Whiplash River

by Lou Berney

  Evelyn went to the restaurant where she’d first met him. She waited till the lunch rush slowed, then asked to see the owner. He came out of the kitchen, wiping his hands on his apron, a barrel-chested Latino guy. He said his name was Pijua.

  “I want to ask you a couple of questions about your friend. Shake Bouchon? You might know him as Quentin Cleary.”

  “Who?” he said, his expression flat.

  “I want to help him.”

  “Me too. Who is he?”

  “I really am trying to help him. I think he needs help.”

  He shrugged. Evelyn knew she wouldn’t get anywhere with this guy. With who, then?

  IT WAS ALMOST DARK BY the time Evelyn finally tracked down the formidable black hostess. The woman with the turban and nose ring was sitting in a bar called the Fish and Hook, just up the beach from where the shithead’s restaurant used to stand. Now it was just a pile of charred timber that looked like it burned down a hundred years ago.

  “What’s good here?” Evelyn slid in next to the hostess. She guessed the woman was in her late fifties or so.

  The hostess looked her over. “I know you.”

  “Evelyn Holly. I was at dinner the other night when all that excitement went down? I don’t remember your name, I’m sorry.”

  “Idaba.” She looked over Evelyn some more. “You up to something, ain’t you?”

  “Yep.” Evelyn showed the hostess her FBI creds.

  The female bartender asked Evelyn what she wanted to drink. The bartender held in her arms what had to be the ugliest, hairiest infant that Evelyn had ever seen.

  “Belikin, please,” Evelyn said.

  Idaba seemed unimpressed by Evelyn’s badge. “Huh. That’s why.”

  “That’s why what?”

  “That’s why you on the beach the other day with a gun. I thought he was on drugs.”

  “Shake?” Evelyn said.

  Idaba got up and walked away. Evelyn took her Belikin and followed her outside.

  “Just give me a minute,” Evelyn said. “One minute.”

  Idaba turned to face Evelyn, arms crossed over her chest. “I don’t know where he at, where he going, what he plan to do when he get there.”

  “I don’t want to arrest him. I want to help him.”

  “Do you.”

  “I saved his life on the beach.”

  “So you can arrest him.”

  “I don’t have jurisdiction here. I couldn’t arrest him if I wanted to.” Evelyn hesitated, and then decided she had nothing to lose. “I’m gonna put the screws to him in other ways, try to get him to help me.”

  Idaba looked at her with mild but renewed interest. Evelyn told her about the Armenians, and how she wanted to take them down.

  “So?” Idaba said.

  “That’s important to me. I know Shake is important to you.”

  “Huh.”

  “I saw you in the clinic. Sitting there by his bed.”

  “Huh.”

  “And I really can help him, Idaba, if you let me. If he lets me. People are trying to kill him. I saw it. I was there. You ever heard of WITSEC? Witness protection? I just want to talk to him. If he doesn’t want to cooperate, fine. I can’t force him. I just want to give him the choice. He deserves a choice, don’t you think?”

  Idaba was still studying Evelyn. “I suppose he was right about you.”

  “About me?”

  “That you pretty. You got parts of your face don’t match up, though.”

  “My grandmother was Japanese. She married an Ozark hillbilly. And there’s some Puerto Rican in there too, don’t ask me how.”

  Idaba seemed to weigh the matter. Evelyn couldn’t read Idaba for the life of her.

  “If he gets mad at you for telling me where he is,” Evelyn said, “I’ll say it wasn’t your fault.”

  “He ain’t gonna be mad,” Idaba said.

  Chapter 16

  Shake spent the night in the honeymoon bungalow at the last resort. There was no bed, only a mattress on the bare concrete floor. No electricity, just a kerosene lamp. The faded wallpaper was sloughing off the wall in big, rain-stained curls.

  He would have had a hard time sleeping in any case. Every time a shutter banged in the wind, he jumped. Every time a dead palm frond scraped across the roof. Shake figured that Sticky Jimmy’s hired guns knew where to find Quinn. Which meant that they knew where to find Shake too.

  Last night, when Quinn started talking about the two of them drinking margaritas in Mexico, Shake had just stared at him. “What?”

  “Margaritas or piña coladas, I don’t know. Whatever you want.”

  “You’re planning to come with me?”

  “I owe you my life!” Quinn said, like that was supposed to explain it.

  “You’re planning to come with me? Out of the country?”

  “I could just call my buddy on the mainland. Sure, I could. Just tell him to expect you. Tell him to take care of you.”

  “Yeah.” Shake nodded. “That would be good. That’s perfect.”

  “But what if there’s a hink along the way? Right? There’s always a hink.”

  There’s always a hink.

  Quinn leaned forward. “I’ve got to see this through, Shake,” he said. “You know the Bushido code? The samurai? Doesn’t matter if you do or you don’t. The Bushido code is about honor. I spent a little time in Kyoto. You saved my life, so now your life is in my hands. Till I get you out of the country, till I’ve discharged my debt, you’re my responsibility. A guy like you, you understand that.”

  Shake didn’t understand. He didn’t know why Quinn really wanted to come along, what his angle was. Whatever it was, Shake wanted to stay far away from it.

  But it was Quinn’s boat that would get him to the mainland. It was Quinn’s buddy who knew the back door out of the country. Shake was in Quinn’s hands, whether Shake liked it or not.

  “It’s a lot of trouble for you,” Shake said. “You don’t need to go to that trouble.”

  “Trouble? Ask the samurai, did they think the Bushido code was trouble.”

  And so on, until the wee hours.

  When the sun rose, Shake gave up on the idea of sleep. He took a shower, cold, and then walked over to the outdoor café. Quinn was already up, looking fresh as a daisy, waiting for him. “I made some coffee,” he said. “You ever been to Boquete? The coffee plantations there? Some people say the coffee out of Rwanda is better, but I’ve been both places and I’ll tell you something about the coffee in Rwanda.”

  “Listen,” Shake said. “I’ve been thinking.”

  “That’s what I like to hear.”

  “You should get out of Belize. I agree. Whoever’s trying to kill you, Sticky Jimmy, you’re safer somewhere else.”

  Quinn looked around, annoyed. “Where the hell is he? I tell him to have breakfast ready for us at six-thirty. You think he has breakfast ready for us at six-thirty?”

  “But why take the long way round with me?” Shake said. “You can go to town, go to the airport, get on a plane, you’re in Miami in time for lunch.”

  “You think I don’t know that?” Quinn waved it off. “I know that.”

  “I don’t want to slow you down. I’ve got a couple of people want me dead, remember. A couple of different groups of people.”

  “My buddy on the mainland, he’s the wary type. It’s been a while since I talked to him. I worry if I don’t show up myself, if I don’t bring you folks together personally. That’s a lot of it, you’d be surprised. The personal touch, these kind of things.”

  “How about you tell me how to find your buddy. In case we get separated along the way.”

  Quinn sipped his coffee and then set the cup down. “You don’t want me to come with you, Shake, just say so.”

  “I don’t want you to come with me.”

  “Good.” Quinn’s blue eyes twinkled. “I’m glad that’s out of the way. You go on a journey with a guy, you don’t want any bullshit between you. Let me t
ell you a story.”

  “Wait.” Shake looked around. The shuffling old Kriol guy from last night. “You said he was supposed to bring us breakfast at six-thirty?”

  “He’s fired, don’t worry about it. Minute he shows up. I’ll let him make breakfast first, he’s not a bad cook, but I’ve never met anyone lazier in my life. I don’t care he’s eighty-four years old. He was lazy when he was twenty, put your money on it. You think I’ll be lazy when I’m eighty-four?”

  Shake stood up fast. His plastic beach chair tipped over backward. “We’ve got to go,” he said. “Right now.”

  BABY JESUS WATCHED HIS BOYS load the white lady, the dama blanca that had arrived on Monday. Very good product, the finest, from Peru. Or Bolivia. It didn’t matter to Baby Jesus.

  The white lady had been wrapped in plastic and then wrapped in old flour sacks and then those packets bundled together, four packets to a bundle, tied tight with string.

  “Careful!” he called up to his boys. His boys, loading the boat, paid no attention to the scuffs and smudges they left on Baby Jesus’s beautiful cruiser. “If this boat belong to you, would you treat her in such a way?”

  Baby Jesus thought that if maybe he put a bullet in the head of the next boy who scuffed his cruiser, then the problem of future scuffs would be solved.

  He was still hungry after breakfast, so he whistled Gabriel down off the boat and told him to go buy three or four barbecue chickens. Baby Jesus liked best the man on the beach who grilled his chickens in an oil drum he had sawed in half. This man was only on the beach most days, not all, and other times did not arrive until almost lunchtime.

  “If he’s not there,” Baby Jesus told Gabriel, “go find him. Go to his house. Yes?”

  Gabriel sulked. He believed, wrongly, that fetching the barbecue chickens was punishment for what had happened yesterday, Gabriel losing Shake in less time than it took Baby Jesus to remember it.

  “If I want to punish you,” Baby Jesus told him, “I don’t send you for chickens. I put a bullet in your head.”

  Baby Jesus had not decided if he would put a bullet in Gabriel’s head. According to The 4-Hour Workweek, a book Baby Jesus had reread several times, an über-successful individual must make the habit of accepting small failures so that he might achieve great victories. Baby Jesus was not sure yet if Gabriel’s failure with Shake was small or large. Baby Jesus would wait until the situation was resolved before he decided whether to put a bullet in Gabriel’s head.

  “Fly away, birdie!” he told Gabriel. “Go!” But before Gabriel could go, one of Baby Jesus’s other boys hurried up the dock.

  “What.”

  “He want to talk to you.”

  “Who?”

  “Him.”

  An old man shuffled toward Baby Jesus. The shifty old fart who used to mop the floors at one of Baby Jesus’s bars, Baby Jesus couldn’t remember which.

  “Good morning, Grandfather,” Baby Jesus said. He spread his arms wide and smiled. “How can I help you this fine morning?”

  Grandfather slid his shifty eyes around everywhere but onto the face of Baby Jesus. “I hear you looking for a man,” he said. “I know where he at.”

  Gabriel had paused on his way to get the barbecue chickens. All the boys on the boat and the dock had stopped to listen too. Baby Jesus took Grandfather’s face in his hand. He turned it so that Grandfather looked at him. When Grandfather’s eyes tried to slide away, Baby Jesus turned his face again, harder, and made the eyes stay still.

  “Tell me now,” Baby Jesus said.

  QUINN’S BOAT WAS A TWENTY-TWO-FOOT Mako. It had come with the resort but was in better shape. Shake had checked it out the night before, fired up both Evinrude engines, made sure there was enough gas to get to the mainland.

  Shake untied the lines while Quinn ran back inside to get his wallet and passport. He saw the opportunity to ditch Quinn right here, right now, and take his chances on the mainland. Shake scanned the horizon. The temptation was powerful. Before he could talk himself into a decision, or out of one, he saw Quinn come hustling up the pier.

  Quinn jumped in, breathing heavy, wearing sunglasses now. Carrying a shaving kit and an overnight bag. Quinn saw Shake looking at the overnight bag. “What?” Quinn said.

  Shake punched the throttle and they roared away from the pier. He didn’t know how much of a head start they had. They’d need every minute of it, if Baby Jesus came after them in his big Esprit cruiser.

  Shake should have been more cautious about the old Kriol man last night. He should have seen that coming. He wondered if he was losing his edge. On the other hand, it had been a long day yesterday, a long couple of days in fact, and he’d been on some pretty potent painkillers for his ribs.

  Shake’s plan was to head north along the reef, all the way to the far tip of Ambergris, and then cut around Bacalar Chico, across the bay toward the mainland. They made it about a hundred yards before one of the Evinrude engines kicked out. Shake stayed calm. This shit happened. It always happened. If you lost your cool every time . . .

  The other Evinrude kicked out. Shit. The Mako began to drift with the current.

  “You want me to drive?” Quinn asked. “I’m happy to do it. You know how to drive one of these babies?”

  “I know how to drive,” Shake said, jaw clenched. He looked at the console. Both fuel gauges read empty. Empty? He’d made sure, last night, they had gas. He’d made sure . . .

  Shit. He climbed back, his ribs aching, to check the Evinrudes. Both fuel caps were missing. The tanks had been siphoned dry. The old Kriol man who’d dimed them to Baby Jesus.

  “Turns out he’s not so lazy after all,” Shake said. He slapped his palm against one of the Evinrudes, hard, and then slapped the other engine even harder. “Damn it.” He had to tie up quickly to a mooring buoy so the current wouldn’t carry them into the reef.

  “Uh-oh,” Quinn said. Shake turned. A boat to the south, closing in on them.

  Shake figured he had about three minutes to decide where he wanted to die, in the boat or in the water, trying to swim back to shore.

  Quinn had lifted his sunglasses and was squinting at the boat. “Who was it you said is trying to kill you?” he said.

  Shake squinted too. The boat closing in on them was another slow Mako, not the Esprit cruiser that belonged to Baby Jesus. And instead of Rasta thugs with heavy weapons, the boat was crowded with tourists in swimsuits, each of them holding a bright orange foam floatie.

  “Hoo boy,” Quinn said, “I see you’ve gotten mixed up with a pretty rough crowd.”

  “Funny.” Shake waved the other Mako over. They needed to borrow some gas, and fast. “Hey!” he hollered. “Over here!”

  In addition to the captain, there were eight or nine tourists on the other Mako. The tourists were busy squirting defogger into their masks, hopping foot to foot as they snapped their flippers on.

  “You want me to handle this?” Quinn said.

  “I don’t,” Shake said.

  The captain of the other Mako was a little mestizo with his shirt off, smaller even than Armando but muscles everywhere. He throttled down, eased up, tossed Shake a line across the water. Shake pulled the line tight as the current bumped the two boats together.

  “We ran dry,” Shake said. “Think you can spare a few gallons?”

  “No problem,” the captain said.

  “O Captain! My Captain!” Quinn said. He stood up and gave the little mestizo a salute. The mestizo didn’t know what to do, so he saluted back.

  “You gonna have to wait a little bit,” he told Shake. “Till I get everybody in the water and everybody finish their snorkel.”

  Shake recognized the weary expression of a fellow professional service provider. Who knew if he didn’t get everybody in the water, give them the full hour on the reef they’d paid for, they’d never let him hear the fucking end of it.

  But Shake didn’t have time for everybody to finish snorkeling, or time to siphon gas from one tank to
the other. “Listen,” he said. “I have a question about your boat.”

  “It’s not belong to me,” the little mestizo said. “It’s belong to the hotel.”

  “We need to borrow it.”

  “Borrow it?”

  “We don’t want any trouble,” Shake said. Meaning it.

  The little mestizo tried to process. He rubbed a hand over his bare, muscular chest. “You wanna steal the boat?”

  “I’m sorry. I know it’s a pain in your ass, but—” Shake stopped. Quinn had stepped past him, a little hop onto the other boat. He was carrying his overnight bag.

  Shake had time for two quick thoughts:

  What the hell?

  And then: Fuck.

  “Ladies and gentleman!” Quinn yelled. “Your attention, please! Do as you’re told and nobody gets hurt!”

  A few tourists looked over at him.

  “Don’t,” Shake said. “Stop. Damn it.” He made a grab for Quinn, but Quinn slipped it and climbed up onto a storage locker. He lifted the overnight bag over his head.

  “We have a bomb!” Quinn yelled. “Everybody get your asses in the water, now, or we blow you to kingdom come!”

  The tourists started screaming and jumping, their flippers smacking the water. The boat rocked back and forth. Shake wanted to throw Quinn’s ass in the water, but instead he just stepped over into the other boat. He was committed at this point. He had been committed. The little mestizo just stared at Quinn, and then at Shake. Shake hoped he didn’t have a knife, or try to use it.

  “Let’s just all be cool,” Shake said.

  “Out of the boat!” Quinn yelled at a couple of tourist stragglers. “Go! You want to see if I won’t blow your asses to kingdom come?” The stragglers hit the water.

  The little mestizo stayed where he was. He was thinking, Shake could be pretty sure of it, You don’t have no bomb. But then he just shook his head. The boat belonged to the hotel, not him. Fuck it. He muttered something in Spanish, grabbed a couple bottles of Bud Light from the cooler by the wheel, and jumped into the water.