by Jack Getze
I search the parking lot while Luis checks every corner of the restaurant. Nada. I’m frightened that bastard Mallory somehow followed us and then grabbed her, but who knows, maybe Patricia ran out on me.
By the time we’ve given up searching and Luis is ready to have me follow him home, I’ve pretty much decided she took off on her own. My heart feels abandoned. But Luis believes the worst, that she has been kidnapped, and worse still, Luis believes Santo Vargas is behind it. He begins an early closing of the restaurant.
Mama Bones is in bed trying to sleep when the doorbell rings. She pulls on her bathrobe and lifts her new Sig Sauer semiautomatic from under the pillow. She checks the load and clicks off the safety on her way down the stairs.
At the front door, she listens. Like she figured, it’s Gianni. He can’t stand still and is always shifting his feet. She slips the semiautomatic into the pocket of her bathrobe, slides back the door’s dead bolt. “I thought you were spending the night at your girlfriend’s,” she says. “What’s the matter?”
“The ruby’s definitely a fake,” Gianni says. “Pure glass.”
NINETEEN
I park across the street from Luis and Solana’s two-bedroom bungalow on Kadrey Street, their home bright in the moonlight. Hundreds of these post-World War II homes exist on Kadrey, the main drag from Branchtown’s river front to the Atlantic Ocean—four miles of tiny, wood-frame two bedrooms, all built between 1947 and 1955. The Guerrero edition is newly painted white with dark window trim, and sports a new composite tile roof. A knee-high, neatly cut evergreen hedge trims a healthy lawn. Luis bought the run-down property six months before the wedding and worked on the place every day since.
Jogging across the street, a nip on the breeze and a flash of weariness stiffen my gate. I slow to a walk. Cold weather is coming. Freezing rain, snow, and ice. No more going barefoot. Even after all the years I’ve been gone, I still miss those mild winters of southern California.
Luis greets me on his porch. He’s changed out of his work clothes, wears a charcoal cotton sweatshirt and jeans. Same black Reeboks. Luis probably does everything with quiet determination, but there’s something purposeful about his hand on my shoulder—military, or at least coach-like. I suspect major advice looms.
“I believe we must find Santo Vargas tonight,” Luis says.
“Patricia probably ran away,” I say. “We don’t know anybody kidnapped her, let alone Vargas. It was Mallory who took her from my condo.”
“Of course.” Luis pushes on the door to his home, holds the varnished wood open for me. “Let us go inside. I think after talking to Solana, you might decide we cannot wait to find out. I will make telephone calls while my wife tells you her story.”
I follow my friend into the sixty-five-year-old kitchen—as narrow as a sailing yacht’s. Solana chops tomatoes on the tiled counter. Luis’ bride wears a flowered blue apron over jeans, a white T-shirt and a smile like she knows I’m thinking it’s an odd time for her to be playing chef. She’s cooking at ten o’clock at night?
“Hello, Austin,” Solana says. “How are your children?”
I will never repeat the story Solana tells me. Though it happened years ago, when she and Santo Vargas lived together in Las Vegas and admittedly used heroin, meth and other drugs, Vargas assaulted and abused Solana in ways so sick, so cruel, I cannot understand how she speaks of them, how she shares with me the details. Vargas swore Solana would always be his slave, and actually held her in chains prior to her escape.
When she’s finished her tale, Luis comes back into the kitchen, leads me into the spare bedroom. There’s a single bed, a three-drawer dresser and a desk piled with papers, all pushed against one wall. Even in these domestic surroundings, even in black jeans and the charcoal sweatshirt, the ancient warrior shines from inside Luis’ black eyes. To protect friends and family, here is a man ready to lose centuries of civilization.
“Solana and I hope you will not share her past with others,” Luis says.
“Of course, never.” The Toltec warrior made his wife tell me her story for a reason. I ask him. “Are we going to kill Vargas?”
“I believe such an outcome is possible.”
My butt rests on the neatly made double bed I was to have shared tonight with Patricia. The cover is embroidered with blue flowers in long rows. A painting of Jesus watches us from above the varnished oak dresser. “I have to ask you something, Luis. After what Vargas did to Solana, why haven’t you killed him before?”
Luis’ dark eyes simmer. “Solana did not deserve to be attacked in any manner, let alone the vicious way Vargas defiled her. Yet she chose to be with such a man, and remained after he became violent. These things happened before I knew her. I will not kill a man to satisfy my pride, or even Solana’s.”
“Why kill him now? We can’t be sure he took Patricia.”
“If he has not taken her, we will do nothing. Of course. But you told me Mallory was prepared to shoot you when Patricia hit him with the driftwood, and I cannot believe Vargas’ name was mentioned without reason. You told me yourself Las Vegas is behind the insider trading, the ruby. Is not Santo Vargas their emissary? And I warn you that if Santo Vargas wants Patricia—or anything belonging to you—you and your family’s lives are in danger, not only Patricia’s.”
“You think Vargas would hurt Ryan and Beth?”
Luis stares at me. “Do you think he would not? He almost killed you at the wedding and again later in the hotel. You know these men will do anything for money or to protect themselves. Did you not tell me your children’s mother saw a black SUV parked near her home? Your troubles will not cease until this man Vargas has left.”
After a light meal, Luis and I begin preparations for an assault on Santo Vargas. We start by dressing for a beach party and packing into my car. I have no clue why. I just do what I’m told. Luis ushers Solana into the back seat, then climbs into the shotgun seat beside me. “Park at twenty-two fourteen Atlantic Avenue,” he says.
“The Atlantic off Ocean Ave?”
“Si. Go straight down Kadrey and make a left turn at the beach.”
“In Jersey we say shore.”
He grunts.
I don’t know where Luis is pointing us, nor what we will do there, except ultimately we are looking for Patricia Willis, and ready to battle Vargas if he forces a fight. Luis says first we must establish alibis and acquire at least one weapon. Personally, I have doubts, but Luis has convinced me my family and I are in mortal danger. After the story Solana told me, the thought of Vargas going after my children is more than I need to go along. I know I’m letting Luis influence me. But in the past, this has been a good thing.
In the rearview mirror, Solana’s Aztec nose and rocky chin form a silhouette against the back window. When she leans forward, getting ready to speak, I see a pointed sharpness on her features I also expect to hear in her voice. Luis’ new bride is not happy.
“This is foolish,” she says.
Call me Swami. Her tone snaps Luis’ head around.
“I would prefer you not speak of our plans tonight,” Luis says.
His wife glares at him. The first of many such looks, I am sure. Get used to it, Luis. Ugly glares are a cornerstone of married life.
“You prefer my silence because you know I am right,” she says.
In the quiet that follows, I again consider tonight’s mission. For me, it’s difficult to justify taking another human life. Morally, there isn’t any way to justify it. But tonight I will try to kill Vargas if events force me. If not to physically protect his children, what more natural purpose could a man have in this world?
Except for a star or two peeking through the overcast, the only light on the beach comes from a raging happy campfire. Red and orange flames bounce six feet high. Black shadows of men and women dart and dance across the fire, singing, drinking, laughing.
The music is Latin salsa, and loud enough to keep up with the steady crash of surf. The temperature’s cold, a
breeze off the ocean. I smell salt, seaweed, and a whiff of beer from the party. In jackets, hoodies and jeans, this generally young and Latin crowd looks like they’re warm enough to go all night.
At the edge of the party, before we join in, Luis touches my shoulder. “Say nothing,” he says. “Remain at my side and do as I do. We are going for a swim.”
I stare into his eyes. Luis stares back—and doesn’t like something he sees.
“Are you all right with what we have planned tonight?” he says. “Perhaps killing a man?”
I nod, aware Solana’s watching me, too. The sand chills my feet as if I were barefoot. Luis is concerned, and that unnerves me.
“Say this to me,” Luis says. “Tell me what you are willing to do.”
My gaze finds a shimmer of light on the ocean. That the sea is eternal is hardly an original thought. Almost everyone feels it. The scientists say this ocean is where all life comes from. I feel it now. Strongly.
“Austin?”
“If I get the chance, I will cut Vargas’ throat with a broken bottle,” I say.
Luis nods, then hands me two extra-large plastic baggies. “Take off your clothes.”
TWENTY
The cold black sea hugs me close against her bosom, sucking heat from my body and strength from my will. For the first time since Luis and I waded into the Atlantic, I don’t think I’m going to make it. The colored strip of lights—Branchtown’s boardwalk—is much too far away. Numb and soul-weary, I am falling asleep. My fingers and toes are senseless, my arms and legs swim with the guidance of memory, not feeling.
“Luis.”
My friend’s head bobs above the next wave, as if he’d expected trouble. Luis reaches across an ocean of rising water and grips my shirt, twisting the material into a ball and lifting. I pop up buoyant again, like a hollow beach ball.
“We are almost to the shore,” he says. “The swells are pushing us in now. You must relax and kick.”
Luis wraps my left arm around his neck and helps carry my weight as we emerge from the surf. I need help, but the heat of his body begins to revive me right away. My feet press against the wet sand with increased feeling. My knees turn from rubber to plastic. I’ll be all right in a minute.
We’ve landed in a sandy cove beneath a beachfront mansion, one I recognize—a blocky but ornate replica of a French chateau that sits a quarter mile north of the salsa beach party. This is the biggest house on Ocean Avenue in Branchtown, right at the end of Kadrey Street. The New York owners close the place every summer on Labor Day.
My legs and spirit warm up. By the time we cross the sand and reach the chateau’s driveway, where a friend of Luis’ waits with towels, warm black clothes and a package of other goodies, I no longer need assistance.
“I borrowed for you a dark Chevy Impala,” the friend says. “And I have switched the license plates.”
Luis is already sliding into a pair of dry black sweat pants. Me, I want that towel. The beads of water on my skin feel like crushed ice. All this for an alibi, the right to tell police we never left the beach party?
Warm air rushes against my face through the stolen Impala’s open side window. Broad Street in Branchtown is empty—a string of colored bulbs, shop windows, street lamps, and unoccupied traffic intersections, green and red lights. My eyes blink with the memory of how far away the city looked from a quarter-mile offshore.
I glance at Luis. “So I guess you know where Vargas lives?”
“He sleeps on a construction site. If he has Patricia, she could be there as well.”
Luis turns right on Main and parks half a block down, across the street from a large excavation. One dozen two-story condos are going up, prices starting at nine hundred thousand. The pit they’re digging will be underground parking. A billboard tells all, even that the construction company is headquartered in Las Vegas, Nevada.
“How did you find him?” I say.
“Solana knows the Russian men Vargas works for in Las Vegas. The same men are responsible for the construction of this new building.”
With his fist, Luis breaks the Impala’s interior overhead light. The northeast horizon thinks about turning blue-gray. A few birds chirp outside, but the big morning chorus hasn’t started yet. Any minute.
Luis hands me a short-barrel revolver that was in that bag of other goodies on the beach. A Smith & Wesson. Thirty-eight caliber, snub-nose, I think they call these puppies. “If Vargas is here, it is likely that he and I will fight,” Luis says. “Use this revolver only if he kills me.”
Now there’s an unpleasant thought. Luis’ death. I glance at the Smith & Wesson. Not my weapon of choice, of course, but in some situations, the Carr gift of gab becomes inoperable. Vargas rushing at me with a switchblade the size of Brooklyn might fall into that category.
“You got it,” I say. “I’ll do it.”
I’ve already turned this night over to Luis. I’m not going to argue how he plans the battle. The king of Stockbroker Special-Ops is still just a stockbroker. Luis is Luis. I follow him across the street, the two of us racing like mice into the black shadow of the construction site’s billboard. An orange, two-story crane, with its long, giraffe-like neck, blocks the dirt road down into the excavation. The crane’s tank-tread base prevents the site’s perimeter chain link fence from completely closing.
Luis and I scurry from the billboard shadow to crouch by the construction crane’s huge treads, then squeeze through the gap in the fence. My shoes skip-slide on rocks as we descend the steep dirt and gravel roadway into the excavation. Beside me, a network of thick rebar holds back the earth, a reinforced wall that grows quickly into a two-story barrier against the dirt. Near the floor of the excavation, the ancient smell of wet earth punches my nose, and I flinch at something over my shoulder. It’s the crane, hanging above us—a giant steel dinosaur.
On the flat bottom of the construction hole, Luis stops and puts his hand on my chest. Ahead, in the back-left corner of the square excavation, two glowing windows of an aluminum trailer stare at us—big yellow eyes studying their prey. Thick cables run to and from the trailer like twisting snakes. An early train for New York whistles its arrival at Branchtown station.
Luis approaches the trailer. “Vargas!”
He makes the man’s name sound like a species of lizard. Loud enough for Vargas to hear, if he’s inside this trailer. But probably not shrill enough to wake any neighbors. The closest people are not only above the rim of the underground construction site, they’re also a block away.
No response from the trailer.
The discordant train whistle blows again, this time announcing NJ Transit’s lonely departure. My head is buzzing with bad vibes.
“Come outside and face me, puerco,” Luis says.
A thump sways the silver trailer, left to right. Some internal mass moves heavily to the aluminum door. My pulse thuds like a boom box as I glance at the rim of the excavation to check for witnesses. There is no one else on site.
The trailer door bangs open. Vargas jumps down, his switchblade open and ready.
Luis crouches, his knife out of his pocket in a blur.
The two men circle each other, slow dancing around an invisible perimeter. Not a word between them. Aren’t they going to call each other more names? Puerco hardly seems enough to cause all this trouble. It’s as if the bell rang for round one—like the two of them do this every day in a Disney World wild west show.
The size difference shocks me. I knew Vargas was bigger, huskier, but his shoulders and legs, the chest especially, make this side-by-side comparison an overmatch.
“We came for Patricia Willis, not a fight,” I say. “Is she inside?”
“If Luis cuts me badly enough, you can have a look,” Vargas says.
Vargas darts forward. It’s only a feint, and he comes right back to that unseen perimeter. But not before Luis reacts, shifting his feet and weight defensively.
“So be it,” Luis says. “The women you have abused c
ry for justice.”
Vargas grunts. “The women cry for my cock. Including your bride Solana.”
Luis’ face turns to marble.
My hand clutches the revolver in my pocket.
TWENTY-ONE
Luis explained to me once about knife fights. The big secret to winning? Don’t use your knife. Sounds crazy, I know, but Luis says it’s the hand not holding the knife that usually wins the contest. Because a knife can kill, inexperienced fighters tend to only watch the blade. They’re not keeping close track of their opponent’s empty fist.
Both Luis and Vargas seem aware of the big secret. Both hold their knives across the left palm, saving the stronger right hand for a punch. They advance opposite each other in a slow circle, dueling crabs in a march around that invisible perimeter, claws extended. As he sidesteps, Vargas’ bare feet make little sucking sounds in the mud. The dank smell of wet earth clings to my throat. The blue-black sky grows a shade lighter.
Vargas holds his switchblade like he’s cutting bread, so the knife makes his reach longer. He’s ready to stab and slash with it, or punch with his right hand. Luis holds his switchblade like an ice pick. His reach is shorter, but if Luis stabs downward, he can muster his entire body weight behind the thrust.
The windows on Vargas’ trailer put the life-and-death contest in a single rectangular spotlight. I half expect a crowd to chatter and catcall from behind the wall of dirt and darkness that surrounds us. Automobile tires swish by on Broad Street a block away. The gun in my grip steels my nerves.
Vargas feigns left, then charges Luis’ right side, slashing twice as he lunges. The second and more athletic of the two knife thrusts strikes Luis’ left arm. Worse, Vargas anticipates Luis’ reaction. The man with purple eyes and tattoos on his neck drops into a crouch, ducks under Luis’ counterattack, and gives himself a clean, open stab at Luis’ chest.