"Who hired you?"
"You did."
I slid the blade again, a bit harder this time.
"You don't get it, do you? We're just employees like you. Just doing a job. Come on, Jake. Seriously, now. There's no need for violence."
I gritted my teeth; my hand trembled. He probably thought I was frightened.
I wasn't, not anymore. "Tell that to the kid on the beach over there."
"I saw that. It's a shame."
"I saw it, too," I said. "Watched you put three bullets into him. One more question, Wayne. What did you say to him at the very end?"
Now he was unable to stop his smile. "I told him to dance the cucaracha."
Tears blurred my vision.
Wayne took a deep, labored breath. "He looked like a puppet, didn't you think?"
Blood roared in my ears, and I was in the dark tunnel, speeding along, no exit.
This time I slashed without holding back, and a geyser spewed from his neck, spilling over his camo shirt and vest. He made a choking, gagging sound. His right hand grasped the air, the fingers twitching.
With both hands, I gave his body a hard shove. It made a great splash.
66
The adrenaline began to ebb from my bloodstream, leaving me rubber-limbed, feeling played out.
I stood, though my knees were barely able to support me. Wiped the blood off the knife, then retracted the blade and slipped it into my back pocket. I fought off a wave of nausea. Then I remembered Wayne's SIG-Sauer, picked it up from the edge of the dock, slipped it into my waistband.
Tried to summon the strength to climb back up the hill, through the tangled underbrush, to go to the toolshed and try to find a pair of bolt cutters.
And then, from somewhere up the hill, came a high-pitched cry.
A female cry, quickly stifled.
Coming out of the eastern side of the lodge, the area where Verne took his smoking breaks, were the silhouettes of two people, one shoving the other.
It was Verne, and he had a woman with him.
I raced up the wooden steps, right out in the open, no longer caring whether Russell or anyone else was watching.
As I approached, I heard scuffling. For a few seconds I couldn't comprehend what was happening, why Verne was kneeling on top of Ali, pinioning her down, why something had been stuffed into her mouth and her skirt was pulled up and her soft vulnerable flesh was exposed, but the moment, the very second I understood, my brain stopped working.
67
I was in that strange and familiar place where my pulse pounded steadily and the anger shot through my veins like high-octane fuel. I was possessed by a single-minded purpose. I was in a trance, in a tunnel. The whole world had collapsed to just him and me.
Verne looked up, startled, as I rushed up to him, but it wasn't easy for him to move. Not with his pants pulled down that way, his discolored white jockey shorts down around his knees, his engorged phallus a beet-red upturned thumb sprouting from a mop of mossy brown pubic hair. Not while he was struggling to hold Ali down with both hands and feet.
She was writhing and bucking against him, trying to free herself with all her strength, but her hands were roped together, and she was far overmatched in any case. Her face was red from exertion. Her cries were muffled by the panties he'd stuffed in her mouth.
Then, scowling at me, still kneeling on Ali's thighs, he lifted his right arm, swung it behind him to grab for his holster, entangled in his trousers.
I had Buck's gun in my pocket and Wayne's pistol in my waistband, but in my adrenaline haze I'd forgotten about both of them. I reared back and drop-kicked him, hard, in the throat. Something in there crunched and gave way.
Verne made an oooof sound, then emitted an enraged, animal-like growl. He wobbled, knocked off-balance, but quickly righted himself, got back up on his knees and tried to stand as he grabbed his pants to hitch them up.
Ali twisted away. Her face was scratched and her lipstick was smeared and her eyes leaked tears. Her blouse was ripped, exposing her bra.
He seemed to have given up on his gun, for the moment. Instead, as he propelled himself up from a squatting position, he grabbed my foot, twisted it, and slammed his other fist into my solar plexus. I doubled over, staggered backwards, the wind knocked out of me.
My entire world had one single purpose: inflicting a very personal violence on that monster.
Back on his knees, he had his revolver out now and was aiming at me. He shuddered and twitched, his gun hand shaking. His eyes danced. The meth might have speeded up his reaction time, but it had also fried his nervous system; he couldn't hold the gun steady.
I grabbed his gun hand at the wrist with one hand, twisted the gun in my other, and jerked it backwards. His finger had gotten stuck in the trigger guard, as I expected it would, and as I wrenched the gun out of his grip, his trigger finger bent way out of joint, obviously broken.
Then, flinging his gun out of the way, I slammed my elbow into his face. He went uhhhh, toppled backwards. He groaned, struggled up to a sitting position, gasping for air.
I flashed on that image of Ali trapped beneath his knees and arms, her nakedness exposed, her beauty and vulnerability, and what little restraint I had was gone.
Grabbing his sleeves from behind, I slammed the entire weight of my body against the back of his head, lifting my feet off the ground, throwing all my weight into it, forcing his head down. His throat gurgled. His neck bent all the way forward until his chin nuzzled his chest, and I felt his head jolt forward, then he made a short, sharp gasp as his neck audibly snapped.
For a few seconds, I lay on top of him. Then I rolled off him, heart racing, panting and heaving.
I rose, went over to Ali, lying exhausted on the lawn, and knelt and pulled out the gag. I threw my arms around her, squeezed hard. Her face was hot and wet against my shirt.
I held her for almost a minute. She'd begun to sob. I held her tight and waited. When her sobs slowed, I let go, took out the knife, and slashed through the ropes to free her hands.
68
We need to get him out of here," I said, picking up the rope I'd just cut off her and jamming them in my pocket. "And we've got to get ourselves out of here, too. Before someone comes looking for him."
"Landry," she said, rising slowly. Her voice shook. "What you just did-"
"Later," I said. "Come on, help me." Verne's little stainless-steel revolver lay on the grass. I grabbed it, and slipped it under my belt.
I grabbed Verne's legs, and she took his arms. She looked dazed but kept moving. He was lighter than Buck had been, but still Ali struggled. Her strength had been sapped.
The edge of the forest was just a few feet behind the shed. We'd only gone a few feet through the dense underbrush when she dropped his arms. "I can't," she said, panting.
"This is far enough." The body couldn't be seen from the house, with the shed in the way.
Then I began rummaging through his vest, grabbing all the spare ammo I could find. He had an extra couple of magazines in one of the pockets, already loaded.
We stood behind the shed. Her face was shadowed.
Her lipstick was smeared and her face was scratched and tear-stained. It broke my heart. Gently, I put a hand up to her face and wiped away her tears, the smudged makeup. I wanted to feel the satin skin of her face. She closed her eyes, seemed to respond to the consolation in my touch.
"Are you okay?"
She nodded, began sobbing again.
"Ali." I stroked her hair.
"Who the hell are you, Landry?" she whispered.
69
There isn't any time," I said. "Any second, Russell's going to realize we're both missing. If he hasn't already. We'll talk some other time. Right now I need your help."
She asked all sorts of questions, her mind firing on all cylinders.
"'Close of business today' has to refer to close of business in Europe," she said. "Liechtenstein. Which is, if I remember correctly, next to Switzerland. Nine hours ahead of us. If their banks keep the same hours as our banks, that means Russell probably can't transfer funds after seven in the morning here."