Tropic of Darkness

by Tony Richards

  The arrivals hall was cool and shady, when he was finally allowed on through. Hague saw his own name on one of the placards being held up. It was jammed between the fingers of a tubby, balding Cuban with a black moustache.

  “Manuel Cruz?”

  “Yes.” The man nodded, staring at Hague’s cast and crutches. “I had no idea.”

  “Actually, I got this by way of our late, mutual friend.”

  He’d been smiling till this point, but now he faltered, noticing how ill at ease the fellow looked.

  “Is there anything else bothering you?”

  “I am afraid so, yes. I must apologize for this.” He began wheeling Hague to the exit himself, one of the porters still trailing behind with the luggage. “You have come here on a most unfortunate morning, I’m afraid.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  But he was mystified as well.

  Dusty heat struck at Hague the instant they were outdoors. Manuel started pushing him toward a parking lot. And—to hell with it—he hadn’t come this far to vacillate.

  “What exactly might the problem be?”

  “We’re not certain yet. That’s the worst of it.”

  Hague watched his bags being loaded into the trunk of a beautifully maintained ’57 Dodge, its waxed bodywork gleaming.

  “If there’s anything that I can do to help . . . ?” he offered, despite being none the wiser.

  “Thank you,” Cruz replied. “But the authorities are already doing everything they can.”

  So this was genuinely serious, whatever it might be. Hague made himself as comfortable as he could in the passenger seat, and Manuel gunned the engine, speeding off in the direction of a freeway.

  “I hope you don’t mind, after your long journey,” he apologized, “but I’m afraid that we must go directly to the beach.”

  “The . . . ?”

  Hague was unable to keep his voice from cracking with surprise.

  “A jacket was found washed up there, at dawn this morning. It belongs to my brother-in-law. The rest of my family is down there now.”

  “Oh my God, I am sorry to hear that. Are you quite sure that it’s his?”

  “He’s a police captain, and his badge was found.”

  “Well, “Hague attempted, “it might only be the jacket.”

  Manuel’s face remained as rigid as a mask.

  * * *

  A small, oddly assorted crowd was waiting for them when Hague and Manuel finally arrived. There were two women, both middle-aged, one of them comforting the other. A big, stern, silent old man with a thick white mane of hair, some kind of patriarch. And beyond him, directing the search, a slim, dapper policeman in his early thirties.

  Hague could make out launches floating on the bay beyond the shore. The blackened heads of divers bobbed between the waves. More uniformed cops were prowling along the tide line, bending down and turning something over once every so often.

  “They’re certainly being thorough,” Hague noted as he struggled out.

  “Carlos is very well respected on the force. His colleagues will not stop until they find out what has happened to him.”

  It was hard work trudging with his crutches over sand. But as Hague hobbled up to the small group, he could hear Manuel and the officer conferring in Spanish. He understood a little, but not nearly enough to keep up. The only thing that he could really glean was that the younger man was a lieutenant.

  “Any luck?”

  Manuel frowned at him. “Nothing so far. We must wait.”

  A chopper roared overhead. This was one hell of a welcome to the island.

  But it seemed to prove one thing to his satisfaction. There was something very badly wrong indeed.

  A startled shout from the right brought their heads around.

  Some fifty yards along the shore, one of the cops had waded into the foam and was trying to snatch something from the water. He finally managed and held it aloft. Hague thought he could make out a fleshy olive hue.

  It seemed to have crabs hanging from it, whatever it was. And something else, wrapped around it, kept on winking with a bright gold sheen.

  The woman who had looked the most distressed immediately started shrieking. The other one held her tightly, murmuring in her ear. Manuel and the lieutenant hurried over as the cop came paddling back to land. And Hague did his best to follow.

  The object had been put down on the beach by the time he arrived. The other three were staring at it with sickened expressions.

  Hague peered at it closer. Then jerked back.

  Jesus Christ, it was a human hand, a wedding ring on one of the fingers. The wrist and a small portion of forearm were attached.

  But they had not been cut away at all cleanly. Whatever had severed them had left ragged flesh behind. And he was certain that he recognized that type of wound. Hague took in a deep breath.

  The Cubans were talking far more slowly now, and he could get some kind of gist of what they were saying.

  “Mother of God!” The lieutenant huffed and shook his head. “What in hell could have done this?”

  “A shark,” Hague broke in.

  Then stared back at them calmly as their faces turned. Manuel raised his eyebrows, and then got a grip on himself and promised to translate.

  “I was in the Navy during World War II, a medical assistant, out in the Pacific. And I saw more injuries like this than I’d care to remember. Shark, I’d bet my life on it.”

  “In the bay?” Manuel was grimacing. “No, it’s quite unheard of.”

  “Well, add that to the growing list of ‘quite unheard of’ things.”

  It was another while before Carlos’s wife was persuaded. And the police kept on searching, in case there was any more for them to find. Hague and Manuel climbed back into the big Dodge.

  “I am most terribly sorry,” he offered as they headed back.

  “Thank you,” Manuel nodded. “And for my part, I apologize for greeting you in such a manner.”

  “Hardly of your choosing. But where are we off to now?”

  “I’m taking you to my house. The others will have gone to Carlos’s. It will be better for you, quieter.”

  “You’re being most considerate, under the circumstances.”

  Manuel simply shrugged, looking deeply unhappy. He was barely aware of the doctor’s presence now. Glancing to the right, he’d noticed a distant shape on the bay’s rocky shoreline. It was the rooftop of the old DeFlores house. And he knew about the legend just as well as anybody else. A slight shiver ran through him—he simply couldn’t help it.

  Except . . . stories were just stories, weren’t they? Real or not, they were about the past. And he had other matters, far more pressing, to worry about.

  * * *

  Around two in the afternoon, the young lieutenant from the beach showed up again. Manuel saw him through into the living room, where he sat down uncomfortably, his peaked cap in his lap.

  “We have confirmed that it was Captain Esposito. And yes, it was a shark. We have not found any more of the body.”

  Manuel made a fist and clenched it in his other palm.

  “But—what would he be doing in the bay in the first place?”

  “We have no idea as yet. It’s even possible that he was murdered and then dumped there. We have found his car, but inland, up by La Rampa. We have a witness who saw a young man park it there about three in the morning. Forensics are working on it as we speak.”

  “Was the captain investigating anything special?” Hague broke in, Manuel taking it upon himself to translate again.

  “He was interested in a couple of foreign drug dealers, but we’re certain they were not involved. One curious thing, though. There was a suicide today, at noon. And it was one of them, a Frenchman.”

  “Odd,” the doctor
breathed. “And where’s the other one?”

  “Why are you so interested in this?” the lieutenant came back at him.

  But then, at a glance from Manuel, he decided to tell them everything he knew. The surviving gringo’s name, Jack Gilliard. The club that he had played at. And his contact with a student called Luis Guerrera.

  “Now, if you’ll excuse me . . . ?”

  Hague and Manuel exchanged wary glances as the man let himself out.

  “I know this isn’t the best of times, Señor,” the doctor muttered, once they were alone, “but might we take another journey in that splendid car of yours?”

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-SIX

  It had to happen sooner or later, Jack knew that. But when it did, it chose to happen at the worst possible time.

  Around three-thirty in the afternoon, the sense of sharp alertness that the pills imparted began giving way to something far less pleasant. Sitting in a bar on San Pedro, sipping a chilled cola, Jack started to notice his surroundings taking on a grainy look. The world in general started to impress him as an uncomfortable place, the walls seeming to draw in closer as he sat there.

  His thoughts became increasingly jumpy. It was hard to make them progress in a straight line any longer. Jack looked at his hands, and they were trembling.

  Damn!

  He fumbled some change from his pocket, threw it down, and left.

  The brilliant sunshine made him squint as he emerged onto the street, so dazzlingly yellow he could barely see a yard ahead of him. He crossed to the more shady side and went along it, sticking to the shadows where he could.

  Faces loomed up urgently at him. The roar of a motorbike sounded like gunfire in his ears. He kept on walking, unsure where he was. Didn’t seem to recognize this part of town.

  Jack bumped into a woman’s shoulder, mumbled an apology, pressed on.

  The next time he looked at his watch, it was half past four. Jesus, wouldn’t Luis be coming for him soon? He found a street sign, took some bearings from his map, and figured out that he’d wandered a good mile from the hotel where they were supposed to meet.

  So he started quickly back the way he’d come.

  * * *

  The Bolívar’s entranceway looked full of gloom and uninviting. Caution was required here. Jack hung back for a short while by a corner.

  There were two security men in front of the lobby, both in yellow short-sleeved shirts. Even when their eyes passed over him, however, neither of them paid him the slightest attention. They were being paid to keep the locals out.

  The hands of a clock above them slid around to five.

  Jack took a breath, went in past them and along an echoing corridor. His pace slowed again as he neared the window of the coffee shop. Sidling up, he peered inside.

  Yep, Luis was there. But he was seated by a pillar, and the rest of the table couldn’t be made out.

  Jack edged sideways, to get a better look.

  A second man slid into view. A guy he didn’t recognize. This one was a gringo like himself, tall and thin but elderly.

  Another crab step brought the far end of the table into view, and yet another stranger. Cuban this time, short, and with a dense moustache. Who were these guys?

  He’d already started backing off when the older fellow looked up, noticed him, and frowned. He leaned across, tapping Luis on the elbow, pointing.

  Luis jumped up, shouting, his voice muffled by the glass.

  “Hey!”

  But the other Cuban was already pushing back his chair. And whoever he was, Jack had no intention of finding out the hard way.

  He spun around and bolted, Luis’s yells ignored.

  Burst out onto the sidewalk, the pills driving him on. Made for the nearest corner. He was around it, then around the next one in a bare few seconds.

  Down a lane. Down an even narrower alley, as though he was vanishing into deep cracks in the city’s walls.

  His last chance of help had been back there. And now it was gone.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  From a wicker chair out on the balcony of Manuel’s house, Leland Hague watched his first Cuban dusk in half a century coalesce to darkness.

  This close to the equator, it happened far quicker than he was used to, but it had a special beauty of its own. The night, once it had settled round him, had a depthless quality. The gloom throbbed with sound. Not an end at all, he realized. Not the cold death of a day, the way a winter’s night in Toronto was. Rather, the light was giving way to something stranger and lovelier still.

  He soaked it in for a while, letting it relax his senses. And God only knew, he needed calming down. His head was still reeling from everything that he’d been told by young Luis.

  He’d been expecting some kind of disease when he had come here, not this hocus-pocus. He was logical, a scientific man, and knew there had to be some far more reasonable explanation.

  The strangest thing, though, was that both his new companions seemed to accept these notions easily enough. Luis appeared perfectly intelligent, a bright young man, yet he’d recounted the whole tale with absolute solemnity.

  And Manuel—who he already knew was no one’s fool—had simply nodded thoughtfully, listening to him tell it and had not objected once. This was crazy. Completely insane.

  They were on the phone by this time, trying to contact this Doctor Torres whom Luis had mentioned. Finally, they hung up and joined him on the balcony.

  “He cannot be reached tonight,” Manuel reported. “Apparently, he’s helping out at a clinic off in Mariel.”

  “What do we do, then?”

  “We could try and find Jack Gilliard. But in a city of this size, a man of that nature, the odds are not good.”

  “Filling up his head with nonsense and then giving him those drugs,” Hague snorted. “The guy’s most likely seeing phantoms everywhere he looks.”

  But the Cuban remained patient, unoffended.

  “I know how hard this is for you to understand.”

  “Understatement of the year, Señor. I’ll tell you what. We’ll drive down to this haunted house of yours and take a look around. We won’t find any sisters. That I guarantee you.”

  “Leland, nobody goes there. And especially not at night.”

  Which got him a curse. Hague snatched up his crutches, started climbing to his feet. Or he would have, had the others not restrained him.

  He could see from their faces they were both very afraid for him. Entirely serious in their concern. The doctor’s resistance ebbed and he allowed himself to be eased back down.

  “Idiots, the pair of you,” he managed to spit out, determined, if nothing else, to have the final say. “Superstitious idiots.”

  * * *

  Incredible. He recalled it perfectly. The actual moment of his death.

  There’d been the briefest of thumps inside his head as he had squeezed the trigger. And then Pierre’s whole consciousness had been swamped by an intensely flaring brilliance.

  There had been utter blackness, after that. Only the faintest humming noise, made by what he did not know. But Pierre acknowledged calmly that his mortal days were over.

  Then, without any warning, his sight returned. He was looking down. Could see his bedroom. He was actually staring at his own blood-splattered corpse. Jack Gilliard came bursting in.

  And then, Pierre was ascending through the roof. The speed of his ascent seemed to increase, and yet the air did not rush past him as he rose, nor did his hair flutter.

  He was gazing down at the whole island before too much longer. This was his last glimpse. And he felt rather sad when he took that in.

  Bye.

  Pierre swung around toward the yawning, star-filled emptiness. A point of light, far brighter than the others, glinted up ahead of him. It was
an opening, he could see.

  He began moving to it, gathering more speed. Smiled hugely as he got closer, stretching out his arms.

  And then . . . something yanked at him from behind, bringing him to an absolute halt.

  He looked around bewilderedly, but couldn’t make out what had made him stop. Pierre tried to continue on, but he found that he could not.

  He went tumbling away the next instant, spinning head over heels. The island was rushing up at him again. A glittering expanse of blueness with an elongated brown and green patch at its center, which was Cuba. Rooftops came back into view. One rooftop in particular. A large, dilapidated one.

  He slowed down to another halt, blackness swallowing him up a second time. Waited for what seemed an age for something more to happen. Then he reached out, stepping forward gently.

  And hit a barrier. It was rough to the touch. And wouldn’t yield a millimeter when he shoved at it.

  He tried farther along, with exactly the same result. And by the time that he’d explored it completely, he had traveled a full circle.

  Pierre tipped his head back, began yelling out for help at the top of his voice. Got no reply.

  When he stopped, however, he thought he could hear a sound. A regular padding noise. Like footsteps, shuffling toward him.

  “You be quiet,” a female voice said.

  And that made him jolt so hard he almost hurt himself.

  “Who’re you?”

  “I am Dolores.”

  “And what is this place?”

  Her tone grew a little gentler.

  “You’re in the DeFlores house. That woman you made love to? Your soul belongs to her now.”

  “The . . . where is she?” Pierre’s head began to swirl.

  But there was only a low, pitying chuckle.

  “My, but you’re a live one. But the deed’s already done, no going back.”

  She paused.

  “Besides which, she’s not here. She’s out again, looking for another fool like you.”

  * * *

  A chain link fence topped with razor wire ran the whole length of the dockyard. Huddled beyond it, in the shadow of a half-demolished wall, Jack watched as a pair of soldiers rolled by in a jeep.