Cross Current

by Christine Kling

  XXIV

  I pulled Rusty’s boat into the haul-out slip at the Playboy Marine Boat Yard and grabbed hold of the rungs of the iron ladder that was bolted to the concrete walls of the slipway. We were at about mid-tide but, even so, when I was standing up in the boat, my head was several feet below the top of the wall. I raised the hatch on the seat locker and pulled out the cast net Rusty had shown me earlier. The weight of the net surprised me. The lead weights attached to the nylon were quite small, but there were enough of them that I worked up a sweat just hefting it around. I threw a couple of hitches around the ladder with the bowline, flipped the fenders over the side, and hoped that the barnacle-covered walls wouldn’t chew too badly into Rusty’s flawlessly painted topsides.

  Before leaving the boat, I paused for a couple of seconds, checking to see if I’d forgotten anything. How had my search for Solange’s father and my search for the truth about my own father converged on this former drug smuggler on a Bahama-bound freighter on the Dania Cut-off Canal?

  At the top of the ladder, I raised my head slowly over the lip of the concrete dock. I didn’t see any movement, didn’t hear anything. Several of the sailboats were propped up on the hard in the boatyard, and warm yellow light spilled from their port lights. Playboy Marine was often used by live-aboards. The dark hulk on the far side of the yard I recognized as the Miss Agnes. She would certainly be stickered all over with U.S. Customs impound stickers.

  The Playboy yard butted up against the G&G West Terminal, but I could see that the fence separating the two didn’t extend all the way to the end of the dock. It was simple enough to slip around. Then I ducked down behind some pallets of brick pavers to reconnoiter. To my left, out by the road, was a security guard shack. A spotlight lit the area around the little building and there were about twenty wild cats scarfing down food from dozens of plastic bowls and tins. The music from a Spanish-language radio station was playing inside.

  Keeping my body low, I ran across the concrete dock to a small school bus, waiting for transport to some island. I leaned my back against the vehicle. The net I was carrying was so heavy that my thick sweatshirt was already damp with sweat. The security guard’s shack was north of me, and the Bimini Express was south. It was hard to find a spot where I wouldn’t be seen from one direction or the other.

  The Bimini Express was stern-tied to the wharf. She was probably no more than eighty feet long, with her bridge and superstructure all jammed up forward in the bow so that everything aft could be used for cargo. There were big doors in her stern that flopped down to form a ramp onto the ship. They loaded her first with the vehicles they could drive on, and then they used a forklift to add the pallets. The cargo looked mostly like building supplies. No doubt in the Bahamas they were doing the same thing as in the Everglades. Like the lyrics to that old Joni Mitchell song my mother used to play, “They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.” At least this one would be a nice parking lot with pavers.

  What I needed to do was to get at her prop. Fishermen throw their cast nets so they open into a perfect circle, and then the weights sink the net down over their prey, little bait- fish. My intended prey was the ship’s prop. I hoped the net would wind around the prop and disable the ship until Rusty, who I was sure must be freaked back at the restaurant, could get here with the cavalry.

  At least that was my plan.

  I ran from the school bus to a forklift to a huge pile of plywood. As far as I could tell, no one had seen me. I was now only about two hundred feet from the stern of the vessel. They had already raised the transom doors, and they were pretty damn ready to depart. Only a small gangway remained on the dock. I wondered what they were waiting for.

  The men I had seen earlier on the bridge had vanished. I could stay hidden among the cargo pallets and the empty shipping containers, but at some point I would have to dash across the wide-open space and run down that gangway onto the ship. That was when I would be the most vulnerable. I worked my way forward, and at one point I could have sworn I saw movement behind me, but when I looked back, directly at whatever it was, there was nothing there. I rubbed my hand over my eyes and my fingers came away dripping with sweat.

  I don’t remember making the decision to go for it. I was just standing there one minute and then I was hurtling across the open concrete wharf, my feet pounding across the gangway, then ducking between the stacks of shipping containers that covered the stern of the vessel. I stopped and leaned against a pallet of lumber, breathing so hard that I was sure the guys up on the bridge would hear me. I simply couldn’t catch my breath. When I heard the sound of footsteps on the gangway, I stopped breathing entirely.

  They were light footsteps, like someone sneaking. There was no question now that I was being followed, and whoever was there knew exactly where I was. I slid around the corner of a container and onto the stern, but it was far too exposed back there. There was the housing for some crane machinery a bit farther forward up the ship’s starboard side, and it looked like something to hide inside. I eased my way forward, trying to figure out how to use the net as a weapon. I started unfolding it, readying myself to throw it the way I had seen the surf fishermen do. Half the net was over my shoulder, hanging down my back, the other half in my hands in front of me. The crane machinery didn’t provide much of a hiding place, but I pressed myself back into a shadowy crevice and waited.

  I heard something like a snort or a sniffle. Evidently the guy had a cold or a bad coke habit. Then I heard it again, so close this time that I tensed, ready to throw the net at the first sign of movement in front of me. I was looking for some giant Haitian captain, and when I finally realized there was someone right in front of me, it was too late to throw the net. Arms wrapped around my waist and a head pressed hard against my belly.

  The name escaped my mouth before I had time to think. “Solange?”

  XXV

  She was crying. She didn’t make any sounds other than the occasional sniffling, but I could tell by the way her shoulders were shaking that she was crying hard. It was a good thing she wasn’t bawling like most kids do, because the guys up on the bridge were outside again, talking to one another and pointing toward the dock.

  I let the cast net fall to the deck, and I knelt down next to her. How on earth did she get on the Bimini Express? Her snuffling grew louder, and I tried to comfort her so the men above couldn’t hear us. I could tell from their voices that the two black men were Bahamians, and they shouted to someone as a vehicle approached on the dock. I could see all the way forward along the starboard side of the vessel, and to my surprise I saw motion up on the starboard ladder to the bridge. A deckhand had been sleeping on a pile of lines about twenty feet from us. It was a wonder he hadn’t heard me when I cried out. He passed around the aft end of the deckhouse and headed for the stern. If he was headed aft to throw off the dock lines, then we had better get the hell off this ship.

  The approaching vehicle sounded like a truck. It stopped on the dock, and I wanted to see who or what was being delivered. The ship’s engines, which had been turning over at a very gentle idle, now revved up and smoke billowed out of the stacks above the wheelhouse. I heard voices over by the gangway and held my finger to my lips so Solange would know to be quiet. Then I loosened her arms from around me and pushed her back into the shadows of the crane’s machinery. I slipped over to the end of the containers to try to see across to the other side of the boat. What I saw made my stomach threaten to eject the dinner I’d eaten at Tugboat Annie’s. Climbing the stairs to the bridge deck, dressed all in black and wearing wraparound shades, was Joslin Malheur. He began slapping the Bahamians on the back like they were old friends. Gil was nowhere in sight.

  It was then that the deck beneath my feet began to shudder as the screws bit into the water.

  I’d waited too long. The two deckhands threw off the lines, the gangway clattered aboard, and the Bimini Express slowly eased her way forward. The gap between the ship and the dock was widening, already
too far to jump. If I didn’t do something fast, Solange and I would be on our way to the Bahamas.

  Now was the time. The ship would soon be reversing her screws to pivot around, and the prop wash would suck in whatever I threw down there.

  “Stay here,” I whispered, my lips close to her ear, and I again motioned with my finger to my lips for her to be quiet.

  Keeping my body low between the piles of cargo, I huddled down over the net, which I had balled up in front of my body. I hurried toward the transom.

  The crewmen were gone, so I quickly divided the net weights and threw half of the bulk over my shoulder. Bright lights shone from the bridge onto the aft deck, and I wondered if anyone was watching me as I stood and ran to the rail. Bending down as I’d seen the surf fishermen do, I made ready to cast the net.

  Even over the noise of the roaring engines and the churning water, I heard her scream. I turned back, and though I could make out only his silhouette, I knew that the man standing there, his right elbow askew as if he were holding a weapon against Solange’s body, was Malheur.

  I moved my head off to one side and squinted into the brilliant light. “Leave her alone. Please. Don’t hurt her.”

  He laughed. It was a big, loud, booming laugh, and I heard Solange take two quick sharp gulps of air. She knew to be terrified of that sound.

  Another man materialized out of the darkness and grabbed my upper arm, squeezing so tight that the folds of my sweatshirt cut into my skin. I let out an involuntary cry. Malheur said something to him in Creole, and both men laughed. I shaded my eyes with my free hand, and I was surprised to see that the man gripping my arm was Gilbert Lynch.

  The Bimini Express had made her turn and the small ship was starting down the Dania Cut-off Canal. We would be passing Tugboat Annie’s in a few minutes—my last chance to attract Rusty’s attention. If only I could break Gil’s grip, I might be able to run and jump over the side. But then I immediately dismissed that thought. I couldn’t leave Solange behind. I flashed on the image of Margot on the cement floor at the Swap Shop. I could not leave Solange alone with Le Capitaine.

  Malheur spoke again in Creole, and Gil pushed me forward, up the starboard side, just as the lights and music from Tugboat Annie’s started to spill over the little ship. Although I could see people sitting at tables, they weren’t looking up or paying any attention to the ship passing on the canal. For a moment, I thought I saw Rusty standing at the hostess station, talking into the phone, and I raised my free hand, tried to shout and wave. But the words strangled in my throat when Gil slapped me open-handed on the side of my head and dragged me forward, then shoved me down between two stacks of plywood. He held me down and mumbled something unintelligible. We were now amidships in the shadow of the upper deck, and I could see Malheur, his skin so dark I could barely make out his features. The white skulls on the sides of his sunglasses reflected the light from the floods on the aft deck. He was wearing a tight-fitting black T-shirt, and around his elbow and upper right arm were white bandages, evidence that Jeannie’s shotgun had inflicted some damage. The weapon he held across Solange’s chest was a machete with a long shiny blade, narrow at the hilt but broadening out to four inches of steel at the tip.

  Malheur lowered the machete and pushed Solange over to Gil, who pulled me to my feet. I stood facing Malheur, staring at the black lenses that covered his eyes. He brought the tip of his machete up under my chin and pressed the sharp end against the soft place at the top of my throat. I stopped breathing, though the steel barely touched my skin.

  Malheur smiled broadly and began to raise his other arm. I thought he was going to hit me, kill me, but I was determined not to let him see me flinch. He took hold of the zipper on my sweatshirt and began to draw it down, slowly. I could feel the vibration as the slider passed over each metal tooth. His knuckles pressed into the flesh of my breast and then my belly as he dropped his hand lower.

  He wouldn’t have to hit me. I was going to kill myself if I didn’t breathe. I swallowed and felt a sharp stab of pain as my muscles pressed against the blade at my throat. I felt sick with shame. I was letting him humiliate me. That tiny touch of cold steel had turned me into a victim.

  When I couldn’t take it any longer, I looked away and found Solange’s frightened eyes, her features otherwise calm.

  I knew I had to make him stop. So I lied.

  “You don’t scare me,” I said. My voice trembled and my chin quivered, but I never again took my eyes off those shades.

  Malheur threw back his head and laughed, then spoke for what seemed like forever in Creole—either to me or to Gil, I couldn’t be sure—all the while still holding the machete to my throat. In midsentence, he lowered the machete and turned, grabbing Solange. He headed for the door that led into the crew’s quarters. I dropped my head and inhaled a deep lungful of air, and though it was scented with diesel exhaust, it tasted sweet to me.

  Malheur turned and spat some words at Gil, and I thought I understood the words gros kochon—in French class we’d giggled over the phrase that meant “fat pig.”

  Gil grabbed my arm even harder, scowled at Malheur’s back, and pushed me to follow them. Malheur held Solange’s arm so high in the air that her feet barely skimmed the ground, and he lifted her into the air to get her over the steel threshold of the watertight bulkhead door. When I came out from behind the stack of plywood, I tried to look for Rusty on shore, but Gil grunted and pushed me through the door. I tripped and almost went down, slamming my head and shoulder into the steel bulkhead inside the dark companionway. My vision blurred while I struggled to remain standing, and tears began to fill my eyes. I was reaching up to feel if there was any blood in my hair when he shoved me again, through another door. This time I did trip—my feet got tangled up and I fell—and while it occurred to me as I was going down that I needed to protect my head this time, something hard and cold came out of the darkness all too soon.

  The first thing I became aware of was the motion—that feeling that the deck beneath you is suddenly falling and you are falling, only your stomach has decided not to fall, and then you are rising, and your stomach is trying to relocate somewhere down in your bowels.

  I moaned aloud when I tried to move. I was all twisted up and my neck was cramped and hurt like hell. As soon as I tried to move, however, I forgot all about my neck as my head started throbbing from the inside out. It felt like a cartoon character’s thumb after he’s banged it and it’s ballooned to three times its normal size. I wondered if my head was three times its normal size.

  I felt a lump the size of a walnut just back from my hairline above my left temple. My hair was encrusted with dried blood.

  A small hand brushed across my forehead and pushed the stray hairs out of my face. Although the room was pitch dark, I didn’t need to see her to feel her fear.

  “Solange?”

  “Oui," she said, pronouncing it as an inhaled gulp of air.

  “They didn’t hurt you, did they?”

  “No.” I felt her hand on my head again. “You hurt.” It wasn’t a question. She knew.

  “I’m okay. How long have I been sleeping?” Through the ship’s deck I could feel the vibration of the engine and the sudden surge of the RPMs as a wave lifted the stem of the ship, causing the prop to spin faster. Waves would have to be at least ten feet high to do that. We were out in the Gulf Stream already.

  “Long time,” she said.

  It was a stupid question for me to have asked her. She had no way of measuring the time. Ten minutes alone in the dark, not knowing if I was dead or alive, would seem like an eternity. She didn’t even sound like she’d been crying. But I guess it wouldn’t have been the first time she’d ended up on a boat with a dead woman.

  I felt around my surroundings and realized that I was sitting on the floor of a crewman’s cabin, my back against the bunk—probably the same bunk I had hit my head on when I fell. When I got to my feet, my legs almost gave way again from the wave of dizziness that
grabbed hold of me. I reached out and placed my palms on the wall, bent my knees to the corkscrew motion of the ship, and waited to get control of my body again. When I opened my eyes and turned around to face the bunk, I wasn’t expecting to see anything. I was surprised to make out a dim light from what looked like a porthole in the hull just above the bunk. In the faint glow, I felt around the cabin to familiarize myself with the space.

  The door was locked; no surprise there. There were a couple of built-in drawers under the bunk, and they were filled with men’s clothes, neatly folded. I felt under and around everywhere, but there were no shaving articles with razor blades, no pocketknives—nothing we could use as a weapon. I crawled onto the bunk, feeling for Solange, and put my face to the porthole.

  The cabin we were in was on the starboard side of the ship, and in the distance, a bit off our aft quarter, I could make out the horizon with a bright glow above it. There were only a couple of places where actual building lights were visible; the lights of the city had just dipped below the horizon. The ceiling of clouds hung very low, and it looked like it might be raining out there. If we were headed for Bimini, that would put us on a southeast heading and that would be the North Miami skyline I was looking at. Judging from the brightness of the skyglow, we were probably ten miles offshore, about fifteen miles out of Lauderdale.