Call Down Thunder Page 6

  LoJo shook his head. ‘I heard him say—’

  ‘No.’ Reve was firm. ‘You heard nothing.’

  ‘OK. OK. I gotta go, Reve. My family goin to come lookin for me, ’spect me to be dead cos all that shooting . . .’

  ‘And the money you earn?’

  ‘You collect it for me – you know how much I done. OK?’

  Reve smiled. ‘You don’t think I just put your money in my pocket?’

  ‘Why you put my money in your pocket? Your pocket nothing but holes!’ With a wave he was gone, running down the pier.

  The work had started in earnest again. Reve took his place in the line and sweated another load, and then another, to and fro between the truck and the boats, till his legs felt like jelly, and he stopped to catch his breath.

  ‘So how long we got?’ someone shouted.

  ‘No time!’ snapped the señor. ‘You got no time, so you work double quick. You want to still be here in the morning when the policeman come? You want that? Take your breakfast in the Castle? Then move yourself!’

  The señor took another cigar from the inside of his jacket, bowed his head as he circled the match round the tip and then sucked so the flame pulled into the cigar. ‘I want those boats gone before they send another helicopter. You think the coastguards got another helicopter, Secondo?’

  The man beside him shrugged. ‘Maybe they borrow one from the army.’

  Moro nodded. ‘Just one boat sunk?’

  ‘Yes, señor.’

  ‘Get the engine off it.’ He called Calde over. ‘Is it deep off this pier?’

  ‘Not so deep.’

  ‘Fix it then. Those engines cost more than a man’s life.’

  Calde strode over to where the men were gathered, and after some discussion a couple of them stripped off and dived in.

  Moro took the cigar from his mouth. ‘We lost any of the skippers?’ he said to his second in command.

  ‘One. Another got hit, his boat’s maybe OK, but he won’t be driving it. ‘

  ‘Calde!’ shouted Moro.

  Calde came running back; Reve had never seen the heavy man run before. He had a cluster of his men on his heels, and Hevez and Ramon too.

  ‘I want another skipper. Who you got?’

  Reve didn’t wait to hear who Calde was going to name; instead he ran back to the water’s edge for another load. He wanted to be there right to the end, hauling the sacks, sweating hard so they could see how he worked, so they would pay him their dollar.

  Down along the pier, a gang of men was hand-hauling a rope that must have been attached to the sunken motor boat. They were sweating it up towards the sand. Reve hefted the last plastic sack up on to his shoulder and trotted back to the truck. As he passed by, the señor saw him and jerked his head, beckoning him over.

  Panting, Reve stood, the sack awkward on his shoulder.

  ‘What do you think, Calde?’ The señor took out his cigar and studied its glowing tip. ‘You think the coastguards got lucky or you reckon some pig squealed?’ Reve’s heart pinched inside his chest. They couldn’t think it was him. He knew nothing! Unless Mi had been saying more things . . .

  Calde looked at Reve. ‘If we got a squeal-pig,’ he said to the señor, ‘it get its tongue cut out. You thinkin this one?’ Calde’s hand went to the long blade he had hanging from his belt.

  Moro grunted what might have been a laugh. ‘No. Maybe. I don’t know, Calde. Finding the squeal-pig’s your business.’ To Reve he said, ‘Put that sack down.’ Reve slid it from his aching shoulder and let it drop at his feet. ‘You know how much dollar you carrying there?’

  Reve shook his head. He reckoned that whatever this man told him, the sack weighed too heavy to be packed with paper money.

  ‘A lot of dollar. Steal a bag like this from me and a man don’t have to work for a long time. What you think about that, hey?’

  Reve kept his face blank. If this was a test or something, it was stupid. Nobody was fool enough to steal from these men.

  The señor nodded. ‘Do I know you? Who’re your people?’

  Reve shook his head. ‘I got a sister is all.’

  ‘Well,’ the señor said, ‘I seen what you did, hey. With that boy. Pulled him from the bullets. You got cojones. A little bull.’ He said this over his shoulder to one of his men, who laughed and nodded. ‘Maybe little cojones.’ He studied Reve, half closing his eyes, as if to get his full measure. Reve kept still. He didn’t know what this man wanted, whether he was pleased with him or just toying with him, ready to make fun of him. He didn’t care, so long as the man paid him his money. ‘You look for work some time, you ask for me, señor Moro. I can always do with someone who got muscle, quick mind, and a bit of courage.’ He turned away, the meeting over.

  ‘We get dollar from you?’ blurted Reve.

  The señor turned back.‘You askin me for money?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The señor looked at Secondo and pulled a face. ‘Who got money here? You got money, Secondo.’

  Secondo patted his jacket and pulled a face too. ‘Me, no. I carry no money, señor.’

  The señor laughed. A crowd of villagers had gathered around behind them; they too were waiting for money. They stood silent though, watching this pantomime. If these men wanted to make a fool of a boy for speaking out of turn, that was nothing to do with them.

  ‘Calde, pay him.’ Calde looked startled. ‘Pay him, now. How much we pay these people, Secondo.’

  ‘Ten dollars.’

  ‘So much! OK. Give him twenty, Calde.’

  At the sight of money being pulled, the crowd started calling out for their wages too. The señor’s men hustled them back, forcing them into a line.

  Calde peeled a note from a roll he had in his pocket and held it out to Reve.

  Reve kept still. ‘Forty,’ he said.

  Calde growled at him: ‘Take this or you get nothing, stupid boy.’

  The señor’s eyes narrowed, letting the smoke stream up from his mouth.

  ‘Forty. I collect for LoJo. He work alongside me.’

  Calde hesitated, then the señor nodded and he peeled another note and handed it over. Reve took the two bills and folded them tight into his hand. Mi would be proud of him.

  Reve slipped past the scrummage of men at the back of the truck holding out their hands for money, and then jogged to the edge of the pier just above the tideline, where he could jump down on to the sand. Reve wanted to go show Mi the money he had in his fist. If LoJo would lend him his money, with what he already had saved up it was maybe enough. He needed to ask Uncle Theon about that. Fifty dollars. You could live for half a year in Rinconda on that, if you didn’t spend it all on rum.

  He was just about to jump when he heard more raised voices. Two bundles of men were surging and swaying like they were struggling to hold down one, maybe two, wild dogs. As they came into the light of the headlights, he saw what was going on.

  Two men had LoJo’s father, Pelo, one by each arm, and they were dragging him along, ignoring Ciele, who was following on their heels, slapping at them and yelling to let her husband go, and LoJo was there too, beside her, trying to restrain her. In the other group there was Hevez and two of Calde’s men: Cesar and Escal, brothers, and another two behind them. And they had Tomas the Boxer. As Reve watched he saw Tomas straighten himself like a giant and swing Cesar one way and Escal the other, but he couldn’t shake them free and the man behind him suddenly cracked something down on Tomas’s head so that he slumped to his knees. Then the men dragged him, his legs splayed out behind him, up to the truck where Calde and the señor were waiting.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  For the second time that day, maybe the second time in his life, Reve acted without thinking. The money still tight in his fist, he ran back across the pier, shoved past Hevez, till he was beside Tomas. ‘What you do to him?’ he shouted to Cesar and his stupid brother. ‘Hey? What he done to you?’

  Reve looked around at all the faces, and his ang
er turned cold in his stomach. He wiped his face with the back of his hand, realizing he was just a boy standing in the middle of these men, getting in the way of their business. He took a breath and readied himself, his legs a little apart. He saw Pelo looking at him, Ciele and LoJo too. Ciele’s lips were moving but he didn’t know if she was trying to tell him something. He saw the sneer on Hevez’s face

  The man behind Tomas tapped his stumpy club into the palm of his left hand, and Cesar, still gripping Tomas with his left hand, let his right hand snake to the knife on his hip, but his eyes were on Calde. He wouldn’t do anything unless he was told. And Escal was expressionless, waiting for his brother’s lead, his hands tight round Tomas’s arm.

  Reve turned to face Señor Moro; he was the man in charge. It was his word they were waiting for. He didn’t like to leave his back to anyone, especially not Cesar, but he was in the circle now so he might as well dance. That’s what Arella said every time she stood up after a bellyful of rum to walk back to her hut: ‘If you step in the circle, Reve, you got to know the steps of the dance. So you watch me now.’

  He lifted his chin and, realizing he still had this man’s money in his hand, he shoved it into his pocket. ‘Why you got Tomas here? If you got something you want him to do, I can do it instead.’ He glanced at Calde. It wasn’t the señor who had asked for this; it was Calde. Maybe Tomas had tough-talked him that morning, got under his skin, and this was payback.

  ‘So,’ said Señor Moro, as if he hadn’t heard Reve’s offer, ‘we got the little big man again.’ He dipped his head towards Calde and murmured something Reve couldn’t hear. He feared it wouldn’t be good, but Calde just nodded at the brothers and they let Tomas go. Tomas stumbled, almost fell and then regained his footing and shook himself. ‘What is this man to you?’ Señor Moro said to Reve.

  ‘I sail his boat. He . . .’ he hesitated. ‘He look out for me . . .’

  Calde said, ‘His mother the one run with off with the policeman.’ He turned his face and spat.

  There was a stir from the circle of onlookers. They hadn’t known this. Señor Moro, though, grunted as if he had heard the story before.

  Reve felt his throat tighten up so bad it was hard to speak. ‘Who tell you that!’ he managed. ‘That never happen!’ Reve looked at Tomas, but the big man just stared straight ahead as if he hadn’t heard. ‘She get arrested.’ Reve felt his face flush and burn. People get arrested. No shame in that because it happens; the law is there to stop you getting ahead. That’s what Theon said to him one time. Helping the Night Man load his trucks – that would get anyone hard time if the policeman came down. But to run off with a policeman, no one would ever do that . . . and not, their mother – run out on them as if they were nothing. There was so much shame in that it could fill the ocean. ‘He just make up that dirt talk!’ Reve said, but his words had no bite.

  Señor Moro grunted again and then with a sudden edge, he said, ‘All right, I got no time for this.’ He made a slight gesture with his left hand and Reve was pulled to one side, hardly aware of the firm hand clamped on the back of his neck.

  ‘You,’ Señor Moro was saying to Tomas. ‘You, Tomas the Boxer – you don’t look in so good shape to me.’

  Tomas gingerly touched the back of his grizzled head and grimaced.

  ‘You do this kind of work one time, Tomas the Boxer?’

  ‘One time. I work for no one now.’

  ‘You can drive a boat?’

  ‘If you want someone drive a boat, you don’t hit him on the head first, hey.’ He rolled his shoulders, easing the hurt, and then grunted again. ‘But it don’t make a difference. I done all the business I ever gonna do, and you got no call on me.’

  ‘One last job. Give you drinking money, Tomas. That’s what I hear you do now: kissing the bottle. A boxer and a kissing man, that’s how I hear it.’

  ‘Hear it any way you like. I don’t need one thing from you, or you,’ said Tomas, turning and challenging Calde. ‘That time’s all gone for me, you understand? You find some other man for your business.’

  ‘Well –’ Señor Moro nodded at the man holding Reve, and Reve found himself pushed forward into the circle again – ‘how about this boy? He make offer take your place. He good enough to run a boat to Paraloca without getting stung by the patrol?’

  Tomas looked at Reve but said nothing.

  ‘If he lose my boat,’ continued Señor Moro, ‘I come looking for you, Tomas, and I take what little you got.’

  ‘This boy’s too young to do your business,’ said Tomas.

  His shoulders were straight and his eyes unblinking. No sign of the rum shakes. He looked strong. Then he looked at Calde: thick shoulder, pig-eyed. The señor’s dog in Rinconda. Had Tomas and Theon been like that when they ran Rinconda? Reve wondered. Is that what Mi had seen in them both. No, Calde was the one with the devil in his belly. He was the enemy.

  ‘I understand,’ said Señor Moro. He flicked the tip of his cigar. ‘But I got business that need doing. Maybe this man can help me out.’ He nodded towards LoJo’s father, Pelo. ‘Calde, can this man help me out?’ He glanced at his watch. ‘We don’t have so much time.’ He sounded as if he had all the time in the world.

  Calde nodded and Pelo was jostled forward. He was a small man with a narrow face and a sharp chin and he wore a moustache that drooped round the edge of his mouth and made him look sad. He wasn’t sad though; he worked hard, but he liked to joke too, called Reve ‘Captain Clean-up’ because of the way Reve gathered bottles from the seashore. Tomas liked him. Liked his wife too. Reve looked over at Ciele. She was gripping LoJo’s shoulders, holding him tight. She caught Reve’s eye and Reve looked away; she could lose her man.

  ‘I’ll go,’ said Pelo, his voice even. ‘How much you payin? Paraloca take me a week maybe. I got fishing to do.’

  ‘In one of my fishing boats?’ said Calde.

  Pelo shrugged. ‘I pay you all the time.’

  ‘Maybe this help you pay off the debt, eh.’

  ‘Sure.’ Pelo looked at Señor Moro.

  ‘OK,’ said Señor Moro, ‘let’s see.’ But as he was pulling out a roll of dollars from his pocket – more money than Reve could imagine having – Reve saw the way Calde looked at Ciele and he could tell that Calde was happy for Pelo to be away for a week.

  ‘Here.’ Señor Moro held out a couple of bills.

  Pelo hesitated, looked at Tomas, then put out his hand and without looking at how much the señor was giving him, he passed it to Ciele.

  ‘Don’ worry, Pelo,’ said Calde, all smooth as if he’d dipped his voice in pig fat. ‘I’ll see Ciele’s all right. She need anything, she just ask me. No problem.’

  Pelo ignored Calde’s offer and turned to Tomas. ‘Tomas, you mind Ciele, the boy can fish with Reve.’

  Tomas nodded. ‘I’ll see this pig don’t come near her . . .’

  Escal, Cesar’s heavy-jawed and simple-minded brother, lunged at Tomas, fists bunched, but Tomas stepped to one side, neat as a dancer. You wouldn’t think someone so big and carrying so many years could move as easy as that. ‘You want trouble off me, Calde, you know where you find me.’

  Señor Moro laughed. ‘Do your business another time, Calde. Come.’

  He beckoned to Pelo and they went together over to the pier’s edge, the other men and then Ciele and LoJo following. LoJo was saying something quietly to his mother, reassuring her maybe.

  Reve was left alone with Tomas. ‘What Calde say, is that true? My mother cheat and run off, didn’t care nothin ’bout us?’

  ‘Not now.’

  ‘When you goin tell me? You and Theon, how much you keep from us? Everyone else know but we two? You tellin me that?

  ‘No.’

  ‘Everyone think that ’bout her now. Think we got a mother who run with a policeman. Everyone goin say we got that streak. Things bad enough for Mi. What you think this kind of talk goin do now? Hey. What you think, Tomas. People still goin believe in what she say? People goi
n give me respect—’

  ‘Tha’s enough! We don’ talk here. You come back out of here.’ He didn’t wait for Reve to answer but turned and headed back towards the village. Reve watched him go. He wasn’t a dog to trot after him, get a tidbit of knowing when it suited Tomas to throw it his way. He joined Ciele and LoJo.

  Down below them, the skippers were back in their boats, though Pelo’s craft seemed way lower in the water than the others. The sunken powerboat had been dragged up on to the sand and three men were manhandling the huge outboard engine on to a handcart.

  Pelo called out, ‘What you sellin me, Calde? This boat half full of water.’

  A flashlight played along the boat’s hull and then on to Pelo again; his face looked bloodless and grey in the harsh beam.

  ‘Bail her out.’ A tin sailed down into the boat. ‘She’ll ride high on the way back if you give her speed.’

  ‘I got a choice?’

  The man Moro called Secondo laughed. ‘Everybody got a choice till they stop breathing. You want to stop breathing?’

  Pelo muttered something and then busied himself scooping water from the bilge. He pulled off his shirt and tore it into strips, and used the strips to plug holes in the hull.

  Secondo called out, ‘Time to go.’

  Pelo started the engine; it gave a throaty roar and he raised his hand. One by one the others started up, lines were thrown back on board and the black-hulled boats swung away from the pier in a wide, creaming curve and headed out to sea, the engines peaking to a howl as the throttles were pushed full down. One boat lagged a little behind the others. Pelo taking it easy, Reve reckoned, but even his craft quickly disappeared into the dark, leaving phosphorescent lines scratched on the black surface of the sea for a few seconds.

  Señor Moro and his men were already heading for their cars. The rest of the crowd followed. All but Pelo’s wife, and LoJo, who stood by her side.

  Ciele looked like a widow standing on the wall with her son, everyone else gone from her.

  It is a too easy thing, Reve thought, for a family to be pulled apart.