Caribbean Rim Page 11

  “Two of the prettiest Spanish coins I’ve ever seen is in there. One was bright, shiny silver. The other, gold and shiny, but twice as big. Prof. Leo had carved out spaces in the foam. You know the kind of box I mean? A third space was empty, which explained why him and the girl had cash to charter my boat. Probably stolen, all three. Then they cheated me out of thirty thousand bucks by selling ambergris I found.”

  Ford had asked where they’d found the ambergris, and how it involved the logbook, before hearing the rest of it.

  “Me looking in that box is what led to the misunderstanding I mentioned. Know why? Because I was too fair-minded even when that little fool hit me. Thieves, is what they are. Here, look at these pictures—” Purcell had pulled out his phone. “Tell me if it’s worth going after what we both know don’t belong to them.”

  There was a blurry photo of a silver coin, a Spanish real. In better focus, a larger coin, gold, ornate, a robust die. At the base, die marks read Tricentennial 1714. Ford had never seen a coin like it.

  “At the bar, how many people saw these pictures as you passed the phone around?”

  Many, judging from Purcell’s indignant denial. More questions had produced more lies before Ford offered his own deal in a friendly, empathetic way. “I hope your pals didn’t do anything stupid. The police could get the wrong idea and arrest you, too.”

  “You think?”

  “That’s the way they’ll see it, I’m afraid.”

  “Oh shit. Yeah . . . those boys too dumb to do anything that ain’t stupid. You’ll speak on my behalf, won’t you, sir? I hear you got official papers from the Crown.”

  “If I can help,” Ford had said. “Wouldn’t it be better to give your friends a call, maybe arrange a meeting before something bad does happen? I’d hate to see you in jail. Tell you what. I’ll charter your boat for a couple of days, then fly over and meet you at wherever it was you dropped Dr. Nickelby and the girl.”

  “Why there?”

  “Because the police can’t arrest you for preventing a crime. And Nickelby can’t say much if we lay claim to what didn’t belong to him in the first place. Just like you said.”

  The mix of larceny and reason had worked.

  Now here they were, maybe a day too late, maybe not. Instead of four of Purcell’s drinking buddies, it was only Quarrels, and he looked like he’d been beaten with a hammer. Ford, standing at the starboard window, took all this as a bad sign. If the other men were afraid to be seen in the area, it was possible that Nickelby and the girl hadn’t left the resort by choice. Or even alive.

  The portal glass was thick. He couldn’t hear the men talking but could see that the exchange was becoming heated. The mailboat schedule went into his pocket when Quarrels pointed at something—an obvious distraction. Ford was opening the door as the first punch was thrown. By the time he got down, Purcell was on his back, dazed, and the dilapidated boat was moving, Quarrels slunk behind the wheel as if scared.

  “Hit me when I wasn’t looking,” the giant bawled. “Goddamn it, I warned them Haitian fools they was badass. Warned them all, but Quarrels faults me for sayin’ it would be easy.”

  Ford had to leave for Andros soon. He wangled what there was to know about the Haitians before bothering to ask, “Warned them about who?”

  10

  Lydia was the first to notice the seaplane, how low it was flying, and wondered in a distracted way if someone was tailing them.

  “Probably a crew shooting a commercial,” Leonard said. “It’s too rough to land out here. So, go ahead, wave like a native. What are you afraid of? That they’ll drop a bomb or something?”

  Aboard the 70-foot freighter Fresh Moon, dozens of Bahamians lined the rail and waved wildly as the plane did a low pass. As it circled back, Leonard accepted an invitation to dance from two very large women. And why not? Everyone else was up moving to the beat of steel pots. It was a spontaneous hello to the pilot, a man alone in a cockpit way out here in a desert of blue that had consumed many freighters, many small planes.

  “They were celebrating life,” Leonard said, grinning, when the plane was gone. He plopped down on a box beside Lydia, a little out of breath. “Looked like the pilot might have turned toward Donner’s place. He said his island’s east of Arthur’s Town.”

  She didn’t want to discuss the man in white. Until last night, she’d never met him, but knew his name was Efren Donner. He was a Hollywood film producer who had invested millions in Benthic. That loss was followed by a sex scandal—physical abuse or porn, she wasn’t sure—yet there was the yacht and an island he’d bragged about, and he’d paid cash for their Spanish reales. Coincidental? Not likely. Lydia stuck to the subject of the plane, saying, “I didn’t see a camera. Why would the pilot pass so low?”

  “Maybe the guy didn’t want to celebrate by himself. Or”—a smile came into the professor’s eyes—“he wanted a closer look at the most beautiful woman in the islands. Know what you should’ve done? Flashed him. Really! Give the poor bastard a nice long look. Share the bounty, I say, but not the salvage rights. Get it?”

  God, sometimes the man was so damn cute it was hard to keep a straight face. “He wasn’t flying that low, professor.”

  “That’s not the way I remember those twin rapiers of yours, so time for another inspection. How about we stand watch in our cabin?”

  They’d already “stood watch” in their cabin twice since departing the resort ten hours ago. It was a tiny metal closet, no sink or toilet, just bunks that folded out of the wall. Better—much better—up here on deck, despite an old tractor, and a couple of cars secured with chains, and mounds of cargo. The middle deck was to be avoided altogether. It smelled of livestock, chicken hutches, and caged pigs en route to market. Goats were tethered there, too. At the rear of the ship was the bridge. The structure was two stories tall, a tower of rusted steel that was the domain of the captain, a tiny man in his seventies with a big smile beneath a cap festooned with gold braid.

  “Isn’t this air wonderful?” Lydia said to change the subject.

  It was León who responded by extending his hand. “The air will be just as nice after we finish inspection. Lady Anne?”

  * * *

  —

  In the months leading up to their escape, they’d plotted like kids building a secret tree house. Fake IDs required fake names, but not any name would do. The sound had to be similar or they might not respond when a stranger called to them.

  Homophonic was the term Prof. Nickelby, who was still employed at the time, had used.

  Lydia had become Lindy, or Linda Anne, and, when it felt right, Lady Anne. All a playful tribute to a real person, although Anne Dieu-le-Veut of France had been a pirate, not a lady. In the 1690s she was deported to the French Tortugas, now Haiti, where she threatened to shoot Captain Laurens de Graaf after an insult. The famous buccaneer was so dazzled—or scared—when she pulled out a wheelhouse musket, he got down on one knee and proposed marriage.

  “You invented that story,” Lydia had laughed. This was at her apartment months ago.

  Nope. Research confirmed that Anne Dieu-le-Veut had pillaged and robbed at her husband’s side and had assumed command of their ship after de Graaf was struck by a cannonball off Jamaica.

  Choosing names had been fun. Squabbling about how Lydia knew a forger who sold counterfeit IDs wasn’t. The package deal—three sets of Florida driver’s licenses (with holographs)—had cost a bundle. What troubled Leonard was her familiarity with the guy, a seedy canvas of tattoos who’d also offered to include passports at an astronomical price. A felony, yet no big deal as far those two were concerned.

  Lydia’s mysterious side. This is how he dismissed other troubling episodes, including her odd behavior last night at the resort. She’d refused to remain on a yacht that was as comfortable as the house the owner had described—this was after buying their last silver
coin. What the hell? An interesting man, Efren Donner. A filmmaker with a list of credits who also knew a lot about marine archaeology. The man was a little too tall and good-looking for Leonard to feel immediately at ease, but a mojito and conversation had changed that.

  If Lydia had stuck around, she might have been intrigued by the filmmaker’s hospitality. Or the transparent duplicity of his offer: Come to his private island, stay for a week or two, then travel by yacht anywhere in the Caribbean—as long as Donner could join their dive exploration.

  “Maybe getting punched makes me overly cautious,” she’d said afterward in the bar, loosening up with a drink and a satchel of cash at her feet. “But, prof, let’s be honest. No one that rich and handsome is interested in me. And I doubt he’s got the hots for you. So what’s he really want?”

  She was correct. On the other hand, why not find out what the filmmaker wanted? Aggressive curiosity was new to Leonard. It was testosterone-charged, fueled by recent triumphs yet mitigated by occasional self-doubt. In those moments, he had to wonder if he’d gotten lucky when he punched Purcell. No . . . the fear in the big bastard’s eyes was real. And luck had nothing to do with getting so mad that he had lunged for a bat, outnumbered two to one by thieves.

  Last night, almost killing a man had changed Leonard and his outlook on life.

  If the thief died, he died.

  Damn right. And good riddance.

  The same with the job and bitchy wife he’d abandoned, and the stucco house he couldn’t afford. All of it—that damn office, bills, bills, bills, a nervous sense of inadequacy, and a beat-up Volvo that personified failure—all gone.

  The girl was his world now.

  Sitting in their tiny cabin, he beheld Lydia. She lay naked, asleep, within reach, the warmth of her hair soft on the lips. He dressed and closed the watertight door. Topside, the freighter was alive with folks packing to disembark and new arrivals. Stop and go, harbor to harbor. It had been like that all day. He did a spin around the deck, flirted with a previous dance partner, then walked aft for a lesson in piloting from his new friend, the captain.

  A flock of boys caught his attention. Several had wild spiked hair and ashen skin. They were playing soccer near the railing, too close, it seemed, so he stopped for a while to shield the ball from the water.

  Nice-looking kids. Good people nearby who were what they were, nothing more, nothing less, and granted that same freedom to others. Into his mind came the image of Lydia with child. Then another image: Lydia with a child in her arms on a safe, sandy island, water of clearest blue, and a boat of their own.

  In that instant, Leonard knew what he’d sensed since arriving in the Bahamas—there was no going back to a life that was beyond repair. He had a new ride. This was his life to savor.

  Mailboat schedule, Fresh Moon, Thursday, 6 a.m. departure: Stanley Point, Warderick Wells, Exuma, Little San Salvador, Sapphire Creek, Arthur’s Town (7 p.m. arrival +/-)

  There’d been so many small harbors, piers, and villages of wattle-and-daub that Lydia didn’t know where she was when she awoke to a booming impact. The shudder of reversing engines suggested they’d made the hardest landing of the day. But where?

  It was nearly sunset, closer to eight than seven. What she saw through the porthole wasn’t a village. And it certainly wasn’t Arthur’s Town. According to brochures, there should have been colorful restaurants, not cresting waves, a distant orb of palms, and a cement house atop a bluff as craggy as bone.

  The schedule was consulted. If this was Sapphire Creek, the name was misleading. And why had they stopped so far from shore?

  A scream . . . then several more pierced the bulkhead. Lydia threw on clothes and ran topside into chaos. Women huddled around a gaggle of weeping boys while men gestured at something in the freighter’s wake. Engines clunked into gear. Black exhaust screened whatever was back there as the boat turned into the sun’s glare. She struggled to stay on her feet and found a woman she recognized. Twice she had to shout “What happened?” and finally took the woman by the shoulders. “Did we hit something?”

  “They gone,” the woman cried, pointing to a section of broken railing. “They was there one minute, now they gone. Don’t know how many boys.”

  “Oh my god, can they swim?”

  “Sea took ’em, they drowned by now. Been too long in water this dark . . . unless Mr. León—” A look of recognition came into the woman’s eyes. “My lord, you’re his wife.”

  “What about Leo? Tell me.” Lydia realized she was shaking the woman, so she pulled her close and forced a smile. “I’m sorry, but I need to know. Where is he?”

  “He gone, too, sugar. First one boy, then another—they was kicking at some ball and the railing broke. Mr. León was the first to notice and he almost fell himself—I saw the whole thing. That sweet man, he yelled something and jumped. Didn’t wait for the boat to stop, no he didn’t, just jumped into water so black, makes me faint. That’s the last anybody seen of ’em. I know, yes I do, the sea don’t give back what she takes because—” The woman, in shock, continued babbling.

  Lydia pushed away and ran toward the bridge. The captain was up there with binoculars, braced against a stanchion outside the wheelhouse. He waved directions to someone inside while battling to see through the glare. Nothing in their wake but seagulls and an oil slick, miles long, made by the ship’s propellers. Men had organized a sort of bucket brigade, passing life jackets, not water, and throwing them over the side.

  “Do you see them?” she yelled. “Stop wasting those PFDs until you’re sure. Do you hear me?”

  No response. She kept running. The stairs to the bridge were a series of switchbacks. Elevation magnified the impact of waves and the torque of an old steel hull in a tight turn. She didn’t intend on grabbing the captain’s arm but did when the bridge suddenly rolled as she stumbled onto the promenade.

  “Ms. Lydia, what you doing up here, girl?”

  “I thought you could use another set of eyes,” she said. “Where are they?”

  The captain, in his braided cap, elfin-sized and cheery, wasn’t smiling when he lowered the binoculars. “What I hope didn’t happen was we’d run ’em over with the props. Don’t know, but so far don’t see no sign.” He resumed his search, adding, “Two fine boys, I was told, and—hate to say this, ma’am—your husband, too. I saw him go overboard myself . . . You ain’t gonna faint on me, are you?”

  Lydia felt a dizzying sense of unreality but maintained control. “He’s not my husband,” she said. “We’re just traveling together.”

  “That a fact? So it was worry for a friend that brought you running clear up here?”

  “Yes . . . no. See, I worked on a commercial vessel for more than a year, and we did a lot of man-overboard drills. If I can help, I want to.”

  “A cruise ship?”

  “A special service vessel named Diamond Cutter. I wasn’t skipper but went ahead and got my mate’s license anyway. But if you don’t want me on the bridge—”

  “Stay put, girl. My eyes aren’t what they used to be.” Again, a quick glance. He didn’t know what to think of this small, boney woman with her cool, detached tone, a little out of breath but otherwise calm. “Did you see what happened? Reason I ask is, I didn’t. Maybe you got a better idea of where them boys went in.”

  “I was asleep. I thought we’d hit something. You weren’t on the bridge?”

  The little man waved and hollered a change of course to a pane of glass, then spoke normally. “Your . . . friend, I guess, Mr. León, he was at the wheel as they went over—and I’ll probably lose my ticket for it. Doing a fine job, too, I don’t give a damn what the maritime board’s gonna say. If he hadn’t kept an eye on those boys, jamming us into reverse like he did, they might have been long gone before anyone noticed.”

  “Wait . . . Leonard was up here? A woman just told me an entirely different st
ory. That he was—”

  “Here on the bridge, yes, ma’am, at my invitation. If there’s a hundred souls aboard, you’ll get a hundred different stories if something bad happens at sea. It’s always that way. That’s why ships have a log. What happened is, I was in the head—the facilities, so to speak—and when the engines rang into reverse, I come out just as your gentleman friend went over the railing. Lost his balance, I thought, but I know better now.”

  “He jumped?”

  “Mate saw him do it. Don’t you worry, Ms. Lydia, a man that brave deserves to be found. Them fine boys, too. Here”—he looped the binoculars around her neck—“you look while I get back on the radio. I raised the yacht club at Little San Sal and a private vessel of some kind nearby. They supposed to send more boats and a helicopter.”

  Lydia, dazed, peered over the railing and had to step back. Thirty feet below, a river of water peeled along the hull churning sargasso weed and froth. “Jesus Christ,” she whispered. “Leonard. The fall alone could’ve killed him.”

  “Went after them boys, yes he did. I’m gonna give him my cap once they’re all safe aboard. A medal, too, if I had one. You sure you’re okay?”

  She had to pretend she was. When the captain returned a few minutes later, she had the binoculars focused and managed to say, “Off the bow, about two hundred yards, at one o’clock, I see what could be a plastic bag, a log maybe. Something floating, not swimming. Oh, and there’s a hell of a big shark in the area. I got a glimpse of its fin.”

  “The big deacons are always along this ledge,” the old man said, and banged on the glass to get the mate’s attention. “Point to what you see,” he said. She did, and the freighter swung a few degrees to the right. “Think it could be . . . something else?”

  Lydia thought, Yes, a body, but said, “There’s a vessel approaching from the west, maybe the one you mentioned. I think I recognize it from last night at the resort. A private yacht, at least the lines are similar. Want a look?”