Tropical Depression (30 page)

“I was,” I told him.

“Jesus Christ,” he said. “What the hell for? Can’t have that shit. Billy,” and he pointed a huge plump finger at me, “got to get the fuck off your ass and get back to work.” He shook his head, sending several chins whirling in opposing directions.

“All right, Art.”

“Just like that, huh?” He turned towards Nicky, who was hovering in the kitchen door, and let loose a rattling laugh. “This little shit weasel was shitting his pants,” he said, pointing an enormous, drooping arm at Nicky.

“He was catatonic, Art, I swear it.”

“I’m okay, Nicky. I was just—tired.”

“Horseshit.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Art rumbled. “Important thing is to get to work, make a little money.” He winked at me, looking like Santa’s evil brother. “Got a call this morning. Asked for you by name. Tomorrow morning, brother. You’re going fishing.”

“Sounds good. Thanks, Art.”

“Thanks.” He looked insulted. “The fuck is that, thanks. Gimme a fucking beer, you want to thank me.”

I looked at Nicky. “Do I have any beer, Nicky?”

He shook his head sadly. “Not a drop, mate. Not even one of those horrible weak pathetic American imitation beers.”

Art snarled at me. “What kind of dickless dumbo runs out of beer, time like this, Saturday morning?”

“Nicky,” I said.

He cackled, his huge eyes almost out of his head with glee. “I’ll just pop next door and get a few, mate.”

Several hours after Nicky and Art left, I was stretched out on the bed asleep when the phone rang. I fumbled up out of dreamless rest and grabbed at the receiver beside the bed.

“Hello?” I managed.

There was a familiar hiss of breath down the wire. “Well,” said a smoky voice. “Thought you’d gone fishing or something.”

“Ed. What’s going on?”

“Tried calling you with this last night, but you weren’t answering. Figured you should know, your name’s on this story out here. Doyle gonna know you dropped the dime on him.”

“That’s good to know,” I said. “How’d you guys lose him?”

Ed chuckled. It sounded a little bit more like the old Ed, a little less strained and more amused. “He went and lost his own self. He’s under house arrest, discreetly observed by an Officer Bowden, and he just ups and slips off.”

“You mean he broke his word?”

“His word,” said Ed, and I heard him light a new Kool, “and Officer Bowden’s neck.”

“Oh,” I said. I remembered the terrible speed and strength of those hands. “Where do you think he went?”

“Well, Billy, I can only guess he’s gone out of my jurisdiction.”

“Good guess.”

“But since part of the indictment is federal, I talked some FBI guys into putting a watch on his boat in Texas.”

“Good thinking.”

“Only half-good, Billy. We got a missing-presumed-dead federal agent on our hands, and that sailboat’s gone, too. Got to figure Doyle is taking his self a little vacation.”

“Well,” I said, “I guess it was too much to hope he’d stand trial.”

“Yeah-huh.”

“He’ll be on his way to Central America by now.”

“He could be, Billy. He could be. They got a watch on every port in the Caribbean, all up and down South and Central America. Makes me feel safe.” I could almost see that Cheshire grin through the cloud of smoke. “But I’m out of it now, and you are too. One way or another, this is about wrapped up now.”

“I guess you’re right, Ed,” I said.

But Ed was wrong. We both were.

Sunday morning at five A.M. I was already motoring slowly out of the channel and under the bridge.

The weather was good, in spite of a hurricane thrashing around in the Caribbean. They thought it might be a big one, and they were calling it Andrew. It was expected to move in on the mainland sometime in the next two days, but I didn’t think it would come anywhere near Key West.

Of course, you don’t have to be near a hurricane to get some bad storms. Every place within three hundred miles of the eye could be in for bad weather.

But this morning the seas were still calm and I had a charter who wanted a tarpon, no matter what.

My charter was two guys in their mid-thirties, very tan and fit-looking. They said they didn’t get seasick; they seemed to think that the idea was a little bit funny. So I opened up the throttle and headed for the Marquesas. If the weather turned bad, we were less than a half-hour’s run from shelter.

The two guys, Bill and Bob, didn’t say much. They just sat on their seat. Every now and then they would turn their heads slightly to look at something, but other than that they just sat quietly.

They’d been quiet since climbing onto the boat at the dock in the pre-dawn dimness. They’d been there when I arrived, standing beside the slip with a nylon gym bag apiece. They didn’t want coffee or anything else from the dockmaster’s shack. “Let’s not keep the fish waiting,” Bill had said. Bob had given him a small “huh” of laughter, like that was a pretty funny thing to say.

The sun was one thumbnail’s width up over the horizon when I throttled back in the big lagoon in the center of the Marquesas. “All right, gentlemen,” I said. “The tarpon will be coming in the channel and up across the flats to feed. I’ll be on the platform over the engine, watching for fish. When I see tarpon, I’ll get you close and one of you will cast to it. Any questions?”

They turned four blue, expressionless eyes on me. For the first time I felt a small twitch of alarm somewhere deep in the part of my brain that doesn’t need reasons. They just looked. Nothing showed except maybe very faint amusement. “No questions,” Bob said at last.

The rising sun was showing a storm front moving by over the Gulf of Mexico. Faint flickers of lightning showed between the dark line of the clouds and the water. “One other thing,” I said. “If that storm gets close, we head for shore until it’s gone.”

“We don’t want to get wet?” Bill asked with poker-faced amusement.

I was unlashing my guide pole, an eighteen-foot-long pipe I used for pushing the boat quietly across the flats. I held up one end of the pipe for Bill to see. “It’s made of boron,” I said. “Boron is an excellent conductor of electricity. If I’m holding onto the pole in a storm, I could get fried.”

“We wouldn’t want that,” said Bill.

“Let’s hope the storm stays away,” added Bob, and they again looked at each other with secret amusement, like they knew something very funny and weren’t supposed to let on.

We fished for two hours. They were both pretty good by then. They picked up the physical skills without any trouble, and neither one of them seemed to have any problem with patience.

One other time I felt that small stirring of alarm. Bob had a tarpon on, a good-sized one. He had fought it up to the boat after a couple of spectacular leaps. I hauled it up for him to see and to photograph if he wanted.

He didn’t want any pictures. As I turned away to release the fish, I heard Bill say softly, “If he’d made another run I’d have cut the line. You can’t get tired out.”

“I’m fine,” Bob told him.

Tired out for what? Not my business. I thought it must be another private joke. Still, the way they said it was not very funny, not even to them.

But right then the fish had given a lurch in my hands and I needed all my concentration to hold on to the tarpon until it was revived enough for me to let go. By the time the fish swam away I’d forgotten the remark.

Just about the time the tide started to change and the fishing slowed, a large sailboat glided into the lagoon. It was an Alden fifty-four-footer, a beautiful boat.

“Right on time,” Bob said.

They both turned to look at me, heads swiveling as if they were connected. Both faces had the same bland, smug look of disciplined amusement.

“Tide’s changing,” I said, trying to figure out why the hair on the back of my neck was rising. “We could head out to a wreck that’s not too far. Try for some other fish.”

“I think we’ll stay right here,” Bob said, and Bill added a quiet “Heh,” as he bent over and zipped open his gym bag.

I was standing on my platform above the motor, the long boron pole in my hands. I could see clearly down into Bill’s gym bag. It did not contain the sorts of things I expected—extra shirt, jacket, suntan lotion, snack foods.

What it did contain, among other things, was a Glock 9mm automatic pistol with a large silencer on the end.

Bill removed the pistol without any real hurry and aimed it at my belly button. “Okay, mud-boy,” he said. “It’s showtime.”

As he spoke, Bob was bending to his gym bag. I had a feeling he wasn’t going to come out with a candy bar, either.

Mud-boy. A Glock 9mm. The sailboat gliding in on cue.

“That sailboat’s gone,” Ed had said.

And here it was.

I may not be the smartest guy who ever lived, but I have never felt quite as stupid as I did right then.

Doyle gonna know you dropped the dime on him.
And then of course he would come and look for me. Key West is on the way to a lot of really good hide-outs. Especially if you’re going by boat.

And if you have a small score to settle, settle it in beautiful Key West. Enjoy the fabled hospitality of our tropical island paradise while you kill the guy who brought you down.

All this flashed through my mind as I watched Bob bend to his gym bag.

At the moment the odds were me against one guy with a gun. It wasn’t going to get any better.

There’s a foot control for the small electric motor I sometimes use to move the boat silently. I stepped down on it. The boat gave a very small lurch; not much. Just enough to make Bill lose his balance for a half-second and take his gun off line. When the gun moved, so did I.

I swung the pole as hard as I could. It’s a big pole, but pretty light, and it whistled towards Bill’s head with surprising speed.

Surprising for Bill, anyway. It caught him right on the ear just as he recovered from the boat’s movement. He dropped the gun, stunned.

That was all I needed. I leaped on his partner from my perch five feet above. He was straightening and turning, having heard the gun drop to the deck. I landed on his back and brought him smashing face-first into the hard hull of the boat. Blood squirted from a broken nose. But he didn’t move.

Bill moved, though. He had recovered from the whack with the pole. He jumped onto my back and got a chokehold on me.

I drove backward hard with both elbows and felt the right one connect. Bill gave a very satisfying grunt of pain, but he did not let go.

I stood. He clung to me, increasing the pressure on my throat. I was starting to feel it. The world was growing slowly dark and I knew I didn’t have much longer before I blacked out.

With my last strength I lunged backwards, smashing Bill’s back into the guide’s platform.

He gave a kind of crushed gasp and slid off my back.

I managed a deep breath and turned to him. He was lying on the deck, momentarily stunned. I leaned over him, doubling my fists together, and whacked his chin with everything I had in a double haymaker.

Bill’s eyes closed.

I turned. Bob hadn’t moved. His breathing was regular but shallow. His breath bubbled through the smashed nose.

I took a hank of steel leader from my tackle box and wired their wrists and ankles together. While I worked I thought as hard and as fast as I could.

Doyle was on the sailboat. At any moment he might notice that the wrong guy was still standing. I didn’t know how many others might be on the boat with him.

The smart thing to do would be to radio the Coast Guard—but wait. Doyle could overhear on his radio. So what I should do is get away from Doyle and his boat as quickly as possible, and then use the radio. With my superior speed I could easily keep him in sight and outrun the sailboat long enough for help to arrive.

Mind made up and visitors safely wired to their seat, I stepped to the controls and started the engine.

I could see some movement on the deck of the sailboat now. For once, I was just in time. I steered for the channel and opened the throttle wide, putting distance between me and the sailboat.

Over the roar of the engine I heard a flat crack, then three more in rapid succession. They were closely followed by four solid-sounding
ka-thunk!
sounds. The engine coughed, lurched, and stopped.

My engine was trailing four neat plumes of smoke. The boat glided to a stop.

I looked back at the sailboat. About one hundred yards away, it lay still in the water, anchor line taut off the bow.

Even from this distance there was no way to mistake Doyle. He stood beside the mast, rifle cradled casually in his arm. He turned his head and said something, and a moment later an inflatable boat came around from the far side of the sailboat and headed at me.

Three men sat in the boat. One held a hand on the steering arm of a small outboard. The other two, carrying what looked like assault rifles, sat in front of him.

I picked up the Glock from where it lay on the deck. I think I had some idea about sinking the inflatable. But as I raised the pistol there was another sharp crack and the control panel beside me exploded.

I looked at Doyle. He was sighting down the barrel of his rifle. I could feel the crosshairs centered on my chest. I got the idea: he was a very good shot. I put down the gun and waited for the dinghy.

It didn’t take long for the inflatable to reach my wounded skiff. One of the storm troopers was crouching in the bow and leaped onto my boat, his aim never wavering from my midsection.

He moved his head in a very fast glance at Bill and Bob, then locked his stare back on me. “Carl,” he said, and the other trooper climbed aboard.

“Shit,” the second one said. “I told him Otto would fuck it up.”

“Tie his hands,” the leader said. Carl found the wire leader in my tackle box and did a very good job tying my hands. I could feel them turning blue.

“Untie those two,” the first man said. He gave a slight nod of his head at the two clowns I had wired to the seat.

“Fuck-ups,” Carl said. But he knelt and twisted the wires off. When he was done he looked up at the first man and said, “Okay.”