“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 Torano 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 floors in a car dealership, ended up owning Torano 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 unico que logro 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 Torano 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 Torano? 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. 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.
