A Wanted Woman Part 9

The LKs attacked the politician, became rabid pit bulls. War Machine led the charge, and King Killer tucked his condom-covered erection inside of his pants, joined in, and showed me how disgusting he really was, became an evil motherf.u.c.ker in a $2,000 suit, following the rage of War Machine, Guerrero, Kandinsky, a dozen others, all howling like wild animals. Appaloosa joined in, gave the man his rage, gave him the ultimate rage. They attacked the man the way ruthless gangs in L.A. attacked their unarmed prey, the way San Salvadorians attacked their enemy. Naked ingenues cheered like they were in a coliseum, like they were watching lions attack Christians. The LKs left the politician battered and broken, all but unrecognizable, left his defiled mistress abused, distressed, and cowering in horror. The LKs surrounded the older man. The inebriated and drugged crowd cheered.

Handsome and suited guntas took out their c.o.c.ks and p.i.s.sed on the injured man.

The vetted people roared like they were at a European football match and a goal had been scored.

The mistress screamed. She scampered away only to b.u.mp into more young guntas. One grabbed her by the neck and pulled her with him, took her to the ground as if she wasn't done.

Beaten, battered, the politico refused to admit defeat. As he lay bleeding he snapped, "I will go to the Trinidad Express, will show my wounds to Newsday, will send photos to the Guardian, will take to Twitter and Facebook and tell the world the truth. Savages. You're nothing better than savages. There will be no New Trinidad. Motherf.u.c.kers, I will expose the five husbands and Diamond Dust."

Diamond Dust. That was the handle given to Mrs. Ramjit, War Machine's wife.

War Machine said, "You threaten my wife? You f.u.c.king come here and threaten all we have built?"

War Machine motioned, raised three fingers, then pointed to the edge of the rooftop.

Guntas cheered. They roared like savages and did some sort of battle cry.

Six different muscle-strong guntas picked the politico up, grabbing him by his legs and arms, then rushed him through the cheering crowd and raced toward the edge of the five-star hotel. Without hesitation they threw the p.i.s.s-stained politico into the night, sent him on a twelve-floor swan dive.

The middle-aged man's death scream came to an abrupt stop, as did his fall.

Model-esque women from a dozen nations grabbed their garments and heels, stopped giving b.l.o.w. .j.o.bs, licked the corners of their lips; women in Carnival costumes took a final hit of cocaine, picked up their drinks, and scurried toward the elevator, some wining to soca, Bunji Garlin singing that he was ready for the road. I had to make a decision. The job wasn't done, but the target wasn't there. Stress choked me. My intel had been bad. I recovered my little black dress and hurried with chipping feet, re-dressed on the crowded elevator as international women continued to laugh and dance and party and drink. Skysc.r.a.per-high stilettos clip-clopped across floors and moved through Trinidad's dream hotel.

While I decamped into the night with a crowd of drunken vixens, many of them laughed and danced, said that they had had the best night of their lives, planned to go over to the Avenue and find another party. Legs turned weak. Balance tried to fail me. Surrounded by the inebriated, by women on ecstasy and cocaine, I wasn't alone. I cursed a thousand times. Once off the lift, the crowd hurried past the restaurant, moved like it was the running of the bulls, pulled me in their arrogant current. By the time I made it to the reception desk, I blinked over and over, saw him through the double gla.s.s doors that led to Cascade. The target had arrived, flanked by two bodyguards, both men with their weapons drawn.

The target. The target. The target. Those words echoed in my head.

The man they wanted dead before he gave a wicked speech.

I had to kill him. I had to kill him. I had to kill him. I had to kill him now.

I reached into my hair. No chopsticks. The rude girl upstairs. The b.i.t.c.h had taken them.

They were twelve stories above where I stood, and it was impossible to go back for them.

The target and I made eye contact as I pa.s.sed, were shuffled close enough to touch. He looked into my faux hazel eyes, grinned, then frowned like some alarm had gone off inside his head.

His guard pulled him upstream as the crowd forced me downstream.

The target stared at me, never moved his eyes away, then he disappeared.

Everything was blurry for a moment, maybe only for a second, then my feet were being stepped on and I was crushed in the malicious crowd. Everyone had stopped chipping. Many had stopped to stare at the landing spot of the dead politician. He was a broken doll, his body in an impossible position, an expired contortionist. He had landed on his head. He had landed on his d.a.m.n head.

Dora the Explorer sitting next to La.s.sie on a Yellow Submarine.

A few women laughed while men saw the brain matter and threw up.

Others took photos, made videos, were Instagramming and BBMing the world.

I blinked a dozen times, the world out of focus, the stars over my head too close to Earth.

I wasn't done. This contract wasn't completed. I always did my f.u.c.kin' job.

I rushed down the driveway, broke to the right, to the car park one wall away from the swimming area, retrieved the bag that I had staged, hopped inside of the vehicle I had left staged, started the engine, threw away my heels, and was about to drive away, but that would be failure.

I called the Barbarians. "MX . . . MX . . . MX-401. Code red. Code red."

"Line secure. What's the problem?"

Head spinning, words starting to slur and stick together, I told the Barbarians what had happened. This had gone to h.e.l.l and I needed to be extracted right away, to have pa.s.sage on the next flight out of Piarco International Airport and I didn't care where the plane was headed on the globe.

I said, "The location . . . was changed from the intel . . . you supplied . . . moved to the roof. They did full body search . . . took the chopsticks . . . I had ordered. Felt like . . . everything went wrong."

They told me that I had to stay. This contract was a done deal. The man behind the red doors told the go-between to direct me to stay and see the job through; there was no other option.

I said, "You said that this night would be the only opportunity to effect this. .h.i.t."

"You left the event?"

"Everyone vacated the event when it became a murder party. Politicians, clergy, drug dealers, they all left before the spinning blue lights could get here. Then the target walked in as I pa.s.sed the lobby."

"You were in. All you had to do was stay where you were, wait for the target to arrive."

"They beat and murdered a man, raped a woman in front of a hundred people."

"That changes nothing. Our contract is still on, still has a deadline, Reaper."

"That changed everything. I create crime scenes, but I will not work on top of one."

"We will be forced to make it happen tomorrow."

"There are no events tomorrow night, none that were outlined in the intel."

"Daytime. He has a bank drop tomorrow afternoon, a last-minute photo op before he goes to make the speech. It was added to his agenda just before he arrived in Trinidad. It will have to do."

"You have someone on the inside?"

"We have new intel."

"Has that been verified, or is it as f.u.c.ked-up as the info you had regarding the party that was supposed to be on the f.u.c.king ground level at the pool, then ended up on the roof-f.u.c.king-top?"

"It has been verified. He made an appointment at Scotiabank in Port of Spain."

"You expect me to do a hit at a bank during the day? During high-traffic hours?"

"We need it done before nightfall tomorrow. It will be the last chance to make it happen."

"When did you forget about his bad idea and pull that worse idea out of your a.s.s?"

"It's only been on the table for the last two hours as backup. We had hoped you would have succeeded tonight, but you have let us down. Get to the safe house. We will send you the updates."

"This is bulls.h.i.+t."

I told them about the way the target had looked at me as he was being rushed inside. It made me anxious. The main guntas had seen me up close. I was disguised, but they had seen me up close. I had been compromised. It was a gut instinct.

I said, "There will be no tomorrow, not after they killed a man tonight."

"Don't be paranoid, MX-401."

"I'm not f.u.c.kin' paranoid. I just watched them rape a young girl and throw a man from a f.u.c.kin' roof. There were a hundred people up there and she was raped for sport, raped while the man she was with was beaten half to death and p.i.s.sed on, then the monsters threw the man from the roof."

"Calm down, MX-401."

"Look, b.i.t.c.h, go behind the red doors, pick up the phone, and let me talk to the man at the top."

"Get to your safe house. Stay there until instructed otherwise."

"No."

"No? What does 'no' mean?"

"Until the man behind the double red doors calls, I'm sticking to the plan."

"Listen, you arrogant b.i.t.c.h. Get to the northeast of the island to the safe house."

"I'm not a f.u.c.k-up. I will see this bulls.h.i.+t plan through. I'm going back in, weapon-heavy. I can get in before the police show up. If not, I can walk right by them. I'll go floor to floor and find the target's suite. Guards will be outside of his room, that will be the tell. I'll get by them and do the f.u.c.kin' job."

"We will make it so you can do this tomorrow. Those are your new orders."

"No way am I going to walk into a bank to kill a man."

"And those orders have been double verified."

"I will do this my way, not according to that plan, and it will be done tonight."

"That's the main issue. We're an organization that has a structure. We have a pecking order. You're unpredictable. Random. You take the simplest task and make it as f.u.c.king complicated as possible. We sent you on this job and you were to stay until it was complete, and you failed."

"I will finish this tonight. There is nothing complicated about that."

On fire, I killed the call and dropped the phone on the floor.

They called and called and I ignored the ringing of the phone.

I pulled on combat boots but didn't change the rest of my clothes, didn't pull on a vest, didn't change into dark clothing. A flush of heat attacked me. Dizzy. I grabbed at my backpack, trying to hurry, taking deep breath after deep breath. I slapped my face over and over, tried to shake off whatever had been put in my drink, now afraid, drowsy, and angry as f.u.c.k. I could do this tonight. I was strong. Could get my breath, shake off the poison. Had to. Needed to hurry back to the hotel, had to find where the guards had taken the target, could threaten whoever was at the front desk and get the information. As I sat in the vehicle, I started digging inside my bag, pulling out a .9mm, pulling out M84 stun grenades. Hard. I would have to go in hard, flash and bang, shooting off rounds, shooting guntas.

I looked at the end of my wrist and saw six hands, each hand holding a gun. Each finger weighed a thousand pounds, my tongue a ton of red meat. Soon I was barely blinking. Soon I was almost paralyzed. I fought it. Opened and closed my hands in slow motion. Lifted my arms.

As people rushed to cars to leave the area, as a dozen sirens zoomed toward the Carlton Savannah, I grabbed my hair, accidentally removed my wig, dropped it in my lap, cursing soft curses as my world started spinning, as the world went black, that heavy gun in hand, the world went away.

I died.

EIGHT.

I saw my mother. That meant I had gone to h.e.l.l.

I saw her standing outside the car, six feet tall, slender, her brown skin so beautiful.

She hated me. I hated her because she hated me.

When I closed my eyes and opened them again, she was gone, now replaced with many men in Italian suits. King Killer, War Machine, Appaloosa, and the rest of the savages were outside my car window.

They reached for their holstered weapons.

I reached for my gun. It wasn't there. It wasn't on the floor of the car.

Rapid gunfire attacked me.

Hard taps on the tinted window woke me, taps that were like rapid gunfire. I jerked awake, head pounding, dress stuck to my skin, one breast exposed, sweat running down my face and back.

TTPS. Trinidad and Tobago Police Service were outside my driver-side window.

Fighting to regain consciousness, I adjusted my clothing, tried to remember what had happened.

The sun had come up. Police cars were in the lot with mine. The gun was at my foot. My flash and bang were on the floor. I let the window down. Raised my hand to my eyes to block the sun.

The officer had seen me through the front winds.h.i.+eld.

He asked, "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine."

"We thought you had overdosed."

"Wow. All these police cars. What's going on?"

"Were you at the Carlton Savannah?"

"I was on Ariapita Avenue, then had to drive back to my hotel, got lost, then felt sick and pulled over here, closed my eyes. I think someone at the bar put something in my drink. I pa.s.sed out."

"You're American."

Once again a Hitchc.o.c.k blonde, I nodded, said, "From Brooklyn. Down here on vacation. Broke up with my boyfriend. Got into it with his ex-wife. Long story short, I came here to drink and get away."