by dannal
Everest Walsh laughed with deep belly-rippling laughter. “Well, all right,” he said. “You got it all figured out. Well done. May I take a peek?”
“Sure,” Max said. He wondered if he should escalate things now. He could take out both Tito and Walsh in two seconds with his FNS pistol. Instead, he followed Walsh and Tito down the hall.
Everest Walsh stepped into the room ahead of Max. “Wow,” he said.
Max’s stomach buzzed with nervous energy. He stepped into the office behind Tito. His jaw dropped.
The mammoth desk Max had toppled now stood upright, its top covered with a smattering of disorganized papers. There were even some antique rum bottles to replace the old, broken ones. Max’s eyes gazed around the room. The broken floor lamp was gone, along with the bullet-riddled armchair. Even the bullet holes in the walls and floor had been carefully filled with either spackling putty or wood filler.
While Max had been asleep, Josue must have spent hours fixing the room for this very moment. And now Walsh looked at Max with a broad smile.
Max was curious. What was he smiling about? Max looked down at his desktop where a half-empty box of Don Legado cigars sat open with one half-smoked and stamped out into a glass ash tray.
“You’re all right, Max,” Walsh said, slapping Max on the back with a skin-tingling crack.
“Enough of this mundane crap,” Max said, rolling the dice. “I am absolutely on pins and needles to show you my distillery.”
“Well, let’s go see it, son,” Walsh beamed.
Max led Walsh and Tito through the kitchen and out onto the grass behind the villa. “This cane pile is all that’s left from the batch me and Josue distilled a few days ago,” Max said.
He led Walsh down the wooden steps into the subterranean distillery. Max noticed a smidgen of blood on the cavern floor, where Max had broken the nose of the thug from La Maison de Verre. He hoped the drug trafficker wouldn’t notice.
Of course, the tripwire for the C-4 bomb had been disarmed and removed for Walsh’s visit.
“This is absolutely incredible, Max,” Walsh said, with what sounded like genuine admiration. “This still is a piece of art, my friend. And you’ve got barrels aging and cases and cases of Fleur de Lis everywhere.”
“Thanks, Everest,” Max said. “I’m glad that a real rum connoisseur like you approves.”
“I want it all, Max,” Walsh said. Max noticed that he wasn’t smiling or giving any sense that he was joking.
“What?” Max asked.
“I want all of the rum. Name your price.”
“Well, I don’t know,” Max said, having strange feelings about the rum. It had always been just a means to draw Walsh and the others to him, but now, now that he was faced with the thought of letting all of it go, Max realized that it might actually mean something to him. The thought of selling all of his rum to Everest Walsh made him sick. But he could not let his feelings interfere with his end game.
“I usually get about one-fifty a bottle,” Max said.
“Done,” Walsh said. “You’ll get cash as soon as the product is loaded onto my yacht.”
“I’m having a lunch catered for us at noon,” Max said. “There’s a beach bar nearby with great food, and I convinced them to deliver lunch directly to my dock. It only cost me two bottles of rhum vieux.”
Walsh chuckled, and looked back over the stack of rum barrels and cases of bottled rum. “I hope you already paid ’em, ’cause all of this is mine.”
Max laughed good-naturedly. “If you fellows would like to head up to the front porch, we can have a cigar and a glass of rum while we wait.”
Walsh, Tito, and Max headed up the steps into daylight. Max heard a voice crackling in his ear. His instincts told him to say, “What?” but he resisted the urge. Walsh and Tito didn’t know he had a communication device in his ear.
“I found de Losa,” Josue said. “He checked in at hotel in Le Francois.”
Josue was trained to know that if he heard no reply from Max, it meant that Max was unable to speak.
“He visited woman in the hotel,” Josue continued. “I think is his mistress.”
Mi reina hermosa, Max thought.
“De Losa just left, actually,” Josue added. “Taxi driver told me that he checked in about four a.m. Just the mistress is in the room now. When you can talk. Let me know what you like me to do.”
Max made Everest Walsh and Tito comfortable on the porch. “Food should be here in about ten minutes,” Max said. “Meantime, I’ll get those drinks.”
Max headed into the kitchen, and pulled a pitcher of orange juice and a bottle of pineapple juice out of the fridge and placed them on the hardwood island. “Read me, Josue?”
“Yes, Boss.”
“See if you can distract the mistress, maybe get her out of the room,” Max said in a low voice, always keeping his eye out for someone coming through the kitchen door. “Do you think you can get into the room? Poke around, see whatever you can find out about her.”
“Roger that,” Josue said.
Max mixed up planter’s punches made with Dillon Rhum Blanc 50° and placed them on a silver tray. It burned him that de Losa wasn’t present so that he could drop the powdered ricin into the man’s drink, sealing his fate. Guess that’ll have to come later, Max thought.
He took the drinks out to Walsh and Tito, who were seated on the cushioned wicker chairs on the porch, then he sat down with them.
Everest Walsh took his glass from the tray. “I want you to deliver the rum to my yacht tomorrow morning,” he said. “Is that going to be a problem?”
Max took a sip of his drink and shook his head, “No, sir. Josue and I can start bringing them out first thing in the morning. It will likely take a few hours, and several trips with my boat.”
“That works for me,” Walsh said. “I’m not sure when we will be shoving off back to the D.R., and I would like to have the rum loaded up and ready for when we decide to do so.”
Max nodded.
“I promise. Come morning, Josue and I will be ready.”
“Did you see power catamaran anchored off of Ilet Boisseau?” Josue asked. He had returned from his surveillance of Marquise de Losa and his mistress, and now sat at the villa’s kitchen table with Max, nibbling on some of the leftover charcuterie, cut fruit, and freshly baked bread that Maisie had had delivered for Max’s catered lunch with Everest Walsh.
“No,” Max said. “Suspicious?”
“Don’t see as many tourists anchoring boats on this side of island. Strange to me their anchorage is right between us and big Snowy Lady yacht.”
“Show me,” Max said, his eyes narrowed with concern.
Josue tapped, pinched, and double-clicked on the big tablet that lay on the kitchen table. He controlled one of the cameras, tilting it and zooming in tighter until he was locked on to a forty-five-foot or so diesel-powered catamaran, anchored just off the coast of the ilet nearest Max’s.
“Can you zoom in a bit more?” Max asked. “On the bow.”
Josue controlled the camera until it had zoomed in tightly enough that three black men were visible, sunning themselves on the catamaran’s wide bow area. Josue tapped a button to start the camera recording.
“Well, keep an eye on ’em,” Max said, popping a slice of cheese in his mouth. “Hopefully they’re just pleasure cruisers. Report anything you see that’s out of the ordinary. Okay? Don’t keep anything to yourself.”
Josue nodded and refilled his coffee cup from a half-empty French press.
“Walsh bought all of the rum,” Max said.
“Seriously?” Josue asked. “All of it?”
“Aging barrels and everything,” Max said. “We’re delivering it tomorrow morning, early. We should try to get it done before Walsh even wakes up. Probably won’t get up until ten or eleven.”
“What is our next move with these men?” Josue asked, before taking a sip from his steaming cup. “Besides delivering them a bunch of rum.”
>
“What did you find out at the hotel room of de Losa’s mistress? Anything we can use?” Max, at first, didn’t realize that he rubbed his hands together vigorously under the table as he asked. When he did, it made him feel a bit like a cartoon villain.
“Oh, that was fun,” Josue said, a mischievous grin taking over his face. “I pull fire alarm in hallway of hotel. Everyone evacuates and I slip into her room. She leave her purse in the room. From what I can gather, she is cocktail waitress at nightclub in Fort de France. De Losa must have called her to meet at hotel in Le Francois since that is close to Snowy Lady.”
“Wow,” Max said with a grin. “I’ve always wanted to do that, pull the fire alarm. What was in the purse?”
“I check her phone. Mostly recent calls from de Losa. Seem to call her every couple of hours. Phone actually rings when I’m holding it. Funny ringtone. It was a country western song, I’d bet my boots, I was meant for you…or something silly like that.”
Max stared out the window for a moment, lost in deep thought. “Do you think you could get back there and steal her phone?” Max asked. “I’ve got an idea, and it involves the phone. But you’ve got to take it as closely as possible to the time when we deliver the rum tomorrow. Do you think that will work?”
“I make it happen,” Josue said. “No matter what.”
“Good man,” Max said. “If my plan works, we’ll just have de Losa and Walsh left to worry about. I’m planning on slipping the ricin powder into de Losa’s drink after we deliver the rum. The entire situation should all be done and dusted by the time the sun goes down tomorrow. Then, it’ll be Miller time.”
“Miller time?” Josue asked.
“Miller time. It’s an American expression.”
Butterflies fluttered in Max’s stomach. Now that all the action had started, he didn’t know if he was ready for it to be over. Six years had passed since his Lovelle, Lucy, and Lionel were gunned down on that hot and fateful Florida afternoon. He had only just met Walsh and his men. It was hard to believe one of them was already dead, and the rest would not be long in following.
Max’s phone rang. Who the hell would call me now? he thought. He looked at the smartphone’s display and saw a picture of Isobel Greer. When did I add her to my contacts? Max decided the free-spirited Scot must have grabbed his phone when he had stepped into the men’s room at dinner the other night, snapped the picture, and added herself to his list. Cute girl.
Max tapped the answer button. “Yes?”
“Max?”
“Yeah, it’s me. What’s up, Isobel?” Max thought he had made it clear that the two of them had no future. He didn’t want their situation to drag on and become even more complicated.
“Max, I don’t like how we ended our last conversation,” Isobel’s Scottish accent sounded thicker today, Max guessed it had to do with the stress apparent in her voice. “And there is something important that I need to discuss with you. Is there any chance I could meet with you, so we can talk? I really think we need to talk.”
“I’ve got a lot on my plate right now,” Isobel. “Maybe I can get free and meet you in a few days.”
“No, Max,” Isobel protested. “It has to be now, today.”
“Why don’t you just tell me who you’re running away from, Isobel,” Max said, leaning back in the cushioned seat of his kitchen’s breakfast nook.
“What?” Isobel asked, sounding surprised.
“Isobel, you told me all the places you’ve lived, the fact that you have a penchant for getting involved with dangerous men. I know you came here to get away from somebody. But I can’t help you if you don’t tell me about them.” Max’s volume was getting louder as his patience grew shorter.
“I…I don’t know,” Isobel said. “Can’t we meet and talk?
“Isobel, if you can’t answer my question now, then we have nothing further to talk about.
“Please. Just—”
“Who is it? Are they here now, on Martinique?”
“I can’t tell you. You’ll kill him, or he’ll kill you.”
“Goodbye, Isobel.” Max tapped the red button to hang up the call. He’d be better off without the burden of another person in his life whom he had to protect. Because, what if he couldn’t? Max didn’t think he could take it if he let a woman like Isobel into his life, only to lose her as he had lost everyone else. The pain and loss would be too much to bear.
“Sorry, Boss,” Josue said.
“It’s all right,” Max said, setting the phone down on the kitchen table. “Sometimes you just have to let go.”
Momo stepped out of the head in his stateroom, followed by a cloud of steam that whooshed out the door behind him. He toweled off and got dressed in black basketball shorts and a fitted Under Armor t-shirt. He placed a Florida Marlins baseball cap on his head and checked his Desert Eagle. After seeing the shiny brass in the chamber, he tucked the weapon into his waistband and climbed through the companionway to the catamaran’s salon.
“What the hell is this?” Momo asked, stepping out into a thick cloud of marijuana smoke so dense, he could barely see a foot in front of his face. “Open a window, fools.”
Zann opened the doors at the rear of the salon so that the rear of the galley was wide open to the outside air. A rush of fresh air flowed in and dissipated the thick smoke as Momo stepped through to the rear deck and picked up a pair of binoculars he had bought at Walmart on 79th Street before they had left Miami.
Darkness had encompassed the cluster of small islands that littered the bay in front of Le Robert, except for a smattering of lights from the sloping city itself. A sliver of moon offered some light, but Momo wondered if they’d even be able to see a thing before the sun came up in a few hours.
“I can’t see squat,” Momo said. He twisted the zoom ring and the focus ring until he had acquired the long white pier that stretched out from the densely overgrown ilet they surveilled. It loomed not two hundred yards away.
“You ain’t usin’ ’em right, Momo,” Tiny Deege said. “You gotta take off them lens caps afore you look through.”
“I’m usin’ it right, chump,” Momo scolded. “There just ain’t nothin’ to see. The trees and bushes and whatnot is makin’ it impossible to view anything. Suppose our only hope is to keep an eye out an’ wait till he gets on that blue boat to go somewhere.”
“Yo, Momo, that’s how we should travel on our next trip,” Zann said. He pointed through the windows in front of the catamaran’s control console inside the salon. A massive yacht sat anchored a few hundred yards in front of the catamaran, dominating the horizon like a huge monolith of shiny white and black. Bright white LED lights on board the vessel illuminated its magnificence, making the imposing vessel look almost unreal. “That’s cruisin’ in style, dig?”
Tiny Deege clasped hands with Zann. “Yo, that’s what I’m talkin’ ’bout.”
Momo was ready for this trip to be over. Close quarters with Zann, Tiny Deege, and Reggie were definitely taking a toll on Momo’s peace of mind. Between the constant arguing, the untidiness, the general smell created by the group of men, Momo was certain he had had just about enough. He couldn’t wait to get rid of Josue Remy for good, and to move on with his life as the leader of the gang.
Maybe he would send the others back to Miami with the catamaran while he stayed behind and established a presence for Ti Flow on Martinique. There must be some kind of legit work he could get his hands on here: slinging coke, armed robbery, maybe he could even get a human trafficking line set up between the island and Little Haiti back home. Now that he had gotten a taste of what living in paradise was like, Momo didn’t know if he could go back.
“Listen up, fellas,” Momo said, addressing the entire group. Tiny Deege and Zann had sat down at the bar in the galley facing the rear deck. Reggie, sitting in the salon playing video games, barely looked up. “We take turns watching the dock. Four hours at a time, then we change. You see movement, you come and get me. Dig?”
> Everyone nodded.
“Josue leaves the island, me and Zann gonna take the Sea-Doo and follow him,” Momo said, commandingly. The catamaran rental had included the use of a personal watercraft to transfer between anchorages and the shore. The Sea-Doo hung suspended out of the water behind the rear deck by an electric winch. “We get a chance, we gonna approach Josue, we Tase him, then we grab him. Then we bring him back here. Any questions?
“Tiny Deege, I’m puttin’ you in charge of getting everything ready for when we get back here with Josue,” Momo continued. “Put down the plastic sheeting in my stateroom. You get out the ropes we gonna tie him to the chair with, the extension cords we gonna whip him with, the Drano and the funnel, the hammer, and the vice grips. Oh yeah, don’t forget to have the blow torch ready to go too; check it to make sure the propane tank full. We gonna make this sucka pay for his disloyalty. And then we gonna smoke him. This is what happens you dis the Flow. Dig?
“Reg, you even listening?” Momo asked, irritated by the apathetic teenager’s uninvolved detachment. “Yo, man, I’m gettin’ real tired of your attitude, young buck. You think you ain’t gotta pull no weight on this crew, you is mistaken, my friend. You gonna take the first watch. Dig?”
“I don’t think Mama Dorah would want me to participate in this,” Reggie said, after pausing his game. Momo was a bit surprised he did even that. “She said it was you that let Josue get away, and it was you that needs to take care of him.”
“Why she even send you along then?” Momo asked, exasperated. “What you here fo’?”
“Mama Dorah wanted me along to keep an eye on everything you do,” Reggie said, looking Momo square in the eyes. The petulant young man wielded the only power he knew gave him the upper hand against Momo—fear of Mama Dorah. “She said I was supposed to tell her if you did anything that didn’t make progress toward ending Josue Remy. She said she wanted me to call her.”
“I’m getting real tired of yo’ high and mighty complex you got goin’ on, Reg,” Momo said. “Now you gonna get yo’ ass out on that deck, an’ you gonna keep yo’ eyes peeled for any sign of Josue Remy. You don’t do what I say, and even Mama Dorah’s sight won’t be able to find where I bury you. Dig?”