Bitter Tide

by Jack Hardin

  “So picking yourself up and dusting yourself off doesn’t count for anything? Writing a book about your convictions doesn’t matter?”

  “Not to me it doesn’t,” he said smugly. “Harlan had people. He had followers. When he died I was the natural choice to step up.”

  “And Dawson was a part of your new little black market enterprise?”

  “Until he wasn’t. That fool was a rat. I couldn’t trust him anymore. Simple as that, Julie Jangle. Say, how ‘bout a glass of water?”

  “Why did you send that package to Ronnie’s mother?”

  “No water, huh?”

  “Why did you send that package to Ronnie’s mother?”

  “Why do you think? Ronnie was a snitch same as Dawson. Ronnie just needed to know we had his number. Plus, I thought it was sort of creative. Biblical, you might say.” He grinned. A large, sinister, mischievous kind of grin. Like the Cheshire Cat.

  “Where’s Dawson?”

  “Wouldn’t know. I’m not his mother, not his brother.”

  “Where is Dawson?”

  “I said I don’t know. If you dragged me all the way out here just to ask me that, you’ve wasted a lot of time. You know, we could be sharing that bottle of Jim Beam and cuddling on that there couch.” He winked at her.

  “Okay, you don’t want to tell me where he is. Why don’t you tell me why you tortured him.”

  “Torture...that’s...kind of a strong word. But, for the sake of this little conversation here, we’ll go with it. Dawson, he about crinkled my can, man. He about tore my little enterprise into kibbles and bits, and he would have if I wouldn’t have gotten to him first. But I did get to him first, you see?”

  “How did you do it?”

  “Do what?”

  “How did you do the...operation. Tell me about it.”

  He looked surprised by the request. But then he smiled, and his eyes filled with a kind of nostalgic pleasure. “Well, we snagged him and tied him up,” he chuckled. “Kind of like I am now, I do suppose. I asked him some questions, and as he was answering I stuffed a cancer stick between his lips and then lit it for him myself like the worthy host that I tend to be. Ol’ Dawson, he likes Kools—the menthol cigarette—and I get it. I really do get it. That menthol gives you an extra buzz laid over that nicotine the way icing is spread over a birthday cake. That got a little more info out of him. Then I offered him a glass of whiskey. Of course he couldn’t grab it, but Curtis held it for him, and Dawson, he proceeded to apologetically tell me everything I needed to know, which I happened to know already, and then,” he laughed, “well, then I got a little chop-happy, I suppose.”

  Ellie stood up. “See, that wasn’t so hard. You want a smoke?”

  “A smoke? Well, dear lady, I would love a smoke. Are you offering one?” His eyes found grace when they fell on the red box of Pall Malls that Ellie slid out from behind her. “Well, by my dear Lord, you are an angel sent from the mighty heights above, Julie Jangle.” His eyes held onto the box with the feasting desire of a starving man. He looked her in the eyes and nodded politely, like they were old friends and she was toasting to their reunion.

  Ellie removed a cigarette and took his lighter off the table where she had laid it earlier. She slid off the table and inserted the cigarette between his full lips. She held the lighter up and flicked the spark wheel. Oswald worked at it furiously, got the cigarette lit, and puffed hard and quickly. He closed his eyes as the nicotine hit his blood like an overdue freight train. His eyes popped open along with his hands. His body stiffened. “Now, that. That is juuuust fine. Just fine.” The cigarette rode his lips as he spoke. “You...you’re all right, Julie Jangle.”

  “So, you were saying,” Ellie said. “About Dawson?”

  “I was, wasn’t I? Talking about Dawson.”

  “The way Ronnie says it, Dawson had no intention of ratting you to the feds. He said Dawson only wanted out.”

  “He’s right. Certainly right. But see you don’t just walk away from Eli Oswald. That’s the funny thing. I mean, it’s real funny, man, when you think about it. He just needed to learn a lesson. Needed to learn that you don’t run from Eli Oswald. Besides, like I said, he would have squealed at some point, given enough time. Ronnie too.”

  Ellie walked back to the counter, opened the bottle of whiskey, and poured a fair amount into a red Solo cup. She walked back to him. “Whiskey? It’s yours, after all.”

  “Well, by my dear Lord...yes. Yes indeedy. You and me, we’re getting along just fine, aren’t we? I can just feel it, sugar pie honey bunch.”

  Ellie removed the cigarette from his lips and held the cup to them. She tilted it, and he drank. She pulled it back. “That’s enough.”

  He jutted his bottom lip out, feigning a toddler’s pout. And that was when the lights turned on for Eli Oswald. That was the moment he made the connection. He had given Dawson a smoke. He had given Dawson a drink. He smiled nervously at her and chuckled the same.

  Ellie set the cup down and walked over to the kitchen counter. She opened a drawer and removed something. He heard a click and a soft metallic grinding, like a bolt being turned. When she turned around she was holding a pair of vise-grips. She stepped up to him, squatted down, and grabbed his hand.

  “Hey. Heyyyy, what are you doin’? Don’t, don’t do th—” The pliers snapped down and bit into the soft part of his hand just above his bottom thumb joint. “Ow! Damn, lady. What are you doing?” But he knew what she was doing.

  He looked back down at the vise-grips, and a dreadful panic entered his chest. He swiveled his gaze toward her. “You wouldn't do that.” But he said it with a false confidence. “You can’t touch me, no sireee. You’ll end up in the slammer same as me.” His hand started throbbing from the pressure. He looked down. It was turning a hue of purple that was most unnatural. His wrist was secured to the side of the chair. He flopped his hand around, trying to rid himself of the powerful pliers. He couldn’t shake them. It just made it hurt worse.

  Ellie sat back on the tabletop, still calm, ankles swinging again. “Is Dawson alive?”

  “Far as I know.”

  “And where is he?”

  “See, you’re not getting it, lady. That is not something I’m going to tell you. Acting like you’re going to take my thumb, it’s a cute game, but you and me know that isn’t going to happen.”

  Oswald looked away and started whistling.

  Ellie nodded to herself. She got off the table again, turned around, and picked something up. When she turned back, she was holding a Bowie knife.

  When Oswald saw, the whistling ceased.

  “Look nowwww, Julie Jangle, quit playing games, now.”

  Ellie grabbed the vice-grips in one hand and set the edge of the blade to the meaty area where his thumb joined his hand. “I’m sure you know that the thumb bone goes all the way toward the wrist,” she said. “So I’m going to cut at your lower knuckle, just above your metacarpal. That should do it. What do you think?” She winked at him.

  Oswald jerked, nicking himself in the process. Frantic, he yelled, “No, man. Ho, now! Who put a bustle in your little hedgerow? What are you doing? What are you do—”

  Blood squirted as the blade pierced the skin and muscle. Oswald’s scream reverberated around the thin walls of the cabin as his tendons were severed and the knife sliced into flesh.

  There was no one around to hear.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  He was going to have to sweet talk himself over the Matlacha Pass Bridge. According to the text message he had just received, they stopped letting anyone onto the island over four hours ago. He wasn’t going out on the water. Not in this mess. Last he saw it, the Caloosahatchee River was starting to look like an angry pot of stew, and wind gusts were already coming in at sixty miles an hour in some areas. He’d been in worse before, out at deep sea. But that was over thirty years ago, and Pine Island Sound would be angrier than the river.

  Ringo watched Andrés’s Malibu disappear d
own to the next level of the parking garage. He got into his Jeep Wrangler, started up the engine, and descended.

  He didn’t feel right. Something was off. He didn’t like the shrimp he had earlier, but it wasn’t that. The feeling wasn’t physical; it was further in, deeper. Something in his soul, an unspoken tremor. Maybe it was the chaos of the last few weeks.

  Maybe it was Eli Oswald. He was out there somewhere, and he was a very long loose end. Eli was smart, and it was why Ringo had gone into business with him in the first place, a decision he now deeply regretted. Eli could run, but even the smartest ones eventually get caught. 'Whitey' Bulger was finally apprehended. So was Eichmann. Ringo didn’t think that Eli Oswald could evade capture for a couple decades like those men had. They were in a different class altogether. The bomb at his compound was a good idea. The feds were under the impression that Oswald had killed his own people, and that was very good. But it also meant that they would go after him harder. This storm would dampen the investigation, but only temporarily. He was out there, and he would be caught. And then, as men like him always did, he would talk. When it came to his knowledge of Ringo, Eli Oswald had none. He knew the name, he knew who Andrés and Chewy represented, but he had no identity, no face, to give the FBI or the DEA. Still, Ringo didn’t like it. He didn’t like it because he didn’t like loose strings. Loose strings had to be cut.

  Still however, the feeling, that feeling that he couldn’t quite pin down, gnawed at him like a termite in a treehouse.

  The rain was coming down in sheets now, another storm band overhead. He sat up straight, turned the windshield wipers on full speed and squinted onto the road ahead.

  He had to work up a plan to get over that bridge.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Torture was always utilitarian. Only a psycho like the man in front of her did it for its own sake; simply for the sake of doing it. Torture was intended to reveal information, information that would save lives or ensure future security. In this case it was the former.

  When Eli Oswald came to, his head was pounding again, but someone had a blowtorch pointed on his hand. He tried jerking it back as he opened his eyes, and then he screamed from the fiery pain that shot through it. He looked down. There was no fire. No blowtorch. His hand was wrapped in gauze, the sterile white covered with a bright red flower where blood had seeped through. He heard a muted thud at his feet, and he swiveled his head to see something lying on the dirty floorboards in front of him. He squinted forward then looked back at his hand. Then he understood. A hot bolt of nervous dread shot through him. That was his thumb lying there at his feet. He looked up, and that lady that he used to think was hot was right where she was before, sitting on the edge of the table looking at him with her head tilted, a smirk on her lips.

  “Welcome back.”

  Oswald snarled and, once again, jerked against his ropes and, once again, was reminded by a flash of fire up inside his wrist that he no longer had a thumb on his right hand. “Well, you little whore! I’m going to─”

  “Again, I’m not so big on clichés. You’re not going to do anything to me, and if you say anything else before I ask my next question, you, good sir, will never be able to grip a handgun again.” Her unwavering eyes bored into his.

  Oswald’s breathing was rapid; tiny beads of sweat had popped on his forehead. He looked back down at his hand with wide, unbelieving eyes.

  “Now. I’m going to ask you the same question I did earlier. It’s a free country, so it’s your choice if you want to try and stonewall me again. I do believe in free will.”

  He glared up at her.

  “I need to know where Dawson Montgomery is.”

  What happened next Ellie had seen a dozen times. The moment when the interrogated makes the turn. The turn: when they finally concede defeat and start giving you the information you want. Oswald’s shoulders slumped, his face went slack, the fight temporarily gone out of him, but the vitriol in his voice remained. “The Haitians offered to take him.”

  A weight dropped into Ellie’s gut. “What does that mean exactly?”

  “It means that some friends of mine across the water heard what I did and wanted to use him as an example to their people of what happens when you mess with the Americans. They agreed to come get him. Simple as—guuhhh this hurts!”

  Ellie’s nostrils flared. “You haven’t told me where he is.”

  He shrugged weakly. “I don’t know if he’s still there. They probably picked him up by now. Were supposed to grab him yesterday. We left him the night before the feds raided my compound. With this weather maybe they didn’t get him yet.”

  “And where exactly did you leave him?”

  He shoulders rose up again. “Now that, I cannot tell you. The Haitians aren’t exactly the kind of people you forgo an agreement with. They want their people to be scared of us, I’m a little scared of them...works both ways, I suppose. My old elementary teacher used to talk about dotting your ‘i’s’ and crossing your ‘t’s’. You leave an ‘i’ undotted with these crazies and you lose your head.”

  “Head, huh? How about another thumb?”

  He said nothing. Ellie sighed. “Oswald. I’ll be honest with you. Looking at you doesn’t give me the immediate impression that you have a lot of smarts about you. But somehow you managed to systematically dismantle what Harlan Tucker had created and rally a group of men dedicated to a new cause. So I’ll give you credit. But for such a planner, you are being very nearsighted. I’ve already taken your thumb. I will take your other one.” She looked down his wrapped hand. “And then I will keep going. What I have in mind might be worse than the Haitians. Are we...communicating, Oswald?”

  His face was now pallid, clammy. “Who are you?”

  She stood up. “Last chance.”

  He dropped his head. “Fine. We left him on Sanibel.”

  “Where on Sanibel?”

  “Well, more like off Sanibel. He’s in a raft in the wildlife refuge.”

  “You think he’s still there?”

  “Dunno. The Haitians aren’t the most punctual of people. And with this storm...who knows. I’d bet he’s gone though. If he ain’t he’s probably slipped on to the other side by now.”

  Ellie pulled out her phone and tapped the Maps app. Her reception only showed one bar. She typed Sanibel Island into the address bar, and the app loaded slowly. When the map came up, she zoomed into the general area Oswald had mentioned. She stood up, walked over to him, and set the phone in front of his face. His hands were tied, and she planned on keeping them that way. Holding an index finger near the glass, she said, “Show me where.”

  “Left of where you are now. Now north. Just a little more to the west. Yeah, right there.”

  Ellie zoomed in on it and took a screenshot. She looked at her prisoner. “You understand that you’re mine until this is all over. So if you’re lying to me, there will be a problem.”

  “I’m telling you straight.”

  “We’ll see about that.”

  Wincing, Oswald said, “Can I get some pain killers or somethin’? It’s killing me.”

  “Did you give Dawson painkillers?”

  “Yeah. We gave him painkillers.”

  “Sure you did.”

  Ellie produced a pair of handcuffs and started cutting at the twine holding his hands into place. “Let’s go,” she said.

  * * *

  Ellie sped down the dirt road that led away from Jean Oglesby’s cabin. The wind was blowing hard, sending the tops of the trees dancing and whipping dirt off the road and scattering it into the unknown. A glance at the clouds told her that rain was imminent. Oswald was resting not too comfortably in the bed of her truck, hidden beneath the locked hard cover. Her Bowie knife she had wiped clean and locked safely in her glove box. Oswald's whiskey, his Funyuns, and Curtis’s wallet she had tucked away into her center console.

  Hurricane Josephine had plowed through the Keys seven hours ago and remained on course to make a direct hit in Le
e County. The Sound would be indignant and wild, and only an insane person would go out on waters like that.

  Today, Ellie happened to be insane.

  If Dawson was out there, nothing could keep her from bringing him back.

  She could call the Coast Guard. Not only did they have the right equipment, but their personnel were trained for exactly these kinds of conditions.

  But she couldn’t do that. Because then she would have to explain how she found the wanted man who was in the bed of her truck and how he had come to lose his thumb. She would have to explain all that, she knew, but at this very moment she had no idea how.

  She turned onto U.S. Route 27 and went south. If she booked it, it would take an hour to get to the marina. She grabbed her phone and pulled up Tyler’s name. He would be up at Reticle by now, having opted to wait the storm out there, the facilities capable of withstanding Category 5 winds. She tapped his name and put the phone to her ear.

  * * *

  She had gotten lucky.

  The bridge had a checkpoint set up and a police officer stationed at it. As Ellie had passed through east Matlacha and approached the bridge, the officer’s plastic-covered Midway cap had been lifted from his head and blew across the street. There was just enough space for her to navigate around the orange and white striped traffic barriers, and before he noticed what she had done she was halfway over the bridge.

  Now, as she approached Saint James City, Ellie pulled off on the grassy shoulder, got out, and unlocked the bed cover. The small hydraulic cylinders hissed as the cover rose, and Oswald moaned. He squinted against the storm-dimmed light and cursed. “Where’d you learn how to drive? I’ve been like a raggedy doll back here.”

  Ellie pulled back on the tailgate. “Come on. Get out.” His hands were cuffed in front of him. With most of his thumb gone on one hand, Ellie had to make that particular cuff a little tighter than normal. Oswald awkwardly shimmied out of the truck, sliding his heels out in front and then moving his backside forward. He repeated this several times until his legs were dangling off the tailgate. Ellie pulled him off and led him around to the front passenger seat. “Please don’t be stupid and try something.” He simply nodded. Ellie shut his door and went back to the rear to close up the tailgate and the cover. Oswald was now in her cab because, in the highly unlikely event that someone was still sticking around at the southern tip of the island, she didn’t want them to see her extracting someone from the bed of her truck. She brought the Silverado back onto Stringfellow Road, and three minutes later they were pulling into the crushed-shell parking area at the south end of Henley Canal. Ellie turned off the truck, slid the keys from the ignition, and reached behind Oswald’s seat. She brought out a green windbreaker and carefully tucked it over his hands. He winced but said nothing. “Make sure this stays over your cuffs.”