The Bridge to Caracas

  Julio used his handkerchief to wipe the blood from a gash on his forehead, and then turned his soulful brown eyes to Mike. He shrugged his shoulders and turned his palms skyward. “I’m sorry, Mr. King. I tried.”

  “It’s not your fault,” Mike said. He handed a huge wad of bills to Julio. “Take this and call me at the hotel if you need more.”

  The sound of police sirens became louder and louder.

  “I’ve got to go. I can’t let the police find me.” Mike patted Julio’s shoulder before jumping from the taxi and running from the scene.

  Despondent and dispirited, Mike returned to his hotel apartment and flopped, face down on the bed. “Damn you, Servito!” he muttered again and again, pounding his fist on the pillow.

  Thirty minutes later, Mike’s bedside telephone rang. He reached for the receiver and jerked it to his ear.

  Servito’s repulsive voice was unmistakable. “Now I’m going to see how big your balls are, King. My beloved wife is at my house and I’m going to give you a chance to save her life.”

  “How?”

  “Do you remember the white Cadillac you tried to catch tonight?”

  “Yup.”

  “It’ll be on the street in front of your hotel at eight tomorrow morning, and it’ll be leaving for my house at one minute after eight. Karen will die if you’re not in that car when it gets here.”

  “Why the hell should I bother, Servito? You’re going to kill her anyway.”

  “The choice is yours, King.”

  At 8 a.m. the following morning, Mike lowered himself into the passenger seat of Piniero’s white Eldorado. “What’s your name?” he asked, deliberately avoiding eye contact.

  “They call me Marty… Marty Piniero,” he replied as he pulled away from the curb.

  “How much is Servito paying you for this job?” Mike asked.

  “A lot.”

  “How much is a lot?”

  “More than I can make in five years of hard labor.”

  “I’ll double it if you’ll help me.”

  Piniero chuckled and shook his head. “You couldn’t pay me enough. Servito will kill me if I cross him. Can you bring me back from the dead?”

  “He’ll kill you anyway, as soon as he doesn’t need you.”

  “No he won’t. He’s my friend.”

  Mike laughed. “I don’t know if you noticed, but Jim’s friends have a bad habit of ending up dead. After he’s killed Karen and me, he’s going to kill you.”

  Piniero swallowed dryly but remained silent, his eyes fixed on the road.

  “Did you hear me?” Mike shouted.

  Again Piniero failed to respond.

  “Then I’ll have to assume you’re prepared to participate in the murders. That’ll make you just as guilty as Servito, and you’ll have to live the rest of your short life with our blood on your hands.”

  Silence.

  “For God’s sake, help me!” Mike pleaded.

  “Shut up!” Piniero shouted, tears now watering his eyes. “Leave me alone and let me do my job!”

  “You’re a real sweetheart, Marty. You want me to shut up and let you help Servito to kill me and the woman I love.”

  Piniero held the wheel firmly with his right hand while using his left to wipe his eyes. Seconds after Piniero wheeled his car onto Servito’s driveway, Mike pointed Karen’s chrome-plated Colt at Piniero’s right temple. “Stop the car, now!” he barked.

  Piniero immediately applied the brakes. His shocked eyes found the muzzle, his hands trembled.

  Mike pointed to Servito’s house. “I don’t want to use the front door. Is there any other way in?”

  “You… you can use the back doors. You just have to go through those bushes to the right of the house.”

  Mike glanced at the long and neatly trimmed row of Eugenia bushes to the right of the house. He turned to Piniero and allowed the cold muzzle of the Colt to touch his temple. “Get out,” he demanded.

  “You want me to get out of the car?”

  “Yup. Now!”

  “Why.”

  “Never mind why. Just get the hell out.”

  Piniero quickly got out, and Mike slid into the driver’s seat. Mike closed the door without engaging the latch, and then depressed the accelerator to the floor. He pointed the Cadillac’s hood ornament at the center of the double front doors, waited until the car was no more than thirty feet away, and then jumped. His forward momentum caused him to roll twice, stifling a cry as flesh scraped from his knees, elbows, palms, shoulder.

  The car hit the front doors with a thunderous crack, and then penetrated the house with the awful sound of crunching metal and breaking cement. Mike hoisted himself to a painful upright position. He stared for a second at the terrible damage, then hobbled around the right side of Servito’s house. He charged through the Eugenia bushes and emerged onto the concrete swimming pool deck.

  Maria Santos, clad in a minuscule, peach colored bikini, raised her hands and shrieked in terror. Mike pointed his Colt at her head. “Where’s Karen?” he shouted, his eyes flicking back and forth between her and wreck of Piniero’s Cadillac.

  Servito emerged from the kitchen, his left arm around Karen’s neck and his pistol pointed at her head. “She’s right here. Thanks for wrecking my house, King. You’re going to pay for that,” he growled.

  “Where’s Phillip?”

  “He’s not here, but he’s fine,” Karen replied. “One of the maids took him for a walk.”

  Mike pointed his Colt at Servito. “Let her go, Servito!” he commanded, aware of the futility of his demand but not knowing what else he could do.

  Servito pushed the muzzle of his gun tightly against Karen’s cheek. “Give it up, King. Put your gun on the deck and kick it into the swimming pool.”

  Mike defiantly refused to move. “I’ve waited a long time for this pleasure, Servito.”

  “Don’t mess with me, King! My wife’s going to lose her head if that gun isn’t in the pool in three seconds! Do you understand me?”

  Karen saw Carlos emerging from the master bedroom behind Mike, his twelve gauge shotgun pointed at the back of Mike’s head. “Mike!” she screamed. “Behind you!”

  Servito began to count: “One… two…”

  Defeated again, Mike slowly lowered his gun. He closed his eyes and released his grip, allowing the pistol to clatter on the concrete below him. Disheartened, he kicked it into the pool. His life flashed through his mind while he watched it splash and sink to the bottom. In his haste to solve their mountain of problems, he had made a gigantic error in judgment. Now, his immediate priority was to stall for time and to stay alive. He stared boldly into his adversary’s eyes. “I’ll bet you’re wondering how we found you,” he said.

  Servito chuckled. “The only thing I was wondering was how I’m going to kill you.”

  “Karen and I found ourselves in a little automobile race with your fat friend, Jerry Allison,” he continued blithely. “Jerry thought he could lose us, but drove far too fast and turned far too sharply. A terrible mistake. Unfortunately, he hit a concrete wall and seriously reduced the length of your limousine… But, fortunately for us, he survived just long enough to sing like a bird.”

  “That’s bullshit, King,” Servito scoffed.

  Mike smirked and shook his head. “You should be ashamed of yourself, Servito.”

  Servito just laughed.

  “Allison told the police all about your dirty little games. He even told them about how you installed the gasoline valves at the Golden National Refinery, and how you used them to steal gasoline. He told them how you cut gasoline with poly chlorinated biphenyls and sold it to my company through Reserve Oil.”

  “He wouldn’t,” Jim growled.

  Mike continued. “He even told the police how and why you killed Bob Bushing, Dave Lasker, and Earle Langston… and he stayed alive long enough to tell them all about the millions of gasoline tax dollars you evaded.”

  Servito tightened his lips an
d bared his teeth, his wanton gray eyes glazed with rage. “You son of a bitch, King! You’ve fucked with my life for the last time! I’m going to put a bullet where it belongs!” His face contorted as he pointed his gun at Mike’s groin and pulled the trigger. The bullet pierced Mike’s left thigh, glanced off the bone and exited at a ninety degree angle. As his leg buckled, Mike slumped to the concrete.

  Servito hurled Karen to the pool deck and strode toward Mike. He smirked as he watched his adversary writhing, his hands pressed tightly against the wounds. “You got in my way too many times!” he screamed, kicking Mike again and again in the head and stomach until his adversary was motionless and silent.

  Marty Piniero had watched the entire event from the living room. He had only just now learned that Servito had killed his old boss and friend, Dave Lasker. He felt dirty and guilty… and enraged. The limits of his conscience were finally breached as he watched Servito kick Mike as he lay wounded and helpless on the pool deck. He removed a tire iron from the opened trunk of his destroyed Cadillac and raced through the master bedroom and out to the pool deck behind Carlos. He gripped the tire iron tight, and delivered a vicious blow to the side of the man’s head.

  Carlos fell unconscious, face first to the concrete. Piniero stooped to the concrete to pick up Carlos’s shotgun.

  “You miserable, rotten son of a bitch!” Servito yelled, pointing his gun at Piniero and pulling the trigger. The bullet whizzed past Piniero’s ear and shattered the plate glass behind him.

  Blinded by guilt and anger, Piniero stood and ran directly at Servito. Servito fired again, hitting Piniero’s shoulder. But Piniero charged on, seemingly unhurt.

  Servito shot again and Piniero slumped to the concrete, blood flowing from his neck.

  “You animal!” Karen shrieked. “How could you?”

  Servito turned to glance at Karen, momentarily distracted that the woman who had been his complacent wife could now have become this red, squalling creature.

  Summoning all of his remaining strength, Piniero managed to raise the shotgun and pull the trigger.

  Servito gasped and cupped his left hand over the gush of blood from his massive stomach wound. The pellets had severely injured him, and his hand could not stop the fast flow. He staggered to the black, wrought iron railing at the far side of the swimming pool, and allowed his buttocks to descend to the railing. He pressed both forearms against the wound and groaned to see a large and growing pool of blood on the concrete beneath him.

  At last Karen saw her chance. She picked up Piniero’s tire iron and raced toward her husband. Hearing her footsteps, he raised his pistol in her direction, but the shot went wild.

  With one swift swing of the tire iron, she broke his forearm and dislodged the pistol from his grip. “You’ll never do this again!” she screamed, and then hit him squarely in the face with a violent second swing.

  “You bitch!” he screamed, his face a bloody mess of shattered bone and cartilage, his body wobbling precariously on the railing.

  Karen placed the business end of the tire iron against her husband’s forehead and shoved. A horrified expression appeared on Servito’s bloodied face as he fought desperately to regain his balance, but found himself toppling slowly backward. In the work of a moment, he had plunged three hundred feet to the rocks in the chasm below. Karen leaned over the railing, watching in dispassionate silence until she was certain he was dead. Then she turned and ran to Mike. Maria was on her knees beside him, her peach colored bikini stained with blood.

  “Is he alive?” Karen asked.

  Maria nodded, pressing a bar towel tightly against the wounds in his leg.

  “Call a hospital! Tell them to send an ambulance here as quickly as possible!”

  Maria stood and raced to the house.

  Karen descended to her knees and removed Mike’s jeans, washed his wounds with a wet towel, and then used the towel to wrap his leg.

  Mike slowly opened his eyes. “What happened?” he groaned, his voice barely audible.

  “It’s over! It’s finally over!” Karen cried, hugging him, her soft lips kissing his forehead.

  Maria hurried from the house with a roll of gauze and a pair of scissors. “The ambulance is coming,” she said.

  CHAPTER 70

  Karen and Phillip entered Mike’s room in the Clinica El Avila in Altamira later that afternoon. They found Mike sitting up in bed and staring out the window. He turned his head to face his visitors. “Come over here, you guys,” he ordered, a giant smile adorning his bandaged and bruised face.

  Karen hurried to him and hugged him as hard as she dared. “How are you, Tiger?” she asked.

  “I hurt like hell, but I’m alive.”

  “I love you,” she whispered.

  “I love you, too,” Mike said, and then turned to Phillip. “How are you, Phillip. Are you okay?”

  “He’s fine,” Karen replied before Phillip opened his mouth. “I told him the whole story. He knows the truth about his father.”

  Mike’s blue eyes widened. “Where is he?”

  Karen nodded. “He’s dead. The Caracas police confirmed it this afternoon.”

  “But how? What happened? I can’t remember a thing after your sweetheart husband kicked me in the head…”

  “Marty Piniero saved our lives,” Karen said. She told Mike the rest of the incredible story.

  Mike closed his eyes. “Incredible! A miracle! I thought it was the end of the road.” Mike reached for Phillip’s hand, drew him closer, and hugged him. “You’re a very brave young man… I’m so sorry you’ve lost your father.”

  “I’m not sorry,” Phillip said. “He lied to me about everything…” He looked up to his mother, and she placed a hand on his shoulder. “How long do you have to stay in the hospital?”

  Mike pointed to a pair of wooden crutches leaning against the wall beside his bed. “I can leave right now, but I have to use those.”

  Karen stared at the crutches and frowned.

  Mike recognized the frown immediately. “Something’s wrong, babe. What is it?”

  Giant tears appeared in her beautiful brown eyes. “I told you it was over, but it really isn’t.”

  “Why?”

  “We can’t go home. We still don’t have one shred of the evidence we need. Now Jim’s dead and so is everyone connected to him.”

  “Who cares? We can stay here and make a new life for ourselves. I could live anywhere with you,” Mike said.

  His words comforted Karen, but her tears continued. “But we can’t live on love. When our cash is gone, we’re broke.”

  “I have some money,” Phillip said.

  Mike and Karen stared at Phillip in disbelief. “Is that so?” Mike asked, struggling to postpone a doubting grin.

  “Over three hundred million dollars. Dad took me to see a man who runs a bank in Caracas. The man told me he looks after my father’s money, and that I should go to him if anything ever happened to Daddy.”

  Mike and Karen exchanged a wide-eyed glance as Phillip removed Alfred Schnieder’s business card from his wallet and handed it to Mike.

  “This is it!” Mike exclaimed, staring at the card. “This man holds the keys to all the money your husband’s been stealing. You’re a very wealthy woman, Karen.”

  Karen frowned and shook her head. “That money doesn’t belong to me. If we ever tried to spend it, we’d be in a hell of a lot more trouble than we already are.”

  Mike gritted his teeth and clenched both fists, suppressing his frustration. Why couldn’t she let it go? They could start a whole new life together, and all she could think about was the criminal charges back home! “We can talk about that later… , But where’s Marty Piniero? Did he make it?”

  Karen nodded. “He’s one floor below us.”

  “I’d like to go see him… Can you guys help me get out of this bed?”

  Piniero’s neck and shoulder were heavily bandaged. He was awake, but unable to speak.

  Mike hobbled to th
e edge of his bed, which was one of many in a very large ward. “Thank you from the bottom of my heart, Marty,” he said. “We owe you our lives.”

  Piniero managed a weak smile as he grasped Mike’s hand.

  Phillip ran to the bedside and tugged at Mike’s arm. He continued to tug until Mike leaned down close. Mike chuckled while Phillip whispered, and then turned to face Piniero. “As an expression of his gratitude for what you’ve done, Phillip would like you to have his father’s house, his car, his airplane, and enough money to ensure that you never have to work for the rest of your life… Oh, and—by the way—I don’t think you’ll need your Cadillac anymore.”

  A huge smile spread across Piniero’s rugged face as he slowly closed his eyes.

  CHAPTER 71

  Mike and Karen stepped from the hot sunlight and opened one of the heavy glass and bronze front doors of the Banco International Venezolano. More than a hundred people had preceded them and were already lined up at the tellers’ windows. Mike grasped Karen’s hand and stared into her eyes. “I’m serious about this, babe!” he said with a warning expression.

  “But what if—”

  “There are no ‘what if’s! That money nearly cost us our lives! We’re going to keep it and the feds can go straight to hell! They didn’t give a damn whether we were guilty so long as they had someone to blame. They knew they couldn’t touch your husband, so they took the scraps of proof he provided… just enough to hang us with. I’m not greedy, Karen. But I’m sure as hell not interested in funding those bastards.”

  Karen saw the same determined expression she remembered from when Mike had convinced her to fly to Venezuela. In spite of her concerns for the implications, the thought of keeping her husband’s millions had an extremely large measure of appeal. Her frown gradually melted to a grin. “What the hell!” she said, shrugging her shoulders. “It isn’t as if we stole it.”

  Mike scanned the vast interior of the modern structure and saw a diminutive Venezuelan hurrying toward them. He was dressed in an over-sized, olive green suit and walked with a perceptible limp. When he came within ten feet, he stumbled to his knees on the polished marble floor. “Is very much bad way to meet you,” he said, righting himself with Mike’s assistance and looking very embarrassed. He smiled and extended his hand. “You are Mr. King?”