by Paul Monette
At the water’s edge, a fleet of perhaps a dozen racing boats was being revved. Omar sat in an open Jeep on the beach, supervising the operation. He had a radio operator working shortwave beside him. All the guards around the van, all the men in the boats were dressed in olive fatigues. To Tony, it had the look of a paramilitary encampment, just prior to debarkation. On Martin’s orders, he drew up the sedan beside the Jeep. The two other cars parked just behind him. He was told to grab his weapon and get out and wait.
His gun was the prettiest thing Tony had ever packed. It was an Ingram Model-10 machine pistol, with folding butt, capable of firing eleven hundred rounds a minute. Ten inches long. Came with a nice suppressor. You could slip it in a briefcase easy, a purse even. Tony and Manolo had each been issued an Ingram just before the convoy took off from Miami. They would have to turn them in when the operation was done. But right now, as Tony stood by the car and hefted the thing, he felt as if he was holding the future in the palm of his hand. It felt terrific.
He exchanged a glance with Manolo, who stood by the car behind him. They were clearly very impressed by the scope of the operation. They listened as the radio operator worked the shortwave. “Intersection twelve September and fifteen October,” said a voice off the dark ocean, “we’re twenty-one karats west of you.” The operator leaned into his mike. “Check twelve,” he said. “We got a bullfrog croaking around at thirteen October.”
Tony turned to check out the moving van and was startled to see two cops in uniform walking towards the Jeep. Omar turned from his charts to greet them. They all shook hands. “So what’s happening, Omar?” asked the fat one.
“Everything’s cool, Charlie,” replied the Monkey. “Got a big Jamaica wind tonight. I figure we need about six, seven hours.”
The fat cop whistled. “Frank’s gettin’ up in the big league, ain’t he? Whatcha doin’ weight-wise?”
“Twenty-three, twenty-four tons,” said Omar.
“Okay, Omar,” the second cop said. “No problem this end. We got you covered all night.”
Omar reached into the back seat of the Jeep and grabbed up two paper sacks. He handed one to each of the cops. The fat one opened his, glanced inside, then stuffed it into an airline bag he carried in one hand. The second cop turned his over to the first, as if the fat one was the banker. They glanced around approvingly and made off again in the direction of the van. Tony pretended to be looking somewhere else.
The boats went out in ranks of four, like a show at Cypress Gardens. Magnums, Scorpions, Performers, Novas—Omar’s men had no special preference when it came to boats, not like they had for guns. They swept out into the Caribbean, steady at sixty for about ten minutes. Tony was in the first rank, sitting in a white vinyl bucket seat beside Martin. The driver was a blond kid, looked like a surfer. At a signal Tony did not pick up, the four boats cut their engines and came to a halt. Martin opened a briefcase fitted with an electronic system. He unwound a long antenna cable and dropped it in the water. A numbering system began to flash red on the monitor. The driver was standing up now and studying the ocean through a nightscope. Martin listened through headphones and studied the monitor as Tony dragged the antenna through the water, circling the boat. Suddenly a beep went up from the briefcase.
“There,” said Martin, and flicked on a microphone. He read out a group of coordinates to the fleet of boats around him.
They started west-southwest at quarter speed, and after about five minutes they saw the freighter looming under the moon. She was a hundred and ninety feet, a Panamanian V-8 built in the forties. She looked like an ocean liner next to the racing boats that soon were buzzing like hornets about her bows. Tony’s boat was a typical hauler: twenty-eight feet, with twin 450 Chryslers. Stripped of galleys and bunks, it could haul up to five thousand pounds of weed.
Dozens of sweating men on the freighter’s deck began off-loading the bales into the racers. They worked by the light of flashlamps, moving the bulky burlap out of the holds, along the decks, and onto the pulleys that fed down to the haulers. Tony, looking up at the sailors who worked the pulleys, saw black Jamaican faces. Most of the sailors were stripped to the waist and wearing bandannas. Once Tony thought he saw the captain: an enormous man, about six-foot-six, wearing a red motorcycle helmet.
The loading took two and a half hours. Then the racing fleet took off for Bahia Honda, each boat stacked to the gills with bales of weed. When they reached the clearing in the mangrove swamp, a human chain of workers started heaving the bales from the boats up into the van. Tony and Manolo and three other guards stood by and kept watch. As each boat was unloaded, Tony noticed that the crew hauled it up the beach, where somebody with a big tin can would stand on the tilted deck and douse it with liquid. Tony couldn’t figure out what was happening, till the smell of gasoline was wafted toward him in the offshore breeze. He couldn’t believe it. They were going to burn these boats? What for?
It was dawn before the van was completely loaded. The boats were all clustered high in the sand at one end of the beach. As Tony and Martin moved to the sedan, the two cops lit a torch and set the boats on fire. The first explosion was enormous, lighting up the clearing like the sun that had not yet risen. Tony had been very good all night; he hadn’t asked a single question. But his frown was so anxious as he watched the boats explode in flame, easily a half million dollars in hardware, that Martin volunteered a curt explanation:
“They’re stolen. We can’t take ’em back. Too easy to trace.”
Tony nodded. The van pulled out of the clearing and headed for the highway. Tony’s convoy cut back through the swamp the way they came. For several hundred yards, Tony could still see the flames in the rearview mirror. The waste was so astonishing, he couldn’t even fathom it. He thought of the high-roll gamblers his grandfather used to tell him about, who blew a hundred grand in a single night at the blackjack table. He cradled the Ingram in his lap, sorry he had not had a chance to fire it. He thought of the men at the top, so rich they could burn it, and he raged inside with a wild impatience.
He wanted it now. He wasn’t going to wait any longer, and he wasn’t going to start at the bottom either. As he turned onto the highway and began the long drive back to Miami, he realized he’d have to mount an operation of his own. Whatever it took. Whoever he had to step on. At last he’d reached the place where the streets were littered with gold. He’d seen it now. All he had to do was scoop it up.
Two days later Tony and Manolo were walking down Ocean Avenue, all duded up. Manolo had dragged Tony along when he went to blow his five hundred, and he’d even convinced Tony to toss out his fatigues and spring for a decent suit of clothes. Just now they were dressed in peacock shirts and tight-fitting pants, and they walked past windows reeking with prices, pointing at all they wanted.
Actually, Manolo was doing most of the pointing. Tony was pretty subdued. They left a window full of color TV’s, and the next one down was a bank. Through the ice-green glass, the workers and customers of the Banco di Venezuela passed back and forth through the air-conditioned reaches. Manolo ogled the lady tellers. Tony checked out the guard’s weapon.
“Twenty-five tons,” he said, “figure ten million bucks. What do we get? A lousy five hundred.” This was not the first time he had said it. It was beginning to sound like a broken record.
“Yeah, but it’s like I keep tellin’ you, Tony. They got the organization.”
“I got more brains than that fruitcake Omar. His organization can eat my dick. If you weren’t suckin’ up to him all the time—”
“Look, chico,” interrupted Manolo, ignoring the bait, “you mind if we just get started? They’ll cut us in. There’s enough for everyone.”
“You sound like a goddam communist. I say we get our own stash. Sell direct.”
Manolo didn’t seem to be paying attention. He took a step back so he could check his hair in the window. “How we gonna do that?” he asked. “We don’t got any money. Hey Tony, I just fell in love
.”
He turned to look at the girl he had glimpsed reflected in the window. She had just stepped out of the bank and was walking in their direction. Hot Cuban girl, spike heels, in a tight skirt and lacy blouse that left nothing to the imagination. Though she pretended not to look at them, she was eyeing Tony and Manolo from the moment she caught sight of them. She stopped and opened her purse, pouting her lips as she fished for something, but really just to give them a better look. She pulled out a stick of gum, unwrapped it, and popped it into her mouth. Then she started walking again, like she meant to pass right by.
Tony stuck out his chin and said: “Hey baby, wanna fuck?”
She didn’t even break her stride. She lowered her eyelids and swiveled her head toward him as she passed. “Turn to shit,” she said.
Tony burst out laughing. Manolo was livid. “How you gonna score that way?” he demanded, slapping at Tony’s head. “You don’t got any finesse. Watch me.” And as Tony looked over at him he opened his mouth, stuck out his tongue, and wiggled it up and down, quick as a baby bird.
“—the fuck was that?” asked Tony, laughing.
“You don’t know nothin’ about chicks, do ya? That always works. Chick sees that, she knows. They can’t resist it.” And he did it again, licking the air at sixty miles an hour, his eyelids drooping—as if he were crouched between a woman’s legs, drinking her in. Tony laughed so hard, he had to hold his sides. “You laugh,” said Manolo. “Chicks see me, they start pullin’ their panties off, right in the middle o’ the street.”
“Okay, Romeo,” Tony said, nodding down the sidewalk, “do your stuff.”
She was a tall cool blonde in a silky dress, and she’d just come out of a jewelry store. Very high-class. As she approached along the sidewalk, she didn’t even see Manolo and Tony slouched against the bank. They simply didn’t exist. Manolo wasn’t fazed. He flicked an imaginary speck of lint from his iridescent shirt, and he followed right behind her as she passed. He caught up with her at the corner, where she paused to wait for the light to change. She glanced up at Manolo as he stood beside her. Manolo’s back was to Tony, so all he could see was the blonde’s face. A puzzled frown came across her features. She leaned forward, embarrassed, and said: “I beg your pardon?” Like she was dealing with a deaf mute.
Manolo did not reply. He must have redoubled his efforts with his tongue, for now the blonde looked quite alarmed, as if he was having an epileptic fit. Tony was weak with laughter, watching. Then all of a sudden she seemed to get it. Her mouth dropped open. The blood drained from her face. She opened her purse and pulled out a small revolver. Manolo bolted. He ran by Tony, and Tony chased after, shrieking now with laughter. They ducked in an alley and didn’t stop running till they came out into the next street.
“Bitch!” said Manolo. “Cunt’s prob’ly all sewed up.”
Tony grinned. “I told you, chico, you don’t understand this country. To get a woman you gotta get money first. Then you got power. And when you got power, that’s when they want you. Not before.”
As they crossed to the opposite curb, a car ran the light and nearly clipped them. They both turned and let out a string of obscenities. Affixed to the car’s rear windshield was a sticker with the image of the stars and stripes. It read: “Will the last American leaving Miami please bring the flag?” Tony and Manolo threw the finger and walked on into a shopping arcade. Speakers were blasting country-western out of a gaudy electronics store. Street vendors were selling burritos and waxed-paper cones full of fried shrimp. They sat on a bench between two planters full of dead bushes and litter.
“Okay, so where do we get the money?” Manolo said.
“I been talkin’ to this guy,” said Tony. “Nick the Pig. Moves a lotta cocaine.” He paused, as if to give Manolo a chance to protest. Manolo said nothing. After watching Tony hustle himself a place with the dealers of Havana when he was just sixteen, Manolo knew better than to ask how Tony had met this character. Tony always found them. “He says he’s got some keys comin’ in tomorrow afternoon. Ninety percent pure shit. He’ll let us in on a key for thirty grand.”
“Thirty grand! Where the hell we gonna get that?”
“So I says Nick, I tell you what. I’ll give ya twenty up front and the other ten on consignment. That means we pay him when we sell it.”
“Yeah? So?”
Tony stretched and yawned. He snapped his fingers, and the boy selling shrimp looked over from his cart, a rickety homemade affair under a beach umbrella. Tony nodded at the tray of greasy cones. The boy scooped up a fresh batch and brought it over to the bench. “That’s a buck fifty,” he said, handing it over to Tony. Tony dug a five out of his pants pocket. He nodded the boy away when he tried to make change. The boy blushed with gratitude as he turned back to his cart.
“So he says okay,” said Tony, popping a shrimp in his mouth. “Nice guy, Nick. Not too bright.”
“Oh yeah? What’s he bein’ so nice for? He tryin’ to go to heaven?”
Tony flared. “Hey, Manny, if he’s messing with me, I’ll nail his head to the wall. You got that clear?” Manolo was silent. After a moment Tony held out the bag of shrimp, and Manolo took one. “I figure we put a full hit on the key,” said Tony. “Then we got two keys. We distribute the shit to our ouncers . . .”
“What ouncers?”
“Our gang, jerkoff.”
“What gang?”
Tony gave an impatient sigh. “Marielitos,” he said. “Angel, Chi-Chi, Gaspar, Hernando—all them guys who can’t get jobs. We’ll have our own distribution, right on the streets. At eighty bucks a gram, we stand to clear fifty G’s on the first buy. Then we cut a new deal with Nick, and we’re in for two keys. Then four. Then eight. Can you count that high, chico?”
Manolo nodded. He didn’t say anything for about a minute, just kept nodding. He seemed lost in the higher mathematics of it all. Then he said: “So where do we get the first twenty thou?”
Tony grinned. “Where does anybody go when they need money? The bank, right?”
“What bank?”
“Oh, I got a nice bank picked out.” He popped the last shrimp and tossed the greasy paper into the planter. Then he stood up and began to walk away. Manolo had to run to catch up.
“Okay, Tony, we’ll try it. But we gotta plan this thing. Real careful.”
“Yeah, yeah, I got lotsa plans,” said Tony. They reached the curb, and he grabbed Manolo’s arm and darted through the traffic. “We gotta hurry,” he said. “They’re pickin’ us up in half an hour.”
There was no point trying to make an objection. Tony had it all worked out—or not worked out at all, but you couldn’t stop him once he had it in his head. They went into a discount gun shop and picked up five cheap handguns for a hundred and thirty dollars and change. They waited on the corner of Brickell Avenue, Tony eating a bucket of fried chicken, till a beat-up Monte Carlo, its muffler shot to hell, lurched to a stop beside them. Angel was driving, with Chi-Chi beside him in the front seat and Gaspar in back. Chi-Chi was wrecked on something—PCP, it looked like. Manolo and Tony hopped in beside Gaspar, and the car went weaving back into traffic.
Tony directed Angel to a busy shopping mall, where a small branch of the Bank of Miami was tucked between a Baskin-Robbins and a video-game arcade. Tony had noticed the place when he tracked down Gaspar and Chi-Chi playing Pac-Man in the arcade. He never even bothered to walk in and check the layout. All he knew was he needed a small bank. The robbery would take care of itself. He must have had a wonderful intuition for the American system, for when he and Manolo and Chi-Chi burst in, leaving the others out in the car, the bank’s sole guard, a retired postal worker, surrendered in two seconds flat.
The tellers and customers were ordered to the floor. As Tony and Manolo shoved the manager back to the safe, Chi-Chi was left to cover the huddling victims. As they watched Chi-Chi weave with double vision, the gun in his hand veering wildly, they hugged the floor and shook with fear. Tony cursed the manage
r as he fumbled with the combination. When the cash stocks were finally revealed, Tony could see there wasn’t much more than a few thousand.
“You cheap sonuvabitch!” snarled Tony. “This all you got?”
“Sir, I can’t control the currency supply. Every week the Federal Reserve—”
“Shut the fuck up. Gimme this,” he ordered, tugging at the watch on the manager’s wrist. Manolo came hurrying in from the tellers’ windows, where he’d scooped up a couple of thousand. He snatched the cash from the drawers in the safe, then turned to Tony. It was time to run.
But Tony was twirling the manager around, checking out the cut of his suit. “I want this too,” he said gruffly. “Take it off.”
“Hey man, what are you doin’?” Manolo shrieked.
There wasn’t any rushing Tony. As the manager, quaking, removed his jacket and pants, Manolo ran out to the main room to help Chi-Chi. Perhaps a half dozen people had wandered into the bank during the robbery, and they too now huddled against the floor. Manolo stood at the window, nearly jumping out of his skin for nerves, and watched for the arrival of the police. Out in the Monte Carlo, Angel and Gaspar appeared to have fallen asleep.
At last Tony emerged from the manager’s office, spiffy in a three-piece glen-plaid suit and tie. Manolo beckoned him frantically, but he took his time, glancing from one to the other of his victims to see if there was anything still worth taking. Chi-Chi staggered out to the car, dropping a bag of change as he got in. Immediately he passed out, and Angel and Gaspar scrambled to pick up the rolls of coins from the pavement. Manolo stood at the door of the bank, hollering at Tony to hurry. Tony grinned and saluted his victims, thanked them for their time, and sauntered toward the door.
