Revenge of the Assassin

Chapter 9

Rio de Janeiro was a noisy symphony of sound and color, and as the taxi cruised along Atlantic Avenue past Copacabana beach the world appeared to be a nonstop parade of tanned skin and fake breasts ensconced in miniscule strips of fabric. El Rey watched the crush of nubile humanity move along the promenade, its distinctive wave design famous all over the world.

They pulled to the curb in front of the Palace Hotel and the driver exited the cab and opened the trunk. A uniformed attendant rushed to retrieve the single Tumi travel bag as the young man paid the fare, offering a generous but not memorably large tip. He wore a white linen short-sleeved shirt and tan lightweight cargo pants, and his hair was pulled back in a ponytail, revealing a tanned complexion and appealingly symmetrical features. He looked like nothing so much as an international playboy arriving in town for a taste of the city’s renowned pleasures — an image he would do nothing to deny.

Once in his room, he watched the sea of tourists ambling along the iconic beach and checked his watch. His appointment was in an hour at the exclusive private clinic he’d been directed to, giving him just enough time to unpack his bag, walk down the strand a ways, and then snag a taxi at one of the numerous other hotels. He knew from his research that the clinic was fifteen minutes away, and traffic was light at this hour so he had no fear of running late.

The cab pulled up to a discrete contemporary edifice in an upscale neighborhood with a mirrored-glass lower floor as street frontage, and a small sign announcing the Rodrigo Caleb Surgical Center. El Rey tried the front door, but it was locked. He noted a chrome button on the side of the doorjamb and pressed it. A few seconds later a low-pitched buzz vibrated through the frame, and he pushed the door open.

The lobby area was all stainless steel and black leather furniture: ultra-modern, and obviously very expensive. Several large aerial photographs of Rio adorned the otherwise barren walls, illuminated by halogen spotlights. A breathtakingly beautiful nurse sat behind the severe reception desk, eyeing him neutrally.

“I have a noon appointment,” he announced, approaching her.

“Please fill out this form, and the doctor will be with you shortly.” She held forth a clipboard and a Mont Blanc pen. He was liking the clinic’s style so far. “Would you care for some water? Pellegrino? Fiji?”

“No, thank you. I’m good.”

He busied himself scribbling an invented medical history, and after six minutes returned the form to the nurse, whose only reaction was one eyebrow shifting upwards a scant millimeter. He wondered how much of her was surgically augmented and decided that it really didn’t matter — the net effect was absolutely riveting, even in a town full of beautiful women.

Everything about the clinic said extremely expensive, which was exactly what he was hoping for. The last thing he wanted was a botched job by an economy hack.

The console on the reception desk trilled, and the nurse murmured into an earbud before rising and gesturing to him.

“The doctor will see you now.”

Normally not one to spend a lot of time focusing on female charms, even he had to admit that the way she filled out her uniform would have been the envy of any men’s magazine in the world, and would have sold out an edition with her on the cover. He was getting a very good feeling about the doctor’s skill level.

He followed her back to a large room with a desk, couch, and an examination chair much like a dentist’s. A man in his early fifties wearing a white physician’s coat rose from the desk and approached him with his hand outstretched.

“Ah, Senor Guitierez. Nice to meet you,” he said in fluent Spanish with no trace of a Portuguese accent. “I am Doctor Caleb. Has Nina been attending to you satisfactorily?”

“Yes. Everything is good. Pleased to meet you.”

They shook hands as the nurse left, closing the door behind her.

“What brings you to my establishment?” the doctor asked, studying the young man’s face.

“I want to change my look. Alter my nose and give it a thinner shape, and perhaps a chin implant?”

“Come sit in the exam chair, and let’s see what we have here. Would you like me to make suggestions, or do you have a very specific idea in mind?”

“No, I just want something new. Definitely a change to my nose. I’ve always hated it. I got the idea for a chin implant from the television…” El Rey did his best to sound hesitant. “And if I don’t like the effect of it, I suppose I can always have it removed.”

“Well, it’s not quite so easy, but let’s see if we can come up with a plan that will accomplish what you want.”

They spent a half hour going over possibilities and agreed on a nose alteration, chin implant, and cheekbone augmentation.

“We should do the procedures a week apart, at least,” the doctor advised.

“No. I don’t have unlimited time. I’m only here for a few weeks, and I want it all done at once so I can go home looking different. And I’ll need an apartment with full-time care — do you have something like that?”

“Yes, we have a full suite upstairs. Yours isn’t an unusual request. Many wish to remain sequestered while the bruising and trauma is attended to. Although I’ll caution you that it’s quite expensive to go that route…”

“The money isn’t as important as a quality outcome and discretion,” El Rey assured him.

“Ah, then…just so. It’s against my best advice to do the procedures all in one sitting, however, it can be done. You run more risk of a longer recovery time required and increase the possibility of complications. But if you’ll be availing yourself of our inpatient services, I think we can reduce the trauma to a minimum…” the doctor paused. “Now, to the matter of price. The nose will be four thousand U.S., the chin implant thirty-five hundred, the cheek implants three apiece, and two weeks of round the clock care in our suite will be sixteen thousand dollars, for a total of…call it twenty-nine thousand dollars, plus any special requests. Will you be paying by credit card?”

“Cash. Half in advance. Half upon completion.”

“Well, we can work something out. We ordinarily get a hundred percent of our fees up front, however, if you are willing to pay for the surgery in advance, we can bill for the suite on a weekly basis, with the balance due before checkout,” the doctor advised.

“That will be fine.”

“We can do this within the next two days. During the interim, avoid any aspirin or alcohol.” The doctor studied the information on the pad El Rey had completed. “You don’t take any medications? No vitamins? No, er, recreational substances?”

“No.”

“Alcohol?”

“No.”

“Coffee? Tea?”

“No.”

“Very well, then. When would you like to have the surgery and begin your stay?”

“Tomorrow works for me. The sooner the better.”

They arranged the payment details for the following morning. El Rey was advised to avoid any food or water after midnight, to reduce the likelihood of any complications from the anesthesia. The doctor went over to his station and took a digital photo of him, and then made modifications based upon the suggested procedures. El Rey stared at the new him, and while he looked similar, the difference was substantial — he was instantly reminded of the film actor from a movie that had been playing on the flight from Santiago, Chile, after he’d driven across the border from Mendoza. Something about buccaneers in the Caribbean.

He supposed if he was going to change the way he looked, he might as well improve things to the extent it was possible. So celebrity pirate it would be. He just hoped that the healing would be faster than the doctor had indicated. No point in wasting any more time than necessary.

When he came to after the surgery he was groggy, with his entire face wrapped in gauze. Nina and an equally stunning young woman were attending to him. Nina explained that they would be there for him twenty-four hours a day, staying in the en suite apartment in shifts. For now, he’d need to take anti-inflammatory medication along with pain relievers and antibiotics in his IV drip, so he could expect to be out of it for the next few days. Ice would also be regularly applied to reduce the swelling and subcutaneous bleeding.

The doctor came in four hours later and said, “You will look like you lost a fight with a bear for the first week, but within ten days you’ll be mostly better, and within three weeks or so, a new man. I will check back with you today before I leave for the night, and the girls will be here round the clock. Anything you need, any discomfort you feel, just let someone know, and we’ll deal with it. No point in this being any more unpleasant than necessary,” he assured his patient, and then with a wink at Nina, he departed.

El Rey slept most of the day, except for a few trips to the bathroom. The following morning, the doctor removed the gauze to change the dressing, and indeed, he looked like he’d been in a brutal car accident. It was to be expected, but still, wasn’t pleasant to see.

By the end of the first week, the swelling was receding and the deep purple circles under his eyes and around his chin were fading. The small sutures from the implants were removed, and by day ten, he was looking human again, the bruising now diminished to yellowish-tinged skin that the doctor assured him would look normal within another few days. The doctor spent time with him inspecting his new features, pointing out the delicate nuances he’d created for a more natural look. El Rey had to admit that the surgeon was a truly gifted artist — it was a remarkable and natural-appearing transformation.

The face looking back at him when he shaved every few days was similar to the one he remembered, but different enough to be another person — albeit a better looking one, which he supposed had been the doctor’s intention.

On the sixteenth night, as El Rey stepped over the doctor’s lifeless body on his office floor to clear all traces of his surgical procedure from the computer, he was actually sad that a valuable resource like the physician had to be terminated. But in his business he couldn’t take any chances, and there was no point in dwelling on collateral casualties.

Nina’s corpse lay upstairs in the suite, and all that remained after the computer scrub was for the second nurse to arrive at nine p.m.. After attending to her, he’d be done with Rio for good. He’d already erased the security camera footage, which was stored on a tape backup and a hard drive in a maintenance room, so once the second girl was dispatched he was good to go. Standing in the office, El Rey studied the doctor and debated pulling the Mont Blanc pen out of his eye socket and then decided to leave it in place.

He extracted the hard disk from the computer and then painstakingly sorted through the file cabinet for any paper records of his stay. Once he’d located them, as well as the attached before and after photos, he busied himself with burning them in a metal garbage can near an open rear window and then settled in to wait for his final victim to show up. He had nothing against the night nurse, just as he’d borne Nina no grudge, but what needed to be done wasn’t a matter of like or dislike.

By his calculations he could be in Sao Paolo by midnight after a short private plane ride, and then tomorrow he would be winging his way to Venezuela — his next stop before meeting with the elusive kingpin, Don Aranas. If all went well, he’d call in a few more days and be ready to meet within a week.