Cross Current - Kling Christine (бесплатные книги полный формат TXT) 📗
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Go. Get out of here.”
“What? Why?”
“You’re right, I knew Red. He was all right. Malheur’s a psycho prick and I’m sick of his shit. Thinks he’s my boss. That’s the last time that asshole’s gonna spit on me.” Gil spat onto the deck. “Now get outta here.” He pointed down the stairs. “He expects you inside.”
I looked out across the mangroves. The white light was still out there. It wasn’t moving now. Maybe it was just some fisherman anchored out there. Maybe it was someone coming to help. “I can’t leave Solange.”
He shook his head. “Shit.” He walked away and then returned. “Act like you’re totally drugged out.”
He grasped my arm and dragged me to the door. Inside the Voodoo room, the drummers were gone, and the bright lantern was out. The only light in the room came from a couple of candles on the altar. There was no sign of Malheur or the other Haitian man. Gil took me to a chair at the far end of the room, and I sat, slumped over, eyes closed.
Gil and Malheur were speaking in Creole in the other room for quite a while before things grew quiet. Then I heard footsteps crossing the room. They stopped in front of me. I had ingested enough of the drug that I was feeling woozy and disoriented. It was growing more and more difficult to remain still. It felt as though the room were tilting, and I was in danger of slipping off the chair.
A hand enclosed mine where it rested, loose at my side. I could feel the cold metal of the silver rings, so I knew it was Malheur. He lifted my hand level with my shoulder and then let it drop, evidently testing my drugged state. I let the hand flop free and swing.
His breath smelled of rum and cigarettes, and the odor mixed with the earthy smell of the potion he had spilled all over me, making me feel like I was going to vomit again. His face was so close to mine that I could hear the noise his breath made in his nose.
Then a new sound. An odd sort of swish. The sound of two surfaces sliding against each other. Then something cool touched my cheek, and I knew that the sound I had heard had been the noise of his machete being drawn out of the sheath on his belt. The steel lay flat against my face. He pulled it away, and the smell of his breath disappeared. Then the thin sharp edge came to rest on my upper arm. I’d seen how much damage that blade could inflict. It took every ounce of willpower I possessed not to flinch as he drew the steel across my arm and began to cut into my flesh.
I heard running footsteps, then the scream. At first I thought it was me screaming, until I opened my eyes and saw Solange on his back, her tiny fists pounding around his shoulders and knocking the sunglasses off his face. When he stood, she rose with him, still clinging to his back, shrieking at him with words I could not understand. I looked down at the blood dripping to the floor from the cut in my arm, and I felt that it was all happening to someone else. I didn’t feel any pain. Then Malheur reached around and threw the child to the ground. She landed in a still heap, and he was looking at her, laughing, his face turned away from me, his shoulders shaking.
I laced my fingers together, shot up out of the chair, and slammed my hands down across his injured arm just above his grip on the machete. The weapon flew from his hand, and I kicked it across the floor. He roared like an enraged animal and backhanded me across the face with his ring-encrusted hand. I fell against the altar table and heard the sound of breaking glass, saw the flames where the candles ignited the rum, and then I fell to the floor when the table collapsed beneath me. At once, Malheur was standing over me, the whites of his eyes made red by the flames and the rum, his goatee and mustache making him look like Lucifer incarnate. I reached through the rubble, trying to get my hands on a piece of a broken bottle or splintered wood. The flames caught at the nylon tablecloth that had covered the altar and raced toward me. Malheur bared his teeth in a sickening grin, then his eyes grew unfocused and he fell forward on top of me.
The cloth of his black suit was suffocating me as the weight of his body pressed down on my abdomen, nose, and mouth. I couldn’t move his massive chest off my face because my arms were pinned down where his arms crossed mine. I squirmed and struggled, unaware at first that he was not trying to rape me, that he was not, in fact, even moving.
Then the weight was lifted off my face, and I gasped for air and crabbed my way across the floor, away from the bokor and the flames, into a corner of the room. Gil was holding one of Malheur’s arms, and when he released it, the Capitaine flopped back to his facedown position. I saw the machete driven deep into the back of the big man’s skull.
I retched up more stomach acid as I crawled toward Solange’s still form. I hovered over her protectively, eyeing Gil, who stood frozen, staring at the body. I knew the drug was affecting me, and I wasn’t even sure if any of what I was watching was real. The whole table was in flames now, and the smoke was making it difficult to breathe.
Solange began to cough. “Are you okay?” I asked when she opened her eyes. She sat up, rubbing the back of her head, and coughed some more. “We’ve got to get out of here.” I stood up, took Solange’s hand, and gave Gil’s shoulder a shove. “Come on.”
We crossed to the door, and before I opened it, Gil put his hand on my arm, touched the blood. “You’re cut,” he said.
I nodded. “It’s not deep. Come on.”
“I’ve got to stay. He’s coming.”
“Who’s coming?”
“You go. Take the kid. Stay away from the dock—go the other way. You don’t want him to find you.”
“Come with us, Gil.”
“I can’t.” He shrugged. “Get her out of here before he gets here.” He pushed open the door, then grabbed a blanket and started beating at the flames that were now licking around the body on the floor. He looked up. “Get the fuck out of here,” he shouted.
I grabbed Solange’s hand, and we raced down the steps, then bore right, away from the direction of the dock where we’d arrived. There was a pathway of sorts through the bodies stretched out on the ground, but as we passed, the path widened as the people drew back. They were clearly accustomed to violence, and they did everything they could to stay out of reach. At the edge of the clearing, we stepped onto a crudely built wooden walkway that led out through the mangrove swamp toward the island’s eastern shore.
The wooden walkway led out to a short pier over open water, at the end of which was a small shed. I’d seen this type of thing before in the islands. No plumbing required for this head; it was a straight shot down to a tidal flush.
We stopped at the base of the pier, and I looked at the dim white light bobbing about half a mile offshore. It was all shallow out there. The banks stretched for miles. Probably just some fisherman. But it might be Rusty. The light looked like it was dancing, and every time I tried to look right at it, it swerved out of my line of vision.
I looked down at Solange.
“Can you swim?” I asked.
XXVII
She cocked her head at me, not understanding. I pantomimed an Australian crawl, and she shook her head.
“Okay, get on my back and put your arms around my neck.” I adjusted her around behind me piggyback style. I could feel her body trembling, and I knew it was not from the night air. “See that white light?” I pointed the light out to her, attempting to focus my own eyes. I figured she would be less frightened if she could see our destination. “I think that’s Rusty’s boat.” I felt the cut on my upper arm. While not deep, it was still oozing blood. “I’m going to swim us out there, okay?” I tried to sound more confident than I was.
For the first hundred yards or so, I was able to walk across the uneven bottom, my sneakers crunching on the shell and coral, the soles of my shoes getting sliced up in the process. I began to worry about someone seeing us, so I lowered my upper body into the water and started a slow but strong breaststroke. I was glad no one was there to watch my technique— I’d never felt so uncoordinated in the water. It was as though part of my consciousness were standing aside, looking at the rest of me, which was impaired—mentally and physically. The night was so dark, I couldn’t even make out the line of the horizon, where the clouds ended and the waters of the Bahama Banks began. The white light we were headed for looked like it was suspended in a black sky. I began to feel that vertigo again, like I was swimming uphill.
