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| An Excerpt from
Public Enemy |
The trip back to his home turf, which he preferred to
make using a route running south of Puerto Rico rather
than north, took him just over three hours. It put him
in dire need of another nap, Cooper swinging out of the
Sir Francis Drake Channel and into the Conch Bay Beach
Club lagoon, a shallow bay wrapped in white sand, palm
trees, and what had once been the best snorkeling,
pound-for-pound, in the Caribbean. The preponderance of
visiting tourists had eroded the pristine quality of the
aquatic scenery somewhat.
Normally, he might have found it interesting that a pair
of U.S. Coast Guard cutters were parked across the
channel from the club. This was something he had seen
before, but only once. Today, however, the only thing
that interested him in the slightest was a drool-ridden
snooze-fest.
He splashed down in the Apache’s skiff and rode over to
the beach club dock. He stepped out of the boat without
tying it off, leaving that for Ronnie, the club’s errand
boy, to handle. Cooper knowing Ronnie would need to
flee, mid-task, from his lunchtime table-bussing duties
in the Beach Club Bar & Grill to do it -- and if Ronnie
couldn’t get there in time, Cooper would be more than
willing to delay his nap for a few minutes to stand and
watch the putz swim out and retrieve the boat from the
open bay. It might even be that the resident barracudas
would grow agitated at the errand boy’s presence, and
bite him.
Cooper planted his feet on solid ground for the first
time in six days at one-fifty in the afternoon, the
oppressive Caribbean sun beating down on him through the
humid soup that passed for air. He had fantasized about
this moment for days, the fantasy largely responsible
for keeping him awake during the latter portions of the
head-to-head battle with his prosthetic-faced opponent.
He had pondered, considered, even salivated at the
prospect of a tall glass of Maker’s Mark on the rocks, a
swordfish sandwich, basket of conch fritters, and a
bare-minimum of eighteen consecutive hours of sleep.
Because of this, Cooper did his best to ignore the
additional presence -- coinciding with the cutters
across the channel -- of the 24’ Royal Virgin Islands
Police Force patrol boat parked against the last piling
of the beach club dock.
Reclined on the pilot’s seat was a cop wearing the
RVIPF’s standard marine base getup -- navy blue polo
shirt, beige khaki shorts, black-and-white checkered cap
with a glossy bill. The cop resembled a running back in
the prime of his career -- thick, muscular thighs, tree
trunks for arms, and an abdomen flat as a board. He also
exuded, by nature, an infectious optimism, one of the
reasons Cooper liked him. His name was Riley, and Cooper
didn’t bother to greet him. He knew that his presence
inevitably meant that the cop’s annoying superior
officer, the chief of police and newly elected Chief
Minister, wanted to see him.
Cooper strolled through the restaurant, the place
crowded today for lunch, ducked behind the thatched-roof
bar, and poured himself a pint glass of Maker’s Mark
over very little ice. The local kid working the bar
continued making the drinks he’d already been making
without so much as a glance in Cooper’s direction.
Cooper took a moment to pull a long sip from the
bourbon. Observing the glass to be emptied by a third,
he served himself a refill, seized a menu from the stack
behind the bar, opened it to the lunch options, swiped
the pen from the breast pocket of the bartender’s
t-shirt, encircled the swordfish sandwich and conch
fritter selections, wrote COOPER across the
bottom in two-inch block letters, set it on the counter
in front of the bartender, thrust a finger upon it, told
the bartender, “Tell Ronnie,” then took his glass of
bourbon and headed out of the restaurant.
Discovering that along with Riley, the patrol boat, and
the cutters, he was also going to have to try to ignore
the chatty buzz at the normally peaceful bar, Cooper
kicked off his Reefs and trekked barefoot through the
sharp-stoned garden path mainly just to prove that he
could. Passing a series of freshly painted, breezily
designed two-unit structures equipped with air
conditioners and colorful flourishes of blossomed
flowers, he ducked past one last palm frond to the last
in the set of bungalows. On this very last of the
buildings, bungalow nine, a board had been nailed into
the concrete foundation on the corner nearest the
garden. Positioned at shoulder height, the sign’s style
and placement reinforced the message its words
delivered:
KEEP OUT.
Cooper ascended the stairs of his weather-beaten
bungalow, came in through the unlocked door, and plunked
himself upon the frayed armchair in the middle of the
room’s main living space. A bed, a table, an ottoman at
the foot of the armchair, a kitchenette with a portable
fridge, and a mostly-outdoor shower-and-toilet stall
were all that defined the place. Cooper took in none of
it, putting back most of the bourbon, holding one of the
ice cubes in his mouth once he’d taken the swallow of
liquor and leaning his head back against the chair’s
soft headrest. A faint hint of hope formed in his head,
a final conscious thought.
It might just be I got away with it. Maybe, just
maybe, I can sleep.
Giving in to sheer, unadulterated bliss, Cooper lost
consciousness before the ice cube melted on his tongue.
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| An Excerpt from
Painkiller |
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A thick rain pelted the metal rooftops of the beach
club, where gray daylight had begun to offer the palm
trees some definition. In thirty, maybe forty minutes,
the sky would be blue, the sand dry -- the island drying
out like a wet paper bag in a hot oven -- but as Ronnie
emerged from his trailer, the rain had yet to abate, and
it dumped on him. He ducked into a cubbyhole behind the
open-air kitchen, where the phone continued its
insistent ringing until he answered it.
"Conch Bay," he said. In Ronnie's Liverpool brogue, the
words came out Kunk Bye.
The voice on the other end of the line spat out a
request. In hearing the caller's aim, Ronnie took a look
behind the garden, where he could see, even in the dim
morning light, the stark outline of bungalow nine. Nine
was built of cinder blocks and painted a luminescent hue
of yellow; windows and doors screened, it appeared
older, shorter, and more eroded than its brethren, squat
and fierce in the face of their more recent
construction. It shared with the others the
architectural feature of a boxy porch standing six steps
above the garden -- high enough for a view of the
lagoon.
Completing his second stroll through the rain, Ronnie
ascended the stairs and banged on the door.
"Cooper!" he said, and took a step back.
It took a while, but when it did, the reply came in a
baritone, the voice sludge-thick with hangover phlegm.
"Keep out."
Ronnie grinned.
"Brought you a gift, Guv. Mutual friend
of ours. You wanna guess who it is. You get it right,
she says she'll come in."
Another silence.
Then the voice said,
"The new one. Dottie."
"Nah," Ronnie said, talking fast,
"just pulling your
leg, old man." He took another backwards step. "You got
a phone call. It's Cap'n Roy. Says he's got a problem --
"emergency situation," he says. Gotta run now -- "
Ronnie made his move, ducking and spinning, arms
flailing for protection, but Cooper covered the distance
from bed to door in one long step. Fully naked, pivoting
at the hip, the permanent resident of bungalow nine got
his full weight behind the Ken Griffey, Jr.,
Autograph-Special Louisville Slugger and smashed the
front door's jalousie panes to splinters, the bat
bursting through the window's mesh screen and sending
shards of glass flying across the porch.
"Run, boy," Cooper said, and watched through the fresh
hole in the door as Ronnie shot down the stairwell and
darted off through the garden. He noted with
satisfaction there appeared to be blood on one of the
boy's shoulders.
Cooper dropped the Louisville Slugger and listened, eyes
closed, to the chock-chock of the bat as it settled on
the concrete floor of the bungalow. He rolled his
shoulders, cracked his knuckles, and pulled in a deep,
slow breath, inhaling the pungent scent of the rain.
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