The first shot pinged metal. I hit the deck and rolled toward a ladder that descended into the hold. The second shot was wild, probably high.
I hobbled down a ladder into the hold, hearing shouts above me. It couldn’t have taken more than thirty seconds. Another minute to get in, maybe take a shotgun blast in the chest, but maybe the gun would jam, and I’d take down the crewman at the control panel.
I was at the steel hatch. Door closed. I tried turning the wheel. It didn’t budge. In frustration, I slammed the wheel with my list, cursing. It still didn’t move, but my hand flared with pain, then went numb. I whacked the door with my shoulder. An old rotator cuff with a grudge reminded me of its existence. The compartment was sealed tight from the inside. I couldn’t open the door with a blowtorch.
So this was it. Not even a chance to die like a man.
Footsteps on the ladder above. I turned and headed for the stern. My ankle was starting to swell, and I was galumphing along at a half trot, half limp. I heard a tinkling sound that seemed to be coming from me. I touched my neck. The gold train, dripping Yagamata’s blood, was still hanging there, the engine and caboose intertwined into a knot.
Two compartments to pass through to get to the stern. Shouts from behind now. I forced myself not to turn. A gunshot, ricocheting off metal, then another, this one banging loud and close.
I crouched low and stumbled along. At the same time, I was zigzagging as much as I could along a narrow corridor. It reminded me of hopping through the tires on the practice field, the coaches studying stopwatches.
Time.
How much time?
Two minutes maybe.
The anchor chain came through a well at the stern. Thick, greasy steel links. I took two giant steps and leapt onto the chain. Then, squeezing my body against it, I lowered myself through the well. In ten seconds I was in open space and could drop into the water. Except that my jeans were stuck. Somehow the fabric was caught in a joint between two links of the chain. I pulled against it, but succeeded only in lodging it deeper. Then a grinding sound from above me, the motor that operated the winch. They were hauling the anchor, trying to pull me back into the well.
A huge explosion above me-God, this is it! — a shower of light, and I winced and closed my eyes. I opened them to discover a sunflower of exploding fireworks, a symphony of cannon bursts. The Grand Finale of the celebration.
I dangled there a moment, then felt the great steel chain rising. As it did, the links creaked. I pulled back once again, harder, and felt the rip as I tore out of my blood-soaked jeans and tumbled into the water. I started swimming, a version of the Australian crawl fueled by overwhelming fear. After ten strokes, I discovered I wasn’t moving. I floated for a second, getting my bearings, and was swept backward. I was pointed toward shore but was moving toward Bimini.
Riptide.
Of course. We were about an hour from low tide. Strong southeasterly winds had built up the surf. The churning water carves depressions in the sandbar along the beach. Water falls in from both sides of the depression, and rips back out to sea, carrying out shells, fish, and scared-to-death lawyers.
I turned around, heading away from shore, and started swimming again, this time with the rip current. Mark Spitz couldn’t have kept up with me on his best day. I felt strong and smooth as the current lifted and carried me. I fought the urge to look over my shoulder to see how much distance I had put between myself and the freighter. I just kept reaching and pulling and kicking…
And then the blast.
It lifted me from the water and tossed me down again.
And then the second one. The first, I figured, was the plastique, tearing apart the hold, smashing every statue and coin and painting and artistic doodad Foley could steal. The second would have been the fuel tanks, blowing the freighter apart.
I don’t know how far I was thrown. I remember I could no longer swim. My ears rang and my head throbbed and my limbs were numb. I floated on my back, and then face-down, and then on my back again. Salty waves washed over me, filling my nose and mouth, and I went under. Was I drowning along with the da Vincis and Renoirs and Gauguins? I came up and floated some more, opened my eyes, and couldn’t see.
I rode a breaking wave toward shore, but the riptide pulled me out again. I went under, came up, and bumped into something. I flipped onto my back, looked up, and saw a face peering down at me. Pale, with wet dark hair plastered to her forehead. Her mouth was moving, but I couldn’t hear a thing.
Above me, the sky was aflame. The water stank of oil and diesel fuel, and fire skittered across the surface of the waves. A piece of hot metal brushed my leg. What looked like burning newspaper floated in the breeze.
Again, I looked at her face, Lourdes leaning out of the lifeboat, reaching for me. I couldn’t hear, but in the shimmering light of the blazing ocean I saw her mouth my name. She reached down and tried to hoist me up. She couldn’t do it. I struggled to pull myself over the side of the lifeboat, but fell back into the water.
Finally, she wrapped a line around me and let me float there alongside. She put a hand on my cheek, cupping my head. When she withdrew, her hand was covered with blood and she shrank back.
Then I rolled over again onto my back and watched the flames dance across the water, black smoke billowing into the nighttime sky.
My head stopped throbbing, and I suddenly wanted to sleep. I felt no pain. No fear. No nothing.
28
Dr. Charles W. Riggs makes house calls.
This neither boosts the spirits nor stabilizes the blood pressure of his patients, none of whom has ever survived.
Except me.
I lay in bed sipping papaya juice and reading the newspaper, which was filled with its usual collection of mondo bizarro Miami news. A man getting off a flight from Bogota was stopped by customs agents at M.I.A. when they saw him walking stiffly through the inspection line. A closer look revealed packets of cocaine sewn into his thighs, beneath the skin. Miami’s customs inspectors are a jaded lot. They’ve caught folks who swallow condoms filled with cocaine and have found the drug in every orifice known to man (and woman). But the do-it-yourself plastic surgery was news, even here.
The sportswriters were still ecstatic over Miami getting a major league baseball franchise. More realistic was a columnist who suggested some ingenious promotions, including “Uzi Day,” in which all kids got toy submachine guns, “Cartel Day,” with box seats for drug kingpins, and “John Doe Day,” with free corn dogs for anyone in the Witness Protection Program. Maybe you have to live here to appreciate the humor.
Then there was the usual epidemic of burglaries, as always, with a Miami twist. Stolen lawns were the latest in larcenies. In the middle of the night, thieves roll up newly sodded lawns and cart them away. Mia-muh, you gotta love it or leave it.
A stream of visitors flowed through my coral rock house in Coconut Grove. Granny Lassiter tromped in, carrying bags of groceries. She stocked my shelves with her homemade kumquat preserves and calamondin marmalade, then baked a tart Key lime pie. She whipped up some conch fritters and sauteed fresh shrimp with lychees, ginger, red peppers, and passion fruit. I nibbled at the shrimp, then downed a jelly jar full of her white moonshine and slept for the next twenty hours.
Emilia Crespo brought me a steaming pot of arroz con polio. At least I wasn’t going to starve to death. Emilia stayed in the house, cooking, cleaning, mopping my feverish forehead, and whispering prayers into my ringing ears. Pain radiated from lacerations on my leg-infected by the gunk that floats in our waters-and I looked up at her through a haze. She seemed so far away, and I didn’t know which one of us was drifting. When my head cleared, I told her how the man who killed her son had died an excruciating death. She listened silently, then said something
