Then, I noticed my wife’s expression darken.
“This happens tomorrow.” Alicia turned the phone around to show us.
“Tomorrow night,” I said. “That gives us less than twenty-four hours to prepare.”
“You guys can’t go in there with less than a day to plan what you’re going to do,” Alicia said. “They’ll have security there, and you’ll be outsiders—it’s not like paying a cover and walking in the door. You’ll be lucky if they even let you walk up without arresting you.” The portside head door came open out of view, drawing Alicia’s attention for a moment. Flor was out of the shower, and within earshot.
“You’re both right about what has to be done,” she said quietly. “Hildon has to be exposed, publicly, but this might not be the time to do it.”
“It’s the only time to do it.” DJ took another swig from his beer. “You ain’t wrong about the problems it poses. Planning a mission is ninety percent of the job, and planning takes time, but sometimes the only choice is to go in with what you got.”
“Assuming you can get in at all,” Alicia said.
The air soured. We all went quiet, listening to waves splashing against Wayward’s hull. I shuddered to think Gabriela and Flor might not see justice done against the people who’d caused them so much hardship. And that Gabriela would stay locked up until we figured out a way to call out Hildon.
Then, my hands went cold. “I might have a way in.” I slid out from the couch.
“Where are you going?” DJ asked.
“I need my phone.” I grabbed it off the counter and headed for the salon door.
“Jerry?” Alicia asked as I stepped into the cockpit. “What’s going on?”
“Gimme a minute. I’ll be right back.” I bounded up the steps to the flybridge. Night had settled around St. Thomas. Out of habit, I picked up my binos, and looked at my back porch. The light was on, and except for a couple bloodstains on one of the Adirondack chairs, it looked the same as it had at dawn.
I let my eyes linger on the house a little longer. After I made this phone call, I might have to sell the place.
Putting the binos down near the helm, I unlocked the phone and opened my contacts list. There were a hundred old numbers in it. Numbers I hadn’t called in years. I should have cleaned it out a long time ago, but every time I went to do it, I figured out a different use of my time, or Alicia needed something, or I went free diving off the beach outside my house.
Arlen’s name was near the top of the list. I tapped it before I could convince myself otherwise.
It rang once.
“Well, Jerry! What an unexpected pleasure,” Arlen said. “I was just thinking about you. I hated leaving our conversation the way we did the other day—just didn’t seem right to say goodbye like that to someone I’ve long considered a surrogate son.”
My fingers went numb. I switched the phone to my other hand. I had to do this for Flor.
“Arlen,” I said. “I need a favor.”
Arlen rented an Amels 180 custom superyacht anchored in Long Bay. The coincidence of him being that close to my house was too much to swallow, but I had to bite back my misgivings. Gabriela and Flor’s lives depended on it. Besides, Long Bay was called Long Bay for a reason. And it was a popular anchorage.
A couple hours after I hung up with him, we motored Wayward around Havensight Point, turned northward into Long Bay, and arrived at a set of coordinates provided by Arlen. His rented boat, Heart and Soul, was anchored exactly halfway between Hassel Island and Frederiksberg Point. The yacht sat both high and low on the water, the hull sleek as a shark’s fin, the boat’s four decks towering over the calm, black waters like an oil platform. Lights ran the length of Heart and Soul, illuminating her as an aspiration for all people.
Wayward came within a hundred feet of Heart and Soul’s stern. I saw a man’s figure break away from beside a woman, both dark against the lights of Charlotte Amalie. He stalked along the boat’s sundeck, moving with singular focus, practically shoving aside the rented crew, trying to get as near to us as possible.
I’d recognize Arlen anywhere.
DJ hailed Heart and Soul over the VHF. An answer came right away. Her captain invited us aboard, asking that we maneuver Wayward thirty feet off Heart and Soul’s stern. A dinghy with a tie line would come out to meet us. The captain welcomed us as Mr. Burkhart’s family.
Under most circumstances, I would’ve forgiven the assumption we were family as a mix-up. Not with Arlen. He demanded all things carried out with machine precision. Woe to the man in Arlen Burkhart’s patronage who couldn’t tie a Windsor knot as crisp as a fresh twenty-dollar bill. There was no oxygen for accidents.
We slowed behind Heart and Soul. A good current flowed, judging by the discharge ports on either side of her stern. Using a crane, crew members lowered her tender into the water, which then moved toward Wayward.
Alicia went down to the guest stateroom to make sure Flor had something to eat while DJ and I tied a bridle to the forward deck cleats on both bows. A bridle was usually for anchoring to take the stress off the windlass. It was basically two dock lines with regular loops at one end to attach to the boat’s cleats and thimbles at the other end, with the rope braided around it. The two thimbles were connected to a shackle that was then attached to the anchor chain.
One of the tender’s crew saw what we were doing and carried Heart and Soul’s stern line to the tender’s bow. A large swivel and carabiner-type snap hook had been fixed on the end for just such a docking. With practiced precision, the helmsman brought the tender’s bow to ours, where the crewman with the heavy stern line quickly clipped it onto the snubber’s shackle. The snubber would keep any wave shock from being transferred to the windlass.
The helmsman backed away from us, as the guy on the bow paid out the rest of the line and dropped it in the water. I shifted to neutral and killed the engines.
Wayward was attached to Arlen’s boat.
Arlen’s eyes never left me. Even when I couldn’t see him, a needling discomfort prodded the back of my neck. He was always a step behind me.
“Honey,” Alicia said softly. She didn’t finish her thought, but instead laid her hand on my wrist, and gazed at me like she’d found me alone at the bus station, clutching a teddy bear to my chest.
“I’ll be all right,” I whispered to her.
When the boat came alongside Wayward’s stern, we all boarded, including Flor, who I carried in my arms. The tender, a sleek, dual console of about twenty-six feet, with rich woodwork and plush seating, took us to Heart and Soul’s stern, where a pair of crewmen caught the line thrown from the boat and pulled us in.
Arlen’s superyacht looked big from thirty yards off, but now, as we were drawn closer to it, I realized the swim platform was wider than half of Wayward’s length.
Heart and Soul’s builders were aware of their boat’s size, too. When Alicia and I went shopping for a vessel, I’d been hard pressed to find anything that let me spread my arms out without whacking into a grill or a staircase or a kitchen cabinet. Not here. The swim platform comfortably accommodated all of us.
“Welcome aboard, sir.” A clean-cut, middle-aged man in a captain’s hat extended his hand to me. “Are you Mr. Snyder?”
I put Flor down. DJ gave her his free arm to lean into.
“I am,” I said, shaking the captain’s hand.
“Excellent.” He reached his toward Alicia and shook, smiling politely. “We’re excited to have some of Mr. Burkhart’s family aboard Heart and Soul tonight. It’s a real treat getting to know our clients, and an added bonus to meet the people closest to them.”
“Thank you, Captain,” Alicia said. “This is our friend, DJ Martin. And with him is Flor Ramos.”
The captain’s gaze switched to DJ and Flor. “Wonderful! Just wonderful.” He clapped his hand into DJ’s and shook. “Mr. Burkhart is entertaining a guest on the sundeck, with an after-dinner drink. Would you care to—”
“A
ctually, Captain Higgins, there’s no need to send these folks all the way up there.” Arlen appeared at the top of the spiral staircase that led down to the swim platform. His smile was as bold as a knockoff watch, with his combed-back hair like crude, smothering dead coral. A loose-fitting button-up shirt covered in tiny neon palm trees was opened down to his breastbone. Linen pants swished around his legs as he came down the steps.
Arlen always presented himself like a cocktail of Hugh Hefner, Sean Connery, and a retired Confederate colonel, but his lack of spontaneity diluted the effect. Every gesture he practiced, every word he picked out days ahead of time, loaded into tubes and ready to fire when the moment was right. Arlen said he was born and raised in West Texas, but I’d never met any of his extended family, or anyone who’d known him longer than Dad.
“Jerry,” he breathed, his smile opening wider as he came toward me. “Great God Almighty, you don’t know how much it warms my heart to have you standing right here in front of me again.” He wrapped me in a hug.
I clenched my teeth. He pretended not to notice.
“You don’t look a day older than the last time I saw you. Must be all that island living,” he said, clapping me on the back with a hearty laugh. “I can see the draw. A few days here, and I’m already looking at properties, half thinking about staying and half wondering about all the development we could do. Have you seen the prices that people are willing to pay for bare islands out here? Think what could happen if two sharks like us got loose in these waters. We—”
“Snyder Holdings isn’t my company,” I reminded him. “It’s Gene’s company. She’s running it.”
“I know that,” he said, with a bewildered smile. “I was thinking out loud, that’s all, Jerry. Don’t take these things coming out of my mouth too seriously. You know how my brain is. I got all sorts of thoughts rattling around in here.”
He let go of me and brushed a bit of nothing from my shoulder. “There’s a lot of money to be made out here is all I’m saying. Every man needs money. Every man needs land, too. And that land needs to be developed. The right partnership could take care of that.”
I didn’t break eye contact with Arlen. The only way to get him to back off was to come at him like you’d come at a bear. You had to present yourself without fear, like you didn’t know how to give an inch of ground. The main difference between Arlen and a black bear was you could shout the bear off.
“Just an idea,” he smiled at me. “No harm meant.”
Sure.
“Is this Alicia?” He turned to my wife, putting his hands on the outsides of her elbows, inspecting her. “Heaven and Earth, isn’t she beautiful? I can see why you fell for her. You know,” he said, leaning closer to her, “he used to have this girlfriend back when he was in high school—he and my son, Jefferson, both went after her—but what woman could resist Jerry? My boy didn’t stand a chance.” He cocked his head toward me and winked.
“I’m a very lucky woman.” Alicia was trying to be polite. but she knew how I felt about Arlen.
Arlen brushed a hair out of Alicia’s face. “If I were twenty years younger…”
Then, as if coming out of hypnosis, his neck twitched. He let Alicia go and set himself to DJ and Flor.
“Who’s this, Jerry? Your boat captain? And his daughter?” He motioned at DJ’s sling. “Is it hard to man the helm with one arm?”
“Flor ain’t mine, sir, and I’m his business associate, DJ Martin,” DJ said, with a barely contained glare. “We’re in oceanography together.”
Arlen turned to me. “I thought you were doing charity work down here?”
“I don’t know why you thought that.”
“Well,” he said, shaking DJ’s left hand. “It’s good to meet you, son. If you’re partnered up with Jerry, I’m sure you’ve got a good, steady head on your shoulders. How’d you get into oceanography anyway?”
I exchanged a glance with DJ. We’d never discussed a cover story. Not in detail.
“I went to school for it,” DJ answered.
“Of course, you did.” Arlen laughed as he turned his back on DJ, heading for the staircase. “Would you fine people care to join me for a drink?”
“We’re here on business.”
“Oh, come now, Jerry. You’re not imposing on me. A drink won’t kill you, will it?”
“Jerry,” Flor said. She sounded out of breath.
“Do you want to go lay down?” I asked.
She nodded.
“Captain,” Arlen snapped his fingers. “Take care of little Flor, would you? Let her pick out her own room below decks.” He winked at Flor, who mustered a smile.
Captain Higgins extended an arm to her. “Can you make it down a few stairs, darling?”
She nodded.
“We’ll be here, Flor,” Alicia added as Flor and Captain Higgins left the swim platform and went into Heart and Soul’s interior.
That done, Arlen started up the stairs. Alicia went first, I came behind her, and DJ followed me.
At the top of the stairs, we entered a cockpit with expensive-looking hickory chairs, arranged around a gas fire pit filled with glass beads. Arlen stood behind a chair, beaming at us.
“Like it? Stick around a little while, and I can have the crew get a fire going. Alicia, I’ll tell you all about little Jerry running around, raising hell with my boy. We can roast hotdogs, like when you were little, Jerry. Wasn’t that fun? Remember that camping trip up to Yosemite you took with me, Jefferson, and your dad?”
Of course, I remembered. But I wouldn’t allow Arlen to slip under the cover of memories from happier times. Not that any of my memories of Arlen weren’t tainted by the things I realized he’d done. The money, the shady deals with men whose names he never dared mention when Dad was in the room.
“Can’t say I recall that one.”
“That’s too bad. You had the time of your life, to my memory of events. I think we went to Big Sur, too, where you and Jeff tried to surf.”
Arlen stepped away from the chair, turning his back while massaging his forehead. “In any case, I can see that you’re a busy man. Let’s go inside and talk shop.” He slid open a tinted glass door, revealing an expansive salon.
I pulled Alicia closer to me. “If he brings out a photo album, I’m jumping over the side.”
“He’s lonely, Jerry.”
“Lonely? He said he had a guest up top, which I’m almost certain will be a hooker. He was practically sniffing your hair.”
“Be nice.” She gave me a look before she went into the salon herself. I followed a couple steps behind.
The salon on most boats would have a small seating area, a table, and a compact galley. Larger vessels like Wayward included a little more; a desk, full-sized countertops, a large refrigerator, and cabinets. Heart and Soul’s salon included all that, more, and a bone-white baby grand piano.
DJ walked in behind me. Decorative molding hid the strand lights in the ceiling, and the floor, with its wood tiles and gold inlays, reminded me of the ballroom floor in a country club where Dad had held his first fundraiser. The wood paneling on all the drawers and cabinets in the salon were like velvet. Every handle, hinge, sconce, and lamp was clad in brass.
Nearer the bow, beyond a dining table with seating for eight and ample room for the crew to move around and serve dinner, a TV the size of one of Wayward’s bunks droned from the wall.
“Look at this piano!” Alicia tapped a key, then her eyes shot to me, full of surprise. “It actually works!”
“Why else would it be here?” Arlen asked. “There’s plenty of room onboard. She’s got another salon above us, on the bridge deck. An exercise room just beyond that wall,” He pointed forward, “al fresco dining on the sundeck, which includes a jacuzzi, a small theater, and a full bar. Most of the cabins and the crew quarters are on the lower deck—but they won’t let me go down there to visit. I’m quartered in the master, which is on this deck. She sleeps twenty-three, including the thirteen crew membe
rs.”
“This would be one hell of a place for an orgy,” DJ said.
I cupped my head in my hands.
“Must’a been quite a pile of money you sank into renting this boat,” he added.
“It’s just money,” Arlen said with a smirk. “And what hope does money have against desire?”
I swallowed back the bile rising in my throat. “That’s bullshit.”
Alicia elbowed me. “Jerry!”
“No, it’s all right. Your husband knows me as the person I used to be. I was a showoff, and old habits die hard.” He smiled a practiced smile. His embarrassed smile. “At this point in my life, the only habits I have left are the old ones. But there is one new thing I’ve learned: time is precious, and I’m wasting yours. Please, sit with me.”
He walked to the oval table at the center of the salon, then pulled out a chair, beckoning Alicia forward with the subtle movement of his eyes. She obliged. I was sure to pull out the chair next to her, and DJ took the chair across from me.
Arlen sat next to DJ. “So, Jerry, what can I do for you? You mentioned something about Hildon over the phone?”
A blond woman appeared, dressed in the same white uniform as the men who’d helped us aboard. She carried a silver tray holding flutes of bubbling champagne and she looked strangely familiar. Under the table, I felt someone tapping my toe. DJ gave me a knowing look—gently signaling toward the blond woman with his eyes. I wasn’t sure what he wanted.
“You’re a board member at Hildon,” I said to Arlen.
The woman with the champagne came up beside him. He turned and took a glass by the stem, thanking her with a quick smile.
“I am,” he said. “But my involvement with Hildon is very… passive.”
The blonde came around to our side, and placed glasses in front of me and Alicia. I left mine where it was, but Alicia picked hers up and took a sip.
“You said you came to help them with their problems,” I said.
“They wanted to ask me, as an informal adviser, some awfully specific… questions they were facing. Being one of the biggest pharmaceutical companies in the world…” He waved his hand and shook his head. “They’re a leader in their industry, and their industry has had record-breaking quarters. Hildon is doing very well. The problems they have are at an exceedingly high level, if you get my meaning, and what wisdom could a neophyte offer them?”
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