“Yes.”
“Something bad happen to your wife?”
His wife. The word brought a knot to his throat so big he couldn’t swallow. “Yeah,” he managed to say. “She’s my wife.”
He handed the girl a twenty. “For the phone call,” he said.
She followed him to the door. “You be careful.”
He leaned down and kissed her cheek. Because she was a good kid; because she’d been kind.
He headed for the motorcycle.
There was a small group of men and boys around it. He pushed through them and they fell back, afraid of the cold, white fury they saw on his face.
He got on the Harley, turned the ignition and gunned the motor. The men and the boys cleared out of the way. He saw the shop girl standing in her doorway. She waved. He waved back and rode down the street toward the road to Port Antonio.
“Lisa,” he said when he got on the road. “Hold on, baby. I’m coming.”
Chapter 16
Voodoo drums were beating in her head. Tum tum tum, tum tum tum—they were pounding against her skull. Sick to her stomach. Bed rocking. Had to tell Sam to make it stop. Sam? She tried to reach out for him, but something was the matter with her hands.
“Sam?” she said again, and when he didn’t answer, she opened her eyes. She was in a cubbyhole of a room she’d never seen before. Dizzying shadows wobbled back and forth from a swaying lantern that hung from a chain at one end. Were lanterns supposed to sway?
She tried to sit up, but she couldn’t seem to move her hands, couldn’t pull them apart. She tried to focus and saw that her wrists were tied together. Tied? Her wrists were tied?
“Sam!” she cried out in panic. “Sam, where are you?”
There was no answer; she was alone. But where? My God, where was she?
She closed her eyes and took a couple of deep breaths. Calm down, she told herself. Try to think. If only her head didn’t ache. No, forget your head. Try to remember. You and Sam went back to Maroon Town. He went to the hotel but he wouldn’t let you go with him, so you went into an open-air restaurant and had a cup of tea. Okay so far. But what happened after that? You drank the tea and...and what? She didn’t remember anything after that.
She stared up at the swaying lantern. What made it sway? Why was she in bed? No, not a bed. Too narrow for a bed. A bunk bed? Yes, a bunk. Like on a boat.
She was on a boat. Sam wasn’t here. She was alone and her hands were tied. Panic stunned her; fear choked her. She tried to sit up, tried to put both hands to her side to push herself up. When that didn’t work she bent her knees and rolled to a sitting position, feeling dizzy, disoriented when she did. Lisa took deep breaths. She couldn’t be sick, wouldn’t be sick. If only the drums inside her head would stop! No, don’t think about that, think about getting away.
There was nothing in the room except a bolted-down chair. Some clothes were wadded up on the floor in the corner. The round porthole, basketball-size, was closed.
She struggled with the rope that bound her wrists and twisted her hands back and forth to loosen it. She pulled at the knots with her teeth, but stopped when she heard footsteps outside the door. Somebody coming.
She tried with every bit of willpower she had to quell the sheer terror that threatened to overcome her.
Howard Reitman opened the door and came into the cabin.
He said, “Are you all right?”
“No!” Lisa cried. “Help me! Untie me.”
“I—I can’t, Lisa.” He forced a smile and in what seemed like a too-cheerful voice said, “But I’ve brought a bottle of water. I thought you might be thirsty. Would you like a drink?”
She wanted to tell him to take his water and get out. But she was too thirsty to resist the offer. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, please.”
He held the bottle to her lips and she took a small sip, not sure it would stay down. When it did she drank more. “Okay,” she said. “That’s enough.”
He put the bottle on the floor beside the bunk. “I’m sorry about this,” he said.
“Are you?”
“I didn’t want you to get involved. You wouldn’t have if you hadn’t been running around with O’Shaughnessy. It’s his fault you’re in this mess.”
“His fault? He’s not the one who’s smuggling drugs.” Lisa glared at him. “How could you get mixed up in this, Howard? How could you be associated with a man like Juan Montoya? You’re Philip’s friend. How could you...” She stopped. “Is—is Philip mixed up in this?”
“Philip? Of course not. I bought art and Philip helped me choose things that would go up in value. I don’t know anything about art—what’s good, what’s bad. Philip did. We needed him.”
“We. So even then you were working for Montoya.” She tried to keep her anger—no, more than anger, her disgust—from showing. She had to stay calm, to think clearly. Even though he was mixed up in this, Howard was Philip’s friend. He liked her. She had to convince him to help her. But it was hard to control her indignation.
“All those times you came to our house for dinner, you were mixed up in the drug trade,” she said. “The paintings Philip helped you to buy were bought with drug money. You didn’t give a damn about art, did you? You were only interested in laundering—is that what you call it?—laundering dirty money.”
“Everybody’s got to make a living.” Reitman lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “You don’t have any idea of the kind of money we’re talking about. Hundreds of thousands of dollars, Lisa. Millions. A man can make a fortune in a couple of years. You just don’t understand the way it works. It’s just a business. I’m not hurting anybody.”
Lisa thought of Sam’s son dying of an overdose, of other kids, of crack babies, of men and women whose lives were ruined because of the drugs men like Howard and Juan Montoya dealt in. All the money in the world wouldn’t buy back a lost or ruined life. A million dollars wouldn’t return Sam’s son to him.
“You’re right, Howard,” she said. “I don’t understand.”
“I feel read bad about this, Lisa. About you, I mean. I wish you hadn’t gotten mixed up in it.”
“But I am mixed up in it.” And because she had to know, Lisa asked, “What’s going to happen to me?”
“That—that isn’t up to me. Montoya’s the boss. He’s hard to figure. I’ll talk to him, though. Maybe because you’re a friend of mine he’ll...” He looked away, embarrassed.
“He’ll maybe let me live? Is that what you’re afraid to say?”
“This is a bad business, Lisa. You shouldn’t have gotten involved.”
“That’s it? I shouldn’t have, but I did, and so now somebody’s going to kill me?”
He turned away.
“You could untie me,” she said. “You could let me escape.”
“And go where? Jump overboard?”
“That’s better than sitting here waiting for somebody else to throw me over.” She swallowed. “Please, Howard. With my hands untied I’d at least have a chance.”
He shook his head. “I can’t, Lisa. You’re our insurance.”
“What?” She looked at him and shook her head. “What are you talking about? I don’t understand.”
“We’re holding you until we’re sure O’Shaughnessy has left the country.” He sat on the bunk beside her. “Look,” he said. “We had to get him off our trail. If he knows we’ve got you, there’s a chance he’ll leave Jamaica. I know the Jamaican police are after us, too, but it’s O’Shaughnessy that Montoya is worried about.”
Howard covered her hands with one of his own. “I like you, Lisa. I always have. I told you before that if I’d known you and Philip were splitting, I’d have moved in on you like a grasshopper after a June bug. If I could talk Juan into letting you come with us—”
Lisa pulled away from him. “What are you talking about?”
“If you...you know. If you let me...I mean, if you and I were together, maybe Juan would let you go with us to South Amer
ica.” He put his arms around her and pulled her closer. “I’m nuts about you, Lisa.”
“Howard, please...”
“There’re two boats waiting for us in Port Antonio,” he went on. “As soon as the shipment leaves, we’ll set sail for Venezuela. You can come with me, Lisa. I’ll take care of you. I’ll buy you anything you ever wanted. We’ll have a house, a boat, anything. Everything.”
“Let me go.”
“Lisa, listen—”
“No, you listen,” she said, so angry she could barely get the words out. “I don’t want you or your house or your boat. I’d rather be shark bait than ever have you touch me.”
He recoiled as though she’d slapped him. He gripped her arms and shook her so hard she cried out and put her hands to her head to try to stop the pain there.
“You’re not going to be shark bait,” he said. “Not yet. We’re saving you in case your boyfriend O’Shaughnessy shows up. If he cares anything at all about you maybe he’ll think twice about trying to take us.”
“You bastard.”
He grabbed a handful of her hair and, with his face so close to her she could see a vein pulsing in his forehead, said, “It’s your last chance, Lisa. I mean the difference between life and death for you.”
His eyes were narrowed, his forehead damp with perspiration. She looked at the little, pursed mouth, the weak chin. Calmly, quietly she said, “There are ways to live and ways to die, Howard. I guess I’d rather die if living meant ever having you touch me.”
He shoved her away with such force that her head hit the side of the bunk. The pain sickened her. He started toward the door.
“I—I can barely breathe in here,” she managed to say, “Would you open the porthole?”
He looked at her for a moment. “Go to hell,” he said, and left the cabin.
She leaned against the wall. Her eyes stung, but she didn’t cry. Instead she said, “Sam,” and drew comfort from the sound of his name.
Had he left Jamaica? Was he right now on a plane flying away from here, away from her? Somehow she didn’t think so. He’d come here after Montoya and wouldn’t leave until he caught him. Or until one of them was dead.
He would know, just as she knew, that Montoya was going to kill her whether he left Jamaica or not.
She wept then, not from fear of dying, but for what she would miss by dying. A life with Sam. Loving Sam. The children she would have had.
In a little while she stopped crying and tried to think. She wasn’t dead yet, and while there was life, there was hope. She had to find a way to escape, a way to help Sam. She had to.
* * *
It was after dark by the time he reached Port Antonio. He went directly to the Fort Royal Hotel, parked the motorcycle and went to the front desk.
“Yes,” the man there said. “Captain Hargreaves checked in several hours ago.”
Sam used the lobby phone. Hargreaves said, “Come right up. I’ve reserved a room for you next door to mine.”
He took the elevator to the third floor. Hargreaves opened the door when Sam knocked. They shook hands. “Glad you got here safely,” he said, and motioned Sam into the room. He indicated the other three men. “Gilbert Fairfax, Cyril Winston, Victor Brimo. This is Mr. O’Shaughnessy, gentlemen.”
They shook hands with Sam, and Fairfax, about five-eight and built like a prizefighter, said, “Glad you’re on our team, O’Shaughnessy.”
“We heard about the woman,” Victor Brimo said. “Sorry.”
As if he’d already lost her, as if she was already dead. Sam didn’t answer the guy. Instead he turned to Hargreaves. “What’s happening?” he asked.
“I’ve got a man working undercover on the docks. The drugs will be put aboard a fishing boat bound for New Orleans a little before midnight. The Santa Cecelia sails at one.”
“South America?”
“Venezuela.”
“How many men have you got?”
“The four of us, you, and seven others already down on the docks unloading bananas and working as longshoremen. Enough uniformed officers to stop a revolution.”
“Any sight of Montoya?”
“No,” the man named Cyril said. “We think he’s coming down the coast by boat. It’s my guess he’s got Miss Collier with him. Probably Montoya grabbed her on the off chance that once you knew, you might leave the country. But he’s no dummy, Mr. O’Shaughnessy. I honestly don’t believe he had much hope that you’d walk away. He’ll keep her around in case there’s a showdown. If there is she’s his bargaining chip.”
A bargaining chip. His Lisa. His moonlight lady.
It took every bit of his professional experience to say, “Are there any lookout points along the coast? Any chance of spotting them before they reach Port Antonio?”
“Maybe,” Filoberto said. “But I didn’t want to spare the men that it would take. I thought it better to keep an eye on the fishing boat and the Santa Cecelia. That way I know we’ve got them.”
“What about Reitman?” Sam asked. “Any sign of him?”
“No,” Brimo said. “He’s probably with Montoya.”
Reitman knew Lisa. Maybe he wouldn’t hurt her; maybe he’d try to keep her safe. Maybe he’d try to... No, Sam told himself, don’t think about that. If you do you’ll go out of your mind. He couldn’t help her if he fell apart. He had to think like a cop. God, how he wanted to get this over with.
“Would you like a spot of rum, Mr. O’Shaughnessy?” Gilbert Fairfax went to the dresser. “For all of us,” he said. “One for the road, yes?”
“Yes, indeed,” Hargreaves said. “Good idea.”
They had a drink. Sam looked at his watch. “It’s eleven-fifteen,” he said.
Hargreaves nodded. “Do you need anything, Sam?”
“More ammo.”
Brimo opened one of the dresser drawers. “Help yourself.”
Sam reloaded his two guns and shoved extra clips into the pockets of his jeans. He put the Beretta in his shoulder holster and shoved the Magnum in his other pocket. “Let’s get the hell out of here,” he urged.
“Another ten minutes,” Hargreaves cautioned. “We don’t want to get there too early.”
Sam paced the room. He tried to keep cool, tried to concentrate on the way it would go down. But all he could think about was Lisa and the funny little salute she’d given him the last time he’d seen her. She’d been right; he shouldn’t have left her, should have kept her with him. If anything happened to her...
“Time,” Hargreaves said.
The other men checked their weapons: two nine-millimeter Uzi’s, AR-15 assault rifles. Gilbert Fairfax crossed himself, and with Hargreaves leading the way, they left the room.
* * *
A Jamaican Lisa had never seen before unlocked the cabin and came in.
“Stand up,” he said, and jerked her to her feet.
“What is it?” she asked. “What are you—”
“Shut up.” He yanked her around. “You the woman who shot Benjamin, ain’t you?”
Terrified by what she saw in his eyes, Lisa said, “I—I don’t know what you mean.”
“Shot him twice. Left him lying there.”
“Is he—is he dead?”
“What the hell you be caring?” With his open hand he slapped her across the side of her head. She staggered back, but didn’t fall.
“I care,” she whispered.
“Sure you do.” He grabbed her wrists and turned her around. “No,” he said. “Old Benjamin not dead. He’s hurt real bad, but the doctor say he’s not going to die.”
He pushed her through the door into a passageway. She looked around and tried to get her bearings. Ahead there were stairs leading upward. “I have to go to the bathroom,” she said.
He jerked his thumb. “There. But be quick.”
She held out her hands. “You have to untie me.”
He hesitated, then took a knife out of the pocket of his jeans and cut the rope that bound her wrists.
She went in the door he indicated. There was a toilet and a washstand with a mirror over it. She went to the toilet, then washed her hands and face. Her wrists hurt and she let the water run over them.
The man who’d come after her pounded on the door. “Hurry it up,” he said. “We be goin’ to dock.”
Dock. Where were they? In Port Antonio, where they planned to take the ship to South America? Did that mean...? She looked at herself in the mirror. Did that mean that before they boarded they would...what? Dispose of her?
Lines of the Dylan Thomas poem came suddenly to her mind. She looked at her reflection in the mirror and whispered, “I will not go gentle into that good night. I will fight with all of my strength against these evil men.”
In an act of defiance she patted her cheeks to bring a bit of color into them and, shoulders back, went out to meet the enemy.
The boat rocked, jolted, and there was a scraping sound as it bumped against the dock. The man who had come for Lisa gripped her arm and pushed her up the stairs onto the deck.
They were at a wharf. There was a single light. Next to the boat she was on was a smaller boat. A fishing boat? On the other side of it was a ship. It was the Santa Cecelia, obviously the ship Montoya and Reitman were going to sail to South America on.
Montoya, wearing a seaman’s cap, jeans and a guayabera, stood next to Howard Reitman. Both men had rifles. Next to them were two Jamaicans armed with what looked to her like machine guns. Men she hadn’t seen before were running down the gangplank, boxes on their shoulders, hurrying to the fishing boat. Drugs, she thought. Those are the drugs.
Montoya spotted her. “Oye, cabrón,” he said in Spanish to the man who held her. “Why did you untie her?”
“She had to go to the bathroom.”
“Do you want her to get away? Tie her hands.”
“I didn’t bring the rope.”
Montoya slapped his own forehead. “¡Estúpido!” he shouted. “What kind of men do I have working for me? Get something. Tie her. What if—”
There was a crackle of sound. A voice boomed over a loudspeaker. “This is an arrest! Stop where you are and throw down your weapons.”
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