Sharks - Matt Rogers (classic books for 11 year olds txt) 📗

He didn’t care anymore.

He could remain stoic, he could sob, he could scream … it’d fall on deaf ears all the same.

Four hours later…

East of Grand Bahama International Airport, buried in the dead zone north of Freeport, Vince Ricci drove his old Ford Crown Victoria along the largely empty highway.

The sun melted into the horizon, drenching the island in gold. He pictured the tourists down south, their waistlines bulging as they lounged on Lucaya Beach or Taino Beach or Silver Point Beach or any stretch of fine white sand you could slap a label on. He wished he could treat life with the same carelessness they did. It’d be nice to get away at some point, detach himself from all this shit.

Not anytime soon, he told himself. Not after the gig you took.

He didn’t like it, but a man doesn’t have to like his lot in life. A man must provide, and sometimes that means doing things you really don’t want to do. So instead of ripping a U-turn in the dark blue sedan and heading for home — a small condo in West End — he continued east, then took the exit at Rock Plant Road. He drove through fields — mostly green, a little brown — devoid of tourist infrastructure or sparkling attractions or towering casinos.

They pumped the money into Freeport and ignored everything outside the city limits. Restoring the north’s beauty was low on the list of priorities for the powers that be. The hurricane had changed parts of the landscape itself, eroding swathes of natural splendour and turning a decent chunk of the mangroves dead brown. The plains were ghostly each and every night, gripped by the hangover of Mother Nature’s wrath.

It suited Vince tonight.

He needed someplace discreet.

He followed the road all the way to its desolate end — a locked gate drenched in rust, surrounded by shoddy outbuildings and a couple of sandy yards stacked high with the husks of old cars and towers of rebar.

The gold on the horizon dissipated as the sun vanished, replaced by blue turning rapidly to black.

Past the gate was the premises of a construction aggregate company, and beyond that, the north shore. Vince saw the gargantuan silhouettes of cranes and shiploaders, like behemoths guarding the property. But there was no one about — the workers had gone home for the evening, exhausted from gruelling early morning work, and the land was silent in every direction. Down south there’d be bustling activity. Tourists wandering the streets, loaded up on extravagant cocktails, red in the face from the thrill of gambling at the casinos riddling the city. That is, the casinos that had reopened. Several were still closed, which had hurt his boss’s bottom line. It was the reason he was loan sharking every day in the first place.

Here there was the balmy wind howling in off the ocean, and little else.

Vince pulled to the shoulder, killed the engine, and gave the 9mm Ruger at his waist a reassuring pat. He’d lived here for two years, but he refused to get comfortable. Comfort makes you a victim waiting to be exploited. Crime and violence were rife outside the areas packed with foreigners. A product of desperation. Tourist boards chalked the statistics up to murders involving internal competition amongst gangs in the drug trade. Their theory stated that if you weren’t involved in organised crime, and were only here for a good time, you had nothing to worry about.

By that logic, Vince had a whole lot to worry about.

He’d never been here for a good time.

So the “over the hill” neighbourhoods were his home, and he spent more time in wastelands like this than the lavish overpriced tiki bar he’d populated for a short stretch of the afternoon. That slimy English bastard would be the death of him. Vince knew Teddy, knew the trouble the old man had brought on himself, but what did he expect? You borrow from a loan shark, you do so with the utmost confidence that you can repay said loan shark before things spiral out of control. Otherwise the interest builds, and suddenly you have a vig you can’t handle.

Vince would feel bad for the old guy if Teddy wasn’t such a damn fool.

So there was that side of Vince’s job. Slapping around the elderly. It wasn’t exactly noble, but the elderly should get loans from banks if they don’t want to get slapped around. Or, at the very least, they should make their payments on time when they borrow from unofficial moneylenders.

Teddy couldn’t point the blame at anyone but himself.

Sure, there were cons to the job, but there were also pros. Vince hadn’t always been like this. He’d spent most of his twenties in his bedroom back on U.S. soil, watching life crawl by with the ticking date at the top-right-hand of his computer screen. Turning thirty had brought revelations with it, and he’d decided the only way he wouldn’t die lonely and regretful was to get the hell out there and do something, even if that meant associating with undesirables.

Once he connected action with results, no one could stop him. He’d wound up out here, making cash hand over fist, spending it just as fast. For those with loose morals and a penchant to spend, the Bahamas were like a less regulated Las Vegas. Your money went further, your thrills were cheaper and faster.

Vince quickly realised he couldn’t make enough money out here.

The more that came in, the more outlandishly he devised ways to get rid of it.

So that’s how he’d wound up here.

Doing things that made his skin crawl.

His phone rang. A blocked number. No caller ID. But he knew the caller. He picked up. ‘Yeah?’

‘Are you in position?’

The voice was low, raspy, slightly distorted — the way it had always been.

Vince said, ‘Yeah.’

‘He’ll be there in fifteen.’

‘I want to re-negotiate the fee.’

A pause. ‘What?’

‘You heard me.’

‘I make the demands here. Not you.’

‘I’m in position,’ Vince said. ‘I’m ready