by Carl Hiaasen
It was an overcast morning, the sky gray and shrouded with the distant purple promise of an afternoon squall. A three-foot chop followed the fishing boat south-southwest, toward Vaca Key and the town of Marathon.
Four hours later, Augie Quintana was using an eight-inch screwdriver to pop the locks on a gray-over-black Chevrolet Blazer, property of the Florida Marine Patrol, that was parked at a Marathon gas station.
Back in Key West, Crystal’s wife was escorting another visitor into the muggy workshop.
Tomas Cruz gave Crystal’s massive hand a perfunctory squeeze, then pressed an envelope into the palm. “Three thousand even,” Winnebago Tom said. “Just like I told you: one boat only, coming in through the Bahia Honda channel about midnight.”
“Fine,” Crystal said neutrally. “Your people will be listening on channel eleven, as usual.”
“That’s correct.” Tom wore a silk shirt, open to the breastbone. Crystal counted four gold chains on his brown neck.
“Since when are you guys running aliens?” Crystal asked. “Shorty Whitting told me about the mess up the Keys.”
“It’s a long story,” Tom said.
“It was stupid. You guys don’t know when to quit.”
“We pay you for your ears, not your lip.” Tom pretended he was kidding. He flashed his teeth and cuffed Crystal on the shoulder. “You gonna count your money?”
“Nope.”
“Well, OK. You don’t think there’s gonna be any problems with the law tonight, huh?”
“No problems,” Crystal said. “I’ll take care of it. If I hear anything, your boys will be the first to know. I’ll use the police scanner, the single sideband, the VHF, the works.”
“As long as you got the cops covered.”
“Don’t worry, Tom,” said Crystal. No cops, he thought, but you’re going to wish there were.
Chapter 13
THERE WAS a light knocking on the office door. Christine Manning folded that morning’s edition of the Key West Citizen and placed it on a corner of the desk. As usual, she wasn’t expecting anybody.
“Yes?”
“Can I come in?” It was a woman, tall, with dark red hair and eyes both shy and alert. She wore blue jeans and a tissue-thin pullover that clung to her breasts. Christine Manning knew who she was: Breeze Albury’s girlfriend.
Laurie Ravenal introduced herself and sat down stiffly.
“Am I interrupting anything?”
“Oh my, no.” Christine smiled. “I don’t get many visitors. Not many of the locals would be caught dead talking to me.”
“They don’t like interference, especially from Tallahassee,” Laurie said. “You shouldn’t take it personally. The Governor himself would get the cold shoulder down here.”
The special task force had been formed a year earlier in the Pavlovian politics that logically followed the embarrassing arrest of a number of Key West’s finest, who had been caught taking big bribes. The Governor declared that the new squad was going to root out the island’s most egregious scoundrels, but, in reality, most of its paltry budget had been squandered on publicity junkets before Christine Manning had even been handed her plane tickets.
Newly divorced, bored to numbness with sleepy Tallahassee, and admittedly hungry to make a crusading name for herself, Christine had accepted the Governor’s offer. The Key West locals had promptly given her the smallest office in the courthouse, a peeling desk that did not lock, and a telephone upon which half the civil servants in Monroe County could eavesdrop, if they wished.
For nearly eleven months, Christine had tried to make friends and cultivate dependable sources, quietly building up her files but accumulating almost nothing of prosecutorial value. In the meantime, she had watched enough sunsets at Mallory Square to last her a good long lifetime. She was ready to get off the Rock.
“Laurie, you’re obviously not here to give me the cold shoulder,” Christine said.
“No.”
“You want to talk about Breeze?”
“No!” Laurie blushed. That was the last thing she wanted to talk about. “It’s Drake Boone,” she added quickly. “What have you heard about Boone?”
“I suppose I’ve heard everything,” Christine said. “That he’s a bagman for a big smuggling operation, a fixer here at the courthouse, an errand boy for Chief Barnett. I’ve heard about his home on St. Thomas and his apartment in Manhattan. He’s a snake.”
“What about his personal life?” Laurie asked.
Christine shrugged. “He snorts coke, like everybody else in this town who can scrape up a dollar bill.” She decided not to mention how, after only one week in town and knowing full well who she was, Drake Boone had greeted her with a hug and a small amber vial of Peruvian flake. Terrific sense of humor.
Laurie fidgeted nervously. “There’s a young girl over at Duval Hospital that you ought to see. She can’t tell you why she’s there or what happened, but her mother might. What I heard was that it happened at a party at Drake Boone’s office.”
“What happened?”
“This kid ate about a dozen Quaaludes.”
“And she’s still alive?”
“That’s a matter of opinion. Go look for yourself. My boss heard about it from a friend who was a patient at the hospital. Says the girl’s a veggie. He says Boone fed her all those ‘ludes from a mason jar.” Laurie sighed and stood up. “I don’t know what else went on, but I think it’s just as well that the girl can’t talk about it.”
Christine asked, “How old is she?”
“Fifteen.”
“What’s her name?”
“Julie. Julie something. Bobby knows. My boss.”
Christine Manning began to write in a legal pad. “That would be Bobby Freed, the councilman.”
“Yes. He’s very upset.”
“Were there any other witnesses?”
“Probably,” Laurie said. “It’s awful. After I heard Bobby talking about it, I figured somebody ought to do something. Somebody ought to know, even though nothing will come of it.”
“You might be surprised,” Christine said.
“It’s awful,” Laurie said.
“It certainly is a nasty little yarn. I’ll pursue it, I promise,” Christine said. “While you’re here, tell me how Breeze is doing.”
Laurie smoothed the crease from the front of her jeans, picked her purse off the floor, and moved toward the door. “Oh, he’s fine,” she said earnestly. “He’s out on a fishing trip.” Then she was gone.
Christine Manning turned back to the newspaper on her desk. In red ink she underlined a short and sketchy front-page article under a headline: six die in shooting / van wreck at largo / SMUGGLERS SOUGHT.
Another nasty little yarn.
EDDIE FONTAINE followed the convoy through Big Pine Key, past the federal prison, past the bleached waterfront cottages, past the Old Wooden Bridge Fishing Camp, and over a ten-million-dollar concrete bridge that would have been a scandal anywhere but the Keys. It was a bridge to nowhere, to an island called No-Name Key. No one lived on No-Name. There was no water, no electricity. The bridge and the highway existed only because some clever politician had a stake in such things. Bugs thwacked the windshield of Fontaine’s pickup and hung by the glue of their blood. A tiny Key deer, the size of a golden retriever, dashed between the speeding cars and disappeared into the red mangroves. There was only one reason on God’s earth that Eddie Fontaine would have pulled himself out of that pretty second-grade teacher, kissed her good-bye on the left breast, climbed into his old Army greens, and driven off into the ravenous night.
Eddie Fontaine smelled money. When Winnebago Tom called, Eddie came. He wasn’t proud. Ten thousand bucks was a new trailer, or a new truck, or maybe one of those Checkmate speedboats that Boog Powell was selling. Fontaine chuckled to himself and took another draft from a flask of Jack Daniels. There were a dozen ways to look at it, ten thousand dollars. Enough cocaine to keep that little teacher bucking for weeks.
&nb
sp; Fontaine fixed his eyes on the taillights of the car in front of him. The road would be ending soon, not at a fishing village or subdivision, but at water’s edge. Ahead, the other cars slowed and brake lights winked red in the night. One by one, the drivers turned off a dirt road that cut a washboard trail to the loading site. Fontaine put the flask between his knees and used both hands to steer. A family of raccoons, hunkered down at a trash pile, gave a green-eyed stare to the caravan but never budged from its supper. Night swallows swooped through the glare of the headlights to snatch june bugs and mosquitoes.
A car’s horn sounded. The off-loaders cut their headlights and parked. The water of the Big Spanish Channel was visible through the mangroves; Eddie Fontaine and the others wordlessly picked their way through the roots and rocks to the shore. There, parked at the end of a man-made jetty, sat two Winnebago campers and a beer truck.
Eight men comprised the off-loading crew, including Tom’s lieutenant. From past experience, Fontaine knew that Tom’s man wouldn’t be doing much of the heavy lifting. Well, that was fine. As long as he brought the cash.
The men gathered at the tip of the jetty, murmuring, smoking, slapping at their arms and legs to kill the bugs. Fontaine knew four or five of them as neighbors, high school buddies; the rest he knew by sight. It was a small fraternity of regular faces. Tom said it was best that way.
Fontaine looked at his wristwatch. It was ten minutes past midnight.
“What kind of boat this time?” he asked Tom’s man.
“Just a boat,” the man said, frowning. Eddie had been drinking again. How many times had Tom warned him?
“What do we load first, the beer truck or the campers?” said Eddie Fontaine.
“I’ll let you know,” said Tom’s man, walking away.
Fontaine climbed into one of the Winnebagos to look for a place to lie down, but the insides of the camper had been stripped to the bare aluminum. Fontaine hopped out and sat on the corner of a bumper. Across the water, in the distance, was the Seven Mile Bridge. The only lights along the blackened ribbon were trucks and cars; the only sounds in the night were their engines.
Eddie Fontaine took another sip of whiskey. The real question was whether to tell his wife about the money. He couldn’t just go out and buy a speedboat and not expect her to ask questions. She was no damn fool. The kid needs braces; that would be noted, too. The other times he had managed to stash a little and lie about the rest. Shit, she never cared where it came from. Throw in a gold necklace or a new color TV, and she all of a sudden forgot what she wanted to ask about.
A shoe box, Fontaine decided with a sour belch. That’s where tonight’s wad was going. Fuck Junior’s rotten teeth.
He got up and weaved a few yards to the edge of a mangrove clump, where he unzipped his jeans and began to urinate. He yelped when a voracious horsefly scored a direct hit on his pecker.
“Eddie!” shouted another off-loader. “The boat’s comin’.”
The men swarmed to the end of the jetty. One of them began to light Coleman lanterns. The belabored sound of a diesel rode the breeze up the channel. Huffing, Eddie Fontaine joined the others, watching from shore.
“For Christ’s sake,” grumbled Tom’s man. “Tuck yourself in, willya, Eddie?”
A crawfish boat with three men aboard hung fifty yards off No-Name Key. Tom’s man could see the bales stacked to the gunwale. With an obliging wind you could have smelled the stuff all the way to the mainland. He lifted a lantern and swung it like a pendulum for several seconds. A spotlight winked back at him from the fishing boat; the captain aimed its bow toward the jetty.
“OK, let’s keep it short and sweet,” said Tom’s man, addressing the group. “We load up as fast as we can, the Winnebagos last. Then give the drivers thirty minutes to get out of here.”
“When do we get paid?” someone asked.
“After the load is gone,” answered Tom’s man. “And if I catch one of you bastards ripping off even a handful of weed, you’ll be swimming.”
The boat nestled up to the jetty. A porky man on the bow tossed a rope to one of the off-loaders; the others formed a makeshift fire brigade from the boat to the beer truck. The first fifty-pound bale was on its way when the shotgun punctured the summer night.
“Fuck me,” whispered Eddie Fontaine, dropping the bale.
Tom’s man raised hands, imploring silence, like the marshal at a big golf tournament. The other men turned their eyes north, to Little Pine Key and a new sound. Another boat.
“Let’s get out of here,” one of the off-loaders murmured.
“No!” barked Tom’s man. “No, not yet. Maybe it’s just trap robbers or something. Sit tight for a second.” He snuffed the lantern he was holding.
The boat came anyway, rounding the point of Little Pine, faster and faster, the rasping of its engine followed by the sound of pushing water.
“That fucker’s crazy,” Fontaine said.
Tom’s man strained to see the new boat. “Where are his goddamned lights?”
Then there was one; blue, whirling ominously in the wheelhouse, firing cool beams every second into the sweaty faces on the shore of No-Name Key. The shotgun roared again, and this time the off-loaders scrambled for their cars. The smugglers cannonballed off the grass boat and hit the water swimming.
Eddie Fontaine lurched through the mangroves to the spot where he thought he had parked the pickup. He was off the mark by forty yards; half-running, half-stumbling, he made it to the truck breathless and nearly sick. The mangrove roots had shredded his jeans and left bloody tracks along both shins.
Fontaine turned the key and gunned the truck in the general direction of escape. As it barreled down the dirt road, another fugitive exploded from the mangroves. Fontaine spun the steering wheel and swerved off the road. The pickup came to a stop at a dump site, crashing into an old Frigidaire.
“Hey!” the runner called. “Gimme a lift.”
Fontaine waved and opened the passenger-side door. It was Tom’s man. His face was damp. The scarlet remnants of an Izod shirt hung from his neck. Fontaine told him to get in.
“Thanks, Eddie. My car’s up the road about half a mile. It’s the El Dorado.”
“Shit.” Fontaine backed his truck out of the trash heap and punched the accelerator. “What happened, man? Who the hell called the Marine Patrol?”
“I don’t know.”
“Was it Haller? Could you see?”
“Couldn’t tell.”
“Fuck me,” Fontaine said, scowling. “Tom said the cops were taken care of.”
“That’s what he promised,” said Tom’s man, glumly.
The intruders waited twenty minutes. By then, the frightened crew of the grass boat had scrabbled ashore and escaped with the other smugglers. All that remained at the jetty was the boat; its cargo; the Winnebago campers, deserted forever; and two Coleman lanterns aglow against the tangled mangroves.
Breeze Albury guided the Diamond Cutter toward the island. Augie knelt on the bow, cradling the shotgun. Jimmy stood shirtless at his side, holding a coiled rope.
Effortlessly, Albury sidled the Diamond Cutter up to the grass boat, Tom’s boat. The pirates worked swiftly.
Chapter 14
(From the deposition of James E. Cantrell, Jr., taken on the sixth day of October 1982, before Christine Manning, counsel to the office of the Governor. Also present was court reporter Mary Perdue.)
MISS MANNING: Jimmy, can you tell me how you knew that load of marijuana would be coming into the Big Spanish Channel that night?
MR. CANTRELL: Breeze found out, somehow. On our way back from Key Largo, we gassed up the boat in Islamorada. Breeze got off and made a couple phone calls. When he came back, he told us that Tom had a load coming in.
Q: That would be Tomas Cruz?
A: Right. After that, we brought the Diamond Cutter down to Marathon. Augie got out near the Vaca Key Bridge. I guess he was gone an hour or so before he came back with this police bubble. You know,
the light they flash at you when you’re supposed to stop. Like the troopers have on top of their cars. I don’t know where Augie got it, and I don’t want to know.
Q: What did Captain Albury say?
A: Nothing. He just hooked it up to the twelve-volt we had in the pilothouse. This was after we already anchored behind Little Pine Key.
Q: While you were waiting to ambush the other boat?
A: Ma’am, I wouldn’t call it an ambush. All we had was the blue light.
Q: And the shotgun.
A: Yes, ma’am. That was my idea, firing the Remington into the air. I figured it would speed things along.
Q: Did Captain Albury ever explain why he wanted to hijack the other lobster boat?
A: He didn’t have to. Part of it was the money, the fifty grand Winnebago Tom owed us. Breeze needed something to bargain with. And let me tell you, five tons of weed is good for openers.
Q: Jimmy, what took place after the hijacking at No-Name Key?
A: Breeze took the dope boat around to the Mud Keys. Me and Augie followed in the Diamond Cutter. Made good time, too. Then Breeze got on the radio to somebody and passed the word. He told them to let Tom Cruz know that we had his five tons.
Q: Isn’t that blackmail?
A: Is it? It seemed pretty damn polite, compared to what those fuckers put us through. Tom should have given us the money. The right thing to do was pay us, like he promised. Breeze didn’t want his fucking grass.
Q: So Mr. Cruz learned what had happened to his boat?
A: Oh, yeah.
Q: And he knew what Breeze Albury wanted?
A: I’m sure he did.
Q: Did he give Captain Albury an answer?
A: Yes, ma’am. It was quite an answer, too. Just about the worst thing I ever heard of. Nothing surprised me after Winnebago Tom did what he did. Not a goddamned thing that happened after that really surprised me. Not the least.
Chapter 15
THE GIRL sat cross-legged on the bed, the lute’s fretted neck leaning gently against her left breast:
