by Iris Chacon
“And the beat goes on,” said Agee.
“Only while the drummer’s still breathin’,” growled Stone.
Agee leaned toward Stone as he would toward a friend. “Frank, you’ll get an ulcer, you’ll get a heart attack, you’ll get fatal lead poisoning, or you’ll get fired and lose your retirement. What you won’t get is Averell. The guy is too well connected and too well protected. That’s life. Give it up. Go catch yourself a nice terrorist or something.”
“Couldn’t have put it better, myself,” came a voice from the doorway. The captain of Stone’s team, a man slightly older than Stone, but much better groomed, stepped up behind Agee.
“Well,” said Agee, sidestepping toward the exit, “I gotta get back to work. Mornin’, Captain. See ya, Stoney.”
“Yeah,” said Stone.
The captain leaned across the desk to see what appeared on Stone’s computer display. Then he pressed a key on Stone’s keyboard, and the screen went blank.
“We can’t win ‘em all. You hear me?” The captain was leaning just as Agee had done, but this was not friendly in the least. “But we can win some. I will not waste my precious resources on the ones I can’t win. That’s it, Stone. No more men, no more money for your vendetta against Kyle Averell.”
“What if I could get a man inside?” Stone asked.
“What if I could juggle chainsaws?”
“But, what if I could get a man inside?”
The captain shook his head emphatically. “No way, no how, no time,” he said. “You put a man in there, sooner or later he’s a dead man. You don’t need that on your conscience, and I don’t need that kind of publicity.”
The room fell silent. Stone looked down at his desk. The captain stopped leaning across the desk and stood, watching Stone.
“What do you hear from Quebec?” the captain asked in a more cordial voice. “Good fishing up there this time of year?”
Stone shrugged and gave a non-committal gesture.
The captain nodded. “Well, as soon as Duby gets back from vacation, why don’t you think about taking a few days yourself, okay? Get your head together. Start fresh.”
Stone nodded. “I just might do that.”
The captain left him there, staring at the blank computer screen.
Duby, of course, was not vacationing in Canada. He was at that moment in the gymnasium of Averell’s estate, sparring with a henchman trainee on the wrestling mat. Although clearly holding back, Dubreau was mopping the floor with the trainee.
Rico entered and watched the training session with little interest. He positioned himself by a window and waited. Soon, he observed the Averell limousine carry Carinne out the front gate for at least four hours of shopping.
As soon as the limo was out of sight, Rico approached Dubreau from behind and, out of nowhere, smashed a knee to the kidney, that knocked Duby flat. The trainee backed off. Dubreau hauled himself upright and faced Rico, ready for anything.
Rico smiled. “Mister Averell wants to see you.”
“As soon as I shower.”
“Now.”
Dubreau moved toward the door, Rico following. Rico motioned to the trainee to come along. “You really want to learn something?” Rico joked.
The three men exited the gym. Dubreau was rubbing the small of his back with one hand, but he stood tall and walked smoothly. He would not give Rico the satisfaction of seeing Duby limp.
Rico saw the hand rubbing his victim’s back, and his smile widened.
Kyle Averell was alone in his office when they arrived. He reclined at his desk, feet up, and watched the door like a cobra as Dubreau, Rico, and the trainee entered.
Averell motioned Rico and the trainee to one side and gestured Dubreau to the center of the floor, facing the desk.
“Let me be certain of something, Dubreau,” said Averell mildly. “Your job is to drive my car and protect my life and property, not to assault my guests, am I correct?”
Thus did Duby learn that Iglesias had at last imparted to Averell the events of the previous night. The sphinx showed no reaction.
“Oui, monsieur.” His voice was pleasantly polite.
“Last night, you exceeded your authority and shamed me in the eyes of Señor Iglesias. You understand that, don’t you?” Averell also sounded polite. It made him seem even more sinister.
“Oui, monsieur.”
“Fortunately, I was able to make amends. And, because I know your intentions were good – and because I like you – I had thought I might give you another chance.”
“Merci, monsieur.”
“But, on second thought, I believe I was wrong. Roll up that rug, please.”
“Pardon, monsieur?”
“You’re standing on my 300-year-old Oriental rug. Roll it up, please.”
“Oui, monsieur.”
Dubreau edged some furniture off the rug and began to roll it toward one side of the room. The trainee bent to help, but Rico snatched him roughly back with a warning gesture.
Averell reached into his desk drawer and withdrew a pistol, which he placed on the desk before him.
Dubreau finished his task and stood again in the center of the room. He must have known what was coming, but the sphinx showed no anxiety or fear.
Kyle Averell’s voice was soft as a lullaby. “Where did you take Carinne last night, Dubreau?”
“Many places, monsieur.” Still polite, with not a quaver.
“In the middle of the night?”
“I took mademoiselle where she wished to go, monsieur.”
Throughout their conversation Averell had remained behind his desk. Now, he picked up the pistol and walked slowly around the desk, toward Dubreau.
Dubreau stood unflinching.
Rico and the trainee watched with great interest.
“Did you, in fact, take her to a bar?” came Averell’s lullaby voice.
“Non, monsieur.”
“Did you take her to a motel?”
“I would never do such a thing, monsieur.”
Averell moved close to Dubreau and circled him, pistol pointed at the floor. Dubreau faced straight ahead, unmoving.
“I have taken great care to ensure Carinne’s chastity,” her father said. “I have vowed that she will be pure and unsullied for her husband, not a slut like her mother. Did you take advantage of my daughter, Dubreau?”
“Non, monsieur.”
“But, you aided her in deceiving me, did you not?”
Dubreau did not answer.
Averell circled, only a hand’s breadth from Dubreau’s body. “I always took pride in your loyalty,” he said, circling, like a shark. “I trusted you as much as I trusted Rico, even though he had been with me much longer. How can I believe you now? Why have you betrayed me in this way?”
“I only took pity on her, monsieur.”
Averell stopped circling at Dubreau’s left shoulder. He pressed the pistol against Dubreau’s left leg.
Averell growled, “There is nothing pitiful about my daughter, Dubreau. She is lovely and pure and, until now, obedient. You have clearly shown yourself to be my enemy and hers. Who are you working for?”
“For you, monsieur.”
The pistol blasted against Dubreau’s left thigh, slashing through the muscle, ripping diagonally downward through the knee joint, and tearing its way out through the calf muscle.
Dubreau fell hard, an involuntary scream searing his throat, and he rolled to one side, moaning, on the floor.
Averell stepped closer and kicked him in the ribs. “Who are you working for?”
Dubreau could only moan and roll, clutching at his bleeding leg.
Averell kicked him in the back, in the stomach, in the shattered leg.
Dubreau screamed again, no longer able to think coherently enough to even try being stoic.
Rico and the trainee watched Averell walk deliberately around Dubreau, who lay semi-conscious on the floor, emitting low, ragged moans.
Averell bent over and slammed a merci
less blow to Dubreau’s head with the pistol. The moaning stopped. Dubreau was a bloody heap on the floor.
Averell looked at his pistol, produced a handkerchief from his pocket, and gently wiped off Dubreau’s blood from the gleaming metal. “Rico,” he said calmly, “dump this trash in the ocean – way out – and be sure it sinks.”
“Yes, sir,” Rico said, moving toward the body on the floor.
Averell returned to his desk and put the pistol in its drawer. He looked up at the silent – by now, well educated – trainee. “You ready for his job?” Averell asked the trainee, nodding at the bloody figure Rico was preparing to drag away.
“Yes, sir!” the trainee cried with the alacrity of a gung-ho Marine recruit.
“Good,” said Averell. “Get this floor cleaned.”
Rico stepped into a closet and came out with a box of large trash bags.
“And, get Rico some duct tape,” Averell told the trainee.
The trainee left the room in search of duct tape while Rico began tearing Duby’s bloody clothes off his body and stuffing them into plastic bags.
Within an hour, Averell’s corporate helicopter lifted off from the helipad behind his mansion. Inside the craft, Rico kicked at Dubreau’s unconscious form until he convinced himself that his former colleague was dead – or at least close enough to death that he would not survive what happened next.
When the pilot indicated that they were at cruising altitude, miles from shore, above the Atlantic Ocean, Rico pushed Dubreau’s naked body out of the aircraft.
PART III – BETIMES
CHAPTER 15 – COLLEAGUES
A few days before Jean’s planned debut at the Coconut Grove Arts Festival.
Jean and Hector crawled on all fours across a four- by eight-foot sheet of newsprint paper on the floor of Jean’s bedroom. They held pencils and markers in their hands or mouths, sometimes wedged behind their ears, and they slid plastic rulers and wooden yardsticks from place to place on the paper. Sometimes they drew lines, sometimes they erased lines; often, they argued over conflicting lines.
Hector continued a conversation they had begun earlier. “Nah, man, I been to dozens of these things, I tell ya. They look like this.” He drew a line.
Jean scribbled out Hector’s new line. “It will take ten men a year to build a booth like that,” Jean said. “We will have only one day to put it up and one to take it down – if we get into the festival at all.”
Mitchell poked her head in at the door. “We’re in!”
All three cheered and exchanged high fives.
“And, that’s not all,” she said. “Based on our photos, the judges think you stand a very good chance at the Best New Artist ribbon!”
More cheering and hand-slapping ensued. Jean and Hector exchanged a look and, of one mind, returned their attention to the design of their booth.
“Wow, man,” Hector breathed. “The Coconut Grove Arts Festival, man! This is a really big deal, dude.”
“Not if we don’t have a booth to hang the art in,” said Jean.
“We will,” said Hector, working steadily. “We will.”
Mitchell crossed the room and turned back the covering sheet on an easel standing in one corner. Beneath the cover was Jean’s painting entitled, “Girl with Roses.” The girl was the same one Jean always painted, the girl he saw in dreams. In this painting, the girl was clearly nude, but was modestly shielded by a lush garden of roses.
Of the three persons in that room, all working hard to show this painting and others to the public very soon, not one of them knew who she was. Not one knew she was the carefully guarded daughter of an extremely dangerous man. Not one knew that people had been killed for much less than displaying naked pictures of Carinne Averell.
While Mitchell admired the uncovered painting, Hector looked up from his work and made a noise of appreciation. “Okay, man,” he told Jean, “you can build the booth the way you want. You can forget the five bucks you owe me. And I’ll even pay for a veggie pan pizza special, if you’ll just tell me one thing: Is she married?”
Naturally, none of them knew the answer.
Ironically, Carinne was trying on a wedding gown at that very hour. The fitting must, of course, take place in her suite at home, rather than in a public bridal salon.
The face in her mirror was not a blissful fianceé’s face. The reflected girl merely endured, while seamstresses fussed about, making alterations.
Trish sat close by, drinking champagne and making encouraging, flattering comments.
Carinne stood as stiff and silent as the mirror.
Rico’s hard black-clad physique barred the door. At a knock, he opened the portal and accepted an elaborately wrapped gift from someone outside. Closing the door, he delivered the box to Carinne. “Just delivered,” he said unnecessarily.
Carinne was not interested in wedding presents. She passed it off to Trish with a gesture, and Rico backed off to resume his post at the door.
“Put it with the others,” Carinne said numbly.
“Oh, how can you stand it?” Trish wheedled. “Let’s open it. Here. Here’s the card.”
She handed the white envelope to Carinne and began ripping off the wrappings.
Carinne opened the envelope without enthusiasm. The seamstress pricked her with a pin, Carinne yipped and dropped the card from the envelope onto the floor. It was not a card, it was something colorful printed on a sheet of paper that had been folded many times to fit into the little envelope. The seamstress retrieved it, and Carinne unfolded the page: a flyer advertising the Coconut Grove Arts Festival.
Meanwhile, Trish had uncovered the package and was lifting the lid off a large box. “My stars and garters!” she exclaimed. “Will you look at this!”
She held up a painting. It was Girl With Rabbits, the one Stone had purchased from the Barnacle Gallery.
“It’s ... it’s me! H-how could—I never... Who could have done this?” Carinne murmured, shocked. She only knew one artist, and he had disappeared, and she certainly had never posed like this. The girl in this painting, although cleverly covered by bunnies and flowers, was clearly naked.
“You’ve got the card,” Trish said. “Who sent it?”
Carinne still held the advertisement in her hand. “I, uh, I d-don’t know...”
Snake-quick, Rico crossed the room and snatched the paper away. He looked at the anonymous flyer, at the painting of Carinne and her rabbits, and at Carinne’s stricken face. He grabbed the painting from Trish and left the room.
Only minutes later, the painting was propped up in one of the luxuriously upholstered chairs in Kyle Averell’s office. Rico and the newest henchman stood back as Averell paced the room, carrying in his hand the Coconut Grove Arts Festival advertisement.
“If it was just her face, I could understand,” Averell muttered. “She’s been around, been photographed to high heaven – despite my efforts at protecting her.” He threw a censuring dark look at the bodyguards.
The two men had the good sense to look at their shoes and act chastened.
“Anybody could paint her face,” Averell continued, “but nobody, nobody knows about those filthy, idiotic rabbits.”
He stepped close to the two men and shook the advertisement in their faces with his closed fist. “This man has been in my house! In my house, do you understand? I can’t have a security breach like this with the Mirador deal pending and the wedding less than ten days away!”
He punched Rico in the chest with the fist holding the paper. Rico reflexively caught the page when Averell turned it loose.
“Find. Him,” Averell growled into the bodyguard’s expressionless face.
On the last day before the festival, magnificent clear blue skies, salty sea breezes, and swaying palm trees adorned Peacock Park. Dozens of colorful tent-like exhibition booths, filled with art of every kind, lined the streets of Coconut Grove, from which all vehicular traffic had been blocked for Festival weekend.
With only hour
s before the gates would open to admit the public, Hector, Mitchell, Jean, and Dan Kavanaugh labored at putting up the last pieces of the wood-frame booth where Jean’s paintings would hang. They had settled on a hybrid design, using ideas from both Hector and Jean, and then Dan Kavanaugh had tweaked the final construction into a more-than-satisfactory structure. It would not withstand a hurricane, but it should survive three days of crowds and afternoon thunderstorms. Mitchell had demanded that canvas side-curtains be attached, to protect the interior in case of blowing rain.
Amid the noise of hammers and flapping tent canvas, and ignoring the excited chattering of artists arranging their wares, two large, unfriendly men wound their way up and down the rows of booths. Rico and his partner had no interest in any arts except martial ones. They sought a single thing: any clue that an artist had knowledge of Carinne Averell.
Fate was kind for a moment, because just as the two minions stopped in front of Jean’s booth, Jean passed between the men and the booth with a four- by eight-foot sheet of plywood shielding his face and his paintings from their view. By the time Jean had shifted the plywood into place, making himself and the paintings visible again, the impatient searchers had moved on down the street toward other booths.
Jean and Mitchell did not even know that Fate had granted them a precious – and all too brief – reprieve. It was not a full pardon; it was only a temporary stay of execution. The two bodyguards had killed before; one of them had even “killed” Yves Dubreau. They would carry out their master’s instructions without qualm. They would not stop until they had murdered once (or twice) more.
The same magnificent azure sky hung above the Averell estate that day. No colorful, Bohemian canopies dotted the wide lawns, however. Instead, a crew of workers were erecting a silken white canopy large enough to shelter several rows of folding chairs, a floral arbor, and a long, narrow white carpet.
The usual sentinel stood watch in the tower. Lazaro and the usual attack dog patrolled the grounds.