Authors: Steven Becker
“How far to that spot?” he asked as half the sun dipped below the horizon, the other half following swiftly behind it.
Trufante pointed to a small island in the distance. “Over there.”
The Sawyer Keys were only a mile away, close enough to make before they lost daylight. Mac put the boat in gear and was quickly on plane, following Trufante’s signals and trusting the Cajun wouldn’t run them aground. The man had a way of getting in trouble, but he was good on the water. Minutes later, they arrived by one of the buoys. He had grilled the Cajun about his day with the red-headed woman and hoped if he saw the operation for himself he could figure out a way out of his mess. “So this girl is growing coral here?” he asked.
“Yup, ain’t seen that part of the operation, but them casitas were over there.” Trufante pointed toward a spot in between two other buoys.
“Wish I had some dive gear. I’d like to take a look and see what’s got me in so much trouble,” Mac said as he started searching the boat, looking for a mask and fins. Finding nothing except some empty beer cans, he closed the hatches and went back to the wheel. Just as he was about to start the motor, though, he stopped.
“What?” Trufante asked.
Mac put a finger to his lips. Trufante started to ask again when the sound of an engine stopped him. They both scanned the horizon, looking for the source, and finding nothing. Suddenly a cigarette boat appeared from a clump of mangroves less than a hundred yards from them.
“Down.” Mac pulled Trufante to the deck with him.
“What?”
“It’s Commando. Hard to believe it’s a coincidence that he’s right here, but I don’t want him to see us.” Mac raised his head and peered over the transom. “Looks like he’s gone.” He rose and looked at the boat speeding toward Big Pine Key. “Pretty dark and it’s not my boat. I don’t think he saw us. Or if he did, he didn’t recognize us.”
“Probably going back to pick me up,” Trufante said.
“Wrong way, buddy. Looks like he ditched you. I think you’re stuck with me ‘till morning. If he even comes back. Running that boat of his at night is a bullseye for the law to come after him.”
“Well, what now?”
Mac looked at the clump of mangroves where Commando’s boat had emerged. He was curious; from this vantage point there was no place for a boat to exit. “Let’s go have a look at where he came from. This is all too much of a coincidence for my liking. First the casitas, and now Commando.”
He went to the wheel and pushed the throttle forward. At idle speed, he moved closer to the mangroves, one eye on the depth finder, the other on the shore. They reached the spot he was sure the cigarette boat had emerged from, but all he could see was mangroves.
As they got closer, a small light became visible through the branches, and then a small inlet suddenly appeared. It was barely wide enough for a single boat and looked deep, like it had been dredged. He passed the inlet to look from the other side, and it vanished. The light was low now, but he could see in his mind the artfully crafted entrance. Cut parallel to the shore line and deep enough for a single boat to enter and turn, it would look like a small cove from one angle, and be virtually invisible from any other. Perfectly hidden.
Mac swung the boat around and headed toward the entrance.
“What are you doin’?” Trufante asked.
“I’m going to see what’s in there. This is professionally done, especially for a Key’s camouflage job.” The backwaters of the Keys were legendary for smuggling whatever the current rage was: liquor from Cuba during prohibition, drugs for the last fifty years, and whatever else was in vogue and illegal in between. Smugglers and pirates had holed up in these mangrove-covered, mosquito-infested islands and unmarked flats for centuries.
“It’s got to have something to do with the casitas,” he told Trufante. “And the only way I’m gong to clear my name and get my boat back is to figure this out myself.”
“I’m just sayin’, this was the bayou, you don’t go unannounced, or unarmed into a spot like this.”
“This is the perfect cover. Two tourists lost in a rental boat.” Mac followed the small inlet and turned right at the blind turn, which switchbacked onto another narrow pass. “Someone spent some money doing this.”
“Well if they spent money building it, don’t you think they’d spend money guarding it?” Trufante whined.
Mac steered through the second turn and found himself in a small lagoon. A dock jutted out into the water, where another cigarette boat and a smaller center console were tied up. In the background he could make out a dimly lit house.
Satisfied for now, he started to turn away. But suddenly a gun fired, and he felt the whistle of a bullet flying by his head. Trufante was already on the deck when he pushed back on the throttle, reversed and spun the boat. He slammed the throttle forward hoping the engine could take the sudden shock and sped through the tight turns. Several shots followed, but they were increasingly off target and he relaxed as they hit open water. He turned the running lights off and headed toward deeper water, wanting to put as much distance between them and the gunman as quickly as possible.
They reached the channel leading to Wood’s place fifteen minutes later, and he had Trufante tie off the boat to the piling. It was starting to look crowded here with both boats and he worried it might attract attention. The motor-less skiff was tied to the pile as well and he thought about putting it up on the trailer to hide it but decided it wasn’t worth the effort. If someone had followed them he would have to hide both boats, but he had seen no pursuit. Tired and hungry now, he looked at the buckets on the deck.
“Let’s go cook some of these up. Be nice to have a cold beer, too.” He hopped over the gunwale and dropped into the water, his cut hands stinging when he grabbed the buckets of lobster from Trufante.
“Maybe this’ll work,” Trufante said as he slid into the water holding a half-full bottle of rum above his head. “You only found the empties. Me, I can sniff this out from a mile away.”
***
Mel looked around the bar and was about to turn and talk to the captain about running her out to Mac’s. The hours were ticking by and still no call or message from him. Just as she was about to catch his eye, Marvin grabbed her arm and pulled her away.
“Sweetie, let’s go get some guys,” he said, jerking her away from the bar.
She looked over at the man, but he had turned the other way. “I’ll give you an hour.” She went to the door, ready to pay off her obligation when Cayenne came running through the bar, boobs bouncing and tripping on her heels. “Do I really need to deal with her?”
“You were the one looking for information. Ply her with alcohol and I’ll bet you’ll learn something. If not, just throw her in front of the first tourist with a Rolex that comes along and she’ll be gone,” Marvin said as he held the door open for the women.
Mel was glad to be out of the bar. “Where to, then? Clock’s ticking.”
He gave her a look like she was clueless. “Aqua on Duval,” he said, and started toward Duval Street.
“That place is so cool,” Cayenne said as she chased after them. She held up a hand and flagged a cab. The pink car pulled to the curb and they got into the air-conditioned interior. “Time’s a wasting, and I can’t walk in these things.”
Mel sat back and watched the scenery as the old Victorian homes turned into T-shirt shops and restaurants.
There must be a cruise ship in port
, she thought as she watched the masses of people wandering the sidewalk. Several blocks later, they pulled up to a turquoise art deco building illuminated with neon in the fading twilight. Cayenne paid the driver, and they exited the cab and headed toward the open doors.
Both bars adjacent to the doors were full, and she waited as Marvin scanned the crowd. She looked at the handful of bodies on the dance floor and wondered if she could really get him hooked up and out of here in the hour she had threatened. Her head started to throb again from the rum drinks, made worse by the pulsing music coming from the back of the club. Marvin was looking back and forth like a kid scanning a candy display until finally he chose and headed toward the larger bar on the right, where he took an empty stool and sat.
“What’s with you?” she yelled in his ear. “You can’t just sit here and make me do all the work.” Mel looked at him and noticed his body language had changed. Gone was the cocky guy she had watched earlier. In his place was a nervous boy.
“I get a little nervous lately, doing this kind of thing.”
“I can see that. OK. I promised. You order a drink and let me see what I can do.” She walked down the bar, trying not to look intimidating. Some women caught her eye in an attempt to communicate, but the men ignored her. At the end of the bar, she spotted Cayenne leaning into a man sitting by himself and moved toward them. The man was obviously a tourist, and here alone.
Perfect,
she thought. Now all she had to do was to pry Cayenne’s boobs off his chest.
“Aren’t you James?” she asked the man as she approached and winked.
“Who me?” he answered, trying to extricate himself from Cayenne.
Mel was about to give up the ploy when he must have figured out that she was here to help.
“I know you. From that conference last fall,” he said, appearing to catch on. He pushed Cayenne to the side and went to Mel.
They exchanged air kisses and she leaned over and whispered in his ear, “Name’s Mel. I’ll help you out here if you let me introduce you to my friend down there.” She pointed at Marvin, then turned and faced Cayenne. “You know the guys in here don’t want to play with you, right?”
Cayenne pushed past her and stormed out of the bar. Mel walked the man toward Marvin, who looked awfully nervous sitting by himself sipping a drink.
“Hey Marvin,” she said.
He looked up and smiled. “Sweetie. What have you brought your friend?”
“You two have a little chat, OK? I’m going to see what Cayenne is up to.”
***
The boat was packed and the load covered, ready to leave, when Jay saw the boat enter the cove. It wasn’t the first time tourists had wandered in here, but a few shots wouldn’t hurt to keep them from getting too curious. He ran to the house and retrieved his rifle from the safe in his office, ran back out, and let loose on the boat, purposefully aiming high. Maybe he’d get one of those annoying birds, and he didn’t want any dead bodies floating around before he had to take off. The boat picked up speed and disappeared.
He had one last thing to handle and he would be out of here. The palm trees rustled overhead and he looked up at a large cumulous cloud illuminated in the moonlight. With a new urgency, he walked into the house and went toward the bedroom. The last thing he wanted was to start the trip in a storm. From the look of the cloud and the direction of the breeze, he had a good thirty minutes before it got here. Once he was underway he could easily outrun it.
He set his hand on the doorknob and took a deep breath before he turned it and entered the room. This was going to be a fight, and he had no time for it with weather approaching. Of all the cargo he had hauled over all the years, the human variety was always the most dangerous and unpredictable.
Soft light lit the room and three girls were strewn over cushions on the floor, in various stages of undress. A man rolled from in between two of them when the door slammed.
“What the fuck?” the naked man exclaimed.
“What the fuck is this? Put your clothes on and say goodbye. Time to go,” Jay said as he reached behind his back and pulled a gun from the waistband of his shorts. The man had been here less than a day and already he was trouble.
“Easy now, Jefe,” the man said with a Spanish accent. “I was only having a little fun.”
Jay kept the gun pointed at the naked man. Although he was not a threat, the gun moved things along nicely. Without it, they would be here bickering for another five minutes. “There’s a storm coming. Unless you want to spend ninety miles puking over the side, I suggest that we get on with it. Now put on your pants and say goodbye.” He waved the gun for emphasis.
The man got the message and reluctantly got up and reached for his pants.
“Not those. You need to go native. No American anything. It all stays here.”
“Shit,” the man said as he covered himself with the pants and left the room.
Jay nodded to the girls, who smiled back, probably thankful he wasn’t taking them. They knew that as bad as their incarceration here, it could be a lot worse. He followed the man into the bedroom down the hall and waited at the door as he dug through a box of clothes on the closet floor before extracting several old and worn garments from the pile. With the gun still pointed at him, he dressed.
The men left the house and walked down the dock toward the boat. Jay waited while he boarded, then climbed in himself, gun still in hand. He went to the wheel and started the engines. The three 275-hp Yamaha four strokes started immediately. Jay motioned for the man to untie the dock lines and waited, checking the water outlet on the engines to make sure they were cooling properly. The man returned to the leaning post by the wheel and braced himself. Jay took another look at the cloud, now much closer than before, the wind fresher, and pushed the three throttles forward.
He kept the boat at an idle until he cleared the last switchback, then accelerated into the night. Within seconds the boat was on plane, and he checked the tachometers. Slight adjustments were made to each throttle until each engine was running at 4400 rpms. Then he checked the GPS screen for direction and speed.
Although he knew the route by heart, running at 45 mph through the back country at night was not an easy task. There were several small islands and shoals he would have to avoid before he reached water deep enough to relax.
Chapter 14
Mel ran out of the club and looked both ways, searching the crowd for Cayenne. Duval Street was loud and crowded with both locals and tourists prowling the bars for action. Street vendors peddled their wares, forcing some of the partiers onto the street, where bicycles, scooters, and cars swerved to avoid them. She was tall enough to see over the throng, and scanned the crowds again. Anywhere else but Key West and Cayenne’s distinctive hair and features would have stood out, but in the heart of Duval, they blended in perfectly.