Hell to Pay

by Dick Wybrow

  "You know the drill," Silvio said. "You will give this to the man in the hat."

  Uncle Jerry scowled. "They all wear hats."

  "Shut up."

  Jerry grunted and tucked the case under his arm. Two other men were lifting the ramp back onto the plane as a third cranked a handwheel on its side, closing the thing up.

  The plane shook in a brief wobble, the tips of the wings dipping slightly on one side then straightening out.

  Silvio briefly cut his eyes to the plane but, unfazed, went back to my friend. "Do not stray from the flight path, or you know—"

  Uncle Jerry stared at him with a blank expression.

  The man clasped his hands in front my friend's face then made a "kpuuuuhhh" sound, spreading them a part, his fingers twittering like flitting moths—or airplane parts in the sky.

  Jerry began walking toward the cockpit door, his head low, his shoulders rounded. The three others headed toward a big black SUV, which had been left running. A man in the front seat got out and opened the door for their head man.

  How am I going to get on the goddamn plane?

  The vehicle started driving away, heading toward a sprawling home up on the hill.

  I looked around and saw what was left of an umbrella stand broken into pieces and covered in dust and rust. I grabbed one of the bits of pipe. One end of it was stained like Jerry's jumpsuit had been.

  Running out of time, I looked for a spot on the other side of the hangar. If I could throw the pipe against the wall, the two poker players might go investigate. Then I could slip back out the door and, if it actually worked, bang on the plane, and hope Jerry would quickly let me in.

  I scanned the barn. A weathered metal Old Style beer wall hanging looked like my best option. I would aim my bit of umbrella stand at it and clang it off the metal. That should be enough of a distraction. Pulling my arm back, I zeroed in on the bar sign, and took a look at the arc I would need to make it across.

  One, two—

  "Hey!"

  Shit!

  I dropped the pipe, and it clanged to the floor at my feet. My heart beat so hard in my throat, it was hard to breathe. I saw the two card players look in my direction.

  Outside, I heard my friend's voice. The black truck's reverse lights glowed bleached-bone white as it retreated. A window came down.

  "Whoever programmed the flight path got it all wrong," Uncle Jerry said, standing at its passenger-side door. "That ain't anywhere near Esteli."

  I watched as one of the men who'd been playing cards got up and grabbed his rifle. His friend looked at his own cards and protested loudly in Spanish.

  Back in the truck, the man took a drag from his cigarette, his eyes locked on Jerry, and blew out a plume of smoke. "You are not going to Nicaragua, Uncle Jerry," he said with a sneer. "Different job."

  "You've got it set for Coban. I don't even know where that is!"

  The man sighed. "Guatemala. But that is no concern of yours. Just follow your path and deliver the case."

  The card player was moving toward me, his eyes locked on my position, trying to pull shapes out of the dark. His friend said something else, took a slug of his beer, then looked at the other's cards, which had been facedown on the table.

  Uncle Jerry asked, "What am I picking up?"

  The man shrugged. "No pickup. Just drop-off." He began rolling up his windows. "Nine hours."

  The thug's eyes creeping my direction were glassy and red. He wiped his nose with his wrist quickly and put his hand back onto the stock of the rifle.

  I looked toward the door behind me. It was slightly ajar, but if I opened it, light would pour in and give away my position in the dark corner. However, it didn't seem to matter. Three or four more steps and I would give away my position.

  The truck sped away, kicking up a belch of dust and rock, and as it did, the man with the rifle put his hand up to block the cloud, swearing as he did.

  Behind him at the table, the other guy was still peeking at my stalker's cards. He muttered something, his eyes went wide, then he shouted over, "Fold!"

  The gunman spun back and put a fist in the air, shouting and pointing as the other lifted his hands up, expressing his innocence.

  I chanced it, taking two steps to the door, threw it open, then quickly pushed it back. I could only hope that, tangled up in their argument, neither had seen the brief burst of light.

  Jerry's plane was taxiing down the runway, picking up speed.

  Desperate, I looked around for anything I could use to catch up. At the creekside, there was only the cow.

  Standing at the side of the hangar, helpless, I watched Jerry's plane grow smaller as the dust around the hangar settled.

  The argument between the two men dissolved into more anxious words. Then there was a clank. The gunman had found my hiding place. In a moment, he would fling the door open and look for me.

  I'd failed in helping my friend, but for the moment, my only job was to not get peppered by an automatic weapon. Running for the creekside, I heard banging behind me then leapt past the stupid bovine and landed in the creek with a splash. I froze, the waterline up to my nose.

  There was no use in swimming quickly down the creek. If the guy walked fifty feet and saw me, I was dead. If I swam away, all splashy and panicky, I was dead.

  For the moment, I just pushed up against the bank, kept as low as I could, and waited.

  Then the cow next to me let out a stream of urine that looked like it hadn't pissed in days.

  Another bang from above. The door had been kicked open, and it continued to bang-bang-bang against the side of the hangar.

  The cow lolled its head toward the hangar and let out a low moo again.

  "¡Estúpida vaca!"

  Then I heard a final bang as the door was, once again, pulled shut. A few seconds later, the shouting restarted, but it wasn't about me or the cow.

  I pushed back from the bank as the yellow-orange urine drizzled down the dead grass and mud. Then I looked up and saw my friend's plane lift off, bank right, and slowly get smaller and smaller and smaller.

  "Shit," I said. "Sorry, man. I'm so sorry."

  I saw the strangest thing. The scene was all dead and dry—yellow, gray, and broken stone, and of course, a bit of cow pee. Then I spotted something totally out of place. It took me a few moments to work out what I was seeing. It didn't belong, certainly, and its bright twisting colors were almost offensive to the dull, drab landscape.

  I could only watch as the wind carried, tumbled, and played with it. But for nearly a minute, I just stared, trying to work out what it was.

  Then it hit me. I looked up at the plane then back to the ground and the twisting bit of snakelike fabric.

  Turning to the cow, who looked as though she might be watching, too, I asked, "What the hell is that?"

  The big cow head, with its big cow eyes, slowly swung back toward me. The creature stared as if to say, "Beats me. Weird, huh?"

  I had no idea what to make of it, either the cow's expression or the rolling bit of costume crossing the runway.

  I said, "It's a boa."

  The cow gave me no sign it understood. To be honest, I was in the same boat. I looked back to the runway as the wind, again, picked it up like it was happy to have something new to play with, twisting it around.

  "It's a purple feather boa."

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  "What are they saying?" The Actor stood to peek over the nose of their go-fast boat then ducked back down.

  The voice crackling over the radio and the one coming over the loudspeakers ahead of them were both repeating the same phrases over and over again. However, as their boat came within about five hundred yards—and was closing fast—their demands were coming in shorter, louder bursts.

  "They want us to stop and drop anchor," Anza said, scanning the waters ahead. She had an unnatural calmness, as if she'd bled her anxiety onto the floor.

  The Actor had, in turn, soaked it up.

  She
continued to search the horizon. She'd seen it again, but something about the way…

  Again, their hull was peppered. Pfft, pfft, pfft, pfft, pfft!

  "So, why aren't you, you know—" the Actor said, trying to grip the floor with his fingers and toes, facing toward the front of the boat. "Stopping and dropping?"

  There!

  Once again, she saw the drone, but it was hovering off the side of the Mexican coast guard's big, gleaming craft, three times the size of theirs.

  Anza looked at the green screen next to the throttle then put a nail between her teeth. "If we stop," she said, "we cannot save Uncle Jerry inside a prison cell!"

  "We can't save him if we're dead either!"

  She glanced back over her shoulder. "Yes, also a good point."

  The Actor scooted onto his hands and knees and scuttled across the cabin's floor. When he returned next to Anza, he had a beer in both hands.

  "How is that helping?"

  The Actor's head bobbed as he took huge swigs from the one in his right hand. "I'm going to throw the bottles at them. Buy us some time."

  "Half-empty beer bottles do not buy time!"

  "At least," he said, swigging from the left one, "if I'm going to some Mexican jail, I'll be half-drunk."

  Anza shook her head and muttered low. She again looked at the screen then back at the huge boat getting bigger in their windscreen, close enough to see their expressions.

  Several seamen were racing around the bow of the coast guard ship. Arms waving, shouting something Anza couldn't hear, all but the man on the big gun at the front were running to the rear of the boat.

  Then, a few seconds later, the man on the gun crossed himself, jumped away, and followed his comrades.

  The Actor arched up and looked through the window. He slid back down quickly and took slugs from both beers.

  They were within two hundred yards.

  "Anza," he said, his voice softer. "We can't ram them. I want to save Uncle Jerry as much as you, but this…" He choked on a sob. "I'm under contract, hell-affiliated, so I'll survive that. It'll hurt like hell, but—"

  "We have to save Uncle Jerry!"

  He reached out and gently put a hand on her shoe. "You won't survive a crash."

  She pushed the throttle.

  "You still have Dan," the Actor said. "I saw him. He's wrecked that you're not home." The Actor looked at the battle of emotions on Anza's face. Tears lined her cheeks. "Don't leave him alone."

  She growled, something the Actor had never heard her do. Then she punched a tiny fist into the dashboard. "Ow," she said, shaking her hand.

  "Don't do this."

  Anza got into the captain's chair and strapped herself in. She said, "Fine. Left or right?"

  "It… what?"

  "Left or right?"

  The Actor blinked. "You mean politically?"

  "No! I don't be meaning that," she said and cinched the belt tighter. "Left or right?"

  Just fifty yards off the bow of the coast guard boat, Anza saw all but the man at the wheel, her opposite, had abandoned their cabin. She was close enough to see he had two hands white-knuckled on the wheel, his dark eyebrows stitched together.

  She pushed the boat faster.

  "Left or—"

  "Yes, left! Left!"

  With a flick of her wrist, Anza moved the wheel a half-turn left, and the boat careened and roared. The Actor tumbled, his head hitting the deck twice, until he smashed against the cabin's wall. Out the starboard side, he could see the massive eighty-caliber gun, unmanned and its nose dipped low.

  With all his strength, he hurled both bottles through the gap in the window.

  As they passed, they saw the captain glaring out the door.

  He caught one bottle in the chest. The other smashed, obliterated, on the side of the hull. Still, the man had gone down.

  "Yes!" the Actor shouted, but his joy was short-lived.

  Pfft, pfft, pfft, pfft, pfft! At the stern of the coast guard boat, another smaller mounted rifle was targeting them.

  Anza winced as blood burst from her arm. Hurt, she released the wheel and grabbed her shoulder. The boat keeled. With her good arm, she reached out and grabbed the controls again, but it was too late. The boat's hull made a horrific scraping sound. Anza cranked the wheel hard the other direction, and the boat spun sideways.

  The scraping stopped briefly, then there was a thud and more grinding outside.

  The Actor leaped toward the captain's chair and hung on as the boat horizontally pinwheeled down the Mexican coastline.

  When it finally stopped, they had run aground.

  They had rocketed past the cops but were far from safe.

  The motors sputtered out as the Actor slowly got to his feet. He stared out the front windows. Ahead, just a few hundred yards, was the Mexican coast guard boat. It was reversing.

  "Shit," Anza said through tears.

  The Actor grabbed the towel hanging next to the refrigerator and went to tear it in half but couldn't, so he wrapped the entire thing around Anza's bleeding arm. "Are you okay?"

  She stared at the boat as it inched toward them. Again, there was a man on the mounted gun. To his left and right were another six men, all pointing rifles at them.

  "We have failed Uncle Jerry," she said, her voice rasping.

  The Actor was about to speak but then stopped. He saw the tiny drone flying just off their bow. It seemed to be peering inside.

  He shouted, "You won! Get the fuck away from us!"

  At that, the drone turned and retreated toward the coast guard boat.

  Then it did a remarkable thing. Sparks flew from the front of it as it wobbled and churned in the air.

  "Ha! They hit their own dron—"

  And then the strangest colors filled their vision. Anza's head was low, her eyes closed as she moaned from the pain. Heartbreak had taken her resolve.

  "Oh, look," the Actor said. "A rainbow."

  "What?"

  Anza looked up and saw a beautiful, bizarre array of green, red, purple, and blue light fill the air between the two boats. The coast guard boat's engine dropped low for a moment as everyone saw, indeed, the rainbow of sparks erupt from the drone.

  "Look!" Anza shouted.

  In the water, incredibly, something that looked like a baby whale lifted to the surface. The people on both boats could only watch as its body broke the surface of the water. Then, impossibly, the dorsal fin flew back on what looked like a large metal hinge. A man's head popped through, looked at the coast guard boat, then back at the Actor and Anza.

  He smiled and said, "Run!" Then he looked down into the boat and pumped a fist in the air. "Ramming speed!"

  The twin closed the hatch and sealed the sub. A burst of bubbles frothed from the propellers, and it made a beeline for the coast guard boat.

  The latter's engines came alive. Water shot from the back of it. At least one of the gunmen on the back of the boat tumbled over a low bar and landed with a splash.

  * * *

  On the other side of the wire fence of the compound, I yanked hard on my shirt, tearing it, and freed it from the metal teeth.

  It was soaked, but then so was I.

  I slipped it back on, mistakenly jamming my head through a tear at first, righted it, and pulled the fabric down over my wet body.

  I'd failed Uncle Jerry, and I had failed my friends. They would be waiting out on the vast blue desert of the ocean, scanning the skies for the hum of a plane that would never come. Everything on my body hurt—sore muscles from the swim, the cuts on my knees and hands, and the slices across my back where I'd done battle with the jagged fence. But nothing hurt as much as my heart. I had failed all of them.

  Starting to make the long, lonely walk back to Anza's apartment, I could only wonder what might have happened to the drag queen. I'd seen his purple boa floating across the runway, so it must have slipped off on our trek up the road.

  Up ahead about a hundred yards, next to the dilapidated metal shed
, was Bucephalus, Sally's motorcycle.

  "What?"

  A cold shiver went through me. Did the gunslinger catch up with Angel? No, that doesn't make sense.

  If Sally had caught him, there would be a leather catsuited body riddled with holes next to the bike, and of course, no bike. She would have ridden it out of there.

  But there it was, black and chrome, gleaming in the sun. When I got within a few feet of it, the motorcycle fired up and revved the engine.

  I smiled. "I missed you too." When I looked between the handlebars, I could see that the phone I'd used to map my way was gone.

  It didn't matter—getting to the apartment would be an easy few turns. Cozumel wasn't very big. I would have little trouble finding my way back.

  However, as I didn't see Angel anywhere, one question burned in my mind. "Where did you go?"

  * * *

  Uncle Jerry let out a sigh, punched a couple of buttons on the controls, and leaned back in the pilot's seat. Sure, he was still a captive, but at least he was out of that room. At least he wasn't chained to a bed.

  "Like some third world lady of the evening," he said and chuckled. It would be about four hours before he had to land, so for the moment, he decided to relish the small gift of pseudofreedom, stretch his legs, maybe walk around the cabin a bit.

  He'd often laid in one of the four swivel chairs in the body of the plane, reclining, pretending as though he were headed to the Florida Keys, a rock star on a well-deserved break. He never napped. Over the past months, he'd had more than enough time to sleep.

  From the cockpit, it was only open sky, blue as far as he could see except for the wispy, cloudy bits, but he liked those too. A far better view than he'd been given back in the room, where the only sunlight he really saw was a sliver of light on the floor for days at a time.

  It was quiet. Calm. Peaceful.

  For at least a few hours, he had no worries about the banging of a front door, with who-knew-what demands from whoever would be coming through it.

  He hopped from his seat. There was a small galley in the back of the plane. The past few days, he'd had very little to eat and almost no water. There might be food on the plane, maybe some crackers.