Dying for Revenge (24 page)

She nodded. “My children, they have to be protected. He threatened my children.”

Matthew nodded. “You’re just doing what a good mother would do.”

“Don’t patronize me.”

Matthew seemed unfazed.

She said, “Thirty thousand people have fled my city in its time of need.”

The sound of the Caribbean Sea absorbed the silence.

She said, “I’d be forced to . . . the city is bankrupt and . . . I’d have to use taxpayers’ money.”

“Not my problem.”

She paused. “I’ve done a lot for the city I love. I have given that city my blood, sweat, and tears. If the city can be foolish enough to spend eight million dollars . . . on sexual text messages . . . they can contribute to my cause, to make this end. What I do, I do for those I love. Because in the end, when Gideon is dead and this is behind me, when all is said and done, I will make Detroit rise from the ashes like a phoenix. My city will become the envy of America.”

The politician looked at Matthew.

“This is larger than Detroit, Matthew. This is my assignment from God.”

“If you say so.”

“I want to see his body. No photographs. No duplicity. I want to see him dead.”

“Is that right?”

“Cut his head off. Send me his head.”

“I’m not going to decapitate the son of a bitch and mail his head to you. If you want to see his dead body as confirmation I’d suggest you stay here until it’s done.”

The politician shuddered. “I want to see you kill him. I want to watch that bastard die.”

“Think you can stomach that?”

There was a pause before she answered, “I want to see his head hanging from his neck.”

Then the politician’s eyes came to her. The subject changed, became something else.

Nothing was said, nothing Matthew could hear, the silent language of women.

 

Matthew told the politician, “I think I can save you a little money. Not much, but some.”

“How so?”

“I have an issue with a couple of your bodyguards.”

“Which ones?”

“Let’s start with the big one. The one who has no idea who the fuck I am.”

“That’s Charlie. He said you were incompetent. A disappointment.”

“Because of London.”

“Yes. Says you’re incompetent and overpriced and he could do better.”

“He wants the job.”

“Maybe I should give it to him.”

“Let me have two minutes with Charlie.”

“He’s a former marine.”

“Then if he is right, let him do the job.”

Again the politician went into deep thought, and again she nodded. Meeting over, they walked down the jetty; this time she walked behind her husband, no longer walking side by side like they were equals, following him by ten feet, doing that as if she were in a Muslim country that oppressed women.

The bodyguard the size of the Hulk waited for them, had never taken his eyes away from them.

Matthew’s pace had quickened, had changed to a fast walk, that fast walk to a slow jog, that jog to an all-out sprint. His speed took him on a direct path, on a collision course with the huge man who had insulted him. Matthew leaped at the man, struck him in the face and neck before the bodyguard realized he was under attack, sent the man’s stylish hat flying into the sand.

Matthew stepped away. Waited for the big man.

The big man grabbed his neck and yelled out in pain, the sound swallowed by the sea.

He had been cut. He bled from his face; blood spurted from his neck as well.

Matthew faced the big man. “I told you that was your last time calling me white boy.”

Like he was a matador. El Matador had risen from inside her husband.

A knife was in Matthew’s hand, its blade dripping blood, a blade no more than an inch long. A knife she hadn’t seen. A knife that the bodyguards had failed to find. A short blade that, based on the way the bodyguard was bleeding, was sharp enough to perform surgery.

The politician did another hand motion, told everyone else to stand down.

The bodyguard who had been cut ran after Matthew. Matthew didn’t run. El Matador never ran. As the big man tried to attack El Matador, he was cut again, and again, cut as El Matador did smooth moves around the huge man, each cut weakening his prey, each cut on a specific artery, spots that made blood flow like a river. The big man never touched Matthew, went down on his knees trying, became a crippled bull at the mercy of El Matador, redness pouring from his body and mixing in the beautiful white sand, sand that had risen up on the man’s face and body, sand that covered the big man as he fell.

She had heard that there was only one hospital on the island. Holberton Hospital on Queen Elizabeth Highway. It was near town, at least forty minutes and two thousand potholes away from this secluded beach. It would take an ambulance much longer than that to get here, if one came at all.

And all that would be left in the sand was the remains of what used to be an arrogant man.

Matthew stared out at the rest of the bodyguards, tropical heat putting sweat on eleven swarthy faces.

She knew who her husband was looking for. And the man backed away, saw when the politician signaled to leave it be, meaning he had no help, and the big man started running. It was the one who had patted her down, the one who had touched her breasts and thighs in that disrespectful way.

The man didn’t make it far. He looked stupid trying to run in the sand. His hat left his head as he bolted. The man stumbled and fell like a woman in a horror film. Seconds later he too was in the sand, hat blowing and tumbling in the wind, his blood flowing like an un-dammed river.

Breathing heavily, Matthew faced the remaining men.

With his right foot he drew a line in the sand and waited, blade in hand.

No one crossed that line. No one answered his call. Ten men stood like statues.

There was a difference between men who hurt people and men who killed people.

There was something in their eyes that hadn’t been there before.

Some would confuse it for respect. But she knew it was fear. Unadulterated fear.

Matthew strutted toward them and they all parted like the Red Sea, some stumbling to move. As her husband marched away, she looked back at the politician. She stared at her with her teeth clenched.

Then she walked around the dying men, sand getting inside her sandals and between her toes.

While the men shivered at the sight of El Matador, she stared at her husband.

That smile he had shared with the beautiful politician burned inside her brain.

She wasn’t going to look back at the woman dressed in yellow. But she did. Like Lot’s wife she did look back. Looked back at the well-dressed woman who was looking down at her.

Men lay dying, blood on the tropical floor, but none of that mattered.

She didn’t care about the politician’s perfect hair or the beautiful yellow shoes designed by Bottega Veneta. She didn’t see the Bottega Veneta bracelet and Bottega Veneta pearl ring. Didn’t see the David Yurman oval Figaro chain around the politician’s neck. She didn’t see a woman hiding behind more than ten thousand dollars of top-shelf designer gear. All she saw was the face of her enemy.

She saw a woman who, if the wrong word was said at that moment, she would battle in the sand.

With a curt sneer that came from the streets of Detroit, the politician told her she saw the same. It was almost a battle between Chi-town and Motown.

There was a difference between women who hired people to kill people and women who would walk up to you and put a bullet in your head. A big difference that she was ready to teach the politician.

The politician turned around, did that as if all other women were insignificant, and walked back down the jetty, went back to staring out at the Caribbean Sea, did that as if nothing else mattered.

Did that as if she were not surrounded by the dying and the dead.

Again she raised her cellular, clicked a button.

Then the cellular rang. The politician looked at the number before she answered.

She watched the Lady from Detroit for a while.

Hypnotized by power.

Then the politician turned and saw she was still there, the politician’s eyes moving up and down her body before she, with the flick of her wrist, made a dismissive motion, a motion that made her feel so small, so unimportant, so nothing, so much like she had felt as a child.

With a simple motion the master had told the slave she was no longer needed.

She moved away from the politician, jogged through the killing fields, passed two stylish men’s hats that no longer had owners, moved around two dead bodies that no longer were the shells of egotism, passed stunned bodyguards, sand flying from her sandals as she hurried to catch up with her husband.

Nineteen

doomed to die

It was a woman’s voice, soft and strong all at once, mild Southern accent to her speech.

The room was dark. I was on my back. Throat so dry it ached to swallow. The winds were strong. Sounded like Armageddon was happening, like I’d woken up in the middle of a hurricane.

“Gid
eon
. . .
eon
. . .
eon
.”

Her voice echoed as pain moved through my body.

“Open
up up up
.
Take take take
these pills.”

I tried to talk, but the words refused to form. Tried to focus on her. Couldn’t.

That throaty alto voice stopped reverberating, repeated, “Drink.”

Long hair. Haunting eyes. Deep frown on a pretty face. It was Hawks.

I did what she said.

My mouth opened. First there was a chalky taste. Water on my lips.

Her hands were warm. Scent sweet. Same as it had been in Dallas.

I tried to look at her. Light was behind her head, making her look like an angel with a halo.

I remembered letting close to fifteen stone of arrogance fall from the Cessna. My fever had magnified, body aches had done the same, turbulence, ground had rushed up at me, I had struggled to land.

After that, all was a blur, no solid images, snapshots from an opaque world.

I asked, “What’s going on . . . all that noise . . .”

I mumbled something. Pain and fever stole my words.

She said,
“Don’t think I’m doing this because I care. Owe Konstantin a favor, that’s all.”

Then I was unconscious again. Covered in a nightmare.

Imprisoned.

My hands were tied, a plastic bag was over my head, and I was being suffocated.

I was on a filthy floor of a flat in London, an assassin dancing over me as I died.

She was there too. The woman from Detroit. She was there, arms folded, smiling.

 

I jerked awake, grogginess on me, mind heavy with a thousand thoughts, my body in pain.

The skies boomed.

My eyes tried to focus and make out the shadows in this small, stuffy room. The T.V. was on and I made out a familiar voice. Heard her say a tornado had carved out a pathway through the center of downtown. Windows blown out at the Omni and just about every sky-scraper in the area. Trees were uprooted. Skies boomed. Rain fell harder. Sounded like someone had slit open the heavens.

I took a hard breath. Rubbed my temples. The bedroom was barely a six-by-nine. I looked at the digital clock. The numbers were flickering, first digit hard to read. It was either eight at night or three in the morning. Room smelled like a cross between an old folks’ home and an abandoned building.

Lightning. Then another boom that echoed like the report of a twelve-gauge.

The bed squeaked as I shifted around and moaned. Back ached. The mattress was prison thin, the pillow not much better. The pillow was damp with the sweat from my face and neck.

“You up?”

I jumped at the sound of the voice.

Hawks was by the window, watching me. It took me a minute, but I pushed up on my elbows.

Hawks had a newspaper in her hand; it rustled as she snapped it closed.

“Hawks . . .” My voice was gravelly and slow, each word thick. “What are you . . . doing here?”

“You should be on your knees thanking me.”

A glass of water was on the nightstand. My dry throat and dehydrated body begged me to reach for that and drink. I did. Swallowed hard and coughed. Put the glass back and asked, “How bad?”

“Plenty of bruises, nothing broken.”

I practiced breathing for a few. “Doesn’t feel that way.”

“Could have chipped bones. Can’t tell without an X-ray. Your knuckles are swollen.”

“Had to deal with a couple of problems.”

“Both of your hands and arms are cut up like you were dragged across concrete.”

I grunted. “Alley fight in Birmingham.”

“Figured it was someplace where there was garbage or urine or rat feces, because you’ve got a real nice infection. You have to wash cuts like that in a ten-minute time frame. You could’ve died.”

There was a jolting triple boom that rattled the room, made the lights outside flicker.

“Your temp was a hundred and two when I got to you,” she said when there was a break in the thunder and lightning. “You were as feverish and delirious as a North Korean POW.”

“Swing by a gas station or a drugstore and get me some B.C. Powder. You can go back to Nashville. I don’t need you sitting over me looking like you need some Tucks. I’ll be okay.”

“Look, you have excessive swelling. Redness from the cuts all up and down your arms. Pus. That means the infection has gotten through the skin barrier and into your tissue. Moved from there into your bloodstream and caused a systematic reaction. Immune system breaking down.”