Authors: Steven Becker
“Larry?”
“Travis. Is that you?” The man calmly collected the bottles and stood up. “You’re supposed to be dead,” He tried to push past Mac.
Mac grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him around. “Maybe we should go outside and have a little chat. Looks like you haven’t changed.” He picked up one of the bottles and read the label for the powerful painkiller.
The man looked away, eyes darting to the people passing on the stairs. “Might be able to help you out if this stays between us,” he said, and started down the stairs.
They walked outside and around the building, staying under the eaves to avoid the rain. By the garbage enclosure, Mac pushed him against the wall. “My patience is short for you,” he said, and waited for the man to reply. Back when they were working together, Mac and Wood had burned through help at a rapid pace. They were either too demanding or the help was lax, the latter more often the case in the transient capital of the world, and Larry had been one of the slackers they had fired.
“What? I feel bad about Wood’s daughter,” he said.
Mac ignored him, knowing there were no feelings. “You stealing drugs.” It was a statement. “What’s going to stop me from turning you in?”
The man looked at him as if he was about to play a royal flush, “Like I said. I got something you might want to hear.”
Mac glared at him, biting back the feeling that he wanted to hit him.
“Big shot lawyer from Virginia or someplace is here to make the decisions about her. Seems they all think that you’re dead. There’s talk of bringing a specialist from Miami to see if she is brain dead or not. The clocks tickin', buddy.”
Mac pushed him aside and ran for the car.
FOURTEEN
Mac woke the next morning with a beer bottle poking him in the side. It would have been a sleepless night wherever he had found himself, the image of Mel refusing to leave him. Alicia had dropped him off after the visit with Mel at the hospital and he had found the house empty. He thought about taking Trufante’s bed, but he wasn’t sure what might live there, so he crashed on the couch.
Not sure if the Cajun was home, he went towards the bedroom and peeked in the open door. A body moved in the bed and he walked away. The kitchen was a disaster area: the counters covered with old food and empty beer bottles. The stale stench overpowered him and forced him to abort his search for coffee. What little clean-up Alicia had started last night was invisible.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out the phone to check the time. There were still two hours before Alicia was due back to pick him up for the trip to Krome and he knew he couldn’t just sit and wait. The palm fronds, visible through the half-closed blinds, swayed softly in the breeze and he guessed the inshore waters would be calm. A great morning to be out on the flats fishing with the breeze disturbing the water just enough to disguise a fisherman’s movements, but he had no chance of that. He thought some exercise might help him think though, so he grabbed a pair of Trufante’s running shoes, slipped them on and headed out the door. He stopped on the landing and went back in for the ball cap to hide his face.
He started at a walk until he reached the Heritage Trail running parallel to US1 and then increased the pace to an easy jog, heading west towards the Seven Mile Bridge. Not really a runner, he couldn’t help restrain himself and increased his speed near his old street - old as in a week ago. He fought against himself, knowing it was stupid for too many reasons to list, but couldn’t resist the urge to check on the damage to his house. After waiting for the light to change, he pulled the bill on the cap over his face, sprinted across the four-lane highway and slowed to a jog as he reached his street. Sweat poured off him and although it was uncomfortable, he was thankful the morning humidity, a side effect of last night’s storm, was enough to keep his neighbors inside their air-conditioned houses.
The charred smell hit him before he reached the house and he stood back in shock. The roof was caved in and half of the second floor walls where the missile had hit were gone. A temporary chain link fence secured the boundaries of the property with yellow police tape ringing the house itself. He looked around to make sure no one was watching, slid between the intersection of the fence panels at the corner of the lot and went around back, staying close to the unstable structure. The roll-up door in back was caved in, but the main door was open and he entered the workshop.
Rain water dripped through cracks in the ceiling and he dodged the drips and he went for the workbench. Most of the tools and equipment were covered in soot and water, but remained where he had left them. He moved past the work area and went to the office. It was dark and his hand instinctively moved to the light switch, even though he knew the power was off. Back at the workbench, he dug around for a flashlight and froze. The sound of a car pulling into the driveway startled him and he wondered if one of his neighbors had seen and reported him.
He ran back to the office and turned on the flashlight. The walls and desk were smoke-stained and wet. A door slammed outside and he hurried, taking the computer console and yanking the cover from it. With the flashlight propped under his chin, he pulled the hard drive loose and shoved it into the pocket of his cargo pants. Another door slammed and he knew he had to move fast. The door to the safe was ajar, the way he remembered leaving it when he escaped only days ago. The contents were not where he remembered them though, and he expected the authorities had searched it, but he moved his hand up to the lid and felt for the thumb drive he had taped in place. Not surprised it was gone, he moved his hand to where the revolver had sat.
Two men were talking out front and he heard the unmistakable sound of a police radio. The revolver was gone as well, and he came up with only a handful of bullets. He tossed them on the floor and slid quietly out the door, turning off the flashlight as he moved towards the back of the workshop. The voices were still out front and he was about to run out the back door and seek cover when he saw the rack that held his stand up paddleboards. The two SUPs, one narrow and sleek for speed, the other wide and shorter for fishing, were still in the rack. A floor joist from the ceiling rested on the streamlined racing board, his first choice for an escape, the fragile board split where it had landed. The wider fishing board on the bottom of the rack looked serviceable.
Someone was coming around the house and he knew he was out of time. With the board clutched under on arm and a paddle in the other, he went for the door. A sideways glance confirmed the man had not reached the back. He made a beeline for the dock and jumped with the board glued to his belly and the paddle by his side. The board hit the water, landing perfectly underneath him and planed over the water. He quickly stood and started paddling. A voice yelled for him to stop, but there was no threat behind it and he thought he was far enough away there was a chance the officer thought he hadn’t heard it. With long and deceivingly powerful strokes, so it appeared to an onlooker he was out for a leisurely paddle, he pulled the board forward over the water and left the cover of the canal leading to Boot Key Harbor.
The wind was in his face when he reached open water and he struggled to make headway, but with the police behind him, there was only one place to go and that was forward. He fought to make every stroke count as he made his way into the harbor, the tip of the board slamming each wave as he moved toward the gas docks along the north shore. He stepped forward on the board to sink the nose into the swells and gained a bit of speed. Grounding, although possible in the tidal area, was not a concern with the shallow draft board, and he paddled onto the flats by Hog Key. He was more worried the police had recognized him and called in backup than he was of getting stuck in the backwater. It would be hard, but he could walk out of the muck. He wasn’t so sure he could walk away from the police. He paddled into the skinny water on the side of the channel, moving his weight even further forward to bring the fin almost out of the water, using sweeping strokes to steer without the aid of the rudder. Even with the fin only inches in the water, it brushed bottom several times, but the board only drew a few inches and he had to use the paddle to pole himself several times. He moved back on the board when muddy bottom finally turned to sand and gained some depth, then made his way around Knight Key and crossed under the first span of the Seven Mile Bridge.
The paddling was easier with the wind at his back and he stroked to deeper water after checking he wasn’t being followed. The Fanny Keys blew by on his right and he started to enjoy the downwind paddle. He concentrated on the shoreline as the wind helped push him by the numerous canals and small lagoons along the coast, not sure which one led to Trufante’s. The airport was the best landmark to find the narrow canal and as he passed between Rachel Key and the point of land projecting from the mainland, he could see the runway ahead.
The sound of a siren startled him. He almost lost his balance and fell from the board, and for the first time he was thankful he had taken the wider board. He looked towards the bay, saw a Zodiac police boat stopping a kayak and pulled harder, hoping the report was wrong and they were looking for a kayak, not a SUP. Two canals lay ahead and he went for the far one, glancing over his shoulder at the police boat and turned. The officers were finished with the kayaker and had spotted him. Mac froze for a second as the siren blared. He knew they wanted him.
The only thing he could do was to paddle harder. He doubled his stroke rate, putting everything he had into it, not caring that it looked like he was fleeing. The Zodiac entered the canal and the siren blared again, but he was in a shallow channel barely wide enough for the boat, with the refuge of the mangroves just ahead. He pushed forward, knowing the police boat would have to slow or risk fouling their propeller in the gnarly root system of the trees, and headed straight into a gap in the brush. The fin snagged a root and he was launched forward, saving himself from the water only by grabbing an overhead branch and swinging to what looked like dry land.
He chanced a look back at the police boat, idling by, both men searching the shoreline. Unreachable in the brush, he pulled the board towards him, stashed it by the trunk of a lignum vitae tree, and ran to an austere commercial building in a small clearing. After clearing the brush he made an all-out sprint towards it. He knew the police would be searching there any minute. He pulled the phone from his pocket, flipped it open and hit the button Alicia had programmed in for her cell phone.
She answered on the first ring, annoyed that he wasn’t at Trufante’s waiting for her. He pulled the phone from his ear and looked at the time. She was right; he was fifteen minutes late.
“Scold me later. Right now get me out of here,” he said, “and you better take Trufante too. The police are after me and somehow he’ll stumble into them if he’s around. The boy’s just got that kind of luck.” He pulled the phone away and closed the cover in the middle of her sentence. The last thing he needed right now was a self-righteous rant from a desk agent; he needed her to concentrate on the task at hand.
The phone rang a minute later and he quickly flipped the lid to stop the sound, fumbling with the volume button. “Tell me where to go,” he whispered, hoping his calmness permeated the line.
“You are just around the corner. Walk out to Aviation Boulevard and turn left at the first driveway. We will be waiting.” She hung up.
Mac started walking, wondering at the same time how she knew where he was. He was impressed that after her initial rant, she had calmed down and handled the situation. He looked both ways, half-expecting a police car to appear when he crossed Aviation, and ran across the clearing to the building on the corner.
He stood there for what seemed like an eternity. Finally her car approached and he got in. “What happened?”
“Couldn’t find my damn shoes,” Trufante grumbled from the back, still buttoning up a grimy safari shirt.
Mac turned to tell him where his shoes were and noticed a police cruiser turn into the apartment complex. Alicia must have seen it in her rearview mirror. She turned onto the frontage road instead of the highway, slowly increasing speed as they sped past the lone runway. Several hangers and a field with a handful of aircraft appeared on the side. She turned to the general aviation building, cut through the parking lot and caught a green light for the turn onto US 1.
“Think we can eat before we gotta rescue Armando?” Trufante asked from the back.
Mac and Alicia looked at each other and laughed.
FIFTEEN
Bradley Davies paced back and forth outside the hospital, careful to avoid the puddles from last night’s rain. He checked his watch and the entrance after each lap, wondering if it rained this much in Cuba. He had picked up a guidebook for the island that now held a prominent position in his briefcase. The financial opportunities there, now that the US had opened trade relations along with what he was sure would remain a no extradition policy, made the island alluring. Finding the nightlife in Marathon substandard - meaning unless you were into dive bars and beach bands, there was none - he had eaten a surprisingly good meal at the Barracuda Grill and gone back to his hotel room to read the book, cover to cover.
The history and architecture of the island surprised him. The constant notion that “tourists are king” only increased the appeal of the nation - and they had nightlife. Already a popular destination with European and Canadian tourists, the lifting of the transportation ban from the United States would truly make it a hotspot. Not one to trust the communist government with his assets he still planned on keeping what money he had left in the Cayman Islands.