The Night Charter (7 page)

O
N THAT
F
RIDAY
Camaro had a charter for seven, and the fish came in steadily all morning and into the early afternoon, when it was time to turn back. They were a well-behaved group and enthusiastically took pictures of everything in sight, from one another to the boat to Camaro herself. She would have declined the shots they snapped of her, but they were polite about it, and she decided it would do no harm. By this time tomorrow she might be on Facebook, but that was the risk she took by living a public life.

She brought the group ashore and took the boat for refueling. The trip to Cuba was a long one, and it would not do to let the tanks run dry. Then they would be adrift, and the Coast Guard would have to be called in, and there would be questions and more questions, none of which they would be able to answer truthfully.

Tonight there would be no sleep, so she napped in the bed in the bow. It was only the sound of Parker's voice that stirred her awake. She sat bolt upright, alert to the closed cabin around her.

“Hello?” Parker called again. “Anybody on board?”

Camaro checked her watch and saw that it was only three thirty. They were not set to be underway until five o'clock. She got up and peered through the window on the pier side. Parker was there alone.

On the deck again, she saw that Parker had a rod and a tackle box. In his sunglasses and with his tan, he might have been any one of the people in her morning charter. There was no subterfuge about him. “Hey,” he said.

“You're early,” Camaro said.

“I couldn't wait anymore. I have nerves, I guess. Do you mind?”

“No. Come aboard.”

Parker did, and he set his rod in one of the side holders. He tucked his tackle box in the corner near the bait locker. Afterward, he stood awkwardly in front of Camaro, anxious with his hands. “I brought my stuff,” he said unnecessarily.

Camaro inspected his rod. It was good for sea fishing and seemed like it had seen use. “Nice one,” she said. “You didn't tell me you did much deep-water fishing.”

“I don't,” Parker said. “I got that one used from the classifieds. Only cost me a hundred bucks. It's good, huh?”

“You got a deal,” Camaro said.

“Awesome. It's too bad I won't get a chance to use it.”

Camaro nodded, but said nothing. She crouched down beside Parker's tackle box and opened it, rummaging through the lures and hooks. Unlike the rod, most of these weren't what he'd need, but if someone wasn't paying much attention, it would seem like everything was in order. That would have to be good enough.

“You're real thorough,” Parker said.

“I try to be.”

Parker tried to find a place out of the sun. He leaned against the slick white side of the cabin and played a finger along the darkened glass of the window. “Think we can go below?” he asked.

“It's the wrong time to ask for that,” Camaro said.

“No, I didn't mean it like that. It's just hot out here. I could use something cold if you've got it.”

“There are water bottles in the fridge.”

“Perfect.”

They went below, and Camaro fetched out a half-liter plastic bottle of water. Cracking the cap, Parker guzzled half of it all at once, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. His forehead was speckled with sweat.

The couch beside the galley counter was open, and Parker took a spot. Camaro sat down with him, and they watched each other for a while, saying nothing. It was Camaro who spoke. “Are you worried about something in particular?” she asked.

“No, nothing in particular. Only everything,” Parker said, and he tried a smile that quickly died. “You know.”

“How'd you even get involved in this?” Camaro asked. “It's not your thing.”

Parker shook his head slowly. He uncapped the water and pulled on the bottle. “I don't know,” he said. “I kind of got sucked into it. Matt's like that. He's got gravity, like a black hole or something. You get in with him, and he carries you the rest of the way.”

“How much time did you serve together?”

He finished his bottle and crushed it in his hand. “We served a year and a half together in the South Bay Correctional Facility. He was in for armed robbery, and I was doing my stretch for the car theft. They put us in a cell together and, I don't know, we got along. We kept in touch after we got out.”

“How many jobs have you pulled together?”

“That's the funny thing,” Parker said. “This is the first time we've ever done it. Sandro, you met him, he's Matt's go-to guy. Jackson, too. They were all together on some stuff before I even came into the picture. Matt had to skip town a few years ago in front of some trouble, and they all scattered. But I guess you can't stay gone forever.”

“Why bring you in at all?” Camaro asked.

“Because I'm the trustworthy one,” Parker said. “Sandro and Jackson might be tight with Matt, but he doesn't trust them more than he has to. He knew I would hold the money and wouldn't run with it. So he gave it to me, and I did what he said.”

“Sometimes the guy holding the money is the first one to get hurt,” Camaro said.

Camaro heard footsteps on the pier outside, and a glance through the window showed Matt, Sandro, and Jackson. They, too, came bearing rods for fishing they weren't prepared to do, but they did not wait for permission to come aboard. She watched them mill around on the aft deck, putting away their rods. They'd brought a brilliant yellow cooler and set it down heavily.

Out on the deck, Camaro looked them over. They were dressed right, like Parker, and Matt wore a cap that kept his unruly hair in place. Their rods were brand new and cheap, the kind that could break if a hundred-pound swordfish got on the line.

“Captain,” Matt said, “your crew is here.”

“You're my charter, not my crew,” Camaro said. “I'm the crew.”

“Whatever. We're here. Anytime you want to cast off, we're ready.”

She took time to examine each man in turn, and they looked back at her. Finally she nodded. “Okay. Let's go. You know how to handle the lines?”

“I think I can figure it out.”

“Cast us off.”

On the flybridge she waited until the boat was free of the dock, and then she sparked the engine. A tremor ran through the length of the vessel, vibrating the deck beneath Camaro's feet. The pulsation quickened as she gave the boat some throttle and edged them away.

A
FTER THEY HAD
been on the blue water for four hours, the sun settled low on the horizon and bled into the sea. They were well clear of land in every direction. Camaro had the radar switched on all the way, tracking the movement of ships beyond the skyline. There was no way to tell if they were pleasure boats or commercial craft or vessels of the Coast Guard or DEA or Border Patrol. Only if they angled near enough to be spotted would Camaro be able to distinguish the difference, and once the sunlight was gone even that would be lost.

Matt and the others passed in and out of the cabin, sometimes lounging in the fighting chair or against the sides of the boat, chatting over the continuous roar of the engine. The
Annabel
could cruise at forty knots, which was fast enough for what they had to do. Camaro would not push the boat further, and she was not asked to.

She heard someone climbing up to the flybridge and saw Matt's head appear. He stood up beside her, looking out at the purpling blackness ahead and breathed deeply. The air smelled of salt. In his hands he held bottles of beer. He pushed one in her direction. “Here,” he said. “Take the edge off.”

“No, thanks,” Camaro said.

“You don't drink?”

“I'm your designated driver.”

Matt chuckled at that. He tucked one bottle in his armpit and twisted the cap off the other. The cap went into the sea. He drank. “I only drink when I'm already relaxed,” he told her.

“So you don't have any worries, huh?” Camaro asked.

“Nope. I see this going smooth all the way down the line.”

Camaro was quiet.

“You know,” Matt said, “I haven't had a chance to say so before, but you are a fine-looking woman. You have some Cuban blood?”

Camaro stared straight ahead. “No,” she said.

“Huh. I figured you for a little Latina fire, you know? The way you stand up for yourself. I may not look like it, but I appreciate a lady who can hold her own.”

“That's nice,” Camaro said.

“You misunderstand me.”

“No, I think I understand you just fine,” Camaro said.

“Alls I'm saying is that once this is over with, I wouldn't mind getting to know you a little better. I'll have some spending money, and we can hit the clubs. Do a little dancing. Get a little freaky. You know what I'm saying?”

Camaro favored him with a glance. He was partially lit by the instruments, the ends of his hair peeking out from beneath his cap. His thin face was turned into a smile, and for the first time she saw that one of the teeth deeper in his mouth was capped with gold. It winked out from beneath his lip like a warning light. She looked away again. “You've got a pretty big set of balls,” she said.

“The biggest. So are we on or what?”

“Or what,” Camaro said. “I'm not on the market.”

“Wait, you're not a lesbo or something, are you?”

Camaro breathed in through her nose and out through her mouth. She did it three times before she answered him. “I don't have to be gay if I'm not interested,” she said.

“So what's the problem?”

Now she turned to him and let him see her face to face. “I don't date outside my species,” she said.

A perplexed expression passed across Matt's face, and then there was anger. His lip curled, and she glimpsed the gold tooth again. “Hey,” he said. “I'm trying to be sociable here.”

“Be sociable somewhere else.”

“I wouldn't screw you with a borrowed dick!”

Camaro sighed and turned away. The sun was gone completely, and the moon was on the rise. “You're not screwing me with anybody's dick. Now go drink your beers somewhere else and let me concentrate.”

“Bitch!” Matt spat at her.

She raised a middle finger to him. He stayed only a moment longer and then climbed down from the flybridge. Camaro could not tell what he mumbled. It didn't matter to her anyway.

On the radar she saw a vessel ahead. She swung the boat wide a few degrees to cut an arc around it. If that vessel also had radar, they would know the
Annabel
was there, but they would never be close enough to see the
Annabel'
s running lights. And when the
Annabel
was close to Cuba, there would be no running lights at all.

On the deck, Matt complained to one of the others, his voice swallowed up by the sound of their passage and sunk beneath the waves of her indifference.

A
T TWENTY MILE
S
out she killed the lights. The boat still churned the water, but it was oily black, marked only by the brief white of disturbance in the wake. The landmasses that enclosed the bay were visible on her screens. Camaro would come close to them, near enough to swim for it if the
Annabel
went down, and then stop. From there the Cubans were meant to do the rest.

No vessels had appeared on her radar for the last hour. The sea was empty. Camaro found herself glancing down every few seconds, expecting a blip to appear at the edge of her range, and further expecting that blip to close on their position rapidly, locked in and predatory. But nothing came, and she wasted her imagination on phantoms.

Finally, she shut the engine down. Where there had been constant noise for hours, there was now silence. Camaro heard the footfalls of the men on the deck and the gentle lapping of water against the hull. There was nothing for a full five minutes, but Matt broke the hush. “Is that it?” he asked.

Camaro stood over them on the flybridge, looking down on the tops of their heads in the weak illumination of stars and moon. Everything was limned in silver, the color sapped from shirts and shorts and flesh so that things were only light or dark. “That's it,” she said. “Now it's up to your Cuban friends.”

“You sure we're in the right spot?”

“This is where you wanted to go,” Camaro said.

“What time is it?”

Camaro checked her watch. The dial luminesced in the dark. “A little past midnight.”

“We wait until two o'clock,” Matt said.

“That's a long time from now.”

“We just
wait!
” Matt exclaimed. “Okay? You're getting paid, so do what I tell you! If they haven't showed by two o'clock, we turn around and go home.”

Camaro let his words hang without responding. In the corner of the aft deck, Parker stood looking up at her, his face swept of its tan in the darkness and left pallid. All of them were pale and ghostly save for Soto, who seemed as black as a piece of stone.

She sat in her chair and turned her back on them. She allowed her attention to be taken up totally by her instruments. On a whim she switched on the fish-finder to see what was going on in the waters below. There was a little activity, but mostly it was like the surface: calm and clear.

The first hour passed without incident, and occasionally Camaro started the engine to maintain their spot. In the second hour, she saw the boat on her radar. It came directly from the farther shore and headed toward them at a steady twenty knots. The vessel had to skip around the natural obstacles that bordered the bay, but it circled around carefully to reach them, and before long she heard the thin sound of its engine carrying over the surface of the water, pushed along by the breath of a warm and humid breeze.

Light reflected off something on the approaching boat, and Camaro gauged the distance. The pitch of the other boat's engine dropped as it shed speed, until it was only coasting on its momentum. After that the pilot at the controls gave little bursts that oriented the boats parallel to each other. They edged closer until their sides were aligned. Camaro started her own engine and joined the dance, bringing the vessels nearly to contact before both slipped into silence.

On the deck of the Cuban boat there were three men. They cast over lines, and Camaro climbed down to help them lash the vessels together. Not a word was spoken.

A fourth man appeared from inside the cabin. It was difficult to tell the figures apart in so much shadow, but finally one switched on a flashlight and pointed it at the deck. In the reflected light she saw them. Two were young and two were much older. The first three were dressed in ratty shorts and worn T-shirts, but the fourth man wore an ironed short-sleeved shirt, slacks, and boat shoes.

“Señor Chapado?” Matt asked. Pieces of the quiet crashed to the water around them.

“
Sí
. You are Señor Clifford?”

“That's right. Come on aboard, sir.”

Soto helped the man named Chapado navigate the gap between boats. Chapado thanked Soto and then brushed at his shirt as if the exertion had dirtied him. He looked around at all the faces on the deck. “Who is the captain?” he asked.

“I'm the captain,” Camaro said.

“Señorita,
gracias
. You are doing a brave thing.”

“We shouldn't stay long,” Camaro said.

“I agree.” He turned to the Cubans.
“Es hora de irse, mis amigos.”

“Vaya con Dios, Señor Chapado,”
said one.

“Gracias. Adiós.”

Camaro cast off the lines that held both boats together. “There are places to sit or sleep in the cabin,” she told Chapado. “There's water in the refrigerator. It's a long way back to Miami.”

Chapado moved to take her hand, but she stepped away from him. She could not read his expression in the dark. “My gratitude, señorita. Thank you again.”

“Thank me when it's over,” Camaro said.

The Cubans started their boat, and they churned water as they gently pulled away. Camaro climbed to the flybridge and pressed the ignition, stirring the
Annabel
to life. Down below she heard Chapado enter the cabin. He would find it cooler there and the ride more comfortable. Maybe Matt would offer the man one of his beers.

She touched the throttle and turned the wheel to bring the boat about. On the radar, the Cubans' vessel was headed away, faster going back than coming in. Camaro found her heading and eased the throttle higher.