Acoustic Shadows (13 page)

‘Yeah, I remember,’ said Thiery, recalling how they’d been assigned to ‘shepherd’ an attractive federal judge from Tallahassee to Miami, who turned out to be the justice on a trial in which the Cuban grocer had been the primary witness against a human trafficking ring. The two of them had taken her to Joe’s in Miami and after an hour of listening to Bullock’s smooth humour and gobbling crustaceans and dirty martinis, the lady had given enough information for them to figure it all out. ‘But, I know how charming you can be, too, and I’m hoping you can ask a few questions and see if I’m on the right track. Maybe he’ll at least tell you about this magician connection, or if I’m barking up the wrong tree.’

‘All I can do is try,’ Bullock said, shades of doubt in his voice. ‘But, you do know their agency has never lost a witness? It operates
that
good. At least that’s their PR spiel.’

‘I hear you, but what if it’s crap? What if the programme was corrupted? Either someone got access to its confidential files, or
worse
?’

‘What would be worse than that?’

‘What if one of their marshals went bad? And don’t tell me that can’t happen. How many times have we seen some of the guys we’ve worked with go to the dark side? The temptation is always there.’

Bullock thought about it for a moment, chewing the inside corner of his mouth like it was gum. ‘Why don’t you give me that address, and I’ll check it out. Then, I’ll call Ron and see if he can meet for lunch tomorrow. Will that make you happy?’

‘Make it a breakfast meeting,’ he negotiated, smiling. ‘And a big hug from you would make me happier.’

‘Settle down, white bread. See, I kept telling you to find another wife. Now, you’ve gone sweet on me.’

Thiery laughed, ‘I’ve always been sweet on you, man.’ He and Bullock had become good friends in spite of the supervisor/subordinate relationship between them and they could always cheer each other up. Even on the bleakest days. ‘Okay, boss. I’m going to text you the address. Let me know if Sales shares anything with you.’

‘You got it. Be safe, pal, and let me know if you find that teacher.’

By the time he hung up, Thiery was crossing into Lake Wales. He could see the silhouette of the musical tower on top of the small mountain on which it was perched. It was silent, and Thiery was a little disappointed. But, the air was fresh and cool, and he felt a hunger developing. He punched in Chalet Suzanne on his tablet and got directions to the restaurant.

As he drove, he wondered where Erica Weisz might be at that moment and how she was doing. He also wondered what could scare someone so much that she would elect to run away from the hospital, the media, and the cops with a shotgun wound in her side.

In the Lakeland Regional Hospital, David Edward Coody opened his eyes for the first time since he’d been shot. It was dark inside his room, but he could hear the quiet
click-whoosh, click-whoosh
of the ventilator, and he could feel the air being pushed into his lungs, in time with the cadence of the machine. He felt the plastic tube sitting dryly in his trachea and wanted to take it out. Surely, he could breathe on his own. But, when he tried to reach up to pull it out, he couldn’t feel his hand. He couldn’t feel the other one either. He tried to move his feet, and that’s when he came to the realization that he couldn’t move anything below his neck. A panic seized him like nothing he’d experienced before. Vaguely, it occurred to him that this must be what the children at the school felt when they heard him and Frank start to shoot up the school and the teachers. That karmic thought brought him no peace, or reassurance, but intense terror.

That’s when he began to scream.

Esperanza and his entourage sat in the smoky lounge at Rachel’s ‘gentlemen’s’ club, off of Orange Avenue in downtown Orlando. Most of the mismatched gang were in good spirits, fuelled by drinks and the thought of living on someone else’s dime until their target was found. Not all were happy, though. Julio was frustrated. He thought all they would have to do was find the woman in the hospital and silence her. He’d brought in the contract killers in case they needed to bully their way in, or take out some local cops guarding her. Now that she was on the run, he wasn’t exactly sure what he was going to do. He didn’t dare reach out to his father for advice.

A girl with aftermarket boobs and a butterfly tattoo on her belly she’d tried to hide with some concealer make up – per the club’s no tattoo policy – bent over their table as Julio was cutting into his very rare steak. The dancer’s long blonde curls dipped into the bloody
au jus
on his plate.

‘Wanna dance?’ she asked rubbing her breasts against his shoulder, her breath reeking of garlic.

Julio gripped the knife he was using on his meat so tight his knuckles turned white.

‘No. I want you to get your fucking hair out of my fucking food,’ he barked.

The dancer didn’t seem offended in the least, and never missed a beat as she drifted over the Lopez brothers and made the same enquiry, where she was eagerly invited to sit on their laps and rub their crotches with her butt. Eduardo nuzzled into her cleavage like an unweaned baby and began to nibble at the flesh-coloured pasties that covered her nipples per Orlando’s stripper ordinances. You could be an ‘exotic’ dancer in the Mecca of Mickey Mouse but, like one of Disney’s animated characters, you better not show your aureoles.

Julio had called his source several times, but the man wasn’t answering. The tool had fulfilled his obligation by letting them know where to find the woman and lining up the gun cache purchase from the Kentucky State Police, but since the hit had gone sour and the woman was gone, who else might know where she’d disappeared to? They needed the asshole one more time.

As Julio gave up on the steak, watching Eduardo repeatedly try to slip his hand into the girl’s thong, a thought came to him. He nudged his way over to Davies, whose shaved head reflected the club’s multi-coloured strobe lights. Noticing Anichka sitting close to the giant – very close, with a necklace of hickeys on her throat – he wondered what was up.

‘De De,’ Julio yelled over the music into the big man’s ear. ‘You tapping that?’

The huge assassin stared at Julio with his crossed eye. It was as black and cold as onyx. He said nothing.

Julio backed off pursuing that line. ‘Uh, if I give you a phone number, can you trace it?’

The big man looked back at him, his face like stone, as if the question was so simple, it didn’t deserve being asked. ‘
Oui
’ he grunted.

‘Yeah?’

Davies smirked. ‘It’s child’s play, boss,’ he explained. ‘But, I’ll need my laptop.’

‘Then, let’s go,’ said Julio.

He threw a couple of hundred dollars on the table and stood up. The rest of his group followed as if on command, the Lopez brothers unceremoniously dumping the tattooed dancer on the floor. Davies held out his hand to Anichka, who took it as elegantly as a debutante. They began pushing their way out of the crowd and back to the hotel, but not before Eduardo slipped in one more grope as he helped the dancer up and stuffed a twenty into her panties.

Moral started off great. On a lark, on his way to the blackjack tables, he’d hit the five dollar slots and pulled twelve hundred dollars out of the first machine after only two turns of the wheels. Three golden bells in a row. It was like cocaine: elation followed by the need for more.

The race tracks were closed on the east coast, but he found some televised races from California. He liked playing the ponies, but you had to bet big to win big. He laid down his slot machine take on a horse named ‘Money Marshal’. It won and paid five-to-one. He made six grand, lost a couple of hundred on a few more bets, then decided he better go for the gusto if he was going to double or triple his money. He was feeling like a winner when he strode over to the tables, searched the floor for the best looking dealer with the biggest boobs, and pulled up a chair. Her platinum locks and crimson red lips would distract the other players, but not him. He was focused, bent on making that money, assured it would resurrect his soul.

On his first hand, he was dealt two aces. He doubled down and stayed at nineteen-on-one and got a face card on top of the other. He won both hands when the dealer took a hit on a fourteen and busted, pulling a nine. It was pretty unusual for a dealer to bust. Moral saw it as a sign, as gamblers tend to do, so he stayed put and picked up another forty-two hundred, playing two and three hands at a time over the next hour. When his luck started to go south – he lost about five hundred – at that table, he moved to another. But, he wasn’t getting to where he needed to be, so he took a run at craps. This went on for hours, his confidence increasing, his heart pumping adrenalized blood into his head so that, in spite of downing at least eight highballs, he was as clear and focused as a rattler zeroing in on a field mouse. By 10:00 p.m., he had almost forty-five thousand dollars. He considered stopping, taking what he had, leaving on a semblance of success, going away with confidence. With the cash in his pocket he could face Esperanza. At least he had a bargaining chip.

He decided to take a break and think about it. He went to Velvet, a club with a live jazz band playing in the casino, and sat at the bar. He struck up a conversation with a guy in a loud jacket who said he was a local. Moral asked him if he knew where any
real
action was. He sure did. Some high rollers were holed up in one of the hotel’s penthouse suites. ‘Knock on the door,’ he’d instructed, ‘give ’em the password, “Horseshoe”, and you got a seat at the table: five card stud, with a minimum five K buy-in.’

They rode up the elevator together, and the local man introduced him to some of the players: a bunch of out-of-towners, older fellas with sharp blazers, expensive cigars, overpriced watches, and lots of bling. There were a couple of hookers mulling about the table, too, giving neck massages. When you took a break, you could go to one of the three bedrooms in the suite and get a blow job.
Nice.
Booze flowed freely. Moral felt a warm glow envelope him like a soft, wet mouth. For now,
he was the man, the player, the winner
.

Moral had never been to Orlando. For a place that marketed itself as the premiere family destination in the world, he was amazed to discover how much of that action was clearly not family oriented.

Within ninety minutes, he’d lost everything. The guy with the loud jacket loaned him cash to get his car from valet. He hadn’t even got a blow job. As he drove away from the casino, he felt lost, literally and geographically. Sweat soaked his armpits and seeped through to his plaid jacket. He could smell the sharp scent of his own body. His tie was loose, like a hangman’s knot just before the trap door opens. His shirt collar was ringed with oil and dirt. Boozy bile ran up his throat and burned his mouth. Just when he thought he couldn’t go on, his phone rang. It was
them.
To his surprise, he answered.

‘I was going to call you,’ he said, nervously.

‘Yeah, right,’ Esperanza snarled. ‘I’ve been dialling you all day.’

‘Work is crazy, right now.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Yeah, can’t keep up … I’ve got to get down to Florida.’

‘You’re already here,
cono
.’

‘No,’ Moral lied, poorly, ‘why would you think that— ’

‘Because I’m looking at your location on my laptop right now. Your cell phone helps.’

Shit
, thought Moral.
Fuck it
. He’d roll the die again. Play it tough this time. No bullshit. Let them know this was the end. He couldn’t keep this shit up.

‘We’re done,
jefe
. What’s done is done,’ He said, trying to sound bold but hearing his own weakness in the treble of his voice. He heard the man breathing over the phone. The sound made his blood run cold.

‘Give me the address.’

‘I … don’t … ’

‘Give me the fucking address!’

‘Nah,’ he tried feebly. ‘I don’t even know what it is, yet. It doesn’t happen like that. I’ve got to call my superiors, submit a report. There’s follow up and red tape and— ’

‘Okay. I’ll tell Amy you said hello when I see her. I’ll tell her it could’ve been different, but you wouldn’t let it happen.’

‘Amy?’ His breath halted. ‘You’re going to see Amy?’

‘I am now. I just decided to finance her next film. I think we’ll shoot this one down in Tijuana. We don’t have to go through the American Motion Picture rating system down there, you know. You ever see the shit they do with animals down there? I thought she might be done with that business, that
we
might be done with our business. But I guess not.’

Moral pulled over. He struggled to breathe. He opened the windows to get fresh air, but nausea welled up. He had to open the car door and retch.

He sat back up, the inside light casting a pall over him, the open door alarm incessantly dinging, dinging, dinging …

‘Robert?’ said a distant voice. Remembering the phone on the seat next to him, he picked it up, his hand shaking. He wiped the slick corner of his mouth with his jacket sleeve.

‘O … okay,’ he belched, the acidy bubble rising up his throat like anger. ‘Where are you?’

The bumper sticker on the Dodge Ram pickup read: ‘You can have my gun when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers.’ The man inside the cab ruminated on his choices. He knew the car in the driveway was the same one from the hospital, because he had the tag number. He could knock on the door and take the woman; he was carrying a gun, and she probably wouldn’t put up much of a fight. Or, he could call his pal, Danny Coody, and tell him he located her. Or, he could do the ‘right’ thing and call the cops.

Coody might be a friend, but his son was as fucked-up as Hogan’s goat. Always was. Didn’t surprise anyone in town that the kid finally flipped out and attacked the school. When everyone else was out mudding with their gals, or drinking beer by the swim hole, David Coody was locked up in his darkened room with one of those video games. The only time he did go out with the guys was to go hunting, then the goofy fuck would shoot anything that moved – rabbits, crows, squirrels – and scare off the deer. No one asked him to go twice. Still, his dad was a friend.

He made the call.

Danny answered before the second ring.

‘Hey bud,’ the man said, not taking his eyes off the car in the driveway. ‘It’s Feller.’

‘I knowed who it is. Wassup? It’s late.’

Feller chuckled at his cranky friend. ‘I’m up here in Lake Wales, sitting on the side of the road, and I got my eye on that black Camaro ya’ll been lookin’ for. Thought you might like to know.’

‘You sure it’s the right one? You know how many people been callin’ me to tell me they found that Camaro?’

‘You insult me, brother. You know iffen I tell you somethin’, it gonna be fact. I’m lookin’ at the tag, man.’

Coody rubbed his face and looked at his watch. Then, he thought of his only son, lying in the hospital, tubes stuck down his throat, a machine breathing for him. The doctor already told him he’d never walk again. The only good thing was that it might keep him out of prison. How could they jail a quadriplegic, anyway?

‘All right, Feller,’ he said, finally. ‘Tell me where you’re at. I’ll be there within the hour.’

Harold, the shift supervisor at the Calusa County Sheriff’s Office had received the tip from one of the guys looking for the black Camaro. They had basically put together a vigilante posse to go after the missing Weisz woman. Now, the makeshift posse were showing up with loaded guns, their tempers fuelled by booze. Harold wasn’t comfortable holding on to that information. He called Conroy.

‘I hope I didn’t wake you, Sheriff,’ said the supervisor.

‘I never sleep, Harold. What’s up?’

He told him about the posse.

‘Thanks for the call,’ Conroy said, ‘but I’m well aware of the boys out looking for Miss Weisz. I hope they find her. We don’t have the resources we used to around here, and we can use the help.’

Harold didn’t know what to say.

‘Don’t worry about it,’ Conroy continued, as if reading the concern on Harold’s mind. ‘If they find her, there’s a couple guys in the group that’ll give me a call. Hey, it’ll save the department a bunch of overtime, right?’

Right
, Harold thought. The mob was sure to save overtime. But what would be left of the girl?

Erica saw them alive again. They were sitting at the breakfast table, just like the last day she’d seen them, talked to them, and kissed them goodbye. She felt the familiar warmth that came to her every time she dreamed of them. She felt the love of family, of a good husband and a wonderful daughter who was just coming into her own at 14 years old. She felt the history of their life together: the Christmases, the birthdays, the nothing days when they’d lie by the pool and languidly reach over to pick up an iced tea, their hands brushing, touching, holding. The strength from something that simple seemed both impossible and forever gone to her now.

Then, her heart began to beat fast, as it always did when the dream turned into the nightmare. That sickening feeling as she pushed past the scores of cops – where had they been when they were needed? – and rushed into the house to find all the blood, her family and home ripped apart as if an animal had fed on them. And who could she take her anger out on? The man who had entered the house like a human tornado and killed everyone with no more aforethought than wiping his shoes off on the welcome mat before sticking the gun in his own mouth and blowing his brains out? She could rail at the sky for all the good it would do, just like victims of tornadoes or school shootings might do. In the end, nothing changed. The world kept spinning on its axis. Tides came and went. The sun still shone. The rain still fell. And people still died.

Erica woke drenched in sweat, panting, as if she’d come in from a 10 km run. It was night but she had no way to know how long she’d been unconscious. The handcuffs still held her prisoner to the bed, but she wasn’t going to lie there and wait for someone to come take her life. With her toe, she’d managed to get the nightstand lamp turned on to better examine the rail on the headboard. It ran into the vertical stanchion that extended down and became one of the bed’s legs.
What held it there?
She didn’t see any screws or fasteners. Could it be simply glued?

She ran the handcuffs all the way to one side of the rail, then manoeuvred her legs up and placed her foot against the vertical wood stanchion. She gave it a kick. The effort pinched her side, and she winced back tears. She gritted her teeth and kicked harder while holding onto the horizontal part of the rail. Again and again she kicked, each time feeling as though her wounds were bursting open. Her breath came in ragged gulps, and she thought she might pass out again, but then she saw the rail had come about a half-inch out of the hole in the stanchion. Pausing to catch her breath, she mustered what strength she had left and kicked with both feet. The rail came out as the stanchion fell away, and the whole side of the bed collapsed.

She slid the handcuffs off the rail and slumped to her knees. Her side felt as if she’d just been shot again, and she reached down absently to rub where it hurt. When she used the same hand to steady herself against the nightstand, she noticed blood on it. She looked down at herself and saw her shirt was soaked with blood.
It would be easier to just lie down and let them come kill me,
she thought, instantly growing angry at herself for thinking it. How would she get back at the people who had ruined her life?
She needed to live!

Pulling herself upright, Erica managed to get into the bathroom. She struggled out of her soiled shirt and was shocked to see how emaciated she’d become, and in only two days. She looked like a prisoner of war, complete with that gaunt look in her eyes that said,
I’m going to die soon.
She shook off the thought, soaked a washcloth with cold water, and gingerly applied it to her side. She carefully removed the bloody bandages and peered at the wounds. The stitches had torn loose on the largest incision and some of the pellet wounds were seeping reddish-clear fluid. She could smell infection.

She rinsed her face and body with cold water and patted herself dry; cleansed the wounds with peroxide again and applied new dressings. She found another clean shirt and began to look through her purse for the keys to the car when the beams from headlights flashed through the bedroom’s jalousie windows.

She dropped on all fours and painfully crawled through the house, making her way to the kitchen. She rummaged through drawers and found a hefty knife. The edge of its blade was dull, but the knife was long and pointed.

More headlights shone through the windows. It seemed the quiet road where the new ‘safe haven’ was had turned very busy.

‘We don’t need everyone going to the house to get the woman,’ Julio advised his team. ‘A couple of you, De De and Anichka, why don’t you stay here? Alejandro and Eduardo, you go take care of the girl. Shouldn’t be difficult. My guy reports she’s handcuffed to a bed. Said she’s pretty sick, so you’re just taking her out of her misery, okay?’

‘Do you want us to bring her back here?’ asked Alejandro Lopez.

Julio thought about it for a minute. His thoughts drifted back to that time his father had taken him to the beach house as a teenager then made him help behead some of his enemies. ‘Nah. Just bring me her head,
si
?’

‘
Si
,’ said Eduardo Lopez, his face lighting up like a child going to Disney World. ‘Can we play with her a little?’

Julio nodded. ‘Sure, whatever you want. But, don’t take too long. We have luck going with us right now. Let’s keep it that way.’

De De was showing Anichka his Parabellum pistole, otherwise known as the German Luger, one of the most expensive and collectible guns in the world. It still retained its sleek, automatic lethality that made it look like a ray gun from the old
Flash Gordon
movies. She thought it was
beautiful
and sniffed its oily scent as if she smelled a bouquet of freshly picked flowers.

‘I need to go powder my nose,’ said Anichka, suddenly flushed.

‘Inside or out?’ Julio quipped. ‘I got some really good blow in the bathroom.’

‘No, I’m good. I’ll be back in a few minutes,’ she said, and slid out the door as quickly and quietly as a cat.

After an appropriate pause, De De said he was going outside to smoke a cigarette. Julio nodded and went back to business on the phone.

Anichka opened the door when De De knocked lightly. She pulled his jacket off and tried to push him back onto the bed. It was like pushing against a wall, but he went along with it and plopped himself down. She unbuckled his pants and slid them down, tugging at his underwear like she was skinning a buffalo. He was already erect and as huge as she remembered. She hiked up her skirt and impaled herself on him, filling her emptiness.

‘We … finally … get to … kill … someone,’ she said through her exertions.

De De looked up at her. She was small behind his enormous belly, but the energy she could generate was like a giant Cummings Diesel motor that, once cranked up, couldn’t be stopped.