Sea Creature (2 page)

The guide placed his rifle in the back of the jeep and climbed into the driver’s seat. He waited for Patrick to climb in before starting the engine and pulling away.

“It would kill you if it could,” he said.

“Well, I think that could be said for just about anybody.”

There was another jeep in the distance, speeding toward them on the dirt road, clouds of red grainy dirt kicked up behind it. They were approaching at a fast pace and the guide pulled to the side of the road. This area had been infested with bandits since they had been pushed farther and farther away from the cities. They would sell things on the side of the road and when tourists stopped they would be robbed. But tourists learned quickly and fewer of them were stopping, so they had taken to causing car accidents and then robbing them.

The guide took his rifle out of the back, making sure the other jeep could see it. Patrick put his across his lap and glanced back to Christopher who was applying sunblock to his nose and arms.

The jeep came closer and Patrick said, “It’s James.” He turned to the guide. “It’s my cousin, it’s okay.”

They pulled up to the side and James had a frantic look on his face. “Pat, we need to get back right now.”

“Why, what’s going?”

“It’s Andrew.”

*****

Patrick Russell collapsed into a chair at the police station in Viña del Mar. The station was little more than an old house with a handful of officers, but the furniture was exquisite and locally hand crafted, the hardwood floors freshly polished and covered with handmade rugs. There was a large photo on the wall of some political leader and Patrick looked at it a long time as the chief of police tried to get his attention.

“Mr. Russell? Mr. Russell?”

“Yes?”

“I am sorry about your brother but the woman he was with was apparently a very important woman. The American Embassy is very upset. Very upset.”

“Mary Beth, I know. She’s the daughter of a congressman. We came down here with them.”

“For what purpose?”

“Vacation . . . my brother was going to ask her to marry him.”

The officer exhaled loudly, as if annoyed by this little revelation of emotion. “When someone drowns in the ocean there is a burial at the ocean. We put their belongings into a coffin and place them into the water if they are rich. If they are poor, we light candles for them and let them float away.”

“Yeah, I’ve seen the ritual. But it doesn’t make sense that my brother drown. He was a champion swimmer in college. How could he have drowned in a calm ocean?”

“Perhaps he was drunk? Many tourists do not realize how dangerous these waters can be and they get drunk and fall off their boats and the currents take them.”

Patrick stretched his back and stood up. “Do you need anything more from me?”

“No. If we find his body, I will let you know.”

“Thank you.”

He walked out into the hot Chilean sun. This was the most affluent region in the entire nation, the President’s summer villa not six blocks from where he stood, but there were still a few hawkers selling their wares on the side of the roads. They saw him and wanted to approach but they dared not come near the police station for fear of being arrested. Tourists were not to be hassled when they had business to attend to. Too many tourists have an unpleasant experience and the Chilean tourist trade could dry up, the dollars spent farther south or north instead.

Lauren was sitting on the curb, her face in her hands. Patrick walked to her and sat down on the warm pavement, watching the throngs pass them by. Near them to the right was a cart with a butcher cutting up slabs of meat, his wife cooking lamb and chicken on skewers with roasted vegetables.

“Are you all right?” he said.

She burst into tears and dug her head into his shoulder. He turned to her and wrapped his arms around her, leaning his chin against her head.

“It’s my fault, Patrick. I let her go on the canoe.”

“No, it’s no one’s fault. Lightening has to strike somewhere.”

She pulled away and wiped at the tears streaming down her cheeks. “I don’t even know what to tell my parents. What am I going to say, Patrick?”

“I don’t know.”

She pulled out a tissue and wiped at her nose and cheeks. “I’m sorry about Andrew.”

Patrick nodded and then stood up. “I’ll be back at the hotel. I have some arrangements to make.”

As he walked away from her he noticed a policeman behind him. The officer was walking in his direction, his eyes on Patrick, but when Patrick would look at him he would look away.

Patrick walked down the street, glancing in a restaurant window and seeing the officer still behind him about twenty feet. He kept walking as if he hadn’t noticed, stopping once at a fruit stand and haggling over a banana. He purchased it and saw that the officer was standing nearby.

He kept walking and then suddenly turned down an alley. There were trash cans gathered near a door and he ducked behind them and waited.

There were footsteps down the alleyway and Patrick held his breath. He had seen officers intimidate and even injure or kill tourists for their valuables. The police in poorer nations were much of the time criminals themselves.

The officer stood in front of the trash cans and stepped closer to have a look when Patrick jumped up and wrapped one arm around his throat, the other coming behind his head in a scissor lock. The policeman fought at first but when Patrick squeezed and the air was cut off, he relaxed. He saw the sweat glistening against the man’s forehead, but he didn’t flinch.

“Mr. Russell?”

“Maybe. Why?”

“My name is Inspector Sosa. I was the investigator for your brother.”

Patrick hesitated and then let go. “Why were you following me?”

“I did not want to talk to you about this near the other police.”

The officer glanced to him and Patrick realized he was still standing too close.

“Sorry.”

“It is all right. It is not the first time someone has tried to choke me.”

“What is it you want to talk to me about?”

He looked furtively out the alley and said, “Your brother did not drown.”

“What do you mean?”

“They do not talk about it here, for the tourists. But your brother did not drown. He was killed.”

“What are you telling me? My brother was murdered?”

“Yes, but not by a man.” He looked back out the alley. “I don’t want to talk here. Let us talk near the beach. Follow me.”

They made their way through the crowds and past the hawkers and restaurants and shops. They walked past vast estates and new buildings still yet to be occupied. They walked for what seemed to Patrick a long time before reaching a white sand beach and coming to a nearby picnic table.

Patrick looked out over the sea. He had fallen in love with the ocean since the first time he came to Chile four years ago. The water rolled into shore in small waves and crackled against the beach. The sun was so bright it gave the water a white-gold reflection that matched the sand before it.

“There is . . . something, here, Mr. Russell. I do not know what it is. But it has killed many people. Nobody will talk about it because we cannot have the tourists frightened to come here. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Your brother was killed by it. They will not find the body.”

“I was told they found some remains of Mary Beth?”

“It is true. But that is rare. And there was not much found.” He looked out over the choppy water, a few bathers in the shallows watching their children play. “I wanted you to know the truth.”

“Why?”

“It has . . . it has killed someone I cared for as well. I do not want you to believe your brother was a drunken fool.”

Patrick nodded. “I understand. Thank you for telling me.”

The inspector stood up to leave when Patrick said, “What do you think it is? You have to have some guess?”

“A monster, Mr. Russell. There is a monster in our waters.”

Patrick Russell woke from a restless sleep and showered and shaved. The hotel was the second most luxurious in Viña; next to the Hotel del Mar on the beach. His room was carpeted with Persian rugs over imported oak floors. There was a wash basin on an antique dresser in the corner and a mirror that looked to be from a previous century was secured to the wall above it. The balcony doors were open, the breeze flowing in over white curtains.

There was a knock at the door as he was shaving. “Come.”

His assistant, Christopher Woodruff, walked in and collapsed onto an imitation Louis the XVI chair. He crossed his legs, revealing Gucci leather boots.

“Well?” Patrick said.

“You’re right. There’ve been some serious attacks. And not just on people, entire boats have been attacked. Fucking yachts.”

“Has anyone seen what attacked them?”

“Couple of fishermen. Your old buddy is supposedly one of them.”

“Rodrigo?”

“Apparently.” Christopher rose and went to cupboard near the balcony. He took out a crystal bottle and poured himself a few fingers of scotch in a glass. “These locals tend to exaggerate, so I’m not sure how much stock I would put in their stories. But if they’re even half right, this thing is going to make us famous.”

*****

The docks were crowded but few ships were out on the ocean. Patrick stood on the beach and looked out over the churning water. A strong wind was blowing and he could taste the salt from the ocean on his tongue. He saw the white boat lashed to a slip and walked to it. It appeared empty.

He climbed aboard and peered into the cabin. Rodrigo Gonzalez was asleep in his underwear, his enormous stomach rising and falling with his snores. A silver cross hanging from a necklace was entwined with his graying chest hair and empty bottles of beer were on the floor. Patrick quietly went back near the stern and sat in one of the deckchairs.

“You do not need to sit out there, amigo.”

He turned to see Rodrigo wide awake, his eyes bloodshot from recent drunkenness. Patrick went to him and they shook hands.

“Hola,” Patrick said.

“Hola.”

Rodrigo sat up and went to an icebox in the corner. He got out two beers and they sat on the deck and drank for a while without speaking.

“I have heard about your brother. I am sorry.”

Patrick shook his head. “He was going to be married soon and take over my father’s business. My father is a rich man, but he says I have no head for money. It’s true. I was supposed to be the one that everyone felt sorry for and gossiped about, not Andrew.”

“I have lost many brothers. I believe I will see them again and they will see me. Do you believe in God?”

“No.”

Rodrigo shrugged. “Hard to see your brother when you are in hell.”

Patrick smiled. “I’m not the one that kissed a man.”

“I tell you, you could not tell she was a man. Only when her clothes were not on.”

He chuckled softly. He missed Rodrigo. Patrick had been coming to Chile every summer for the past four years since he was dishonorably discharged from the Army. Rodrigo had been his fishing companion, his drinking companion, and at times the only person in the world Patrick could talk to.

“I wanted to speak to you about something,” Patrick said. “I’ve heard stories that my brother was killed—that many people have been killed recently—by something in the water.”

“What do you mean ‘something’?”

“I don’t know. A policeman called it a monster. Some people told Christopher that you had seen it.”

Rodrigo nodded, staring off in the distance. “Yes, I have. I have one on my boat.”

“One what?”

“Stay here.”

He went to the bow and fetched something out of a metal container. He came back and sat across from him again and leaned forward. There was something dangling from his finger. Patrick examined it more closely. Attached with little tentacles around his index finger was a small white squid.

Rodrigo took the boat out of the slip and the harbor and went on the open sea. The ocean was by and large calm but there were waves that rocked the ship up and down and it took a moment for Patrick to adjust. He hadn’t been on a boat since his training with the Army Rangers.

Patrick played with the tiny animal. The squid was no bigger than a finger but he could still feel its strength as it fought for its life, wrapping a tentacle around his thumb and not letting go. Patrick grabbed it by the head and threw it into the water.

Rodrigo turned the engines off and then came and sat next to him, the ship gliding over the water before slowing and coming into rhythm with the waves.

“I have heard you have been in Chile for three weeks but you have not come to see your old friend Rodrigo.”

“I was going to; I just got a little busy. I was going to bring Andrew so we could all go diving for clams.”

“The clams are not good this year. The fish are not good this year, nothing is good this year.”

“Why? What’s going on?”

Rodrigo pointed due north. “There are factories there that put things in the water, ah, cómo se dice? Chemicals? They put chemicals in the water and they kill the fish. But I know nothing else. I know how to fish and how drink and there are no jobs for drinking.”

There was commotion nearby, thrashing in the water. Patrick looked over the edge of the boat and saw an oceanic white tip shark biting into the boat, exploring with its mouth.

“They very dangerous sharks,” Rodrigo said. “Two fishermen diving here three months ago. The shark bite one in the leg and pulled him to the bottom because it knew the other fisherman could not follow. It killed the man there and ate much of him. Very dangerous.”

“This thing that killed my brother, it’s more dangerous isn’t it?”

Rodrigo whistled through his teeth.

“Christopher thinks if we can catch it it’ll make us famous. He says it’s a giant squid. Something that’s very rare.”

“No, not rare. I have heard stories from my grandfather and seen them. Some men here kill them and sell the meat. Every year at the same time the sea gets angry. That is what he told me when I was a child. The sea gets angry and it sends its demons to protect it.”