Solomon & Lord Drop Anchor (2 page)

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 floors 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. 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.”