Martin Billings Caribbean Crime Thrillers

by Ed Teja

  I thought, trying to piece the days together. “Let’s see. Maggie dropped me off in the afternoon and I walked to María’s house. I wasn’t there long. She didn’t have much to say that I wanted to hear.” I reviewed the morning. “Some guy, a tall gringo, was watching her house. I don’t know who he was, but when I left, I walked to the jail to see if he’d follow. He didn’t. I bought cigarettes at a bodega, got to the jail about five. I talked with Tim and then went back to Mochima.”

  “Did your brother say anything helpful? Anything new?”

  “No, I asked him about the gringo. He claimed not to know who he was, and I think that was the truth. He wasn’t at all interested in him.” Wilfredo nodded. “So, I left Tim before six, but I’m not sure of the exact time.”

  “That will be in the record book. Did you see anyone you know after that?”

  I thought for a while before I remembered. “Chris!”

  “Who?”

  “The man Tim worked for in the ecology group.”

  “You talked to him.” I nodded. Wilfredo thought for a time. Then he stubbed out his cigarette. “I am sure that is fine,” he said. “I’ll make some inquiries about the mysterious gringo.” I nodded. He took a small spiral notebook out of his pocket. “Give me as complete a description of him as you can.”

  I did and he seemed satisfied. He snapped the notebook shut, put his pen in his shirt pocket and took out his cigarettes. “I think you should stay in Cumaná,” he said. “I don’t like you being on a boat in Mochima. You should remain someplace where I can reach you without great inconvenience.”

  “And someplace I might find difficult to leave the country from in a great hurry? Are you concerned that my being on a boat might make a hurried departure tempting if things got hot?”

  He nodded. “This too.”

  I smiled. “I am glad to accommodate you. Perhaps you will find it simpler to share information with me if I am close at hand as well. At the moment all my things are in Mochima, but I could move to a hotel in the morning.”

  “That would be fine. Call me tomorrow after you’ve settled in.” He smiled, turning up the corners of his mouth and wrinkling his chubby cheeks. “I do like cooperation.”

  I couldn’t face going right back to the jail to give Tim the bad news about María. And before he’d left, Wilfredo had promised he would wait to give me a chance to tell him myself. He seemed like a good cop. I’m sure that in his time he had to give more than his fair share of bad news to people. He might even have preferred that I did it for him.

  I took a taxi back to El Indio and caught the jeep to Mochima, all the way back thinking about how backwards the investigation was going. I knew of a few suspects but no real names and few faces. My major accomplishment had been getting implicated in María’s murder. I didn’t even know why anyone might have thought María knew where Ramón or his drugs were.

  I had thought she was telling the truth and I couldn’t imagine a practical girl like that letting someone torture her, much less kill her, if she could stop them by simply telling them what they wanted to know.

  Back in Mochima, I hopped off the jeep in front of El Mochimero and paid the fare, then went into the restaurant. I was looking forward to a cold beer. Maggie was there, sitting at a table that overlooked the bay. She had a plate of calamari and a glass of red wine in front of her. I plopped down at the table and let the sea breeze do its best to refresh me.

  “Had a hard day at the office?” she asked.

  I called for a beer before saying, “You won’t believe how hard.” As I told her about my day, her eyes grew wide.

  “My God, Martin. I should never have gotten you involved in this mess.”

  “Nothing’s changed, Mag. I just stepped in some horseshit as I usually do. If I’m lucky, all that means is that now I know what kind of crap to keep my eyes open for.”

  “I didn’t think Tim would lie. I’m sure he wouldn’t if it could mean that you would be risking your own life.”

  I sipped my cold Brahma. It was nearly frozen. “You know, Mag, I can’t believe that Tim got mixed up in any of this on purpose. None of the bad stuff sounds like him. My little brother has always been lazy. He hasn’t been in trouble by being evil.

  Trying to deal a whole shipment of drugs is just too ambitious for him, not his style at all. On top of that, he does seem to care about that ugly dude, Ramón.” I shook my head. “The things I know, and the things I believe keep colliding with what everyone else thinks. Tim has been trouble, all right, but this is not his kind of thing.”

  Maggie smiled and said nothing. I could feel her relief. We sat there for a time, enjoying the peace. I planned to have another beer before we went back to the boat and was in no rush. It would be my last day in Mochima for a while.

  I heard some customers come in, heard the scraping of chairs on the concrete floor, the low-level murmur of voices as people decided where to sit. I turned to look and saw three men. Two of them I’d never seen before, although they could’ve been from the same litter as Pancho’s El Bruto Brothers, but I knew the third. It was the gangly gringo from the panadería. The two heavyset men ordered Polar beers as they sat down a couple of tables away, facing us. The gringo, wearing shorts, sandals, a bright red shirt, his reflector shades and a baseball cap that advertised Caribbean rum, smiled at us, then went to the bar.

  “Curtain time,” I whispered to Maggie.

  She grabbed my hand under the table and took a deep breath. “That’s the one you mentioned?”

  “The very one. This is no coincidence.”

  “Okay,” she said. “I’m ready for them.”

  The gringo took long, languid strides over to our table, carrying a tall drink with ice cubes in it. When he got to the table, he pulled out a chair and sat down. “Highball,” he said.

  “I don’t care what you drink,” I told him.

  He surprised me by laughing. And it was a pleasant, lyrical laugh, not the high-pitched cackle I expected. “No,” he said. “The drink is straight whiskey, no mixer. Highball is the name, my name. I’m Highball.”

  “We were having a private conversation,” Maggie snapped.

  He smiled and leaned an elbow on the table. “Oh, I don’t doubt that at all. But this is more important.”

  “To whom?” she asked. I felt proud of her.

  “Why, to me, and to you two, if young Tim means diddly to you. I have some business to transact with the boy.”

  “You have business with Tim, why don’t you go to the jail and talk to him?”

  “That would be inconvenient,” he said. He took a long swallow of his drink. “They have shitty whiskey in this country. Have you noticed?”

  “No.”

  “As I said, it is shitty. I understand they put salt in it. Can you believe that?”

  “Why inconvenient?” Maggie asked.

  He smiled. “Yes, it would be very inconvenient for me to go to the jail. And why should I do anything as inconvenient as that when you can satisfy me just as well?”

  “I doubt I can help you.”

  “But you can. I don’t need you to do very fucking much, you know. Just tell me how I can get in touch with that turd Ramón. The young idiot entrepreneur seems to have disappeared. But I am sure that his partner knows where I can find him. This is an urgent business matter, after all.”

  “I wouldn’t want to get in the way of commerce, but I can’t help you.” I said. “Tim tells me he knows the guy, but not well, and I don’t know him at all.”

  He smiled again, but it was a much more twisted smile this time, more sinister. “Oh, Martin, I’m hurt that you’d lie to me like that in front of a lady. Truly hurt. I myself saw the two of you together near the jail.”

  “Was that Ramón? He didn’t introduce himself.” I tried to sound casual.

  “A man that ugly doesn’t need to. He would never need business cards either.” His drink was half gone and he swirled the
ice around in the glass. He seemed unable to hold still. “You need to think about this a bit more,” he said. “I am reasonable. I am. Just tell your brother, or Ramón, whichever is quickest, that I want to make a purchase. Just tell him that simple thing. There is no reason for you to get further involved.”

  He rubbed his chin. “I know you don’t want to play. You are a squeaky clean kinda guy, as I understand. But I might mention that it was unfortunate that María didn’t want to say anything, either. Although I am sure that she enjoyed the first part of our encounter,” he winked at me. “What woman doesn’t, even if they scream at the time? I’m sure she regretted her decision later. But by then, I’m afraid it was much too late to change her mind. A shame, too. She was a wild thing on that bed.”

  I felt Maggie’s arm cross me, reminding me to control myself. Her timing was good—I had been about to cripple him, but then I would’ve had to fight the other two as well. Still, I couldn’t help measuring them and then picturing how easy it would be to reach across the table and rip Highball’s larynx out before they could react. It protruded more than most, making a lovely target, especially when he swallowed, which he did often.

  Finally, he stood, and his thugs stood as if on cue. “Well, thanks for the conversation, and the drinks, sports. I’ve asked the waiter to put it on your tab, seeing as we are all friends.”

  I was happy to pay for the drinks. It meant they could leave faster.

  “Why is it everyone thinks Tim knows where Ramón is?” Maggie sighed.

  I shrugged. “Just because he put himself into a bad spot, helping Ramón. No one will believe he was just being a nice guy.”

  She nodded. “We will have to tell him about María tomorrow.”

  “We, Maggie?”

  “I can’t let you do it alone.”

  “Thanks.”

  We paid our tab and went back to the boat noting that a long, hard day had managed to get even longer and harder.

  CHAPTER SIX

  On Saturday morning, Maggie and I managed to find me a decent room in an unremarkable hotel on Calle Mariño. Its greatest virtue was convenience. I was just a few blocks, an easy walk, from the jail and fairly central for almost anything in Cumaná. It was a reasonable compromise between cost and comfort, one of those places that had once been a quality establishment and now just a bit rundown and shabby. At least, they didn’t suggest an hourly rental.

  “Pretty basic,” Maggie said, “but it should do.”

  “Except that you won’t be here.”

  She bounced on the bed, making it squeak. “Martin, we’ve had some good times since you got here. Some just for fun, some because we both needed someone. But it doesn’t change things a bit. I don’t want to be your steady girlfriend. I don’t want to be joined at the hip, or even at other, more sensual anatomical junctures. Can’t we be mates who sometimes enjoy a nice time in bed?”

  I shrugged, trying to act out an indifference I didn’t feel. “I guess I’ll adjust.”

  “If you have to be here long, I’ll come spend some nights with you, but you’ve got work to do and so do I, and they aren’t the same work. You are playing investigator and I’ve got my boat to take care of. I’ll be in to help whenever I can.”

  There wasn’t much else to say, so we locked my bag in the room and walked down to the jail. Between Maggie’s refusal to believe the seriousness of my emotional attachment and the mission we were on, I felt pretty low.

  I don’t like giving people bad news, and I don’t do it all that well. I do my best to avoid having to do it. On the other hand, I didn’t have the right to keep the tragedy of María’s death from Tim. I already felt enough guilt from having postponed telling him for one day.

  We stopped in the park for an orange juice and I saw Wilfredo standing outside the door, one foot propped up on the wall behind him, his arms crossed. I recognized a waiting posture when I saw it. I went over to him. Instead of smiling, he led us back into the park where there was an empty bench.

  “Sit down,” he said.

  “What is it?” I asked, sure that I was about to hear more bad news.

  “You can’t see your brother.”

  “Why not?”

  He shifted his weight from foot to foot, then blurted out, “Tim is in the hospital.” I could see that he was no better at delivering bad news than I was, and as the shock wore off, I felt as bad for him as I did for myself. “I’m sorry. His condition is very serious.”

  “What happened?”

  Wilfredo shrugged. “The witnesses say he fell down some stairs. The doctor says he was given a severe beating. Whatever the truth is, in the process he hit his head, or was hit in the head many times. He is in a coma and may lose an eye.”

  “Will he live?” Maggie asked.

  Wilfredo grimaced. “The doctors don’t know yet. They must stabilize him before they can operate. After the surgery they will be able to say more.”

  I jumped up and began pacing up and down the park. “Damn it, Wilfredo, it’s either Pancho’s people or someone working for that gringo. He came to Mochima yesterday and threatened Tim’s life, saying he’d better talk, after telling us he raped and murdered María.”

  “But, Martin,” Maggie said. “It wouldn’t be Highball. He wanted us to have time to talk to Tim before doing anything.”

  Her quick appraisal caught me off guard. “Maybe he got impatient.”

  “Now Highball will think you know where the drugs are,” Maggie said.

  “Why?” Wilfredo asked.

  We told him about the short, poignant chat we’d had with Highball. Wilfredo pulled out his notebook and wrote down sporadic notes.

  “In the end, they don’t care if they are mistaken about Tim or me knowing. It costs them little to tear a person apart to find out what they know, and the potential rewards are high.”

  “True,” Wilfredo said. “We must hope your brother told them what they want to know.”

  “He couldn’t,” I said. Wilfredo said nothing but waited for me to explain. I decided that I had to trust Wilfredo, or at least trust that he would be more help if he knew everything I did. “Okay, Tim admitted to me that he kept the small bag of drugs for Ramón and that he was with Ramón the morning Antonio was killed. But he made a point of not knowing anything about what Ramón was doing.”

  Wilfredo thought about that for a while. “If Antonio’s death was over drugs, and Ramón was involved but not Tim Billings, then I am confused. The killer couldn’t have been either Pancho or Highball because neither of them has the drugs, and they think Ramón does. If either had the drugs, I would say he was the killer—that they stole the drugs and killed Antonio because they knew he saw something. But instead of selling the drugs to either of them and buying his escape, Ramón hides in Cumaná. And if he and Tim were together in Cumaná when Antonio was killed, that would eliminate them. So, we have missing drugs, an unknown killer with no motive, and more murders and enough attempted murders to tell us everyone else is as confused as we are.” He shook his head. “This is very bad.”

  “Perhaps the murder has nothing to do with the drugs,” Maggie said. “Think it through that way and maybe it will make sense. Or perhaps this Ramón, whom everyone says is a coward is too cowardly to kill, hired himself a hit man.”

  Wilfredo stroked his chin. “I don’t believe either of those ideas. But I will consider them. But I must also consider the possibility that Tim stole the drugs, killed Antonio and now is being assaulted because he won’t give the drugs up.”

  “Then there is still someone else, or one of the people we know of had another reason to kill Antonio,” I said.

  “What about Victoria López?” Maggie said.

  Wilfredo raised an eyebrow. I had forgotten to tell him about her. We filled him in. Since she was the only new lead, Wilfredo copied the information from her business card and said he would run a check on her.

  “Assuming this is her real name,
I should be able to find out something today.” He left for his office promising to call the hotel if he learned anything or if there was a change in Tim’s condition.

  There was no chance of the surgery starting before late afternoon and it was getting near lunchtime, so we caught a taxi and went to El Centro where we ate in a little restaurant with the incongruous name of The North Pole.

  Over lunch Maggie seemed to fumble with her words. “Martin,” she said, “I’m sorry if this sounds like I’m deserting you, or Tim, but I called my agent and learned that I’ve got a charter that came up suddenly. Actually, Chris came up with a referral, which is amazing. It’s just for two days, but it starts tomorrow, and it will take the rest of the day for me to get the boat ready. I’ve got to…” she stopped. “You know the drill. A million details to take care of.”

  “Sure,” I agreed. I was disappointed that she’d be taking off, but I knew that there wasn’t much for her to do beyond keeping me buoyed up. By letting her get away from the day to day she might get some new ideas, some new perspectives. We could use as many of those as we could get. “Have a good charter. Get big tips.”

  She smiled. “I’ll keep up on Tim’s condition by phone. One of the guests is bound to have a cellular phone. It’s a Venezuelan charter.”

  “Great,” I said, but somehow didn’t feel great.

  With nothing better to do, after lunch I walked the hot sidewalks back toward the hotel. I wanted to be close to the phone in case the doctor or Wilfredo called, but I couldn’t bring myself to rush either. Maybe it was the heat. I stopped at a street vendor’s stall and bought a notepad and a couple of pens. I wanted to write down everything I thought I knew about the murders, the drugs, the people, and see if I could get any of the ciphers to add up to something useful. I decided I could explore the avenues that it seemed Wilfredo was less eager to follow.

  The air-conditioned lobby of the hotel felt welcoming after the afternoon heat. I went up to my room and sat on the bed. I kicked off my shoes and told myself I’d been a fool for letting Maggie get up off the bed with her clothes still on. A little dallying delay on the bed wouldn’t have hurt anything and then at least one thing good would’ve happened to me that day.