by Lyle Howard
“Ten … eleven… it’s not here!” Lincoln put his hands on his expansive waist. “I really didn’t expect to find him waiting for us on the back of his boat sipping a piña colada. We’d better go and notify the Coast Guard.”
Lance spun around, his face contorted with a mixture of disappointment and rage. “I want to talk to the dock master.”
Amused, Lincoln looked around the boat graveyard. “Dock master? You think a dive like this employs a dock master?”
Lance shoved his way past the detective. “There has to be.”
Lincoln shook his head. “I think you’re pissin’ into the wind here, Cutter!” he called after him. “Face it … Dolan’s long gone!”
Lance stormed off the rickety dock but came to an abrupt stop before reaching the parking lot. Off to his right, a small metal shed with its door barely hanging on its hinges caught his eye. From inside, his keen hearing could pick up the low volume, but contagious beat of Latin mambo music.
Lincoln was more perturbed by Lance’s foolhardy display of temper. They had blown their chance, and now they would have to leave it up to the Coast Guard to apprehend Dolan.
“I’ll notify the Coast Guard on the car radio,” the detective said as he caught up with Lance.
“Mambo music.”
“Say what?”
“Mambo music … I hear mambo music.”
All Lincoln could hear was the ringing of ship bells and the gentle lapping of the swells against the seawall. “I think you’re one cup and saucer short of a place setting, Cutter! I don’t hear a damned thing!”
“Shh … it’s coming from inside that utility shed over there.”
Through the grimy window of the shed, a small light clicked on.
“Jesus, Cutter! Do you have radar dishes instead of eardrums? One of these days, I’m gonna find out how you do that!”
Lance nodded for them to advance cautiously toward the small metal structure. “There’s a lot you don’t know about me, Abe, old buddy,” he whispered.
“Why are you whispering?” Lincoln asked.
Lance hesitated. “Hmmm … I guess we don’t have to, do we?”
Lincoln shook his head. “You’ve been watching too many late shows, Cutter.”
Lance stepped up to the door and knocked. “Hello?”
“Hola?”
Lincoln looked at Lance, and Lance looked at Lincoln. “You understand Spanish?”
Lincoln shrugged. “I was just about to ask you the same thing.”
Lance scowled. “Damn.”
The detective pulled out his gold shield and smiled. “The best icebreaker in the world.”
Lance held out his hand toward the door. “Be my guest.”
Lincoln motioned for Lance to step aside. “Abierto el puerta,” the big man shouted.
Lance looked at his friend in astonishment. “I thought you said you didn’t know a lick of Spanish?”
Lincoln made a sardonic expression. “Don’t be so fast with a compliment, kid. I either told him to open the door, or to roast some bacon.”
Lance sniffed at the air. “Well, I don’t smell any pork, so I guess that means he’s gonna open the door.”
A few seconds later, the aluminum door creaked open and a middle-aged, mustached Latino, who smelled as though he hadn’t bathed in a month, was standing before them. His tank top was tattered and soiled with big yellow splotches that both Lincoln and Lance hoped was only beer. “ST?”
Lincoln involuntarily took a step backward. “Tu hablas ingles?”
“Why you old dog!” Lance laughed.
The detective shrugged. “Fifteen years on the street has to teach you something!”
The Latino eyed them both suspiciously. “I speak a little English.”
“Do you work here?” Lance asked.
The olive-skinned old man pulled at his mustache as he studied the fair-haired stranger. “Si.”
“Do you know all of the boats here?”
The Latino stepped forward and casually closed the door to the shed behind him. An exceptional sense of smell was not needed to whiff the pungent odor of marijuana coming from inside the tiny aluminum building. “inmigración?”
Lincoln held his badge up to the moonlight. “No, policia.”
The Cuban’s eyes opened wide. “Please … por favor … I only have a little fun. No send me to detention … please … por favor …”
Lincoln slipped his badge back into his pocket. “I don’t care about the pot, Paco. We want to know about a boat.”
The dock master put his hand over his heart. “Oh, Senor, any sing you want to know. I was so scared por un minuto.”
Lance pointed out toward the empty slip. “Thirteen-C. I want to know about the boat in 13-C.”
The disheveled-looking Cuban scratched at the coarse stubble on his face. “De Animal Magnetism.”
“The what?” Lincoln asked, again.
“De Animal Magnetism … de name of de boat … de Animal Magnetism.”
Lance looked at Lincoln and smiled. “Just perfect!” Then he turned to the distrustful Cuban. “Tell me about the boat and its owner.”
“Eddie es a bery nice man. He buys me a case of beer every time I mop the deck. Bery nice, Señor Eddie.”
“So, where is the very nice man and his boat now?” Lincoln asked.
The Cuban pointed out at the smooth, dark water in the channel. “Bad luck. You just missed him. He just pull away maybe fifteen minutes gone.”
“What kind of boat is it?” Lance asked, mentally kicking himself for not having looked it up in the computer once he had learned that Dolan resided on the water.
The Cuban stretched out his arms. “Big sailboat … tall mast. Thirty … maybe thirty-five feet. Headed north.”
Lincoln glared at Lance. “The bridge!”
“I’ve got to catch him,” Lance growled.
“What are you going to do,” Lincoln asked sarcastically, “fly?”
Lance motioned out at the battered collection of ships moored in the marina. “Any of them seaworthy?”
The Cuban held up his hands with regret. Senor, even if I could give you the keys to one of de boats, which I cannot, none could even catch de Animal Magnetism. She es the only boat in the marina that runs!”
Lincoln started walking toward the parking lot. “I’m gonna call the Coast Guard up in Port Everglades. I doubt that he’s gotten that far north yet.”
Lance grabbed his arm. “I want him, Abe. Don’t call the Coast Guard just yet.”
The heavyset detective peeled Lance’s hand off his sleeve. “Didn’t you hear the man, Cutter? None of these wrecks can turn their screw. What are you gonna do … swim after Dolan?”
Lance shook his head and pointed out at the parking lot. Lincoln took one look at the jet-ski and then turned back to Lance. “You’re kidding me, right?”
“Does it work?” Lance asked the Cuban.
“Si, Senor, but I cannot let you take it. It is for the turisco during the day. It has no lights for running at night. It is not safe.”
Lance stared straight into the Cuban’s glassy yellow eyes. “Can you smell the gentle odor of wacky weed, Abe?” he asked, sniffing at the air. “I think I’m getting a little buzz just standing here.”
The detective caught onto the subterfuge immediately. “I wonder what the INS would do to an illegal alien who was charged with possession? You do have a green card, don’t you, Paco?”
“Señors … por favor,” the nervous Cuban begged, “my boss will kill me if he learns I let you have de jet-ski.”
Lance stared unblinking into the Cuban’ sorrowful face. “Take your pick, pal … it’s either lend us the jet-ski, or give my regards to Fidel!”
The disheartened Cuban shook his head. “You bring it back in one piece…okay?”
Lance crossed his heart and held up his right hand. “I promise!”
The Cuban reached into his pocket and withdrew a key ring as the trio headed for the pa
rking lot. Lance was tagging right on the Cuban’s heels until Lincoln pulled him back. “You ever driven one of those contraptions?”
Lance shrugged. “It’s a motorcycle on the water. How hard could it be?”
Abe Lincoln covered his eyes with his hands. “Oh Lord, that’s what I was afraid you were gonna say!”
TWENTY
“Are you sure you know what you’re doing, kid?” Lincoln worried as he watched Lance and the Cuban roll the creaking old trailer down toward the water.
Straining under the pressure of Lance’s urging muscles, the underinflated trailer tires crunched across the gravel-topped parking lot. “My mind’s made up, Abe,” Cutter said, managing a thin smile. “Now, are you going to stand there yappin’, or are you gonna lend us a hand?”
Lincoln muttered something to himself about Lance’s bullheadedness and walked around to the front of the trailer and pitched in to drag it closer to the concrete ramp. “If you’ve never driven one of these damned things before, Cutter, you could kill yourself!” the cop protested.
“Es just like driving a motorcycle,” the Cuban tried to reassure Lincoln.
The doubtful detective tugged on the handlebars. “You ever driven a motorcycle, kid?” he asked, somehow fearing the answer.
Lance pushed a little harder. “Come on, we’re wasting time jabbering like this.”
Lincoln was now guiding the trailer more than he was pulling on it. “Can I take that as a no, then?”
A sixty-four-foot Bertram Cabin Cruiser glided majestically past the rundown marina like a Rolls Royce slumming past a junk heap. Lance thanked his lucky stars that the big vessel was headed in the opposite direction from the northern course he intended to steer. “Take it as anything you want, Abe. Just maneuver the front end of this thing toward the water, will ya?”
Reaching the crest of the algae-covered ramp, Lincoln stared northward up the hundred-yard-wide waterway. “It’s awfully dark out there, Cutter. Are you sure you won’t reconsider this crazy scheme of yours? I can get us to the Port Everglade’s Coast Guard station in fifteen minutes by car. I’m sure they can cut off Dolan before he heads out for the open sea.”
Lance stood erect and wiped a bead of sweat off his forehead with the back of his forearm. “If you’re not going to help me, Abe, then just get out of my way.”
The cop’s bright eyes reflected disappointment, but at the same time, a slight fleck of jealousy at his friend’s intensity. “This isn’t the way cops are supposed to handle things, Cutter.”
Lance waited impatiently as the Cuban began unchaining the jet-ski from the trailer. “Then it’s a good thing that I’m not a cop, right?”
Lincoln chewed on his lip. He’d have given his right arm to be puffing away on a coffin nail right now. Turning his back to Lance, he stared into the darkness of the channel. “This is insanity, Cutter,” he cautioned, shaking his head disconcertedly. “What are you going to do if you catch up to him, anyway?”
Lance was too busy studying the limited controls on the jet-ski to digest the seriousness of the question. “We’ll have a nice talk.”
Lincoln snickered under his breath. “That’s a conversation I’d love to hear.”
Lance ran his fingers across the throttle of the jet-ski as the Cuban threw the last of the rusting chains away from the trailer. “You’re going to have to give me a crash course on driving this thing, Paco.”
Lincoln winced at Cutter’s poor choice of terminology. “Did you have to say crash course, Cutter?”
The Cuban unhooked a single small key from his bountiful key ring. “De name is Estaban, Señor, no Paco … Estaban Munoz.”
Lance took a deep breath and blew it out nervously. “Okay, Estaban, I’m sorry … teach me.”
Lincoln held up his hands. “Hold on a minute. I can’t just stand idly by and watch you try to commit suicide while Eddie Dolan sails off untouched into the Atlantic.” He pointed to the old jet-ski. “I’m not gonna take any chances. I’m heading up to the port, just in case he should escape you and your jaunty jalopy here!”
Lance wiped an annoying wisp of his blond hair from his eyes. “Oh, ye of little faith!”
Lincoln stepped up and jabbed his thick left index finger at Lance’s chest. “You’ve got fifteen minutes to catch him, Cutter, ‘cause once I get to the Coast Guard station, I’m sending out the cavalry, understand?”
Lance pouted wryly. “Does this mean you’re not going to wish me a bon voyage!”
Before leaving, Lincoln again jabbed at Lance’s chest, this time to add emphasis to each of his parting words. “Just … don’t … kill … yourself!”
Lance smiled warmly, because he knew those few coarse-sounding words would be the closest the hardened detective would ever come to expressing his true concern.
Munoz stepped out of Lincoln’s way as the detective stormed past him, grumbling something under his breath that the Cuban could not understand. “Un hombre fuerte,” the Cuban commented, as he turned back to Lance.
“What?”
“Tough guy. De Detective es tough guy.”
Lance helped lift the jet-ski off the trailer and set it down at the top of the ramp. “Don’t let him scare you, Estaban … he’s really a teddy bear.”
“Señor?”
Lance started to describe the stuffed animal, but then realized he was wasting precious time. “Never mind, Estaban. Just show me how this thing works.”
After an all-too-quick summation of the controls, the Cuban helped Lance slide the jet-ski down the slippery, slime-coated ramp to the water’s edge. “Your friend was right, Señor, es very dark out here. Not safe … not safe,” he said, shaking his head warily.
Lance took the ignition key from the Cuban and hooked it onto a foot-long coiled cord, known as the dead man’s chain. He then took the looped end of the cord and slipped it over his left wrist. Now, if he were to fall off of the jet-ski, the key would be yanked out of the ignition and the jet-ski would circle back toward him under its own limited auxiliary power. “So now I just give it the gas and go?”
Estaban Munoz blocked the jet-ski’s path to the water. “Es very dark out there, señor, I must warn you against doing this!”
Lance reached over and put his hand on the Cuban’s shoulder. “I appreciate the sentiment, Estaban, but my mind is made up.”
Munoz backed away. “Watch for the channel markers, Señor.”
Lance sat down on the padded seat. “They’re all lit, right?”
“Most of them.”
Lance frowned. “Most of them?” The Cuban shrugged.
“Hold on a second,” Lance said, unhooking his wrist from the dead man’s cord.
“Señor?” the Cuban asked, moving closer, half-hoping that Lance had changed his mind.
Lance reached into his shirt pocket and withdrew a small white plastic case. He had never done this in public before, but he needed every advantage he could get. He flipped open the case and held it out for the Cuban to take. “Hold this open for me, will you?”
The Cuban took the plastic case from Lance and looked on in wide-eyed wonder at what happened next.
Lance reached up to his face and, one at a time, delicately removed his contact lenses. Like a light coming on in a darkened house, the river suddenly came alive in infrared shades of crimson and gray.
“Aye Dios,” the Cuban shrieked at the sight of the reptilian-like orbs.
Lance blinked a few times in the Cuban’s direction trying to get his naked eyes to focus. His thin black pupils ringed by their ruby red irises had become accustomed to the prescription tinted lenses he always wore. The Cuban covered his mouth with his hand. “Nothing to be frightened of Estaban.”
“But señor …your eyes ….”
Lance took back the plastic case that now held his special lenses. “We’ll keep this just our little secret, right, Estaban?”
The Cuban gulped audibly. He wasn’t sure of what Lance wanted him to say.
Lance blinked his satanic-looking eyes for effect. “You won’t tell anyone about this, will you, Estaban?”
The Cuban shook his head, dumbfounded. If this spectacle wasn’t enough to swear him off the loco weed, then nothing was.
Lance slipped the lens case back into his pocket and re-attached the cord around his wrist. “Give me a push, will ya, Estaban?”
The Cuban silently obliged, all too willing to send Lance and the jet-ski sliding down the scum-coated incline.
Once in the water, Lance let the jet-ski bob along with the sluggish current until he was in the middle of the channel. Feeble rays of moonlight filtered over the towering pine trees that lined both sides of the intracoastal. While the nebulous moon glow would have sent even the most seasoned sailor scrambling for a spotlight, Lance’s phenomenal night vision enabled him to distinguish the faint silhouette of an overweight squirrel scurrying up one of the trees with a pine nut locked tightly in its jaws.
To the east, Estaban Munoz waved at him from the top of the ramp. The Cuban was motioning to Lance with a twist of his wrist to start the jet-ski’s engine. Reaching down with his right hand, Lance unlaced his shoe and tossed it into the water. The temperature of the current was lukewarm as Lance began paddling with his foot to face the jet-ski northward, up the river.
With a turn of the key, the jet-ski coughed once, twice, three times, and then died. A plume of acrid-smelling smoke lurched out of the exhaust pipe just above the water line. “When was the last time you rented this damned thing?” Lance screamed.
The Cuban held up his hand to his ear, gesturing that he couldn’t hear what Lance was yelling.
Lance turned the key again and this time, the spark plugs fired cleanly and the engine nearly caught. Lance twisted the throttle, feeding gas into the engine the way an automobile would be cold-started in the heart of winter. As the old proverb went, the third time was the charm, and the engine growled to life under Lance’s silent prodding, vibrating the tattered vinyl cushion he was seated on.
