A safe house was supposed to be off Old Parham Road, across from KFC, an empty two-story Caribbean home behind an eatery called Vigi’s. An Antiguan who ran a
tyre
shop right across from Vigi’s was the contact; he lived somewhere over in Upper Gambles. Knowing at least one more vehicle was out there searching for me, I’d taken the back way out of Fitches Creek, a hilly and rugged drive, the houses beautiful but the eroded and uneven roads not meant for rushed travel, had come out by Antigua Sugar Factory, driving and thinking, taking Sir Sydney Walling Highway, the ride a lot smoother, like being on a one-lane interstate, hit the roundabout near Sir Vivian Richards Stadium, making sure no one was following us, then doubled back toward Old Parham Road, passing by Vigi’s, looking, not trusting, pausing at the Tunnel Bar before turning around in the parking lot at Christ the King High School, passing Vigi’s again, the traffic congested, moving slow enough for me to peep toward the safe house, that spot looking too dark, not a light on, the perfect setup, that safe house not appearing too safe. I parked in a lot at Lighting Expo, sat there in silence, Hawks doing the same.
The kid and Catherine were on my mind.
I was trapped on an island.
Had to keep moving. I drove on and rode around, took Factory Road, took American Road, drove All Saints Road back to Independence Avenue, then I turned around, drove until I found my way to Valley Road and the southwest side of the island, passing by Jennings and Jolly Harbour, the sea on my right side as I negotiated narrow roads and kept my eyes on the rearview mirror the entire way.
When I made it to Fig Tree Drive I took a chance and parked. Hawks held the gun, didn’t ask any questions. This area was lush, a rain forest bordered by the Sherkerley Mountains, some livestock grazing in the distance, an area that had the smoothest roads on the island and very little traffic.
I went to a manchineel tree, the vegetation still dry, the abrupt rains not having showered this strip of the island. The trees were dry. No sap dripping. That was good. I found an empty plastic bag and another strip of plastic on the side of the road, used that plastic to handle and pick as many berries from the manchineel tree as my plastic bag could hold.
Hippomane mancinella,
its fruit extremely poisonous, the plant irritating to the skin, causing blisters and severe itching, like a thousand mosquito bites, and an ache like a deep sunburn. Outside of that it was deadly when ingested. I wouldn’t have touched this venomous tree if the rain had come this way; the venom would be dripping to the ground. Either way I made sure I didn’t come in contact with any of the milky sap. I rushed, looking back when I heard a car approaching, clothes dank with sweat and rain, left arm aching, an entry and exit mark where the bullet had hit.
I downed a B.C. Powder. Did that more for the caffeine than the analgesic properties.
Hawks looked dehydrated. But she didn’t complain.
I handed her the last B.C. Powder. She took it, downed it dry, made a nasty face.
Then we were on the move again, passing by colorful snackettes and vendors set up on the side of the road selling fruit, grilled corn on the cob, some cooking fish and chicken; our stomachs growled as if they were in a battle with hunger. Darkness began covering the island at a rapid pace. I headed northeast, was going back inland. Needed to let some time go by, enough for the rest of that team to have vacated the area by the airport, but knowing they wouldn’t leave V. C. Bird International unattended because there was only one airport on the island. The only other way to leave was by boat, either catching a water taxi down in English Harbour or risking catching the Barbuda Express when it left at six in the morning and going to the sister island, an island that was smaller, a place where I’d be easier to spot. None of those options worked, not when I had no idea how many were in that hunting party.
Going to the airport or the dockyards wouldn’t work.
Driving around in a car someone might recognize wouldn’t work either.
I took Jonas Road, considered my options as I made my way north, blended with traffic heading toward Airport Road. Hawks was on alert as I drove us through the same area we had been chased through a handful of hours before. I headed to where the ferry docked to go to Long Island.
Ten thousand dollars a night. That was how much it cost to lease a villa over in the Jumby Bay section of Long Island. Clients had congregated in the parking lot behind the Beachcomber Hotel. That was where they waited for their ferry. The ferry was prompt, ran every hour, on the hour, during the day. Probably was available all night long. For ten thousand a night, I wouldn’t expect anything less.
It was a twin-hull, high-speed ferry, big enough for maybe thirty. We stayed parked until it took off for Long Island, only three passengers taken on this hourly trip. Boat crews wore all white, so they were easy to distinguish. As soon as the ferry was on its way, Hawks and I left the Hyundai Santa Fe. She had taken an Elvis T-shirt from her bag and pulled it on. We headed toward the jetty that was behind the Beachcomber Hotel, a small hotel with darkened lights, one that looked like it had little to no occupancy.
There were rubber dinghies docked behind Beachcomber.
Two were thirteen-foot Saturn dinghies, inflatable boats big enough for four or five people. The closest one was black, and it had an engine, its engine starting like a lawn mower, running loud, like it was its own burglar alarm. A rough-sounding motor. Too late to change dinghies. No lights came on. But that didn’t mean nobody had been alerted by the piercing sound.
We were looking back toward the lot, anticipating, focused. Then we were gone, taking to the Caribbean Sea, moving away from the main island, riding the mild waves into the darkness.
The dinghy had a fifteen-horsepower outboard motor, made us move like we were on a jet, our speed around twenty miles per hour. The wind picked up, felt like it was blowing in my face at about twenty-five knots, close to thirty miles per hour. The dinghy wasn’t going fast enough for me, but right then the space shuttle would have seemed to move too slow.
I navigated us to the right, didn’t follow the route the ferry took to dump people at the jetty at the mouth of Jumby Bay Resort, that area monitored by a Scotland Yard-trained security team. The stolen dinghy hummed, rocked, the waters not too rough but the ride not smooth, still not as devastating as it would have been if we were trying to take this inflatable ride to Barbuda, that current mean and strong.
I was trying to get us to the safest place I could think of.
Long Island was where Jumby Bay Resort and almost three dozen homes were located. There wasn’t a hospital over there, but there had to be water and a few medical supplies. Had to be.
I looked back, shoulder throbbing, thought I saw two sets of vehicle lights back at the dock.
Those lights went dark.
My heartbeat accelerated some, not much, had to remain calm.
I went toward the right, along the shore, until we were almost out of sight of the mainland.
Water spraying, riding turbulence, I looked back, saw no one in pursuit.
But they were there.
Detroit was not done.
The security post was at the base of the resort, the majority of the sprawling compounds to the right; the properties circled the island, each with its own pool and private beach. That meant the owners could dock their boats and dinghies and walk across thirty yards of white sand to their own slice of heaven. Victoria’s Secret had a property on the island, a corporate-owned property that was more than likely empty, but I didn’t try to find that one. I had to go for the first available, and most of them were.
I pulled up on the private beach behind one of the compounds, killing the motor, the sounds of the sea and its rhythm now loud and apparent. Hawks stayed in the dinghy while I took to the sand. I handed her the gun. Hawks extended her belt to me. I shook my head, didn’t want to take her weapon. I left her, trekked across the white sands, crept beyond an infinity pool resting at the edge of the sea. I moved through darkness, moved through and over the better part of a half-million dollars spent on landscaping. Bougainvillea. Alamanda. Date palms. Foxtail palms. Bromeliads that grew like parasites on the trunks of the palm trees. Red and white fountain grass. Coconut palms on the beachfront. Crotons. Warm air scented with the aromatherapeutic scent of lippia.
There were no cars on the island, just golf carts. No litter. No homeless. No crime.
This was where a home cost two million dollars U.S. and the cost spent on landscaping was more than the price of a three-level home in the suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia. These vacation compounds were all cash deals. Either you could afford it or you couldn’t, because there was no thirty-year layaway plan.
I tiptoed by all the villas. All were empty, sheets pulled over furniture. That was what I had expected. This island had one resort and thirty-three vacation homes, each resting on a two-acre lot.
The houses were so far apart it was like neighbors were in different cities.
So far no one could have heard a gunshot. No one would hear you scream.
I stepped over a walkway, a bridge; below that bridge was a backyard pond populated with at least forty Japanese koi, golden and exotic fish that could cost as much as ten thousand each.
Somebody had to feed them. More than likely someone would come in the morning.
Dehydration tried to slow me down. So did hunger. Both failed.
A minute later I was satisfied the ten-thousand-square-foot property was vacant.
There was no pit bull, no Rottweiler, no Doberman, no German shepherd.
I doubted there was a dog on the entire island.
Off in the distance I saw lights, another ferry heading our way. I tensed, thinking they had found us. It wasn’t them. The ferry was
leaving
the island, not
coming toward
the island. Its angle of departure was what threw me. It had to be the employee ferry that went back and forth from Jumby Bay to Parham.
At night the staff went home, left empty homes, hotel guests, and a handful of people, an emergency crew on an ancillary island that probably never had an emergency, not like the ones we had created within the last hour. Not like the one the man with the red hair and his friends wanted to cause.
I took my binoculars out of my backpack, stood waiting, watching the waters, searching the seas.
Unless they were underwater in a yellow submarine, nothing was out there. Not yet.
I helped Hawks out of the dinghy and I got her inside the main house. Vaulted ceilings made from andiroba wood from South America, polished with andiroba oil. Shellstone tile. Travertine. Marble. She hobbled to the bathroom while I held the gun, limped back with a first aid kit she had found, that and a needle and thread. We moved into the kitchen, a large space that faced an outside dining area that looked out over the infinity pool, facing the sea, a good place to stand and be on lookout. Hawks dropped her goods on the marble island. Hydrogen peroxide, iodine, rubbing alcohol, Mercurochrome. She pulled my shirt back, looked at my open wound, saw it had an entry and exit, no surgery required, then she poured hydrogen peroxide on it. Pain came in an exponential way, but I didn’t let it show. Then she did the same with alcohol. More pain. She looked me in my eyes. I nodded. Hawks wrapped gauze around my wound, taped it down.
Hawks sat on a bar stool and I pulled her right boot off. She clenched her teeth and swallowed the sounds of pain. Her ankle was swollen, twisted in the parking lot fight. Her left knee was tender too. I went to the Sub-Zero and took out ice, put it in a bowl, but she wasn’t ready to ice her wounds. Hawks had moved on, limped around the kitchen with one boot on, opened drawers, pulled out steak knives, butcher knives, forks, anything with sharp edges. I went inside the pantry, found very little canned food and bottled water, but enough Hennessy, Baileys, Midori, Bacardi, Jose Cuervo, J&B, Mount Gay rum, and Russian vodka to fill up their twelve-foot-deep pool. More bottled water was inside the Sub-Zero refrigerator, cold water that was hiding behind bottles of Wadadli, Red Stripe, Heineken, and Carib lagers. Those lagers barely outnumbered the cans of Red Bull they had stocked in this holiday retreat. My throbbing wasn’t subsiding, the best of it masked by adrenaline. I sipped a Red Bull as I rolled a cold bottle of water against my skin, then when I finished the energy drink, I opened the bottled water and sipped. Hawks did the same, downed about half a can of Red Bull before sipping water, drinking only a little, not enough to have her slow and waterlogged.
I put four pots of tap water on the stove, set the fire underneath them to high. At least a dozen bottles of Susie’s Hot Sauce were on the counter. That red liquid was poured into the boiling water, the clear water turning a deep pink. Hawks found jars of honey, spooned it all into the water. She opened her backpack, dumped shards of broken glass into the pots, added that to the thick, bubbling soup.
Hawks found two towels, cut them into long strips, tied them together, made me a makeshift sling, tied it around my neck, pain rising as she slid my arm through. I took a few deep breaths, kept moving.
Then I searched the cabinets, found a blender, plugged it into an outlet.
I opened my backpack, dumped the fruit from the manchineel tree inside the blender, set it on puree, made the poison start to liquefy. We did all of that with the lights off, moving around each other, trying not to make too much noise, bumping into each other in whatever light came in from the stars above, most of the brilliance reflecting off of the sea itself.
I spied outside. The stolen dinghy was highlighted by stars. I gritted my teeth. Pissed off. If I saw it, everyone else could too. I hurried back to the dinghy, moved it two properties over, anchored it to a jetty, wiped sweat from my eyes, and headed back to our hideaway. Pain stayed on me as I hiked over sand and rock, my night-vision binoculars up to my eyes, searching the seas for trouble. I walked as close to the waters as I could, counted on the waves to erase most of my trail.