by R. J. Jagger
A large gauze patch was taped to the side of his stomach. He peeled it open to find a wound five or six inches long, held closed with a large number of stitches and disinfected with something that made his skin a zinc color. He sealed the patch and then pressed against it. The wound itself responded with a deep pain but nothing resonated underneath it. It appeared to be a flesh wound with no deeper damage.
His throat was dried sandpaper.
He drank a full glass of water, rubbing it into the pores of his mouth with his tongue.
Then he drank another.
Several darkish bruises marked his body, together with three smaller bandages, all of which showed stitches underneath, but minor in scope.
His clothes hung over the shower rod.
Everything that should be in his pockets was, including his wallet, fully intact, and his cell phone, which did not appear to have been tampered with or used.
He turned the lights off, opened the door and made his way back to bed in the dark, slipping in quietly so as to not wake the evil one.
Every caveman gene in his body told him to take her; take her until she lost every semblance of control; take her so hard she’d never recover, not in a thousand cave-girl years.
He resisted the genes and let his thoughts turn to Kovi-Ke, the big question mark in his life, the reason he was here in Haiti trying to figure her out, or protect her, or arrest her, or whatever it was that the final answer would be.
What was she?
Who was she?
Why did he care?
Evil Angel breathed with a soft rhythm next to him.
All he needed to do was shake her shoulder. That’s all it would take to enter heaven, the angel part of her. That’s all it would take to bring out the gyrations of her body and the warmth of her mouth and the energy of all that little life inside her.
He closed his eyes but sleep didn’t come.
He was going to be killed soon; maybe tomorrow, maybe not for a few days, but soon. He could feel it down in his gut. It was as real as the moon creeping into the room. All he hoped is that it wasn’t at the hands of Kovi-Ke. That would be too much to handle. That would be too ironic of an ending. That would be too much of an ultimate mistake.
He fought with the ghosts in his head for some time before finally disappearing into a safe vortex where they couldn’t follow.
31
Day Five
June 8
Sunday Morning
Teffinger bolted upright in bed, covered in sweat, the victim of a horrific dream where Kovi-Ke slit his throat from behind and then walked off before he hit the floor, not even bothering to look back; he was that insignificant. Dawn had broken, not by much, but enough to wash the room in a warm Caribbean glow. He fell on his back, grateful that his death was only a dream.
Evil Angel opened an eye, rolled on her back and stretched her arms high above her head. Her Hong Kong skin was golden brown.
Her body was perfect.
Her nipples were candy.
She rolled over, draped a leg over him and got her face close. “Good morning.”
“Yes.”
“It’s good to see you awake,” she said.
“I don’t remember anything.”
“You don’t remember making love to me?”
“No.”
She put disappointment on her face, then smiled and ran an index finger around his stomach.
“Relax, you were unconscious,” she said. “Nothing happened.”
“It didn’t?”
“No,” she said. “We put it off until now.”
She swung on top, her stomach to his, her chest to his, her legs spread, her breath hot on his face.
“Time to pay up,” she said.
“For what?”
“For all the stitches.”
“You did those?”
She nodded.
“Every one of them. I gave you a shot too, for infection. Now it’s time for you to show me how grateful you are.” She straddled his chest and then inched up until she was on his face. “Love it,” she said. “Love it like you stole it.”
He complied.
After a shower, Teffinger wandered downstairs to find Johnnie Rail outside by the pool with Evil Angel, drinking coffee and eating from a tray of pastries. The man had a classic front-man look, a modern-day Jim Morrison, with thick shoulder-length black hair, eyes that had seen the world from a path less traveled, and a lean but agile body that didn’t seem to have been beaten to death with bad habits.
“Baby,” Rail said. “That was her name.”
Teffinger sat down.
“Whose name?”
“The land cruiser,” he said. “She was the first vehicle I ever owned. Bought her for five hundred pounds back when I was seventeen, working the kitchens by day and trying to get a band going by night. Everyone thought I was crazy. They were partly right, I mean, who needs a 4-wheel drive in London, especially one with the steering wheel on the wrong side? But she had some swag and was big enough to carry gear. I’ll be honest, my instinct last night was to kill you for killing her, but I didn’t.”
“Apparently not,” Teffinger said. “I’ll make it right. I’ll get her fixed, if that’s possible, or replace her; whatever you want.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Rail said. “I’ve got the money and at this point we’re sort of related, anyway.”
Teffinger wrinkled his face.
“How’s that?”
“Evil Angel,” he said. “We’ve both engaged her finer side.”
Evil Angel smiled.
Teffinger shrugged.
“Do you have any extra coffee?”
“Absolutely. Then you can tell me why you tried to kill me last night.”
“I didn’t try to kill you,” Teffinger said. “I was only trying to get your attention.”
Rail clinked his cup against Teffinger’s.
“Well, mission accomplished.”
Teffinger’s phone rang; it was Sydney. “The dead woman down by Tarzan’s place is someone named Nicole Carter. She’s an attorney in San Francisco in a mega-firm called Taylor, Robinson & Lee.”
“Hold on.”
He got up and headed for privacy on the other side of the pool, saying to Rail, “Excuse me a minute, I need to take this.”
“No problem.”
To Sydney, “What was she doing in Denver?”
“According to a guy named Michael Ross, who’s the head of the division where she works, which is the litigation division, she was on vacation. She wasn’t here on work. Here’s the big news, though. We found the note.”
“Where? What’d it say?”
“There was an old pop can about twenty feet from her body,” she said. “It was in there. It said, KK.”
“KK?”
“Right,” she said. “I’m assuming it stands for Kovi-Ke. What I’m not sure about is whether it means she’s next or whether it was her signature, taking responsibility for the murder. I’ve tried to call her about twenty times. She’s not answering. Her phone’s completely off so I can’t even track her. I have no idea where she is.”
32
Day Five
June 8
Sunday Morning
The villa was awash in the aftermath of last night’s revelries. Glasses and trash were everywhere. Dozens of beer bottles laid in drunken death at the bottom of the pool. A cushion floated on the surface. Teffinger picked up a book of matches and set one on fire as he headed back over to Rail and Evil Angel. They watched him as he came, curious, but in different ways and for different reasons.
Teffinger sat down, looked Rail in the eyes and said, “Here’s the problem. I have a friend named Modeste. Someone took her.”
Rail washed his face in confusion.
“Me?”
Teffinger shrugged.
“I don’t know. You tell me.”
Rail shook his head in denial.
“I don’t know anyone by that name,” he s
aid. “And I don’t take people. I make music. I don’t know why you’re barking up my tree but it’s the wrong one.”
“She took your little gold bars and your little diamond divas. You figured it out.”
Rail’s face tightened.
“Who is she?”
Teffinger frowned.
“I’m not here to play word games,” he said. “I want her back and I want her now.”
“I don’t have her,” Rail said. “You think that because I have a motive that I’m the one who took her? Do you have any idea how many people have that same motive? The word’s out, my man; it’s out far and wide; everything’s out there for the grabbing. It’s not just me looking for it. It’s everyone. Hell, I’ve heard rumors that people have come in from as far as New York looking for it.” He paused and added, “If you really want her back, tell me what you know.”
Teffinger looked for lies and found none.
“Widson Danticat,” he said. “He came for her. Unfortunately, I was with her at the time and it didn’t work out for him. He ended up with a broken bottle in his face.”
Rail grunted with disgust.
“Danticat’s a nobody who does dirty work for whoever has the money,” Rail said. “One of his primary clients is a voodoo woman named Janjak.” He retreated in thought and added, “It would make sense that she figured out about your friend. She has ways to see things that can’t be seen.”
Teffinger nodded.
“I found a voodoo tape in Danticat’s apartment. The connection is definitely there. Where can I find her?”
Rail shook his head.
“You don’t find her,” he said. “She finds you.”
“Not this time. Give me an address.”
Rail frowned.
“You can’t do this alone,” he said. “I’ll help but here’s the deal. You get your friend back, assuming she’s still alive. I get my stuff back, though; all of it. She keeps none of it. You keep none of it.”
“I don’t want it,” Teffinger said. “If we get her back, you need to leave her alone afterwards. I don’t want you tracking her down for revenge. Everyone walks away.”
“Deal.”
Rail held his hand out.
Teffinger shook it.
“She never really planned to take anything in the first place,” Teffinger said. “It sort of fell into her hands.”
He told Rail the story—how Modeste came to the villa to take the job offered by May-May, how she found everyone dead, how the bags were right there for the taking, how she picked Teffinger up on the plane for protection, which is how he knew about everything.
What he didn’t tell the man is how Modeste sold the gold in New York and wedged the money into a Cayman account. Nor did he tell him that he had the diamond divas buried under the sand down the road, or how Modeste’s friend, Constance, still had one of them—Marilyn.
Rail listened to every word, stood up and said, “Give me ten minutes. Then we have work to do.” He grabbed Evil Angel’s hand. “You come with me.”
33
Day Five
June 8
Sunday Morning
Alone, Teffinger poured another cup of coffee and took the opportunity to call Station Smith. “You still alive?”
“Alive and well,” she said.
“You’re laying low, I hope.”
“Pretty much.”
“No, not pretty much,” he said. “Do it fully. Things haven’t quieted down yet. In fact they might be worse than ever.” He took a sip. “I have a weird question for you. I’m in Haiti and I came across a videotape of a voodoo ceremony. There was a woman there who looked a lot like you. Was it, by any chance?”
Silence.
“Station, are you there?”
“I’m here.”
Her voice sounded like a spider was crawling up her leg.
“It was you,” Teffinger said.
“Nick, stay out of it,” she said. “Get the hell out of Haiti. You’ll end up dead and so will other people. Don’t call me anymore.”
The line died.
Teffinger dialed back but the woman didn’t pick up.
He called Sydney and said, “Any signs yet of Kovi-Ke?”
“No, none.”
“Do me a favor,” he said. “Station was involved in some kind of voodoo ritual down here in Haiti, I’m not sure exactly when but I’m guessing not too long ago. Go talk to her and get the details. Don’t let her push you off. Get answers. I want to know who did it to her—I suspect it’s a voodoo woman down here they call Janjak but I want to know for sure. Find out when it happened and how it came about; and most importantly, why didn’t she tell me about it? ”
“Nick, it’s Sunday—”
“Yeah, I know.”
“I’ve got plans to go see Vivid Black.”
He knew the band. He’d caught them at the Taste of Colorado last year and they were awesome.
“You’ll have to see them another time,” he said. “Be sure Station still has her bodyguards. Oh, one more thing. Ask her if she’s ever been able to see through someone else’s eyes.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“I wish I was. Oh, one more thing.”
“That’s two things.”
He smiled.
“Station told me to get out of Haiti or I’d end up dead and so would other people. Find out who she was talking about. Who else will die?”
He was about to hang up when Sydney said, “Nick, are you still there?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t think I got a chance to tell you yet,” she said. “Remember when you asked me to talk to Kovi-Ke about the other two murders she saw?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I did that,” she said. “Do you have time to hear about them?”
“Absolutely.”
“One of was Faren White, a San Francisco woman, killed three years ago. The other was Jaylor Colt, killed four years ago. Get this, she was a Cuban diplomat who got killed in Washington, D.C.”
“How’d you get their names?”
“Leigh Sandt.”
“She’s helping?”
“God, Nick, she doesn’t blame you for what happened to Poppy. I’ve talked to both of the detectives in charge. Neither remembers any notes being found at the scene but they’re going to send me their whole files. I’ll forward them to you as soon as I get them. I’m hoping that’s tomorrow.”
“Find out if either of them have been to Haiti,” he said.
“Oh, on a different note, something weird happened with that dead lawyer down by Tarzan’s place,” Sydney said.
“How weird?”
“Weird enough. She makes big bucks but she was staying at a fleabag down on Colfax. She wasn’t using her real name, either. She was using the name Melody Pincher.”
“How’d you find out?”
“When she got to Denver she rented a car under her real name,” Sydney said. “It had a GPS that showed the vehicle at the hotel during the nights, from about midnight until six in the morning. The manager recognized her as Melody Pincher. Unfortunately, if someone came to see her we don’t know about it. The hotel had only one security camera and it wasn’t working. Her room, 201, opened onto an exterior landing that fed down to the parking lot.”
She fed him details for another five minutes. He hadn’t hung up for more than ten seconds when Rail appeared.
“Let’s go,” the man said.
Teffinger stood up, downed what was left of his coffee, and fell into step.
34
Day Five
June 8
Sunday Morning
Teffinger expected Rail to take him to some kind of a voodoo haunt in the guts of the city, with skulls and jars stuffed with submersed organs and things he didn’t understand and didn’t want to understand. Instead, they ended up twenty miles south, on a beaten single-lane road that went on forever before it finally dead-ended at the ocean.
Rail stopped a quarter-mile
short, turned the vehicle around so it was in escape mode, and killed the engine.
“Her place is up there around the bend,” he said.
Teffinger grabbed the man’s wrist.
“Wait here.”
“Why?”
“Because we’re both better off if I do this alone.” Rail wrinkled his face, not liking the idea. “Don’t worry, I’m not trying to cut you out,” Teffinger added. “Wait here.”
Then he was gone.
Around the bend aqua water came into view, lapping softly at a silky sand beach. A jeep and several other vehicles were stationary near a couple of thatched structures that looked like garages or outposts. A barefoot man sitting on the ground in the shade had his back against a wall. His head was bent forward and a hat dipped over his face, in siesta mode. His shirt was off and his chest was ripped with muscles. Next to him, leaning against the structure, was a rifle.
Other than him, there was no sign of life.
A rowboat was pulled up on the sand, just out of the water’s grip.
Three or four hundred yards offshore a small island made of sand and palms rose out of the water, the whole thing not being much larger than a football field. The thatched roofs of three or four structures were visible on the far side. On the beach were a handful of rowboats.
Modeste was there.
She was being held captive in one of the structures.
Teffinger could feel her.
His eyes fell back to the rowboat. It wasn’t more than thirty steps from mister rifle. If the guy woke up, Teffinger would be an easy target, not only on the beach but also all the way on the row over. One shot, even if it missed him, would alert whoever was on the island.
He’d be a mouse between two snakes.
He retreated into the palms, stripped down to his boxers, hid his clothes in the foliage and made his way on quick but quiet feet to the water’s edge. Then he was in with only his head showing, paddling with his hands and legs under the surface in a sidestroke as he made his way slowly towards the island. From the shore, it hadn’t looked that far. He now realized it was a dangerous distance, maybe farther than his mediocre-at-best skills would allow, particularly given the recent stitches to his body.
