Nightlife (54 page)

“The
iwä,
” Kerebawa said softly as they stood over the pond on a wooden platform. He shook his head in mild disbelief, as if things had come ironically full circle.

They moved along, Kerebawa’s head a perpetual swivel as they passed rides, festive buildings, contained animals. Justin wondered how pointless it all looked to him. Bulldozing nature to recreate it in some other foreign image.

At last they neared their destination. To their left, a glimpse of a vast skewed crater in the ground. A flash of blue water, a series of observation posts around the perimeter, gray rock bluffs at the north end. Justin and Kerebawa held their path until they moved in behind the bluffs, topped with foliage, and halfheartedly fenced off from the walkway. At one end, a small orange, brown, and white plaque read
DANGEROUS ANIMALS—PLEASE DO NOT CLIMB ON ROCKS.

Justin leaned against one of three planters at the base of the rocks. Made from tiers of weathered wood, each sprouted a twisting banyan tree. Nice and shady back here. From somewhere up on the rocks, hidden speakers droned a constant ambience of animal cries and native drums. Muzak, Congo style.

Justin rested the nylon bag at his elbow atop the planter. Looked at the side he planned on keeping away from Mendoza the whole time they were dealing with him. Unless you were looking for it, the narrow slit cut along the bottom was invisible. And the red spur protruding from it resembled a loose thread, if a thick one.

“You are hungry?” Kerebawa asked when he heard Justin’s stomach growl.

“I don’t know. Maybe. Guess I haven’t felt much like eating the past couple of days.”

“There is time.” Kerebawa pointed west along the curving path, bordered across from them by a stockade-type wall constructed of round vertical logs. Justin followed his finger until he saw a food stand far down along the path.

Justin shook his head. “Later. And listen—after all this is over? I’m buying you the biggest meal you’ve ever seen.”

Kerebawa stretched and patted his stomach with a grin. He looked very young all at once, very innocent. “I have seen some
big
feasts in my time.”

“I’ll bet you have.”

It was a pleasant moment, cutting the tension as easily as a knife. Pleasant, but all too short-lived. They were left looking at each other with no more self-delusion over their chances to sustain them through the duration.

At ten minutes until the meeting time, Justin pushed the bag closer to Kerebawa. “You still got that lighter I gave you?”

Kerebawa fished it from his pocket. A brand new butane.

“Still remember how to use it?”

Kerebawa gave him what he had once taught Justin as the Yanomamö version of the bird finger: an eyeball bared by tugging down the lower lid. Holding his eyelid, he lifted the lighter and flicked the flame, waved it for inspection. Smartass.

Justin returned the gesture with a wry grin, then glanced around. A momentary lull in foot traffic back here, might as well take advantage of it now, while it lasted.

“You better get up into those rocks and find someplace to hide yourself.”

Kerebawa put the lighter away, deep into a pocket. He rested a hand on the bag, full of that elusive green cargo he had chased for more than two thousand miles.

“As soon as you see us get to these trees and planters,” Justin said, “you know what to do.”

“I know.”

Eyes met, the great moment of frozen dread. Time to separate, leave behind the courage bolstered by proximity, side by side in the hot water. He wondered if April had felt this hollow in the pit of her stomach.

“Friend,” said Kerebawa, and each met the other halfway in a brief, fierce hug. Justin smelled the sharp tang of his heat and sweat, and it meant as much as a lover’s perfume.

They broke. And while Kerebawa slipped up the rocks, graceful as a cat, Justin crossed the walkway to stand against the stockade wall. To wait, alone.

Hating every minute of it.

Especially when he looked to the sky.

Tony was on time, and April found herself disheartened by his punctuality. Life and business go on, without hindrance.

As soon as she saw him crossing through one of the vast portal gates carrying a canvas satchel, she feared she was hallucinating. Too much stress, too much guilt, chemical malfunctions in her brain. This could
not
be the same man she had seen gunned down last night, half human and half devil. He had run away in a shambles of a body. Whatever he was, April had been expecting bandages at least, maybe a limp or some other sign of convalescence.

Instead, he was as robust as she had ever seen him.

Only when he came closer—smiling behind a pair of mirrored shades, hair drawn back into a careful ponytail, tight and lean in his leather and tank top—did she see the scars. At least the visible ones on his bare shoulders. Pale striations and faint puckers against the dusky brown of his skin. He blew her a kiss.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” he said. Never lost the predator grin.

She swallowed hard. Be strong, be tough, or he would be gaining the upper hand before she knew it. Didn’t matter if it was only psychologically; that first wedge would make the next all the easier. Here was the chance for redemption; lose it, and living with herself would be tough, if she lived at all. For if guilt was anything, it was corrosive, slow death while eaten alive from the conscience outward.

“So you’re back on Justin’s team again, huh?” he said with an amused smirk. “Really playing both ends against the middle, aren’t you?”

“I figured I’d try doing the right thing again.”

“Right thing. Huh. That’s in the eye of the beholder.”

April stepped forward and placed her hands on his sides, ran them along his hips. Then swallowed her revulsion and skimmed them along the insides of his thighs.

“I’m not carrying a weapon. I look like I could fit one in these clothes?” He huffed indignantly. “You wouldn’t believe the day I’ve had already.”

She ignored him, continued to pat him down as subtly as she could. A sun-wrinkled woman with dyed red hair walked by, and her expression soured with distaste.

“Get a motel, why don’t you?” she said down her nose.

April glared back. “Mind your own business, you prunefaced bitch.”

The woman huffed, stomped away. Tony burst into laughter, high and delighted. Grabbed her behind and was still laughing when she shoved him away. He patted the bulge of his crotch.

“You act like you still remember your way around down there.”

She flushed with barely restrained anger. Wisps of hair clung to sweat newly broken on her cheeks. She pushed them free.

“Take off your boots, let me see in each one.”

Tony perched the shades atop his head so she could see him roll his eyes. “Knock it off, this is stupid.”

“You do it, or this whole thing is off.”

“And you’re dead, babe.”

April stood her ground. “I’ll take that chance. Maybe I wouldn’t have before, but I will now. Believe it.”

This time she chalked up a minor triumph for herself. He looked visibly irritable as he complied, first one boot, then the other. Nothing tucked inside, he was clean. That left only the bag.

“Okay,” she said. “This way.”

Side by side, they moved deeper into the park. He slipped back into cool composure a few steps later, dropped the shades down again. Through the simulated Moroccan street, into a shaded area designated as Nairobi. April eyed a spot beside some caged parrots that looked private enough, for the moment, and motioned him to follow. So far as she could observe, he had come alone.

“Open the bag.”

Tony sighed and unzipped the canvas satchel, held the opening wide. Money, bundled and green. Lots of it, more than she had ever seen at once. Twenty bundles of one thousand each—or so it looked, without occasion to count each stack—-jumbled loose inside. No weapons either. The bag was the type with a hard, flat bottom. She rapped her knuckles a few places. Solid, no hidden compartments.

“Happy now?” Once more with the irksome smile. “Where to now, boss?”

“Just up ahead.”

They joined a flow of others who looked to be having a far better time, followed a row of fan palms, then veered through the turnstiles of the train depot. Had to mill about the platform for another five minutes before the next one came along.

The train was built solely for sight-seeing—an engine, followed by a string of several cars with open sides and flat roofs. A flood of people got off, others remained in the rows of molded bench seats facing the front of the train. They boarded, settled down for the ride. As soon as the platform had emptied, the train started off with a lurch, and a girl near the front in one of the safari outfits began her tour-guide spiel. The family on the bench behind them were camera freaks, and she heard the constant clicking of shutters and whirring of motor drive units.

Tony propped a brown arm onto the seat beside her, leaned in with a conspiratorial light to his face.

“You know,” he said, “looks like Justin’s gonna be taking his earnings from today and, well—he’s just gonna be kissing you off for good, you know, suck the fat one, honey. Not that I blame him. Bitch like you, you fuck a guy over like that the first time, how’s he ever gonna trust you again? I don’t blame him one bit, taking this wad and blowing town.”

“Shut up,” she whispered.

“I guess he knows I’m planning on taking
real
good care of you. I should think that goes without saying. Don’t you?”

“Shut
up.”

He smiled, very broadly, flicked his tongue in the air before her nose. She could smell his breath, hot, heavy, a thick meaty scent. She wanted to gag.

“Mmm-hmmm.
Good care of you. Be ready to spread those thighs tonight. Tomorrow night. The next night. Whenever I catch up with you.” He ran his tongue over his teeth and leaned within a couple of inches of her face. “Because I’m gonna eat you out like you’ve never been eaten before.”

The train ride went on, and every minute at Tony’s side was an hour, a day, a week. On flat and rolling plains, the displaced animals walked, ran, or stood and stared at this strange processional in their midst. The engineer had to stop once for a zebra that wandered onto the track and stood there, glaring in equine defiance.

“Who was your friend last night?” Tony asked later.

“Friend?”

“Yeah. Guy over by the railroad tracks.”

April saw no point in denying Kerebawa’s existence. It wouldn’t wash, not with Tony. “It’s a long story. He’s from Venezuela.”

Tony frowned, genuinely puzzled. “Arrows? Bow and arrows? I bet he had something to do with Escobar.” He shrugged, chuckled. “No way to smuggle
those
into this place. They’d think he was here to hunt the animals. Too bad about one thing though. Can’t surprise me twice with this guy.”

Tony thoughtfully stroked the side of his mouth. Smiled.

“Maybe we’ll have a chance for a proper introduction this time.”

April watched him from the corner of her eye, feeling as though she were treading the razor’s edge. No trust anywhere, with any of them, only suspicion, paranoia, hate. And still Tony seemed so calm. She saw his lips protrude for a moment, thought he was working his tongue around inside his mouth.

She was wrong.

He smiled at her, tightly, briefly. But the glimpse was eternal, enough for her to see every new tooth in his skull, evolved in just moments. Triangular, sharp, uppers perfectly meshed with lowers like the cogs of highly efficient gears. She shut her eyes and turned aside, remembering how well they could strip away flesh, without restraint. He chuckled at her side and stretched a taut muscled arm around her shoulders, pulled her close. She resisted, but couldn’t fight, couldn’t make a scene. Not here, not now, not this close.

Her stomach rolled again as he leaned in to nuzzle her hair, two sweethearts on a quaint train ride, and the carrion breath washed sweet and fetid past her face. Piranha teeth clicked in her ear, close, closer—and then his lips were at her earlobe and she could
hear
that breath. A brittle whine began in her throat as she felt his teeth open, brush her earlobe, and then nip down, and pain pricked her, hot and sharp. Anyone else Would have mistaken the whine for delight, but no, he’d bitten a nick out of her earlobe. She felt the tiny beads of blood welling up to drip to her neck, hidden by hair. April trembled, feeling his tongue lap at the blood, once, twice, remembering all too well the electric effect blood had had on him last night. It took a staggering amount of self-control to keep from leaping off the train, running away to seek refuge among the giraffes, gazelles.

“I’m learning self-control,” he whispered in her ear. “But you better still keep me calm. You know how excited that smell can make me. And you know if it goes too far, I just. Can’t. Stop myself.”

His tongue squirmed against her earlobe once again, while time dragged eternal. He pulled back, finally, smiled to show her that his teeth were back to normal. While she felt her blood dripping, dripping.

“I owe you for Lupo.” The smile vanished. “That was just the beginning. Oh, we’ll have time later, plenty of time.”

While the train clattered on, April looked to the sky. Felt fresh heartbreak when she realized that none of them had thought to check a simple weather forecast today. Sunny this morning, sunny early this afternoon, so it should have remained all day. But the clouds had come, low and dark and sullen. Traitorous, conspirators.

The first fat raindrops panged down onto the train car’s roof, harbingers of a coming downpour on their heels.
No, please, it’s too late to stop everything now too late TOO LATE!

Their guide on the microphone announced that the Congo Station was coming up on their left. The last thing she wanted to hear all of a sudden . . .

cloudburst

. .
. because she sinkingly knew that this flat-out changed everything.

Before the rain began, Kerebawa had been crouching half in and half behind a creeping tangle of bush atop the rocks. Hugging low to the massive formation, that was the key to not being seen. Justin had made it very clear that being up here was taboo.