Nightlife

by Brian Hodge

  “But you ripped him off to the tune of five keys, so you’ve got something in the way of a pair of stones. At least you can be sure of two things: If he turned up dead, I don’t know of anyone who’d shed a tear. And the natural assumption is that it would’ve been one of his business associates. If you get my drift.”

  “Yeah. I do.” Another whisper.

  “That’s all I’m going to say on the subject. Ever.”

  Kill him. She was probably right. And while Justin had passed on that option a few nights ago, now he wasn’t so sure it wasn’t the best one after all. In no small way due to what the ebene had shown. A man who slaughtered like that didn’t merely deserve to be locked up, the key melted down into something useful. No, he deserved to die. But to have no qualms over decreeing such a fate and acting as executioner — a huge gulf separated the two.

  “I’ll take it under consideration,” he said, and after she wished him luck, the connection was broken. He sat on the bed holding the receiver a moment, then cradled it gently when he instead felt like pulverizing it to plastic chips and dead circuitry.

  “What’s wrong?” April, at the round breakfast table. Kerebawa sat across from her. Optimism was not showing its sunny face.

  He told them of the lab results, watched shaky hope lose ground and become lost hope. And then offered the partial redemption of Espinoza’s suggestion, the apparently last-ditch chance among their rapidly depleted roster of options. Sad, in a way, to watch morality become the next casualty when the situation looked this desperate. He put it to an informal vote.

  “I say we do it,” was April’s.

  “We already should have.” Kerebawa had probably never heard the phrase, but his expression plainly said I told you so.

  Justin rose from the bed and paced toward them. “Can you do it?” he directed to April. “Can you? Because I’m not so sure I can, to be honest. When it comes right down to sticking a gun in his face and pulling the trigger.”

  Kerebawa tapped his chest. “I can.”

  “Mentally, okay, I believe that. But you’ve never even used a gun. And believe me, he and his people will have them, too, and machetes and bows and arrows aren’t going to be any match. It might have been close when you had the curare tips, but you said those got washed clean before you even got to Tampa.” Justin sunk onto the bed beside them. “It wouldn’t be as easy as that, anyway, just walking up into his face. We’d never get that close.”

  “So we do it from farther away,” April said.

  “A firefight against people who’ve got us outnumbered, outgunned, and outexperienced.” He reached over to rest a hand on her knee, hoping she would join his with her own. She didn’t. “Plus, no matter what Espinoza says, it’s still murder, it’s still illegal. Even if we stay alive, we could still be caught with the smoking gun.”

  April snatched her knee from his touch. “Do you want to do this, or don’t you?” An angry demand. “Because what else are we gonna do, huh? What else? Look at us! Do you want to live like this forever!”

  Justin looked at Kerebawa. No words needed — the set of his face indicated that he was siding wholly with April.

  Some change in life he had managed to fashion for himself. At least back in St. Louis he had had identifiable hallmarks to dread, court dates and meetings with lawyers and cops. None of whom were out to kill him, but who drained him of lifeblood just the same. This wasn’t much different. The main distinction was not knowing when the hammer would fall, or if the blow would be fatal.

  “I never said I didn’t want to try,” he finally told her. “Just trying to be realistic. Nothing wrong with being realistic.”

  April nodded, swirled the last swallow of coffee in her cup. “No. And you weren’t wrong about anything.” She finished the coffee. “I’ll tell you what our problem is. Tony’s got too much control. We don’t have any leverage to get him to behave like we want.”

  “We have the hekura-teri,” said Kerebawa. “He wants this.”

  Justin shook his head. “That’s not good enough. Sure, it was a blow to his pride when we took it, but it didn’t hurt him much. He couldn’t sell it anyway. He’d probably already gotten used to the idea of eating the financial loss.” He smiled thinly, an idea starting to gel. “What motivates Tony? More than pride, more than ego or sex drive or power. What does that leave?”

  “Money,” April said immediately.

  “Exactly. And if we want more leverage to bargain with him to maybe get the last of the skullflush, and to get him into a position of maximum risk to himself at minimum risk to ourselves, we’ve got to hurt him through his cash flow.”

  Kerebawa had been following carefully, new terms and concepts alien to his home. He seemed a quick study. “I have seen many men die from their greed.”

  Justin nodded eagerly. Amazing, how the strength of one idea could take root, fill you full of steam again. “If he thinks we’re stupid enough to try bargaining with him, he just might let down his guard enough so we can finish it all.”

  “So what’s the bargaining chip you’ve got in mind?”

  “Rip him off again.”

  April groaned. “Justin, the dumbest bank robbers in the world are the ones who go back to the same place two or three times, just because it worked the first time.”

  He held up a hand, like a teacher quelling a pupil’s objections. “I don’t mean his condo. Look, this is a little more my area than yours. There’s got to be a drop point somewhere we can find. Either get away clean, or rob one of his mules.” He spread his hands. “It’s the only way we’ll ever be able to maneuver him.”

  April appeared to weigh it, mental scales tipping to and fro. Finally settling on agreement.

  “This just doesn’t end, does it? All this scurrying around?”

  He didn’t know what to tell her. What to do. Pat her hands, babble empty promises? Offer a little comfort in a blatant lie of total confidence? No. She would see through it, anyway.

  He crossed around behind her, kissed her atop the head, and leaned down to squeeze her around the shoulders. She felt stiff against him, but a moment later he felt her lips press to his arm.

  “I just want my life back, Justin.” Her voice sounded flat, as cheery as a dying balloon. “That’s all. I just want my life back like it was before last Saturday night.”

  “I know. And you’ll get it,” he whispered. Then grabbed his half-cup of coffee. “I’m gonna step outside, get some fresh air. Too stuffy in here. I’ll be back in a few.”

  She nodded, and he straightened, wandered out the door. He wore jeans only, no shirt, barefoot. Morning sun and humidity, a potent mix. He faced the parking lot, watched a family of out-of-towners load into their minivan. Shorts, T-shirts, visors, a bag of camera gear. Maybe going to Busch Gardens, photograph the kids at the petting zoo. He watched them roll out to the boulevard.

  I just want my life back.

  It didn’t seem too much to ask for. For any of them.

  She watched his bare back disappear out the door. And once the door had shut, watched where his back had been. Maybe she should have gone along; two could get fresh air as easily as one.

  “He will be back,” said Kerebawa, simple comfort in his voice.

  She smiled and nodded, didn’t bother to correct him that he had misread her concerns. Where he came from, men probably weren’t used to dealing with many women’s concerns beyond worrying over children and hut and missing their men. Whole new world up here, my friend.

  “He admires you,” April told Kerebawa after several moments. “A great deal, I think.”

  The Indian cocked his head for a moment, an oddly childlike gesture, then smiled. Broadly, as if pleasantly delighted.

  “Justin seems to have much to be proud of,” he said. “I have little that matters in his world.”

  “It’s the difference in worlds that’s important. The difference in purity. Yours? The — the absolutes — they’re clearer there.”

  Now the cocked
head meant confusion. He frowned, perplexed.

  “You don’t understand, do you?”

  “Absolutes, I don’t know what you mean, absolutes.”

  She held a breath, let it out thoughtfully. How could she make him understand the gray areas of American life, how black and white varied with every viewpoint? How could he understand the compromises required in nearly every facet of life if you were to survive it with your sanity and bank balance intact? It would be pointless to try.

  “The absolutes,” she finally said, “are what’s right and what’s wrong. What’s allowed, and what’s forbidden. You understand them a lot better in your world than we do in ours. And I think that’s what he admires so much.”

  She watched the smile reappear on his face, but this time it was tainted by sadness. The bittersweet taste of loss. April then recalled the depressing tales of South America’s cannibalization of its rain forests — along with the people who lived there — and feared she had spoken far beyond her due.

  “My world has grown more confused,” Kerebawa said. “What saves most of us — who want to be saved — is remembering the past.”

  How sad, she thought. Someday they’ll be as extinct as the dinosaurs.

  “At least,” she said, “your people have a past they can remember. That’s worth remembering.”

  She felt a stab of hypocritical guilt. Even she wasn’t above occasional horror at the alien nature of his world. As evidenced a couple nights ago when she had walked in from her mail trip and found Kerebawa and Justin languishing in a stupor of green mucus and voided stomachs. Her first thought had been utter revulsion. Her second had been of running for good. That Justin had finally caved in from the pressure. It had taken a good long while to get over that one.

  For that thought meant that the fear had undeniably been lurking within all along. Fear of his unreliability, just waiting for sufficient reason to pop into view like a malevolent jack-in-the-box.

  She wanted to believe in him. Badly. So badly.

  The thought brought her up short. How long had Justin been outside, anyway? Ten minutes? More? She looked at Kerebawa.

  “Maybe you’d better go see where he’s gotten off to.”

  Kerebawa nodded, vacated as readily as had Justin. And there she sat. Prisoner of fate and circumstance. I want my life back.

  She realized what she probably needed more than anything was to return to the security of simply doing her job. Occupational therapy. For now, though, she’d do what she could. Check her messages.

  Sanity was hard bought these days.

  Justin had continued on around to the back of the motel, to the small patch of palms, their pathetic attempt at maintaining a touch of nature amid the tacky glitz. He had sat atop one of two picnic tables, sipping coffee, his feet slick with morning dew.

  He found himself strangely reconciled to the possibility that he might not be breathing after the next few days. Precious little fear was left, only weary resolve to see everything through to the end, cut the maddening day-to-day uncertainties. And the regret over the lives he had hopelessly entangled into his excuse for one. He missed Paula, bone deep for the first time in months, wished for one last chance to apologize for wrecking their marriage. Sorry, hon, I just woke up brain-dead one day and never got better.

  Justin had heard nothing behind him, was aware of Kerebawa only when he too slid onto the table. He wore a pair of Justin’s gym shorts, and his ribs looked like washboards.

  Minutes passed. Silent communion, long monologues spoken through the occasional locking of eyes alone. Listening to traffic pick up on the boulevard. Justin knew he should be moving.

  “The eagle,” said Kerebawa. “It no longer suffers broken wings.”

  Justin smiled, crumpled the Styrofoam cup. Then stood and clapped Kerebawa on the shoulder. “Come on. Let’s go hunting.”

  As soon as he set foot inside the motel room, he could tell that April had been crying. Red eyes, red nose, soggy tissue on the table. It set off low-grade alarms inside, which abated when she didn’t say anything. Tears on general principles.

  He felt guilty for leaving her so long to cry alone. Maybe it was something she needed, though, to flush the poisons from body and mind.

  April rose from the chair, met him halfway across the room. They hugged, held it. Her arms drawing him tight, tighter, seeking to make one body from two.

  “Whatever happens,” she said, her voice choked with warbles, “please remember that I love you. Please remember that.”

  He murmured that he would, and held her tighter than before. Their arms like nothing so much as a pair of nooses, till death do us part.

  Staking out Tony’s had proved beneficial before, so they decided to stick with the tried and true. They sweltered in the car for the rest of the morning, then adopted a change in tactics when Lupo went out alone in the Lincoln shortly before one o’clock. He wasn’t empty-handed; the binoculars showed a sturdy attaché case in one hand. If, like most dealers, Tony buffered himself against needlessly dirtying his hands, then this was the man to follow.

  Justin gave him a head start of two hundred yards, then followed him onto Westshore. Midday traffic gave him ample opportunity to blend into the background. The only worry was losing him when it got a little too heavy for comfort. He hung onto the wheel and felt his stomach clench as tight as his hands.

  They tailed the Lincoln onto South Dale Mabry, an endless thoroughfare of strip malls, one- and two-level successions of new buildings sharing adjacent walls. Dominos of the consumer economy. Clothing stores, home entertainment centers, yogurt vendors, video outlets, shoe stores — they just didn’t end. He had noticed the repetitiveness before, with Erik. You traveled onward with a snowballing sense of déjà vu.

  The Lincoln pulled off into one of the mall’s parking lots, and Justin hung back after following. He watched the Lincoln turn down a row of parking places, then nose into the empty space alongside a sleek Dodge Daytona already there. A lone figure sat in the Daytona, and Justin’s last glimpse of Lupo before passing the same row was of him leaving the Lincoln, attaché case in hand.

  “What’d he do?” he asked April, who was craning her neck to look back.

  “He got into the other car.” She was squinting against the glare of sun on windshields.

  “I feel like we’re driving around in one giant sore thumb,” Justin grumbled.

  From the back seat, Kerebawa uttered a sound of confusion.

  “A dumb American expression,” said Justin, and that seemed to satisfy him.

  Justin turned the same direction as the Lincoln three rows later, found a vacant space that gave them an unobstructed angle on the Daytona. He geared into park, let it idle.

  The Daytona was white with red trim. Probably showed dust like crazy. He lifted the binoculars and trained them in; the conversation they zoomed in on, while silent, appeared neither too casual nor too heated. Very businesslike.

  While looks may have been a poor judge of character, Justin decided he liked those of Lupo’s contact far better than those of Lupo himself. Lupo was probably fearsome in his sleep. This new guy? A receding chin looked weak every time. One good punch, and the guy’s lower jaw would slot all the way back to his Adam’s apple. Big deal, though, in a vocation where Uzis acted as the great equalizer.

  “What do you think?” Justin passed the binoculars to April. “Guy mean anything to you, ever see him before?”

  She watched, tongue tip working nervously at the corner of her mouth. Then nodded and passed the binoculars back. “I don’t know him, never saw him before. He looks fine to me.

  Ah, a green light. They could ditch the Lincoln and set their sights on a new target. Better still, a target to whom their faces were unknown.

  Now, if only educated guesswork would hold water. Justin was betting that Lupo hadn’t come out of Tony’s with a case full of kilos. Cash, more likely. Leave it off with the mule — or mules, if he should make subsequent stops — give a time an
d place to exchange it for product in the next day or two, and a drop site to leave it for the next link in the chain. Dealer, subdealer, whatever.

  One gigantic if, on which everything hinged. It was enough to bring on a migraine.

  Lupo vacated the Daytona for the Lincoln. Across the rows, Justin watched them back out of their parking places and head their separate ways.

  Moments later, he did likewise. This time, taking the path whose end he did not know.

  Chapter 27

  COUP D’ÉTAT

  Dusk was deepening over Tampa as the Lincoln cruised south along Bayshore Boulevard. Tony loved this jaunt at night, gorgeous view. It was better when you were in the northbound lanes and downtown lay ahead like a promise, but he could always turn around. See the lights, the skyline in retreat. And all that water to the east, rippling black and silver beneath the rising moon. What secrets it must hold.

  Lupo continually checked the rearview mirror, once every several seconds. He seemed satisfied.

  “Okay back there?” Tony asked.

  Lupo nodded. “If we had a tail, I would’ve spotted them by now. I’m taking it like a maze tonight.”

  Standard precaution for business trips that fell beyond the realm of ordinary. Not like this afternoon, when Lupo had grown a tail, knew it, and didn’t mind one tiny bit.

  That too was business beyond the ordinary.

  Tony felt as if he were fighting a low-level war, on two fronts. Justin and April, on the one hand. And on the other, Tampa’s big cheese himself.

  Rafael Agualar lived far south on Bayshore in one of the city’s most exclusive neighborhoods. Perched on the edge of the bay, these homes demanded substantial dollar investment, but Agualar could surely afford it. Directly or indirectly, he controlled a full eighty percent of the cocaine flow into the area.

  His house was new, modern, its architecture composed of intersecting and overlapping cubes, all a pristine white. In emulation of Hugh Hefner’s hedonistic life, Agualar had constructed his own open-air grotto, gardens and pathways that converged upon a man-made pond, complete with low rock cliffs and a waterfall at one end. A splendid place for entertaining of all types, the playground was shielded from neighbors’ curious eyes by a surrounding thicket of palms and gumbo-limbos. Security was further enhanced by a nine-foot brick wall circling the estate, its top ledge studded with broken glass embedded in concrete. According to Santos, photoelectric eyes were spaced at intervals along the walls. If a beam between them was broken, the security staff inside knew where and could zoom in with a closed-circuit camera to cover the breach in an instant, while at the same time drenching the area with floodlights.