14 barracuda, p.14
14 Barracuda, page 14
My nerves jerked as he moved suddenly, hitting the door open and swinging it against the wall, his bunched body projecting itself out of the car as Roget swung the gun and shouted at him - ‘Freeze! Freeze right there!’ - and Nicko and the others turned to watch, one of them giving a short laugh, having seen this sort of thing before, perhaps, having expected it.
Nicko said nothing, didn’t make any move towards the car. He was smiling.
‘Back in the car! Back in the car, you wanna get fuckin’ shot?’
Fidel the Cuban stood turning, writhing, his head in his hands, moving as if he were struggling to get out of some kind of restraint, a strait-jacket, struggling but not succeeding.
I knew what he felt. I had no Juanita, but I knew what he felt. I wasn’t doing the same thing because I had done the same thing in my mind a long time ago when I was new to things, before I learned that a trap cannot be sprung by allowing the onset of panic, which sounds stuffy, perhaps, considering this man was approaching his death, but it doesn’t mean that I had no feeling for him, do not ask for whom the bell, so forth.
‘Back in the fuckin’ car!’
And the man came, Fidel, back into the car, his crouched shadow leaving the wall as he dropped onto the seat and pulled the door shut, leaning his head back against the squab, his eyes closed.
I began waiting until I thought he might be ready to listen to whatever I had to say, and while I was waiting, lights came from the dark sea, lifting and falling to the swell.
‘Fidel. Is this the boat?’
He turned his head a little. ‘Yes.’
‘What are they going to do with you?’
‘They will kill me.’
‘Listen, Fidel, I might be able to do something to stop them but I’ll need your help, so brace up, get your head together, you know what I’m saying?’
‘Do something? With him there?’
I think he meant Nicko but he could have meant the black, Roget. Roget would be easy to work on.
‘Listen, there’s no point in giving up, Fidel, it won’t get us anywhere. You’ve got to —’
‘Who are you?’ interested for the first time.
‘I can get you out of this but you’ve got to help, now understand that. We —’
‘You know nothing,’ he said, ‘you think you can do anything against him, against Nicko, then you know nothing.’
Not a lot of use. I wanted information out of him so that I could get something together and set it in motion but there wasn’t going to be time because the arrival of the boat would change things and I wasn’t ready.
‘Where will they take us, Fidel? Quick.’
‘Across the sea.’ His eyes watching me in the glass.
‘Across the sea to where?’
‘They will take us out to sea, and then shoot us, and throw us to the sharks. That is the way it is done.’
Jesus Christ it sounded like a regular programme, sweating a little, I was sweating a little now because the time frame was narrowing, closing on us, and once they’d got us on the boat there’d be nothing we could do, finito.
In my trade I’ve seen one or two deaths, caused one or two deaths, all right, killed if you want me to spell it out for you but listen, this is the point, I’ve never taken it lightly, a man’s death lightly, even when he was at my throat before I managed to beat the odds, even when he’d been doing everything he could to blow me away, I’ve never thought of it as all in the day’s work, although to many that’s all it is, a trick of the trade, a necessary inconvenience. But I would have to get perspective: this was Miami Florida and the drug trade here was a multibillion-dollar industry and the stakes were high and life was cheap and that man over there, the fat man, Nicko, had probably made this trip a dozen times, fifty times, and thought of it as no big deal, and if I got the correct perspective on what was happening tonight, if I pulled back from the environment as you pull back with a zoom lens, all I would see would be a miniature black Lincoln down there with some tiny figures standing around it and two tiny figures inside it, and they would be the two tiny figures who would be dropped into the sea in a little while from now, to float for a time on the slow lifting and falling of the swell until the dark fins broke through, accelerating and closing in, and then there was just a lot of blood on the surface, a lot of threshing about and then the blood, Christ, it was a beautiful red, he was a beautiful man, he coloured the whole sea like a flag, like a banner, and that was all it was going to be about, given the correct perspective and the background of a multibillion-dollar industry with its primal laws and its murderous checks and balances, a whorl of crimson blossoming on the moonlit breast of the sea.
And this perspective, I knew, was necessary to me: it would give me a tool for getting inside Nicko’s mind, so that I could see if there were anything I could do to it, if there were time.
They will take us out to sea, and then shoot us, and throw us to the sharks. That is the way it is done.
‘Fidel,’ I said, ‘why will they shoot us first?’
‘Because otherwise we might swim to shore. It will be only a few miles.’ His eyes watching me in the glass, interested in me now, perhaps because I wanted to know all about this thing instead of wailing to my mother. ‘It is their way because they do not have to get rid of our bodies. There will only be bits and pieces found, perhaps.’ Impatiently - ‘You are not afraid?’
‘I don’t intend to be thrown to any sharks; I wish you’d understand that.’
In a moment, ‘You are not American, I think?’
‘No.’
‘You are English?’
‘Yes.’
‘It explains things, then. I have heard that the English cannot see the nose on their face.’
‘We try to look beyond it, you see. Have they sent for this boat especially to take us out there?’
‘Of course not. There will be a pickup.’
Some of the fear had gone out of his voice; he’d got over his madre mia bit and his prayers to the almighty God who had decided understandably to drop him in the shit, and now he was fatalistic, but that wasn’t really any better, any more useful to me. I would need to get some feeling back in him. Anger, perhaps. Anger towards Nicko. That could be dangerous because this man was a Latin and liable to shoot the whole chamber dry before he took aim, but I’d have to make the best of the material. I would much rather have worked alone, but he might get in the way and it was probably safer to bring him into the act than risk his messing it up.
The boat was riding at the jetty, a line taut round a capstan with a man keeping it secure. Another man had come down to the quay to meet Nicko, and they were talking now. We’ve got a couple of guys to take care of, so forth.
There were questions, of course, that would have to wait, because I needed all the time I could get to structure some kind of survival; they would be asked later and perhaps answered, if ever at all - where had Nicko got that photograph? Why was he so ready to blow me away without checking my identity more than he had? Was it Proctor who had thrown this net out for me, with photographs all over the town? Questions like that.
But more immediately: ‘A pickup of cocaine?’
‘Of course.’
“This boat is carrying the cash?’
‘The cash is in the other car.’
‘How much?’
‘I do not know. I am not on this run. When you say you might do something, what —’
‘I’ll tell you when the time is right. How many runs have you done, Fidel?’
‘Many.’
‘With Nicko?’
‘Sometimes.’
‘How much cash is usually taken on board?’
‘It depends. Different sources, different deals. Maybe half a million, maybe a million.’
‘American dollars.’
‘Of course.’
Nicko was nodding to the other man; then he turned and began walking towards the Chevrolet. The two men on the quay started scanning the environment, each with one hand tucked inside his jacket. Nicko brought a black suitcase from the Chevrolet, ducking to talk to someone inside, Monique perhaps. Then he nodded and slammed the door and began walking with the suitcase towards the jetty. Almost as an afterthought he turned his head to look at Roget, the black, and jerked his free hand, gesturing towards the boat.
It was then that the reality of the thing hit me and I was made to know that I had been whistling in the dark in order to keep panic away because there was nothing I could do if I got inside that man’s mind, no argument I could use to stop his hand. I was one of the two tiny people who would be dropped into the sea and that was it.
The only chance of getting clear would be in some kind of action between the Lincoln and the boat and Roget would have his big black Suzuki trained on us and even if I could get it away from him the other men were armed and would be too far away for me to work on them. If the —
‘Outa the car!’ Jerking the Suzuki. ‘C’mon, outa the fuckin’ car!’
I saw Fidel go into spasm as if a bullet had hit him; then he opened the door and its edge caught against the wall and he had to pull it away, walking round the front of the car with his eyes on the sky, praying again I suppose.
‘You! Outa the fuckin’ car!’
I opened the door and pushed it shut after me and noted everything I could as I walked to the jetty. Roget was of course at our backs; Nicko was halfway along the jetty with the suitcase, leaning a little backwards as fat men have to, leaning a little to the left to counter the weight of the suitcase in his right hand, not looking back, or towards us, towards Fidel and me, taking care as he got hold of the boat’s rail and stepped aboard. Monique was still in the Chevrolet: I wouldn’t expect her, or any woman, to be present at an execution.
‘Keep walkin’!’
I think Fidel had slowed his step, understandably; when I glanced at him I saw that he had paled and was walking with that jerky motion, head down now, that I’d seen in him earlier, as if he knew exactly what had to be done. He’d been here before, not like this but behind a gun, herding some other man to the slaughter-house.
We were on the jetty now with the boat twenty, twenty-five feet away and black water immediately on my left. It was inviting, because once I was under the surface I could move a long way unseen; but there wouldn’t be time to dive; Roget would pump the big Suzuki as a reflex action.
That was the last chance that offered; once on the boat there would be no more, and as I followed the Cuban onto the deck I caught some of the aura, and felt the fear wash into me, chilling me to the bone.
Chapter 12 : DIAMONDS
Seen from the ocean Miami is beautiful by night, a blaze of light floating from horizon to horizon on the water and reflected there. The night lends a semblance of purity to most cities; their light flowers from them as if from unsullied soil.
I saw the bright frieze of the skyline at intervals, when the swell dropped the boat into the long indigo troughs: Fidel and I were sitting in the scuppers on the afterdeck, our knees drawn up, Roget standing with his back to the opposite rail with the big gun trained on us. When I could see the water I noticed that flotsam was everywhere, the detritus of smashed pontoons and jetties and small boats thrown up by the hurricane and strewn across the sea. Perhaps there were bodies there; I looked for none.
She was a single-deck motor yacht with twin diesels and a cluster of antennae on the cabin roof; I estimated our speed at fifteen knots, and we were a mile from the shore, heading out.
‘We don’t tolerate thieves!’
Fidel didn’t voice any reaction to the kick; his limbs jerked and were still again. It displeased Nicko. I think he’d wanted a scream.
‘You know Mr Toufexis. He doesn’t tolerate thieving!’
A hiss of breath as the kick raked across his legs, leaving him spilled on the deck with his groin exposed, and the fat man went for that and got his scream.
‘There’s got to be trust, you understand me? Trust. With this kind of money around and this kind of merchandise, we’ve got to trust everyone else, and they’ve got to trust us. You understand what I’m saying?’
Fidel the Cuban was prone now and vomiting, couldn’t answer, wouldn’t have answered anyway. I’d seen the two men in the control cabin look around when Fidel had screamed. They didn’t like Nicko: I’d noticed it before. I would have said they were more like professional traders than men of the criminal type as such; they weren’t here to take their revenge on society but simply to make money, a great deal of money. They were business men, not thieves; hence Nicko’s nice distinction. This didn’t mean they weren’t dangerous.
‘Get up!’ Standing over the Cuban, hands on his hips, his face red with rage, a show of monstrous petulance. ‘Clean that up!’
The swell lowered us smoothly into a trough and there was the city again, looking beautiful. The throb of the diesels was low and sensual, the warm air rich with the scent of seaweed.
‘You’re too fat, Nicko,’ I said.
He looked down at me.
‘What did you say?’
‘You’re too fat.’
He was a short man, didn’t carry his weight with majesty like Sidney Greenstreet or Orson Welles. Nicko was just a dumpling of a man, spoiled, a cakeseeker. I thought he might be sensitive about it and he was. It was as quick as he could manage but it was done in rage, which lowered the muscle tone, and I had a lot of time to monitor the kick as it came, and when it came I caught it, nothing more than that, caught it and held the ankle until he began losing his balance, because I didn’t want him to fall - the moment had come and gone.
It had been an essay, that was all. Nicko was standing over me and blocking Roget completely, and it might have been possible to use the fat man for my purposes, which were of course to avoid death. But I would need to make physical contact with him before I could do anything to him, and I couldn’t have got to my feet and started work because there wouldn’t have been enough time - he would have come at me right away. So I’d had to get him to make the first contact, and things had come very close because I could have done a lot more than just hold his ankle -1 could have straightened up and pitched him back against the man with the gun and Roget would probably, would very probably have loosed off at least one shot in his surprise.
I wouldn’t of course have stopped there: that would have been the beginning, with two people off balance and wide open and the ship’s rail immediately behind them. It could have been quite elegant in a way, though somewhat too easy to claim any credit. I didn’t attempt it because there were some unpredictable factors. Nicko and the black would have had their throats well exposed and would have been dead before they went over the rail; but I couldn’t have told where that first impulsive shot would have gone: it could have gone straight through Nicko and into me. There had also been no predicting how fast the two men in the control cabin would have reacted and got to their guns. In the end, within those few milliseconds when I was holding the fat man’s ankle, I let the subconscious make the decision for me because it could scan the whole range of data very much faster than the forebrain and it would be much more accurate.
I am just telling you this, my good friend, to let you know that I was not just sitting there on my bloody rump awaiting the grim bloody reaper; I was not intending to offer this fat little tick the high privilege of despatching me with a shot from his bloody little gun without first culling whatever grace and favour the gods might have for me and turning it to my cunning advantage, without in simpler terms trying everything.
But there is nothing to try, my good friend. You know that. You’ve heard of whistling in the dark.
‘You want to be funny?’ In almost a scream, a scream of rage, getting his balance again and bringing his right leg back and starting another kick, not having learned, and this time I parried the foot and turned and straightened up and let his momentum carry him against the rail and when he span round I slapped him with the back of my hand across the eyes, across, more significantly, the pineal gland. Then I waited while he got his orientation back, and it took a bit of time: he lurched about with a hand to his forehead and his other hand reaching out to grab the rail and then my arm, and when he grabbed my arm I chopped gently across his wrist to make him pay attention, to make him understand that I didn’t like to be touched with those little pink hermit-crab fingers.
‘Freeze!’
Roget, of course, getting excited, waving the gun;
‘Oh fuck off,’ I said and went on watching Nicko, waiting for him to get himself in order again; but the pain in his wrist was occupying him so I took the opportunity of talking a little.
‘Look, Nicko, there are things we’ve got to discuss and they could be to your immediate advantage, but you’re putting me in the wrong mood with all this fidgeting. Are you listening to me, Nicko? I hope you are, because otherwise you could make a very grave mistake in taking on the whole of the British Government.’
He got his eyes focused at last but their expression showed only confusion. I didn’t expect him to fall for the British Government thing but I could be wrong and he might be thinking about it. There were also the other problems he’d suddenly been given to work out - he’d tried to get through with a couple of kicks but it hadn’t got him anywhere and he was bright enough to know that if I’d decided to use more force I could have snapped his wrist and knocked him out cold with a backfist instead of stunning the pineal with a slap. People with guns aren’t ready for any kind of resistance and it phases them, but I could be making a mistake with this man and he could get rid of his angst by going for his gun and putting a bullet right through my own pineal gland, touche.
‘The British Government? The fuck are you talking about?’
An intellectual question: he’d got his emotions under enough control to let him think straight and I liked that because it made him more predictable.
