"Follow me and this will not end well."
"What, are you allergic to d.i.c.k?"
"Not at all, but I am allergic to p.r.i.c.ks and c.u.n.ts."
"You calling me a p.r.i.c.k?"
"No, you ignorant p.r.i.c.k, I"m calling you a b.i.t.c.h-a.s.s c.u.n.t."
"You don"t want to talk to me like that."
"You do know what the M and X mean in my t.i.tle, don"t you? Back off, b.i.t.c.h."
We stared, neither one flinching. He had spent years in prison and I had been incarcerated too long. This was our yard. The stare-down wasn"t broken until the attendant called for me to come for my bike.
I said, "Take your tampon out and go f.u.c.k a d.i.c.k."
"n.o.body talks to me like that."
"I just did, b.i.t.c.h. I just did."
I went back to my bike, paid the attendant, mounted my iron horse, started the engine. Zenga backed up a step at a time, stared at me the whole way, and slipped back inside of his a.s.signed car. I expected him to drive away first. I was wrong. He didn"t. He revved his engine like his car was a two-ton weapon. The ruckus from the nightly liming at the Sh.e.l.l gas station and in the parking lot at Chefette and whoever was sitting on the brick wall in front of Six Roads Polyclinic was drowned out when I gunned my engine. My Ducati yelled f.u.c.k You. Zenga gunned his engine in response. White n.i.g.g.a b.i.t.c.h. I cursed a thousand times. I zoomed from the lot, shot up by Chefette, made a hard right. From the Wynter Crawford Roundabout I took to Highway 5, Zenga right behind me. A half-mile later I pulled over into the parking lot at Jazzie Cuts, a barbershop in a sloping parking lot next to Tyre Shop.
I pulled into the lot and made my bike stand up on the front tire, then shifted my weight and made her rotate one hundred and eighty degrees. I came down facing the driveway. The businesses were closed. No lights were on. No one was at the bus stop out front. Zenga came down the driveway, not sure if I had gone straight or turned left. I was to his left, near the wall, engine off, no lights on to give away my position. I pulled my .380 and opened fire, took out his headlights, shot his front windshield. His head vanished and he lost control of the car, hit the accelerator and ran into the front of the barbershop. I started my bike, then fired into the window four more times. While that jerk was ducked down, while he p.i.s.sed steroids and stained his pants, I zoomed up the driveway and took to the road.
At top speed, I dodged potholes in the road, and at Sky Mall, I shifted gears and hit the Bussa Roundabout, circled it four times, then shot into Sky Mall and came out by Burger King, exited, and hit the roundabout two more times, all that to make sure I wasn"t being trailed by a second car since I left Six Roads, made sure I wasn"t being trailed by whoever had done to Black Jack and Hacker what I wanted to do to them. Then I gunned it and went back toward the Pine, only I turned left, made a hard-leaning left where the turning lane was at a deep angle at Barbados External Telecommunications Limited. My horse roared as I shot up that wicked road, beyond Sobers Gymnasium and the cut-rock road leading into Fort George, past the rugged road after, and into the narrow roads with overgrown brush. I drove hard, and minutes later, I ended up back at Ridgeview Estates, back where Black Jack had been murdered.
His death didn"t mean that what I needed was no longer desired. I needed to see the crime scene, find his computer, find what Hacker had used and left behind, needed the information he had found, needed whatever had led a killer to his front door, if that computer hadn"t been confiscated.
Too many people were still congregated outside.
Police tape was across the front of the property. Had to be the same on the back. The community had hired extra security, but that group was just as afraid, each walking the grounds and deferring to the big guns. The Royal Barbados Police Force, modeled after SWAT, had left at least four officers behind to make the neighbors feel safe, officers alert and waiting for the Bajan version of the bogeyman to return.
I left the area, blew up ABC Highway, then soon I was on the West Coast, the sea at my left. If I"d had my night-vision binoculars and had looked to the seas, I would have seen them.
FORTY-ONE.
A magnificent yacht approached Barbados. Music blasting into the night. It was a superyacht, over two hundred feet long, with a helicopter pad that had a helicopter on that pad, a yacht that was on a higher level than the luxury private yacht owned by Tiger Woods.
Three more helicopters flew overhead.
War Machine listened to his men.
Appaloosa said, "The Kiwi had to be part of the crew that gunned down the Bajans."
Kandinsky said, "There has to be a connection. Her coming to our island, the drug bust."
Guerrero said, "The connection has to be King Killer. We did right."
Appaloosa said, "She is connected to the problems in Miami and New York as well."
Guerrero said, "Has to be."
Kandinsky said, "There will be blood in the sand. Soon there will be blood in the sand."
War Machine added nothing.
On the superyacht, despite the chill of the night, naked women, an international lot, sashayed underneath stars in the night air, nipples hard, drinks in hand, all as high as their heels.
War Machine went down below to a special room and pushed a b.u.t.ton that caused three walls to slide open. Each wall was filled with guns. Two hundred weapons were on board. Rocket launchers. Grenades. Everything but a drone. The Laventille Killers were about to arrive.
War Machine said, "This has to play itself to the end. To its conclusion."
Two of their men had just been here, had made an emergency flight to Barbados when a hacker had broken into their systems, and that, too, had been done from Barbados. Men who had been sent by Diamond Dust, again without his authority. He would handle her. When all was said and done, he would handle her. The men who had been sent had a.s.sumed that it had something to do with the company losing the drug shipment some days ago. Now all knew that the Kiwi had been here during that time.
The men were excited, felt that their current mission and killing the ones who had hacked into their systems were connected.
War Machine said, "It is all connected. Everything is connected. My wife is smart. That is her blessing. That is her curse."
War Machine stood in front of the armory like he was in a museum of fine arts.
They had weapons that had originated in the United States and vanished in Afghanistan.
On a table were the enlarged images of the elusive Kiwi. They had more information than the Trinidadian police had on the Kiwi regarding the a.s.sa.s.sination, but they shared nothing, had done all they could to misdirect the authorities, didn"t want the a.s.sa.s.sin incarcerated, just wanted her found. The LKs would be judge, jury, and vicious executioner. War Machine nodded and gave his wife her props. Diamond Dust had hired the best of the best, had rebooted the operation, and all had fallen into place.
They had photos of the Kiwi from the Carlton Savannah, photos taken while the woman, pretending to be Samantha Greymouth, was on the roof, images of her from the fiasco at the bank, more images taken from illegal pa.s.sports in and out of Trinidad, another from a pa.s.sport used to get to Grenada, from a pa.s.sport used to exit Grenada and get to the Grenadines, and the picture from the pa.s.sport used to get from the Grenadines to Barbados. With those photos, more possibles had been created. The Woman of a Thousand Faces. The face that represented War Machine"s deepest regret.
War Machine went back up on deck. A woman stopped in front of him as he stood next to his guntas. She fell to her knees, offered to suck him, but he pushed her away, sent her to the other men.
Appaloosa came and stood next to him, said, "Lights are beautiful."
War Machine said, "Don"t praise that island. Only praise the lights in Trinidad."
As they rode up the coast they pa.s.sed the lights emanating from Limegrove.
Someone told them that the club Priva was over there. It was the type of sw.a.n.k area where the woman in the photos might hang out. The Kiwi had been a high-end party girl, so that would be her style.
War Machine said, "We"ll do a search starting there. Work our way to St. Lawrence Gap."
His cellular rang. He saw his wife"s face on the caller ID.
He stepped to the side, answered, "Karleen. I miss you."
"We need to talk."
"Talk. Speak your mind."
"Privately."
"What"s the issue?"
"Be alone. I will call you back in a moment."
She ended the call.
The warehouse. He had flashbacks from torturing and killing his cousin. He moved away and looked out at the island. A girl followed, one who had pleased him before, now being rejected, now afraid, trembling, tears in her eyes, afraid that she had done something wrong, something to warrant death.
With controlled words he threatened to throw her off the ship if she followed him.
She wiped the corners of her mouth and hurried away.
War Machine looked at Barbados again. They had lost three brothers. Two had been killed by the Kiwi. One had been killed because of his a.s.sociation with the Kiwi, and that death hurt him the most.
His phone buzzed. His wife sent him a photo of their bed.
The bed was opened wide.
A text message came from his wife. CARE TO EXPLAIN?
She was forcing his hand. She knew she was forcing his hand.
He was her number one. Would always be her number one.
They would be the kingpins.
He had a moment of honesty. Despite his power, his control, there was a truth.
He was doing his best to live up to her standards, as they all were. She had vision. Direction. He would have been nothing without her. He would have been with King Killer, at best, doing two-man crime sprees. He knew that he was nothing without Karleen De Lewis, without Diamond Dust.
He was nothing without the cousin he had fallen in love with and married.
She had accepted his love for her, never ridiculed his feelings or desire for her.
As she had accepted the love and desire of King Killer when he was young.
She had been the first one to make him feel that he could be more than a boy of the slums.
Everyone else in his life had been holding him back.
He looked at the yacht, the suite, the helicopters flying overhead.
He had cast away his old life, the life of who he was as a boy in the slums, had cast it all aside.
Now he was War Machine. The most beautiful woman on the island was his wife.
He whispered, "This will not end. Not over this. This will not end over this."
His phone buzzed again. Diamond Dust again.
She said, "A contact just came through a minute ago."
"What do you have for me?"
"There, in Barbados. A woman of about the right size ordered a set of illegal pa.s.sports."
"A set?"
"Multiple fake pa.s.sports. I have copies of the photos here. It"s her."
"From whom did she order the photos?"
"We will have that information shortly. Within the hour. We"re reverse-engineering the contacts."
"Has she left the island?"
"I will find out soon. I find out everything. Remember that. I find out everything."
"Not everything."
"Everything. Did you receive the photo I sent?"
He paused. Waited for her to mention the bed, its contents.
"I did."
"Explain. Or shall I explain it to you, husband?"
"Let"s focus on the Kiwi."
"All I have asked is that you never lie to me."
"The Kiwi is the issue at the moment."
"Let"s focus on the reason my brother is dead. Let"s focus on the Kiwi."
She played her hand so well. Every day with her, a never-ending game of chess.
It had been that way from the first kiss. Since they had crossed that line, become lovers.
She was the first girl he had slept with. She had been his first.
She already had experience.