Caribbean Rim

by Randy Wayne White

  Six feet of cable began to pulse with low-amperage current. It was harmless to humans and sharks. Twin electrode plates completed the circuit only when immersed in saltwater. Like now.

  The chum veil parted. Bull sharks rushed toward him, then ricocheted away like they’d been shot in the ass with a BB gun. The tiger shark made two passes before it had had enough. The nurse sharks, wherever they were, didn’t bother.

  “Switch off,” Ford called. “Try it again.”

  They kept at it until there was no more chum. The only hitch was when the business end of the cable drifted into contact with Ford’s leg—a hell of a shock, but harmless.

  Josiah, the old preacher—if he was a preacher—greeted the biologist on the dock, saying, “Sure ’nuff did zap them deacons, sir! Say, I’ve been talking with Brothah Tomlinson and there’s some things I didn’t lie about, exactly, but . . . Anyway, after what I just saw, I’ve decided to trust you, too—even though you be a man outside our craft.”

  17

  While working for Benthic, Lydia had seen too many yachts not to equate bad taste with ego. Sometimes, not always, it was also the measure of the owner’s capacity for cruelty. So it was no surprise that Efren Donner had embarrassed her last night by making a show of his secret invitation.

  Less surprising was what he said now that she was aboard, just the two of them. “Leave it to Jimmy to choose a woman no one else would screw, let alone suspect. Brilliant, on your part. That’s a compliment, Lydia. You’d understand, babe, if you knew anything about me or the film industry.”

  Lydia had to play along by saying, “I’ve always been interested in how creative people think.”

  That opened the door. He expounded on his “blockbuster” HBO series and awards, which came after he, a kid with a diploma and an attitude, had founded an addiction clinic that catered to the stars.

  “Tough love,” he said. “I was the first to take the cognitive-morality-is-bullshit approach and it worked. I admit it got me into the movie business, but I never used some actor’s sick little secrets as leverage. Well, not much. Ha-ha-hah.”

  His laugh was three sharp notes, teeth clenched, in a face where chin, nose, and eyes formed a sunburned triangle.

  This was while she toured the “yacht.” It was an oversized speedboat, black hull, black trim, of a type rented by honeymooners or an executive who wanted to impress a mistress. The bar was adjacent to a hot tub, the interior fitted with ebony-and-purple accents. The air was fresher on the flybridge, at least, built forward of the entertainment deck. There, a view from the captain’s chair had provided enough of a segue for Donner to admit who he was and that he knew a few things about her.

  There had been plenty of hints along the way. Topside, cradled aft, was the inflatable boat that had participated in the search. This had given him an excuse to say, “Sorry your new boyfriend survived. That has to be a hell of a disappointment. How are you going to handle it now that your father fixation has become a native hero?”

  The snag regarding her ego theory was that Donner didn’t own the yacht. She’d used the restroom as an excuse to sneak a look at the registry papers posted, as required, near the helm. The boat was out of Caracas but titled to a company in Shanghai, as Island Time, the most generic name possible.

  Strange.

  Why would a Chinese company entrust the boat to a shrink turned film producer who’d been blacklisted, supposedly, after a scandal? Porn or pedophilia, she hadn’t had a chance to look it up, but a sex scandal in Hollywood? It had been a while since the worst of them had been booted out of the business.

  Strange indeed, yet interesting. Lydia was no longer intimidated by men. Twenty-two years of cowering had been enough. She knew Donner’s motives for inviting her aboard. He was convinced she could lead him to the gold Jimmy Jones had stashed before going to prison. But was Donner working alone? An answer was worth tolerating his verbal abuse—for now.

  “Do you hire a crew based on location or do you have a permanent staff?” she asked. It was a mild dig at the absence of crewmen on a boat so pretentious. They had settled aft, main deck, beneath a canopy that could be shuttered in or out depending on the sun. The settee couch was plush. The bar teak, but no one around to serve drinks.

  “Small talk from a woman who likes big boats. Fabulous,” Donner said. He smiled and opened a humidor. “Locals, if I need them. Usually by the day, then I boot their asses home . . . Cigar?”

  “Instead of breathing yours, I think I’ll move to a windward chair.” She did, wineglass in hand.

  “Windward. I like that. You sure know the salty dialogue. Might hire you as a consultant one day.” The lighter he used whistled like a blowtorch. He puffed and puffed, lit the cigar again, and sat back. “Funny you should mention location. That’s how I met Jimmy. Right here, in fact, seven, no, it was eight years ago. I’d just finished a project in Mexico and was under the gun to scope out the Bahamas. That’s the first time I leased that place over there on the hill.” He motioned to a small villa he had previously claimed to own. “Recognize it?”

  “I saw it from the mailboat two days back,” Lydia said without bothering to look. The architecture was Madrid Gothic, old, with columns and a red tile roof, built on a chunk of rock separate from the island where, that morning, Leonard had led her on a hike. “What I don’t understand is, you’re obviously wealthy. So why lie about owning something you don’t?”

  “Did I?”

  “That’s what you told Leonard the night you bought the coin. You don’t remember?”

  “Got me,” he chuckled. “In a way, I do own the place, because I used it in a picture. A setup shot. Broke its cherry, in Hollywoodese, which means no one else can use it again.” He blew smoke and considered the coral colors of the house, the way it was built on an islet, across a wedge of water spanned by a rickety bridge. “Still looks great from a distance, huh? Back then, it really was great. I mean, damn near perfect. But the plumbing, a bunch of stuff, has gone to hell over the last eight years. A big disappointment when I flew in three weeks ago. Bahamian fucks. If I hadn’t brought along a protégée and paid the owner in advance—well, any port in a storm.”

  “You’re not staying there?”

  “I was until my little protégée got pissy about all the cobwebs and spiders. Why put up with that shit when I’ve got this?” The yacht, he meant. “Anyway, we were here doing a James Bond sort of thing and needed to grease some officials in private. That’s why I rented the place. Babe, it’s all about connections and tax breaks. Like Florida, the rubes dumped their film incentives program, which is why . . . Did you see Pirates of the Caribbean? The fifth episode was shot in Queensland-fucking-Australia. Not for the setting but because the Aussie government paid Disney a bundle. That’s why. Hell, Georgia looks more like the goddamn Caribbean than Queensland. And no kangaroos to screw up your takes.”

  That set him off for a while, then he circled back to, “Don’t believe the shit about artistic integrity and standards, the whole activist crap. It’s pure fluff. Name any actress, I’ll tell you where she started and I guarantee it was on her knees. Guys, too, for that matter. It’s all about the money, babe. Fame seekers invented the bottom line.”

  Donner, a good-looking man for a fifty-year-old jerk, tilted his head and laughed, exhaling a stream of smoke. Then attempted an expression of concern after a glance at the island. On a hill above the village, a fire burned, and people with wild hair prepared food. “Seriously, how’re you going to lose the doofus professor? Jumps off a moving ship, my ass. The yokels might believe it but I don’t. What really happened?”

  Lydia started to answer, but he cut her off. “What you don’t want is publicity—even from one of the Nassau rags. Understand why? Then I’ll tell you. A crazy-assed killer is looking for you and your boyfriend. And I’ve got the video to prove it.”

  He opened a laptop, Lydia saying,
“A man who makes films, sure, I’m going to believe whatever it is you spliced together? There won’t be any publicity. The mailboat captain wanted a big ceremony until I spoke to him. So they’re roasting a pig in Leonard’s honor, that’s all. He promised.”

  “Oh, he promised.” Donner chuckled. “In that case, sure, go ahead, get yourselves killed. When you see this”—the laptop again—“you’ll understand. Does the professor know about you and Jimmy?”

  “Drop it, Efren. There’s nothing to tell. What do you want from me?”

  Donner said back, pleased by her reaction, “Enough with the jokes. What I want is to save your ass, but first let me finish about Jimmy. Jimmy, he came on like a wunderkind. Met him at the Atlantis in Nassau with couple of my regular backers. We listened to his spiel—the underwater robot, tons of gold, yada yada yada—and, goddamn, if that redneck cowboy wasn’t right. Plus, it sounded fun—a big production with a big payoff, like a script from a movie only for real. I even had a couple of our writers do a treatment—Caribbean Rim was the working a title. What do you think?”

  “You’d have to cast Leonard as the lead, is what I think.”

  “More jokes.”

  “Because he’s bald and I’m not pretty enough? Fine, I couldn’t stomach bargaining from my knees anyway. I don’t know where Jimmy hid whatever it is you’re looking for.”

  Donner’s smile melted. “Don’t play innocent. You and Jimmy screwed me over big-time. After he ran off, my backers blamed yours truly, which is why I haven’t made a film since—no matter what the goddamn newspapers say. Me—one of the biggest names at HBO for nearly three years. So I visited the asshole in prison. The same prison where you signed the visitor sheet at least six times—but only once used your real name.” He stared at her. “You must know a pro to get credentials that good.”

  Lydia didn’t respond.

  Donner viewed this as a victory. He said, “Hang on, I got something to show you.” From a leather satchel, he produced a miniature baseball bat . . . no, a club with the handle taped, a single rusty nail protruding from the fat end. He placed it next to the humidor. “That Jimmy, huh? A redneck charmer with a degree from MIT. He gave me this during the shoot. A fishbilly, he called it—we’d been marlin fishing. Spoke to me like I was a city boob who didn’t know jack about livin’ off the land, swillin’ moonshine, all that other country-boy crap.”

  He abandoned the good ol’ boy accent and plunked the table with the club, the nail pointed upward. “Not long ago, I reminded Jimmy of this little present. You know, to illustrate what might happen. Then I gave him something—one last chance to draw a map for me and the other investors. In return, we’d drop the charges. Well, you know how that worked out. It’s been almost a month, hasn’t it”—the cigar provided a smoky pause—“since a con used Jimmy’s head as a piñata? A thousand bucks. I guess it’s a lot of money for a psycho doing life-times-two. Think I should’ve lowballed the job?”

  “If that’s a confession,” Lydia said, “I didn’t hear it, so don’t get any ideas.”

  “I’m explaining how badly I was hurt, you know, emotionally. The banger who arranged it all had done a stretch there. As an actor, he stunk, but I know how to get the best out of the very worst actors you can imagine.” Donner let her process that. “Did you happen to catch Jimmy’s snuff scene before they pulled the clip from the Internet?”

  Lydia swallowed, sipped her wine, and thought about throwing it in the face of a man whose eyes had never been impressed by anything larger than a mirror. But then what? Leave without knowing if the other investors were involved?

  Donner leaned close enough to share the odor of his cologne. “Let me ask you something—the shrink in me is interested. When you saw poor Jimmy bleeding to death on YouTube, did you spend a few minutes in mourning? Or did you pack your bags and look for a stooge to mule your dive gear to the Bahamas?”

  Enough. Half a glass of wine blinded Donner as she pushed out of her chair, but he grabbed her and pulled her back. “A little too close to the truth, sweetie?” he asked. The same glare, but brighter, like something behind his eyes had snapped.

  She didn’t try to wrestle her arm free. Told him calmly, “Efren, you might think Leonard’s a fool, but the people on that island don’t. All I have to do is wave and a boat will come. Good luck impressing them with your film credits.”

  The effect was startling. Donner took a deep breath and released her arm. “Inbred freaks,” he muttered.

  The man was afraid, she realized. It gave her confidence. “Then why did you come back?”

  “Nostalgia, better days, I guess—and a card the realtor sent offering me the place for next to nothing if I’d book the whole month. But I’d forgotten just how nasty those people are. Didn’t allow them on my side of the bridge after dark—that was in the first contract, too. The locals got pissed when they caught me shooting some drum ceremony. Me, what I’m thinking is a documentary for Sundance. A serious piece of art. They’re thinking roast my head on a spit. I’m not shitting you.”

  Lydia, interested, offered him a towel. “Recently?”

  “Eight years ago, after we’d wrapped. Personally, I think they intentionally fucked up everything we did on that shoot. Or tried to. Third World magic, fear, blood offerings. But they don’t scare me. People like them are easy to control if you know which buttons to push. Sort of like actors. Ha-ha-hah.” That laugh again, while he used a towel and regained his composure.

  Folding the towel, he said, “The Chablis’s not too bad, huh? A joke, babe, loosen up. Look, I’ve got a proposition for you. But first”—the laptop had to be repositioned—“if this doesn’t convince you we should work together, I’ll take you to shore myself.”

  * * *

  —

  The video was rough-cut, shot at night with infrared, and time-stamped. A man—his hands were too big to be a female—wearing a GoPro camera had documented his voyeur-like pursuit of two people she recognized, one she did not. No audio. Just ghostly images like overexposed negatives in black-and-white.

  “What they have in common is you,” Donner explained. “One way or another, you and Leonard must’ve come into contact, spoken to them—I don’t know, you tell me.” He was nervous, wanted her full and friendly attention.

  Lydia found it hard to breathe despite a breeze that would have pushed the yacht ashore were it not for automated thrusters and a GPS. “Who is he?”

  “The shooter?”

  “The one sneaking around with the camera.”

  “Same thing. I hope it’s the shitty actor I mentioned. He stunk in a B flick about cage fighting, so I hired him as security on some legitimate shoots. Ex-military from El Salvador, which, by the way, is a gorgeous country. He knew about Jimmy, so it makes sense he’s on your trail. If not”—Donner looked shoreward—“then maybe it’s one of them.”

  On a hillside above the village, half a mile away, smoke filtered up through he trees. Lydia noted that a boat she’d seen earlier was no longer docked at the warehouse pier.

  “Can you zoom in?” she asked.

  Donner’s attention returned to the computer. “You recognize the woman, right? I can tell. I know how to read my audience.”

  “It’s been almost two weeks,” Lydia said.

  “I can read a time stamp, too, for Christ’s sake. That’s not what I asked.”

  “Yes, a large woman, sorta pretty. We talked for maybe ten minutes. Her name’s Tamara-something. She runs a little dive shop on Andros.”

  “Tamarinda Constance,” Donner said. “And the big guy with the pumpkin head, he’s captain of the boat you and Leo chartered. The three of you sold a chunk of ambergris in Nassau.”

  “How do you know all this?”

  “I know a hell of a lot more than you realize. What about him?” His finger tapped a frozen-frame shot of a man at night wearing glasses.


  Lydia folded her arms in a way that meant Not another word until you explain.

  “Stubborn, okay. It’s part of the deal I’m offering you. Ask yourself who really owns the gold Jimmy salvaged? Not according to the courts—screw maritime law. The feds say it belongs to the U.S. government. Spain claims it belongs to the Spanish mint. But who really owns it? I’ll tell you—the country it was stolen from in the first place.”

  She was confused. “I don’t know what . . . You’re working with the Mexican government?”

  “Think Central America. Where the gold was mined, taken from the ground by poor native bastards who still live like slaves, a lot of them.” He allowed his indignation to register. “Yeah, and the same mines that produced the coin your boy Leo has been flashing around—a gold Tricentennial Royal, isn’t it? My people know about that, too. There’s an island down there I’d give my left nut to own.”

  “Your people from where?”

  “It’s a small country that’s tired of being shit on. The most beautiful beaches you’ve ever seen. And the head honchos aren’t afraid to play hardball. They want what belongs to them. Is that so wrong? In return, I’m back in the movie business, and a legal citizen of a country that appreciates talent. Doesn’t give a damn about headlines and my sex life. Satisfied?”

  “Some banana republic intelligence agency,” Lydia said, not a question, just wondering if it could be true.

  Again, Donner indicated the shot of a man wearing wire-rims. A good jaw, and an intensity that reached through the camera lens. The skin of his face glowed against a dark backdrop. “Supposedly, he’s a marine biologist from the States. But I wonder.”

  “A biologist—no, never seen him before. Did the same country send the guy with the camera?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to figure out. Watch it again.”

  She did. Watched the man remove a shoulder bag, open it, then pivot like he sensed he wasn’t alone, searching through glasses that glittered with infrared light. In the bag was a tube, a scope of some type. It emitted an eerie glow. The man knelt, put it to his eye, and, suddenly, the camera was bouncing toward shadows that were trees.