The Night Charter

by Sam Hawken

  Inside, he took a booth and accepted the menu from the waitress. He had hoped for a lady who was young and hot and maybe interested in a little something, but this woman was old and heavyset and had a hairy mole on her chin. At least she took his order without trouble and left him alone. Nothing was worse than a chatty waitress without good looks.

  Eventually, she brought him his waffles and bacon and hash browns. Matt put syrup on the waffles and the bacon, too. He liked the crispy salt and the sweet together. He ordered a Coke to go with it, but then changed his mind and asked for Sprite. Sprite had no caffeine.

  He had cleared the hash browns and the bacon and was starting in on his waffles when his eyes strayed to the television bolted to the ceiling in the corner of the dining room. The sound was down, but the picture was clear enough. He saw a reporter doing a stand-up at a police line, a house lit up with floodlights behind her. Matt recognized the house and stopped in midchew.

  When he had first taken the job from the Cubans, he’d managed to follow one of them home. He was one of the young ones, not an old guy like Echave, and he never noticed the Charger creeping along behind him as he went to his pretty little two-story in Coral Way. That day a little girl had been playing on the front lawn with plastic toys as her mother looked on. The Cuban man swept the little girl up in his arms and twirled her around. There were laughter and smiles. Matt drove straight on.

  Now he looked at the text at the bottom of the screen. TWO SLAIN IN HOME INVASION, it read. Matt swallowed.

  His new phone was deep in his pocket, and he clawed at it. It was very late, and dawn wouldn’t be too far off, but he knew when he dialed Echave’s number that the old man would be awake.

  Echave answered before the phone had a chance to ring a second time. “Bueno,” he said.

  “Echave,” Matt said, “you know who this is?”

  Matt heard a sharp intake of air on the other end. When Echave spoke again, his voice was tight. “You son of a bitch. You dishonorable bastard.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You know exactly what I’m talking about. You wouldn’t call otherwise. You’ve killed Pablo, and now you want to gloat. Well, you can go to hell, Mr. Clifford. To hell!”

  There were only a few people in the dining room, but Matt kept his voice down. “Hey, now, you need to get a grip on yourself. I don’t know what anybody is telling you, but I don’t know anything about any murders. I don’t even know who Pablo is. He the one who lives out in Coral Way? The one who got home-invaded?”

  “Don’t play stupid with me, Mr. Clifford,” Echave said. “We know it was you. The message you left was unmistakable. What we don’t understand is why. We already agreed to your terms. We were only waiting for you to tell us where to meet you and make the exchange. There was no reason to kill Pablo, and no reason to kill his wife. You’ve left a child an orphan. But you don’t care, do you? You’re an animal. An animal.”

  “I’ll take the hit for the people I killed, but I didn’t have nothing to do with your boy or his wife. That man’s kid is a baby.”

  “Then you admit you know him!”

  Matt smacked himself in the head and then again. He forced calm into his tone. “I know all kinds of things about you people, but that don’t mean I killed that man. You gotta believe me. I want things to go real smooth from here on out.”

  “Oh, they will go smoothly,” Echave said. “But know this: I will find you wherever our money takes you. I will ensure that you are killed slowly. Your last hours will be the most painful of your life.”

  “You watch what you’re saying. I still have Chapado.”

  “And when will we see him?”

  “Real soon. I’m working out a spot where we can do this privately.”

  “You told us three days!”

  “I’ll make the deadline!” Matt snapped back, more loudly than he intended. A man looked over at him. Matt ducked his head and cupped his hand over the phone. “It’s all gonna go down the way I said. You give me the money, you get Chapado. End of story.”

  “You are a parasite,” Echave said.

  “Keep talking, old man. Maybe I change my mind and decide to off you.”

  “Fuck you!” Echave shouted down the line.

  Matt ended the call and then turned off the phone. He still had food on his plate, but he had no appetite for it now.

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  CAMARO CREPT ALONG the fence line in the dark, picking her way through the scrub and grass by the faint light of the moon. She gripped the Mossberg, conscious of the package from the porn shop in her pocket and a can of spray paint tucked into the back of her jeans. Her boots seemed to make incredible noise no matter how slowly she went. In the end, she simply hurried along and stepped as lightly as she could until she reached the gap in the chain-link fence.

  She ducked inside and jogged through the compound toward the big warehouse in the back. There was no guarantee that this place was still in use. Everything depended on good fortune. Camaro wished it were different.

  Before she set off toward the warehouse complex, she had stopped at a motel in Florida City to prepare for the next step. It was worse even than the place where she kept Lauren but was fairly isolated on a little-used road headed out of town. An old kind of travelers’ stop, it was a single story and had a string of rooms all in a row and a porch out front. Camaro asked for the very last unit and got it. The place was completely deserted. She left ammo behind in the top drawer of the dresser.

  Now she was here, and the warehouses were all dark. Only when she turned the last corner did she see the light in one of the windows of the last structure and knew that Chapado was still there. A Nissan hatchback was parked nearby.

  Camaro slowed up and walked the final distance. She edged along the long wall of the building in order to see from the same spot she had on her last visit. There was no sound of talking. No radio. No anything. Chapado sat in the chair, secured with tape, his chin resting on his chest.

  Turning from the window, she stole backward to the side entrance. It was as Jackson had left it, barely closed and loose in the frame. Camaro one-handed the shotgun and put her fingers to the door, pulling it open gingerly.

  The hinges protested but did not shriek. Rust ground against rust, but unless someone was alert to every sound, they would have missed it entirely. Camaro opened the door just enough for her to slip through it sideways and into the shadows. She eased the door closed behind her.

  She was in among a collection of boxes, all stacked higher than her head. Crouched down in the midst of them she was invisible. Quietly she moved, keeping low, aware of the light shining on the other side of the stacks, careful never to rise where the illumination that cast through the gaps might reveal her.

  It took two minutes for her to work her way into position. She was sidelong to Chapado and could see him between two towers of crates. One column was shorter than the other, and she raised herself up until she could barely peer over the top.

  Soto was there, sitting in a chair reading a magazine. Camaro watched him for a while and saw him rub his eyes with his free hand, the other encased in a cast.

  Ducking once more, she scuttled from cover to cover until she was behind Soto, her back to the little office through which Matt and Parker had come and gone. Out of his line of sight, she straightened and approached from the rear, the shotgun up, until she was ten feet from his chair.

  “Don’t move,” Camaro said.

  He jumped when she spoke, and the magazine tumbled from his fingers. “I’m not moving,” Soto said.

  “Put your hands in the air and get up slowly,” Camaro told him.

  Soto obeyed. “I knew we’d hear from you again,” he said.

  “Shut up. You only talk when I ask you questions. Turn around.”

  He turned and faced her. Behind him, Chapado was awake, his eyes wide in the glare of the portable lights. Camaro ignored the man. She addressed Soto. “Where’s Matt?”

/>   “Gone.”

  “Gone where?”

  “I don’t know. He didn’t tell me.”

  “That’s all right. It doesn’t matter.”

  “You come to kill him?”

  “I might have. If he was here,” Camaro said. “Or maybe not.”

  “What are you gonna do with me?” Soto asked.

  “I’m going to have to shoot you,” Camaro said.

  Soto had a gun in his waistband, and he reached for it with his left hand. His fingers closed around it at the same moment Camaro triggered the shotgun. The blast was deafening, captured and reflected by the metal walls and ceiling of the warehouse, brought crashing back against Camaro where she stood. Soto’s chest split open red, and he flopped onto his back and was still.

  Camaro stepped over with the shotgun ready. Soto was dead.

  “Thank you,” Chapado said. “Thank you for coming.”

  “Quiet,” Camaro said. She could barely hear.

  The shotgun went on Soto’s empty chair. Camaro caught the corpse by both ankles and dragged it out of the light to leave a wide space in front of Chapado, marked with a smearing trail of blood. She took the spray can out and shook it before proceeding to write on the floor. The paint dried quickly, but Camaro was careful not to step in it. Then she put the paint away.

  She drew the karambit from her left boot. It was a forward-curving blade, gripped in the fist in a reverse hold so a forearm slash brought the hook of the edge around like a spur. Camaro didn’t use it on Chapado. Instead, she cut the tape binding his wrists and ankles. She saw the injury on his arm.

  Chapado rubbed his wrists where adhesive still clung to the skin. He looked as though he was about to thank Camaro again, but she silenced him with a look. From her back pocket she brought out the flat package from the porn shop and opened it. A pair of matte-black handcuffs and two keys slipped out. “Get into these,” she told Chapado. “Hands in front.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You don’t have to understand. Just do it.”

  He locked himself into the cuffs. Camaro helped him to his feet. He was unsteady, and he reeked of feces and urine. “Where are you taking me?” he asked.

  “Somewhere safe.”

  Chapter Sixty

  CAMARO BROUGHT LAUREN to the remote motel only a little before dawn. The sky was already pink in the east. It seemed like it had been forever since she slept. Together they cleared out the saddlebags of their stuff and went inside. Lauren saw Chapado immediately.

  He was handcuffed to a pipe beneath the sink in the room’s small bathroom with his hands behind his back. A wad of washcloth had been stuffed into his mouth deep enough that it could not be spat out. The room was redolent with his smells.

  “Oh, my God,” Lauren said. “Who is that?”

  “That’s the man who got your dad killed. He’s the reason we’re hiding out,” Camaro said.

  “He killed my dad?”

  “No, but he’s why.”

  Camaro put her phones on the nightstand and tucked the shotgun between the bed and the wall in a way that she could get it if she needed it. She went to the bathroom and yanked the washcloth from Chapado’s mouth. “You all right?” she asked. “You need water? Got to use the toilet?”

  “Water, please,” Chapado said.

  This motel room did not supply glasses but gave their guests plastic cups in separate wrappers. Camaro tore one open and filled it from the tap. She saw Lauren watching them, frozen by the door, her eyes feral. “What is it?” Camaro asked.

  “You should kill him,” Lauren said.

  “No,” Camaro said. “Not him. Him we want alive. Your dad died because there are people who want this guy no matter who they have to kill. Matt played games with them. Now none of them have him. As long as we have this guy, we have power.”

  She helped Chapado drink. The man gulped at the water. When the cup was empty, he said, “You know who my people are. If it’s money you want, they will give it to you. I’ll tell them you saved me. They won’t try to hurt you. I promise!”

  Camaro crouched on the bathroom floor beside him. She held up the cup. “You want more?”

  “Yes.”

  The cup was filled again and Chapado drank. Some escaped his lips and trickled down his chin onto his sweat-soaked and dirty shirt. Camaro noticed he had some of Soto’s blood on him. “There’s no reason to keep me,” Chapado told her. “This can all be made right.”

  “I don’t need your help to make things right,” Camaro said. “I just need you alive for a couple of days. Let me see your arm.”

  Chapado twisted his wrists around so Camaro could examine his wound. It was deep, but not so deep that stitches were needed. The flesh was swollen and an angry red. Two flaps of skin were completely loose. “That man, he tortured me,” Chapado said.

  “These look like they might be getting infected,” Camaro said. “They have to be cleaned out.”

  She left Chapado in the bathroom and went to the room’s small desk. There was stationery in the drawer, along with a Bible and a pair of pencils, both sharp. She sat and scribbled a few things down. Lauren was still by the door. Camaro handed her the sheet of paper. “What’s this?” Lauren asked.

  “It’s a list of supplies. There’s not a whole lot I need. I saw a drugstore about a mile or so back up the main road. I want you to walk down there when they’re open and pick this stuff up.”

  “I thought you didn’t want people to see me.”

  “There’s no one out here who’d recognize you. It’ll be all right. I don’t want to leave you here alone with him if I don’t have to.”

  “Is he dangerous?”

  “Not locked up, but I don’t want to take the chance.”

  Lauren accepted the paper. She folded it in half twice and put it in her pocket. Finally, she left the door and went to sit on the bed. In this room there was only one. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll do it.”

  “Hey, you,” Camaro said to Chapado. “You want to take a shower?”

  “Very much.”

  Camaro went to the bathroom with the key to the cuffs. “I’ll let you loose for five minutes. You try and get out of this room, I’ll break your arm.”

  “My clothes…they’re filthy.”

  “There’s nothing I can do about that. Make sure you wash that arm with plenty of soap. We’ll take care of it better later.”

  She unfastened the cuffs. Chapado stood slowly. “Thank you.”

  “Five minutes,” Camaro said, and she closed the door.

  Chapter Sixty-One

  MATT SLEPT A few uneasy hours in an Econo Lodge in Homestead. The room was clean and nice, but all he could smell when he woke up was stale cigarette smoke and sweat. If he showered, he would just have to put on the same clothes again, which made the whole thing pointless. Instead, he washed his face and his hands and got his hair wet in the sink. Enough to feel a little fresher, but that was all.

  He got back on the road earlier than he expected and made his way south out of town to the warehouse. Nothing was disturbed at the gate, and the Nissan Soto had borrowed or stolen was in the same place it had been the night before.

  “Hey, Sandro!” Matt called as he went in through the office. “Hey! You awake? The relief is here!”

  There was no answer. He came into the warehouse itself and saw the blood. After that he saw Soto.

  Soto’s gun was still lodged in his waistband. His shirt was a sodden, shredded mess. Blood had expanded beneath him into a pool almost six feet across. Little flies were already buzzing around the rich, dark red liquid, looking to feast.

  A long trail traced back to where Chapado had been held. Matt’s heart seized in his chest when he saw the chair empty, the shiny gray duct tape hanging limply. “Oh, shit,” he said.

  He advanced into the circle, unable to take his eyes off the chair, as if he could magic Chapado back into place if only he concentrated hard enough. Cold sensations passed through his arms and leg
s. Sweat sprang up on his face and trickled down from his pits, as though he had run a mile in the heat.

  Matt looked back toward Soto, then whirled around on the chair again. Chapado still wasn’t there. He glanced downward toward his feet and saw a yellow letter on the concrete: a capital C.

  The message CALL ME was large and spray-painted in careful print. Underneath the letters was a telephone number. His pulse beat in his temples, and he pressed the heels of his palms against them to contain the pressure that built there. Matt knew he was breathing too quickly. Everything had a silvery sheen to it, the sign of hyperventilation. He turned around and around.

  Only when the moment had passed did Matt bring out his phone. He looked at the number a second time, then tapped it in. He listened to the line ring. He recognized the bitch’s voice the moment she answered. “Hello, Matt,” she said.

  “What the fuck have you done with him?” Matt demanded.

  “With who?”

  “You know goddamned well who! What did you do with Chapado?”

  “I knew you’d care more about him than about your friend.”

  “Oh, I’m thinking about him. I’m thinking you’re gonna die screaming. I saw you killed Sandro before he could get to his piece.”

  “He was dead the minute he tried for it,” Camaro said. Her voice was flat.

  “You are nuts. You don’t know who you’re dealing with.”

  “I think I know exactly who I’m dealing with. And now you know I’m serious.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I want you to squirm,” Camaro said.

  Matt gritted his teeth. His jaw muscles stood out, and he felt a stab of pain in his head from the strain. He forced his mouth open. “What good is that gonna do?” he asked.