Bait: A Novel (7 page)

YESTERDAY.

“W
hat happened to your face?” Maria asked, pointing.

Pablo gave her a slightly annoyed look. Maria had wanted to ask Pablo that question since the first day they’d met. She was finally drunk enough to do it. Each of Pablo’s scars called out, inviting Maria’s curiosity. The woman slurred her words, further thickening her heavy Cuban accent.

“How did it get like that?”

“How do you mean?” Pablo asked.

“Like all cut up and shit.”

She could tell Pablo didn’t want to talk about it. He dragged his fingers over the three slim scars that raked his left cheek, and then ran his thumb over the two thick ones near his sideburn. The ugly excrescence that cleaved his forehead he avoided touching altogether. Maria figured the worst memory came with that one.

“Knives made my face like this mostly,” he said finally. “But some are from fire.”

Pablo picked up the bottle of malt liquor at his feet, turned away, and took a long drink. Maria wanted to ask who had used the knives and fire on the short Mexican, and why, but held her tongue. There were a lot of rumors going around about her companion. Some said he had connections to the cartels. Some said he was a snitch. Everyone knew he was more addict than dealer. In the glow of a single bare bulb that hung above a nearby restaurant back door, Maria saw more marks, small and white, on the nape of his neck. Pablo was the most scarred man she’d ever seen.

“They’re from a long time ago,” Pablo said. “Another lifetime.”

He stood and stretched, inspecting the alleyway he and Maria had chosen for their fix. There was never a time when Pablo didn’t seem paranoid, but with all the cuts and burns he’d collected over the years, Maria didn’t think it strange.

“A couple of them were accidental,” he continued. “But the rest . . .”

Maria held up a hand. “S’okay, you don’t have to say no more.”

Pablo nodded and took another swig. Maria drank from her can of cheap beer, crushing the tin inadvertently in her shaky grip. She was jonesing for a hit. Pablo hadn’t shown her what he’d scored from around the corner yet and Maria was getting desperate for a glimpse.

“That stuff you got us. It’s good shit, no?”

Pablo patted the breast pocket of his checkered shirt. “It don’t get any better than this,
chica
.”

“Well, what we waiting for?”

Pablo looked around the alley again, unsure. Maria could sense that something wasn’t quite right. He scanned the brick walls, scrutinizing shadows, looking for anything that might seem out of place. Both of them had been shaken down by cops in recent days, but luckily neither was holding at the time. If they did get cornered with possession, Maria would give up Pablo in a heartbeat. She had a bad habit of throwing others under the bus to help maintain her own freedoms.

“I don’t want anyone intruding on us,” Pablo said. “Just wanna make sure we got some privacy.”

Maria had a way of dealing with uninvited guests who encroached on her cooking. She would simply hold up a dirty needle and ask them if they wanted HIV. It was an empty threat, as far as she knew, but enough to scare anyone off. Looking at Pablo, Maria didn’t know if he was more worried about getting caught with a bubbling spoon or with his pants around his ankles. She wondered which they would do first. The dope was all she wanted. She’d only take Pablo between her legs first if he threatened to hold out on her with the goods.

“S’okay, Pablo,” Maria said. “No one will disturb us. Let’s get started.”

Pablo looked at her, uncertain. Another full sweep of his surroundings drew a shrug out of him and he stood down.

“Fine,” he said and began to undo his belt buckle.

Maria hesitated. “You want fuck first?”

“Don’t you?”

“I like being high when we do it.”

“I don’t.”

It was an argument she couldn’t win. Maria reluctantly removed her pants and sat down on a piece of flattened cardboard, the cleanest she could find in the alley. She didn’t take off her panties; those she would pull to one side when Pablo was hard enough. It would take him a little time before he was.

She watched as Pablo exposed his penis and began stroking it. She refused to suck it to get him started. The man’s body odor was offensive at the best of times, since he only showered once or twice a week. There was a hint of piss in the air whenever they screwed, sometimes a sweaty old cheese smell too. There was a limit to how low Maria would stoop.

“You doing okay there?”

Pablo’s breath came harder, but he didn’t answer. His caressing wasn’t getting the desired result. Maria didn’t care. Hell, she didn’t even like him that much. They only hung out because Pablo was good at scoring smack when she needed it, and he allowed her to pay for her share with sexual favors. Maria never had money, not back when she lived in Cuba, and not since she’d found her way to Miami on a crowded lifeboat stolen from a Havana dock. What she did have was a tight little ass she was willing to trade for the drugs she wanted.

“Hey,
cabrón
, we gonna do this or what?”

Pablo squeezed his eyes shut and kept tugging. “
Veta a la mierda
, Maria. You really not helping.”

Maria regarded the half-erect dick in his hand, hoping that he wouldn’t be able to perform at all. He was having more trouble than usual, addiction taking its toll on his cock and balls. The last few times he’d been inside her there was a definite lack of firmness. For all the tough posturing Pablo did around her, his floppy member was delicious irony. A chuckle crept up Maria’s throat and threatened to pass her lips. She stifled it.

“Me cago en Dios!”
Pablo seethed.

Things were taking too long, and Maria knew from experience that Pablo wouldn’t give up the junk until he’d blown his load. To help things along she reached out and shooed his hands away, taking his cock in her fingers. She worked the shaft before slipping down to fondle his testicles.

“Put it in your mouth,” Pablo whispered.

Maria glared at him. “No.”

“C’mon, I showered today.”

One sniff and Maria knew he was lying. She squeezed his cock hard to let him know that she wasn’t impressed.

“No, Pablo.”

The fierce grip excited him. She felt him grow inside her fist as moans of pleasure escaped his throat. She tugged more, making him grunt. When Pablo was as solid as he was going to get, he pushed Maria back and laid all of his weight on her, nestling his hips between her thighs, beer gut pushing on the flat of her belly. His skin was slick and oily. His rank breath produced sweat on her face.

“Don’t take too long,” Maria said.

He began pumping away, wheezing then moaning. Maria closed her eyes and tipped her head back so he would not try to kiss her. Halitosis stench blew on her throat instead. Even then, the wet heat of it made her squirm. It made her think about the boat trip from Cuba to America more than eight years before. Maria was sixteen when she became an illegal immigrant. Her virginity had been forcibly taken on that voyage by a deserting soldier with bad breath who never finished his journey with the rest. She thought about how their boat had departed from Cayo Coco with twelve people aboard and arrived in Florida with only eight. She remembered rations dwindling, drinking water running out. She remembered how no one came to her aid in the night when an uninvited man lay on top of her and muffled her cries. She recalled the accusations, the infighting, and the flashing of knives. She saw the bodies being thrown overboard.

“You like my cock,
chica
?” Pablo moaned, wanting some participation from her. “Do you love it?”

Maria gave two little groans to placate him before her thoughts returned to the lifeboat. The soldier hadn’t asked Maria if she loved his cock, he demanded that she love it, ordering her to tell him how much with the hardest thrusts. After enduring two nights of him invading every orifice, Maria’s first rapist also became her first victim. All it took was a knitting needle through the throat the moment his eyes were closed with orgasm.

“Oh, Maria,” Pablo panted. “I think I’m going to come now. . . .”

The sound of footsteps came fast. Maria opened her eyes and saw a hand shoot out of the dark, entangling in her lover’s greasy black hair. It pulled, wrenching Pablo’s face upward and out of the light, his dick slipping from her as he went. He managed a squeal of protest before something muffled him. Maria could see the outlines of men in dark clothes surrounding her, Pablo struggling in the grip of one of them. She tried to rise and scream but another figure stepped forward and pressed a heavy boot against her neck, pinning her to the ground and cutting off her air.

“We’re not taking him,” she heard the man above her say. “Only the girl.”

The figure holding Pablo kicked the back of his legs and dropped him to his knees. One of the others stepped forward and reached for something behind him. Maria didn’t see the gun as it was drawn, but the muzzle flash lit up the alley for a moment, the loud retort a precursor to Pablo’s right temple exploding in a spray of blood. His lifeless body teetered and fell forward, his face connecting with the pavement, nose breaking with a grisly crunch.

Maria whimpered prayers as the man standing on her neck leaned over and inspected her. She dared not look at him, but her nostrils picked up a familiar smell. It was the smell of cigars, undoubtedly Cuban, the kind that Castro and his army were fond of. Maria squirmed, tried to scream, but managed only a choke. She thought again of the lifeboat voyage and the soldier who pinned her against the gunwale as he tore at her clothes. The boot on her neck shifted and applied more weight to her jugular. Maria’s eyes fluttered as her world dimmed. She let herself slip away without further struggle, knowing there was no escape.

NOW.

T
here was no escape. As evening approached that reality became obvious to everyone. Five of the six stranded reconvened around the trunk. They had all tried to eat, but ingested little. Ginger and Kenny picked at themselves, too busy scratching and pulling at scabs to take notice of anything around them. Maria sat, knees drawn up under her chin and arms wrapped around her shins like before, staring at the sand and mumbling prayers in Spanish. Nash and Felix gazed at the orange sunset, the sound of Maria’s murmurings oddly soothing. The fireball at the sky’s end was tamed enough by the dusk to look at for extended periods of time. Nash saw sunspots seared into his eyelids when he blinked.

“Beautiful,” he whispered.

A gull cried out, drawing Nash’s attention. Earlier, Felix had been chucking rocks at the birds puttering about the beach. Now they paddled offshore, well out of range. Nash watched the birds bobbing on the waves while Felix kept his eyes on the anchored yacht. It was impossible to tell if anyone was on deck in the fading light.

No one spoke for what seemed like ages. Despair came off each body like an odor. Only the sounds of scratching, coughing, or groaning were heard against the birdcalls and crashing waves. By the time Nash broke the silence, Tal had slunk his way back to the encampment like some kind of Gollum. He stayed well away from the others, squatting on the sand some thirty feet away.

“It’s getting chilly out here,” Nash said. “Wish they’d left us a frigging lighter or a box of matches so we could make a fire.”

“They don’t want us lighting any signal fires,” replied Felix. “I’d have made us a big-ass bonfire already if I had an open flame.”

Nash grunted in agreement, a sudden stab of pain in his stomach vetoing the words he was about to say. Rescue was growing more and more unlikely. Hope faded along with it. All day there had been no sign of anything other than the mysterious yacht.

“I’d set the whole damn island alight,” Ginger said. “Burn everything in sight.”

Felix rolled onto his knees and crawled to the open trunk. He looked inside and selected one of the sandwiches.

“You gonna eat your sandwich, Nash?”

Nash said nothing. His attention was fixed on a single gull riding the waves. It was alone, seemingly cast away from the others. The rest of the flock gave it a wide berth whenever it neared. Nash watched it with sympathy, thinking its solitary situation similar to his own. He wondered if it was diseased.

“Hey, let me know if you don’t want this,” Felix prodded. “’Cause I’ll eat it instead if you care to donate.”

Nash broke his gaze from the gull. He turned to Felix and put his hand up in a stopping gesture.

“Nah, I’ll eat it eventually. I’m just waiting for this gut rot to pass—”

A loud squawk whipped Nash’s attention back. In the orange glow he could see something dark rise out of the water, smooth and pointed, resembling the nose of a torpedo. It hit the underside of the gull and lifted it a foot before sliding back under the surface, dragging flapping white wings and open yellow beak with it. A fin or tail thrashed the water once as the gull disappeared.

Nash leapt to his feet. “Holy shit, did you see that?”

Felix and Maria were already looking at the spot. They hadn’t seen half of what Nash had, but what they did glimpse was enough to give them both a sickened look of concern. Ginger and Kenny stopped picking at their skin and raised a pair of oblivious eyes: first to the water, then to Nash.

“What did you see?” Ginger asked.

“Diablo,”
Maria whispered.

Nash and Felix exchanged a look. Felix shook his head in the slightest way, suggesting they not expand on the topic. Nash agreed. No reason to scare anyone more than they already were. The lie came out slowly. A reversal of what had transpired.

“Gull caught a fish,” he mustered. “Snagged a big one too. Impressive.”

Ginger snorted. “Jeez, it don’t take much to entertain you, does it?”

The grit in her voice was sandpaper on Nash’s nerves. An itch on his chest caught the savage scratch he wanted to rake across her face. She went back to picking at her scabs and Nash fantasized about kicking sand in her mouth.

“Fuck off, carrottop,” Nash said, wrapping his arms around his shivering self. “Not much to entertain any of us on this goddamn lump of land.”

“You could benefit from a little rest and relaxation.”

“What I could benefit from is a fucking fix.”

Nash’s pain and frustration were compounding every hour now. All he could think about was a hit, needing a needle in him like a nymphomaniac needed hard dick. Desperation burrowed deeper into his inner dark, trying to avoid being dragged out into the light. It wouldn’t be long before he lashed out at someone.

“Those gulls have the right idea,” Kenny said. “We’ll have to catch fish ourselves soon, once we run out of this here food.”

“There’s more food on the next island,” Felix replied.

Kenny’s eyes bulged. “That’s crazy talk, man.”

Kenny looked around at the rest, expecting sounds and signs of agreement. They avoided eye contact. No one said a word.

“Right?” said Kenny, wide eyes unblinking. “We’re not going to try anything as stupid as that, right, guys?”

Nash shrugged. “Look, I’m not saying it’s not stupid—”

A flurry of dull thumps suddenly pounded the sand. The five turned in the direction of the running footsteps, hearing the last few beats on the beach before the splashing started through the shallows. Nash knew what was happening before he laid eyes on it.

“Oh, shit.”

Everyone scrambled to their feet and made an unbalanced run in the direction of the commotion, stumbling as they went.

“Tal!” Ginger cried. “Stop!”

“What the hell does he think he’s doing?” Felix seethed.

Tal charged into the surf, legs pulling him awkwardly through the water, arms stroking the air as if helping to propel him forward. Running steps soon became lurches as the water deepened. Everyone yelled for his return, Felix’s voice bellowing over the others.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“He is crazed,” Maria said, making the sign of the cross. “His head is sick. He gives in to his demon now.”

“Don’t do it, Tal!” Nash yelled. “It’s too dangerous!”

Felix ran after him, getting as far as the shallows. “Get back here, you crazy son of a bitch. You’ll never make it!”

Tal toppled into the water, churning it frothy with his limbs, fighting against the current. The others ran helplessly to the water’s edge.

“It’s suicide,” said Ginger.

Tal wasn’t listening to a word. The evening light was fading fast. The five onshore yelled again and again, watching in disbelief as Tal stroked his way farther out under the remaining orange hue. Soon he was only a dark bump riding the waves, growing more and more difficult to track with every passing moment.

“He’s a goner,” groaned Felix.

He turned and walked back to the trunk. Everyone followed except Nash. He continued to watch long after he had lost sight of Tal in the fading light, eyes and ears straining for any sign of the man, hoping maybe he would come to his senses and swim back. He waited until the sun finally sank below the horizon, dragging the last of the day’s glow down the side of the planet, leaving him in gloom.

“Godspeed, Tallahassee, you lunatic.”

Nash shuffled back to the others, head hung in defeat. They all took a side around the trunk and lay down. The cool air of emerging night breezed over their bodies, causing them to curl up like flowers in the dark. Quiet descended, the sound of crashing waves continuing their rhythm in the background, interrupted only by the odd cough or groan. Tension and frustration came off each person with an invisible heat. Horrible thoughts collided in their minds, jarring nerves with every hit, their needs and fears wrestling for control.

In time they settled as exhaustion took hold. The silence implied deep slumber, but Nash figured the others just stared at the stars above like he did. For the first time in years he felt afraid of the dark. He would have been thankful for it, though, had he known what it concealed from them that night. Out in the channel, near the spot where Nash had lost track of Tal, the water was clouded red with blood.

Hours later, at the far end of the island, near where a madman had perched on his rock, something ragged and gray washed ashore. Not much was left of Tallahassee Jones in the small hours of the morning. Just his torso connected to what remained of his left arm. It was almost unidentifiable, the bloodless upper body flopping back and forth on the wet sand with each incoming wave like some oversized, half-eaten jellyfish. His appendage was cut to ribbons, only the index finger and thumb left unscathed. Large concave bites cut the corpse off below the sternum, open wounds exposing rib cage and spine. Tal’s jaw and bottom row of teeth sat atop a broken neck. Everything else had been eaten away.

Something large thrashed the shallow water fifty feet from the remains, wanting desperately to get closer, to finish off what it had started.