by Blake Banner
I pushed through and found myself in a large office. The style was heavy, old Castilian, with lots of oak, iron studs and giant hinges. Ahead of me there was an astonished man in his fifties sitting behind a massive oak desk. On his right, my left, there was a confused gorilla whose eyes, nose and mouth occupied no more than two and a half square inches in the middle of a face that must have been a square foot. It was an easy target and I put two rounds right between his eyes. Then I advanced on the guy I assumed was Luis Aguilera with the gun held out straight in front of me.
“Stand up!” He stood. I pointed to a spot on the rug in front of his desk. “On your face! Now!”
He dropped. I went down on one knee beside him. “Are you Luis Aguilera?” He nodded. “Show me!”
He fumbled in his pocket and pulled out an ID card. He was Luis Aguilera, Colombian. I shot him through the heart and he died instantly. What I did next I didn’t enjoy, but it was necessary. The Fairbairn & Sykes fighting knife is razor sharp, and I used it swiftly and cleanly to remove his head. Then I picked up the internal phone and after a couple of tries called the bar. A voice answered over a lot of throbbing, screaming and laughing.
“Yes, boss?”
I said plainly and clearly, “There is a bomb in the bar. Drop everything. Evacuate the bar immediately. Do it now. Get everybody out, now.”
I hung up. There were three decanters on a dresser against the wall. One of them was whiskey, another was rum. I took those two to douse the desk and the furniture, and used Luis’s lighter to set fire to the office. It went up with a blue and yellow whoosh! and started to burn.
I grabbed his head, ripped off the gorilla’s shirt sleeve, and went through the door to the top of the stairs, carrying the decanter of cognac with me. The crowd was already surging and crushing toward the exit. Nobody had bothered to turn off the music, but you could hear the first panicking screams over the awful throb. I took a moment to stuff the gorilla’s shirt sleeve into the decanter, and, as the flames from the office gathered force and began to erupt through the door and onto the landing, I lit the improvised fuse and trotted down the stairs holding the Molotov cocktail in one hand, and Aguilera’s head in the other. I smiled as I wondered what the colonel would think if she could see me now.
As above, the flames billowed out of the office and licked across the rafters that held up the ceiling, the screams from the crowd became louder and more frantic, swelling above the throbbing, pounding noise that was still blasting over the sound system. I strode toward the bar and hurled the flaming decanter at the shelf of spirits behind the bar. There was an almighty, strangely beautiful shattering of glass, each shard reflecting the flames that were consuming the place, and in a moment the entire bar had erupted in alcoholic fire.
I fused with the last desperate people fighting and scrambling through the large double doors, and eased out into the night. Cars were reversing and swerving out of the lot in panic, left and right, hurtling away into the darkness, becoming nothing more than minute daemon’s eyes under the cold moon.
I made my way to the bimmer and threw the gory head on the passenger seat. Then I sat on the dry-stone wall a few feet away and waited. I didn’t have to wait long. They came running, pushing through the dispersing crowd, and stopped, ranged along the BMW, staring in at the back seat.
It was the old guy, the one with the ponytail and the waistcoat, who spoke. It wasn’t eloquent, but it was expressive. He shook his head and spread his hands and said, “What the fuck?”
Maybe he genuinely expected an answer.
From where I sat I shot the other doorman between the eyes. His head whiplashed back and forth, but then he just stood there. It seemed like a long time, but it was just a couple of seconds. It was a couple of seconds I used to better effect than they did.
The next most dangerous guy, in my book, was the sicario. I had to shift fast from the doorman so I put two rounds through his chest, which was a bigger target. Finally, the biggest target and the least dangerous was the muscle. I put two rounds through his chest and he and the sicario both went down together, barely a second between them. Total, just under three seconds. It was only then that the doorman, whose eyes were staring unseeing but astonished, folded at the knees and lay down.
The guy with the moustache and the cowboy boots was still trying to work out what his boss’s head was doing in the back of the BMW. I stood and walked around the hood, stopping six feet from him.
“Drop your weapons.” He dropped a Glock and a knife in the dirt. I said, “It’s your lucky day. What’s your name?”
“El Gavilan.”
“You get to leave the island, go back to your boss and explain to him that St. George is now Mexican territory. You understand?”
He nodded. “Si…”
“But before you go, you’re going to help me with something.”
“Que?”
“Where is ‘El Serbio’?”
It was a long shot, but it was one that had been on my mind since the brigadier and the colonel had first outlined the job to me. “Locate the target” was easily said, but it was not so easily done. Unless you went underground, where information travels fast, if you know where to listen out for it. And the people who could be expected to know about Serbian war criminals hiding on the island, would be those who controlled crime: the people who decided whether you stayed or whether you went, whether you had a place or had to move on, the people who decided whether you lived or whether you died.
Now the Gavilan’s face twisted into further confusion. “El Serbio? Why you want El Serbio?”
“Did I ask you to assess my questions? Next time you give the wrong answer, I’ll blow your knee out and send Dumas a postcard. Understood?”
He nodded. “The Serbio live on the Belle Tout, goin’ to the lighthouse. Is a big mountain, two thousan’ meters, at the end of the island. He got a house halfway up. He don’ mess with nobody, nobody fock with him. We told to leave him alone.”
“You call him El Serbio because you know who he is.”
He nodded, then shrugged. “Yeah, more or less…”
“So what do the people on the island call him?”
“Constantino. Constantino Marcos. You gonna hurt him? We promise to look after him.”
I nodded at him for a while. I knew the cops and the fire service couldn’t be far off. Time was short.
“How many children have you killed, Gavilan?”
He frowned. “Eh?”
“How many children have you killed? How many young lives have you destroyed?”
His face went hard and he sneered. “Thousans. An’ if you think I gonna fuckin’ apologize…”
I didn’t let him finish. When you traffic dope, you don’t get to make impressive speeches glorifying the fact that you’re a son of a bitch. You get to die. I put two rounds in his belly and he fell against the Porsche holding his gut with his arms. I stepped up close and he was staring furiously into my eyes, like he might find a lifeline there somehow. I leaned down close.
“Don’t forget to give Dumas my message, Gavilan. With a bit of luck I’ll send him to join you soon.”
The third slug was a mercy shot that went through his head and punctured the Cayenne. It was more than he deserved, but it made the Cayenne fractionally more interesting.
I paused to look at the goggling head on the passenger seat.
“All aboard,” I said, “all aboard for the Hell Train.”
Eight
I drove back at a steady pace. I didn’t want to get stopped by any cops I met headed for the Tipic. I needn’t have worried. Three patrol pars screamed past, sirens blaring and lights flashing, all speeding to the scene of the crime. They all recognized Gonzalo’s BMW, and they all saluted as they went past.
I made it back to the Tortuga in twenty minutes. I killed the engine and grabbed Aguilera’s head by his hair. He had an ugly expression on his face, but the stain he’d left on the leather upholstery was uglier. I climbed out of
the car and walked in through the bar. Nobody seemed to notice I was carrying a severed head. I have found that, by and large, people do tend to see what they expect to see. Not many people expect to see a guy carrying a severed head.
Out on the terrace Gonzalo had sat at his table again, with Helen and Maria at either side. He was looking mad and talking into his cell. When he saw me his face went rigid. He snapped something into his cell and laid it on the table beside his plate.
I was four paces from the table by the time his eyes focused on what I had in my hand. Maria covered her mouth with her hands. Helen made to rise, but sank back in her chair. Gonzalo’s face screwed up and, at five feet from where he sat, I threw the head. It landed with a thud in the now half-empty dish of oysters and lobster, staring with an idiot gawp at Gonzalo, who, ironically, stared back at him with the very same expression. I figured it had to be a sign.
The music had changed. There was a guy saying he bet his girl tasted expensive. Looking at Aguilera’s head beside the carcass of the lobster, I thought that statement was ambiguous. The tables around us had gone quiet. Some people were giggling, but they were nervous giggles. Nobody knew how to react, and nobody was giving them a lead.
I stepped up to the table and pulled the champagne from the ice bucket. I took a pull from the bottle and put it back. I grinned.
“Happy Halloween, Gonzalo.” I turned to Maria. “Is this enough reality for you? Or you want a little more?” I looked over my shoulder. The headwaiter was looking at me and he looked worried. I indicated the platter on the table. “Can we get a doggy bag? Can we get this to go?”
He bowed and nodded more times than was strictly necessary and ran for the kitchen. I sat and studied Gonzalo across the table.
“Trouble with technology. You just can’t trust photographs anymore. You can Photoshop anything these days. Somebody showed me a photograph of my wife with my best friend in bed. On the bedside table was a bottle of my John Smith special brew, cask matured IPA. You know how I knew it was fake? The only way I knew it was fake?” Nobody said anything. I stabbed a finger at the imaginary photograph. “The beer. That was my special beer. I knew Bob wouldn’t do that to me.” I laughed quietly. “To believe something, you have to see it with your own eyes. It’s no good taking pictures on your phone.”
Helen said, “You’re out of your mind.”
“Or perhaps my mind is out of me. How do you assess a thing like that? Are you in my mind or are you out of my mind? Tricky. This whole situation is tricky, huh, Gonzalo?”
A couple of waiters hurried up with bags and takeout containers. They were sobbing as they bagged up the contents of the platter. Gonzalo was rigid and he had gone pale. When they were done I said, “Just drop it on the front seat of Don Gonzalo’s BMW.”
They hurried away and I looked back at Gonzalo with what I hoped was a mild smile.
“Say, where are your boys, Gonzalo? You never go anywhere without them, right? They shadow you, wherever you go, whatever you do, they are your guardian angels, in Havaianas and parrot shirts. So where are they?”
His skin was a sickly yellow. His voice was a rasp. “You son of a bitch.”
I spoke very quietly. “Take Maria home. Then go home yourself. The Tipic is gutted, burned down, El Gavilan is dead and so are all his henchmen. Even the paint on Aguilera’s Cayenne is ruined. You owe me. You owe me big time. And tomorrow I am going to call it in. You better be ready for me. Understood?”
He fumbled for his phone, pressed a number and waited with the phone to his ear. After a moment he snapped, “What happened?”
His eyes were wide. He stood slowly, listening in silence, and walked slowly across the terrace. I watched him snap a few more questions before he turned and started his faltering way back, still talking into the phone. A few of the tables were staring at him.
Helen said, “What the hell have you done?”
I didn’t hesitate. I looked her square in the eye. “What you wanted me to do. But your question is wrong. It’s not ‘what have you done,’ it’s ‘what are you doing.’ I am very far from finished, Helen.”
I glanced at Maria. She was the same sickly shade of pale as Gonzalo, but her eyes were lost and she seemed to have retreated inside herself. Gonzalo got back to the table and stood over us. “What do you want?”
“I’ll tell you tomorrow. I’ll come to your house. We’ll talk business. But I don’t want any trouble from you, Gonzalo. Tomorrow it could be roast suckling pig. You like apples?” He didn’t answer, so I jerked my head at Maria and said, “Take her home. Then you go home.”
Maria stood and stared at Helen. She said simply, “Helen… What is this?”
Gonzalo grabbed her and they left, and Helen sat staring into my face with wild eyes. “What the hell? I was sitting quietly on the boat, minding my own business, and this gawky, boyish American bumbles over to ask for help… Now I am sitting at the table with the cast from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre.” Her bottom lip curled in and a tear welled in her left eye. “Who the hell are you? What the hell do you want?”
“Don’t ask if you don’t really want to know. I am going to do you a favor, a bigger favor than you can imagine. Then I am going to disappear from your life forever. But before I go, I need something from you.”
She looked squeamish. “What?”
“I need everything you can tell me about Constantino Marcos.”
She froze. Her expression was incredulous. “What? Are you serious?”
“Yes.”
“He is a harmless old man. I am not going to let you anywhere near him!” Her voice bordered on shrill. “What? Are you going to do more of this to him? Are you going to take his arms and legs off? I don’t know what the hell is going on, but I do not intend to take any more of it!”
I put my hand on hers and signaled the waiter to get us a taxi. She snatched her hand away but allowed me to help her to her feet. I muttered, “Take it easy,” to her and we crossed the terrace, then moved through the bar and out into the cool air. The moon was low in the west, but it had tinged the night with a pallid luminescence that seemed to hang on the leaves of the palms, the scattered, half-concealed rooftops and the pines. Helen stopped and turned to face me, and the moon touched the planes of her face.
“What do you want with Constantino?”
“How well do you know him?”
“He’s been on the island for years. He keeps to himself and doesn’t hurt anybody.”
“You’ve met him in person?”
“Of course. Many times. What do you want with him, David?”
“Maybe nothing. I just need to know who he is.”
“Why?”
In the distance a bright light appeared on the road, maybe a mile or half a mile away. It warped like an amoeba, split and became headlamps. Soon they began to slow and an old Mercury Grand Marquis pulled up outside the bar. The driver leaned out.
“You called for a cab?”
I nodded. “Yeah, take us to Old Joe’s.”
We climbed in the back and she pressed herself up against the far side of the car with her arms crossed. As we pulled back onto the road in a broad U-turn I asked her, “How long, exactly, has he been on the island?”
“I don’t know exactly. He came in the late ’90s, or early in the new millennium, I suppose.”
“You ever ask him what brought him here?”
“No. Why should I?”
“You ever get drunk with him in Old Joe’s, exchange war stories, talk about life?”
“I told you he keeps to himself. And besides, David, or whatever your name is, after what I have seen tonight, I will not say another word to you until you tell me what your interest in him is?”
“Did you get many people settling here in the early 2000s?”
She thought about it in spite of herself, finally said, “A few…a couple. Why?”
The car chased the black, luminous road toward the moon. The rooftops of San Fernando began to emerge from the
shadows. The car slowed and turned in, to climb the hill toward Old Joe’s. When we got there the crowd had thinned out, but there were still a few stragglers here and there, sitting on the steps of the terrace and on the wall, nursing bottles of beer and talking.
I paid the cab while Helen climbed out. I climbed out after her and the taxi pulled away. We stood looking at each other in the middle of the road. I stepped up close and spoke without really knowing why I said what I said.
“I don’t expect you to like me. I’m not here to make friends. That’s not relevant. But you owe me, and tomorrow you are going to owe me more...”
She narrowed her eyes. “I owe you? For what, for Christ’s sake? For throwing a fucking severed head on the table in front of me? For lying to me? For terrifying Maria half out of her mind?”
I took a hold of her shoulders and pulled her close. “Pull your head out of the sand, Helen. You know as well as I do why you offered to give me a ride to this hotel. You know why you kept me talking in spite of my bumbling. You know damned well why you introduced me to Maria. You want me to spell it out for you?”
“You’re a pig! A filthy, murdering pig!”
“Maybe so. And maybe that’s what you recognized in me, and maybe your intuition, or your cop’s instinct, or some combination of the two told you could use me. But you never stopped to think that the devil you had conjured up might just turn around and hand you the bill.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” But her eyes, thick with tears, said she was lying. I pulled her closer, felt her body touch mine, smelled her breath sweet on the night air. “I’m going to give you what you want. But understand, you will owe me. I will call in the favor, and you will pay.”