Blood of Paradise (19 page)

The note consisted of five words:
Hey, Jude
—
Don't Be Afraid
.

Thinking the handwriting might be Malvasio's—and Strock might recognize it even after ten years—Jude folded the paper over, put it in his pocket. “No big deal,” he said.

“What is it?”

“Nothing. Little joke from one of my coworkers is all.” True enough, Jude thought, possibly. He surveyed the parking lot, then looked past the rim of
almendra de rio
trees toward the crowded airport terminal, to see if anyone was watching.

“Some joke,” Strock said. “How come you're not laughing?”

Jude leaned in to give the engine compartment one last good look. “You know how it is. Life with the guys.”

“Yeah. I remember it well.”

Jude slammed the hood down and pulled his keys from his pocket. His lower lip throbbed. Only then did he realize he'd been gnawing away at it like mad. He unlocked the passenger-side door, removed the spare, and threw it into the truck bed, then lifted their bags and tossed them in after the tire. “Let's get going,” he said, climbing behind the wheel.

They headed out a long tree-lined avenue away from the airport. As Jude lodged into fourth, he glanced sidelong at Strock who stared out the window, gazing beyond a perimeter of eucalyptus trees at the U.S. Navy radar installation. Big C-130s and smaller P-3 Orions lined up along the airstrip, fueling for their patrols of the coast for drug boats and gun runners.

“They call it a forward footprint,” Jude said. “For exporting force. This sad little country is turning into a very big deal. If we go into Colombia or Venezuela to make sure the oil keeps flowing or to back a coup or whatever, this'll be a staging ground—FOL, they call it. Forward Operating Location. You'll have more Americans down here than in Puerto Rico, which is pretty much what it's beginning to look like anyway.”

It reminded Jude of Eileen's rant during the drive to her house that night. He missed her so bad it felt like an ache, and he intended to see her by day's end and patch things up if he had to crawl all the way to La Perla and beg.

Strock murmured something, his voice a lazy growl. Jude turned to ask for it again but Strock hunched sideways, leaning into the passenger-side window. His head was bathed in sweat and lolled heavily on his arm. The cane lay loose in his grip.

He was snoring.

18

The next thing Strock knew, a pack of barefoot and shirtless boys were chasing the truck, running alongside, shouting
“¡Parqueo! ¡Barato! ¡Parqueo!”

Rubbing the muck from his eyes, Strock checked his watch, saw more than an hour had passed since he'd last paid attention, then looked out the window into the face of one of the boys. The kid seemed eager to the point of rage—wild-eyed, slapping the side of the truck as he ran.

Strock turned for some explanation but Jude kept his eyes straight ahead, steering down a narrow lane of dense gray sand between lines of sagging vendor stalls. The place felt eerie, like a deserted carnival, especially with the pack of feral boys keeping pace. Strock was drenched in sweat and felt parched but thought better of suggesting they stop somewhere for a drink.

Jude turned sharply away from a cluster of wind-scarred restaurants and accelerated toward a vast, open thatch structure where a shirtless old man in a blue skipper's cap rose from a folding chair to guide them into a parking place. The old man, dark and bandylegged with a scant, nappy beard, wore frayed sandals and bright blue swim trunks with yellow piping. When Jude pressed a bill into the old man's hand, the badgering youths finally stopped shouting, turned about, and headed back the way they'd come.

“End of the road.” Jude turned off the motor and lodged home the parking brake. “We take a boat from here.”

Strock shook his head to clear away the cobwebs. A channel of blue-green water glimmered nearby. In the distance, he heard the muffled drone of breaking surf.

“Where are we?”

“La Puntilla. That's the Estero de Jaltepeque straight ahead. Around the point you've got the Bocana Cordoncillo and the ocean.”

Jude got out, unloaded Strock's bag from the pickup's bed, stored his own plus the spare tire in the cab, then locked up. The two of them followed the old man down to a long, narrow boat anchored in the shallows. The sun beat down as the old man stepped into the brackish water to drag the boat closer to shore.

The thing looked ancient—blistered paint, speckled with rust. Jude planted Strock's bag in the midsection, then held the gunnel as Strock, clutching Jude's shoulder for balance, climbed in and sat near the bow. Jude took up position behind him as the old man collected his anchor, coiled its line, dropped it in the stern, then shoved off with one hard push. Stepping aboard into the only space left for him, the old man sat down, cranked the little Yamaha outboard and, once the motor caught, grabbed the tiller and steered them out into deeper water.

The boat rode low, the weight of the three men sinking the gunnel to within inches of the water. The spray and a tepid breeze cooled their skin. They passed the channel leading out to the Bocana Cordoncillo, a rim of whitecaps forming where the incoming surf collided with the outgoing current of the estuary. The sky beyond seemed impossibly blue.

As they traveled deeper along the estuary, thick mangroves covered the shore, the roots tangling atop the calm green water while tiny swallows darted among the branches. Fishermen lingered in small inlets, tending crab traps and the plastic jugs they used for float markers. Pelicans drifted sleepily in the mangrove shade or took off with slow, loping thrusts of their wings. Here and there houses sat in ruins, overgrown by flowering vines.

After twenty minutes, the old man steered the boat toward a wooded sand spit. A trio of open rickety thatch structures occupied a clearing near the shore. Cutting the motor, the old man let his boat drift in beside a small dock lined with ancient tires crusted in sea salt and barnacles.

“From here,” Jude said, gathering Strock's bag, “we walk.”

The old man stayed behind as first Strock then Jude climbed onto the dock and headed up a set of log stairs. At the top, three dark Indian women in varying states of heftiness waited in the thatch shade with strained smiles, gathered around an ice chest smudged with char. Something stringy and small—rabbits, Strock guessed—roasted over a smoldering fire pit. Buckets teaming with live crabs rested nearby in the sand beside piles of mangos and coconuts. Jude gestured for Strock to keep walking as he said something to the women that sounded apologetic. They nodded their understanding but it was clear they would have preferred hearing something else.

Leaving the shelters behind, Jude and Strock trudged along a path of dirty sand lined with palms and thorn thickets. They passed a primitive wellhead topped with a bicycle wheel chained to a crank. Off in a clearing, two emaciated horses grazed in a patch of scrub.

Jude turned toward the ocean and Strock followed, digging into the sand with his cane. The wind blew stronger into their faces, its intensity matched by the rising sound of the surf, till finally they came within sight of the shoreline.

The deserted beach extended as far as Strock could see in both directions, the bright sand scruffed with sprawling plants and dotted with horse apples. Hermit crabs, tiny and faint as tufts of hair, vanished into pencil-thin dens. Sun-bleached driftwood lay scattered about and a three-foot sand cliff extending the length of the shoreline marked the tide break. It seemed odd, Strock thought. Such a getaway. No one around.

Jude pointed to the left, where beyond a border of indigo plants a tall cinder block enclosure stood. Razor wire coiled atop the walls. As they drew closer, Strock could hear the thumping chug of a generator coming from inside.

Jude led the way around to the leeward side, where a thick wood gate stood locked. He reached and pulled on a thin line of hemp rope connected to a bell, ringing twice.

“Who are we waiting for?” Strock asked.

Jude shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

The gate opened. A dark-skinned Latina stood there, tall and hipless, her black hair tied into a ponytail with a white ribbon. She wore a simple blue dress, belted and modestly buttoned up the front all the way to the lace-rimmed collar. Smiling shyly, she waved them inside.

“Buenas,”
Jude said, passing through the gate. He gestured for Strock to follow along. Strock obliged, feeling a twinge of arousal as the Latina closed the gate behind them.

Palm trees shaded the walled yard. Fallen green coconuts and sun-bleached palm fronds littered the sand. The house, erected on slab, was modest in size and run-down, with cracked, badly patched wall plaster and dry-rotted wood around the windows. A pelican perched atop the ragged tile roof. Strock looked around, leaning on his cane. The generator was silent now. An almost eerie stillness lay just beneath the sound of the wind and surf.

He felt the Latina approach from behind and turned to greet her. She was slightly bucktoothed and wore no makeup. Dark freckles mottled her cheeks. Her blue tennis shoes matched her dress but had no laces.

Extending her hand, she said in a soft, birdlike voice,
“Mucho gusto, señor. Me llama Clara. Estoy su servienta.”

“Clara.” Strock took her hand and smiled. He had no idea what she'd said except for her name. “Call me Phil.” When she seemed confused, he shortened the introduction to just his name, which she then repeated back to him, making it sound like “Feel.” That'll do just fine, he thought. Call me Feel. Clara smiled and sauntered into the house. She walks like a girl, he thought, not a woman.

Jude nudged Strock's shoulder. “Let's get you stowed away.”

Inside, the house was tidy but in much the same state of disrepair as outside. The refrigerator, run off a storage cell charged by the generator, was relatively new but looked like it had fallen off a truck. In contrast the iron stove, run on propane, looked primordial. How did they heft all this stuff out here, Strock wondered.

The kitchen opened onto a large dining room, bare except for a wood-plank table and roughly carved chairs. Sliding glass doors opened onto the sandy yard.

“This way,” Jude said, tugging Strock's sleeve. “Your room's back here somewhere.”

Strock followed Jude down a musty dark hallway to a small room at the end. Dust motes hovered in the light filtering in through a screened window. The furnishings included a narrow bed, a chest of drawers painted an almost psychotic shade of yellow, and a rickety desk of such blatant shabbiness it didn't even merit the lunatic paint job.

None of that caught Strock's attention, though, as much as the Colt AR-15, fitted with a Redfield three-to-nine power scope, perched on its bipod atop the desk. A crate filled with ammunition boxes sat on the floor against the wall, along with cleaning rags, a bore brush, and a tin of Hoppe's No. 9 solvent.

He stepped toward the weapon. “Somebody wants me to practice out here.”

Jude hefted Strock's bag onto the bed. “The place is isolated enough, I suppose.”

Strock looked out the window screen at the swaying palm trees. “The wind'll create havoc with shot placement. Blow me around like a boat. Hard to settle in, get a stable sight line.” He noticed there was a spiral notebook in the crate with the ammunition, for logging his practice shots, he supposed. “But I guess none of that's your problem.”

Jude looked puzzled and bored and ready to go. “It's just not my end of things.”

Strock lifted the rifle, measuring its balance in his hands, smelling the sheen of oil, like invisible sweat, on its metalwork. “I trained on a weapon just like this. We stopped using it long-range ages ago. You got a .223 round, hard to bring a man down with a load that light. You've got to hit him square in the middle of his face or his ear hole or straight through his heart to do the job. Otherwise, he's hurt but he's still walking. You hit him in the skull, the round can just bounce off. I'm not joking. Seen it happen. That's why we switched to a retooled Remington 700—hogged-out stock, free-floating bull barrel, fires a big fat nasty 7.62 NATO round.”

Outside, the pelican on the roof shrieked and flew off toward the beach, its shadow flickering across the sand. Jude said, “My guess is you'll just be there to scare off thieves. See a guy digging under the fence, you fire off a warning round. He doesn't respond, you wing him.”

Strock set the rifle back down on the desk, then nudged the crate of ammunition with his foot. “Wing him? Oh, you mean
shoot to wound
. Sure. That always works. Nobody ever fucks that up and kills the guy by mistake.”

Jude glanced at his watch. “I'll let you straighten all that out with the people you'll be working for.”

“And they'll be coming around when?”

“Tomorrow morning as I understand it.” Jude turned to go.

Strock caught him by the arm. “You'd leave me here with no more to go on than that?”

Jude dislodged Strock's hand. “Go outside. Look around. A thousand guys would trade places in a heartbeat. If anybody meant to screw you over, why would they leave you with a weapon and enough rounds to hold off half a division? Not to mention, ahem, they gave you a maid. I'll bet there's even beer in the fridge. Stop worrying. Everything's going to work out.”

He said it like he meant it, then turned away. Strock hobbled behind, thinking what the kid said made sense. And yet, with Jude on his way out, Strock felt an odd streak of almost boyish lonesomeness. “I don't even know where I am. There's no phone.”

Jude stopped at that. Over his shoulder, he said quietly, “Hold on.” After a quick trip to speak with Clara in the dining room, he came back carrying her cell phone. “Correction. On one front anyway.” He thumbed the dial pad. “There. I've logged in my number, in case something comes up, nobody shows, whatever. Okay?”