by Lou Berney
Gina came over and gave Shake a big, sticky watermelon-flavored kiss.
“I was a little worried about you too,” she said. “Now let me see it again.”
Shake handed her the shopping bag with the attaché case inside. She took the case out and started to open it.
“Pardon me,” a voice said.
Shake turned. A man stood behind them, at the entrance to the courtyard. He had popped up like a ghost, not a sound. It was quiet here in the courtyard. The cobbled street that ran past was quiet. They should have heard him coming. They should have heard something.
The man had the tallest, longest forehead that Shake had ever seen. He was wearing cargo shorts and sandals and a T-shirt that said YOU BETTER BELIZE IT!
He had a pleasant, mild expression on his face. And a gun with a silencer in his hand.
“I don’t mean to interrupt,” he said. He stepped into the courtyard and looked around. “This is the perfect place!”
Chapter 45
They were fun. They had been a lot of fun. Babb wished he could give them something in return. Like what? He didn’t know.
“You guys were a lot of fun,” he told them. That was the least he could do.
Maybe he could let them pick whom he shot first? Whom he shot and whom he used the knife on? In what manner he used the knife?
No. Babb wasn’t prepared to go that far. If that made him an ungenerous person, then that made him an ungenerous person.
“Don’t move, okay?” he said. “If any of you move, I’ll shoot that person in the stomach. If all of you move at once—you might be thinking that—in different directions all at once? I’ll shoot all of you in the stomach. I’m a really quick shot.”
They seemed to believe him. They didn’t move. They should believe him. Babb truly was a quick shot.
“Was the watermelon tasty?” he said.
“It was,” the woman said. “Would you care for some?”
“No, thank you. But it was nice of you to ask.”
“I was just telling these fellas here, though, that it’s not the best watermelon I’ve ever had.”
“It’s not your lucky day,” Babb told her. “It’s the fellas here I’m supposed to kill, not you. You’re just in the wrong place at the wrong time. And eating watermelon that could be better.”
“I’m the one you’re supposed to kill,” the old man said. “Kill me and let them go.”
“What fun would that be?” Babb said. “You guys really were a lot of fun. I’m serious! I can’t tell you how much I appreciate that.”
“Kill me and let them go,” the old man said. “Tell Sticky Jimmy no hard feelings.”
“No hard feelings?” the other man said. Quinn’s bodyguard. Who had not turned out to be much of a bodyguard, if that was what he was.
“Sticky Jimmy?” Babb wondered aloud.
“Ask him to tell you the story how he got that nickname,” Quinn’s bodyguard said.
“Maybe later,” Babb said.
He had decided to shoot them all in the stomach, get them down and settled, and then work his way down the line with the knife. He would line them up and proceed by—height?
He wasn’t worried about screaming. It was hard to scream when you’d been shot in the stomach. Mainly there was just a lot of grunting and groaning and—
A donkey kicked Babb hard in the kidney. It clapped loudly at almost the same time.
A donkey did? Did what?
Babb felt like he had been kicked in the kidney by one of the donkeys that dragged fruit carts around Cairo. He stumbled but didn’t fall. He pressed his hand against the small of his back. When he pulled his hand away and looked at it, it was covered in blood.
“Ow,” he said.
He felt two more kicks, he heard two more claps. He fell down.
Ow, he thought.
Chapter 46
Meg limped over. Wasn’t a big limp, just a little one. Her ankle felt mostly better and her limping days were just about behind her.
The man who’d murdered Terry, the man called Babb, was dead on the pavement stones. He was lying on his side half curled up, like a baby in its mama’s belly. He looked like the picture they showed Meg’s sister when she went in to ask about an abortion, and it turned out that sneaky church people ran the clinic. You see what’s growing inside you, sweetheart? The miracle of life! Why would you want to murder that?
Meg had been mad how sneaky the church people were, but she had to give them credit. Meg’s sister ended up keeping her baby, and he was Meg’s nephew now.
Meg had never been pregnant herself. And she never would be now, not by Terry.
The man, Babb, was dead, but Meg shot him again anyway. She shot him through his long tall forehead. Banana head.
“That’s for what you done to Terry,” she said. She saw that the man was wearing Terry’s string bracelet on his wrist. Meg left the bracelet where it was. That bracelet was ruined for her now.
She looked up at the others. They were surprised. Meg supposed she didn’t blame them.
“What happened was,” Meg told them, “he was all caught up thinking ’bout the evil he planned to do. He wasn’t thinking ’bout the evil might be done to him. I know. I made that same mistake myself, one time.” She hadn’t made any mistakes since then. Meg had been careful not to.
She’d felt so heavy that night back in Guatemala, on the porch at Jorge’s boss’s house. All she’d wanted, standing there, was to get it over with—her life, her part in the movie.
But then she rang the doorbell and said the hell with that. This movie wasn’t rid of her yet. She always finished what she started, and she wasn’t going nowhere till she gave Terry what he deserved.
The man who answered the door was younger than she’d expected, handsome in a way, with slicked-back black hair. He looked like a lawyer or a businessman.
“Yes?” he said.
“Are you Jorge’s boss?”
“Who?” he said, but his face told Meg he was in fact Jorge’s boss.
He had a bodyguard, but the bodyguard was back in the kitchen making French-press coffee for the boss.
Not the best use of a bodyguard, if you asked Meg.
The bodyguard, when Meg and the boss went into the kitchen, didn’t give her any trouble. Meg had a gun out and the bodyguard didn’t. He was still fooling with the French press and decided he’d rather not get shot. Meg told him she’d pay him a thousand dollars cash money if he wouldn’t give her any trouble. All he had to do was go back in the den and watch soccer till she was done. Did he think he could do that? He surely did. He poured himself a cup of coffee, handed over his gun and cell phone like she asked, and went off into the den.
The boss wasn’t too happy about that. Meg only had to shoot one of his shinbones before he told her the name of the man sent to murder her and Terry. The man was called Babb. He had been sent to “clean up the mess” in Belize and to “finish the job.” Meg supposed that was fair. She and Terry had in fact made a mess of it. They had not finished the job. But they could have cleaned it up themselves. They could have finished it. And there had been no need in the world, in any case, to murder Terry.
Meg asked Jorge’s boss how she could find this man called Babb. He laughed, until Meg pointed out that the boss had another shinbone just begging to be shot. The boss said please no no no please, and told her that he’d heard Babb was in Cairo, Egypt, now. But . . .
“But he’s muy poderoso?” she said. “And he’s gonna kill me?”
“Yes. He is very dangerous.”
“Maybe he will kill me. Or maybe I’ll get him first. I aim to find out, one way or another.”
She didn’t know where in the world Egypt was. Far away, she imagined. But that’s why they made airplanes. She had close to nine thousand dollars left from Jorge. That should get her just about anywhere. Meg and Jorge’s boss discussed the best way for her to find out exactly where in Cairo this man called Babb was. Meg knew she couldn’t just set
down in a foreign city and start wandering around.
Jorge’s boss had some good ideas. Meg had to shoot his other shinbone to hear them, but he did. He was the one told her Babb always liked having a souvenir.
After the boss found out which hotel Babb was at and clicked off his phone, Meg shot him in the head. Then she went into the den and gave the bodyguard his thousand dollars cash. Meg always kept her promises.
Because here she was, wasn’t she? Standing halfway across the world in a courtyard in Cairo, Egypt, with the man who’d murdered Terry curled up dead at her feet.
“I always keep my promises,” she told them now. The old man, and the restaurant chef who’d busted Terry’s nose, and a lady Meg had never seen before. She looked sharp as a tack and Meg thought she was the one, not the two men, she better watch out for.
“Holy shit,” the restaurant chef said.
“What?” Meg said.
The restaurant chef just stared at her.
“You didn’t expect to see me here, did you?” Meg said.
“No,” he said.
“You two know each other?” the lady asked.
“He broke Terry’s nose and now I’m gonna shoot him for it,” Meg said. “ ’Cause I promised Terry I would.”
“You mind if I sit down?” the chef said.
“I don’t care.”
The chef sat down on a plastic bucket. He shook his head. “Holy shit.”
“Who’s Terry?” the old man said. “Who are you? I’m sorry if I sound confused.”
“The guy in the ski mask,” the chef said. “Back in Belize. Terry was the guy in the mask.”
“Terry was.” The old man’s eyes lit up. He had baby-blue eyes that matched his shirt. “He was the punk who tried to shoot me!”
“Please shut up,” the chef said to the old man.
“Terry was the love of my life,” Meg said. “Is what he was. And now he’s murdered. This man here murdered him.”
She gave the man called Babb a nudge with her foot.
“I ain’t gonna shoot you,” Meg told the old man. “That’s all behind us. I’m off that job. As long as you keep your mouth shut.”
“I appreciate that,” the old man said. “And I’m sorry for your loss. I really am.”
“Thank you.”
“I ain’t gonna shoot you either,” Meg told the lady. “I got no issue with you.”
“What’s your name?” the lady said.
“Meg.”
“Meg. My name’s Gina.”
“I don’t care.”
“Will you tell me why you want to shoot Shake?”
“I told you already. Who?”
The lady pointed.
“What kind of name is that?” Meg said.
“It just doesn’t seem totally fair to me, Meg,” the lady said. “Shooting him because he broke Terry’s nose?”
“I don’t care about fair.” Meg pointed her gun at the black briefcase the lady was holding. “What you got inside there?”
“It’s a speech,” the chef said. The Shake. What kind of a name was that?
“It’s not just a speech,” the old man said. “It’s the speech that saved Teddy Roosevelt’s life.”
Meg sneered. “I doubt that happened.”
“It’s worth eight million dollars,” the chef said.
The sneer dropped off Meg’s face fast. “You’re full of shit.”
“Take it, Meg,” the lady said. “You can have it.”
“Why would I want something like that?” Meg said. “That’s a world of trouble, something like that. Eight million dollars? I don’t want nothing to do with that. You can have all that trouble.”
None of them said anything.
“Let me ask you a question, Meg,” the old man said after a while.
“Please don’t,” the chef said.
“Let me ask you a question, Meg,” the lady said. “Okay?”
“I don’t care.”
“What would Terry want you to do?”
“About what?”
“About shooting Shake because he broke Terry’s nose.”
“I only broke his nose because he was trying to shoot one of my customers,” the chef said. “I’d like to point that out.”
“Shut up,” Meg said. She looked back at the lady. “What would Terry want me to do? I’ll tell you. Terry wouldn’t have no goddamn idea what he’d want me to do. Or if he did, it’d be the exact wrong idea, the goddamn moron.”
Meg felt the tears boiling up in her. She missed Terry so much she could barely stand it. But she didn’t want to die anymore. She was done with that. If she died, then Terry really would be gone forever.
“Would he want you to shoot Shake?”
Meg thought about it. “No,” she said. “Terry never blamed him for it. He said he would’ve done the same thing, somebody came into his restaurant with a gun and started shooting.”
“Okay, then,” the lady said.
“But he wouldn’t have. Terry wouldn’t have punched anybody in the nose that had a gun and was shooting. He would’ve run and hid and probably peed his pants. He was the biggest goddamn pussy you ever seen in your life.”
“Well, for fuck’s sake, Meg,” the lady said. “Compared to you he was, maybe. But who isn’t?”
Meg looked at her. “That’s just what he used to say.”
“He wasn’t a pussy,” the chef said.
Meg almost told the chef again to shut up, she almost shot him right then and there, but she wanted to hear what he had to say.
“Meg,” the lady said, “you know what? My theory as an amateur psychologist is that you haven’t shot Shake yet because you know Terry wouldn’t want that.”
“Shut up,” Meg told the lady. “I want to hear what this one over here has to say. The Shake.”
“It’s just Shake,” he said.
“I don’t care.”
“Terry might have been a dumb-ass,” the Shake said, “and he wasn’t the world’s best shot. But he wasn’t a pussy. I can tell you that firsthand.”
Meg didn’t know was he lying or not. People, when they were about to be shot, would say next to anything not to be. Teddy Roosevelt had, apparently, whoever he was.
Meg didn’t know why, but she thought the Shake was probably telling the truth. He seemed like the kind of person, you put a gun on him, he’d rather not waste his last breath on a lie.
“He was the love of my life,” Meg said. “You only get one of them, don’t you?”
She looked at the lady. Meg swore that if the lady lied to her, she would shoot the Shake.
“I think so,” the lady said. “Yes. I’m sorry.”
The Shake was looking at the lady like she was the love of his life. Meg didn’t know if the lady loved him back the same way, it was hard to tell.
“I’d just like to say one thing,” the old man said. “About the situation we’re all dealing with here. About the universality of the situation.”
Meg walked over to the Shake and lifted her gun and hit him in the face with it. He fell sideways off his plastic bucket. Blood ran down out of his nose and all over his chin.
“Is that fair?” Meg asked the lady.
“Yep,” the lady said.
Meg looked down at the Shake.
“Terry says you’re welcome,” she said, and then she left.
Chapter 47
Next time we come up roses,” Shake said, “let’s make sure we’ve really come up roses.”
“Zip it,” Gina said. “You’re getting blood and spit all over yourself and I can’t even understand you anyway. It just sounds like ‘honka honk honkhonk.’ ”
She held a cold wet towel to his nose. Shake didn’t know if his nose was broken or not. He wasn’t about to complain either way.
They’d found a room in a cheap hotel not far from the Coptic quarter. It was a shitty room, the AC barely panting along and big fat flies bouncing drunkenly off the windowpanes. They weren’t staying long, though, j
ust long enough to clean up. They had to head down to the river five minutes ago.
“That little girl,” Quinn said. “My goodness gravy. I don’t think I’ve encountered anyone or anything so ferocious in my entire life.”
Shake could hear Quinn telling the story, far off in the future, cornering some poor innocent victim in a bar or restaurant somewhere. Let me tell you about this one time, buddy of mine from Belize and I were in Cairo . . .
But Shake couldn’t argue his point about Freckles. Freckles had pointed a gun at him twice now, and twice now Shake had come out of it alive. He figured that must have used up about three or four lifetimes’ worth of good luck.
“I’ll tell you what,” Quinn said, “if it had been her and not Terry who’d come after me, back at the Shake’s restaurant in Belize? I can tell you this story would have had a different ending. This story would have been over a long time ago.”
“For better or worse,” Shake said.
“Honk honka honk honk,” Gina said.
“I know what the Shake said,” Quinn said. “And he doesn’t mean it.”
Gina smiled and tossed the bloody towel across the room, into the sink. It was the kind of shitty hotel room that didn’t have a separate bathroom. The sink and the toilet were right next to the TV.
“I kind of liked her,” Gina said. “Meg. Zowee. That girl doesn’t take any shit.”
It was almost six o’clock. “We have to go,” Shake said.
They took a cab back toward the center of town. Traffic was balled up, as usual. Quinn told the cabdriver to cut over on the first bridge to the island, run up the island where the traffic might not be so bad, and then cut back over on the second bridge. They could save time that way.
Shake didn’t love the idea. He preferred a straight line when he could get one. But the cab had been barely creeping for ten minutes, and this definitely wasn’t a time for creeping. He told the cabdriver to go ahead and cut over.
Traffic on the island wasn’t bad. They made good time. When they got to the second bridge, Shake told the cabdriver to take them back over. He said they wanted to take a sunset cruise on a felucca, just drop them off at one of the piers along the river on the other side, it didn’t matter which one.