Salty Sky

by Seth Coker

  “Just once. Chief and I—that is, my grandfather and I—drove to Yosemite. The trees and rocks are from another world. Did you work there?”

  “A good bit while in the DEA. My favorite assignment. Even the bad guys were good guys.”

  They took the conversation outside and joined those who were still awake. Blake’s date sat on an arm of his chair, her legs across his lap, ankles resting on the far arm of the chair. Her side leaned into the chair’s back, and her arm ran across the back of the chair behind his head. They looked quite familiar with each other. He was still on fire.

  “Big man! So what were you going to do at the bar if that frog decided to jump? I was just getting into ninja kung fu mode when you jumped in. Man, I’d have torn that big gorilla apart. Done it silently too. You might have forgotten: I took several karate classes at the Y in the mid-eighties.”

  Mid-eighties. At least Cale said mid-nineties. If his girl did the math, she would realize she was at least minus five at the time.

  “And don’t forget,” Blake continued. “I had the famous Bruce Lee–Chuck Norris fight in the warehouse on tape growing up, so I know some moves. Speaking of Chuck Norris, do you know why Chuck Norris kills two white guys each week? To prove he’s not a racist. Author. Movie star. TV star. Republican pitchman. I bet he would win Dancing with the Stars.”

  He was funny. Really funny if you were cross-eyed but not so cross-eyed that you couldn’t keep up with his stream of consciousness. Cale sipped some water and tuned out. It had been a long weekend that he was ready to see wind down.

  Ashley placed a hand on his thigh. Oh yes, he quickly tuned back in. They started a side conversation, a discrete tête-à-tête. What island was in front of them? Where were they now versus earlier today? She got that the coastline basically ran north and south but with a lot of jut-outs and jut-ins going east and west. That sped things along. Somewhere, they left geography and weather. He found himself talking about Maggie and the girls. They didn’t come any smoother than a guy who thinks you’re a hooker and then tells you all about his dead wife. Maybe he should mention how great it was to be called Grampa. He noticed her hand left his board shorts.

  ASHLEY WONDERED WHETHER that was what rejection felt like. When she had flirtatiously touched Cale, he changed the subject to talk about his grandkids. Was that the message he wanted her to hear? At the same time, listening to Cale, Ashley, for the millionth time, imagined growing up like other kids. What would life have been like having loving parents, siblings, this year’s styles, and normal teenage worries? Does he like me? Does she like me? Will I make the team? Does this outfit look good? Am I cool? Hot? Smart? Not Is Mom about to shoot the sheriff? Not Excited my parents are in jail and social services forgot me. Now, despite the perspective that hard knocks were supposed to provide, she had the normal worries of a person in her mid-twenties. Am I a good person? Why don’t I have a boyfriend? Do I want to have kids? Do I drink too much? Do I like work? Where am I going with this life?

  IF SHE WAS flawed, it was deeply hidden. Perfection. Physically, for sure. Cale, due to some unresolved adolescent self-consciousness, refused to mention that he noticed her on the beach. He still couldn’t show his underbelly. Surfing today, when he saw her walking, he let a good set go past so she could get a little closer to watch him.

  She was funny, quick, self-deprecating, and seemed tough, too. Not calloused-hands tough, more rode-through-the-badlands-and-came-out-the-other-side tough.

  He checked himself, because his judgment was probably not operating at optimal levels. The fight, the three-day bender, and the hurricane heading to town might have made him focus on the positives. So his house, recreation, and livelihood were at risk with a big storm heading his way? Was there any reason he should be off center?

  Cale maintained a running mental commentary beyond the conversation. Of course she had Maggie’s good characteristics and none of the bad. Now she was a goddess down to the flower picked and tucked behind her ear. Two hours ago, she was a lady of the evening. Things changed fast. Good to remember that.

  She did have the flaw of not being his girls’ mom. But it’d been a long time and wasn’t his first rodeo since Maggie passed. He wasn’t sure this was even his outcome to choose, although there was certainly a connection between them. At least, he was connected now that he didn’t think she was a westernized geisha. He knew he didn’t own the outcome, but he owned the intent.

  The drunks sitting uneasily on the wagon understood. You rechoose everyday. Most days, you lined up to stay out of harm’s way. Lord, do not lead me into temptation … but life wasn’t lived in a bubble. There were old friends, enabling families—crabs in the bucket pulling you back in when you had one claw over the edge. The drunks still took business trips. They still had fancy meals with clients, pressure for sales. Would the clients buy more if you loosened up like you used to?

  You didn’t simply choose life once and press autopilot. The PTA, a comfortable house, a college savings plan, Wednesday date night, pickups from practice, a shoulder to lean on, your own shoulder leaned on, volunteer boards. You earned and unearned your life. Generally, life just happened whether you deserved the outcome or not.

  Cale noticed he was talking about his kids and grandkids again. Doing a good job presenting himself as a father figure. Not Lothario or Fabio or Brad Pitt. Actually, Brad Pitt had a bunch of kids, so maybe the message was blurring. Was forty really the new thirty? Maybe for people with two-year-olds at forty, not nineteen-year-olds at forty. (Forty? Who was he kidding? What was a twenty-year age difference between friends? He hoped she was older than his daughters.)

  A series of woo-hoos turned their heads. Clothes had been kicked off in the yard. Running buttocks were more noticeable at night than you’d think. Bare feet thumped across the dock. What were the odds of someone snagging a splinter on the dock? Would they know now or wonder where it came from in daylight? Someone doing a splay-legged head-over-heels flip was first in the water. The landing was loud and the splash high. Good height on takeoff, but Cale guessed it was an over-rotation. Next, a two-footed jump off the dock. Legs straight, toes pointed down, hands covering breasts. Then a dive. The show ended with a pair of synchronized cannonballs.

  ASHLEY HOPED CALE would and wouldn’t join in—cross impulses. It would be nice to see spontaneity behind the wall of duty. Outside the surfing, all she had seen him do was work. In the water, she could create a situation without making a decision, some incidental contact underwater perhaps. Something easier than two sober people consciously crossing the Rubicon.

  But she wasn’t even looking across the Rubicon yet. If he shed his shorts and took off for the water, she’d have to corral various emotions to reach her decision to join in or not. If he went, she would have to choose between rejecting him now or rejecting him later.

  CALE TOOK THE road less traveled. His knees weren’t up for the dash. He hadn’t ingested as much joint lubricant as the others. He stood and pulled Ashley up. He gave her a small grin and a wink. They walked to the dock. He reached under the handrail, opened a small plastic box, and flipped on the under-the-dock floodlights that pointed at the skinny dippers.

  Blake’s manhood telegraphed his thoughts. He embraced the literal and figurative spotlight and went into a dead man’s float. “Eh, check it out. The Washington Monument. Tallest building around.”

  Van added, “Shave ’em on back, Blake. It’ll add a half inch to the presentation.”

  “Man, chicks dig this seventies motif. You boys worry about your shrinkage and your landscaping issues. Ladies like an all-natural man.”

  One of the girls asked, “Is it always that skinny?”

  “What? Sweetheart, you are mistaken. The tremendous length has your perspective out of focus. Come a little closer. You’ll see. Use your hands as a measuring device. It’s like a redwood. The height makes you not appreciate the girth until you’re right up on it.”

  Laughing, Cale cut the spotlights, and flippe
d on an LED rope light that wound up the ladder from the water to the dock. He opened a pressurized storage locker and pulled out five towels and set them on the dock for the skinny-dippers. Pilots should never forget they were in the service industry. The laundress in Cale rationalized what’s one more load?

  Walking back toward the house, Ashley asked, “Should we put the outdoor kitchen stuff away?”

  “Good idea.”

  They finished the cleanup by the time the others were out of the water. Being sober, Cale felt the late hour more than the others. Or maybe—being middle-aged, or as they called it for the last twenty centuries, old, he felt the late hour more than Ashley, who also seemed clearheaded. Ashley headed into a powwow with her friends. Cale whistled Jimmy over and snuck off to his bedroom. He paused, then locked the door and put in his earplugs. A clean conscience was a beautiful thing.

  14

  RADCLIFFE’S ARMS AND legs were duct-taped to a chair. He searched the room for a means of exit or defense. He spotted paint roller extender sticks and sheetrock putty knives. Mediocre weapons in a hand-to-hand fight if he was free, but nothing to help in this situation. He looked at the alarm panel. If he made it there, could he hit an emergency button? Maybe, but he realized, with no tenant, he didn’t pay to have this space monitored.

  He followed his training and used the downtime to think through his options. If his arms or legs had been duct-taped together, he could have flexed and retracted and rubbed to loosen them, weakening the material’s tensile strength. But this was not how he found himself. Each arm was taped individually from bicep to wrist to the chair’s back spines. Each leg was taped individually from knee to ankle to a chair leg. Very effective. He leaned forward and looked at his hands turning purple. He felt the swelling of his feet against his shoes. If he was cut free, it would take minutes before either his hands or his feet would work.

  There were three men in the room now, speaking casually off to the side. He could hear their conversation but tried to block it out. Reconnaissance wasn’t needed. Survival was.

  The men represented three generations. The middle-aged man was in charge. No introduction with the middle-aged man was necessary despite this being their first meeting. Radcliffe hadn’t seen a photo of the man in twenty years, but his name often crossed his mind. Being in the situation he was, he definitely knew who he faced.

  Radcliffe’s mind sifted through the cleaning and paint schedules for the office. He thought about his wife’s plans for the day. Was there was a chance someone would discover the situation? He wasn’t really sure how much time had passed. He prayed no one came along. No more victims. Nothing short of a SWAT team would save him anyway. Was he the first, or was his old pilot already dead?

  When he had come to show the space, it was to just the one younger, darker man. He’d noted the man was Hispanic before unlocking the door, but this was Florida, and he couldn’t be wary of all Hispanics he didn’t know. Radcliffe and the young man’s conversation alternated between English and Spanish. The young man said he was Cuban, and the accent agreed. He certainly did not use the elegant Colombian Spanish that would have concerned Radcliffe, so he let himself relax.

  They had made it through the entry lobby and a tour of the first two office spaces. The Cuban had asked good questions that made him think he was a serious prospect. Radcliffe hadn’t seen the short hose until it was swinging toward the side of his head. He was semiconscious through the taping. Now the combination of time, pain, and adrenaline had him fully alert. Radcliffe watched Francisco nod to the older man, who ripped off the tape covering his own face. Radcliffe yelped and noted half his mustache stuck to the back of the tape.

  Francisco asked, “Mr. Radcliffe, are you ready to tell me about the villa?”

  Radcliffe rubbed his face into his shoulder. Red trickled from the missing mustache. A bloody smear soaked into his shirt’s shoulder. Radcliffe numbly answered, “I am sorry; I don’t know what you’re talking about. I was in the DEA, but I worked a desk and now I collect a pension.”

  Left unsaid was that Radcliffe always felt this was how his life would end. He needed this torture to end before somebody stumbled upon them. If, by chance, Escobar didn’t know the whole story, Radcliffe needed the trail to go cold with his death.

  The old man approached again. He took off Radcliffe’s shoes and stuffed paint-thinner-soaked rag strips between his toes. Radcliffe felt the wetness, smelled the odor, and heard a lighter flicker on and off behind him.

  Radcliffe watched the look pass between Francisco and the man standing behind him. The younger man moved in front of Radcliffe and bent down with the lighter. Before the Cuban could ignite the rags, Radcliffe’s head sagged dramatically. With feigned meekness he said, “OK. OK. What do you want to know?” This was his chance to sell Escobar the lie.

  THE CUBAN RELEASED the lighter’s trigger and stood up. Francisco asked several questions about the event. All of the answers agreed with the report he had read, but his face showed Radcliffe only skepticism and disdain. Finally, he said, “How many terrorists did it take to kill my brother?”

  Radcliffe paused, “There were three of us. Two of my men died. I was the only survivor. When I shot your brother, everyone else was dead. I radioed for a backup helicopter.”

  The Cuban did not need to be told. He knew Francisco did not like this answer. He bent down and lit the rags on both feet. Radcliffe screamed. He bounced his metal chair. Twenty seconds. Forty seconds. A minute. The rags began to burn out. Radcliffe’s screams turned into whimpers.

  Francisco said, “Mr. Radcliffe, if there is nobody else to see, I have nowhere to go. This can take a very long time. Should we see if your wife would like to join us?”

  There was no reply besides the whimpering. Francisco poked at the charred feet with his shoe and the intensity of the whimper changed. He nodded to Alberto, paint thinner glugged out of the bottle’s wide mouth onto Radcliffe’s thighs and lap.

  “Mr. Radcliffe, I am going to ask you again. Who else killed my brother?”

  Radcliffe met the inquiry with silence. He seemed no longer able to meet Francisco’s gaze. Francisco concluded Radcliffe knew his eyes would betray his desire for mercy.

  “You still do not want to answer? Then let me tell you a bit about what I will do with the extra time I have now that I won’t need to find your accomplice.”

  Francisco waved toward the tools he would use. At first, Radcliffe stared only at the floor, but then Alberto pulled his head up by his hair to show him his future.

  There were water buckets that would put out the fire on Radcliffe’s lap before the next one started on his shirt. Sandpaper to remove the burned skin down to the muscle. Finally, the relief, the razor knife Francisco flicked open that would end the misery once he’d heard the truth.

  As the Cuban bent to light the pants, Radcliffe, with a genuinely meek voice, confirmed Mr. Coleman’s involvement, and as the flame lifted to his crotch, he frantically—and somewhat pathetically, it seemed to Francisco—volunteered that Coleman killed his brother and explained exactly how. He seemed to have no other helpful information.

  At this point, Francisco ended Mr. Radcliffe’s life with a slice across the throat. Reaching through the wound, he pulled the tongue through the hole. Alberto took a picture of the corpse with its signature necktie lolling on Radcliffe’s chest. The body would be burned too badly for the necktie to be seen by the authorities. But later, when Francisco was in Colombia, they would make the pictures public while denying any complicity. Part of this killing’s purpose, after all, was for the image to make its way into the public’s consciousness.

  The confirmation Mr. Radcliffe provided of both his own and Mr. Coleman’s participation was appreciated. If the report had been incorrect, Francisco didn’t mind killing an innocent norteamericano, but he did mind the thought of the guilty living on. Twenty years were enough. Mr. Coleman’s end would not be as painless as Mr. Radcliffe’s.

  As they returned t
o the G5, Francisco said to Alberto, “You did well. You have not lost your touch.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Escobar. We still have good men in Florida who provided the information and supplies. They are the ones who first introduced us to the Cuban last year. I feel he does very well for one so young.”

  “Yes, he again did very well. Very clean.” Francisco paused, thinking of a role on his notepad the Cuban might play. He then added, “Please reward these good men generously. We will be spending more time in Florida and need good men.” Francisco looked in the rearview mirror and saw the Cuban following. “Do you think the Cuban would be helpful for the rest of our trip?”

  Alberto agreed and pulled out his phone to make the arrangements.

  FOCUSED ON THE growth of the business, Francisco walked away from Alberto and the Cuban, who sat in the front row of the Gulfstream. Francisco sat on the couch at the back of the cabin and picked up his notepad. He felt good that the pad’s red was now overlaid with new initials, but there was still too much blue. He wrote the Cuban’s initials and a question mark beside one critical spot of red.

  Unfortunately, he saw no choice but to form an alliance, even if the Cuban succeeded. A smaller Mexican cartel seemed obvious. These were the relationships he was developing. The men from the Yucatan were more similar to the former recolectores de café that his family employed in his established territories than were the Aztec, Apache, and Pueblo descendants in northern Mexico.

  Francisco looked forward to filling his men’s passports with stamps. They had the financial resources for the growth. They had the skill set. They had the product, and there was demand for that product. They had firepower. But they lacked manpower. His men were largely old or unproven. There was too much death in the middle. Could the Cuban be trained to not only perform but also to lead?