Now Death might be an assassin with strawberry blond hair, wearing high heels.
The driver passed by the American counter, did that at a casual speed. I had come full circle, back to the airport; madness and murder had taken root. The gravel parking lot where we had left a few dead bodyguards, no sign of any wrongdoing, business as usual. We spied out the entire route from Airport Road, passed the printing shop, passed the airport once and then the Sticky Wicket, looped back before we parked. No one stood out. No one looked anxious. I stuffed my guns inside a backpack I had brought along. Had the backpack positioned so I could get to the nine if I needed to. Only problem was my left hand was no good, could hit somebody only from point-blank. And my right hand was swollen. Could barely open and close my hands. Konstantin watched me, saw me struggling, but didn’t say anything for a few seconds.
He said, “Your hands are swollen.”
I nodded.
“Can you pull a trigger on those guns?”
“If I have to.”
“But can you hit a target?”
“If I have to.”
“Do this.” Konstantin opened and closed his hands. “Let me see you do this.”
I tried. Barely could.
He said, “I didn’t think you could.”
“I’m fine. Won’t be making any more mistakes.”
“Think about who’s alive and who’s dead. It’s not about all the mistakes you make, it’s about who makes the
last
mistake. You only fuck up if you make the
last
mistake. And you are the one alive.”
“This isn’t over.”
“I know it’s not over. I know.”
I looked back, searched for the van that carried Hawks.
Konstantin said, “Don’t worry. Hawks is fine.”
“There wasn’t any traffic. She should be right behind us.”
“You have different flights anyway.”
I nodded.
“Hurry.” Konstantin looked at his watch. “You have just enough time to check in and get on the flight.”
“What time is your flight?”
“I have time.”
Konstantin stayed in sight but wasn’t with me as I waited in line and got my ticket. He did the same as I took out twenty dollars in U.S. money and moved to another line to pay the departure tax. Free to get into the country. Had to pay to leave. Lots of people were out. If trouble was there it was well-hidden. I made it to the door that led to customs, took one last look, searched for that woman with the strawberry blond hair, made sure she wasn’t in sight before I handed my backpack to Konstantin.
He said, “Keep your guard up.”
I nodded, once again feeling vulnerable, unable to move with any real speed.
He said, “I’m going to check in at Carib and get rid of this hardware.”
“Where’s Hawks?”
“Her driver pulled into Texaco to get gas.”
“Bad move. We should’ve stopped with them. Easy to get blocked in at a gas station.”
“Everything is under control. Relax.”
I nodded, then moved on, went inside, past customs and through metal detectors, sat inside with my back to the wall, sat where I could see every face that came in, saw every face that came toward me.
By the time I went to board my flight, Konstantin hadn’t made it through security.
I waited, was at the end of the line, the last one, searching for Konstantin. And Hawks.
If something had happened to Hawks on the road, I didn’t know.
If Konstantin had gone to help Hawks, or if something had happened to Konstantin outside . . .
I didn’t hear gunshots, sirens, or screams. But a silencer created death with a sweet whisper. Done right, a hit could happen in public, the body left sitting, or leaning against a wall, death unnoticed.
I stood up, racked with pain, almost went back, almost hurried out into the mouth of danger.
Unarmed and wounded from head to toe, I was ready to hobble back onto the battlefield.
I stopped my frantic rush to the door, paused, on the verge of a panic attack.
Catherine and the kid. They were on the opposite side of the scale, that scale almost balanced.
I looked back at the gate, heard the announcement being made for final boarding.
Thirty-eight
the dying and the dead
Queen Elizabeth Highway.
Mouth ached, tasted blood from where she had been hit by the bodyguard turned assassin.
In darkness, she drove toward Holberton Hospital. The main hospital on the island of Antigua. She had driven in panic, had sped away from the docks, made it to the car as the ferry arrived, as the people on the ferry pointed at the fire on Jumby Bay, unaware they had run over bodies in the sea. As she started her car, she heard someone yelling in dialect. They had found the dead bodyguard on the docks. She sped into the darkness having visions of her own death, struggled to keep control.
The road going into the hospital was smooth, a few streetlights, enough brilliance to show her that pathology was to the left, admissions, emergency, and everything else to the right, and, when she turned in to a circular driveway, enough light to see no one had followed her.
She struggled to park her damaged rental, wires hanging where a side mirror used to be.
Forever went by before she made it out of the car.
A hotel towel was on the front seat. She wrapped it around her waist, let it hide her mess.
She staggered in cramping, bleeding, the scent of cordite on her sweaty and sandy flesh, expected to walk in and someone would rush to her with a wheelchair, make her top priority and hurry her to a private room, like in the movies, get hooked to an IV. No one rushed to help her.
People sat around on wooden benches and makeshift furniture in a room that had no air-conditioning. Sweaty children huddled in parents’ laps. Crying babies. Long, sad faces. Heat exacerbating sickness and anger. Outbursts and accusations of favoritism among the Cuban nurses and the Spanish patients. An ailing woman scowled at her, at her braids, frowned at her as if she thought she were Spanish. A man came in doubled over, moaning that his appendix was about to rupture.
Darkness had become daylight. Hours of pain and suffering. Her body her own hell.
She stood, throat dry, staggered, holding the towel, found water. When she returned her seat had been stolen. All seats had been taken. Forced to stand, leaned against the wall, staring at the citizens.
Mouth ached. Lips felt swollen. Tired of tasting blood.
She wanted to slide to the ground, sit back against the wall, but if she sat down she wouldn’t be able to get up, wouldn’t be able to move if the man who had slaughtered her husband rushed into the emergency room, guns blazing. There was security, but not the kind of security she wanted to see.
She wanted gun-carrying security like at the airports in Brazil and in Cabo San Lucas.
Then. Finally. When she felt Death was standing next to her. Her turn.
They asked her what she used. Wanted to know why she was bleeding. She told them about the morning-after pill. They wanted to know where she got it from. She just said another tourist gave it to her. Some woman. Name unknown. She asked what was going to happen, scared. They said if they ended up admitting her they would take her blood, if needed, and determine her blood type and blood count. They told her that if she needed a transfusion, she would have to get relatives to come in and donate blood. She told them that she had no relatives. Depending on the situation, they told her they might have to take her to the operating theater to have a D and C, where they scraped out the womb.
Questions. They asked so many questions. Wanted to know who brought her to Holberton.
Her lie. Was late-night skinny dipping, out at Half Moon Bay, had just left her date, was going to the hotel to wash away the water and sand, and that was when the illness came on, that was her story.
She waited. In pain, she waited. Each minute felt like an hour of being kicked in the gut.
In the end they came and took her temperature, checked her heartbeat.
They told her there was nothing to treat. She had to ride it out. She had to bleed until the embryo was gone. They gave her a prescription for the nausea, Phenergan. Aspirin for the pain.
She wanted Vicodin. Percocet. Morphine. For the pain to be surgically removed.
And security.
Her mind was on the battlefield she had escaped.
She was injured.
Gideon
knew she was injured. He had stumbled away from her as she lay terrified in the sand. He was walking. He was mobile. He’d gone inside that section of the compound. Heard sounds. Like he was on a killing rampage. She had willed herself to her feet, saw the horror, Matthew’s crushed skull, and fled. Then bullets rained down and destroyed the dinghy as she fled.
The hospital. That would’ve been the first place Gideon would’ve looked for her.
Like gang members knew the wounded from the rival gangs had to find medical attention. And they followed blood trails, followed ambulances, swarmed to the hospitals with a vengeance. Gideon had seen her wounded. There was only one hospital here.
Matthew was dead.
The nurses saw her crying. But the nurses thought the tears were because of the pain.
Or because she had chosen not to have a baby.
She wiped her eyes and dealt with it. Foster home kid. Only the weak cried. Only the weak showed emotion. Showing emotion in this world would get you trampled. No respect for the weak.
Death was part of the business.
Death was inevitable. Death, prison, and taxes, the inevitabilities of life and the occupation.
She nodded, took a deep breath, ready to move on before the panic attack returned.
The nurses were kind enough to find her some clothing. An old cotton dress that was clean, folded, had hundreds of wrinkles. Probably a dress someone had worn before she died. They took her to a room, let her clean herself up some and rest. The meds kicked in and the pain lessened. With the pills she had been given, the nausea was controllable. She put on the dress. It was tight, especially around her butt, pink with big flowers from the collar to where it hung below her knees, a cotton dress from two generations back, but it was good enough, considering the circumstances. She sat and groaned as she put on the sullied Blahniks, one with a heel stained with blood, a redness no one had noticed.
She went to a pay phone, tried to call her handler, the one Matthew had used to lure Gideon to this island. Needed his assistance getting off the island. The phone rang and rang and rang.
Her head ached, the pain of dehydration. She had to get out of here.
She stepped out of the hospital at the same moment five vans came up the road. All pulled into the hospital. Vans that contained dead bodies that had been picked up from an overnight melee.
A parade of death in the afternoon sun, passing by people who didn’t look twice.
She wondered which van held her husband, a man she would never be able to say good-bye to.
The shortness of breath tried to come back; her heartbeat sped up.
Deep breaths. She took deep breaths. Breathing helped with the pain.
She had to keep moving. Had to erase anything she had that connected her to Matthew.
He had no fingerprints on file; there would be no photo of him on this island.
The Lady from Detroit now rested inside that hospital. She wondered if her husband was already inside there. They would have to bring the bodies from Jumby Bay on a boat, that island a crime scene.
She looked at the white building, its foundation painted a light green.
Fear. Anger.
She had almost ended up inside that place. Along with her husband.
Along with a boy named Anthony Johnson, a boy who had been autopsied and moved on to a funeral home on Newgate, a conversation she had overheard as she lay on a gurney in severe pain.
Anthony Johnson. A boy who had lived in Swetes on Matthew Road.
A lover so wicked he would never be forgotten.
She wished she hadn’t killed him.
Sadness.
While she was standing there, an older gentleman had passed by her. A man who could’ve been British. The older gentleman walked with purpose, in a rush, side by side with two swarthy men, men who looked Antiguan. The older man was handsome, extremely, the face of an aged movie star.
The man passed her, carrying a Nikon camera. He had to be with
The Daily Observer
or the
Antigua Sun
. A professional photographer. Or with the police department, the type of guy who might show up and document a crime scene. Something about that older man had a policeman’s edge. That was what she thought. Shoes. Women always noticed a man’s shoes. His were not policeman’s shoes.
The handsome older man had to be a photographer. A photographer who wore white shoes.
She looked down at his shoes as he looked down at her.
He smiled at her and nodded. She wiped tears from her eyes.
She ignored the old man, figured he was captivated by the way the tight dress clung to her body.
He looked like an older well-to-do man. Classy. Like a man who ate caviar and owned yachts.
Bad day for him to be staring at her.
Real bad day for him to have his eyes on a brand-new widow.
Maybe when she was done grieving. Maybe when it was time to not be alone.
Maybe an older man then. Someone less sexual and more respectful.
Not now, not when she was experiencing two deaths. Matthew. And what was inside her.
Not now.
Not when she was in trouble.
First a deeper sadness.
Then a rising fear. A rush of adrenaline. Once again, in fight-or-flight mode.
Every step of the way, from hospital to parking lot, she paused, searched for Gideon.