Powder Burn - Carl Hiaasen [104]
Meadows was swimming offshore with a full, lazy breast stroke, his head out of the water. The beach was deserted except for two figures, a small girl with shoulder-length blond hair and a lovely tanned woman in a dark bathing suit. They were running hand in hand, and the sound of the girl’s giggling and her mother’s husky laughter drifted like music out to the architect. He paddled to shallower water until his feet met the grainy bottom. Standing upright, he shouted and waved happily with both arms.
The girl and the woman stopped running and waved back. The little one yelled something. Meadows put a hand to his right ear, to show that he was out of earshot. They strolled toward the water, and the little girl shouted again, this time cupping her tiny hands to her mouth.
Meadows was still too far to hear. He began to move out of the water, skating his legs against a mild undertow. “Just a minute,” he shouted, but the words died in a mounting rush of engine noise.
Meadows scanned the clouds but found no airplane. Looking down the beach, he located the source of the roar, a red Ford Mustang. It churned along the water’s edge, its fat tires spitting beach sand with the exhaust.
“Look out!” Meadows called to the woman and her daughter. But they would not take their eyes off him. They smiled and waved stupidly. Meadows pointed with both arms.
“Watch out for the car! Get in the water, hurry!”
Out of nowhere the little girl produced an ice cream cone and held it out, motioning for Meadows to come get his present. He thrashed toward the beach, and the splashing of his legs drowned in the earsplitting approach of the car, a blur now, one hundred yards and closing fast. Behind the windshield Meadows could see the forms, but not the faces, of two dark men.
The offshore current suddenly seemed to hug his midsection, driving him back a step. Using his arms, Meadows lifted each leg and pushed forward toward the beach. He knew he would never get there in time.
Couldn’t they see the car?
The woman and the little blond girl watched him curiously, smiling. They thought he was clowning around, trying to make them laugh.
Meadows was only a few yards from shore when his legs buckled and his feet went out from under him, cleaned out by some invisible cross-block. He went down in slow motion, a horrid freeze-frame image of the girl, her mother and the speeding car locked in his eyes.
A terrible cry sprung from Meadows’s lungs as he fell, but it died in his throat as his head went under.
Run, it said.
When he came up, the woman and her blond daughter lay in a broken, bloody heap on the beach. The red Mustang was stopped fifty yards away. The two men were unfurling a canary-colored beach towel to lie down on.
Meadows dug his fingers into the wet-cement sand and dragged himself out of the water, crying. He stood up, weaving, and made his way to where the bodies lay.
The little girl’s eyes, as green as his own, seemed to stare past him into the boiling sun. Blood ran in thick trails from both nostrils.
Meadows fell to his knees, sick and dizzy. He keeled sideways, and his head hit the beach with no sound. He scrabbled pathetically at the packed sand, and he lifted two handfuls, letting the grains sprinkle down on his face and hair. He noticed that it was not sand at all, but something flaky and white.
“Cocaine,” Meadows said aloud, closing his eyes. Dunes of cocaine.
The last thing he heard was the noise of a car being started.
He awoke, as always, damp in an acrid sweat and clutching for Terry. But her half of the bed was empty. Still trembling, Meadows shambled toward the kitchen, where he heard her voice on the phone. He folded himself into a hard-back chair at the table and tried to shake the dark fog of the dream.
“Yes, señorita, is this La Cumparsita? Bueno, I am calling for Señor Bermúdez…yes, yes, I am one of his secretaries.” Terry giggled. “Oh, yes, he has several.”
A real pro, Meadows thought proudly. She’s perfect.
“Señor Bermúdez would like to verify