Applewood (Book 3): The Space of Life Between

by Myers, Brendan P.

  “Yes, please. Tell him . . . just say . . . tomorrow morning . . . seven o’clock . . . in the lobby of the Regis Hotel?”

  He was just making it up now. Stupid stupid stupid, he thought. Another long moment passed before the woman spoke again.

  “Will there be anything else?”

  Dan wasn’t convinced they were engaged in anything resembling human dialogue, but he answered her question anyway.

  “No, thank you. I think that’ll do it.”

  The click on the other end revealed that their conversation – if that’s what it was – had concluded. He kept the phone to his ear long after he heard the telltale buzz of a disconnected phone line. Finally letting out a sharp breath, he placed the handset back in its cradle and then lay down on the bed, not daring even speculate about what dried bodily fluids he might be laying his naked torso on.

  What the hell had he said, again?

  If the woman had at all interpreted his stammerings, and if indeed the silly passphrase went to the right individual, he might just have made an appointment with Agent Winthrop for seven o’clock tomorrow morning in the lobby of Hotel Regis. That’s what he had intended to do, anyway. Re-running the conversation in his mind, he began to think hopefully it’s what he just might have done, all the cloak and dagger aside.

  As for the details, he supposed he chose seven a.m. because he wanted to speak with the agent as soon as possible. Hotel Regis was where he had recently been spending most of his time and was near enough where they had last met, when was it, a week? A week and a half? Or a lifetime ago.

  Still, the more he thought about it, the more excited he became. Again, he wasn’t certain exactly how much he would share. Some of it was doubtless just his own insane conspiracy theorizing. However, remembering the sleep Winthrop had lost over the man who disappeared inside Esquinaldo’s estate, Dan was convinced he was a straight arrow. The agent’s sincere concern about drugs making their way to America’s streets gave Dan the sense he was probably incorruptible too. He could be trusted, up to a point.

  Dan would start by letting it drop he had seen one of the men in his photos having a meeting in Esquinaldo’s conference room. If that led anywhere, he would share that the vice president had been in a meeting at Esquinaldo’s too, and one of the men he met with was also meeting with the drug lord. If that went well, he might confide his suspicions about the man being military, and mention the other, pipe smoking man. If he decided to throw caution to the wind, he’d go all out and tell him that the CIA was in on it as well. Whatever became of it, Dan needed to somehow get across that he believed he was in mortal danger. His nephew Scott, who had been strong-armed into going away with the CIA man, was too. Richards was his name. Duane Richards.

  It was crazy, Dan reminded himself. It was all crazy.

  Still, his pulse quickened to know that one way or the other, roundabout seven o’clock tomorrow morning in the lobby of the Regis Hotel, this whole nightmare would come to an end. For him, at least.

  Only then did he let his mind turn to his nephew, and he stayed up a long while in silent prayer asking please, God, watch over Scott and see that no harm come to him. Please, God, take care of him, because that kid has already been through more than enough, for Christ’s sake.

  Amen.

  5

  The bright lights of Mexico City were tantalizingly near, but still too far away, when Dugan felt the first twinges of lassitude associated with the oncoming day. He had dawdled too long at the carnival, but had no regrets. He would do the same all over again to spend time with his old friends. However, as a result of the delay, his reunion with his uncle would be postponed another day, and he very much regretted that.

  It occurred to him during this last stretch of highway that he hadn’t devoted near enough time to thinking about his uncle while on this strange trip. That Richards initially intended not to leave him alive, setting aside that sideshow with the crossbow, he had no doubt. But that his uncle was destined to share his same fate, and of course, he was, he hadn’t even wanted to contemplate.

  He told himself he had been too far removed to provide any help or assistance. He reassured himself that his uncle had demonstrated time and again that he was cleverly resilient; at times, Dugan remembered with an inner smile, far more resilient than he. And he consoled himself with the surety that if Uncle Dan sensed he was in any immediate danger, he would take whatever steps were necessary to avoid or circumvent it. He prayed as much, anyway. Still, he knew all too well there were only so many bullets one could dodge.

  With another rush of lethargy, when Dugan glanced out the window and saw an appropriate resting place, he realized it was time and instructed the driver to pull over. Reaching to the floor for his bag, he started getting out of the cab before thinking it over. This driver had been good to him. He hadn’t complained once, not that it would have done him any good. He wasn’t at all talkative, which had been a blessing on their long journey together.

  No, the Guatemalan driver had earned more than to come to his senses in Mexico City having no recollection of how or why he was there. Reaching into his bag for the briefcase, Dugan flipped the dials and opened it, pulling from within a handful of hundred dollar bills and stuffing them into the breast pocket of the driver’s striped Coca Cola shirt.

  “I release you,” he said, though it wasn’t necessary. With that, he opened the door and leaped from the cab to start making his way into the cemetery.

  Though not nearly as opulent as the one outside San Salvador, with far fewer grand mausoleums to choose from, this one had its own rustic charms. He was able to find an old granite edifice that was easily accessible and made his way in. Pushing aside the heavy vault cover, he lifted the coffin lid and inside saw a very well preserved gentleman from perhaps the nineteenth century grinning up at him, all decked out in his Sunday best. Dugan returned the smile before crawling into the narrow crevice and climbing in beside him. His mind was already shutting down when the lid slammed shut and he lay prone, where almost immediately and without any further drama or additional self-recrimination, he died for yet another day.

  Chapter Fourteen

  1

  Evidently letting bygones be bygones, the front desk clerk did ensure Dan received his wake up call at the appointed hour, though he let himself wallow in the surprisingly comfortable bed a few minutes longer. The lovebirds next door had settled down sometime around two a.m., so he even got some use out of it. Smiling, he took back everything he thought about the place before ultimately climbing out of bed and heading for the shower.

  The tub was filthy, the caulking mold-ridden, but the water was deliciously warm. He stayed under it a while, to soothe his wrenched muscles and further wash his wounds. Drying himself afterward, he dared a quick glance in the fogged up mirror and thought things might be looking up there as well. His long scratches were fading to pink. The chafe marks were scabbing up nicely. He diagnosed he’d be right as rain in no time.

  After double checking he had packed everything, he went to the curtain and peered out one last time and saw nothing untoward. While at the window, he noted the day had dawned gray and cloudy, with what looked like an intermittent drizzle. When he walked out the door, he glanced at his watch to see it was six-twenty a.m.. He had plenty of time.

  At the foot of the iron stairs he heard a whimper. Turning, he saw a small dog had taken shelter beneath the steps. Whistling, he snapped his fingers and issued a friendly, “Hey pup!’ but the dog recoiled and sank deeper under the stairs. Shrugging, he dropped his key at the office before heading in what he thought was the direction the bus had dropped him off, but got turned around somehow and had to retrace his steps. He went by the hotel in the other direction and soon found himself where he needed to be. Another check of his watch alerted him he had lost a good ten minutes. Frowning, he passed by a newsstand and learned it was Thursday, September nineteenth.

  Once on the main thoroughfare, he waited beneath a partially enclosed b
us shelter while watching the steadily thickening morning traffic, yet saw no cabs. Frustrated, he left the shelter and strolled into the drizzle to the edge of the sidewalk. Five agonizing minutes went by before he saw his first cab. Marching straight into traffic, he waved his hand furiously, but it drove right on. Getting honked at, he kept his hand raised and moments later, saw another. Refusing to be denied, he stepped between two lanes of traffic. Seeing him, perhaps worried for his safety, the cab slowed and stopped, and Dan was finally on his way.

  “Hotel Regis,” he said to the driver, once again glancing at his watch. It was ten minutes to seven. Christ. “I’m in a bit of a hurry,” he added weakly. The driver just raised his eyebrows to the rear view and kept on driving.

  Gotta work on that, Dan, he thought with an inner smile. Take an assertiveness seminar or something.

  After a brief detour, he arrived in front of Hotel Regis just after seven-fifteen, annoyed to be late, yet confident Agent Winthrop would be waiting, knowing denizens of Mexico City were famous for their tardiness. He shoved a bunch of pesos into the driver’s hand and climbed out of the cab on the park side, directly across the street from the hotel. One final glance at his watch revealed it was seven-nineteen.

  While waiting for a break in traffic, a shadow passed overhead. Looking up, he saw a massive flock of birds had taken to the sky. He stared in wonder for a moment before almost unconsciously sensing something else was going on. For the briefest of seconds, things seemed to get unbearably quiet. The cacophonous sounds of the city receded. The air became tinged with an ozony smell. In the very next instant, the crippling silence gave way to the steady rumble of an exponentially increasing number of onrushing trains. He cocked his head to listen more closely just as the earth began to move. Jolted, he felt an almost electric charge of vertigo as the ground beneath his feet began rocking violently. He looked down in time to watch a seam in the concrete open up between his legs.

  The same instant he realized it was an earthquake he felt himself lurched upward just before an unnatural surge of gravity knocked him off his feet and dropped him to the sidewalk. Dazed, he placed his palms flat as if to hang on for dear life. The convulsive rocking became ever more intense. Undulating waves passed beneath him, as if the earth itself was trying to shrug him off. The ear shattering clamor of breaking glass began to overburden his already overloaded senses. Beneath his palms, the ground itself felt like it was turning to liquid.

  Raising his head, he saw across the street that dozens of people in front of the hotel had also been forced to the ground, though a few hardy souls had managed to remain upright. A handful of people caught under the hotel awning when the shaking began clung desperately to columns. Shifting his gaze from left to right, with growing horror he watched the buildings along the block sway grotesquely from side to side, including the gloriously neo-classical Hotel Regis. In the very next moment it began falling. Huge chunks of concrete and masonry from the upper floors and facade fell to the sidewalk crushing those below. The concrete awning that ran around the building collapsed on the people huddled underneath. In the next second, with a thunderous roar, the rest of the hotel went, pancaking upon itself one story at a time in a bizarre parody of slow motion. An immense cloud of dust washed over him from across the street.

  Coughing and gagging, he shut his eyes and hung on for dear life as the temblor continued, likely exacerbated now by the cascading effect of hundreds of multi-story structures collapsing throughout the city. Though it seemed an eternity had already come and gone, he guessed only a minute had passed since it all began; and yet, the ground still shook.

  When next he glanced up, through the growing cloud of dust that now enveloped him, he saw orange flames lapping their way from beneath the rubble of the collapsed hotel. The air was charged with the noxious smell of gas. He closed his eyes once more and hung on and waited and prayed, and nearly five minutes after the shaking began, the earth fell silent.

  2

  Dan didn’t know how long he remained there watching what was left of the hotel burn. Time itself had lost all meaning. It was long enough to see the firetrucks arrive, then watch befuddled first responders wonder where in hell all the hydrants had gone. At some point, he must have started moving, because when he returned from whatever distant place he had been, he found himself wandering the post-apocalyptic landscape of the devastated city in a fugue-like condition.

  The air remained thick and imbued with a horrendous smell, gaseous vapors mingled with sulfur and copper and the fatty pork stink of burning flesh. Fires raged out of control throughout the city, raining down a nuclear winter fallout of soot and white ash. Ruptured water mains created lakes and rushing rivers where none had been. Along the way, a cacophony of dull sounds reverberated in his overworked ears: the screams of the injured and the dying. The echoing wails of the trapped. The inconsolable weeping of survivors.

  He sometimes avoided and at other times climbed small mountains of debris. He leaped over or walked around wide rents torn in streets and sidewalks. Occasionally, he was forced to retrace his steps after learning the bridge or overpass he had stumbled toward was gone.

  With an almost clinical detachment, he observed that the earthquake had wrought its devastation randomly, sparing some buildings but leaving the one next door in ruins. The American Bookstore still stood. The six story parking garage beside it was a pulverized heap of shattered rock. Entire city blocks where apartments once loomed were now unrecognizable tangles of bent rebar and solid slabs of jagged concrete.

  Some structures had simply tipped over and now lay on their sides as if pushed by a giant hand. Others withstood the earthquake, only to suffer the indignity of having their facades ripped away, providing a doll’s house view into other people’s lives, clothes and shoes and personal belongings of the residents hanging off their edges and blowing in the wind.

  Still in an almost dreamlike mental state, Dan returned to awareness long enough to find himself on the Paseo de la Reforma, mere blocks from Esquinaldo’s estate, and realized it must have been his destination all along. Turning onto the wide avenue he had escaped only last evening, he noted in passing that those mansions visible from the street appeared to suffer only minimal damage, either due to their hilly location or the building materials used. Perhaps it was a mixture of the two.

  When he reached Esquinaldo’s iron gates, he found them open. Trudging his way slowly up the drive, he delved into what forces had propelled him here, discovering that his desire to flee was less powerful than his urge to know. Or maybe it was just that witnessing so much death, not to mention coming within a hair’s breadth of it himself, had inured him to whatever fate Esquinaldo had in store for him. Besides, with Agent Winthrop gone, there went Dan’s only hope of unearthing whatever machinations he and the CIA man were involved in. Esquinaldo had already won.

  That, and he had concluded somewhere along the way that his nephew Scott was almost certainly dead. He wasn’t sure at what turn he had realized that, but there was no point in denying it any longer. So, whatever happened to him now wasn’t all that important. He only hoped that before killing him, Esquinaldo would provide some answers. He’d like to know just what the hell it had all been about. He thought he might even have that right. And as despicable as Esquinaldo was, Dan knew he could also be a reasonable man; as reasonable as a Nazi bastard could be, that is. In any event, Dan guessed the man would offer him what he had come for.

  As he approached the four-story residence, he looked up and saw one of the iron balconies had become detached and was now hanging by a thread. Some of the masonry had cracked and fallen along with a few roof tiles. Aside from that, the house was in remarkably good shape. While walking up the stone steps, he noticed the front door was ajar. Crossing the short porch, he went to the door and knocked twice before pushing it open.

  Looking into the sun drenched space, he saw a large grand entrance with hardwood floors and a gleaming crystal chandelier centerpiece hanging above.
Directly below the massive light fixture was Fritz, lying in a pool of blood. On suddenly wobbly legs, Dan slunk over to see the butler’s eyes were still open. He had been shot in the forehead. With a shiver, he turned left and then right, seeing through an open doorway a pair of prone legs on the floor. Tiptoeing toward it, he pushed open the door and saw Esquinaldo lying on a Persian carpet in his own puddle of blood. Though he had a gun in his hand, he had been too late. He too had been shot in the head.

  While standing there, he noted that the light in this room was somehow different. Looking up, he observed that this was the room equipped with the lovely stained glass window, which provided the two story space with an almost cathedral-like atmosphere. From the doodads and knickknacks decorating the room, though he had never been in one, the phrase ‘tea room’ came to mind. Must be nice to have a tea room, he thought strangely, taking one last glance at the yellows and blues and reds that even now illuminated what had once been Esquinaldo’s craggy good looks before beginning to back his way from the room.

  Once through the doorway, he heard a dull thud from an upper floor. Flinching, his heart quickened before he ordered it to settle down. Probably just something knocked about by the quake choosing that moment to fall, he reasoned. Still, immediately after telling himself that, he turned and began walking in slow, measured paces toward the front door. As soon as he was outside and down the stairs, he rediscovered his once absent urge to flee, and began a steady jog down the driveway and through the iron gates.

  3

  Even crawling up from blackness, Dugan was aware that something was amiss. Beneath his slack body he felt quakes and trembles not dissimilar to what he had experienced on the airplane, though these were different in nature, irregular vibrations that were nothing like the steady drone of jet engines. Soon thereafter, once his sense of smell returned, he recognized there too something was not right, and it wasn’t just that he detected universes of dust and desiccated flesh and bone matter that had for some reason been thrust into the air. Only when he reached the last stage of his awakening did he finally put together that the tremors he felt were coming from deep within the earth, and could only be seismic in nature. There had been an earthquake, and it had been big. So big, in fact, it was still going on.