The Darkest Day (10 page)

There was no one else in the courtyard apart from Victor and the five locals. The only exit, a narrow covered alleyway, lay behind the men. Two storeys above, a woman hung out wet laundry and watched proceedings. Of the four guys from the table, two had knives drawn. Both were cheap and unsharpened, but still capable of splitting skin and arteries and piercing organs.

The machete was a crude but effective weapon designed for chopping and splitting. With a good swing it could slice a coconut in half or bury itself deep enough in a skull to perform a partial lobotomy. This particular weapon was old and rusted and the blade looked dull, but the Haitian was strong enough to make up for the neglect.

‘I have five hundred dollars on me,’ Victor said. ‘You can have it.’

‘Good,’ the Haitian said. ‘Hand it over.’

‘But I’ll double that if you tell me where I can find Jean Claud Marte.’

‘You have the other five hundred on you?’

‘No,’ Victor answered. ‘It’s in my hotel room.’

‘What do you want with Marte?’

Two questions asked by the Haitian and neither included the word
who
.

‘I want to ask him some questions,’ Victor explained. ‘All you have to do is tell me where to find him and you can earn yourself another five hundred dollars.’ Victor took out his wallet and threw it at the ground between himself and the Haitian, who stood a little in front of the others. ‘That’s your first five hundred. Five hundred and thirty, to be exact.’

‘The rest?’

‘I’ve told you already. It’s in my hotel room.’

‘Maybe you’re hiding it.’ He gestured at Victor’s shirt. ‘Secret pouch or belt.’

‘There is none.’

The Haitian pursed his lips in consideration.

Victor said, ‘You don’t want to do what you’re thinking about.’

‘Which is?’ the Haitian asked with a smirk.

‘Don’t,’ Victor said.

The big Haitian adjusted his footing in a sign of nervous energy. The others were even more anxious: pacing back and forth, clenching jaw muscles, spitting, or scratching.

They were armed and in a position of strength through numbers, but they were just criminals, not professionals. Adrenaline was hyping them up and might make one try something rash before their boss had decided how best to proceed.

Victor continued looking around, never letting one of the locals out of sight for more than a few seconds. He acted passive because he did not want to provoke them into action through a challenge, but he needed them to be aware he was not their average victim. Weakness would only increase their confidence and therefore the risk they would turn to violence if they failed to get their way.

‘Take the five hundred now,’ Victor said. ‘And earn another five hundred the easy way. Don’t make this into something it doesn’t need to be.’

The Haitian stared at him; his unblinking eyes were bloodshot.

‘Well?’ Victor asked, when it seemed the big guy would say nothing further.

‘I’m thinking,’ he said.

This seemed to be a challenging process, given the pinched expression he wore.

The next closest man spat out a glob of saliva that landed on Victor’s shoe. A rope of it stretched from the man’s lip.

Victor looked at his shoe and then to the man in an acknowledgement of the taunt. ‘Thanks, they could use a polish.’

The man smirked in return. Victor did not know if he had been understood. It didn’t matter.

The Haitian in the white vest swallowed and clarity seemed to enter his bloodshot eyes for the first time. He smiled.

‘No,’ he said. ‘No five hundred. We search you.’

‘You’ll find nothing,’ Victor said.

The Haitian stepped forward. ‘Then I’ll be angry.’

The other four locals may not have spoken English, but they understood their boss’s tone enough to know what the decision had been. They neither tensed with readiness nor became focused with aggression.

The Haitian came forward, machete raised to threaten more than attack. At least for the moment.

The other four approached too. The two with knives stopped ahead of the two without.

‘Okay,’ Victor said with a sigh. ‘Okay. The other five hundred is in my belt.’

He unbuckled and slid it out from the belt loops of his trousers. He wrapped it around the buckle until it was a tight ball. He held it in one hand and gestured to the big Haitian.

‘Here,’ Victor said. ‘It’s in a secret pocket.’

The Haitian smiled in triumph and reached with his free hand for the belt, which —

Victor snapped out, holding on to one end, so the buckle was sent flying into the Haitian’s face.

It ripped open the skin of his left eye socket. Blood smeared across his cheek and temple. He staggered away, clutching his face with his free hand while he swung the machete back and forth with the other.

The two with knives darted forward.

Victor feigned an attack at the first, only to whip the belt at the second as he lunged to intercept. The buckle caught him on the side of the skull and he fell face first on to the floor.

A blade glinted in the dim light.

Victor blocked the incoming wrist with a forearm, then released the belt to grab hold of the arm in both hands and swing the guy into the closest wall. He managed to react in time to get a hand out to stop his face colliding with the brick, but not fast enough to stop Victor twisting the blade from his grip and throwing it away.

He blocked a punch from one of the two unarmed Dominicans, caught the wrist before it could recoil and pulled the man closer and into an arm bar, arm locked out, elbow facing upwards.

A second forearm strike broke the joint.

The man wailed, and again tried to punch, but with his other fist. Victor parried it with a shoulder as he turned on the spot, coming outside of the guy’s arm. He stamped on his instep, and then swept that injured leg out from under him.

The guy went down hard.

Thick arms grabbed him from behind, pulling him down into a headlock. Victor turned to his assailant, positioning his left foot between the guy’s legs for stability, and sent a palm strike into the groin that became an uppercut to the man’s chin. The grip loosened and Victor threw him away.

He parried an incoming punch and trapped the arm between elbow and ribs, leaving the man exposed and vulnerable to the counter strike that hit him in the sternum. Victor released him so he could stagger back, doubling over, airless and stunned.

The Haitian roared as he charged, machete swinging in a wide arc.

Victor knocked it from the big man’s grip with a downward forearm strike to the wrist and it skidded away across the floor.

A punch to the abdomen knocked Victor back into a wall. He blocked the next blow with a raised forearm, then another as the Haitian tried to overwhelm him with strikes. Victor responded with an open-palm blow to the side of his attacker’s face and he staggered away.

The Haitian raised his arms to parry Victor’s next strikes, but instead he went low, wrapping his arms around the man’s thighs and taking him to the ground.

The wind was knocked from the Haitian’s lungs and in that instant of stunned paralysis Victor grabbed hold of the back of his own head and drove his elbow down – using all the strength and mass of his upper body – against his enemy’s sternum.

The whole ribcage compressed until the remaining energy had nowhere else to go.

Ribs snapped.

The sound reminded Victor of breaking branches as a boy. The Haitian made a soundless cry.

Victor stood. The man lay as still as he could to avoid the agony of moving with multiple broken ribs. Tears welled in his eyes with every shallow breath.

Victor glanced around to check the other four were finished, then placed a heel on the Haitian’s destroyed ribcage.

‘Where’s Marte?’ Victor said as he began applying pressure.

There were no sentries outside Marte’s yellow house and no signs of any other forms of security because up until now it had never been needed. He was an untouchable, feared and respected and protected by the cartel.

Victor entered through an unlocked back door. Inside the yellow house, the hallway was well lit by light fixtures and lamps. The air was humid and hot despite ceiling fans thrumming overhead. He breathed in the scent of grilled shrimp, cigarette smoke and incense. The chatter of multiple conversations fought in his ears along with the clink of glasses and scratch of cutlery on earthenware and hiss of juices on searing metal. He separated out the overlapping sounds into four – then five – voices. There could be more though; present but not partaking: drinking or eating or cooking or just listening.

He stepped with measured footfalls along the hallway, keeping close to one wall because the bare floorboards were old and would no doubt bend and creak under his weight. As he reached deeper into the house and closer to the voices he detected another sound: a clattering scratch, faint but rapid. He recognised the sound and pictured someone cleaning a pistol, the small brush pushed and pulled along the barrel in rapid motions to scrape away gunpowder residue.

At least one potential enemy had disarmed himself as a result. The gun may have been out and in hand, but it would be unloaded. He could not tell for certain about the others, but cooking shrimp or eating from a plate with cutlery or drinking from bottles of beer would restrict their ability to respond.

When he reached the entranceway, he saw the problem. The inhabitants were spread between two rooms – a kitchen and dining room separated by a breakfast bar and half-wall. He could not take all of them by surprise at once nor keep watch on them all at the same time.

He was considering his options when he heard a toilet flush upstairs. There had been no lit windows on the first floor a moment ago so either the bathroom had no window or the person had not been in there at the time.

Victor moved past the entranceway and into the stairwell, standing in the gap beneath it with his chin near his chest so he did not have to squat down.

After forty seconds he heard a door open upstairs and footsteps grow louder. The stairs creaked and groaned as the person descended – a heavy person, overweight or large with bone and muscle. The rhythm of their steps suggested they were drunk or had some disability affecting their movements.

The person came into view. He was a giant, the dome of his head almost touching the low ceiling. Victor saw a brief profile of the man as he turned into the entranceway and then his back. He lifted weights or trained in some other physical activity that had strengthened his arms, shoulders and back. He appeared healthy, so Victor deduced he had been drinking.

Four long steps brought Victor up behind the giant. He timed his footfalls with the man’s own, disguising the noise while the man’s great size hid Victor from those in the room beyond.

‘
Aleo
,’ shouted someone.

The giant responded with a grunt, then a wail as Victor kicked him hard in the back of the knee, folding the leg and dropping the giant down low enough for Victor to wrap an arm around the man’s neck, pit of the elbow above the Adam’s apple, forearm and biceps applying simultaneous pressure to both carotid arteries.

For a second everyone in the rooms was too stunned to react. In that instant, Victor took a snapshot of the layout and the inhabitants: two men sitting at a table in one corner, bottles of beer and playing cards and gambling chips on the table surface; another slumped in an armchair, smoking a cigarette. He could only see two in the kitchen: one at the breakfast bar eating, the second by the stove, but he knew there was at least one more out of his line of sight.

Victor said, ‘Be cool or he dies.’

It was hotter in the dining room, with the heat from the men adding to the heat coming from the stove. Ceiling fans pushed around a haze of cigarette smoke. The men wore T-shirts or vests, and shorts. Trainers or sandals covered their feet. He saw three handguns for three men – stripped on the table, lying on the floor by one’s feet and resting on the arm of an unoccupied sofa. A poor show, even by criminal standards.

A glowing bare bulb hung from the ceiling. Insects buzzed around it and remains of others were fused to the surface. Next to the table, a tall shaded lamp added to the illumination. The floorboards were bare and in as poor condition as those in the hallway. Cracks and chips were scattered across the painted walls. A frame hung skewed on one wall, without a painting. A thin curtain shielded the only window and rippled in the flow of air.

The two at the table looked related, sharing similar builds and facial features. One had a shaved head, the other an Afro. The man in the armchair was a lot older but a lot tougher too. He was a little under six feet tall with a slim, wiry frame. His head was shaved and a sparse beard covered his chin and jawline. He was in his late forties and well preserved, despite the smoking habit. He had the look about him of someone who had been through hardship but had triumphed despite great odds. He was the leader, Victor was sure. Men like that did not take orders well.

The one at the breakfast bar was the youngest, in his early twenties but a grown man. Half a dozen empty bottles of beer stood in a parade line near to his plate.

The giant’s strength was incredible. With one hand he almost pulled Victor’s arm away, but Victor increased the pressure of the choke by using his free hand to push the man’s head forward.

In seconds he had weakened and Victor eased off the pressure to stop him losing consciousness. If he did, Victor would struggle to keep him on his feet and he couldn’t risk losing his combined human shield and bargaining chip. The others would not know if their friend had passed out or died.

‘We are cool,’ the one in the armchair said.

‘Hands where I can see them,’ Victor said. ‘Those in the kitchen, get in here now.’

The three before him raised their hands. The others were slow to move despite the hostage because they were wary and unsure of Victor’s intentions and waiting instructions. The two he had seen came shuffling into the dining area, hands up and palms showing.

‘And the other one.’

‘Who?’ the one in the armchair said.

Victor tripled the force on the giant’s neck. He gasped and his face contorted, eyes pinched shut, skin reddening.

‘He hasn’t got long,’ Victor said.

‘
OKAY, OKAY. Lucian, get in here.
’

The man with the cigarette gestured with his head and a youth rushed into view from the kitchen. He was tall and thin; long arms without a hint of muscle definition hung from his T-shirt. The light shone off a face slick with adolescent oil.

‘Get out,’ Victor said. ‘You’re too young for this.’

The kid stayed put. He squared himself, defiant. His eyes were wide and staring. His nostrils flared.

Again, Victor increased the pressure on the giant’s carotids.

‘Tell him to go,’ Victor said to the man in the armchair.

He did, but even ordered by an authority figure, the kid didn’t hurry. By the time Victor heard the back door open and then bang shut, the giant was almost out. He eased off to keep him conscious. The giant was no longer trying to fight, unable to free himself and too scared to keep trying and encourage Victor to increase the pressure. Pain compliance was a powerful tool.

‘What do you want?’ the smoking man asked.

‘Put out the cigarette.’

The man shrugged and snubbed it out in a metal ashtray balanced on the armrest. ‘Is that it?’

‘Where’s Marte?’

‘You’re looking at him. Or at least you’re looking at the man who uses that identity. The real Marte, the man you no doubt have been looking for, died a long time ago.’

‘Why the deception?’

The man shrugged again. ‘No reason beyond insurance. People who ask for me usually do so because they seek to do me, or those close to me, harm.’

Victor, choking the giant to near death, remained silent.

Marte sat up. ‘Why don’t you release him?’

Victor tried, and failed, to read anything more in Marte’s eyes. The giant tensed.

Marte gestured at Victor. ‘There is no need to be concerned with reprisals. You’ll find my manners are a good deal better than your own.’

Victor glanced at the other men in the room. They were as anxious as before, but he sensed a readiness too. Maybe they had heard Marte speak like this before and knew what would happen next. Or he could have slipped them some predetermined code.

Victor knew a prelude to violence when he saw it.

He saw it begin almost thirty seconds before anyone made an aggressive move. He recognised the slow preamble as an orchestrated routine.

The guy on the sofa leaned forward, as if for comfort, but Victor understood the action. Whether it had been conscious or not, it was impossible to spring up fast when sitting slumped with head far out of line with the hips.

The two at the corner table were already both looking his way, but subtle adjustments to their poses gave away their intentions. The one who had his back to him was twisted round as much as his spine would let him. One hand rested on the back of the chair, the other on the table surface, while the one facing him had both palms on his knees, ready to explode up to his feet.

‘Well?’ Marte said.

Victor nodded, because now he knew what his enemies were going to do, he knew what he would do in response. There was nothing to gain in waiting any longer.

‘Manners,’ Victor said.

Marte smiled once more and his men attacked.