Big Numbers (18 page)

FIFTY-TWO

Flat on my back, staring up at a cloudless sky, zillions of stars begin to float in the inky blackness. They flickered before, like wind-tossed candles, but now the pinpoints of light have liquefied, slipping and sliding across my field of vision like melting ice cubes. I shudder when I realize I’m crying.

Sweet Jesus, Austin, are you wimping out? Has a pain-wracked body and a bruised spirit made a simpering boob of you? I suppose it would be understandable, especially for a
New Jersey stockbroker. Especially after multiple betrayals, attempted murders, frequent beatings, torture, and facing death on the high seas. Or maybe I’m frightened to tears by the eerie, funhouse green glow of the radar screen casting strange light on Luis’s white dress shirt.

Luis with his sleeves rolled up.

Blinking, I reconsider my emotions. Am I really so frightened, filled with self-pity? Am I really such a wuss? Wait a minute. Bullshit. I’m frightened, sure. Who wouldn’t be in this situation? But I’m not sad, goddamnit. I’m angry. Frustrated. When Gerry and Luis brought me up to this flying bridge fifteen minutes ago, I figured it was because they didn’t want me keeping Kelly awake, maybe getting her to throw up those pills.

But I see now it was just another move to take away my power. You keep surprising these guys, don’t you, Austin? Fighting Luis for that gun, almost shooting him. Hearing their plans through the open skylight, almost getting Kelly to join my team.

Gerry’s worried about me, and therefore Luis has been assigned the difficult task of keeping me in sight and at bay. I’m not a frightened wimp. I’m pissed as hell, a thinking, fighting dangerous
hombre
. Tied up with silver duct tape, yes, but far from helpless. I’ve temporarily lost my capacity for counter-attack, and it’s frustrating. The anger makes my tear ducts flow. But don’t worry, pal, Austin Carr will be back.

Beneath that endearing, disarming full-boat Carr grin beats the fearsome heart and steely mind of a warrior. And my weapon is words.

I just need to stop crying.
“So, when is Gerry going to get rid of me, Luis?”

My ex-favorite bartender remains motionless and silent. He stands at the boat’s wheel like the Ancient Mariner, sturdy and fixed on his task. Maybe my question got lost in the wind and diesel engine noise.

I decide to shout it. “Hey, Luis. When is Gerry going to toss me over the side?”

He heard me that time, I know it. But he’s not talking. Gerry must have explained how dangerous I am, forbid Luis to engage me in conversation. Gerry knowing that if we talk, Luis will remember what a nice man I am, how unsuitable I am for drowning.

“Remember that night in the restaurant parking lot when those three guys jumped you? Remember how I helped you, Luis? I could have driven out of there, never looked back, right? But I didn’t, did I? I ran over fast as I could and fought beside you.”

Nothing. Not a twitch.

“Remember I’m the one who found your knife?”

Still nothing. The Ancient Mariner is made of stone. My silver bullet
words bounce off. Damn. I can’t believe he won’t even talk to me. It’s not normal.

Good thing I never had to make a living selling stocks and bonds to guys like Luis.

“Before you dump my ass overboard, let’s have one last shot of Herradura together, okay? It would mean a lot to me, you’re being such a good friend and all.”

Immediately, I regret the sarcasm. That reminder of the parking lot was my hole card, my ace, my best shot at turning Luis around to my side. But I probably killed it with that nasty reference to friendship. Luis hates sarcasm and insincerity.

Luis’s arm moves a little and suddenly the pitch of the engines drops, the bow dips, and I can see a sliver of golden moon on the expanded night horizon. Did I piss off the Ancient Mariner? Is he slowing down to toss me over the side right now, save Gerry the trouble?

An old memory comes back to me, a very special little blue-bellied lizard. I must have been about ten years old at the time, playing with a friend, and we caught this lizard, tied a rock to his tail and threw him in my friend’s swimming pool.

I can still see that poor little guy clawing for the surface. He struggled for the longest time. Pawing the water. Flailing. When he stopped fighting, and we brought him back up dead, I never wanted to hurt another living thing. Don’t think I ever have, at least on purpose. Even spiders get carried out of my living quarters and dumped in the flower bed.

If Luis throws me overboard now, that little blue-bellied reptile will be the last thing on my mind. Payback from the Great Lizard Spirit.

“Why are we stopping?” I say.

“We have reached The Hole,” Luis says. He turns to look at me now, a half-smile on his face. Wow, Luis, I can’t take all this attention.

“What’s The Hole?” I ask. “Is this where I walk the plank?”

Luis shakes his head no. “Your time is not now. Gerry will sleep until the dawn.”

I hear both good and bad news in that line. More importantly, however, Luis is talking. Time to turn on the full-boat Carr charm, use those words like spears and daggers.

“So
, what happens tomorrow morning?” I say.

Luis shrugs.

“Come on, Luis. Tell me. What happens?”

He turns his back on me, once again facing the ship’s bow, the horizon and that sliver of fourteen-carat moon. “I am sorry,” he says.

That sounds bad. Thoughts of that little lizard begin to creep back in my head, but I fight it off because of the look on Luis’s face when he said he was sorry. I saw pity, sadness, and I take heart. My ex-favorite bartender does not want me to die. In fact, he is deeply disturbed by whatever it is Gerry has planned.

And yet…if that’s how he feels, why would Luis let it happen? Hmm. Let’s see. Hard to say exactly, but whatever reasons he has for letting Gerry run his life, they are very important to Luis and probably go back many years, somehow involving my e
x-favorite bartender’s honor, family, or both.

Luis will always do his duty, but he definitely feels sorry for me, and that makes him vulnerable. If I can find out exactly what those ties to Gerry are, maybe I can sever them.

FIFTY-THREE

I collect my thoughts. Breathe deeply and slowly. Chant a couple of stockbroker mantras. Woulda, shoulda, coulda. The market’s looking stronger. I need to sound calmer than I actually am because right up there with honor, duty, and sincerity, I believe Luis will appreciate even minor signs of bravery.

“So how long have you been working for Gerry?” I say.

He shrugs
again. “What does it matter?”

He’s got a point. Still. “I want to know, that’s all
. And you owe me an answer. I understand you can’t prevent what’s going to happen, but you can talk to me. At least let me understand why I’m going to die.”

Luis glances at me,
and strange green shadows fly across his face again from the radar. There’s something else in his expression, too. It’s only a hunch, but maybe my ex-favorite bartender feels a bit strange out here on the Atlantic, bobbing over some place called The Hole like a discarded beer can. I’ve always believed the ocean makes people insignificant, part of something so big it defies identification.

“Gerry Burns has been my benefactor for nine years,” Luis says. “Since I was what you call a teenager.”

“Benefactor?”

“Did you not hear Nestor call him
el patron
?”

“
Yes. So?”

“He is like our father, or perhaps, Godfather. The boss. It was the same for Nestor as it is for me, plus many others.
El patron
pays us good wages, helps us become American citizens, but also assists the small village where we were born.”

“In Mexico?”

“Yes. Zempoala. A fishing village near Vera Cruz. Senor Burns built a small hospital for our children, paid a doctor to live there and help our families.”

Benefactor isn’t such a terrible word now that I think about i
t. No blood connection with Luis’s family, no mention of love. I can see how Luis feels duty, an obligation, but the whole thing sounds like a business relationship to me. Giving Luis and his pals American jobs, a place to live, bonus pay in the form of hometown construction projects for their families.

“If
el patron
was your benefactor, why was Nestor so angry? And how about that guy I saw in your restaurant, the one dressed all in black? Did he work for Gerry, too?”

Luis doesn’t answer right away, and in his silence, the boat disturbs a flock of large birds roosting on the water. They flap and splash, take off in a squadron. The ruckus is louder than a helicopter. Pelicans, I imagine.

“Come on, Luis. Tell me. What difference does this stuff make now?”

Almost unperceptively, Luis’s punching bag shoulders lift then fall in a sigh. “
El patron’s
departure was a sudden thing. He left many, including Nestor, without jobs. The man dressed in black wanted me to help him take over some of
Senor
Burns’…operations.”

“He wanted you two to go into business for yourselves?”

“That is how
el patron
said it as well,” Luis says. “When I refused to betray our benefactor, we argued, and later in the parking lot he and the others tried to…change my mind.”

“Who killed Cruz?”

“Alejandro. The man dressed in black.”

“That’s why you killed him? Because of Cruz?”

“
Si
.”

While I’m thinking this over, feeling better that Luis is giving up the skinny, but also unable to as yet find a wedge to slip between him and his benefactor, a previous conversation comes to mind. In the restaurant that evening, right after I saw Kelly for the first time in a year. The memory is a bit foggy, thanks to all the tequila I drank that night, but I think I recall the gist.

“If Gerry is your benefactor,” I say, “why did you warn me about Kelly that night in the bar?”

No answer. Have I touched a nerve?

“You were really warning me about Gerry, weren’t you? Trying to keep me from getting sucked into this.”

Luis shrugs. “I said only that Gerry’s woman could be deceiving you.”

Too bad I didn’t listen.

FIFTY-FOUR

The hazy, orange light of dawn brings texture and a bit of color to the Ancient Mariner’s silhouette. Strange that even on the boat, my ex-favorite bartender wears his standard, hombre-issue black slacks and white dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Black Reeboks may be his only concession to functional deck wear, although he might have worn sneakers behind the bar as well. I don’t ever remember noticing Luis’s feet.

“
Buenos dias,”
I say.

No answer. Luis quit talking to me hours ago and it looks like the new day brings no change in this new non-verbal status. Damn. I was getting somewhere last night, too. I know it. That’s probably why he discontinued our conversation.

Below us on the main deck, the clatter of metal equipment draws my attention away from Luis. Must be Gerry working on something down there. A torture device, perhaps, or maybe he’s just rearranging deck shares to give himself a better view of the morning’s proceedings.

Today’s the day I feed the fish. I can feel it in my bladder.

“Bring him down here, Luis,” Gerry says.

My monster’s voice jolts me as if I’d been asleep. Maybe I was. My brain is so foggy. This horror at sea has begun to take on dreamlike qualities.

Luis touches something on the controls and spins away from the bow. He steps closer and kneels by the bench on which I lay bound with duct tape. His face looks even sadder than before, and I can’t help but imagine he’s thinking of my looming destruction. Wow. It’s crazy to think this, I know, but after everything’s that happened, everything that is about to happen, I still admire Luis and want him to like me. How freaking ridiculous is that?

“Can you sit up?” he says.

My attempt is feeble and Luis slips his arm under my shoulders to assist. When I’m sitting on the bench, my feet flat on the deck of this flying bridge, Luis yanks his big black switchblade from his pocket and deftly slices the tape around my ankles.

My leg muscles cramp as he pulls me into a standing position, and I need him for support. He offers a strong arm, supporting me under the armpits until the blood returns to my muscles.

“Come on, Luis,” Gerry says. “Get him down here.”

As my ex-favorite bartender leads me toward the stairway, guiding me toward oblivion, I feel something hard and heavy slide into the front pocket of my slacks. What the hell was that? Could it be? Did Luis just give me his switchblade? Or was it a roll of nickels for additional weight?

Even taped together, my hands can reach that pocket, or at least the fingers of my right hand can, and I try to confirm the identity of Luis’s gift. He slaps at my hand and shakes his head covertly. Oh. My. God. The famous full-boat Carr charm has once more worked its magic. It
must
be Luis’s knife.

Gerry waits for us at the bottom of the chrome step ladder. He’s holding something that looks like a leather virginity belt, only there’s a hollow cup-holder thing fixed to where one’s virginity would most be at risk. Some kind of fishing harness?

Oh, shit. Is he going to use me for bait? Austin Carr on a hook?

With Luis behind, steadying me with a hand at the scruff of my neck, I descend the stairs slowly and carefully. Don’t want to fall and break a leg before getting thrown overboard, do I?

“Ready for a swim?” Gerry says.

Ah, confirmation of my destiny. I like being right, of course. Who doesn’t? But here’s a case I could have easily li
ved with miscalculation. Ha. Lived with. Very funny, Austin. What a card.

One
villain on each of my arms, Gerry and Luis escort me toward the boat’s fighting chair. The contraption is bolted to the main deck, and its steel frame, the head and foot rest remind me of a barber’s seat. What’s with this setup? Are we going to have a fishing tournament before I get tossed overboard? Maybe Kelly’s chopped up body is going to be the bait.

I stumble and almost fall as Gerry and Luis suddenly freeze. What are they staring at? I look up as Kelly’s red hair appears in the stairway, struggling now up onto the main deck.

Kelly, my Jersey Jezebel, is still alive? Oh, boy, is she. Kelly’s holding a pistol. No wait. The muzzle’s too big. Like a shotgun’s.

She points the weapon our way and I see it’s a flare gun, one of those doodads you shoot into the sky to signal distress. The redhead’s aiming it right between Gerry’s eyes.

Gimme a K, gimme an E, gimme an L,L, Y.

Yeah, Kelly.