A Killing Rain (25 page)

It was near nine by the time Wainwright dropped him off at the cottage. Wainwright had told him Collier County wanted him back first thing tomorrow to do his statements. But for now, the only thing Louis wanted was to be alone.

He trudged up the sandy drive to the screened-in porch.
The door was locked and he fumbled for his keys and went inside.

For a moment, he
stood in the dark. He could smell the dank stink of the swamp rising up from his clothes but he didn’t care. He could feel the steady throb of pain in his chest but he didn’t care about that either.

He went to the refrigerator and opened the door. The light made a slash through the dark kitchen. Louis stood there, leaning on the refrigerator door, staring blankly at the nearly empty metal shelves.

Something soft touched his leg. He looked down. Issy was sitting there, looking up at him. He blinked, trying to remember the last day he had been home, the last time he had fed the cat Sunday? Saturday? He shut his eyes, dropping his head.

“I fed her.”

Louis looked up.

Joe was standing there, just on
the other side of the bar. There was a blue towel wrapped around her head and she was wearing a robe. His robe.

“When’d you get back?” he asked.

“About a half-hour ago. Collier County sheriff kept me pretty busy for a while.”

She came forward out of the shadows. “You told Susan?” she asked.

Louis nodded slowly. He looked back at the inside of the refrigerator, decided he didn’t really want a beer, and shut the door. A moment later, the lamp in the living room came on and Joe straightened, looking at him from across the room. Her face was shiny and red from the heat of her shower. He could see questions in her eyes, and he was grateful she wouldn’t ask them right now.

“I need a shower,” he said quietly.

She nodded, reaching for the towel around her head. “Give me a minute and I’ll get out of your way.”

Joe disappeared into
the bedroom, shutting the door. Louis sank down onto the sofa, his head falling back against the cushions, closing his eyes. He had no idea how much time had passed when he heard her return. She was wearing a huge T-shirt and clutching a blanket. Her hair was wet, combed back from her face, accentuating the angles.

Louis got up, wincing sligh
tly. “I’ll be right back,” he said.

“Do you want something to eat? I can
—-”

He held up a hand and walked slowly into the bedroom. He closed the door and stood there a moment, looking around. Her suitcase was open on the floor, clothing spilling out. Her mud-stained black jeans and cinnamon sweater lay in a small heap in a co
rner. Her leather coat was hanging on the knob of the closet.

The bedspread was pulled up, like she had hastily tried to straighten things up. Louis went into the bathroom.

Strange things on the sink. A plastic leopard-print toiletry bag. A bottle of Tylenol. A big round hairbrush. A pink plastic razor. A blue Secret deodorant. A spray bottle of something green. He picked up the bottle, looking at it. Jean Naté
After Bath Mist.

He brought it up to his nose. It smelled like a man’s cologne
but softer, creamier.

He set the bottle down and stripped quickly, getting into the shower. He turned on
the water. It was cool but he didn’t even notice it, and he just stood there under the hard spray, eyes shut, waiting until it turned warm.

Hot water now. Slowly, very slowly, his muscles unknotted
, his body relaxed, his mind let go. He just stood there, head bowed, arms braced against the walls, letting the water wash over him. The hot water was almost gone by the time he finally grabbed the soap and washed himself.

Switching the shower off, he got out and went back into the bedroom, toweling off. He hadn’t noticed it the first time he came into the bedroom, but now he saw his robe there on the end of the bed where she had left it.

He tossed the towel aside and picked up the robe. He started to put it on but then he paused.

She was there. Her smell was there in his robe. That man-woman creamy smell from the green bottle. And something else that was just her.

He put on the robe and went out to the living room. Issy was curled up on the sofa but Joe wasn’t there. The front door was open, letting in the cold. Louis went out onto the porch.

Joe looked up at him from the wicker chair. She was bundled in the blanket, her hands wrapped around a coffee mug.

“Where’d you find the coffee?” he asked.

“Didn’t. It’s brandy.”

She was looking up at him. “I don’t drink much,” she said. “But I found this in your kitchen and thought it might help. I can’t...”

She looked away. “I can’t...get warm,” she said softly.

He went over to her, gently pulling her up from the chair, wrapping his arms around her. He could feel her shivering through the blanket. He could feel her wet hair against his cheek.

Something broke inside him, flooding him with need. A need to touch and be touched. A need for something good, something clean and something warm.

She drew her head back and he could see her eyes, teary in the cold.

He brought his hands up and cupped her face, kissing her, gently at first then more deeply as he felt her body respond to his. She tasted warm, her lips sweet with brandy.

The blanket fell off her shoulders as his lips moved down her neck, over her collar bone and back up again, to her cheek, her eyes, and her mouth. His hands found her body under the T-shirt. Smooth, warm curves he wanted to explore forever.

Her hands were inside his robe, over his shoulders, on his back, pulling him closer and
harder against her.

“Louis
--” she whispered.

He covered her mouth wit
h his and leaned into her, pushing her backward, his hands trying to work the T-shirt higher up on her body, over her head so he could see all of her. Touch all of her. Have all of her.

“Louis
—-”

“Don’t talk.”

“Louis,” she said.

He drew back, and realized he had wedged her against the wall and the wicker chair.

“Inside,” she whispered.

“No,” he said. He grabbed the blanket that had slipped to the chair and spread it on the floor of the porch. When he looked
back at her, she was pulling the T-shirt over her head. She dropped the T-shirt to the floor and lay down on the blanket.

He couldn’t see her clearly in the dark. He undressed quickly and knelt on the blanket. She pulled him down, into her arms. Cold skin against his own cold skin. Then the warmth as she wrapped the blanket over them both.

After he left
the trailer, Vargas stopped at the gas station near Carnestown to call Uncle Leo. He tried the refinery first, where Uncle Leo’s office was. Some secretary had told him Uncle Leo was off for the week, taking care of some personal business.

He had found that funny. Personal business. Strange way of saying I've got to hire somebody to kill somebody for me.

When Vargas called the house in Naples, he told a maid that he needed to speak to his uncle.

“
Tell him it’s his nephew and that it’s an emergency.”

She told him Uncle Leo would be home in an hour and to call back.
Vargas drove on to Naples, finally pulling into a convenience store to call back. This time the maid said he could come to the house but not until eight p.m.

Two hours to kill. It wouldn’t be good to show up at Uncle Leo’s early. So he went into the store, bought a chili dog and an orange
soda and ate them as he thumbed through some car magazines. Finally, the punk clerk got mad and told him to get out.

He went back to the Camaro and stuck in a Marty Robbins tape. He slumped down in the
seat, listening to Marty singing “Rich Man, Rich Man.” A small knot was forming in his gut.

Part of it was plain old fear
-- fear that this wasn’t going to work out, that he and Byron would never get away. But he also felt a twinge of anticipation. He hadn’t been to Uncle Leo’s house in a long time...eight years.

He had lived there for a while once. After his mom died when he was thirteen, some social worker
came to the trailer, helped him pack his bag and then took him on a long drive. He remembered being led up to a huge white house on the water and into a big room. That was the first time he had met Uncle Leo.

“I’m your mother’s brother,” he said. “You’ll stay here now.”

He could still remember his nice bedroom
in a far corner of the house. Remember eating his dinners with the old housekeeper in the kitchen and spending most of his time watching television.

He could also remember that t
hings weren’t always good. He never saw Uncle Leo. He hated school because the rich kids made fun of him. And he missed his mama.

But
things would have been okay if he hadn’t started messing up. Hadn’t started shoplifting cassette tapes from Kmart. That’s when the punishments started.

Vargas looked down at the dashboard clock. It was time to get going. He pulled the Camaro out of the bright lights of the parking lot
.

He reached down and turned up the volume on the
Marty Robbins tape. He didn’t want to think about this part, didn’t want to think about the punishments, but he couldn’t help it.

Uncle Leo had told him that he had bad blood in him and that the punishments would get rid of it
, teach him to be good, make him stop messing up. But all the punishments did was make him scared and more lonely. It got so he’d do anything not to get the punishment. So he was good. Or good at faking being good because he wasn’t sure what good really was. Finally, the punishments had ended.

So did his stay at the big house. Uncle Leo
gave him a new place to live. And the only person he saw for the next year was a red-haired man named Rusty. Then, when he turned sixteen, Uncle Leo said he had to start earning his way in the world and gave him a job in the sugar refinery.

It was hard work cleaning the equipment
, and no matter how much he tried, he couldn’t get the stink of burnt sugar out of his hair and clothes. But for the first time in his life, he had his own money. He would cash his paychecks and stuff the money in a Whitman Sampler candy box that used to belong to his mama. Eventually, he had enough to buy the Camaro off an old man over in Jerome. Once, he drove all the way to Naples and wasted his money on a new movie called “Urban Cowboy.” It hadn’t been a western at all, just a story about some weird guy who just wanted to be a cowboy.

But
then when he was eighteen, he messed up again. He did something really stupid and he ended up in Raiford. He didn’t hear from Uncle Leo again.

Until three weeks ago.

Vargas was coming into the little downtown part of Naples. He slowed down as he passed the fancy shops and restaurants. No one was out tonight, looking in the windows or sitting in the cafes. It was too cold. He drove past a golf course and then turned onto Uncle Leo’s street. Funny, how he could remember the way after all this time. He stared at the houses. But he didn’t remember them looking like this exactly. He remembered the houses being bigger.

The big gate at
Uncle Leo’s house was open so he pulled into the curving driveway. His eyes widened as he saw the white car. A fucking Rolls Royce. He recognized it from that hood ornament that looked like an angel. He started to park but then saw a sign for SERVICE ENTRANCE. That’s where the maid had told him to go.

He pulled around back and parked
next to a Jeep. The maid was there at the door to let him in and lead him through the huge gleaming kitchen and down a long hall and into a room that looked like an office. Vargas was glad she didn’t make him wait in that other room, the one Uncle Leo called his study. He didn’t like it in there. It scared him.

He stood in
the middle of the office, not wanting to touch anything.

Uncle Leo came in through a second door and hardly gave Vargas a glance as he went to stand behind a desk. Vargas was surprised to see Uncle Leo didn’t look a bit older. But he was wearing a tuxedo, and the black wool made his gray and white hair and mustache look even
more white. It made him look even taller and bigger somehow.

Uncle Leo was just standing there, staring at him. Vargas shifted from one foot to the other. He opened his mouth to say something.

“Take off those gloves,” Uncle Leo said.

Vargas looked down at his hands. He had forgotten he even had
the gloves on.

“
Take off the fucking gloves, Adam,” Uncle Leo said.

Vargas peeled the gloves off. They were the cop’s gloves. They were nice and fit him
good so he didn’t want to lose them. He stuffed them in the back pocket of his jeans.

“I expected you yesterday,” Uncle Leo said.

“We had to lay low for a day,” Vargas said. “You saw the news, right, Uncle Leo?”

“I saw a mess is what I saw.”

Vargas felt his face grow warm.

“I asked for one simple hit,” Uncle Leo said
. “Put a bullet in Austin Outlaw. How hard was that?”

Vargas’s eyes jumped away from Leo to the big windows that looked out over the pool. He could see himself reflected in the panes, his body cut up into pieces.

Byron’s voice coming to him.
You can do this, Adam.

He forced his gaze back to his uncle. “But Out
law is dead, Uncle Leo. So you owe us money.”

Uncle Leo came around the desk and it took him only two strides to reach Vargas. He smacked him hard against the temple, sending Vargas stumbling backward.

“Don’t tell me what I owe you,” he said.

Va
rgas rubbed his head, his eyes burning. “Don’t hit me like that.”

“Hit you? I ought to shoot you. That would solve everything.”

Vargas was silent, trying to figure out what to say next. This wasn’t working. Uncle Leo was mad at him, and Byron would be too.

“You’re a fuck-up,” Uncle Leo said. “You always have been.”

“Then why’d you give us this job?”

“I gave the job to Ellis. I thought he could do it. I was wrong. He’s as stupid as you are.”

“Don’t say that,” Vargas shot back. “Byron isn’t stupid. He’s smart. He’s a smart man. Don’t say that about Byron. He didn’t mess up. I messed up.”

Uncle Leo looked at Va
rgas long and hard. “If I didn’t know you better, I’d swear you two were queer for each other.”

Va
rgas felt his shoulder muscles tighten and he fought to hold his uncle’s gaze, afraid if he looked away he would know, know that what he had just said was true. And then there would be no money. No boat. And no Aruba.

Uncle Leo finally turned away, walking back behind the desk. He unlocked a drawer and pulled out a large envelope. Vargas waited, his eyes on the envelope, hoping the money was in it but too afraid to say anything more.

“You and Ellis need to leave the country,” Uncle Leo said.

Vargas nodded.

“I’ll arrange to have you flown out.”

“No, wait, Uncle Leo,” Vargas said, coming forward. “We got a different plan. We’re getting a boat in Eve
rglades City.”

“No. You’ll just screw it up. I’ll have my pilot take you to Canada.”

Vargas shook his head, trying to think, trying to digest what was happening. Canada? There weren’t any beaches in Canada.

Uncle Leo was pulling money from the envelope. He nodded toward the phone on the desk. “Call Ellis. Tell him to meet you at the airport here.”

“I can’t. There’s no phone where he is.”

Vargas heard Uncle Leo sigh and knew he was mad. He was shoving the bills back into the envelope.

“Then go back and get him and bring him to the Naples airport. I’ll have someone meet you.”

“What about our money?”

“It will be on the plane.”

Vargas hesitated. He wasn’t sure Uncle Leo would put the money on the plane. He wasn’t sure of anything anymore.

“But --”

“Go on. I want you in the air by midnight
.”

Vargas slipped out the door and walked blindly down the long hall and back through the kitchen. He was still shaking as he slid
the keys into the Camaro.

Tamiami
Trail back to Copeland was nearly deserted, only the occasional glow of oncoming headlights piercing the misty darkness and the drone of Marty Robbins to break the silence. Vargas drove the speed limit, not wanting to call attention to himself. Byron would be wondering what took him so long. And he would be mad when he found out he didn’t get the money, that they had to go back to Naples and weren’t going to Aruba.

Canada...shit
.

I
t was cold up there. Byron was going to be real mad about that. But at least they would be able to get away now.

Somewhere up ahead, floating just above the ground, he saw two pinpricks of blue lights. He slowed. The lights grew larger, swirling in the mist
.

Damn it.
Cops. A road block.

Where could he go? He couldn’t just pull off. They’d notice a car sitting on the side of the road by itself.

The convenience store. He had passed it a mile or so back near Carnestown. He’d go back there. He pulled a U-turn and drove back to the store, parking on the side, away from the gas pumps and neon signs. He went inside, squinting under the fluorescent lights.

He grabbed a can of orange soda and a bag of
chips for himself and a six-pack of Pepsi for Byron, taking them to the counter.

“That all?” the
clerk asked.

“Yeah,” Vargas said, digging out a few crumpled dollars fro
m his jeans. “What’s going on up the road? Saw a lot of cop cars.”

The clerk shrugged. “Beats me.”

“I just drove through there,” someone behind him said. Vargas turned. The man behind him was old, wearing a red St. Louis Cardinals windbreaker.

“They got some kind of manhunt going on,” the guy said. “They caught one of the kidnappers of that little black kid that’s been in the news.”

Vargas felt a cold prickle go down his back.

“They got road blocks all over the place,” the man went on. “Can’t get anywhere on highway twenty-nine.”

Oh, Jesus
. He was going to be sick.

He walked fast out the door, the clerk yelling that he had forgotten his soda and chips. Back in the Camaro, he sat there for a moment, head spinning. He hit the steering wheel with his palm.
Damn it. Damn it.

There was no place to go. He couldn’t go back to Uncle Leo. He couldn’t go back to his apartment in East Naples. He couldn’t get to Byron and the trailer. He had to find somewhere he could go
to
think. He had to figure this out, like Byron would do. He drew in a breath and slipped the Camaro into gear, pulling away from the neon lights.

The tape was still playing. Vargas switched it off, and the sudden silence engulfed him.
There was only one place he could go now, only one place left to hide.