Sea Creature (8 page)

“Very well,” he said.

Hector got into his car and called Ignacio.

*****

Ignacio finished his lunch of shellfish, crab and a bit of brown rice. He had received Hector’s phone call nearly an hour ago but lunch was something he cherished and would not interrupt for anything.

When he was younger, his family could only afford one meal a day and as he worked in the city shining shoes or selling trinkets or combing the sands at the beaches for lost change, he watched the tourists and wealthier Chileans eat their fine meals of lamb or salmon or steak with bisques and salads and fluffy white rolls.

While most of the downtrodden and poor that saw these things grew resentful and came to despise the rich, Ignacio used it as inspiration. He had no education, his family was comprised of criminals and vagabonds and the mentally ill, and he had a speech impediment that took him fifteen years to get rid of, but he knew he would join the ranks of the wealthy one day. Persistence, he understood, was king. Nothing else mattered; not where you came from, not your talent, not who you knew. And persistence was what he had in ample supply.

“Gracias,” he said to the waitress as she cleared away the table.

A few patrons in the restaurant came and said hello to him and spoke of their love for the beautiful city and how they intended to vote for him again in his reelection bid. He nodded and thanked them softly and waited until they had left before finishing his water and wiping his lips with his napkin. He left a forty percent tip and walked back to the kitchen of the restaurant and thanked the chef personally before leaving and climbing into his Range Rover.

He drove slowly through the streets, listening to a Puccini opera on the CD player. He knew these streets well; they fit around him like clothing and he felt at times as if he could live on these streets and would still be just as happy as in his mansion up on the hill overlooking the ocean.

He passed a pub with a second floor balcony where patrons sat and ate and drank until well into the night. He had gotten into a fight there, in the back of the pub near the dumpster. As he was walking home from a day of shining shoes, three boys attempted to mug him. The money he had was enough to feed his family for the next week. He knew he would not give them the money and he made up his mind that he was going to die there, right then. But he was going to take at least one of them with him.

The boys were older and outweighed him each by at least twenty pounds, but Ignacio had nothing to lose. He didn’t care if he was injured, and he didn’t care if he was killed. The first boy slapped him and then grabbed him by the shirt to punch his face and Ignacio bit down into his neck so hard that blood began to spray from the wound and he pulled away with a chunk of flesh in his mouth. The boy screamed and ran away, which gave Ignacio enough time to grab a wooden box from near the dumpster and smash it into another boy’s head.

The three of them fought for what seemed like hours, but was perhaps no more than a matter of minutes. One of the boys took out a knife and Ignacio felt the small slices across his chest and arms and face, but he didn’t stop. They were not going to make him back down or quit.

As the other boy held him, the one with the knife rushed at him to stab him in the chest. Ignacio twisted away, causing the knife to glide over his shoulder, scraping away a large chunk of skin, and plunge into the other boy’s arm. The boy screamed and Ignacio pulled the knife away and with both hands, smashed it down into the boy’s leg, halfway up to the hilt.

The two boys hobbled away and Ignacio collapsed, bloody and in pain, but alive and with his money.

Ignacio reached the docks and turned his car off. He watched the workers on the ship and saw the shark cages and the rifles and harpoons. He saw a man in a wheelchair come down the ramp and load into a limousine before being shuttled away. He stepped out of the car.

The sun was hot in the sky and the heat came off the ground and cooked you from both top and bottom. He walked up the ramp and saw Hector sitting on a chair. He pointed to a white man that was standing over one of the shark cages as it was being assembled.

“Are you Patrick?” Ignacio said.

“Yes.”

It was just then that the four police cruisers came to a stop at the docks and a half dozen officers stepped out and approached the ship.

“I am Ignacio Silva. I am the mayor of Viña.”

“What can I do for you?”

“I was told you refused to move this ship when my chief of police asked you to.”

“We have every right to go out on the ocean. There’s nothing you can do to stop us, it’s a free country. I think the best thing is to just let us do our business and get out of here.”

“There’s nothing I can do to stop you? Really?”

Christopher sat across from Patrick in Viña’s jail. They didn’t speak and there was no one else sharing the cell with them so they could hear entire conversations in both Spanish and English from the staff and officers in the station.

The cell had two couches and a drinking fountain with a porcelain toilet behind a screen. The floor was hardwood and it had several words and names carved in it from the men that had been held here.

After nearly three hours, the cell door opened and Ignacio walked in. “You,” he said to Christopher, “the old man has paid your bail. You are free to leave.”

Christopher looked to Patrick, who nodded to him. He stood up and walked out.

Ignacio came and sat down next to Patrick. “So, what do you think of our jail?”

“As jails go, it’s the nicest one I’ve been to.”

“We try to be civilized here. We handle most crimes with fines unless it’s serious. And then we send the offenders to Santiago to deal with. Many of them, just by being charged with a crime, will get lost in the jail system there as they wait for their court dates. There are men that have spent years in jail because the jails have forgotten about them. Is that what I should do with you and your friend? Send you to Santiago?”

“It wouldn’t be my first choice.”

Ignacio smiled. “I know you follow orders from the man who pays you, so I am not angry with you. I know you are the one that lost your brother. His name was Andrew, yes?”

“Yes.”

“You lost Andrew to the beast. I too lost a brother to the beast. In a small way, we are alike.”

Patrick sat silently a moment and then said, “You telling me he didn’t drown?”

“No, he did not drown. He was taken from you by a creature. The locals here call it, ‘el fantasma de los océanos.’ The ghost of the ocean.”

“How long have you known about it?”

“A long time.”

“And you let people swim here anyway?”

Ignacio shrugged and stood up. “You are free to leave.”

“What about our ship?”

“The man you work for is very rich. He will put money in the right places and I will have to let you sail. But I can slow you down for a time. At least for now, you will not be going anywhere.”

As he turned and left Patrick stood up and followed him. He stepped out into the sunlight and saw Christopher waiting for him by a limo.

Christopher followed Patrick as he went back to the ship and explained the situation to Mitch and Hamilton. Hamilton immediately got on his cell phone and began making some calls. Mitch just said, “Didn’t get corn-holed there in the slammer, did ya?”

A police unit borrowed from neighboring towns was standing guard by the ship. Everyone was allowed a few hours to gather their things and step off. Reporters were shooed away and Hamilton had given orders not to talk to any of them yet. The mayor would be getting his, he assured everyone, but better not to upset him right now.

Patrick and Christopher decided they didn’t want to go back to the hostel yet so they walked the streets for a while and then went to a local bar. It was an upscale place but like any bar the floors were dirty and near the bathrooms it stunk of vomit and urine. At a table in the center of the bar was Mitch and three other of Hamilton’s men who’d beaten them there.

“Boys!” he said excited, “come join us.”

They pulled out chairs at the table and sat down.

“What’re ya drinking?” Mitch said.

“Just a beer,” Patrick said.

“Wine for me.”

“Beer and wine?” Mitch said, chuckling. “How about you pull your tampons out before I get those for you? Everyone found this amusing and laughed. “Just joshing ya mates. Well known fact that Americans can’t hold their liquor. Beer and wine it is.”

“Who said Americans can’t hold their liquor?” Patrick said.

“Just a well known fact. You sound like you want a chance to challenge that fact, mate.”

Christopher said they didn’t but Patrick didn’t notice him.

“All right, how?”

“Tequila shots. First one to give or pass out loses.”

“Fine.”

The men cheered and Christopher mumbled something about how childish this was. Mitch ordered and the waitress brought out twenty tequila shots. The tequila was thick, like syrup, and the bottles behind the bar had worms in them.

“Cheers, mate.”

They took their first shot. The tequila went down smooth but had a strong aftertaste. It warmed Patrick’s belly and they took another. They would wait almost a full minute in between shots and then hold up their shot glasses at the same time and down the liquid. After five shots, the warmth Patrick felt in his stomach began to turn to nausea. After ten shots, he didn’t feel it anymore.

They ordered another twenty drinks. Christopher tried to stop them, but Patrick was too into the game now. Mitch sat across from him with a smile on his face; there was no way he was going to let him win.

Two more shots, back-to-back this time. They waited another thirty seconds and then took two more. The aftertaste was coming back and Patrick ordered a Coke to clear the taste from his mouth.

“How ya doing, mate?” Mitch said, his words slurring.

“Fine. Hey Mitch, why wasn’t Jesus born in Australia? Cause they couldn’t find three virgins and a wise man. Wait, Chris is that how it goes?”

Mitch laughed so hard one of the men had to grab him so he wouldn’t fall out of his chair. Patrick began to laugh too but tasted vomit in his mouth and stopped.

The room was spinning but Patrick picked up another glass and swallowed as Mitch did the same. Three more shots, one right after the other. Patrick couldn’t see clearly and his stomach and bowels burned. Whenever he drank too much he needed to have a bowel movement and he wasn’t sure how long he could hold it. Mitch leaned back in his chair and appeared calm, but Patrick saw the strand of drool that was hanging down from his mouth.

Two more shots, and then a thirty second wait. Patrick felt vomit in his throat. Before he could take a swallow of Coke to keep it down it shot out of his mouth and over the table. The men cheered and laughed as Patrick slid off the table and onto his back, staring up at the ceiling.

Christopher helped him up and out of the bar.

The night air was cool and some of the shops were still open, a few tourists browsing clothing stores. Chris carried him back to the jeep and Patrick was singing a Phil Collins song. He fell back in the seat, vomit over his shirt and pants, and sang louder as the jeep roared to life and Christopher pulled away from the bar.

They drove through the winding streets and then left Viña and headed for their hostel in Valparaiso. It always amazed Christopher how the two could be so close and completely different from one another. He had been told by some of the locals that if one wanted to get lost and never found, Valparaiso was the place to go. The address system there didn’t work and even the police couldn’t find most addresses unless they grew up there and knew where everything was by heart.

There were some neighborhoods that were known for such violence no policemen would dare enter them, even during the day. Christopher filed this information away; you never knew when you would have to get lost and never found.

He parked the jeep in front of their hostel and Patrick was still singing. He pulled him down and put his arm over his neck and carried him in. He laid him on the bed and collapsed next to him. Christopher was not known for physical strength at a hundred and forty five pounds and just helping Patrick to the bed had worn him out.

Patrick stopped singing and began to sob quietly. Christopher thought he was hearing things and then saw the tears pouring down his cheeks.

“I killed him, Chrissy. I fucking killed him.”

“Who?”

“I fucking killed him. There were so many. There were so fucking many but they said we had to get what we wanted. They were our enemies, we had to get information.” Patrick brought his hands up over his face.

“Patrick what are you talking about?”

But he didn’t respond. He just wept for a while and then stopped and began to sing again. Before long, he passed out and Christopher took off his boots.

Rodrigo came to the hostel a little later and Christopher asked him to watch over Patrick and makes sure he was okay. Then he went outside and got into the jeep and drove up the tallest hill in Valparaiso. He knew the area well; the streets were purposely too narrow so that police cars couldn’t come through.

He parked the jeep and took any valuables he had and locked them in the glove box. This area catered to tourists and some of the local gang bosses had issued orders that tourists weren’t to be robbed so they could partake in the illicit businesses there, particularly the drugs. But much of the time the bosses were ignored as much as the laws.

Patrick got out and began walking up the winding streets. The houses were little more than tin shacks and during the rainy season, if there was a particularly bad storm, they would just begin to slide down the hill on mudslides.

Outside of a two story home were lined up women in skimpy clothing. Christopher walked to them and looked them all over. They bored him and he asked one of them where the boys were. On a corner across the street were gathered a handful of Chilean males, no older than nineteen. He walked past them as if window shopping and chose a slender one on the end.