EQMM, January 2009

by Dell Magazine Authors

  If I was Kettering, I'd come to this village, he thought. The beach was nice, the surf not too challenging, places to camp south of town. Yeah, he thought as he pushed the fat padlock closed and walked up the beach to Jesse's, the Snake might just slither right into Doran's cave. He was ready for him. Ready for justice. Wouldn't it be something if this punk was Doran's ticket back? Back to the cold. Back to the life.

  Jesse's was jammed, not that he liked it that way. The local service industry's attitude was to make a living, not a fortune. When he saw Doran coming he hefted a barstool over the counter and held his hand on it until Terry claimed it and a corner of the beachside bar. A group of over-refreshed American youngsters stared at the old man in a dirty tank top with a “who the hell are you” attitude but they weren't drunk enough—or tough enough—to say it out loud.

  Doran sipped his Negra and turned to face the beach. The tide receded quickly now, the gray sand flat and shiny with water reflecting a nearly full moon. The sand crabs, barely visible in the wisps of light from a sunset now two hours out in the Pacific, played a nervous game of sidle-and-seek with the few couples who strolled by.

  Terry heard the Sanchez horses before he saw them and he hardly saw them at all. Tourist trail-ride nags all day, now they showed their fire a hundred yards out in the shallow surf. Eight or ten or twelve of them raced south, heads high and manes snapping proudly in the wind, high-stepping in the waves like carriage hackneys, black against black on the unlit beach. Only the white water they disturbed evidenced their reality as, like specters, they danced an exquisite nightmare and then were gone. Each time the Sanchez horses raced the beach it moved him. It was Doran's private test to see if he still felt anything. His eyes went wet, as if the only two emotions left to him were cynicism and tears. He hadn't a lot of heart left for loyalty or duty or love. That reminded him of Rita. She was working until ten and he needed to see her.

  A nod to Jesse to put the Negra on his tab. A nod back and Doran left the kids using beer and loud talk to fix a world that wasn't as broken as the homes they came from. He shuffled up to where the main street met the sand, past the small police station two local cops never seemed to leave. If there was any crime in town Doran missed it and so would the cops if they stayed indoors. Maybe that's why they did. He stepped up the high curb to the town's only sidewalk. Halfway up the block, set back from the road across from the real-estate office, was Canopy Tours: Scooter Rentals and Internet Café.

  It was cool inside. As usual in the evening, there was a line for the six computers. Nobody sent postcards or bought film anymore. The kids—all of them waiting were young—sent e-mails and digital pictures and chatted in real time to faraway friends they could see on the screen. Rita smiled at him from her chair and wiggled. She looked good tonight. Pretty. Doran realized he hadn't shaved or changed for a couple of days, maybe longer, and took off his hat to atone. Rita wiggled again. She was proud of her cleavage and had the body for it. Even in her forties she still kept the scooter-renters, tour-takers, and chat-room chums enthralled with the shimmy of her breasts. She didn't possess a top that wasn't scooped into a deep V. Her skin was the color of coffee with one cream and her shiny black hair was pulled back from her brow and tied in a tight ponytail at the nape of her neck. She had returned to town from a job with a travel agency in San José to care for her father out on the Nosara road. When she wasn't at Doran's.

  "Hey Terry. Buenas tardes.” She had a great smile. Perfect white teeth and black-cherry lips. She wiggled again when she turned her chair to face him. “What brings you here, amigo?” Doran could tell by her smile that she assumed she had brought him here."

  "You. What else?” he said, but his forced smile called him a liar. Doran hated lies, especially his own. “And I need to e-mail home ... to a friend, I mean. Work. To Bidalki. ‘Member him? Steve?” Rita nodded, letting the honest truth outbid the loving lie. She glanced around the room.

  "Maybe in an hour, Terry. No sooner. Say nine o'clock? Nine-fifteen, maybe?” Doran nodded and put his hat back on.

  "Sure. Nine-ish. I'll be back.” His exit was complicated by the German couple and their son from the restaurant in Nicoya carrying oversized motorcycle helmets. The boy's palms and bare leg were scraped and bleeding. His parents seemed determined he should learn some lesson from that and Rita should bear witness. Doran left. He didn't like the sound of German.

  He walked the two blocks past the Super Mercado, its small driveway jammed with the four-wheel-drive trucks and dirt bikes of late grocery shoppers. At the rear of the chip shack he jumped in the Land Cruiser and drove the twisting road south to Playa Carillo. The air was cool on his face through the window. Camping was illegal on the beach, but sometimes kids without any money pretended they couldn't read the signs and did it anyway. Even Spanish-speaking kids. Tonight it was deserted. He drove past the long curve of double-planted palms to the south end where the charter fishing boats moored and walked down to the water. The moon was higher now and the perfect arc of breaking surf shone in its light. The mountains came close to the sea here. Lights twinkled down from expensive houses where people sipped nightcaps on cool tiled decks and looked far out to the lights of container ships and tankers heading north from Panama. He'd have a hard time explaining to a sane man why he wanted to be somewhere else, why he wanted to be someone else. He kicked off the flip-flops, tossed his shirt and hat on the sand, and waded into the warm white froth of the receding surf.

  On the way back to Rita's he stopped at a small campground on the mountain side of the road. There were five tents pitched on a narrow palm-treed lot, all colorful backpacker domes. The manager emerged when he heard the Toyota on the gravel. Doran mimed sleeping and pointed at the tents. The man laughed, shook his head, said, “Siempre fiesta,” snapping his fingers like castanets and pointing toward town. Doran made it back to the internet café at ten to nine and waited fifteen minutes before a machine became free.

  Steve Bidalki's e-mail address was the only one he knew. On the drive he'd thought about what to say. He'd keep it businesslike, professional. Make it sound like an investigative report and not some obsessed cop picking at old scabs. He typed Hello, asked after Marta, said things were going well, and guessed at the local temperature. He invited them down again and then got down to business. Is Muller still around? Any developments on the Donna Logan case? Any word on the whereabouts of Roland “Snake” Kettering? How cold is it there today, anyway? And Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Oh, and pass that on to anyone who might remember me. Then the punch line. "Saw something today that could make us both heroes. Regards, Terry." He clicked “Send.” A dark-haired boy was waiting to use the computer so Doran stood up.

  Rita glanced around the room to see if anyone was looking, then waved away the 350 colones Doran was trying to pay. She winked at him, more and more North American every day, and smiled. “Is Detective Doran back on the job?"

  "Detective Staff Sergeant. Retired.” Doran sat down on the chair at the end of her desk.

  "Sorry."

  "It's okay. I saw something—someone—in Nicoya today. Someone from the past. A bad man."

  "Tico? Gringo? White guy?"

  Leaning forward, Doran told her. In a whisper he described the hair, the hat, the top, the tattoo, the backpack. She whispered back, “Well, that man was in here tonight, Terry. Sitting right there at Station 2. Where you were just now."

  "When? When, Rita? When was he here?” With a sinking heart Doran realized he hadn't asked Bidalki to send a photograph of Kettering. He'd been off the job too long. That was just stupid. How could he do a proper professional search without a frigging photograph?

  "When you were here. What time was that? The first time. Must've been around eight if I said there'd be an hour wait."

  "Are you sure it was the same guy?"

  "Like your description. Not a kid. Maybe thirty-three, thirty-five. Little beard here under his lip. Orange hat with a picture of some big truck on it. We make th
em take them off in here, hats I mean. Don't know why Norte Americanos wear hats indoors. Even church. No respect.” Doran slipped off his hat but Rita didn't notice. “Dirty blond hair and clothes. Sleeping rough, probably. Sleeping bag tied to his backpack. Had a tattoo on his right—no left—shoulder, maybe an eel or snake or something. Kind of homemade but big, with the ink all blurry. Ugly thing...” Doran looked around the room in panic, face to face to face to face. “He's not here now, Terry. He sent his e-mail or had his chat. He was only here ten minutes or so. He paid and left. He smelled bad."

  "Can you trace it? Can you tell where he sent it? Who he talked to?"

  "It's private, Terry. That's the whole point of this. It's private...."

  "Rita. Can you?"

  "Well, if they didn't erase it from the Sent file we can...."

  "Do it, Rita. Do it now.” If Kettering had communicated with one of his buddies, Doran would know where he was from. That it was him. Rita jiggled, then stood up and leaned forward. Her breasts threatened to pop out of her dress.

  "We'll do it when the machine is available, Terry. We close in twenty minutes. We may have to wait until then."

  It was a longer twenty minutes than the bank lineup. Doran walked the sidewalk, grunting and nodding at shopkeepers and transient jewelry sellers who knew him, kicking himself for not requesting the ID photograph from Bidalki, for not staying in closer touch with home, for losing it and beating up Kettering in the Voyageur, for pissing off Muller and giving him reason to sack him. When he returned to the internet café, the dark-haired kid on the Number 2 machine was still typing. From outside Doran watched as Rita turned out lights and turned off computers. The kid didn't move. Rita finally looked out the window, hands on her hips, seeking help. Doran went in.

  "Time's up, kid."

  "I'll just be a minute or two,” he said, staring at the screen and typing rapidly. “Dylan finally came online and I wanna..."

  "Tomorrow, kid,” repeated Doran. The young, slight boy finally raised his eyes to see a 200-pound-plus ex-cop with three days’ growth of beard and an immediate agenda.

  "Yes sir.” He took forever paying up and leaving. Doran and Rita sat down at the machine. Deftly she clicked keys and opened the mail program. Doran noticed that her fingers were slim, her nails carefully painted the same color as her lips during some lull in the day. For him? In the mail program she went to “Sent” and a list of e-mails scrolled out on the screen.

  "Jesus,” said Doran. “We'll never..."

  "Shh,” said Rita. “What time did I say it was?"

  "Around eight.” She highlighted five messages sent from the computer between 7:55 and 8:10 that evening. Doran stared at the first one. “Open it.” Rita double-clicked. It was from someone named Gerda to a girl name Renata whose address ended in “de". “Deutschland. Not it. Try the next.” It was from the same Gerda to another friend in Germany.

  "I think you're sexy when you're on the job, Terry. I bet you were a very sexy cop, amigo."

  "Next.” He smiled in spite of himself. It felt good to him, too.

  "We don't know if he even sent an e-mail, Terry. Maybe he just signed on to a chat..."

  "Next."

  Rita moved the mouse. Tara this time, writing to Mom. She moved to the fourth message. “Bingo,” said Doran.

  The message was short: "Hey B: This place is so cool. Pam trees, hot chicks in nothing but thongs and coconut oil. Good weed. No cops. No hassles. Friggin monkeys in the friggin trees man. Cheap beer. Fulltime summer. Lotsa rich bastards. Sleepin on the beach under a boat for free. You gotta come when your sprung man. I'll probly still be here. Friggin paradise man.” It was addressed to “B” and signed “S". The address was MNCI—Mid-Northern Correction Institution—a medium-security lockup forty-five kilometers from Fox Creek.

  "Gotcha. Check the next one.” When he saw it was written by someone else Doran was out the door faster than a dirt bike. He drove as fast as he could to the rutted road at the end of the bay where the local fishing boats beached. He knew the road by heart, even in the dark. He or Javier came here once a week to buy fresh corvine, dorado, tilapia—whatever was being caught. He drove onto the hard-packed sand. The tide was far out now, the surf maybe three hundred meters from the hotels and homes. Doran didn't know if there was some law against driving on the beach, just that nobody did it. He could taste the chase again. Like slow-melting caramel, sweet at the back of the tongue but sharp in the throat. It felt so good. It had been so long.

  He shut out the Cruiser's lights, geared down, and turned north, letting the clutch and the pull of second gear tug him northward, staring into the black until his eyes could see shapes. There were never many boats on the beach. A couple of old ones were permanently situated and painted with the names of the beachfront bars behind them. The ones that were used regularly by fishermen spent little time ashore. He stopped a hundred yards from the first one he saw, turned off the engine, and sat quietly with the window down. The roll of the surf masked his sounds. He searched blindly in the glove compartment, then in the broken console between the seats, feeling the long barrel of a D-cell flashlight, then the thin rusty shaft of a tire iron. He took both, leaving the truck door open. The interior lights had never worked.

  Doran crept toward the overturned boat. It was a small one, wooden, locally built judging by the way the side planks overlapped and curved upward to the stern. He approached from the side that touched the sand, listening for snores or coughs as he crept closer. Even up in the dry sand the damned surf made it difficult to hear anything else. He bit his lower lip with anticipation and tasted the tinny tang of blood. Go.

  He came around the bow and knelt down. With the tire iron raised in his right hand he clicked on the flashlight with his left. The flashlight didn't go on. He struck the barrel against the boat and a pale yellow light flickered and died. He tapped it again, then realized that if someone was there they'd be awake by now. And if they were armed, he'd be dead. Had he forgotten every damned thing he'd ever learned? He swore and unscrewed the barrel, poured the batteries out, rearranged the order, and blew out the sand grit he could feel in the cap threads. He tried it again. Better. Good enough to see no one was under the boat and no one had been. Doran walked back to the truck, wondering what else he'd forgotten.

  He drove north again. The next two boats lay side by side, gunnels so deep that they provided little shelter. Doran aimed the Land Cruiser lights at them and flicked on the high beams to make certain both were empty, then shut the truck down and jumped out to confirm.

  He was halfway up the beach now, nearer the village than the fishing port. Maybe he'd misunderstood the e-mail. Or maybe Kettering had been bragging to his prison pal about sleeping on the beach. Then he saw him. Between the truck and the surf. He stared into the black to tune his night vision. The guy was staggering. Drunk, maybe. Singing something to himself out loud. Skinny bastard. He wore his orange hat high and back on his head and his thumbs were tucked under the straps of his pack. His little beard moved with his mouth and his sleeping bag banged rhythmically against the backs of his thighs as he weaved down the beach, yelling “whooo-hoo” every time a wave soaked his sandals.

  "Whooo-hoo. Screw you, Snake,” said Doran under his breath. He jumped in the truck, started it up, flicked on the high beams, shoved it into first, and drove. Kettering didn't look up until Doran was upon him. He didn't move. He stood there, as stupid as Doran knew he was, as frozen as Doran knew the chickenshit punk would be in battle. Without his pals around. Without a woman to beat up and rape and leave for animals to rip apart. What happened next was pure impulse. The impact was not as loud or definitive as Doran had hoped. He'd wanted a bang, a noise as explosive as his victory, a bone-breaking exclamation mark to end a sentence that had been running on for far too long. But the gentle breeze and persistent surf swallowed all sounds. It wasn't until he dragged the limp form into the chip shack that he discovered he was dead. Not that it really mattered. Kettering's body w
ouldn't be his ticket home—not without a confession. But Donna Logan was avenged.

  * * * *

  Terry Doran woke in a fog. The first thing he saw through the bedroom door was the empty bottle of Absolut on the table in the other room, bathed in blue light like the Virgin in a village church. The angle of the sun said it must be after seven. He had something pressing on the agenda today but was in no rush to find out what it was. That's what Costa Rican coffee was for—start your heart and your brain will follow. He stood up and steadied himself on his dresser, waiting for a faint spell that didn't come. He was wearing the clothes he had on yesterday and could not remember going to bed.

  He realized that it was a sound that had woken him, a sound that had stopped now, as if only audible in its absence. No bloody wonder with the morning racket at its peak. Off the terrace Howler monkeys argued over tree territory, a toucan shouted back, and macaws darted about in dazzling, frantic pairs. Homely brown birds with songs louder than necessary were building condo nests in the dead palm. It must have been Rita knocking, judging by the Canopy Tours envelope slipped under the door. Doran pulled at his face as if it were a rubber mask, scratched his eyes, and opened the envelope with his thumb.

  Hey Terry. Long time, buddy. Great to hear from you, especially at this time of year when we count our blessings even if we forget to the rest of the time. Marta says hello and promises she'll send you an article she clipped out about why Swiss Chalet fries are so good if she finds it. The lard, she thinks it was. Emma also says hello, or would if she could—she's only 11 months but is built like a surfer so watch out “Uncle Terry,” she'll be on your doorstep in 20 years asking to crash on your couch. She might be accompanied by what we're calling “The Bump,” a little guy or girl—we don't want to know—who's living in Mommy's tummy until early May. Whooda thunk, eh Sarge? A Bidalki dynasty. If it's a guy I'm threatening to call it Terry. Is that short for something?