The Mangrove Coast

19

At one point, the beam of his flashlight swept across my legs, but I remained frozen, body pressed hard against the pilings of the house, trying to blend in.

Apparently, I did.

Acky paused, looked in my direction, then continued walking, checking downstairs doors. I got the impression that false alarms had become routine for him. When the siren sounded, it was usually the same: he grabbed a pistol and flashlight, made the obvious rounds outside, then returned to bed because no one was ever there. Power surges and failed telephone lines are not uncommon in Panama.

Still, Merlot had insisted that he search outside. He’d screamed at him, “I have my reasons! I have my reasons!”

Did that mean something? Or was it simply a coward’s insistence on overprecaution?

I watched Acky intensely, barely breathing, trying to calculate the most effective point of intersection. He was a huge man; lots of weight-lifter muscle. This would have to be done carefully and quickly.

I watched him disappear behind a hibiscus hedge at the back of the house, saw the beam of the flashlight sweep the hillside. It was still raining, coming down harder now. That was good. Rain provided cover. So did the occasional rumble of distant thunder.

I had the leather club in my hand, ready. Still watching Acky, I began to move.

There is rhythm to such a maneuver. It requires patience and a refusal to panic. Fortunately, it does not require great coordination-a gift I do not possess. I kept it simple. When he moved, I moved. When he slowed, I froze…

The house was between us… then the hedge was between us… and then I was behind Acky, traveling quickly, quietly, because if he happened to turn while I was in the open, there was not much doubt that he would use the pistol in his right hand…

Now he was plodding sideways down the hill toward the water. We were on the old golf course now. Was he checking to see if an uninvited visitor had arrived by boat?

Yes, that was it. He was shining the flashlight, painting the canal’s bank with a yellow column of light as I continued to close, moving faster now because I had no cover at all…

… Then, when I was only three or four strides away, it happened. He turned to face me, perhaps alerted by the sound of my feet on grass, or the air pressure of my bulk moving toward him, or possibly by some atavistic alarm that warned of predators-for that is certainly what I was in the instant, a predator; a predator locked so precisely on my target that all else vanished in a charge of adrenaline so pure, so potent, that the feeling surely mimicked elation.

I heard an unexpected sound: a thoracic growl. Could a human being make such a sound? Yes. It was the sound of terror, an inhuman reflex, and I could see the shock in Acky’s eyes when he realized that I was on him, his mouth opening wide to scream as his pistol hand levered toward me.

I caught the pistol in the crook of my arm as I swung hard with the sap… was aiming at the delicate bone behind his ear, but his head dropped instinctively and I caught him high on the cranial globe. The pistol went flying from his hand, but he did not collapse in a heap as I had anticipated. Instead, he staggered drunkenly for a moment, then lunged hard toward me-a very big man who was now crazy with fear.

I caught his chin in the palm of my hand, locked his head against my chest as I threw my legs behind me, sprawling to avoid the reach of his arms… and then I gator-rolled with the full momentum of my weight, back arched off the ground, 360 degrees with Acky’s head still locked tightly against me, two hundred and twenty-some pounds of torque.

That sound…

The sound that his body made was sickening. It was the sound of green wood snapping, sap exploding. It was the sound of a human spine twisting until severed.

When it happened, my head was tucked hard against his back, applying pressure. The noise, transmitted through the man’s own viscera, seemed deafening. I could feel the trembling of his body as his muscles spasmed out of control… and then there were no more spasms, no movement, nothing.

I stood.

Acky was a dark mass at my feet. Dead. If Merlot really had filed away letters about the men and the Venezuelan girl that Acky had supposedly killed, they were useless now.

I didn’t much care one way or the other. I’d been involved in the deaths of much better men than this, plus there was a feeling in me now… a feeling of terrible energy that was fueled by the most basic of elements: moon, moving water, wind, blood…

Blood. Had I drawn blood? I fought the urge to check.

Yet the feeling remained, a kind of instinctual madness that ruled from the marrow; a feeling that I knew in my memory and despised in my soul because I’d drawn on it too often years before, and it drained from me that which I value most: my reason, my self-control.

Moon, wind, water, blood…

In that instant, those things were in me. Those elements were me.

I moved away from the body. Everything around me had been blurred by my intensity, but now I took a look at my surroundings. We were screened from the house by trees. Only a few yards behind me was the Panama Canal. The water was black in the moonlight. To the northwest was a transiting cruise ship. The newly wed and nearly dead. It was lit up like a floating city, moving toward Gamboa and the locks at Miraflores. It was far away. No one could have possibly seen me snap this man’s neck. Flawless!

Now I had things to do.

Yes, things to do…

I used Acky’s flashlight to hunt around until I found the pistol. A cheap little. 38 special. But loaded.

I tossed it into the water.

I found the sap. I’d dropped it when I wrestled with the man. Now I jammed it into my back pocket No clues, no man-spore. Didn’t want to leave any sign of me.

From the direction of the porch, I then heard Merlot’s voice. “Acky? Acky! Get your ass back in here! The computer’s working again and I’ve got something to show you!”

I heard the back door slam. A petulant sound.

I didn’t hesitate. I ran; ran hard along the hill and up the back stairs to the door where Acky would have reentered. As I reached for the knob, though, the door was suddenly flung open and Merlot thrust a revolver out. From the expression on his face-a mixture of expectation and terror-my first thought was: He knew I was coming…

When he threw open the door, we each froze for a microsecond, both of us stunned to be standing nose to nose. So close I could smell him: a fried bacon odor, sweat cigarettes. I could look through his eyes into him.

It was that moment of shock that saved me. He backpedaled slightly, me still coming hard through the door, and as he brought the pistol up, I knocked the barrel away from my face just as he pulled the trigger-ker-WHAP-the bullet’s cone of percussion deafening me but missing.

Merlot’s voice was shaking and he sounded near tears as he yelled, “Stay away from me or I’ll kill you. I mean it! Stay back!”

I was still moving toward him; wanted to stay close as he brought the pistol down for another try. I caught his wrist in both hands, twisted counterclockwise as I used my knee to bang him hard beneath the ribs… and then I was holding the revolver as he stumbled backward and fell hard on his butt.

“Oww-w-w! You kicked me!”

Merlot was buckled over in pain as I pointed the revolver at his belly. I still felt the intensity, that appetite, but was fighting it. Shoot a man in cold blood? That was something I had never done. Yet the urge, the craving was there. I spoke to diffuse that feeling of want, of need. How could my voice sound so calm? I might have been joking around with a locker-room buddy. I said: “Know what? You really hurt my feelings, Darkrume. One fun night on the computer, then you never call, you never write. I feel downright used.”

Something about the way I was smiling must have frightened him, because he began to cry now. Boo-hoo-hoo, actually making the distinctive noise, the skin on his face jiggling as the head bobbed. He had his hands out, palms toward me — Please stop! — as he said, “That was all a joke! You thought I was serious? I was kidding. It’s one of those on-line E-mail things that everybody does. My God, if I thought you’d actually take the time to come looking for me, I’d have apologized right there!” Crying and shaking. His black eyes looked abandoned in the massive pink face; this gigantic baby with perfect hair and a baggy brown guayabera who had to weigh four hundred pounds but it was like Jell-O.

I turned to Gail. She wore jeans and a navy crewneck pullover. They were wrinkled and splotched as if she hadn’t changed in a week. Her black Latina hair was combed back, heavy on her shoulders. She looked gaunt, badly used, but her face truly was lovely, haunting. That song, “The Twelfth of Never,” it made sense now. For the first time, I understood. I said, “Are you okay?”

Her expression said she didn’t know what to think. Scared, too. If I killed Merlot, was she next? She said, “Who are you?”

“I’m a friend of your husband’s.”

“My husband? You mean Frank sent you.”

“No. Bobby’s friend. A long time ago, I was Bobby’s friend.”

I watched her sag; watched her exhale, trembling as if just hearing that name had created within her an overwhelming surge of loneliness and regret Very softly, she said, “Bobby’s friend? My Bobby

… “

I said, “Yes. Your Bobby.”

She moved to stand near me, her hand touching my shoulder, saying Amanda? I knew Amanda? For God’s sake, please tell her that Amanda was okay and didn’t hate her, although she had every reason…

I comforted her, dealt with the first concern of a good mother before I said, “You may not want to answer this, but I really have to ask: How’d you get hooked up with a freak like this?”

Merlot was on his feet again, following the conversation. Kept inching back. I knew the wheels were turning, trying to figure a way out.

She still seemed a little dazed. “I… I truly don’t know.” She was shaking her head slowly, as if trying to remember something. “I was so lost… so badly hurt that I must have lost touch with… reality? No. I must have lost touch with my sanity. I’ve spent the last month trying to figure it out thinking of almost nothing else. How did it happen? Why did I end up with him? He was just always there, always… always right in front of me, no matter which way I turned. It got so I didn’t even have to think because he did all the thinking for me, and I didn’t have to cook or clean because he took care of that, too, and he was always saying the nicest things… and the next thing I knew, all my family and old friends were gone and he was selling me to men, to women and men, making me do things that I never thought… never thought-”

She couldn’t continue. More tears, that sound of utter exhaustion.

Merlot didn’t like the direction this was going, his shrill voice interrupting: “It was consensual, I’ll swear to that! Everything this woman did with me or anyone else, it was always always consensual. I have her model release on file! I’ll show you if you want. The pictures, the videos, she consented to everything-”

Merlot stopped abruptly. I was looking at him, looking into his face because he would not meet my eyes, and I could feel it in me stronger than I had ever felt it before, and he knew it. He knew. The voice that spoke did not sound like my own, as I said, “Did she consent to blackmail?”

Gail said, “What?” And then: “I was wondering about that. A second ago, why did you call him Darkrume? That’s the only thing Jackie actually helped me with. I got mixed up with this person, this sick criminal from California. On the Internet, his name was Darkrume. Not-”

I interrupted. Said to Merlot, “Do you want to tell her or should I?” I was still looking at him, wanting to do it, and he could see it in me, how badly I wanted to do it. I said, “A buddy of mine says that the way you worked it was with PIN numbers. Lots of fake accounts and ATM machines. Was he right?”

When Merlot didn’t answer, I cleared my throat and said in a much softer voice. “Last time I’m asking. Was he right?”

I got a quick nod, as he dropped slowly to one knee, then the other. Wanted to let me see the depth of his regret. Submissive, a primal gesture. Said, “Don’t hurt me anymore. Please. I’ll do anything. Anything you say, just tell me. I was wrong. Very wrong! But you have to understand that her husband-Frank I’m talking about-you have to realize that he treated me very badly years ago. I was angry. You don’t think I have a reason? I’m a good person, normally. It was him, the way he treated me. The sonuvabitch had me put in jail and… and you don’t know what they do to people like me in jail!”

In barely more than a whisper, I said, “Oh? I thought he treated you for pedophilia. He did, didn’t he?”

The picture of Merlot and Amanda was there again, just behind my eyes. The revolver felt very light in my hand. Self-control, I was fighting to maintain it, as I heard myself say, “Don’t want to talk about it? Okay, let’s change the subject. Start by telling me how much cash you have in the house.”

“Money? Not much. I really don’t. Maybe a thousand dollars. You can have it all. I’m serious. I’ll give it to you if it means no hard feelings. There’s no reason why we all can’t be friends!”

I used the pistol to motion at his face. “A thousand dollars? You’d better have a lot more than a thousand dollars. What you’re doing here, fat man, is buying your life back. So dig deep.”

The woman had moved close enough to me that our shoulders touched if I turned or gestured. She was watching, listening, maybe figuring things out. After I said, “So dig deep,” she interrupted: “I don’t care about the money. Just take me away from here. Let’s go now. Please.” She put long fingers to my elbow as if to stress her point. “But you need to have him arrested. Have him put away. Or you need to kill him, because he will never let me leave this country. I mean that. Not if he can get to a telephone.”

I drew the hammer back on the revolver.

“Gail! You can leave. Honest! All I want is for you to be happy.” His palms were pressed out again. “Did I say a thousand dollars? I have more. I forgot! Here, follow me. Follow me!”

He had more than $40,000 locked in a metal box behind a desk, plus some gems, some stock certificates and three nice Rolex watches.

I put it all in a pillowcase that I had stripped off the bed.

I said, “What about your video collection. And photographs?”

He was still very nervous, not convinced that I wasn’t going to kill him. As if confused, he said, “Videos? Of who?”

“Of her, Gail… or pictures of anyone else I might know.”

A light seemed to go on behind his eyes. Could see him thinking, Oh dear God, when he realized that I meant Amanda; that I had seen what Gail knew nothing about- the photo of him with her child daughter.

“I keep the pictures in my office,” he said quickly. “I have a large safe there, humidity-controlled. Ask Gail, she’s seen it. I’ll take you there. Destroy them all, yes-I’ll help! I’ve been meaning to do it, really. To look at them now, it makes me sick. It really does. Ask her!”

For a moment, only a moment, I let down my guard, as I turned to look at Gail for confirmation… and, too late, I heard her scream just before I felt the crushing impact of Merlot on me, his weight compressing my chest, one of his fat hands locked onto the revolver as he pushed me backward, backward toward the French doors of the little office we were in…

I lost control of the pistol; heard it hit the floor.

When his big hand moved from my right wrist to my throat, I ducked under the mass of him and punched him hard in the kidneys… then slapped his face when he turned into me; slapped him with forehand, backhand, forehand, backhand… saw his big nose burst, the blood pouring… and then I hit him chin-high with a heavy right fist that knocked him through the French doors, where he tumbled backward over the railing and disappeared.

I picked up the revolver and went to the railing. He’d hit the ground hard, but was already on his feet. It is a distressing thing to watch fat people struggle to move quickly. They have been reduced by their own excesses, proof that suicide takes many forms. He was limping, but still trying to find cover as fast as he could move. The feverish determination reminded me of something… a wounded animal.

Gail was looking at him, too. What she said then surprised me, because she said it without pause or emotion: “I meant it. You should have killed him.”

I had my arm around Gail; had the money in the pillowcase as I led her down the steps to the driveway, where she waited while I straddled the Harley, got the kickstand up and ready to go.

“You really were a friend of Bobby’s?”

“Ask your daughter. She can show you the letters.”

“Then you’re him. You’re Doc. He wrote about you.”

“Yeah. I’m Doc Ford.”

She slid on behind me, huddled close in the rain. Had her hands meshed together over my stomach, her head resting against my back. As I throttled off, I had to remind myself: hand clutch on the left; the Hailey’s foot gearing was one down, four up.

There was something in the wind. Woodsmoke? Yes, I smelled smoke…

It was the rainy season. Why?

Then I could see flames ahead, not far away on the village street.

I throttled toward the flames. Saw that it was one of the classic old Zonian houses ablaze… then I realized that I knew this place: Jackie Merlot’s office and headquarters for Club Gamboa. No fire engines around as we rumbled past. No sirens in the distance… but a few people out now and watching, their silhouettes backdropped by flames as the place burned to the ground.

Matt Davidson had pointed out this building.

Matt Davidson had insisted on knowing when I was going to nail Merlot.

The man has videos of Taiwanese honchos misbehaving…

Maybe because of that, or maybe something else. I would never be told because I had no need to know.

As I throttled off toward Panama City, Gail pressed her lips against my ear and said, “I was with Merlot for the same reason I was with Frank.” I realized that she was still trying to answer my question: How had she ended up with such a freak? But that made no sense. Frank had been a good man; Merlot was a social anomaly. Or maybe it did make sense. Still talking into my ear, she added, “I was in love once. After that, other men are just a way of passing time.”