“And after that, hell, I dunno. I don’t know what else we’ll do besides telling ourselves that it’s no good to let yourself die without knowing, once more, the wonder of fucking with love.” She’d forgotten to breathe, so she inhaled, ragged, fighting tears, and added:
“Or something like it.”
Was this how her mother had felt? Was she taking the same empty ride? Her room’s landline started ringing, shrill, and she had to hang up on Dennis and pick up the receiver to answer the call and go to work.
“How is he doing?” Nothing. Just a soft huffing static on the other end. “My client, Andy. How is he?”
The voice on the other end of the call was soft, musical, comically high pitched. “You got my rescate?”
“I do.”
“A’ight.”
“Bring Andy to the phone.”
“You think I’m stupid? No. I get the money; then I let the hostage go.”
“I need proof of life.”
The kidnapper switched to Spanish. “Are you listening to me?”
“Have Andy tell you the name of his first girlfriend. They won’t release the money unless they know he’s still alive.”
“Señora, I am a businessman, not a murderer.”
She could hear, in her communications earpiece, the freelancer telling Falcone to make her bring the gun.
She said, “Try to see it through their eyes: once you have your money—”
The caller cut her off, sounding impatient. “Yes, okay. I will have the answer for you. Proof of the boy’s life. No cops. No shadow.”
“You’ll have the answer when?”
In Spanish: “When I’m ready. You have eight minutes to get to the lighthouse.” And then, in English: “Mark, set, go.”
Dial tone. Shit. Sentro was already grabbing her keys, her sunglasses, the lumpy gray duffel bag near the door, in a hurry, pointedly ignoring the handgun, despite the admonitions of Falcone.
“Unger wants you to take the gun.”
“No. Just make sure they give me space.”
She could hear Falcone arguing with the Port Isabel cops about a surveillance tail. “Aubrey, wait.”
Sentro pulled the door open; the smothering humidity hit her as soon as she stepped out into the day.
“Lots of space, Vic.”
Her rookie mistake was thinking she’d get it.
Elsayed stews as he follows Sentro back to their private offices. “Bean-counting bastards have no concept of dynamic truth in the field.”
“They have investors to consider.” She caught herself. “We have.”
“The hell does Bob Drewmore have against you? Besides that you’re competent?”
Where to start? Sentro thinks she says aloud, but Lucky just stares at her, waiting. That I’m still out doing fieldwork, and he has trouble seeing the tops of his feet over his gut? That he hates women because he got passed over by the Pentagon on account of his wife fell into the opioid swamp? That he’s old and scared and feels marginalized and, like the rest of us, wonders what the hell he will do when the circus shuts down?
Changing subjects, she says, “Vacation. Wow. Dennis and the kids usually had to go without me. Even if we planned ahead. Shit happened. Then the kids got older—sports, camp. I bet I haven’t had one since . . . I don’t know. Maybe Disney World. Right after I left the agency?”
“You missed Disney World, Aubrey.”
“No, I remember it.”
“From your husband’s photographs, maybe. It was the first time we did a gig together. I remember you calling them every night.”
She stops short outside her office doorway. Looks at Elsayed fondly; he’s walked alongside her without judgment through a lot of unforgiving and hostile terrain.
“Dennis took great pictures.”
“He did.”
“You came in and hit the ground running,” Lucky says. “Port-au-Prince, dropping the hammer on Cédras, remember?”
She doesn’t remember. “Oh, right.”
Lucky may sense this is a lie, but he doesn’t press her on it. He asks again, with real concern, “You okay?”
Sentro deflects. “So. Anyway. Vacation.” She shakes her head. “Where should I go?”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Lush green islets dawn from an azure sea.
Fouled by a nosing of fish oil and decay.
The luxury yacht floats becalmed, glorious, midday in a pristine equatorial lagoon. Silvery water licks at its sides when a wave rolls through. Rigging shivers and clicks. The quiet is unreal.
And like some tropical trope, a lean, sun-kissed young woman is reclined on a deck chair. Her flawless brown body shames an impractical white bikini dazzled with sequins and a pink spritz.
His burly shadow eclipses her; his ferret eyes scutter over her one last time before his hands send the storm of flies thrumming.
Gossamer ginger hair floats out on the midday thermals like a shredded nimbus. All the hustle on the ship she appears to be aloof to. The bite of diesel fuel in the breeze doesn’t faze her. Seabirds crisscross overhead, warped in the lenses of her sunglasses.
Her arm has slipped from the chaise. Her hand dangles limp, wrist engirdled by diamond bracelets.
Blood drips from the ends of her fingers onto the screen of a smartphone and spills off into the ruby pool spreading under her chair.
Pauly Zeme lifts the dead woman in his arms like she’s nothing, her blood spatting down his board shorts onto the tops of his bare feet as he shuffles across the teak deck to an open hatch that leads to the galley and living quarters. He locks his hip and shifts her weight and, balancing her, removes her jewelry before tossing her down below, where a half dozen other bodies are tangled in fleshy discomposure.
He frowns at the violent red smear she’s left on the front of his aloha shirt. “Aw shit.”
A voice cries up, “Oy!”
Pauly’s own face seems to detach from the lower-deck shadows, blue eyes finding the light and looking up. His identical twin, Castor. Same gym-rat build, sun blond, but flashing teeth that Castor’s had filed into points, and his brother’s forearms are girdled with serpent tattoos that Pauly thinks immodest.
Castor says, “Give us a fucking warning, ya knob.” Then he adds, “Hullo! Back atcha!” and heaves a huge ziplock bag up through the hatchway, where Pauly fumbles to catch it. Rings, watches, and jewelry jangle in the plastic. Pauly splits the seal and adds the diamond bracelet from the dead woman’s wrist as his brother shouts again. “And another!”
A second ziplock bag is tossed up, this one stuffed with wallets, pocketbooks, and loose cash: dollars, pounds, euros, yen. It arcs and slaps to the deck uncaught.
“And another!”
“Piss off! Not so fucking fast, ya knob!”
Laughter and bottles of champagne erupt from below in rapid succession like a juggling act gone awry. Pauly struggles not to drop them, but a few go wide and shatter on the gunwale, spewing foam and glass. A pirate boy in a wine-and-gold jersey watches, expressionless, crouched on the lip of the cabin. Castor comes up the ladder with a clean shirt that he throws at his brother.
“You look like the meat man.”
“Can I help it they were bleeders?” Pauly peels off his ruined tropical shirt and examines the label of this new wardrobe critically before trying it on.