Black Onyx (2 page)

“You’re free to do it. Go ahead. I warn you though, my crocs have not eaten in many days.”

The croc at the deep end, slowly, almost imperceptibly, began to rise.

“Get him outta there, I’m not kidding.”

“Perhaps you would like to join him?”

John didn’t say anything. Miguel stepped back and looked away. He wasn’t about to watch this.

El Sacerdote stood up and walked to the edge of the pool. He held up his hand and one of the women ran over with a cigarette and lit it before giving it to him.

“No interferences, no arrests,” he said.

“He didn’t know,” John said pleadingly. “He’s new. He just got transferred.”

“Well
, now he knows, doesn’t he?”

The croc drifted just underneath the surface toward the scent of blood. The second one was aroused now and had also drifted up to just below the surface. Phil was
conscious now. He was floating on the surface, his arms and legs instinctively attempting to keep his head above water. His eyes caught John’s.

“Please,” he gasped, water going into his mouth.

John turned away. “Get him out, please. It won’t happen again.”

“Are you certain?
Because I’m not so sure. A minute ago you were saying DEA agents were about to kick down my door.”

“It won’t happen. I’ll spend time with new transfers and explain how things work out here. Please.”

El Sacerdote smiled. He nodded to his men. They grabbed Phil by the shoulders as the crocs were slowly traveling over and pulled him out. He lay on the cement, gasping for breath and coughing. El Sacerdote put his foot on his chest as he took a puff of cigarette.

“You know, my pets are still hungry.”

He flung around and grabbed the woman who had brought him the cigarette by the back of the neck. She screamed as he slammed his fist into her face, breaking her nose and causing blood to cascade down over her bare breasts. El Sacerdote kissed her, then flung her into the pool.

The crocs approached. The woman tried to climb out and El
Sacerdote, laughing, kicked her back into the pool as the first croc got ahold of her.

Miguel made the sign of the cross and kept his eyes focused on the city below. He heard the terrible sounds of
screaming and the crunching of bones.

“What’s the matter, Miguel?”

He looked over and saw El Sacerdote looking at him. “Nada, El Padrino.”

“Good,” he said, puffing at his cigarette. “Then come watch.”

Miguel walked over and stood by the pool. He felt faint as a severed hand floated up near the drain but he didn’t look away. If he showed weakness, he wouldn’t be of any use to El Sacerdote and would be joining the woman in the pool.

When it was over, John lifted Phil
, and Miguel followed them out. They got into the car as Miguel pulled away and drove back down the hill toward the U.S./Mexico border, none of them speaking a word.

3

The first thing Dillon saw as he opened his eyes was the ceiling fan. It was elegantly decorated, a deep brown with gold trim. He watched it twirling in the noonday heat of a Honolulu summer and felt sweat on his forehead. He sat up and saw Niles and James at a table eating fish with white wine. The patio doors were open revealing the Pacific outside and an ocean breeze was blowing in.

Dillon moved his arm and felt the bandage wrapped around his shoulder. His vision still wasn’t a hundred percent and he felt lightheaded.

“You guys didn’t take me to a hospital?” he asked.

“We did.
In Brazil. You’ve been heavily drugged the past few days,” James said.

Images came to his mind. A dirty hospital bed with an even dirtier ceiling.

“Where’s the backpack?”

James
pointed with his fork to the front room. Dillon walked over and opened it, pulling out the crown inside. He ran his fingers over the jewels.

“Have you had it appraised yet?”

“He’s flying in today. Of course, we’ll have to pay him triple his normal fee to keep quiet. The Brazilian government wouldn’t be too happy about us stealing their national treasures.”

“I didn’t steal it, I traded for it. They just didn’t know what they had.”

Dillon put the crown back and went and sat out on the patio. Some teenagers were playing volleyball on the beach, their bodies golden brown. Further out, some surfers were taking hits off a joint before wading into the ocean.

“Dillon, we wanted to speak to you about something.”

“What?”

“Would you like to come in and sit down?”

“No thanks.”

James
exhaled. “We’re getting too old for this, Dillon. This was it, the last hunt.”

Dillon turned to them. “What? You’re ditching me?”

“We’re not ditching you. We’re too old, Dillon. I’m fifty-six years old, I should be thinking about retirement.”

“Oh, what, you’re
gonna go sit in some condo in Florida and wait to die?”

“Actually, we we
re thinking of buying a place on the Riviera.”

“
James, you can’t retire, we just barely got good at what we’re doing.”

He wiped his lips with a linen napkin. “You know, you may wish to consider leaving as well. Not para
dise, I mean, but the business.”

“I travel around the world making lots of money working for just a few days. What exactly would I leave that for?”

“Treasure hunting is not exactly a stable career, Dillon. I know you have that streak of daring in you. Do you remember on Everest when you tried to ski down? You nearly killed yourself coming off a steep ledge and when we found you, you were laughing. Lying on your back with two broken legs and laughing.” He shook his head. “I know you think that’s you and that will always be you, but people change. They have the capacity to choose who they are. You can simply choose to be somebody else.”

Dillon was quiet a moment. “Niles, you on board with this?”

“Afraid so, my friend. You’d be surprised how different the view is from close to sixty rather than thirty.”

Dillon stood up. “That’s fine, I
don’t need you guys anyway. I don’t need anybody,” he said, storming off the patio onto the sand.

“Dillon—”

“No, it’s fine. You guys go lay on a beach and wait to die. I’m gonna live life though, thank you.”

He walked away from the house and down the
beach, the sun blaring down on him. Near the surf, laid out on a towel, his neighbor Jaime was sunning herself, her glasses pulled up over her eyes. Dillon came and sat next to her.

“Back so soon?” she said, without moving.

“We got what we went for.”

“And what was that? Oh, wait, you can’t tell me.”

“You know me well.”

“Are you like a drug dealer or something?”

“I wish. It’d be nice to have that kind of job security.”

She glanced over to him. “What’s wrong, Dillon? You don’t seem your usual flirty self.”

“James and Niles are leaving the business.”

“What business is that?”

“The business we have together that I never tell you about.”

“Why are you mad about that?”

“Because we love what we do. We’re good at it. And we make a ton of money. Why would you leave that?”

She shrugged. “People can change.”

He rolled his eyes. “You and James should write a self-help book together.”

“Dillon,
James told me a long time ago that you guys are treasure hunters. You don’t need to hide it from me”

“He told you?”

“Yes, and he also told me he was getting too old for it and he didn’t know how to break it to you. He cares about you a lot.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t need anyone. If they want to leave they can leave. I’m stronger by myself anyway.”

“Don’t be bitter about it. Be happy for them. He can devote more time to that orphanage he wants to start. How come you don’t help him with that?”

“I look out for myself, Jaime. Every second I spend looking out for other people is a second away from myself. I can’t afford that.”

“See, that’s what I’m talking about. You’re not empathizing enough. You need to see it from James’ point of view.”

Dillon stood. “I don’t need him. I don’t need anyone.”

4

Dillon waited just outside the entrance of the Honolulu International Airport. He flipped on sunglasses and had his hands in the pockets of his white linen pants as he paced around. Several children were here today, begging for change. One walked up to him.

“Excuse me, do you have a dollar
? We don’t have any food and we just want to buy something.”

Dillon reached back and grabbed the arm of the other child that was attempting to pull out his wallet.

“Nice scam,” he said. “But you kept looking back to your friend here.” He turned to the boy behind him. “And you, my friend, are good. You almost got it all the way out before I noticed. Where’d you learn to pick pockets?”

“I didn’t do
nothing.”

Dillon bent down, eye-level. “I’m not the
cops. Where’d you learn?”

“No one. I teach myself.”

“Well, here’s the problem. This little scam is fine if I had a backpack and you were getting into that. I wouldn’t feel it. But if you’re lifting my wallet, you have to make innocent contact so I don’t notice the other contact. What you should be doing is going somewhere crowded, somewhere people press against each other, like football games and stuff. Have your friend pretend to fall down and when someone goes to help him up bump into them and say ‘excuse me.’ Then make off.”

The boy grinned. Dillon took out his wallet. He had fifty-six in cash and he handed it to the boy. “A for effort. Now get outta here
, I’m waiting for someone.”

The boys got wide smiles and ran off. Dillon watched them a moment, a grin on his face. Only
a handful of years ago, before James had found him, he had been those boys. Hustling for every meal. Unsure where the next one was coming from.

Within a few minutes, a man in a black suit stepped out of the front entrance carrying a black briefcase. He spotted Dillon and walked over.

“What the crap, Henry? Did the FBI have a yard sale or something?”

“I thought I would be inconspicuous.”

“You’re wearing a black suit and tie in a hundred and five degree heat. Come on, we’ll stop someplace and get you some shorts and a Hawaiian shirt.”

“I’d rather just get this over with and get out of here if that’s okay with you.”

“Yeah, sure, the crown’s in the jeep.”

They walked back to Dillon’s Wrangler that was in handicap parking. Dillon took down the fake handicap sticker and reached into the back
and found a keyhole. He inserted a small key and a latch in the floor of the jeep opened up. He took out the crown, held in a velvet box, and handed it to Henry.

Henry took out a jewel
er’s loupe and put it to his eye. He examined every single jewel before putting the crown back in the box.

“Well, it’s authentic.”

“Told ya. How much?”

“Well this would just be a rough estimate without checking my sources.”

“Don’t tease me, Henry. How much?”

“Probably in the vicinity of three
to four hundred thousand.”

Dillon jumped in the air. “Yes! Yes! I knew it. I freaking knew it.
James didn’t even want to go down there. He thought the Yanomami would have sold everything of value by now or they would just hide it from us.”

“Yes, I heard about your little excursion down there. How exactly did you upset the entire tribe enough to want to kill you?”

“Well, somebody, and it’s not certain who, may have slept with the wife of one of their chieftains.”

“Oh, Dillon
, you didn’t.”

“W
hen am I ever gonna get the chance to sleep with a Yanomami queen again, Henry? I couldn’t let that opportunity slip by. I couldn’t afford not to do it.”

Henry shook his head. “I’ll confirm with my sources on the crown and we’ll have the funds
transferred by the end of the week once I get a firm bid. But I did have some other business to discuss with you.”

“What?”

“I could use a cold drink. There was a café inside the airport, why don’t we talk there.”