Caribbean's Keeper

by Boland, Brian;

“Nah, she hits like you.”

  Cole called the number Kevin had written down, but it wasn’t until a few days later that he heard from Miguel. Cole was to meet him at Garrison Bight on his day off later that week an hour before noon. The call was short and the words were few. Cole put his phone away wondering if it had even just happened. It seemed rather anticlimactic. He went about his normal routine for the next few days, always thinking in the back of his mind about the trip ahead.

  g

  At the appointed time, Cole sauntered down to Garrison Bight, wholly unsure of what to expect. He walked up and down the docks twice with a good sweat under the noonday sun. Nothing but the typical boats lined the dock. He thought about grabbing a beer at the Thai Island restaurant to save the seemingly wasted walk. Standing on the far end and now late for their meeting, an older Hispanic man approached Cole.

  “Amigo, you are here for the jet ski tour?”

  Cole looked behind him then back at the unexpectedly short man talking to him and shook his head answering no. The old guy persisted.

  “Amigo, it’s me. Mickey. We spoke on the phone.”

  Cole squinted and asked, “You’re Miguel?”

  The short man shook his head and answered, “Si, but everyone just calls me Mickey.”

  Cole was caught completely off guard and embarrassed with his level of discomfort. Who is this guy? He was old, short, had graying shaggy hair, and wore cargo shorts with a t-shirt in the manner one would expect from a teenager. His face was leathered and wrinkled like that of a local. Cole expected some swagger. He expected slick hair, a gold chain, maybe someone in a track suit. This Mickey looked nothing like a kingpin.

  “Let’s get going and see the sights,” Mickey said as he reached out to shake Cole’s hand. Cole complied, not letting his eyes leave Mickey’s as he looked in vain for some reassurance that this was actually the feared Miguel whom Kevin had talked so much about.

  They walked back down the dock and Mickey kept talking about the Keys as if he really were a tour guide. He went on and on about the flats fishing, the tarpon, the restaurants, and the history of the island as if Cole really was a tourist. At the far end of the docks were two jet skis and Mickey stepped across the first to the second and pointed for Cole to jump on the first.

  “Amigo, we will have fun, come on.”

  Cole settled onto the cushioned seat and went to start the engine as Mickey threw a bright yellow life jacket at him. Mickey was already fastening one just like it around his chest.

  “Put that on.” Mickey pointed back at the jacket then at Cole.

  Cole laughed and set it aside. Mickey looked back and forth down the dock and looked sternly at Cole. “My friend, put the fucking life jacket on.”

  Mickey smiled to relieve the tension and instructed Cole, “We must look the part my friend—always under the radar. It is the most important part.”

  Cole did as he was told. It was one of those stupidly bright life jackets that no self-respecting sailor would be caught dead in. Cole, in his boardshorts and t-shirt, felt out of place. It was also a perfect disguise to blend into Key West tourism. No one would think twice about two mismatched men on rental jet skis, but he still felt like an idiot.

  With both jet skis running, Mickey touched the throttle and idled out of the harbor. Cole followed. They headed back to the west, opened the throttles up passing the Coast Guard base and made their way for the main harbor. Just before entering, Mickey came to a stop. Cole pulled up next to him. They bobbed up and down in the lime green chop of passing boats and Mickey explained the purpose of the trip. He leaned his elbows against the steering column of the jet ski and talked with his hands animating his every word.

  “My friend, there is a very nice boat in here. It is your boat. It’s been here two days.” He motioned with two of his fingers as if that was a big deal. “The owner, he is at a hotel and won’t be leaving for another four days. It’s gassed up. He doesn’t check on it. So tomorrow night, it’s your boat.”

  Cole laughed at the audacity of the plan. “How the hell do I get it out of here?”

  Mickey, bobbing in the churned up water and looking like a fool in his cargo shorts and ill-fitting bright yellow life jacket, shook his head dismissively as if he’d made it perfectly clear the first time. With his elbows still on the column, he threw his hands up in seemingly total disbelief. His accent took on a more Hispanic tone reflecting his frustration at repeating himself.

  “Amigo, he don’t give a shit about his boat. He don’t check on it. He just leave it here. It’s yours. Maybe he get it back, maybe he don’t.” At the end of his sentence, Mickey shrugged his shoulders as if a six-figure boat was no big deal to anyone. Cole noted that Mickey pronounced the word shit as chit with emphasis.

  Cole was both confused and amused at the circumstances.

  “Got it Mickey. But how do I take it?” He emphasized the last two words as if it would change Mickey’s comprehension. To anyone watching they were two men arguing about where to go with the remaining time of their one hour jet ski rental. The skis drifted with the ebbing tide closer to the channel.

  “I know where the keys are. No big deal. Then you go, OK?”

  Mickey throttled up his jet ski and motioned with his hand for Cole to follow him into the harbor. Cole smiled to himself, shook his head a bit back and forth and followed, fishtailing his jet ski for his own entertainment.

  Three quarters of the way down a pier, Mickey doubled back and came to a stop. Cole pulled up again next to him and Mickey mumbled something trivial about Key West’s charm. At the same time he motioned behind him and to the right with his head. Cole picked up on the cues, as comical as they were, and saw that Mickey was idling ten yards from an Intrepid center console. It must have been close to 40 feet long and the hull had recently been waxed. She was bigger and sleeker than the Grady-White Cole had run on with Kevin. She was clearly fast and begging to open up on the high seas.

  Mickey didn’t stay long and motioned for Cole to head back out. They opened up again leaving the harbor and their skis jumped up and over the wake of passing boats as they headed back past the Coast Guard base and towards Garrison Bight. The ride back was fun. Mickey threw a hand behind his back and howled as if he were riding a bull as he bounced over a wave and the engine surged, momentarily sucking air through its intake before settling back down. He looked like a fool and his cargo shorts were wet from the salt spray. He was clearly energized by the thought of sending someone else’s boat on a midnight run to Cuba and back. Smuggling was like a drug, and Mickey had just taken a hit. Cole could feel it as well. Mickey reminded Cole of someone’s crazy uncle, but he knew Mickey had a firm grasp on the darker business of the Florida Keys. Mickey stopped once more before heading into the harbor and gave Cole some basic instructions.

  “The keys are in the compartment on the console. The code for the gate at the pier is twenty twenty-five. Get on the water at eleven. I’ll drop a GPS off at your place in the afternoon. If anyone asks, you just tell them you’re moving it for Mr. Thompson. Call me when you’re a mile south of Key West.”

  Now Cole couldn’t hide his confusion and he didn’t like not knowing the details of such a mission.

  Mickey laughed. “I’ve been watching this one. They stashed the keys when they gassed it up and I asked the dockhand whose boat it was. Relax a bit, my friend; Señor Thompson will understand. This is easy. You call me before midnight, OK?”

  Cole eased up a bit and nodded his head in approval. They returned the jet skis to the same spot and parted ways without more words. Cole watched Mickey walk away, his t-shirt and shorts wet in spots from the ride. No one in their right mind would guess Mickey’s profession. It occurred to Cole that Mickey’s appearance was entirely intentional. Mickey may have looked a far cry from the pirates of centuries past, but Cole couldn’t help but guess that Mickey ranked somewhere higher in Caribbean lore than most.

  g

 
; As he’d done before, Cole called out of work that Friday. On Thursday, he went about his normal routine on the Yankee Freedom. Kevin never said a word but knew full well Cole was making his first run that night. At the end of the day, Kevin was talking to some girls on the pier while Cole made up the last of the lines and hopped onto the dock. As Cole walked, Kevin looked at him for a brief moment and grinned as Cole went past.

  “Have fun, brother.” Kevin’s grin was a way of testing Cole’s determination and at the same time was a genuine wish that the night went well. Kevin’s grin reminded Cole briefly of the way Wheeler would test Cole’s resolve before taking a team out on a migrant interdiction; they knew each other well enough that no words were needed. Cole nodded back with confidence and told Kevin to do the same, his eyes briefly looking back to the girls then at Kevin.

  Back at the apartment, he crashed on the couch for almost three hours. This time he slept and when he awoke, Cole felt refreshed, unlike the last time. He went over to a cabinet where he kept his money from the last run. He took five hundred-dollar bills and put them in his pocket. It was a gamble, but if he ran into trouble on the Cuban side, bribes were never out of the question to get out of a tight spot. Besides the cash, he took only his driver’s license. He left his passport, figuring that any interaction with Cuban or U.S. Customs wouldn’t involve getting a stamp. He was wearing the same shorts he’d worked in that day and they were faded from the past few months. He’d traded out his Yankee Freedom shirt for a dirty button down linen one that he’d meant to wash for a week but hadn’t gotten around to. On his feet were a pair of new running shoes, because he thought if it came down to it they’d be better than flip flops. They were the only thing he’d spent any of his money on from the last trip. It was dark, the sun having set almost two hours before, when Cole walked out onto the porch and saw the handheld GPS sitting on a chair.

  “Son of a bitch,” Cole said out loud but under his breath as he picked it up and hit the power button. It had a full charge and three waypoints saved in it, labeled “A,” “B,” and “C.” By the looks of it, the thing was brand new. He stuffed it in the other pocket of his shorts and walked back inside. Cole ate half a sandwich and drank as much water as he could stand before heading out the door, down the steps, and towards Duval Street.

  It was loud and for a Thursday night the town was in full swing. He walked with the crowd and ran through scenarios in his head. He would stop a few times on the run south to listen for helicopters or planes and scan the horizon for the familiar lights of Coast Guard cutters. On the run back north, just as Kevin had done, he’d go all out and hope to avoid the hornet’s nest of local, state, and federal authorities that were most certainly out that night looking for his kind.

  Rounding the corner to the marina, he passed the Schooner Wharf and wished for a second he could sit as he did so many nights and soak up a few rum drinks making small talk with the patrons. It was a balmy early-fall evening, the kind that felt just right in the Keys, but Cole knew he had work to do. With a deep breath he pressed on to the gated dock and entered the code as he’d been instructed. The gate clicked open and Cole strolled down the dock like it was his business. No one noticed. A few of the yachts were lit up with festivities on the back decks. Empty beer cans and half-empty bottles of rum littered the makeshift tables as conversations came and went. Muffled music came from the cabin of one boat and a woman’s high-pitched laugh rose up from the cabin of another. The sounds trailed off as Cole neared the end of the dock. Cole’s boat was dark and bobbed silently in her slip. She was as pretty as he remembered and wore two oversized outboard engines on her back end. They were immaculate. He stood there on the dock for a moment or two and felt butterflies build in the pit of his stomach.

  “Fuck it,” he said as he hopped onboard and went straight to the console. Sure as Mickey had promised, the keys were on a foam keychain and Cole fired up the two engines. They shook to life on their mounts and settled to an idle. Cole took a few seconds to familiarize himself with the setup. There was a wheel and two throttles, all of which were perfectly polished chrome. Neutral, forward, and reverse were marked on the bottom of the quadrant. There were more gauges than Cole needed, but RPM and fuel were easy enough to read. Again as Mickey had promised, she had a full tank of gas.

  Someone called down to Cole from the dock, “Sweet boat man.”

  Cole froze for just a second before turning around to see an overweight middle-aged man with a plastic cup in his hand and a flower print shirt over his belly. He must have heard the engines start up and come up from one of the other boats.

  “Thanks.” Cole threw off the two spring lines and untied the bow lines before hurrying back to the wheel.

  “It’s late, man. Where are you going?” They guy was slightly unsteady and Cole figured there was a good chance he wouldn’t even remember the encounter.

  “I’m moving the boat for Mr. Thompson. Can you grab those stern lines for me?”

  Without putting his drink down, the fat guy looked down with his head and neck, but the rest of his body remained in its unsteadily upright posture. He was clearly more intoxicated than Cole first thought.

  “Can you just untie them for me?” Cole almost felt bad for the guy and it was clear he had not the faintest idea of how to untie the line from a cleat. Not wanting to stay any longer, Cole untied the lines on his end and tossed them into the water and away from the engines.

  “Can you just pull those lines in for me?” Cole asked.

  The fat guy smiled at the simplified request and reached down with one hand, his other wholly focused on not losing his drink.

  “You got it man. That really is a sweet boat.”

  Looking forward and speaking to himself, Cole mouthed, “I know.”

  He idled forward out of the slip, and turned once to nod back at the fat guy, who was still smiling.

  He idled ahead for some time until well clear of the marina, and after entering the main channel, he pointed the boat south. Past Tank Island, or Sunset Key as it was known now with its immaculate cottages, Cole jammed the throttles to half speed and she lifted up and out of the water. The bow rode high and with another push of the throttles, she came up on a plane. Settling into a rhythm with the light chop, Cole scanned behind him as downtown faded in the darkness. Passing Fort Zachary Taylor, and with the dark Florida Straits in front of him, Cole turned hard to the east so as to give off the appearance he was simply heading for another key. After a few more minutes of running east, he eased off the throttles and let the boat settle. Still inside the reef line, the water was calm except for a light land breeze and ripples coming from the north.

  He phoned Mickey. It was 2300 when Mickey answered and asked if everything had worked out so far. Relieved to be away from the lights, Cole told Mickey he was good to go.

  “Point Alpha has some great fishing. I caught twelve just the other day. You should check it out. Call me when you’re back inside the reef line,” Mickey said and hung up.

  It seemed simple enough. Cole wondered if all the coded language was really necessary, but then again Mickey was one of the pros who wasn’t sitting in jail and he probably knew best.

  Cole pulled the GPS from his pocket and highlighted Point A. Moments later, the GPS drew a straight line in that direction and Cole whipped the Intrepid around and back to the south. He pointed at the sea buoy marking the main channel and again opened the throttles up to a full plane. At 30 knots over the ground, he was cruising and still hadn’t opened her up all the way.

  Passing the channel markers at the mouth, the boat surged up and down now with the open swell. Cole slammed the throttles down and she lurched ahead, only the last few feet of her hull even touching the water. She was hard to control and took even the gently rolling swells with difficulty. Too much power, he thought. Cole braced his lower back against the seat and his feet against the console to keep himself in place. After ten minutes, he’d had enough. The boat was
making 43 knots over the ground but the ride was brutal. She felt like a bull at a rodeo, surely hell bent on kicking him off. Cole settled at 30 knots for the rest of the trip.

  He stopped twice, just as Kevin had shown him. Scanning the horizon and the sky, he was happy to see no lights but the stars and lingered each time to take a gulping breath of the nighttime air. He sighted Cuba just after two in the morning. It was nearly three when he was within shouting distance of land. Point Alpha was outside Havana but not so far that he couldn’t see its lights to his west. Paralleling the coast, the GPS got him within 50 yards of a small beach in an exposed cove. He nosed the boat in towards the 30 or so yards of beach and felt her drive the deep V-hull into the sand. He smelled the exhaust of his engines first then as the breeze caught up with him, the familiar smell of a tropical night took hold. The moonlight bounced off palm fronds as they gently played back and forth as Cole looked around for any signs of his cargo.

  A flashlight came on in some tall grass just beyond the sand. Cole toggled the navigation lights on and off three times then left them off, as he’d done all night. Bodies emerged onto the sand and towards the boat. Sure enough, Cole counted 12. They were all dressed in the same manner as he’d always seen from Delaney. Dirty clothes, holes crudely patched with yarn, and worn-out shoes. Cole knew someone had money back home to pay for this trip and so long as he held up his end of the bargain, their life of destitution would soon be over.

  With all 12 up and over the bow, they settled in various places. One man remained on the beach until Cole had backed her away then he disappeared back up the beach and into the grass. In such a small cove, Cole put his port engine in reverse and his starboard engine ahead to spin her around in place. The nose came around wildly and Cole smiled at the amount of power at his fingertips. Some of the migrants lost their footing as the bow spun around and Cole apologized as best he could in Spanish, saying, “Lo siento.” Then he smiled.

  An older man smiled back at him and mumbled something to the rest as they reached around for handholds and prepared themselves for the ride north. Cole again spoke. “Vamanos.” Let’s go.