LITMIR.BIZ

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he sipped, he told himself to relax, that he would place a call first thing in the morning and let the embassy security officer take care of everything. He was beginning to calm down when a thought occurred to him. What if the house was under surveillance and the cops showed up the following morning, only to find him curled up with a couple of pounds of coke and half his bedroom floor missing? They might think he had no intention of disclosing his stash, or that he was moving it from one hiding place to another. Images from Midnight Express flooded his mind and he decided that he might be better off making the call right away.

      He looked at the empty base for his cordless phone and remembered he had left the handset out by the pool. With the brick still tightly in his grip, he slid the patio door open and walked out by the pool, deciding not to turn on the floodlights. As he reached the table and spotted the handset in the moonlight, he realized the dog had followed him outside and was turning to shoo him back inside as he reached for the phone.

      “Back inside Teddy,” he whispered, as the dog stopped and looked at him.

      Charlie felt the handset first, followed by a fuzzy sensation on the back of his hand that was as unfamiliar as it was unsettling. As he turned from Teddy to the table, and his eyes adjusted to the dim light, Charlie could make out a shape on his hand. But it took a couple of ticks for his brain to register the distinct outline, on the back of his hand, of an enormous tarantula.

      In the same fluid motion, Charlie’s hand shot back toward his body, shedding the frightened spider back onto the table, while his whole body turned and recoiled in an evasive manoeuvre that would have been quite effective, had he not been standing a foot from the pool’s edge. Before he knew what was happening, Charlie was in the water, but not before his other hand, the one holding the drugs, had jarred painfully off the edge of the pool deck, slamming the brick onto the tiled edge and splitting the plastic covering. As Charlie’s head came up out of the water, he could see the two halves of the brick teetering on the edge of the pool deck, and he managed to gurgle an instinctive “No!” as he watched Teddy bounding toward him. The last thing he saw, before the seventy-five pound Lab landed on his head, was both halves of the brick being kicked into the water by the dog’s hind legs as it dove in after him.

      Charlie came up for the second time just as the dog popped to the surface and yelped.

      “Get out of the goddamn way!” he shouted, as the dog’s kicking pushed the ever-shrinking brick out of his reach. He was trying to shove Teddy aside when he realized the dog was labouring, and likely ingesting mouthfuls of the now drug-laced waters of the pool. Luckily, they were within a few feet of the shallow end, and as soon as he was able to move them into this depth, Charlie got his arms around the dog’s belly and pushed him up onto the pool deck. Charlie waded, then swam out to where the brick had gone in, but by the time he reached it, only the plastic wrap remained, next to some sodden, off-white clumps still floating on the surface. He grabbed the plastic and swam to the side, just in time to see Teddy jump up and start racing around the pool.

      “What the…?”

      The dog was on its third frenzied lap when Charlie realized it was probably high. Hopping out of the pool, he grabbed the dog by the collar midway through its next fevered circuit and barely managed to get the straining animal inside before it tore off up the stairs. A few seconds later, Teddy was back, only to set a new course through the living room, the kitchen, and then back upstairs again. Standing there dripping onto the kitchen floor, Charlie stared at the plastic wrap. The dope was gone — all of it. Whatever wasn’t coursing through Teddy’s system had dissolved into the pool. Would anyone believe Charlie had been that clumsy? What if someone tested his pool water?

      What have you done?

      As his mind swam with the possibilities, Charlie made his way upstairs for some dry clothes, barely aware of the dog racing in and out of the upstairs rooms. Pulling a dry T-shirt over his head, he walked over to the hole in the floor and knelt down, trying to peer into the dark recess. Still shaken by his encounter with the tarantula, Charlie used a screwdriver to poke around in the hole, hoping to scare away any lurking critters in the process. He dug around and finally found a flashlight in the bottom of the toolbox. He flicked it on and shone it into the hole, but he could see there was nothing in there.

      He was still staring at the hole as Teddy trotted past him into the ensuite and began lapping at the water in the toilet bowl. Dragging the dog away by the collar, Charlie brought him downstairs, but when they got to the kitchen, the dog ignored his water and went straight for his food, wolfing down what was left in the bowl in a matter of seconds.

      “I guess the munchies are kicking in,” Charlie said, getting another scoop of dog food from the cupboard and topping up the dish. As Teddy ate, Charlie sat at the kitchen table and looked out at the pool again. There was no drug trade in Havana, or so he had been told. He had no idea what the penalty for drug trafficking was here, but death didn’t seem implausible. Yet Charlie had stumbled on a lot more than a personal stash, and whoever owned it must have been prepared to sell it to someone who was also willing to take the risk.

      Someone crazy.

      Someone who wouldn’t be happy to find out that Charlie had accidently dumped the precious commodity into his pool.

      Not happy at all.

      Chapter 6

      Charlie tried to concentrate on the consular file in front of him, but it was no use. He pushed aside his third coffee of the morning, the first two having done little more than increase his anxiety since bumping into the embassy’s head of security. Gord Connors was a big man, but his even manner had a very calming effect, most of the time. The sight of him at the front gate this morning though, had sent Charlie into such a panic that he had barely been able to respond to Connors’s friendly greeting, let alone look him in the eye. Charlie could only think one thing: Maybe he knows.

      Charlie toyed with the idea of spilling the beans, but decided against it after an internal debate that lasted as long as it took him to walk from the front gate to his office door. At best, Charlie would look like an imbecile, and at worst, a liar. He was also concerned about Teddy, who had finally crashed out at about 3:00 a.m., and was still sleeping soundly when Charlie left for work. He had checked the dog’s breathing before he left and he seemed fine, but he wasn’t exactly a veterinarian. What if Teddy had permanent damage from ingesting God only knew how much cocaine, heroin, or whatever it was that Charlie had stumbled onto? He’d had two phone calls so far from the housekeeper, complaining about Teddy’s apparent inability to control his bladder or bowels. And this was her first day. Worse yet, what would the ambassador do if he found out? Or Mrs. Stewart?

      “We still on for that consular visit this afternoon?”

      Charlie looked up to see Landon standing there, looking fresh. “Yeah, I thought we’d leave around eleven,” he said, with an enthusiasm he didn’t feel for the two-hour drive to the prison in Pinar del Rio.

      “You feeling okay?”

      “Sure,” Charlie replied, realizing he must look as exhausted as he felt and searching Landon’s eyes for confirmation. “Just a little tired, that’s all.” He looked at his watch. Despite the file being open in front of him for the past two hours, he hadn’t really digested any of the information. He had to stop worrying about things he couldn’t control.

      “Say, Drew. What do you know about the guy who used to live in my house?”

      Landon scratched his top lip with a finger. “Nothing much. Why?”

      It was a perfectly reasonable counter-inquiry, for which Charlie was unprepared. “Just curious,” he began, wishing he hadn’t asked. “I found some … personal items.”

      “Anything interesting?” Landon was grinning.

      “Not really. Just wondering how to get in touch with him, or her.”

      “I can find out.”

      “Don’t bother,” Charlie said quickly as his assistant appeared at the door and Landon withdrew. “See you out front at eleven.”

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