Open Carry

by Marc Cameron

  CHAPTER 42

  THERE’S SOMETHING HYPNOTIZING ABOUT THE RELATIVE COMFORT of an anchored boat during a storm. Cassandra fell asleep first, slumping against January, who held out as long as she could, before drifting off and listing toward Cutter. He lifted his arm to readjust, and she fell against his shoulder, breathing heavily, pinning him between her neck and the back of the dinette. With Cassandra’s added weight, he found himself trapped, unable, or at least unwilling, to move without disturbing them. He leaned back to watch the rest of the movie and thought idly that sitting here with this mute girl and a breast cancer survivor whom he’d briefly suspected of murder must be what it felt like to have a family.

  January stirred about the time the credits rolled. She sat up with a start, looking at Cutter with crazed brown eyes in those unsteady moments between sleep and wakefulness. She calmed with a series of ever-widening blinks.

  She smacked her lips. “You hear that?”

  Across the table, Havoc opened an eye at the sound of his human’s voice. Apparently satisfied that she was okay, he went back to sleep.

  Cutter shook his head. “Hear what?”

  “Exactly,” January said. “The storm’s blowing down. What time is it?”

  “No idea,” Cutter said. “You’re sleeping on my watch.”

  “Sorry ’bout that.” She leaned forward against the table enough for him to slip his arm out from behind her.

  He groaned as the blood rushed back in, and then checked the time. “It is . . . not quite two in the morning,” he said.

  “No wonder I have to pee,” she said. “That was awesome soup but it went right through me. It’s probably what woke me up.”

  “Good thing it did,” Cutter said. “Much longer and I would have come down with a bad case of Saturday night palsy.”

  She gave him a quizzical stare.

  “You know,” he said. “Where a guy falls asleep with a girl on his shoulder after a night of carousing and wakes up the next morning unable to move his arm.”

  “That’s a thing?”

  Cutter shook his dangling arm. “I’m thinking yes,” he said, standing so she could get out of the dinette.

  January slid out, carefully laying Cassandra down on the cushioned bench, before disappearing into the head compartment. Cutter heard the sounds one pretends not to hear in the close confines and thin walls of a boat. She stepped out a few moments later, looking much less frantic.

  “Kind of amazing,” she said, taking a seat at the navigation table across from him. She covered a yawn with an open hand. “A man bottling up so much anger would care about how moving his arm might wake me up.”

  “You think?”

  January sighed. “Am I wrong?”

  Cutter gave a slow nod. “Oh, I have plenty of anger,” he said. “I’m just not particularly good at bottling it up.”

  “You were born with a temper?”

  Cutter sighed, thinking, then pushing the thoughts out of his mind. “No,” he said. “But I earned it, fair and square.”

  CHAPTER 43

  CARMEN DELGADO LIFTED HER HEAD WITH A START, DRAWING IN A quick breath as if she’d just surfaced from the depths of the sea. She was amazed that she’d slept at all, but the constant surge of adrenaline and the sickening ache from Luis’s beating had eventually caused her body to shut down.

  The rolling motion of the boat brought her instantly back to where she was.

  Terror flooded her senses when she saw Garza seated across the table, eyeing her as if she were an animal in a zoo. His hair was wet and freshly combed and he wore a pressed cotton shirt. She felt sick thinking that she’d been so vulnerable and exposed, surrounded by these awful men while she slept.

  “Ah,” Garza said. “You are back among the living.”

  Carmen rubbed her neck, managing a painful nod.

  It was still dark outside, but a gray horizon told her the sun would be up before too long. Luis stood in the galley, making French toast. It was almost laughable, this man who had murdered her friend, dipping pieces of bread into egg and milk.

  Fausto stooped over two steel scuba tanks, affixing the regulators while he periodically checked a scuba-diving handbook.

  Chago slouched in a seat beside the door, big arms folded, head against his chest. His eyes were open, but his chest rose and fell rhythmically, as if he were sleeping.

  Luis threw a glance over his shoulder at Fausto. “Make sure you get those hooked up correctly,” he said in Spanish. “I don’t have gills, you know.”

  “I know how to do it,” Fausto said. He turned the knob on one of the tanks. There was a hiss as the line filled with air. He checked the gauge, then depressed the front of the regulator, getting another hollow hiss. He nodded to himself and closed the book, satisfied he’d attached everything up correctly. “It’s just been a while.”

  Luis lifted a piece of bread. “Hey, is it okay to eat and then dive?”

  A glare from Garza and both men returned to their respective tasks in silence.

  Garza looked back down at his phone.

  Carmen studied him, wondering if there was any way out of this. On the street, she might have thought him just another man with a good haircut and nice clothes. He was a human being, just like her. He ate French toast, just like she did. There had to be some shred of reason inside him. She had a fleeting thought that she might offer him her body. She was pretty enough, and the only woman on the boat, which should count for something—but he’d shot his last mistress for no other reason but to make a point. Maybe, Carmen thought, maybe she could join him. Just say something like, “I’ve made a big mistake in pursuing this law-abiding life. May I please become a member of your drug cartel?”

  The mind played terrible jokes when stressed past the breaking point. Carmen knew she only had one bargaining chip—the second media card. How to use it, that was something she’d yet to figure out.

  The engine turned over and a few moments later she heard the clatter of anchor chain being drawn in across the bow roller. Carmen looked behind her to find Fausto back at the wheel. They were moving again. Toward what, she could only imagine.

  Garza stood, and for a moment she thought he was going to go forward and talk to Fausto. Instead, he moved to her side of the dinette.

  “May I?” he said, nodding to the bench seat.

  She scooted toward the wall and he sat down next to her, his shoulder touching hers. For an instant she thought she might vomit, but swallowed it back and forced a smile.

  Garza produced a fat cigar from the pocket of his shirt. He fished a lighter and a stainless steel cutter from his pocket. Passing the cigar under his nose, he took a long whiff, admiring the aroma before inserting the end into the circular hole in the cutter.

  Finished, he clicked the blade open and shut several times. “I had a woman once,” he said, his eyes half closed. “She had the most exquisite hips, and breasts . . . don’t even get me started about those.” He looked up. “Luis, do you remember Josephina?”

  “Oh, yeah, Patrón,” Luis chuckled. “Whooeee! Josephina was amazing.”

  Garza returned his gaze to Carmen. “She was amazing,” he agreed. “In so many wondrous ways it would not be polite to mention. But the most amazing thing about her was her teeth. I have never in my life seen such straight and evenly aligned teeth. You see, Josephina could clip the end off my cigar as perfectly as this blade with a single bite.” He set the razor-sharp tool on the table—as if he wasn’t finished with it yet—and flicked the lighter, puffing the cigar to glowing life.

  Garza continued to reminisce amid the cloud of noxious smoke that enveloped Carmen’s face. She coughed, then held her sleeve to her nose, but he didn’t seem to care. “Poor, poor Josephina,” he continued. “My wife, Maria, she is a very open-minded woman, but she does require that my mistresses remain discreet. It is much more difficult for her if she knows who they are. Josephina was unfortunate in that my wife happened upon us one evening while we were out dancin
g. Maria insisted that I have her killed.”

  “But . . .” Carmen heard herself say. “How could—?”

  “Oh, I did not kill Josephina,” Garza said. He paused, letting her think on that. “Luis volunteered to do it for me, but I had Chago do it. I knew he would be more gentle.”

  Carmen wanted to scream in his face but managed to speak in a controlled voice. “Gentle? It doesn’t matter how gentle Chago was, he still murdered her. It wasn’t her fault your wife saw her.”

  Garza seemed to consider this for a moment, eyes half closed. He smiled when he opened them. “Fault?” he said. “But, my dear, fault has nothing to do with it.”

  Striking like a snake, he grabbed Carmen’s left wrist and yanked it to him. Luis had moved up from behind the dinette as if on cue and secured her right arm. The low table kept her legs pinned in place.

  Garza puffed the cigar until the coal glowed bright orange, and then pressed it to the tender white skin inside her forearm. Carmen shrieked as the ember bored into her flesh, shredding her voice until nothing came out but a horrible, breathless croaking sound. She struggled to no avail. Garza held the cigar in place as if he intended to burn a hole straight through her arm. Eventually, her blood and charred skin starved the fire of oxygen, but the pain remained, nearly unbearable.

  The monsters finally released her and she shrank back to the wall sobbing and clutching her injured arm. Luis returned without a word to the galley and his French toast.

  Across the salon, Chago stared at the floor.

  Garza put the flame of his lighter to the cigar and puffed it to life again. “Hurry up, Fausto!” he barked. “Luis is growing impatient.”

  Carmen breathed a sigh of relief when Garza moved back to the other side of the table.

  “I imagine that such a burn is very painful,” he said.

  Her chest quivered with exhausted sobs.

  “That is good,” he said. “You see, my dear, I wish only to give you a taste—so you may see my mind. While you have been thinking that we were merely negotiating, I was imagining ways I might hurt you enough that you might have a bright understanding of what is before you. It is a skill at which I am extremely talented. My previous employer—whom I shot in the head not so very long ago—was even better at it than I, but I’m certain you will find my skills more than sufficient. We will find the body of your friend. Perhaps the storm has washed him onto the shore. If we are not so fortunate, then Fausto and Luis will dive down and retrieve the media card from his clothing.” He leaned across the table, blowing a plume of cigar smoke in her face again. “At that point, you must tell me where the second card is located.”

  Carmen swallowed hard. “I . . . you have to understand. . . .”

  “Oh, no,” he said. “That is your job. Luis has already asked me if he can help me make you understand. And though such a thing would be enjoyable for Luis, I assure you, it would be extremely unfortunate for you.”

  “Please . . .”

  Garza raised his hand. “I told Luis that my decision all depends on you. Chago saved you before, but that will never happen again. This time, Luis will do with you what he wishes—I will give him fifteen minutes.” Garza’s eyes darkened and he leaned forward, the cigar between his teeth as he spoke. “When he is finished, he will take you to the shore and fill your belly with stones, just as he did your friend. I do not believe it will take very many stones before you tell me what I want to know.”

  Carmen gagged. There was a time such threats would have been unimaginable—but she didn’t have to imagine now—she’d seen it.

  Garza held the cigar out to the side, between his thumb and forefinger, giving her a lascivious up and down stare. “Or, you could cooperate and be done with—”

  The satellite phone on the table gave a pulsing ring. Garza held up his hand as if to say he would come back to the conversation in a moment, then answered the phone, situating the antenna toward the side window.

  “Hello, Maria, my love,” he said. “No, everything is fine. There was some nasty business with Ernesto. I’ll tell you all about it when I return home. Yes . . . Very soon.”

  He chatted amiably for a few more minutes, asking how his daughter was doing in school and checking on some work they’d had done on their house. Carmen sat across from him, dumbfounded that he could transition so smoothly from talk of gutting her to a conversation about his daughter’s homework.

  Garza ended the call with a kiss, folded the antenna, and then pushed the satellite phone to the side of the table. He clapped his hands to get Fausto’s attention. “How much longer?”

  The sicario looked at the GPS beside the wheel. “Less than ninety minutes, Patrón.”

  “Excellent,” he said, turning his attention back to Carmen. “Now, where were we . . . ? Oh, yes, your time with Luis . . .”

  Carmen’s mouth hung open. Her words came in rapid, breathy sobs. “How can you do this? I . . . I am someone’s daughter . . . someone’s sister . . .”

  Manuel Garza gave a little shrug as if it all made perfect sense. “But you are not my sister or my daughter. You are only in my way.”

  CHAPTER 44

  THE DINETTE WOULD HAVE MADE A PASSABLY COMFORTABLE BED FOR someone younger than forty-two and shorter than six foot three. The cry of a seagull woke Cutter from a fitful sleep and he rose up on one elbow to peer out the window at the cool stillness of a poststorm dawn. Tide Dancer lay motionless on a bay of mirrored quicksilver. Clouds of fog hung among the trees along the shoreline, in a forest so thick and green it was almost black. As if on cue, a bald eagle flew overhead, chattering in a high-pitched call unique to the majestic bird.

  January stuck her head up from the companionway. She wore a loose pink T-shirt and black pajama pants covered with big, red Mick Jagger lips.

  “Sleep well?”

  “I did,” Cutter lied.

  She flashed him a serene smile. “Me neither.”

  “You want me to put your camera back on the mount?” Cutter asked. “A short dive would be nice. I think it would help me to move around some.”

  “That would be most cool of you,” January said. “You get the gear ready and I’ll cook breakfast. I have bacon and eggs if you’re hungry enough. Though I have to say, I’m a little intimidated to cook around a marshal who keeps a recipe for cheeseburger soup in his notebook.”

  Cutter sat up straighter and patted his belly. It wasn’t fat. Multiple divorces had proven to be an excellent diet plan. Still, it wasn’t as flat as it had once been. “I’m obviously not one to push away from bacon,” he said.

  Havoc sat back on his haunches and licked his lips as if he felt the same way.

  Forty-five minutes later, with considerable help from Cassandra, they’d eaten all the bacon and cleaned the last of the dishes. The Haida girl resumed her spot at the nav table and went back to work on her drawing. She seemed happy to be around the adults, but just as happy to ignore them.

  The larger of the two neoprene dry suits was just as old and faded as the smaller one, but the zipper proved to be much more reliable. The pressure gauge on the steel tank showed it was full at 2,500 psi. The hoses and buoyancy control vest were older but serviceable, and the US Divers second-stage regulator looked to be in good repair. Cutter was pleased to find a pair of extra-large black jet fins, the same type he’d worn since Grumpy had taught him and Ethan to dive. They were heavy things and hadn’t changed from when the Navy SEALs were wearing them in the seventies, but their hard rubber design allowed a variety of flutters and frog kicks that law enforcement and cave divers used because they didn’t silt up the environment. Split fins just couldn’t compete.

  Cutter left the girls inside and went out to the aft deck to step out of his jeans and button-down shirt. His underwear and T-shirt would be plenty to keep him warm under the thick neoprene. Away from the smells of old boat and bacon, Cutter enjoyed the crisp morning air while he shrugged into the cumbersome suit. Unlike the DUI laminate, the neoprene suit had in
tegral boots that were oversized so they’d fit most everyone who could get inside an extra-large suit—which was good, because Cutter had feet to go along with his height. Even the extra-large proved to be slightly short in the torso, threatening to have him talk an octave higher if he stood up straight.

  Cutter stood on the edge of the swim step at the aft rail and watched a jellyfish the same shape and color as a fried egg undulate past the boat. He lifted the BC and scuba tank onto his back and buckled the straps between his legs and across his chest. He pressed the inflator button a couple of times to put a layer of air between him and the pinchy neoprene. Slipping the neoprene wet-suit hood over his head, he continued his predive routine, checking to make sure his weight belt was secure, and a small knife, used for cutting line instead of any commando tactics, was situated to the right of the quick-release buckle.

  For January, diving was a means to an end, so she lacked some of the items he would have liked to have—like extra O-rings and a second dive light. Having just one of any piece of crucial gear was an invitation to a ruined dive. Cutter consoled himself that this swim would be short-lived. He was only going under the boat.

  He liked to carry his gear in the same location each time he dove—or ran, or sailed, or shot, or fought, or rode a motorcycle, because those inevitable “oh, shit” moments were no time to be scratching your head trying to remember where you put something. He and Grumpy and Ethan had practiced the DIR “unified team” concept where every diver carried identical equipment, including lights, spare masks, and surface marker buoys, in identical places on their person—so a quick glance confirmed your dive-buddy was squared away and in compliance with rule six—looking streamlined.

  January and Cassandra both came out to watch. Cutter hung Grumpy’s compass rose medallion around Cassandra’s neck. She’d seemed overly concerned at the notion of him going diving and he thought a good luck charm might calm her some. He was far from an expert on child psychology, but it worked on his nephews so he gave it a shot. “How about you hang on to this while I’m underwater,” he said. “I don’t want to lose it down there.”