“Apart from the father… Karras,” Em said. “Though I’m guessing there’s going to be a passing of the baton at some point, yeah?”
“Might explain some of the vibe I was picking up from the table,” Boone said.
“What vibe?”
“Resentment.” Boone lifted his cerveza to his lips but didn’t take a sip. Lowering it back to the table, he was silent for a moment, looking out at the water.
Emily helped herself to some fish, eyes on Boone. He’s mulling something over… best to sit back and let the gears grind. The fish was good, almost certainly that day’s catch.
Finally, Boone lifted his bottle again and took a drink. “It’s funny…”
Emily waited, but finally prodded him. “Well?”
“The accident at Devil’s Throat… and the malfunction of Nicholas’s underwater scooter. What if they’re connected? And what if they weren’t accidents?”
“Possible, I suppose.”
“But that just confuses me even more.”
“How so?”
“It’s just… well, here we have a super-rich family where one family member stands to inherit the whole business…”
“Yes?”
“And the ‘accidents,’ if that’s what they were… they were directed at the ones who are getting screwed in the will?”
“Fair point,” Em mused. “I suppose Achilles would be the one you’d expect to find facedown in the conservatory with a candlestick beside him and Colonel Mustard sneaking out the window.”
Boone laughed. “I woulda gone for Miss Scarlet.”
“Of course you would. Careful, you’ll make Lyra jealous.”
“Yeah, I don’t know what to say about that.”
“Between her and Achilles pining for us, I’m just assuming we’re giving off sexy pheromones or something.”
Boone leaned across the table. “Then we should go back to the condo and do something to work up a sweat. Flush it out of our systems.”
Em gave Boone a lascivious smile. “I don’t think that’s how it works, but I’m up for it. You know… for science.”
“Wait… where are we going?” Matthaíos Boston asked from the back seat, the first note of concern rising in his voice. Outside the windows of the rental car, the low buildings of the outskirts of San Miguel had given way to tropical scrub and trees.
“We’re taking the scenic route,” Stallion said from the rear, where he sat beside the Greek dive shop owner. He wore a blue polo with the Olympus Cruises logo on the breast. “Hey, what kind of Greek name is ‘Boston?’”
“I am Greek American,” Matthaíos said distantly, sounding distracted.
“Oh, well… maybe shoulda gone with ‘Matthew,’ then, fella.”
Angler glanced into the rearview mirror. Matthaíos was looking back over his shoulder, toward the receding town. Stallion stared straight ahead, giving the team leader a wink. Angler had an odd sensation of repetition—not exactly déjà vu, but something akin to it.
“We were just supposed to pick up new tanks, yes?” Matthaíos suddenly turned back around and looked straight into the mirror, his face taking on an expression of serenity as he stared into Angler’s eyes. “Why did you kill me?” he asked in a hollow voice.
What the…? Oh, Goddammit! Not another one of these! Angler tried to wake up, but the dream held him in a tight embrace. Okay, fine. He tried to turn the steering wheel and pull over, but the car continued inexorably forward. He was just along for the ride—in more ways than one. Screw it, he thought. Let’s get this over with.
Matthaíos was back to his squirming. “The dive gear wholesale shop is in the middle of town. Turn around, we have to go back!”
“Juice him,” Angler heard himself say.
Stallion twisted in his seat and applied a handheld stun gun to the side of their passenger’s neck. Matthaíos screamed, his body contorting grotesquely. Unlike the non-lethal weapons of Hollywood that magically induced unconsciousness, a real-world stun gun inflicted a great deal of pain, immobilizing the target with an assault on the muscles and nervous system.
Matthaíos wept. “Wh… why are you doing this?” When Stallion zapped him again, he shrieked and blubbered even louder, tears running in rivers down his cheeks.
Angler felt his insides curdle. God, I hate it when they cry… He had killed a lot of men in his time, often with little more thought than flipping off a light switch. But when they cried… Again, he tried to force himself awake. Again, the effort was futile.
The Dream Angler turned off the road, rolling up to a low wall with a gate. Integrated into the bars of the gate, metal letters proclaimed “capa”, an acronym for Comisión de Agua y Alcatarillado, the agency in charge of sewage and potable water on the island. To the right of the gate, letters painted on the wall warned “Prohibido el Paso.”
“Time to pass-o the gate-o,” Stallion proclaimed, pocketing the stun gun. “Pop the trunk, Chief.” Exiting the car, he headed back to the trunk. Angler found the release for it, then looked at the dive shop owner, curled up against the door, his whimpers soft now. The trunk slammed shut, rocking the car gently. Lot of detail in this one, Angler thought. Frikkin’ subconscious is going for an Oscar in cinematography.
Glancing across the hood, he watched Stallion approach a padlock on the gate, an L-shaped tire iron held loosely in his fingers. Looking back toward the road, craning his long neck both ways, the lanky mercenary checked for any of the infrequent cross-island traffic before returning his bug-eyed gaze to the lock. Raising the tire iron in both hands, he brought the wedge-end down sharply on the top of the padlock. The second time was the charm: the lock popped open. He swung the two sections of gate aside.
Angler rolled the car forward onto the rough road that ran straight to the south, disappearing into the low tropical trees. Palantir had suggested this location, one of three such gated roads, each one cross-hatched with numerous short, dead-end roads that contained a total of 220 freshwater wells that supplied the drinking water for the island.
Stallion closed the gate behind them and returned to the car. “Tolstoy and his lockpicks would still be at it,” Stallion snorted.
Angler proceeded slowly down the road, bumping over areas where it was broken in places, clumps of tropical grass poking up through the cracks. A pipe ran along the ground at the side of the road, its rusted metal exterior held in place by evenly spaced braces of concrete.
“How are you going to do it?” Matthaíos asked from the front passenger seat.
Angler looked into the mirror and saw that their victim also sat in back, head against the glass. Well, that’s a new one, he thought with irritation. The dreams had started a few years ago, and were one of the reasons he was hoping to hang it all up after this job. At first, he’d found them disturbing, but now they were just annoying as hell.
“Put your seat belt on,” he forced his dream self to tell the second Matthaíos. “Safety first.”
Sarcastic irony was lost on the dream, and the man simply turned in his seat to face Angler. “How many more will you kill?”
Probably a few, Angler thought as the car was suddenly at a complete stop, the scene having shifted to a well at the dead end of one of the many side roads. Angler’s front seat visitor was gone.
“Please, I have a wife and children!” Backseat Matthaíos pleaded.
“And I’ve got a mortgage,” Stallion replied, pressing the stun gun to the man again. The snapping pops sounded, but less frequently, and at a noticeably lower volume.
Matthaíos winced but appeared unhurt. Eyes widening with hope and determination, he tore open the door. Stallion grabbed at him, but the dive shop owner managed to pull free.
“You idiot, didn’t you charge it fully?” Angler shouted, already out of the car, moving to intercept their quarry.
Matthaíos stumbled, the mu
scles in his legs still jelly from the earlier shocks. Angler caught up with him just as the man grabbed a chunk of limestone and swung it. Angler caught the arm, twisting and upending it, breaking the elbow with a gruesome crunch. Matthaíos cried out, dropping the rock. Angler spotted movement from the corner of his eye, as Stallion arrived and swung the tire iron against the man’s temple. Matthaíos crumpled, his face smashing to the ground right beside the cuff of Angler’s slacks, spattering the material with droplets of blood.
So that’s where that came from… Angler crouched, looking at the man’s face. Eyes that saw nothing stared at the mercenary’s shoe. Angler fished Matthaíos’s wallet out of his pocket. He would throw it far into the brush on their way back. “Pick him up,” he said, grabbing the man’s arms. Stallion grabbed his legs.
Together the two mercenaries lugged Matthaíos to the nearby well. They started a gentle rocking motion and on the third swing released him, arcing the body over the well where it collided with the opposite lip, rebounding to fall into the pit. A splash.
“We done here?” Stallion asked.
“One sec.” Angler went to the well, intending to check and make sure their victim had landed facedown, in case he’d been playing possum. He looked over the edge.
A familiar face looked up at him from the surface of the water. Angler saw himself.
Oh, fuck this. With a supreme effort, he wrenched himself out of the dream, sitting bolt upright in the bed. As his heart rate and breathing returned to normal, Angler became aware of sounds in the darkened suite. From the living area, the hellacious snores of Stallion, asleep on the couch. And through the wall, the muffled grunts and cries of Potluck and Tolstoy, rutting away in the adjoining bedroom.
Angler looked at the bedside clock: 4:32 a.m. Grabbing one of the excessive number of pillows, he lay on his side and crammed it over his head. Today was going to be a long day, and dammit to hell, he was going to get some sleep.
The next morning, as Brixton scrambled to keep up with the flood of new sensory information that was assaulting his nose, Boone and Emily headed through the terminal to the Puerta Maya pier, threading their way through strangers of every stripe. Emily held Brixton’s leash, Boone following, rolling a pair of suitcases. One of them struck a raised cobblestone with a sharp thump and Brix jumped at the sudden noise.
“Oh, sorry about that, buddy!” Boone said.
Brixton chuffed an annoyed sneeze, probably to tell Boone he’d prefer if that sound was not repeated.
“Bad Boone! Don’t scare our pooch! And don’t bollocks up my suitcase—that’s a Tumi!” Emily gave Brixton a vigorous rub. “If he does that again, Brix, you can bite ’im on the bum.”
“Is that positive reinforcement for him, or negative reinforcement for me?” Boone asked.
“Why can’t it be both?” Em started forward again, Brixton trotting along happily, uttering a short bark as they reached the pier.
“You excited, buddy?” Boone asked. He spotted a familiar crewman waiting near the elevator.
“Boone Fischer and Emily Durand. Good to see you again! And you’ve brought your friend.”
“Keith, how you doing?” Boone asked.
“Very well, thank you. I’m to show you to your suite. Oh, and thanks for putting in a good word.”
“Oh… yeah…” Boone said. “We mentioned you to Nicholas Othonos. And… uh…”
“And he probably didn’t know who I was,” the young man finished, laughing. “But the head steward overheard it, and that’s all that matters. This way!”
Emily dropped down to Brix’s level. “Oh, Brixy, this is your first time on an elevator, yeah? S’okay, wittle shmoogee, we’re going to go up, up, up!”
Brix wagged his tail. Whatever was happening, Emily sounded excited about it, so it seemed that was good enough for him.
“Will we be seeing you around the ship, Keith?” Boone asked.
“Sure. I’ve got a lot of duties. If you’re lucky, you’ll catch me playing piano in The Muse Lounge. I’m in the musical theater biz back in New York, so I sing a lot of Broadway standards… and I take requests. I’ll be playing for Achilles Othonos’s dinner tonight, too.”
“Cor, that’s impressive,” Emily said. “Hidden talents, Keith!”
“Everyone onboard has more than one job. I’m banking some bucks before I head back to New York and start auditioning again.”
“You know any Billy Joel?” Boone asked.
Keith laughed. “I saw him at the Garden! Not exactly musical theater, but drop by The Muse and I’ll play you a few of his hits.”
The elevator doors opened, and Keith led them aft.
“You two must have made an impression. You’ve got a great suite on the port side.” He opened an interior door. “We’ll take this passthrough…”
Brix snuffled under doors as the quartet made their way across the ship to a corridor on the opposite side.
“And here we are!” Keith announced. “Your quarters. Let me give you your keycards.”
While Keith dug through his pockets, Boone looked down at Brixton. The dog turned his head to the left and sniffed the air. Stiffened. Sniffed again. At the end of the corridor stood a door, identical to the one they were currently in front of. The dog stared in that direction and strained against the leash.
“No, Brixton, this is our room here,” Em said, taking in the slack on the dog’s leash as Keith opened the door and led them inside.
“Whoa.” Boone stared goggle-eyed at the suite. They had just stepped inside and the living area alone took his breath away. Hardwood floors were topped with expensive-looking rugs and chic furniture. The marble countertop of a wet bar in the corner shone in the glow of the track lighting overhead. Spotless glass doors to the balcony stood open, and Boone could see a Jacuzzi out there, off to one side.
“Oh my God, this is…” Emily took a few steps into the room. “Smack my gob, I am gobsmacked.”
Keith laughed. “Yeah, it’s not your run-of-the-mill cruise ship, is it?”
“I wouldn’t know, but color me impressed! Boone, pay the man!”
Boone found a twenty and handed it to Keith. “Hey… I got measured at the tailor’s yesterday, and …” He gestured at his current ensemble, the exact same slacks and shirt he’d worn to brunch.
Keith gestured to a touchscreen just inside the door. “You can pull up a schematic for the ship right here.” He tapped the screen to bring it to life and brought up a layered map of the ship. Tapping a microphone icon, he said, “Tailor.” The layers shuffled themselves to the correct deck and a green circle appeared over a location.
“Fancy,” Boone said.
“You can load a temporary ship’s concierge app onto your phone that will sync with it and allow you to access directions that will lead you right to the men’s clothing store. This panel can also order room service, schedule spa treatments, and notify you of entertainment options.”
Keith showed Boone and Emily how to access various functions, then gave them a quick tour of the two bedrooms with an opulent bathroom bridging them.
“Oh Brix, look! They put food and water bowls out for you!” Em pointed alongside the bar.
“We can provide you with a dog bed, too, if you need it.”
“Thanks. Uh… where do we go if Brixton needs to…?” Boone trailed off.
Keith went to the touchscreen and brought up the schematic, tapping the mic icon again. “Dog park.” The uppermost deck appeared and a crescent-shaped area glowed green. “There’s a nice little section of grass and fencing just aft of the pool. Currently, the only other dog aboard belongs to Mr. Othonos, so you’ll probably have it all to yourself. And if you like, you can access the dog walker and groomer in the Services section of the touchscreen. Oh, and that reminds me…” Keith went to the bar, retrieved a folded leather sleeve that lay there, and handed it to
Boone.
When he opened it, he found a pocket on either side containing a black credit card, embossed with the Olympus Cruises logo. “What’re these?”
“On rare occasions, special guests are given these cards. Karras Othonos insisted you not pay for anything while aboard ship.” He leaned in conspiratorially. “And between you and me, everything here is designed to extract very large amounts of money from our guests… all of whom can easily afford it.” He tapped one of the cards. “Use those at the tailor, the groomer, restaurants, bars, the spa. Anywhere! Well, except for the casino. The company discovered that allowing a guest to gamble with company money wasn’t good business practice. There is a cap on the amount available, but you won’t come anywhere near it, and they will cease functioning upon arrival in Grand Cayman.”
“Yoink!” Emily snatched one of the cards from the folder.
Keith glanced at his watch. “The ship will depart at ten, which is in twenty minutes. I have to run. If you need anything, don’t hesitate to call.”
After Keith departed, Boone tucked the remaining card into his wallet and strolled out to the balcony, noting the sturdy glass barrier. “Seems safe for Brix to hang out on the balcony with us.” He looked to the northeast along the Cozumel coast, though much of that view was obscured by an enormous ship from one of the main cruise lines. He glanced astern, noting the wraparound edge of a balcony that likely belonged to the neighboring suite at the end of the corridor. A small table and two chairs sat there, similar to the ones on their own balcony.
Boone glanced back into their cabin, watching as Emily rooted around the outer pocket of her suitcase. She was wearing a lightweight, white summer dress. Not sure I’ve ever seen that one, he thought. It was surprisingly fetching, even with her crouching to retrieve a Ziploc of Brixton’s food from her luggage. And while he wasn’t sure he’d seen that dress on her before, he was absolutely certain he’d never seen the pair of pearlescent white sunglasses she’d worn aboard. Stepping back inside, he picked them up from the bar, holding them between thumb and forefinger until she looked up at him. He raised an eyebrow.
Deep Devil (The Deep Book 4) Page 18
