Hurricane (16 page)

“
Why not?” Victor sounded disappointed.

“
We’re too close to Trinidad. The farther away we get the better I’ll feel.”

“
Grenada is a separate country. Nobody’s going to take your boat away here.”

“
I just don’t feel safe this close to Trinidad.” She picked her sunglasses up off of a cockpit cushion and put them on.

“
Okay, when do you want to leave?” he asked.

“
How quick can we set sail?”

“
As soon as we get the rudder leak fixed,” he said. “Maybe tomorrow if we’re lucky.

“
Already taken care of. Two guys form the local yard came by.”

“
They put a diver in the water and use underwater epoxy?” he asked.

“
Yes they did.”

“
Then we can go now. We can spend the night somewhere in the Grenadines if that’s what you want.”

“
Mom,” Meiko said, “look at this.” She handed the binoculars to her mother. “Check out the black schooner, Snake Eyes.”

Julie slipped off her sunglasses, gazed into the binoculars, following the direction of Meiko’s pointed finger. “It looks like Challenge, except it doesn’t have the white stripe.”

“
Let me see.” Victor looked a little agitated as he held out his hand for the binoculars.

“
Take a look.” Julie handed him the long glasses.

“
Same kind of boat,” Victor said, “but that one’s American. Nice paint job, looks new, better than Kurt’s.” He handed binoculars back to Julie.

And an hour later they weighed anchor.

Chapter Nine

The security guard waved them by and Dr. Powers drove between two long rows of covered speed boats and into the parking lot. Bright stars glowed through the scattered clouds and it was sprinkling lightly. Powers parked behind the bar, but he left the engine running with the wipers going. “The boat’s name is Obsession. You’ll find it on the west wall. Go down the jetty till it ends, turn left and keep going, it’ll be the last boat, you can’t miss it. It’s a forty-five foot sloop, white and fast looking.

“
I know the way,” Broxton said, remembering his encounter with Julie Tanaka.

“
Then this is goodbye.” The doctor held out his hand. Broxton shook it and met his crooked grin with one of his own. He liked the man, there weren’t many like him.

“
Will you be okay?” Broxton didn’t want Powers suffering because of what he’d done for him.

“
I don’t think anyone will be bothering me. At least not till they find out you weren’t in the car. Then they might come around, but it’s nothing I can’t take care of. In Trinidad it’s who you know and who knows you. I know a few people and everybody knows me.”

“
I thought she was such a nice lady,” Wendy said from the back seat.

“
She was, Wendy,” Broxton said, turning to face the girl, “but they offered her a lot of money. It was just too tempting.”

“
I would never tell on a friend, not for a million dollars,” she said. She was leaning forward, with her elbows on the back of the front seat, and she was holding up a silver crucifix on a gold chain. “This is for you. For luck. I think you might need it.”

“
Thank you, Wendy.” He lowered his head. She slipped the crucifix over it and he felt the warm chain on his neck.

“
Keep it on,” she said, “It works.”

“
Catholic?” Powers asked.

“
Father was,” Broxton answered, feeling the cross.

“
We’ll say a mass for you come Sunday, can’t hurt,” Powers said.

“
It’ll help,” Wendy said. “We’ll pray that nothing bad ever happens to you.”

Catholics and Jews. Broxton thought of his parents, and he smiled as Wendy held out her hand, copying her father. He shook it, feeling the warmth in her grip. “I’ll write and let you know how I’m getting on.”

“
And I’ll write back,” she said, still holding on to his hand, “cause we’re friends forever.” Her deep brown eyes were boring into his and he knew that he would be writing letters to this little girl for the rest of his life.

“
Forever,” Broxton said.

“
It’s time,” Powers said. Broxton opened the door and stepped out into the early morning. He smiled as Wendy climbed into the front seat and waved to him. He waved back and watched till the car was past the speedboats and going through the security gate. Then he turned away and walked around the outside bar toward the pier.

The yellow lights along the dock cast an otherworldly glow on the sailboats and their tall masts bobbing back and forth with the gentle morning swell. As he walked between them Broxton couldn’t help thinking about the people living aboard. Older retirees, middle aged couples that had sold everything for the dream, and younger people just starting out, the hippies of the 90s. Gypsies all.

He stopped at the end of the dock and stared at the empty slip where Fallen Angel had been docked. Somehow she was connected to what was happening to him. It had to be. It was the only thing he was working on when it all started to go wrong.

“
You looking for me?” The baritone voice startled him, but he got a bigger surprise when he turned toward it. His reaction didn’t go unnoticed. “I get that a lot, when people knowing Jimbo first meet me,” the man with Dr. Power’s voice said.

“
I wasn’t expecting...”

“
What, a white man? You can say it, we’re in Trinidad. You don’t have to be politically correct here.”

Broxton blinked away his surprise. “Spitting image. I’d’ve thought you were twins.”

“
Good one.” The man laughed. “Name’s T-Bone. Glad to have you. I was beginning to think I was gonna have to sail up island alone. I hate that.”

“
I’m Broxton.” He offered his hand. T-Bone took it in a firm grip and Broxton squeezed back. They were playing the male game, who can squeeze the hardest. It only lasts a few seconds and someone has to give and relax his hand first. Broxton never did. Apparently T-Bone didn’t either, because the men stood on the dock squeezing each other’s hands for an obscenely long time. Finally Broxton said, “You want to call it a tie?”

“
On three,” T-Bone said. “I’ll count.” He counted to three and both men relaxed their grips at almost the same time. T-Bone held his a fraction of a second longer, and laughed.

“
Cheated,” Broxton said.

“
Nature of the game,” T-Bone said. Then , “Broxton? That a first name or a last? I don’t like last names.”

“
First name’s Bill.”

“
Okay, Billy Boy, mine’s T-Bone, not Tee, and not Bone, can’t shorten it.” He pushed his shoulder length hair out of his eyes.

“
T-Bone,” Broxton, said. He hated being called Billy Boy, hated it all his life, but somehow coming from a man named T-Bone, with a natural twinkle in his eye, it wasn’t so bad.

“
Like the steak,” T-Bone said. He reminded Broxton of a fugitive from a Grateful Dead concert, beard, tie-dyed shirt, faded Levi’s and bare feet.

“
You’re really his brother?”

“
Daddy was a sailor, girl in every port.” The man started toward the end of the dock and Broxton followed. He guessed that T-Bone was several years younger than Dr. Powers, but it was hard to tell. The doctor looked young for his age, and T-Bone had to be younger than he looked.

“
We’re ready to go,” T-Bone said when they neared the boat. “You wait here. I’ll start the engines, then you take it off the cleats and hop aboard.”

Broxton looked down at the stern lines. “Those?”

“
Yeah.” T-Bone looked at Broxton the way a high school principal frowns down at a wayward student.

“
I just unwind the rope?”

“
You ever been sailing before?”

“
Twice. I didn’t have much fun either time.”

“
Christ,” T-Bone muttered through his beard.

Half an hour later they were sailing toward the Bocas. Broxton sat back in the cockpit, while T-Bone steered, and watched the land on the right and the Five Islands off to the left. He thought about Julie Tanaka, then he turned toward the prison island out past the Five Islands, Trinidad’s version of Alcatraz, and wondered if he was going to wind up behind bars for crimes he didn’t commit, or if he was just going to wind up dead.

“
Gorgeous, isn’t it?” T-Bone said.

Broxton nodded.

“
I love the early morning. The sun coming up, shimmering seas, makes one glad to be alive.”

Broxton nodded again, but he didn’t feel that way thirty minutes later when they were going through the Bocas. The passage from the gulf into the ocean was narrow and choppy, and he grabbed onto the lifelines as the worst nausea he’d ever experienced caused him to vomit over the side.

“
Nothing to be ashamed of,” T-Bone said. “Happens to the best of us. Still get seasick myself sometimes.”

His stomach was in knots and his head was clamped in a vice. He wiped sweat off his brow with the back of his hand and felt the wig and whipped it off, thankful for the rush of cool air across his head.

“
Whoa, it’s Kojak.” T-Bone laughed.

Broxton wanted to laugh with him, but instead he cut loose with some more bile over the side.

“
Use this.” T-Bone handed him a hose.

“
Thanks,” Broxton said, and he depressed the handle on the nozzle and sprayed his face.

“
A lot of cruisers think it’s a waste but I like a fresh water hose on deck,” T-Bone said.

“
I don’t understand,” Broxton said.

“
Living on a boat’s not like living on land. On a boat you have to make everything last. But I like fresh water on deck. In the end I think I use less, cause I’ll jump in the ocean and wash off with Joy, then rinse with the fresh from the hose, rather than take a hot shower below.”

“
You wash with dishwashing soap?”

“
You will too, and you’ll be surprised. Wash yourself with that stuff in salt water and it does something to your hair. Makes it comb out shiny, better than any fancy shampoo.”

Broxton ran a hand over his head and felt the stubble starting to grow.

“
Well not on your head,” T-Bone said. “But if you had hair you’d notice.”

Broxton laughed and kept laughing till they were out in the open ocean.

“
Most folks make this passage at night,” T-Bone said, “but I like to see where I’m going and the boat’s fast enough that I can make all the Caribbean passages during the day.”

Broxton looked out at the sea and shuddered at the thought of sailing through the rolling waves after dark. “I don’t think I’d like night sailing,” he said.

“
Tell me about it.”

Broxton saw something off the bow and pointed.

“
Good eye,” T-Bone said, but the right thing to do would have been to say, “Sailboat at eleven o’clock. Then you don’t have to use your hands. It’s always better to keep them free for the boat.”

Broxton nodded.

“
Say, you wanna learn to sail, or are you just along for the ride?” Broxton saw the way his face lit up and knew there was only one answer he could give.

“
I think I’d like to learn.”

“
That’s great. I used to teach it, but what I’m doing now is easier, and besides I like living on the edge.”

“
I know what you mean. Anybody can live in a house with a picket fence and work at a factory.”

“
Right.” T-Bone nodded his head, smiling at Broxton with crystal blue eyes you could almost see through. “We could go straight up north, but it’ll look much more natural if we take our time. I think we’ll spend a week or two in Grenada. Good winds there and lots of bays to sail into. In a week I’ll have you sailing like you were born on a boat.

A week later, Broxton felt like killing T-Bone Powers, but he knew how to sail, his wound was well, and he felt better than he had in over ten years. They spent the week in Grenada’s Prickly Bay, up before dawn every day, oatmeal only for breakfast, before a grueling five hours sailing in the rough waters around the southern part of the island, then a lunch of cold rice and beans, before another four hours tacking and jibing, ending every night with a vegetarian dinner.

He had never argued with, admired, hated, loved, respected or wanted to shoot anyone more than T-Bone, and he’d never been closer to another human being. Not the two partners he served with, not his team mates when he played college ball, not even his ex-wife.

And five pounds fell from his stocky frame like water from a rock. Hard as it was to admit, he had been going soft. Too much television and too many hamburgers. He was already leaner, getting stronger, and his white skin was turning darker as the days flew by. The wig, tossed over the side one night by T-Bone, was no longer needed, his hair was coming in, light brown and bleached by the sun.

Nights ended with a couple of glasses of rum and grapefruit juice and conversation. They talked about all the usual things. Politics, religion, sports, boats, sailing, the day’s adventures and misadventures, but the past, other than ex-wives and old girl friends, was never brought up.

The marijuana stuffed in the bilges and packed away in the forward locker was another subject not discussed, and after the first few days Broxton was able to bury it in a back corner of his mind.