Whiplash River

by Lou Berney

  Benny stiffened. He narrowed his eyes until they just about disappeared.

  “Three grand and you keep the tapir,” Quinn said. “Just a quick hop over the border. Don’t tell me that’s not fair.”

  “Four grand,” Benny said.

  “Two up front,” Quinn said, “two when you get us to Mexico.”

  Benny combed his beard with his fingers. He combed and combed. Shake wanted to grab his hand and make him sit on it. “It’ll have to be tomorrow,” Benny said. “I can’t make the run in the dark.”

  “That’s fine.”

  “And you keep your damn mouth shut the whole ride, Quinn. You don’t say a damn word.”

  “That’s a deal,” Shake said.

  SHAKE AND QUINN ATE DINNER at the widow’s house in town. Quinn had arranged for them to rent her couch and spare bedroom for the night.

  “You don’t want to sleep at Benny’s,” Quinn had told Shake. “You never know which one of God’s creatures you’re gonna step on, you have to get up in the middle of the night. You don’t want to pull out your wang to take a leak, trust me, and then see a harpy eagle with his eye on you.”

  The widow’s fried chicken was some of the best Shake had ever tasted. He could tell she used buttermilk, incredibly fresh and flavorful. If he’d still owned a restaurant, Shake would have begged for the recipe. Instead he asked Quinn how to tell her the chicken was delicious.

  “Es schmeckt gut,” Quinn said.

  Shake tried it out. The widow and Quinn both laughed.

  “It’s the thought that counts,” Quinn said, and put a hand on Shake’s shoulder.

  After dinner, while the widow cleaned up, Shake and Quinn sat out on the porch. They watched the sun, orange and trembling as an egg yolk, sink into the misty lagoon.

  “Now, then,” Quinn said. “Didn’t I tell you we’d be off without a hitch?”

  They weren’t off yet, and by Shake’s count they’d already hit multiple hitches. But he didn’t say anything. It was Quinn’s four grand that was going to get them over the border tomorrow, not Shake’s. Shake didn’t have four grand. He had about sixty-five bucks in his wallet, which meant he had about sixty-five bucks to his name. Sixty-five bucks, the clothes on his back. Shake wondered what he would do when he got to Mexico. And then he decided he’d better not wonder about that, not if he wanted to get any sleep tonight.

  When Shake had walked out of prison three years ago, he’d known what he wanted. But what he’d wanted three years ago was vague, twisting away like smoke if he tried to close his hands around it. He’d just known, back then, that he wanted a different life than the one, up until that moment, he’d led. He wanted a different reason to wake up every morning and open his eyes. A reason.

  Now the longing he felt was sharper, more specific. Shake could almost smell what he wanted. Peach-scented shampoo and tire rubber. The memory made him smile.

  “It’s a girl, isn’t it?” Quinn said.

  Shake glanced over, surprised. Quinn wasn’t even looking at him.

  “Let me ask you a question,” Quinn said.

  “I don’t have any answers. Believe me.”

  Quinn chuckled. He had freshened up before dinner, taking a shower and putting on a clean polo shirt. This one was plum-colored. He had the collar of the polo shirt turned up, his white hair combed back in perfect waves.

  “You ever see that one western?” Shake said. “The cattleman’s son goes off and joins up with a different cattleman. The first cattleman hires a bunch of outlaws to help get his son back. Randolph Scott’s in it, but there’s this good-looking kid too, big head of hair. He gets shot early. A deputy, maybe.”

  “Ten Wanted Men,” Quinn said. “Richard Boone was the rival cattleman.”

  “Was that you?”

  “What?”

  “The kid who got shot. The deputy.”

  Quinn shifted to look at Shake like he was nuts, and then turned back to the sunset. He rattled the ice in his glass of iced tea. “So tell me about her,” he said. “This girl you’re mooning over.”

  “No,” Shake said.

  “Tell me why she dumped you. A guy can cook like you? A guy lives on the beach? You’re emotionally guarded, maybe. My suspicion is you are. But women like that, I don’t care what they say. They don’t want some guy wears his heart on his sleeve. They don’t want some guy starts weeping afterward and wants to cuddle.”

  “Good to know.”

  “Give me something, Shake. I didn’t bring a book to read.”

  “No.”

  “All right, I understand. Let me tell you about this girl I knew in Istanbul. Long story, but we got time.”

  His eyes twinkled. Shake sighed.

  “She was younger than me,” Shake said. “Beautiful and smart and ambitious. Restless.”

  “Restless. Uh-oh.”

  “Restless. Me, on the other hand, I just wanted to own a little restaurant somewhere. Cook all day. I wanted to live somewhere nice and quiet and sunny. How long do you think it’s gonna last, those two people in a relationship together?”

  “You woke up one morning and she was gone.”

  “Something like that.”

  Shake had been an idiot. He’d known from the first minute he met Gina—well, maybe not the first minute, but pretty quickly afterward—that she was a woman who would never settle down, never stop moving. She was like the flow of electricity, like the universe expanding outward. Gina had told him, straight up, on more than one occasion, that she couldn’t be trusted. She’d told him the truth, and for a long time Shake had refused to believe it.

  Quinn nodded. Shake waited for the words of wisdom. “Well?” he finally asked.

  The widow stepped out onto the porch. She said something in German or Dutch to Quinn and then went back inside. “She says she put fresh towels in the bathroom,” Quinn told Shake. “If you want to take a shower.”

  “All right.” Shake stood up. “You can have the bedroom, I’ll take the couch.”

  “Take the bedroom. I might sleep out here in the hammock.”

  “Out here?”

  “The breeze. Sure.”

  Shake realized that Quinn had a poker tell: he crossed his legs and then crossed them back the opposite way. Shake laughed. “Are you serious?”

  “She’s a nice lady. She’s unattached. We’re both adults. I don’t see the problem.”

  “No problem at all,” Shake said, and headed inside.

  Chapter 20

  The next morning Shake woke up with the barrel of a shotgun in his face.

  “Get the hell up,” Benny said. Shake got up. Quinn was standing across the room in a T-shirt and boxer shorts. Shake saw the widow peeking in at them from the hallway, a robe clutched tight at her throat.

  “Benny,” Quinn said. “You don’t need to get your knickers in a twist.”

  Benny swung the shotgun around and pointed it at Quinn. “Shut the hell up. You’ve got exactly one minute to get out of here and never come back. Sixty seconds plus one more and then I start shooting.”

  The widow disappeared. Shake didn’t want to guess what Quinn had done now. It was the widow, probably. She was most likely not a widow. She was most likely married to Benny. That was Shake’s best guess.

  “Come on, now, Benny,” Quinn said. “Nobody needs to start shooting. Put the pump down and let’s have an open dialogue about the situation.”

  “An open dialogue? Like the open dialogue where you forgot to tell me somebody wants the two of you shitbirds dead?”

  So this wasn’t about the widow after all. Shake didn’t feel much relief.

  “Like the open dialogue where you forgot to tell me what kind of number they put on you?”

  Benny must have asked around last night in Belize City. He’d done his due diligence and found out that Baby Jesus was after them.

  “That’s right,” Benny said. “The kite went up yesterday. My monkey guy in Belize City told me. He told me the kite went out far and wide.�
�

  Shit, Shake thought. Baby Jesus had wasted no time.

  “How much is it?” Quinn asked, curious. “The number on us?”

  “Thirty seconds left now. That’s the number you better worry about. Before I start shooting.”

  “Put the pump down, Benny. Almighty Christ. What if it goes off by accident? You don’t want to do something you’ll regret.”

  “Who says I’ll regret it?”

  “Benny. Benjamin.”

  “Like the open dialogue where you forgot to tell me who it is in fact wants the two of you shitbirds dead? Hell. Hell. You’re trying to get me killed too, aren’t you?”

  “It’s me Baby Jesus wants,” Shake said.

  Benny kept the shotgun on Quinn but looked over at Shake. “You some kind of religious nut?”

  “What?”

  “Jesus can have you. And the apostles too. Sooner than later, if you don’t start running and never look back.”

  Something wasn’t connecting. “Who are we talking about here?” Shake said.

  “Who are we talking about here?” Benny’s laugh was like a bark. “Just about the last person you’d ever want to put a number on you, that’s who.”

  Shake looked at Quinn. “I told you,” Quinn said. “Sticky Jimmy. Kid I took under my wing, back in Cambodia. Got rich with natural gas, now he’s moving up the ladder.”

  Benny laughed again. Bark, bark, bark. His long gray beard rose and fell.

  Shake felt himself tightening up. “What ladder would that be?” he said.

  Quinn frowned, like he expected better from Shake. “What else? A guy’s got money, he looks good on TV, he knows how to bullshit.”

  “Politics.”

  “Fifteen seconds!” Benny said.

  “He’s gonna make a run,” Quinn said. “He’s exploring a run. Governor, I think. Maybe the Senate, I’m not sure. Anyway, he can’t risk it, me coming out of the woodwork in the middle of an election, the old buddy who knew him when.”

  Natural gas, political aspirations. Shake had been on heavy-duty painkillers. He should have put it together before now. Mindful of Benny’s shotgun, he tried to keep his voice calm, quiet. “Logan James,” he said. “You’re saying Sticky Jimmy is Logan James. Blackbird Energy?”

  “Ten seconds!”

  “That’s right,” Quinn said with a shrug. Like what does it matter, Sticky Jimmy’s real name, or the name of the natural-gas company he owns?

  “Logan James the billionaire,” Shake said. “Logan James they say could be president someday.”

  “He’ll always be Sticky Jimmy to me,” Quinn said. “Benny, I ever tell you how he got that name?”

  “Five seconds!”

  Logan James.

  Shake felt like he was back on the snorkel boat, speeding across the bay, except now the ride wasn’t so smooth. The hull was smacking and shaking and splitting open. Shake was dropping down through the depths like a rock.

  Over the years Shake had ended up crosswise with some very formidable people, some big swinging dicks. Baby Jesus was just the latest on the list, and not even at the top of it. But Logan James. The billionaire natural-gas magnate who might, someday, be president. This was a different order of crosswise, a completely different magnitude of swinging dick.

  “Time’s up!” Benny said. “Now get the hell out of here and don’t come back!”

  “You have to help us, Benny,” Quinn said.

  “And have Logan James put a number on me too? I don’t want any part of this.”

  “Draw us a map, at least. Let us borrow the four-by-four.”

  Benny pumped a shell into the chamber. “You think I won’t shoot you? Just try me.”

  Quinn took a step toward Benny. Shake moved in front to cut him off. He didn’t know what Quinn was planning and didn’t want to find out, not with a twelve-gauge pointed at him.

  “Benny,” Shake said. “Work it through. You’re already a part of this.”

  “Like hell I am!”

  “You think a guy like Logan James does anything halfway?”

  “That’s why I’m running you off!”

  “You think if you run us off, and a guy like Logan James catches up to us in Belize, he won’t find his way back to you?”

  Logan James. Jesus Christ. Shake still couldn’t believe that he’d ended up crosswise with a guy like Logan James.

  “I ran you off! I didn’t have any part of this!”

  “Tell him that. Logan James. Or whoever Logan James sends to take care of business. I’m sure that person will be a good listener.”

  “Shut the hell up!” Benny said. But Shake could see his mind working. The hand on the stock of the shotgun twitched. Shake needed to get Benny’s hand off the stock of the shotgun.

  “Benny,” Shake said, “your best chance, you have to help get us out of the country, fast and quiet.”

  “Maybe I’ll just give Mr. Logan James’s people a call,” Benny said. “You thought of that? Collect the number on you myself.”

  Shake thought of the old Kriol man who’d dimed them to Baby Jesus. Was there anyone of Quinn’s acquaintance who wasn’t ready to sell him out at a moment’s notice? Lucky for them, Benny seemed more motivated by fear than greed.

  “How much is it?” Quinn asked again. “The number? You never said.”

  “It’s plenty,” Benny said. “Don’t you worry about that.”

  “Go ahead and make the call,” Shake told Benny. “You know you won’t see a dollar of that money. You know you won’t see the sun come up tomorrow. A guy like Logan James doesn’t do anything halfway. He doesn’t leave crumbs on the table.”

  Benny looked sick to his stomach. “You don’t know that for sure.”

  Shake shrugged. “What was it you said about the tapir and the jaguar? Pick-’em?”

  Benny couldn’t stand it anymore. He took his hand off the stock of the shotgun and combed his fingers through his big gray beard. To keep the shotgun steady he had to move his index finger on the other hand from the trigger to the trigger guard.

  One quick step, a hard twist, and Shake had the shotgun. “You made the right decision, Benny,” he said.

  “Asshole,” Quinn said. “Friends like you, Benny, who needs enemies?”

  Chapter 21

  After Benny drew them a map and gave them the keys to his 4x4, Quinn handed over two grand in cash.

  “You said four!” Benny said.

  “That was before you pointed a shotgun at us,” Quinn said.

  Benny scowled but took the money. “I bet my ass you never even had the four grand in the first place,” he said. Shake was thinking the same thing.

  Shake told Benny they’d leave his 4x4 in Chetumal, over the border in Mexico, keys on top of the back tire. Benny could take the bus up and retrieve the truck at his convenience.

  Quinn told Benny he owed him one now, a big one, the Bushido code, Benny could cash in the favor next time he saw Quinn. Benny said next time he saw Quinn he planned to shoot first and ask about favors later. Quinn chuckled. He took a comb out of his back pocket and pulled it through the waves of his white hair. He gave the widow on the porch a wink and a tip of the comb.

  “Now get the hell out of here!” Benny said. He was frantically combing his beard with all ten fingers by now.

  Shake headed for the driver’s side. Quinn wanted to have a discussion about that, but Shake just slid in behind the wheel and started to pull away. Quinn had to walk fast to catch the passenger door and climb in.

  The map Benny drew was detailed and precise—he wanted that Land Cruiser back. A few miles from Three Butterflies they turned onto a dirt road. A few miles later Shake spotted a muddy track veering off into the jungle that he would never have noticed if he hadn’t been looking for it.

  They drove deep into the jungle, bouncing and rattling down one muddy track after another. Some stretches were just mud, no track. The Land Cruiser handled it all with no problem, which was a good thing—one fishtailing skid an
d they could have ended up sunk deep in the swamp. Maybe years from now someone would have found them, a rusting Land Cruiser and a pair of bleached skulls.

  One of the skulls would still be talking, probably, about the year he spent in Latvia, back in the eighties, on business. Well, call it business. Quinn didn’t need to spell it out for Shake, did he? According to Quinn, his buddy in Latvia worked for the Latvian version of the KGB. On the weekends, he and Quinn would take whatever skirts they’d managed to chase down out to an old abandoned Soviet prison camp, where the four or five or six of them would drink vodka and throw old Soviet hand grenades into the snowy woods.

  And so on, on and on for hours, all the way through the jungle. Shake didn’t say anything until finally he couldn’t take it anymore. “Logan James,” he said. “Jesus Christ. Why didn’t you tell me it was him?”

  “I told you!”

  “I know why you didn’t tell me.” Shake had no idea what he was going to do next, with just sixty-five bucks to his name and Logan James trying to kill him.

  “Speaking of all that,” Quinn said. “I’ve got an idea.”

  “No thanks,” Shake said. At least he knew what he wasn’t going to do. Or, more specifically, who he wasn’t going to do it with. He was absolutely clear on that.

  “You’re thinking you’re better off without me,” Quinn said. “Your chances of survival. You’re thinking it’s me Sticky Jimmy wants, maybe he’ll forget all about you.”

  “Tell me more about Latvia. I can’t get enough of that.”

  “I see your point, I’m not an idiot. But hear me out. I got you off the island, didn’t I? I’m getting you out of Belize. I won’t even mention I paid for your accommodations last night, your dinner.”

  “You want me to feel guilty, you’ll need to do better than that.”

  “I don’t want you to feel guilty.”

  “No?”

  “What I want,” Quinn said, “I want you to open your mind to a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”