Jeff Lindsay - Dexter by Design

We took the elevator up and strolled down the hall to the room, and when we got inside, Chutsky put the briefcase carefully on the bed and sat beside it, and it occurred to me that he had brought it with us to the rooftop bar for no reason I could see, and was now being rather careful of it. Since curiosity is one of my few flaws, I decided to indulge it and find out why.

“What's so important about the maracas?” I asked him.

He smiled. “Nothing” he said. “Not a single damn thing.”

“Then why are you carrying them all over Havana?” He held the briefcase down with his hook and opened it with his hand. “Because” he said, “they're not maracas anymore.” And sliding his hand into the briefcase, he pulled out a very serious looking automatic pistol. “Hey presto” he said.

I thought of Chutsky lugging the briefcase all over town to meet Ee-bangh, who then came in with an identical briefcase —both of which were shoved under the table while we all sat and listened to “Guantanamera'.

“You arranged to switch briefcases with your friend” I said.

“Bingo.”

It does not rank among the smartest things I ever said, but I was surprised, and what came out of my mouth was, “But what's it for?”

Chutsky gave me such a warm, tolerant, patronizing smile that I would gladly have turned the pistol on him and pulled the trigger.

“It's a pistol, buddy” he said. “What do you think it's for?”

“Um, self-defense?” I said.

“You do remember why we came here, right?” he said.

“To find Brandon Weiss” I said.

“Find him?” Chutsky demanded. “Is that what you're telling yourself?

We're going to find him?” He shook his head. “We're here to kill him, buddy. You need to get that straight in your head. We can't just find him, we have to put him down. We've got to kill him. What'd you think we were going to do? Bring him home with us and give him to the zoo?”

I guess I thought that sort of thing was frowned on here” I said. I mean, this isn't Miami, you know.”

“It isn't Disneyland, either” he said, unnecessarily, I thought.

“This isn't a picnic, buddy. We're here to kill this guy, and the sooner you get used to that idea the better.”

“Yes, I know, but—”

“There ain't no but,” he said. “We're gonna kill him. I can see you have a problem with that.”

“Not at all” I said.

He apparently didn't hear me —either that or he was already launched into a pre-existing lecture and couldn't stop himself. “You can't be squeamish about a little blood” he went on. “It's perfectly natural. We all grow up hearing that killing is wrong.” It kind of depends on who, I thought, but did not say.

“But the rules are made by people who couldn't win without “em. And anyway, killing isn't always wrong, buddy” he said, and oddly enough he winked. “Sometimes it's something you have to do. And sometimes, it's somebody who deserves it. Because either a whole lot of other people will die if you don't do it, or maybe it's get him before he gets you. And in this case —it's both, right?” And although it was very odd to hear this rough version of my life-long creed from my sister's boyfriend, sitting on the bed in a hotel room in Havana, it once again made me appreciate Harry, both for being ahead of his time and also for being able to say all this in a way that didn't make me feel like I was cheating at Solitaire. But I still couldn't warm to the idea of using a gun. It just seemed wrong, like washing your socks in the baptismal font at church.

But Chutsky was apparently very pleased with himself. “Walther, nine millimeter. Very nice weapons.” He nodded and reached into the briefcase again and pulled out a second pistol. “One for each of us” he said. He flipped one of the guns to me and I caught it reflexively. “Think you can pull the trigger?” I do know which end of a pistol to hold onto, whatever Chutsky might think. After all, I grew up in a cop's house, and I worked with cops every day. I just didn't like the things —they are so impersonal, and they lack real elegance. But he had thrown it at me as something of a challenge, and on top of everything else that had happened, I was not about to ignore it. So I ejected the clip, worked the action one time, and held it out in the firing position, just like Harry had taught me. “Very nice” I said. “Would you like me to shoot the television?”

“Save it for the bad guy” Chutsky said. “If you think you can do it.” I tossed the gun on the bed beside him. “Is that really your plan?” I asked him. “We wait for Weiss to check into the hotel and then play OK Corral with him? In the lobby, or at breakfast?” Chutsky shook his head sadly, as if he had tried and failed to teach me how to tie my shoes. “Buddy, we don't know when this guy is going to turn up, and we don't know what he's going to do.

He may even spot us first.” He raised both eyebrows at me, as if to say, “Ha —didn't think of that, did you?”

“So we shoot him wherever we find him?”

“The thing is to just be ready, whatever happens” he said. “Ideally, we get him off someplace quiet and do it. But at least we're ready” He patted the briefcase with his hook. “Ivan brought us a couple of other things just in case, too.”

“Like landmines?” I said. “Maybe a flame-thrower?”

“Some electronic stuff” he said. “State-of-the-art stuff. For surveillance. We can track him, find him, listen in on him —with this stuff we can hear him fart from a mile away.” I really did want to get into the spirit of things here, but it was very hard to show any interest in Weiss's digestive process, and I hoped it wasn't absolutely essential for Chutsky's plan.

In any case his entire James Bond approach was making me uncomfortable. It may be very wrong of me, but I began to appreciate just how lucky I had been so far in life. I had managed very well with only a few shiny blades and a hunger —nothing state of the art, no vague plots, no huddling in foreign hotel rooms awash with uncertainty and fire power. Just happy, carefree, relaxing carnage. Certainly, it seemed primitive and even slapdash in the face of all this high-tech steel-nerved preparation, but it was at least honest and wholesome labor. None of this waiting around spitting testosterone and polishing bullets. Chutsky was taking all the fun out of my life's work.

Still, I had asked for his help, and now I was stuck with it. So there was really nothing to do but put the best possible face on things and get on with it. “It's all very nice”1 said, with an encouraging smile that did not even fool me. “When do we start?” Chutsky snorted and put the guns back in the briefcase. He held it up to me, dangling it from his hook. “When he gets here” he said.

“Put this in the closet for now.” I took the briefcase from him and carried it to the closet. But as I reached to open the door I heard a faint rustling of wings somewhere in the distance and I froze. What is it? I asked silently. There was a slight inaudible twitch, a raising of awareness, but no more.

So I reached in the briefcase and got my ridiculous gun, holding it at the ready as I reached for the closet's door knob. I opened the door —and for a moment I could do nothing but stare into the unlit space and wait for an answering darkness to spread protective wings over me. It was an impossible, surreal, dream-time image —but after staring at it for what seemed like an awfully long time, I had to believe it was true.

It was Rogelio, Chutsky's friend from the front desk, who was going to tell us when Weiss checked in. But it certainly didn't look like he was going to tell us much of anything, unless we listened to him through a Ouija board. Because if appearances were any guide at all, judging by the belt so tightly wrapped around his neck and the way his tongue and eyes bulged out, Rogelio was extremely dead.