Page 77 of Triple Threat

“No, no, I don’t know what name your little white ass is going by these days, but when you killed my brother, set his warehouse on fire, and sank his boat, you were Mister Winthrop. I remember that, you left me with a gift.” He raised his shirt to show a ragged scar going up the side of his torso. I remembered him now, I had taken him down with a tactical strike and then tossed him into the water where he ended up tangled with a boat propeller.

“Ah, last time I saw you, you looked like chum,” I said. This was possible the worst place to run into a hostile. I had no weapons on me, and there was a fair chance that there were literally no guns on the island. I sat the bag of sundry goods on the ground and gestured. “Are we going to do this?”

“Not going to beg?” he asked.

“I kicked your ass once, I should give you a chance to apologize to leave with your dignity and all your teeth.” I flexed my hand and popped my neck.

“You cocky piece of shit,” he snarled and brandished a fishing spear head. It looked wickedly sharp, and the hooked blade was sure to snag in flesh. If he got that in me, it would leave a nasty hole that would be hard to sew up.

He swung a tight slash, blade a silver blur.

I stepped toward him, evading his steel and getting into the last place he expected, right in his face. Right fist to the solar plexus, right foot inside his instep, he grunted from the hit, left fist to the chin.

His teeth clacked together and his head rocked back. He might have been bigger than me, and stronger, but he was a stereotypical big guy. Strong, but slow. More bluff than actual show.

Right fist to solar plexus again. His feet tangled with mine when he tried to back up, I was too close to slash or stab, inside his arms. If he was smart, he would have done what Roan would do in the sparring matches we had. Grapple, submission hold, choke hold.

He did none of these things, the only weapon he had was the spear point.

Left hand to nose, rocking his head back again.

His feet came out from under him, and then he fell.

Right foot to groin, left foot to face. There was a crunch, and he spewed a ribbon of blood from his mouth and nose, and his head bounced hard against the ground. I stepped forward again and finished by stomping his right wrist, forcing him to yield the spear point.

“You’re a dead man.” He spat blood.

“You made quite a few mistakes,” I said, and stomped my heal into his larynx, crushing cartilage with a horrific wet sound. “First you tried to come after me. Second, you came alone. Third, you only brought an improvised knife. Do you know what the worst mistake you made was, the one that cost you your life?” His eyes were bulging, struggling to breathe through a crushed throat, with a bruised diaphragm, and a shattered nose.

“You took the time to talk to me. Fucking rookie mistake.” I picked up his spear point, a precision-made piece of titanium, with a long shank intended to be attached to a graphite or carbon fiber shaft. “This is a nice point, but if you had actually brought the entire thing, the speargun, the spear, and you shot me, you might have survived. Instead, you’re choking on your own blood.”

He grunted, and I heard his bowels loosen.

I felt my hand tremble, the adrenaline was still boiling under my skin. I grabbed the big man under the arms and dragged him out of sight. Fucking cleanup? Ugh. The last thing I wanted on my mini-vacation with Sadie to be ruined by some island Clouseau Cop to bumble their way through a dead foreigner.

Fuck.

At least the island was low tech, there was no massive surveillance system, no constant electronic observation, no CCTVs, and with the hour growing late, no witnesses. Thank God for that. I left him under a stone quay. They would find him, but it might take a day or two, maybe longer if the current or a scavenger found him.

When I returned to the small plaza near the dispensary, my bag was still sitting where I left it. The spear point fit easily into the bag, and I almost walked right back to the hut where Sadie was. I felt another tremor run through me. I didn’t need to go to her right now, I was still sharp, still on the edge of being ready to react, to lash out.

I went the other direction and found the cabana, and more importantly, the bartender hadn’t packed up yet. “What time do you close shop?”

“If you need a drink, I don’t,” the woman said. She was gorgeous ebony, with an electric smile. I smiled back, but it was a façade, practiced and proven to be disarming.

“Thank you, what do you have that’s strong?”

“How strong do you need?” she asked.

“Have anything one hundred proof or over?” She did, a 103-proof island rum. It wasn’t dark, wasn’t aged, and it was harsh. It burned through me and blunted the twitches and knives that were jagging through my body.

The walk back to the hut was uneventful, and I was thankful for that. There were no police, no pedestrians, nothing to indicate that anything had happened, nothing to indicate a very large angry Rastafarian drug dealer had been killed there.

Sadie was asleep when I pulled the curtain of the hut back. I had let my guard down, this place had no defensible points, no cover, and I had no firearms. What had I been thinking? I paced a few times and then hid the spear point in the luggage. She looked so peaceful, sleeping.

I laid down next to her, putting an arm around her shoulders and my face against the back of her neck. She didn’t smell like coconuts, just the faintest hint of bodywash and clean water, the scent of the linens she was wrapped in.

I crashed, the low after the adrenaline high.

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