The back of his skull bounced off the wall, and he used the momentum of the recoil to head-butt me. The pain caused me to loosen my grip on his wrist. He broke free and in the same motion hit me across the temple with the barrel of the gun. It didn’t hurt much, but I instinctively tried to duck, and as I did so, Williams crouched, straightened, and drove his massive fist into my solar plexus.
Every nerve in my body fired at once as I fell to my knees, clutching my guts. Still, I had enough presence of mind to reach for my own gun, but my hand was like a blind man without a cane. Williams hit me again under the chin, and I fell backward onto the carpet. I tried to get up, but before I could even get an elbow posted on the floor, he grasped me by the throat with one hand and squeezed just enough to shut off my breathing. I instinctively grabbed both of his wrists but stopped when he put the business end of the gun against my forehead.
Then I heard the bathroom door open and click closed. Nick stepped into the room and frowned at the scene. He looked over at where Vivian still lay sprawled on the bed and frowned even harder.
Williams, still with his hand around my throat, half lifted me to my feet. A twisting blue vein in his neck pulsed like a swollen river filled with blood. I had no idea what kind of ’roids he was on, but they were working just fine. When I was upright, he gave me a shove that sent me backward onto the bed next to Vivian. He pointed the gun at my crotch and spoke to Nick without looking at him.
“You get the van?” he demanded.
“It’s in the parking lot, top floor of the garage, just like you said,” Nick answered eagerly, like a Boy Scout anxious to earn a merit badge.
I rubbed my throat and managed to coax my vocal cords back to life while Williams wiped the blood from his nose with an edge of the bedsheet.
“So I guess you switched sides again,” I said to Nick. “Too bad. I was starting to like you.”
Nick looked me up and down and smirked. “What did you expect me to do?” he asked. “Stick with a loser like you? Get real, would you?”
“Let’s go,” Williams said, glancing quickly at his watch but never once moving the gun from where it was still aimed at a point between my legs. Then to me: “I know what you’re thinking,” he said. “You’re thinking this gun doesn’t have a silencer and I won’t risk making that much noise in here, but think again. Get up, and get up slow.”
I got up, and as I did so, Williams again pointed the gun at my forehead. “Where’s the Colonel?” I asked. “I want to speak to him. He owes me some money.”
“Funny you should say that,” Williams responded. “He’s anxious to see you, too. Now pick up the whore. We’re getting out of here.”
Nick glanced at his sister. “Is she all right?”
“What do you care, you little prick?” Williams boomed. “Just shut up and open the goddamned door. You two have caused enough trouble already.”
“Jesus,” Nick said. “You don’t have to yell.”
I bent down and scooped Vivian up in my arms. I was still in pain from the beating, and my legs had lost much of their spring, but I managed to straighten up. She was barely 110, but I felt like a man struggling under the gravity of Jupiter.
Williams smiled at the sight of my obvious struggle. “What’s the matter, Vaughn?” he asked. “You too weak to carry her?”
I walked with difficulty past Nick and into the hallway, hoping that a maid on her rounds might spot us and call the front desk, but no such luck. Williams followed behind us as Nick opened the door to the stairs that led to the garage. Vivian felt dead in my arms, and I wasn’t in much better shape myself. I had to stop twice to rest. Each time I did, Williams nudged me in the back with the gun.
Nick had parked the van next to the exit into the garage, for which I was grateful, since my back was about to crack with the effort of carrying Vivian down three flights of stairs. Nick slid the van’s side door open and stood aside while I placed his sister on the backseat. I had never been so happy to put down a beautiful woman in my entire life.
Then Williams told me to stand with my back to him and my hands against the van.
I don’t know who jabbed me with the needle, but I jumped as I felt the point penetrate the skin on my left shoulder. I didn’t know who was holding the gun right then, Williams or Nick, but it didn’t matter. I kicked backward with my left foot and felt it hit something human. I spun around in time to see Williams staggering back, his hands waving in the air as he fought to keep from falling, and Nick looking on horrified as I made a run for it.
I ran a good twenty feet before I was back on Jupiter again. Only this time I was running through a swamp as well. My legs started to vanish under me as though they were being erased while I ran. I stumbled, fell, and got up again, footsteps coming up hard behind me. Somebody grabbed me and pulled me around hard. It was Williams. I swung at his head with everything left in the bank, but my arms had disappeared, too, and I felt myself falling for what seemed like forever without ever hitting the ground.
When I opened my eyes, it was night. The sky was clear, and the stars glittered above me like peaceful angels, distant but benign, light-years away, too far to do anything but bear witness to the earth. I smiled up at the stars. I was glad to see them. The constellations began to make sense. Was that Mars with its faint rosy glow? Was that Aries rising in the west?
I was lying on my back, and I couldn’t feel my body, but it didn’t seem to matter much, not when I could float like this. After a while somebody started to tell me a story, not with words but with pictures. There was a beautiful black-haired woman. Her mouth moved, but nothing came out when she spoke. There were three men standing over me as the black-haired woman rubbed my cheek with the palm of her hand. Everybody seemed very familiar. I smiled up at them. They weren’t as pretty as the stars, but they were a lot closer.
Then one of the men—the biggest of the three—bent over, and I felt a stinging sensation across my face. And all at once I remembered who I was and that the strange dream I’d awakened into was real.
“Wake up, Jack,” Vivian said. She was kneeling beside me like a nurse.
I looked up at her, then at the three men standing above us. One of them was young. That would be my buddy Nick. Check. One of them was on steroids. That would be Williams. Check.
The third man was the Colonel. Check.
The girl was Vivian. I looked her over. Not bad, I thought.
That left me. I was Jack. Jack Vaughn, personal trainer to psychos and killers. Former cop and cop killer. My hobbies were sinking yachts, finding dead bodies, and running from other cops. It’s a great way to stay in shape. A lot more exciting than yoga or tai chi, I’ll tell you that much. In a deranged sort of way, it was all starting to make sense.
I found my legs and got slowly to my feet. Vivian helped. I looked around. It was night, all right. We were standing on the beach about twenty yards from the ocean, next to a long wooden pier that reached into the sea. There were no houses around, but I guessed we were somewhere near Edgewater. I brushed the sand from my clothes and smiled at the Colonel. He was wearing a black, two-piece running suit and looked like a fit and trim retiree out for an evening jog. He smiled down at me benignly, as though he had just happened upon me lying there in the sand.
“We were starting to worry about you,” he said. There was true compassion in his voice, which seemed odd given the fact that Williams was pointing his gun at me again. “I was afraid that Rudolph had given you an overdose.”
“Yeah,” I said. “That would be illegal.”
There was sand on my face, and I brushed that off, too. Williams took a step back, but he needn’t have bothered. I was still way too woozy to try anything even vaguely heroic.
Nick took a last drag from his cigarette and flicked the butt past my ear.
“Stupid right to the end,” he said.
“Shut up,” Vivian said. “He saved us all. Isn’t that right, Daddy?”
“Well,” I said, “I guess the Pa
rtridge Family is back together again.”
“What time does the boat get here?” Nick asked. “I’m not going to stand out here all night listening to this idiot make his asinine remarks.”
I looked at Williams. “You’re not much without a gun in your hand, are you?” I said.
“You’re not much either way,” Williams said. “I proved that at the hotel.”
“So what’s the deal now?” I asked. “Can I go home?”
“Vivian and Nick and I have come to an agreement,” the Colonel said.
“And I don’t agree with it one bit,” Nick said testily, scanning the ocean as he spoke. I looked with him. Far off, coming in at a good clip from the west, was some kind of boat. Williams saw it, too. He glanced quickly at his watch.
“What kind of agreement?” I asked.
“My daughter has agreed to go with the rest of us, in return for which, after we’re gone, Williams will let you go. In a few weeks, once he’s sure we’re safe, he’ll join us in our new home.”
“And where’s that, Andy? Havana?”
The Colonel smiled. “I’m a man of the world, Jack. One place is as good as the next—as long as you have the money to afford it. As far as you’re concerned, it’s really quite simple. Just keep your mouth shut. You’re fifty grand ahead of the game. Keep it that way.”
“Hey, do me a favor,” I said. “While you’re there, ask Fidel if he needs a personal trainer. He looks a little fat, if you ask me.”
“I can’t stand this any longer,” Nick said, rolling his eyes. “I’m going down to wait for the boat.” He walked slowly to the end of the pier. I followed him with my eyes for a moment and saw the lights of a cabin cruiser heading toward us.
“Suppose she decides not to go with you?” I asked.
“I have to go,” Vivian said. “It’s all right. As soon as we get everything set up, I’ll come back, and we can be together again.”
“I look forward to that,” I said. “It’s been so much fun lately.”
The boat made a wide, sweeping turn, cut its throttle, and eased up to the pier. It wasn’t a big boat, but it was big enough to reach Cuba.
“Good man,” Williams said, checking his watch again. “Right on time.”
At that moment a car I didn’t recognize appeared above us on the ramp that led down to the sand. The Colonel and Williams must have been expecting it, because neither seemed surprised by its arrival. It was a black Chevrolet Impala circa 1968, with whitewall tires, tinted windows, and the horns of a steer for a hood ornament. Two men got out. One of them was Dominguez, the Colonel’s chauffeur. The other was a longhaired man in his early twenties in a dirty white tank top that revealed a pair of shoulders festooned with tattoos. The young man opened the trunk and lifted out a pair of weather-beaten suitcases. The two newcomers embraced for a long moment, and then the younger man got back in the car and drove off.
Dominguez watched the Impala wind its way back up the ramp, then picked up his bags and walked slowly toward us. He was obviously struggling and looked even worse than when I had seen him a few days earlier.
“Where are you off to, Rafael?” I asked. “Santiago province, by any chance?”
“You talk too much,” Williams said.
Dominguez studied me with his sad, sick eyes. “Good-bye, Jack. I don’t think I see you again after this,” he said. “I wish for you the best.”
I thanked him. Dominguez nodded grimly and walked slowly toward the boat, a suitcase in either hand, like an old man balancing on a tightrope. He was going home to die.
“You had better head down to the boat now, Colonel,” Williams said. “We don’t want to be out here too long.”
“Keep him here until we’re gone,” the Colonel said. “Then drive him home.”
Williams smiled ever so slightly. “Sure thing,” he replied. “Just like a chauffeur.”
“What about the fifty grand you owe me?” I asked.
“I’m giving you your life,” he said. “That should make us even.”
The wind picked up. I glanced over the Colonel’s shoulder and saw Nick stepping onto the boat at the end of the pier. Vivian embraced me, kissed me on the cheek, but I didn’t respond. I was too busy thinking about the way Williams had smiled when his boss had told him to drive me home after they took off. I searched Vivian’s dark eyes for any sign that she knew what was coming, but they told me nothing. Maybe she suspected what was about to go down, and maybe she didn’t. Then, all at once, she began to cry.
“We have to go now, dear,” the Colonel said in a soft voice. Vivian brushed her eyes with the back of her wrist and walked over to where her father stood. He put his arm around her shoulders, and together they turned and walked toward the pier. They had gone only a few yards when Vivian broke away from her father and ran back to me. She threw her arms around my neck and kissed me hard on the lips. Williams looked on impassively.
“I love you,” she said. “You know that, don’t you?”
“Sure,” I said. “Go on, now. Give me a call when you can. I’ll be fine. Williams and I might even go for a beer or two. Isn’t that right, Williams?” Vivian turned to look at him.
“You bet,” he said, but this time he didn’t smile. His blue eyes were as hard as diamond drill bits.
Vivian turned back to me. She reached up and ran her index finger over the scar on my cheek. It was a familiar gesture. I remembered the first time she’d done it—back when I first told her about the shooting up in New York. I had always taken it as her way of telling me she understood my remorse, why I’d never had it removed, and why I never would. I told her back then that there were some scars worth keeping.
I looked down toward the end of the pier. Her father was just a shadow, almost invisible against the backdrop of the boat. From that distance I could just barely make out the tall, slender silhouettes of a row of deep-sea fishing rods lined up along the stern.
“So long, kid,” I said, trying to smile.
Vivian gave me one last desperate look, then turned and ran toward the boat. In a few seconds, she, too, was a shadow. A moment later, with a muted roar of its engine, the cruiser made a wide turn and headed out to sea. I watched the boat become small against the night sky. Williams didn’t bother to look; he was too busy watching me.
“Let’s go get that beer,” I said. “I don’t know about you, but I’m getting pretty thirsty.”
“Yeah, that’s a good idea,” he said. He made a brief gesture with his gun toward the north. “Let’s you and me take a walk up to those dunes over there.”
“Why not shoot me here?” I asked.
He smiled. “Who said I was going to shoot you? Now, walk.”
The dunes were about fifty yards away. The stalks of oat grass that covered them were waving like the hair of mermaids in the water. The sand was packed hard. Williams stayed behind me as we walked.
“Stop and turn around,” he said.
I turned in time to catch his fist with my face. I fell backward onto the sand and skidded a few feet. I lay there and did a bit more stargazing before rolling onto my stomach. Judging from the blood filling my mouth, I gathered that my nose was broken.
“Get up,” Williams said from behind me. “We’re just getting started.”
I sat up gradually. For a moment there were two Williamses, identically dressed, each one as big and as ugly as his twin. I stared at them until they merged. It was then I noticed that he wasn’t holding the gun anymore, and it came to me all at once, along with the pain in my face, what he had in mind. He was going to kill me with his bare hands.
“Get up,” he repeated. “I’m giving you a chance. You win, you leave. You lose, you die.”
I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand; it came away as red as a prizefight in the final round.
“I’ve got a better idea,” I said. “Suppose you just leave.”
Williams didn’t answer me; he stood there glaring down at where I sat as though he were looking at a body
already dead. Slowly, I got to my feet. Even on my best day, I knew I couldn’t have taken him, and it wasn’t just the steroids either. He had been trained by the best, and he was also crazy. I, on the other hand, was beaten up, half drugged, and badly dehydrated. Still, being pummeled to death was better than being shot like a wounded animal—better, but a lot more painful.
I straightened up and faced him. The blood from my nose ran down my chin. The salty sweetness made me angry—angry, but not stupid. I took a step forward and pretended to stagger, and at that precise moment Williams charged at me from a distance of eight feet.
As he reached for me with his right hand, I spun to my left like a drunken matador, brushing his arm away with my left arm as though it were the branch of a tree. I almost fell, but as he went by me, I kicked him in the back of the knee. It wasn’t a hard kick, not by a long shot, but it made him stumble and lose his balance. I guess he got it back pretty fast, but it didn’t matter, because by the time he recovered, I was already running at full speed down the beach.
I waited for the sound of a gunshot, but all I heard was Williams coming hard up behind me. His fingers grazed the back of my shoulder but didn’t hold, although I knew if I so much as stumbled, it would all be over. If the sand hadn’t been as compressed as it was, he would’ve had me.
People don’t realize how fast a man built like that can run for short distances. The same muscle fibers that allow a weight lifter to hoist a quarter ton over his head can power him for thirty or forty yards at a speed almost equal to that of a sprinter a hundred pounds lighter. I could hear Williams coming, closing fast and breathing hard. I felt his fingers again graze my shoulders, and at that moment I cut to the right and onto the soft, wet sand closest to the surf. I didn’t have to glance back to know where he was; I could hear him coming at me from the left.
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