Assassin's Shadow

by Striker, Randy

  “So where do you want to go, lady?”

  “Anywhere. I . . . I don’t know why, but when you get used to living on a boat, it’s always hard to spend that first night under a roof. Maybe I just want to put it off. Claustrophobia or something, I guess.” And then she added lamely, “I guess that sounds silly, huh?”

  “Very silly,” I said. “That’s why I live on that stilthouse way out on the water by myself. If it’s silly, we’re both silly.”

  We had left the moment of spontaneous touching behind at Cabbage Key: the unexpected hug, the taking of my hand in hers. Two strangers alone, we had entered the clumsy, uncomfortable time of prospective lovers—uncomfortable because we have all seen it rehearsed again and again on a million television screens. You find yourself sliding into the practiced routines of the buxomed starlets and the square-jawed heros, so that even the honest gesture of affection begins to ring untrue.

  So I was content to steer Sniper toward a pretty little harbor I knew—a deepwater retreat within the confines of a pine-swept island called Punta Blanco. I did not put my arm around her, nor did she lay her head on my shoulder, but there was still the physical awareness, the deep wanting—yet we were both content to simply ride and enjoy the night.

  Marina asked me why I lived alone, and I told her. Recounting the deaths of loved ones is always painful, and I go out of my way not to talk about it. But somehow it seemed easier telling her. She made no obligatory “oohs” and “ahs” of sympathy. She listened carefully, her eyes bespeaking the horror she felt. And when I was done, she was quiet for a long time. Finally she said, “You had that time with them, Dusky.”

  And she was right. It was a philosophy eloquent for its simplicity. We had had our time together. There was a Zen-like toughness in the acceptance of that—but a very comforting honesty, too.

  We had had our time together. It was not a matter of quantity, but of quality. One year or a hundred years—the mathematics of it made no difference. The essence of human emotion should wear no timepiece, because you can live neither in the past nor the future.

  There is only the present.

  You live and love and work in the very heart of a moment, because everything else is a memory. Or an illusion.

  “You’ve made me feel somehow better about it all, Marina,” I said. “And for some reason, that makes me feel . . . a little guilty, I guess. Silly, huh?”

  She reached over and gently traced the line of my face with her fingertip. “It means you cared for them very, very much.”

  “I did.”

  “And what happened to the man who murdered them?”

  I felt my hands tighten on the steering wheel, remembering.

  “Not one man—many men. There was a big drug operation on an island near Key West. The law couldn’t seem to touch them because there was an important politician involved. They are the ones who killed my family—but by mistake. They were trying to kill me.”

  “You were involved?”

  I shook my head. “Not hardly.” And then I lied intentionally. “They somehow got the idea I was in their way, so they sent a couple of hit men after me. The law couldn’t touch them, but another drug gang could. One night that little island haven of theirs became a battleground. You could see the glow of the fire clear back in Key West. Apparently, the drug gang that attacked ended up big winners. All but one of my family’s murderers were killed—and he’s still running for his life somewhere in South America.”

  Marina studied me shrewdly. “You don’t look like a gang of drugrunners to me.”

  I tried to look incredulous. “Me? I wish I’d had the nerve to go after those guys.”

  “The scars you have—the one on your cheek, and that awful scar on your thigh. You got those playing football or baseball, or something like that, right?”

  She was smiling. I said, “You’re awfully nosy, woman.”

  “And I have very good instincts. There’s something about you I like very much, MacMorgan. I still can’t put my finger on it. Maybe it’s because you make me feel safe. Not because you’re big and rough-looking, but because there’s a quality of honesty about you. And honest people are very bad liars. Did you know that?”

  I said nothing.

  “You are a very bad liar, MacMorgan.”

  “So that makes me basically honest?”

  “No, but you are. I can tell. And I can also tell you’re not one of the sheep. I’ve got this theory—see what you think. You can divide the world’s people into three categories. The Sheep, who do the following and the drone work. The Lions, who do the manipulating and the ruling. And then you have a third group, the Rogues. They live their lives independently, outside the boundaries of conformity. They do not live that way just for the sake of nonconformity, but because some inner instinct demands they live that way. And you, Dusky MacMorgan, are definitely a Rogue. Furthermore, a Rogue warrior. That’s the very rarest breed of Rogue. The few that are around, you find living on mountaintops, or in the depths of the north woods. Or on a house built on stilts two miles out to sea.” She reached over and kissed me warmly on the cheek. “So no, I don’t believe that you would leave your revenge to someone else. I’m not saying that’s good—I’m just saying you wouldn’t.”

  “You’re just trying to turn my pretty head, lady.”

  “No, I’m just saying I have my instincts. Maybe I got them from my father—he’s a Lion, by the way. Just as Matrah is a Lion. They use their instincts to manipulate and control. Neither of them has any emotional interest in St. Carib, or any of their other businesses, for that matter. They are only interested in the manipulation of their businesses. To them, life is just one giant chessboard, and they use businesses and their workers like pawns. All their instincts are focused in that direction. Maybe the two of them drove me to life as a Rogue.” She shrugged.

  “Is this a confession?”

  I expected her to laugh, but she didn’t. She looked at me seriously. “No,” she said, “it’s a fact. It’s been a very long time since I’ve been with a man, MacMorgan. And the only kind of man that interests me is another Rogue. I guess that’s why I feel I can be open with you; open and honest. I don’t want to waste a moment with you. You don’t know how tempted I was to stay with you yesterday morning. All the way from Key West to Cabbage Key on that sailboat alone, I thought about you, and swore at myself for wearing this stupid ring. I wear it as protection—it keeps the male Sheep and Lions away.” She stopped, wind mussing her long blond hair beneath starlight, pulled the wedding ring off, and tossed it over her shoulder into the black wake of Sniper. “I’m not making a confession, MacMorgan,” she said softly. “I’m telling you why I want to sleep with you tonight. And every other night that we can.”

  I felt the brown eyes lock on mine. I lifted my bottle of Tuborg. “Here’s to two Rogues,” I said.

  She touched her bottle to mine. “And to the time we have together,” she said.

  I brought Sniper carefully through the shoal waters of Punta Blanco and around to the west side into the empty deepwater harbor. One of the local fishing guides had shown me the place long ago. In back times, there had been a wooden schoolhouse on the island for the fishermen’s kids of Pine Island Sound. The schoolhouse had long ago burned, the fishermen had left their desultory lives of seclusion for the ease of homes in Fort Myers and Sanibel, but the harbor remained.

  I backed Sniper while Marina handled the anchor line, snubbing it at my signal. I switched off engines and running lights, leaving us to the feathered silhouettes of Australian pine, the night bird sounds of the deserted island, and the soft exhalations of sea moving upon beach.

  Marina came to me, a silver-haired mist in the darkness. Her lips were soft and warm. At first gentle, then searching. We stood clinging together on the aft deck, she upon tiptoes, my arms full around the heat of her.

  “Hope you don’t think I’m always this easy,” I said.

  She giggled like a teenager. “Your reputation’s
already shot. No going back now.”

  “And I’ve tried to lead such a clean life.”

  “The word’s out, MacMorgan: Tap twice on your head, and your pants come down.”

  “Your hands seem to be busy with anything but my head.”

  “I’m trying to figure out the combination of this damn belt. There!”

  Her wraparound skirt slid down with the tug of a string. She wore narrow bikini panties, and her legs tapered long and tanned and lean beneath the flare of thighs.

  “Does this shirt of yours have buttons, or what?”

  She said, breathing becoming heavier now, “Don’t . . . bother me with questions . . . MacMorgan. I’m . . . ah . . . busy.”

  She was busy indeed. There were buttons, and neither of us minded when they went skittering across the deck, shirt open, revealing wide small breasts thrust upward, nipples pale and elongated.

  So in the March night, beneath sky fresh with the sudden loss of wind, we came together with the ancient fervor of new lovers. On the aft deck we coupled in a frenzy of the love-starved. There was an animal wanting in her, a passion that demanded my full attention. She had told me that it had been a very long time since she had been with a man, and her whole body said it again and again.

  And after that first time, I cradled her in my arms, lips buried in her soft hair, nose enjoying the salt and shampoo odor that was the scent of her.

  “You’re crying, lady?”

  She sniffed. “God, yes. It was like . . . a dam breaking, or something. My stoicism . . . I pay for it. It all builds and builds and builds.” She reached up, kissed me with salty lips. “Thank you,” she said. “I feel almost empty now.”

  “Almost?”

  Her kiss became passionate then; she rolled over on top of me, her body slick with our earlier laboring, and kissed my chest.

  “Now it’s my turn,” she said, “to break a dam.”

  “It’s been broken once, lady.”

  Her voice was husky. “I noticed. But not this way. . . .”

  I pulled into the dock at Cabbage Key just before sunrise. On the island, birds were making bright morning sounds, and a silver haze was lifting over the white house and golf course expanse of Useppa Island to the east. As we walked the docks and up the mound, a few fishermen getting an early start passed us. I had my arm around Marina, her head soft on my shoulder, and she did not pull away.

  “I want them to know,” she said, nuzzling me. “I want the whole world to know.”

  “The world might be bored by such news, lady.”

  “Good. I want to bore the world to death, then.”

  “You sound enthusiastic.”

  “I am, MacMorgan. I’m going to work hard all day, and then work harder again with you tonight.”

  “I’m afraid that’s a maybe.”

  She pulled away from me, face showing surprise. It was such a petulant look of childlike disappointment that I had to laugh.

  “It’s not what you think, Marina. You’re going to be seeing a lot of me—whether you want to or not. But I really did come up here on business. And I’ve got to take care of it.”

  She hesitated, as if about to ask what my business was, then decided not to. “Okay,” she said. “But you’re not really thinking of enrolling at St. Carib as Matrah said last night, are you?”

  “I could stand to lose a little weight.”

  She hugged herself against me again. “I think I can say objectively that everything about your body is in the very right place. I took a couple of long looks last night, remember?”

  “Vaguely.”

  “You need a quick reminder, I see,” she said vampishly.

  I checked my watch. “And you need to get ready to wait breakfast tables.”

  She threw up her hands, laughing. “Okay, okay. But when you’re through with your business, sailor, you’d better look me up.”

  “And down?”

  “And down.”

  While Marina went to her little cottage quarters to grab a shower, I found the key to my room and went into the old house to get my duffel bag. Only the cooks were up, the smell of bacon and potatoes frying filling the inn. I tiptoed down the hallway like a teenager getting in late from a date, found my room, and went inside.

  I have an old habit. It came from a time in Vietnam when the wrong people were trying to nose into my business. Before leaving any rented room, I yank a hair from my head and paste it across the duffel zipper, then wad up a small piece of paper and drop it behind the door. Anyone entering the room moves the wad of paper. Anyone tampering with my duffel moves the hair.

  It’s very very simple—and most effective.

  Because I wasn’t expecting it, it took me a while to notice that my wad of paper was shoved clear against the wall. Someone had swung the door wide open—and it wasn’t me.

  I had left the duffel on top of the bed. I switched on the overhead light and studied the zipper.

  The hair was gone.

  I opened the duffel and went carefully through the contents: Wilkinson razor and extra blades, a change of clothes, a fresh can of Copenhagen, a small notebook with the names and telephone numbers of the locals I knew, and three hundred dollars in cash.

  It was all there. I wished I had rigged the notebook in some way to let me know if someone had opened it.

  I neatly replaced the contents, switched off the light, and swung the door closed behind me.

  It took me a while to locate Rob Wells. He was out in the yard pushing his little blond son in a swing that hung on ropes from a limb of a mammoth live oak. When he saw me coming, he patted the boy on the head and told him to go play, and his son went whooping and laughing down toward the water, their liver-colored pointer trotting after him.

  “You’re looking sleepy this morning, Dusky.” He grinned.

  “Such a pretty evening last night, I couldn’t sleep.”

  “And I heard you had some trouble at the bar, too.”

  “Not all that much trouble, really.”

  He nodded. “Usually I take a very dim view of fighting on the island. Almost never have any trouble that way. But with that character Matrah, I’ll make an exception. Heard you stuck him pretty good.”

  “That guy seems to make enemies very very quickly,” I said.

  “He does seem to have a talent for it. Took over St. Carib two or three weeks ago. Their first director was no gem, but this guy is even worse. Wears that superior attitude of his like a hat. I think I’m going to bar him from the grounds altogether. It’s either that or lose some of my best help—they flip to see who has to wait on him. The loser gets the job.”

  “You know anything about his background—where he came from, what his specialties are?”

  Rob shook his head. “I think he’s Egyptian. Or Arab—something like that. And he owns a very big piece of St. Carib, and he and his associates weren’t entirely pleased with the way it was being run, so he came down to take the reins himself. That’s about it, I guess.... Oh, there is one more thing—he likes guns. Kind of a hobby, apparently. You know I occasionally have a turkey shoot out here. For the locals, mostly. But he got wind of the one I had last week, and he came over here with some kind of Belgian over-and-under that was just magnificent. And he knew how to use it. Won the shoot without breaking a sweat. And didn’t even have the courtesy to act pleased. Just acted bored by it all. After that, we got into a short conversation about firearms—not so much because he wanted to talk to me, it was more like . . . like he wanted to show me and everyone else that he knew a lot more than we did. Know what I mean?”

  “I do indeed.”

  I hesitated, trying to find a delicate way to ask my next question. Finally I decided there was no delicate way. I said, “Rob, I wasn’t in my room last night. But I think someone else was.”

  There was a real look of concern on his face. “You mean someone stole something? That’s never happened—”

  “No, no—nothing missing. But I could just tell s
omeone had been in there looking around.”

  “No chance of its being the help,” he said quickly. “But who in the heck could it have been?”

  “It’s not important. In fact, it could have just been my imagination. I thought maybe someone had gone in to check the fireplace, or change the sheets, or—”

  “No chance,” he said. “I wasn’t here last night, but I know that for sure.”

  He walked me down the mound, asking when I would be back, and if I could stay longer next time. I told him I had every hope. As he helped me with Sniper’s lines, I asked him the final question, trying to make it seem offhand, unimportant.

  “I think there’s a friend of mine staying around here someplace. He’s a big good-looking guy—dark hair, the kind of face you see in the Rockwell paintings. His name is Fizer. Norm Fizer. He would have been here in one of the Boca Grande rental boats.”

  Rob thought for a moment. “I think there was a guy around here a couple of days ago who looked like that. I remember because he put the waitresses in a flutter—real good-looking guy, right? They thought maybe he was one of the movie stars from St. Carib. But he didn’t say much. Kind of sat in a corner talking with somebody.”

  “Do you remember who he was talking to?”

  Rob’s eyes looked skyward, scanning his memory. He said, “Yeah, I do, now that you ask. That’s why the waitresses thought he was from St. Carib. The guy he was talking to—it was Matrah. . . .”

  9

  Aboard Sniper, I cruised reluctantly past the palm trees and white houses of St. Carib.

  I had heard all too much about the place, far too quickly. I had a gut feeling that whatever went wrong would go wrong there. There was the stink of international money behind it: Matrah, Marina’s father, and probably a number of other unknown interests.

  But I had a job to do, and that job demanded I check out all the possibilities.

  So I made my way up the intercoastal waterway, past St. Carib and Mandango, and entered the rough cross-chop of Boca Grande Pass, taking care to stay well away from the rocks on Cayo Costa where the old quarantine station once stood.