“I don’t know.”
She pulled out a tissue and wiped at her nose and cheeks. “I’m sorry about Andrew.”
Patrick nodded and then stood up. “I’ll be back at the hotel. I have some arrangements to make.”
As he walked away from her he noticed a policeman behind him. The officer was walking in his direction, his eyes on Patrick, but when Patrick would look at him he would look away.
Patrick walked down the street, glancing in a restaurant window and seeing the officer still behind him about twenty feet. He kept walking as if he hadn’t noticed, stopping once at a fruit stand and haggling over a banana. He purchased it and saw that the officer was standing nearby.
He kept walking and then suddenly turned down an alley. There were trash cans gathered near a door and he ducked behind them and waited.
There were footsteps down the alleyway and Patrick held his breath. He had seen officers intimidate and even injure or kill tourists for their valuables. The police in poorer nations were much of the time criminals themselves.
The officer stood in front of the trash cans and stepped closer to have a look when Patrick jumped up and wrapped one arm around his throat, the other coming behind his head in a scissor lock. The policeman fought at first but when Patrick squeezed and the air was cut off, he relaxed. He saw the sweat glistening against the man’s forehead, but he didn’t flinch.
“Mr. Russell?”
“Maybe. Why?”
“My name is Inspector Sosa. I was the investigator for your brother.”
Patrick hesitated and then let go. “Why were you following me?”
“I did not want to talk to you about this near the other police.”
The officer glanced to him and Patrick realized he was still standing too close.
“Sorry.”
“It is all right. It is not the first time someone has tried to choke me.”
“What is it you want to talk to me about?”
He looked furtively out the alley and said, “Your brother did not drown.”
“What do you mean?”
“They do not talk about it here, for the tourists. But your brother did not drown. He was killed.”
“What are you telling me? My brother was murdered?”
“Yes, but not by a man.” He looked back out the alley. “I don’t want to talk here. Let us talk near the beach. Follow me.”
They made their way through the crowds and past the hawkers and restaurants and shops. They walked past vast estates and new buildings still yet to be occupied. They walked for what seemed to Patrick a long time before reaching a white sand beach and coming to a nearby picnic table.
Patrick looked out over the sea. He had fallen in love with the ocean since the first time he came to Chile four years ago. The water rolled into shore in small waves and crackled against the beach. The sun was so bright it gave the water a white-gold reflection that matched the sand before it.
“There is . . . something, here, Mr. Russell. I do not know what it is. But it has killed many people. Nobody will talk about it because we cannot have the tourists frightened to come here. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“Your brother was killed by it. They will not find the body.”
“I was told they found some remains of Mary Beth?”
“It is true. But that is rare. And there was not much found.” He looked out over the choppy water, a few bathers in the shallows watching their children play. “I wanted you to know the truth.”
“Why?”
“It has . . . it has killed someone I cared for as well. I do not want you to believe your brother was a drunken fool.”
Patrick nodded. “I understand. Thank you for telling me.”
The inspector stood up to leave when Patrick said, “What do you think it is? You have to have some guess?”
“A monster, Mr. Russell. There is a monster in our waters.”
* * *
4
Patrick Russell woke from a restless sleep and showered and shaved. The hotel was the second most luxurious in Viña; next to the Hotel del Mar on the beach. His room was carpeted with Persian rugs over imported oak floors. There was a wash basin on an antique dresser in the corner and a mirror that looked to be from a previous century was secured to the wall above it. The balcony doors were open, the breeze flowing in over white curtains.
There was a knock at the door as he was shaving. “Come.”
His assistant, Christopher Woodruff, walked in and collapsed onto an imitation Louis the XVI chair. He crossed his legs, revealing Gucci leather boots.
“Well?” Patrick said.
“You’re right. There’ve been some serious attacks. And not just on people, entire boats have been attacked. Fucking yachts.”
“Has anyone seen what attacked them?”
“Couple of fishermen. Your old buddy is supposedly one of them.”
“Rodrigo?”
“Apparently.” Christopher rose and went to cupboard near the balcony. He took out a crystal bottle and poured himself a few fingers of scotch in a glass. “These locals tend to exaggerate, so I’m not sure how much stock I would put in their stories. But if they’re even half right, this thing is going to make us famous.”
*****
The docks were crowded but few ships were out on the ocean. Patrick stood on the beach and looked out over the churning water. A strong wind was blowing and he could taste the salt from the ocean on his tongue. He saw the white boat lashed to a slip and walked to it. It appeared empty.
He climbed aboard and peered into the cabin. Rodrigo Gonzalez was asleep in his underwear, his enormous stomach rising and falling with his snores. A silver cross hanging from a necklace was entwined with his graying chest hair and empty bottles of beer were on the floor. Patrick quietly went back near the stern and sat in one of the deckchairs.
“You do not need to sit out there, amigo.”
He turned to see Rodrigo wide awake, his eyes bloodshot from recent drunkenness. Patrick went to him and they shook hands.
“Hola,” Patrick said.
“Hola.”
Rodrigo sat up and went to an icebox in the corner. He got out two beers and they sat on the deck and drank for a while without speaking.
“I have heard about your brother. I am sorry.”
Patrick shook his head. “He was going to be married soon and take over my father’s business. My father is a rich man, but he says I have no head for money. It’s true. I was supposed to be the one that everyone felt sorry for and gossiped about, not Andrew.”
“I have lost many brothers. I believe I will see them again and they will see me. Do you believe in God?”
“No.”
Rodrigo shrugged. “Hard to see your brother when you are in hell.”
Patrick smiled. “I’m not the one that kissed a man.”
“I tell you, you could not tell she was a man. Only when her clothes were not on.”
He chuckled softly. He missed Rodrigo. Patrick had been coming to Chile every summer for the past four years since he was dishonorably discharged from the Army. Rodrigo had been his fishing companion, his drinking companion, and at times the only person in the world Patrick could talk to.
“I wanted to speak to you about something,” Patrick said. “I’ve heard stories that my brother was killed—that many people have been killed recently—by something in the water.”
“What do you mean ‘something’?”
“I don’t know. A policeman called it a monster. Some people told Christopher that you had seen it.”
Rodrigo nodded, staring off in the distance. “Yes, I have. I have one on my boat.”
“One what?”
“Stay here.”
He went to the bow and fetched something out of a metal container. He came back and sat across from him again and leaned forward. There was something dangling from his finger. Patrick examined it more closely. Attached with little tentacles around his index fin
ger was a small white squid.
* * *
5
Rodrigo took the boat out of the slip and the harbor and went on the open sea. The ocean was by and large calm but there were waves that rocked the ship up and down and it took a moment for Patrick to adjust. He hadn’t been on a boat since his training with the Army Rangers.
Patrick played with the tiny animal. The squid was no bigger than a finger but he could still feel its strength as it fought for its life, wrapping a tentacle around his thumb and not letting go. Patrick grabbed it by the head and threw it into the water.
Rodrigo turned the engines off and then came and sat next to him, the ship gliding over the water before slowing and coming into rhythm with the waves.
“I have heard you have been in Chile for three weeks but you have not come to see your old friend Rodrigo.”
“I was going to; I just got a little busy. I was going to bring Andrew so we could all go diving for clams.”
“The clams are not good this year. The fish are not good this year, nothing is good this year.”
“Why? What’s going on?”
Rodrigo pointed due north. “There are factories there that put things in the water, ah, cómo se dice? Chemicals? They put chemicals in the water and they kill the fish. But I know nothing else. I know how to fish and how drink and there are no jobs for drinking.”
There was commotion nearby, thrashing in the water. Patrick looked over the edge of the boat and saw an oceanic white tip shark biting into the boat, exploring with its mouth.
“They very dangerous sharks,” Rodrigo said. “Two fishermen diving here three months ago. The shark bite one in the leg and pulled him to the bottom because it knew the other fisherman could not follow. It killed the man there and ate much of him. Very dangerous.”
“This thing that killed my brother, it’s more dangerous isn’t it?”
Rodrigo whistled through his teeth.
“Christopher thinks if we can catch it it’ll make us famous. He says it’s a giant squid. Something that’s very rare.”
“No, not rare. I have heard stories from my grandfather and seen them. Some men here kill them and sell the meat. Every year at the same time the sea gets angry. That is what he told me when I was a child. The sea gets angry and it sends its demons to protect it.”
Before Patrick could respond they heard something nearby. He turned and saw a boat heading toward them. Rodrigo picked up a pair of binoculars out of a tackle box and watched the boat for a long time.
He finally put the binoculars down and jumped up to the controls and started the engines. “We need to leave now.”
“What is it?”
“Bandidos.”
“Out here?”
“They come for the boat. They are as dangerous as the sharks.”
The boat dipped slightly as the engine came to life and propelled it forward. It began cutting through the waves and Rodrigo turned the ship in a wide arch back to shore.
Patrick looked behind him and watched the other boat. They were getting closer; their ship newer than Rodrigo’s by at least twenty years.
Rodrigo pushed the throttle forward, black smoke coughing up from the pipe next to the controls. Patrick took the binoculars and looked behind them. There were at least five men, two of them armed with what looked like semi-automatic rifles. They wore plain clothing but one of them was in fatigues; possibly military issue.
“They don’t look like they’re coming to borrow some tools, Rodrigo.”
“They’re coming to throw us in the water and take the boat. If we had women, they would take them too.”
Patrick sat down, his foot incessantly tapping against the deck. He didn’t like the waiting, the anticipation. He enjoyed either the fight or rest but not that odd area in between.
Bandidos had always been a problem in Chile, but it was predominantly the more rural parts of Chile. To come on the water near a tourist resort and rob the local fishermen was brazen to the point that Patrick thought perhaps they were either a part of the military or police, or protected by them. In poorer nations, there’s little that distinguishes the crooks from the government.
The shore was visible now but the other boat was close, maybe a hundred feet. It was closing quickly and the men were shouting something through a megaphone.
“What are they saying?”
“They are telling us to surrender the boat and we will live. It is not true.”
“Do you have any guns?”
“Yes, near the bed.”
Patrick went inside the cabin and found a Kimber 84m bolt action rifle. An older rifle made entirely of steel and walnut; no aluminum or rubber parts. He found the ammunition next to it and stepped outside.
“You sure this thing still fires?”
“Maybe.”
“Great.”
Patrick loaded the rifle and bent down behind the edge of the transom. The other boat was gaining quickly now and wasn’t more than forty feet away. Patrick could see the faces of the men. They were cold and detached from a life of hardship and robbery and murder. They wouldn’t have any sympathy for an old fisherman and his American friend.
Patrick took up the rifle and peered down the scope. Every time he did so, a small shiver went up his back and his stomach fluttered. He was right back in Falluja or Baghdad or Basra, hiding in tenements and firing down at unsuspecting enemy combatants as they made their way through what they thought was a safe area of town.
After the kill was the most dangerous time. That was the moment he would have to decide whether there was enough time to take down another target, or to pack up and disappear. Occasionally, the Iraqis wouldn’t even notice when one of their own went down. They were disorganized and undisciplined but with a suicidal ferocity that made them difficult opponents.
Patrick felt the smoothness of the steel trigger and aimed the scope just under the wheel at the controls. He fired a single shot and a small hole appeared under the wheel and out the back of the control console.
The other boat began to sputter and eventually just came to a stop, the men scrambling to get it going again, looking at Rodrigo and Patrick as if trying to burn their faces in their minds for next time.
“Good shooting.”
He pulled the bolt back, an empty cartridge clinking onto the deck, and went to the cabin to put the rifle back. They pulled up to the harbor and Rodrigo carefully put the boat back into the slip before they looked to each other.
“You have never told me you could shoot like that.”
“You never asked.”
* * *
6
Patrick jumped up in the night, sweat rolling down his chest and back, soaking the sheets. He looked out the windows of the hotel. A breeze was blowing into the room and in the distance he could hear the wail of a ship. His shirt clung to him with sweat and he took it off and poured himself a glass of water from a pitcher on the nightstand.
A slender Chilean woman with emerald eyes sat up next to him, her nude body sleek in the moonlight. She rubbed his arms and kissed his neck and then put her cheek to his back.
“Another nightmare?” she said.
“Yes.”
“Do you only dream of war?”
“I try not to.”
“Do you dream of me?”
He smirked and turned to her, planting a kiss on her neck and tasting the salt of her skin. “Yes.”
“You have seen me for four years. But you do not ask me to move with you to Miami.”
“You wouldn’t like it there. Hell, maybe you would. But I don’t like it there.”
“Why?”
“You have to pretend you’re somebody else all the time. People expect things from you. No one expects anything from you here. Other than always looking out for yourself.”
“Then move here.”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
She hesitated a moment and then said, “You miss your brother?”
“Yes.”
“I had a brother once. He got a fever when he was a boy and he died.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. What was his name?”
“Tomas. He was eight when he died. My mother said that God wanted him more than we did because he was so special. What was your brother like?”
Patrick stood and found a fresh shirt and shorts. He put them on and slipped his sandals onto his feet. “Stay here if you like. I’m going out for a while.”
“How long?”
“I don’t know.”
Patrick walked outside and the air was muggy and hot. Viña had almost a Mediterranean climate and was warm year round. You could find whatever you wanted here. They had a municipal casino, modern shopping malls, a natural history museum, even a track for horse racing. It was a beautiful spot that many celebrities spent time at every year but never mentioned in any interviews. No one wanted this place to become a Cancun or Bahamas. It was meant for a select few and no more.
Patrick had stumbled upon it by chance. He had been trekking through the jungle when two members of his party caught malaria. He set up camp and said he would be back to help them. He trekked thirty miles through the jungle and found Santiago and sent a team back to pick up the rest of his party. He stayed for over two weeks in Santiago, well after his party had left, and some of the locals suggested he go to Viña which was just over seventy miles to the north.
With little more than a backpack, he made his way there by hitchhiking and taking the local buses. He spent the rest of the summer in Viña and then returned the next year and the year after that. This year, Andrew had told him his plans to propose and he had urged him to come down and do it here.
He sat on a curb in front of a restaurant and watched the people coming and going. A sports star, some basketball player from LA, was there tonight and a group of local photographers were gathered outside; snapping photos of him sipping wine or laughing or shoving a bite of crab into his mouth.
Sea Creature Page 2