Fiction
Return To Shandy Bay Part 7
A Sunny Alexander-Johnson and Henry James Series By P.G. & Sharon Barnett
My name is Sunny Alexander-Johnson, and I’m Henry James, and we’re writers for Dark Sides of the Truth magazine.
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6
Roberto steered the car into the parking lot of the motel and parked, then shut the engine off. Sitting in the car, we stared at the cell phone he held in his right hand, the soft glow of an active call providing faint illumination in the darkness.
“So let me guess. All this bullshit you just put us through besides being some kind of sick game, was to deploy that rope ladder. That about sum it up?”
“Precisely Henry. Nice touch don’t you think?”
“And you couldn’t have just done that yourself?”
“Yes I could have, but now you three know exactly where it is. Just before this goes down you will lead the authorities to the exact spot. We can’t have them wasting time looking for it. We need them on the beach at least an hour before Enrique’s men arrive.”
“And when will that be?”
“I believe you already know the answer, Shaundrika. However I’ve never been one not to help out in time of need. I recommend you check this year’s lunar calendar for the exact date and time.”
“Check a lunar calendar? What kind of bullshit answer is that?”
For several seconds the Fixer remained quiet. Then the Fixer said something strange. Our actions being controlled by conversations with someone we’d never met was indeed curious enough, but what we heard next was even weirder. Although the voice of the person on the call was mechanically distorted, it was easy to ascertain a level of heightened irritability.
“Mr. James, I’ve been working on controlling my Monday morning temper tantrums. I’d suggest you learn to control yours.”
“What the hell does…”
“So we’re pretty sure Escobar is going to make his move tomorrow. If we check this lunar calender like you said, it will tell us the time of a lunar eclipse. That will be when they hit the beach.”
“Very good Roberto.”
“Then we need to contact Charlie and the narcotics division and get them down here like now.”
“The authorities have already been notified, Sunny.”
“Let me guess, anonymously, of course.”
“Of course. As a matter of fact, you’re about to have visitors knocking on your door right…about…now…”
The phone call ended abruptly, and the next second, the sound of someone rapping their knuckles against the driver’s side window startled us to the extent Roberto dropped the phone as we all flinched. After collecting ourselves, Roberto rolled down the window. A split second later, we saw the face of Charlie Alvarez, as he leaned down, perched one arm on the edge of the car, and grinned at us.
“Hello, folks. We were told you had something to show us?”
“Charlie? You scared the ever-loving daylights out of us. Couldn’t you have called us and given us a little heads-up?”
“Sorry about that, Henry. But whoever it was that called us this morning, said you’d be expecting us.”
“So how’d you know where to find us?”
“The caller gave us the name of the motel. Look you three, this mysterious caller said you know when and where Escobar is going to try and move his merchandise. I’ve got a swat team and about fifteen people from narcotics on the way, so let’s get this show on the road.”
It was almost three in the morning when we made it back to the hotel. After showing Charlie the overlook and pointing out the trail, which led to the beach, we then took him to the east side of the bay and showed him the location of the rope ladder. On the way, we’d looked up the moon phase, as the Fixer suggested.
Roberto had been right.
Tonight, beginning at midnight and lasting until almost eight the next morning, the moon would be in full eclipse. Escobar would have a dark blanket of anonymity to move his product in-country.
We made sure Charlie knew the teams needed to be in place well before that. We were sure the overlook was going to get a little crowded with people of less than stellar reputations as soon as night fell.
Narcotics had to be out of sight surrounding the overlook, and the swat team needed to be in place on the beach. Everything had to be timed perfectly, with both teams needing to get in place using the same cover of darkness Escobar planned to use.
As much as we argued with Charlie, he adamantly refused to allow us anywhere near the action. And after several attempts to hammer away at the man’s resolve, we simply gave up, choosing to stay in our motel rooms until we heard from him.
As the night had worn into the early morning hours, we were stumbling around like zombies, sleep-deprived, and hardly functioning. No amount of coffee in the world can take the place of a few hours of hard sleep. Secretly, and if we chose to take a poll, we would have discovered all three of us were grateful Charlie demanded we stay out of things on this one.
Robert Burns once wrote: “The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men / Gang aft a-gley.” Which is a pretty fanciful way of saying regardless of our scheming to beat Escobar at his own game, things won’t always turn out exactly how they’ve been planned.
The three of us discovered that when we all answered a knock on our motel room and each of us in turn, was surprised by a burly man with hair down to his shoulders, wearing a baseball cap, sunglasses, and armed with a wicked-looking automatic pistol.
As bad as the situation was, it incrementally became worse as the man wordlessly guided each of us one by one to an awaiting vehicle and forced us to get in the trunk, a situation which left one of us in an almost hysterical fit.
We felt the jolting sensations as the car rolled over a few speed humps on its way to the highway.
“Damn you James. Damn you old man. The second time we come to Shandy Bay, and here we are, shut up in the dark about to die.”
“At least we ain’t wet.”
Read On — Return To Shandy Bay Part 8
Let’s keep in touch: P.G. & Sharon Barnett ([email protected]) © P.G. Barnett, 2020. All Rights Reserved.
