by Carl Hiaasen
Ricky answered the phone and passed it across without taking his eyes off the screen.
“Captain Albury?”
“Yeah.”
“Check your mailbox.” The voice hung up.
Albury lay on the sofa and tensely smoked a cigarette. He waited for the first commercial so Ricky would not link his departure to the abbreviated phone call.
“Shitty movie,” Albury proclaimed at last. “Shut it down and finish your homework, OK? Get a good night’s sleep.”
When Ricky had wandered off, Albury slipped on his loafers and left the trailer.
Albury opened the bulky brown envelope in the dim roof light of the Pontiac. He counted the money first. A jumble of bills in two stacks, neatly banded. Used bills, tens and twenties only, not sequential. Ten thousand dollars. That would be about right. The other half would come later.
It was the Machine’s way of buying loyalty and silence. If a Conch got caught with a load, which happened, he didn’t talk. In return, the organization provided its own form of social security. Hadn’t Peg got an anonymous envelope in the mailbox every month while he was away? Sure, they had lost the house, but that was because of the medical bills. The Machine would have paid those, too, but Albury never considered asking. Those bills were his business and nobody else’s.
Albury locked the cash in the trunk and unfurled the chart that had come with it. It was the standard NOAA marine map, showing the Lower Keys all the way up to Sombrero. In pencil someone had carefully drawn a small X near Looe Key, a tiny island in the deep water off Big Pine. Albury figured that the mother ship would be another seven or eight miles out. The X designated where he was supposed to lay up with the Diamond Cutter. In a corner of the chart was written the date and time—Tuesday at midnight.
ALBURY CRANKED UP the Pontiac and went to see Crystal.
His knock was answered promptly by a dusky girl with doe’s eyes and a hook nose. She carried a baby on her hip and another in her belly.
“Breeze! Que rico. Hace tanto tiempo.” She bussed him chastely on the cheek.
“Well, hell!” Crystal tossed a printed circuit onto the workbench and swiveled to face Albury, a gigantic grin igniting his Zapata mustache. Propelled by oaken arms that ended improbably in delicate watchmaker’s fingers, Crystal trundled down a wooden ramp and stopped at Albury’s feet. They shook hands. It was a ferocious game of grip that they played, and, as usual, it was Albury who surrendered.
“You’re not gettin’ any weaker!” he said to Crystal.
“Hell, I’m on top of the world. See what I’ve been up to since you were around last?” He gestured with pride at the girl’s belly. “This one’s a girl, I can feel it.”
Crystal was the post office. He fixed radios and he passed messages and made a good living out of both. From a console that looked to Albury like something borrowed from NASA, Crystal boasted that he could monitor every radio frequency for a hundred miles, from the Tavernier volunteer fire department to the José Martí control tower at Havana airport.
Albury believed him. Crystal was a genius. Everybody in Key West was proud of him. Ten years ago, in high school, the kid had won every science fair, even one in Miami. The Army had got him before he could get to college. In recognition of Crystal’s talents, the Army had made him a combat infantryman, and nine months later it had shipped him home from Saigon with no legs.
That was back when people still believed in the war, and plenty of folks had chipped in to help Crystal get started in a repair shop. Everybody said how well Crystal had adjusted and Albury believed it, too, until one night about six years ago when he had come in late one night with a marine radio that would send but couldn’t receive and had found Crystal slumped across the workbench, half-drunk, crying like a little boy, with a whiskey bottle by his head.
“Got one here not even you can fix, hotshot,” Albury had said, taking a slug from the bottle but not watching the bottle or the radio or even Crystal, watching only the pistol that lay on the bench a few inches from Crystal’s hand. “Probably have to send it back to the factory,” Albury had said as Crystal’s head came up, full of tears, Albury watching the pistol and ready to jump.
“Ain’t no radio I can’t fix,” Crystal had blubbered.
“Not this one. Fucked up six ways from Sunday.”
Then Crystal’s slender hand had flashed out and caught Albury’s broken radio and sent it banging down the workbench into a voltmeter. Albury, pretending to get out of the way, had let it go and eased around the other side of Crystal’s chair and got himself between Crystal and the gun. They had polished off the bottle, and when Albury had pushed himself off the bench to get another, the gun had come with him. Crystal had pretended not to notice.
It was so long ago that it made Albury feel old. On the eve of Albury’s run, Crystal was a different person, high as a kite, bragging about his kids, showing off his new Bearcat scanner. Albury told him what he needed.
“Easy,” Crystal said. “It’ll be good to hear a familiar voice out there. Want a drink?”
They drank, and across town the Machine hummed with practiced efficiency. A weary Winnebago Tom ran down the soiled list for a final time and committed it to the flame of his lighter. Done, by God, and done well. Times like this he felt like a general, moving supplies, giving orders, summoning the troops to the right place at the right time. Smooth as silk. Tom rifled through the pile of coins on the gray metal shelf, inserted one, and made a telephone ring in a fine old Conch house on White Street.
The phone annoyed Manolo. It had been an annoying day. The Reds getting two runs in the ninth had cost him two grand. A horse in the eighth at Belmont that was supposed to have been a sure thing ran fifth. Two grand more.
Manolo laid down his book, a biography of Walt Whitman, reduced Mahler’s ninth to a whisper, and waded through the wall-to-wall mauve carpet to his Ethan Allen desk.
“Yes.” It was not a question.
“Everything’s ready,” Winnebago Tom reported on the other end.
“Details?”
“Momma’s coming on schedule.” He meant the big ship. It had landed in Cartagena on schedule.
“Very well.”
“We have three hawks and one pigeon.”
“Fine.”
Tom asked, “Still sure about the pigeon? It’s gonna cost us two tons.”
“It is the one we discussed?”
“Yes. Of course. I went to a lot of trouble for this.”
“I can appreciate that,” Manolo said frostily.
“So is it too much to ask why? This is out of the ordinary. It’s a big risk.”
“Tom, do you get paid to worry?”
“Please …”
“Answer me!”
“No,” Tom said, not feeling much like a general anymore.
In the house on White Street, Manolo turned up the music and resumed reading. With any luck, tomorrow would be less trying.
Chapter 4
THE DIAMOND CUTTER went fishing the next morning as usual. When there were other boats nearby, Jimmy and Albury pretended to pull traps. To be on the cautious side, they even iced down a hundred pounds of fresh crawfish; Albury said it would look better for them in case something went wrong.
His instincts were good. At noon the Diamond Cutter was overtaken by a twenty-six-foot Cigarette boat, screaming like a stock car. Albury had watched it coming for miles.
“This our man?” Jimmy asked nervously.
“No way.” Albury suppressed a laugh.
The Cigarette was a smuggler’s special that had been seized by the Marine Patrol two years earlier. The driver was Mark Haller, a tough old Conch, one of the grittiest sonofabitches the patrol ever had the good sense to hire. Albury had been his friend for years, but this was the first time it might count for something. Haller pulled up and tied to a cleat on the Diamond Cutter’s stern.
“Hey, bubba,” Albury said with a wave.
Haller nodded and hopped from the cockp
it of the speedboat to its bow, playing the swells perfectly. He wore highway patrol-like sunglasses; Albury couldn’t be sure where he was looking.
“How you doing?” Haller called.
Albury shrugged. “Lousy.”
Jimmy slipped below for a beer; the sight of a man in uniform was too much, right now.
“You want to come aboard?” Albury moved to the stern to give Haller a hand, but the chunky Marine Patrol officer motioned him off.
“That’s OK,” he said. “Breeze, I heard about your traps.”
“I guess everybody has,” Albury said with a sour laugh.
“Well, I intend to find the fuckers that did it,” Haller said. “We can’t have that kind of shit down here.”
“I’d sure appreciate it if you did, Mark. Have you heard anything yet?”
“A little.” Haller stood with his burnished hands on his hips, peering at another crawfish boat about three miles off. Albury noticed he was carrying a .357.
“Breeze,” he said after a few moments, “if you find out who did it, call me. Don’t try to handle it yourself.”
“I can’t make a promise like that. You know how it goes.”
Haller wore a thin smile as he untied the Cigarette and fired the huge engines to life.
“Mark, don’t suppose you’re gonna tell me what you’ve heard?” Albury shouted.
“When I know more,” Haller yelled back. “I promise.” Then he was gone.
Jimmy looked up inquiringly from below deck. “Do you think he knows?”
“About tonight? Of course not,” Albury said.
“Then why’d he stop us?”
“Routine. Haller stops everybody. That’s what makes him Haller. Cubans can’t stand him. He’ll board their boats and talk for an hour, and he doesn’t speak a goddamned word of Spanish. He’ll do it just to make a point.”
Jimmy tossed a beer to Albury. “That kind of thing makes me nervous,” he said.
Albury stripped off his clothes. “Time for a swim,” he declared, perching himself on the side of the boat. For a delicious instant he hung in the air, then crashed feetfirst into the blue sea. He paddled for about a minute, then floated effortlessly on his back. Albury heard the whoosh as Jimmy hit the water in a clean dive, and for an instant he felt like laughing aloud.
At dusk, they anchored off Looe Key, waiting. A northeasterly breeze carried pesky clouds of no-see-ems towards the boat from the island. Albury and Jimmy basted themselves in Cutter’s insect spray.
At about nine, Crystal checked in over the VHF radio.
“Lucky Seven, this is Smilin’ Jack. Your weather for the evening is clear with light winds out of the northeast. Seas three to four feet, increasing around midnight.”
Albury gave him a ten-four. Midnight was the key. He lifted a hatch and pulled out two plywood boards. The words “Elizabeth Marie Tampa” were freshly painted on each. One went on the bow and the other on the transom; Jimmy slipped into the water to help attach them. Albury was no artist and the bogus name obviously was hand-lettered, but it covered the legend Diamond Cutter and the registration number. If there was a chase, and if a name was all the cops could see at night, it would give Albury an edge. It never hurt to have an edge.
He and Jimmy ate bologna and cheese sandwiches and drank two Pepsis each. Albury had abandoned the beer by nightfall. After the snack, there was nothing to do but smoke quietly and listen for engines and watch the stars announce another stunning tropical night. They had three hours to kill.
“NOBODY ELSE. No Customs, no Coast Guard, no Marine Patrol. Just us. Is that clear? We will do it alone, and we will do it right for once.” One of the young patrolmen masked a snicker with a cough. Huge Barnett marked him for a month of midnights.
“My informant,” he said for emphasis, “my informant says this is quite a haul.” Barnett rocked back and forth on his three-inch cowboy boots, as though testing for spring. “He says there’ll probably be a red herring, something to throw us off at just the wrong time. Captain Whitting will give you your assignments and explain how it’s gonna go down. Pay attention.”
Barnett lumbered to one side of the room, revealing an easel blackboard that his bulk had all but obscured. The blackboard showed a dock, a house, and converging roads. Wavy lines marked the water, crosshatches the mangroves.
Huge Barnett was a legend in his own time. He was a lawman and a tourist attraction, a Falstaffian figure equally adept with his fists and his grin. “Is This Southern ‘Sheriff’ the Model for Those TV Commercials?” People magazine once had asked. No, he was not, and not a sheriff, either, but an ole-boy chief of police who had a small genius for PR. Once, when a hotel computer threw an unaccountable fit that left peak-season tourists sleeping in cars, Huge Barnett had thrown open the doors of the Key West jail to shelter them from a cold snap. Made the network news. Once, in gun belt, Stetson, and all his chiefly finery, he had hurled himself into a shallow canal with hippopotamian zeal to save a child who might or might not have been drowning. For that, the Governor had summoned Barnett to Tallahassee and awarded him a bronze medallion.
Huge Barnett liked to boast that he knew everybody on the Rock and everything worth knowing about each of them. He had been chief so long that no one any longer remembered his real first name. Each year the city council unanimously voted an appropriation to equip their famous chief with a new white Chrysler, with special air conditioning and heavy-duty shocks to accommodate his 315 pounds.
Barnett rocked benignly, hands behind his back, jaw thrust forward purposefully, as a tall, balding captain with a dentist’s stoop advanced to the blackboard with a pointer. Shorty Whitting was everything Huge Barnett was not: modern, literate, plodding, and reasonably honest.
Although he never would have revealed it—not to his wizened wife; or to his doctor, who clucked at him despairingly once a month; or to the pink-skinned tourist girls he consumed in great number—Huge Barnett was stinging. Had been for nearly a week since the night at the city council when Bobby Freed had stuck it to him about the dopers.
Freed occupied the token newcomer’s seat on the Key West city council. He was a wealthy Manhattan designer who had come down about five years ago and opened the Cowrie Restaurant with his savings. Huge Barnett and the other Conchs had plenty to say at first, but over the years, Barnett had shut up about the gays. They had money, they were invariably polite, and they were far more likely to bribe than to fight if you caught them doing something illegal. But mother of God, Barnett fumed, why did they have to be so fucking earnest? The island had accepted them; now why couldn’t they do the same?
Barnett had dropped in to the council meeting as he usually did on Monday nights: it was a good way to keep an eye on things.
He hadn’t been there five minutes before Councilman Freed had badgered him about drugs and smuggling and a bad image that was keeping the tourists away. Did Chief Barnett have figures for drug arrests? No, well, perhaps he could prepare a special report for the council. Of course, they all voted for it. Turds.
Freed was like a goddamned chigger, digging his way into my skin, Barnett bridled. Faggot. He would pay for it.
“… no smoking, no radios, and no talking. Whisper if you gotta talk,” Shorty Whitting was saying.
The phone call that morning had made Huge Barnett’s day.
“A crawfish boat will be coming into Ramrod Key tomorrow night about three. It’s worth your time to put some men up there.” The caller had not identified himself, but Barnett knew the voice. He knew, too, that the call was no coincidence; other people could read the paper about the suddenly inquisitive city council. Heat was bad for business.
Barnett was satisfied: the Machine was going to give him a boat he could wave under the noses of Freed and the city council. Barnett would unleash half the force on Ramrod. God knew what else was coming in on other boats, or where. That was part of the bargain; Barnett’s prize was the decoy. Afterwards, three thousand dollars would discreetly appear in t
he nest-egg account he kept in the Cayman Islands. It was all so professional that it enhanced Barnett’s considerable admiration for the Machine. A stupid name, but that was what people in Key West called it. The only thing Barnett couldn’t understand was why an outfit so slick would use such an obvious dirtbag like Winnebago Tom.
Shorty Whining was finished at last with his instructions to the squad of fresh-faced police. Huge Barnett returned to the center of the room for the benediction.
“My information is that this is a very big operation,” he said momentously. “Let’s try real hard not to shoot each other out there, OK?”
JIMMY TALKED FOR hours, like an excited little boy who didn’t want to go to bed, filibustering his way through Christmas Eve. Albury’s nerves collected in a hard knot in his belly. Jimmy’s nerves jangled in his tongue. Everybody had a different reaction. It was hard, waiting in false colors on a black night at sea.
Radio traffic was light: two party boats comparing notes on the snapper fishing; a Coast Guard patrol boat looking for somebody down around the Dry Tortugas, a day sailor who sounded like a horse’s ass promising all the world he’d be off the sandbank sure thing, once the tide turned. If anybody important knew about a big dope run, they weren’t talking about it on the radio. The cops and the smugglers spent most of the time listening for each other, broadcasting only when necessary, and then only on little-used channels. Crystal listened to them all, and that was why he was invaluable. At quarter to midnight, he checked in with Albury with another “weather report.” Everything was go. The sky was clear and star-spangled, and for the tenth time Jimmy remarked on how gorgeous it was.
Albury envied Jimmy his excitement. He had spent the previous day in methodical preparation, paying off his bills and enriching the checking account with what was left of the ten grand. Tomorrow afternoon he would drive up to Miami and look for a place.
