Buzzard Bay (51 page)

He found Julio snoring on top of Lena’s car. There were signs of dried blood around his asshole. Lena was asleep on a chair in one corner; she jumped up when he came in.

“Well, at least you didn’t kill him.”

Lena walked over to where Henekie stood. “No, and I didn’t find out much about what his brother is up to either.” Lena told him. “I did get out of him where he hid his money. There’s about two hundred thousand in that paper bag over there. I’m sure you can use that.”

Henekie nodded, “Thanks, Lena.”

“I guess that’s about all he’ll ever see of the millions he made selling the coke,” Lena told him. “I’m sure his friends thought they were being generous giving him that much, and now you’re taking that on him. You are such a nasty man, Henekie.”

“Mere pocket money to a high roller like Julio,” Henekie answered, cutting the ties and slapping Julio to wake him up. He sat up and looked at them.

“Are you going to kill me?”

“We’re going over to your place and talk to your brother. Guess it will depend on him,” Henekie said.

“Don’t worry, he’ll pay you whatever you want,” Julio answered.

Henekie pushed him out the door. “You’re walking a little funny, Julio, kind of like you got butt fucked last night,” Henekie said as they entered Julio’s place.

“Nobody does that to me and gets away with it, Jon will see to that.”

“Okay, I dare you to tell him what she did to you,” Henekie handed him the phone.

Jon Smyskin’s voice came over the speakerphone, “Damn, Julio, I thought you told me you laid off that stuff. Do you have any idea what time it is here?”

“There’s a man here who wants to kill me, Jon,” Julio blubbered.

“Tell him to go ahead so I can get some sleep.”

“I’d be careful what you wish for,” Henekie interjected.

“Who’s that?” Jon suddenly sounded interested.

“That’s the man who wants to kill me,” Julio told him.

“Where’s Benito?” Jon had handpicked Benito to take care of Julio. He was as tough as they came and totally loyal; something was very wrong here.

“I sent him to take care of some business, when he gets back, he’ll gut this fuck, but until then I need your help,” Julio pleaded.

“Okay, what is it you want?” Jon asked.

“I want you to leave Lena alone.”

“Okay, that’s not a problem,” Jon answered.

“I don’t think you understand. It is a problem, a big problem for you if you don’t leave her alone.” Henekie told him. “You see, I work for a company that used to work for your father. We do odd jobs: put out fires, things like that. No one’s immune to us, not even you. If you don’t believe me, ask the Referee. He’ll confirm what I say is true.”

“Are you threatening me?” Jon sounded perturbed.

“I don’t threaten.” Henekie took Julio by the hair and led him over to the table with the cooler on it. He opened the lid and held Julio’s head over it.

“It’s Benito, Jon,” he screamed, “It’s his head. They cut off his head.”

“That’s what will happen to you if you ever touch Lena again, you little prick,” Henekie kicked him in the nuts then walked away leaving Julio squirming on the floor.

“I don’t threaten, Jon. What Julio just told you is proof of that. Lena’s building a fence right down the middle of this property. Your people stay on their own side of the fence, Lena stays on hers, and from now on she’ll supply her own security.” With that, Henekie hung up the phone.

They left Julio to his misery and walked back to Lena’s house just as the sun came up, spreading its morning heat.

“That’s a great idea dividing the property with a fence,” Lena told him.

“I want you to start on that– now,” Henekie answered, “and get yourself some security– now.”

“I like it when you get bossy, Henekie. Why don’t you come to work for me so you can tell me what to do all the time?”

“That wouldn’t work, Lena. We’re too good of friends for that, and you know very well that sooner or later someone like Sir Harry would come nosing around wondering who I am.”

“Then why are you going out of your way to protect me? There has to be something in it for you, but I’ll be damned If I can figure out what it is.”

“I need you to be where you are, Lena,” replied Henekie. “I introduced you to El Presidente because I needed someone close to him that could tell me what he was thinking. I bet all my cards on him and lost everything except for one thing. That one thing is you. Quinn saw the potential in you I guess, and turned you from bouncing from man to man, into men and their money bouncing off you. You took a little seed money off El Presidente and turned it into a bloody fortune, but you still think you can stroke a man’s cock and keep him satisfied. From now on, you’re going to have to squeeze some balls.”

They walked into the kitchen, and Henekie poured a cup of coffee. To his amazement, Lena took a frying pan out of a cupboard and began cooking some eggs. “You told me to be honest with the Smyskins. I’m making them lots of money which seemed to stroke them the right way when they needed it. I don’t think they need their balls squeezed. I think it’s a case of head fuck,” Lena lamented.

Henekie moved up beside her and began making some toast.

“So you think I’m a good friend,” Henekie told her. “El Presidente was fighting for his life when I told him you would be perfect to run things here in the Bahamas. He agreed, thinking it would be a real slap in the face to the people who were trying to get rid of him here, to have to take orders from a woman. He signed your little agreement because he wanted you to fall in bed with him when he got back and had absolutely no intention of honoring the agreement. He’d have done much the same as Julio did to you except he always went one step farther. He’d have gotten you pregnant. It was an obsession with him, especially any woman who thought she might have some standing or authority. Once you began to show, everyone would know you were El Presidente’s woman, and you would have no trouble with anyone. You would however be a figurehead and expendable at any time he chose.”

Henekie put some eggs and toast on a plate and sat down at the table. “I knew all this before I brought you here, but as I told you, I needed someone on the inside.”

Lena sat down across from him and began to eat. “But El Presidente didn’t come back. Good for me, but not so good for you,” she said between mouthfuls.

“Temporarily, but you see, you did have El Presidente’s baby. It’s in the form of a company you nurtured and conceived. It was the seed money of Jon’s father that started it. As far as Jon’s concerned, it belongs to his family, and his honor is on the line until he shows that you’re his woman and he’s the boss.”

“Is he so stupid and vain that he thinks he can just walk in and take over my baby?” Lena stabbed at her eggs.

“You see, he knows this is your baby and no matter what, you can’t let it go,” Henekie replied. “You’re not the only one who can run this company. He’ll keep you around somewhere until he can wean the company off you. When you realize your baby doesn’t need you anymore, you’ll turn to drugs or alcohol and eventually kill yourself. That’s what happened to El Presidente’s other women.”

“That’s a wonderful prognosis, but I’m not one of El Presidente’s other women,” Lena told him.

Henekie took his and Lena’s plate to the sink and began washing them. “If I were you, I’d walk out of here right now with the clothes on your back and go to Dubai. You have good security there. We’ve bought some time, but I don’t know how much. Whatever you do, Lena, do it quick.”
Henekie could see by the look on her face that his words were falling on deaf ears.

“Come with me,” she told him. “I want to show you my baby.” Lena led him into where he remembered the computer to be. To his astonishment, instead of a machine that took up the entire wall, there were three smaller computer screens, and the room was full of metal boxes with wires running everywhere.

“Quite a change since the last time you were here,” Lena said proudly. “It pretty well runs itself now. I still have to make some decisions and tweak it once in a while, but nothing I can’t handle. Quinn and I customized and built the whole system ourselves. There’s no other baby in the world like this one.”

he looked at Henekie, “I’m not leaving it, but I can corrupt the program enough so that no one can use it.”

“You die, it dies, an accessory after the fact, a lot of good that does you when you’re dead,” Henekie told her.

“Then I guess I’ll have to squeeze your balls until you come to work for me,” Lena told him.

“You’re already squeezing my balls, Lena. I have to keep you alive so I can steal your money.” Henekie was dead serious, but Lena thought he was joking with her.

“You don’t have to steal my money, Henekie. I can pay you more than you will ever need.”

he turned away, “I’m going to bed, make yourself at home.”

Henekie wasn’t sure what to make of this new machine. Would it allow them to get into Lena’s accounts, this was the question. It was on her desk that he found the book. He remembered what Krugman had told him. If you can find the codes, you’ll make our lives much easier. He looked in the book and instinctively knew what was in there. “The man saved my life,” he thought, “I’ve got to do this.” He wrote down the codes then borrowed Lena’s car and drove down to his shop.There he faxed all the information to Krugman’s office. It was already late afternoon in Munich; Henekie thought they might have left for the day.

The phone call he received told him differently. “These codes should make our job quick and simple,” he told Henekie. “Book a room for us at the Atlantis. We’ll be arriving at the airport at ten tomorrow morning. Pick us up.”

You know there’s a hurricane headed our way,” Henekie warned him.

“No, don’t worry. They say that’s going south into Mexico somewhere.”

Henekie did as he was told, meeting Krugman and a woman he introduced as Karla at the airport. “Look, I want you to take Karla to the hotel. I have to fly to the Caymans and set up an account there. My banker in Zurich says it’s best to put a transaction of this size through there first. You and Karla can set things up here. I’ll be back day after tomorrow. Isn’t this exciting?”

omehow that wasn’t Henekie’s sentiment at all. He took Karla by the shop to show her where they would be working, but she wasn’t the least bit interested.

“Take me to the hotel,” she told him, “and maybe tonight you could show me around town,” she said, looking him up and down.

“I’m sorry, but I’m not into that,” he told her.

he pouted, “At least you could drop me off at one of your hot spots.” That evening he did as she asked, dropping her off at Johnny Canoe’s. “I’ll find my own way home,” she told him.

What he didn’t know was that it took her ten minutes to find Julio, fifteen minutes to get him on the dance floor, and an hour later she was getting fucked. Karla didn’t show up at the hotel at all that night or the next day. Then the hurricane turned farther north flooding Nassau, cutting off all communications and closing the airport.

As if this wasn’t bad enough, just before the storm hit, Henekie tried to take Lena’s car back, only to find two men dressed in military uniforms guarding the gate. He tried to ask questions, but they sent him on his way without answering them. He tried to stay positive; he had the codes, a nice car to drive, some money, and he hadn’t got caught up in whatever was going down at Lena’s. Henekie managed to rent a small fishing boat and get to the warehouse where Tommy and he waited out the storm.

TWENTY-NINE

J
ULY GREEN SAT
in the new sunroom they’d just built onto the side of the main hotel. The sun had been shining a minute ago, but now it had begun to rain, probably a band of cloud from the hurricane headed their way, she surmised. She watched as Bob ran for cover; he’d been surprised by the suddenness of the shower too. She was enjoying the fact it was so nice and quiet; all the guests had been sent home early. There were no taking chances on Andros. The terrain was very low; a direct hit could wipe it out. The weather forecast was now swinging the hurricane closer to them, but they felt they had everything battened down and were prepared to ride out the storm.

he saw Old Joe coming in the door; she was perturbed with him for not showing up to work today. Old Joe, as everyone called him, came with the hotel. At first, Bob was going to fire him until it became apparent that Joe knew where everything was and how it worked. The added bonus was his repertoire with the guests. His stories were legendary, whether fact or bullshit, people loved to hear them. She was about to scold him, but the look on his face changed her mind.

“Joe, what’s the matter?”

“They killed my boy, Mrs. Green, they killed my boy.”

July took Joe’s arm, “Oh no, Joe, what happened?” Bob heard the conversation and came up beside them.

“They killed Sniff,” Joe sobbed. “He stole some white powder from the drug lords. They wanted it back so they killed him.” Joe picked his head up, “I know we talked about this before, Mrs. Green. We said this could happen, but it’s my fault because Tommy and I hid the shit.”

It was a well-known fact that Sniff had flooded the island with cocaine causing problems everywhere. The police couldn’t seem to catch him at it, so it was assumed he was just a distributor, but the rumors persisted that he had stumbled on to an aborted drop and had stolen whole canvas bags of the stuff.

“Sniff gave his soul to the white powder. If the drug people didn’t kill him, the drugs would have. I can live with that.” Joe began to cry again, “But they took Tommy. They know I hid the drugs,” he sobbed. “They told me if I didn’t give the drugs back, they’d kill Tommy and then come after me and you, Mr. Green.”

Bob and July looked at each other. “Why us?” They both asked at the same time.

“I don’t know, Mr. Green, that’s just what the voice told me over the phone.”

July sat down, “What the hell is it about the white powder, Joe? It’s the same as an addiction. You don’t use the stuff, but it follows you around, never letting go until it consumes you.”

“I guess you’re right, Mrs. Green. It’s been around me all my life. It just keeps picking away at me, first my daughter, now my boys, and in the end my family.”

July sat down, “Joe, you’ve got to tell whoever it was on the phone we have nothing to do with this,” she said forcefully.

“I know everyone on this island, Mrs. Green, and that voice sounded like one of the Gator’s.”

“You think the Gators are mixed up in this?” Bob interjected.

“There ain’t nothin on this island they aren’t mixed up in, but phonin’ them is just goin’ to get you more mixed up,” Joe told them. “I lost a daughter and now a son, I can’t lose no more. I got to gets them their drugs.”

Bob and July knew the story well, how Joe had lost his daughter. It was before they had come to the island. Apparently, there were two brothers who were drug runners on the island. They each had an airplane, and one day, they took some of the local girls for a ride. They started playing chicken, clipped wings, and crashed into the sea. Joe’s daughter was one of the girls. They never found the bodies; the funeral was held in small boats on the water above where the planes were thought to have gone down. Joe had told them one time that he always remembered his little boy Tommy sitting beside him in the boat saying he would never use the white powder.

“Maybe he hadn’t used the white powder, but he had stolen it and probably now it had taken him,” July thought to herself.

“So do you think the Gators are responsible for Sniff’s death?” Bob quizzed.

Joe looked very uncomfortable. “I had to go up to the house to identify Sniff’s body. There’s no one on this island capable of doin’ what I saw there, Mr. Green. That was a message from the cartel itself not to mess with them.”

“Well, I guess you’d better take the drugs back and explain we weren’t involved,” Bob told Joe.

“Mr. Green, that’s what I intend to do. But there’s three canvas bags at least five feet long, two of them full. I can’t handle them by myself.”

Bob whistled. “I would guess that’s worth a lot of money.”

“Yes,” Joe answered. “I don’t know how much, a million for sure. You’re the only man I trust on this island to help me get those drugs, Mr. Green. Even my own boys wouldn’t be able to resist taking some of it, and then we’d start the cycle all over again.”

July was adamant, “He’s not going with you, Joe. If he does, he can forget about coming back here.”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Green, you and Mr. Green mean the world to me. I never thought you’d make a go of this hotel and neither did anyone else on this island. Now you’re the biggest employer here next to the government. You’ve also made some powerful enemies. I think they’re the ones who want you involved in this.”

“Okay, Joe. Let’s not let that happen. After the storm, there’s no reason you can’t go unload the bags, and arrange to trade it for Tommy,” Bob told him.

“If you won’t help me, Mr. Green, that’s what I intend to do. The storm is going to take the same path most of them take, hitting South Andros, then pass by the east side of our island. That means the mangrove swamps where I hid the bags are going to flood. I hid the bags on a high piece of ground. It’s all mud, but I’ll get what I can before I have to get out.”

Joe turned to go, but Bob stopped him, “Is there any way you can get there by land?”

Bob walked over to a map of the old farm he had hung on the wall. “The farmland here”—he pointed to an area on the map—“runs down almost to the mangrove swamps.”

“Any idea how far from there you hid the bags?”

“Somewhere in here.” Joe showed him. “I’d say about two miles from where the farmland starts. It’s all mud and water, Mr. Green. Besides, I ain’t never come in from that side. I be lost and never find my way out.”

“Okay, so it has to be by boat. How much time do you think we have before the hurricane hits?” Bob wanted to know.

“Hard to know exactly. The first rain bands of clouds are just starting. I’d say we have eight hours or more before we get the big winds,” Joe told him.

“How long to get the stuff out and put somewhere safe?”

Old Joe’s eyes lit up; he knew Bob was coming with him. “We might be quicker if we took one of your boats. They’re bigger.”

“Okay, Joe, there’s one I left on the trailer. Go hook your truck up to it while I get ready.” Joe knew Bob meant he needed time to make this right with his wife.

July was extremely angry. “Are you ready to throw everything away that we’ve built here, Bob? This is my home.”

“July, the bottom line here is I can’t have that boy on my conscience.”

“Shit, Bob, you know that boy’s probably already dead. What about our family? What’s going to happen to us if you get mixed up in this?”

“Somebody has got us mixed up in this already, July. I want you to find every document of every transaction we’ve ever had with Gator, and I want you to hide them.” Bob went into the office and came back with a pistol; he checked it for bullets and stuck it in his belt. “I want you to go and stay with one of your friends.” Bob stopped; he could see July had no intention of leaving her home.

“All right then, you know there’s a rifle in the closet, keep it close. I don’t think anyone will come sneaking around before the storm, but don’t trust anyone if they do.” Bob took his rain jacket and headed for the door. He stopped and smiled, “If I don’t get back before the storm hits, maybe when it’s safe, you could take a ride down the old logging road, you know the one that goes by Charlie’s Blue Hole. We might have to come out that way.” Tears came to her eyes as she watched him go out and jump in Joe’s truck.

Bob and Joe were good boatmen; it didn’t take them long to launch the boat and head down toward the mangrove swamps. It was easy to see why no one lived on this side of the island. Hurricane Alley, some called it. They followed up the channel of water separating Andros and Cuba causing a lot of damage every few years. The farm had lost crops on the land closest to the swamps, but it was good land down there and well worth the risk.

Joe pointed toward the swamps; Bob followed his direction finding the mouth of a small stream. Once in the swamps, the stream became wider but branched off in many directions. Bob had no way of knowing how Joe navigated his way through the twists and turns, but once he saw the island covered with trees other than mangroves, he was pretty sure this was their destination.

Joe had been right; they had to pull the boat through knee-deep mud to get it close to the island. Then they slipped and slid up to where the roots of a tree were exposed. To make matters worse, it started to pour as Joe dug under the roots to expose the bags. They slid the bags down to the boat and managed to load them. The rain stopped, and the sun came out making for good going; they’d be home in good time before the wind picked up.

It was just as they came to the mouth of the stream that Bob saw the helicopters. They were flying out over open water, one about a quarter of a mile behind the other. He knew immediately what they were looking for and quickly turned the boat around back into the stream hoping they hadn’t seen him. He parked the boat in under a tree that hung out over the water and waited. They didn’t have to wait long. They could hear the choppers getting closer, but it wasn’t until Bob saw the shadow of the chopper hovering right over them that he knew they’d been spotted.

“Go, go,” Joe yelled. “Head for where we got the bags. It’s the only place with enough trees to hide us.”

Bob opened up the boat; Joe stood beside him hanging on to the windshield, pointing the way through the maze of waterways and mangrove trees. Bob was late turning into a channel, and they almost got hung up in the mud. As they sped up again, he caught out of the corner of his eye two plumes of water just off to their left, but it didn’t register what might have caused them. He saw the high piece of ground straight ahead of them and rammed the boat into the mud as far as it would go. They scrambled over the front of the boat and in under the trees.

Looking up, they could no longer see the choppers, but they could hear them. There was the sound of something bouncing around in the tree branches, and then before their eyes the boat leapt into the air, pieces flying everywhere.

Joe jumped into the hole where the bags had been, and Bob rolled in beside him. They covered their heads as the grenades bounced through the trees then exploded covering them with mud. Then as quickly as it started, it stopped, and they could hear the choppers fading away.

Bob got up and climbed out of the hole. He saw a lump of mud sit up beside him.

“Kind of fucked up our boat, didn’t they?” Bob said.

“Kind of fucked us up too.” Joe didn’t swear very often telling Bob this was a bad situation. It started raining again, and for the first time they could hear the wind in the treetops.

“Lucky for us, I guess the rain chased the choppers away,” Bob lamented.

“No need for them to stay,” Joe answered. “If they didn’t get us, they know the storm will.”

“Sorry Joe, I guess I should have pulled out onto open water and gave ourselves up.”

“No, Mr. Green. There was no time to process us before the storm. They would have made sure we were who they were looking for and then dropped a grenade on us. That’s a risk drug runners take if they get caught, the police make an example of them.”

Bob hadn’t thought of himself as a drug runner but obviously the police did.

“I don’t want to just sit here, Joe. I think we should start walking.”

“Where you gonna go, Mr. Green? This is a mangrove swamp. Soon it will start raining hard enough that we can’t see where we are. This is the highest piece of ground around here. We’ll just have to hope the water doesn’t get this high.”

Bob walked out into the water; Joe was right, the mud was up to his knees. He washed the mud off his face; it was then he noticed the three canvas bags floating in the water.

“Look at that shit, Joe, it won’t leave us alone.”

It didn’t stop raining; now the sky had turned gray, and the wind was getting a lot stronger. Bob needed something to do, so he began emptying the bags. “Never had much in my life,” he thought, “maybe someday I can tell the kids how I threw away millions, but right now the bags are worth more to me than what’s in them.”

Joe seemed kind of depressed and stayed on high ground sitting up against a tree. Bob brought him one of the bags. “Put this over you, it will help keep off the rain.”

As night set in the wind began to bend the trees, and the rain was coming in sideways. At first they could lie in under the tree roots, but as the hollow filled with water, they were forced farther and farther out into the open.

Bob and Joe had talked about their options including climbing the trees if the water got too high. Somewhere along the line, Bob knew this would be impossible as the wind snapped the tops of the trees off. The wind wasn’t their only problem. The water was surging up around them.

Joe turned his head and yelled in Bob’s ear, “I know you have a pistol, Mr. Green. Please shoot me I can’t take any more of this.”

Bob knew he couldn’t do it; besides, he wasn’t quite ready to give up just yet. They were already lying in the bags for protection.

He yelled in Joe’s ear, “I’m going to close the zipper on your bag, Joe. I’ll leave a small hole for air. I’m tying us together. If these bags will float that shit, they should float us, if not, they’ll make good coffins.”

Joe didn’t argue; he put his head down inside the bag, and Bob zipped it up. Bob slid down, finding the lashings, he tied the bags together then lay back in his own bag and pulled the zipper shut just as the wind pushed them off the little bit of land left and into the water. Bob was elated the bags were floating, maybe they could beat this yet. Then a wall of water from the main storm surge hit them. Bob knew they were under water; he rolled over and over, and he was having trouble breathing. Then the bag seemed to pop up out of the water, and he had the sensation of moving very fast then they hit something very hard; after that, he couldn’t remember anything.