The Cardinal's Sin

by Robert Lane

  Behind the girl and the man, I could clearly see an S in the same font as the one in my mind. “Southern Breeze,” I said. “He kept one boat too long.”

  “Same boat?”

  “Positive. I saw her a few days ago. Paretsky’s there now, taking his dinghy out to the bay. He’s been there all along.”

  “We go by car or boat?”

  “Boat.” I started for the side door. “If we find him, his dinghy will be no match for Impulse. Grab the bag.”

  I sprinted out to the end of my dock and hit the switch to lower Impulse into the water. The lift had one speed: slow. At full throttle, it would take Impulse close to twenty minutes to make the downtown marina. I could drive in fifteen—tops—but then I wouldn’t have a boat. If Paretsky was on the water, I wanted to hunt him. My twin 250s would scorch him unless he had an insurmountable head start, which was a real possibility. If he pulled up anchor on Southern Breeze, I’d board him like a pirate. But what if I wanted to be on land and sea?

  This is where a cowboy comes in handy.

  I called Edward Jonathan Wayne. I told him about the Southern Breeze. He said he’d be at the boat within fifteen minutes. Must be staying in town. Was he dispatched to babysit me?

  Two Super Bowl halftimes later, Impulse finally floated. I jumped in, flicked the battery switch, and uncovered the helm and seat. The Garmin’s ten-inch screen flashed to life, as did an abusively loud Bob Marley. I killed the music. Garrett leapt in with his SASS and Morgan’s old red spinnaker bag. It contained a hodgepodge of guns, knives, a first-aid kit, sat phones, passports, and currencies. We never leave home without it. I told him what I’d discussed with Wayne.

  “Trust him?” He echoed my question to Binelli.

  I held the remote lift control in my left hand and pressed the down button. “Do now.”

  I threw the twin Yamahas in reverse, and Impulse lurched backward, dragging the cradle into the bay, as she still wasn’t buoyant on her own. I spun the wheel, headed for the starboard side of the channel marker, and thrust down the twin throttles. She reared up like a racehorse and settled down on an even plane. The bay was smooth, and she sliced the water like a surgeon’s scalpel. I didn’t slow down under either bridge.

  When I approached the entrance to the harbor, my Boker knife was in my cargo shorts pocket, and my Smith & Wesson was in the holster under my shirt. I cut the speed, and Garrett searched the water with the Steiner marine binoculars for signs of Paretsky.

  “Two o’clock,” he said. I spun to starboard and picked up the anchor light of a boat around two miles offshore.

  “Looks like he’s drifting. Probably fishing.”

  “We’ll need to chase down every light we see.” My phone rang as I was doubting the validity of my plan.

  “Tell me,” I blurted out to Wayne.

  “I pulled up a minute too late,” Wayne replied. “She cast off. Leaving the harbor now.”

  “I’m picking you up.” I told him where and disconnected. I turned to Garrett. “We’re collecting Wayne first.” I wasn’t worried about losing track of Southern Breeze. Hard to hide seventy feet of fiberglass, even on night water.

  A few minutes later, I pulled alongside the public pier, and Wayne stepped on board. I’d never had a cowboy on my boat. I’d never seen a cowboy on a boat. Garrett and Wayne exchanged names.

  “We’ll check out this one boat,” I said to whoever cared as I swung the bow back out toward Tampa Bay. “Make sure it’s not him. Maybe he told the captain of Southern Breeze to take off on his own and create a red herring. We’ll see what they know and then chase her.” I shoved the throttles down, and the roar of the outboards silenced my rambling.

  We came at them fast. Garrett, six foot three and black as night, stood on the forward deck with the SASS over his shoulder and the binoculars around his neck. Wayne planted himself in the stern, his long coat blowing out behind him, slapping the starboard engine’s cowling. He held his revolver in his right hand, and his left hand was tightly wrapped around the hardtop’s white-powder aluminum railing for support. We came upon the boat. It held three men. The men held fishing poles.

  “Gentlemen,” I said as I threw the engines in reverse to keep from ramming their port side. One of the men rushed to keep the boats from colliding. The other two remained stiff. I kept my eyes on the man wearing a baseball cap—at night—who kept the boats from hitting. The fishing boat was likely his. “Did you see a man, by himself, in a dinghy?”

  “You law?” Baseball Cap said.

  “That’s right,” Garrett replied. “We’re law.”

  “Not game wardens,” I said, cutting in. I didn’t want them to think we were going to haul them in for lack of a fishing license. “You just need to tell us—”

  “Nothin’,” a man in the aft deck blurted out. “We ain’t seen a thing.”

  I kept my eyes on the captain. “I’m asking you.”

  The boats rubbed together, but Baseball Cap kept an eye on Garrett as he pushed away with his left foot.

  “Ten minutes ago,” he said, looking up at me. “No lights. Maybe two hundred yards off our bow, but hard to say without them running lights.”

  “Headed where?” I said.

  “New Orleans. How the hell I know?”

  “You really want to talk to me like that?”

  “Hey, I didn’t mean any—”

  “You know these waters?”

  “Born and raised here. We’re just out here doing some night fishing, you know? Don’t want any—”

  “Tell me where he was headed.”

  He stuck his foot out again to keep the boats from hitting. “Lot of water, man.” He glanced back up to me. “But my guess? Those channels by Westshore. Let’s put it like this: if he kept a straight course, that’s where he would dock. But you’re too far behind, even with all that juice on your ass. If that was where he was headed, he’s docked and halfway to Mickeytown by now.” He nodded at Wayne. “What’s with the cowboy?”

  “His horse drowned.”

  I spun Impulse around and punched the throttles down when she was still coming out of her turn, throwing my wake into the port side of the fishing boat. I wasn’t going to give chase to an unknown boat, in an unknown direction, that I couldn’t catch.

  In the distance the lights of downtown St. Pete glowed against the Florida night. I switched off my running lights. On the flat surface of the bay, the lights of Southern Breeze moved along the shore toward the channel of Tampa Bay and the open waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

  She was mine.

  CHAPTER 32

  She was also faster than I thought.

  She must have had a pair of hell-injected diesels deep in her hull, firing with everything they had. We didn’t catch up with her until the Sunshine Skyway Bridge.

  I doubted Paretsky was on board Southern Breeze, but maybe the dinghy leaving the harbor was a red herring. Even if he had abandoned ship, those individuals still on board should hold information about his operation and possibly even his whereabouts.

  I shouted to Wayne, “You pilot a boat before?”

  “Bass fishing. Lake Talquin.” His left hand, knuckles white, was welded around the aluminum rail.

  “Good enough.” The three of us reviewed our options, picked the one least likely to get us killed, and unanimously agreed that we would find out if lady luck was on deck or not. I wished Morgan was with us but was thankful that Kathleen was safe. Unless someone’s gunning for them with the same speed I’m closing in on Southern Breeze. I didn’t need that in my head and shut it down.

  Southern Breeze went wide open under the bridge, north of thirty knots by my gauges. Someone had a brass pair. The concrete embankments are wide enough for freighters, but to run them full speed at night in a seventy-foot cruiser? Not to mention the concrete bumpers placed on either side of the entrance to protect the supporting structure.

  Her name was written in neon blue across her stern in the same font as the initials I’d reco
gnized on the chaise lounges. She sported a rear deck the size of my screened porch that cleared the water by only a few feet. Two Jet Skis were clamped to the transom. The hoist that lowered the dinghy to the water was flopping over the side. I came in fast and dark.

  “You’re humming in pretty quick here,” Wayne shouted.

  “Just to get us close,” I shouted back. I surrendered the wheel to Wayne and maneuvered to the bow alongside Garrett. The churning wake and convulsing waters caused by Southern Breeze’s props supplanted the shrill noise of my twin Yamahas.

  “What if she pulls up?” Wayne shouted.

  “She’s not a mustang. Just keep off to the side,” I shouted back at him. “Get us close. Starboard side.”

  “Now,” Garrett shouted, and he leapt onto the swim platform. I started to follow, but Impulse bounced away. It reminded me of a similar situation I was in over a year ago as I attempted to rescue a boat of girls. My jump that night came up short.

  Not tonight.

  I landed next to Garrett, started to pitch forward, and felt his hand squeeze me back. I glanced behind me. Wayne cut back on the throttle as I had instructed him, and Impulse fell off. He would stay within a hundred feet until I stopped the yacht, and then he would approach us for a tie-up.

  Garrett’s SIG Sauer exploded in my right ear. I instinctively hit the deck, and a man tumbled on top of me. With my left hand, I grabbed the stainless-steel handle on the port side of the walkway up to the main deck. With my right, I snatched the man’s arm to keep him from going in the drink. Garrett bounded up the steps. I hauled the man to the main deck and turned him over.

  “Won’t be telling us anything,” I muttered under my breath. I quickly went through his pockets but found nothing other than a St. Christopher’s cross around his neck.

  “Either him or you,” Garrett said.

  I spun around. “I thought you went to the bridge.”

  “I did.”

  “And?”

  “Came back to give you a heads-up. The blonde’s inside—no one has the wheel. If there’s more crew, they’re hiding. I’m going hunting. Boat and blonde are yours. I vote you slow us down.”

  Garrett took off for the lower deck, and I sprinted into the main stateroom.

  Southern Breeze. Seventy feet of top shelf. Teak floors. Mahogany walls. Recessed lighting. Flat-screen TVs the size of my bed. Overstuffed couches. A bamboo coffee table sat on an oval rug the color of sea coral. Six steps at the front of the stateroom led up to the pilothouse.

  The blonde. She was the sunbather I’d seen earlier. She stumbled down the steps in a gold sundress with spaghetti straps and a ruffled scoop neck. At the sight of me, she abruptly halted her forward motion, although her head didn’t get the memo. She held a gun in both hands and waved it at my head. The gun had my full attention.

  “One move,” she said in a plastered voice, “and I’ll kill you. Swear I will. Swear it, I really do.” Really came out like a Saturday Night Live skit about Baba Wawa.

  I didn’t believe her, but I had to consider the downside.

  CHAPTER 33

  “I’m here to help you,” I said.

  She was three sheets to the wind, but that wasn’t necessarily good news.

  “Stay back,” she blurted. I hadn’t moved.

  “Do you know where Paretsky—”

  “He’s an aaaaass.” She brought the gun up. A single shot from below. Garrett? He must have located the rest of the crew.

  “I need to know where he is.” I took a bird step forward. “He’s a dangerous man.”

  “Don’t, don’t, don’t.” She raised the gun even higher.

  The gun was a minor nuisance compared to what I saw approaching—the tip of Egmont Key. We were bearing straight in toward the lighthouse. Seventy feet of fiberglass and eighty-four thousand pounds, barreling at thirty knots into six inches of water—that was if we were lucky. We could crash into the sunken concrete that shrouded Egmont. Blondie started to tumble but caught herself with her right hand on the varnished rail that led to the pilothouse. Her left still clutched the gun.

  I put my hands up, palms out. “I need to slow the boat down, OK? I’m going to walk over to the—”

  “Don’t.” She aimed at my eyes. “Please, just don’t.”

  I let my breath out slowly and tried to hold her glassy eyes. “What’s your name?”

  “Paige, with an i.”

  “I have to, Paige. We—”

  “Last name Godfrey.”

  “—will both die if this boat is not stopped. Shoot me if you want, but at least save yourself and wait until I stop the boat.”

  “I chust might do that.” She sloshed out the words as she waved the gun toward the helm, as if to give me permission. “Let you save me and then kill you. What do ya think of that?”

  She teetered sideways away from the steps, nearly losing her balance. I cleared the steps to the helm in one stride. I eased the throttles back, spun the wheel to starboard to clear the shallow waters, and then cut the throttles to neutral. We were in an area where we could safely drift. I returned to the stateroom. Paige stood off by one of the flat-screen TVs.

  She said, “What was the question again?”

  “Paretsky. Do—”

  “Aaaaass.”

  “Do you know where Renée Lambert is?”

  “That wacko? Why?” Her knees started to buckle. She reached out to the TV and steadied herself.

  “I think she’s in danger—”

  “Goody, goody gumdrops.”

  The gun had been slipping. I snuck another bird step in her direction. “Do you know where she is?”

  “She’s like one of those things, you know…ah, shit… what do you call it? Boomerang. Yeah, boomerang love. You know what that is, don’t ja? It just keeps comin’ back, baby. Keeps on comin’ back.” She waved the gun like she was swatting away a fly. “Thought he was over her, but nooo, she just kept comin’ back, like a boom-boom-boomerang. Hey, ya know what? She thinks he’s gonna kill a bird.”

  “Who?”

  “Alex, baby, who do you think we’re talking about?”

  “Why would she—”

  “Why the questions? Don’t ja wanna do me?” Her eyes rolled and then settled back, but like Magic 8 Balls, they weren’t exactly centered. “That’s all he ever wanted.”

  I was wasting time with her in her present state. I took a step toward her and demanded, “Do you know where Paretsky was headed when he left the boat tonight?”

  She smacked her lips together. “Got me, babe. Where?”

  “Did he say anything about the Guardian?”

  “Who?”

  “A man he knew was killed tonight. He went by the name of the Guardian.”

  “Never heard of him or this Paret—”

  I snatched the gun with my left hand and slapped her sharply across the cheek with my right palm. She would have hit the deck, but I cradled her in my left arm. The right strap of her dress slid down over her arm as it struggled to contain her breasts. She was soft and warm, and her hot, moist breath smothered my face. I backed her away.

  “Don’t lie to me. The Guardian? Did you know him?”

  “Fuckin’ hit me.”

  “Where’s Paretsky?”

  “You hit me.”

  “I’m sorry. I need—”

  “A liar and a hitter.”

  “Where’s—”

  “Your girlfriend Renée? Ya know what? If he finds her she’s a gon—”

  She crumpled like a marionette.

  I caught her with both arms and carried her to an overstuffed couch which had a blue anchor pillow in one corner and a map of the British Virgin Islands pillow in the other. I tried to prop her up, but she kept toppling over like a Raggedy Ann doll. I settled her in the Virgin Islands.

  Her eyes popped open just as I stepped back. “Why ja hit me?”

  “I need to find Paretsky. We’ll talk in the morning.”

  “I’m not a bad girl.”<
br />
  “I know you’re not. We’ll—”

  “Kill a bird. Believe that?”

  I grabbed her shoulders and jerked her face up to mine. “The hell you talk—”

  “Don’t hit me. Don’t hit me. Don’t hit me.”

  I pulled back.

  “The guy you asked me about?” Her eyes tried to focus, but they were rolling like waves. “The Guardian? Name is Paulo,” she spat out, giving the P most of the weight. “That’s his name. That’s what you want, right? Whatja think, we called him the Guardian all the time? Silly. Hey, I’m a good girl. You know that?” She tried to straighten herself out, but her head was too heavy. “Alex said Paulo was dead. Did you kill him?”

  “You need to help me find Pa—”

  “Hey…” She straightened up again, like a heavyweight fighter refusing to go down. She focused her eyes, summoning whatever bit of sobriety remained in her. “You never told me your name.”

  “Travis. Jake Travis.”

  “Travis. Jake Travis. Travis Jake. Well, howdy, JT.” Her head flopped to the side. “Wanna guess what I had to drink tonight?”

  “We’ll talk in the morning.”

  I positioned the pillow behind her head. She sank into the couch, but then her eyes widened as they focused on something behind me. Her head fell back, and her eyes rolled shut.

  “Oh, God, I gotta stop the hard stuff,” she moaned. “You’re not gonna believe this, JT.”

  “What?”

  “No way.”

  “Tell me.”

  “JT?” She opened her eyes for the last time that evening. “There’s a cowboy on the boat.”

  With that, Paige Godfrey was out for good.

  CHAPTER 34

  “You won’t pump any information out of her until morning,” Wayne commented as he stepped into the stateroom.

  “How’s Garrett?”

  “Got two hog-tied. Too bad he was so quick on the draw with that first fellow.”

  “You mean when he covered my ass?”

  “I suppose.”

  “She secure?”

  He glanced at Paige. “Looks like she’s in the pen to me.”