Double Espresso (A Loretta Kovacs thriller)

by Anthony Bruno

  “You know what you oughta do?” Rispoli said, grimacing against the spray. “Hang a right and hug the shore. Weave in and out of those little islands over there. Maybe we can lose ’em.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Marvelli said, clearly resenting the backseat driving. “You know how deep it is over there? I don’t. We could run aground.”

  Rispoli shrugged. “Or we could get caught.”

  The cigarette boat was gaining on them. It seemed huge compared to their boat, a thirty-five-footer at the very least. There were two men on board that Loretta could see. The one in the passenger seat was holding a bullhorn to his face. “Stop your craft immediately,” he ordered. “Cut your engines and show your hands.”

  Rispoli flipped him the bird.

  “Don’t do that,” Loretta scolded. “They’re mad enough.” Rispoli sneered. “You mean if I wave nice, they’ll go away?” Loretta just glared at him.

  “Hey, Gus,” Marvelli yelled from the bridge, “come over here and give me some advice.”

  “You mean I gotta get up?” he said.

  Loretta grabbed him by the back of his shirt and hauled him off the bench.

  “Easy! Easy!” he snapped. “I hate pushy broads,” he muttered.

  “I’ll show you pushy. I’ll push you overboard if you don’t watch it,” she snapped back.

  Rispoli went over to Marvelli, sulking all the way.

  “Come on, Gus. You’re the bad guy here,” Marvelli said. “Tell me what I should do.”

  “I told you already,” Rispoli shouted impatiently. “Go over by the shore! Use them islands!”

  The cigarette boat was getting closer, and the man on the bullhorn was getting louder. “Stop your craft immediately. Cut your engines. I repeat, stop your craft immediately.”

  The sound of automatic gunfire reverberated over the water in three-shot bursts. Loretta could see the bullets plinking into the water ten feet short of the stern. “Do what he says, Marvelli,” she yelled. “Hug them islands!”

  Marvelli spun the wheel, and the boat veered sharply to the right. Loretta hung on to the rail to keep from being thrown overboard. He headed for a small rocky island that was about the size of a tractor trailer. It was no more than a hundred feet from the big island. “This better be deep enough,” he shouted.

  Loretta held her breath, imagining them hitting rocks in shallow water, the bottom of their boat shattering like an egg, and them flying through the windshield at seventy miles per hour.

  They zoomed around the little island, Loretta gritting her teeth and gripping the rail, but to her amazement nothing happened, they just kept going. She looked back to see where the cigarette boat was. It swerved around the island, barely slowing down to do it, and now they were closing in.

  “Over there,” Rispoli said, pointing to a cluster of even smaller islands, the smallest one no bigger than a Volkswagen Beetle. These islands were even closer to shore.

  Marvelli’s face was clenched like a fist, and so was Loretta’s stomach. They were going to hit bottom, she was convinced. They were going to die.

  Loretta looked back. The cigarette boat was charging hard. The report of the automatic gunfire carried over the surface of the water a split second after the bullets plinked into the water six feet off the starboard side. The man with the bullhorn was firing an assault rifle at them.

  “I can’t get in there,” Marvelli grunted as he turned the wheel and skirted the islands.

  “Chicken,” Rispoli sneered, lighting another cigarette.

  “Do you have to smoke?” Loretta complained as smoke blew into her face.

  Rispoli gave her a look. “You got some scotch? I’ll drink instead.”

  Loretta didn’t bother to answer.

  “I’m gonna make a run for it,” Marvelli announced as he steered toward open water.

  “Bad idea,” Rispoli said, shaking his head.

  Loretta had to agree with him. On a straight course, their boat was no match for the cigarette boat. It had taken the deputies almost no time to gain on them, and now they were just fifty feet back.

  “Stop your craft immediately,” the bullhorn deputy shouted. Another short burst of gunfire followed, riddling the stern this time.

  Loretta dove for the deck, and Marvelli crouched down behind the wheel, but Rispoli just stood there smoking with his hand on the rail. “Bastards,” he cursed under his breath.

  The cigarette boat was running neck and neck with them, twenty feet off the port side. Loretta could make out the piercing eyes of the deputy behind the bullhorn. She could also see the assault rifle he was holding. She ducked when white-hot muzzle flashes shot out of the rifle and three more bullets hit the water just short of their boat.

  “I think they missed,” Marvelli said, but Rispoli was shaking his head no.

  “They’re trying to hit below the water line,” the hit man said. “You’re probably taking on water now.”

  “What’s that, like shooting out our tires?” Loretta said. She was getting fed up with his matter-of-fact attitude.

  Rispoli ignored her and pointed with his chin. “Take a hard right at that next buoy,” he said to Marvelli. “Head back toward shore.”

  Marvelli objected, “We’re gonna hit bottom if we go back there.”

  Rispoli shrugged. “Then these guys are gonna sink us. Maybe end up hitting somebody in the process.”

  “They won’t hit you,” Loretta said bitterly. “You’re the one they want alive.”

  Rispoli smiled at her.

  A skull has a prettier smile, she thought.

  “Hey, you want to give up, we’ll give up,” Rispoli said. “But I’m not the one who’s gonna catch hell over this. You know that.”

  Loretta looked at Marvelli. They both knew that he was right.

  As the two boats raced toward the buoy, Marvelli called back to Loretta and Rispoli. “Get down and hang on to something.”

  The buoy was coming up fast. Three more shots zinged into their wake, their reports following a second behind. Marvelli ignored it. He was concentrating on timing his moment.

  “Last warning,” the bullhorn yelled. “Stop your craft.”

  “Stop this,” Rispoli blurted, giving them the finger. “You miserable mother—”

  Suddenly he was thrown forward as Marvelli abruptly cut back on the engines to make the turn around the buoy. Rispoli was whipped into a corner as Marvelli hit the throttle, and the boat roared toward shore. The cigarette boat sped past the buoy, going too fast to follow. It made a wide arc and headed after them, but by now Marvelli had gained some ground.

  “Now what, Gus?” Marvelli called to the hit man.

  Rispoli crawled to the helm. “Over there.” He pointed to a long line of tiny barrier islands that stretched over a hundred yards. The bigger ones hosted small trees and bushes, but some were just outcroppings of gray rock or single car-sized boulders, and others barely crested the water at all, like shark fins. “Sneak in there between those two big islands,” Rispoli said, pointing out which ones he meant.

  “I can’t go in there—”

  Rispoli threw up his hands. “It’s your ass, pal, not mine.”

  “All right, all right,” Marvelli said. “But you two watch the sides. That’s a narrow strait. Even if it’s deep enough, I’m not sure we can squeeze through.”

  Marvelli slowed down as they came up to the islands, but he didn’t dare slow down too much with the cigarette boat moving in fast. “Talk to me, people,” he yelled as he maneuvered the boat around a cluster of boulders.

  Two angry bursts of gunfire ricocheted off the rocks as he swung the boat around and just barely missed a boulder that looked like a half-submerged hippo. He cut back on the engine until it sounded like it was gargling. The cigarette boat sped up from behind but had to make a sharp U-turn to avoid the rocks. Their wake rocked Marvelli’s boat, throwing it against the hippo with a sharp thunk.

  “Damn!” he grunted.

  Loretta peered over the sid
e, then reached into the water and ran her hand along the fiberglass. “It’s okay. No damage. Keep going.”

  The deputy fired another short burst, hitting rocks again. One bullet ricocheted into the bench on the stern, forcing Loretta to duck after the fact. Her heart was slamming.

  “Hurry up. Get going,” Rispoli yelled.

  Marvelli gave it some gas and eased the boat into the narrow strait. “Talk to me,” he yelled.

  Loretta was on the starboard side, Rispoli port. “You’ve got about a foot on this side,” Rispoli said.

  “About four inches on my side,” Loretta reported.

  “How deep?” Marvelli asked.

  Loretta looked down. The water was clear to the rock-strewn bottom. “Doesn’t look very deep. Maybe three feet. It’s hard to tell.”

  Three more shots rang out in rapid succession, gouging the rocks on Loretta’s side. One bullet ricocheted back toward the boat and chipped off a piece of fiberglass from the hull just inches from Loretta’s hand.

  “Floor it!” Rispoli barked.

  But Marvelli already had that idea. He pushed the throttle, and the engines growled. The boat lurched forward, fishtailing into the boulders on Loretta’s side. The sound of rocks scraping the bottom of the hull made Loretta wince. The boat slowed down, straining to move forward.

  “We’re hung up on the bottom,” Marvelli yelled.

  Loretta grabbed a fish net on a long aluminum pole that was bracketed to the side of the boat and thrust it into the water, trying to push them off the rocks like a Venetian gondolier, but the pole wasn’t strong enough and it just bent.

  “Try singing ‘Santa Lucia,’” Rispoli said sarcastically.

  “Try helping,” she snapped back.

  He shrugged. “What do you want me to do?”

  “Get out and push.”

  Rispoli jerked his thumb at the cigarette boat, circling the waters behind them like an angry shark. “Not with them out there shooting at us. What’re you, crazy?”

  Loretta saw red. “Who the hell do you think we’re doing this for?”

  Rispoli shrugged as if he couldn’t care less.

  Loretta reached over and grabbed him by the shirtfront. “Come with me.”

  “Hey! Whattaya think you’re doing? Let go of me.”

  Clutching the walk-around rail with her other hand, she dragged him past the helm to the front of the boat.

  “Loretta,” Marvelli called out, “what’re you doing?”

  She ignored him and shouted in Rispoli’s ear, “Jump!” She started jumping, bouncing the skinny hit man along with her. Soon they were both off their feet, rocking the boat up and down.

  Marvelli didn’t have to be told what to do. Whenever the prow rose and the stern dipped, he gunned the engine. The sound of churning rocks banging against the hull was painful, but little by little the boat lurched forward and slipped through the strait, finally making it into deeper water.

  He rushed to a hatch in the deck, threw it open, and stuck his head in. A few seconds later he pulled his head out and slammed it shut. “No holes that I can see,” he announced with a big smile. “Amazing.”

  As Loretta and a ruffled Rispoli returned to the back of the boat, the cigarette boat raced off to take the long way around the barrier islands.

  Marvelli reached for the throttle and started turning the wheel so he could flee in the other direction, but Rispoli held up his hand. “Wait.”

  “What for?” Loretta said frantically. “We can’t wait.”

  “We gotta split up,” Rispoli said. “You be the decoy,” he said to Marvelli.

  “No,” Loretta blurted. She didn’t want Marvelli to get caught by himself.

  “Hey!” Rispoli protested. “You said you wanted to save me. So save me. The only way to do it is to split up.”

  “That’s nuts,” Loretta said.

  “Oh, yeah? Well, playing sink-the-Bismark is more nuts. I do not wanna get shot.”

  Loretta could hear the cigarette boat’s engines in the distance. They’d be here soon.

  “Okay, fine,” Marvelli suddenly said. “You two get out and hide in the bushes. I’ll be the decoy.”

  “But—” Loretta said. She was worried about what would happen to him.

  Rispoli already had one leg over the side of the boat. “Just stick to the shore and go where their boat won’t fit,” he told Marvelli. “You’ll lose ’em. Maybe.”

  He hopped over the side and into the water. It came up to his chest.

  “Go ahead,” Marvelli said to Loretta. “I’ll meet you back at the hotel.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Go ahead. I’ll be okay.”

  “I don’t want you to get shot.”

  “I won’t get shot.”

  “I don’t want you to go to prison either.”

  “Loretta, will you stop talking and get out.” She hesitated, her brows knit, not knowing whether she should or not.

  “Go!” he said.

  She frowned and finally hopped overboard, getting soaked up to her shoulders. Rispoli had already swum to shore, which was about sixty feet away. He was dragging himself out of the water, walking as best he could over the rocks.

  In the distance she could see the cigarette boat rounding the barrier islands, so she swam to the nearest island instead of trying to make it to shore. She quickly found a large bush and crouched down behind it. Marvelli revved his engines and took off. Loretta stayed down and listened for the cigarette boat. She could hear their engines gaining in volume as Marvelli’s decreased. Her heart was thumping as she heard the cigarette boat approaching, wondering if they’d seen her, but it roared right by. She peered through the branches, still worried about Marvelli, but then she remembered Rispoli. It occurred to her that he might take off and disappear for good. She stayed out of sight until it was quiet.

  When she was sure the cigarette boat was gone, she poked her head over the top of the bush and looked for signs of Rispoli, but he was nowhere to be seen. The bastard was running away, she thought. That’s why he wanted to split up. Damn!

  She stood up and waded back into the water, determined to find him so she could ring his skinny little neck. He wasn’t going to get away with this, not after all they’d gone through to spring him.

  She dove in and started to swim, which wasn’t easy with her clothes on. They dragged her down, and by the time she was only halfway across, she was exhausted. She stopped and treaded water for a second to catch her breath.

  But then she heard something in the distance, a racing engine. The cigarette boat! she thought. She looked all around to see where it was, but it wasn’t the cigarette boat. It was a powerboat, not Marvelli’s, speeding over the water from the direction of My Blue Heaven.

  All of a sudden she was freezing. More guards and deputies, she thought. More bullets. And here she was, stuck between the barrier islands and the shore. If she started swimming either way, they’d see her. There was nowhere to go. She was just a helpless head on the water, bound to be caught.

  She started breathing fast, her heart pounding. Out of the blue an image of a courtroom came into her head, a black-robed judge sitting behind the bench.

  Helping a federal prisoner escape and impersonating a federal agent, she thought. How many years do you get for that?

  19

  Loretta stayed low in the water, her nose just over the surface.

  She could see the powerboat coming toward her in the distance. It was at least a football field away, but it wasn’t moving all that fast. This boat obviously wasn’t chasing after Marvelli. These guys were trawling the shore, looking for signs of Rispoli and the two phony FBI agents.

  Loretta knew she couldn’t stay where she was, out in the open, but she couldn’t decide whether she should go back to the tiny island or head for the shore where Rispoli was. The distances were about the same, and she didn’t trust Rispoli to sit still and wait for her, so she decided to go to the shore. She sucked in a deep breath an
d slipped under the surface.

  Holding her breath, she opened her eyes and took a quick look, then closed them again because the salt water stung. As far as she could see, the way was clear. No haunted shipwrecks, sharks, killer whales, electric eels, or sea serpents. She tried to swallow the lump in her throat, wishing she hadn’t just thought of sharks. With her eyes closed, she imagined great whites swarming all around her.

  She started to swim, letting out some air through her mouth so that she wouldn’t surface. Back in high school she’d had to swim the length of an Olympic-size pool underwater on one breath in order to pass her life-guard test. But that was almost fifteen years ago, and she hadn’t done it since then. She still remembered how to do it, though. Let out some air so that you don’t float. Take single deliberate strokes and get as much glide out of them as you could before you took another so as to conserve energy. Don’t rush. Take your time.

  But her chest already felt crushed. She wanted air, and she’d just started. She took another stroke and glided with her arms tucked in at her sides, trying to calm down and settle into it. But then she thought about sharks again, and she opened her eyes to check.

  That’s when her thoughts shifted from sharks to another predator—Brenda Hemingway. She remembered being inside that industrial clothes drier at the Pinebrook Women’s Correctional Facility. Brenda had made her strip naked, then tied her up with electrical cord. She’d poked and prodded Loretta as if she were livestock, ridiculed her for being fat—even though Brenda herself couldn’t fit into Loretta’s clothes when she’d tried them on. Loretta would never forget Brenda dancing around her like a voodoo queen, her feet jammed into Loretta’s pumps, banging the heels on the floor tiles and making little firecracker pops. It was as if she were getting the sacrifice ready for the slaughter.

  Then all of a sudden Big Brenda hauled Loretta up by an arm and a leg and stuffed her into the drier. Loretta had screamed for mercy, but Brenda just laughed at her, her big pink tongue pulsating in her mouth like a bullfrog. The drier door slammed shut with a loud ping. Instantly Loretta couldn’t breathe. She was curled up in a contorted fetal position, her throat constricted. Then the drier started to move, the gears grinding hard with the unaccustomed weight. She heard the propane burners firing up beneath her. Brenda’s face was outside the round glass window, peering in at her. Loretta’s stomach lurched as she started to tumble. She was hyperventilating. She couldn’t breathe—