by C J Schnier
“Just a little farther,” Kelly shouted, all her attention focused on fishing the mooring pendant from the water.
As soon as the boat was close enough, Kelly leaned over the lifelines on the bow, slashed the boat hook in an arc to the water, and pulled up the heavy spectra mooring pendant attached to the ball. She then ran a line of our own through the eye of the pendant and tied both ends off on the wooden sampson posts at her feet just as Paramour lost all forward momentum and the wind started to blow her bow downwind. The bow continued to slide downwind until it had taken up all the slack in the lines. The bow was then pulled around, and Paramour came to rest pointing upwind, swaying in the warm afternoon sun.
“Damn we make a good team,” I said, pulling back on the throttle all the way, which killed the engine.
She gave me a sexy smile. “Yeah, we do.”
“The circumstances for being here are much better than the last time too,” I added.
Smiling back at her, I broke eye contact and ducked down the companionway into the salon to turn off the ignition and electric fuel pump. I had learned from previous mistakes that forgetting this vital step would mean a dead battery by morning.
Kelly still had a devilish grin on her face when I came back up on deck.
“So do you want to do the honors or should I?“ she asked, glee and giddiness in her voice.
“It was your idea, I’ll let you be the hero,” I said.
She squealed with delight and ripped her tank top off, tossing it unceremoniously on the deck before taking a running dive off the bow. Like a torpedo, she sped through the water towards the mooring ball and stopped right below it. Mere moments later she resurfaced thrusting a teal colored dry bag in the air.
“Holy shit, it’s still here!” I exclaimed.
“Hell yeah it is. Now get me a ladder before I drown, this boat is impossible to get into from the water.”
“I dunno, I think you look kind of sexy swimming around down there, maybe I should wait,” I teased.
“If you get me a ladder I’ll make it worth your while,” she purred.
“Now you sound like a siren, and what sailor can resist the call of a siren?” I joked as I lowered the ladder over the side.
Kelly tossed the dry bag onto the deck and clambered up the shaky ladder.
“Come on, let’s get you dried off,” I said, picking up the bag and heading downstairs.
Kelly followed right behind, water dripping from her long dark hair. I grabbed a couple of clean towels from the head and tossed one at her. The other one I️ spread out on the port side settee. She sat down on the towel, and I slid next to her, tossing the green dry-bag onto the salon table with a dull thud.
“Shall we?” I asked, the excitement starting to build.
“Absolutely,” she replied, unbuckling the clasp that held the bag closed and unrolling the top of it.
Kelly turned the bag on end, and six half-inch bundles of hundred dollar bills tumbled onto the table, each wrapped in a paper band printed with $10,000 in bold type.
“Huh,” I grunted, looking at the little pile of money. “I expected sixty grand in cash to look more impressive.”
“This isn’t the movies Chase,” she said, gathering up the bundles.
“Yeah, I know, but still, it is sort of a let down visually.”
“Maybe, but it still spends like sixty grand, and that is all that matters.”
“Kelly, I’ve been thinking about this since you told me about this money, don’t you think the DEA will miss sixty thousand in evidence?”
“No way!” she said. “They have no idea how much money we got for them. They don’t even know it’s gone. Besides, it’s not the DEA I would worry about.”
“You mean the cartel don’t you?” I asked, knowing the answer before she said it.
“You know that deal you made for us with our good buddy DEA Special Agent Childers? Yeah, maybe we should have worked in some witness protection into that deal. The cartel will be pissed that we turned on them, and if they knew we stole this money from them too, they would definitely want to hunt us down. So I think that we should keep a low profile, and get out of sight as soon as possible,” she said.
I let this information sink in for a moment. When the DEA had boarded the drug boat that I had been forced to captain against my will, they left me little choice. Either I could go down on a trafficking charge, or I could help them take down Santiago Acosta’s smuggling empire. Since Acosta was the one who had coerced me into the job by threatening my life over a friend’s unpaid gambling debt, I saw no reason to say no. Now I wondered if I had made the right choice.
“So let me get this straight, the cartel that supplied Acosta is in all probability looking for us right now?” I asked.
“Most likely Chase. I’m sorry,” she said, all of her previous mirth gone.
“How exactly does the cartel and their vengeance work? I know most cartels have reputations for being ruthless, but you’re the daughter of one of their leaders, that has to count for something right?”
“Our cartel is more like a business than what you’re thinking of, but yes, they can be ruthless. My father was one of the five main bosses. His brother and three of their closest friends are the other four. They split the profits, each collecting roughly 20% of the profits from the cartel as a whole. That keeps them all even so that one man doesn’t become more powerful than the others.”
“That makes sense, but what about if someone goes to prison or dies?”
“Their share would go to their next of kin, or if they don't have anyone in the business the others split their share,” she replied.
“And with your dad gone, shouldn’t you get his share of the money then?” I asked.
“Only if he is found guilty. They’ll hold on to his share until after his trial. But since he is on trial because of me, not to mention that I cost the cartel money, I’m not sure how they will deal with it. Though, as I understand it, his earnings should go to me if he is found guilty. But you must realize that family is the most important thing to the cartel. More important than even the business. In their eyes, I went against my family. I’m not sure what they will do, but I’m sure they will come after us. In fact, you might be in more danger than me. I doubt they would kill me. You, on the other hand, are just a gringo that has cost them a lot of money.
“Aren’t I the lucky one? It’s a damn good thing they don’t know my boat then. Besides, it’s tough to track people on the water. There are too many hidden and inaccessible areas to hide. We can even hide in other countries. Do you have a passport?” I asked, a plan forming in my head.
“Of course, I’ve got it in my bag. What are you thinking about Chase? You know as well as I do that this money won’t last forever,” she said.
“I say we pull into Marathon, get provisions, fix a few issues on Paramour, maybe get a new dinghy, and make the hop over to the Bahamas. We can hide out in the Abacos or Exumas,” I suggested.
“Hmm, I dunno Chase, Marathon is a high visibility place, and if you remember, my dad had spies all over The Keys. I’m pretty sure they’re all still loyal to Santiago Acosta, even if he is in jail.”
“I just don’t see any other way, I don't think Paramour could handle the trip without repairs, and any other way would leave a paper trail. Luckily most of the dealers in the area were arrested so your dad’s spies will be without any sort of instruction, and I doubt he’s calling any shots from a federal holding cell,” I retorted.
“Ok, let’s do it, I’ve always wanted to go to the Bahamas anyway. We just need to keep a low profile, especially while we’re still down here in The Keys.”
“Absolutely. Now let’s stash that money somewhere safe and get into Boot Key Harbor. We can find where we need to go to get our supplies and parts,” I said, happy to have a plan, but still worried about cartel retribution. “And I think we should get away from this mooring ball as soon as possible.”
“I couldn’t agree more
.” She said sliding out from behind the salon table.
Looking out of the pilothouse windows I couldn’t see anything unusual, but then again I didn’t see anything in this exact same spot when the DEA raided us only a few weeks earlier. I realized that looking over my shoulder was going to have to become second nature for me.
Convincing myself that our short stop had gone unnoticed, I turned the key in the ignition and brought Paramour’s old Volvo engine roaring back to life. Kelly returned from the V-berth where she had hidden the cash somewhere safe, and we both headed up the companionway into the cockpit and bright sunshine. Kelly went forward to release the mooring pendant, and I stepped behind the wheel, ready to get us underway.
Kelly looked back, and after getting the thumbs up from me, she untied one end of the line tied off to our bow and pulled it through the eye of the mooring pendant.
“All gone Captain!” she yelled, coiling up the line as the wind pushed us backward.
Turning the boat south I threaded my way through the shallow and narrow channel. Paramour draws five feet of depth, and the Keys are notoriously shallow. The Gulf side is much more shallow than the Atlantic side, but both sides can be difficult to navigate. Our depth sounder seldom read more than seven feet of depth. We made it through the cut and down to the main yacht channel where it was still shallow, but at least I had more room to breathe. Marathon and Boot Key Harbor were only about fifteen nautical miles from the mooring ball, an easy four-hour trip if we took our time.
It was a near perfect day to meander through the tropical paradise that makes up the majority of the Florida Keys. It was early summer, and the temperatures were already reaching over ninety degrees Fahrenheit. Luckily there was still a decent breeze most of the day, and the azure waters and verdant tropical trees helped to keep our minds off the heat. Also, to my advantage, I had Kelly to keep me distracted.
Kelly had not replaced her tank top after her short swim, choosing instead just to wear her bikini top. She had however put on some tight fitting khaki shorts that accented all the right curves. More than once she got cat calls from young men in fishing boats as they sped by us. Every time I looked at her I couldn’t believe how lucky I was, and it wasn’t just her looks either. She was a hell of an experienced mariner.
Before long we found ourselves paralleling the famous Seven Mile Bridge, a vast and accurately named structure stretching from Marathon to Bahia Honda. I had seen this bridge a few times, and it was always somewhat awe-inspiring that man had built such a thing. I had seen longer, taller, and more beautiful bridges, but this highway over the sea was still impressive every time.
Nearing the middle of the bridge, I turned to pass under it in the channel. However, I had mistimed the tides and was forced to fight a two-knot head current. This slowed Paramour down to a crawl and made safe navigation through the bridge a little squirrelly. Once through to the other side though, the current slackened, and we took off again, nearly to our destination.
During the cooler cruising season, Marathon is a busy port. Luckily for us though, it was the end of that season. The dreaded hurricane season was starting up, and most of the cruisers had left for safer waters. After calling the harbormaster on the radio, he assigned us a mooring ball next to a gorgeous Endeavour 43 ketch named Pearl Lee, a comfortable looking center cockpit cruiser. Though Pearl Lee was a more modern design than Paramour, one that somewhat favored function over form, I couldn’t help but be envious of her apparent comfort and relative luxury.
We repeated the process of picking up the mooring pendant, only this time instead of uninhabited mangrove islands and shimmering blue water, we had an audience of nearly thirty other boats. Worse, the couple aboard Pearl Lee sat on deck watching us like we were the evening’s entertainment. Entertainment we turned out to be too. Kelly couldn’t get the boat hook to grab the pendant on the first try and on the second I had misjudged the wind and had to circle around and approach for a third try. All of this while under the watchful and scrutinizing eyes of several boat crews. Why is it that when nobody is looking I can make a boat do anything I want, but given an audience, everything will go wrong? So much for keeping a low profile.
With Paramour finally secured and swinging on her mooring, Kelly went down below and pulled out two ice cold beers from the fridge. Cracking them open we toasted the couple next to us on Pearl Lee who in turn hoisted their own drinks in salute.
Chapter Three
Bringing a boat into a boatyard is always nerve-wracking, and this one was no exception. Island Boatworks sat at the end of a narrow canal dredged out of the island. It was a dusty and barren place with a hodgepodge of boats in all sorts of disrepair. But, it had a travel lift capable of lifting Paramour out of the water, and they had immediate availability. The wait list for all the other yards was weeks long. Neither Kelly or I had any plans to stay in town that long.
Concrete bulkheads lined a single slip that was cut out of the canal, and a towering blue travel lift waited stoically on shore. I tried hailing the yard on the VHF radio but received no response. The yard itself looked abandoned except for the dozen boats sitting on stands scattered throughout it.
“Looks like we’re going to have to do this ourselves. I don’t see any help,” I told Kelly.
“Yeah, it looks that way, doesn’t it? I’ll get the fenders and lines ready,” she said.
Kelly kicked the four rubber fenders tied to the lifelines over the side and started laying out mooring lines, two on each side. Meanwhile, I kept Paramour headed straight for the concrete-lined slip, one eye on our destination, and one on the depth sounder. With only a foot of water under our keel, I feared that we would run aground before we reached the haul-out slip.
The depth sounder ticked downward until, a hundred feet from the slip, it dropped back off to ten feet of depth. I let out the breath I had been holding. Not having to worry about the depth would make getting in the slip that much easier.
Taking the engine out of gear I crept toward the slip, thankful that there wasn’t much wind to blow me off course. Kelly gave me distances to the seawall at the back of the slip, counting down in regular intervals. As the bow slid into the rough concrete slip I could see that most of the bollards and bits that we could tie off to had long since broken and rusted away. This place was a shithole.
“Come up ten more feet Chase,” Kelly shouted, readying herself to hop onto the seawall to help secure the boat.
Just as she threw one leg over the lifeline, two men in navy blue shirts came running over from behind one of the many boats on stands. One was a tall skinny white man with dirty dreadlocks and a scraggly goatee, the other a clean cut black man.
“Hey, throw me that bow line,” shouted Dreadlocks.
Kelly heaved the line at him, laying it across his shoulder and outstretched arm. Dreadlocks led the line over to one of the few remaining cleats and took up slack as we inched forward.
“Now da stern line, miss,” said the black man in a singsong Bahamian Creole accent.
Gathering up the stern line, Kelly leaned out and placed another perfect throw. The Bahamian took his line aft to a rusty but substantial looking bollard and wrapped the line around it a couple times. He let the line take strain before feeding some slack, repeating the process to slow us to a gentle stop.
I hadn’t seen anyone use that technique to slow a boat, a method called “checking down a line,” since I had worked on towboats on the Mississippi River. It was a technique used to stop unpowered barges weighing thousands of tons, not something often used in the pleasure boat sector. The man knew what he was doing.
Once Paramour was entirely in the slip both men tied their lines off tight. Kelly and I then threw them the remaining two lines and waited as they got the boat positioned precisely where they wanted it in the slip. I killed the engine and beckoned for the black yard-worker to come over.
“Mista Frank will be wit ya in a few minutes,” he said before I could even ask him a question.
/> “He’s the foreman I talked to on the phone?” I asked.
He pointed to a figure emerging from what looked like a trailer office in the back of the lot. “Yes sah. Dat’s him comin’ dere.”
Frank, the foreman who ran this dump, was not at all what I had expected. Though, given the look of the place, I shouldn’t have been surprised. He could have passed for a sleazy used car salesman instead of a boatyard foreman. Stout and rotund, he didn’t stand an inch over five foot three. His graying black hair was slicked back with so much grease I was sure you could fry a turkey in it. He also wore a gold chain that peaked out from his outdated striped dress shirt. It glinted blindingly in the bright Florida sun as he strode across the yard towards us.
“Frank Hertz,” he said in a thick New England drawl, outstretching his hand up towards me.
“Chase Hawkins,” I said as I shook his hand, instantly disgusted by its clamminess. “And this is my girlfriend, Kelly.”
He looked at Kelly, smiled and stretched his hand out to her.
“A beauty like you is a pleasure to be sure,” he said, taking her hand and kissing it, much to Kelly’s visible discomfort.
“Alright there Casanova, let’s not get too friendly,” I admonished him lightheartedly.
“No, no, of course not,” he said dropping her hand. “Besides, I think I’m more interested in this other girl you’ve brought me. That is a wicked nice boat you have there. Not one you see everyday to be sure.”
“Thanks, you’re familiar with this model?” I asked.
“Of course!” he exclaimed, running his hand along Paramour’s hull. “She’s a CT-35 pilothouse ketch. Built most likely in the mid-70s by Ta Chiao in Taiwan. I think they only ever made around forty of them, and only something like six were ever imported into the US. She’s a rare beauty. You see the forty-one footers all the time, both the CTs and the Formosas, they were a much more popular model. But you never see these. She’s a Bill Garden design right?”
