by Brian Hodge
After a couple of minutes, Kerebawa touched Justin’s shoulder, pointed up. Justin nodded. Higher, then. The sweat rolled. After a few more quiet strains and struggles, they crouched in the midst of Tony’s white patio furniture. Justin ran a hand over himself to make sure he’d not lost any tools on the trip up. Things may have gotten twisted around, but they were all present and accounted for.
They duckwalked directly before the patio door, and Kerebawa tried its handle. Wouldn’t budge, as expected. Kerebawa then rapped his fingertips against the thick plate glass.
“This will cause much noise,” he said in earnest concern.
“Don’t worry,” Justin said. He freed his flashlight, cupped his hand over the end, splayed a couple of fingers until a pencil-thin beam of light shined through. He inspected the glass, the curtain on its other side. Along the glass perimeter ran a thin metallic tape strip. Wired for alarms, just as April had feared.
Justin flicked off the light, and as Kerebawa watched, he slipped the roll of masking tape off his wrist and began to peel strips away. He gridded off an area a foot square beside the door handle, filled it in until the entire portion of glass was taped over. Then he reached beneath his shirt and freed the Beretta. Winced. The tape he’d used to secure it pulled out more than its share of fine hairs. He reversed his hold on the gun, wrapping his hand around the barrel. He cocked his arm as if holding a hammer, then smacked the pistol grip into the taped glass.
It gave with a muffled crack, buckled inward. He followed with two more, and the section of glass peeled inward, the tape preventing an unnerving telltale shatter. He pushed it down to the floor, then reached in to unlock the door.
Kerebawa grinned in admiration. “You know ways of treachery too. You may yet be Yanomamö inside.”
Justin smiled, feeling an odd but welcome warmth. Part of the tribe. Compliments probably weren’t handed out falsely where Kerebawa had come from. All this for a trick learned in the movies.
When they were inside and the curtain rearranged, Justin brought up the walkie-talkie and whipped out the aerial and flipped the unit on. Thumbed the transmit key.
“We’re in,” he said.
“That’s a relief,” April’s voice crackled back. “I’ve been eating my fingernails down here.”
“Anything that looks remotely like their car coming back, you sing right out and pick us up at the turnoff onto Westshore.”
Justin clipped the unit back to his waistband and left the channel open. A steady pulse of static hissed, and he went for the flashlight again, its beam a welcome ally. Had to be careful where he shined it, keep it from being visible from the outside. He was about to tell Kerebawa to be careful with his own when he discounted that. With the entire complex under blackout, candles and flashlights were going to be the norm for a while.
“What about this?” Kerebawa held the sandwich bag from inside his shirt.
Justin pointed to a coffee table. Deal with it later. “Put it there. For now, let’s see how this place is laid out.”
They moved from one end of the condo to the other, Justin sketching a mental map as they walked the darkened hallways and rooms. Kitchen, dining room and bar, living room. Central corridor for bedrooms, baths, closets. The furniture, for the most part, looked glossy and modern. Very slick, very chic. Tony didn’t lack for living in style, this was certain.
In one corner of the living room, he found a full bookcase. Lots of classics and arcane modern stuff. Probably Lupo’s. Earlier, April had mentioned he had a reading list not to be believed. One shelf held a pair of interesting bookends, wedge-shaped blocks of clear Lucite. Embedded inside one was a scorpion; in the other, a tarantula. Charming.
“Let’s each take a room to start with,” Justin said. “Just look anywhere there’s a space big enough to keep a kilo.”
Kerebawa disappeared into one of the bedrooms, and Justin could hear him rummaging here, poking there. Justin shined his flashlight on the closed hallway doors, decided instead to start on the closets. He pilfered a linen closet, then one for coats. Midway down the corridor he opened another and found a wall of pitch dark. A room, no windows whatsoever. He shined in the flashlight.
He was momentarily taken aback by the unexpected. Aquariums, nothing but aquariums, and a lounger sitting in the middle of the room. The place resembled some sort of isolation chamber, soothing blues and whites, and all that water. All the more eerie because of its utter silence. No electricity to run motors, pumps, filters.
He shined his light from tank to tank, quick flashing glimpses of brilliant color, red and white and blue and black and yellow. They were lovely, and he found it difficult to reconcile the Tony Mendoza he was familiar with to the one who had built this oasis of tranquility.
On and on, around the room. He stopped when the light fell upon one particular tank that just kept going.
He dropped to his knees. Felt himself tremble.
A dozen piranha, gliding about with the unhurried demeanor of nature’s killers. The bottom of the tank, the gravel and larger rocks, was littered with tiny bones, fragments of bones. Little rodent skulls, hairless and skinless and lying there with their teeth exposed, teeth that looked ridiculous and puny in contrast with those in the jaws swimming above them.
“Oh, Erik,” he whispered, and only when he heard the quavers in his voice did he realize he was in the first throes of crying.
He didn’t know how long he knelt before the tank. Only came to realize that, at some point, Kerebawa had entered and was kneeling beside him. A gentle hand on his shoulder.
“You are cold inside.” Half statement, half question.
Justin nodded. Turned, teary eyed, and nodded more fervently. “Erik, my best friend — this is how they killed him.”
Kerebawa rubbed his shoulder, a curiously comforting gesture. His eyes spoke reams, volumes, of understanding the pain of violent loss. Something that transcended culture, time, place. All men bled the same.
“We must finish the search,” said Kerebawa. “The dead hunger for vengeance too.”
Justin let his eyes slide closed as he turned away and leaned his forehead against the tank. Inches away, the fish watched him.
“And they’ll have it,” he whispered. “They’ll have it.”
They began to move through the condo with a renewed resolve. They searched closets and bureau drawers, under beds and between mattresses. Looked inside covered pots and pans in the kitchen, inspected Tupperware containers and wax-paper-wrapped bundles in the freezer. They ran their hands behind sofa and chair cushions in the living room. Anything that looked as if it might possibly have sufficient space to form a stash, they either looked inside or probed with their hands.
But continually came up with one big zero.
Time had lost meaning. They could have been here for an hour or six. Only when Justin was nearing a furious realization that he might have been wrong did he wander back into the aquarium room. As he sank wearily into the soft embrace of the leather recliner, Kerebawa squatted in the floor, idly toying with a butcher knife taken from the kitchen. Maybe he felt more secure with a weapon.
Think, think. Justin massaged his temples; they were flirting with a headache. He made fists, ground them against the armrests.
“Would there be someplace we did not look?” Kerebawa asked.
“I don’t know,” Justin murmured. He looked at their surroundings, following the light’s beam. “He’s got to keep it in here. Got to. It makes a twisted kind of sense.”
There, try climbing inside Tony’s head for a change. Of course he would keep the skullflush in here. As if his pets would guard it.
“In Mabori-teri, we say sometimes the best place to hide from an enemy is in front of his eyes.”
Justin nodded. In front of our eyes, so where does that put it? Wrapped and submerged in the rocks of one or more tanks? He played his light over them. Doubtful, he decided. He couldn’t see Tony, with a setup like this, risking a rupture that might poiso
n his fish. Besides, the gravel didn’t look deep enough for kilos.
In front of our eyes — the recliner?
Justin hopped out of his seat, borrowed the knife from Kerebawa. To hell with secrecy. He sliced through the back of the chair — maybe the stuff was packed inside. But when the leather back hung in tatters, it revealed only empty space.
Justin sagged into the floor, leaned against the chair. The only thing preventing him from conceding defeat was the look Kerebawa had given him earlier when he was ready to call off the break-in. He tipped his head back over the armrest so that he was staring up toward the ceiling. He shined his light overhead, across the white acoustic tile. And stopped, wondering.
Acoustic tile. False ceiling. Meaning the real, structural ceiling was hidden, with a gap of at least a foot between the two.
Justin scrambled to his feet, tested the sturdiness of the recliner’s armrests. A bit wobbly. He had Kerebawa hold him steady as he climbed aboard and pushed the section of tile directly overhead out of its frame. He aimed his light into the space.
And discovered that pay dirt was green.
He tossed the individually wrapped packages to the floor, five in all. Only five. He swept his light all across the false ceiling and found only dust balls. He replaced the tile, then hopped down.
“Where is the sixth?” Kerebawa asked. “There were to be six.”
“I don’t know. Not there. Maybe Tony’s got it someplace else. With him, maybe.” Justin gestured impatiently. “Come on, let’s find something to carry these out in.”
They took the kilos into the kitchen, where Justin rummaged through the pantry and found a cache of grocery sacks. He unfolded one; some supermarket’s name and logo were emblazoned across it. And with the skullflush inside, it looked as innocent as if it contained nothing more than a few bags of flour. Getting ready for a marathon baking stint. They could walk it all back to the car and no one would think a thing about it.
Justin looked at the sack with a satisfied nod. “Now things get personal,” he said, and moved for the main hall.
“We go now,” said Kerebawa. He stepped forward to snag Justin’s elbow. Urgently. “Justin, we go now.”
Justin whirled, batted the clinging hand away. For a brief moment, Kerebawa’s eyes ignited. There was no other term for it. Burning with the quick temper and hostility that were a part of his birthright, his people. His legacy. An imposing sight, unless you were past the point of caring.
“You got what you wanted out of this.” Justin kept his voice low. Unflinching. “Now it’s my turn.”
“Only fools stay in an enemy village after the work is done.”
“It’s not done, that’s the problem. As long as we’ve been here, a few more minutes won’t matter.” Justin let that sink in before hitting him with the irrefutable argument of his own words. “Remember, the dead hunger for vengeance too.”
Kerebawa appeared to resign himself to carrying out the wishes of the dead. Something he was surely no stranger to. And as Justin returned to the aquariums, he put his partner in crime out of mind. Justin was on personal terms now and wanted no help. He was the one who had declared the need for mind games with Tony.
And there was no better place than here. His refuge. His sanctuary.
From the doorway, Justin shined his light onto the huge piranha tank. At a distance, they looked so innocuous. Then he recalled the condition Erik had been found in. The prosthetic and glove he’d needed for his funeral visitation. He remembered the mound of grave dirt in Ohio. The quiet slumber for the sleeper, in that quiet earth.
Some things just seemed destined to come full circle. Justin drew the Beretta. Flicked off the safety, sighted in on the tank. Began to squeeze.
And lowered it. No. Not this way. This was too distant, too clean. Pulling a trigger was too easy. He put the gun away and, from the living room, brought back one of the hefty Lucite bookends, the one with the scorpion. Denizen of the desert. The justice of it seemed poetic. Desert was about to meet deluge.
As Kerebawa held the flashlights, Justin hefted the bookend in both hands. Gave a pair of practice heaves from the doorway, like a shot-putter at a track meet.
And with a pleasure bordering on savage, he let it fly.
The side of the tank staved in with a liquid crunch, and it was as if a dam had burst. Freshwater and foam erupted in torrential violence, gushing across the floor in a wave that reached from wall to wall and even out into the hallway. Justin stepped aside just before it slapped the hallway wall, soaking into the carpet and sloshing halfway up to the ceiling. He laughed. He laughed, and it felt invigorating. Nothing else he could have done tonight would have felt half as good.
On the hallway carpet flopped a lone piranha, silver with red-orange swirls around its lower jaw and gills. First-place winner for distance. He took a light from Kerebawa and entered the room, found most of the other fish splashing feebly in water insufficient to cover them. They made low grunting noises and, fascinated, he listened to this eerie cadence of their impending deaths.
Two fish were still in the tank, below its new, drastically lowered waterline. Easy enough to fix. He splashed onward and kicked the massive hole even larger, bringing about a secondary gusher and the last two tumbling stragglers.
Hell with soggy shoes, he didn’t care. All he wanted to do was keep free of snapping jaws, and this wasn’t difficult. He grinned again. The devastation, in just moments’ time, was enormous.
Justin squished past Kerebawa, back to the living room, where he retrieved the sandwich bag from the coffee table. Its time had come. Where to leave the contents, though? He settled on the kitchen. Inside the refrigerator he found a pitcher of lemonade. Perfect. Guaranteed to kill someone’s thirst for a good long time.
While he was in the kitchen, inspiration struck. He grabbed cutlery and steak knives until he had gathered an even dozen. Then back to Tony’s private Sea World.
Kerebawa watched with impassive approval as Justin squatted beside the piranha that had made it all the way to the hall.
“This will bring great fury to Tony Mendoza,” he said.
Justin grinned, cold and humorless. “That’s the idea.”
With that, he gazed down at the piranha. Its tail beat at the soggy carpet; its gills flexed, useless in the air. Gasping its life away. Justin selected a knife, held the point over the thickest part of the fish’s middle, then punched the blade through its body.
One by one, he did the same with the rest, until all twelve were twitching on their own individual knives. He took them to Tony’s recliner, crippled throne in the center of a waterlogged palace.
Finally, time for the coup de grace.
Justin pinned the first fish to the leather backrest. And the second. And the rest. Not haphazardly, but with symmetry, arranging them into a design that Tony couldn’t help but notice. With screaming futility. Justin smiled.
Then stood back to admire his handiwork.
Chapter 22
MUTILATIONS
The first indication that things were wrong came even before Tony and Lupo and Sasha made it up to the fourth level. His downstairs neighbor had been watching for him. And wasted no time charging out in a thigh-length bathrobe to howl and bitch about water leakage draining into his ceiling.
They left his complaints behind, and Lupo had his MAC-10 drawn and ready to fire as soon as Tony opened the door.
The entire atmosphere felt different. Violated. By that time, the ruined transformer had been taken care of and full power had been restored. They knew nothing of the earlier blackout as Tony hit the lights.
As soon as he saw the sodden carpet, he went running for the aquarium room. When he splashed inside, Tony felt the heavy hand of tragedy as never before. It turned knees to jelly, took stomach and heart with them.
His pride, his joy — demolished.
And then he saw the recliner.
His warbling cry of despair brought Lupo in at a run from checking the rest o
f the penthouse. And all three of them stood in the water, staring. Just staring. It took an extraordinarily pissed-off person to go to all this trouble.
“I don’t care what it takes,” he said, trying so hard to keep his voice from degenerating into a sob, “but I’m gonna kill them myself. I’m gonna tear out their fucking hearts and eat them raw.”
He went on and on, and they let him rage, and finally Lupo looked overhead. Tony sputtered into silence and followed his gaze.
“They didn’t,” he whispered. Blind hope.
“Have to check.”
Tony took an automatic step toward the recliner, then stopped. No. Couldn’t use it as a stepladder now, not now. It would be too much like wallowing atop a fresh grave.
“Give me a boost.”
Lupo wrapped thick arms around his waist and heaved him upward. Tony lifted an acoustic tile, then let it fall back with a strangled cry. When Lupo eased him back to the floor, Tony took two wobbly steps to one side before his knees gave out. Too much grief, too much rage, too much shock. Systems were close to overload. If he had Justin Gray and April Kingston before him now, he knew with complete certainty that he could take them apart with his bare hands.
He sat in the floor like a dejected child, water soaking into his slacks and shirt. Ran a hand through his hair, and water trickled down both sides of his face. He looked up only when Sasha moved toward him with splashing footsteps.
“Get the fuck out of here!” he shouted, and she flinched. “This doesn’t concern you, so just get the fuck out of my sight!”
She splashed back to the hallway without a word.
Tony uttered a mortal groan. “They took it, man. Every bit of it.”
“There’s still most of that kilo hidden in the Lincoln.”
A singular weak ray of sunshine through this darkest of clouds. “That’s right, I — I forgot.”
Nearly one kilo left, a gift of fate. He would kill them, oh yes. And knew precisely what form he would take when doing it. One more look at the chair convinced him there was no alternative.