My nerve endings were on overload as I scratched the loose skin on the dog’s neck, then turned and looked uphill. No sign of the infrared light now. Who was up there?
I stood. Looked at the dog, then stomped my foot, hissing, “Get out of here!”
The pit bull turned and ran.
As I exited the trail onto the beach near the house, I was looking at the wall of forest to my right where the camera blind was hidden. Next time-if there was a next time-I’d rig a rope so I could rappel down the rock wall instead of taking the long way around.
I glanced at my watch as I ran toward the house. Nearly ten minutes since Carol’s first scream. Too long… but not long enough for Ritchie, Dutch, and Clovis to finish what they’d started. The place was brightly lit, windows showing the undersides of palms, casting shadows on white sand, so I hugged the forest wall.
I expected the men to be in the pool area, where Bob Marley music was still wailing, or inside the house.
Wrong.
They were outside, standing behind a maintenance shed at the rear of the property. If I hadn’t spotted them from a distance, I wouldn’t have slowed in time and they would’ve heard me coming.
I lifted the night-vision monocular from my eye because I wanted to see the night as the three men saw it. Dark of the moon. Mountain black against a black sky. No palm shadows on white sand, and I could barely make out the shape of the shed. No hint the men were there.
I glanced behind me, worried that I was backlit by the house. Nope. Rain forest, waxy black beneath stars. They couldn’t see me, and I couldn’t see them… until I pulled the monocular into place, hit the power switch, and it became dusky green daylight again.
There they were…
The three of them were huddled together, whispering. Clothed now, too, and smoking another cigar-sized joint. Dutch had his back to me as Ritchie turned to Clovis, gesturing with his hands-pissed off about something, maybe-because Clovis and Dutch were nodding the way kids do when they’re being scolded.
And Ritchie was… holding a towel to his nose?
Yes. A white towel splotched with black. The man was bleeding.
What the hell had happened in the last ten minutes?
I moved closer, sliding along the forest rim, ready to freeze or duck into the shadows if they noticed me. I was also aware that Wolfie could still be in the blind, looking down on the house from the ridge. I’d been unable to see the maintenance shed from my rock platform. Could he?
I stopped, removed my backpack. Considered using the infrared beam to locate the camera blind… but decided, no, someone else was up there in the jungle equipped with night vision.
Instead, I hid the backpack behind a tree, checked to make sure the Colt was secure in its holster, then got down on hands and knees and continued toward the men.
When I was close enough, I heard Dutch whispering, with his accent, arguing with Ritchie. I dropped to my belly, crawled a few feet closer, and listened.
“… So why you want to risk something like that when you know they’re gonna tell the law?” Dutch asked.
“Of course they’re gonna tell the Babylon. That’s what I’m saying. We need go back and take care of them old women before they start flapping their gums. They got no phone, they’ve got no car. What’s that tell you? Tells you they ain’t gonna risk leaving this house tonight.”
“Take care of ’em. What you mean is-”
“Whatever it takes, that’s what I mean, man.” There was a sustained orange glow-the man with dreadlocks inhaling on the joint.
“And what’re we gonna do with the bodies? I got to remind you that bodies don’t sink so easy. And that stink. I don’t want no more blood on my hands, man. Let the women go, that’s my advice on this subject.”
“Let them go? They go back to the States, what’s gonna keep them from gettin’ on TV and telling what happened here? Wolfie didn’t get nothing on the camera that’s gonna keep them quiet,” Ritchie said. “How’s the Widow gonna react to that news?”
“The Widow-fuck the Widow.”
“Man, you’re crazy to use that talk about her. You’re beggin’ for something bad to happen to you. Watch!”
“You sound like some damn ignorant child. Why you bring that crazy woman into this?”
“Because she’s paying us, that’s one reason. Plus, I’m telling you, the Widow’s got magic ways to find out things. She’ll know even if Wolfie don’t tell her, that’s why.”
The Widow-a name spoken with reverence. I’d spent enough time in Cuba and the Caribbean to know that locals take the power of magic seriously, and even the best educated practice forms of santeria or obeah, a complex mix of Catholicism and an ancient African religion.
I thought about it as Ritchie said to Dutch, “You don’t believe she’s a vitchy woman? Man, you’re gonna believe she’s a witch by the time she’s done fuckin’ you over, man!”
“Don’t be talking that stupid shit, Ritchie, there’s no such thing as that. That’s the old ways, not modern times. You’re just mad ’cause one of them twin bitches hit you. Clovis? What do you think? You want to go in there and help this crazy man kill a bunch of old women?”
Clovis wasn’t taking sides. “Those women aren’t so old, man. Those two cornstalk women, they scare the shit out of me. Done fucked up Ritchie’s nose pretty good, I’d say. But it would be fun, so I’m not sayin’.”
I smiled from the shadows-that’s what had happened while I was coming down the hill. The twins had returned. There’d been a confrontation, and Ritchie had gotten his nose busted. Perfect.
But Ritchie wasn’t done with it. He’d been humiliated, he wanted revenge, but his partners weren’t jumping into line. Murder? That was a long-term commitment, and they were smart enough to know it. Which really pissed off Ritchie.
“Then you boys run away. I’m going into that house and do what needs be done. Faster you get outta my sight, the sooner I can do a man’s work. Dutch, you got a knife on you, that much I know.”
“You’re not using my knife, man.”
“You better listen to me, Dutch.” The two men stood nose to nose. “I can take that knife if I want. You know it’s true.”
Dutch hesitated, then said, “Take the fucking knife, man. But I’m wiping it clean first. Then give me and Clovis twenty minutes to get to the Green Turtle so we got alibis. I don’t want to hear nothing more about this shit.”
Ritchie reached and took the knife. “I ain’t giving you shit, man. A minute from now, you’ll hear those tall bitches screaming. That makes you an accessory. So you better run, boy.”
As Ritchie turned toward the house, though, the other two were walking fast to keep up with him, not running away. He was the leader, Shay had told me. Now they were following him into murder.
I was running as I drew the Colt.
THEY COULDN’T SEE ME, but I could see them… could see the three men marching toward the house single file, Dutch at the rear, taller, heavier than the others. Could see Ritchie in tank top and baggy shorts, blond curls beneath the pirate scarf, still using the towel to dab at his nose. Glint of knife blade… Clovis took a folding knife from his pocket, too, and snapped it open, then handed it to Dutch, who hesitated before he took it. Clovis with his weasel ways, playing both sides, letting others do the dirty work. But he was into this.
They never saw me coming.
At the last second, though, Dutch heard me. I was running full speed when he turned. I saw his eyes: a mix of confusion and surprise. The expression was still on his face when I dropped my shoulder and hit him in the spine, kidney-high, from behind.
“What the fuck!”
The impact was jarring, but I rolled, came up onto my feet, then used the gun butt to club Ritchie on the side of the head. Too stunned to react, he collapsed backward onto the sand. I stood over him for a moment before I stepped on his right wrist until he let go of the knife.
As I picked it up, he said, “Who… who the hell are you, man?”
I was breathing hard, already moving toward Dutch. “Leave the women alone. Understand?”
To my left, Clovis was backing away, saying, “I’ve got nothing to do with what they was planning, mister, you can believe me on that.. .” Then, his voice changed as my head swiveled toward him; sounded like he was scared shitless, saying, “Ritchie… Jesus Christ, you see that? He’s… he’s only got one eye, man,” talking about the glow from the monocular.
When I got to Dutch, he was moaning, saying he thought his back was broken, and asking, “What the hell happened? Am I dreaming this?” sounding like he was going into shock. I’d hurt him.
I picked up the second knife, tried to fold it closed, but couldn’t find the lock, so I held both knives in my left hand as I holstered the Colt.
Clovis was still looking at me, backing away, whispering, “This here person ain’t no man, man. You see? He’s got one eye in the middle of his damn head… it’s glowing. Just like the old people say-got an eye that glows like a cat.”
He turned to Dutch, yelling to make sure I heard. “You see what you done, saying those nasty things about the Widow? It wasn’t us that did it… it was you that talked bad about that good lady.”
Islanders believed it.
I nudged Dutch with my foot as I said to Clovis and Ritchie, “Get this guy on his feet, and don’t come back. Move.”
I didn’t stomp my foot like with the pit bull, but the reaction was similar.