By edRogers
[Reviewed here on the novel’s publication day, October 6, 2018: “Coming soon to a Barnes & Noble store near you?”]
Night was coming but the sun was still up as Charlie began watching for movement around the house. The guards were going in and out and the windows were still open to catch the evening breeze. At some point, they would lock down the house, and Charlie needed to get in before that happened.
A town car pulled up, and Victor Morales soon came out and got in the back seat. After it drove away, Charlie watched closely for any further movement but saw none. He looked toward the sun, trying to will it to set – with no luck.
He moved back from the cliff’s edge and put on the harness he would hook to the winch cable. For his descent he stuck the gun inside the back of his pants. The barrel, with the silencer already attached, ran down his leg but he thought he could withstand the discomfort until he reached the ground and could take it out.
He waited until the last of the sun’s direct rays had disappeared behind the mountain on the other side of the Gulf of Nicoya before approaching the edge of the cliff again. He lay on his back and put the hook at the end of the cable through the ring on the harness. He pressed the button and played out a little cable. He took one more look around to be sure no one was coming toward the back of the house, then to accommodate the gun barrel that was sticking part way down his pant leg he rolled onto his stomach and carefully slid his legs over the side.
He hung there in limbo for what seemed to him like minutes but were seconds before he pressed the button and continued his descent. He rotated his body to face away from the cliff wall. After the first six feet, the wall curved inward, giving him a free drop in open air.
At the bottom, Charlie took the hook off and sent the cable back up before taking out his gun and running across the backyard to a window to have a peek inside. Nothing was moving. He tried the back door and found it unlocked. He moved lightly inside with his gun at the ready, but there was no one to be seen or heard.
The back of the ground floor had an eating/sun room with the kitchen between it and the main dining room. A small set of stairs to the right led to the upper floor. This had to be the room where Morales would eat his breakfast each morning. Charlie examined the windows and by their thickness could tell they were bulletproof.
He inched up the steps to the rooms above, slowly taking one at a time. He tested each step for squeaks before placing all his weight on it. It was a time-consuming trip up but Charlie knew that the one back down would be much faster.
At the top of the stairs was a hall that seemed to go about two-thirds the width of the house. On the left, away from the highway, were two doors leading to guest rooms. On the right, toward the highway,was a single door.
Charlie turned the knob on the right and the door opened quietly onto a room that covered about two-thirds of the front of the upstairs. There was a work area with a beautiful desk and high-back chair. On the desk sat a large-screen Macintosh computer and three phones, and arranged around it were four plush chairs and a couch. A large wet-bar covered the wall to the left of the door, with six stools along it and a flat-screen TV on the wall.
In the middle of the wall between the bar and the front of the house were double doors, which Charlie opened carefully and then stepped into Morales’s bedroom, which was dark because of thick curtains drawn over the picture windows. It was hard at first for Charlie to see anything.
Charlie took a few steps toward the bed and tripped on a duffel bag sitting in the middle of the floor. He caught himself before he fell, but cursed his carelessness. He watched himself much more closely the rest of the way to the bed, which could have been a double king-size. He pulled open the drawer of the near side table to check for a weapon, and then walked around the football field to the other side and checked that table. He found none but knew that Morales would be armed.
The bathroom was at the back of the room, away from the highway. The highway wall had a giant window, which Charlie didn’t have to move a curtain to examine in order to know it was bulletproof. The inside of the bathroom was fit for a king to move his bowels in. Gold and silver were everywhere Charlie looked. The tub was large enough for four people, and the shower had jets coming from all around. The shine coming from the lights bouncing off the features made Charlie dizzy. He turned the lights off and returned to the dark bedroom.
He needed to find a place to wait, for there was no telling what time Morales would return home. He hoped Morales would come back alone – Charlie didn’t want to think about killing some innocent working girl.
In the front corner along the wall from the double doors was a large stuffed chair, which was far enough back that it might not be seen upon entering from the office and turning left to flip on the lights. Charlie sat there with his gun resting on his lap remembering Margot’s laughter and the smell of her hair. He was determined not to doze off.
Charlie was half asleep when the double doors opened, flooding the room with a ray of light into which Victor Morales stepped nonchalantly. Holding the gun in his right hand and a cushion in his left, Charlie stood and came up behind Morales before he could throw on the light switch. The barrel of his gun touched the back of Morales’s head, and Charlie could feel the man’s body straighten and his muscles tighten, and could sense Morales’s mind searching for the reason for his imminent death. Charlie held the cushion to the back of Morales’s head and pulled the trigger.
Morales’s body seemed to fly forward onto the floor. Charlie listened for footsteps from someone who might have heard the body fall, but heard no sound in the house at all. He tossed the pillow next to the body and started to walk out.
But that duffel bag he had tripped over caught his eye. He walked over, knelt down, and opened it. ¡Ay, caramba! It was filled with U.S. currency, lots of hundreds, tens, and twenties. Charlie put his arms through the loop strips and swung the bag onto his back. It wasn’t light. He walked past Morales, beating down the temptation to put another bullet in the man’s head.
Coming off the stairs into Morales’s breakfast room, he checked the kitchen and then went to a window to look outside – no one to be seen. He opened the door, pressed the remote-control button to bring the cable back down, and ran toward the base of the cliff. By the time he reached it, the cable was waiting for him. He stuck the gun in the back of his pants, hooked the cable to his harness, and then pressed the up button.
It was a short but frightening ascent. Each second was filled with the dread of a bullet entering his back. He threw his left leg over the top, grabbed the cable, and pulled himself onto firm earth before pressing the button to stop the winch. He looked back but there was no movement and no sound of an alarm. He looked at his watch: less than five minutes had elapsed since he had checked the time after pulling the trigger
He quickly disassembled everything and made the trips to the bike, putting everything back into the box. He climbed on with the bag of money on his back and engaged the clutch to release the bike to roll down the mountain without starting the engine.
After crossing the road, he released the clutch, the engine started, and he began his climb up the other side. At the top, he looked back but saw no movement, and looking down the highway, he saw no cars racing in search of a murderer or police coming in answer to a 9-1-1 call.
Charlie stopped before he turned toward Puntarenas and threw the chain and rope into a creek and dumped the battery alongside the highway. The winch he would put back on the jeep.
He pulled through the gate at the house and closed it behind him. He removed the winch from the box and carried it to the jeep.
Twenty minutes later he was out back at the fire pit, burning his clothes and boots.
He pulled up a chair and guzzled some beer from the bottle he had brought from the house. He couldn’t believe it was over and his plan had worked. As he watched the flames dance in the dark night, he realized that the pain was still there, maybe even worse now because there was no one else to hit back at. He began to cry.
| Copyright © 2018 by Ed Rogers |
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