Francesca made a face and looked over at me. “What are you talking about? We barely know anything about each other.”
“Are you kidding?” I balked. “I know tons of things about you now.”
She tipped her head sideways, skepticism written all over her face. “Name five things you know about me.”
“Five things?” I scoffed. “I’ll name ten. I know where you live. I know you like vanilla-and-citrus-smelling wax melts.” I ticked my fingers as I named things. “I know you have six brothers. I know at least five of them hate me. I know you lived in Florida.”
“Boca Raton,” added Al, holding up one gnarly, age-stunted finger.
“Yeah, Boca Raton. I know you’re a police officer but none of your family likes that fact. You drive a 1986 Suzuki Samurai that you are extremely proud of and won’t let anyone else drive. You’re bullheaded. You’re fucking gorgeous. Your mom’s name is Guadalupe, and your father passed away when you were in elementary school.” I held up my hands, my fingers all sprawled out. “Ha, that’s eleven.”
Francesca groaned. She knew I’d won. “There are only a handful of people who call me Frankie,” she admitted. “My brothers all call me Panchita. Everyone at work calls me Officer Cruz. I don’t even think most of the people at the station know my first name.” A soft smile covered her face. “And I really don’t have a big group of friends, I keep to myself a lot. I’m so busy between work, family, and Hugo that I haven’t had a lot of time for friends.”
“So are you saying you’d rather I called you Francesca?” I asked. I’d been staring at her as she spoke, captivated by the delicate little ridge above her top lip and by the way her plump bottom lip moved. Her mouth was positively edible.
She sighed and leaned her head back against her seat. “Well, can I call you Danny? It sounds weird calling you Drunk.”
I grinned down at her. “You can call me whatever tickles your fancy, sweetheart.”
A choking sound in the passenger seat made me turn to see Al with his tongue out, pretending to choke. “Anyone have a spoon they can gag me with?” he muttered.
Francesca smiled.
Hugo let out a low bark.
“Oh geez, there’s that German humor again,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Whatsamatter, Al? All outta pies?”
“You should talk,” he snapped back. “Your mother’s the only one who thinks you’re funny.”
As Francesca covered her mouth to laugh, my phone rang.
A muted pallor fell over the vehicle, dissipating the easy camaraderie we’d all just fallen into. Even Hugo’s eyes looked wide.
I swallowed hard, my stomach instantly rolling into a doughy ball that kneaded itself repeatedly without my consent.
Francesca gestured at me, extending the pinky and thumb on one hand and holding it up to her ear.
I nodded and then slid the little green icon sideways. “Drunk here.”
“Well, so good to speak to you again, Daniel. How are things going?”
“Mmm, could be better, I suppose,” I said dryly.
“Yes, I suppose they could be. But, now it’s finally time to begin our little adventure. Are you ready for your instructions?”
“First I want to speak with Pam.”
“Do you have my money?”
“I want to speak to Pam,” I said, my tone harsher this time.
“Do you have my money?”
“Yes, you motherfucker. I have your money. Now lemme talk to Pam.”
Seconds later, Pam’s voice cut the silence in the SUV. “Danny?” she called out.
“I’m here, Pam.”
“Danny, they said they’re gonna let me go tonight if you bring them the money. Did you get the money?”
“Yeah, Pam. I did. I’ve got it right here. Hang tight, we’re gonna get you outta there very soon.”
“Oh, Danny! Th—”
Pam’s voice suddenly disappeared.
“Pam?” I shouted into the phone.
“Pam had to go get ready for her big appearance this evening,” said Dexter, replacing her on the phone.
“So, here’s the plan. Are you familiar with Tiburon Point?”
“Tiburon Point?” I repeated aloud in the car.
Francesca nodded. She knew the place.
“Yes, somewhat familiar with it,” I lied.
“Alright, well, what I need you to do is to drive out there and await my next phone call. As a reminder, I’ve got surveillance on the area and you’ll be watched at all times. If I so much as suspect that you’re working with island authorities, another gang of good ole boys, or anyone else, not only will Pam be killed, but I’ll let you have that missile I saved for you. Read me?”
“Loud and clear.”
“Alright, it shouldn’t take you more than twenty minutes to get there from the resort.”
My body froze. We weren’t at the resort. We were parked in a parking lot near a little ocean inlet. We’d hoped that if we weren’t at the resort when he called, he wouldn’t be able to follow us from there. I glanced over at Francesca. Could we make it in twenty minutes from where we were?
Thirty minutes, she mouthed holding up three fingers on one hand and making a zero with the other hand.
“Yeah, hey, listen, Dex, I’m gonna need at least thirty. I mighta had the chefs at the resort fix my steak a little too rare this evening. I’ve got a really bad case of the meat shits right about now. I’m gonna need at least another ten on the john before I head out.”
“Perhaps tomorrow you’ll need to do a spray and wash on your seats, then. Because if you’re not in the Tiburon Point visitor’s center parking lot in twenty minutes when I call, the deal is off and Pam is dead.”
With that, the phone went dead.
“Shit,” I said, bobbing my head. “Can we make it?”
Francesca shrugged. “We can sure try. You better go.”
I nodded and looked at Hugo as Francesca slid out of her door so she could fold down her front seat to let me out. “It’s been real, buddy. We should hang out again sometime.” I gave him a pat before climbing out the back of Francesca’s SUV. I tossed the duffle bag into the front seat of the little white resort car that Artie had let me borrow for the evening and then slid behind the wheel. I rolled down the window and shouted over to them. “I have no idea where I’m going.”
“I’ll lead you. When we get near it, I’m going to have to break away so we aren’t seen coming in together. Just follow the signs from there and it’ll lead you to the point.”
I nodded. “Thanks, Francesca. Hey, do me a favor and take good care of Al for me, alright? I can’t have anything happening to him on my watch. He had to sneak away the way it was.”
“Nothing’s going to happen to him. You’ve got my word. Now let’s go! Otherwise we won’t make it on time.”
I pointed at Al. “You keep her safe too. Got it, partner?”
“Don’t worry about us,” shouted Al, waving a hand in my direction. “Worry about your own ass. Got it, kid?”
I nodded.
Before I’d even started the car, Francesca tore out of her parking spot, her taillights glowing in the increasingly dark night air. And then she was gone.
I raced after her, but she was more accustomed to driving on the wrong side of the road than I was. She’d learned to drive that way, having moved to the island in grade school. But for me, it felt like I had two left feet, making turns around corners seemingly backwards. Francesca raced down alleyways and took every shortcut she knew, but then she hit Walker’s Road, the main drag, a four-lane road that spanned the entire island from one end to the other. Having driven around the island once or twice since I’d been there, I knew it was the only way to get from where we were to the other side of the island, where I assumed Tiburon Point was located. She zipped in and out of traffic like a seasoned professional, while I fought like hell not to crash.
My eyes kept glancing at the time on the dash. We had six minutes to get there, and I did
n’t know how far away there was.
When Walker’s Road narrowed to two lanes, Francesca took a sharp turn onto a dirt road. I cranked the wheel hard to follow her, my wheels skidding out behind me. Then suddenly there were cherry lights in my rearview.
Fuck.
“Francesca, I’m getting pulled over,” I said aloud, hoping she could hear me through the app we’d installed on both of our phones.
I pulled over to the side of the road. My hands tapped the steering wheel as I waited impatiently for the cop to make his way to my window.
“I’m sorry,” I said immediately to the young black officer who approached my car. “I know, I probably looked like I was driving erratically, but there was a bee in the car.” The lie was one of the dumber ones I’d heard as a rookie cop, but it was one I thought I could sell.
“A bee?” The man was maybe all of twenty-three or twenty-four. His hair was cut short around the sides and back and was curly on top. “Have you been drinking, sir?”
“I swear, I haven’t had a drop of alcohol. There was a bee in the car. I pulled off the road because it was threatening to sting me! And I’m allergic to bees.” I swatted the air in front of me, pretending to shoo something out the window. “There he went! Watch out!”
The officer ducked and pivoted backwards on one foot. There were no streetlights where we were and the moon was hidden by a grove of palm trees in the distance. Only the glow of his headlights on my bumper cast any light on the darkened road, and yet it was dark enough that I was sure he couldn’t tell whether a pterodactyl had just flown past his nose or not.
I pointed at his shoulder. “Oh my God, stay still, it’s on your shoulder now!”
He hopped backwards, swiping a hand across his shoulder. “Did I get it?”
“Mayday, mayday. Rumpelstiltskin, Rumpelstiltskin!” I shouted into my chest.
The officer heard me yelling and strode back over to the car quickly. “Sir, I’m going to need you to step out of the vehicle.”
“But I’m in a hurry.”
“Sir, out of the car.” His voice told me he meant business now.
The headlights of Francesca’s SUV came barreling out of the darkness. She sidled up next to us. With one elbow leaned out the side of the car, Francesca smiled at the uniformed officer, her hair blowing against the breeze. “Ross? Is that you?”
The young cop turned to look at Francesca, his eyes narrowed. “Officer Cruz?”
“Yeah? You got an issue you need help with here?”
His eyes widened, and he turned to look at me and then back at her. I could tell she’d flustered him.
I hear ya, buddy. She has that effect on people, I thought.
“Oh, well, he was driving erratically,” he said.
I leaned over the steering wheel to yell out my window at Francesca. “It was a bee, Officer Cruz. I had a bee in the car. Picked it up at that last stoplight.”
Francesca nodded. “Oh man, I picked up a bee through that intersection back there too! I think someone must have been moving a bee hive or something.”
“And I’m allergic,” I added for emphasis.
She shook her head, her eyes wide with concern. “Oh, wow. Are you alright, sir? Did you get stung?”
I raked my fingernails across my neck. “I’m not sure. My throat does feel a little itchy.”
Francesca shook her head. “Ross, you better let this man go. If he winds up with an allergic reaction and doesn’t get to a medical professional immediately, it would be on the department, and you know Sergeant Gibson wouldn’t like that.”
“B-but he kind of appears to have been drinking…”
“He hasn’t. Can’t you see the whites of his eyes? They’re fine. He’s as sober as a priest on Sunday. Let him go.”
Officer Ross to turned to look at me then. I could tell he really didn’t want to let me go, but he also seemed to want to do what Francesca wanted him to do. Maybe she wasn’t as low on the totem pole as she thought she was. He nodded at me. “I hope you didn’t get stung.”
I shot Francesca a wink. “Sure thing, Officer Ross, thanks for your concern.” I peeled out of the parking lot. The whole incident had eaten up three of my precious minutes. I had two to spare and still no idea where I was going.
I gunned the engine and took off. My tires spat out gravel dust as I roared down the road. My headlights illuminated a sign that read Tiburon Point and Turtle Bay 3 km.
I pressed on the gas. “What in the hell does three kilometers convert to in miles?” I said aloud, trying like hell to remember something I’d learned in high school. I plowed through a patch of chickens dawdling in the dirt and then nearly rear-ended a slow-moving truck that seemed to think he owned the road. Honking at him, I swerved just as my phone rang.
I stared down at it, my heart frozen in terror. The number said restricted.
It was him.
I swallowed hard as I followed the natural curve of the road, my tires skidding out behind me. Letting it ring a few more times, I finally answered it. My pulse beat loudly in my ears.
“Hello?”
“You’re late.”
“I’m almost there.”
“Almost isn’t good enough.” The line went dead.
I slammed the palm of my hand into the steering wheel. “Fuck!” I screamed into the empty car. “Shit!”
The car broke through the trees and into a clearing, and from there I could see the bay and a long piece of the island that stuck out into the water. It had to be Tiburon Point. I pulled to a screeching halt in the outer perimeter of the parking lot, and my head fell backwards against the headrest. Had I seriously just missed the deadline by a few seconds? Had I just fucking gotten Pam killed?
Fuck!
My phone rang again.
Hope sprang back into my body. My hand trembled as I picked up the phone and stared down at it. It was him.
My voice was hoarse when I answered it now. “Yeah?”
“What took you so long?” he growled.
“I got pulled over by a fucking cop.”
“A cop?” There was a pause. “Did he follow you?”
“No. I’m sure he didn’t.”
“You got the money?”
“Of course I do. I wouldn’t have come without it,” I said, my heart ramming itself wildly against my chest.
“Good. Then it’s time to get started.”
31
“Park next to the visitor’s welcome sign,” commanded Dexter.
I moved the car as he asked and shut off the engine. “Done. Now what?”
“Now, get out of your car. Leave any weapons you might’ve brought behind.”
I hooked an arm through the duffle bag’s straps, hoisted it onto a shoulder, and climbed out of the car and into the darkness with my cell pressed up against my ear. “Now what?”
“Now, I want you to walk up to the northernmost edge of Tiburon Point. There will be a boat waiting for you there. When you get to it, get inside and motor out a little ways. You’ll see another boat not far off the shoreline with a spotlight in it. That’s where you’re headed. Inside the second boat, you’ll find Pam and a friend of mine waiting for you. Leave the cash in your boat, and switch boats with my friend. You keep the girl, we keep the cash. It’s as simple as that.”
“Okay. I got it. Anything else?”
“Yeah, no funny business. Don’t screw this up. Comprende?”
“Yeah.”
“I got eyes on you, Daniel. You screw this up and Pam takes a fucking bullet to the skull.”
“I said I understand!”
“Okay, then this will all be over in a few minutes. It’s been a pleasure doing business with you, Daniel.”
“Yeah, fuck off.”
The last thing I heard before the phone went dead was the nauseating sound of Dexter’s laughter. I double-checked the eavesdropping app on my phone, and once I was sure that Dexter’s call hadn’t disrupted anything, I took off.
Following the
shoreline on foot, I narrated my actions for Francesca and Al. “I’m heading up to the tip of the point. There’s going to be a boat waiting for me. I’m to motor out until I see another boat with a spotlight. Pam and one of Dexter’s goonies will be inside. I’m supposed to take their boat with Pam in it, and they’re taking mine with the cash.”
Since the exchange was happening in the middle of the ocean and it was dark, I knew there was no way Francesca was going to be able to get her sights set on Dexter’s guy, but at the very least they could provide a quick getaway when the deed was done. “When I get back to the shoreline, be ready for me in case we gotta dash. Maybe you should put Al in Artie’s car. Send him back to the resort before anything bad goes down.” The moon provided enough light for me to see where I was walking, and up ahead I could clearly see a small speedboat moored to a tree and idling along the shoreline.
I jogged up ahead to the boat, tossed the duffle bag inside, and untied the line. With my adrenaline pumping, I jumped into the boat and drove away. It didn’t take long before I saw the solitary strobe light glaring at me beneath a dark sky. As I drove, it occurred to me that perhaps Dexter might’ve shopped for the boat Pam now waited in in the same place he’d found that little johnboat I’d been forced to take a few days prior. If that was the case, and if I gave Dexter’s chump the boat I now drove, he’d be able to motor away with the cash while Pam and I sat out all night, paddleless and with our thumbs up our asses waiting for the sun to rise so we could find a passing charter boat again. Which, of course, was Dexter’s plan for making it impossible for me to chase him and the money and gave him plenty of time to get out of local waters.
Sure that I wasn’t about to let that happen again, I formulated a plan as I drove. “Guys, I don’t know if you can hear me all the way out here or not, but there’s been a change of plan. I’m keeping the boat I’m in. There’s a high probability that Dexter’s not gonna like the new plan, so I’m definitely gonna need a car to pick me up at the shoreline, because I’m about to be in an almighty hurry.”
I barely heard the sound of the ocean moving around me as my own blood pumped hard through my ears. My plan had to work. I had to get out of there before Dexter’s goon figured out the truth.
Drunk on a Boat Page 16
