Genie for Hire (15 page)

“I am as nature made me,” Biff said. “A spirit of the earth,
just as you are a spirit of the water. We cannot change what we are.”

“But I must follow him!” Farishta stamped her foot.

“Not interrupting a lover’s quarrel, am I?” Jimmy asked, as
he walked up. “I’ve got to get back to the office. But I’ll leave a car on
stakeout, for whenever Laskin comes back. I should have a warrant to pick him
up for questioning on the two murders within the next hour.”

“Let me know if we can help you with anything,” Biff said.

“Will do.” Jimmy tipped an imaginary cap to Farishta, who
smiled flirtatiously, and then Jimmy returned to his car. Biff wondered if he
imagined that his friend had a bit more spring in his step.

“Will you come with me?” Farishta asked.

Biff looked at her. She was even more alluring when the
color rose in her cheeks, when she tossed her curls and twitched her nose. Of
course, everything that involved her seemed to end up on the water. Or in the
water, he thought, remembering their shower earlier that morning. But what the
hell, that hadn’t been too bad. How tough could a boat ride be?

“Summon your boat,” Biff said.

“Already here.” Farishta nodded down the pier, where a sleek
white cigarette boat with red racing stripes was idling. It was about forty
feet long, with a central navigation console protected by a plexiglass
windscreen. The throaty rumble of the engines reminded Biff of hungry lions in
the Serengeti.

“You know how to drive one of those?”

“Bivas. I am insulted.”

She hopped into the stern and stepped up to the console.
Biff climbed in behind her. As he turned back toward the parking lot, he saw
the squirrel bounding down the dock like a thoroughbred in a steeplechase.

“You sure you want to do this?” he asked the creature, but it
had already taken a massive leap from the dock and landed on one of the
cushions at the stern.

Placing a single finger on the steering wheel, Farishta
expertly backed the boat out of the dock area, then turned its nose toward the
bay.

“Farishta?” Biff asked, as they motored serenely out to
Haulover Cut. “You have a protection spell for me?” The water around them was
calm, and the rhythmic clatter of cars on the A1A bridge over the cut was
almost soothing.

Farishta didn’t seem to hear him; it looked like she was
concentrating on setting the steering coordinates for the boat. She touched a
series of keys on the console, then turned to Biff. “You said something?”

All at once, the engines roared to full power and the cigarette
zoomed ahead in a hydroplane. Biff was thrown back against the gunwale, and the
spray hit him with even greater force than the shower had that morning. Tiny
welts rose on his skin, angry red spots that burned like a thousand suns. It
was beyond even his power to heal himself.

It all happened so quickly. He felt like he was going to
pass out, and he slumped against the cushions. In his fading vision he saw the
squirrel jump toward him and Farishta’s mouth open in horror. Then everything
went black.

When he woke, he was lying on a narrow berth inside the main
salon, with a coarse woolen blanket pulled over him. His skin tingled, but was
no longer red or burning. “You are a fool, Bivas,” Farishta said.

She sat on the bar across from him, a martini glass in her
hand. The boat was still moving at an incredible rate of speed, but she sipped
daintily at the caramel-colored drink. “Who’s steering?” he asked groggily.

“The squirrel.”

He sat up so quickly he bumped his head on the wall. “What
do you mean?”

“It’s simple enough,” Farishta said. “I set the coordinates
to follow Laskin’s boat, and left the squirrel to mind the wheel. He says his
name is Raki, by the way.”

“He can talk? Or you can talk to him?”

“He doesn’t have much to say. He is a rodent, after all. But
we make ourselves understood.”

She drained the rest of her drink and hopped off the bar up.
“I am sorry I forgot to protect you from the water, Bivas. I was so caught up
in trying to find Laskin. But really, you should have spoken up earlier.”

“Apology accepted,” Biff said dryly.

“I must check on the squirrel now. You stay here, out of the
water. It takes a lot of power to heal you.”

Biff nodded. He rubbed the back of his head where he had
banged it, and focused on reducing the swelling. He was feeling better as he
noticed the boat slow down dramatically. With the reduced speed, he figured it
was safe to go above.

He climbed up the half-dozen steps from the salon to the
steering console. The sun shone in the midst of a cloudless blue sky. The
horizon was empty; there was nothing around them but sparkling aquamarine water.
When he looked over the boat’s rail he saw a single hammerhead shark gliding
far below them.

“Where are we?” he asked Farishta.

She looked down at the GPS screen and read him the coordinates.

“And that means…?”

She shrugged. “We are near Laskin,” she said. “That is all
that matters.” She glanced to the where the squirrel balanced easily atop the
wooden steering wheel, then looked back at Biff. “Raki will take care of the
boat. I am going to see what Laskin is up to. Try not to fall overboard while I
am gone.”

Biff felt Farishta suck together the humidity from the air
around them as she transformed into a tiny cyclone again and sped off over the
ocean, leaving him in the middle of the ocean with only a squirrel between him
and disaster.

He decided it was time to try communication. He focused his
attention on Raki, who clutched the steering wheel with his tiny claws,
wrapping his long, furry tail around the wheel for extra balance.

Biff opened his mind, searching for the squirrel’s
consciousness. And there it was, a very light aura in the air, like an oily
sheen over the pavement after a rain shower.
Thank you for helping when the
water hit me
, Biff sent him.

‘S all right
, Raki said.

How come I can talk to you? Are you a special kind of
squirrel?

Raki looked at him in confusion.
Dunno
.

Great, Biff thought. For the first time I can communicate
with an animal, and he has nothing to say.

He scanned three hundred sixty degrees around them, looking
for Farishta or any sign of Laskin’s boat. He couldn’t even spot a sea bird in
the air, despite his extra-strong powers of sight. The waves were mere wrinkles,
and the small flags along the boat’s lines hung limply without any breeze.

He moved forward to the navigation console, and after some
study figured out which dial was the compass, and which was the GPS. They were
several nautical miles off the Florida coast, due east of Miami. What if
Farishta didn’t come back? He would be stuck out there in the middle of the
ocean with a boat he couldn’t drive and an uncommunicative squirrel.

It would be just like Farishta to play that sort of trick on
him. He didn’t trust her; she always had her own agenda. It was quite possible
she was just using Biff to get back that amulet, and then she’d disappear
without even thinking about what happened to him.

Who was he kidding? Of course she was doing just that. To
the east, in the direction of Bimini, clouds began to gather, and he could see
the wind rising. Was it a real storm? Probably not. From years of experience
with Farishta, he guessed that she had found Laskin’s boat and was harnessing rain
and wind to torment him. What would she do? She had told him she couldn’t
forcibly take the amulet from Laskin or it would lose its power, so she had to
come up with a way to trick the Russian into surrendering it.

He stood at the cigarette boat’s stern, watching the distant
squall grow in intensity. Because it was so localized, more like a waterspout
than a storm front, Biff was sure it was Farishta’s doing, and centered around
Laskin’s boat.

Then suddenly, the storm was over, and the sun’s brilliance
reflected off the waves. A moment later, a tiny cyclone zoomed toward to the
boat. It slowed and transformed into a shimmer that grew to take Farishta’s
size and shape. The sun shone through it in the colors of the rainbow. In a
flash that was as stunning as it was gorgeous, the shimmer assumed  Farishta’s shape,
and she was in human form again.

The process never failed to take Biff’s breath away.
Farishta’s curly French braid had come undone, and she pulled several bobby
pins from her pocket and stuck them in her mouth as Biff collected himself.

As she began to braid her hair again, he asked, “Did you
find Laskin?”

She nodded, the pins still in her mouth. “He had some
problems with the cargo he was retrieving from a larger boat,” she said, pushing
the pins aside with her tongue. Her blouse and harem pants were just damp
enough to cling alluringly to her curves, and a few dots of either ocean water
or perspiration glistened at her neck. Biff was nearly speechless with desire.

Farishta smiled. “Sadly, the storm pushed the marijuana
bales off the boat and into the water, then shredded them so that they could
not be retrieved.” She smiled. “So sad, too bad.”

Biff laughed. “Does anybody smuggle marijuana these days?”

“You would be surprised, Bivas.” Farishta finished her braid
and used the bobby pins to secure it in place. Then she turned to Raki. “You
may take us back to the marina now, please.”

Like a hamster on a wheel, Raki began scampering up the
spokes of the steering wheel, and the boat turned slowly. Biff watched and
laughed.

“Were you able to trick Laskin into giving up the coin
around his neck?” he asked Farishta.

She shook her head. “The amulet is almost like a sentient
being. For the moment, it has attached itself to him. I have called it back to
me, but it resists. I have tried to influence the Russian’s mind to willingly
surrender it, but the amulet works against me.”

The squirrel stopped turning the wheel and resumed his
balancing act at the top. Biff noted that the compass was now pointing to the
west. “Good job, Raki,” he said.

Raki chittered, then jumped to the power lever and pushed it
forward with both his little paws. As Biff was trying to figure out what the
squirrel had said, the boat accelerated, and Farishta said, “You had better go
below, my love.”

Biff hurried to the stairway as the cigarette boat continued
to accelerate. Just to be safe, he wrapped himself in the red plaid blanket
once again, curling up so only his baseball cap and his sneakers were exposed
to the air, and huddled along the side of one of the lounges in the salon. He stayed
that way until he heard the engines power down. When he returned topside he saw
Farishta tossing the bow line to a dock hand at the marina.

Ahead of him, the bay stretched in a rippling plane of blue,
green and purple, dotted with gently rocking sailboats and powerboats. Condo
towers lined the horizon. Behind him were the lush green islands of Oleta River
State Park.

The dock hand finished tying up the ropes as Biff hopped
onto the dock. Farishta was right behind him. Raki took a big leap and landed
flat on the dock. Biff suppressed a laugh as the squirrel stood up and shook
himself.

The dock wasn’t quite dry land. Biff’s stomach was still
swirling from the rapid trip back, and he hurried up the ramp so that he could feel
real earth beneath his feet. The ground was rough and he felt small pebbles
through the soles of his sneakers, but he didn’t mind. He smelled dirt and the
rotting fibers of a dead palm frond. It was delicious. He closed his eyes and
luxuriated for a moment in the terra firma beneath him.

When he opened his eyes once more, the dock hand had already
moved on to help another boat dock, and the cigarette boat was gone. “Where did
the boat go?” Biff asked.

Farishta shrugged. “Not necessary anymore.”

Not for the first time, Biff was awed at Farishta’s powers.
“Is there anything you can’t do?”

“Many things. Mostly unimportant.”

He looked around. The Miami-Dade police cruiser was still in
the same corner of the lot. “I guess I should call Jimmy and let him know
Laskin went out for a drug pickup.”

“You can tell him there were two other men with Laskin as
well,” Farishta said. “Thugs. I expect Laskin will be back here soon.”

Biff called Jimmy Stein. “Farishta and I believe Laskin left
the marina in a boat to pick up some marijuana,” he said. “But he ran into some
difficulties and wasn’t able to execute.”

“How do you know that?”

“Call it Farishta’s feminine intuition. My guess is that
Laskin’s going to have to report in to his boss about that. So I’d suggest you
hold off on arresting him until we see where he’s going.”

“Is he there now?”

“No.” He looked at Farishta. “When do you think Laskin will
be here?”

She sniffed the air. “Half an hour?”

He relayed that information to Jimmy. “Stay there,” Jimmy
said. “I’ve got my warrant, and I’m on my way. My case against Laskin is still
pretty circumstantial, so I’m going to need everything I can get to nail this
bastard.”

Biff and Farishta sat on a bench in the shade of a tall
Australian pine, and Raki scrambled up the tree. Its delicate fronds shook as
Raki hopped from one to the next. Another squirrel chased him, and the two of
them raced from tree to tree. It was impossible for Biff to tell if they were
playing or if the new squirrel was defending its territory.

Raki could take care of himself, Biff thought. And if he
couldn’t, he’d turn to Farishta for protection. “How can you get this amulet
back from Laskin?” Biff asked. “If you can’t take it by force?”

“I must wait until he removes it voluntarily.” She smiled.
“Or until he is dead.”

“But you can’t kill him, can you?”