The Night Charter (4 page)

W
HEN THE
A
NNABEL
was within cellular range of the shore, Camaro's phone vibrated in her pocket. She checked her calls and found three from a number she didn't recognize and one message. She dialed into voice mail. It was from Parker. She was glad it was not an invitation to a second date, a real date with dress-up and flowers and dinner by candlelight. He wanted her to meet one of his clients, and he wanted the meeting soon. Camaro deleted the message.

She looked to the back deck at the three men and their wives, each taking turns snapping pictures of each other in the fighting chair as the sun went down. There had been plenty of snaps earlier when one of the women managed to land an eighty-pound swordfish, and much disappointment when it was time to return the fish to the sea. There were sailfish and mahi-mahi and blackfin lining up to be caught thereafter, and everyone was happy again.

The
Annabel
was close to the marina when Camaro called Parker's number. He picked up right away. “Is this Camaro?” he said.

“It's me,” Camaro said. “Sorry. I didn't get your call until now.”

“I thought maybe you were avoiding me.”

“I can't avoid you,” Camaro said. “You paid me a deposit, remember?”

“I meant because of…you know. The other thing.”

“Don't even think about that,” Camaro said. “I had fun. You had fun. That's all it had to be.”

“Right. Sure. Okay.”

He was quiet a bit, and Camaro angled closer to shore. “You needed to talk to me about your client?” she asked.

“Oh, yeah, absolutely. Matt, he's one of the guys I'm chartering the boat for, wants to meet you. I was wondering if you had time tonight for us to come by and check the boat out, say hello. That kind of thing.”

“What's he worried about?” Camaro asked.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean what's so important that he has to see me right now?”

“He's a real picky guy, that's all. Wants to make sure we have the right boat.”

“Do
you
think you have the right boat?”

“Yeah, I think so. I think so. You know, there's some stuff I want to talk about, but we could maybe do that some other time. I don't know what kind of food you like.”

“I told you: I'm not looking for any boyfriends,” Camaro said. “You want to talk to me, you can call or stop by the marina. I'm around. And you still have a few days to schedule your charter.”

“Will you be around in an hour?” Parker asked.

The marina was close now, the dense thicket of boats clearly visible in the dying sunlight. “I will. Come on by, and bring your client.”

She hung up. On the aft deck the clients were all done taking their pictures and stood around glumly waiting for the charter to be done. The fun was over, and now there would be the drive home and tomorrow's pain from arms and necks that didn't get enough sunscreen.

They said their good-byes and tipped Camaro a hundred dollars, and then they were gone. Despite the time and the growing darkness, she hosed down the deck and set to cleaning up once again. What she did tonight she wouldn't have to do tomorrow.

She heard a deep-throated engine a half-hour later and climbed the flybridge to see out toward the parking lot. The yellow-and-black Charger was distinct under the lights. She recognized Parker when he got out, and saw the second man come from behind the wheel. The two walked together down the pier. When Parker saw her, he waved, but she did not wave back.

He stopped by the boat. He looked, as always, like a castaway on some beach in the Keys. The other man wore a short-sleeved shirt open over a white tank top and worn jeans that had light patches over the knees. His boots were steel toed and heavy. He watched her with critical eyes.

“Permission to come aboard?” Parker asked.

Camaro came down from the flybridge where she could be closer to the second man. When he looked at her, she looked back, and they went on like this until he blinked and glanced away. “I think you're good,” she said finally.

She caught a moment of unhappiness on Parker's face, and then it submerged. “Camaro, this is Matt Clifford. He's one of my clients,” he said. “Matt, this is Captain Espinoza.”

“Nice to meet you,” Matt said, and he held out a hand for her to shake. She took it. He was stronger than his frame suggested. “Parker said you had a nice boat. Sure looks good to me.”

“She gets the job done,” Camaro said.

“I was kind of hoping to see the whole thing.”

Camaro hesitated. She sensed the old nerves from Parker again, but Matt was languid, at ease like a loosely coiled snake, his eyes hooded. He had tattoos coiled down his arms, some of them crude, done by amateurs. Prison ink. A long minute passed in silence. She beckoned him forward. “Come on then,” she said.

They boarded, and Matt prowled the deck while Parker stood aside. Camaro watched only Matt as he poked a head into the cabin. “Real nice,” Matt said at last. “Clean.”

“I saw your ride,” Camaro said. “The Charger. A '70?”

He looked at her sharply. “Yeah, that's right.”

“Got a 440 under the hood.”

“Yeah. You know cars?”

“Some cars.”

“She's a classic,” Matt said. “I restored her myself.”

“That so?”

“That's so.”

He stood still, and they looked at each other again until Matt broke the spell a second time. Camaro marked him as he began to walk the deck again, touching the rods on their rack, drifting a hand over the back of the fighting chair. She had Parker at her back, and he had not moved.

When Matt stopped, he did not look right at her, but past her. “I think you're gonna earn your ten thousand just fine,” he said.

“What ten thousand?” Camaro asked.

“The ten thousand,” Matt said. “Parker didn't tell you about the ten thousand?”

Camaro glanced back at Parker and saw him looking at his sandals. A muscle in her jaw flexed. “I didn't sign on for anything paying ten thousand,” she said. “It's eight seventy-five for a one-night charter. You're going swordfishing.”

“Right. Swordfishing,” Matt said.

“Yeah,” Camaro said, and she fixed him with her eyes so that he could not look away. “That's what I do. I take people out to fish. If you're looking for something else, you have the wrong boat and the wrong captain.”

“Didn't he pay you a deposit?”

Camaro rooted around in her pocket until she found the folded bills. She counted off two hundred dollars and turned on Parker. “Give me your hand,” she told him. He complied, and she thrust the money into it before looking back to Matt. “There's your money, and that's the way off the boat. I suggest the two of you go.”

Matt put his hands up for peace. “Hey, listen, I'm just saying—”

“I don't give a shit
what
you're saying. Get off my boat. Now.”

Parker spoke up. “We should go, Matt.”

Matt's gaze flared, and for a moment Camaro thought he might round the fighting chair and take a swing at her. The tension was in his body, the lazy snake a hard spring. She dropped a foot back and settled her weight. The instant passed. “Okay, let's go,” Matt said. “I'm sorry you wasted my time.”

“Whatever,” Camaro said.

They disembarked. Parker stole a glance in her direction, and she glared at him until he looked away. As they retreated down the pier, she felt pain in her hands and realized they were balled into fists. She forced the fingers to come apart.

After a minute the sound of the Charger's motor rolled down to her. Then they were gone.

P
ARKER CALLED HER
in the morning. She let it ring through to voice mail twice, but when he tried a third time she answered. “Fuck off,” she told him.

“Wait, listen,” he said, “I can explain.”

“I'm not interested,” Camaro said.

“Can you at least give me a chance?” Parker asked. “I'm asking for fifteen minutes. Hell, give me
ten
minutes! I can lay it all out for you, and if you're still a no, then I'll leave you alone, and you'll never hear from me again.”

“Or I can hang up the phone and never hear from you again,” Camaro said.

“Look, I'm not saying you owe me anything, but I thought maybe we had a connection the other day. All I need is a few minutes and that's it. I'll come by your boat if I have to.”

Camaro looked around her kitchen. She took a knife from its block and held it in her fist reversed, edge out, and point down. She cut the air. “I have a gun, Parker.”

“Please,” Parker said.

She didn't say anything, and he was quiet. His breathing carried down the line, quick and nervous. The memory of him standing by while Matt walked the deck came to her unbidden, and the sense of his discomfort in the presence of the man he called his client. “Okay, I'll meet you,” she said. “But if you're wasting my time, I will
not
be happy. Do you understand?”

“Absolutely. Where do you want to go?”

“The diner. I'll see you there around one o'clock.”

“I'll be there.”

There was time enough to work out on the back porch, but she chose to dress for running instead. Her neighborhood was nothing but mile after mile of flat ground and cheap little houses occupied by people who worked hard and lived paycheck to paycheck. Mostly Cuban families, speaking nothing but Spanish at home. When she went running, they would sometimes watch her from their yards as they watered their plants or simply sat in folding chairs letting time and the world slip by them. Their children played in the street, riding old bikes or kicking a ball around.

In the end she ran five miles and then soaked in the shower for twenty minutes. She dressed and took her bike to the diner. She arrived ten minutes early and got a booth without Parker, ordering two iced teas and telling the waitress to hold off on taking their order until she was sure she would stay.

“Blind date?” the waitress asked.

“Something like that,” Camaro replied.

He came right on time and spotted her through the front window. If he'd worn a hat he would have held it in his hands as he approached the booth, but instead he was shamefaced and timid, and it made Camaro want to knock him over. She pointed him into his seat.

He started immediately. “Thank you for seeing me,” he said.

Camaro looked at her watch. “It's one minute past one,” she said, and she turned the bezel to mark ten minutes. “When we hit eleven minutes, I walk out that door unless you have something amazing to tell me.”

She expected an argument. He gave her none. “Okay,” he said.

“Start.”

“I'm not a business consultant,” Parker said.

“No kidding.”

“I had to tell you
something
.”

“How about the truth?” Camaro said.

Parker began to tear open sugar packets, one after the other, and dump them into his tea. “The truth is that I'm thirty-four years old, and I'm a convicted felon. Now I don't know if you know what that means exactly, but if you're a felon in this state, you have about zero things going for you. People don't hire you, you can't vote…all of that.”

“What were you in for?” Camaro asked.

“Motor vehicle theft. I did five years. That's when Matt and I crossed paths. He was on his way out, and I was on my way in. We did some time together.”

“Tell me about your daughter.”

“My daughter's name is Lauren,” Parker said, and the name sounded like a plea. “She's fourteen. Just like I said. With her mother out of the picture, I worked my ass off to get custody of her after I got out of prison. She was living in foster care, but now she's with me. She's everything I have.”

Camaro thought of the little girl in the photograph. The laughter and the gusting wind that caught her hair. She leaned forward, and she saw Parker withdraw the same distance. “I'm gonna tell you something,” Camaro said. “I have a history of getting caught up in things that end up going the wrong way, so I don't need to get involved in some ex-con's scam, whatever it is. You worked hard to get your daughter back? I worked hard to get what I have, and I'm working hard to keep it. So if you're looking for someone to run drugs or something, you can stop talking right now and go.”

Parker chewed the inside of his lip. “It's not drugs,” he said.

“But it's a crime,” Camaro said.

“Not really. Not when you think about it.”

Camaro slapped a hand down on the table and made the glasses jump. People looked their way, and she glared at them until they turned back to their own business. She spoke quietly. “I said no bullshit. It's a crime or it's not. Which is it?”

“Okay, it's a crime. But it's not what you think. We're not smuggling drugs or guns or anything like that. We're bringing in a person. It's an escape from Cuba. This guy is desperate, and he has to get out of the country. Some people are willing to pay us good money to get him out of there and back to Miami in one piece.”

“Cuba,” Camaro said.

“That's right.”

“Why not just leave on a plane? People can do that now, right?”

“It's a whole thing. The government has a say in who's allowed to come and go. They'll never let him leave.”

“So he has to go out in secret.”

“That's right.”

“How much are they paying?”

“A hundred thousand dollars. We got fifty up front, and we get the rest on delivery. So you're getting ten percent just for driving the boat. It's in and out. We don't see anybody, and nobody sees us.”

Camaro caught the waitress' eye and nodded. She saw the woman take up two menus and head their way. Parker ignored his when the waitress put it down. He watched Camaro's face with desperate eyes. She picked up her menu and looked at it carefully. “You ever been to Cuba?” she asked Parker without looking at him.

“No.”

“You ever run the waters between Miami and Cuba? At all?”

“No.”

Now she fixed him with her gaze. “So how the hell do you know it'll be as simple as scooting in and scooting out? Is that your whole plan?”

“Well, yeah,” Parker said.

“Jesus, you guys are in trouble,” Camaro said.

“That's why we need an expert!” Parker said quickly. “Somebody who can captain a boat and keep it on the down low! I bet you've been halfway to Cuba more than once or twice. What's a few more miles?”

“It's over two hundred miles to Cuba from Miami,” Camaro said. “How far out do you think I go?”

“You see? We need expertise! You're smart, and you know what's up. With you on board, we can get this done no problem.”

Camaro put her menu down and folded her hands on top of it. “Parker, I'm not interested.”

“Please,” he said. “I have to go back to Matt with something.”

“If you have to go back to Matt, you need to go back to him and tell him to get the hell out of your life,” Camaro said. “Anybody can tell he's bad news.”

“You don't understand,” Parker said. “I need the money his deal is going to earn us. I can't find work, and if I don't get a job I'm not going to be able to keep a roof over my head. I'll lose my house, and then I'll lose Lauren all over again. That can't happen. This is my big chance to land some serious money.”

“How much is your end?” Camaro asked.

“About twenty-three grand.”

“That won't last.”

“It's something, and that's more than I have right now. I'm already a month behind on rent.”

Camaro flagged the waitress down a second time. “On second thought, I'm just going to take the drinks,” she said. “Can I pay for them right now?”

“Sure,” the waitress said, and she waited as Camaro peeled off a few bills. Out of the corner of her eye, Camaro could see Parker reddening behind his tan. She hoped he would not cry.

“I'm going to go,” Camaro told him when the waitress was gone.

“Camaro, I'm begging you.”

She paused. “I'm not saying no,” she said.

“What are you saying?”

“I'm saying I'll think about it.”

“Camaro, I have to be able to tell Matt something. If I don't have anything to tell Matt, he's—”

“You worry about
me,
not Matt,” Camaro said. “I'm the one who matters right now.”

Parker nodded, attentive. “Right, right. I'll hold off on telling him anything until you make up your mind. But if he asks, can I say you're interested? Maybe I can get him to swing a few thousand more.”

“I'm not looking for more money,” Camaro said.

“What
are
you looking for?”

“A reason not to say no. I'll call you, Parker.”

She got up to leave, and Parker caught her by the wrist. She gave him a look that made him let go as if his hand were burned. “I'm sorry,” he said. “I just wanted to say…this is for Lauren. I don't care if you think I'm some kind of ex-con bum, but I have a little girl, and she needs me. I'm all she has.”

“I'm going,” Camaro said. And she left.