Mr. Hooligan (13 page)

Riley said to himself, shit, he shouldn’t judge this boy. He said, “Hey, Julius, what’s the significance of the rum by your old man’s cross?”

Julius threw the ropes in the boat and hopped in. “Holiday today. The old man liked his rum on a holiday.”

“That’s right,” Riley said, nodding, thinking of what else to say. “Tito did like his taste, all right. Your dad was a good guy.”

“Uh-huh.”

Julius pushed off from the pier and Riley started the engines, thinking he’d better raise the subject, get it out of the way. “Listen, one time we were talking and I said I could use somebody dependable three nights a week at the bar?” He looked at Julius’s expressionless face. “Been thinking about it?”

Julius, sitting on the gunwale, turned his shoulder away slightly, put his attention on the water. “After tonight, this is it for you in this business, right?”

Riley said, “Yeah,” knowing where Julius was going. “But I’m talking steady job, steady pay. Nothing underworld. Know what I’m sayin’?”

Julius nodded, gazing away. “I hear you.”

Riley waited.

That’s it? What more could he say? When a man shows disregard by not wanting to converse, you don’t talk. So Riley thought, To hell with it.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

They headed for the reef. The waves had picked up some but not enough to slow them, the boat skimming unperturbed toward the break. Through St. George’s cut and then into the vast blue, the boat rode the swells and the movement became a rhythm to the drone of the engines. Every now and again sea spray lashed them. Night had chilled the air. Riley broke out the rain slickers for comfort’s sake and offered Julius one. The macho man refused.

When you’re on the sea, the mind drifts. You let matters surface that you’ve held at depths. Riley was thinking how Duncan would love a boat ride, so long since they’d been on the water together. He was thinking of the boy’s big round eyes, his mother’s, and bushy eyebrows and that raspy voice. Riley was beginning to forget how that voice sounded.

Now the night was ink, the sea a rolling momentum. In the distance the Mauger Caye lighthouse winked at them as they moved north along the Turneffe Atoll. Riley picked up the radio mike. “
Dover
,
Dover,
come in,
Dover.
This is Hooligan. Calling motor vessel
Dover.
”

The bow pitched and cold spray splashed Riley’s face.

“
Dover
responding. Come in, Hooligan, over.”

“How far away, over.”

The radio crackled. “Fifteen minutes, over.”

“I read you. Over and out.” Couldn’t have been more perfect.

Not ten minutes later, Julius hollered into the wind, pointing out the lights of a ship … while Riley was thinking of Candice. That it felt right with her because she was a woman, as opposed to his ex-wife when she said I do at age twenty-one and was really still a girl.

He cut his running lights when he saw the long shadow of the container ship holding steady in the current, on the leeward side of Bushman’s Caye, bow to the waves. Lights were off all down the ship. Riley pulled back the throttle and idled around the wide stern to its port side, the dark wall of steel towering above.

Riley radioed up. He told Julius get ready. Two figures appeared at the ship’s railing, then the bulk of a net started down slowly, slowly, six white, ten-gallon buckets inside, knocking the hull as the net was lowered. Riley pulled up under it.

The cargo thudded into the boat, and Julius worked fast, loosening the net, freeing the buckets. One fell on his feet and he cursed. Riley thought, That’s why you should be wearing shoes, fool.

Julius signaled up, the empty net rose, swinging against the hull. Julius slid the buckets into the V-berth to make room for more. They repeated the process. Before the net went up for a third and final time, eighteen buckets in all, Riley motioned to Julius to take the helm. He tottered over to the buckets, holding the gunwale for balance. He took out his Spyderco and cut away the plastic-wrap seal on one of the buckets, pried the cover off. Got a flashlight and shined it on the contents. Seven tightly taped bricks. He hefted one, about five kilos—he could tell from experience. He sliced open the tape and cellophane, exposed the hard white underneath, and chipped off a tiny piece with the blade. Tasted it. High grade, yes sir.

He dumped the brick back in, covered the bucket, quickly uncovered another. Results the same, he waved to the figures peering down.

See you later, nice doing business with you and so long. Eighteen buckets of thirty-five kilos each equal six hundred thirty kilos, and at the Monsanto price of seven thousand per to deliver—yeah, Riley knew the price, he’d checked around—you’re talking four point four million effectively in his boat tonight. And he was asking for a mere forty thousand? The Monsantos were getting away with an insult of a bargain.

*   *   *

They returned the same path they came except this time Riley threw the throttle wide open and cut the running lights. They passed through St. George’s cut back into the calmer Caribbean and sliced south toward Belize City, making good time. Unload this cargo at the Monsantos’ dock in Buttonwood Bay and Riley would be in bed before midnight.

He eased back the throttle, idling through the channel between mangrove islands, city lights on the horizon. Feeling good, a little tired, but that sea air in his lungs kept him steady. His thoughts slipped into the wake of an earlier reverie, of why he was drawn to Candice, her physical presence. He mused on the image of her sun-weathered shoulders and the lines at the corners of her eyes that said she was experienced at living.

Then the Coast Guard boat whipped around the corner with hardly a sound and headed toward him.

Even in the darkness, Riley knew from the shape, the number of heads on board, it was Coast Guard. In the nanosecond that he decided to throttle it, get the hell away, he heard Julius say, “Fuck, behind you,” and Riley whirled around to see another one, coming up fast.

Searchlights blazed on, front and back, blinding him.

He thought he could still make it, shoot the gap to the west, so he spun the steering wheel, turning the bow fast, saw the shape of rifles pointing, a man yelling at him cut the engines now, fucking
now.
Julius standing straight, hands in the air.

The boats advanced, so much light Riley couldn’t see. He turned off the engines, kept his eyes down, the lights hurting.

The voice said, “Driver, get your hands up! Get them up.”

Riley’s hands went up.

“Two of you, walk to the center of the boat with your hands up, do it now.”

Riley took two exaggerated steps so there’d be no mistaking that he was complying. He could feel the heat from the lights.

“Now, two of you, lie down on your belly with your arms out, do it now.”

Riley lowered himself in stages, no fast moves, first one knee, then both and folded forward, face-first like he was doing yoga, sun salutation to these blinding lights. Julius was already down there. The floor was wet, salt-crusty. Either Julius knew the drill, or he was just as scared as Riley.

Both of them lay prone, jammed up against the buckets. A Coast Guard boat bumped them from behind, then from the front. Their boat rocked when the policemen boarded it, and instinctively Riley raised his head to see. A black boot landed in front of his face and a rifle muzzle poked him in the ear.

“Face down,” a man said, “eyes to the ground.”

But Riley had seen. Their faces were black. They were wearing black ski masks. Blue coveralls, boots, like ordinary police, but black ski masks?

Movement all around, the boat swaying, buckets being picked up and carried off, low murmurs. Someone planted a knee in the middle of his back, twisted his arms behind him and snapped zip ties around his wrists, tight. He heard them doing the same to Julius. Heard the bucket handles clanking.

The boat rocked and tilted to one side, the masked men leaving. He heard a deeper rumble of engines and one boat pulling away, and the searchlights went out, and in the darkness he heard the other boat leaving as well, engines fading. After that it was only the night and the smell of gasoline in the breeze and he and Julius lying there on the hard floor, the boat rocking in the wake.

Riley rolled onto a shoulder and struggled to his feet. Julius staggered up, grunting. They stood, arms tied behind their backs, staring into the dark. Nothing but mangroves and empty waters and far off, too far, the glow of Belize City.

Black ski masks?

Riley said, “Who the fuck just jacked us?”

Julius looked him. “Coast Guard, man. What, you didn’t see that?”

Eighteen buckets of high-grade cocaine gone. Riley saw that they’d taken the ignition key. No arrests, no fuss, and the two of them left drifting in the dark. He let out a shout over the water and sat down hard on the edge of the gunwale. “Coast Guard my ass.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

“Somebody beat us to it, we don’t know who. What we do know, our man didn’t take that water taxi, the
Ravish
. By the time we realized and deployed, he was probably halfway to his pickup.”

“No leads on who may be responsible for the ambush?”

“None yet, but we have some ideas,” Malone said. “Is this bench okay?”

Candice stopped to consider the surroundings, the sunlight. They were in Battlefield Park, downtown Belize City, traffic noisy on the streets on the other side of the wrought-iron fence, homeless men sleeping on cardboards in the grass and slumping on the benches in the noon heat. “Why don’t we try this one instead,” pointing to another bench in the shade of a Royal Poinciana. That spot was perfect, the old courthouse in the background.

Malone wanted photos of himself amid the local scenery to send to his folks back home in the Midwest; well, he was about to get authentic ones, bums included.

He sat stiffly on the bench, pleated khaki shorts and purple polo shirt, canvas shoes, no socks. A few threads too preppy, especially with his shirt buttoned up like that. She told him to loosen the button, hey, loosen up in general, act like you’re enjoying this.

“But I’m troubled,” he said. “Two months we’ve been expecting this drop. Do they have a contact on the local force, that’s what we need to know. Someone who leaked that we were on to them? Or it could’ve been a handoff. Staged as an ambush.” He undid the buttons and flicked a cold eye on a barefoot bum shambling past, scrutinizing Candice setting up her light stand.

She said, tightening her Canon strobe onto the hot shoe, “You might want to wait until I start shooting before we continue this conversation.”

She switched out her zoom for the 50mm prime lens, her good glass, stuffed the zoom into her camera bag that sat close at her feet. The city was abundant in purse snatchers and gold-chain grabbers who could easily lose a tourist in the maze of narrow streets.

She positioned the strobe stand at a forty-five-degree angle between her and Malone. Raised the camera, found his face in the viewfinder in suitable shade, no shadows. “You
could
smile,” she said, snapping test shots and examining the LCD screen.

“Do I have a nice smile?” Malone flirting.

“You have a lovely smile.” Bullshit, but mildly so, and effective encouragement for getting good pictures. She adjusted the strobe power, thumbing the wheel and saying, “Was there no one following him?” But she knew the answer to this already.

“They were staking out the boatyard. We figured that once he got there, he’d be on his way, so that was the most logical spot.”

Candice took a couple more test shots, checked the effect on the screen, adjusted the strobe accordingly. “Okay, smile from the bottom of your heart now.” She raised the camera, he smiled and she fired off three shots, came in close and crouched, snapped another. “Nice … nice, I’m getting the courthouse, that old church in the back … great.”

Strands of hair falling into her eyes were bothering her, and she blew them away, tried to refocus. But that wasn’t the thing bothering her, really. When she spoke again, her palms were perspiring. “What happened to him? Did they hurt him?”

“Which one? There were two of them.”

“Our man.”

“No one was hurt. We heard from this pilot the Monsantos hired that they were handcuffed and left in the boat. The Monsantos had the pilot fly all over before he found them lodged in the mangrove out there, about four miles off the coast. They’d been drifting for some time.”

Candice wanted to say it must have been several hours, she’d seen Riley entering his gate that morning looking sun-blackened and exhausted.

Malone said, “You okay?”

“What?”

“What are you thinking about?”

She said, “Let’s try another spot. Over there looks good. Brodie’s in the background. Did you know that for decades that used to be the country’s only department store?” She slung her camera bag over a shoulder, picked up the strobe stand, asking herself, Whose side are you on? You’re going to have to make up your mind whose side you’re on. She said, “Come, look alive.”