Caribbean Hustle (A Nick Teffinger Thriller / Read in Any Order) (8 page)

Right now he was a disease.

There was no use in infecting innocent people.

Mid-morning, the flight touched down uneventfully at Port-au-Prince International Airport. Teffinger made his way through customs one painful second at a time and then hopped in a cab and said, “Villa Sky.”

That’s where Kovi-Ke stayed when she was abducted.

As the cab pulled off, a knock came at the window.

The driver braked.

The door opened and the stewardess hopped in, a smile coming to her face from the look on Teffinger’s. She said to the driver, “Toussaint, take me home.”

“Sure thing, pretty lady. You’re second.”

“Actually I’m first,” she said. “He’s going where I’m going.”

The driver gave Teffinger a look.

Then he did a one-eighty and took off.

22

Day Four

June 7

Saturday Morning

The stewardess—Modeste—ended up squashed against Teffinger as the cab driver picked up three more passengers en route. The pressure of her thigh against his went straight to his brain, so much so that he could even tolerate the cramped quarters.

They got closer and closer to a mountainside of colored structures that all seemed attached to one another. From a distance they seemed bright and inviting. Up close they took on a more deprived and dangerous patina.

The driver dropped them as far up as the road allowed.

Modeste grabbed Teffinger’s hand and said, “Don’t be afraid.”

Then they headed up, winding through stairs and alleys for some time before finally entering an aqua green three-story structure, something in the nature of an apartment building sandwiched between more of the same. A dark stairwell took them to the top floor, where a short hallway ended with a door on each side. Modeste slipped a key into the door on the right and found the lock jimmied. The knob turned and she entered.

Then she gasped.

Teffinger stepped in and saw why.

The place was trashed.

“This is getting more and more frequent,” she said.

“It’s happened before?”

“Too many times,” she said. “They’re looking for drugs or guns or money or whatever is worth anything. Liquor, anything like that. Too bad for them I don’t have anything.”

“So you’re not in trouble or anything? No one came here to get you?”

“No.”

“Well, that’s good.”

“Yeah, my lucky day.”

Teffinger helped her straighten up.

A million years of recessed caveman genetics made his peripheral vision size her up at every opportunity. Her skin was dark; her body was compelling; and the way she moved, well, that was the best of it all. Every stance was a pose; every change of position was a song. Her mouth was cute and wide and given to easy smiles.

His phone rang and Sydney’s voice came through. “Kovi-Ke’s back in Denver. She said she had another flash, from Denver. The guy had doubled back. She’s back here trying to find him, just like before. I’ll be honest, Teff, I have no idea what to make of her. She’s here, she’s there, she seems legit when you talk to her face to face, but how can she be?”

“Call Station,” he said. “Tell her to keep her guard up. Don’t let her get relaxed just because nothing visible is showing on her radar screen. Has there been any sign of Tarzan?”

“Nothing, not a peep. The CIA guys were peeping, though. They went to the chief when they found out you weren’t in town. They gave him an earful. He took it but he’s saving it up for you. It’s in a box with your name on it.”

“You didn’t tell him where I went, did you?”

“No. I only said you were on vacation.”

“Which I am.”

“Do you want my advice?”

“No.”

“Good, because here it is,” she said. “Get your posterior back to Denver, get the CIA behind you and figure out what Kovi-Ke is up to.”

“I will, I will and I will. Until I do, though, get close to Kovi-Ke, but be seriously careful. Make sure she doesn’t kill Station; and make sure no one kills her. Most importantly, make sure no one kills you. Oh, one more thing. Kovi-Ke said she thought the guy did four murders. She only gave me the stories on two of them, Alley Savannah and Lachey Silk. Get the other two and run them to ground. Don’t go through Leigh Sandt, though. I’m sure she’s buying GQs by the dozens as we speak just so she can shred the covers.”

“Good visual.”

“Thanks.”

“I think I’ll go out and buy some while I can, for when you give me those same moments in the future.”

He smiled.

“Good idea.”

“Where can I get a shredder sharpened? Do you know?”

He hung up, turned to Modeste and said, “What do you know about voodoo?”

Her face tightened.

“I know that it’s not for tourists. I know that it’s not a plaything.”

“Who in town practices it so hard that they kill people?”

Her eyes retreated in fear.

“Even asking that question is a dangerous thing.”

“Maybe,” he said. “But so is not asking it.”

He told her about Kovi-Ke’s abduction during Karnaval, the fact that she could now see through a killer’s eyes, and the reason he was in Haiti, namely to get to the source of the night in question.

At the end Modeste said, “This woman, Kovi-Ke. It sounds like you’ve fallen for her. Am I right?”

It was a good question, one he’d avoided asking himself.

“The whole thing’s volatile,” he said. “To be honest she’s like a loaded gun. I’m never sure if she’s pointed at me or away.”

“Either way, you and me not going to have sex, are we?”

Teffinger hated to give the answer.

He hated to lock out the possibility.

But there was only one answer to give.

“No.”

Modeste turned and shook her backside at him, a tribute to what he was missing.

“Tell her she’s a lucky girl, this Kovi-Ke.” She grew serious and added, “The person you’re looking for is a voodoo woman named Janjak. She’s twice the devil and then some. My advice is to leave right now and forget you ever heard her name, which by the way, you didn’t hear from me.”

23

Day Four

June 7

Saturday Morning

“Janjak can steal your soul from a distance and you wouldn’t even know it until she started to carve it up with a razorblade. She can break you from the inside just because it amuses her. Death is no escape. In fact, when you die it gets worse. At least while you’re alive you have worldly elements in your life. In death there’s nothing except Janjak,” Modeste said. “Once she has you, she has you forever.”

Teffinger walked to the window and peeked out.

He saw a little girl with tattered clothes pushing a two-wheeled bike that was too big for her. Her face and arms glistened with sweat. The sun played off a pink bow in her hair.

“Where can I find her?”

“You’re not hearing what I’m saying,” Modeste said.

“No one will ever know,” he said. “I promise.”

Modeste shook her head.

“It’s for your own good,” she said. “Don’t be angry with me.”

Teffinger took another look outside.

The little girl was gone.

An old man appeared from around a corner, hunched over from the weight of too many decades. Behind him, two men came into view, walking briskly past the old man to across the way and then looking up at Modeste’s apartment. Teffinger dropped back, motioned Modeste over to the edge of the window and said, “Friends of yours?”

Her face contorted.

She grabbed her purse and said, “Come on!”

Ten seconds later they were out the back bedroom window and bounding down a rusty fire escape.

A safe distance away, increasing that distance with every passing second and continuously looking over his shoulder, Teffinger said, “Who are they?”

“I don’t know.”

He stopped and grabbed her elbow.

“Are you going to tell me what’s going on or not?”

She broke free and kept going.

“No.”

He caught up.

“You didn’t bring me home because you liked me. You brought me for protection.”

“I brought you home for both,” she said. “I was going to give you sex either way, if it makes you feel any better.”

“It doesn’t.”

He didn’t really care.

His suitcase was back at her place but his wallet and passport and cell phone were in his back pockets. There was nothing in the suitcase that he couldn’t live without or anything inside that could identify him. No, wait, there was—his plane ticket. It was one-way, he didn’t really need it any more, but it had his name on it.

A high-revving motorcycle made Teffinger twist his head around. It was the two pitbulls, closing fast from behind, fixated on their targets. The one in back had a gun, trying to finalize his aim. Teffinger jerked Modeste behind a parked van just as the shot came. It passed so close that it actually flicked his hair.

The brakes locked and the wheels squealed to a stop.

“Run!” Teffinger said.

Modeste stared at him, frozen.

“Run I said!”

She started but slowly.

“Go!”

She turned and ran with all her might.

The bike was down, stopping too fast to control, and grinding to a stop on its side a hundred feet away. The two men muscled their bodies off the ground and turned in his direction. The passenger who shot at him, the one in the red shirt, had the gun back in hand now, gripped in a steel fist as he approached. The other one had a large knife, black and worn. A serrated edge flashed for just a second as the sun caught it.

There was nowhere for Teffinger to run.

They were too close.

A shot came, louder than thunder and ripping through the van’s back panel with a terrible sound.

Teffinger’s heart raced.

He spotted a broken bottle at his feet and snatched it up.

Then, as they got close enough, Teffinger swung around the edge of the van and whipped the bottle at the red shirt with every ounce of strength in his body.

The man flinched at the last second but not fast enough.

His finger pulled the trigger.

A bullet ricocheted.

The glass landed squarely in his face jags first and stuck.

Blood splattered.

A frantic hand reached up to pull it out but stopped working halfway up. The man fell to the ground with the bottle still in his face, twitched for a second and then stopped moving.

The other man dived for the gun.

Teffinger got a foot to it first and kicked it away.

The man squared off, waving the knife back and forth with a deadly intensity.

Then he turned and ran.

Teffinger didn’t chase him.

He watched as the man got to the bike, fired it up and fishtailed the back tire as he squealed off. He threw one wild look over his shoulder as he twisted the throttle and then he was gone.

Teffinger gave the red shirt one final glance.

The man’s eyes were open, staring at nothing.

A fly landed on his nose and twisted in a little dance.

Across the street, a few gathered faces watched.

Against his better judgment, or maybe because of it, Teffinger searched the man’s pockets and was glad he did. There he found a wallet that might have identification, but more importantly he found his own plane ticket, the one that had been in the suitcase back in Modeste’s apartment.

That would have tied him to the scene.

He also found money and keys.

He tossed the money on the ground, stuffed everything else in his pocket and ran off in the direction Modeste had gone.

24

Day Four

June 7

Saturday Afternoon

In his mind, Teffinger did nothing wrong. He’d acted in self-defense and, if it had happened in the states, he would have stayed at the scene and let the justice system run its short and understanding course. Here though he didn’t know the laws, or how much they might be ignored or twisted or distorted in the name of corruption or extortion, nor did he know who the dead man was, or who he might be connected to that might be able to pull ugly strings.

So he left.

For better or worse, he left.

With any luck there’d been no security cameras in the area, the few faces across the street either didn’t get much of a look or knew better than to get involved, and the police investigation, if even there was one, would die a sudden and final death.