He smelled smoke—thick smoke, from wet wood. A couple teenagers to the north were doing their best to get a campfire going between a large boulder and a log that had long ago washed ashore. He led Miranda south. A few other people were out and about, a woman jogging barefoot, a man wading in the surf with two little girls, but mostly it was open sand and the occasional seagull awaiting a handout. He saw a silvery flash far out on the ocean and spotted a boat, so tiny it was nothing more than a white speck amidst all the frothy gray water.
Miranda took his arm, then looked at him apprehensively. He patted her hand, her fingers cool to the touch.
"I can use a little extra support myself," he said.
She gripped his arm tighter, searching his eyes. Her red hair streamed across her face and she brushed it aside.
"Is it down there?" she asked.
"What's that?"
"The boat," she said, nodding toward the south. "Is it—is it down that way?"
"Oh. I'm not sure, actually. Probably. The last time a boat washed ashore, it was a month before it was removed. And this time …"
He trailed off, unsure of what might upset her. She was perceptive enough to pick up on it.
"You don't have to walk on eggshells around me," she said.
"Okay."
"I know what you were going to say. You were going to say, and this time the police have reason to think something bad happened on that boat."
"Actually, I was going to say that this time the owner isn't around to do something about it."
"Oh. That too, I guess."
"Did you want to see it? The boat? Maybe seeing it will—"
"No."
They walked a little while without speaking, the wind strong in his ears. She let go of his arm, still close enough that their shoulders brushed, but it felt as if she had increased the distance between them by much more. A continent of space and memory. Gage studied her, wondering if this little spindly thing with the freckled tan was really capable, as she put it, of doing something bad. Could she push a man off a sailboat? In all his years as a private investigator, both in New York and in Oregon, he had occasionally seen very small people do very bad things, but the norm was closer to the stereotype—the strong preying on the weak, whether weak physically or mentally. He did not sense that Miranda was strong in either way.
Still, it would not take a lot of physical strength or mental fortitude to push a man off a boat when his back was turned. All it would take was the opportunity and a few seconds when impulse gave into temptation.
"I wish I could remember," she said.
"You will," he said.
"Do you believe me?"
"Of course."
"Would you say that even if you didn't?"
"Probably."
She laughed. It wasn't a strong, hearty laugh, more a nervous giggle, but it was still better than listening to her wallow in misery. He was glad to hear it, especially as he hadn't meant it as a joke, or even meant to say it at all, and was considering what to say next when her laughter suddenly died and her face darkened.
"I remember something," she said.
"What?"
"About the puzzle thing. Something ... It's just, I remember working on a puzzle. It was a picture of a city. A big city, with skyscrapers. I was almost done ... and I was looking at the big skyscrapers, too, out a window. So I must have been near a big city. A couple pieces to go. And then ... and then ..."
"Yes?"
"Somebody smashed it."
"What? Who?"
She swallowed. "I don't know. I just—I remember a hand sweeping across the table. Pushing it to the floor. Someone ... someone yelling ..."
"A man or a woman?"
She didn't answer.
"Were you in a house? What else was there? What kind of table was it?"
She chewed on her bottom lip. He could see that she was going to cry, so he stepped pressing. They were so close, so close to just the right detail, the one that would open all the doors, and he felt his frustration rising. There had to be some way to get inside that addled brain of hers.
He was considering his options, debating whether he should take a stronger approach with her, when a man yelled behind them.
"Hello!"
The word may have been a greeting, but it sounded more like a curse the way the man shouted. They both turned, Miranda clutching Gage's arm. The person who'd shouted—someone he'd never seen before—was still fifty feet away but closing quickly, a bald, brown-skinned man dressed in an expensive slate gray suit, a white silk shirt unbuttoned halfway down his chest, and shiny black wingtip shoes, a stylish outfit more fitting for a high-end business mixer in Miami than the Oregon coast, where Gage often had the impression that both the tourists and the natives dressed in the dark.
The man marched toward them in such a menacing way that Gage positioned Miranda a bit behind him. He already had a pretty good idea who this was, and as the man neared, his appearance only served to confirm it. His skin was smooth and shiny in the misty air like dark-stained oak, the same color from his smooth scalp down to his hairless chest. He was short and slight, but his physical presence still radiated a certain kind of compact power, as if his bones were made of steel and he knew it. Both the man's goatee and his eyebrows were so faint that Gage didn't think he had either until the man stopped a few paces away.
"You are the woman, yes?" he said.
He spoke in a clipped manner, with the accent of someone who had learned English as an adult and not a youth. His face was full of hard angles and flat planes, making Gage think of one of those early computer-animated images of a person that lacked the subtle nature of real human flesh, with all its many imperfect slopes and curves. His nose, tiny as it was, jutted out like a blade.
"And you must be Omar Koura," Gage said.
The man ignored Gage, keeping his dark eyes fixed on Miranda. He took a step closer and Gage got a whiff of the man's cologne, a musky scent powerful enough that Gage could detect it even over the ocean air—like some mixture of a sweaty gym and slightly spoiled fruit, not exactly pleasant. "Where is my brother?" he demanded.
"I'll take that as a yes," Gage said.
"I don't—I don't know," Miranda said.
"You were with him," Omar said. "You must know where he is. Tell me now."
"Whoa," Gage said. "Let's ease up a bit, pal."
"What did you do to him?"
Miranda, gripping Gage's arm even tighter, began a stuttering reply, but Gage put his hand over hers to quiet her. Her fingers felt like ice. Nobody else on the beach was within a hundred yards of them. All along, Omar had refused to acknowledge him, so Gage decided to merely wait him out this time. He patted Miranda's hand and smiled pleasantly at Omar, until the man was finally forced to turn and reckon with him.
"Who are you then?" Omar asked. "The father of this girl?"
"Ouch," Gage said.
"My brother is missing. I want answers."
"Her father?" Gage said. "Really? That one really hurts. How old do you think I am?"
"Where is Marcus?"
"I'm not even fifty yet. I thought I was looking pretty good for my age."
Miranda murmured, "You are, you are."
"Is it the cane?" Gage said. "It's the cane, isn't it? Everybody assumes because I need a cane, I must be old. Nobody assumes I have a cane because a mafia hitman used a baseball bat to turn my knee into crushed ice. I wonder why that is. Or maybe it's the hat." He removed the fedora. "How do I look now? See, I have a full head of hair and everything."
If Omar had any sense of humor at all, he certainly wasn't showing it. He glared at Gage with all the intensity of a man ready to kill someone. This certainly stood in stark contrast with Gage, whose response to such naked hostility was always to make light of it—even if inwardly he was readying himself for the worst. Holding his fedora over his heart, grinning stupidly, he imagined he looked a bit like a drunk at a baseball game listening to the national anthem.
> "Your joking manner does not amuse me," Omar said.
"That's too bad," Gage said. "Your amusement was my highest concern."
"You are some kind of ... what? What do they call it? A goodly Samaritan?"
"Close enough."
Miranda said, "He's a private investigator. He's been very kind. He helped me when I—when he found me on the beach. I don't ... I don't have any memory right now. I wish I could help you. I'm sorry. Really, I'm sorry."
Omar eyed Gage suspiciously. "Investigating? What are you investigating?"
"I'm not investigating anything right now. I'm just helping this young lady get back on her feet. And, hopefully, finding your brother in the process."
"Who hired you?"
"I told you—"
"We already know what happened to my brother. This woman, she pushed him off the boat."
"We don't know that at all."
"She killed him."
"I'd be careful making accusations like that, sir. Some people may think you're actually being serious."
"She's a murderer!"
"All right," Gage said, "I've had enough of this crap. Back up a couple steps before you decide to do something stupid."
Omar, his hands balled into fists, didn't move. This was all too much for Miranda, who'd started sniffling when he'd accused her of pushing Marcus off the boat and worked her way up into a sobbing mess by the time he called her a murderer.
"I told you," she said, "I don't remember—"
"Liar!" Omar cried.
He lunged for Miranda as if he intended to grab her throat. Even in his rage, there was something practiced about his movements, something trained, the result of many hours spent repeating the same movements under the watchful gaze of martial arts expert. Gage had seen this kind of thing before. Still, Omar's anger had certainly clouded his judgment. If not for the man's loss of emotional control, it was doubtful he would have put himself in such a compromising position.
Gage had to make this count.
Miranda was on his left, just behind him. Waiting until the last moment, lulling Omar into thinking he was as slow and lumbering as someone with a cane often would be, Gage dropped onto his good knee and plowed his left hand into Omar's gut.
Focused. All the power in his clenched fist.
With a loud oomph, Omar doubled over and plowed backwards into the sand.
Miranda shrieked and jumped back a step. Gage had scored a direct hit, but there was something about how slight Omar was that actually worked to his advantage—like punching a feather. You could put all the power you wanted into a punch, but how much would it really affect a feather? A stronger, bigger man might have washboard abs, with stomach muscles as tough as knotted wood, but at least a punch there would find some resistance, something to work against.
Usually when Gage punched a man like that, he felt it in his fist, a sting that radiated up his arm. This time, he felt as if he'd took a swing at an empty shirt.
Gage knew, even before the kick came, that he was in trouble.
The crash of the waves. The ocean breeze kicking up fine particles of sand. The seagulls, wading in the shallow surf below them, cawing in warning. On his knee, Gage had only a second to take in these sensations before someone hit him on the side of the head with a two by four.
That's what it felt like, and it wasn't until after the left side of his face pulsed with pain and a purple sheen darkened his vision that his mind finally caught up and processed the swing of Omar's leg coming at him.
Gage's own instincts had him moving with the blow, but he still took it hard.
Shoulder crashing into the sand.
Blood in his mouth.
Heart pounding in his ears.
The movie reel of his life skipped a beat, but he hung onto consciousness and rolled away with his cane in hand. It was a good thing, because by the time he'd gotten himself back to a crouch, Omar was on his feet and springing at him with a side kick. Gage saw it coming through a sheen of sweat, the black sole of the man's leather shoe like a tiny anvil dropping out of the sky.
As trained as he was, though, Omar still wasn't thinking clearly. It was all swallowed by emotions Omar could barely control.
Gage ducked to the side, missing the kick by not more than an inch, and brought his cane up so Omar took it right in the crotch.
Omar's own momentum carried him into the cane. He may have been hardly more substantial than his silk shirt, but there were few men alive who could take a blow to the groin like that and keep going.
He shrieked like a man on fire.
Gage, using the cane, directed him to the side and away, making sure to give himself a little more space this time.
It was hardly needed. Omar fell like a lump of wet laundry, curled into a ball, and cupped his hands over his crotch. Even so, Gage knew the man would be up and as enraged as ever—and this time probably without underestimating his opponent.
Using his cane as it was actually intended, Gage staggered to his feet. Pain blasted up his knee straight into his spine, forcing him to pull himself up by brute strength. The left side of his face stung, and he felt the swelling there, the puffiness forming. Sweat stuck his shirt to his back and clumped his hair around his ears. Fortunately, no more blood filled his mouth, but the taste still lingered.
Gage hated the taste of blood. It was one of the few things in life that truly made him mad as hell. Unlike Omar, though, Gage didn't lose control of his emotions. What he lost, instead, was the ability to tell right from wrong—or at least, the ability to care about it one way or another.
Miranda, sobbing quietly, had drifted behind him and to the side, partially covering her face with her hands and peeking out as if witnessing a terrible car accident. There were people far to the north and the south, too far away to really take notice of their little dustup, but even if they could have seen them, it would not have stopped Gage from doing what he did next. Just as Gage had predicted, Omar recovered quickly and swung onto all fours, crouching like a panther ready to pounce, the energy and hate all coiled up and his eyes burning bright.
That's when Gage pulled the Beretta out of his side holster.
He'd had his own hand-to-hand combat training back at Quantico, of course, but he also had no illusions about what he could do in his late forties with a bad knee and too many hours spent reading colonial history and sipping bourbon in his recliner. The safety lever was flipped, the slide was pulled back to chamber a round, and the gun was aimed in quick succession, the result of hours of practice that made it all happen without Gage consciously thinking about any of it.
Omar's eyes narrowed. For just a moment, Gage thought the man was still going to attack, was sure of it, in fact, and Gage suffered a split second of hesitation. Would he actually shoot this man?
Yes, he would.
Just like that, the doubt was gone—and Omar must have seen it, too. He remained crouching, his posture barely changing, but all that white hot rage began to seep out of his eyes. The Beretta, which had, like usual, first felt slightly foreign in Gage's hand, a cold and heavy lump of steel, now felt like an extension of his own body. Shoulders squared and forward. Right foot slightly behind the left in a boxer's stance. The left hand braced around the right for extra support. Omar's anger may have been fading, but Gage was still ready to squeeze the trigger if the man made even the slightest aggressive move.
"You would shoot me?" Omar said. "For this woman?"
"I would shoot you," Gage said, "because I really don't like you."
"Who are you?"
"Right now, I'm the man holding the gun loaded with sixteen rounds. Those are 9 mm bullets, by the way. Just one of them would be enough to turn you into seagull food." The breeze stirred the sand between them, and Gage waited, watching Omar to ensure that the reality of the situation was really dawning on him. When he saw that it was, Gage continued. "Now, I would suggest that you stand up, very slowly, then walk right back the way you came. Get in that nice car you
must have rented and drive back to your hotel. Take off your shoes and kick back and watch some television until all that adrenaline fades away. Maybe some Wheel of Fortune. Something dumb to let your mind relax. You pretend this didn't happen. I'll do the same. Tomorrow, when I'm sure you've cooled down, maybe we can talk."
Omar, still fuming even if he'd gotten at least a little control of himself, rose to his feet. "Why would I want to talk to you?"
"Because otherwise you don't get to talk to anybody. And maybe we can both help each other find your brother. You lost your cool a bit here, pal, but I'm man enough not to go to the police about it. Are you?"
He stared at Gage a long time, trying to maintain some semblance of power, but it was all for show. Gage had won this encounter and they both knew it. Finally, he glanced at Miranda, wrinkled his nose dismissively, then brushed off the sand from his suit. He took his time about it, making him wait, but Gage kept the Beretta aimed squarely at the man's chest. No sense taking chances.
"Inn at Sapphire Head," Omar said, without looking at them, still working on his sleeves. "Room 317."
"Duly noted," Gage said.
"I don't want to wait until tomorrow. Please come see me tonight."
"I have a dinner engagement tonight, but I might be able to come late."
Omar, having finally finished removing the sand from his clothes, fixed his black poker eyes on Gage. "Dinner? With whom?"
"None of your business."
"My brother, he is missing, and a dinner is more important?"
"Will you be there or not?"
Omar sighed. "I will be there. Do you have a number where I can reach you?"
"No," Gage said. Then, remembering he was now a newly minted member of the cell-phone carrying society, corrected himself. "Actually, yes."
"Yes?"
"Yes."
Omar waited. Gage waited along with him.
"Well?" Omar said. "Are you going to give me the number?"
"No."
A Shroud of Tattered Sails: An Oregon Coast Mystery (Garrison Gage Series Book 4) Page 8