A Pagan's Nightmare (23 page)

At 4:05 a.m., MC Deluxe made a calculated decision not to stop. He turned the wheel slightly to the right and changed their
bearings to north toward the coast of Georgia.

That’s when the first bullet zipped overhead and into the night.

“Just a warning shot over the stern,” said DJ Ned, trying to crouch his portly frame ever lower behind the hot tub.

“I thought warning shots were always fired over the
bow,”
Lanny replied. His face was pressed against red marble, just above the Former Donald’s feet.

Ned thought about this for a moment. “No, in Cuba, I think they fire over the stern.”

The Former Donald, huddled between Ned and Lanny, his forehead on the floor, confirmed that in Cuba, warning shots were usually
fired over the stern.

But why was their vessel teetering to and fro? MC fought with the wheel, which all of a sudden had a mind of its own. The
yacht rose high upon a wave and dropped heavily over the crest, causing Lanny to bite his lip. He spat saliva and blood. Wave
after wave pounded the front and starboard sides. Rain began to fall. Then bigger rain. Then sheets of rain.

Panic set in among the crew.

Besides not accounting for the possibility of armed pursuers at sea, the Former Donald had also not considered the possibility
of another August hurricane. “Didn’t anyone check the weather forecast before we left?” he asked the others.

MC turned and frowned at the question.“Man, how could we
check weather while locked in that dark room with all them prisoners who stank?”

A huge wave slammed the starboard side and rocked the yacht. “Hurricane Hellacious,” said DJ Ned.

“Actually,” said the Former Donald, “it would be named Hurricane Howard, although I’ll admit that it feels more like—”

A second bullet split the air above the yacht.
Ziiiing.

Lanny was the only one who kept his senses. On his stomach he crawled around the hot tub and behind the captain’s quarters,
to the stairs leading down to the stateroom. He disappeared below, then came back up two minutes later, still on his stomach.

“Where’d you go?” DJ Ned whispered.

Breathing hard, Lanny crawled back behind the hot tub. “To check the weather on Castro’s big-screen TV.”

“And?”

“And there’s a tropical storm, or maybe a tropical depression—I wasn’t clear on that part—east of Savannah, Georgia.”

“And?”

“And I heard the weather girl say ‘convection,’ ‘sub-tropical moisture,’ and ‘northwesterly movement.’ “

“That means we’re heading right into it,” said the Former Donald, who, prior to his stint at the theme park, had flunked out
of meteorology school.

MC reached up and turned the wheel slightly to the right, then cut back on the throttle. The yacht rose high upon a wave and
dropped hard. “Aw, man,” MC muttered to no one in particular. “We never had no hurricanes in Harlem. No warning shots neither.”
The next wave lifted them higher than the last. “Where I come from, people shoot for real or they don’t shoot at all.”

DJ Ned raised his bearded face from behind the hot tub to peer back at the Coast Guard cutter. The large waves and heavy rain
had caused the cutter to fall farther behind, some two hundred yards perhaps. In addition, those same waves played havoc with
the guards’ ability to aim their warning shots over the stern. The next shot wasn’t even close.

While the waves pounded and the guards pursued, a third argument broke out aboard the yacht.

“We gotta outrun ‘em,” Ned suggested.

“But we’re down to our last eighth of a tank of fuel,” Lanny noted.

“Just run us aground anywhere,” shouted the Former Donald, who feared drowning as much as bullets.

MC felt seasick from all the ups and downs and lurching of the yacht. He rose from the floor for a moment and checked the
electronic map above the steering wheel. “How about Tybee Island, Georgia?”

The crack of gunfire forced him back to the floor, hands covering his head.

“Tybee Island sounds just fine,” said a young voice. But his was not the voice of any of the four.

Lanny, the Former Donald, DJ Ned, and MC Deluxe all turned from behind the hot tub and the captain’s chair and glanced to
the stairs leading up from below.

DJ Ned was the first to recognize the young man. “Crackhead?”

“It’s me, Ned.”

“How did you—”

Confused and frightened by the gunfire, the stringy haired Crack-head dropped to the floor. “While you guys were whitewashing
graffiti the other night, I told the guards I was sick to my stomach. So when they told me to go relieve myself in an alley,
I just started running toward the water. I dove in the ocean and swam down to the yacht. I must’ve climbed on board just before
you guys did.”

“Then you’re… a stowaway?”

The resourceful Crackhead came crawling toward them. “I’ve been stowed away in the pink bedroom. In the closet with all the
toys.”

Ned nodded. He had rejected that room solely on the color scheme and had slept in the blue room instead. Then Ned thought
back to the missing chunks of dogfish steak. “Did you eat those chunks of fish?”

A fifth bullet zipped overhead, and everyone dove to the floor again. Crackhead crouched low behind the hot tub with the others.
“Just three little pieces, Ned. I was starving.”

DJ Ned tried to wrap himself in a ball. “The Reese’s?”

“Ate that too… last night, I think.”

“Man, you need a bath,” said Lanny.

Crackhead sniffed his own underarm. “I was afraid that if I used the shower, someone would hear me. I didn’t know who was
piloting the boat. . . until I heard someone rapping.”

“That would be me,” MC said proudly, reaching up again for the wheel and throttle. “What you heard was my new single, titled
‘I’m Da Skippuh.’”

A bullet pinged off the antennae above the captain’s quarters. MC immediately turned the yacht toward land. Through the rain
and over the bow he saw a distant lighthouse.

Through the rain and over the stern, Lanny saw a spotlight beaming back and forth. The light shone from the Coast Guard cutter
as it powered through the waves, closing the gap.

A frightened Lanny crawled over to help MC navigate.

MC pressed the throttle to full power and glanced behind at their pursuers.“They’re gaining on us, man.”

“Just stay calm and don’t stop till we hit the beach,” Lanny said. They were a quarter mile from land now, and Lanny noted
the depth gauge to the left of the throttle. For a couple seconds it showed twenty-nine feet. Then it rose to twenty feet.
Then to thirteen. Then nine, then six, then four.

The yacht lurched to a stop. The men went tumbling.

In their anxiousness to reach shore and flee, none of the crew had considered the possibility of sandbars.

Angie’s effort at “I’m sorry” was Braves tickets. My own effort was imported chocolate from Rodeo Drive. She had reconsidered
her southern belle protest movement, and now our shared desire was to mend the relationship. We exchanged gifts in her Subaru,
moments after she picked me up from the Atlanta airport.

We sat idling at the United drop-off area, holding hands across the console. “Perhaps I overreacted, Neddie,” Angie said,
leaning toward me.

“I’m sure you did, pumpkin.” Our foreheads met.“And perhaps I think too often of money.”

“I’m sure you do. But I shouldn’t have protested. The day you flew out to L.A. I read in Proverbs that a quarreling wife is
like a constant dripping from a faucet. Am I like a faucet that constantly drips, honey?”

Nose to nose now, I replied with soft-spoken honesty. “Actually, you were more like an eruptive fire hose at full blast. .
. but it’s, um, water under the bridge now?”

Her eyelashes brushed mine. “Pristine aqua waters like our honeymoon on St. Croix?”

“Just like those waters, dear.”

Now, before you go thinking that we sped home, kissed on the porch and in the foyer and down the hall, then spent a romantic
evening making up and making out, just put the brakes on your lust-mobile. That ain’t how it happened.

You see, the Braves tickets were for that night’s game;we drove straight from the airport to the ballpark. On the way there—she’d
asked me to drive, and I was weaving through Friday evening traffic—she ate my apology chocolate, licking her lips and pronouncing
it delicious.

I glanced down at the console and noticed four tickets instead of two. It was like they had multiplied. A paperclip held them
tightly
together. All I could figure was that when Angie had given them to me, I had kept my eyes on her instead of the tickets. I
had just assumed there were two.

She wiped her mouth with a napkin as we idled in traffic at the Turner Field exit. I used this moment to pick up the four
tickets and spread them like a poker hand in my fingers. “Angie, honey, ordinarily when a couple attempts to make up, they
prefer to be one on one.”

Angie reached over and patted my hand. “Ordinarily, Ned. Yes.”

We rolled forward at maybe two miles per hour. A flashing sign over the sidewalk broadcasted BRAVES—MARLINS, 7:35 TONIGHT!

I glanced at my watch. 7:02. “So, Ang, you’re not going to tell me who we’re meeting here at the ballpark?”

I suspected some relational counselors, perhaps from the Baptist church.

She patted my hand a second time. “While you were in L.A., I e-mailed Larry and invited him to the game.”

“You contacted
Larry?”

“Yes.”

“And he replied?”

“He’s bringing a date. They’re meeting us at the ticket office.”

Perplexed, I turned right into stadium parking. “He’ll probably be with Miranda.”

Angie immediately grabbed my right arm.

“Miranda?”
she asked. “How can his date be named Miranda when the girl in his story is named Miranda?” Suddenly Angie had her hands
over her mouth, eyes wide and unblinking, her gaze fixed over the hood. “Oh… oh my. Does she know?”

I parked between two minivans and cut the engine. “Last time Larry and I spoke, he had not informed the young lady of that
slight coincidence.”

No way was I wearing long sleeves to the ballpark. I pulled my white buttondown over my head and reached into the backseat
for my orange polo. When my head poked through the opening, I noticedo
that Angie’s hands remained over her mouth, and that her eyes had taken on a cool, calculating look.

I felt the need—even the obligation—to intervene. “Angie, you cannot initiate any confrontation with Larry tonight. This is
supposed to be our make-up date… right? Didn’t we just exchange gifts?”

She opened her door to climb out. “Can’t I just ask him a few little questions between innings?”

I got out of the driver’s side and shook a finger at her over the roof. “This is our make-up date. So tonight we’re both limited
to baseball, small talk, and hot dogs all the way.”

She slung her purse over her shoulder and grinned in a manner that bordered on devious.

I went around the hood and took her by the hand. Together we walked toward the ticket office. “Promise me, Ang?”

“Okay.”

“Say it with me….”

She frowned and mocked the movement of my lips. “Baseball, small talk, and hot dogs all the way. Baseball, small talk, and
hot dogs all the way.”

Ahead stood Larry, waving at us along with his auburn-haired date. He appeared anxious for an L.A. update. She appeared so
innocent for a muse.

Perhaps it was the crack of bat meeting ball that caused me to forget about Hollywood’s disappointing offer. Or it could have
been the reconciliation with my wife. Or perhaps it was the smell of hot dogs in the air and the boiled peanuts I’d shared
with Larry. In row thirty-two on the first base side of Turner Field, he and I occupied seats one and four, respectively.
Larry needed the aisle seat, what with his long legs. In seat three, to my left, sat Angie, and to her left, in seat two,
was Miss Miranda Simms.

“Thank you so much for the seats, Agent Orange,” she said after the next pitch. I thought it was cute the way she called me
Agent Orange, as if that were my given name.

I caught her glance and pointed to Angie’s head.
It was her idea.

Between pitches, the four of us shared our backgrounds, and soon I discovered that Miranda had grown up in Florida, in a suburb
of Orlando. I also learned that her parents owned an offshore boat and that she had a younger sister.

By the second inning, Angie had befriended both of our guests and was intermittently yelling at the umpires and making girl-talk
with Miranda. “Isn’t the night air wonderful?” she asked.

Miranda nodded. “I just love summer. I even drove Larry here tonight with my sunroof open.”

“Oh?” Angie replied. “And what kind of car do you own?”

“A VW Jetta. I bought it new last year. It’s blue.”

The Braves had their fastest runner on first and nobody out when both women announced that they needed to visit the ladies
room. I whispered to Angie as she stood. “Not a word to her about… you know.”

Angie made the zip motion across her lips and followed Miranda into the aisle.