“And why would they do that? Crazy surfer with his silly roughing-it fantasy camp?”
“They were looking for me. Billy is my friend.”
“The policia. Scary bunch of creeps.”
“You should go back up the hill and ask them.”
“I could, but I think I’ll wait. Shoot the inside of the tent and more of the area. This what, rustic kitchen? His little boat. The coastline. And wait for them to arrive.”
“They’re coming?” Kazu asked, eyes wide and alert.
“Yes. I have this worthless liaison or escort or snoop as I prefer. Surely tomorrow? Won’t be today. I said I was heading for the east side of the island. Soon as Teniente Eduardo Garcia notices my non-return if he does. He’s very orderly, but the bulb is dim.”
Seeing Kazu’s alarm, Staines raised his hand and said, “I won’t rat you out. Relax and find a place to hide. Will use your being here to add spice to the Billy book, but not until I get out of this overcooked, backward country.”
Staines got up and unlatched one of the aluminum cases revealing three additional cameras and assorted lenses in their gray foam padding.
“Can you pull together a breakfast?” he asked over his shoulder. “Refused to eat with those greasy policemen.”
Keeping an eye on the man’s hands among the cameras and all, Kazu didn’t stand up until Staines walked out into the sunlight and turned. He sliced a cantaloupe in half and set out a tin of Spam. He could hear Staines inside the tent talking to himself and presumably taking photographs.
His thoughts raced and conflicted until he saw that there were two options. Hide out and trust Staines not to turn him in or leave the island before the policia arrived. Standing at the end of the shade porch studying the vegetation, he heard the camera click at his back.
“Put that away,” Kazu called over his shoulder.
“Understood. Simple shot of the elusive Jappy’s back in Billy’s kitchen. There, I’ve turned it off.”
Staines sat down in a canvas chair. “Breakfast looks scrumptious. You’ve outdone yourself.”
Kazu ignored the comment, ignored Staines, his mind forming a list of supplies—first off, a tarp to cover himself from the sun and rain. Rope, food, water, and Billy’s rodent rifle, the .22 Winchester. Head up the back hill, cross the stream, find a spot in the rocks and stay low. “Five days of food and water,” he decided.
“Excuse me, didn’t catch that.” Staines chewed melon.
“Planning my chores for today,” Kazu lied.
“You’ll show me his boat? I’d also like to see the waves he surfs.”
“I’ll show you the path. You can find both, just stay along the water.”
“The ever-accommodating host. Having thoughts of following me and an accidental push?”
“No, I have to find a place to hide. I’m thinking the north side of the island,” Kazu lied, not trusting Carson Staines, giving him the misdirection in case Staines ratted him out.
“When I got here, I shot the smashed-up gondola up in the garden tree. Know the story there? And just so you know, I prefer original Spam to this hickory smoke flavor.”
Kazu was flooded with the events of the day he and Sippi had first arrived at Billy’s. On the run, braving the cliff-top gondola supplies car, its failing brakes, the crash into the tree, the explosion of aluminum and fiberglass, Sippi’s fall from high up, and her still body lying in the crops as he climbed down through the tree. He shook the following images from his mind.
“Next time I’m at the local store, I’ll buy original,” he said, sourly.
“Ah, sarcasm, always appreciate that. You have some complexity. Depth. Saw the comic book drawings on Billy’s desk. Yours, right? Doesn’t seem like a Billy thing. I like the minimalism of expressions you’re using. Suppose there’s a reason all those characters have a missing eye or teeth or foot or arm. Looks like they’re having themselves a very unhappy sail on rough seas.”
Not wanting to talk about his new image-novel, Kazu opened a plastic crate of Billy’s hand tools and took out a crescent wrench, the fourteen-inch pipe wrench, and both kinds of screwdrivers. The sink plumbing and fittings didn’t need any work, but pretending to repair them would make ignoring Staines easier.
He heard the man’s Spam can land in the trashcan and his footsteps at his back.
“Which way to the boat?”
“Out back, past the privy. You’ll see the path. When you’re out in the sun, walk the rocks south.” He knelt before the pipes and pump-fitting under the sink, listening closely to Staines’ footsteps from the rear of the porch.
Five minutes passed.
Inside the second room of Billy’s tent, he filled a duffle bag with everything on his list before taking his friend’s .22 rifle from the side of the desk.
Ten minutes later, he stashed the supplies in the vegetation and rocks at the base of the steep northern cliff.
Staines returned two hours later looking flushed and his bowling shirt soaked with sweat. He walked straight to the water barrel and drank two cups of water. Pouring a third, he sat down beside Kazu in the second canvas chair looking out into the clearing.
“One of the hottest days I’ve had since I got in last week.” He raised the cup to his lips.
“The afternoon rains will be here soon,” Kazu said.
“What happened in Billy’s backyard? Back in the brush? Disgusting smell. Hit me like a brick on the way back.”
“Something died.”
“Ya think?” Staines’ sarcasm had a tinge of humor. “Another of your hits? You do seem to leave a trail of dead.”
“Probably a calf. I haven’t looked.”
The daily rains came in quickly from the north. Staines opened the front and back canvas doors to cool the interior of the tent before taking to Billy’s bed for a nap. Kazu stood in the kitchen under the canopy watching the rain swamp the rocks and weeds of the clearing. Besides the boat, the only other way to the camp was down the cliff on the cattle trail that emptied just back of the rows of corn. He had eaten more lunch than he wanted, forcing himself full and beyond, knowing his planned five days of hiding would be lean.
With a box of gallon-size ziplocks in hand, he crept inside the tent and sealed up his art supplies and image-novels. Staines was silent in slumber on the bed at his back. He slid the plastic bags inside among his few other belongings in his backpack and left the tent.
When the rains ended an hour later, Staines was up and about exploring the food crates and talking to himself. Hearing the first of Staines’ voice, Kazu left the shade porch.
Fifteen minutes later, he was up in tree limbs back and above the camp, his eyes steady on the backside of the vegetable garden. As the heat of the afternoon rose, he took out his baseball cap and put it on. While the day wore on, he relentlessly watched the garden.
“Peek-a-boo, where are you?” Carson Staines called out twice during the next hour.
The seven cows appeared along their northern coast path a little before sunset. They passed along the edge of the camp to their uphill trail starting at the back of the rows of corn.
The sun set, and the western sky was briefly purple before turning black. Kazu could smell the smoke from the fire that Staines had lit in the camp. Staines called out for Kazu one last time before losing interest and turning to amusing himself with sarcastic conversation with himself.
Kazu found comfort in the dark. Anyone braving the descent to the camp at night would appear first as sweeping white cones from flashlights.
20
At four in the morning, three flashlight beams traversed in tight formation down the steep cattle trail toward the back of the vegetable garden. A male voice cried out as tumbling rocks cracked, waking Kazu. A brief argument broke out but was quickly silenced by a command barked in Spanish.
Kazu heard another voice call out from behind. The soldier had somehow found a way down the treacherously steep northern ravine. Their plan was clear to him—enter
the camp from both sides at once to cut off any escape. The number of flashlights also said that Staines’ liaison wasn’t coming for the journalist alone but traveling with a posse.
Not wanting to be trapped, Kazu took hold of the duffle bag holding his supplies and climbed down the tree.
Another light came on, an amber glow of a lantern at the rear flap of the tent. Staines had also been woken and was talking to himself as he peed on the rocks.
A tumble and crashing of stones and shouts came from the ravine at Kazu’s back. Other voices carried from the south side of the camp. The soldiers were closing in fast. Squatting low beside the tree, he heard Staines call out and another voice answer. With his view blocked, Kazu listened to the journalist greet the soldiers.
“Teniente, Eduardo, it’s early. And you brought friends.”
“You said you were going to the east side of the island, Mr. Staines. There are matters here in Mr. Hamil’s camp that you need to be… protected from.”
“Your young soldiers are heavily armed.”
“And more are coming. We will escort you from this dangerous place. We’ve had a report of a possible sighting here of a criminal. A deadly boy.”
“Haven’t seen anyone like that. Anyone at all, in fact. Except for the cows. There are these seven cows that…”
“Pack up your belongings and bring them out into the clearing. We will start our climb at sunrise.”
“Buscar en la tienda.” Search the tent. The voice commanded the other soldiers.
Staines started a futile argument.
Two soldiers at Kazu’s back approached to within fifteen feet of where he was hunched low.
“Ese olor es peor.” That smell is worse. One young voice spoke to the other.
“Por qué no utiliza la cal?” Why wasn’t the lime used?
Kazu held his breath as the two soldiers passed, their flashlights sweeping the vines and tall brush. They entered Billy’s camp at the back of the shade porch.
With at least five soldiers spotted, Kazu came up with a new plan. While the lead soldier talked with Staines in the clearing, he crawled as quietly as he could to the rear open flap of the tent. Sneaking through the supply room, he felt his way across the front room to the side of Billy’s bed to the night table.
“Jappy” was said twice from out in the clearing while he opened the drawer in the nightstand and took out the worn manila envelope that lay under two books. Counting off four bills of the cash inside, he twice folded them and put the envelope back where it came from, still containing a half inch of U.S. twenty-dollar bills. The eighty dollars he was borrowing was enough for at least four cans of gasoline.
“Thank you, Billy. I promise to pay you back,” Kazu whispered as he crept out the back of the tent and into the brush. He went along the privy trail and beyond, and a few minutes later, he started along the cliff-top rocks in the direction of Billy’s small moored boat.
He paused one time and looked back. Voices were carrying from the rear of the camp.
“Holy fuck all, it’s human,” Staines bellowed in fear and disgust.
With his duffle bag bumping his hip, Kazu climbed down the harsh, angled rocks listening to the swells washing the narrow, U-shaped cove. He wedged his backpack and body in a tight crevice as the running high tide bobbed and bumped Billy’s moored boat. Wanting some daylight before the dive and swim with the duffle bag, he kept his ears alert for any voice from the path up above.
During the following hour and a half to the first light of dawn, the only human sound he heard was Carson Staines repeating himself, shouting at the soldiers.
“Holy fuck all is about right,” Kazu muttered.
Getting off the island was a start at best. On the mainland, his face would be recognizable. That threat accepted, he focused on the immediate.
Climbing down the rocks, staying hunched, he reached the spray-washed rocks over the cove. Refusing the temptation to take one last look back, he tightened his grip on the duffle bag and jumped off into the warm Pacific water.
Struggling with the duffle, he swam out to the boat and climbed aboard at the transom. Pulling the four bumpers in, he stayed low at the helm dash until daylight allowed him to see clearly. The two anchors rose with strenuous pulls on their lines. Scanning the rocks above, Kazu stayed low against the dash while he pulled out the choke and twisted the key in the ignition.
The motor garbled to life, a loud sputtering and a plume of oil smoke before dying.
“Quiet,” he cursed the engine for all the good it did.
Twisting the key a second time and nudging the throttle lever, he managed the fuel mixture to keep the motor running. As soon as it was idling smoothly, but loudly, he put the prop in gear and reversed the open hull boat out from the cove and into the larger swells. Keeping his head low with his hand on the wheel, he studied the rocks atop the coastline while backing thirty yards out. With no sign of life or an armed soldier on the cliff, he sat on the bench seat, twirled the wheel all the way to port and upped the lever to full throttle.
Clearing the southern tip of the Isla de Marionettes, a few more missing puzzle pieces of a plan came to him. He saw himself hiding out at that large, yellow hotel.
“Maybe Billy’s there, not dead?” Kazu asked the morning sky. His friend could help him find a safe place to live.
“And if he’s not?” Kazu asked the sea out beyond the boat’s bow.
“I’ll get a nighttime job there or somewhere. I’ll stay out of sight until I find a safe place to live.”
The needle on the fuel gauge read two-thirds empty. Kazu backed off the throttle and continued southward four hundred yards offshore. It would be a long swim in open waters if he ran out of gasoline.
An hour later, he crossed the Bay of Banderas where the shore was crowded with high-rise hotels and resorts. Further south, tiny-looking trucks and cars ran north and south on Federal Highway 200. Past the peninsula of the bay, the coastline reverted to green jungle underlined by slim stretches of white beach. Kazu angled closer to shore running the swells along the village of Chamela two hundred yards out.
“Should have borrowed the binoculars,” he squinted for details along the mainland seeing a few village buildings and a brown river mouth emptying into the ocean. The wide river tempted him—it probably led to fishing or private docks. With fuel pumps. He lowered the brim of his black and gold lettered Pirates baseball cap, a long-ago gift from his grandfather Pierce. A gift from another time, another life.
“I’m gonna pass,” he said to the village beyond the swells. “Bet you’ve got what I need, but not in the daylight.”
When the southern jungle consumed the last sign of civilization, he lowered the throttle a touch more to save fuel. The small boat began to struggle in the swells and roll back and forth on its sides.
The hills of vegetation were dotted with the white walls and glass of secluded luxury homes. He searched their waterlines for private docks. There were none. Sailboats and power yachts were moored out beyond the surf.
Hungry and even more thirsty, wishing there was a Bimini for shade from the pressing sun, he continued southward studying the shore.
Kazu was watching the afternoon squall approach when the boat gasped and coughed. Sitting sideways at the wheel, his gaze lowered from the tumbling northern rain clouds to the outboard engine. Staring at it, willing it to catch a clear suck of gasoline, the carburetor drank and sputtered and began running smoothly again.
“South along scenic Federal Highway 200, just south of the charming village of Chamela,” Kazu spoke the memorized directions on the back fold of the yellow hotel brochure.
The steep hills of jungle had occasional licks of white beaches, but no sign of the four-story yellow hotel. It was clear to Kazu that his plan to refuel under cover of darkness was futile.
“Use the rain,” he decided.
The outboard ran smoothly for a quarter hour before taking to coughing fits. The storm looked to be about an hour aw
ay. Turning the boat shoreward, Kazu looked for any sign of fuel pumps or fuel barrels with hand pumps along the slim row of fishing huts and houses.
The motor coughed and gave up its ghost.
Without power, the small boat would never make it to shore without being swamped in the waves. Kazu left the helm and swayed his way back to the red eight-gallon fuel can. Kneeling before it, he quickly figured out how the line detached with the release of a switch and latch.
“I can swim that,” he looked across the humped backs of breaking waves, his voice uncertain. Measuring out the two anchor lines onto the hull, he saw that they were likely too short for the depth of water.
The first raindrops pattered on his hands. Double-checking the anchor knots on the side cleats, he dropped the anchors off both sides, hoping that if they didn’t find purchase, they would at least slow the boat’s drifting. He detached the suitcase-shaped fuel can and lowered it into the water. The sea was agitated by wind and rain. Checking his pocket to make sure he had the borrowed eighty dollars, Kazu pulled on his backpack before jumping over the rail.
Being a good swimmer helped some as he repeatedly shoved the floating fuel can forward before stroking to it. Rain-filled wind blinded him as he pushed the can and swam, over and over, through the swells.
A hundred yards offshore, his love of waves was gone and replaced by fear. They were breaking with heavy cannon booms. Thunder rumbled from above as the gray air went electric white with lightning.
Placing his hands on the sides of the fuel can, he kicked up the backside of the first breaking wave. He was raised upward and swept forward before it broke a few yards away. Grasping the can, he took a glance back at the next wave forming. Its face was larger, steeper, a closing-out slab coming at him fast, rising high.
The wave crashed down on Kazu, and he was pummeled deep, the fuel can ripped from his fingers as he was tumbled and churned. Balling up, he expected a harsh strike against the bottom. Spinning, he had no idea which way was up. He kicked, hoping his shoes would hit sand or a rock. Stroking his arms hard, he surfaced in the white froth of the last wave, facing the next.
The Girl in the Hotel Page 12