Out of Luck

by Kendall Talbot

  He closed his eyes, blocking out his reality, and as he took his wife from behind, he imagined it was the Cuban woman. Silky olive skin. Supple flesh. Young muscular physique. Killer glare. Jaw clenched and hatred burning in her eyes. It was the only way he’d reach a climax, but as much as it wasn’t amazing for him, judging by the groans from his wife, it was for her.

  When it was over, Porsha nuzzled into the crook of his arm and trailed her fingers up and down his torso. She was completely oblivious to how easy it would’ve been for him to strangle her. Like crushing an empty beer can.

  When she began snoring, Noah wished he had.

  Chapter 10

  When Chapel advised Charlene that the coroner had finished with Peter’s body, she’d initially had no idea of the implications of that statement. She’d never discussed her father’s wishes with him. Death wasn’t a topic they’d ever spoken about. The closest she’d come to it was when they were in Cumberland, Wisconsin. One of their neighbors had taken a tumble with his horse, and the stallion had to be put down. Charlene had cried for a week, while their neighbor hadn’t even shed a tear. Yet she knew he’d loved that horse.

  Her father had sat her down and explained that every living thing would one day die. It was how they lived that mattered. That horse had lived a wonderful life with an owner who’d loved him. To put the horse down when he was in pain was the most loving thing their neighbor could have done. The horse was cremated in the biggest bonfire Charlene had ever seen, and she’d seen her share of bonfires.

  Her father never owned anything of value, so she was of two minds as to whether she should give him a parting asset in the form of a tombstone. On the other hand, he probably would’ve hated the wasted money.

  Charlene trekked from one funeral parlor to the next and was both shocked at the cost involved to send someone off and grateful that she’d found the money in Peter’s secret box.

  New Orleans was built on a swamp, which meant people couldn’t actually be buried. Well, they could, but they would eventually float to the surface. That had happened to many of the ancient caskets in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. As a consequence, the deceased were “buried” aboveground in stone crypts or mausoleums. Charlene was given a tour of New Orleans’s most famous cemetery, St. Louise Cemetery, which was also a major tourist attraction.

  At first, she couldn’t understand why anyone would want to tour such a morbid place, but it wasn’t long before she was captivated by its history and elaborate structures. What had shocked her was the cost. To bury someone there, they had to first decompose in an aboveground “oven” for a year. Only then would their remains be transferred to a crypt. It cost nearly eight thousand dollars for the burial, and then just as much to maintain the crypt each year.

  She thanked the woman for the tour and quickly hightailed it out of there. In the end, she decided on having her father cremated in a cardboard box. It sounded terrible, but the saleswoman “sold” her on the ecofriendly aspects of the cardboard cremation capsule and the price.

  When the day of the service arrived, angst and sorrow filled the same space in her heart. Images of the man she knew before the attack and the man she had come to learn about afterward flipped across her mind like cards in a tarot deck. Each image was a polar opposite to the other.

  When she was allowed a moment alone with the body, the undertaker offered a smile that looked like all the muscles in his face were failing, then slunk behind the velvet curtain that separated her from the crowd gathering for the next service.

  Peter didn’t have a crowd to send him off. No family. No friends. No former coworkers or bosses. Not even the detectives who thought they knew him better than she did.

  It was shocking to reduce a life down to a single cardboard box. That was Peter’s legacy. Ultimate freedom. Apparently.

  Charlene felt far from free. She was trapped.

  Trapped in a weird dimension that thrived on unanswered questions.

  Thrived on twisting what she thought was the truth and giving it a whole new, sinister angle.

  Thrived on subjecting her to sleepless nights and troubled daydreams.

  Alone with her cold thoughts, she began to cry. She had assumed she’d exhausted all her tears. But evidently not. She let them flow unabated down her cheeks and forced her brain to think of all the good times.

  Her mind drifted to the two of them bathing in the mineral springs that lined the main street of Sulphur, Oklahoma. She’d giggled nonstop as Peter had pretended to know every person in town and invented whacky, made-up names and even more hilarious career choices for everyone who walked by.

  They might not have had any assets to their names, but they were rich in fun and adventure. Staring at the cardboard box containing the body of the man she’d known as her father, she realized he’d probably be happy with her choice of burial for him. He’d had nothing for as long as she’d known him. He would go out with nothing too.

  She leaned over, kissed the varnished cardboard box, and fingering the tears from her cheeks, she waked away.

  Feeling a headache throbbing behind her eyes, she walked to the nearest phone booth and called Detective Chapel. She hadn’t spoken to him in over a week. Why would she? The last three conversations she’d had with him were the same. They had nothing further to report. No new evidence. The murder investigation had gone stale. He was still working on her kidnap theory, though, and had sought help from international sources.

  She hadn’t shown him the videocassette. As Louisa-Ann had said, it was just a home video, and although she’d viewed it about two dozen times, she hadn’t seen anything to help with either her past or Peter’s. The only additional detail she had was that Peter had been an excellent singer.

  Each time she’d watched the woman in the video, she became more doubtful that she was Peter’s killer. Even though, based on Peter’s age in the footage, the recording had been taken about thirty years ago, there was something about the woman that wasn’t quite right. The angle of her jaw. The shape of her nose. It was something, but she couldn’t figure out what.

  The last thing she wanted to give Chapel was a false lead.

  She arrived home and succumbed to the gnawing in her stomach by making a ham-and-cheese toasted sandwich for lunch. With a cup of tea and the steaming sandwich, she sat in front of the television. Resisting the urge to watch the video yet again, she grabbed the remote and began flicking through the channels. Music blared from the speakers, and her heart slammed into her ribs at the scene on the television.

  It was the same club that was on her video.

  Ramping up the volume, she nudged forward and stared at the screen. She had no way to record it, so she forced her brain to block out what she’d done all morning and focus on the now. A male singer was on a microphone, strutting up and down a central stage that divided the crowd in two. Behind him, young women danced in colorful dresses.

  It was almost identical to the footage she had of Peter. Even the song was the same. The notion that she was dreaming skipped across her brain, until the show broke for a commercial. Charlene used the break to grab a notepad and pen, ready to jot down anything that would help her recall. The show returned with a logo in the corner announcing it as a National Geographic program. Scripting along the bottom detailed that the footage was of Legendarios del Guajirito, a traditional singing and dancing show in Havana, Cuba. She scribbled down the name and underlined Cuba three times.

  Cuba! Adrenalin coursed through her veins. Her fingers tingled. This was it. Finally, a clue. Her mind dashed to Peter. It was hard to believe the coincidence that on the day he was buried she received a significant clue.

  A wise old owl always knows.

  Shoving the timely saying aside, she focused on the television. The footage shifted to a man with a microphone; the scripting announced him as Mr. Carter Logan, National Geographic photographer.

 
“The Buena Vista Social Club is perfect for tourists looking for the musical nirvana made famous in Havana in the 1950s. Every night it’s like they’re playing their very first concert. It’s vibrant and fresh. Natural. They feed off the audience, giving the energized crowd a feel for the Cuba of old.

  “Most of the legends are over sixty and, wait for it, the star of the show is eighty-one-years old. Eighty-one! And still bringing the house down.”

  As the footage shifted from Mr. Logan to a drummer doing an energetic drum solo, Charlene knew she had to get herself down to Cuba.

  The credits begin to scroll up the screen, and she jotted down anything that seemed relevant.

  Once it was over, she sat back, staring at her notes.

  This is it. She finally had a solid clue to follow. She just had to figure out how to get to Cuba.

  * * * *

  The next morning, Charlene was the first customer to enter the Serenity Travel Agency on Henley Street.

  The lady behind the counter went through the usual niceties before she got down to business. “So where would you like to go?”

  “Cuba.”

  “Great choice.” The woman stood and turned to the wall behind her, plastered floor to ceiling in travel brochures. “We have some great tours, seven days is the most—”

  “I don’t need a tour.”

  The woman turned, her face washed with confusion.

  “I just need to get there.”

  “Oh, well, why didn’t you say so? I can book you a flight today. All we need is your passport.”

  Charlene’s empty stomach twinged. “What if I don’t have a passport?”

  “Honey, you can’t travel abroad without a passport.”

  The little band of hope she’d been clinging to snapped. Peter often said that every day was an opportunity to learn something new. Today Charlene learned how naïve she was.

  She wished there was someone else she could talk to. Someone smarter, stronger, more courageous. Someone who could tell her what to do now. But there wasn’t. She was all alone.

  After a few awkward minutes in which the travel agent explained travel 101 to her, she left the agency with a Cuba brochure under her arm and her thoughts in turmoil. She took the long way home, taking in the southern uniqueness that was New Orleans. It’d been a good idea because, little by little, creative ideas had crept into her mind.

  When she finally walked through her front door, she had a new plan.

  It was time to go off the grid again.

  Chapter 11

  Marshall had been looking forward to today’s clients, and they didn’t fail to live up to his expectations. When they’d made the booking three weeks ago, they’d asked the right questions about rigging, bait, and their potential catch species. When they’d arrived at his dock at six o’clock this morning, they were dressed for a day of fishing in the sun.

  These were his ideal clients. And they didn’t fail to deliver.

  During the day, they’d succeeded in landing one of the biggest sailfish Marshall had ever seen. According to his customers, the catch had made Marshall’s charter the most enjoyable one they’d ever taken. And given that they’d spent their retirement years chasing the illusive big one, Marshall was mighty happy with that title.

  At the end of the charter, Marshall did something he’d never done before…he offered to buy the men a drink at Pirate Cove, and they accepted immediately. In return, they helped him fillet all the fish and clean Miss B Hayve, which put them way ahead of every other client he’d ever had.

  “Right this way, boys.” Marshall led them through the door of his favorite haunt and up to the well-worn leather stools at the bar.

  “Marshall?” Red cocked his head at Marshall’s guests, which was justified as he’d never brought anyone into the bar with him before.

  Red offered his hand to each of the men. “How y’all doin’?”

  “We’re great. Just had a magical day fishing with Marshall here.”

  “They landed a hundred-and-twenty-pound sailfish.” Marshall grinned, and it felt damn good to do it too.

  Red whistled. Not that he’d have any idea. The guy had never been fishing in his life. He tapped his hands on the bar, slapping out three beats of a tune. “Sounds like you need to celebrate then. What’ll it be?”

  The men ordered a beer each, and Marshall ordered his standard lemonade. He was impressed that they didn’t question his choice of beverage, but he wouldn’t have been embarrassed to tell them if they had. He’d found out the hard way that sharing his daily count on the wagon had been instrumental in keeping him motivated. It’d taken way too damn long to get to that stage, and he had no intention of turning back.

  Warren and his brothers occupied their usual booth at the back of the bar, and Marshall couldn’t decide if their glares were because of the last time they’d met or because he’d taken their clients yet again. He didn’t care, as long as they stayed right where they were.

  As his two customers bounced off each other with random details about their day fishing, Marshall sighed with contentment. If all his days were like today, he’d never dwell on what could’ve been. Red delivered the drinks, and Marshall raised his glass. “Congratulations on a good catch.”

  “It’s all because of you, captain.”

  Marshall grinned at that. Respect. It was a dying trait.

  They shared a few more laughs and a double serving of Red’s second-best dish—spicy buffalo wings with blue cheese dressing. Then, despite Marshall’s best efforts to talk them into another beer, the men announced that they had to get back to their wives or they’d be castrated before dinner.

  The men shook his hand prior to leaving, with promises to return.

  He hoped so too.

  Just as the men walked out, a woman walked in. She had a movie star look about her—not the glamorous, don’t-touch-me kind of look, more like an action star. Her bare arms were well toned, and he guessed it wasn’t from fanaticism at the gym but rather years of manual labor as opposed to pencil pushing.

  She glanced around the room with the awareness of a cat on the prowl, and her eyes fell on him for the briefest of moments. After a cursory glance, she broke eye contact and strolled to the other end of the bar. Red plastered her with his well-practiced southern greeting, and she placed an order for a soda and lime. While she waited for her drink, her eyes played about the room with the attentiveness of a sharpshooter.

  Something radiated from within her. The expression on her face was a curious mix of nerves and confidence. If he had to guess, he’d say she was here out of necessity, not for the view. The more he watched her in the mirror, the more he convinced himself she was no ordinary tourist. She was after something.

  When she received her drink and carried it to the booth where Warren and his dopey brothers were sitting, Marshall knew she was trouble.

  Or in trouble.

  No woman in her right mind would approach those three. Especially not a beautiful woman like her. She needed something. Why she figured they’d have it was beyond him.

  He’d seen that move a few times in Key West. Dumb tourists came looking for Cuban cigars and rum. But they never looked like she did. They were usually young guys out for a wild night…or three.

  The second she strolled toward Warren and the twins, they sat up and smiled their goofy grins. Why she didn’t run the other way was a mystery. The threesome looked as devious as unskilled pickpockets. Either she was confident she could handle them, or she was off her rocker.

  It was baffling enough that he continued watching the exchange, and although they kept their voices low, with each word he did hear, dread crept up his spine.

  Overnight. Fast. Havana. Secret.

  It didn’t take much brain power to figure it out. This woman needed to get to Cuba in a hurry. What in God’s name for was anot
her question. Nobody needed to get to Cuba. It was usually Cubans begging to come back the other way.

  She had come to the right bar, though, so obviously she’d done her homework. Although pretty much anyone with a boat in Key West could get her there, it was Marshall and Warren who had the reputation for it.

  Of course, she could fly there. But the fact that she was here, and that she wanted her trip to be a secret, meant she was making an illegal crossing. She either didn’t have a passport or didn’t want the authorities to know where she was going.

  And that put her at the top of his “most interesting people” list. The fact that she was a woman on the high side of stunning made it even better.

  She eased back from their booth, and as she set her still-full glass on the bar and adjusted her bag on her shoulder, the three brothers squeezed out from behind the table.

  A loose grin crept through Warren’s stubble, boasting that he’d just scored something big. Warren would be a shitty poker player.

  Marshall waited until the four of them were on the move before he swiveled his stool to face them.

  “What’s going on, Warren?”

  Warren’s eyes blazed with hostility. “None of your fucking business.”

  Marshall turned to the woman, and their eyes met. The fact that she didn’t look away impressed him. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing? These three losers aren’t the best choice.”

  “I can handle myself.” Her clamped jaw said that she thought she was in control of the situation.

  “Yeah! Fuck off.” Ernie’s vocabulary was limited.

  “Three against one.” Marshall tilted his head at her. “That’s not exactly—”

  “As I said, I can handle myself.” Her lips drew to a thin line.

  Marshall showed his palms in a peace gesture. “I’m sure you can. It’s these three knuckleheads I’m worried about. They’re not the most reliable of—”

  “I said fuck off, Marshall.” Warren clenched his stubbled jaw.