by Paul Levine
“A captain doesn’t say ‘please.’”
“Maybe not Captain Bligh.” Victoria slid behind the wheel, thinking maybe she’d hit the wrong man with the gaff. She still didn’t know where they were headed, and Steve’s behavior was becoming increasingly bizarre. He had the beginning of a lump on his head, and blood trickled from his skinned elbows and knees.
“Kidnaping,” Cruz said. “Assault. Boat theft. You two are gonna be busy little shysters.”
“Shut up,” Steve said. “Under the law of the sea, I’m master of this craft.”
“What law? You stole my fucking boat.”
* * *
Once past Key West, they entered the Florida Straits, the water growing deeper, the color turning from light green to aquamarine to cobalt blue. No reefs here, and a five-foot chop slapped at the hull of the boat. The wavecaps sparkled, as if studded with diamonds in the late afternoon sun.
“Gonna tell you a story, Cruz,” Steve said, “and when I’m done, you’re gonna cry and beg forgiveness and give back all the money you stole.’”
“Yeah, right.”
“Story starts forty-some years ago in Havana. A beautiful lady named Teresa Toraño lost her husband who was brave enough to oppose Fidel Castro.”
“Tough shit,” Cruz said. “Happened to a lot of people.”
“Teresa came to Miami with nothing. Worked minimum wage, mopped floors in a car dealership, ended up owning Toraño Chevrolet.”
“My papi always told me hard work pays off,” Cruz said, smirking. “Too bad he never got out of the cane fields.”
“A few years ago, she hires a new controller. A fellow exilado. This guy’s got a fancy computer system that will revolutionize their books. It also lets him steal three million bucks before anybody knows what hit them. Now, the banks have pulled Teresa’s line of credit, and she could go under.”
“I’m not crying, Solomon.”
“Not done yet. See, this lady is damn important to me. If it hadn’t been for Teresa giving me work my first year out of school, I’d have gone broke.”
"Lo único que logró la dama fue posponer lo inevitable,” Cruz said. “She only postponed the inevitable.”
Victoria knew there was more to it than just a financial relationship. Teresa had virtually adopted Steve and his nephew Bobby, and the Solomon Boys loved her in return. After Victoria entered the picture, she was added to the extended Toraño family. Now, each year at Christmas, they all gathered at Teresa’s estate in Coral Gables for her homemade crema de vie, an anise drink so rich it made eggnog seem like diet soda. All of which meant that Steve would do anything for Teresa. One of Steve’s self-proclaimed laws expressed the principle:
“I won’t break the law, breach legal ethics, or risk jail time…unless it’s for someone I love.”
Now that Victoria thought about it, the question wasn’t: Just what would Steve do for Teresa Toraño? It was: What wouldn’t he do?
“That sleazy accountant,” Steve said. “In Cuba, he kept the books for the student worker program, the students who cut sugar cane. Ran the whole food services division. But he had a nasty habit of cutting the pineapple juice with water and selling the meat off the back of trucks. The kids went hungry and he got fat. When the authorities found out, he stole a boat and got the hell out of the worker’s paradise.”
“Old news, hombre.”
“Vic, still on two-zero-two?” Steve asked.
“I know how to read a compass,” she said, sharply.
“Where you taking me?” Cruz demanded.
“Jeez, how’d you ever get from Havana to Key West?” Steve said.
“Everybody in Havana knows the heading to the States. You want Key West, you keep it at twenty-two degrees.”
“A bit east of due north. So what’s two-zero-two?”
“A little west of due south.”
“Keep going, Cruz. I think you’re catching the drift, no pun intended.”
Steve waited a moment for the bulb to pop on. When it didn’t, he continued, “Two hundred two minus twenty-two is one hundred eighty. What happens when you make a hundred eighty degree turn, philosophically or geographically speaking?”
“Fuck!” Cruz jerked the handcuff so hard the rail shuddered. “We’re going to Havana!”
“Bingo. We’re repatriating you.”
“You crazy? Cuban patrol boats will sink us. You remember that tugboat. Trece de Marzo. Forty people dead.”
“The Marzo was trying to leave the island. We’re coming in, and we’re bringing a fugitive to justice. They should give us a reward, or at least a bottle of Club Havana rum.”
“They’ll kill me.”
“Not without a trial. A speedy trial. Of course, if you tell us where you’ve stashed Teresa’s money, we’ll turn this tub around.”
* * *
“Dammit, Steve,” Victoria said. “We have to talk.”
Steve put the boat on auto — two hundred two degrees — and took Victoria down to the salon.
“You could get us killed,” she said. “Or jailed. Right now, the best case scenario would be disbarment.”
“That’s why I didn’t want you along.”
Steve walked to the galley sink and turned on the faucet, intending to rinse the dried blood from a scraped elbow. The plumbing rattled and thumped, but nothing came out. He opened the ice maker. Empty, too.
“Cruz is a lousy host,” Steve said.
“Are you listening to me? Let’s go back to Miami. I’ll see if we can talk Cruz out of filing charges.”
They both heard the sound, but it took a second to identify it. A scream from the bridge. “Sol-o-mon!”
Followed a second later by machine gun fire.
* * *
Steve and Victoria ran back up the ladder to the bridge. Cruz was tugging against the rail, his wrist bleeding where the handcuff sawed into his skin. Three hundred yards off their starboard, a Cuban patrol boat fired a short burst from a machine gun mounted on its bow. Dead ahead, the silhouette of the Cuban island rose from the sea, misty in the late afternoon light.
“Warning shots,” Steve said. “Everybody relax.”
Steve eased back on the throttles, tooted the horn, and waved both arms at the approaching boat. “C’mon Cruz. It’s now or never. When they pull alongside, I’m handing you over.”
“Do what you got to do, asshole.”
“Steve, turn the boat around,” Victoria ordered. “Now!”
The patrol boat slowed. Two men in uniform at the machine gun, a third man holding a bullhorn.
“I’m not fucking with you, Cruz,” Steve said. “You’ve got thirty seconds. Where’s Teresa’s money?”
“Chingate!” Cruz snarled.
“Senores del barco de pesca!” The tinny sound of the bullhorn carried across the water.
“Last chance,” Steve said.
“Se han adentrado en las aguas territoriales de la República de Cuba.”
“Steve, we’re in Cuban waters,” Victoria said.
“I know. I passed Spanish 101.”
“Den la vuelta y salgan inmediatamente de aquí, o los vamos a abordar.”
“They’re going to board us if we don’t turn around,” she said.
“I kind of figured that out, too.” Steve turned to Cruz. “Absolutely, positively last chance, pal. I’m handing you over.”
“I’m betting you don’t,” Cruz said.
The patrol boat was fifty yards away. One of the men in uniform pointed an AK-47 their way.
“Steve…?” Victoria’s voice was a plea.
This wasn’t the way he’d planned it. By this time, Cruz should have been spouting numbers and accounts from banks in the Caymans or Switzerland or the Isle of Man. But the bastard was toughing it out. Calling Steve’s bluff.
Is that what it is? An empty threat.
Steve wanted to hand Cruz over, wanted him to rot in a Cuban prison.
But dammit, I’m a lawyer, not a vigilante.
He wished he could turn his conscience on and off with the flick of a switch. He wished he could end a man’s life with cold calculations and no remorse. But the rats that would gnaw at Cruz at Isla de Pinos would visit the house on Kumquat Avenue in Steve’s nightmares.
“Take the wheel, Vic.” Filled with self-loathing, wishing he could be someone he was not. “Twenty-two degrees. Key West.”
“Say ‘please,’” Cruz laughed, mocking him.
* * *
Just before midnight, the lights of Key West off the port, the Wet Dream cruised north through Hawk Channel, headed toward Miami. The sky was clear and sparkled with stars. The wind whipped across the bridge, bringing a night chill. Victoria slipped into her glen-plaid jacket. Hair messed, clothes rumpled, emotionally drained, she was trying to figure out how to salvage the situation.
I came aboard to save Steve from himself and I’m doing a lousy job.
Steve stood at the wheel, draining a La Tropical beer, maybe listening, maybe not, as Cruz berated him.
“You fucking loser,” Cruz said. “Every minute I’m tied up is gonna cost you.” Cruz rubbed his arm where the cuff was biting into his wrist. “I got nerve damage. Gonna add that to my lawsuit. When this is over, you’ll wish the Cubans had taken you prisoner.”
“Steve, I need a moment with you,” Victoria said.
Steve put the boat on auto — Cruz complaining that it was a damn reckless way to cruise at night — then headed down the ladder, joining Victoria in the salon.
“You can’t keep him locked up,” she said.
“I need more time.”
“For what?”
“To think.” He walked to the galley sink and turned the faucet, intending to toss cold water on his face. Same rattle, same thump. “Damn, I forgot. Cruz put all that money into his boat and still can’t get the water to work.”
“What?”
“A fancy boat like this and you can’t wash your hands.”
“No. What you said before. ‘Cruz put all that money into his boat.’”
“It’s just a figure of speech.”
“Think about it, Steve. He doesn’t own a house. He leases a car. No brokerage accounts, no bank accounts. Everything he has, he puts into his boat. If he ever has to leave town quickly…”
“Like he left Cuba,” Steve said, picking up the beat. “With nothing but the clothes on his back.”
“This time it would be different because…”
“The money’s here! On the boat.”
In sync now, she thought.
A man and a woman running stride for stride.
“Vic, why don’t you go back up to the bridge and make sure we don’t crash into any cruise ships?”
“And what are you doing?”
“I’m gonna fix the plumbing.”
* * *
Steve opened the hatch in the salon floor and climbed down a ladder to the engine compartment, wincing at the noise from the twin diesels. He found the black water tank first, tucked up under the bow. Sewage and waste water. Nothing unusual about it, and Cruz wouldn’t want to dirty his hands with that, anyway. Then Steve found the freshwater tank, a custom job built into one of the bulkheads. Made of fiberglass, it looked capable of holding 500 gallons or more. The boat had desalinization equipment, so why did Cruz need such a big tank?
A big tank that wasn’t working.
Steve grabbed a flashlight mounted on a pole and took a closer look. He peered into an inspection port and could see the tank was three quarters full. On top of the tank was a metal plate with a built-in handle. He turned the plate counter-clockwise and removed it. Then he aimed the flashlight into the opening.
Water. Well, what did you expect?
He grabbed a mop that was attached by velcro to a stringer and poked the handle into the tank. The end of the handle clanked off the walls.
Clank. Clank. Clank. Thud.
Thud? What the hell?
Steve pushed the mop handle around the bottom of the tank as if he were stirring a giant vat of paella. It snagged on something soft. He worked the handle under the object and lifted.
Something as long as a man’s body but much thinner.
Thin enough to fit into the opening of the custom-built tank. The object was a transparent, plasticized pouch, and when the end peeked out of the opening, Steve saw Ben Franklin’s tight-lipped face. A hundred dollar bill. Stacked on others. Dozens of stacks. As he pulled the pouch out of the tank, he saw even more. Hundreds of stacks, thousands of bills.
* * *
Damn heavy, Steve thought, lugging the pouch up the ladder from the engine compartment. Then he dragged the load out the salon door and into the cockpit. “Now you’ve done it,” Cruz sounded almost mournful. He stood on the bridge, aiming a double-barrel shotgun at Steve. The rail where he had been cuffed hung loose. “I didn’t want this. But it’s your own damn fault.”
“I’m sorry, Steve,” Victoria said. “When I came up here, he’d gotten out.”
“Not your fault,” Steve said. He dragged the pouch to the starboard gunwale.
“Stop right there!” Cruz ordered. “Step away from the money.”
“Nope. Don’t think so.”
Cruz pumped the shotgun, an unmistakable click-clack that Steve felt in the pit of his stomach. “I’ll blow your head off.”
“And leave blood and bone and tissue embedded in the planking? Nah. You may kill us, but you won’t do it on your boat.” Steve hoisted the pouch onto the rail.
“If I can’t take this to Teresa, I’m sure as hell not gonna let you have it. Your treasure, pal, is strictly Sierra Madre.’”
The shotgun blast roared over Steve’s head, and he flinched. The pouch balanced on the rail, halfway between the deck and the deep blue sea.
“Put the money down, asshole.”
“Okay, okay.” Steve shoved the pouch over the rail and it splashed into the water. “It’s down.”
“Asshole!” Cruz grabbed both throttles, slowed the boat, and swung her around. He turned a spotlight on the water.
Nothing but a black sea and foamy whitecaps.
He swung the spotlight left and right. Still nothing, until…the beam picked up the pouch floating with the current. Cruz eased the boat close to the pouch at idle speed, slipped the engine out of gear, then dashed down the ladder. Grabbing a tarpon gaff, he moved quickly to the gunwale. Shotgun in one hand, gaff in the other, he motioned toward Steve. “Back up. All the way to the chair.”
“Do what he says, Steve,” Victoria called from the bridge.
“Only because you said so.” Steve moved toward one of the fighting chairs.
Cruz leaned over the side and snagged the pouch with the gaff. He struggled to lift it with one arm, still aiming the shotgun at Steve.
Suddenly, the boat shot forward, and Cruz tumbled into the water, the shotgun blasting into space as it fell onto the deck. On the bridge, Victoria had one hand on the throttles, the other on the wheel.
“Cono!” Cruz shouted from the darkness.
“Do sharks feed at night?” Steve leaned over the side. “Or should I just drop some wiggles on your head and find out?”
“Get me out of here!” His voice more fearful than demanding.
“Nah.”
“No me jodas!”
“I’m not fucking with you. Just don’t feel like giving you a lift.”
Victoria raced down the ladder and joined Steve in the cockpit. “Testing, testing,” she said, punching a button on her pocket Dictaphone.
“What are you doing?” Steve said.
“Mr. Cruz,” Victoria called out. “We’ll bring you on board once you answer a few questions.”
Cruz was splashing just off the starboard side. “What fucking questions!”
“Do you admit stealing three million dollars from Teresa Toraño?” Victoria said.
* * *
Pink slivers of sky lit up the horizon and seabirds squawked overhead as Steve s
teered the boat into the channel at Matheson Hammock. He had one hand on the wheel and one draped on Victoria’s shoulder. A shivering Cruz, his arms and legs bound with quarter-inch line, was laced into a fighting chair in the cockpit. His taped confession would be in the hands of the State Attorney by noon. The pouch of money lay at his feet, taunting him.
“What are you thinking about?” Victoria asked.
“I was just imagining the look on Teresa’s face when we give her the money.”
“She’ll be delighted. But it was never about the money, Steve.”
“Whadaya mean?”
“When you were a baby lawyer, Teresa believed in you and nobody else did. You needed to prove to her that she was right. And maybe you needed to prove it to yourself, too.”
Steve shrugged. “If you say so.”
She wrapped both arms around his neck. “But remember this, Steve. You never have to prove anything to me.” They kissed, at first softly, and then deeper and slower. The kiss lasted a long time, and when they each opened their eyes, the sun was peeking above the horizon in the eastern sky.
Their bodies pressed together, Victoria felt something digging into her hip. “Are you carrying another pair of handcuffs?”
“Nope.”
“Then what…?” She jammed a hand into one of his pockets. “Oh. That.”
Steve smiled. “Like I said, no cuffs.”
“That’s okay, sailor.” She brushed her lips against his cheek. “You won’t need them.”
#
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Preview:
TO SPEAK FOR THE DEAD
M A Y 1 9 8 0
Prologue
TABLE DANCER
He would remember the sounds—the wailing sirens, the moans of the injured—and the smells, a smoky ashen stench that clung to hair and clothing. Late the first night, he slipped into the parking lot for some air, and he tasted the sky as the smoke rose above Miami’s inner core. He heard the city scream, the popping of wood and plastic aflame, short bursts of gunfire followed by silence, then the crackle of police radios. Later he would remember slipping in a puddle of blood on the tile floor of the Emergency Room.