The Road to Hell

by Paul Levine

  Steve lowered his voice so she could barely hear him above the roaring diesels. “You remember Solomon’s Law number one?”

  Oh, that. Steve’s personal code for rule breaking.

  “How could I forget? ‘If the law doesn’t work…work the law.’”

  “In the matter of Manuel Cruz, the law isn’t working.”

  * * *

  “What’s that?” Cruz asked, eying the cooler on the deck.

  “Brought beer and bait,” Steve said.

  “What for? I got a case of La Tropical and a hundred pounds of shiners and wiggles.”

  All three of them stood on the fly bridge. Twin diesels throbbing, the Wet Dream cruised down Hawk Channel inside the barrier reefs. The water was green felt, smooth as a billiard table, the boat riding on a plane at thirty knots.

  Cruz ran a hand over the polished teak steering wheel. “I come to this country with nothing but the clothes on my back and look at me now.”

  “Very impressive,” Steve said, thinking it would be even more impressive if Cruz hadn’t stolen the money to buy the damn boat.

  Cruz winked at Victoria, his smile more of a leer. “You two want to fool around, I got clean sheets in the master stateroom.”

  “Sounds lovely,” Victoria cooed. “Want to fool around, Steve?” Her smile was as sweet as fresh-squeezed guarapo, but Steve caught the sarcastic tone.

  “Maybe after we catch something,” he said, pointedly.

  “Heads and A/C work, faucets don’t,” Cruz said. “Water tank’s fouled.”

  Steve studied the man, standing legs spread at the wheel, a macho pose. A green tattoo of a scorpion crawled up one ankle. On the other ankle, in a leather sheaf, was a foot-long Marine combat knife. It looked like the weapon Sylvester Stallone used in those “Rambo” movies. Out here, it could be used to cut lines or clean fish.

  Or gut a lawyer planning to do him harm.

  * * *

  They had just passed Sombrero Light when Cruz said, “So here’s my offer, hombre. The Toraño bitch gives me a release with a promise never to sue. And vice versa. I won’t sue her ass.”

  “I don’t like the way you talk about my client,” Steve said.

  “Tough shit. I don’t like Fidel Castro, but what am I gonna do about it?”

  “Your offer stinks like week-old snapper.”

  “You sue me, what do you get? A piece of paper you can wipe your ass with. I got nothing in my own name, including the boat.”

  Steve looked right and left to get his bearings. Off to port, in the direction of the reef, he spotted the fins of two sharks heading toward strands of yellow sargasso weed, home to countless fish. Red coral just below the surface cast a rusty glow on the shallow water. To the starboard was the archipelago of the Florida Keys. From here, the island chain was strung out like an emerald necklace. “Let Vic take the wheel a minute,” Steve said. “I want you to see something.”

  Cruz allowed as how even a woman lawyer could keep a boat on 180 degrees, due south, and followed Steve down the ladder to the cockpit. Just off the stern, the props dug at the water like a plow digging at a field. Steve opened the cooler, reached underneath the ice and pulled out a two foot-long greenish-blue fish, frozen solid. A horse-eyed jack.

  “Great bait, huh?” Steve held the fish by its tail and let it swing free. It had a fine heft, like a small sledgehammer.

  “Already told you. I got shiners and wiggles.”

  “Then I better use this for something else.” Steve swung the frozen fish at Cruz’ head. The man stutter-stepped sideways and the blow glanced off his shoulder and sideswiped an ear. Steve swung again, and Cruz ducked, the fish flying free and shattering the glass door of the salon. Cruz reached for his knife in the ankle sheath and Steve barreled into him, knocking them both to the deck.

  On the fly bridge, Victoria screamed. “Stop! Both of you!”

  The two men rolled over each other, scraping elbows and knees on the planked deck. Cruz was heavier, and his breath smelled of tobacco. Steve was wiry and quicker, but ended up underneath when they skidded to a stop. Cruz grabbed Steve’s t-shirt at the neck and slammed his head into the deck. Once, twice, three times. Thwomp, thwomp, thwomp.

  Steve balled a fist and landed a short right that caught Cruz squarely on the Adam’s apple. The man gagged, clutched his throat, and fell backward. Steve squirmed out from under, but Cruz tripped him. Steve tumbled into the gunwale, smacking his head, sparks flashing behind his eyes. He had the sensation of being dragged across a hard floor. On his back, he opened his eyes and saw something glistening in the sun.

  The knife blade!

  Cruz was on his knees, knife in hand. “Pendejo! I oughta make chum out of you.”

  “No!” Victoria’s voice, closer than it should have been.

  Steve heard the clunk, saw Cruz topple over, felt him bounce off his own chest. Straddling both of them was Victoria, a three-foot steel tarpon gaff in her right hand. “Omigod,” she said. “I didn’t kill him, did I?”

  “Not unless a dead man grunts and farts at the same time,” Steve said, listening to sounds coming from both ends of the semi-conscious man.

  He shoved Cruz off and stood up, wrapping his arms around Victoria, who was trembling. “You were terrific, Vic. We work great together.”

  “Really? What did you do?”

  “Come on. Help me get him up the ladder.” Steve pulled the handcuffs from his pocket. “I want him on the bridge.”

  “What now? What insanity now?”

  “Relax Vic. In a few hours, Cruz will be dying to give back Teresa’s money.”

  * * *

  Steve had played fast and loose with the rules before, Victoria thought, but nothing like this.

  This is scary. And in the eyes of the law, she was dirty, too.

  This could mean trading the couture outfits and Italian footwear for orange jumpsuits and shower shoes.

  With one wrist handcuffed to the rail at the rear of the bridge, Cruz had been berating Steve for the past twenty minutes. “Know what, Solomon? She hits harder than you do.”

  “Mr. Cruz,” Victoria said, “if you begin to feel dizzy or nauseous, let me know. Head trauma can be very dangerous.”

  “What about my head?” Steve demanded.

  “It’s impervious to trauma. Or reason.”

  The Wet Dream was planing across the tops of small whitecaps when Steve said: “Take the wheel, Vic. Keep it on two-zero-two.”

  “Please,” she said, irritated.

  “What?”

  “‘Keep it on two-zero-two, please.’”

  “A captain doesn’t say ‘please.’”

  “Maybe not Captain Bligh.” Victoria slid behind the wheel, thinking maybe she’d hit the wrong man with the gaff. She still didn’t know where they were headed, and Steve’s behavior was becoming increasingly bizarre. He had the beginning of a lump on his head, and blood trickled from his skinned elbows and knees.

  “Kidnaping,” Cruz said. “Assault. Boat theft. You two are gonna be busy little shysters.”

  “Shut up,” Steve said. “Under the law of the sea, I’m master of this craft.”

  “What law? You stole my fucking boat.”

  * * *

  Once past Key West, they entered the Florida Straits, the water growing deeper, the color turning from light green to aquamarine to cobalt blue. No reefs here, and a five-foot chop slapped at the hull of the boat. The wavecaps sparkled, as if studded with diamonds in the late afternoon sun.

  “Gonna tell you a story, Cruz,” Steve said, “and when I’m done, you’re gonna cry and beg forgiveness and give back all the money you stole.’”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “Story starts forty-some years ago in Havana. A beautiful lady named Teresa Toraño lost her husband who was brave enough to oppose Fidel Castro.”

  “Tough shit,” Cruz said. “Happened to a lot of people.”

  “Teresa came to Miami with nothing. Worked minimum wage, mopped fl
oors in a car dealership, ended up owning Toraño Chevrolet.”

  “ My papi always told me hard work pays off,” Cruz said, smirking. “Too bad he never got out of the cane fields.”

  “A few years ago, she hires a new controller. A fellow exilado. This guy’s got a fancy computer system that will revolutionize their books. It also lets him steal three million bucks before anybody knows what hit them. Now, the banks have pulled Teresa’s line of credit, and she could go under.”

  “I’m not crying, Solomon.”

  “Not done yet. See, this lady is damn important to me. If it hadn’t been for Teresa giving me work my first year out of school, I’d have gone broke.”

  “Lo único que logró la dama fue posponer lo inevitable,” Cruz said. “She only postponed the inevitable.”

  Victoria knew there was more to it than just a financial relationship. Teresa had virtually adopted Steve and his nephew Bobby, and the Solomon Boys loved her in return. After Victoria entered the picture, she was added to the extended Toraño family. Now, each year at Christmas, they all gathered at Teresa’s estate in Coral Gables for her homemade crema de vie, an anise drink so rich it made eggnog seem like diet soda. All of which meant that Steve would do anything for Teresa. One of Steve’s self-proclaimed laws expressed the principle:

  “I won’t break the law, breach legal ethics, or risk jail time…unless it’s for someone I love.”

  Now that Victoria thought about it, the question wasn’t: Just what would Steve do for Teresa Toraño? It was: What wouldn’t he do?

  “That sleazy accountant,” Steve said. “In Cuba, he kept the books for the student worker program, the students who cut sugar cane. Ran the whole food services division. But he had a nasty habit of cutting the pineapple juice with water and selling the meat off the back of trucks. The kids went hungry and he got fat. When the authorities found out, he stole a boat and got the hell out of the worker’s paradise.”

  “Old news, hombre.”

  “Vic, still on two-zero-two?” Steve asked.

  “I know how to read a compass,” she said, sharply.

  “Where you taking me?” Cruz demanded.

  “Jeez, how’d you ever get from Havana to Key West?” Steve said.

  “Everybody in Havana knows the heading to the States. You want Key West, you keep it at twenty-two degrees.”

  “A bit east of due north. So what’s two-zero-two?”

  “A little west of due south.”

  “Keep going, Cruz. I think you’re catching the drift, no pun intended.”

  Steve waited a moment for the bulb to pop on. When it didn’t, he continued, “Two hundred two minus twenty-two is one hundred eighty. What happens when you make a hundred eighty degree turn, philosophically or geographically speaking?”

  “Fuck!” Cruz jerked the handcuff so hard the rail shuddered. “We’re going to Havana!”

  “Bingo.”

  “You’re taking me straight to hell!”

  “Precisely. We’re repatriating you.”

  “You crazy? Cuban patrol boats will sink us. You remember that tugboat. Trece de Marzo. Forty people dead.”

  “The Marzo was trying to leave the island. We’re coming in, and we’re bringing a fugitive to justice. They should give us a reward, or at least a bottle of Club Havana rum.”

  “They’ll kill me.”

  “Not without a trial. A speedy trial. Of course, if you tell us where you’ve stashed Teresa’s money, we’ll turn this tub around.”

  “Dammit, Steve,” Victoria said. “We have to talk.”

  * * *

  Steve put the boat on auto – two hundred two degrees – and took Victoria down to the salon.

  “You could get us killed,” she said. “Or jailed. Right now, the best case scenario would be disbarment.”

  “That’s why I didn’t want you along.”

  Steve walked to the galley sink and turned on the faucet, intending to rinse the dried blood from a scraped elbow. The plumbing rattled and thumped, but nothing came out. He opened the ice maker. Empty, too.

  “Cruz is a lousy host,” Steve said.

  “Are you listening to me? Let’s go back to Miami. I’ll see if we can talk Cruz out of filing charges.”

  They both heard the sound, but it took a second to identify it. A scream from the bridge. “Sol-o-mon!”

  Followed a second later by machine gun fire.

  * * *

  Steve and Victoria ran back up the ladder to the bridge. Cruz was tugging against the rail, his wrist bleeding where the handcuff sawed into his skin. Three hundred yards off their starboard, a Cuban patrol boat fired a short burst from a machine gun mounted on its bow. Dead ahead, the silhouette of the Cuban island rose from the sea, misty in the late afternoon light.

  “Warning shots,” Steve said. “Everybody relax.”

  Steve eased back on the throttles, tooted the horn, and waved both arms at the approaching boat. “C’mon Cruz. It’s now or never. When they pull alongside, I’m handing you over.”

  “Do what you got to do, asshole.”

  “Steve, turn the boat around,” Victoria ordered. “Now!”

  The patrol boat slowed. Two men in uniform at the machine gun, a third man holding a bullhorn.

  “I’m not fucking with you, Cruz,” Steve said. “You’ve got thirty seconds. Where’s Teresa’s money?”

  “Chingate!” Cruz snarled.

  “Senores del barco de pesca!” The tinny sound of the bullhorn carried across the water.

  “Last chance,” Steve said.

  “Se han adentrado en las aguas territoriales de la República de Cuba.”

  “Steve, we’re in Cuban waters,” Victoria said.

  “I know. I passed Spanish 101.”

  “Den la vuelta y salgan inmediatamente de aquí, o los vamos a abordar.”

  “They’re going to board us if we don’t turn around,” she said.

  “I kind of figured that out, too.” Steve turned to Cruz. “Absolutely, positively last chance, pal. I’m handing you over.”

  “I’m betting you don’t,” Cruz said.

  The patrol boat was fifty yards away. One of the men in uniform pointed an AK-47 their way.

  “Steve…?” Victoria’s voice was a plea.

  This wasn’t the way he’d planned it. By this time, Cruz should have been spouting numbers and accounts from banks in the Caymans or Switzerland or the Isle of Man. But the bastard was toughing it out. Calling Steve’s bluff.

  Is that what it is? An empty threat.

  Steve wanted to hand Cruz over, wanted him to rot in a Cuban prison.

  But dammit, I’m a lawyer, not a vigilante.

  He wished he could turn his conscience on and off with the flick of a switch. He wished he could end a man’s life with cold calculations and no remorse. But the rats that would gnaw at Cruz at Isla de Pinos would visit the house on Kumquat Avenue in Steve’s nightmares.

  “Take the wheel, Vic.” Filled with self-loathing, wishing he could be someone he was not. “Twenty-two degrees. Key West.”

  “Say ‘please,’” Cruz laughed, mocking him.

  * * *

  Just before midnight, the lights of Key West off the port, the Wet Dream cruised north through Hawk Channel, headed toward Miami. The sky was clear and sparkled with stars. The wind whipped across the bridge, bringing a night chill. Victoria slipped into her glen-plaid jacket. Hair messed, clothes rumpled, emotionally drained, she was trying to figure out how to salvage the situation.

  I came aboard to save Steve from himself and I’m doing a lousy job.

  Steve stood at the wheel, draining a La Tropical beer, maybe listening, maybe not, as Cruz berated him.

  “You fucking loser,” Cruz said. “Every minute I’m tied up is gonna cost you.” Cruz rubbed his arm where the cuff was biting into his wrist. “I got nerve damage. Gonna add that to my lawsuit. When this is over, you’ll wish the Cubans had taken you prisoner.”

  “Steve, I need a mo
ment with you,” Victoria said.

  Steve put the boat on auto – Cruz complaining that it was a damn reckless way to cruise at night – then headed down the ladder, joining Victoria in the salon.

  “You can’t keep him locked up,” she said.

  “I need more time.”

  “For what?”

  “To think.” He walked to the galley sink and turned the faucet, intending to toss cold water on his face. Same rattle, same thump. “Damn, I forgot. Cruz put all that money into his boat and still can’t get the water to work.”

  “What?”

  “A fancy boat like this and you can’t wash your hands.”

  “No. What you said before. ‘Cruz put all that money into his boat.’”

  “It’s just a figure of speech.”

  “Think about it, Steve. He doesn’t own a house. He leases a car. No brokerage accounts, no bank accounts. Everything he has, he puts into his boat. If he ever has to leave town quickly…”

  “Like he left Cuba,” Steve said, picking up the beat. “With nothing but the clothes on his back.”

  “This time it would be different because…”

  “The money’s here! On the boat.”

  In sync now, she thought.

  A man and a woman running stride for stride.

  “Vic, why don’t you go back up to the bridge and make sure we don’t crash into any cruise ships?”

  “And what are you doing?”

  “I’m gonna fix the plumbing.”

  * * *

  Steve opened the hatch in the salon floor and climbed down a ladder to the engine compartment, wincing at the noise from the twin diesels. He found the black water tank first, tucked up under the bow. Sewage and waste water. Nothing unusual about it, and Cruz wouldn’t want to dirty his hands with that, anyway. Then Steve found the freshwater tank, a custom job built into one of the bulkheads. Made of fiberglass, it looked capable of holding 500 gallons or more. The boat had desalinization equipment, so why did Cruz need such a big tank?

  A big tank that wasn’t working.

  Steve grabbed a flashlight mounted on a pole and took a closer look. He peered into an inspection port and could see the tank was three quarters full. On top of the tank was a metal plate with a built-in handle. He turned the plate counter-clockwise and removed it. Then he aimed the flashlight into the opening.

  Water. Well, what did you expect?

  He grabbed a mop that was attached by velcro to a stringer and poked the handle into the tank. The end of the handle clanked off the walls.