Michael Gruber: Night of the Jaguar

“No, I’m fine.”

He sat on the edge of the pallet. “Then I’m off. In case of the worst, there’s a packet with your name on it in the right-hand drawer of my desk. It has some letters of introduction should you wish to pursue a career in wasp entomology. You should work on your reading, of course, but there are a number of people I know who would be happy to have you in their labs. I’ve made some financial arrangements as well, so you won’t be absolutely destitute, I hope you don’t mind…”

“Cooksey…”

“No, no weepies, dear, we haven’t the time for it. And may I say what a pleasure it’s been knowing you these last months, quite the nicest thing that happened to me in a very bleak time. Oh, and you can have myWind in the Willows. ”

Before she could say a word to him he was out of the room and pushing the high cabinet into place. She lay back on her pillow, cried briefly, and then exhaustion carried her back into sleep.

El Silencio had prepared for the night’s work as best he could, given the short notice. He had located a contact of Hurtado’s, a small-time dealer who operated out of a derelict trailer park in the south county, and he had taken his men there to run through the operation. The problem was that although he knew the approximate layout of the property, he had no idea where the woman might be when they arrived. He had decided, therefore, to send teams of two to each of the two small cottages, while he and Ochoa waited at the main house. If the woman was in one of the cottages, they’d bring her out; if she was in the house, then the whole group would surround and assault it from several directions. They rehearsed these evolutions in the trailer park until El Silencio was satisfied that his people would not actually trip all over themselves during the real thing. He was not really confident, but he had little choice. Besides, he didn’t think that a woman and a couple of civilians would give them much trouble.

They arrived at two in the morning, pulling right into the driveway of the property. The gate was not locked, and the place was completely dark and quiet, the only sound being the wind in the foliage and splashing water. El Silencio recalled that there was some kind of pool. The night was clear, with a crescent moon, and with these and the sky glow from the city, there was enough light to walk without stumbling out here, although it would be quite dark on the paths.

He and Ochoa went through the archway that led to the patio and stood in the shadows while their teams set out on the paths leading to the two cottages. From here they could keep watch on the front door of the main house and also keep the exit from the property under watch. They waited without talking.

Then an orange flash lit the undersides of the palm fronds above them and then came the BANG, far louder than a gunshot. They saw the glow of a bright fire. Ochoa cursed and ran out. El Silencio heard a high-pitched shrieking, like that of a pig being stuck, mixed with curses and calls for Momma. In a moment, there was another, louder blast, which rattled the palm tops and the windows.

He heard Ochoa shouting and the sound of footsteps going away. The shrieks died away. Now three loud gunshots, which sounded to El Silencio like.45s. Then silence.

The gangster moved farther into the dark corner of the patio, sinking down behind a large, covered propane grill cart. It was his principle that when things went to shit, the best thing to do was not to race off as Ochoa had just done, but to remain calm and quiet, to see what would develop. He took out his nine-millimeter pistol and listened. Obviously, someone had planted bombs on the paths, and these had taken out his four men. He hadn’t thought that these people had the skills to do that, but he had been wrong and that was that. Ochoa had just as obviously stumbled into an ambush, yet another argument for staying calm and quiet. He could probably escape himself, but he was reluctant to do this. He had never failed before, and he thought he could still shoot all the people opposing him and take the Vargos woman. He actually preferred to work alone.

He heard a woman’s voice calling out, and then a man speaking. A door slammed shut. He waited for over forty minutes and was about to stand up and change position when he heard footsteps on a sandy path, then the sound of steps on paving. A thin man of around fifty dressed in black clothes walked past into the patio. El Silencio rose from behind the grill and shot him three times in the back.

The bombs had awakened Jenny, and she was looking out the window of the door that led from her alcove to the patio, so she saw Cooksey fall. Without thinking she opened the door and darted out. The man was standing over Cooksey’s body. She saw the blood pooling beneath him and let out a cry. The man heard it and turned around, raising his gun. He said something in Spanish and pointed the gun at her. She spun on her heel and ran from the patio.

El Silencio almost shot the girl but checked himself at the last instant. This was clearly the redhead who had escaped from the garage, and he was intensely curious to find out how she had done that. Also, once he had her, he could make her tell him where La Vargos was. He sped off in pursuit.

They were on a dark path. She and El Silencio hurdled the slumped and smoking forms of two of his men and then she cut sharply to the left, down a narrower path that rose slightly and changed from coarse sand to rough stone. The sound of rushing water grew progressively louder. He put on more speed. The girl was not more than three feet from him. Suddenly they burst into the open. His shoes clattered on rock. He reached out to grab at her flowing red hair and then he saw her leap into the air and sink out of sight. His feet splashed through water, he tried to slow down, but his thin city shoes slipped on the slick stones and he felt himself falling through the dark.

It was a fifteen-foot drop to the bottom of the waterfall, and El Silencio fell badly, suffering a compound fracture of his left arm and numerous deep scrapes on his legs and back from the rough coral rock. The force of the falls sent him deep under the water, but he was a competent swimmer and was able to struggle one-armed to the surface. There he rolled onto his back, and keeping his left arm pressed to his chest, he began kicking to move himself to the edge of the pond. He was thinking about what he would do to this girl when he had her.

The first piranha hit at his thigh where it bled from its scrape, ripping out a chunk of meat the size of a shot glass. El Silencio made a sound that would have been a scream in a person with normal vocal machinery but emerged as a long rasping yawp. He flapped both arms and sank, and then the whole school was upon him.

Jenny sat at the shallow end and watched the water churn and churn and grow reddish and then become quiet again. She ran back to the patio. Cooksey was not quite dead yet, but unlike the dying men she had seen in the movies, he did not have any choked last words. She called the police and then sat by him and held his hand while he died. Her tears fell on his face, making clear tracks through the commando paint.

Jimmy Paz slept fitfully that night, although he observed that his wife was perfectly at rest, and after popping in and out of sleep, he decided to get up and start his new life as a maybe demigod with a cup of coffee. He made a pint of Bustelo in the stove-top hourglass pot and warmed an equal amount of milk in a pan, and when the cafe con leche was ready he took it out to the back patio with a plate of Cuban bread toast, butter, and guava jam. He watched the sky go from pink to cerulean blue, dotted with tiny specks of fleece, and then, to his surprise, the front doorbell rang, and it was Tito Morales.