Bitter Tide

by Jack Hardin

  “A beautiful location,” César said.

  “Come, let’s have a drink.”

  They walked back into the bungalow. César acknowledged Andrés and Chewy with a nod. They entered a spacious room whose blue curtains were pulled back to an exterior wall and opened the view over the northern waters of the Atlantic. A calm breeze ran through the room, stirring the curtains. Ringo motioned for his guest to sit in a cushioned bamboo chair. When he did Ringo took the seat across from him. One of César’s guards remained in the doorway, the other a few feet behind his boss. Chewy approached César with a glass of golden rum. “Two cubes, just as you like it.”

  César’s teeth were perfect, large and white. They shone brightly, maybe too bright, as he smiled his thanks. “You remember well. Thank you, Chewy.” He turned his attention to Ringo. “Well,” he said, and gestured with his glass, “we have much to discuss, old friend. Many changes are happening, and I want to make sure you are a part of all that we are doing.”

  Ringo said nothing. He had come to listen, nothing more. César had wanted a meeting, so he had given him one.

  But he was about to give him something else, too.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Jean Oglesby flicked her paintbrush across the canvas and finished the flounder's tail to her satisfaction. She paused, scanned the canvas, then lightly jabbed the bristles at the image a few more times before smiling. It was perfect. She tossed the brush in a jar filled with murky water, and it clinked against the edge of the glass before sinking down into the water.

  Now that all the planning and execution of Mango Mania was behind her, she was afforded more time doing what she really loved: letting her imagination dance on a canvas. Over the last few years, as her renown had grown, more time had to be dedicated to running the business, working at it more than on it. The image before her was the first original she had painted in over a month.

  The doorbell rang across the house: the sound of seagulls followed by a foghorn. “Just a minute!” she called out. She stepped from her easel and worked her way down the hallway. She pulled the heavy door open, and her smile faded into a frown. No one was there. She took a step off the threshold and looked out, down the long steps, left and right. “Hello?” Nothing. She shrugged to herself and started to turn back into the house when her foot bumped something sitting on the mat. She looked down. A small package sat at her feet. She reached down, picked it up, and looked it over. It was wrapped with a blue and silver metallic paper. The wrapping was crumpled and looked as though a toddler had put it on unsupervised. Delightful, she thought. A small red bow was perched on top, and a tag hung off a nylon string. It read, in clean handwritten print: “To Ronnie’s mother, Jean.” She went back inside and shut the door behind her, walked back into the kitchen. She set the gift on the countertop, and the wrapping crinkled as she tore it back. The white cardboard box wasn’t more than five inches square. She smiled. Her friends knew how distraught she was over her boy. Someone had thought of her and wanted her to know they cared. Oh, how she just loved this little community of hers.

  Jean pulled back the top flaps and peered inside.

  She gasped. Then she screamed. Her vision blurred and then spun, stirred by an unseen spoon. She grabbed the counter.

  Peering up at her, like something behind the glass at a butcher’s counter, was a severed thumb.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Ringo held back a yawn while he listened to his Mexican associate wax long on the virtues of extended distribution and product diversification. “When El Toto came to power,” César was saying, “he was strictly involved in marijuana and cocaine. His business acumen in dealing with the latter has now put him above the success of Escobar and El Chapo. He is the most feared and successful leader in my country, more than even President Nieto himself.”

  “He has done especially well this last decade,” Ringo agreed.

  “And now he is running guns, heroin, methamphetamines. He is like your Walmart, our Superama, the most choices at the best prices.” He chuckled to himself. “Now, that is El Toto. But let’s talk about you. Ringo, you know that we have much product running into and through Miami. It has the largest ports with the most international cargo. But it does have its problems. With the appointment of your new Attorney General, your government has become more aggressive, resulting in more seizures. Very large seizures that are even making headlines in your newspapers and bringing swift promotions to your Coast Guard and DEA officers.”

  “I am aware.”

  “You have been slow and steady over these many years we have worked together. Like a turtle, I think is your expression. Our shipments get through a large percentage of the time, and you have continued to accept larger and larger hauls.” César’s ice clinked against the edge of his glass as he took another sip. “So, I must insist that you take on more than you are now. Our production is higher than ever, and we need to get it out of our hands. The two thousand mile border at our two countries, between Arizona and Texas, has forty-seven official border crossings. We control two thirds of those and will have three or four more by the end of the year. The preferred areas for tunnels and river crossings are overworked. That brings us to Florida. Most especially Southwest Florida, as a most effective entry point.” He smiled confidently and took another sip. Then he took a brief glance into the glass and frowned at his hand. He blinked, seeming to shake off something that had started to bother him. He looked at Ringo. “What do you say?”

  Ringo looked out toward the horizon, was slow to answer. “I can take another five hundred kilos each month. I understand that’s nothing in your estimation, but I have increased my buy year after year by over fifty percent. Depending on how we decided to help you bring it on, that’s one to two more drops each month.”

  César’s expression revealed genuine disappointment. “I was hoping you would take on much more than that. I need you, Ringo. El Toto has warehouses of product just waiting to be consumed by wealthy Americans.”

  Ringo kept listening, allowing him to speak, allowing him to believe that he was still in charge.

  “You would continue to select the drop-off points. I do not want you getting caught, my friend. You are important to me.”

  “Why?”

  César tilted his head. “I’m sorry?”

  “Why am I important to you?”

  César glanced curiously over at Chewy, who was standing against a wall, and then back at Ringo. “You are dependable. Very hard to find in this business.”

  Ringo sighed. “You have asked me to get into heroin. What was my answer?”

  “You said no. At the time.”

  “You have asked me to get into guns. What was my answer?”

  “Again, you said no, but I thought─”

  Ringo held up a hand and sat up in his seat. He leaned in, took off his sunglasses, and looked at César directly in the eyes. “You and your fancy clothes and your women and your pride. You are dissolute, César. We all have our personal vices, but I have a real problem when those affect business. César,” he said emphatically, “your vices have affected my business.”

  César waved him off. Just as he had for the last couple of years. He smiled, but it vanished on Ringo’s next words. It would be the last smile of his life.

  “What I have discovered these last couple of months, since our last visit in Cuba, was that El Toto’s feelings are akin to mine on this matter. When it comes to you, that is. He has told me that you dishonor many other of your partners as well and are beginning to make more trouble for the cartel than you’re worth.”

  César frowned. He looked down at his hands again, appearing confused, his voice now sounding as if it had imbibed a chill. “What is it you are saying?” he asked. “You expect me to believe—what was in that rum you gave me?” He blinked hard, and his breathing hastened. He tried to focus. “You expect me to believe that...you have spoken with El Toto?”

  If this was a game of gin rummy, Ringo had the Jo
ker. If it was Texas hold ‘em, he had cowboys—pocket kings—and César had no aces. Ringo knew this because he had been the one to deal this particular deck, and he had taken the aces out. This was where he laid his cards down.

  “This little thing you and I have. I’m putting the kibosh on this,” he waved his hand, “whole thing.” Ringo nodded to Andrés who stepped up and laid a cell phone into his boss's hand. Ringo pressed a few buttons, and the phone rang on speaker.

  “Bueno, Ringo.”

  César’s eyes grew into saucers, black pools of intense confusion. “What is this?” he growled. Now he was looking down at his legs, bewildered. “El Toto?”

  “Ah, César. You are meeting with our American friend, yes?”

  “Sí. What is the meaning of this?”

  “Ah, I will allow Ringo to tell you. I must go. My helicopter is waiting.”

  César’s stomach clenched. His boss had never been so short with him, so trite. And what was he doing speaking with Ringo behind his back?

  Ringo gave the phone back to Andrés and stared blankly at César, who could detect neither pleasure nor anger in Ringo’s eyes. Boredom, perhaps, but not anger.

  “What is this?” he asked again. Ringo didn't have to answer. He already knew what this was. He’d seen El Toto do this before. Many times. In fact, César had done it many times himself. He was being cut off, cut out. He tried to bring his hand up and scratch nervously at his throat, but he found that his hand came up only several inches off the arm rest before flopping back down. He tried again. Same result. He tried his other arm. That one would not even move.

  “You asked what was in the rum. Excellent question. It is, as I understand it, called cardanerol.” Ringo laughed. “And the funny thing is that I can’t remember if it’s derived from a fish or a frog. Either way, it has begun to enter your skeletal muscles, so at this point you won’t be going anywhere.”

  César’s larynx bobbed as he swallowed hard. That muscle still worked. For now.

  “Tell me, César...I know that we would both say that El Toto, that he’s the king. But would you consider yourself a king or a prince?”

  “When you...put it like that, I would say that I am...a prince.”

  “Yes, I was hoping you would say such. Now, I agree with you. I believe that you are a prince. Perhaps I am one myself.” He smiled. “You remember how, last time we met on your boat in Cuba, I said I didn’t want to replace the king?”

  “Of course.”

  “I spoke the truth,” Ringo said. “But there was one thing I did not tell you.”

  “And…” It was getting harder to breathe now. “...what would that be?”

  “It has been, for some time now, every intention of mine to replace princes.”

  César pushed past the dread in his chest and said, “You can do no such thing.”

  Ringo ignored him. “Your mother graced you with a name that means ‘king.’ But,” he rendered a Davidic Psalm, “you will die like one of the princes.”

  “I…”

  But Ringo interrupted him.

  “For someone whose name means ‘king,’ you are a poor leader. Ambition is good, but your ambition tramples the honor of those you work with. You are irritating, and the way you flaunt your wealth as though it defines you makes you a pitiful man. El Toto is worth tens of billions. But the difference between you and him is that he is the same with or without his money. It’s how he came to be who he is. Do you know what defines me, César? It’s not what I do or even my success. It’s love. Yes, love. But you—you amass boats and suits and shoes and houses as if without them you are nothing. Because, you know what? Without them you truly are nothing. El Toto is weary of your folly. And so am I.”

  A shadow moved behind César.

  “You know that I try to be creative when I remove someone from this dimension. While you’re not worth exercising much creativity over, I did think to double up. The poison, you see, is just to paralyze you. Nothing more. By now you are feeling an incredible amount of fear. And so you should.”

  And then Ringo smiled. A smile that sent an icy chill down the length of César’s arms and would have turned them into gooseflesh had the poison not interfered with his nervous system. A garrote wire whisked around his neck. It tightened, and as César jerked against it his eyes registered a combination of horror and disbelief. El Toto had commissioned him to be taken out. But why? He had been good to El Toto all these years.

  As if divining his mind Ringo said, “No doubt you are wondering why it has come to this. And that is the problem. You don’t even know. What a shame.”

  César’s face turned a deep reddish purple as he tried in vain to struggle against the wire. Blood oozed from under the wire and tracked down his neck. He sank into the chair back and attempted to use his feet to leverage up, but the back of his head was forced against the rear edge of the chair.

  “Look, César. It is your own man doing this. Not mine.”

  Chewy moved in front of César and held out a small mirror. César’s wide eyes registered the view of his own bodyguard standing behind him, strangling him. He tried to twist his head and, in a final effort of physical exertion, turned to face Ringo. Fifteen seconds later his body sagged in the chair, his pristine white shirt collar stained a bright crimson, the wire still buried in the soft folds of his neck.

  Ringo stood and stepped up to César’s limp body. His dead eyes were staring up into the corner of the ceiling: wide, black, and fearful, as though some haunting, unseen by anyone else, had visited him as he was making his exit from this world. His jaw was slack, and tiny beads of sweat still glistened on his forehead. Ringo reached down and patted the dead man’s cheek. “What a shame. You had such beautiful teeth.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  It took Ellie ten minutes to arrive at Jean’s house, half the usual twenty minute drive from her house in Saint James City. Three police cruisers were in the driveway, huddled together beneath high, massive oaks. Jean had called her in a complete panic, and it took a full minute for Ellie to calm her down and get her coherent enough to understand her. As it turned out, Jean had apparently been gifted a thumb currently separated from its owner, and it was sitting on her kitchen counter. Jean said Ronnie wasn’t answering his cell and she didn’t have Warren’s home phone in her contacts. Ellie told her to call the Sheriff and then jumped into her El Camino and sped out, calling Ronnie on Major’s land line on the way. He answered, said he was enjoying a ‘drinky-drink’ and reruns of M*A*S*H. She didn’t tell him about his mother’s present. She hung up with him, called Jean, and told her that her son was all right.

  Ellie darted up the stairs and went through the front door without knocking. Sheriff Donald Gaines met her halfway down the front hall. He was in his early fifties, balding beneath his Stetson hat, standing slightly shorter than Ellie. “Hey, Ellie. Jean said she called you.”

  “Did someone really send her a thumb?” she asked quietly. There was a joke there somewhere. Perhaps one that had to do with a hitchhiker.

  Don’s eyebrows went up on an exasperated face. “Yeah.” He walked her into the kitchen. “And that’s not all. Take a look at this.” He took a gloved hand and pulled back the flaps. “I’ve called in Crime Scene. I didn’t want to disturb anything, but after throwing up in the kitchen sink—in a manly kind of way—I spent enough time looking in there to make out two thumbs and what looks like a couple big toes.

  Ellie looked at the box. “No...” she said, peering in. The inside of the box was lined with cellophane which was poking out of the top. She squinted and saw a nail with dried, congealed blood covering most of it. The thumb had been severed all the way down where it should have been connected to the hand. Another thumb was topsy-turvy, lying just below it. Don twisted the box and Ellie saw the toes. Two very large toes, the limp, sallow skin sagging down around the severed edges.

  Her stomach soured but didn’t bring nausea. “Dear Lord.” It was like a game of This Little Piggy gone b
ad.

  “Jean told me you’ve been working on helping Ronnie out of a jam? I hope these aren’t his. She said you were reaching out to him?”

  “I called him on my way up here. He’s good. Other than high BAC levels I’m sure he’s fine. And not driving,” she added. “He’s at Major’s house.”

  “Any ideas who did this?”

  Ellie had a fair guess, but she had decided on the drive up here to play the only legitimate angle she could. “Possibly. Don, Ronnie’s trying to keep on the straight and narrow, and some people he knows aren’t super thrilled about him doing that.” Don knew Ellie was working with the DEA, so she said, “He’s a source in an investigation we’re running right now, and we’re trying to keep it low key.”

  Don looked at the box. “I don’t think it’s low key anymore.”

  “Yeah,” she sighed.

  “Ellie, you know I have to bring my investigator in on this too. I can’t have severed phalanges being gifted to my residents and have no answers for my constituents. This is going to freak people out. Hell, it’s freaking me out.”

  “I know, Don. I’ll have my boss connect with you so you both can figure out how to handle this across departments.”

  “That’s fine. We’re going to dust for prints—” He caught the pun and clarified. “The box, of course. We’ll dust the box for prints and see if anything shows up.”