Marguerite spoke from the bed without lifting her head. “We should have known better.”
The dart stung Colin. He swallowed, and he continued, “I don’t know how he found out about the drop.” Colin was telling the truth. One of the signs of his genius was the amount of details, dates, and account numbers, which he kept inside his head—with no paper trail. There were account transfers, but that was easily “laundered” under his legitimate business interests. Regarding our business—the boutique firm, which sold and delivered high-quality cocaine to wealthy and elite members of society—no record existed. “After being so careful for so many years? Maybe…” He trailed off, continuing a moment later. “After we left, he told his sister they were going for a nighttime cruise.” A shrug. “Something we’ve done a hundred times before. How was she to know? She loaded up. Put on her life jacket. They meandered through the canals.”
Marguerite again. “We were glad just to have him—”
Colin closed his eyes. “About a year ago, Zaul began selling himself as a poker player. Looking for higher and higher stakes games. Where the buy-ins are five and ten thousand.”
The knot in my stomach worsened.
Colin continued. Uncomfortable. “I’ve had to bail him out.”
Marguerite whispered while not looking up, “Twice.”
Colin continued, “The second time, I told him—” He sliced through the air with his hand level to the ground. “No more.” A pause. “We don’t know how much he owes but…” A shrug.
Marguerite added, “We were trying to set a boundary that we should have set a long time ago.”
“How much?” I asked.
Colin shook his head and shrugged. “I don’t know.” He sat and leaned his head against the wall. “Couple hundred.” Colin shook his head. “Somehow, he knew the location of the drop.” A glance. Shrug. An honest admission that it was our—my—drop. “I guess he figured we could absorb the loss. Blame it on someone else. We’d make it good with the client. Move on. Problem was that whomever he owed money followed him. Surprised him on the dock.” He glanced behind him. “Maria was oblivious, feeding the fish below the boathouse. Found your watch on the steps. Recognized the inscription. Was no doubt wearing it until she could give it to you.”
That meant that whatever we were now in the middle of was far from over. I stared down at Maria and whispered more to myself than anyone else, “Somebody came to collect.”
Colin whispered, “Zaul being Zaul tried to be tough. Fight back. Maria stood in the middle. Bread crumbs in one hand. Your watch in the other.”
Colin nodded and Marguerite laid her head again on the sheets. I walked out into the hall and asked the nurse to roll in a second bed next to Maria’s. When she did, I took Marguerite by the hand, and she climbed up into the bed, slid her right hand across Maria’s bed where she could scratch her arm, and closed her eyes. I spread a blanket across her, and within a minute, she was dozing. I pulled Colin into the corner of the room and waited until his eyes focused on mine. Colin paused and wiped his forehead. He glanced over my shoulder at Maria. “Folks at a neighboring party heard the screaming. Said they found Zaul talking to 911 and carrying his sister to the street where Life Flight picked her up.”
“Where is he now?”
“Both he and the boat have disappeared.” A long stare at Maria’s mummified form. He rubbed the bend in his elbow where the Band-Aid and cotton indicated he’d given blood. “She lost a lot of blood.” Another break. “Shelly spent eight hours…” He trailed off. After a long minute, he said, “Charlie?”
I put my hand on his shoulder.
His voice cracked. “Do something for me?”
“Anything.”
“Find my boy.” He leaned against the wall and stared at the machines monitoring Maria’s condition. “He raided the safe, took the cash and his passport. Two of his three surfboards are missing, and his credit card shows a charge from Delta. He’s on a plane”—he stared at his watch—“to Costa Rica.”
A year ago, Colin bought a summer home in Costa Rica. It cost him two and a half million dollars, but that much money buys a lot more house there than it does in the States. Twelve thousand square feet. Set high up on a bluff overlooking the Pacific. Private beach. Deep-water dock designed to harbor large yachts. Boathouse with several boats. Both the pool and the hot tub had been built with “zero edges” so that they appeared to fall off into the ocean.
They’d spent all of last summer there, and when they’d returned, Colin thought he’d made real headway with Zaul. Colin continued. “Last summer, he met some guys. Surfers. Petty thieves and small-time dealers. They move up and down the coast, country to country, stealing or selling enough to chase bigger and better waves.” He looked at me. “Given the amount of money he’s about to surface with and given the way he spends it, they’ll make him their new best friend, but that’ll only last as long as the money. After that…” Another long pause. “The gangs down there will sniff him out. Then they’ll call me. I don’t think I’ll ever see…” He trailed off.
The sting of Shelly walking away had festered and was growing raw. Looking down on Maria was like pouring lemon juice on that wound. It struck me that the only thing I deeply cared about in this life was lying wrapped in this bed, like a dead pharaoh, with the distinct possibility that she’d never smile again.
I nodded. “I’ll go. Right now.”
Ever the chess player, Colin was always thinking ahead. It’s what made him good at his job. Both jobs. “You should take the Gulfstream.”
Colin owned a G5, which he used solely for his legitimate import business. We never ran drugs on the plane because it was too predictable and because Marguerite and the kids traveled in it. Unlike me, he had never mixed the two. While the plane was faster, I knew once I made it to Central America that finding Zaul would not be easy if he didn’t want to be found, forcing me to move around—possibly country to country—and I could do that a lot better and with more freedom by boat. Finding Zaul would be a problem—and a big one—but convincing him to return would be the bigger problem and that might take some time. He had left for a reason, and my presence didn’t change that. While Colin wanted a speedy resolution, I could be gone months. “The Bertram’s got the range and she’ll fit in better with the culture. Make folks think I’m some guy in midlife crisis chasing marlin or something.”
In the last decade delivering drugs, I’d developed a nagging itch in the back of my head regarding customs and immigration. Too many stamps on your passport—what I call “ins and outs”—and they start getting suspicious. Avoiding it altogether is better, provided you don’t get caught in a country in which you hold no visa. I was pretty sure I could fly out of the United States, but given the events of last night and Shelly’s final words to me regarding Corazón Negro, I wasn’t sure I could get back in without being detained. Maybe imprisoned. I didn’t know what they knew and I didn’t want to assume they didn’t. Also, if Zaul decided to move about, which I thought he would, I’d need to skirt country to country. I wasn’t too sure how much Central American customs communicated with the U.S. DEA, but I had a feeling that checking in with customs every time I stopped in a different country would raise red flags. Water, while slower, was better than air. It also afforded me an escape route.
Colin’s body language told me he had one more thing to say. Despite his success in an illegal world, Colin was not a good bluffer when it came to me. Never had been. He stared out the window, then at Marguerite and finally at Maria. His eyes fell when he looked at me. A single shake of his head. “I told Shelly.” He glanced at me. “Everything. I’m sorr—”
“I know.”
A shake of his head. His eyes watered. “I’m done.” He waved his hand across the room. Across us. “Out.” He moved his hands as if he were washing them. His eyes fell on Maria. “Price is too high.”