Night Vision

by Randy Wayne White

  Like the Sig, the Kahr was loaded with federal Hydra-Shok hollow points. But the Kahr had the added advantage of a built-in laser sight that was activated whenever I gripped the thing to fire.

  Unlike the high-tech Dazer Guardian, also in the bag, the laser sight was red, not green.

  It was unlikely that I would use any of these weapons, just as I knew there was very little chance now that I would stumble onto Harris Squires and the Guatemalan girl. He and Tula were on their way to Red Citrus while I was out here wasting time on back roads east of Immokalee.

  It didn’t matter. I was in a certain mood. To rationalize wasting time, I told myself this was training, a way to stay sharp.

  I leaned to roll down the passenger window, and drove on.

  Tomlinson is right. I’m not a fast driver. I slowed even more whenever I switched on the dome light and checked the satellite aerial. My pal had used a highlighter to square off the boundaries of Squires’s property, but it still wasn’t easy to pick out landmarks. I was driving through a shadowed mesa of cypress that I guessed was Owl Hammock. It meant I had at least fifteen miles to go.

  Thus far, I hadn’t passed a car. Not one.

  Alternately squinting at the aerial, then accelerating, my headlights tunneled through a starry silence, toward a horizon abloom with the nuclear glow of Fort Lauderdale, eighty miles to the east.

  I passed through the precise geometrics of tomato fields and citrus orchards. Then more cypress domes that exited into plains of myrtle and saw grass. My eyes moved from the road, to the satellite aerial, then to my watch.

  11:45 p.m.

  Training exercise or not, my mind wandered back to Emily. My reaction to her had been a surprise. A shock, in fact, and now it was a new source of restlessness that was pleasure mixed with angst.

  I had left Tomlinson alone with Emily for a reason—a deceit that Tomlinson had guessed correctly. It was a test. He suspected it, I knew it. I was subjecting myself, my new lover and my old friend to yet another of my relentless personal evaluations.

  “Why do you set traps for people you care about when you’re the one who is inevitably hurt?” a smart but troubled woman had once asked me.

  I had no answer then. I had no answer now.

  It was a uncomfortable truth to admit, but that was balanced by something I believed with equal honesty: Emily Marston could be trusted. There was no rational explanation for why I trusted her, but I did. Attraction is commonplace. A visceral, indefinable unity is not. The chemistry that links two people is comprised of elements too subtle to survive dissection, too complex to permit inspection.

  It was unlike me to ponder the exigencies of romance, but that’s exactly what I was doing as the miles clicked by. My mind returned to the bedroom, where I had used every gentleness to follow Emily’s physical signals, then fine-tuned what I was doing to match her respiratory and moaning guidance. Our rhythms escalated until, finally, she had tumbled over a sheer apex, crying out, then sobbing, a woman so disoriented even minutes later that she seemed as vulnerable as a creature newly born.

  I’d like to believe I am a competent lover, but I knew my skills did not account for an eruption of such magnitude. It was Emily, uniquely Emily, her physical release so explosive that it was as unmistakably visual as it was audible—a jettisoning fact that only made her sob harder, and voice her embarrassment.

  “That’s why I’ve always been so careful about men,” she had whispered. “I can’t help how my body reacts, and it’s goddamn embarrassing. It creeped Paul out, I think, so I almost never really let myself go. Tonight, Christ! I got carried away, I guess. I’m so sorry.”

  Sorry? I had just experienced one of the most sensual couplings of my life. I did my best to reassure her and succeeded, apparently, because half an hour later it happened again.

  To equate sexual release with trust was as irrational—or as sensible—as any other aspect of love play between male and female. But there it was. It was the way I felt.

  Just by thinking it through, I felt better about coming to Immokalee alone. After only a day together, I had no right to expect fidelity from the woman nor a reason to demand trust. If Tomlinson or anyone else could lure Emily away, so be it. I would be disappointed. Very disappointed. But I also knew that I would be secretly relieved. Discovering the truth tonight might spare me a more painful surprise down the road—no doubt the reason why I set such traps in the first place.

  It was refreshing to be able to admit that to myself. Freeing, in its way. So I closed a mental door on the subject and focused my attention on what I was doing.

  A good thing, too.

  By then, in the lights of my truck, I could see a curvature of tree line that indicated a bend in the road. According to the satellite aerial, it was where County Road 846 turned north as County Road 857—and marked the midway point of Squires’s acreage. To the south was saw grass and swamp. To the north, more of the fertilized geometrics that define Florida agriculture.

  I slowed enough to poke my head out the window and checked an east-facing road sign that drifted past. I was not surprised by its message. It was the same sign I’d seen in my odd vision of the girl.

  IMMOKALEE 22 MILES.

  Almost concurrently, two Hispanic-looking men on the Everglades side of the road caught my attention. They were standing by a gate, smoking cigarettes, no vehicle in sight. The gate was chained, I noted. I also noted the way the men turned their faces away from my headlights, shielding their identities, as I drove past.

  They were spotters, I decided. They were standing watch. If Squires had indeed driven Tula Choimha home to Red Citrus, why were these two guarding the gate to his Everglades acreage?

  It suggested to me that I had indeed seen some kind of structure beneath the trees in the aerial photo. It suggested to me that Squires and the girl were nearby.

  Slowing to a crawl, I gave the men a mild wave. In response, one of them flipped his middle finger, then turned his back. His reaction was more than just aggressive. It was stupid. Why would he invite a confrontation down here in redneck country, where a lot of pickup trucks still had gun racks?

  I decided the guy was either drunk or he was aggressive for a reason. Was there something happening beyond that metal gate he couldn’t risk anyone seeing or hearing?

  I shifted into neutral, letting the truck coast, as I picked up my phone to call Leroy Melinski. It was the reasonable thing to do even though I didn’t want to do it. Perversely, I hoped there was no reception or that I got the man’s voice mail. Leaving the detective out of the loop would allow me to remain invisible.

  I liked the potential of that. Neither Melinski nor anyone else knew where I was. The two men at the gate had no idea who I was. I could talk to the men or slip by unnoticed and search the area alone. Do it right and no one would ever know I had been there.

  I got my wish. No reception.

  I lifted my gear bag onto the passenger’s seat as I shifted into reverse and swung the truck around. By the time I got to the gate, both men were standing in the road, dark bandannas now covering their faces like bank robbers in a TV western, their body language communicating a rapper’s insolence. The bandannas and the tattoos told me they were members of a Latin gang—pandilleros, in Spanish slang.

  Should I stop? Or should I park a mile up the road and jog back?

  I foot-flicked my high beams on long enough to convince myself that neither man was palming a weapon. It gave me a reason to stop, which is exactly what I wanted to do—another perverse preference. I can tolerate stupidity because it is a biological condition. Ignorance and arrogance are choices, though.

  I got out of the truck, engine running, lights on and my gear bag within easy reach if I needed it.

  Beside the bag was the palm-sized laser I’d brought along, the Dazer Guardian. Because I had demonstrated the weapon to Emily earlier, I’d already overridden the twenty-four-hour security timer, which meant the weapon was operational, ready to use at the touch
of a button.

  I gave the thing a long last look, then almost stuck it in my pocket before I swung the door closed. But then I reminded myself I had never tried the light on a shark, let alone a couple of two-legged gangbangers, and now was not the time to risk a disappointing first test.

  I felt confident I wouldn’t need it, or any of the other weapons in my bag.

  I was wrong.

  Because both men assumed I didn’t speak Spanish, I listened to them exchange nervous and profane assessments of me as I walked toward them.

  I was a homosexual cowboy who had lost his hat as well as a horse that I abused anally. I was a drunken Gomer—a welfare redneck—who was too poor to buy a truck that was not inhabited by rats.

  Hearing that caused me to take a closer look at the lane beyond the gate, wondering about their truck. It was all tree shadows and darkness, but my headlights were bright enough that I should have seen reflectors on their vehicle.

  I did not. It confirmed what I had suspected: The dirt road led to a cabin or some sort of area where these two had parked.

  Maybe Squires and the girl were there now. If not, someone else was there, because I heard radio static and then watched one of the men pull a little VHF from his pocket, saying in Spanish, “Don’t bother us now. We got a visitor. Some white Gomer—he’s probably pissed because Dedos just flipped him off.”

  Latin gang members use nicknames. Dedos was appropriate. It meant “Fingers.”

  The radio crackled in reply, a voice saying, “Tell that pendejo to stop causing us problems! A white dude? Jesus Christ, get rid of him! What kind of car? You call me back if there’s any trouble, you hear me, Calavero?”

  Calavero—another graphic nickname.

  “A truck. An old redneck piece of shit, don’t worry about it,” Calavero said, looking at me now as he shoved the radio into his pocket. Then he said in pretty good English, “What you doing way out here, Gomer? You lost or something? Hell, man, my homey, he was just using his finger to point to the best direction for you to go. Straight up, unless you want to drive through a bunch of cow shit.”

  The man laughed, glancing at his partner, Dedos, then used his chin to motion toward me. It was a signal to separate, possibly, because Calavero started moving to my left as Dedos took a couple of steps toward the truck’s passenger side.

  I had stopped midway between the men and my truck, a hazed silhouette to them because of my headlights. If they hadn’t separated, I would have continued to assume they weren’t armed. But movement was all the warning I needed. So I maximized my Florida accent, saying, “I’m lookin’ for an ol’ boy named Harris Squires. You boys know where I can find him?”

  That stopped them. I used their momentary surprise to take a long step back, then leaned a hip comfortably against my truck, close enough to get to the door fast if I needed to.

  Calavero was the talker, and I listened to him reply, “Amigo, we can’t even see your face ’cause of them lights. How we supposed to answer a question like that? I suggest you get back in your truck and get the fuck outta here, man.”

  I planned to. But not yet.

  “It’s a pretty simple question,” I said. “He’s a great big guy, Harris Squires. I met him last night. He’s not the one who said it, but I heard he has something for sale out here I might want to buy. Why don’t you call him and let him know I’m here?”

  I could only guess at what Squires might have to sell, but the pandilleros knew.

  In Spanish Dedos said to Calavero, “He wants to buy steroids from jelly boy this time of night? Or maybe the V-man’s right. Maybe they been running our girls outta here. Call Chapo, tell him we got to speak to the V-man right now.”

  Chapo—the voice on the radio and another nickname. Shorty.

  It didn’t tell me everything I wanted to know, but it told me enough—enough to get a rough estimate of how many people I was dealing with. Also, that there was an established pecking order. There were at least two more pandilleros beyond the gate, including a boss man named V-man. Plus Squires and, hopefully, the Guatemalan girl.

  I had also learned that Squires wasn’t a friend of the gang—perhaps he was even their captive. It was unlikely but a possibility. Referring over the radio to a man the size of Squires as “jelly boy” required a controlled environment or some firepower to back it up.

  It was time for me to get going, I decided. Time to drive fast to an area where there was phone reception because I’d walked into something bigger than I had ever anticipated. This situation required the police—a whole squad of pros, including a chopper. In another country where there were fewer laws, maybe, just maybe, I would have tried to handle it on my own. But not here. And not when there was a chance that Tula Choimha was alive and still in danger.

  Because I didn’t want the men to know what I’d learned, I said, “I don’t have time to stand around listening to you boys talking Mexican. If you see Squires, tell him I stopped by. But don’t blame me when he gets pissed off ’cause he didn’t make a sale.”

  I stood and turned my back to them, paying close attention as the two bickered about whether they should let me go or not. Because the exchange was in Spanish, they believed there was no need to keep their voices low. Dedos was the violent one, but Calavero was the boss.

  “Stab him with a knife, that’s just stupid!” he hissed at Dedos. “For what, to rob him? He don’t have any money, look at his goddamn truck! We gonna have enough bodies to deal with!”

  I almost stopped when he said that but forced myself to keep moving.

  Dedos’s response: “Man, we can’t just let him go—the Gomer knows Squires! Call the V-man. The dude could bring the cops the moment he’s out of here. Then what’s the V-man gonna say?”

  It wasn’t until my hand was on the open door, my foot on the running board, that I allowed myself to risk a glance over my shoulder.

  My timing could have been better.

  Dedos was fast and quiet. He had closed the distance between us, suddenly only one long stride away from the truck. His arm was extended, something in his hand. A cell phone, I thought at first, but his partner was yelling, “Don’t shoot him, you idiot!” so I knew that I was mistaken.

  I threw my hands up, a defensive response, as I dived into the cab of my truck. At the same instant, I heard a percussion-cap BANG! then a brief whistling noise. A microsecond later, I felt a dazzling impact of something metallic that glanced off my left shoulder, then clanged hard against the truck’s cab.

  It took me a moment to realize I’d been tasered with an electroshock weapon. The thing produced a crackling burst of pain that radiated through my spine, down the sciatic nerves of my legs. Zapped by several thousand volts, my brain flashed with what might have been the white schematic of my own cerebral synapses.

  Then the wild sensation was gone.

  My body lay immobile on the seat for an instant, as my brain worked it through. Dedos had used an older taser, with a steel dart attached to a wire. But the dart hadn’t hit me squarely. It had plowed a furrow of blood across my left shoulder, then skipped out, hitting the truck, steel on steel.

  Now Calavero was calling, “Grab him, pendejo! We got no choice now!” as he also yelled into the radio, calling for help, but didn’t seem to be getting a response.

  I was dazed, my glasses hanging by fishing line around my neck, as Dedos grabbed me by the ankles, trying to pull me out onto the road. I kicked back hard ... missed ... then kicked again and heard the man make an encouraging Woofing sound that told me I had connected with his groin.

  I got my left hand on the steering wheel and was pulling myself into the truck when Calavero joined the attack. He used his boots to kick my calves and thigh muscles numb as he ordered Dedos, “Get on your feet, you drunken fool! Use the radio, tell them we need help ’cause you did something stupid again.”

  My equipment bag was in the middle of the seat, not quite within reach. The palm-sized laser was close enough, though. I grabbed the
thing as, once again, I felt my body being dragged out of the cab.

  I had experimented enough with the laser to know that the rubberized cap was an instant-on switch, much like a flashlight. But the system was far more complex. There was another switch that cycled through various ranges of effectiveness, from one yard to almost a quarter mile.

  To impress Emily, I had dialed the thing to three hundred yards and then painted distant mangroves with its luminous green beam—“searchlight mode,” according to the literature. Stupidly, I hadn’t taken the time to switch the laser back to close-quarters-combat range. Would searchlight mode have any effect on men only a few yards away?

  Calavero had a gun in his hand now, I realized. A little chrome-coated derringer, with sizable over-under barrels that told me it was heavy caliber. He was using the butt of the gun to bang at my knee, looking for an opening to put a bullet into me. My truck was about to become a killing field, and all I wanted to do was get the hell out of there and start over.

  Probably because I have never been shot in the stomach or chest, an odd, slow thought moved through my mind, oblivious to the panic I felt. Pain or impact? Which would I feel as a bullet splintered my ribs?

  I tried to kick my legs free so Calavero couldn’t get a clean shot. It caused him to pocket the weapon long enough to concentrate on his grip. As he pulled me from the truck, my head banged hard on the running board, then I landed, back first, on the asphalt.

  I fumbled the Dazer upon impact but managed to recover as Calavero gave me another numbing kick to the thigh. My glasses were still around my neck, but I could see well enough to know he was reaching for the derringer again. If I didn’t disable the man soon, he would shoot me, then keep shooting until I was dead.

  I used the laser.

  When I brought the Dazer up to fire, I told myself, Keep your finger off the damn switch until you’ve aimed!

  I had been told that surprise was an important aspect of the laser’s effectiveness. So I waited ... waited until I had the weapon in both hands, leveled at the man’s face. I was sighting down the little metal tube as if it were a gun when I touched the button.