THE CARBON STEEL CARESS

by GC Smith

  Terry swam ten effortless laps and climbed out onto the pool edge; the thin fabric of her swimsuit revealed erect dark nipples. She began to towel her long raven hair.

  The man at the bar -furtive eyed- followed her movements and snapped a photograph.

  The woman, hearing the shutter click, looked up abruptly. She swallowed the last two inches of liquid in her glass, reached down between blue veined thighs, and retrieved a straw handbag.

  Capers and Terry heard the woman say, “Come on, Harold. I've had enough.”

  The scarecrow slid reluctantly from his bar stool.

  Moultrie Bay, SC

  September 18

  Donal was stuck in the North Carolina boonies until Wednesday evening when Carter and the Feds had satisfied themselves that grilling him could not help any. McReney had returned to Moultrie Bay with the SUV. Mike stayed in the trailer house in State road 191 until Donal was free to leave North Carolina. Now, together they drove the rental car home. Donal dropped Mike off and stopped by his house to shower and change and went to his office.

  Still aggravated by the delay in Ashville, Donal pulled his desk phone toward him. He checked the time, seven-fifty. What the hell, he thought, Hook might still be in his office. He dialed. He got shuffled from phone to phone and by now thoroughly pissed off was finally connected. “Jesus Christ, A.J., trying to get through to you is pure hell.”

  “Well, well, Mr. P.I. is getting snotty. What's the matter, hot shot?”

  “Sorry, A.J. I'm wrung out. A State Police Lieutenant and a couple of wise guy Feds kept me in North Carolina. I shouldn't take it out on you.”

  “I've talked to Lieutenant Carter and I can't say I'm unsympathetic with his point of view. You were pretty goddamn high handed, Donal. I should have been informed before you went after the Chatrian woman. The North Carolina Police should have been, too. And you damn well know it.”

  “There wasn't time.”

  “Bullshit. You've managed to make us look like idiots.”

  “I'm sorry, A.J.. To change the subject, I assume that

  you've been monitoring developments in the search for Capers. I'm going to Toronto in the morning.”

  “Forget it. Capers's left Toronto. F.B.I. report's just in. Capers flew from Toronto to the Bahamas. He didn't stay put. He took another flight to Mexico City.”

  “He's traveling on his own passport?”

  “Yeah. I figure that when you shook him out of North Carolina he wasn't prepared to run.”

  “I presume you wired Mexican authorities to pick him up when the plane lands?”

  “I did, but the report had come in too late. The plane was on the ground in Mexico City by the time the F.B.I. found out Capers had been on board. The Mexicans are looking for Capers but . . .

  “Who’s handling the Mexico City end of it?”

  “I should tell you?”

  “Come on, A.J., the end run couldn’t be avoided. I apologized.”

  “Oh, all right. Hang on, I’ve got the name here somewhere.” Hook came back on the line, “Name's Rodrigo Ortega.”

  “I’11 make a couple of calls and get back to you.”

  “Make damned sure that you do, hot shot. No more end

  runs.”

  ***

  Mexico City, Mexico

  September 18

  Capers lay on the bed smoking a joint. Terry, clad in a diaphanous lilac negligee and matching thong stepped from the dressing room into the bedroom. “You like?” She twirled, a graceful dancer's motion.

  “Nice.” Capers took a hit from the joint, waiting for heroin laced grass and Percodan tablets that he had taken moments before to dull the headache.

  Terry spun again, showing off. She leaned over and kissed Capers. “Champagne?”

  Capers nodded.

  She stripped the foil, untwisted the wire harness, and popped the cork, allowing it to fly free. The cork hit the ceiling and bounced back to the bedside table top, rocking on its rounded top. Handing a flute to Capers, Terry sat on the edge of the edge of the bed, and said, “For you, baby.” She dipped two fingers into her glass, smoothed cold champagne over his glans, and with thumb and forefinger encircled the root of his penis, stretching taut the sensitive skin. She leaned forward, her thick, black hair cascading over his abdomen.

  Terry slowly pulled back, allowing Capers's penis to slip from between her lips. She sipped champagne and whispered, “Beautiful.”

  She stood. She gave her shoulders a slight twitch, reminiscent of her platform moves; the negligee slipped away, dropping to the carpeting. She hooked a finger into the waistband of her thong, peeled it down, and stepped free. “Come on Baby. Let me have you.” She lay on her back, knees up, mons thrust forward. Capers mounted her and she reached down and guided him, clasping and unclasping with practiced muscle control. “Go slow, love, feel me,” she said.

  Capers looked down into Terry's eyes.

  “Can your Claudia do this for you, baby?”

  Capers's pale eyes hardened and he slapped her.

  She laughed, forcing her pelvis forward. “That's it, baby. Forget her. Fuck me. Terry. Not Claudia.”

  Capers wrenched away and grabbed her hair. Pain stabbed into and through his junk sotted brain, shattering false calm. He screamed, “Shut up, cunt.”

  Terry looked up at Capers's contorted features and in that instant she recognized him. The photograph and the accompanying story of the movie star's abduction and subsequent rescue that she had seen in a tabloid newspaper now vivid in her mind.

  “Claudia .... , Claudia Chatrian,.” she whispered. “You .... , Madre de Dios.”

  Moultrie Bay, SC

  September 18

  Donal called back two hours later. I talked to my man in SLED.”

  “He give you anything on Mexico City?”

  “Yeah, he figures that Capers stashed identity docs there back in his Agency days.”

  “Under what name?”

  ‘Unn, uh, A.J., he doesn't know. He claims Capers would have made his own arrangements for phony passports and papers. Says it’s a common practice with the Agency guys, just in case.”

  “Just in case of what?”

  “The Agency decides to double cross one of their own.

  It's been known to happen.”

  “Hmmm.”

  “Hard ball players. I'm going to Mexico in the morning.”

  “You're hell bent on foreign travel. First Canada, now

  Mexico.”

  “I'm hell bent on laying my hands on Capers.”

  “You think the Mexican authorities are gonna help?”

  “Nope, but I’m covering that A.J.. I'm stoppin' in Houston first to hook up with Itaxca. He'll smooth the way in Mexico.”

  “Itaxca?”

  “Hector Itaxca. He manages the Houston office.”

  “Oh yeah, the fat guy. He still three hundred pounds?”

  “Three fifty at least and half of it's brain. Helluva fine operative.” Donal paused for a moment and then said, “Any thing comes up that I should know about, call Houston. I'll get the message.”

  “You find anything I should know, make sure you return the compliment.”

  “Touché.”

  Donal called Itaxca and gave him the name of the officer in Mexico City who was in charge of the search for Capers.

  “Rodrigo Ortega,” Itaxca repeated. He belly laughed. “My mother's cousin! We get to Mexico City it'll be old home week.”

  Donal chuckled, amazed. The fat man does it again, he thought. Incredible. Hector must have a contact in every city, town and crossroads throughout the southwest and Mexico, calls all of them 'my mother's cousin.'

  Itaxca told Donal he would contact Ortega and that he and Donal could go directly from Houston to Mexico City. Itaxca would have airline reservations arranged before Donal arrived.

  Mexico City

  September 19

  At nine a.m., the hotel maid passed the door to the suite, noticing the 'Do Not Di
sturb' tag. The tag was still there at noon and the maid knocked tentatively. There was no response and she knocked again, more boldly. She slipped her plastic pass key card into the lock slot, entered the room, and screamed.

  The mutilated body lay naked on the bed, the sheets crimson with blood.

  Juan Ruiz, the assistant manager, who happened to be on the floor, heard her screams and rushed into the suite. “Quiet,” he commanded. Then he looked at the bed. His face sagged and his skin turned gray. He clapped a hand over his mouth and ran into the bathroom.

  Twenty minutes later two policemen, dressed in plain clothes, arrived at Ruiz’s office. He accompanied them to the suite, stopping short at the door. “In there.”

  Police Inspector Rodrigo Ortega turned the corpse over and stepped back. The face and perfect dancer's body were slashed beyond recognition. Congealed blood obscured those few portions of skin that had not been violated.

  Inspector Rodrigo Ortega, head bowed, signed himself with the cross.

  CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE

  Mexico City

  While Inspector Rodrigo Ortega was questioning Juan Ruiz, Capers, in the first class compartment of Air Mexicana flight 902, worked to put the previous evening's frenzy out of mind. The plane cruised at thirty-eight thousand feet, estimated time of arrival in Houston, Texas, Thursday, twelve fifty-six, P.M.

  CHAPTER THIRTY SIX

  Houston, Texas

  September 19

  On Thursday, at eleven forty five in the morning Hector Itaxca, amazingly agile for a man his girth, balancing a full, open styro of coffee and an enormous sweet roll, slipped his way through the milling Houston airport crowd. He met Donal at the incoming flight gate and said, “Bad news. Ortega called. Capers has killed again. Another woman. He's apparently left Mexico City. I cancelled our flight.”

  “Ortega's sure it was Capers?”

  “Absolutely. A tourist at the Chapultepec hotel pool yesterday afternoon snapped some pictures. Ortega had them E-mailed to me. Capers was in the photo with the murdered woman, a hooker, one gorgeous, expensive puta.”

  Donal frowned. “The hooker angle is wrong. I've researched every corner of Capers's past in the course of this investigation. He's heterosexual but his interest never ran to professionals. Nothing indicates that he does whores. Hooker doesn't jibe with his profile.”

  “This puta jibes. She a dead ringer for Claudia Chatrian.”

  “What?”

  “Photos don’t lie. The resemblance is uncanny. The murdered whore could have been Chatrian's twin.”

  “What else?”

  “Ortega figures that Capers is on his way back to the States. He checked schedules. Three planes departed for the States between the time Ortega figured Capers killed the woman and when her body was found. One for New Orleans, one for San Antonio and one that's coming in here. Air Mexicana, flight 902.”

  Donal said, “A one in three chance that he'll land here.”

  “Better than one in three. This is a hub. The odds favor Houston. Ortega contacted the Police Departments of all three cities. He called me because he says the Houston police are a prejudiced bunch. He doesn't trust them to take a Mexican seriously. The plane lands in,” Itaxca glanced at his Rolex, “less than an hour.”

  Shortly after one o'clock Donal and Itaxca stood to the side while the airport security police and two of Harris county Texas's finest checked out the disembarking passengers from flight 902 as they came into the airport terminal room that had been set aside for the Customs' check. Capers was not among the passengers.

  While the other passengers were herded cattle-like to the customs desk, Capers, having circumvented the process with forged diplomatic papers that had been among the items in Mexican safe deposit box, was escorted to the VIP lounge. He ordered a double Jack, water on the side, downed the whiskey and signaled the bartender to hit his shot glass again. Pain pounded inside his skull. He chased the second double and two Percodan tablets with water. Again, he reviewed the failure of his plan to kill his half-sister in the mountains of North Carolina.

  Everything had been executed perfectly, the intricacies of the kidnapping meshing like precision gears. He had gotten the bitch from Hilton Head to the North Carolina cabin without hitch. The bus stolen from the country-rock group and abandoned at an interstate highway rest stop was an added fillip to tweak the cops. He and Joan had disposed of Rustico and Hammil as planned. The bitch Claudia had been in the palm of his hand, conned into trusting him. Ripe.

  Then Joan walked in.

  Capers couldn't find the flaw that led the rescuers to the mountain cabin. Perhaps they had followed Joan. No, impossible. Whatever Joan's faults she had been meticulous and resourceful; she would never have allowed herself to be followed.

  Capers had kept careful watch on the newspaper stories about Claudia's rescue. From them he had learned that the man he had seen lead her in the dark from the cabin to a vehicle was Johnny Donal. He knew of Donal, a private investigator from Moultrie Bay; Joan had introduced them. The news stories said that Harry Trent had hired Donal.

  I'll take them out, he thought. Trent. Donal. All of them. Whack them like the little brown men in Mexico. No matter that the private cops are protecting her, I’ll do her, my little baby half-sister. The bitch.

  When he did take her, he would make time for pleasure.

  Tell her exactly how he was going to do her. And why.

  He reached reflexively into his pocket, missing the bone handled razor that was in his checked luggage.

  Donal took the passenger manifest from the airline representative and checked the list of names. One passenger, Owen Kroll, was not checked through customs. Donal asked why not?

  “He's traveling on a diplomatic passport and isn't required to go through customs,” was the answer.

  “He just left the plane with no one checking him?”

  The attendant shrugged, “I believe he went to our VIP lounge.”

  “Where is it?”

  The airport lounge bar was empty of patrons when they got there but the bartender was able to confirm that a man who fit Capers's description had left not more than a few minutes earlier. Donal said to Itaxca, “You get the police. I'm going to see if I can spot him on the concourse.”

  Thirty feet from the Hertz rental booth Donal stopped abruptly. Capers, his back turned, stood folding car rental forms. Donal, certain that it was the man that he was hunting, edged forward using the crowd as a screen.

  Turning from the counter, Capers saw and recognized Donal. He spun on his heel and ran toward a terminal exit, shoving through the mass of humanity that jammed the airport concourse, parting the crowd like a bateau cutting through spartina in a Lowcountry salt marsh.

  Donal shouted, “Capers,” and took off after him.

  Capers pushed his way through a couple, breaking their intertwined hands apart, knocking the young woman to the terrazzo floor. The man knelt to help her. Donal vaulted the couple.

  A security guard on the concourse spoke into his hand held radio, “Corridor four C, two men. Running. Stop them.”

  The guard started after the running pair. A second guard appeared at the opposite end of the corridor.

  Capers saw the uniformed guard running toward him and lowered his shoulder hitting the approaching man in full stride. The blow knocked the drawn gun from the downed guard's hand. Capers scrabbled for the gun, grabbed it, turned and dropped to one knee, firing. The bullet whistled past Donal and slammed into a child, severing the kids right arm at the elbow. Crimson blood splattered on the white duck cloth skirt worn by a woman, apparently the kid's mother, who had been standing alongside him.

  Donal, hooked a foot out at the revolver in Capers's hand, deflecting Capers's aim as he squeezed off a second shot. The bullet went wild, smashing into a ceiling light fixture and raining glass down onto the crowd.

  Capers attempted to swing the revolver down as Donal threw his body forward into him, wrestling him to the floor.

 
Donal grasped Capers's wrist and slammed the psychotic's gun hand against the terrazzo. He slammed a second time and Capers's grip loosened, the gun skittering away.

  Capers broke free and rolled toward the revolver. He grasped the butt and rolled onto his back, bringing the gun up, pointing it toward his antagonist.

  Donal, halfway to his feet, dived headlong into Capers's mid-section. Capers flailed at Donal with his gun hand. The blow glanced off Donal's shoulder and Donal bounded to his feet and kicked Capers's hand. He kicked a second time below Capers's jaw and the blond man rolled onto his back.

  Donal reached down and pried the revolver from Capers's fingers.

  Capers looked up, eyes blazing hatred. He rolled away from Donal, but the P.I., cat quick, brought his hand up and slashed the gun's barrel across Capers's skull. Capers's eyes rolled back showing white as he went limp.

  The guards approached, wary.

  Donal handed the revolver, butt first, to the guard nearest him. “Johnny Donal,” he said, digging for his I.D. “Keep him covered. He's wanted for murder.”

  One guard covered Capers while the other checked Donal's I.D., peering carefully from the picture on the laminated card to Donal. “Guy's a P.I.,” he said. “From South Carolina.”

  Itaxca knelt on the terminal floor. He placed his lit cigar on a clean, unbloodied spot on the terrazzo. He whipped the belt from his trousers, unsnapped and pocketed the silver and turquoise buckle. He unsnapped the mother of pearl fasteners on his western cut shirt and took it off. He ripped the shirt into squares and used them to cover the raw end of the kid’s bleeding arm. He knotted the braided leather of the belt around the kid's bicep, stanching the blood flow.