Wood's Reef (8 page)

They put him down and went after Mac. He blocked the first strike, pivoted and blocked the next from behind. He turned again and landed a quick jab to the first man’s face. But the movement gave the man from behind time to recover. He grabbed Mac in a bear hug, waiting for his buddy to attack from the front. Mac put all he had into an elbow to the man’s gut, then grabbed his head with both hands, and flipped him over his shoulder.

The first man started to back away, but tripped over Doans body, still sprawled on the floor. Mac turned to access the situation and saw Jules, the sheriff enter the bar. The crowd deferred to her uniform allowing her to approach the men. 

“Easy there, cowboy,” Jules said to the larger man on the floor as she zip-tied his hands behind his back. “Stand down, Mac,” she said as she approached the other man and quickly zip-tied him as well. “I know these two. Give me a hand getting them to the car and I’ll get your statement.”

***

Doans slithered across the floor, out of sight of the sheriff. He moved to a corner of the bar, got up, and started to make for the door. He waited until the sheriff left the bar, escorting the first man to her cruiser. As soon as she turned away, he left the bar and moved toward the dock behind it. In seconds, he was away from the lights and out of sight. 

He moved carefully, staying in the shadows. Confident that the man from the island had recognized him, he wanted to get out of here as soon as possible. Not sure if the dock dead ended he started looking for a hiding place. Towards the end a boat was in the shadows and dark. It looked more like a dive charter than a fishing boat. Jerry hopped over the transom and was quickly hidden. 

***

Mac and Jules escorted the men out of the bar. Trufante staggered out of the bar a minute later, weaving toward them. 

“Where’d the son of a bitch go?”

“We got them both right here,” Jules said, pointing to the two men in the back seat of the car. 

“Don’t know who those guys are, but they ain’t our boy.”

“What boy is that?” Jules asked.

“The sorry MF that ran Wood over and put him in the hospital this afternoon.”

“He can’t have gotten far. Take the dock, Mac. I’ll take the street,” Jules said as she called for backup.

***

Mac started down the dock with Trufante several steps behind. The first few slips were well lit. Charter boats, their cleaned and polished teak and stainless shining in the glow cast from the flood lights on their fly bridges. Mac moved quickly past them. No place to hide there.

The dock ran parallel to the street, and the further from the bar, the darker it got, dock lights spaced every twenty feet showing the walkway but leaving much of the dock in shadows. Mac cautiously checked each boat for movement as he passed. He was about halfway down the dock when he spotted something moving in the cockpit of a dive boat. 

“Hey,” Trufante yelled.

Mac’s instincts directed him to stay low. He recognized the man as he emerged from the shadow of the transom, speargun in hand. He dove as the man braced his elbows on the boat and aimed.

Mac went down prone on the dock. He heard a scream behind him as the spear embedded itself into Trufante’s leg. He looked up from his friend and saw the man jump onto the dock, moving quickly away from the parking lot.

Mac chased him to the end of the dock. He stopped short as the man dove into the water, disappearing in the darkness. He knew it was futile to chase him in the water. 

His quarry lost, he went back to the injured Cajun. 

“You all right?”

“Son of a bitch.” Trufante tried to move, and was able to get to his feet with Mac’s help, but movement was awkward with the spear sticking out of his leg.

Mac shook his head, placed an arm under Trufante’s shoulder, and took the weight off the injured leg. Slowly they made their way back to the bar. Mac fumed as they walked. Having hurt two of his fiends, he’d have to watch his back now that the guy knew he was onto him. Cornered animals were unpredictable.

Chapter 14

“Would one of you two tell me what the hell is going on here?” Jules asked as she wheeled Trufante into the emergency room. She had called for backup to take the two thugs to the station, and was now wheeling Trufante, leg extended, spear standing straight out from his leg. Shot at close range, the barb traveled deep into the leg, making a quick removal impossible. She’d cut off a large piece of it with bolt cutters from the trunk of the police cruiser, leaving about a foot still extending from his leg, the barb deep in muscle. 

Trufante started to explain, but she cut him off. “Don’t give me that bar fight crap. Maybe you,” she looked back at Trufante, “but Mac here is not going to get mixed up in this kind of thing. Now, give it to me straight.”

Trufante winced in pain. “That guy I was after, we think he was the one that crashed his boat at Wood’s place.”

“Good of you assholes to take the law into your own hands. That’s what we need here — vigilantes, avenging all kinds of shit.”

“We were just trying to scope the dude out. Then we were going to call you,” Trufante said. “Didn't want no trouble. The guy just comes in the bar and sits down next to me. I recognized his hat. Knew he was the one watching the other day when we were with Wood. So I called Mac.”

“There's this piece of paper called a police report.” She turned on Mac. “You may want to consider filling one out next time. If that guy hit Wood and then ran, like you say he did, I have half a mind to take you in for obstruction of justice. I’ll let him suffer the pain he's in as his punishment.” She thought back to the look on his face when she had cut the spear. 

The ER nurse took control of the wheelchair and pushed Trufante through the double doors, leaving Mac and Jules behind and effectively ending the conversation.

***

Behzad checked his email, not sure if he was hoping for an answer or not. Thoughts of martyrdom aside, he liked his life, and figured he would for the next ten years or so … until the inevitable decay of old age set in. The screen answered him with a new message in the draft folder. He opened the message and realized his life was about to take a turn. 

My brother in God. So good of you to contact me. I had feared you left our cause. But now I am assured that you will indeed seek paradise. Pick me up at Miami Int Airport tomorrow morning. American flight 745 arrives 8:15. 

Behzad entered the flight info in his phone and deleted the message. He glanced at the time on his screen and realized he would need to leave now; the drive, including the inevitable rush hour traffic in Miami, would take over four hours. He would have liked the convenience of meeting Ibrahim at Key West Airport, but knew security in the smaller airports was more secure, and he and his friend would stand a better chance of being noticed here than in the turmoil of Miami International. All the same, he loathed venturing off his island.

With his schedule now defined, he decided to make a productive night out of it and see if he could move some product to friends in Miami before the pickup. He went upstairs to his closet, cleared the top shelf, and removed the false panel disguised as wallboard. Inside the compartment was his scale and stash. He weighed some of the product, placed it in small scraps of magazine paper folded into envelopes. These went carefully into a baggie. He carefully sucked the air out of a corner before sealing it. He looked at what was left and decided he might get lucky and move it all. He shoved it into a separate baggie. Product in hand he replaced the panel and went to shower.

An hour later, he was cruising through Marathon, thankful for what looked like a bar fight with two police cruisers in attendance. That would occupy all the cops between here and Islamorada, which lay forty-five minutes closer to his goal. Comforted that there would be no speed traps to impede his progress, he stepped on the gas. 

An hour and a half later, he felt fatigue set in on the lonely stretch of road from Key Largo to Florida City. The anxiety of driving US1 at night through the Keys left his adrenalin waning. Needing a bump, he pulled over on the shoulder, turned on the interior light, and pulled the baggie out of his pants. He hadn’t intended to dip in, but he never did. Last night’s party had cost him a big chunk of the profits from this last shipment. If he could move the rest tonight, he might just get out intact, able to pay off the Mexican. But he needed to actually get to Miami, and for that he needed to stay awake.

He opened the larger baggie and dipped in his pinkie nail. The nail was left long and manicured for just this purpose. He loaded it with white powder and inhaled, then sat back and waited for the rush. Eyes closed, he heard the boom of a loud subwoofer from a passing car. He didn’t notice that the sound didn’t fade, and opened his eyes to a tapping on the windows. The barrel of the gun motioned for him to roll the window down. If the gun didn’t scare him, the figure wielding it did. A shirtless 6-foot Haitian, bandana pulled over his face, scar across his right eye and trucker’s hat cocked on his shaved head looked down at him. 

Not realizing the baggie was still open on his lap, he rolled down the window.

“This a dangerous piece of road here, man.” The accent was hard to decipher, but the meaning was not. The Haitian held him in place with one hand and checked out the baggie with the other. “What we got in the bag there?” he asked as he removed a switchblade from his pocket and lifted the bag off Behzad’s lap with the tip of the blade. 

Behzad almost peed himself when the gunman turned back to his own car and mimicked a throat-slicing motion with his gun hand. The music and lights went off immediately, and two men exited the car. Mosquitos made the only noise now as they zeroed in on the only fresh meat for miles. One man came around to the driver’s side, the other stood behind the car. 

“Pop the trunk, turn off the lights, and get out of the car,” the first man said as he stepped back to allow the door to open. “What you shaking for? We’re not going to hurt you.” He clocked him on the head with the gun.

Behzad was slow to move as he recovered consciousness. He sat up carefully, one hand on his head where the gun had struck him. Acknowledging this as his only injury, he got to his feet and took inventory. He was alone on the warm asphalt. His car was gone. They had checked his pockets and taken his wallet, but hadn’t checked deep enough to uncover the second baggie that was carefully placed in his underwear. If that was his silver lining, it wasn’t much of one. The baggie they took had most of his product in it. 

Scenarios of how to cope with this disaster swarmed through his mind like snakes in a pit. He sat down on the desolate stretch of road to Florida City, swatting at the mosquitos feasting on his neck, and extended his thumb out to every passing vehicle, hoping for a ride. The accelerated martyrdom scenario was starting to appeal to him over what Cesar, his Mexican supplier, would do to him. His knowledge about the bomb was the last card left in his hand. He hoped that in return for his help finding the bomb, Ibrahim would make his problems dissapear.

Chapter 15

Behzad sat by the side of the road, staring into the black water of Lake Surprise. Intermittent lights from the vehicles entering and leaving the sole route in and out of the Keys illuminated the two-lane stretch of road. Most of the traffic at this time of night was tractor trailers hauling goods down US1 to Key West, or returning empty. 

He had no idea what to do. No way to reach Miami to pick up Ibrahim or phone to call. The loss of the cocaine weighed heavily on his thoughts. ‘Run and hide’ seemed like a really good option. The Haitians had taken his assets. There wasn’t much left. All he had was the baggie in his pants, a few hundred worth, if he could avoid temptation and sell it. Not very likely, since he’d started to dip in already, and was tempted to take another bump to change his head. And why not? What was he going to do, walk to Miami? No money, no phone, no car, and stranded on one very lonely and often-dangerous stretch of road … his options were few.