Whiplash River (6 page)

Chapter 6

T
erry's nose hurt so bad he thought he was gonna pass out. It was like getting smashed in the face every time he took a breath or the boat hit a bump in the water. Blood and snot bubbling out. He wished he hadn't tossed the ski mask over the side, 'cause then at least he'd have something other than his sleeve to press against his nose. But Meg said they had to get rid of the evidence, don't be a goddamn moron.

She was driving the boat. Wind whipping her hair around, one hand on the wheel and the other fist on her hip, looking even more ferocious than usual. You wouldn't think that a little slip of a girl, just turned twenty-one years old, could look so ferocious. Barely five foot two, a hundred pounds dripping wet, with freckles and a cute button nose. But Meg never looked nothing but ferocious, even when she was sleeping. You didn't want to wake Meg up when she was sleeping, take it from Terry. He'd learned that the hard way.

She looked like a pirate right now, standing there at the wheel of the boat. In her cutoff jeans and wife-beater and bare little sun-brown feet with the nails painted pink. A sexy ferocious pirate.

“Goddamn it, Terry!” she said. He was sitting there right next to her, but she refused to look at him. Which meant either she had to keep her eyes on the water 'cause they had their running lights off and were going fast, or it meant Terry was in her doghouse big-time.

“Wasn't my fault, babe!” he said. “I ran out of bullets!”

“Swear to God, Terry. Who shoots off a whole clip and don't hit a goddamn thing?”

The boat bumped against the water, and Terry's nose blew out another big bubble of blood and snot. He whimpered. “I think my nose is busted,” he said.

“Don't be a pussy,” she said.

“But it hurts!”

“Pussy.”

Terry climbed to his feet. Standing up hurt his nose even more than he'd expected it to, all the blood sloshing around in his face, but he didn't care. He walked to the back of the boat and stared out at the water foaming up behind them.

“Oh, for God's sake,” he heard Meg say, and then louder, “C'mon, get back over here!” He walked back up to the front of the boat, but this time he was the one who refused to look at her. Two could play at that game. He admired the lights twinkling far off on the island.

“Stop that,” Meg said.

“Stop what?”

“Feeling sorry for yourself.”

“I'm not,” he said. Though ask just about anyone, their nose got busted, if maybe they deserved a kind word or two. Just because one time Meg pulled a nail out of her own foot and then went right back to whatever she was doing, and another time didn't even know she had a cracked collarbone till the doctor told her. That didn't mean everybody else in the world was a pussy but her.

Though probably, Terry considered, everybody else in the world
was
a pussy, compared to Meg.

He'd made her go in and get a shot after she stepped on the nail. Everybody knew that your jaw could freeze shut otherwise, and then you'd starve to death.

“Get on over here,” she said. He took a step closer, wary. She yanked him the rest of the way and then yanked again to bend him down. He was close to a foot taller than she was, unless she was standing on her tippy toes, or on the bottom rung of a bar stool. She reached up and kissed the bridge of his busted nose, her lips tender as a whisper.

“That feel better?”

He nodded. The first time he'd ever seen her, going on three years ago now at a bar in Anchorage, she'd been standing on the bottom rung of a bar stool, telling the bartender to pour her another goddamn shot of whiskey and hurry it up.

“Now sit back down and be still,” Meg said. “Ain't nobody ever died of a busted goddamn nose.”

She eased back the stick and turned the wheel. The boat drifted to a stop on the open water, facing sideways. She squinted her eyes and stared off into the darkness that they'd just come out of. Terry knew he better be quiet while she was doing that.

“I think we're all right,” she said finally. “There ain't nobody following us.”

“Maybe you just don't never hear about the ones that do,” Terry said. “ 'Cause they're the ones that died.”

She looked at him. “What?”

“The ones died of a busted nose,” he said. “So they're not around to tell you about it.”

“Be still and don't monkey with that,” she said.

She zipped open the backpack and rummaged around in it. Terry's nose was starting to feel a little bit better, so he gave it a tap, investigating. Oh, good Lord. The pain curlicued out all over and around his head, down his neck, like he was on fire and somebody was trying to stab out the fire with a butcher's knife.

“Goddamn it, Terry,” Meg said. “What'd I just tell you?”

She found what she was looking for in the backpack. One of the crumpled-up foil packets of antibacterial wet wipes that Meg always carried. She didn't like to use the soap in public restrooms. She always said, “How do you know there wasn't some indigent homeless person right ahead of you just lathered up their pubes? And now you want to wash your hands with that same bar of soap?”

Terry thought that was a worst-case scenario. And more times than not, the soap was in a metal box bolted on the wall that you had to pump to get the soap out. But he wasn't about to start that argument again.

She tore open the foil packet and started cleaning his face with a wet wipe. Gentle strokes up and down and then side to side.

“I shoulda known better,” she said, “a job this big. I shoulda gone in there, done it myself.”

“Like hell I woulda let you done that,” he said. “It was too dangerous.”

“Not for nobody but you, it wasn't,” she said.

She turned the wet wipe around and started using the other side of it. Terry kicked himself because she was right about how big the job was. It was their first real one. Up till now, the only work Meg's friend in Guatemala City ever used them for was to pick up a suitcase full of drugs over
here,
fly on a plane with it over
there,
then go on back to their dumpy hotel room and wait to do it all over again. The money wasn't bad, Terry supposed, but less than he'd been led to believe. And, shit, to be honest, it just wasn't the glamorous life of crime and sunny beaches that he'd imagined when they moved down from Alaska by way of Mexico eighteen months ago. Guatemala didn't even have beaches! Meg said that was all right, that's how it worked. You paid your dues, and when you got a chance to advance your career, you grabbed it.

When Meg's friend in Guatemala City called and asked were they up for something a little more challenging, Meg told Terry that this was it, this was their chance to advance their career and make a name for themselves. Her eyes gleaming, ferocious.

One time in Mexico, they'd been short on cash, so Meg found a drunk American businessman in a hotel bar. She'd told him she was on a mission trip with her high school Young Christian Leadership group, some Mexican had stole all her money, and now she had no way back to Memphis. The drunk businessman was already licking his chops. When Meg told him she was sixteen years old, he said he'd give her two hundred dollars if she came upstairs and let him take pictures of her naked with his cell phone.

When the drunk businessman unlocked the door to his room, Terry snuck up behind and pushed him inside. Terry was supposed to whack him on the head with the nearest thing at hand, but he couldn't find anything near at hand. So Meg took a glass ashtray off the coffee table and did it herself. The businessman was a giant compared to little Meg, but she wasn't scared at all. Meg, fearless and ferocious—the girl turned Terry on like nobody's business.

Terry realized Meg had been making fun of him. When she'd said going into the restaurant wasn't dangerous for nobody but him. Since the old man was supposed to get shot, and Terry was the one ended up with a busted nose.

“I winged him, I think,” Terry said. “I bet I did.”

“I swear to God, Terry. Tell me again why I love you? 'Cause hell if I know.”

Terry smiled big, even though it hurt. “Me neither!”

She flicked the bloody wet wipe over the side of the boat. “It ain't supposed to make you happy, you goddamn moron, me not knowing why I love you.”

“I don't care, babe,” he said. “I'm just happy you do.”

She sighed, exasperated, but then gave him another soft kiss on the nose. “It makes me so goddamn mad. What that son of a bitch did to your poor old nose.”

She was talking about the chef at the restaurant. Terry knew he was the chef because of his white coat with the double row of buttons. Before Terry had gone to Alaska to work on the crab boats, he'd washed dishes for a time at a steak house in Plano.

“I don't take it personal,” Terry said with a shrug. He didn't. He'd been mad as hell at the time, when the chef made him hit himself in the face with the gun. Now that he was calmed down, he saw it from the chef's point of view. Terry figured that if he had a restaurant and somebody tried to shoot one of his customers, he wouldn't like that much, either.

“Well, I do take it personal,” Meg said. “Don't think I don't.”

“Jorge ain't paying us but to take care of the old man.” Jorge was Meg's friend in Guatemala City.

“Then he's gonna get a buy-one get-one-free, 'cause don't nobody bust up my baby's nose and live to brag about it.” She kissed him again, this time on his mouth. He felt her hand tugging on his jeans, popping open the buttons one by one.

Terry didn't bear him any particular grudge, the restaurant chef who'd busted his nose. But he did like it when Meg got her blood all pumping away like this.

“Swear to God,” she said, fishing around in Terry's boxer shorts until she pulled him loose. “I'm gonna stick my gun right between that son of a bitch's eyes and blow his brains every which way.”

The wet wipe must have left some blood on Terry's face, 'cause now Meg had blood on hers from kissing him.

“You got blood on your lips,” Terry said. “Like a vampire.”

“Be still.”

“A sexy vampire.”

She sank down on top of him and closed her eyes. She made her humming sound. Terry was never sure it was a real song or not. He traced his thumb along her beautiful freckles.

“You just wait and see,” she said, moving up up up and then down down down, her eyes still closed. “I'm gonna blow his brains to kingdom come.”

Chapter 7

T
he last of the cops finally left around one. Shake spent the next few hours sweeping up broken glass and broken plates and fingerprint powder. He pried the splintered boards off the walls and tried to decide if the table that the gunman had shot up the worst was salvageable.

It wasn't. He dragged the table out back and heaved it into the Dumpster, along with a couple of chairs also beyond repair. Idaba worked most of the night too, even though he tried to send her home. She went at the floor with sandpaper until the gouges weren't quite so deep or so ugly.

“Get some stain in the morning,” she said. “Put the stain on the floor.”

“Sounds complicated,” Shake said. “Can you write that down for me?”

She grunted at him and left. He went upstairs and slept till daybreak. He could have used a swim to forget his troubles, but instead he took the Wahoo straight into town. He spent the morning in San Pedro rounding up plywood, pine planks, paint, paintbrushes, wood filler, wood stain, and some batik fabric to cover the plywood he'd nail over the broken windows. He had to go to a different place for each item. The guy who sold paint was out of paintbrushes. The guy who sold plywood didn't sell two-by-twelve pine planks. That was the nature of a place like San Pedro. Charming until it was a pain in the ass.

Shake kept an eye out for Evelyn. He kept thinking about the slight exotic tilt to her eyes, her rosy midwestern cheeks. That smile. He liked how she hadn't fallen to pieces when the gunman started shooting up the restaurant. She hadn't fallen to pieces afterward either.

“Have I got a deal for you,” Shake decided he might say if she came back to the restaurant tonight. He planned to offer her the same arrangement he'd offered the young honeymooners, hotel and meals if she agreed not to tell TripAdvisor about the gunman shooting up the restaurant. But Evelyn would get the VIP treatment—he'd insist on taking her to dinner personally.

Shake didn't think there was a chance in hell she'd come back tonight. But it was nice to imagine she might.

He was walking down Front Street, the main drag in town, when he spotted Baby Jesus up ahead. Baby Jesus was impossible to miss. Gigantic, parting the sea of tourists before him. He was wearing a white linen suit with no shirt underneath.

Shake slipped into a tiny shop that sold hair products. Marketed toward, judging by the faded posters on the wall, black people who lived in 1983. The shop was empty except for the Mayan woman behind the counter. She looked at Shake. He put a finger to his lips. She yawned.

Shake waited until Baby Jesus and his entourage of Rasta thugs rolled past, then waited another minute, just to be safe. If Baby Jesus didn't know about the shooting last night, he would soon. Shake guessed that Baby Jesus would take the opportunity to give Shake a hard squeeze. Probably he'd move up the payment schedule with some bullshit reasoning about being forced, unfortunately, to protect his investment. Shake wouldn't be able to do anything about it. He'd have to come up with the money or else.

Or else just abandon the restaurant and take off. Shake would be lying if he said that option hadn't occurred to him. All things considered, it was probably the safest option.

But—fuck that. Shake had put too much into the restaurant just to walk away from it. And not just the money. When Shake bought the place, it had been turning out bad Tex-Mex food, nacho cheese from a fifty-gallon can. Now it was a place that Pijua, best cook in the country, recommended to people, and not because he was Shake's buddy.

Shake just needed to get the restaurant back open tonight. And stay afloat until the real honeymoon rush in June, when he might be able to get out ahead of Baby Jesus and stay there.

He stopped by Pijua's place to borrow a dozen dinner and salad plates, a dozen wineglasses, a dozen water glasses. “We had a little breakage last night,” Shake explained. Pijua just looked at him and didn't ask. He helped Shake carry the boxes down to the Wahoo.

Shake still needed fresh fish for the dinner service, so he walked to the market. He was looking over some nice grouper when he thought he heard someone yell his name. He glanced over and saw the old guy, Quinn, down at the other end of the market. Shake left the fish stall and walked the opposite way, but the crowd in the market slowed him down and Quinn caught up.

“Shake!”

“Hey,” Shake said. “I didn't see you.”

“Bullshit,” Quinn said, but with a laugh and a twinkle in his eyes. Or maybe his eyes always seemed to twinkle, they were that kind of blue. He was wearing a pale yellow polo shirt today, and a different Patek Philippe on his wrist. “Let me buy you a cup of joe.”

“Some other time,” Shake lied again. “I'm in the weeds this morning.”

“You've got time for a cup of joe.”

Shake started to disagree, but Quinn put up a palm.

“C'mon, now,” he said. “Is it gonna kill you?”

 

“I WAS OUT IN THE
Philippines, working for the government. Well, not working for the government. You know what I mean. This was right after Ollie North, so everyone was in cover-their-ass mode. The law firm that hired me was friendly with Marcos, it was friendly with Aquino's people, at least any of Aquino's people hadn't been killed or thrown in jail yet. Hell, it was friendly with the separatists, the communists, the Chinese, everybody.

“Let me ask you a question, Shake. What's the most valuable commodity in the world? And it's not oil, or gold. It's relationships. ‘We bring good folks together.' You remember that? That TV commercial? Before your time, maybe. It was an insurance company, phone company, I don't know. But the point is, the law firm that hired me, their slogan could have been ‘We bring folks together that can't do business together in public, and we make sure nobody finds out about it.' Because there's big money in that, I don't have to tell you.

“The Iranians back in '79, for example. Who do you think got those American hostages out of Tehran? Not the firm I'm talking about necessarily, but one like it. It wasn't the striped-pants crowd at the State Department, in other words. No ‘official channels.'

“Here's another one, while we're on the subject. Pablo Escobar, when the U.S. was looking for him. I had nothing to do with that, for the record. Anyway, guess who gives Escobar up? His own people do, of course. No surprise, but think about this. Who brokers that deal? You know, between a Colombian drug cartel and the government of the United States of America? Who brings those folks together? They can't all just sit down together, some banquet room at the Bogotá Ramada, with a nice buffet lunch afterward and handshakes all around.”

Quinn paused to take a sip of his coffee.

Shake had no idea where to begin. “So,” he said, “you were a lawyer?”

Quinn looked annoyed. “You're not listening.”

“Doing my best,” Shake said, and Quinn laughed.

“I'm a talker, I know,” he said. “I like to talk. First words I remember, probably three years old back in Brooklyn, my mother saying, ‘Shut up, already, Harry, for chrissakes.' ”

He leaned back, pinched the crease of his khakis, crossed his legs. He was wearing deck shoes without socks. His ankles were as tan as the rest of him.

Shake thought Quinn seemed awfully calm, considering that someone had tried to kill him last night. Considering that person had come close, and was still out there. Shake turned his chair so he had a better view of the café entrance.

“Look here.” Quinn had Shake lean over. Shake saw that Quinn was sitting so that he had an angle on the street outside the café. A mirror on the wall gave him an angle on the doors to the kitchen behind them.

If Quinn really wanted to play it safe, Shake wanted to say, he wouldn't be out having a cup of coffee in public. “So the police chief said you didn't know,” Shake said. “Who might be after you.”

“It's not my first time at the rodeo,” Quinn said. “I'll be honest with you. I'm seventy-two years old and I've pissed off a few people along the way. But Belize? That's why I'm here, a fresh start. I've only been here—what? Three weeks? Four? I haven't been here long enough to piss anyone off.”

Shake didn't say anything.

“Now you be honest with me,” Quinn said. “I saw how you handled yourself last night, Shake. Cool as a cucumber. Tell me you've been a chef your whole life. Tell me that with a straight face.”

“I'm all for fresh starts too,” Shake said.

Quinn waited to see if Shake had more to add.

“Fair enough,” Quinn said. “I've got a proposition for you.”

Shake finished his coffee and stood up. “I need to be getting back, Mr. Quinn.”

“What did I tell you about that?”

“Harry.”

“You're coming to work for me.”

“Not a chance.”

Quinn chuckled and took a business card out of his wallet. He handed the card to Shake. It had a glossy color photo of a swanky resort on the beach, cabanas under the palms, a big pool with marble dolphins leaping, turning, spitting water.

“The place I just bought,” Quinn said. “All the way up north, last property till you run out of island. The last resort—get it? That's what people want these days. Secluded, luxurious. Here's my slant, though. Fertility tourism.”

Shake paused. “Fertility tourism.”

“You bet. Gals these days, God bless 'em. But they've got careers, they want to sow their wild oats, they end up thirty-five, forty years old before they start trying to have kids. Forty-five, even. Now, let me ask you a question. Do you know what all that costs? Fertility drugs, in vitro, donor eggs, and doctors and nurses and blood tests? It's a trick question. Because what it costs in Seattle, that's not what it costs in a place like Belize. You see what I mean? For what it costs back home, just the office visits and the drugs, down here the gal gets the whole enchilada. A luxury resort, gourmet meals, procedures at a state-of-the-art medical facility.”

“State-of-the-art medical facility?” Shake said. “In San Pedro?”

“Not yet,” Quinn said. “And access to the finest fertility specialists in the world. Because a lot of these doctors, they studied in the U.S., they've got degrees from the best medical schools in the U.S. Some of them do, not those in Belize necessarily, but ones in Panama and Costa Rica.”

“I wish you all the best,” Shake said. He started to leave and then paused again. “What did she say? The stripper?”

“The stripper?”

“In Nicaragua. In the limo. When Somoza pointed the gun at her.”

Quinn chuckled. “She said, ‘But,
Commandante,
the party's just getting started!' ”

Shake smiled and headed for the door.

“I owe you one, Shake,” Quinn called after him. “Better not forget it.”

Shake didn't look back. He planned, with all due respect, to try his best.

 

SHAKE GOT HOME AROUND ELEVEN.
He worked his ass off throughout the afternoon. By four he was sweaty and sore and had accidentally hammered his thumb a couple of times. He was light-headed from paint fumes. But the dining room looked like a dining room again, more or less.

“What do you think?” he asked Idaba.

“Huh.”

“I couldn't agree more.”

“We gonna need those plates you borrowed from Pijua.”

“You've got my attention,” he said.

“Some German people staying up at the Pelican been complaining about the food up there.” The Pelican's Roost was the resort up the beach that had gone all-inclusive right after Christmas and killed a lot of Shake's walk-in business. “Eight or ten German people. The Pelican want to know can they send them down to us for dinner, tonight and tomorrow and maybe a few days after that too.”

“Tell them I'll have to think about it. Nothing worse than a crowded restaurant.”

“Huh,” Idaba said, and walked off.

Shake had thirty minutes or so before he had to start prepping, so he walked down to the
palapa
and climbed into the hammock. He didn't even know that he'd fallen asleep until he woke up, the wind rising and the hammock creaking.

He rolled out of the hammock. When he stepped off the pier, he saw Roger and Armando off in the distance. They were strolling together along the beach path, laughing and kicking at the garbage that had washed up with the tide. Both of them late, as usual. Shake was too tired to be pissed. He lifted a hand. Roger and Armando saw him and waved back. Shake turned, started up the beach, and his restaurant exploded.