Then he told them that he’d been home all day, and hadn’t seen or heard anything unusual. Which was, as the young officer had just pointed out, a lie.
He had gone out fishing, just as Mrs. Gutierrez had said, had, in fact, been out near the old fort near dusk. . . .
And he had indeed seen something unusual.
Something Manuel Candelaria suspected he would have to keep to himself for a while longer—quite a while longer, in fact, if he was any judge.
The old man surveyed his little one-room hut. He walked to his old trunk then, which stood next to the back wall, and opened it. Put the transistor radio back inside, shut the lid, and then dragged the trunk away from the wall.
Underneath the trunk, there was a trapdoor.
He lifted it and, his old bones already beginning to ache, descended the makeshift wooden ladder to the cave floor. Candelaria had built his hut on top of the little hole in the ground—a three-meter wide, twice again as tall hole in the ground—intending to use it as a shelter during severe storms, but over the years, it had become more of a storage cellar than anything else. A place to put what Olivia had called all of his crap.
He lit a couple candles, and the cave filled with a dull, orange glow.
All his crap had been shoved to one side of the cellar. On the other, lying on top of the only blanket he owned, was a man’s body.
The man’s face was bruised and battered, more black and blue than anything else. His chest had a hole in it the size of Candelaria’s fist, a hole that was still oozing some kind of liquid. Manuel had no idea what it was, but it most surely was not blood. One arm was half severed at the shoulder; one leg was bent in a way that told the old man it was broken in at least two places, the other had a gunshot wound.
But when he’d found him that night, lying so still in the surf Manuel thought he was dead, the man had told him no hospitals, so no hospitals it was. No hospitals, and no word to anyone at all that he was alive. He made Candelaria promise. Then he’d passed out and hadn’t said a word since.
Candelaria approached, holding the candle out in front of him.
The man was awake, he saw. His eyes were open, and staring up at the trapdoor in the ceiling.
“Senor?”
The man didn’t move.
“Senor?” Manuel repeated, passing his hand in front of the man’s face. He didn’t blink.
Candelaria took a closer look and saw that the man was not, in fact, staring at the trapdoor, but straight out into space, at nothing at all.
While he was upstairs talking to the young officer, the man had passed on.
This was not good. Now what could he do?
Dump the body back in the ocean? That wouldn’t be right. Call the authorities? Sergeant Castillo liked him, but if he learned that Candelaria had been lying to him . . .
No more island.
What to do, Manuel thought. What to do.
Which was when the man’s hand shot forward and grabbed his wrist.
If Candelaria had been twenty years younger, he would have jumped out of his skin.
“Water,” the man said.
Manuel’s heart was beating like a drum.
“Si, senor. Water.”
He detached the hand from his wrist and, as he turned to go, looked into the man’s eyes once again.
They were still staring up into space. Staring at nothing at all.
Frank Castle was alive.
But his eyes were those of a dead man.
PART TWO
PUNISHMENT
EIGHTEEN
The voice in her head came from a long time ago—from a galaxy, as the saying went, far, far away. It was her mother’s voice, and the last time she’d heard from her mother had been, what, ten years ago? The night before she’d married husband number one, Mr. Earl Van Dyke, when her mother had called and said she wasn’t coming to the wedding, wasn’t going to watch her only daughter ruin her life, so she was leaving, good-bye and good luck.
Though it wasn’t the harsh, strident voice her mother had used that night she heard in her head right now. No, what she heard was a much softer, gentler voice, the one her mother had used when reading nursery rhymes to her little girl.
Mary, Mary, quite contrary
How does your garden grow?
With silver bells, and cockle shells
And pretty maids all in a row.
She sighed and shook her head.
The rhyme, unfortunately, had nothing to do with reality.
Number one, her name was Joan, not Mary. Number two, her garden (which was not much more than a little patch of bare dirt next to the stoop of 2411 North Cedar) was filled with dog shit, beer cans, and used condoms, not silver bells and cockle shells. It made for a depressing sight; the peonies she’d just planted seemed to sense their lot in life already. They looked wilted and saggy, as if they’d already given up hope.
Joan jabbed her little gardening shovel in the ground next to them and stood up.
“Fuck it,” she said out loud. “What’s the use?”
A roar sounded as an old Plymouth GTO rounded the corner and pulled into the garage beneath 2411’s loft apartment. Her new neighbor. Guy looked to be even worse than the last one. Never smiled, never said a word, probably thought he was a real badass with that leather coat of his and those sunglasses, though the act didn’t scare her a bit. This guy had to be a little slow on the uptake, because who the hell would rent the so-called “loft” above the garage for what Carlos was asking? Loft. Hah. Carlos had tried to get her to rent that place first, before finally agreeing to give her 2B, and as far as she could tell, the only thing that entitled her chiseling, skinflint super to call that apartment a loft was the fact that it didn’t have any plumbing outside of a single cold water pipe.
Not that her new neighbor seemed interested in showers. All he seemed to want to do was make noise. Welding and hammering, working on his car and God knows what else till all hours of the night. She would have complained, but like with the peonies . . . what was the use?
It was time to get to work, anyway.
She pushed the front door open. Lock broken again, no key needed. Wonderful. She’d have to get on Carlos’s ass about that; maybe he’d have it fixed by Christmas. Doubtful.
Already in a bad mood, she walked down the hall to her apartment, wondering if she should try to repair the lock herself. Maybe Dave would help her. He’d fixed the intercom system last month, fixed it up better than new; everyone’s buzzer worked now, and he’d hooked up everyone’s TV to the local cable system, even got them all free HBO (which thrilled Joan no end, nothing she liked better than movies).
That was all electronics, though. Wires and stuff. Dave had a way with those kinds of electronic things— computers, TVs. He had like a dozen of them in his apartment. She wasn’t sure how he’d do with locks.
She passed Stanley’s door then, heard the TV blaring (sounded like one of those soap operas Stanley was always watching, volume turned up to a deafening level to drown out the noise their new neighbor was making), and shook her head. Stanley would certainly be no help fixing the lock; she liked the man well enough, but he was like a child, just sat in front of the TV all day, every day, stuffing his face full of crap. Doughnuts for breakfast, doughnuts for lunch, French fries for dinner . . . no wonder the guy weighed five hundred pounds.
Inside her apartment, she slipped on her waitress uniform and headed for the door. Stupid-ass-looking outfit. She hated wearing it, the apron most of all, but Mr. Schurr wanted her to look like a “proper waitress,” and she
