Salty Sky (18 page)

He checked himself, because his judgment was probably not operating at optimal levels. The fight, the three-day bender, and the hurricane heading to town might have made him focus on the positives. So his house, recreation, and livelihood were at risk with a big storm heading his way? Was there any reason he should be off center?

Cale maintained a running mental commentary beyond the conversation. Of course she had Maggie’s good characteristics and none of the bad. Now she was a goddess down to the flower picked and tucked behind her ear. Two hours ago, she was a lady of the evening. Things changed fast. Good to remember that.

She did have the flaw of not being his girls’ mom. But it’d been a long time and wasn’t his first rodeo since Maggie passed. He wasn’t sure this was even his outcome to choose, although there was certainly a connection between them. At least, he was connected now that he didn’t think she was a westernized geisha. He knew he didn’t own the outcome, but he owned the intent.

The drunks sitting uneasily on the wagon understood. You rechoose everyday. Most days, you lined up to stay out of harm’s way.
Lord, do
not lead me into temptation …
but life wasn’t lived in a bubble. There were old friends, enabling families—crabs in the bucket pulling you back in when you had one claw over the edge. The drunks still took business trips. They still had fancy meals with clients, pressure for sales. Would the clients buy more if you loosened up like you used to?

You didn’t simply choose life once and press autopilot. The PTA, a comfortable house, a college savings plan, Wednesday date night, pickups from practice, a shoulder to lean on, your own shoulder leaned on, volunteer boards. You earned and unearned your life. Generally, life just happened whether you deserved the outcome or not.

Cale noticed he was talking about his kids and grandkids again. Doing a good job presenting himself as a father figure. Not Lothario or Fabio or Brad Pitt. Actually, Brad Pitt had a bunch of kids, so maybe the message was blurring. Was forty really the new thirty? Maybe for people with two-year-olds at forty, not nineteen-year-olds at forty. (Forty? Who was he kidding? What was a twenty-year age difference between friends? He hoped she was older than his daughters.)

A series of
woo-hoo
s turned their heads. Clothes had been kicked off in the yard. Running buttocks were more noticeable at night than you’d think. Bare feet thumped across the dock. What were the odds of someone snagging a splinter on the dock? Would they know now or wonder where it came from in daylight? Someone doing a splay-legged head-over-heels flip was first in the water. The landing was loud and the splash high. Good height on takeoff, but Cale guessed it was an over-rotation. Next, a two-footed jump off the dock. Legs straight, toes pointed down, hands covering breasts. Then a dive. The show ended with a pair of synchronized cannonballs.

ASHLEY HOPED CALE
would and wouldn’t join in—cross impulses. It would be nice to see spontaneity behind the wall of duty. Outside the surfing, all she had seen him do was work. In the water, she could
create a situation without making a decision, some incidental contact underwater perhaps. Something easier than two sober people consciously crossing the Rubicon.

But she wasn’t even looking across the Rubicon yet. If he shed his shorts and took off for the water, she’d have to corral various emotions to reach her decision to join in or not. If he went, she would have to choose between rejecting him now or rejecting him later.

CALE TOOK THE
road less traveled. His knees weren’t up for the dash. He hadn’t ingested as much joint lubricant as the others. He stood and pulled Ashley up. He gave her a small grin and a wink. They walked to the dock. He reached under the handrail, opened a small plastic box, and flipped on the under-the-dock floodlights that pointed at the skinny dippers.

Blake’s manhood telegraphed his thoughts. He embraced the literal and figurative spotlight and went into a dead man’s float. “Eh, check it out. The Washington Monument. Tallest building around.”

Van added, “Shave ’em on back, Blake. It’ll add a half inch to the presentation.”

“Man, chicks dig this seventies motif. You boys worry about your shrinkage and your landscaping issues. Ladies like an all-natural man.”

One of the girls asked, “Is it always that skinny?”

“What? Sweetheart, you are mistaken. The tremendous length has your perspective out of focus. Come a little closer. You’ll see. Use your hands as a measuring device. It’s like a redwood. The height makes you not appreciate the girth until you’re right up on it.”

Laughing, Cale cut the spotlights, and flipped on an LED rope light that wound up the ladder from the water to the dock. He opened a pressurized storage locker and pulled out five towels and set them on the dock for the skinny-dippers. Pilots should never forget they were in the service industry. The laundress in Cale rationalized
what’s one more load?

Walking back toward the house, Ashley asked, “Should we put the outdoor kitchen stuff away?”

“Good idea.”

They finished the cleanup by the time the others were out of the water. Being sober, Cale felt the late hour more than the others. Or maybe—being middle-aged, or as they called it for the last twenty centuries,
old
, he felt the late hour more than Ashley, who also seemed clearheaded. Ashley headed into a powwow with her friends. Cale whistled Jimmy over and snuck off to his bedroom. He paused, then locked the door and put in his earplugs. A clean conscience was a beautiful thing.

14

RADCLIFFE’S ARMS AND
legs were duct-taped to a chair. He searched the room for a means of exit or defense. He spotted paint roller extender sticks and sheetrock putty knives. Mediocre weapons in a hand-to-hand fight if he was free, but nothing to help in this situation. He looked at the alarm panel. If he made it there, could he hit an emergency button? Maybe, but he realized, with no tenant, he didn’t pay to have this space monitored.

He followed his training and used the downtime to think through his options. If his arms or legs had been duct-taped together, he could have flexed and retracted and rubbed to loosen them, weakening the material’s tensile strength. But this was not how he found himself. Each arm was taped individually from bicep to wrist to the chair’s back spines. Each leg was taped individually from knee to ankle to a chair leg. Very effective. He leaned forward and looked at his hands turning purple. He felt the swelling of his feet against his shoes. If he was cut free, it would take minutes before either his hands or his feet would work.

There were three men in the room now, speaking casually off to the side. He could hear their conversation but tried to block it out. Reconnaissance wasn’t needed. Survival was.

The men represented three generations. The middle-aged man was in charge. No introduction with the middle-aged man was necessary
despite this being their first meeting. Radcliffe hadn’t seen a photo of the man in twenty years, but his name often crossed his mind. Being in the situation he was, he definitely knew who he faced.

Radcliffe’s mind sifted through the cleaning and paint schedules for the office. He thought about his wife’s plans for the day. Was there was a chance someone would discover the situation? He wasn’t really sure how much time had passed. He prayed no one came along. No more victims. Nothing short of a SWAT team would save him anyway. Was he the first, or was his old pilot already dead?

When he had come to show the space, it was to just the one younger, darker man. He’d noted the man was Hispanic before unlocking the door, but this was Florida, and he couldn’t be wary of all Hispanics he didn’t know. Radcliffe and the young man’s conversation alternated between English and Spanish. The young man said he was Cuban, and the accent agreed. He certainly did not use the elegant Colombian Spanish that would have concerned Radcliffe, so he let himself relax.

They had made it through the entry lobby and a tour of the first two office spaces. The Cuban had asked good questions that made him think he was a serious prospect. Radcliffe hadn’t seen the short hose until it was swinging toward the side of his head. He was semiconscious through the taping. Now the combination of time, pain, and adrenaline had him fully alert. Radcliffe watched Francisco nod to the older man, who ripped off the tape covering his own face. Radcliffe yelped and noted half his mustache stuck to the back of the tape.

Francisco asked, “Mr. Radcliffe, are you ready to tell me about the villa?”

Radcliffe rubbed his face into his shoulder. Red trickled from the missing mustache. A bloody smear soaked into his shirt’s shoulder. Radcliffe numbly answered, “I am sorry; I don’t know what you’re talking about. I was in the DEA, but I worked a desk and now I collect a pension.”

Left unsaid was that Radcliffe always felt this was how his life
would end. He needed this torture to end before somebody stumbled upon them. If, by chance, Escobar didn’t know the whole story, Radcliffe needed the trail to go cold with his death.

The old man approached again. He took off Radcliffe’s shoes and stuffed paint-thinner-soaked rag strips between his toes. Radcliffe felt the wetness, smelled the odor, and heard a lighter flicker on and off behind him.

Radcliffe watched the look pass between Francisco and the man standing behind him. The younger man moved in front of Radcliffe and bent down with the lighter. Before the Cuban could ignite the rags, Radcliffe’s head sagged dramatically. With feigned meekness he said, “OK. OK. What do you want to know?” This was his chance to sell Escobar the lie.

THE CUBAN RELEASED
the lighter’s trigger and stood up. Francisco asked several questions about the event. All of the answers agreed with the report he had read, but his face showed Radcliffe only skepticism and disdain. Finally, he said, “How many terrorists did it take to kill my brother?”

Radcliffe paused, “There were three of us. Two of my men died. I was the only survivor. When I shot your brother, everyone else was dead. I radioed for a backup helicopter.”