I'd asked Amanda Austin not to tell Beverly about my visit; I wanted my payment to take Beverly by pleasant surprise. I asked Amanda to promise on the red leaves I'd brought, and she did so, her hands lightly touching their dryness as she gazed needily into my eyes. "Good news is best delivered strong," I murmured.
"Yes," she breathed.
I sat in the Hyundai all day. I ate some of my food and drank my Pepsi and smoked half the pack of Camels. I never smoke that much, but when you're on a stakeout you've got to smoke. You just gotta.
What about going to the bathroom? Ah, that's where my Ziploc bags and sanitizing gel came in handy. It isn't just guys who can pee anywhere: If you're a resourceful, agile, and above all careful girl, you can do an all-day stakeout with the best (or worst) of them. Thank God my last period had trickled to an end just before I started work on Porrocks's boathouse.
I fiddled with the radio and scrutinized everybody who came and went. They all appeared to be customers, walking in empty-handed and coming out with a coil of rope or a box of hardware or a jug of varnish. I perked up when the postal truck swung in and a big-assed mail lady carried two small boxes and a stack of mail inside. I couldn't tell whether my envelope was in the stack. Nothing happened after that—no Beverly, no nothing, just a few more customers.
Kendall Marine closed at six p.m., when a pug-nosed guy wearing shorts and deck shoes came out and locked the door, got in the scrofulous Toyota pickup, and drove off. I followed him to a beachfront bar and then had to decide whether to go in. My feeling was the risks outweighed the possible benefits, so I stayed put. I really could've gone for a cold beer right then, but I just swigged another Pepsi and drummed my fingers on the steering wheel. I was very tired, but the caffeine kept me going, aided by my adrenaline. When you're watching people, you never know what's going to happen. That makes it fun when something does.
An hour and a half later the guy came out, belched so loudly I could hear it from my spot in the farthest corner of the parking lot, and hauled himself into his truck again. I followed him to a marina about half a mile south of Kendall Marine, where he left his truck in the parking lot and walked out to a metal gate that led to the boats.
You know those marina gates on the ends of piers? When I was a kid they didn't exist—people never bothered other people's boats. Now everywhere you go you see these wide steel gates that stick out over the water and have spikes or razor wire on them. The few ruin it for the many.
The pug-nosed guy opened the gate with a key and walked through, letting it slam shut behind him.
I killed the Hyundai's engine and jumped out, keeping him barely in sight. I hurried up to the gate and tried the handle for the sake of thoroughness, but of course it had locked behind him. The marina was essentially a square basin with four long docks running into it like fingers. The boats, maybe a couple hundred of them, were tied up shoulder to shoulder. I turned away from the gate and walked quickly down the side of the basin, watching the guy as he slipped in and out of sight between the boats along one of the middle docks. At last I saw his head bob up as he hopped onto a boat, then he must have gone below because I didn't see him again. I memorized the shape of the boat's bridge and sighted it along a light pole from where I stood so that I could fix exactly where it was. I walked along the basin from the pole, counting the parallel slips. Number 21 on the left, second row from the parking lot.
The sky was wide here above the masts and antennae bristling from the boats. Beyond the boats lay one of the pencil-line barrier islands, then beyond that the ultramarine Atlantic.
The marina was fairly well tricked out with a nice new building, a smooth parking lot, and a golf cart with a security shield painted on it, idle now next to the building. A sign told me that the building housed the office, plus telephones, showers, laundry, and vending machines for the boaters.
I wandered around. A few sailors were out and about, working on deck or pushing carts of supplies. A pleasant breeze came up, rattling the halyards on the masts of the sailboats. I guessed about half the boats were sailboats ranging from twenty to thirty-five feet in length; the rest were speedboats or fishing cruisers about the same size.
One guy was testing his rudder or something, motoring in a slow, tight circle at the end of a dock. He wore a bright-red polo shirt, and he waved to me as I stopped to watch. The daub of his red shirt was so nice to look at against the pretty blue sky and the white deck of his boat. I stood there wanting a boat and a red shirt too.
I sniffed the air. Was Beverly Austin here? I thought so. The vibe just came to me. Well, vibe or no vibe, it was simply damn likely.
In spite of the nice building and sturdy gates, this marina felt a bit scuzzy. Was it the brackish smell to the water lapping the oily rocks that lined the basin? The larger-than-usual proportion of boats that looked like rust buckets? While it would be hard to accuse any place in Fort Lauderdale of being cheap, this place was definitely low-end.
Was it the people? Maybe so. The red-shirted sailor looked washed and possibly educated, but some of the others looked more like deadbeat dads hiding out from Friend of the Court. I'm sorry, but a beer gut covered by an undershirt paired with the briefest of bathing trunks—please. Add dirty bare feet and a scraggly ponytail and you've got yourself one prime cut of a blind date.
The pug-nosed Kendall Marine guy, whose age I pegged at about forty, didn't come across as being that hopeless, but he didn't look as if he'd enrolled for harpsichord lessons lately either. The look on his face was smarter than average, and he carried himself with the rolling gait of a barrel-chested guy with bad knees.
The couple of women I saw all had that hard-baked precancerous tan you'd expect. But their tans overlaid flabby arms and jouncing butts, which signified a lot of time spent sitting around boats and none on the high seas furling tops'ls or reeling in fighting marlins or whatever the hell athletic things people are supposed to do on boats.
What I'm trying to say is, the place looked like a no-questions-asked kind of place. Perfect for the likes of Beverly Austin.
Needless to say, all that water access plus proximity to places like Cuba and Central America is why the Miami-Fort Lauderdale area has been so attractive to drug dealers, desperate illegal immigrants, and all the ancillary services that go with them. Most of the drugs these days go by air into Miami, but the coastal customs agents still have plenty to do. A cop once told me that U.S. agents intercept only ten percent of the drugs coming in. Big money in that business. Big risk too, but money, money, money.
Plenty of people will do anything for money, and a lot of them live in Florida.
I hung around for about an hour but saw nothing else of interest, so I drove to a dumpy motel I'd noticed nearby, checked in, and fell asleep before I'd pulled up the covers on the damp-smelling bed.
----
I woke early and showered, feeling quite refreshed in spite of the motel's mustiness. That's another thing about Florida: if you don't keep on top of the mildew, it'll eat you alive.
I stopped and got a McDonald's breakfast on the way to the marina. I sat and ate my Egg McMuffin, potato thing, and coffee as I listened to a salsa station and waited for Kendall Marine guy. I had the feeling he'd come out with someone this morning—with Beverly Austin. I was wrong, though. He came out alone lugging a plastic garbage bag over his shoulder Santa-style. He flung it into the bin behind the marina building, then got in his truck and drove directly to Kendall Marine. He opened it up for business; it was nine a.m.
I waited and watched and after a while ate an apple. I decided against going back to the marina and doing some dumpster-diving on this one: I couldn't really see how it might help me. Besides, I'd caught a whiff of that dumpster.
Traffic chugged by, the cars and delivery vans and boat trailers flicking the sun around the buildings like faceted gems. Quite a few luxury cars live in Fort Lauderdale: a lot of Mercedeses and Lexuses, not so many Rolls-Royces and Ferraris as in Los Angeles. I watched the omnipr
esent gulls whirling and crying over the street, the buildings, everything. They stood flat-footed on light poles and awnings; they padded between parked cars looking for French fries and crackers, their heads so smooth and beautiful you can't believe they live on garbage. You want to avoid parking your car over a patch of gull droppings. Because soon the patch of droppings will be on top of your car. Check your environment, glance up and down before locking and walking away: That's my advice.
The mail truck came at ten minutes to eleven, and I perked up again. I saw a large white envelope at the bottom of the stack lugged in by the fat-hipped carrier and had to wait only twenty minutes before all the rest of the action got underway.
Someone on a bicycle whizzed past my open window at top speed and careered across three lanes of traffic into the Kendall Marine parking lot. Beverly Austin hopped off the bike, dumped it next to the building, yanked open the door, and strode in. She was wearing sunglasses, navy Capri pants, sneakers, and a white shirt just like the one she'd lent me, ages ago. She moved so fast I almost missed her.
Chapter 28
As I watched from my spot across the street, I fired up the Hyundai's meek engine and nursed it with gas to warm it. Beverly Austin walked slowly from the marine supply store holding the envelope, her face contracted in thought: I knew the postmark was puzzling her. I had to admire her discipline in not opening it immediately. She tucked it beneath her arm and picked up her bike, one of those folding jobs you see in pictures of European commuters. As she mounted the bike I saw her shake off her puzzlement, or at least put it off until she could open the thing in private. She pedaled away with alacrity in the direction she'd come from.
I followed in the Hyundai, hugging the curb about a block and a half back. I watched Beverly's rear end shift from side to side on the bicycle seat, and thought it a shame that such a juicily inviting butt should be attached to a criminal.
And yet … when I first saw her, my heart leaped. Do you believe it? I swear it's true.
She turned the corner into the same marina pug-nosed guy lived in. I decided to approach her as she was opening the gate.
As I say, I was following slowly. Well, the speed limit was thirty-five miles per hour, and of course I was only going about five. I had a mere block to go before the turnoff into the marina when traffic thickened and the car behind me honked impatiently. I gestured for it to go around, adding an I-can't-help-it hand motion, but the driver must have thought I gave him the finger, because in an instant he swerved around, cut between me and the car in front, and slammed on his brakes. I barely stomped on mine in time to avoid smashing into him.
The guy stopped his car, an older Ford station wagon with a crunched-in hind end. I wondered how many times he'd made this particular maneuver. My bumper was an inch from his, and traffic backed up behind me as I saw him open his door. I hastily hit the lock button and rolled up my window as the guy got out.
"Hell," I muttered.
He wasn't a big guy. In fact, he was a thin young dude, a black kid, but he had a fierce Ayatollah-like look in his eyes. Perhaps I was the tenth person today to have dissed him, and he was going to take his revenge on me. Perhaps he hated Hyundais. His girlfriend in the passenger seat turned around and gave me a resigned look.
The guy took two strides toward my car, then stopped, staring.
"A woman!" he spat. "Shit!"
He flung himself back into his car, threw it in gear, and zoomed off.
And they say chivalry is dead.
----
By the time I got to the marina, Beverly Austin had passed through the locked gate; I saw her in the distance wheeling her bicycle down the row of boats.
I sat and thought, then rooted in my pocket for the drug-smuggler's bracelet I'd found in Porrocks's boathouse. I slipped it on my left wrist above my watch. Although the bracelet was too big, my Timex kept it from sliding off. The gold felt smooth and nicely heavy on my arm—outlaw swanky.
I waited for someone to come along to the gate, but nobody did for at least fifteen minutes. My nerves got edgy. I thought maybe I should just swim out to the dock, but that would be a more conspicuous move than I wanted to make right then.
Fortunately, one of the marina rats I described before happened along, carrying a case of Corona on one shoulder. He looked about ten years older than me, not a bit drunk yet this morning, and tremendously bored.
"Hi." I stepped toward him, leading with my right side, to hide my left wrist.
"How ya doin'?" he said in an automatic voice. Then he noticed me.
Believe me, I am no prize, but I'd taken off my sunglasses and Vietnam hat, and the breeze was riffling my hair. I was wearing jeans, a yellow cotton blouse, and my Chuck Taylors. I'm skinny, OK, but I do have boobs, which I now accentuated with a shoulders-back, Hepburn-neck posture (Audrey or Katharine, take your pick). My face—well, it's an ordinary one, but my teeth are good, and I can make my eyes look quite warm when I want to.
Practically any woman can get a lonely guy's attention. Everybody knows that.
I adopted a languorous gait. I smiled and moved toward this fellow another few steps until we were no more than an arm's length apart.
He stopped, balancing the beer case on his shoulder. His mouth fell very slightly open. He sniffed the air as if trying to catch perfume.
I said, "You're a strong one, aren't you?"
He flushed instantly red through his dark tan. "Oh, not so very, I guess." He smiled back with stained but intact teeth. He squinted lopsidedly into the sun over my shoulder, one eye squinching almost closed.
"Oh, I bet you are."
"Uh, want a beer?" he offered, swinging the case to the ground. He wiped his hands on his Rolling Stones tongue T-shirt.
"No, thank you. But maybe—later." I extended my hand. "Hey, I'm Lillian."
"Hey, I'm Pete." He took my hand, bowed over it, and kissed it.
I was astonished; no one had ever kissed my hand, except Lou once after three rum-and-Cokes. Pete gave me a close look, and I saw him trying to figure out if I was a hooker.
"Look, Pete, I have two favors to ask you. And I'm willing to—well, let me just tell you what they are."
He waited, trying to be guarded but smiling brainlessly and ogling my chest.
"One," I went on, "is huge, just absolutely huge to me. I want to walk through that gate with you."
He exhaled. "Well, sure—why'd you even—I mean, half the people here've lost their keys and they just go in with other people, or get the security guy to let them in." His voice was deep, but he didn't mumble; there was definitely a measure of coastal drawl in it, maybe Florida, or maybe upward into Georgia or the Carolinas.
I glanced at the golf cart, still parked next to the marina office.
"Yeah, where is that guy?"
"I think he's on vacation this week. They don't have but one guy. It's pretty casual here, you know." Pete's hair and eyebrows were caramel-brown and bushy, not quite out of control. He wore similarly lush sideburns, which gave him a look of seventies cool.
"Right, well, I wanted to be open about things. Plus there's this other, uh …" I lowered my voice. "Um, my boyfriend's in Buenos Aires this week making a buy."
"Oh, yeah?"
"Yeah, and I'm meeting my girlfriend on her boat for lunch today." I turned so he could see the bracelet. He noticed it. I held it up. "Ever seen one of these?"
Respect lit Pete's eyes. "I sure have. You get it from your boyfriend?"
"Yeah, actually I call it my mad money!" I laughed warmly.
Pete chuckled along with me.
Do you know what mad money is? When I was thirteen, my Aunt Rosalie gave me a ten-dollar bill and told me to keep it in the farthest recess of my wallet and not spend it. She explained how when you go on a date, it's good to have your own taxi fare home. "That way if the boy misbehaves, you don't have to put up with him unless you want to. See?" I saw.
"So," I said to Pete, "my girlfriend's expecting me. The thing is,
though, I might need a boat in a little while, a day or two, and hers isn't running now. I wonder if you—"
"Mine's not running either," he interrupted sadly.
"Oh."
"I blew my engine two weeks ago and I'm waitin' for my cousin to come down from Tallahassee to help me fix it."
"Oh." There went my backup plan. "Well, Pete, never mind. But how 'bout I stop by for a beer later? 'Kay?"
"Or," he suggested, "I could join you ladies for lunch!"
"Naw, we got some girl talk to do—you know."
"Oh, sure."
I took his arm and squeezed it. "Pete, you're a prince."
He laughed and touched my hand. "Well, Lillian, if you need anything until then, just holler. I'm aboard the Miss Behavin', D-6."
"The name of your boat is the Miss Behavin'?"
He leered gently, proudly.
"Fun name," I said. "D-dock, number 6? Thanks very much. See you later. I have a feeling I'll be thirsty."
He picked up his case of beer and managed to open and hold the gate for me with one hand.
"Thank you, Prince Pete."
"You're welcome, Princess Lillian."
He wasn't a bad guy at all.
What the hell was my backup plan? All I knew was, if your quarry has a boat, you ought to line one up too. It was as half-baked as that.
But I had another reason for making contact with Pete or whomever happened to be walking by.
I hate to actually come out and say it because it sounds melodramatic. But I wanted someone to witness me walking through that gate. I wanted Pete to hear my real name and remember me, I wanted him to take a good look at me and what I was wearing, bracelet and all.
Because I wasn't so stupid as to think I wasn't about to do something dangerous. And I wasn't so confident as to take for granted I'd come out of it alive.
Chapter 29
Boat owners are crazy for puns, do you know that? This marina was particularly bad: for every ordinarily named boat there were two or three with the kind of names a seventh-grade hillbilly would come up with, painted stylishly on their transoms. That is, for every Sarah Ann there was an Oar-Gas-Um and a Lazy Daze. For every Dauntless there was an Aye Sea U and a Gator Baiter. I hadn't really noticed this before Pete said the name of his boat, but that's the way it was.
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