Madre.’”
The shotgun blast roared over Steve’s head, and he flinched. The pouch balanced on the rail, halfway between the deck and the deep blue sea.
“Put the money down, asshole.”
“Okay, okay.” Steve shoved the pouch over the rail and it splashed into the water. “It’s down.”
“Asshole!” Cruz grabbed both throttles, slowed the boat, and swung her around. He turned a spotlight on the water.
Nothing but a black sea and foamy whitecaps.
He swung the spotlight left and right. Still nothing, until…the beam picked up the pouch floating with the current. Cruz eased the boat close to the pouch at idle speed, slipped the engine out of gear, then dashed down the ladder. Grabbing a tarpon gaff, he moved quickly to the gunwale. Shotgun in one hand, gaff in the other, he motioned toward Steve. “Back up. All the way to the chair.”
“Do what he says, Steve,” Victoria called from the bridge.
“Only because you said so.” Steve moved toward one of the fighting chairs.
Cruz leaned over the side and snagged the pouch with the gaff. He struggled to lift it with one arm, still aiming the shotgun at Steve.
Suddenly, the boat shot forward, and Cruz tumbled into the water, the shotgun blasting into space as it fell onto the deck. On the bridge, Victoria had one hand on the throttles, the other on the wheel.
“ Cono!” Cruz shouted from the darkness.
“Do sharks feed at night?” Steve leaned over the side. “Or should I just drop some wiggles on your head and find out?”
“Get me out of here!” His voice more fearful than demanding.
“Nah.”
“No me jodas!”
“I’m not fucking with you. Just don’t feel like giving you a lift.”
Victoria raced down the ladder and joined Steve in the cockpit. “Testing, testing,” she said, punching a button on her pocket Dictaphone.
“What are you doing?” Steve said.
“Mr. Cruz,” Victoria called out. “We’ll bring you on board once you answer a few questions.”
Cruz was splashing just off the starboard side. “What fucking questions!”
“Do you admit stealing three million dollars from Teresa Torano?” Victoria said.
Pink slivers of sky lit up the horizon and seabirds squawked overhead as Steve steered the boat into the channel at Matheson Hammock. He had one hand on the wheel and one draped on Victoria’s shoulder. A shivering Cruz, his arms and legs bound with quarter-inch line, was laced into a fighting chair in the cockpit. His taped confession would be in the hands of the State Attorney by noon. The pouch of money lay at his feet, taunting him.
“What are you thinking about?” Victoria asked.
“I was just imagining the look on Teresa’s face when we give her the money.”
“She’ll be delighted. But it was never about the money, Steve.”
“Whadaya mean?”
“When you were a baby lawyer, Teresa believed in you and nobody else did. You needed to prove to her that she was right. And maybe you needed to prove it to yourself, too.”
Steve shrugged. “If you say so.”
She wrapped both arms around his neck. “But remember this, Steve. You never have to prove anything to me.” They kissed, at first softly, and then deeper and slower. The kiss lasted a long time, and when they each opened their eyes, the sun was peeking above the horizon in the eastern sky.
Their bodies pressed together, Victoria felt something digging into her hip. “Are you carrying another pair of handcuffs?”
“Nope.”
“Then what…?” She jammed a hand into one of his pockets. “Oh. That.”
Steve smiled. “Like I said, no cuffs.”
“That’s okay, sailor.” She brushed her lips against his cheek. “You won’t need them.”
Preview: TO SPEAK FOR THE DEAD
Prologue
He would remember the sounds-the wailing sirens, the moans of the injured-and the smells, a smoky ashen stench that clung to hair and clothing. Late the first night, he slipped into the parking lot for some air, and he tasted the sky as the smoke rose above Miami’s inner core. He heard the city scream, the popping of wood and plastic aflame, short bursts of gunfire followed by silence, then the crackle of police radios. Later he would remember slipping in a puddle of blood on the tile floor of the Emergency Room.
He would not leave the hospital for seventy-two hours, and by then, he had treated more gunshot wounds than most doctors see in a lifetime. Blacks against police, whites against blacks, savage violence in a ghetto hopelessly misnamed Liberty City. By the time the shooting stopped and the fires were out, an eerie silence hung over the area, an inner-city battle zone where neither side surrendered, but each put away its weapons and withdrew.
“That’s a real poster ass, huh?”
Roger Salisbury shot a sideways glance at the man next to him. A working guy, heavy boots and a plaid shirt open at the neck. Thick hands, one on a pack of cigarettes, the other on his drink, elbows resting on the scarred bar. “Like to frame that ass, hang it in the den next to Bob Griese.”
“Uh-huh,” Salisbury mumbled. He didn’t come here to talk, didn’t know why he came. Maybe to lose himself in a place crammed with people and noise, to be alone amid clinking glasses, laughter, and the creaminess of women’s bodies. He strained his neck to see her above him on the stage.
“Not that one,” the man said, tapping the bar with a solid index finger. “Over there at the stairs, the on-deck circle. A real poster ass. Never saw a skinny girl with an ass like that. Eat my lunch offa that.”
She wore a black G-string, a red bikini top, and red high-heeled shoes. If not for the outfit and the setting, she could have been a cheerleader with a mom, dad, and grandmom in Kansas. Good bone structure, fair complexion with freckles across a button nose, short wavy reddish-brown hair, wholesome as a wheat field. The face belonged in a high school yearbook; the body launched a thousand fantasies. Her thin waist accentuated a round bottom that arched skyward out of both sides of the tiny G-string. Her breasts were round and full. She was warming up, fastening a prefab smile into place, taking a few practice swings, tapping a sequined shoe in time to Billy Joel, who was turned up way too high:
What’s the mat-ter with the clothes I’m wear-ing?
Can’t you tell that your tie’s too wide?
