Ocean Burning (8 page)

I had carefully tapered my drinking starting during lunch. I’d had only a glass of white wine, then filled it again and again with cold water. Likewise, my scotches had been light on the scotch side of things, though I kept insisting on toasts and heavy pours for anyone around me.

The past few hours had passed with me sitting in my chair at the helm, studying the inlets of Carmen’s sweating body through a pair of heavy, military surplus binoculars. I glanced from her to Ben, checked the treeline for any sign of Carlos.

Nothing. Rigger still snored.

The moment seemed right.

I placed each foot carefully, making my way down the ladder, skipping one rung I knew would squeak. I ended up on the stern, right next to the head of the stairs, and made a quick few steps around the superstructure to get a look at Rigger. He hadn’t moved, and his snoring was loud as ever.

I crept back around the white fiberglass walls and down the stairs, stopping just below deck and glancing around once more. The sink was stacked with lunch debris, the chart table laid with maps, glasses, the empty scotch bottle. The
Purple
creaked serenely as it swayed like a hammock in the breeze.

I tiptoed down the hall, pushed at the third door down. It lead to the second guest stateroom. The room sat all the way up at the bow and had an odd triangular shape that made it smaller than the other guest room. It reminded me of the fourth bedroom of a three bedroom house, up in some kind of converted attic and dormered to the point of being uncomfortable. Our new guests were sharing this narrow room, but so far I hadn’t heard any complaints.

The door knob twisted in my hand, then ground to a halt short of a quarter-turn.

The bastards had locked it, I realized. The keys to the rooms were hung on a hook inside each, labeled clearly, as the doors couldn’t be locked even from the inside without one. Since no one was in there, the door must have been locked from the outside, the key pocketed. Rigger or Carlos must have it tucked safely away somewhere. I had no extras, except in my locker back at the marina. No one had ever lost one before. Of course, if they had I would have just kicked the door in. Boat doors are paper thin, designed for privacy more than security, with an eye on keeping down the weight.

For a second I thought about doing just that, breaking it down. Even my thin-soled shoes would smash it to pieces at a stroke. I needed to be a little more discrete than that, I knew. Coming back to the door broken down would send the wrong message to Rigger and Carlos. And if this suspicious feeling in my gut amounted to anything, keeping those two in the dark would be more important than ever.

I probed the edge of the thin wood with my fingers, searching for a tiny gap though which I might reach the latch, but the door melted into the bulkhead just as though they had been made as a single piece. There had never been a need to jimmy the lock before; I had no idea how.

I needed the key.

Each stair on the way back up on deck seemed to groan under my weight. Up in the sun, I glanced quickly towards the beach.

No change there. Carmen had flipped onto her back, but Ben hadn’t moved.

I used each foot on the other and pushed my canvas boat shoes off by their heels. Barefoot, I made slow progress along the narrow port walkway, pressing myself into the shadows there. The boat turned a bit on her anchor line and my hiding place swung out into the sun. With no other choice, I moved out fast and low, taking quick, muffled strides.

Rigger still snored in my drinking chair, his face turning red either from burn or booze. I had to hope he had the key—if it was in Carlos’s pocket I would lose my only chance—and that I could find it without waking him up.

Keys are often kept in the same pocket. The particular pocket varies from person to person, but that same pocket is always reserved for keys, even between pieces of clothing. I had noticed on myself that it was the left front pocket, because it was secure (and so made them hard to lose) and because I was left-handed. And because no one likes to sit on a set of keys. Rigger’s arm in a sling limited him to one side. His right arm was free, so the keys would be on that side.

My legs spread wide underneath me as I crouched, balance my highest priority. I needed to lean over him but not touch him in any way. I stood four feet away, then two feet, and finally I was standing right over him.

The boat twisted on her anchor line again. We rotated, and my shadow passed over Rigger’s face. He stopped snoring.

I froze.

Rigger snuffled at the air, a wildebeest spooked by a scent, and for a moment I felt sure to be caught. Then he settled his weight to one side, let out a great sigh, and started to snore again.

His right side lay a bit lower now, a little more under him, but it seemed I could get to it. I reached out and slipped my index and middle finger into his pocket. I pushed them in, and felt nothing.

The pocket was tight, and I waited for Rigger to exhale. Just then, I pushed them in a little farther. A fingernail struck what felt like the little labels hanging from each key. Using a scissor action with the two fingers, I grasped it and tugged.

The key came free. Rigger kept snoring.

I left quickly, light on my feet, and made my way back to the guest state room and opened the lock, slipped inside and clicked the door shut behind me.

The cabin stank.

The reek came at you just inside the door, the body odor of two men in need of a shower and who needed desperately to wash their socks. Or burn them. Underneath that odor a foreign, bitter smell flowered up at me. It reminded me of the taste of drinking water from old copper pipes.

I searched through the dirty clothes thrown all around—Ben and I had lent the men new ones—and through all the displaced bedding. I didn’t see what I was looking for, and frankly, there was no real place to hide it. The room was too small. I searched the space again before I realized where it must be stashed.

A small utility hatch sat right up at the tip of the bow. It gave access to the space between the inner and outer hull here at the front.

I approached it, stopped for a second, looked up. I thought of Rigger less than four feet away. He sat above this very spot.

The hatch had a little wheeled locking mechanism, and I spun it, then popped the door open. The smell of rotting copper poured out of the small, contained space. It was distinct by not exactly unpleasant. I stuck my arm in, reached down, and felt canvas.

The duffel bag.

My arm yanked up on the strap. I had almost forgotten the weight of it, so heavy it had nearly dragged me down to the bottom of the sea. It took me a second, but I wrestled it up out of its hiding place and laid it carefully on the floor. I glanced around me, though of course there could be no one else in that small room, then tugged down the industrial-grade zipper.

The zipped moved easily. The bag gaped at me, a fine-toothed mouth. I pulled a tiny flashlight out from my pocket and clicked it on.

I looked inside.

Money.

Lots of money. I recognized Alexander Hamilton right off, and Grant floating around in the green. Franklin made a cameo appearance here and there.

American currency, thick stacks of it, filled the bag. In the puny circle my flashlight made, the light green bills seemed grimy and brown. I picked up one stack and riffled through it. That coppery smell assaulted me again, and this time I recognized it: blood. The money had been soaked in blood, so much of it that bag’s trip through the sea had only swirled the stuff around, saturating the bills before drying again.

I examined the stack in my hand, realized the currency strap on it was marked. The bills weren’t new, I could tell that just from their wrinkles and frayed corners, but they had been brought into a bank as part of deposits and the bank had counted them carefully into these stacks of twenties, fifties, and hundreds. Most of the little piles in the bag were purple wrapped twenties, marked as two thousand dollars each, but there were brown wrapped packets of fifties labeled as five thousand each.

The packet I held was banded in a distinct mustard color. It was all hundreds. Ten thousand dollars, the outside said.

An incredible amount of money, but what really interested me about the currency strap was the little black stamp inked onto it. Those stamps were added by all banks, a kind of signature, and it clearly stated the name and location. The name of the bank this money had come from was writ large for all to see:
Banco United.

Ben Hawking’s bank.

“Senor Conway?” a voice called.

It was Carlos, back from his shady siesta. It sounded like he was already up on deck, headed for the top of the stairs.

Things had changed. Whatever Rigger and Carlos had been doing out here on the water, it was bigger than a fishing trip. And it was bigger than shooting one man in the chest.

I dropped the thick stack of bills into the bag, pulled the zipper closed, heaved the bag up onto my shoulder and stuffed it down between the hulls. The access panel slammed shut—too loud, damn it—and I spun the wheel until it clicked. Only a few more seconds remained before it would all be over.

“Senor Conway?” Carlos ducked to avoid bumped his head, walked into the galley area, and saw me.

I waved a hand in greeting. “Hey, Carlos. How was the island?” I asked, sitting at the chart table and studying a map.

“Muy bonita,” he said, and walked to the door of his stateroom. He reached out, grabbed the knob, twisted. It didn’t budge. After all, it was locked.

By the time he turned around again I was gone, already up the stairs and headed for the bow, stripping off my shirt and pants as I went until I was wearing only my boxers.

Rigger had turned onto his right side, leaving the pocket completely inaccessible. I could hear footsteps on the stairs—Carlos coming to find the very key hidden in my palm.

No time.

I placed it gently under the chair, in a spot I thought it might naturally land if it had fallen out of a pocket. Standing up, I stretched my arms out towards the sky, then saluted at Carlos as he came into view. I smiled, trying to look natural.

Rigger stirred in his sleep, his eyes starting to open.

I rolled off the bow and struck out towards shore, pulling my way through the azure water, never looking back.

Chapter 9

THE BEACH GLINTED at me as I waded in the last few feet and walked up onto the sand. Carmen looked stunning in a green one-piece, but I had eyes only for Ben Hawking. He grinned playfully as I trudged towards them, reached up an arm and waved me closer.

I’d failed to give credit where credit was due. The man had a way about him, a sense of naivety mixed with basic dignity, and all of it wrapped up in that goofy grin. He’d fooled me, played me for a mark, and I begrudged him a new found respect.

He deserved it. In truth, I was quaking in my boots. Alone on a sparsely inhabited island with a bank robber and his two cronies: I wasn’t quite sure how to play this one, and I couldn’t decide what he might do next.

Poor Carmen,
I thought.

She couldn’t have known she was getting into bed with a shark. She rolled over lazily and kissed Ben on the lips. He kissed her back, even gave a little bit of the tongue, then looked at me and winked.

I had to get Carmen alone, I realized. She needed to be warned, and maybe—just maybe—the two of us together could figure a way out of this mess.

I approached them carefully. “Say, Ben, have you seen what’s beyond the palms?”

“Nope. I haven’t moved since I laid down.”

“Come on, let’s do a little exploring.”

“I suppose,” he said, and pushed up lazily from the sand.

I backed off from him, then turned on my heel and headed into the trees. The ground back here appeared to be loose island soil, sun-dappled and speckled with fallen coconuts. Ben shook one, checking to see if it was ripe.

“Any luck?” I asked.

“I can hear something sloshing around in there.”

“Getting it out can be tricky, you know. Look around,” I spread my arms out and turned around, “coconut milk for the taking. But it might as well be locked in little individual cages. Actually getting the stuff out takes a lot of practice.” I studied his face.

“I suppose you’re right,” he said, and grinned that stupid grin at me again. It struck me again how effective his deception was, even under pressure. A very cool customer.

I pushed farther into the palms, working along until the soil turned rocky and we came upon small cliff. I started to the side and Ben followed. A hundred yards later we came to a pool fed by a modest waterfall.

“Fantastic!” Ben shouted, and waded in. He swam up to the falls, climbed up a large flat rock, and slid back down. He did it again and again.

I crouched down and watched him; I wondered about the money, about how he planned to move it. Part one of some plan seemed to have been fulfilled. The money had been taken. It had been transported by boat, then switched to an entirely new boat. That seemed good for Ben’s plan—it made the path of the loot harder to trace—and it was the only explanation for coming out here on the
Purple
instead of just riding along with Carlos and Rigger.

But it gave me a bad feeling about the future. His plan had a part two, and I didn’t think Carmen and I would be a part of it.

I shuddered.

He paddled towards the rock again, looking perfectly joyful in our discovery. He was the average tourist, and yet even as I sat here, trying to read him, he must be plotting against me.

“Say Ben, I think I’m going to head to the beach. Think you can find your way back?”

“Hold on, let me get in a few more slides and I’ll come back with you.”

“Don’t worry about it. If you get lost, just head down hill.” I faded quickly into the green of the jungle and half-walked, half-jogged back to the beach.

The
Purple
lay at anchor right where I’d left her. Starting the engine required an ignition key, just like in a car, and it was tied securely inside my trunks. There was a spare, but no one would be able to find it.