The Cardinal's Sin

by Robert Lane

  “My boat, not the slopped broad.”

  “Oh. Got her hog-tied, too. Maybe not like you told me, but she’s not taking off on her own.”

  Wayne went over to a wooden bar cart and poured himself a drink. At both our previous meetings, he’d stuck with water. A drink didn’t sound half bad; indeed, it sounded wholly good at that moment. I joined him at the bar and poured a couple of shots into a glass tumbler that outweighed a bowling ball.

  He winced as the Southern Comfort found its mark and helped himself to another pour. Piloting Impulse at night into the aft deck of Southern Breeze might have been just a tad out of his comfort zone.

  He gave his singular nod. “I need to call this in to my group.”

  I ignored him and gave him time for another swig. Maybe a little liquid gold would enlighten him. I returned to the helm. Mexico was still over a thousand miles away, but it was time to stop drifting.

  The Egmont Key lighthouse was at ten o’clock off my port side. I turned the wheel to the starboard and headed up the coast. I’d piloted big boats before, but it took a few minutes to get a feel for Southern Breeze’s controls and familiarize myself with the electronics. The Garmin chartplotter sported the same controls that my unit had, except it displayed a fifteen-inch screen versus my ten-inch. I steered Southern Breeze into the main channel. I needed to talk to Garrett, who I assumed was searching the boat. Then what? Let him take Impulse back to my dock while I docked Southern Breeze at Morgan’s inside dock? She’d fit, but it would be tight. The tide shouldn’t be a problem, as low tide was still over three hours out and a foot over mean. MacDill could send over a crew to scrub her for leads, but she’d draw a lot of attention. I didn’t want that and killed the plan before it hatched.

  Wayne was at the bottom of the short flight of steps. “I need you up here,” I said. “Keep her straight. I’m going to find Garrett.”

  “I need to call this in to my people,” Wayne repeated as he joined me at the helm.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “You got a dead body, gunfire, and—”

  “We don’t have Paretsky.”

  I put the boat in neutral and faced Wayne. Garrett entered the pilothouse through the side port door and propped his SASS up against the instrument panel. “Secure,” he said. “Two tied up and the body on the aft deck. No other bodies on board.”

  “They know anything?” I said.

  “Doubtful. Hired deckhands out of George Town. I fired a single shot to emphasize that the party was over. Been with the boat for over a year. Paretsky’s had it for the past six months, and he’s been on and off it over that time. They confirmed his ID when I showed them a picture. They never knew the man’s name beyond Alex.”

  “Wayne feels it’s his patriotic duty to,” I cut Wayne a look, “how did you phrase it? ‘Call this in.’ That right?”

  “I’m a federal—”

  Garrett said, “Our people will handle it, not yours. You’re either with us or not. You have no—”

  “What he’s trying to say, John,” I cut Garrett off before he roped Wayne into a corner and forced him to come out blazing, “is that you’re out of your saddle here. We got this.”

  Below and behind us in the stateroom, Paige snored like a man.

  Wayne said to me, “What’s your plan?”

  “We call it in. MacDill decides what to do, but I’ll suggest that we anchor. It will draw less attention. They can scour the boat for leads to Paretsky. The sooner, the better. We take off on Impulse.”

  Garrett said, “We settled?”

  Paige snorted.

  Wayne gave Garrett a glance and then came back to me. He nodded. Twice.

  We anchored five miles off Bunce Pass. Wayne and Garrett brought the two deckhands into the stateroom for further questioning. Garrett had untied them, hoping to gain a little cooperation. He had questioned them briefly, and I wanted to see if I could pump more information out of them before we surrendered them. I gave them the physical description, minus the wig and glasses, of the man who attacked me in the elevator. They confirmed that he was the man they knew as Paulo Guadarrama. They were never privy to conversations between Paretsky and Guadarrama. Paretsky had taken off on the dinghy earlier that night and not informed them where he was going. They had not seen Guadarrama in the last forty-eight hours.

  Guadarrama had made the arrangements to charter the boat. They were instructed to address Paretsky as ‘Mr. Alex’ at all times. No last name. They reiterated that they never heard him addressed by any other name. Mr. Hoover was a blank. I brought up a picture of Renée Lambert. She was not familiar to them.

  “What’s going to happen to us?” the skinny one with a blue plug in his left lobe said. They sat next to each other on a white leather couch. Each wore a black T-shirt with Southern Breeze in baby blue across the front.

  “Not up to me.”

  “What’s your guess?” Skinny said.

  “If you’re telling me the truth? You’ll be back at Rackman’s in a few days with a good story, a drink in your hand, a woman on your lap, and a Cayman sunset. If you’re lying or being the least bit disingenuous, you’ll never see the Caymans again.” I knelt down in front of him. His Caribbean-green eyes were wide, the skin around them etched with tributary crevices. He’d never known a cloudy day. “What’s your name?”

  “Sallinger. My friends call me Sally.”

  “Is there anything else, Sally, you’d like to add or tell me at this time?”

  He hesitated. “What’s dis…dis—”

  “Not a hard-core lie, but lacking truth and sincerity.” He nodded in approval.

  His buddy looked like he drank a six-pack every night. Six-Pack said, “Maybe you should tell ’em, Sally, ’bout Lynette and the moustache. I think they might be interested, might fall under that ‘dis’ word.”

  “Why do I care about Lynette and the moustache?” I said.

  “’Cause if you’re looking for Mr. Alex,” Sally said, “it might just help you a bit.”

  “Just might at that,” Six-Pack added.

  “Why don’t you do that, Sally?” I pulled up a matching leather chair and sat across from my two new friends. I leaned in, elbows on my knees, hands clasped in front of me. “Lynette and the moustache.”

  “Well.” Sally shifted his weight so he sat higher. “We was in Sint Maarten, you know, moored off Philipsburg, and they, that is Mr. Alex and Paulo, went ashore. We took them in the tender.”

  “When was this?”

  “Well, let’s see. Mr. Alex, he was on and off a lot, sometimes only staying a few days. Must have been right before we picked up Ms. Paige. So, maybe like three, five weeks back?” He turned to Six-Pack. “That sound about right?”

  “It was a Sunday.”

  “How you remember that?” Sally furrowed his eyebrows.

  “Dunno. Never track the days. But I always know when it’s Sunday. I call Mom.”

  Sally turned back to me. “There you go. It was a quick trip over there and back.” He leaned in toward me. “Listen, I can’t incriminate myself here, can I? I mean, if I help you out, you’re not going to bust me for running a little Mary Jane, are you? I’m not saying that I—”

  “Couldn’t care less.”

  “OK, well then. So we drop them off, and we head over to Benny’s Beach Bar. Big charity bash going on. Place was jammed. Girls cover their body with whipped cream and a guy, or a girl, it don’t matter, gets a lick for a five. A ten spot gets you a long lick, and for twenty—”

  “Stick to the story.”

  “OK, right. So, we pick up our supply there, you know?” He shrugged. “Some of it’s a little more advanced than weed, but nothing big, man. It’s a way to like, augment—I think that’s the word—our income. We just run it for friends and—”

  “Get to why I care about this story.”

  “OK, right. Well, we’re—”

  “Who’s ‘we’?”

  He tilted his head toward Six-Pack and co
ntinued. “OK, so we’re in the back room, and I peer out the door, and there’s Mr. Alex at the bar. He don’t drink, you know? And I think, what’s Mr. Alex doing here? Paulo was there, but he was turned, like he was looking out for Mr. Alex’s backside.”

  “You said the place was packed?”

  “Well, I said it was ja—yeah, packed will do. But they was all lookin’ at the girls. I gotta tell you,” he pitched a few degrees toward me, “when it gets down to just a little whipped cream left? I’ve seen C-notes fly like seagulls in a hurricane. There was this one time—”

  I raised my hand, palm out, and said, “Lynette and the moustache.”

  “OK, I got it. So Mr. Alex, he pulls out an envelope and hands it to this stiff next to him. Real Caribbean Joe, you know? Tan slacks, button shirt, dark shades—he was the whole package, man. Now I’m in the back room with—I don’t need to tell you my guy, do I?”

  “No,” I lied. I wanted the story out of him as fast as possible. MacDill would get to the finer points.

  “I ask my man who the guy with Mr. Alex is, ’cause I never seen him before, and my buddy says he’s seen him once or twice with different dudes, none that you would ever want to cross.”

  “Was Paretsky disguised in any manner?”

  “Who?”

  “Mr. Alex.”

  “Yeah, that’s just it.” He nodded in excitement. “Mr. Alex had this woolly worm across his lip. Me and Ace—”

  “Ace?”

  He nodded again toward Six-Pack. Six-Pack, who was relaxed deep into the couch, smiled at me. His teeth had come in every way but straight. It was a pretty bad deck that carried him as an ace. His T-shirt was half tucked in. A worthless stevedore. I refocused on Sally. “We thought he was, you know, sporting it to pick up a girl. He had a collared shirt and sunglasses that P. Diddy would kill for.”

  “You hear anything?”

  “Naw. Was too far away, and the crowd was whippin’.” He cocked his head and smiled. “Hey, you get it? They was covered with whipped cream, and I said that—”

  “Lynette,” I prompted him.

  “OK, sure, Lynette.”

  “Who is she?”

  “The owl. That’s what everyone called her.”

  “Sally, you’ve got to dig deep and get crystal clear for me real fast.”

  “OK. You see, Benny’s got this big, hollow, wood owl that watches over the bar. Used to call her Squeaky, but one day someone calls her Lynette, you know, after that girl who tried to kill President…oh hell, I don’t even re—”

  “Ford. Lynette Fromme. Nickname was Squeaky.”

  “Right, man.” He nodded in approval. “You got it. So the name sticks. Benny, he starts calling the owl Lynette, but the old salts still call her Squeaky. You know when that was?”

  “Fromme’s assassination attempt with an empty chamber? September 1975.”

  “No, man. I mean when they started calling the owl Lynette?”

  “No. Why?”

  Sally shook his head. “I don’t know, man. Thought maybe you’d been there and—”

  “Move along.”

  “OK. So I tell my buddy that’s the guy that we work for, you know? Tell him we’re on the Breeze. You could see her out in the harbor from the bar. I’ll tell you something, this here’s a nice boat.” He glanced around the stateroom. Probably never spent as much time in it as he was now. “For my money, seventy-foot is perfect. It’s a great combination of size and agility. It don’t take much crew, easy to keep spotless, effortless to dock—those bow thrusters, they suck tit big-time—and all the size anyone needs unless they got the larger dick syndrome, you know, just want to watch other people watch them as they motor in. Some of these guys—trust me, this ain’t my first boat—that’s all they care about. Here I come, mama, look how big I am. I’m telling you—”

  “Sally?” I cut him off.

  “Yeah?”

  “You seem like a nice guy.”

  “Thank you. I do try to—”

  “I am going to bash in your teeth unless you get to the point. And if you say ‘OK’ one more time, you will die here and now. Understand?”

  “O—” He nodded, shuddered, and shriveled down like an admonished dog.

  “Tell me about Lynette, the squeaky owl.”

  Six-Pack, without altering his position in the corner of the sofa, laid the ace on the table. “Lynette, the squeaky owl, watches over the bar. Benny got tired of missing booze and finally relented. He put a security camera, pretty much frowned upon in that part of the world, in the owl’s mouth. You can’t even see the thing when you’re looking for it. But Mr. Alex and his business partner? They were right under it. Passing envelopes. Opening envelopes. Smile, baby; your ass is on high-def Candid Camera. I’m telling you—you get that tape; you read their lips.”

  Told you he was worthless.

  I stood up and said to Six-Pack, “The man stupid enough to draw on my friend.” He nodded. “Who was he?”

  “Mr. Guadarrama knew him. He didn’t come with the boat; he came with the men. Understand? Like the three of them had chartered boats before.”

  That explained why he greeted us with a gun. “Anything else?”

  Sally said, “That picture of that girl you showed us?”

  “This one?” I again brought up a picture of Renée Lambert on my phone. He nodded.

  “Yeah. I don’t want you thinking that I’m being dis… in…jenny…ous. Is that it?”

  “Close enough.”

  “We had time off one night in Saint Pete. But I think I saw her go on the boat. Paulo was with her. I asked Paulo about it later. He said she was Mr. Alex’s girlfriend.”

  “Still can’t believe you did that,” Six-Pack said.

  “What?” Sally glanced at his friend.

  “Asked Paulo about her. Told you, we wanted nothing to do with him.”

  “She,” Sally nodded to my phone, “is a fine-lookin’ woman. I’d die to walk with a woman like that. She looks out of Mr. Alex’s league. When a man walks with a woman that ain’t in his league—I’m not just talkin’ looks—he knows it. You know what I mean?”

  I did. I said, “OK, anything else?”

  “See,” Sally said, wiggling around as if he had to use the bathroom, “you do it too.”

  “Do what?”

  “You said, ‘OK.’ I mean, if that’s my worst fault, all I’m saying is—”

  I gave him a playful slap across his left cheek. “You’re OK, Sally.”

  I left them and called in the coordinates to MacDill. We waited until we saw two boats approaching, and then we abandoned ship. Garrett carried Paige onto Impulse and laid her on the deck along the starboard side, her feet toward the bow. We planned to question her in the morning and then sacrifice her to MacDill. He placed a boat cushion under her head. I would have laid her the other way so that her head was higher than her feet as we cruised, but it didn’t matter. Wayne stood off to my right, his left hand back to home position on the white-powder aluminum railing. I planted myself behind the wheel, my left foot not more than six inches from Paige’s head, and took Impulse through the channel at five thousand rpms.

  Garrett called in the information on Benny’s Beach Bar. Hopefully, they still had the tape. I wondered what Paige would divulge when she woke up. With luck, once sober she would be a fountain of information about Paretsky’s operation and Renée Lambert. I felt as if I were transporting a great vessel, a Greek goddess, who would clear my questions, balance my universe, and bring peace to my soul. She stirred on the deck. I looked down at her.

  She vomited on my new shoe.

  CHAPTER 35

  The next morning I returned from my run and found Paige—sitting in my chair—and Kathleen and Morgan in the screened porch. What part of “Get her the hell out of my life” did he not comprehend?

  I ignored them and went to the side of the house, where I rinsed off under the outdoor shower. A steady, warm breeze, like a hair dryer on low, blew the palm f
ronds in a uniform direction. They looked like thin girls with big hair, bending over. My palm trees never had a gender, but at that moment they were all girls. I changed into shorts and a T-shirt with a pocket and joined them on the porch. My insides had not cooled down yet, and despite the shower I broke into a seeping sweat.

  “I told you to keep her away until I called,” I said to Morgan as a greeting to the trio.

  “He didn’t have a choice,” Kathleen cut in before Morgan could answer. “I’m giving a lecture today, and I didn’t feel like canceling or being a no-show.” Her voice had a hard, dismissive edge to it. What’d I do now? She wore beige shorts, an emerald-green, silk T-shirt, a thin necklace, and sandals. Her hair was tied behind her, and I wondered if I would ever see it down again. She sat between Morgan and Paige, who still wore her gold dress and still sat in my chair.

  Paige didn’t look so hot.

  I could say she resembled a French call girl the morning the poilus flagged taxis to the western front, or the last underweight sophomore to stumble out of a Florida State frat party, or Madison Avenue’s stock “before” picture rolled out for cosmetic accounts or—

  Paige didn’t look so hot.

  I said to Kathleen, “What part of a man taking an elevator up to kill you did not scare common sense into you?”

  Kathleen stood and launched herself toward me. “You certainly have no problem with exerting your free will.” She knifed a look at Paige. “Nice to know I was missed.” She bolted out the door.

  “Her?” I blurted out. “She’s a…she’s a—”

  “She’s a what?” Paige demanded. “Last night’s trick? Like I told her; all I know is that I woke up in your bed, and you were already gone. I don’t remember anything. Oh, gee,” she cocked her head to the side, “maybe I do. You slapped me. You slapped me hard and then kissed me. Like that really makes up for it.” She shook her head. “Swear to Almighty. I must have a word tattooed inside each thigh. Losers on one and welcome on the other.”

  She buried her face in my favorite coffee cup. The cup had silhouettes, set against the US flag, of Mickey, Goofy, and Donald marching in procession. Her feet touched my Tinker Bell alarm clock, and she rocked it gently with her right big toe, nearly tipping it over. I often set the alarm to commence the drinking portion of the day. Her toenails were painted like coquina shells, each one layered with strands of soft colors. How long did that take?