Caroline was smiling and I waved her out. She eased past and waited while I closed the door, I tried to comprehend those so hard-hearted they did not believe that love could happen instantly, that some indefinable magic could happen between two people. They were wrong.
I hadn't been with a woman since I'd killed Escobar. There had been opportunities I had let pass: pretty girls around the marina in Miami; a brunette sun bunny on Miami Beach who'd done everything but pull off her bikini and engagement ring as enticement; and a certain female detective in Boca Raton with soft curves and big dark eyes.
But I hadn't been quite right after Escobar. Oh, the equipment still worked, the biological desire was still there, but it hadn't been as overpowering as it once was. The female detective with the luscious body teasingly suggested while sipping a Dos Equis on the deck of Stella one evening that I was punishing myself. She didn't know about Escobar, of course, so she could not have imagined that she might be getting very close to the truth.
I had come close recently with Delana. On the surface, it had seemed perfect, with both of us heading towards something inevitable, maybe even amazing. But then I'd seen Caroline, frail and vulnerable, and lovely. Every tidbit of information I discovered about her validated not only the desire I longed to quench in her arms, but the tender feelings in my heart. Sometimes it is hard to say if want comes first, or love and need. When all three are tangled up in a single, astonishing moment, only then does the heart reach its full potential. And no matter how big, tough, jaded or world-weary you are, you have no choice but to follow it.
The door rattled against the asphalt and I hopped in beside Caroline. I told her which way to turn and we headed for Dinner Key. There were some April days left, so the evening was cool enough to enjoy driving a convertible.
Miami isn't what she once was, a fact most jarringly exposed during daylight hours. But at night she could still appear beautiful, magical even. It is an illusion, of course, this soft blanket of night and the breeze coming from the ocean hiding Miami's scars: the poverty living next door to glamour; the young college kids treating Miami like one big sex and drug party until it spilled out into the streets; and rampant crime which had to be ignored while cops dealt with the flow of drugs coming from Columbia, Bolivia and Peru on its way to Los Angeles.
Tonight was a particularly lovely night. The sky was clear and we could see the stars. The bright lights of Miami and all the gaudy colors for which she is famous a reminder that for some, the day was just beginning.
I opened the glove box and took out the gun I kept in the 'Cuda. It was a Bren Ten, a powerful 10 millimeter. I had to leave the Beretta behind when I flew but knew I'd have firepower once I reached Miami.
"Make a right up here and park." Caroline slowed and I directed her into Sonny's parking spot. Sonny didn't have a car, most of his travel was by boat or plane, so his slot was always empty; unless some Miami babe was having a sleepover, of course.
Sonny had gone the opposite direction I took after Maria was killed. He'd gotten hold of himself after about six months, but by then he was approaching the Wilt Chamberlin stratosphere for getting laid. Some people drown themselves in a bottle. Sonny had drowned himself in garter belts and bikinis, fishnet stockings and silk panties, and girls wearing no panties at all. And once, when club lights were dim, a girl with the wrong equipment. Sonny had discovered the, er, misunderstanding just in the nick of time, but the experience had been a wake-up call. It wasn't long before he was taking things at a more languid pace where the babes were concerned.
Caroline didn't say anything when I strapped on the Bren Ten before getting out, but I could tell she was alert. I took her hand in mine and squeezed. Her hand was warm and she intwined her delicate fingers in mine. We began the long walk down Dinner Key's pier.
It was late, just past ten. A few people were sitting out on the deck of their boat, drinking wine, talking. Two piers away, a party seemed to be on full throttle. Sonny's pier was the longest in length. We were maybe halfway to Sonny's slip when I saw the brief flash, followed by a very tiny speck of orange. A boat was just beyond the entryway to the ocean and someone standing on the bow had lit a cigarette. I couldn't hear engines. He wasn't cruising in to dock. He was waiting.
I slowed and wrapped my arm around Caroline, pulling her gently to me so that she was looking back from where we'd come and I was watching that speck. I kissed her as we stood, and whispered in her ear, "It may be nothing, but I want to stay here a minute or two. We can neck so it will look natural." Her eyes were bright up-close and her mouth covered mine. I felt her gentle fingers on the back of my neck as her lips caressed mine. I almost forgot we were pretending.
There is an ebb and flow to the water in a marina, even in the dark. I was watching the line from the boat to the dock and saw the light splash of a swimmer kicking, but easily, so as not to be heard. "Let's walk, but slower. I want to be closer. If I holler, you dive for the water. Understand?" She frowned.
"I don't want to leave you alone, Seth." There was feeling in her voice. It caught as she whispered, "I don't want to lose you."
"You won't, I promise. It may be nothing anyway. But jump into the water if I yell, okay?"
"Okay."
We had gotten closer but I'd lost sight of the swimmer. We took ten more steps before I got a bead on him again. He was next to Sonny's boat but moving back from where he'd come. I frowned, and then it hit me. I quickened my pace and closed the distance. "Stay here on the dock."
I left Caroline in the dark, literally and figuratively, and jumped over the railing onto Sonny's boat, knowing it would trigger his floodlights. It did. The swimmer had gone underneath the water. Sonny appeared holding a little Walther I'd given him. He hated guns, but he kept one around because he had to. It was Miami. "Hey, man, what's with the Spiderman stuff?"
"Get off the boat, Sonny. Take Caroline with you and walk as far away as you can get until I signal you that it's okay to come back." He grimaced, understanding immediately. "Don't let me lose Candida, man."
He jumped down and said to Caroline, "Hi. I'm Sonny. Nice meeting the voice on the phone. I'll explain things as we walk." I nodded to Caroline. She kept looking back, worried, but went with Sonny. I shed my shoes, socks, holster and shirt, and slipped down into the water. I remembered why I hated swimming. It was wet, and cold. What was the attraction?
I dove below the water but couldn't see anything. I would have to find it by feel. I started at the bow and began working my way toward the stern. It was slow, tedious work. I had to slide my hand gently along the hull so as not to trigger the bomb. If luck was with me, it would have a timer. If not, it would be controlled by signal from the boat offshore. I was betting on a timer because they wouldn't want to be around when it blew, lighting up the Miami night like the 4th of July.
I found it. It was halfway between bow and stern, just above the waterline. Smart. It wouldn't matter where anyone was on Candida when she became a fireball. No escape.
A small, circular timer no bigger than one of those cheap automobile clocks you can find at any auto or hardware store was attached to the plastique. I reached beneath the water into my soaked pant pocket and removed my pocket knife. It took maybe five minutes to carefully -- very carefully -- pry it off the hull. I exhaled. I had it. Now what the hell did I do with it?
I hadn't heard any engines, which meant the boat was still out there, in no hurry. I held the ball of death up close, looking at the timer. It read five minutes after the hour. Assuming it was set to blow on the hour, which was only logical, I had fifty-five minutes. If I could disarm it, it would only take perhaps twenty minutes round trip to get out there and back.
I tried to remember everything I'd learned way back when from Dade's chief bomb guy. I pulled on the red wire while holding my breath. It broke free. The clock stopped. So did my heart. Now the hard part.
I swam easily out toward sea, using a minimum of movement. It took me only eleven minutes, but it seemed
like eleven hours. I poked my head out of the water. The cigarette smoker had gone below deck once his partner had returned. A break. In five minutes I was heading back towards Caroline. Halfway there I heard engines start behind me. I worried for a moment that I'd been seen as the boat moved toward me, but then it made a wide turn and headed out into open water.
I made it back in eight minutes, dripping wet. Caroline broke out in a run as I climbed out of the water onto the pier. Sonny walked, but he walked quickly. Caroline threw her arms around me, muttering something about how scared she'd been. She grabbed a towel lying on deck and wrapped it around my shoulders. I was freezing. "We need to leave, now," I said, shivering.
Sonny knew better than to ask questions. He eased Candida out of the marina and only when we were well clear did he shut her down and come find us. Caroline had taken me below and was making coffee, which I hated, but it was hot and that's what mattered.
"Mind letting me in on what just happened?"
I told him.
"Damn. We'd have been fish food. Who?" It was a good question.
"I'm not sure. Vargas maybe. Maybe another player short a couple of million. For all I know Marquez set us up. I only told Harry I was heading to Miami. He probably told Delana. I didn't mention the cash."
"What cash? And who's Delana?"
I told him. He whistled.
"That's some serious action, man. If I wasn't a proper entrepreneur now, I'd have been happy to take it off your hands."
Caroline brought me the coffee and I took a sip. It was bitter, but warming.
"You sure about this Delana?"
"As sure as you can ever be." But it gave me something to mull over I hadn't considered. I couldn't see it.
"Anybody else been around the boat? Didn't you say those two dirty cops came out there when her boat blew?"
I was following Sonny's train of thought easily enough. If the boat had been bugged they knew I was headed for Miami. But I'd said nothing about the money, so why try to ice me? Was it all twisted up with Nancy's death?
"There's some sensitive stuff out there. It's a high-tech world now, man. Tiny little transmitters that pick up everything, and I mean, everything."
"I need to get out of these pants."
"Through there and in the third drawer down. Just pants though. I love ya but I don't love ya that much."
Caroline laughed and Sonny grinned. Whenever she laughed, the world became a better place. "I'll use the hair dryer on the briefs."
“Much appreciated.” Sonny and Caroline both laughed as I headed back to change clothes.
Fourteen
I tried to remember everything I knew about Marquez as Sonny headed for the Keys. He was Spanish, real Spanish, old-world Spanish. He fancied himself a gentleman and liked to be perceived as a successful businessman. He had a few politicians in his pocket and Miami's elite were not above sending him invitations to balls and charity fundraisers, which Marquez more often than not attended.
Marquez had come a long way in the traffic, and never wanted to go back. He had a code of sorts, refusing to run girls despite the money which could be made in prostitution. He wasn't squeamish about the drug trade, but found something distasteful in trading flesh for cash. Both were supply and demand, but perhaps a wife who reportedly knew nothing about her husband's true vocation and two grown children, one male, one female, both attending college, drew for him a tawdry line in the sands of Miami which he refused to cross.
In a warped, pragmatic kind of way, it made perfect sense. Druggies were hardly the most sympathetic of creatures. They stole without remorse to feed their habit, and lied habitually to get money for a hit. They would inevitably use up any credit they had with friends until they no longer had any. Credit or friends. Nobody loves a junkie. Well, almost nobody. I had once, a long time ago, and it had taken me a long time to get over her.
Prostitutes were different, however, or at least perceived to be so by anyone who'd never been around one and realized they lied, stole and got over as much as junkies. In fact, with prostitutes the betrayal became more personal because of the illusory intimacy of sex. But the majority of the public at large viewed hookers as victims, their only reference points being all those Hollywood films portraying every prostitute as having a heart of gold. In truth, any gold a hooker had she'd acquired by rolling a guy and relieving him of his rolex while he slept. And then she'd given it to her pimp.
Marquez would have no such illusions, but he knew his wife and daughter, possibly even his son, would have, so he steered clear of trading in that kind of despair. There was no evidence -- not even rumors -- of any liaisons outside his marriage either, which was nearly unheard of for a man in Marquez's position. It might prompt a begrudging respect if you didn't know how ruthless and deadly he could be. He might have been a pussycat when it came to sex, but Marquez was no pussy. He knew where the bodies were buried because he'd put them there.
"It's gorgeous out here," Caroline commented, the wind blowing her hair as we moved through the water.
She was right. I'd always enjoyed the Keys. All most people know about the Keys is that Bogart once made a movie called Key Largo and it was stormy from beginning to end. They are islands located in the Florida Straits. On one side of them lies the Atlantic Ocean and on the other the Gulf of Mexico. At the tip of Florida's peninsula they begin their gentle arc south and a bit west. The most southern end of Key West is less than 100 miles from Cuba. Close to a third of the entire populous in the Keys live in Key West.
Most of the Keys are part of Monroe County, but a few, like Totten Key at the upper end of the Keys, lie in Miami-Dade. Old Rhodes Key is just west of Totten Key. Because of the Keys' location they're in the subtropics, which translated means they get plenty of wind and rain. And it's hot.
Before my time, back in the mid-thirties on Labor Day, one of the worst hurricanes to ever hit the US found Islamorada in the Upper Keys and swept through the islands with 200 mph winds. The sea washed over the Keys, winds raging, and by the time it was over as many as 600 people had fallen victim to nature's fury. World War 1 veterans working on the roadways in some sort of government program hadn't made it out in time and there was a big scandal about it afterward. Camille in '69 and Andrew in '92 were bad, but nothing compared to '35.
A lot of dreams died in '35, especially those of Henry Flagler. One of the only good things to come out of the disaster was the conversion of his damaged railroad bridges into automobile roads. Now we have US 1, called the Overseas Highway. Seven Mile Bridge -- which is just short of actually being seven miles long, by the way -- incorporated rails from Flagler's dream into guard rails. The bridge runs from Little Duck Key in the lower Keys all the way to Knight's Key.
Pigeon Key, or Cayo Paloma, named after the White-crowned pigeons that used to be abundant on the island, lies in the Moser Channel. Through politics or stupidity, which are often synonymous, Pigeon Key got bypassed by the Seven Mile Bridge. You can walk or ride over the old access bridge to the tiny island but you can't drive across it because it isn't safe. That's a shame because it is home to some of the few remaining historical old buildings from Florida's past. Henry Flagler located his workmen's camp in Pigeon Key while building the railroad. Unless vacationers allot time to hop on a ferry or book a charter specifically to go there, however, which is unlikely, they'll never see the old Mess Hall for Flagler's Overseas Railroad, or the old Post Office which operated from 1923 to 1933 and became known as Negro Quarters after it closed.
We were headed in the Florida night for Bahia Honda Key, which lies between Ohio Key and Spanish Harbor Key. Hardly anyone lives there because since 1961 it has been home to the 500+ acres of Bahia Honda State Park. There is a lot of paved road through the park, and I mean a lot, so cyclers and skaters love it. Planners also quite wisely left room for a lot of fishing and picnicking areas. Kayakers and snorkelers love the reef fish and rays, not to mention the barracudas and nurse sharks that make the waters around Honda Key
their home. Miami Blue, a rare butterfly thought to be extinct after Andrew, was discovered there just before the Y2K "disaster" which went the way of the Global Warming scare. There are vacation cabins within the park but they can be hard to book at certain times of the year. The park hosts a marina, but we weren't headed there.
Bahia Honda means "Deep Bay" in Spanish, and the channel at the west end of Honda is why. It is one of the deepest natural channels in the Keys. Marquez resided somewhere here, but few knew the exact location. Sonny had been given longitude and latitude and told in no uncertain terms not to write it down. I can tell you, but then I have to kill you.
Considering all the bigwigs Marquez and his wife rubbed shoulders with, I wondered how he'd managed to keep the location secret. But then, considering it further, Marquez and his wife attended swanky functions, they didn't host them.
A mile away from Dinner Key, Caroline was introduced to one of Sonny's few peccadillos. He turned around with his hands on the helm and asked Caroline, "You mind if I play some music? It relaxes me when I'm tense."
I shook my head "no" where only Caroline could see me but the blessing to do so was already coming out of her mouth. I was too late. I mouthed a "You'll be sorry" because I knew all too well what was about to assault her auditory senses. Sonny liked Buffet and Clapton, but when he got anxious, he strayed far afield. Caroline's eyes got very large and I gave her an "I warned you" smile when a piercing operatic aria began. Elana Garcia.
Caroline hollered at Sonny over the booming music, "Really?"
He shook his head, chagrinned. "I know," he hollered back, "but it has a calming effect on me for some reason." He turned the volume down a couple of notches so they could hear each other better.
The Turquoise Shroud: A Seth Halliday Novel Page 10