By edRogers
[Reviewed here on the novel’s publication day, October 6, 2018: “Coming soon to a Barnes & Noble store near you?”]
It was a moonless night with only the light from the warehouse guard post illuminating a bit of the street. There was a chill in the air from a north wind that had come in with a cold front. Understand that Charlie had been in Costa Rica long enough that sixty degrees was freezing to him as well as to other Costa Ricans, and everybody on the street had jackets on, most of them with a hoody.
Charlie had been checking the warehouse ever since he heard that indictments were coming out for Mr. Tai’s arrest, but he had seen no sign of Tai. Then he read a report in the Tico Times, a local newspaper, that Tai’s boat had tried to outrun the Coast Guard and a wild shot from the government boat’s three-inch gun had hit the boat squarely, and it had exploded, killing all on board. But there wasn’t a body or body parts that could be said to be Tai, so Charlie waited on the side street once more.
He had been there for hours and had about had enough for one night. He was reaching to turn the jeep’s ignition key when out of the shadows from across the street stepped none other than Tai, walking toward the guard’s station! Even though he was wearing a hoody, Charlie could tell it was him. He eased invisibly out of the jeep, having removed the interior light right after Margot was shot. He slipped along the edge of the pavement after Tai, keeping deep in the shadows. Coming to within a yard of Tai, Charlie put the gun into the small of his back and said, “Step back a few feet. I believe we can speak better in the dark.”
Tai started to raise his hands, but Charlie warned him sternly: “Put your damn hands down and walk toward that jeep.”
Charlie put Tai in the passenger seat and got in behind him. “Long time no see, Tai.”
Charlie could tell Tai was nervous, because he didn’t wait to be asked but went ahead and said, “If you think I had anything to do with the shooting of Ms. Rosenburg, you are wrong. Why would I kill her?”
Charlie cocked the gun, and Tai’s body went stiff. “Maybe because she was always in your business and you got tired of it?”
Tai started to turn his head, but Charlie stopped him: “No, no, keep facing the front.”
“There was no love lost between the two of us,” Tai said, “that is true, but our battles had been going on forever. If I was going to kill her, I would have done it years ago.”
Charlie poked the barrel of the gun into the back of Tai’s head. “If not you, then who?”
Tai shrugged his shoulders. “I would say it was the same person that killed Alejandro Salas and his family.”
Charlie’s neck stiffened. “Salas and his family are dead?”
Tai turned and faced Charlie, who this time said nothing. “You hadn’t heard? It’s been all over the news.”
Charlie leaned back in the seat. “Why kill them now? Everything is over. You’re out of business, and Salas can’t hurt you anymore.”
Tai’s eyes narrowed. “Why do you keep thinking I’m having these people killed? Salas was Morales’s man, not mine.”
Charlie had missed a very important piece of the puzzle. “Morales had him killed?”
“When he heard Salas was a D.E.A. informant, there wasn’t anything left to do but shut him up. Now, why he killed his entire family, I don’t know, unless he wanted to send a message to others to keep their mouths shut.”
“You think Morales killed Margot?”
Tai thought for a moment. I know it wasn’t me, and I know Morales has used a sniper before.”
Charlie relaxed, now that he knew he wasn’t going to kill Tai. His death would have no meaning whatsoever. “What are you planning to do?”
“Assuming you are not going to kill me, I have some money and a passport in the office. I plan to retire someplace where no one can find me.”
Charlie waved the gun toward the door. “In that case, you should get out before I change my mind.”
Tai stepped out of the jeep, and as he was preparing to close the door he said, “If you get a chance to kill Morales, put a bullet in him for me.” He shut the door and walked on to the guard’s station and into the warehouse grounds.
Charlie stayed where he was for a few more minutes, long enough to watch Tai come out again and head on down the street. But still he didn’t move. The fact that Salas’s family had died because Charlie had set him up was weighing heavily on him. Salas was always the backup plan if they couldn’t get Tai on a drug charge, but it had never crossed his mind that Morales was that deep into the government.
He went to Margot’s house – he still thought of it that way, even though he had let his rental go and moved what little he had there – and drank himself to sleep.
The next morning Charlie stepped into the sunshine with his cup of coffee. He looked around the back porch and thought, what a lonely place without Margot. He knew he would have to sell the house or go crazy with grief. He poured out the coffee, which had gotten cold, and headed back inside. Sell it he would, but not yet, not until the man who had killed her paid the price for her life.
He steered the jeep south toward Jaco, where Morales had a mansion on a mountain just outside town overlooking the Gulf of Nicoya. From talk around town, where Charlie had loitered for a couple of days picking up scuttlebutt, he had an idea what it looked like. People said there was a ten-foot wall with barbed wire on top strung on either side of ‘V’ posts, and two rolls of razor wire running down the middle of that. Going over the wall was out of the question.
The rear of the house backed up to a rock cliff about twenty feet high. And the property had guards and dogs – it was a fortress.
Charlie had to see for himself. During his time in the Army, one theme rang out: “No matter how secure you think you are, there is always a weak spot that you missed. No place is 100% secure.”
He had been driving for maybe forty minutes when he saw the house – it was hard to miss. The second story was higher than the outside wall and no doubt gave Morales a splendid view of the Gulf of Nicoya. Charlie shook his head in amazement at the planning he would have to do. From below, there was no way to get a shot into the upstairs – the angle was too steep – and the closer you got, the steeper the angle. The only place high enough to allow a shot into the second floor was twenty miles across the Gulf. There might have been a weak spot, but taking a shot from outside wasn’t it. The shot would have to be close and personal. Just like Charlie wanted.
He turned around and drove back to Puntarenas. He would come on his motorbike and check for trails going up into the mountain behind the house. Charlie wasn’t sure how, but his gut told him that the weak spot was up there.
Back in Puntarenas, he parked in the half-moon parking next to the beach, near a little restaurant with tables under palm trees. It was a weekday and few people were on the beach or at the tables. He ordered rice with meat and gravy, and a beer. He had finished eating and was on his second beer when now-Special Inspector Weins Araya – he had a new name badge – pulled out the chair across from Charlie and sat down.
Charlie finished the drink he had been in the middle of taking and said, “By all means, sit down and join me.”
The waiter had started toward the table, but Araya waved him off and announced to Charlie: “I’m now in charge of putting all the pieces together and bringing those responsible for Alejandro Salas’s death to justice.” He took a deep breath. “For some reason, I feel you are mixed up in all of this somehow. I have the power to arrest anyone and hold them for as long as I like, so, unless you tell me what you have to do with the D.E.A., you’re going to be my first customer.”
Charlie banged the bottle down on the table. “That again? I’ve told you I had nothing to do with them! Margot and her crew may have been in bed with the assholes, but not me.”
Araya leaned toward Charlie. “That doesn’t wash, amigo. First, for no known reason Margot Rosenburg is killed sitting right next to you. Then there is that trip to Nicaragua and the fact that you and the D.E.A. left from the same airport after – you say – there was no meeting. Then shortly thereafter, your friends Howard Bates and Tommy Harris are killed with a gun that has on it the prints and blood of a known killer, Papo Romero, who was on the same bus and in the same town as you, La Virgen. One of these things would be meaningless. But together they paint a picture of a person neck deep in shit.”
Charlie breathed deeply, finished his beer, and waved for another. “Put that way, it does look like I should know more than I do. But have you ever given any thought to the possibility that, just maybe, I had nothing to do with any of this and that Margot and her friends were the ones in contact with the D.E.A?. I didn’t feel like riding a bus back, that was why I was at Emerald Coast Airport, no bigger mystery than that. As for this Romero, what makes you think he wasn’t the one the D.E.A. had come to see? It might explain everything. The U.S. government doesn’t like loose ends, and they may be behind all these deaths.”
Araya leaned back in his chair for the first time. “I have given that some thought. It is possible that the D.E.A. hired Romero to kill Rosenburg, Bates, and Harris. But why not you too?”
Charlie laughed. “Maybe because, unlike you, they know I don’t know anything.”
Araya stood up, not looking happy. “That could be one reason. Another could be you’re still working for them.”
Araya turned to walk away as Charlie’s beer arrived, just in time for him to pick it up, raise it high, and toast: “Have a good day, Special Inspector.”
| Copyright © 2018 by Ed Rogers |
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