EIGHT LIES (About the Truth): A collection of short stories (10 page)

I plan everything, down to the minute, and then I execute with precision. I leave nothing to chance.

And now the guy was late.

Bailey reached for the flashlight again, but before he hit the switch there was a rustling of bushes at the top of the beach. The man who called himself Diego burst into view, ran down the beach, and splashed into the water, the Pelican case in his left hand.

Bailey swung the boat around as the man waded out in a jog. He cut the throttle and moved to the swim step, keeping his eye on shore.

The beach was empty. Nobody giving chase.

The man clambered aboard. There was blood on the front of his shirt. A lot of blood.

“I’ll get the first aid kit.”

“Stop.”

Bailey stopped, turned back. He looked the man over. No evidence of injury.

The man stared him down, said, “I had a nosebleed.”

“Right.”

“Just get us out of here, fast.”

“Fast or quiet,” said Bailey. “You can’t have both.”

“Fast.”

“You got it.” Bailey climbed up the ladder to the flybridge helm. “Hang on.” He jammed the throttles forward and the twin diesels roared up from idle. His blood-splattered passenger grabbed the ladder for support, but stayed down on the aft deck.

As they came around the reef, automatic weapons fire rang out from shore.

Pap-pap-pap-pap-pap-pap.

The man who called himself Diego flattened against the deck, but the gunfire sounded more like protest than attack, and it died rapidly. At this distance, with only dim starlight and no moon, with the boat running dark at thirty knots, the men on shore must’ve known they couldn’t hit anything. They’d be aiming at the sound of the engines and their bullets would be well off the stern. Still, Bailey felt adrenaline leak into his bloodstream, and he blew out a long breath.

Haiti had a meager Coast Guard and Bailey didn’t think they’d be able to scramble a boat out in time, but he stayed up on the flybridge where he could spot any unwelcome company, just in case.

No boat appeared.

Outside the protection of the reef, the sea rose up and the swells grew to about seven feet. No challenge to the stability of the cat, but Bailey wondered if an unexpected storm was in their future. He’d checked the marine forecast earlier in the day, but conditions change quickly in these parts.

He switched on the radio. No storm on the way. Small consolation.

No moon.
I leave nothing to chance.
Damn. Bailey had noticed that it would be a moonless night when he’d checked the tide calendar. It should’ve raised a red flag but he’d been too busy thinking about the ten thousand dollars. Too busy chasing his dream.

And now everything had gone to dog shit.

He told himself to take it easy: cut out the self-flagellation and focus on the present situation. Yes, his client was wearing someone else’s blood, and yes, there’d been men with automatic weapons on the beach. But automatic weapons were relatively easy to come by in Haiti—the men on the beach could’ve been gangsters as easy as cops.

And then the radio rendered Bailey’s rationalizations impotent.

The Caribbean News Agency was reporting that Dominic Martel—leader of Haiti’s pro-democracy movement—had been shot to death that evening as he dined with his family in a restaurant in the town of Cap Haitien. Cap Haitien was only six miles southeast of Labadee Beach.

Shit. Bailey felt his stomach turn over. His client was an assassin.

Still no boat appeared, and he realized that there would be none. They’d gotten away clean. But now he had bigger things to worry about. Now he had to worry about his client. It was time to start being active, instead of reactive. Time to put the old skills to work.

There was no boat giving chase but down on the aft deck, the man who called himself Diego could not see over the swells. Bailey set the autopilot, grabbed the flashlight and moved to the ladder, as if in a hurry.

“We got company,” he called down to the man. “Get inside.” He came down the ladder at speed and ushered his client into the pilothouse. The man didn’t argue.

Bailey opened a trap door in the cabin floor and climbed down a steep set of metal stairs into the port hull, just ahead of the engine room. It was hot and loud down there. He flipped a switch and fluorescent lights flickered to life in the ceiling.

“Come on, come on,” he said, waving the man down. He pressed on a false wall and it opened, revealing a small padded closet just large enough for one person. There was a built-in seat, also padded.

The man came down the stairs clutching his case. He looked dubiously at the custom built people-hider.

Bailey said, “It’s safe. It has its own ventilation. If we get boarded, they won’t find you.”

The man stepped inside, but he didn’t look happy about it.

Bailey pushed the false wall back into place. He climbed up the stairs, got a water bottle and a box of extra strength Gravol from the galley, returned and pressed on the wall.

“Here,” he said, and handed the bottle to the man. He held the box of Gravol up for the man to see, then popped a couple of pills free of their blister pack. “Take these.” The man did not reach for them. “Listen,” Bailey said, “I’m gonna have to cut across the swells to lose these guys and it’s gonna get rough down here. You don’t take these, you’re gonna be puking all over yourself in about ten minutes. I can’t afford to have you choking on your vomit while I’m up top.”

The man swallowed the pills. Bailey shut the secret door.

At the lower helm station, Bailey shut off the autopilot and switched on the running lights. He turned the wheel and pointed the boat so that the swells hit sideways instead of head-on. The boat rocked side-to-side.

Then he reached forward and flipped a toggle switch, shutting off the ventilation to the people-hider.

He thought things through. The man who called himself Diego had taken a brief nap after Bailey had picked him up at the marina, but had not slept on the overnight journey from Long Island to Haiti, and Bailey doubted that sleep had been on his agenda during his time ashore. So he’d been awake at least thirty hours.

Shutting off the ventilation wouldn’t kill the man, but the oxygen level in the people-hider would deplete. Between that and the extra strength Gravol, Bailey figured the man would be unconscious within the hour.

Bailey pressed on the secret door and eased it open. He was greeted by a beautiful sound. Snoring. The man who called himself Diego was asleep, reclined on the seat, his head resting against the padded wall. The Pelican case had slipped from his grasp and lay on the floor.

Bailey took the case, and gently closed the door.

Up in the lounge, Bailey flipped the latches and opened the case. He withdrew a map that showed a section of Haiti’s north shore, from Labadee to the town of Cap Haitien. Beneath the map was a semiautomatic pistol. He lifted the pistol from the case, smelled it. Cordite. He put the recently fired pistol aside. There was money in the case. American money, about $30,000. Bailey fished around under the cash, found a passport. A US passport. He took it out of the case and opened it.

His blood ran cold. Staring back at him was the standard passport photo of the man who called himself Diego. But the name on the passport was Tom Bailey.

I leave nothing to chance.
So the man who called himself Diego wasn’t done killing.

Or thought he wasn’t. Bailey could take care of this threat without breaking a sweat. The man was asleep and Bailey had his gun. Easiest thing in the world, to walk downstairs and put a bullet in the man’s head with his own gun. End of threat. He could weigh down the body with an anchor and some line. Dump the body at sea, along with the gun. Done. Finished. Pretend it never happened.

But then Bailey thought about it from the other man’s perspective. A change of identity would mean relocating. It was an expensive proposition. It would mean a significant sum of money waiting for him in his new destination. Had to. But there was nothing else in the case to say where.

And that led Bailey on a new train of thought. Was this a crazy idea? A reckless bet? No, he decided. It was time to go legit—now—and this could set him on his new path. The man had an ego problem. He would play on that.

This was a calculated risk.

He would have to put the case back the way he found it—passport under the money, gun on top, and the map covering the gun. Then return the case to the people-hider with the man, and switch the ventilation back on.

Sunrise was breaking over a calm sea when the man emerged from below. The case was in his left hand. The butt of the pistol peeked out from his waistband.

“Good morning,” said Bailey. Cheerful.

“Where the hell are we?”

“Almost home. We made it.” Bailey gestured out the windows, to a speck of land on the horizon.

“That’s Long Island?”

“Yup. I’ll have you back on dry land in an hour.”

“You got an extra shirt I can have?”

“No problem.” Bailey got a T-shirt from the stateroom in the starboard hull. When he returned, the man was pointing the gun at him. He tried to look surprised. “Take it easy, Diego,” he said. “If you don’t like the shirt, I’ll get you another one.”

“That’s actually very funny,” the man said. He was no longer affecting an accent. He gestured with the barrel of his gun to the aft deck. “Outside.”

Bailey put his hands up, even though the man hadn’t asked him to do so. He walked out to the aft deck, sat down hard on the portside bench, braced his hands on his knees and shook his head.

“Diego, I delivered my end of the bargain. You don’t have to do this. It’s not the smart play.”

“Actually, it is.” The man kept the pistol aimed at Bailey’s chest.

“I’m an accessory, before
and
after the fact—you know I won’t talk.”

“No, you won’t.”

“Killing me is only going to raise questions. I turn up dead, it’ll only bring more heat. You’re making a stupid play, here. Really stupid.”

The man smiled. A cruel smile. “But you’re not going to turn up dead. You’re just making a move.”

Bailey shook his head like he didn’t understand, and leaned back with his hands planted on the bench behind him. “I don’t understand. Where am I moving?”

“Grand Cayman. It’s lovely there.”

“They’ve got private banking in Cayman.”

The man’s smile broadened. “I know.”

“Please, you really don’t have to do this.”

“No, I really do have to do this.”

“I’m telling you. Don’t be stupid.”

The man pulled the trigger.

Click.

The man snorted derisively. “Clever,” he said. He dropped the pistol on the deck and reached behind his back and came up with a throwing knife as Bailey slid his hand under the bench cushion and came up with the preloaded spear gun he’d stashed there a couple hours earlier.

Both men froze.

“Mexican standoff,” said the man who called himself Diego.

“Not really,” said Bailey. “You may be good, but no arm can match the velocity of this thing. You’ll lose.” He locked eyes with the man, but instructed his peripheral vision to watch for any twitch in the man’s knife-hand, poised to throw.

“What do you propose?”

“I’ll give you a choice. If you really think you can beat me, fire away. Or, you can take a swim.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I don’t think so.”

“I’ll never make it to shore.”

“No, you won’t. You’ll tread water for a while, then you’ll get tired and drown. You could get lucky, a boat may come along and pick you up. But that’s unlikely. You have a choice to make. Either way, it’s a calculated risk.”

The man thought for a second, nodded to himself.

The knife hand moved forward. Bailey pulled the trigger. The blade clattered to the deck at Bailey’s feet.

The man groped for the metal spear sticking out of his chest. He made a horrible gurgling sound, staggered backward. His arms flailed in the air as he toppled over the gunwale and into the Caribbean Sea.

Bailey crossed over to where the man who called himself Diego had stood, picked up the gun, and tossed it overboard. He stuck his hand in his pocket, pulled out the bullets, and dropped them into the sea.

Then he went inside and poured himself a long drink of rum.

Cayman. That’s where he’d find the money. It would be waiting for him in a bank account in his own name. He plotted a course for Grand Cayman, and sipped his drink.

A calculated risk. And it had paid off.

I first moved to Chicago in the late 1980s to attend Columbia College. I lived in the South Loop, in an apartment directly behind the Pacific Garden Mission. Most nights I fell asleep to the sound of drunks fighting in the alley. Every morning I looked out my window and read:
FOR THE WAGES OF SIN IS DEATH; BUT THE GIFT OF GOD IS ETERNAL LIFE THROUGH JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD—Romans
6
:
23
painted large on the mission’s brick wall.

It was an exciting time for the neighborhood, which was trying to gentrify, with decidedly mixed results. Full gentrification would come years later, after I’d moved away from Chicago. The apartment building I lived in is now an upscale student residence, the other Section 8 buildings in the neighborhood have all gone condo, and the Pacific Garden Mission is just a memory.

The gentrification of Chicago is something I write about in the Ray Dudgeon novels,
Big City Bad Blood
and
Trigger City
. Ray takes a pretty dim view of it, while I’m willing to concede that Chicago is a much more livable city than it once was.

“The Harrison Hotel” is a short piece I wrote upon returning to Chicago in late-2006. It has never been published. Its inclusion in this collection may seem odd, since it is not fiction…but given the way memory works, I wouldn’t swear that it is strictly fact, either.

Anyway, I’ve decided to include it as a
lagniappe
, to go along with the Ray Dudgeon stories…