Martin Billings Caribbean Crime Thrillers

by Ed Teja

  When I got back to the bar Ugly Bill was ensconced at our table. He had his back to the water, ignoring the million-dollar scenery in favor of a good view of the girls at the bar. There were a couple of tables of attractive women in shorts and halter tops sipping sodas and beer. This time of day, Bill was usually there, enjoying what he called the smorgasbord view.

  Bill came by his nickname “Ugly” honestly. From a distance he looks like an ad for an Old Prospector’s School, the kind of bearded maniac that runs around leading a mule named Lulu. His hair and beard both have a wild look of their own. At a glance he could be any age from forty to eighty and has, at one time or another, laid claim to most of them. Add to that the fact that he is about six-foot-six and weighs over two hundred fifty pounds but isn’t fat, and you get the picture.

  Legend has it that he was once a professional wrestler who retired after he killed a man. No one ever asks him if it’s true. Down here it’s considered rude to inquire into legends, and no one is ever rude to Ugly Bill. I am not afraid of Bill, he is a good friend, but knowing the real story, assuming that isn’t it, holds no appeal for me. I haven’t told him my life story either. Our partnership hasn’t worked that way.

  Somehow, despite his general appearance, he doesn’t have much trouble attracting women. He claims it is because they can tell he has a good heart. He does, and maybe there is something to that. It might also have something to do with a different kind of legend that he has established among the beautiful Trini ladies. You never know.

  Despite the good heart, Bill cuts an imposing figure. I’m six feet tall and one hundred eighty pounds, and he makes me feel like a midget. He looked up at me as I went to the bar, bought a couple of cold beers and carried them to the table, stopping to say a few hellos to friends on the way.

  “I had to make a call,” I told him as I sat down. He nodded. “To Maggie. She’s in Venezuela.”

  His face brightened. “Great! Let’s fire up the engines and go see her.” He always had liked Maggie and he’d been upset with me when she dumped me, acting as if I’d broken up with her. Regardless of who did it, he had told me, losing Maggie showed extreme bad taste. I couldn’t argue with him then or now.

  “The news isn’t so great,” I told him.

  “Hey, look,” someone in the bar called out. He was pointing at the nearby fuel dock. We looked and saw a large white motor yacht, very fancy and flying a Turkish flag, trying to maneuver alongside the dock. The boat was at least a hundred feet long. The dock had been built for much smaller boats. There was lots of shallow water around and very little room to wiggle a boat in. This approach would be tricky and was worth a watch.

  The dock attendant, as usual, rather than helping by taking a line or spotting for the helmsman, watched from his chair with an amused expression. Everyone on a larger boat hated that attendant. Most of the people on small boats just thought he was an ass.

  “Showtime,” Bill said, twisting in his seat so that he half-faced the dock. He glanced at me. “Go ahead. I can listen and watch the fun too. I do believe that this is the biggest critter I’ve ever seen try to squeeze in that spot.”

  “She called about Tim,” I said.

  He furrowed his brow. “And it’s bad news?”

  “The worst.” I told him what Maggie had said. “Now she expects me to fly to Venezuela tomorrow and do some big brother magic that will rescue Tim. Like I am supposed to know how to spring him from a murder rap in a foreign country.”

  “Damn right,” he roared. “That’s the way it is with us good guys. Don’t matter that legal shit ain’t your specialty. We leap to the rescue. No hesitation. Hell, if you don’t get the chance to play cavalry every so often it hardly seems worth being a good guy.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know, Bill. I don’t mind a rescue now and then, but this cleaning up after Tim is getting to be a bit much, mate.”

  Ugly Bill drank his beer in silence, his eyes on the yacht as the skipper backed and filled, slowly edging the yacht toward the dock. Finally, he spoke up. “I always thought Tim would be okay if he figured out something that he really wanted to do, somebody he really wanted to be. But you know he got sucked along in your wake, trying to be another you.”

  “The kid doesn’t like anything about me!”

  “Bull pucky. And that hero worship stuff can mess up a kid. At any rate, I don’t see him a lifetime loser, and we know he sure as hell is not a killer.”

  “So?”

  “So, you need to do what Maggie told you. Get your ass down there muy pronto and see what is really happening before you decide that he has messed up again. Maybe somebody else messed him over this time, and that sure as hell ain’t his fault.”

  Ugly Bill likes to play old salt philosopher king, and that can get a bit wearing. But this time I knew he was right. Okay, so he’s right a lot of the time. So, although I moan and groan about it, I pay attention to him. It amazes me how much Ugly Bill really knows, and I have an unsettling feeling that someday I’ll find out that before he took up pro wrestling, he was the chairman of the philosophy department at Harvard or something. At any rate, I didn’t have time to argue the merits of action versus inaction, and neither of my friends was having any of it anyway.

  “You and Maggie make quite a team,” I muttered. “Well, do you think you can handle things around here by yourself for a while? I don’t know how long this little crusade is going to take.”

  Bill gave me the eye like he does when he can’t believe I’ve asked a certain question. “Well, Junior, I guess I can sit here and drink beer and flirt with the waitresses and yachtettes and talk bullshit to the tourists all by myself. In fact, I’m damn sure of it. And if the yard ever gets a spot for old Harm, I might even find myself able to motor into the lock. Then I’ll drink some more beer and watch the local hires sandblast and paint the hull. Yup, I can do that too. It doesn’t take your mighty brain. Poor old Bill can do it. So, you just run along and play Perry Mason, Venezuelan style.” Then he reached over and clamped a meaty fist on my wrist. “And, Junior, you need any help down there, you better call me. I’d be glad to clear my busy social calendar at any time. The ladies won’t mind if I tell them I’ll be back soon.”

  “Thanks, mate,” was about all I could say. Ugly Bill has always been the best kind of shipmate. He might disappear for a few days when we hit port if the pressures had built up or the right girl came along, but when you needed him, he was always as certain as a rock.

  I looked over at the fuel dock to see how the drama was progressing just in time to see the yacht make it alongside without a hitch. It made for a very anticlimactic ending. The look of disappointment on the dock attendant’s face at the soft touch of hull against the dock was heart rending.

  “Nice job that captain did,” Bill mused.

  Two uniformed crewmen began securing lines from the dock to deck cleats and a dark man in a crisp white uniform vaulted over the boat railing and landed squarely on the dock. He strode heavily down the dock to confront the attendant who sat bolt upright in his chair. The man grabbed him by his shirtfront, jerked him from his chair in one clean motion, and threw him off the dock into the water. A cheer erupted from the bar. The man stood on the dock, looking surprised for a moment, then realized he had an audience for his grand dunking. He smiled, turned toward the bar and took a bow to roaring applause.

  “Even in this era of rush-rush, a little courtesy is still appreciated,” Bill murmured as we got up to go buy my plane ticket. “Who would have thought it?” Then he smiled at me. “Praise to harmony and love. They are best, all else is false.” He shook his head when he saw my quizzical look and said sadly, “A phrase from Richard Eberhart. He’s a poet from Minnesota.”

  “Oh,” I said. “I didn’t know Minnesota had poets.”

  “We really need to work on your education one day, Junior,” Bill said, looking quite serious.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The trip from Trini
dad to Margarita was uneventful. As always, the difficult and expensive part was arranging an early morning taxi ride out to the airport. The planes were the easy part. Still, Trinidad is about as efficient as tropical countries get, and my flight left exactly on time.

  I tried to think about what I would find waiting for me in Venezuela. It was an unproductive exercise. I knew almost nothing about Tim’s situation other than that he’d been charged with murder and had told Maggie he was innocent. I didn’t know who he was supposed to have killed or why. I hadn’t even known that either Tim or Maggie was in Venezuela until her fax. So, my thoughts just ran in pointless circles.

  And of course, I wondered about Maggie. How was she doing? Was there someone new in her life? I wondered all of the usual, potentially painful things. At the end of our conversation she had sounded as if I might have a reason to hope that there might be a future for us, but I was just guessing—reading between the lines. Hope is always nice, but I’ve conned myself enough times to realize it can be treacherous.

  The plane landed in Margarita and I was cleared through customs and immigration quickly. I noticed that there was a commuter flight leaving in an hour, which gave me just enough time to complete the formalities and buy a bottle of duty-free Scotch, Maggie’s drink, and a bottle of Chilean red wine that I’ve always liked but hadn’t been able to find in the stores of Trinidad. In the life I lead, in the places I go, when you run across something you like, you try to buy it. You might not see it again for a long time. It is a simple lesson, but a valuable one too.

  Despite my growing, although necessarily vague, concerns about Tim’s problem and the general chaos that seemed to go with this trip, I was looking forward to seeing Cumaná again. I hadn't been there in a couple of years and undoubtedly it had changed.

  Cumaná is the capital of Venezuela’s Sucre State and boasts of being the oldest town on the South American mainland. However, the settlement on the island of Cubagua is older. Actually, the statement is a bit of a reach. Although the town was, in fact, established by the Spanish in 1521 it has been reduced to rubble by earthquakes three times since then. Not many of the buildings can trace their history back much further than the big quake of 1929. But the families who live there can.

  Despite the semi-regular earthquakes, about two hundred fifty thousand Venezuelans live in Cumaná, and it is a working town—major seaport, mostly for the lumbering fishing boats which work the Caribbean waters. This is where they offload the cargos of tuna and other fish, and this is where the boats get worked on, made ready to go back to the fishing grounds. The work they do in the yards here is industrial strength, rather than yacht quality, but the boys work hard and know their stuff. That’s why, when we could, we brought Irreparable Harm here. Yes, I was looking forward to seeing Cumaná again.

  I just wished I were going there for a haul out and not to tackle something I knew nothing about. Anxiety, it is said, comes from dealing with the unknown. I was dealing with more unknowns than knowns, and the adage seemed to hold true for me.

  Cumaná’s small airport is located a couple of miles out of town, just like airports that serve much larger cities. Everyone wants an airport, but they don’t want it near them. So out of town they go.

  Astoundingly, as this was Venezuela, my flight, which was on one of those sixteen-passenger Italian twin-prop planes, arrived early. As we came to a stop, I looked through the window, checking out the faces looking down at the plane from the observation deck. I couldn’t see Maggie. I wasn’t surprised. Who would expect a Venezuelan airline to be early? I grabbed my duffle bag from a large grumpy man unloading the luggage from the cargo compartment onto the tarmac and headed inside to wait.

  The warm sun felt good on my skin, easing the chill from the overly enthusiastic air conditioning of the airplane. It made me feel as bright and cheerful as the tropical day itself. As I crossed the tarmac, my eye caught sight of a tall and elegant woman standing just inside the waiting room door where we would pass by. She stared intently at the bunch of us deplaning with the air of someone searching for a face she wasn't quite certain of.

  Most of the other passengers on my flight appeared to be German tourists. My seatmate had told me he was on his way to Cumaná as a break from windsurfing in Margarita. They looked the part, with blond hair and bright red skin. I felt incredibly dark among this crop of Aryans. I also felt scruffy. I hadn’t shaved in a couple of days and I always travel in work clothes—khaki pants and shirt, and boots because, well, because I’m a slob and am uncomfortable playing dress up. These people dressed casually, but in new clothes that looked ugly enough to mean they were probably the height of fashion.

  The tall and elegant woman wore a smart business suit. I don’t know much about women’s fashions, but I thought it was smart because it let you know that she knew she had great legs. I guessed her age at near to thirty but, for some reason, she also seemed to be trying to look a little older and wiser than her years, without actually looking older, if you follow that kind of logic. At any rate, I saw an exotic beauty who knew how to use clothes to her advantage and was on some kind of mission. Okay, when it comes to women maybe I’m easily impressed. So, sue me.

  She kept looking from our faces to something she held in her hand. A photo? That made the most sense. The idea crossed my mind that she might work for a tour operation and was there to meet someone she would escort about the city. She looked past me as I approached, so I reluctantly abandoned the nascent ten second sexual fantasy I had built around her and gathered my resolve to walk by her. Suddenly, just as I was alongside, she turned to me and smiled.

  “Mr. Billings?” she asked in perfect English.

  I felt an electric jolt surge through me. Not only did this woman know my name, and was waiting for me in an airport I had no intention of being in only twenty-four hours before, but now I saw she held a photo of me that even I hadn’t seen in ten years—a picture of a younger and altogether too squeaky clean version of me in uniform, fresh out of U.S. Navy SEAL training school. It was a graduation picture. I’d had it made in one of those liberty clip joints off base that parks you in front of an American flag and snaps the shot—a real assembly line. Of course, not only was the photo old, but that kind of photography makes every twenty-year-old look identical. No wonder she hadn’t recognized me right off.

  Now she waited patiently for me to get over my shock and answer her. I moved on inside the terminal so that the phalanx of blond and burnt windsurfers could pass through the door and on to the taxi stands.

  “Yes,” I said finally and hesitantly. “My name is Billings.” I tried very hard—and failed—not to sound surprised. I’m not sure why. Pride, I guess. “Who are you?”

  She smiled and it made her face dance some kind of wild and happy step around black eyes. “I’m Victoria. Victoria López.” She said it holding out her hand and acting as if her name explained everything. “Can I buy you a beer?” Her English was clear and lightly accented—elegant English words put to sexy Spanish music.

  But no matter how pretty she was, or how musical her speech, she had put me on edge. Here I am, showing up in a strange airport on short notice and a beautiful woman holding a picture of me from my Navy days is waiting there to buy me a drink. That, my friends, is not how life normally happens.

  As Ugly Bill always said, “It boggles the mind. It truly does.”

  I tried to make my apologies. “I’m afraid that I am meeting someone, Miss López. Maybe some other time.”

  She laughed and tucked her arm in mine. “I’m afraid that your lady friend has been unavoidably delayed. We have plenty of time for a tall beer and a short chat.” She seemed to have the entire situation nailed down pretty tight.

  “I’m glad someone knows what’s going on. I certainly haven’t a clue. It’s a lovely day for a mystery though. Did you have the weather programmed too?”

  She laughed. “Only by picking Venezuela, mi amor. The country gives us the wonderf
ul weather for free.”

  So that’s how I wound up having a drink at the airport bar, chatting with the lovely Victoria López. Icy cold Polar beer was the choice here, just as it is the only choice in most places in Venezuela. The government supports the brewery, which just happens to be the largest food company as well. Coincidence?

  So, I knew where I was and what I was doing. The important and unanswered question was why? So, I asked it. “Why?”

  She sipped her beer calmly. “Why what? Why is the Venezuelan government flip-flopping between privatizing and then nationalizing companies like it was a kind of Monopoly game? Why does the United States government worry so much about who trades with Cuba? It is Venezuela’s oil, after all.”

  “For the moment I’d settle for knowing why you are buying me this beer. I know I look permanently thirsty, but…”

  She slid her purse from her lap and looped the strap over the back of her chair. “Don’t you want to have a drink with me?” Her eyes mocked me, and her evasiveness began to annoy me.

  “It isn’t a question of whether or not I want to have a drink with you.”

  “No?”

  “I want to know how it is that you knew I’d be here, on this flight, and why you were waiting for me. I feel like I was ambushed.”

  “Ambushed?” I could see the idea amused her. “A woman arranges to meet you and you call that an ambush. A Latin man would never see things that way. It is not flattering, Señor, nor is it very polite. I think you can be quite rude.”

  I nodded. I’ve been called much worse and it didn’t hurt. Besides, I could see by the sparkle in her eyes that my rudeness hadn’t put her off at all. She was toying with me.