, “You’ve got the wrong idea. Geoff Minster… trying to find out what happened to Geoff. Investigating. Like you.”

  The Italian loosened his grip slightly. “Sure, Mac. What the hell you guys care about Minster?”

  “He stole money from us. A hundred… a hundred grand.”

  Actually, Izzy had stolen the money; set it up to look as though Minster had done it.

  The Italian seemed to be considering it, though; as if it might be true. His grip became even looser as he said, “Bullshit. You hid cameras in her bathroom to find out about her husband? How dumb you think I am, Mac?”

  Izzy didn’t hesitate. He used the momentary lapse to knock the Italian’s hands free, then tried to slam the heel of his open palm into the big man’s nose.

  Same thing. It was as if the man knew in advance what Izzy was going to try.

  He blocked the punch, no problem, then slapped Izzy three times, very fast. The slow smile that then spread across the Italian’s face was chilling. He grabbed Izzy’s right wrist, saying, “Like those pigeons last Saturday. Let’s find out if you can fly, motherfucker.”

  Then the man lifted him without effort, grunted and spun him over the stairway banister.

  Falling toward the ground floor, Izzy screamed-a shrill falsetto-kicking wildly. He landed hard on his left side, and lay there, groaning, hearing the heavy footsteps of the Italian coming down the stairs, in no hurry now.

  It felt to Izzy like his left shoulder might be broken. Like there was something sharp sticking out of his own skin. From the first-aid classes he’d taken during Mossad training, he knew the term. Compound fracture. There’d been a photograph in the manual. Sickening to see.

  Experimentally, he touched his shoulder with the gloved fingertips of his right hand, expecting to feel bare bone. Instead of bone, though, he felt the checkered grip of his. 22 Beretta.

  He’d landed on his own gun.

  Fucking stupid guinea!

  Izzy pulled the gun into his hands, and was already aiming it at the Italian as he got to his knees, then his feet. When the Italian realized what had happened, saw Izzy standing there, the gun trained on him, the big man’s expression changed. It was like a shade being pulled.

  He stopped halfway down the stairs. Stood there considering the situation, thinking about it. Then the man’s expression changed once more-got that same crazed glare-and he started down the stairs again.

  Izzy said, “Stop right there, asshole! You get any closer, I’ll shoot you.”

  Which Izzy didn’t want to do. Not here. Not in the house. Way too much evidence. Which the Italian also seemed to know, because he kept walking, his eyes like lasers. “Go ahead and shoot me, Mac. A little sissy gun like that, if I get my hands on you, I’m going to tear your fucking head right off anyway. So make it good.”

  This guy’s a freak.

  Now Izzy was backing away, holding the gun, but still afraid of the man who was walking calmly toward him, wanting to end it somehow, make him stop. So he said, “If you don’t cooperate, I’ll have to kill the woman, too, when she gets back. I’ll have to shoot her because you’re not giving me any other choice.”

  That did it. The Italian stopped, furious, but at least becoming rational about the situation. “Then why don’t you just get the fuck out of here right now!”

  Izzy said quickly. “I will. But you’ve got to do what I say. Stay cool, cooperate, you won’t get hurt. The lady won’t get hurt. First, you got to tell me-who drove off in your car?”

  The Italian paused a little too long. “Two off-duty cops. They’re going to be back any minute.”

  He was lying.

  “Are you carrying a weapon?”

  “You think I’m going to tell you, dumbass? Why don’t you search me and find out.”

  No way was he going to let the guinea get close enough to get his hands on him again. It didn’t look like he was carrying: a refrigerator-sized man with biceps, wearing a seedy white shirt and wrinkled slacks. A guy trying to look sharp, but didn’t know how to pull it off. No holster visible.

  Izzy said, “Look, all I want to do is get my camera shit and get out of here. So, we’re going to find some tape. I’m going to have you tape your right wrist to your ankles. Just to slow you down a little. Then I’m out of here.”

  When the Italian didn’t budge, Izzy used the pistol to motion toward the kitchen. “Goddamn it, move! You do what I tell you to do, no one gets hurt. Fuck with me, I’m gonna have to kill her.”

  His heart was pounding; he was scared- Jesus, how am I going to make this work? But there was still a trace of a smile on Izzy’s face as he added, “Trust me, man. I promise.”

  It turned out, the guy who drove off in the pimpmobile was a chicken-skinny man even older than the security guard who’d surprised Izzy the week before.

  He was the guinea’s landlord, for God’s sake. Just some old retired dude who had nothing better to do then hang out, doing favors. Probably wanted to add a little excitement to his life; help
the dick set his little trap.

  Well, he got it.

  When the old dude and Sally came into the house, calling, “Hey, Frank, we’re back. Frank! Frank? ” Izzy waited until they were in the kitchen before he swung open the closet door, pointed the Beretta at them and said, “Frank’s kind of tied up right now.”

  Man, the look on the woman’s face. It was like all the blood went out of her. Same with the old guy, whose cheeks started trembling like he might cry.

  Both of them looked from the gun to the closet, to the gun again then back to the closet.

  There was Frank: His right hand was duct-taped to his right ankle; his left hand was taped to the left ankle so that he was still mobile. He could still walk in a crablike way if properly motivated. There was more silver tape over the man’s mouth, and over that big, crooked wop nose, too, just his dark eyes showing.

  When Frank looked at Sally, he shook his head slowly, eyes blinking. It seemed a gesture of apology.

  Izzy thought: Pathetic, but he enjoyed the feeling it gave him. It was an adrenaline feeling; a sensation of power.

  Later, after Izzy had robbed the house; trashed it-the cops would be thinking motive -and after he got the old dude and the Italian crammed into the trunk of the pimpmobile, Izzy took off his surgical gloves and touched the church lady’s face, his skin against her bare skin for the first time.

  Soft.

  When she jerked away from him, weeping, Izzy told her the same thing he’d told the guinea. “Cooperate with me, do what I tell you, and no one gets hurt.”

  Feeling better about everything now, he added, “Relax a little; we’re going for a boat ride. I know things about you. You might even enjoy it.” chapter twenty-five

  I knew something was terribly wrong the instant I saw the expression on Tomlinson’s face.

  It was around noon. He came idling across the bay in his dinghy; tied up at his usual spot next to my bay shrimper. Then he came up the steps, shoulders sagging as if he were under the influence of some gravitational force.