Call Down Thunder

by Daniel Finn

  Pelo put a hand briefly on his shoulder as Reve guided Mi past him. ‘Miracle. Miracle the thing we all need.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  ‘All right, this is it, Captain,’ Moro was saying when Reve and Mi came back into the bar, with Reve keeping a firm hold on Mi’s arm. ‘I need to be sure you don’t forget what we agree. I need to be sure none of your dirtfly helicopters come buzzing the coast, eh, when I got business . . .’

  That seemed so long ago: the helicopter, bullets ricocheting off the stone wall, a little boy running, flames . . . There’d been no time to think then.

  ‘You got my word,’ said the Captain, leaning back in his chair.

  ‘Yes,’ said Moro, ‘I know all about words . . .’

  At that moment the Captain saw Mi and he froze, the cigarette halfway to his mouth. Moro’s Secondo, the shark, twisted round and looked at them. And the greasy Zavvy studied Mi too – it was only Mi they were interested in – before turning back to Moro, raising an eyebrow but saying nothing.

  Moro seemed highly pleased with himself. ‘I tell you,’ he said smiling, ‘I always give people what they lookin for. This what you lookin for, Captain. This woman remind you of someone, eh?’

  The Captain blinked and puffed at the cigarette, letting the smoke curl up out of his mouth. ‘It’s nothing,’ he shrugged. ‘She’s like a woman I knew.’ He hesitated. ‘Very.’ He stubbed out his cigarette.

  ‘I know,’ said Moro. ‘I know.’ He emphasized the two words, scoring them heavily as if with a thick pencil. ‘Like her mother, eh? Maybe when you first seen her. Long time before you were captain of the city. ’Bout the time you were planning to take a step up the ladder.’

  The Captain pushed back his chair and came round to Reve and Mi. He barely saw Reve; it was Mi he was looking at, devouring her almost, like a hungry dog. He had maybe been good-looking once, dark shiny hair swept back from his brow, a long straight nose, but there was something greedy and hard in his eyes.

  Mi shivered, even though the air felt thick and clammy. Reve tensed and edged a little closer to her, so their shoulders touched. Should he grab Mi and run, just run through the door and out into the rainstorm? Pelo wouldn’t stop them. That’s what he said.

  Mi shivered again and took a sharp breath. Her eyes were unfocused.

  The Captain turned away. It looked to Reve like it was an effort to do so. ‘What exactly is it you think you know, Moro?’ he said, going back to his chair.

  ‘Maybe some things other ears shouldn’t hear.’ He leaned across the table to offer the Captain one of his cigars. ‘But we’re all friends,’ he said, smiling. ‘Friends. Business partners. This is it, eh? You got my support, Captain –’ he nodded at Secondo, who snapped a light for the Captain – ‘and I’ll help you climb the ladder to mayor, I’m telling you.’

  ‘This girl,’ said the Captain ‘how did she come here?’

  ‘Came looking for her mother. Tha’s what they tell me.’

  ‘Here? In this place!’ The Captain laughed – it didn’t sound genuine to Reve – and then he puffed at his cigar and made a performance of examining the glowing tip. ‘I don’t think so. Her mother disappeared a long time ago.’

  ‘She not so far away.’

  ‘I think maybe she’s dead.’

  ‘Oh no,’ said Moro. ‘It’s the husband, this girl’s father, you thinking of, Captain. Eh?’ He paused and nodded. ‘You remember? He died so you could bring this girl’s mother to the city. Now such a story would not sound so good in the newspapers: “POLICEMAN MURDERS MAN AND STEALS HIS WIFE”.’ He held up his hands as if framing the newspaper headline. ‘And she’s not the only thing he steals, that’s what I hear. A consignment of . . . drugs, eh? A lot of money for you, Captain, a lot of money and a beautiful woman with red hair – just like this one. You would like to read that story in the papers, Captain?’

  ‘No!’ The Captain’s inital response was abrupt and then he shook his head, as if the idea was almost childish. ‘That’s not how it was.’

  ‘Oh? This is how I hear it: there is a young man, eh, he don’t even make lieutenant yet, but he go to that village many times because he see this is a good place. It got a nice little business comin in on the boats, and maybe he get paid a few dollar not to pay too much attention to this business. This village has something else he likes: a very pretty woman, who is also smart. You remembering this, Captain?’

  And he told the story that Reve had learned back in Rinconda.

  ‘Funny how people always looking to make run, start a new life, shake away the old. Don’t you find that, Captain?’ said Moro.

  The Captain didn’t respond.

  ‘But the old life don’t ever get shook away,’ continued Moro. ‘It just don’t happen. Didn’t happen for that husband; he never got to run away with his pretty wife.’

  The Captain tipped the ash from his cigar on to his plate and leaned back in his chair. He looked at Moro and then he shifted his gaze back to Mi.

  Moro nodded as if some kind of agreement had been made between them. ‘They say it looked like an accident when that husband got pulled out of the ocean all wrapped up in his fishing net.’

  ‘Maybe he got killed for stealing,’ said the Captain. ‘This is how these gangs work,’ he said, his voice level. ‘A businessman like you know that.’

  ‘Of course. But me – this is not what I think happened. You know why? Because this is the time when this handsome young policeman suddenly gets so much money that he buys himself a big house in the city. When they come to the city . . . I don’t know what happen then.’ Moro lifted his right hand and then let it drop down on the table with a soft smack. ‘Now he has this money, maybe he is not so interested in a village woman. Maybe he begins to worry that she knows too much about what he has done, and so maybe she get frightened, hide herself away . . .’ Moro let the smoke trickle out of his mouth. He was enjoying this. ‘And so this is it. Who care about these things?’ He carefully tipped the ash from his cigar on to the table. ‘Except maybe all the newspaper in the city. I think they like this story.’ He pulled a face of mock concern. ‘Maybe the story make TV news . . .’

  The Captain ground out his cigar. ‘This is nothing Moro,’ he said. ‘A story. Who’s going to listen to this – just words? Words are nothing without proof.’

  ‘Words are always something, Captain. A story like this –’ he pulled a face – ‘not going to sound so good for someone who got political ambition. Very least it’s going to put a block on that man’s career even if there was no proof . . . Except we got proof standing right here. These young people. This pretty girl, so like her mother . . . You want to go on TV, Captain?’

  The Captain ran a finger round the collar of his shirt. He was sweating badly.

  ‘Are you threatening me, Moro?’ he said.

  ‘Captain,’ said Moro reasonably, ‘this is business.’ He reached across the table and poured the Captain a drink. ‘But I tell you one thing puzzling me, Captain. How about this boy? This boy mean nothing to you?’ He looked at Reve for the first time since he had begun telling his story. The Captain looked at him too, his eyes hooded. ‘He don’t look so much like his sister,’ continued Moro. ‘What you think? How long you know the mother, Captain? How long you courting her under the nose of that husband of hers? Four, five years? Maybe she have a child in that time?’

  Reve felt as though there were threads of web drifting down around him and Mi and the Captain.

  ‘Maybe there is a different father for this child. That thought ever come to you, Captain? Maybe you get to be a father and she don’t tell you. Fay someone who have many secrets, I think. So what do you think, Captain. This is a good boy. A boy any father be proud to have. Little bull. He get that from you, I wonder, Captain? Are you his father maybe?’ Moro smiled.

  No! Reve felt his face burn. This man his father? No, not ever, not in a million years. Why didn’t Mi say something? But when he looked at her he saw that she was lost in
herself, staring straight ahead as if at something only she could see.

  He felt the Captain’s eyes on him. Maybe wondering.

  Moro nodded. ‘I tell you what we do, Captain.’ Reve tightened his grip on Mi’s arm. He watched them all. Any chance at all, and he’d move. Better to die than get caught up like this.

  ‘You take the girl.’ Moro held up both hands. ‘See, I give her to you. Like you are getting her mother again, but all young and pretty and not so messed up, eh? I hear your wife is used to your ways. You can tell your wife something.’ He smiled and shrugged.

  The Captain grunted.

  Moro turned to Mi. ‘You the one with all that seeing skill, eh? You seen this coming, did you?’

  She didn’t respond. She couldn’t. She was halfway between this place and somewhere else. Didn’t matter how much anyone talked to her, she wouldn’t hear them. It didn’t bother Moro too much. He flicked the ash off his cigar on to the table. ‘And I keep the boy, work for me. I think if anything happen to this girl, the boy will come for you. He has a killing look, eh? You think?’

  Moro’s Secondo leaned forward to help himself to the bottle of wine, and when he did so he left the shiny leather holster exposed. Good dollar you pay for leather like that.

  ‘But that won’t happen, Captain, because we will make good business partners, and no TV journalist ever hear a word of this story, and you, my dear Captain, you keep climbing the ladder till you get to be mayor. We make a good team. What do you say?’

  The Captain didn’t answer for a moment. He just looked at Mi. Then he nodded. ‘Maybe.’ He licked his lip and then touched the corner of his moustache with his finger. ‘Yes, maybe we do business, Moro, but no more surprises.’

  ‘No.’

  Outside that car horn blared again. Longer. And Reve heard, even through the shut door and the slap of rain on the window, the sound of voices. Like a party of children, yelling and running in the rain, having fun. Free.

  Outside the web.

  The Captain stood up. ‘That’s my car again. Is something happening out there?’

  Pelo opened the door a crack and then shook his head. ‘Nothin I can see.’

  ‘OK.’ The Captain came over and then stood behind Mi and reached out to take her arm. Reve saw that the Captain’s hand was trembling slightly. ‘OK, Señor Moro,’ he said, ‘we got a deal. I’ll take the girl; you keep the boy.’

  Reve felt rather than heard Mi make a high keening sound, so high it didn’t seem to come from her at all but from somewhere above her head, like a scratching on glass. The Captain’s hand closed on her arm.

  ‘Let go of her,’ the Captain said to Reve.

  Reve shook his head. ‘No.’

  The Captain blinked as if the answer was just a little bit beyond his understanding and then quite suddenly he slapped Reve, hard enough to make his head jerk back. Reve felt the click of something on his lips, a ring it felt like, and the warm sting of blood in his mouth.

  What was it with these people? Reve thought. Tomas, for all his boxing, never hit him, not once. But he didn’t let go. If he let go he would sink. He felt as if he was on the lip of a dark hole, Mi’s sinkhole.

  ‘Let go!’ said the Captain, trying to control his anger.

  Before he could lift his hand again, Mi opened her mouth, and the cry she made was so piercing it felt like the thick air in that bar was being shredded. Reve’s eyes watered and the Captain stepped back, bumping into the bar. Moro and Zavvy just stared, while Secondo twisted round in his chair, his eyes wide as if he could see something other than Mi, Reve and the Captain standing there. Maybe the others did too. Mi’s cry pierced louder and louder and then suddenly snapped into silence and Mi said something in a voice that wasn’t hers. Some words that meant nothing but sounded harsh and dark and seemed to come from the pit of her stomach.

  The men stared at her, appalled.

  It frightened Reve too; this was somehow more ‘other’ than anything he had heard from Mi before. He kept a tight hold of her wrist, as if by not letting go he could stop this terrible noise.

  The darkened window suddenly burst inward, as if the rain had bunched its fist and punched the glass. Shards shivered and sprayed into the room, and then almost like an afterthought a heavy-looking brick skidded across the floor.

  Zavvy threw himself sideways; maybe he thought it was a bomb, but no one else moved. They were all staring at Mi, as if she had done this thing.

  Through the shattered window Reve glimpsed shadowy figures running in the thick rain, mouths wide, five, ten, more maybe, he couldn’t tell. They appeared and disappeared in that grey wash of water, like shoaling fish.

  Moro was barking orders into his cellphone. ‘I want you all here, down in Agua now!’

  Reve pulled at Mi’s arm. ‘Mi, now!’ and he took a step towards the door.

  But Mi didn’t move. She stood rigid, tight as a wire and then she suddenly screamed, not the weird keening cry but a noise like a splinter. Even Moro flinched.

  That instant, another brick sailed into the room and smacked into a table, sent an ashtray, a beer bottle and a couple of glasses flying. And then another one. And Mi was still screaming.

  ‘What are you waiting for!’ Moro shouted. ‘Get that witch out of here, Captain! You, Pelo, and you –’ he shouted to the barman – ‘out there! No one goes round bustin my windows. Go!’

  For a couple of heartbeats nobody moved. Mi’s terrible unearthly keening stopped. Reve’s eyes were glued to the revolver poking out of the lieutenant’s holster. This was it. There wasn’t any other magic going to happen. This was the city. Here the only thing that was going to talk, Reve saw, was a dollar or a gun.

  Another stone cracked into the window, more glass. Moro had his cellphone clamped to his ear. ‘You come here.’ he barked. ‘Now! Off your asses!’

  Reve let go of Mi, darted forward and snatched the gun; and then it was in his hand, snug and heavy. He swung it round at the Captain, who flinched and stepped back a pace. Then, wildly, Reve swung it back to the men at the table, while with his other hand he tugged Mi to the door.

  The rain hissed in through the broken window.

  Reve had his arm right out straight. The gun was heavy and wobbled a bit in his hand, but he managed to focus on Moro, squinting up one eye, taking aim. He would do it, if they made him. His finger was on the trigger. ‘No one taking us!’ he said. ‘You hear me, señor. You right about me. I kill anyone try to stop us.’ His voice sounded thin against the rain and the thick silence in the bar itself, but he would do it if they made him.

  He backed to the door, pulling Mi with him.

  ‘Of course, the little bull,’ Moro said. ‘Maybe you shoot the Captain here. He give you reason, eh? Taking your mother.’ His voice was smooth, tempting, a spider testing the web.

  Reve’s gun swung to the Captain. His face looked slick with sweat, but his eyes showed nothing. Reve knew he was just waiting for his chance. They all were, ready to jump on him, kick the gun from his hand, use their weight and anger to smash him, a boy who shamed them with a gun.

  Behind him, out in the rainstorm, there was a sudden heavy whoomph of something bursting into flame. And shouts. A siren somewhere.

  He straightened his arm. Mi gave a shuddering deep breath and Reve blinked. ‘No,’ she said.

  He let the gun drop a fraction and the two of them edged another step backwards and another. ‘A’right Mi,’ he said quietly. ‘When I say.’

  ‘Enough,’ said Moro. ‘Stop them.’ Reve turned in time to see the barman pulling a gun from under the counter, but Reve kept his aim on Moro. Any second. Any second. How would it feel, the crack of the gun, the bullet slamming into the back of his neck? He trembled but tried not to. ‘Tell him put it down,’ he said. ‘I can hit you from here. Hit you or one of the others. Maybe I shoot you all . . .’

  Moro didn’t flinch but his jaw was tight. He wasn’t liking this. ‘Stop him,’ he said, the voice a little strained now. ‘Just
do this thing for me. Ario! Earn your money.’ Secondo didn’t have a gun, but maybe he did earn good money because he took a step towards Reve and then faltered as Reve swung the gun a little to the right, pointing straight at him.

  ‘You one stop from dead, boy.’ He pulled a blade from his back pocket and flicked it open. ‘Drop the gun.’

  There wasn’t a plan. Nothing. They were done – grilled and ready to burn, like a couple of jackfish over the flame. Secondo took another step. Reve’s eyes were glued to the knife, its blade was fat and wicked-looking.

  He pulled the trigger.

  Nothing. Not even a click.

  ‘Safety catch,’ said Moro, grunting with surprise and pleasure, suddenly relaxing. ‘You got to learn about these things before you go killing, boy. All right, Ario, take the gun. Pelo, deal with what is going on outside.’

  Reve bowed his head.

  Secondo stepped forward and pulled the gun from his hand, but before he could do anything else, there was a crack and his face crumpled in shock as he staggered backwards, the gun clattering to the floor, his shirt already reddening before he hit the bar and slumped down on to his bottom.

  Pelo had shot him.

  ‘Go!’ said Pelo. He had the door kicked open behind him and he leaned back out of the way as they turned and ran, his gun now trained on the men inside the bar. ‘I’ll follow you, eh. This place not for us, Reve. Go!’

  They went, running out into the rainstorm, water streaming down their faces, drenching them in seconds.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Five paces. The edge of the pavement.

  A car burning right in front of them, the rain slashing into the flames and hissing, and the light bright in their eyes, flickering white and orange and blinding them to the darkness beyond the flame. There was another explosion off to the right and more flames and the acrid stink of burning gasolene, and there were children somewhere out there, running and shrieking, ghostly grey shapes in the rain.

  Then Mi stopped so abruptly Reve almost ran into her. ‘Mi! Run. Don’t stop!’