Smugglers 4 - South Beach Heat

by Gerald McCallum

  “Better now that he’s gone,” Nikki replied.

  “Good. If you do see him call me anytime,” he responded, then left.

  Nikki spent two hours ordering stuff and doing the books. Then she went back on the dock to see how everything was going. All must be well. Lots of people were on the dock drinking and having a good time. Her work behind her, she joined in the fun.

  Ray and Judy from the forty-foot Regal got her the first drink and they all partied and ate on the dock. The pedestal tower lights came on at dusk, turning night into day, so they kept on partying until late into the night. Nikki and Brett retired around one to Nikki’s apartment.

  In the morning, Nikki got up first, made some coffee, and took a cup to Brett. He got up and they both went upstairs to Glenn’s old apartment and out onto the deck facing the dock to finish their coffee. They could see Don and Mark having Cuban coffee on the back of Don’s fifty-seven foot Pacemaker. There were four or five people up and about on the dock just talking and having their morning coffee. Nikki and Brett waved from their perch on high.

  It was Monday and the work day would start soon. Brett and Nikki stayed on the deck and had two or three more cups of coffee. Then they kissed, and Brett went to his Cat.

  Nikki showered and dressed for her day of work. She went out on the dock to see what was going on this Monday. She stopped and said hello to Don and Mark. By this time Gregg from the Bayliner had joined them on the back of Don’s boat.

  Nikki asked Mark if he’d found all the leaks in the four-plex. He said that he had to get four gallons of milk so that he and the diver could find the last two small holes. It takes two people to find very small leaks in the boats. The diver goes under the boat about where the leaks are. Then he opens the milk, and it goes up through the holes and inside the boat. The man inside the boat drills a hole big enough to put a hanger through so the diver can see it. Then it gets patched. The diver gets one hundred and fifty dollars for the trip against one hundred and fifty dollars per patch, no matter if they are one inch apart or not, the price for friends who call him twelve to fifteen times a year.

  It cost around forty thousand dollars to move a forty by forty four-plex house boat from Miami to Seven Mile Bridge with two 36” tugs and three 600” spools of one inch nylon, plus the chain docks and pilings costs, and there was no guarantee it wouldn’t sink on the trip. Not only were you out what you paid for the houseboat, but what you had paid the tugs. The American Corps of Engineers gave you seventy-two hours to get the remains out of the water or you owed the Feds thirty grand per boat. So owning and moving a boat was not for the faint of heart. Everybody wanted their money in cash and up front because the tugs and The American Corps of Engineers came first.

  Nikki went down the dock and got to work. When she was done, it was noon so she went in to do some book work. While she was at her desk having a sandwich she looked up and out the window. Coming up the canal was the forty-five foot Sea Ray with Captain James on the fly bridge.

  “Oh, shit! He;s coming for me!” Nikki picked up her cell phone and tried to call Brett, but his line was busy, so she could only leave a message that she needed help, and he should bring his gun. James was here! Next she called Mark. He was down in the bottom of the four-plex. His line just rang, so she left the same message.

  She looked out the window again, and James was pulling into his old slip, bow first this time. He jumped off his boat, not even taking the time to shut it off. He was barefoot and had no shirt on. The belt over his shorts held a dive knife, a California Abalone dive knife that was about a foot long with a plastic sheath and plastic handle with a big thick blade and a big weighted butt for banging the abalone from the coral. It also had a built-in brass knuckle for protecting your hand.

  Nikki decided she didn’t want to be trapped with him in the office, so she stepped outside and locked the door. She wanted to meet James on the dock.

  She tried to run past James to get Brett and his gun, but James grabbed her by the hair as she ran by. She lost her footing and fell to the dock. As he stood over her, he pulled the California Abalone knife out of its sheath.

  As he bent over her she could smell drunk on his breath, and he said loud enough for everyone on the dock to hear, “Where’s my money, you cunt?” He let her get up, and she pulled out the bandana with the lock at the end and took a swing at his face, but it barely hit his lip. She swung it again, and this time he stepped back and it missed him entirely. Nikki went to swing again, but he stepped into her swing and grabbed the lock with one hand.

  James pulled it right out of her hand and threw it into the water. He stepped to her menacingly and said “Where’s my money? Tell me now or I’ll gut you like a fish.” He was close and his breath was thick with alcohol. He had her by the hair and was holding the knife to her belly. Just then she heard Mark’s cell phone go off down in the house boat and then it stopped.

  She told James, “Its back under the dock,” hoping he would dive in and look for it.

  Instead he said, “Are you fucking with me? You put it back under the dock?”

  Nikki said, “Why not? You were gone.”

  James told Nikki to go to his boat with him. He made her get his mask and fins. Then they went to her apartment so she could get hers. As they came out she could hear Mark closing the hatch in the four-plex. She stalled James and kept his back to the four-plex. Mark appeared and got up and out of the four-plex. As he approached he could see James’ dive knife so Mark filled his hand with his push blade for defense.

  As Mark got closer, James heard him. He spun around and saw Mark and the push blade and with one swift movement James lashed out at Mark and cut him from shoulder to stomach. Mark’s knife came out of his hand and James took another stab at Mark and hit him in the right side of the torso. Mark stumbled back toward Nikki and as she caught him she saw his filet knife on the back of his work belt. She pulled it from its scabbard and stuck it in James’ chest up to the handle, then backed away holding Mark’s filet knife. Mark fell to the dock like he was dead.

  James looked down at the hole in his chest. There was hardly any blood so he thought Nikki had missed her mark. James took a step forward to get to Nikki. Just as he reached her and held up the dive knife to stab her, his chest opened up and blood came out like a fire hose. James dropped his knife. Then he fell to one knee, and Nikki had indeed met her mark. His heart had been cut inside and he fell over.

  Just then Brett came running down the dock with his gun in his hand. Nikki told him to tend to Mark and she quickly called 911 for an ambulance. He lay at her feet with a gurgling sound coming out of his chest with lots of blood on the dock. By this time half the dock was there and half of them saw or heard what James had said.

  Nikki had dropped Mark’s filet knife by then and knelt over Mark and tried to help Brett with the compress pads he had made out of a shirt. They all got there at once, the cops, the ambulance; everyone except the Chief. Finally the Chief got there, too. The medics stopped the severe bleeding from Mark’s chest and took him to the hospital. The cops and the Chief talked to everyone that saw the fight on the dock. It was relatively easy for Nikki, because there were so many witnesses and the Chief himself had been there twice about crazy James.

  Nikki went to the hospital with Brett to see how Mark was doing. He was in surgery with a forty to sixty percent chance of making it. After three hours Mark was taken into intensive care. Nikki and Brett had to wait about six hours before they could see him. They talked to the surgeon and he said that the stab wound to his abdomen was much worse than the cut in his chest. Mark would be in the hospital about five or six days, and he was a very lucky man.

  Nikki said “No Doc, I’m the lucky one. I’m lucky Mark came when he did, because James was about to kill me when Mark ran up and saved my life.”

  CHAPTER 14

  Brett and Nikki went to the local bar and grill for a beer and something to eat. The doctor had said Mark would not wake up today. It would b
e better if they came back the next morning.

  They got to the dock and everyone came up and inquired about Mark and Nikki. Brett and Nikki told them about Mark, and as they could see Nikki didn’t even have a scratch on her. The blood on her blouse belonged to Mark or James. They were tired from the excitement, so Brett and Nikki went in to go to bed and get some sleep.

  In the morning they got up around seven so they could see Mark at nine. He was awake but had lots of tubes and devices coming out of him, and of course, lots of tape and big scars from all the surgery.

  “How do you feel,” Nikki asked.

  “Okay.”

  “That’s funny, you look like shit,” she quipped. Then she told him how thankful she was for what he had done and she said she would be dead if it wasn’t for him. As she was talking, tears formed in her eyes.

  Nikki and Brett stayed for about two hours, keeping Mark company.

  “Do you need anything?” Nikki asked as they got ready to leave. “We’ll be back to visit tomorrow.”

  When they got back to the dock, Nikki noticed that someone had scrubbed the blood from the wood. Brett went to his Cat and Nikki retreated to her office where she kept thinking how Mark had thrown any thoughts of his own safety aside to fight for her.

  When Nikki visited Mark the next day, she was happy to see that some of the color had come back into his face.

  By the time she got back to the dock, Tina and Randy had started a get-well card signed by everyone on the dock.

  Nikki wanted to show her appreciation in a bigger way. She would buy him a houseboat to live on. The next morning she went to pick up magazines with ads for boats for sale. She searched for a two to five year old sixty-one foot Bluewater to live on as a thank-you for what he had done for her.

  When she got home she started going through the magazines. Since the boat business was in the shitter, she found several, but they were all on the west coast. The internet had pictures, but the computer and phone calls didn’t tell the whole story. She’d have to see them for herself. After a few phone calls, she made appointments for the next afternoon. Then she left the office, found Brett and asked him to see to the dock, informing him that she would be gone for a day or two at the most. Brett said that he would but wanted to know where she was going. She told him it was a surprise for Mark.

  Brett spent the night at Nikki’s apartment. They had dinner and drinks and made love. Nikki got up about five but let Brett sleep in. When she was ready to leave, she kissed him goodbye and left for Naples to start looking at Bluewaters.

  She went up to I-95 then west to Alligator Alley and across to Naples. There were two house boats in Naples and Fort Meyers and three up by Sarasota.

  Nikki got to Naples by 10:00 in the morning. The first Bluewater she saw was a forty-eight footer with gas engines so she went to Fort Meyers. They had a sixty-one footer, gas inboard-outboard also, but very nice. It was only three years old but was overpriced. She went to Sarasota where she made an offer on a five-year old sixty-one footer by fifteen-foot beam, with very nice gas inboard-outboards. The broker accepted her offer and she asked him to find her an insured captain to bring it down to her marina. By the time the deal closed and the boat was delivered, Mark would be back on the dock. She was very happy and left for home.

  Nikki didn’t get back until around 11:00 that night. She went through the motions of saying hello to Brett, asking how everything on the dock was how Mark was doing, then told him she was exhausted and just wanted to go to bed.

  Nikki got up at 8:00 the next morning and went straight to the hospital to see Mark. He looked and acted much better and said, “I’m getting out in two days, but I can’t lift or pull anything for you for a couple of weeks.”

  “Don’t worry about it. I can get help when I need to, and I always have Brett. He’ll do what I say or I’ll get a headache,” she responded. They both had a good chuckle over that. “Well, I’d better get back to the dock. I’ll see you tomorrow, and I plan on picking you up in two days.” She kissed him and left.

  She got back to the dock and caught up on what was going on, then went to her office to make some phone calls. She contacted insurance companies and Boat Brokers and made an appointment with Ken, her special attorney for later that day.

  Nikki got to her attorney’s office about five when everyone was gone for the day. He was having a drink so Nikki had one, too.

  “You killed James on your dock?” he asked.

  “I had to kill him. It was self defense,” she replied.

  “Oh. Sorry. You killed him in self defense. Sorry about the last three months. So why did you want to see me?” he asked.

  “You know that special friend I have who put up the two hundred fifty thousand to take the marina out of foreclosure? Well, he wants to put up some more money to buy Mark a boat for saving my life,” stated Nikki.

  “You mean two hundred thirty five thousand on the foreclosure, don’t you? Or did you really get two hundred fifty thousand and swallow fifteen thousand off the top?” he questioned. Nikki had no reply.

  “So, how much is the boat or better than that how much is he coming up with?” asked Ken.

  “The boat cost one hundred thirty-five thousand,” she replied.

  “That last deal was the last freebee. If you bring me one hundred fifty grand in cash, I’ll wire the one hundred thirty five for you. The rest is mine for the last deal and this one. From now on it will be ten percent of whatever you want. That’s my going rate. So tomorrow, bring me one hundred and thirty five grand for the boat and fifteen grand for me. That’s one hundred fifty grand total,” he repeated. “Nikki, don’t look at me like that. This is what I do. The only reason the marina deal was free was because I felt sorry for you at the time, but now that I know you screwed me, we’re back to business.”

  “Okay, ten percent of the money? Nothing more?” said Nikki.

  “This is a business. My business. And I never mix business with pleasure. Nikki, have I ever come on to you in four or five years? No! Because I work with dangerous people and I must keep my head on straight. Besides, I get all the women I need outside of this business. So put that out of your mind. Not that you’re not desirable, but this is my business. So drink your drink and let’s have a meeting like old friends do.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it,” she explained.

  “Forget it. How’s Mark?” he replied.

  Nikki told Ken about James and the fight and how brave Mark was even though he knew he would probably die defending her. Ken thought the whole story was amazing. Nikki left out the part about the money; after all he was still an attorney and couldn’t be trusted to not want half.

  Nikki left the office and went back to the dock. She had to figure out how to get one hundred and fifty grand out of Glenn’s old car trunk. She thought it was time to move the money because sooner or later they would find Glenn’s car. She thought it would be best to move the money back under the dock. It was in double zip lock bags of twenty thousand dollars each. She only had one night to do this because of the boat, the attorney, and Mark.

  She went down and saw Brett and Brian. She told Brett she would stay in and get some sleep that night because she had to pick Mark up tomorrow. She stayed with Brett and Brian and other people from the dock and joined them for drinks. About seven or eight she went home to have some dinner and get some sleep. She got up around 2:00 a.m. and after looking down the dock, went to Glenn’s old car trunk and got the suitcase.

  Back in her office she took out one hundred fifty grand for Ken, her attorney, to buy the boat with all the essentials. Then she hid the bags back under the dock, making sure they were tied securely. In the morning at Ken’s office she gave him the money, but he would only accept one hundred forty seven thousand dollars, because he covered his ass by billing the standard rate of two hundred fifty dollars per hour. He instructed her to send a check whenever she got a bill from him, then they had a reason for Nikki being there and
a paper trail.

  “What do you want to pay taxes on? Same amount every time we get together?” she asked.

  “Nikki, I have expenses here to cover which you have no need to know about and it’s an excuse for you to be here from time to time.”

  Nikki took out the emeralds and asked, “Can you sell these? They may be hot. James had them from the treasure boat. Retail they’re worth over a million dollars for all seven of them. He swallowed them while diving, and in one of his drunken stupors he told me that they are four hundred years old and cool. So I think I should get five hundred thousand for them.”

  “Of course I can move them. I’ll call you and let you know the figure,” replied Ken.

  “This Bluewater is for Mark, and I need it as soon as possible. So please put it at the top of your list,” said Nikki.

  Nikki got back to the dock in about two hours. She said good morning to everyone she saw and stopped to talk to Greg and Roy. The four of them were heading out on their two boats for the Keys. They would be gone for a week or two. All four were attorneys from New York City and it was unusual that they were friends because Roy and Judy’s boat was a forty foot Regal diesel that was small and fast and did thirty-six mph on the top end and twenty-five mph at cruise. They were both white. Their best friends were on a forty-seven foot Bayliner with an eighteen mph cruise, and Greg was black and Felicia was white. All four of them loved the Keys and boating, fast or slow.

  Later that day Ken called Nikki and told her the boat deal was on and that the vessel was going to be on its way tomorrow. No word for a couple of days on the selling of the stones. The next morning, Nikki went to pick up Mark. They wheeled him out, and he looked good but moved very slowly because he was opened up about eight to ten inches in the abdomen where James had stabbed him. They talked about the fight that almost cost him his life, and Nikki thanked him again for saving her life. She told him to just lay around for a couple of weeks while he got better. Mark wanted only one thing, if she wouldn’t mind. Nikki asked what it was and Mark said, “I want two double cheese burgers and large fries, but I don’t have any money.”