Trap Line (15 page)

“At least make him answer for the Ramrod Key fiasco. There were tons there, all right. And then what do we get? Headlines one day, and the next day everybody goes home and it’s all forgotten. Isn’t that
real bad trouble
, Barnett?”

Barnett reined his temper.

“You’re out of order, Bobby,” the mayor shouted. He pounded his gavel with one hand and with the other wrenched Freed back into his chair.

“With your permission, mayor, I
would
like to talk about the Ramrod Key incident,” Barnett said. “I didn’t put it in the report because I did not consider it one of our successes. But it’s important, and it’s the sick kind of thing that is happening all over the country today. It’s the kind of thing that happens when the police are handcuffed and criminals coddled.”

Barnett spoke slowly: Margie, the middle-aged divorcée who covered council meetings for the local paper, God bless her patient soul, took lousy notes.

“Now, I had that scu … criminal dead to rights. I had ’em with probably the biggest load of dope anybody has ever tried to smuggle into the Keys. So it was a few miles outside the city limits, so what? Does that make it right? I knew that dope was comin’, and I knew it was intended to be sold on the streets of this city to our children, yours and mine. So I went out and got it. And I didn’t tell the feds and I didn’t tell the state; I didn’t tell anybody. It’s not anybody else’s kids, it’s ours. I did it and I’m glad. No loophole justice is going to stop me from doing my job of protecting this city, no sir.”

Loophole justice. It had taken Barnett hours to think it up. He bestowed an avuncular smile on openmouthed Bobby Freed.

Barnett hitched his belt and adjusted his cowboy hat in that special way so it would not mess up his hair.

Bobby Freed’s voice cut like a knife.

“That is the most hypocritical bullshit I have ever heard in all my life.”

Barnett boiled to his feet. His overworked chair collapsed behind him. He snarled.

“Now look, princess …”

“Order, order,” the mayor yelled and watched in perplexity as the head of the gavel parted from its stem and shot across the room to bounce harmlessly off Huge Barnett’s belly.

Freed was like a virus that would not die.

“And what about the campaign of violence against businessmen in this city? Whose kids are behind that? And why does
our
police department stand by and watch it? Tell me about that, Fatso!”

“Faggot! Freak!” Barnett bulldozed across the floor toward the defiant Freed.

It was the precise and normally timid clerk of the council who averted bloodshed. He could not abide disorder and there he sat, the council in uproar, his minutes in shreds.

“Motion on the floor!” the clerk hollered with all his might. “There is a motion on the floor. The council must vote on the motion before proceeding to the next order of business.”

Somehow that was enough to restore sanity. Freed was led back to his seat. The council voted 4-1 to accept their chief’s report.

Outside, Barnett savagely slammed the custom Chrysler into gear. He ignited the flashing blue lights and switched on the siren. He was late for an important appointment.

In the trunk of the police car lay a neat, brown-wrapped parcel. Drake Boone had dropped it off at headquarters. Inside the parcel was fifteen thousand dollars.

Barnett reckoned it would take only about a third of that to convince the accommodating bureaucrat he was meeting to arrange the quick, quiet transfer of a hospital patient named Julie Clayton to a public hospital upstate.

Bobby Freed walked home alone down Simonton Street in deeper depression than he had ever known.

Chapter 12

THE SOUND
of a lone mosquito buzz-bombing a bloodied ear rattled Breeze Albury from a four-hour sleep. He rolled off his bunk and clutched his head with both hands to suppress the vertigo. His arm stung and his stomach roiled. His skull burned where Oscar had clubbed him with the pistol.

Albury dragged himself to the deck where Jimmy and Augie lay like gaping, snoring corpses. He let them sleep. Dusk was settling in on the Florida Keys; a faint, cool gust from the west chased away the choking heat. Albury climbed to the pilothouse and studied his chart through blistered eyelids.

The
Diamond Cutter
lay tranquilly at anchor off Lignum Vitae Key, a pear-shaped mangrove islet west of Islamorada. Here Florida Bay offered deep water, and concealment. After the killings at Dynamite Docks, the crawfish boat’s flight had been breakneck, confused, haphazard. Instinct had warned Albury to run south, home toward Key West, as swiftly as the big Crusader would take him. But prudence told him to lay low, hide for a few days, ask quiet questions.

Augie had grabbed the helm for the first leg while Albury’s head had cleared. The kid had steered safely southward in the heart of Hawk Channel, past Rodriguez Key, with the idea of slipping through the islands to the Gulf side at Tavernier. It was a good plan, but Augie didn’t know the Upper Keys like he did Key West; numb from the shootout, Jimmy had been no help, either.

As the
Diamond Cutter
had cleared Tavernier Key, Augie had wheeled her starboard and promptly deposited all forty-three feet of Albury’s pride and joy on a shallow mud flat. There the three of them had sat for two hours, watching the traffic crawl by on U.S. 1, squinting into the sky for some sign of the Coast Guard helicopter that was surely on its way to arrest them for murder.

Finally the tide had come up and gentled the big fishing boat back into the channel, where Albury had taken the wheel. Hunger and dwindling fuel had persuaded him to call at the first ocean-front marina. But a Monroe County sheriff’s car innocently idling in the parking lot had run the
Diamond Cutter
off.

From then on it had been damn-the-fuel, forget-the-hunger, and run for cover—and for the
Diamond Cutter
no cover was good enough on the Atlantic side of the Keys. Albury had taken the boat through to the Gulf side under the Indian Key Bridge and anchored behind Lignum Vitae, one of the largest islands in Florida Bay. Sheltered from the badgering southeasterly winds of summer, the
Diamond Cutter
could at least expect a calm last leg back to Key West.

That would be more than Breeze Albury could expect—if he dared go back to Key West at all. Albury swigged at a can of warm beer that had somehow escaped the aliens’ marauding and tried to think it through.

By now everybody and his brother should be looking for the
Diamond Cutter
, from the Bahamian Coast Guard to the Florida National Guard. Sunk patrol boats and exploding vans have a way of attracting attention. But it might not be too bad. Suppose they caught him? There was no evidence on the boat to link him to anything, no scars he couldn’t explain away. Augie had spent the whole trip down on his hands and knees scrubbing the blood off the wheelhouse floor. So they caught him, so what? He and his mates had innocently motored north to look for new fishing grounds; a lot of people knew Breeze Albury was fed up with Key West and wanted out. What aliens? An explosion? A Conch jury might believe him, certainly if the only testimony to vouchsafe the charge came from Colombian wetbacks. And who else was there to tell? Not Jimmy, certainly not Augie.

Albury tuned the VHF to channel 4 and tried to raise Crystal. Silence. He flipped to 16. Right after they had fled Dynamite Docks the air had been full of excited voices. Now there was only the routine chatter of pleasure boaters.

“How hot are we?” It was Augie, stretching.

“Not very.”

“I’m not surprised. You think those asshole Colombians would tell the cops anything? No way.”

“They knew the name of the boat.”

Augie laughed.

“Maybe some of them. But they have forgotten it by now. They don’t get paid to remember names and faces. Those that got out of Key Largo aren’t saying shit to anybody, except maybe to their boss. If any got caught, all they’re saying is “
No comprendo, señor policeman. No hablo English.”
Don’t worry about them, Breeze. Worry about their
patrón.”

Jimmy shambled into the pilothouse, rubbing his eyes.

“It’s like a bad dream, Breeze.”

“It’s all over now.”

Except that it was not. While part of Breeze Albury calmly plotted a defense, the rest of him howled bitter outrage. Now what, sucker? Anybody else want to come by and punch me out? No, it was not over.

“Is there anything to eat?” Jimmy asked. “I’m starved.”

“Nothin’,” said Augie.

“We need to let things cool off some more, Jimmy,” Albury said. “In the morning we’ll go up to Bud N’ Mary’s for food and fuel. No sense risking it now.”

“Guess you’re right, but I gotta eat.” Jimmy vanished into the hold and emerged with a rusty spinning outfit with a frayed bucktail jig tied to the monofilament line. He began casting from the bow.

Albury noticed that Augie’s T-shirt was crusted with dried blood and that a bandana had been tied as a makeshift bandage on his left forearm. Augie’s eyes were bright and intent, but his voice was tired.

“What the hell happened, Breeze?”

Albury said, “I don’t know for sure. We were double-crossed.”

“That much I figured out by myself. Tell me the rest, man. We almost died up there at Key Largo. Killed some people ourselves,” Augie said. “Least you can do is tell me why.”

“I don’t know why,” Albury repeated. He swatted at a cluster of gnats, whining around the open wound on his scalp. “I don’t know who in Key West would want me killed. Maybe it was Oscar’s brainstorm.”

“Or Oscar’s boss.”

“Christ.”

Augie asked, “Why did you do it at all, Breeze? The
Diamond Cutter
’s an honest boat. That’s your reputation. You wouldn’t work for a snake like Tomas Cruz.”

“Blackmail,” Albury said in a dead voice and explained the whole story. “Boone promised that the dope charges would be thrown out if I made the run,” he finished. “Tom said it was worth fifty grand. Fifty thousand dollars, Augie.”

“That I understand. But Tom and his people work for the Machine. They run weed, ‘ludes, cocaine when they can get it. Not illegals.”

Albury shook his head tiredly. “My guess is that this was a favor for somebody, Augie. That’s not important. I told them ‘yes,’ that’s what’s important. I said ‘yes,’ and I wish to God I hadn’t. I thought it would solve everything for me and Ricky. The money would do it. But I thought the same thing a few years ago when Veronica was so damn sick. They always give you the same line, the same bullshit: ‘We need a good captain and a fast boat. One run is all, captain. One run and all your troubles are over.’ This time they
helped
me make up my mind. That’s the only difference.”

The words came out raw and tremulous. Augie felt embarrassed. “Shit, any fisherman would have done the same. And for a lot less,” he added. “Don’t sweat it. Nobody’s gonna catch us. We’re almost off the hook now.”

“That’s not enough.”

“I knew it wouldn’t be.”

“I’ll drop you and Jimmy at the gas docks tomorrow.”

“Forget it,” Augie said. “A captain’s got to pay his mates. Fifty grand, you said, right? For my share I’d swim through a school of bull sharks. Nude!”

Albury laughed hard and in his exhaustion kept laughing. He needed to wind down, to back away from the cliff. The boat, the boys—solid, Lord, in damn good shape. If only he was as sure of himself.

“Hey, bubba!” came a triumphant cry from the bow of the
Diamond Cutter.
Albury and Augie turned in time to see Jimmy hoist a silvery five-pound barracuda into the boat.

“Goddamn,” Augie exclaimed. “The white boy’s caught us some supper.”

CRYSTAL WAS HUNCHED
over the workbench when he heard the light tapping on the door. His wife came in quietly, kissed him once on the cheek, and whispered something.

“OK,” Crystal said. He yanked the plug on the soldering iron and placed it, still smoking, on a slab of plywood. “Go ahead and send him in.”

Crystal’s wife led Shorty Whitting into the repair shop. The policeman’s uniform was starchy clean; he carried his hat in his hands. His eyes surveyed the electronic jungle with a certain awe.

“Hey, Crystal.”

“Hello, captain. What’s up?”

Whitting shifted uneasily from one foot to the other. “Chief Barnett asked me to stop by.”

“And what does that fat fucker want that he can’t ask me himself?”

Whitting’s face turned the color of fish flesh.

“I’m sorry, Shorty. I can’t help it if the guy makes me puke. What does he want?”

“Were you on the radio yesterday morning?”

“When?”

“Early. Around dawn.”

Crystal shook his head no and gave a roar of a laugh. “No, sir. Yesterday morning about that time I believe me and the old lady were rolling around in the sack. I didn’t put my ears on till about ten or so.”

Whitting asked, “You’re sure?”

“Positive, captain. Why?”

“There was some shooting up in Key Largo. Supposed to be a crawfish boat involved. Chief Barnett heard about it from Tom Cruz—”

Crystal wheeled himself over to small refrigerator. “Wonder how Tom knew so fast. Want a beer, Shorty?”

“No thanks,” Whitting said. “Apparently several people were killed. The sheriff’s office hasn’t identified the bodies yet. A truck blew up and some of them got fried.”

“Where did this happen?” Crystal asked, popping a Miller Lite.

“A place called Dynamite Docks. It’s a little jetty on a piece of private property up there off Card Sound Road.”

“Sounds like dopers,” Crystal said.

“That’s what the chief thinks. He also thinks the boat might be the
Diamond Cutter.”

“He’s crazy. You guys just busted Breeze Albury last week. He’s not dumb enough to try again so soon. Tell your lardass boss he’s crazy. No way was it the
Diamond Cutter.”

Crystal could tell that Shorty was damn uncomfortable with this errand.

“Just the same,” Whitting pressed, “the chief wondered if you could ask around on the radio today. See if anybody heard anything or saw anything up there. Albury’s boat isn’t docked at the fish house, and most of the guys haven’t seen it for a couple days. If you hear anything, maybe you could call me over at the office.”