Tricky Business

by Dave Barry

  Tark turned back to the fishing boat. Rebar had come down from the bridge and was standing at the stern.

  “OK,” Tark said to him, “you start moving them bags. I’ll give you a hand soon’s I finish with the shell.” Rebar went over to the pile of duffel bags filled with cash, grabbed one off the top, dragged it to the edge of the platform, then went back for another bag.

  Still holding his TEC-9, Tark walked over to Conrad Conch, who started shouting again through his mouth hole, obviously very pissed off.

  “MMMWMF!” he said.

  “I got no idea what you’re saying,” said Tark. “Take off the damn head.”

  Conrad reached his big pink hands up and stuck them into the area where his shoulders would be, if shells had shoulders. He gave an upward yank. There was the sound of Velcro fasteners letting go, and off came the big pink head, revealing the smaller, but almost as pink, face of an extremely unhappy Bobby Kemp.

  Twelve

  LOU TARANT, NOW WEARING BOXER SHORTS, SAT on the sofa, looking at the TV but really just waiting for the damn phone to ring. Dee Dee Holdscomb sat next to him, wearing a purple silk bathrobe and studying her fingernails.

  “Do you like this color?” she asked, holding her hands out to Tarant, nails up. “It’s like a peach, but with a little more red in it.”

  Tarant looked at her.

  “What do I give a shit?” he said, speaking for the entire male gender.

  “I was just asking,” Dee Dee said.

  On the TV, the NewsPlex Nine co-anchors were frowning so hard that it looked like their heads were going to implode. Bright red letters in the upper-right-hand corner of the screen said NEWSPLEX NINE KILLER STORM BULLETIN, and under that, NEWSPLEX NINE NEWSVAN IN CRASH. The male anchor was talking.

  “. . . just received the shocking news that the NewsPlex Nine News Van has apparently been involved in a collision on its way to cover the helicopter crash and electrocution deaths in Westchester,” he said. He turned to the female anchor.

  “Bill,” she said to the camera, “from what we’ve been able to learn so far, the NewsPlex Nine NewsVan, which was carrying our reporter Summer Westfall and cameraman Javier Santiago, apparently collided with a fire rescue vehicle.” She looked at him.

  “Jill,” he told the camera, “this comes as yet another shock to NewsPlex Nine, which, incredibly, has already lost five members of the NewsPlex Nine family to this killer storm, Hector, in a freakish string of mishaps.” He looked at her.

  “Bill,” she said, “we want to assure our viewers that we will continue to keep you informed on these breaking developments, and have dispatched a second NewsPlex NewsVan to the scene.”

  “Morons,” said Lou Tarant.

  “Meanwhile,” said the male anchor, “expressions of sympathy continue to pour in to the NewsPlex Nine . . .”

  The phone rang. Tarant punched the MUTE button as he grabbed the phone.

  “What,” he said.

  “Bad news,” said Gene Shroder. “Our boy is on the ship.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah. We got a tip.”

  “From who?”

  “He wouldn’t say. This guy calls me up, anonymous, got his caller ID blocked, won’t say who he is. He tells me our boy went out on the ship tonight, and, get this, he was wearing the shell costume.”

  “What’re you talking about?”

  “That shell, from his restaurants, the conch shell, whatshisname, Conan Conch or whatever it is.”

  “He was wearing that?”

  “That’s what the guy said. So I call the ticket office, and they said, yeah, they got a call from our boy himself, personally, which he never does, saying the shell was going out tonight, and sure enough just before sailing time a limo comes up and the shell gets out and gets on the ship.”

  “Jesus.”

  “That’s exactly what I said.”

  “So he’s going to try to cut himself in on the exchange? Is that it? This little prick thinks he can fuck with us?”

  “That’s what it looks like. I mean, why else is he out there tonight, in a disguise?”

  “All right, listen,” said Tarant. “I want you to get Manny on the cell phone right now. I want you to tell him what this little prick is up to. Tell him to take care of it. Tell him I don’t care if he wraps a chain around that little prick in his clam suit and throws him off the fucking ship, you understand me?”

  “Um, Lou, here’s the thing.”

  “What?”

  “There’s something messed up with the phones. We called Manny’s cell, Eddie’s cell, Hank’s cell, all the cells we got on there, and we’re not getting through to anybody.”

  “You mean they don’t answer?”

  “No. It just doesn’t go through.”

  “I just got a call from Hank, his cell, couldn’t be more’n fifteen minutes ago.”

  “I know, we were in contact earlier, too. But all of a sudden, nothing. Could be the storm, some problem with the phone company. We’ll keep trying.”

  “Shit,” said Tarant.

  “Yeah,” said Shroder.

  Tarant thought for a moment.

  “OK, listen,” he said. “We need to get on the ship’s radio and get hold of Eddie.”

  “OK, Lou, but everybody can hear the radio. The Coast Guard can be listening to that, the cops, the feds, anybody.”

  “I know that. You get Eddie on there, and you tell him . . . shit, you figure out some code way to tell him they need to grab the clam.”

  “It’s a conch, Lou.”

  “I DON’T CARE WHAT THE FUCK IT IS, OK? I just want them to grab it, and warn Manny.”

  “OK,” said Shroder, “I’ll call the Chum Bucket and tell them to put me through on the radio. I’ll figure out what to say to Eddie, like, watch out for the shellfish, something like that.”

  “Also,” said Tarant, “I want you to tell Stu to get his boat ready, gas it up, and start the engine. And get some guys, the Wookie and that crew, and tell them to meet me at the Chum Bucket in fifteen minutes. Tell them SWAT weapons, OK?”

  “You’re going out there?”

  “You’re goddamn right I’m going out there.”

  “OK, Lou, but, weather like this, it’s gonna take you a while to get to the rendezvous point. Plus, I think Stu’s boat still has . . .”

  “Set it up NOW.”

  “OK, Lou.”

  “I’m gonna kill that fucking clam.”

  BOBBY KEMP, PINK HEAD STICKING OUT OF CONRAD Conch’s pink body, waved his pink arms in pink fury.

  “What are you doing?” he shouted at Tark. “Are you out of your mind?”

  “Relax,” said Tark. “It’s gonna be fine.”

  “Fine? Fine? You killed all these other guys, you got your guys running into the ship instead of moving the bags, you’re pointing your gun at ME, and I’m supposed to think it’s fine?”

  “Bobby,” said Tark, raising his gun barrel, “you don’t calm down, I’m gonna calm you down, understand?”

  Kemp took a breath.

  “OK,” he said. “OK, I want to know what’s going on here. We had a plan.”

  “We did,” said Tark. He knew he was going to enjoy this, maybe even more than he had enjoyed cutting off Juan’s nose. “We did have a plan. But now we got a new plan.”

  Kemp didn’t like how that sounded.

  “Tark, listen to me,” he said. “We don’t need a new plan. The old plan is working fine, OK? We got the money and we got the product. You didn’t need to kill these other guys, but, OK, that’s OK. Point is, we load these bags on the boat now and we get the hell out of here and go to Venezuela, like we planned, and you get a million dollars. You get a million dollars, Tark. You never work again.”

  “No,” said Tark.

  “What do you mean, no?”

  “I mean that plan won’t work.”

  “What do you mean it won’t work? It’s already working.”

  “Bobby, you’re a moron, yo
u know that?”

  “What’re you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about, you know the guys you’re fucking with here? Whose money all this is? You know what they do to people who fuck with them?”

  “But that’s why we go to Venezuela, Tark. I told you. I got some people in the government down there working for me, Tark. Way up in the government. We got protection down there. Nobody can touch us.”

  Tark shook his head.

  “Bobby,” he said, “I bet you need help scratching your own ass.”

  “What’re you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about, whatever juice you got with Venezuela, or anybody else, these guys got more. I’m talking about if you went to Mars, these guys could get to you. They’d have some Martian working for them, come and cut your balls off. If these guys want you, you can’t get away. Why the fuck you think they let me carry all this product on this boat in the first place? ’Cause they trust me? No, Bobby, it’s ’cause they know I know there’s nowhere I could go with it they won’t find me. If we take this shit to Venezuela, we’re dead in two days.”

  “So what are you saying? You’re saying we don’t go to Venezuela?”

  “That’s right,” said Tark.

  “So what do we do?”

  “Lemme explain it slow, so even your dumbass brain can understand it,” said Tark. He was really enjoying himself now. “Number one, Lou’s gonna know you hijacked his shipment.”

  “Wait a minute,” said Kemp. “They don’t even know for sure I’m out here.”

  “Course they do, Bobby. You think they’re stupid as you are? One night, you disappear, same night, there’s an ambush. You think they won’t figure it out? Plus which, somebody called your friend Gene tonight, anonymous, and told him who’s in the shell suit. Plus which, I got two guys heading up to the bridge right now. They’re gonna disable the radios, so your captain don’t send out any alarms. But they’re also gonna let slip that they’re working for you, and when he gets back he’s gonna tell Lou. So they’ll definitely know it’s you, Bobby.”

  “They’ll know it’s you, too. It’s your boat.”

  “That’s true, Bobby. And they’re gonna find my boat.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about, they’re gonna find my boat. It has that emergency radio beacon deal that goes off when it hits the water. The Coast Guard’ll find it, swamped, with a bunch of holes shot in it, but it won’t go down because I got that unsinkable hull. They’re gonna find a couple of bags of cash in my boat, and a couple bags of product. You know what else they’re gonna find, Bobby?”

  Kemp didn’t answer.

  “They’re gonna find you, Bobby, in my boat, in your dumbass pink shell suit, all shot up.”

  “Wait, Tark, we . . .”

  “Shut up and listen, Bobby. Best they’ll be able to figure it, you set up the ambush out here, maybe working with me. You killed Manny, forced the ship crew to load the cash on my boat. Then when you’re pulling away from the ship, a bigass gunfight breaks out, automatic weapons, maybe some kind of doublecross. No way to know what happened, ’cause everybody’s shot or drowned. The Coast Guard doesn’t give a shit, far as they’re concerned it’s all scumbags anyway. They get some bags of money, some dope to show on TV, they’re happy. Lou and his boys, they’re not as happy, because they know there was a LOT more product, a lot more cash. But what the fuck can they do? Looks like it floated away, sank in the storm. They blame you, Bobby, but you’re already dead.”

  Tark paused here, smiling, pleased with the way this was going, the brilliance of his plan, the fact that Kemp was obviously terrified now.

  “I know what you’re wondering, Bobby,” he said. “You’re wondering, how does old Tark get out of here?”

  “Look, just tell me . . .”

  “I’m glad you asked, Bobby, ’cause that’s the best part. See that Zodiac over there?” Tark gestured toward the inflatable boat in the recessed deck. “That’s how, Bobby. It’s a good boat, I’ve checked it when we been out here before. Won’t be comfortable, but it’ll get me back to the Bahamas. Course, the Coast Guard’ll see that it’s missing. But they’re also gonna find some pieces of a Zodiac floating out here, same model, which I brought along. They’re gonna figure when my boat got shot up, somebody, maybe me, launched the Zodiac, tried to get away, but he didn’t make it. Lost at sea, Bobby. Everybody lost at sea. You see, Bobby? You see the kind of plan you can come up with when you got a fucking brain?”

  Bobby Kemp figured he had one chance here.

  “OK, Tark, please, listen to me. Forget one million. I’ll give you three million. Three million dollars, Tark.”

  Tark was loving this.

  “Bobby, you stupid little pink shit,” he said. “I got three million. I got ten million. I got all of it, Bobby, except the little tip I’m leaving for the Coast Guard. I got the cash here, and I got the product stashed away back in the Bahamas where nobody’ll find it. Nobody’ll even look for me,’cause I’ll be dead. Just like you, Bobby.” He raised his gun.

  “Tark, man, please,” said Kemp. “Let’s work something out, man. I got other money, OK? You can have it, OK, Tark? OK? Just tell me what you want.”

  Tark said, “I want you to shut the fuck up,” and he pulled the trigger.

  ARNIE AND PHIL, ANCIENT HEARTS THUMPING from two sets of stairs, staggered into the first-floor casino and looked around for somebody to tell about the killings out back. The first vaguely official person they saw was Joe Sarmino, at his bartender post. They lurched over. Arnie put one hand on a barstool for support and used the other to gesture for Joe’s attention.

  “Cahhh,” Arnie told him. “Cahhhhh.” He had too little breath to get the rest of it out. He motioned for Phil to pick up the narrative.

  “Cahhhhh,” said Phil.

  “You guys OK?” said Joe. “You need some water?”

  “Police,” said Arnie.

  “Police,” agreed Phil.

  “Police?” said Joe.

  “Call the police,” said Arnie. “You need to call the police right now.”

  “What for do you need the police?” said Joe.

  “They’re killing people,” said Arnie.

  “Back there,” said Phil.

  “Who is?” said Joe.

  “Some guys with guns,” said Arnie.

  “And the shell,” said Phil.

  “The shell?” said Joe.

  “It killed that guy,” said Phil.

  “With a gun,” said Arnie.

  “The shell did?” said Joe.

  “Yes,” said Arnie and Phil, together.

  “So you got to call the police now,” said Arnie.

  “We in the ocean,” Joe pointed out. “They don’t got no police out here.”

  “Who needs the police?” said Mara Purvis, who had just arrived at the bar to fill a fresh set of drink orders.

  Arnie turned to her. “Listen,” he said, “we need to call somebody right now, because we just saw some guys killing some guys.”

  “What?” said Mara. “Where?”

  “Out back,” said Arnie, gesturing. “They shot them.”

  “One of them was the shell,” said Phil.

  “They shot the shell?” said Mara.

  “No,” said Phil. “He shot the guy.”

  “The shell did?” said Mara.

  “Yes,” said Arnie. “The shell killed a guy, and some other guys killed the other guys. With guns. Back there. We need to call somebody. They’re on the ship.”

  “Arnie,” said Mara, “are you guys on some kind of medication you’re not supposed to take with alcohol?”

  “We’re not drunk,” said Arnie. “I’m telling you, we saw it with our eyes, guys shooting with guns.”

  “And the shell,” said Phil.

  Mara looked at Joe and said, “Do you know what they’re talking about?”

  “I dunno,” he said. “But I tell you one thing. Three m
inutes ago, right before they get here, I see two big guys come out of there”—he pointed to the door at the stern—“and I don’t see those guys here before. They was carrying gym bags, and they went up the stairs.”

  “Oh my God,” said Mara. “What’s going on?”

  “I dunno,” said Joe. “Like I say before, sometimes things happen on this boat I don’t wanna know nothing about.”

  “You think they’re gonna rob the casino? I mean the cashier on the second deck?”

  “Could be,” said Joe. “That’s the way they went.”

  “Oh my God,” said Mara.

  “We need to tell somebody,” said Arnie.

  “Manny,” said Mara. “We should tell Manny.”

  “Your boss?” said Arnie. “The one was yelling at you before?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You can’t tell him,” said Arnie.

  “Why not?” said Mara.

  “He’s dead,” said Arnie.

  “He’s the one the shell shot,” said Phil.

  “Oh my God,” said Mara.

  “We need to tell somebody,” said Arnie.

  “Should we go up and warn the cashier?” said Mara.

  “If they gonna rob them,” said Joe, “they already up there by now. You don’t wanna go there.”

  Mara thought, then said, “The captain. We could tell him, and he could call the Coast Guard or the cops or somebody.”

  “OK,” said Arnie. “Let’s go tell him. We’ll go with you, tell him what we saw.”

  “OK,” said Mara. “Joe, do you have a phone?”

  “I got a cell phone.”

  “OK, you call somebody in Miami, the police, or the Coast Guard, somebody, and tell them we think there’s a robbery, OK? And they should send somebody out here.”

  “OK,” said Joe. “I try.”

  “OK,” said Mara. “C’mon, you guys.”

  Mara headed for the stairs, followed by Arnie and Phil.

  “A nice, relaxing night, you said,” said Phil.

  “Don’t start,” said Arnie.

  As they disappeared into the stairway, Joe reached under the cash register and grabbed his cell phone. He was trying to decide whether to call directory assistance for the Coast Guard, or just 911. Then he looked at the phone screen: NO SERVICE.