Hurricane (6 page)

And he climbed out of the dinghy and walked away from her without looking back. For years he’d wondered why he’d always used the Ace of Hearts for that trick. Most magicians had a dark side and turned over the Ace of Spades.

The outside bar was empty, except for two young Trini bartenders so busy talking to each other they didn’t notice him as he passed through. He made it to his car without incident and was out on the two lane highway, headed for Port of Spain, before he realized that he couldn’t go to the embassy. And he probably couldn’t go to his apartment either.

He swerved to avoid a maxi-taxi full of laughing Trinis and smiled to himself. Others thought the Trinidadians drove like madcap crazies, but he preferred calling them flamboyant. Any car in front of any Trini was a challenge and they tried to pass it even as the car tried not to be passed. He glanced in the rear view and forced back a laugh. A yellow Mini was hot on his tail, less than a foot from his bumper.

Then a bullet punched through the back window, tore through the passenger head rest and smashed into the dash above the glove box. He grabbed a second look in the rearview. The passenger in the car behind was hanging out the window and he was holding a pistol.

Broxton braced himself, stomped on the brakes, locking the back wheels, and the Mini collided into his rear. He stiffened his arms, clenched the wheel, stole a glance in the side mirror and saw the shooter’s neck snap back and slam into the door post with the whiplash. The pistol went flying across the road.

He kept his foot on the brakes and cranked the wheel to the left, causing the small car behind to carom off his rear, going right and onto the other side of the road. Then he spun the wheel back to the right and shoved in the throttle, bringing himself back to the center of the road and up with the flow of traffic.

He looked right in time to see the Mini collide head on with a Nestles milk tanker. The tanker rolled over the Mini like it was made of paper and then Broxton was past West Mall and on the road to Diego Martin, without ever hearing the screeching of the tanker’s brakes or the screaming of the school children on the sidewalk who saw the whole thing.

He drove off the road and into the Starlight Plaza parking lot. There had been two attempts on his life and according to the sun it was only noon. Somebody knew where he would be this morning and they knew what his car looked like. A killer had been waiting for him in the yacht club, another had been waiting for him outside in case the first one failed. Somebody wanted him dead.

He pulled into a parking spot in front of the Republic Bank and killed the engine. The lunchtime crowd was filing into Joe’s Pizza and he grinned at a young woman coming out of the bank. She noticed the state of his car and frowned back.

Only embassy personnel knew where he was going to be this morning and he knew them all well enough to know that none of them were involved in drugs or would be involved with murder, but if asked by the powers that be they would have given up his whereabouts in a heartbeat.

He sighed, left the keys in the ignition, got out of the car, walked away without locking it, without looking back. It would be gone within the hour and in the morning it would be sold for parts in the Bamboo. Some things in were very predictable.

He took his wallet and passport out of his hip pocket and headed toward the trash can in front of Joe’s. He opened the wallet, took out the bills and put them in his shirt pocket, dropping the wallet and passport in the can as he walked by. Now he had only three hundred US and six hundred and eighty TT, and no passport.

He felt his side, where the bullet grazed him. It was already starting to clot. Barely a scratch, but it stung. He noticed people looking at him. He was still a little damp. Clothes dried quickly in a hundred degree heat, but the bloody shirt was grabbing attention he couldn’t afford.

He went into the men’s store two doors down from Joe’s and bought a blue batik print shirt. He wore it out, leaving his bloody Hawaiian in a waist basket by the dressing room.

Now he needed a place to stay and he remembered when he took that Jazz singer to the Normandy Hotel. They hadn’t asked for identification. He walked down to Western Main Road and stopped the first maxi-taxi that came along.

“
Going to the Savannah?” he asked the driver.

“
Going to Green Corner, downtown, you can walk up from there,” the driver said.

“
Fine.” Broxton climbed in and sat next to an old man. He sat back and closed his eyes while the driver sped along the highway. The other passengers apparently all knew each other, because they were carrying on a running debate about rising food prices, the homeless sleeping in the streets, aids and a host of other social ills that Broxton wanted to block out.

The Normandy was just off the Savannah, a ten minute walk to the Hilton. Not as grand, but it was quainter and quieter and a quarter the price. Smaller and safer.

A young Indian Trinidadian came out of the office. “Can I help you?”

“
How much for one night?”

“
No baggage?”

“
It’s coming later,” Broxton lied, forty-five dollars later, he had a room key in his hand. A safe haven for a day. But before going to the room he decided to go to the hotel restaurant and have something to eat. He entered and took a table by the door.

“
Hey, it’s been a long time,” a slim waitress said.

“
Six months or so, Jenna,” Broxton said, reading her name off her name tag. “Do you remember all your customers?”

“
No, just the special ones.” She winked.

“
What was special about me?”

“
You gave me a blue one for a tip,” she said, but Broxton didn’t think the hundred TT tip was enough for her to remember him.

“
You’re a great waitress and this is an international hotel. You must get a lot of good tips.”

“
You shave your head,” she said, “and you were with that nice coffee-colored girl. She was very pretty. Pretty like me.” And Broxton studied her face, her curved up lips, her smiling eyes, her perfect skin and he smiled himself, because he saw the resemblance.

Broxton saw the resemblance, the way this woman tilted her head when she smiled, the dimples in her cheeks, the shoulder length hair that sparkled even in dim light, the wide eyes that seemed to draw you in, the elegant way she dressed and held herself and, most of all, the way she seemed so self assured.

“
She was your sister?”

“
Right and you’re the drug agent man.”

“
Not any more.”

“
You get fired?”

“
Sort of.”

“
Didn’t catch enough bad guys?”

“
More like they caught me.”

She saw a customer holding up an empty glass three tables south. “Hold that thought,” she said. “I’ll be right back.”

He watched her go to the bar and order the drink and saw her write something on a notepad while the bartender did his work.

He took in the restaurant and concluded that it must be crowded every night. He wasn’t surprised. The food was good, the service excellent, and the prices fair. He picked up the menu, but was sidetracked from it by the conversation at the table behind. The man was obviously out with a colleague’s wife and the woman was pressuring him to make a commitment. She wanted to leave her husband and move in with her lover. He was having none of it and Broxton thought that the restaurant was the perfect place for this kind of conversation. It civilized the talk. Prevented the yelling.

And he remembered a similar conversation in another restaurant, not so long ago. He was the man. Marietta the woman and Bob Prichard, his friend, the husband. She wanted to run away, go back to the States with him and leave Bob. Like this restaurant, that restaurant too, prevented the yelling. They were civilized, but their affair was over that night, and when they spoke at the embassy it was strictly business.

And he was going to have to call her tonight.

“
Penny for your thoughts?” Jenna said.

He took his eyes from the menu he hadn’t been reading and let it fall. She had a smile in her voice and a melody in her eyes.

“
If they were worth that much I’d tell you.”

“
You might be surprised at what they’re worth.”

“
You don’t want my troubles.”

“
I’m good with other folks’ problems.”

“
Not mine.”

“
I’m working a double shift. I get off at midnight. We could have a drink. The bar stays open late.”

“
Any other time,” he said.

“
If you change your mind, I’ll be here till closing. Whoops, gotta please another customer,” and she was off to take an order from a touristy looking couple on the other side of the dining room. When she had her back to him, he got up and slipped out of the restaurant. She was attractive and under other circumstances he would have been interested, but he knew he wouldn’t be coming back at midnight.

He decided to buy a newspaper, then go to his room and make the call he was dreading. He headed for the rack in the lobby, catching the desk clerk on the phone with a surprised look on his face. He knew instinctively who he was talking to, and what he was talking about.

“
I’ll pay for it when I check out,” he said, holding up a newspaper.

The clerk nodded, and with the phone still at his ear, he turned away from him.

Broxton walked out the door and stepped into the front seat of a waiting cab.

“
Cab’s taken,” the driver said.

“
Thought you were waiting for me.” Broxton handed the driver a blue hundred, as he heard the sirens off in the distance.

“
Where you wanna go?” the driver asked, shoving the bill in his shirt pocket.

Chapter Four

“
I’m baking and it’s only ten o’clock,” Meiko said.

“
Me too,” Julie said, as she stepped onto the boat. Her head was still spinning from the royal treatment she’d received from the immigration officer. True to his word Lawless had arranged it so that she was checked out in record time. Both the forms and the stamp in her passport were dated a week ago.

The government of Trinidad and Tobago had no authority to seize a boat that was outside their waters. The backdates on the clearance forms made the little man’s papers worthless, unless, of course, he showed up again before she managed to get Fallen Angel out of Trinidad, but that wouldn’t happen. Lawless had said that he’d hold the man until tomorrow.

Julie started toward the swim ladder on the starboard side.

“
Are we gonna bring up the dinghy now?” Meiko asked.

“
No, we’re going for a ride back out to the Five Islands.”

“
That’s stupid. What could be more important that leaving? That policeman said we should get out of Trinidad. I thought that’s what we were going to do.”

“
We are, but I saw something out there.”

“
What?”

“
It looked like a small boat pulled up into the foliage, like someone wanted to hide it. That’s why I almost lost control of the dinghy yesterday, I was trying to make out what it was.” Julie stepped into the dinghy and started squeezing the priming bulge in the fuel hose.

“
We’re going back out there?” Meiko said.

“
The water’s flat calm. Not a ripple. We can be there and back in less than an hour,” Julie said. Meiko nodded, as she stepped over the lifelines and climbed down. She was her mother’s daughter and carried the same reckless streak of curiosity.

“
Think it might be connected with the dead man?” Meiko stepped into the rubber boat.

“
How could a man be dead in that water for two weeks?”

“
I don’t know.”

“
It’s not possible. The current would take the body out through the Bocas and into the open sea in a matter of hours.”

“
What are you saying?”

“
I want to know why it didn’t,” she said. She jerked on the starter cord. The engine roared to life and Julie backed off the gas.

With flat seas the fifteen horsepower Evinrude had the ten foot dinghy up on a plane, sizzling over the ocean, like a magic carpet flying over Arabia.

“
See over there,” Julie said, fifteen minutes later. They were closing on the largest of the islands. It was big enough to carry two abandoned buildings and a water tank, now all covered with tropical growth. There was a land bridge to the smallest island, fifteen or twenty feet long. You had to know it was there, because at high tide it was under water.

Julie cut the engine as they approached a brick dinghy dock that hadn’t been used in years. It was covered in tropical green and easily missed. The rubber boat brushed the dock and Julie jumped out with the painter in hand. She tied it to a low hanging branch, then extended her arm to her daughter.

Meiko grabbed her mother’s arm in a Viking grip, wrist to wrist, and Julie pulled her out of the boat. She could have jumped out herself and Julie knew it, but her eyes told Julie that she appreciated her mother’s help.

“
This way.” Julie led Meiko through the brush. Julie was following an overgrown path, pushing bush and branch aside, clearing the way for her daughter.