Emily Kimelman - Sydney Rye 03 - Insatiable (16 page)

“That shithead,” Easy told her.

Maude turned angry eyes onto Jimmy who didn’t look back. “Why?”

“He is a bounty hunter who attempted to hunt me,” I answered.

“Kill you?”

I looked at her, “Good question!” I couldn’t believe I hadn’t asked him that before. “What were you supposed to do with me Jimmy? Where did you plan to bring me?”

“I was just gonna take you to my house and then contact a guy.”

“Which guy, Jimmy?” I walked toward him till he was pressed in a corner. Blue growled and showed Jimmy how big his teeth were.

“I just have an email address. I was just gonna email him.”

“You use the internet, Jimmy.”

“What?” He looked up at me with his eyebrows raised. “I’m not a plebeian.”

“Coulda fooled me,” Easy said.

“What’s the email?” I asked.

“It’s in my pants,” he said.

I unzipped Jimmy’s costume. He’d been sweating like a man in a Disney costume and his smell filled the tiny office quickly. He smiled as the relatively cool air touch his skin. Jimmy’s pants were tight and his pocket was right next to his manhood. I did not want to go in there to get anything out.

“If you untie me I’ll get it,” he said with just the ghost of a smile on his lips.

“Yeah, I’m sure.” Instead I reached in. His leg was warm and his pocket moist from sweat. “Nasty,” I muttered as I felt around. There was a small scrap of paper that I pulled out. In pencil, in what looked like little boys handwriting it said: [email protected] “I’ll be right back.” I motioned for Blue to watch Jimmy and left the small office. As I walked away, I heard raised voices start. All right, one raised voice. Easy was yelling at Maude. Whatever, let them sort it out, I thought as I crossed the dock toward Dan.

He was standing next to the plane with Ana Maria. The luggage was loaded, they just needed me, Easy, and our new flight plan to get going. “Can you break into an email real fast?” I asked, handing him the slip of paper.

“I haven’t even had a chance to work on the other two.” He looked down at the slip and smiled. “This actually shouldn’t be that hard.” He pulled his laptop out, connected a cell phone with a borrowed smart chip, and went to work.

“I’m going to give them a little time,” I said, motioning toward the exes having it out in the office. “I think Jimmy might be able to mediate.” Ana laughed. “Hey, take a walk with me?” I said to her.

“Sure,” she shrugged.

We left Dan hunched over his laptop and moved down the dock. “Are you sure you want to do this?” I asked her.

“Do what?”

“Ruin your family.”

“My parents ruined our family when they killed Alejandro.”

Long-necked white birds skimmed along the surface of the harbor. “I know, but you’re very young and you might come to regret this.”

“My parents are bad people. I told you my mom is full of shit. She says she wants to help women but she doesn’t really. And my dad is such a fucking hypocrite.”

“You know, a lot of kids think their parents are full of it until they get a little older and realize everyone is full of it.”

Ana Maria stopped walking and turned to me. “Most parents don’t kill their nephews.” I watched a bird dive into the water, disappear completely below the surface and then burst out again, water dripping off its wings as they spread. A small fish struggled in the bird’s beak. The bird threw its head back and the fish fell down its gullet.

“Right,” I said, not looking at her. “But, Ana, if they are behind Alejandro’s murder, why are they trying to bring me in, alive no less?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I can’t understand why anyone would want to hurt Alejandro.” She sniffled. “I’m sorry,” she said, swiping at tears. “I just can’t think about him. The only thing that keeps me going is knowing that we will revenge his death.” She looked up at me, her eyes searching my face.

I nodded. “OK,” I said.

I left Ana Maria looking out at the boats buzzing around the harbor and headed back to the customs office. Easy stormed out of the little room, slamming the door behind her. She strode toward me and said as she passed, “What a fucking coward.”

Maude stepped out of the room, leaving the door open a crack. She looked at Easy’s retreating back and then to me. I gave her a smile which she returned with a grimace. She was playing with the hem of her shirt when I stepped up to her.

“How you doing?” I asked. She laughed the way you laugh when you’re nervous and have to speak in front of a large audience of not-naked people. “I’m going to talk to our prisoner for awhile.” She nodded but didn’t move. “Would you mind giving me some alone time?”

She nodded and walked away in the direction of Easy. I stepped into the little room closing the door behind me. Jimmy was pushed into the corner with the potted plants. His body pressed several of them against the window. Blue sat right in front of him, his eyes trained on Jimmy’s bound body. “OK,” I said, to Blue. He looked over at me and took a couple of steps back but didn’t really relax.

“Jimmy, do you mind if I call you Mickey?” Jimmy eased off the plants and nodded his head. “Have a seat.” I motioned to the chair I sat in a couple of days earlier when I asked Maude for her help. Jimmy sat.

“Mickey, I’ve been thinking and there is a bunch of stuff I just can’t figure out. I’m hoping you can help me.”

“I don’t know anything,” he said. “I just found out about your bounty. I’m just trying to make some money, just like everybody else.”

“Not everybody is just trying to make money, Mickey.” He started to laugh but looking at my face stopped him. “You said my bounty did not mention a girl I was traveling with.”

“No.”

“Did it say anything about me being a kidnapper?” He shook his head again. “Killer?”

“No.”

“So what did it say?”

“That you were dangerous but needed to be taken alive and not to hurt you.”

“Didn’t think that wood was gonna sting, did you?”

He shrugged. I paced the floor, walking the short distance from the front of the room to the back, then I went over to the small jungle by the window. “Have you ever killed anyone Mickey?” I looked out the window and watched Dan smiling over his computer. Jimmy didn’t answer me, but I heard his chair scrape on the floor. Blue growled and I turned in time to see Jimmy standing up. Blue rose to his feet and barked. Jimmy sat again.

“I just had an itch is all,” Jimmy protested.

“Mickey, are you a killer?”

“No,” his skin looked soft and loose. I could see a bruise the color of a fresh plum forming where I’d hit him.

“Even by accident in the ring?” I asked

“Maybe.”

“I wish you would be more helpful. I really do. See, I’m in this shitty situation where I don’t know who to trust. The only thing I do know is not to trust you but that doesn’t do me much good.” I looked back out the window again hoping that Jimmy would say something useful. He cleared his throat once but other than that, he was silent.

When I turned around he was staring at the cat poster. I left the room. Blue stayed behind to watch Mickey the Mouse.

FLIGHT TIMES

I walked down the dock to where my small group of cohorts waited.

“Ready?” Dan asked.

“We should get going,” Easy said.

I looked out at the harbor, busy with traffic; the birds swooping in over the fishing boats, the tourist on jet skis making figure eights. I watched the crystal blue water rising and falling and I said:

“We’re staying here.”

“What?” Maude said. “They know you’re here you need to go.”

I turned to look at her. Maude’s eyes were big, her hands were shaking. “You know what? Let them come. I didn’t do anything wrong and I don’t want to hide. I don’t want to run.” A smile spread across my face. “I want to set a trap.”

I looked at each one of them in turn. Easy was smiling and nodding her head. Dan pressed his lips together and nodded. Maude shook her head silently. Ana Maria shrugged. “Whatever you say, boss.”

“I’m with the kid,” Easy agreed.

“Don’t leave me out,” Dan said.

“What about you, Maude?” We all turned to look at her and she looked back at us.

“I can’t, I-”

Easy turned away with a snort of disgust. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to,” I told her. I held my hand out for her to shake it. “We’ll leave you in peace.” She just stared at my outstretched palm. “But you could be a great help. If you could just let us know if anyone arrives through this port with blonde hair and a bandaged arm. Maybe if you could mention to your friends that you’d like to know when that guy gets here. That would make a world of difference to us.”

Maude looked at my hand, suddenly unsure of what she was shaking on. If she took my hand did she agree to help or was I letting her out of it, free to go back to her life with her doilies and her plants. She looked up at my face and I smiled at her.

“I want to help,” she said, her chin wobbled and her voice broke, “but I am so scared.” I stepped closer to her and put one of my arms around her small shoulders.

“Life can be very scary,” I told her. She started crying over much more than my offer. Her shoulders shook and her body heaved. I patted her back. Ana Maria held out a napkin, it fluttered in the breeze until Maude took it with an unsteady hand. She brought it to her face and pressed it into her eyes. Easy looked over at us, then turned down the dock and walked away.

“I want to help,” Maude said through her tears. “I really do.”

“You can Maude. You can and you will.” I stepped in front of her, Maude sniffled and looked up at me. Her big brown eyes were blood shot and the skin around them swollen. “Maude. This is your life and you can live it however you want.”

She nodded slightly then wiped the tissues across her nose.

I found Easy in Maude’s office. Jimmy was back in the corner with the plants. Maude followed me in the room sheepishly. “All right, ladies,” I started. “I need both your help. I know you guys have been through some shit and I’m sympathetic, but you’ve got to get over it for the larger good here.” That sounded stupid to me but Easy seemed to like it.

“OK,” she said. I turned to Maude and she nodded. Jimmy smiled like a goofball.

“I’m glad to see you two getting along now,” he decided to say. Easy got up with her fist clenched and was heading toward Jimmy in a way that made him push further into the corner and squeeze his eyes shut.

“Hey!” I yelled. “What are you doing?”

Easy looked over at me, un-balled her fist and muttered, “Nothing.”

“All right, first things first. We need a place to stay.” Neither of them said anything. I looked from one to the other. “Come on, guys, you live here.”

“I don’t, she does,” Easy said.

“You can stay at my place,” Maude offered.

“It is sooo not big enough,” Easy said.

“What about you Jimmy? Where do you live?” I asked.

His eyebrows jumped up his forehead. “What? Me?”

“Yeah, you said you saw me shopping, you must live on the island.”

Basically he was too dumb to lie. I could see the thoughts run across his eyes, the attempted lies came to the surface and then dove back down again until he finally said, “Yeah.”

“All right, we’ll go to Jimmy’s place. Easy, why don’t you go rent us a car and Maude, you start making phone calls letting your buddies know we’re looking for a blonde-”

“I know, with a bandaged arm.” I smiled at her and nodded my head. This was gonna turn out just fine.

Easy came back with a 4-door Jeep Wrangler and the four of us plus Blue piled in. “All right Jimmy, where to?”

Jimmy directed us up into the hills behind the old town center. The roads were narrow, winding, and a steep drop replaced the shoulder. In St. Thomas, they drive on the left side of the road. The cars are all American so the steering wheel is also on the left. I kept getting confused and would think for a fatal second that we were on the wrong side! Good thing Easy was driving. Though with Blue panting hot breath onto her left ear, she might have felt otherwise.

We passed over a hill that blocked the town and Caribbean from view. The center of the island didn’t look like the coast. Poverty and reality both lived there. We drove by a Home Depot where cows crossed the parking lot. Men in dirty clothing and no shoes walked along the side of the road. In the jungle that lined the streets, I could see broken-down shacks with clean laundry hanging outside. We had to swerve to avoid hitting a chicken.

Cresting another hill, the Atlantic was suddenly in front of us. Dark blue and stretching as far as the eye could see. Rocky islands dotted the shimmering expanse of ocean but other than that it was clear sailing straight to the horizon. We wound along the coast, high up on a cliff until Jimmy pointed for us to go down a very steep hill.

Jimmy’s road was once concrete but the ocean air, many rains, and island life was turning it back into dirt. His driveway was the third in and when he pointed to it, Easy turned to look at me first. I nodded. Trees hung over the path blocking our view of the house until we were almost upon it.