CHAPTER ONE
THE LIDO CABANA bar sat far enough from the hotel and the beach that I could see anyone approach from either direction, a must for a fugitive on constant alert for those who wanted to ruin a life with an extradition back to the States for kidnap and murder. The cerulean sky, the white sand beach, and the temperature at three o’clock—an impeccable eighty degrees—created a perfect wedding day. The Punta Bandera Hotel and Beach Club, packed with tourists, would make it difficult to differentiate friend from foe. Didn’t matter—I was ebullient over my friend’s wedding. The tanned and sandy, all-but-nude visitors kept coming up to the bar, ordering pina coladas, rum punches, ice-cold daiquiris, and drinking them by the gallons. Their thirsty appetite kept my hands busy and my smile constant. The hotel didn’t pay much in salary, but the tourists gave generously in the tip jar. Money we needed to feed and clothe our fourteen children.
Not all of them legally mine but loved just the same.
My wife Marie and I had rescued most of the kids from at-risk homes in South Central Los Angeles and brought them here to Costa Rica for a better life, and it warmed my heart to watch them thrive.
I raised my hand and waved at our mob of children making their way down the path from the hotel, herded by Marie with Rosie, our housekeeper, pushing two infants in a double stroller. The children wore tee shirts that mimicked formal black and white tuxedos, cute little penguins all happy beyond belief. Drago had brought the shirts from the States and insisted everyone wear them at the ceremony. I had one on under my aloha Hawaiian hotel shirt, ready for the festivities to begin as soon as Chacho relieved me from my bar duties.
Aleck and Alisa, parents of the bride, Layla, already sat at the bar doing some serious drinking—vodka martinis dry enough to drink in the Gobi. Neither approved of their daughter’s marriage to my friend—my best friend, Karl Drago. “A socially inept, knuckle-dragging Neanderthal,” they claimed—the sentiment more Alisa than Aleck. They forgot to mention Drago’s heart of gold. No one would take better care of their daughter. No one.
Aleck and Alisa had once been our best friends in our little town of Tamarindo, Costa Rica. But now they blamed me for Drago’s entry into their daughter’s life. Two months earlier, Aleck, a local doctor, had delivered my son Tobias, one of the children in the double stroller. The day after the birth—a complicated, high-risk procedure—in gratitude to the couple, I agreed to escort Alisa in returning their daughter, Layla, back to Costa Rica from her college, USC—University of Spoiled Children. What I had not known at the time was that Layla had been held against her will with a ransom demand of one hundred thousand dollars and that I had been asked along for my particular talents in chasing violence, a reputation I
was working hard to put behind me.
In the end, Layla came back with Karl Drago, her long, lustrous black hair cut just below her ears, a colorful dragon tattoo on her back, and with an infant child of questionable parentage that she’d picked up in LA. All of this apparently caused by me and hence the unjust acrimony.
Marie headed directly toward me at the bar with a huge smile. She went up on tip-toes. I leaned over and kissed her. When I tried to pull away, she grabbed my head and really laid one on me. She was happy. She loved weddings. She thought the one between Drago and Layla the most perfect union in the world. On top of the glorious wedding, I had also promised her that I’d never go back to the States and I meant it. She could now visualize a storybook life in a wonderful country with fourteen children. I couldn’t blame her; I was just as overjoyed.
A few of the customers at the bar whooped and slapped the counter at the kiss. Marie let go, staring into my eyes. I stared back to let her know I loved her more.
Otis Brasher, a fat man in a seersucker suit, clothes too hot for the afternoon, took a wet cigar from his mouth and said, “Heh, heh, newlyweds, huh? Must be that three-week thing.”
Marie, still looking into my eyes, answered him, “Nope, it’s that five-year thing.”
Brasher was a new live-in occupant at the hotel. He’d been there for two months and sat all day on the same barstool chugging down too-sweet grasshoppers. I’d seen his kind again and again. They flee the States as white-collar criminals or tax evaders and take up residency in the hotel until they get the lay of the land. Then they buy an estate next to other expat criminals.
We lived in one of those estates, abandoned by a criminal who craved the depravity Costa Rica lacked. He rented to us and returned to the States, to the turmoil caused by bumper-to-bumper traffic, gun violence, and masses of people too busy chasing lives they’ll never catch. Traded it for the quiet serenity of Costa Rica.
The cheering brought me out of my trance with Marie. I caught a sour look from Alisa as she stared up the path toward the hotel. Drago in all his glory shambled along carrying his wife-to-be in the same manner as if walking across the threshold.
Drago wore 3X clothes, a huge man, his body underneath his tux tee shirt littered with scars from gunshots, stabbings, and bludgeonings. He was covered in tattoos that started on his feet and traveled the length of his body: Celtic crosses, Vikings with swords and angry expressions, gang members with bandanas just above their eyes pointing double-barreled shotguns—all tattoos from another part of his life that he’d left far behind. He’d grown his hair out to cover the tatts on his no-longer bald pate.
During the ceremony and for their honeymoon in Rio, Marie and I were taking care of Layla’s infant child—the child rescued from a baby farm in California—Daphne or “Daph.” The sad reality was that Aleck and Alisa wanted nothing to do with the child.
In the three weeks Drago and Layla would be gone, Marie had plans to both repair our friendship with Aleck and Alisa and convince them to love Daph. I told her “good luck.” In my past life as a cop working the streets of south LA I’d seen too many Family 415’s where one side digs in, refusing to budge; and that was Aleck and Alisa’s position now. No way, no how. But once Marie sets her mind to something, I just step out of the way and keep my head down.
Layla at five foot four and a hundred pounds looked like an exotic doll in Drago’s arms.
The crowd of local friends and even a few Drago had invited from the States, along with all the kids, moved in a slow-moving mob down the beach where a large tent-like shade had been set up in a coned-off area. Under the shade sat six round tables for ten and a mobile bar staffed with a congenial bartender. Off to one side the hotel had laid down a hardwood surface for dancing and a stage for the calypso band. It was going to be a night to remember on the sand under a moonless sky lit with tiki torches.
Drago had insisted on paying for the entire affair. I didn’t ask where he got his money. But I knew. Before he’d met Layla, he’d sworn a vendetta against all outlaw motorcycle gangs. When he attacked, he maimed and mutilated, destroyed their drugs, and took their money. He’d promised me now that he was a father and a husband, he’d be leaving that life far behind. He had yet to state what he intended to do for a living. Maybe live off his spoils.
I wanted to tell him that I too had changed my life by moving down to Costa Rica, but a person can’t chase violence and not expect it to bite back. Fate, like a recurring dormant virus, would periodically heat up and pull me back to the States. This had happened a number of times—old business as yet unfinished. After the last time two months ago though, I believed I was finally in the clear, free to settle down and enjoy the life I so desperately wanted with Marie and the children.
I couldn’t wait to get relieved from the cabana bartending gig to join in the fun. I turned to see Chacho coming down the walk carrying a large round tray on his shoulder loaded with chopped fruit garnish for the tropical drinks. Then I realized I’d missed something.
Waldo.
While I worked my regular shift at the cabana bar the night before, Marie had picked up Drago, Daph, and Layla at the airport in San Jose. I’d forgot to
ask Marie if Drago had brought along my nemesis, Waldo, Drago’s hundred-and-thirty-pound Rottweiler. That dog loved to taunt me, and I didn’t know why. Smartest dog I’d ever met, but rude. Drago spoke to him in German, and at times, I’d seen Drago give Waldo a complicated, multifaceted command. Waldo somehow knew how to accomplish the request.
Of course, Drago would have left him at home in the States. How would he get a dog that large on a plane unless he was put in a cage in the plane’s hold. Waldo would never go along with a cage. I knew the devil-dog too well. He’d chew out of the cage then chew a hole in the belly of the plane, accomplish that trick without even trying hard.
Something bumped my leg. Startled, I jumped back grabbing bottles in the bar tray to regain my balance, almost falling on my ass. The bottles rattled and clanged. I looked down. Waldo was looking up at me, eyes black as Hades. He was wearing one of the tuxedo-printed tee shirts for the wedding. He needed one two sizes larger. He looked like an obese penguin in search of a fat sardine. He’d come under the bar’s pass-through somehow, sniffing me out. He growled.
“Why me?” I asked him. “Why do you do this to me?”
He growled again.
Chacho set the round tray on the bar and leaned over to see who I was talking to. “Hey, what a beautiful perro.” He picked up the pass-through, came into the bar, got down on one knee to pet the dog.
“Careful, that’s a devil dog.”
Chacho laughed. “Nah, amigo, this guy’s a lover not an eater.”
A shadow covered us. Drago appeared. “Let’s go, bro, you’re the best man. Let’s rock this beach.”
“You had to bring Waldo? Seriously?”
Drago shrugged, “He’s the ring bearer.”
“Terrific.” ...
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