by Warren Court
“Got an answer for everything, don’t you, Jack?” Soos said.
He nodded his head back at Louis, who went back to the car and returned with a hockey bag. It looked heavy. Louis dropped it at Doc’s feet.
“You make contact with Jocko?”
“I did. I’ll meet him out there.” I motioned to back out the lake without taking my eyes off Soos. He saw that.
“You afraid of something, Crouch?”
“No, everything’s cool. What’s the deal?”
“You give Jocko this bag here and he gives you something in return. Other than that, you don’t really need to know.”
“But what is it? What if he doesn’t give it all to me and tries to rip you off?”
“He won’t. Jocko’s going to give you some merchandise for me, and you’re paying him. It’s as simple as that.”
“What if he pulls something?”
“He’s not going to pull anything… and neither are you. Louis here is going along to make sure.” His eyes bored right into me and I gulped; I couldn’t help it.
“That’s not part of the deal,” I said. “I work alone.”
“There is no deal. You’re doing a job and when you get back, I’ll pay you.”
Soos turned to go and the two men I didn’t know went with him. Louis bent down and picked the bag up and carried it over to the boat. He dropped it down onto the back deck and started climbing down the pier. His movements were awkward and cautious as he made his way down the iron rungs of the ladder. He had no history with boats. At least I had him out of his element.
After I untied the massive knot around the cleat on the pier and threw the lines onto the boat, and re-boarded Wave Dancer. Louis had already moved the bag inside and was down in the cutty cabin sitting behind the small table. I throttled the engines up, spun out from the pier and pointed the boat back out to the lake.
“There’s booze down there,” I said to Louis. I heard the wooden panel of the liquor cabinet slide and Louis mixing himself a drink. The bottle of Glenfiddich was still up on the bridge and I poured some more of it for myself.
This was bad. Not once in the dozen times I’d done something for Soos had one of his guys come along. I’d always thought it was his way of insulating himself from a sting: if I got caught, I was just a guy with a lot of money and no known connections to Soos. If I chose to run away with the money, which I had thought about every time I did one of these trips, Soos could hunt me down and make an example of me. I shuddered at the thought of what that might entail. Now one of his goons was along for the ride. What could that mean?
Lights from other boats crossed back and forth in front of my bow. I adjusted my course to keep as much distance between them and Wave Dancer as possible. When I was a few miles offshore, I punched the digits of the rendezvous into the GPS and set the autopilot to take us out there. I poured three fingers of the Glenfiddich to calm my nerves. The glass shook in my hands as I brought it up to my lips. I told myself that was the last of the booze; I needed my wits for this thing.
Getting out into the middle of the lake took several hours. The night was as black as a lump of coal. The wind picked up and our progress was slowed by the increasing swells. Dancer rode them easily. When I was about five miles away from the rendezvous, I brought the boat to a standstill. It started to rock violently now in the swell, and Louis finally emerged from the cutty cabin. He was drunk and sick; I could see it in his face. I didn’t know a black guy could turn green but he had. He went to the side and threw up violently. This was another card up my sleeve. Any advantage I could have over Louis was good.
I followed him out onto the back deck.
“Keep looking at the horizon,” I said.
He was hanging his head heavily over the side and painting the gunwales. Eventually he lifted his head and did what I said.
“I feel terrible.” He finally spoke.
“You shouldn’t have stayed down below if you’re prone to seasickness.”
“Get me a drink.”
“That won’t help.”
He didn’t say anything, but just stretched his massive paw behind him and snapped his fingers. I went back inside and poured a stiff whiskey and brought it to him. He gulped it down and immediately brought it back up.
“See?” I said.
He finally turned around and wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his sport coat. He looked at his watch quickly; the act of looking down at the deck made him physically convulse.
“Where are we?” he said.
“About five miles out from the spot. We’ll hold here until closer to the time.”
Louis went to the back of the rear deck and collapsed on the built-in bench. I went back into the cabin and monitored the radios and the horizon. We were in the shipping lanes. You couldn’t motor out here in pitch black, shut down, and then not keep an eye out for freighters. They had no way of avoiding a small boat in their path. By the time they picked us up on radar or from a visual lookout, it would already be too late. I took out a pair of binoculars—another item to throw overboard when I was done—and went back out onto the back deck. Mostly because I wanted to check on Louis. I scanned the horizon with the binos.
“What’s in the bag?” I said.
Louis spat on the deck. “What?”
“I said what’s in the bag? What are we picking up?”
“None of your…” He paused and spat again. “…business,” he finished.
“I think it is.”
“You just drive the boat; I’ll take care of it,” he said and spat a third time.
I could see a massive holstered pistol swinging under his armpit.
The wind picked up even more and the clouds tightened down around me so that visibility was reduced to a few miles. The lights of the Toronto skyline disappeared. Dancer was in her element, taking the waves on at a forty-five-degree angle; she leapt over them with grace and asked for seconds.
So, there we sat, in that dead zone where neither the Canadian or American shorelines can be seen.
The wind was warm and heavy with moisture. Ernesto was pushing nice weather in front of him, but soon it would turn ugly. The last update I had was that the weather was running up the eastern seaboard of the United States and was expected to hit Lake Ontario on the weekend. By then, the storm would be downgraded to a tropical depression, but it would still pack a hell of a punch.
Never one to let a problem sit idle, I realized I had time to look at that port engine and see if I couldn’t fix it. Gloria would be oblivious to the state of the engines, and the current renter was only interested in the boat as a place to entertain his mistresses.
I got the rear hatch off and start poking around the engine bay. The twin Volvo Pentas were in a sorry state. Apparently, the new renter hadn’t spent much time with this hatch up looking after the engines. They were filthy. When I’d owned the Dancer, I’d spent hours keeping this engine bay nice and tidy and keeping the engines themselves in top fettle.
From experience I knew what to look for. The timing on the engine was off; it tended to slip. These engines still used a distributor to fire the plugs, and it took me only a few minutes to make the adjustment. I tightened every bolt I could see and then went back up to the bridge. After I flicked the wires together, the port engine fired and caught. I went back and closed the hatch and was satisfied the off-kilter sound was gone; as simple as that. Who knew how long the new renter would have let that go? I felt justified in the damage I’d done to the lock and console panel; it was now repaid with this simple maintenance. I stowed the toolbox and started the second engine.
The radar had showed only one blip, and I had been monitoring it for the past hour. Its slow rate of progress and rather oblong shape across the top of my scope told me it was probably a freighter headed in for Hamilton or maybe the Welland Canal, which would allow it access to the northern Great Lakes. I could only see its long, dark shape as it glided by, its engines already shut down. It would travel on inerti
a until it was under the bridge, where it would be picked up by tugs, probably the same one I’d seen on my way out to meet with Soos. The radar itself was not tuned right; the waves were creating too much clutter, little streaks of lime green that came and went. Another easy fix. I tuned the radar down so that it would minimize clutter and only show me true, hard objects, not the tops of waves.
I went back out on to the deck, drink in hand. Louis was leaning back now against the side of the boat, his head thrown back. If I wanted to take him out it would be so easy; he’d never see it coming. I weighed this option in my mind. On the one hand, if I did that, if I just went up to him and put a bullet in his head, I’d definitely be signing my own death warrant. Soos would not take the loss of his bodyguard lightly. But on the other hand, if I waited for the rendezvous with Jocko and it was in fact a hit against me, I might not get chance to defend myself. I decided to wait. Right now, Louis, in this state, was no threat to me.
I checked my watch; it was getting close to the rendezvous time. I went back in the cabin and checked the scope; it showed a blip moving towards me at a high rate of speed. I had earlier marked out the rendezvous spot on my radar scope with a pixelated X, and this new blip was heading right for it.
“Hey, Louis,” I called. “Showtime.”
Chapter 10
I heard the poor bodyguard moan that he’d heard me, and I throttled up Wave Dancer’s engines and headed off to meet Jocko.
I kept tuning the scope down as the blip approached the X on my radar screen. The sky started to lighten a bit, the sun was coming up. The lake in front of me was an endless procession of brown waves. They were six feet high now, their sharp tops cresting over white.
When the blip was in under the one-mile ring, I shut the engines down to an idle and climbed out onto the bow. Eventually the sound of several high-horsepower marine engines drowned out the sound of the idling Volvos on Dancer. The long, elegant shape of a cigarette boat came into view. They’re called cigarette boats because these types of crafts were most often associated with racing, which is sponsored by the tobacco companies. The boat was large and loud and painted a brilliant shade of yellow. Real smart, Jocko, I thought. Way to look as inconspicuous as possible.
The cig boat approached and I could see several people in the cockpit. They got within a hundred yards and started to circle Dancer. Jocko was at the wheel. I pulled the binos away from my face so Jocko could check me out. He seemed satisfied and started to manoeuvre the big yellow boat closer. There were no jocular greetings; boaters had an annoying habit of waving at each other for no reason.
Finally, Jocko sidled his boat up close and he cut his four engines back to an idle so I could hear him. We rolled on the waves, alternating our positions: Dancer was above them and then below. It was going to be hard to conduct business, but I was in my element. I love wild waves.
“You got the cash?” he yelled across.
I yelled back that I had and gave him the thumbs-up.
“Let’s see it.”
I went to the back deck, where Louis was struggling to regain his composure. I grabbed the money bag and lifted it up. Louis was in no shape to resist.
The men on the boat, who were trying to grab onto the Dancer’s chrome guide rails to fend off a collision, suddenly lost interest and were looking at the bag.
“What you got for me?” I yelled across at them.
“It’s down below.”
“You know who this deal is for, Jocko. No time to screw around.” I would refer to Doc Soos as much as I could. I wanted to remind Jocko and his friends who he was ultimately dealing with—not just a washed-up, disgraced police detective but Emerich Soos, who would wipe all of them out if he were double-crossed. Jocko motioned for one of his guys to take the helm.
I kicked all the fenders out of their holders so that they hung freely to keep our two boats from crunching. This wasn’t my boat any more, of course, but I still didn’t want to damage Wave Dancer any more than I had to. I loved her.
When the noses of our boats finally touched, we started to mesh them, pulling the sterns in so the two boats were riding the waves as one with no separation in height between them. The two muscle guys were holding onto Dancer’s rails further down near the stern, and another guy was on the front of the cig boat doing the same thing.
Jocko was close to me now and he didn’t have to yell.
“Get the money and come aboard.”
Louis grabbed the bag out of my hand. He was unsteady on his feet but he was standing. He went to toss Jocko the bag.
“No,” I said to Jocko. “Show us the stuff.” I turned to Louis. “Is this the first time you’ve done this?” He looked sheepish.
Jocko was a seasoned smuggler; I’d dealt with him a couple of times before and he knew the score. It was an old habit. One should always try and control what goes on when dealing with criminals, anticipate that natural instinct they have to dominate.
I straightened up a bit and felt the reassuring bulk of the Browning Hi-Power in the back of my pants.
“All right, come aboard,” Jocko said.
I waited a second and then vaulted over the cigarette boat’s rails and landed next to Jocko. We waited while Louis hesitatingly made the same leap and came aboard.
“It’s down below,” Jocko said. “It’s a heavy crate.” I felt a shiver of fear run down my spine. Was this how Robert Garigue had felt the night he got put in the lake? It looked like a giant graveyard now. Lightning flashed in the distance and lit up Jocko’s face. I had no choice. I followed him down into the cabin. It was tight; the boat was built for speed, not comfort.
“Right down here, pal,” Jocko said.
I saw a long, black box that looked almost like a coffin. It was a military ammo crate; I could see some markings on it. There were two more. Soos was buying machine guns?
Suddenly there was a crunch, and I cringed a bit as the cigarette boat banged into the Dancer.
I became aware of Louis behind me. The boat jerked unexpectedly as a huge wave came under her and Louis’s fist grazed by my ear and he fell past me into the cabin. I wondered for a split second why he was trying to punch me, then instinct took over and I switched into combat mode. I saw Jocko reach for his gun. I pulled mine.
Chapter 11
I brought the Browning Hi-Power up and put two rounds into Jocko, knocking him down to the cabin floor. Louis was getting to his feet, his hand tucked into his jacket. As he turned around, I caught him in the side of the head with two more rounds. That large black dome exploded in a concussion of grey and pink, and he went down like a sack of rocks.
I came out of the cutty cabin firing. The two men who were fending off the Wave Dancer were too slow to get to their feet and draw their weapons. I fired at them frantically as I leapt across to Wave Dancer. I almost slipped and fell in between the two boats. That would have been the end of me, but I grabbed onto a handhold and propelled myself over the front of the windscreen. Bullets came after me now, cracking off the Dancer’s bridge. I swung myself down into the rear deck, firing at the men on the cigarette boat, and then dived for cover into the cabin. I pushed both throttles as far forward as they would go. Wave Dancer careened off the nose of Jocko’s boat, scraping her side.
I looked back at the cigarette boat and saw an amazing thing: Jocko was on the foredeck firing at me. Then I saw his open shirt and the white bulletproof vest he had on under it. I fired the last two rounds of my magazine at the cig boat and spun the wheel hard back and forth.
I heard the cigarette boat’s engines come to life. I spun the wheel hard to starboard and ran down the back side of a ten-foot wave.
I ejected the spent magazine with one hand and gripped the steering wheel with the other. I couldn’t take my hands off it to put the fresh mag in. I looked at the rear deck; the money bag was still there. Instead of carrying it across to Jocko’s boat, Louis had concentrated on taking me out first.
The warm air of the coming storm created
a thick fog in the morning light, and I aimed to take advantage of that and put as much distance as possible between me and Jocko. He had the faster boat two times over, but I could see the large waves were trimming that advantage: his engines were constantly coming out of the water as the boat careened over the tops. I might just make it.
I looked at the compass and knew I was heading for the shore east of Hamilton. Wave Dancer’s engines howled in protest; they were well beyond the red line on the tachs. I couldn’t afford to slow down, not yet.
I alternated between looking out in front of me at the thickening soup and behind at the diminishing figure of the yellow cig boat. Soon I had enough distance between us that I was sure they couldn’t make me out. And soon after that, I couldn’t see them at all. Still, I had to find a safe place to hole up for a couple of hours. I checked the radar and saw the shore approaching. There were lots of indentations in the shoreline; I could motor into one of them and wait.