The Mangrove Coast df-6

by Randy Wayne White

  “Boat shoes?” she said.

  “Yeah, I’m going to take you for a cruise, then we’re going to tour the rain forest by small plane.”

  I described the yellow Scarab; told her that when she arrived in Panama, have her cab stop so she could buy food and drinks-some champagne to celebrate if she wanted- and to stow it aboard the boat when she got there. Her mother and I would meet her at the Balboa Yacht Club at one and absolutely no later than one-thirty, unless I called the bar and left word.

  She was getting excited. “You’ve got my mom? Can I speak with her?”

  I told her, “No. But I’m going to get her tonight.”

  That dropped her intensity down a notch, but she still sounded happy. “Doc, you know what I’m going to do right now? This friend of mine, Betty, she’s big in the Unity Church up in Ohio and she’s organized what they call a prayer chain for my mom. I’m going to write her the second I hang up and tell her our prayers have been answered.”

  A religious side-the first I’d seen of that. But nice. After what Amanda had gone through as a child, perhaps it explained her stability now.

  I remember reminding myself that for every Jackie Merlot in the world, there were unnoticed thousands, tens of thousands, of genuinely decent and thoughtful people. These were people like Betty.

  Nice, yeah, very nice.

  Jackie Merlot had commandeered the old Gamboa golf clubhouse. No surprise there. A board-and-batten classic with a pitched copper roof that was barely visible through the trees from the road. The house was built on a hill, with a long screen porch looking out. Nothing but banana trees and ficus between it and the water. Because the lower level was enclosed with white trellis, the house looked even bigger than it actually was. For the last, what? seventy-some years, Zonian families had lived in this place. Lots of babies, school plays, graduations, retirements within those walls. Now Merlot had it.

  A hydraulic lift, I noticed, had been installed next to the back stairs. I’d never seen anything like that in Central America. Apparently the fat man was too lazy to walk up and down the steps on his own. I could picture him waddling from the Mercedes diesel parked beneath the house to his own little elevator.

  I’d made sure the motorcycle would start while still inside the sealed garage of the safe house. It was a Harley Sportster with a black teardrop fuel tank, saddlebags tossed over the rump as if the thing were a horse. No papers with it, no serial numbers that I could find.

  Clearly, the boys in blue shirts didn’t want to risk being linked to this business in any way.

  I walked the Harley the half mile or so to The Ridge and the entrance of Merlot’s drive. My second nocturnal tour of Gamboa. This time, though, the little village seemed deserted. No lights on in the houses, but lots of construction happening, lots of signs of remodeling. Something else: What I remembered best about Gamboa was that it sat within a cavern of shadows and dense forest

  Not now. The landscape around the houses was a pock-work of yellow stumps. A chainsaw’s whine is the national anthem of every Third World country that still has rain forest standing. The loggers had been busy here. So check the price of rare tropical hardwood, multiply it by board feet and tally the small fortune that Merlot and company had already made. Developers and resource hogs are discovering what the sexual predators discovered long ago: Life is free and easy outside the U.S.

  Or maybe the fat man was keeping it all for himself.

  I was now standing in a thicket of bananas beside the house. It had begun to rain. Just rain, no lightning yet, although I could hear the distant rumble of thunder. A steady, soaking drizzle. I wore gloves and the navy watch cap; my face was darkened with the waxy tech paint I’d found in the goody bag left for me by Matt Davidson.

  Not that I now believed that Davidson was his real name. No, he’d probably come up with it when getting the motorcycle ready. Harley Davidson. Matt Davidson. Clever.

  Other useful articles in the bag: wire clippers, bolt cutters, two flashlights, a leather sap, a cheap stiletto, duct tape, a nautical chart showing the Panamanian coastline, a glass cutter, a drugstore first-aid kit.

  No firearms. Maybe Bobby’s old friends were reluctant to get their hands too dirty.

  So I stood there in the rain, smelling the wet wool, watching water fauceting down the canoe-size leaves. In the moonlight, the Panama Canal looked to be more than a quarter mile wide here, jungle on the other side. An idea: I take Jackie Merlot by the collar and sidestroke him to the middle of the Canal. Say to him, “I just saw a photograph of you and my dear friend Amanda. It was one of the most disgusting things I’ve ever seen. So the good news is, you’re only forty feet from land. The bad news is, it’s straight down.”

  Say something clever to him and watch his face. Remind him of his tough guy Darkrume persona, say, Why aren’t you acting tough now? Then nail him.

  It would be nice, very nice… but it would also be very dumb. No, freeing Gail was my sole objective. And I planned to do it in the simplest, safest and most effective way.

  A basic snatch-and-bag.

  How many of those had I participated in during the early years?

  What could be simpler?

  First things first, though. I took the knife and punctured three of the Mercedes’s tires.

  Let them try to chase me now…

  I found the telephone connection box at the base of Merlot’s house. Underground cable entered from the road. Lights were still on upstairs and I could hear voices. Heard Merlot say something about the television, heard a much deeper, stronger voice with a Middle Eastern accent say, “Fuck you, do it yourself. All you do is sit at that computer. Or have this bitch of a whore do it. She never does anything around here!”

  A grumpy night in paradise.

  Then I heard Gail’s voice for the first time. Heard her say, “I will do anything to make you two stop arguing. At least grant me the peace of silence. I should be allowed that.”

  Her voice was deeper than I had anticipated. It had a strength and a clarity that was unexpected, considering the circumstances. Class-Garret had described her that way. What I heard in her voice, though, was something I valued more highly. It was dignity. After what she’d been through, this was, indeed, someone special. Bobby had chosen well.

  Kneeling in the rain, hearing her voice so close, it suddenly seemed hugely important to rescue her, to keep her safely within arm’s reach until we were home in Florida.

  I had the lid to the connecting box open. Merlot had three phone lines going into the house. His computers- that explained the additional lines. One phone line, and probably two Internet access lines. A couple of days before, he’d sat up there at his keyboard and communicated with me through one of these lines, baited me as Darkrume.

  He’d written: “Find me, asshole.”

  I’d replied: Exactly what I plan to do.

  Now I had.

  A little-known fact: Most security systems work like incremental switches linked in a series that completes a low-amp, low-voltage electrical circuit. Cut the power and most good systems have a battery backup. Cut the phone line, however, and all but the very best systems are worthless.

  I was counting on Matt Davidson having given me accurate intel: this was a very good system.

  I loosened all six of the brass nuts onto which were attached three different pairs of red and green wires. I pulled the top pair of wires off first.

  From upstairs, I heard: “Goddamn it! Now what’s wrong with this fucking connection!” Merlot’s voice with his limited vocabulary.

  I’d apparently knocked him off line.

  I reattached the top pair of wires, then disconnected the second.

  Nothing.

  Maybe Merlot hadn’t armed the alarm yet. Maybe they waited until bedtime, just before they turned the lights off.

  After reconnecting the second pair, I yanked the final wires free

  … there was an immediate siren scream from above; an electronic tone so loud that
it was numbing.

  A terrible sound. Even so, I could hear the rumble of footsteps moving overhead. The fat man in a hurry, judging from the thump-thump-thump vibration. I gave him what I hoped was enough time to get to the alarm’s keypad and punch in the shut-off code before I reattached the phone wires and shut the box.

  There, that was done. Now all I had to do was wait.

  I took the sap from my back pocket, held it comfortably in my right hand. It was a flexible weight, wrapped hard with black leather. Hit a man correctly, he would experience temporary paralysis even if he was conscious.

  Hit a man incorrectly, and he would never regain consciousness again.

  Seconds later, the siren stopped, its echoes faded. In the fresh silence of falling rain, I felt as if I could hear air molecules reasserting themselves around my eardrums. Upstairs, Merlot said something. Couldn’t make it out. Then Acky’s deeper voice: “Why is it I am always the one who must do these things? Why do you not go outside and look for yourself?”

  This time, I had no trouble hearing Merlot’s shrill reply: “I have my reasons, you fool! If I tell you to check, it’s because I have my reasons!”

  “But it’s raining… and this happens so often. Why can’t you take a turn?”

  “Because… my slow-witted… darling… you don’t have the fucking brains to remember the fucking password when the cops call!” Dramatically patient and then furious: Merlot sounded even more like an overweight woman when he was mad.

  Acky: “You have no right to yell at me in this way. One day you will raise your voice to me at the wrong time! I warn you!”

  Merlot: “ ‘Duh-h-h-h, lightning set the fucking alarm off again!’ How many times have the cops called and you said that? ‘Duh, the password, I don’t remember any password.”’ Very abusive; his voice gradually getting louder: “I give the orders here! I give the fucking orders and if you don’t like it, I’ll contact my business associates in Panama City.” Now the man sounded truly crazed.

  Something else I could hear was Gail. She had begun to sob. It was a sound of absolute despair. She’d had enough-it was that sound, exhausted.

  Merlot still wasn’t done: “Remember the stinking beggar I saw snooping around her the other day? One phone call, one phone call to my friends, and guess what happened to him. Fucking disappeared, didn’t he! Just like you’ll disappear, Acky. Back to Lebanon if you give me any more of your shit! Or maybe… maybe I should tell the police where to find my safety deposit box. Let them read about the two men I watched you beat to death. Better yet, remember the poor little slum girl in Maracaibo?”

  The phone rang.

  Heard Acky yell, “Fuck it all! Fuck it all!” then nothing.

  The phone continued to ring. The police or the security company were calling from Panama City, checking to see if Merlot actually had a security problem.

  Seconds later, the door to the back stairs creaked open. Having been threatened, Acky was coming to investigate.

  I waited just as long as I could… waited until I heard Merlot thumping around again-phone call done-before I snipped the line at the base of the telephone cable, then stepped back into the shadows. No more calls tonight.

  Acky had a flashlight, coming down the stairs.

  Something else Acky had was a pistol.

  19

  At one point, the beam of his flashlight swept across my legs, but I remained frozen, body pressed hard against the pilings of the house, trying to blend in.

  Apparently, I did.

  Acky paused, looked in my direction, then continued walking, checking downstairs doors. I got the impression that false alarms had become routine for him. When the siren sounded, it was usually the same: he grabbed a pistol and flashlight, made the obvious rounds outside, then returned to bed because no one was ever there. Power surges and failed telephone lines are not uncommon in Panama.

  Still, Merlot had insisted that he search outside. He’d screamed at him, “I have my reasons! I have my reasons!”

  Did that mean something? Or was it simply a coward’s insistence on overprecaution?

  I watched Acky intensely, barely breathing, trying to calculate the most effective point of intersection. He was a huge man; lots of weight-lifter muscle. This would have to be done carefully and quickly.

  I watched him disappear behind a hibiscus hedge at the back of the house, saw the beam of the flashlight sweep the hillside. It was still raining, coming down harder now. That was good. Rain provided cover. So did the occasional rumble of distant thunder.

  I had the leather club in my hand, ready. Still watching Acky, I began to move.

  There is rhythm to such a maneuver. It requires patience and a refusal to panic. Fortunately, it does not require great coordination-a gift I do not possess. I kept it simple. When he moved, I moved. When he slowed, I froze…

  The house was between us… then the hedge was between us… and then I was behind Acky, traveling quickly, quietly, because if he happened to turn while I was in the open, there was not much doubt that he would use the pistol in his right hand…

  Now he was plodding sideways down the hill toward the water. We were on the old golf course now. Was he checking to see if an uninvited visitor had arrived by boat?

  Yes, that was it. He was shining the flashlight, painting the canal’s bank with a yellow column of light as I continued to close, moving faster now because I had no cover at all…

  … Then, when I was only three or four strides away, it happened. He turned to face me, perhaps alerted by the sound of my feet on grass, or the air pressure of my bulk moving toward him, or possibly by some atavistic alarm that warned of predators-for that is certainly what I was in the instant, a predator; a predator locked so precisely on my target that all else vanished in a charge of adrenaline so pure, so potent, that the feeling surely mimicked elation.

  I heard an unexpected sound: a thoracic growl. Could a human being make such a sound? Yes. It was the sound of terror, an inhuman reflex, and I could see the shock in Acky’s eyes when he realized that I was on him, his mouth opening wide to scream as his pistol hand levered toward me.

  I caught the pistol in the crook of my arm as I swung hard with the sap… was aiming at the delicate bone behind his ear, but his head dropped instinctively and I caught him high on the cranial globe. The pistol went flying from his hand, but he did not collapse in a heap as I had anticipated. Instead, he staggered drunkenly for a moment, then lunged hard toward me-a very big man who was now crazy with fear.

  I caught his chin in the palm of my hand, locked his head against my chest as I threw my legs behind me, sprawling to avoid the reach of his arms… and then I gator-rolled with the full momentum of my weight, back arched off the ground, 360 degrees with Acky’s head still locked tightly against me, two hundred and twenty-some pounds of torque.

  That sound…

  The sound that his body made was sickening. It was the sound of green wood snapping, sap exploding. It was the sound of a human spine twisting until severed.

  When it happened, my head was tucked hard against his back, applying pressure. The noise, transmitted through the man’s own viscera, seemed deafening. I could feel the trembling of his body as his muscles spasmed out of control… and then there were no more spasms, no movement, nothing.

  I stood.

  Acky was a dark mass at my feet. Dead. If Merlot really had filed away letters about the men and the Venezuelan girl that Acky had supposedly killed, they were useless now.

  I didn’t much care one way or the other. I’d been involved in the deaths of much better men than this, plus there was a feeling in me now… a feeling of terrible energy that was fueled by the most basic of elements: moon, moving water, wind, blood…

  Blood. Had I drawn blood? I fought the urge to check.

  Yet the feeling remained, a kind of instinctual madness that ruled from the marrow; a feeling that I knew in my memory and despised in my soul because I’d drawn on it too often years before, an
d it drained from me that which I value most: my reason, my self-control.

  Moon, wind, water, blood…

  In that instant, those things were in me. Those elements were me.

  I moved away from the body. Everything around me had been blurred by my intensity, but now I took a look at my surroundings. We were screened from the house by trees. Only a few yards behind me was the Panama Canal. The water was black in the moonlight. To the northwest was a transiting cruise ship. The newly wed and nearly dead. It was lit up like a floating city, moving toward Gamboa and the locks at Miraflores. It was far away. No one could have possibly seen me snap this man’s neck. Flawless!

  Now I had things to do.

  Yes, things to do…

  I used Acky’s flashlight to hunt around until I found the pistol. A cheap little. 38 special. But loaded.

  I tossed it into the water.

  I found the sap. I’d dropped it when I wrestled with the man. Now I jammed it into my back pocket No clues, no man-spore. Didn’t want to leave any sign of me.

  From the direction of the porch, I then heard Merlot’s voice. “Acky? Acky! Get your ass back in here! The computer’s working again and I’ve got something to show you!”

  I heard the back door slam. A petulant sound.

  I didn’t hesitate. I ran; ran hard along the hill and up the back stairs to the door where Acky would have reentered. As I reached for the knob, though, the door was suddenly flung open and Merlot thrust a revolver out. From the expression on his face-a mixture of expectation and terror-my first thought was: He knew I was coming…

  When he threw open the door, we each froze for a microsecond, both of us stunned to be standing nose to nose. So close I could smell him: a fried bacon odor, sweat cigarettes. I could look through his eyes into him.

  It was that moment of shock that saved me. He backpedaled slightly, me still coming hard through the door, and as he brought the pistol up, I knocked the barrel away from my face just as he pulled the trigger-ker-WHAP-the bullet’s cone of percussion deafening me but missing.

  Merlot’s voice was shaking and he sounded near tears as he yelled, “Stay away from me or I’ll kill you. I mean it! Stay back!”