“ 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 Republica de Cuba.”
“Steve, we’re in Cuban waters,” Victoria said.
“I know. I passed Spanish 101.”
“ Den la vuelta y salgan inmediatamente de aqui, 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 moment 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.
Clank. Clank. Clank. Thud.
Thud? What the hell?
Steve pushed the mop handle around the bottom of the tank as if he were stirring a giant vat of paella. It snagged on something soft. He worked the handle under the object and lifted.
Something as long as a man’s body but much thinner.
Thin enough to fit into the opening of the custom-built tank. The object was a transparent, plasticized pouch, and when the end peeked out of the opening, Steve saw Ben Franklin’s tight-lipped face. A hundred dollar bill. Stacked on others. Dozens of stacks. As he pulled the pouch out of the tank, he saw even more. Hundreds of stacks, thousands of bills.
Damn heavy, Steve thought, lugging the pouch up the ladder from the engine compartment. Then he dragged the load out the salon door and into the cockpit. “Now you’ve done it,” Cruz sounded almost mournful. He stood on the bridge, aiming a double-barrel shotgun at Steve. The rail where he had been cuffed hung loose. “I didn’t want this. But it’s your own damn fault.”
“I’m sorry, Steve,” Victoria said. “When I came up here, he’d gotten out.”
“Not your fault,” Steve said. He dragged the pouch to the starboard gunwale.
“Stop right there!” Cruz ordered. “Step away from the money.”
“Nope. Don’t think so.”
Cruz pumped the shotgun, an unmistakable click-clack that Steve felt in the pit of his stomach. “I’ll blow your head off.”
“And leave blood and bone and tissue embedded in the planking? Nah. You may kill us, but you won’t do it on your boat.” Steve hoisted the pouch onto the rail.
“If I can’t take this to Teresa, I’m sure as hell not gonna let you have it. Your treasure, pal, is strictly Sierra
