The Butterfly Forest (Mystery/Thriller) (40 page)

“I’ll do what I can.  Not many of my colleagues left there anymore.  There’s one, and he’s the guy you need now.  Cal Thorpe.”

“Thorpe is good, but at this point he would get in the way.  I have a plan and for the first step at least, I can’t include him.”

Kim Davis, her face tanned and radiant, stepped up to the table to take our breakfast orders.  After we ordered, she folded her arms across her breasts and said, “Nick told me they almost sank his boat with a rifle shot through his bilge.  The whole marina’s been upside down talking about this.  Did they catch that Mexican drug lord?”

Dave said, “He’s actually Argentinean, he moved his operation to Mexico years ago.  Far as we know, he’s still at large.”

“Sean, does this mean you’re not safe?”

“I’ll be fine.”

She looked up as a family entered and took seats at a table.  Her eyes dropped back to mine.  “You need to go wherever Joe Billie goes.  Apparently, nobody can ever find him unless he wants to be found.”

I smiled.  “You have a good point.”

“I’ll turn in your orders.”

When she left, Dave said, “Word I hear is they believe Gonzales is deep in Mexico City.  They’re not sure if he managed to smuggle his nephew’s body out of the country.  For all we know, it could be iced down on a container ship bound for Cozumel or stored in some refrigerated unit around Tampa Bay.” 

“It’s amazing that no one knows anything.  These people can’t just vanish into thin air.”

“I do know there’s a directive from the White House to bring in Gonzales, no matter what it takes.  We have some of our best moving through Mexico right now, turning over rocks, kicking in doors and generally using the same tactics Gonzales has used as we hunt him down.”

“They won’t find him that way.  His money buys the best protection—silence.”

“Somebody will talk, they always do.”   

“I’ll try to draw out Gonzales.”

“What are you going to do, Sean?”

“We talked about using me as bait.  Now, I think I know how to set the hook.”      

ONE HUNDRED

Two nights later, I knew Dave still had some clout in DC.  I could actually feel the federal presence lift like fog dissipating.  I walked Max on the grass near the marina parking lot before coming back down L dock toward
Jupiter,
listening to the boats in the distance and the call of a laughing gull flying overhead.  The scent of lemon shrimp and snook cooking over charcoal was alluring.

I fed Max, dressed in black jeans and a long sleeve dark shirt and wedged the Glock under my belt.  I knew Gonzales was not going to stop hunting me.  For psychos like him, revenge had no expiration date.

I thought of Elizabeth hiding in Cedar Key, thought of Molly and Mark buried under the Florida sand, thought of Nicole Davenport who wore fairy wings one midsummer’s night, her fantasy ending in a monstrous rape and death.  I could see Luke Palmer’s bloated neck and face as blowflies crawled in his open mouth and nose.  Gonzales wanted revenge for his nephew, regardless that he was killed because he was about to kill, again.  He could rot in hell.  Their deaths and that of the others, all innocent, demanded justice.

I picked up Max and rubbed her head.  “You’ll be staying on Dave’s boat for the night, okay?  Maybe you can get in some winks between his snores.”  I set her down and she trotted toward the salon’s sliding glass doors.  “Okay, let’s go to Uncle Dave’s.”

Max quickly made herself at home on
Gibraltar
,
jumping up onto Dave’s couch.  He sipped from a glass of red wine, leaning back from his computer screen, his bifocals reflecting the pop of revolving light from the lighthouse.  “You won’t get any second chances out there.  You know that…”

I nodded and said, “It’s time to fish.”

I DROVE MY JEEP NORTH to Daytona Beach, parked in a pool hall lot, and begin walking.  I headed to the strip, the guttural rumble of Harleys bouncing off the biker bars and beachfront motels.  I watched cars stopped at a traffic light, assuming one of the cars was a tail.  A shirtless man, hair matted down from dirt and sweat, eyes sunken in his narrow face, stood at one corner holding a cardboard sign that read:
Hungry

College kids on spring break, bikers on permanent break, tourists and conventioneers crisscrossed each other as the traffic lights changed.  Each group marched with its own agenda, most of the crowd seeking the hedonism promised by the ‘world’s most famous beach.’

I walked past a strip joint as a half dozen college men stood outside and counted dollars.  “Why do they make you pay a friggin’ cover charge?” one of them asked, his voice drowned out when two businessmen opened the club’s door, the grinding music blasting onto Ocean Drive.  I passed a tattoo parlor, its bluish light spilling from the window framing a teenage girl who was trying to look brave while a bearded artist, cigarette dangling from his lips, injected ink into a spot just above the crack in her butt.

In the distance, I could hear an eighteen wheeler shifting gears to cross the Broadway Bridge over the Halifax River.  I continued walking, scanning each car as it passed, looking at the tops of high-rise condos, taking in each corner, and crossing streets with people who smelled of sun block, reefer and stale beer.

I walked for more than an hour, up Ocean Drive and back down the strip and the boardwalk.  I couldn’t detect anyone following me.  Maybe Gonzales had decided to call off his troops.  Maybe he no longer had a bounty on my head, and all was forgiven in the death of Izzy.  Maybe I’d hit the lotto.    

Just as the traffic light changed to green, a dark Chrysler switched lanes, pulled forward and passed me.  Through the back window, I could see the driver look in his rearview mirror.  He spoke to the other man in the front seat.  It didn’t look like there was anyone in the back seat.  The driver tapped his brakes once approaching the next block and turning right.

Bingo.  I knew they’d been following me, now I’d give them the opportunity to come a little closer.  I stood on the street corner, allowing them time to circle the block.  I heard a siren somewhere in the mosaic of neon, music and the thunder of motorcycles.

I saw the car coming slowly around the block, the Atlantic Ocean dark in the background, a strobe of distant heat lightning threading gold stitches through the clouds.  I entered the alleyway, the smell of garbage pungent in the night air.  I felt that Gonzales wanted me alive.  I knew he personally wanted to turn my backbone into calcium powder.  They were here to take me alive, take me back to their leader’s hut.  But, I wasn’t going to comply.

Come get me.

The Chrysler entered the alley, its headlights raking across graffiti and garbage piled in plastic bags.  A light rain began to fall on the old brick.  As the car came closer, I saw a black cat dart in front of it, the cat running behind a green dumpster.  I stepped behind the dumpster and waited.

The car’s engine turned off, but the headlights stayed on while two doors opened and shut.  There was the sound of hard soles, the men making no attempt to quietly approach me.  I could see their shadows moving against the walls, the red neon of an exit sign reflecting from the wet brick.  I readied my Glock and watched their shadows.  Could see them reaching for something in their pockets.  In five seconds they would be visible.  In six seconds they may be dead.

ONE HUNDRED-ONE

The cat snarled and ran between my legs.  I felt a drop of sweat roll slowly down the center of my back.  A voice said, “O’Brien, no need to play hide ‘n seek.”

I recognized it.  The snide tone came from the same voice I heard that morning in the Walmart parking lot.  Frank Soto.  “We’re here to talk.  We don’t even have guns on us.”

I said, “Walk into the center of the alley.  Both of you hold your hands in the air.”

“Let’s do as the man asks,” Soto said to the other man.  “You sound like a cop, O’Brien.”  They moved to the center of the alley, silhouettes in the car’s lights, hands up.

I walked around the side of the dumpster, the Glock in my hand.  The other man had muscle so thick it looked as if he wore shoulder pads, his chest similar to a small refrigerator.  But he was a least a foot shorter than me.  He had a pale, Germanic complexion.  His fish eyes blinked, resembling a contented cat.  Soto grinned, his face sprouting a week’s growth of whiskers.  He wore a blue jean shirt with the sleeves cut off and rolled to emphasize his muscles.  He said, “Lower the heat.  We come on a peaceful mission, brother.  Mr. Gonzales only wants to have a little chat with you.  Word is he might be offering you a job.  Lots of money.  Travel.  Women.  He asked us to bring you to him.”

“Tell him to come here.”

Soto smiled.  The other man’s face was stone.  Soto said, “That’s not too easy to do.  Lots of paperwork, you know… all that immigration and customs shit.  Makes traveling suck, a real pain in the ass.  Look, man, the blood’s runnin’ out of my freakin’ arms.  Me and Johnny will just drop our hands and talk.”  They lowered their arms to their sides.  “That’s better,” Soto said.  “Now put the piece away and get in the car.”

“I’m not getting in that car… and neither are you.”

“Mr. Gonzales doesn’t like to be kept waiting.  You can get in the car without a scratch on your body, or you can go with knots on your head.”

“Take your boots off and lift up your pant legs.  Both of you!”

“Take it easy, O’Brien.  I told you we’re
not
carrying heat.”

“And I told you to kick your boots off.”  I pointed the Glock directly between Soto’s eyes.

“Kick off your shoes, Johnny.  Let’s show this peckerwood we mean what we say.”  They untied their boots and slowly lifted their pant legs.  “You might take me out, but Johnny’s only seven or eight feet from you.  He’ll put you down in less than two seconds.”

I said nothing.

Soto grinned.  He slowly reached in his jeans front pocket and pulled out a set of brass knuckles.  The other man did the same thing.  “Looks like we need to teach you a lesson in manners, O’Brien.  Mr. Gonzales is a man who knows a lot of shit about people, and he believes the
good cop
in you won’t allow you to shoot an unarmed man.  Whadda you say about that, O’Brien?”

“You have to ask yourself, Soto, what would the
bad cop
in me do?  Are you willing to risk that?”

Soto grinned and placed an unlit wooden match in the corner of his mouth.  “Let’s see if Mr. Gonzales is right.  Take him, Johnny!”

I shot the man named Johnny in his knee.  Soto swung at me, the wind from his big fist raking across my cheek.  Johnny fell back into a puddle of water, moaning.  I turned to Soto and slid the Glock under my belt.  The expression on his face was of wicked delight, as if he’d been told someone drowned the last kitten in the litter.  He came closer and said, “Too bad Mr. G wants to personally pop your spine.  I’d love to do it tonight, get it the fuck over with.  Know what I mean?”   

I was silent, watching Johnny out of the corner of my eye, readying for Soto’s attack.  He swung hard.  Too hard.  I hit him squarely in the jaw.  He staggered backward.  I saw Johnny’s shadow on the wall, saw him reach into the back of his pants.  I turned in time to see a derringer under the ruddy neon light.  In his hand it was miniscule, a piece of metal flashing—jewelry in his palm.  His stubby finger jerked the trigger, the bullet whizzing by my right ear.  I approached his head.  Fast.  It was a small head stuck on mammoth shoulders.  And I aimed—kicking him solid in the teeth, the sound was as if someone stomped on a can. 

Soto hit me in the back of my head with the brass knuckles.  There was a burst of white.  I heard his laughter.  It was arcane, a synthetic sound deep down in a well, the reverberations spinning up to the surface.  I turned.  He danced around, grinning, fists balled.  The shiny brass looked like four big rings on his fingers.  He smirked.  “I planted the poison in the bitch’s house, the gal
you’re
seeing.  I was gonna fuck her as she died, but a nosey neighbor came by just as I was going to stick it to Molly’s mama.  How does that make you
feel
, O’Brien?  You… me… sharin’ the same mama.”

“Fuck you, Soto.”

His eyes popped wide.  He cocked his fist and swung too hard at me again.  Off balance.  I grabbed his arm, twisting it out of the socket, dislocating his shoulder.  He fell to the ground, cursing me.  I hit him hard in the collarbone, felt it snap under my fist.  At that moment, Frank Soto passed out.  The other man was unconscious, too.  I ran to their car and opened the door.  The car smelled of smoked marijuana and French fries.  I found a cell phone on the console, scrolled through the last numbers.  They were all the same.  Soto had been calling someone every fifteen minutes giving an update as they followed me.

I inhaled a deep breath, exhaled and called the last number.  After three rings, there was an answer, “Tell me you caught O’Brien, that bastard child of a failed society,” came Pablo Gonzales’ smooth voice.  I waited two full seconds before responding, the sounds of an airport in the background.