“…Crisis time, I can’t spare a dime,” he sang.
A path through the dense foliage led me to the main street. I imitated the sway of the drunks who’d been playing the ring game at the bar, and nobody paid any attention to me as I sauntered toward the boats. The one closest had a dark hull, and the one in the adjacent slip was too small. The smell of seafood wafted from a portable deep-fat fryer ahead, where a man nearly as round as he was tall tended it on the dock behind the third boat. He looked up as I gave it a once-over.
“What time is it?” the man said. His eyes, like his cheeks, were red, set off by a shock of white hair.
I checked my watch. “Eight—”
“Eight what? Come on, this stuff’s gonna burn!”
My eyes and brain were paralyzed, locked onto—
“Goddamnit. Darby!” The red man yelled toward his boat. “What time is it?”
“Eight-fifty,” I said. “Sorry.”
“You been hanging out across the street too long?”
The sight of the red bow flare on the last boat had me speechless. Light burned through a small porthole, but nobody was on deck. The tide was down, and the boat sat low in the water, but I could still see the transom. Carnival.
“You know those guys over there?” I said.
The man redirected his large frame with obvious effort, then turned back. “Nah. Seen the boat here a couple times, but never out fishing. Why, they friends of yours?”
“I was just curious what make she was and—”
“Hey, Darby, what kind of boat is—”
I grabbed the man’s thick arm. “Never mind. What’s that you’re cooking?”
He didn’t even flinch, just stared at me. His red eyes made him look like a komodo dragon. “Lobster.” He tilted his round head toward the Carnival. “Couple of them boys headed down the road a few hours ago.”
“Enjoy those lobsters,” I said.
I walked back to the Angler, and could feel my pulse in my neck. If the Carnival were as wired here as they’d been in Cuba, my options would be severely limited. A direct approach would be suicidal.
The steady pounding of bass and treble resounded through the bar.
It was early, but the dance floor was packed at the foot of a five-piece local band hammering out original Bahamian music. The singer glistened in sweat, and drove the dancers into a hypnotic frenzy. The steady bass-beat reminded me of Salvo’s studio in Cayo Hueso and Enrique’s trailer on Stock Island. I scanned the room for a Santeria altar but found none.
The side room held a shrine to Hemingway filled with photographs, books, even quotes from Islands in the Stream, a novel partially written here on Bimini. One of the handwritten pages was framed on the wall.
““Jesus Christ,” Eddy said. “There it comes!”
Out across the blue water, showing like a brown dinghy sail and slicing through the water with heavy, tail propelled, lunging thrusts, the high triangular fin was coming in toward the hole at the edge of the reef where the boy with the mask on his face held his fish up out of the water.
“Oh Jesus,” Eddy said. “What a son of a bitching hammerhead. Jesus, Tom. Oh Jesus.””
At each stop in my Key West-Cuba-Bimini triangle I had found myself in Papa’s footsteps. I was starting to feel that somehow, some way, my father was leading me toward a pre-ordained conclusion. Another thought hit me.
Was Fort Jefferson named after Thomas Jefferson? If so, were my father’s ciphers connected to the map carved into the Pilar’s gunwale, where Hemingway found the gold chain?
I pushed the thought aside. The Carnival was here, and more tangible results were within reach. The boat appeared to be settled for the night, so I sank into a worn red leather chair and tried to conjure up a plan. Macho images surrounded me, and from them I sought the clarity needed to make a one-man assault later tonight. The mere thought of it sounded foolhardy, even to me.
I stood to check out the crowd. The band had continued without a break, and the dance floor was now pressed tight with bodies, T-shirts, shorts, tank tops, and spaghetti-straps. The crowd was fearless and carefree. Nobody noticed the weight of the world on my shoulders.
Past the dance floor, the bar was filled with a blue haze of cigarette smoke. Spontaneous cheers erupted when a petite blond landed the ring on the hook. Shots of liquor were drunk in celebration, the price for victory matching that of defeat. When I finally squeezed myself up to the bar, I ordered a Kalik. The cold beer was refreshing, but it would be the only one tonight.
Laughter and shouting were everywhere, a good time being had by all except for one table in the back corner where two men sat talking. I spun back toward the bar and gagged on a mouthful of beer.
Scar and No-Name were here in the Angler.
I pretended to sip the beer and occasionally glanced over my shoulder. Their hand gestures led me to conclude they were arguing. A half-dozen empty highball glasses were pressed against the end of their table. The scars on Rolle’s obsidian cheeks were ominous, made worse by his greasy hair and chain smoking.
The pair fell silent.
No-Name got up and came to the bar, three people down from me. Blue mono-color tattoos adorned his hands. His movements made it clear he was at least half in the bag. Rolle stared at a group of couples taking turns at the ring game, and you could almost see the raunchy thoughts turning inside his head.
No-Name pushed back through the crowd and placed two amber-colored drinks on the table. Rolle flung a wrist at him and they picked up where they left off, now refueled.
Were they arguing over the trip? Their share of the booty? Who was better with the ladies? All I could think of was where Shaniqua might be. The captain was nowhere to be seen, so hopefully they were still on the boat.
Could I get them to lead me to my stash? Not before bringing them to justice, whether here, in the States, or at the bottom of the ocean.
Four more drinks for them while I nursed my piss-warm Kalik. The bartender finally announced last call. No-Name suddenly stood, gave Rolle the finger, and turned away, knocking his chair over as he went. He shoved his way through the crowd, drawing several dirty looks before caroming out the door.
My stomach tightened. Show time. I had to do something, but what?
79
ROLLE STOOD UP AND his torso moved in a slow circle. I slid off my stool, still unsure what to do, but his and No-Name’s condition was an opportunity I had to exploit. Rolle stopped in front of the exit, hesitated, then twisted on his heel toward the dance floor.
What!?
He bounced into swaying bodies like a pinball until he was by the band. The singer, who’d kept the crowd on their feet all evening, didn’t seem to notice him. Was Rolle leaving through the back door, now open next to the drummer? He turned at the last second and disappeared into a hidden hallway.
I jumped onto the dance floor and negotiated my way through sweaty, bumping bodies, ignoring a beer-bombed brunette who grabbed my hand with an invitation to dance. As I entered the hallway I spotted the restroom sign, just as the door to the men’s room opened. Jackson Rolle stared up at me. His mouth dropped open.
How could he recognize me?
Rolle’s expression hardened. He dug his hand into the waist of his pants, and I stepped into him with a short uppercut to the chin that lifted him off the floor. His body went limp, dropped like a bag of concrete, and I caught him half-way down. I made a quick decision. I hoisted his left arm over my shoulder and held him up by the belt. The singer began a slow song.
“…Tell me why did you leave me, I think about you every morning, I think about you every day,” he sang.
I lugged Rolle toward the drummer, who shot me a curious glance when I brushed his cymbal. “Drunk.” I mouthed the word and the drummer nodded, never missing a beat.
Rolle remained limp, and my mind shot into overdrive. Did he remember me from the Dry Tortugas? I carried him to the hotel’s back door, pulled it open, and dragged him up the flight
of stairs. I fumbled in my pocket and jammed the key into the lock. Rolle was lighter than he looked. Evil fits snugly into small packages. Once inside, I let him slump to the floor, and his head hit with a coconut-off-the-tree thunk.
I tried to catch my breath while digging through my backpack for the duct tape. I used it to cover his mouth, then bound his hands behind his back. I found a six-inch knife stuffed into his waistband.
Rolle’s stink was a combination of booze, cigarettes, brine, and perspiration. He stirred just as I used the last piece of tape around his ankles. I felt spent, running on fumes and adrenalin. Up close, Rolle’s scars were crude, almost tribal in appearance, with no evidence of stitching or any other kind of care given to their healing. The red and white beaded necklace glowed on his slick black skin, and Enrique was right, the pendant was a horned ram’s head.
He could try to summon Chango or Siete Rayos all he wanted, what he got was me.
80
NOW AWAKE, HE NARROWED his eyes until he was squinting. A brief struggle against his bonds was enough to make him realize he wasn’t going anywhere.
“We can do this one of two ways,” I said. “You tell me the truth, or you suffer the same fate as Jo Jo Jeffries and Rodney Claggett.”
I couldn’t read his look. Confused? Fearful? Or just wary?
“Not in the ocean, you don’t deserve that much dignity.” I nodded toward the toilet in the corner of the room. All the anger and frustration over the past weeks fueled my determination, consuming me with a lust for answers. “Don’t test me, Rolle.”
His eyes flickered.
“I know all about you. Your connections in Cuba, the whole stinking game. Doing time for smuggling refugees will be Boy Scout Camp compared to what you’ll get in the States, if you make it that far.”
The music soared again. The ballad was over and the band reignited the frenzy in the Angler for one last romp.
“I’m going to take the tape off your mouth and ask you some questions. You answer, you live. You get cute, you breathe toilet water. Got it?”
He gave a slight nod.
I cracked my knuckles, and pulled the tape free with a loud rip.
“HELP!”
I tried to slap the tape back over Rolle’s mouth. His yellowed teeth gnashed at my fingers, piercing the side of my hand. I brought a crushing left jab down on his nose, shattering it in an explosion of blood and cartilage, before finally getting the tape back in place.
He squirmed uncontrollably, rolling on the floor, spraying blood all over my bare legs, unable to breathe through his flattened snout. I grabbed him and held him flat against the floor.
“You can drown in your own fucking blood for all I care! One more chance or the tape stays on.”
His nostrils spewed blood as he fought to breathe. I yanked the tape free, and a putrid lungful of air hit me. I slapped him, then raised my hand again, and he hocked a bloody wad of spit into my face.
I flew to my feet, dragged him to the corner, grabbed his hair, then lifted and spun him over the toilet. The six inches of water turned red with his blood. I held his head down with all my strength while he kicked, squirmed, and swung himself from side to side.
“You think this is a game?”
After nearly a minute his struggling slowed, and I pulled him out of the abyss. He coughed uncontrollably and flopped to the floor. I pinned his shoulders with my knees. Blood streamed from his left nostril and washed over his face in a crimson mask. His eyes were finally free of resistance, now scintillating with fear.
Is that how Jo Jo looked before you killed him?
“Is Shaniqua Peebles on the boat?”
He pressed his lips tightly together. I jumped up and started to drag him back to the toilet.
“No! No, wait.”
I threw him back down and again pinned my knees on his shoulders.
“Is she on board?”
He nodded.
Yes! “What about Ortega, the old Conch?” Now he really looked scared, and I intuitively knew the answer. I cocked my right arm, wanting to jam it through his skull but hesitated at the smell of urine through his filthy pants. “How many others are on the boat?”
“Just Hector and Pablo.”
“Who’s behind all this? The Cubans? Salvo?”
“I don’t know, for true, I don’t. Hector, he tells us what to do.”
“Why’d you kill them?”
“It wasn’t supposed to happen! They heard us, on the radio, the old Cuban—”
“Heard what?”
“We got a call saying the shipment was ready for the warehouse—the old Cuban figured it out.”
“Figured what out?”
“That we had business. The missionaries were our cover, we started fighting—”
“Who told you to kill them?”
“The big one, he came at me—and Pablo, he hit him with the gun butt and wrecked his nose. Blood squirted everywhere and he went crazy, like a bull, and then the skinny one jumped Pablo and the shotgun went off….”
I envisioned the scene unfolding. “What about the girl?”
“We kept her as a hostage in case we got caught.”
She’s wasn’t involved! “Why the Mayday?”
“A signal, to the man—”
“What about the boat, what’s in the crates, weapons?”
“What? No, relics, Cuban junk.”
My mind spun. Relics? Junk?
“From the warehouse…” Blood trailed into Rolle’s mouth as he spoke, and he swallowed it between words. “Where you almost saw me.”
I stopped breathing.
His growl of a laugh surprised me. A large pink bubble burst from his nose.
“I saw you at the Tata’s, too, the night before.”
Tata? Sanchez had used…“Salvo’s studio? You were—” Quasimodo! Rolle was the man hiding in the shadows. “Did Salvo order the missionaries killed?”
“They weren’t supposed to die! It was a mistake—they heard the call. They knew!” His eyelids fluttered. “Then, the man in Key West, he was so mad…he went crazy, threatened to kill us—”
“Who in Key West?” My pouch!
“The one Hector signaled, I don’t know…He was crazy mad about them being killed. Until we told him about the treasure maps.”
“Did Shaniqua tell you about the maps?”
“I heard her talking on the phone. Said you had a chart all marked up with search notes, that it must be for a sunken treasure ship.”
“So how does that tie into all the shit in Key West? Hexes, candles, chickens, dogs? Who stole my—who’s the man in Key West?”
Rolle’s mouth snapped shut. He pulled hard against the bonds. I grabbed his arm and began to yank him toward the toilet again.
“I don’t know, for true! We were never going to hurt them…just drop them off in Cuba. They were our cover.”
“For Santeria or Palo Mayombe?” My heart raced. How had I been played?
“It’s got nothing to do—”
“Then who?” I shouted in his face.
“I don’t know, I swear! When Hector called in the Mayday, the man in Key West called him back on the cell phone. They talked in Spanish, I don’t understand—”
“Spanish? Mingie Posada? Emilio? The CANC?”
“I told you—”
“What about Salvo, why were you at his studio?”
“I was picking up the relics, he’s our contact—”
“The crates were in a government warehouse, Number One Obrapia, I saw—”
“I took them there. Salvo’s cousins with the police….”
His cousin? “What’s his last name?”
“Hector called him Señor Sanchez.”
Sanchez! The Cuban connections crashed into place, but the tie back to the States was still—Spanish? Santeria and Cuba were one and the same, Ivan’s and my daiquiri-debate was right…Ivan…but why? Cuban junk?
“What are you doing with the crates? Where are you taking t
hem?”
“We always take them to a house in Miami.”
“Always? A house?”
“On a canal. This is my third trip. There’s been more. We usually start in the Bahamas, but this time, the missionaries gave us a story.”
“What about Shaniqua, the girl? What’s going to happen to her?”
Rolle turned his head to avert my eyes, and I slapped his face back toward me.
“Salvo told us to throw her in the ocean, like the others, but I…”
“You what?”
“I wanted to keep her.”
“Is that what you were fighting about in the bar?”
He nodded.
With Rolle captured here, No-Name would have no deterrent to dumping Shaniqua overboard. Perfect. I glanced toward the window, surprised to see the glow of morning aflame on the cheesecloth curtain.
I flung it aside and checked across the road.
One, two, three…
“No!” I whirled toward Rolle. “They’re gone!”
81
THE SECOND TRIP TO the golf cart was more difficult then the first. Rolle squirmed like a reluctant dog on the way to the vet. If he didn’t quit struggling, frontier justice would come long before the Florida border.
I dumped him in the back of the cart with the delicacy of a spent power lifter. His eyes immediately darted around. I pressed my thumb down on his gelatinous nose, sending an immediate convulsion through his erect body. His scream was contained by the duct tape.
“Try anything stupid, your leg’s next.” Rolle deflated against my duffle.
The problem with golf carts is they’re slow, kind of like the game itself. King’s Highway was deserted. It was 5:45 now. The Carnival had left before sun-up. Had Rolle’s disappearance accelerated their timetable? Would it change their destination?
My prisoner’s eyes skittered to each passing building, and the fact that he was a Bimini native fueled my haste to reach Betty. Rolle’s confession would take the wind out of the media’s zestful anticipation for a pre-emptive war, so getting him home in one piece was imperative. A loud thud suddenly jarred the cart. I barely avoided a grazing goat when I jammed on the brake.
1 Red Right Return Page 25