by Brian Hodge
Rapid-fire images, intense flashcuts. Instants of frozen motion sandwiched between milliseconds of total darkness. He could see it all. An out-of-control Trent, whatever he was now, tearing through the crowd.
flash
A throat laid wide open, arcs of blood splattering a girl.
flash
A wide-eyed head, toppling from its shoulders while blood geysered upward, too too red in the drenching white light.
“Son of a bitch, Justin.” Erik, angry. Oblivious. “Look at this mess you’ve made.”
flash
Jaguar jaws clamping down on a splintering arm.
flash
Jaguar claws, tearing open a belly like a gaudy Christmas package and letting the ropy delights within spill out.
flash
Terrified dancers scrambling all over each other to get out of the path of whatever was in their midst. Screaming with sufficient volume to drown out the music.
flash
Stampede.
The strobes were killed and the pulsing colors resumed, and the music pumped onward. Justin hung on to Erik’s shoulder as they both staggered away. Only now did Erik notice the carnage strewn across the dance floor. Only now did he realize there was a lot more to worry about than his shoes. Beneath his tan he went white, and he firmed himself up under Justin’s deadweight.
“Oh, shit. Oh, shit. Let’s get you out of here,” he said, and Justin bobbed his head in agreement. “You don’t need to be around for the aftermath of this scene.”
And he dragged them both for the nearest exit.
Chapter 4
WATERWORKS
Tony Mendoza didn’t normally like to rise much before ten or eleven in the morning. Today, though — the morning after the serious weirdness at the Apocalips — he was willing to make an exception. This morning he was a regular newshound, tuning in local radio and TV to get the official version.
Tony stretched in the breezes sweeping across the balcony of his condo. Condo. He hated that word. Sounded like one of those little raincoats for your pecker. He much preferred the term luxury penthouse. It was a lot easier to look down on people from the balcony of a penthouse than from some wimpy condo.
A fine Wednesday morning. Balcony, orange juice, and bran muffins. The sun and wind on his bare skin, obstructed only by his bikini undies. Hair loose and blowing about his shoulders. His boom box tuned to local news, back and forth, getting all the updates. He was alone. Lupo was out in the Lincoln, on an errand. At a pet store, picking up a couple dozen white mice.
Witnesses’ accounts of what had happened last night varied wildly. This was understandable. Four hundred people, toked up, coked up, drunked up, or in combination — you bet there’d be a lack of concurrence. Not to mention that it was bizarre to begin with.
Some people swore that a wild animal had been brought into the club. Leopard, jaguar — something. Others swore that it was some loony wearing a mask. Others claimed it was something in between those two. Maybe the Wolfman’s grandkids were out running amok. Whatever. But more than one person had mentioned Trent Pollard’s name to the police, claiming they’d seen him acting funny right before the slaughter. A few said that from the back, it had looked like him tearing through the crowd.
Apocalips had been a meat market, once figuratively, now literally. Four people were dead, very messily so. Several others with bite marks and scratches. Doctors indicated that the wounds were consistent with animal teeth and claws.
Trent Pollard might have been able to explain, but he was no longer talking. Dead men tell no tales. He’d been found dangling from the business end of a noose by his employers when they came in this morning to open up the photo studio where he worked. Leaving the police with a prime suspect of some sort, but no motive and no definitive explanations. Which was all for the better, really.
But what the hell was that green shit he’d snorted?
So far as Tony knew, Trent was the first around to sample any. It was a new product and all, and Tony himself most definitely did not touch any of the stuff he handled. Such was the general rule among the Colombians. They were businessmen, not party boys. Let the norteamericanos wipe themselves out one line at a time. Such was their destiny, not Colombia’s.
The green powder, skullfiush, had come up through the usual channels. Six kilos, out of a refinery owned by the Vasquez family of Medellín, Colombia. Flown north to Cuba’s Varadero military airbase, a routine stopping point. Transferred to a boat and brought into the United States through the Florida Keys. Up to Miami under the wing of Luis Escobar, regional godfather in the Colombian mafia. Then transported northwest to Tampa. Mysteriously bypassing Tony’s frequent connection and superior in the Tampa-St. Petersburg area, Rafael Agualar.
Tony had been happy enough to wet his Speedos in excitement upon learning that Escobar was running an end-sweep around Agualar. It could only mean good news for Tony. Everybody knew that Agualar was getting soft and fat, sticking his nose into his product far too much for his own good. Tony knew he wasn’t anywhere near next in line among the Agualares, but nobody could deny he was an up-and-comer. A promising one at that.
That Escobar dealt with him directly boded well for the future. Maybe he was being groomed for takeover, seeing how well he handled the new product. Bigger deals, bigger shipments, bigger profits. Or so he’d thought until last night.
Not knowing exactly what skullflush was, Tony had wanted to try it out on a guinea pig. That’s where Trent had come in. Irritating numbnuts that he was. A good customer from the past, from Tony’s lower-echelon days of street dealing, but a real weaseldick when it came to paying. Should it turn out to be poison, he was expendable.
Just what had it done to him?
In the bathroom at Apocalips, Trent had really weirded out. Strutting around like a peacock, singing gibberish. All the while, his nose running like a faucet. From what Tony could tell after he and Lupo had beat a hasty retreat, things had only gotten worse.
Whacked him out like PCP? Maybe. Turned him into some kind of werewolf? No way. But still, you had to wonder. Because nobody was in agreement on what had gone down.
Now that Trent was dead, it was no big shakes. Except, of course, the little hitch in the plan. Trent’s friend. Justin? Yeah. Justin Gray, who had partaken of the green as well. An out-of-town rube, he was expendable too. Only nothing seemed to have happened to him. Last he saw, the guy was hanging on to a railing looking like it was all he could do to stand up. Of course, he’d hoovered only one line to Trent’s seven. Could have made a big difference.
At any rate, he was a loose end that might have to be tidied up should things even remotely appear messy. Have to put Lupo on finding out where he was staying. Trent’s apartment? Maybe.
All of which would take care of itself.
Tony stood, stretched. Gazed with appreciation at the beauties on beach towels at poolside, four floors down. Sighed and ducked back through the double balcony doors. Life was grand.
He plucked up the wireless phone from its cradle and whipped up the aerial. Time to do a little business. It was getting to be about that time, in between class periods. He punched out a number that triggered a quick pulse in a beeper a few miles away. Hung on to the receiver to await the return call.
Tony wandered into a side room, his favorite in the entire sprawling penthouse. His sanctum sanctorum. Flipped on the light and smiled at his babies. The room was ranked on all four sides by nothing but aquariums.
He had small ones, for fish like gouramis and cichlids. Larger ones, fifty-five and 110 gallons each, for larger, more aggressive fish such as his oscars and Jack Dempseys. And then his prize, on the far wall, a three-hundred-gallon job stocked with piranha.
Tony had divided the room into fresh- and saltwater sides. The saltwater tanks held fish far more vivid than the fresh, as vivid as anything seen by Jacques Cousteau on a coral reef. Absolutely stunning yellows and blues and reds and blacks and whites. Sometimes it took the breath
away, that something so beautiful existed in the world. By comparison, the freshwater fish were bland. Dowdy stepsisters paling beside Cinderella’s beauty. But he loved them too, like a commoner ascending to royalty refusing to forget his roots.
The room never failed in therapeutic value. He could leave the rest of the world outside the door whenever he wanted. Just ease back into the recliner — the sole furniture in here — and stare at whichever tank he wished. Letting the music of gurgling water and humming filters lull him into something like a dream state. Aquatic heaven.
Every important lesson of life that he needed to know was right here in these tanks. When to go for the prize, when to lie low. The powerful eat the weak, the large eat the small. Nowhere was it any more apparent than in the piranha tank. The pit bulls of the underwater world. He owned an even dozen of the little wonders.
He gently tapped the thick glass wall of their home. A couple turned toward the noise in their sluggish way that could be oh so deceiving. Mouths slightly open, jutting lower jaws rimmed with sharp ridges of teeth. Muscular sides silvery and scaly, as if bejeweled.
“Morning, babies,” he said to them.
At last the phone gave its shrill electronic chirp. He let it chirp a couple more times, let the kid on the other end sweat a bit. Tony flipped it on and answered, finally.
“What took you so long?” With a grin.
Listened a moment to the thin piping voice on the other end.
“Got something heading your way today. One-thirty. Same spot as last week. Rice Krispies for lunch!” His own slang term for another substance. Snap crackle pop. The kiddies got a kick out of it sometimes. And at ten to twenty bucks a chunk, it was a rock that every kid could afford to get a piece of.
Listened to the kid whine.
“Hey, you think I give a fuck you got a big math test this afternoon? What are you now, twelve years old? Man, you gotta start getting some priorities straight, own up to your responsibilities. You blow this meet, I can get somebody else to cover that junior high action just like that.” He snapped his fingers by the mouthpiece.
Listened. Now the kid was singing a more agreeable tune. Standing there in a junior high office, using the phone between classes on the pretense of calling a parent about a doctor’s appointment or some other good one.
They signed off and Tony compressed the aerial back down. A minute later he heard the front door open, close. Heavy footsteps.
“In here,” he called out. Lupo joined him, carrying a couple of boxes that looked as if they might hold reams of paper, were it not for the airholes punched around the sides.
“Good news,” Lupo said. “They had plenty of white ones this time.” He set the boxes on the floor and opened the first. A dozen furry little white mice squirmed inside, pink feet scurrying, pink tails flicking about.
“Ah, bless you, Lupo. You know how to brighten a day, don’t you.”
Lupo shrugged modestly. He looked very fit and resplendent this morning. He was far more the morning person than Tony. The guy didn’t need but four, five hours of sleep a night. Tops.
Tony reached in to pluck up a random mouse. Held him aloft by the tail, watching his four legs flail like nobody’s business. All that energy, wasted. And for what? Futility.
Tony dropped him into the piranha tank, watched the nearest fish home in on the splash and make short work of little albino Mickey. A few quick chomps, and a wet cloudburst of red. He dropped another, this one squeaking, into the tank’s opposite end. Zap. Two more flashes of chomping silver, and it became an underwater tug of war. The rest of the piranha were beginning to get the idea. They were used to this game. Among others.
Tony held two by the tails this time, one in each hand. Looked back at the smiling Lupo, who got just as big a kick out of this as did Tony.
“Just like feeding popcorn to pigeons,” Tony said.
And let the mice fall.
Chapter 5
HAWKWINDS
The Venezuelan savannah burned under a sun that seemed to grow hotter with every passing day. Coarse grasses wavered in breezes too pitiful to offer much relief. On the crude but serviceable airstrip at Esmerelda, an equally crude but serviceable cargo plane rumbled down the runway, tentatively cleared ground, then seemed to gain confidence and pulled up into the sky.
In its belly, Kerebawa white-knuckled the safety harness that strapped him into his seat along the inner fuselage. The vibrations were nothing short of terrifying, like the convulsions of a sickened animal readying to lose a recent meal.
He still wasn’t comfortable with the idea of flight, even though the late Angus Finnegan had tried to allay his fears once by referring to a plane as a canoe with wings. That helped, and once in the air things were usually fine, although turbulence still gave him fits. Not so long ago, though, the mere thought of flight was enough to chill the spine of an otherwise brave warrior.
“What if we crash into the hedu kä misi?” he had asked Angus on that very first flight, to Caracas. He was referring to the next layer of the Yanomamö cosmos, hovering overhead at some undetermined altitude.
“The hedu kä misi is too high,” Angus had told him. “We could never reach it. No man could.”
Kerebawa had nodded. Then, “What if we crash into God-teri?”
Angus had frowned, looking puzzled. At last he had answered, “We’ll not crash there unless God calls us to.”
Two years ago, that had been. In comparison with that younger Kerebawa, he was quite the world traveler by now.
The cargo plane, now as then, was piloted by a man named Barrows. An old friend of Padre Angus, immense of belly and bald of head. His copilot, Matteson, was almost a complete opposite, tall and lean with his hair pulled into a graying ponytail. They ran a helter-skelter circuit between Miami and numerous cities across northernmost South America. They frequently touched down in Esmerelda, bringing supplies to the missionaries working among the Yanomamö. In turn, they bought plantains and other fruit and sold them to produce wholesalers in the cities. Both had been dismayed over Angus Finnegan’s demise. And reluctantly agreeable to aiding Kerebawa as he sought to continue Angus’s work.
They had already proven their worth as allies. For so much had already happened to get Kerebawa this far…
Medellín was Colombia’s second largest city, founded in 1616 by Spanish Basques settling in the New World. It was nestled in a lush valley between two stretches of the Andes Mountains, five thousand feet above sea level and only six degrees north of the equator. Such logistics gave it spring-perfect weather all year long. Medellín was world-renowned for the beauty of its orchids, and it was one of Colombia’s chief industrial cities. It had more than a few parallels with American cities — a juxtaposition of mirrored-glass office buildings with working-class ghettos struggling against poverty.
In the past dozen or so years, it had rapidly become to the cocaine trade what Sicily was to the Mafia. A criminal mecca, center of a worldwide network. The Cartel. Exporters who found it far more profitable to work in cooperation rather than as independent rivals.
Standing on a sloping mountainside above the city, invisible within dense foliage, Kerebawa could smell the city’s fear. Hundreds of thousands of innocent people who never knew if death by gun or knife was moments away. You don’t ascend to the top of the coke heap without a cheap price on human life.
Angus Finnegan had never been here, but he understood it. That much Kerebawa had been able to divine while poring over the Padre’s papers after his death. A wealth of sometimes incomprehensible information obtained by trading medical supplies to a network of leftist guerrillas who were fiercely opposed to the Cartel. And who sometimes worked with the American Drug Enforcement Administration. Angus had been a man possessed about compiling the information once word spread that “traders” from the west were visiting Iyakei-teri.
As the hawk flies, Medellín lies better than eight hundred miles from Esmerelda. Once Kerebawa understood the enormity of the distanc
e, after studying Angus’s maps, he felt the shame of disgrace rising within. The distance was too vast. He would fail to avenge his friend’s death.
Then he remembered the sky-men, who soared close to God-teri. Barrows and Matteson. And recognized a name on the map he had heard them talking about.
Bogotá.
They had told him he was crazy, a rain-forest savage wanting to fly with them all the way to Bogotá so he could disappear into the jungle bordering the runway. Kerebawa knew he had to be crafty about travel, for he had no Padre to explain the complexities of civilization, and no pockets for the papers that civilized men always demanded to see. Crazy. But it wasn’t any skin off the pilots’ noses if his mind was made up.
He traveled light, carrying a machete, his bow and arrows, and a bamboo quiver of arrow tips. A cloth roll for his tobacco and ebene powder and maps and pictures and a few other odds and ends.
Angus had taught him the way white men measured time. When Barrows told him they would be back in Bogota in two weeks, he knew precisely how long they meant. And that he had enough to keep him busy in the meantime.
Kerebawa felt quite the adventurer when leaving a remote stretch of the airport for the mountain jungles. Relieved, too, for they felt a lot more like home than the belly of the flying canoe. As well, he thought himself quite clever. He’d just reduced his distance to travel solo to 150 miles or so. With two weeks to cover the distance to Medellín, find Vasquez and the hekura-teri, then return to Bogota to wait for the sky-men.
Kerebawa descended the slope outside of Bogota, and walked until the miles took him to the north-flowing Magdalena River. At its banks, he fashioned a disposable canoe out of tree bark and made the traveling a lot easier by letting the river carry him better than half the journey.
He traveled over mountains, through jungles, across dense valleys, past immense trees stretching up like the legs of some great primeval beast. And through it all he felt the pull growing stronger. You lived in the jungle, thrived there, by becoming a part of it. Feeling its rhythms inside bones and soul. Bending to its will rather than fighting it. And in turn, it would open up its mysteries and let you see and hear and smell and taste all the things an outsider would never notice.