Текст книги "Cuba Straits"

Автор книги: Randy Wayne White

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Ford resorted to a lie. “It’s that obvious? I never thought I’d get tired of sitting on my butt in air-conditioning, but, yeah, I sort of miss the old days.”

“You’ve always been a sentimental guy, Doc.” A hint of sarcasm there. “Well . . . I guess I could do some checking around. As a friend—not as a contracted deal, of course. Keep that in mind. What I’m still unclear about is—”

Ford pushed the phone away from his ear, thinking, I might as well hang up right now. That happened a few minutes later when he lost patience and said, “I don’t give a damn, Hal, if it’s protocol or not.”

Harrington was a trigger-puller, the real deal, but, through necessity, had developed the polish of a politician. “I know,” the man replied. “Any wonder your special phone doesn’t ring anymore?”

•   •   •

FORD HAD INTENDED to buy extra dog food at the 7-Eleven. Instead, he headed for Jensen’s Twin Palm on Captiva, which was across Blind Pass Bridge. Impossible not to slow at Castaways and check the cottage windows. Maggie was there, the same cheap rental in the drive.

“I don’t know what’s got into me,” he said to the dog, thinking the words but sometimes speaking aloud. “This one-night stand bullshit, it’s symptomatic of something. Totally out of character.”

The dog wasn’t interested.

“If she’s awake, I’ve got a built-in excuse. Those papers stolen from Castro’s estate? Didn’t find a single damn article. She wasn’t lying. Why would she make that up? That tells me something about her possible occupation. Reason enough, I think, to sneak a look at her phone. Now I’m glad I did.” Ford noticed car lights behind him and pulled into the grocery parking lot, the store and Sunset Café closed, but the Flamingo still open if he was hungry.

Maybe later.

“On the other hand, if I ask, she might have to reveal something about herself. Next, we’d be trading numbers and I don’t want that. Know why?” With the truck running, he focused on Maggie’s cottage, hoping the screen door would open, also hoping it wouldn’t.

It didn’t.

On the road again, he finally admitted, Because Maggie’s married, that’s why. Pissed at himself because he’d known from the start. You can remove a ring, but not a tan line. Breaking a personal rule was taboo, but lying to himself was worse.

That wasn’t his only lie.

At Jensen’s Marina, by the docks, palm trees framed a vast darkness where navigation lights blinked, red, white, and green. Ford let the dog out, walked to the bait tanks, and stared. To the northeast, across six miles of water and muted by mangroves, a milky dot marked the fishing village of Sulphur Wells. A woman lived there. An unusually good woman; smart, independent, and solid. Captain Hannah Smith was also a first-rate fishing guide.

They had dated, but it was more that; now they were done.

Ford touched the phone in his pocket . . . hesitated, still staring, and sent a telepathic message: I’ll call you when I get back.

The fifty-gallon fuel bladder, stored beside the office, was empty, so it was easy enough to load. It took longer to unlock the fuel pump at Dinkin’s Bay, where Mack complained, “Working the graveyard shift now, are we? What’s up?” It was almost midnight.

Ford contrived a story about Ridley turtles and camping on Shark River, south of Naples.

Hours later, in darkness, with engines synched, he threaded the cutoff Lighthouse Beach and pointed his boat toward Key West.

Key West Cemetery is nineteen acres of shipwrights, cigarmakers, gunrunners, wreckers, sailors, and others who would have been happier drowned at sea. Not a cheery place at night, especially after an hour spent searching for a missing shortstop. No flashlight, only a lighter to flick, after tripping over several tombstones, one of which turned out to be the grave of an old friend.

Tomlinson felt a descending melancholy. He sat with his back against the stone and tested a happier theory.

“Hell, Shine . . . maybe I’m imagining this entire goat fest. Is that why you called this meeting?”

From beneath the stone Captain Kermit “Shine” Forbes responded, Boy, get off your dead butt an’ go find that li’l Cuban.

Tomlinson obeyed. He was striding toward Passover Lane when he noticed blue flashers to the south and sirens. Experience told him to flee north, but he maintained control and crept toward the lights anyway. When he was close enough, he stopped behind a tree and listened as two cops questioned a man who, even seated on the grass, was the size of a grizzly bear.

“We got anyone on the force who speaks Russian? Harry, try Spanish and see what you get.”

Harry wasn’t as loud. The bear-sized man, who was Russian, mumbled. Tomlinson crawled on hands and knees to the next tombstone so he could hear better.

“. . . That’s all I could understand. He says their attacker was a Cuban guy.”

“In this town?” Cop laughter. “He’ll have to do better than that. Jesus Christ, the guy’s huge, huh? Over three hundred pounds, I bet.”

More questions, more mumbling. Then Harry, sounding surprised, said, “Christ, he claims his buddy is dead. Somewhere around here, beaten to death. Or half dead. And says he—this guy—that he tripped over something and maybe hit his head. That’s why he got away.”

“The Cuban, you mean?”

“Yeah, the assailant—if it really happened.”

“Bullshit. Where’s the body? I don’t see blood on the guy’s clothes or anywhere else. I think he’s wasted.”

“We’ll have to see what he blows. Wait . . . Now he claims the guy, the assailant, had . . . what? Say it again . . . Yeah, he says the Cuban had knives on his shoes—‘razors,’ I think he means. That he used . . . a shoe.”

“Used a shoe as a murder weapon? Geezus, what next?”

“I’m just telling you, guy’s Spanish sucks.”

“He’s shitfaced. Meth, maybe. Wait and see, he’s a junkie.”

“I dunno . . . A guy his size, and more than a thousand euros in his wallet. Notice those white socks and the shirt. He’s just a tourist, I think. Call, have dispatch look up the Russian word for ‘spikes.’ As in track or baseball.”

Oh shit . . .

Tomlinson, on his knees, did an about-face and crawled toward the monument to sailors killed on the USS Maine, Havana Harbor, 1898.

When it was safe, he ran.

•   •   •

FIGGY WAS INVISIBLE, curled cat-like in the dinghy, until he sat up and asked, “What took you so long? Two hours was plenty for me.”

Tomlinson had to cover his mouth, it scared him so badly.

This was around four-thirty a.m., still dark, but the wind was freshening. By dawn, they were aboard No Más, south of Sand Key Light, sails taut beneath seabirds that flocked landward. Upon a cobalt sea, shadows spooked fish to flight—comets of silver like dragonflies.

Tomlinson had to make a decision. Return to Sanibel Island or maintain course to Cuba? Tethered high above Cudjoe Key was Fat Albert, a radar balloon that narced innocent boats and planes for a radius of two hundred miles. Nosey pricks, those feds. A sailboat would draw less attention, of course, and the Cubans wouldn’t notice until they’d crossed the Straits, but, even so, harboring a murderer as a shipmate invited prying eyes.

This was a decision that couldn’t be discussed with the suspect in question, who also happened to be a dope-smoking illegal—two marks in Figgy’s favor, but not enough to convince Tomlinson. He would have called Ford for advice—the biologist was an old hand at this sort of ugly business—if his cell phone hadn’t drowned. There was always the marine operator via VHF, but the probability of eavesdroppers nixed that idea.

He steered south and, at noon, disengaged the autopilot and changed to a heading of 230 degrees to avoid Havana and negate the relentless flow of the Gulf Stream. No Más creaked and groaned, cleaving waves that shattered like crystal and threw spray to salt his first beer of the day.

Figgy, subdued, stuck to bottled water, but did remark, “I’m done with German witches. They give me a headache.”

An hour went by before Tomlinson finally asked what he’d been afraid to ask: “What happened to your baseball spikes?”

The Cuban wiggled his bare toes. “I still got one left, but you told me no spikes on the boat.”

“I appreciate that. What about the other shoe?”

He expected a lie but sat straighter when Figgy replied, “I used it to beat the Santero on the head, then it flew away and disappeared. Makes me sad to talk about. Why don’t we put on some music?”

Okay—the Latina enchantress Omara Portuondo singing “Dos Gardenias.” Tomlinson turned it up, saying, “You’re sad because the guy you beat is a novice priest, yes, I understand. Were you hurt during the fight?”

Just a scrape, which looked more like a puncture wound when the shortstop extended his arm.

“What about the Santero?”

“Sure hope I hurt him. All my life, I wanted nice baseball spikes. That son of a bitch, I think he caused my shoe to disappear because I was hitting him hard, brother. Now I’ve got no American dollars and only one shoe.”

Gad. Time to regroup. How to handle this without turning it into an interrogation? One thing Tomlinson knew, Figueroa Casanova was true to his vow not to lie. Or wait . . . In a past conversation, hadn’t he allowed himself some wiggle room? I promised never to lie unless . . .

Unless what?

Tomlinson was averse to verbal traps because his own innocence had been tested too often. He toned it down by asking, “What happened to the Russian? In the cemetery, I heard him talking to cops. I couldn’t tell if he was hurt or not, but he claimed the guy you hit is dead. That you clubbed him to death with your shoe.”

“Killed the Santero?” Figgy had to think about that. He drifted inward, fingering his necklace, red beads and black spaced with tiny cowrie shells. Returned, saying, “Maybe he only appeared to be dead. Eleguá is famous as a trickster.”

“That’s the Santero’s name?”

“No. Eleguá is my guardian saint. That the kind of shit he does, brings his followers to the crossroad of good and evil. Like, ‘Child, you decide.’ The Santero, he’s the asshole I mentioned—Vernum Quick. I don’t mind being chased, but, man, don’t you catch me. Yeah, I beat the shit out of Vernum bad.”

“Who you think played dead?”

“Vernum, he don’t play at nothing. Some years ago, he murdered three schoolgirls on their way to school. Used a machete out in a cane field, then blamed me. This was after their bones was found, but before he come to my mu-maw’s house. He wanted to know where certain items were hidden—only he said ‘buried.’ Which tells you how dumb even a Santero can be.”

“Your mother’s house?”

“My grandmother who raised me. My abuela. What she should of said was, ‘Vernum, what kind of fool buries three motorcycles under the ground?’ Expensive machines, you know? Harleys, with lots of chrome. At the time, of course, she didn’t know about them dead girls—or that the Guardia, the police, would come for me later. This was three years ago.”

Ms. Omara was singing “Noche Cubana” now, the sweetest of wistful love songs. Tomlinson adjusted the volume and reminded himself, Don’t press, let the man talk.

Lunchtime. They ate tomatoes pilfered from a garden on Simonton and canned black beans. For seasoning, a key lime. At one p.m., the wind dropped. Tomlinson used the diesel to put twenty miles behind them before he tired of fumes and noise. A little before three, the wind died, but that was okay. He dumped the dinghy over the side, locked the motor to the transom, and rerigged the towing harness for something to do. At four, No Más wallowed in waves while the halyard clinked. From the southeast, a bank of clouds drifted, seeking the warmer water of the Gulf Stream. They descended as fog—not thick, more like tendrils of steam, but dense enough to drip from the sheeting.

“Smoke,” Tomlinson smiled. “Don’t the clouds remind you of that?” He broke out a hash pipe, which he seldom used—he associated pipes with white-collar stoners, although a bong was okay. Figgy’s headache improved after a bowl of homegrown Crystal River. He became talkative.

“It surprised me, seeing that Santero. Especially with a Russian. In Cuba, most people hate Russians, hoped they’d never come back, but they did. I was locked up so can’t say exactly when this trend began. Not so long, though.” He pivoted to look into a misty horizon that had recently cupped the lights of Key West. “Except for them witches and the Russian, I like America. You promise we’ll come back?”

Tomlinson noted visibility and felt it safe to nod. “Vernum Quick, huh? That sounds Bahamian, not Cuban.”

“It’s the same. In way-back times, some men was named for their nature. See? Like how fast they move or their love for women. When the Guardia come, they were already convinced a Casanova took those girls.”

“Not just your name, though, right? It was because this dude Vernum lied. The man should be defrocked, if you didn’t kill . . . Well, if he’s still alive. What did you tell the Cuban cops?”

“The truth, brother. I always tell the truth. That’s why the Guardia took me straight to jail.”

Tomlinson had been nudging the conversation toward Gen. Rivera—how had the man learned about the machine guns and hidden Harleys?—but had to back up. “Even though you denied murdering the girls?”

“That’s not the way it happened. The lieutenant come to my mu-maw’s house and asked why I murdered three innocent people.”

“Your mu . . . ? Oh, your grandmother.”

“Yeah. I told him those people weren’t innocent, and I only killed two people, not three—and no way their bodies were found—so why was he bothering us? You see, at the time, I knew nothing about the girls in the cane field.”

Tomlinson took a minute to collect himself by pretending a need for the sextant. To the north, cumulus clouds that had once marked the Dry Tortugas were now a curtain of gray. All sorts of things—airplanes, ships, the steady flow of refugees on rafts—often disappeared out here in the Straits. He closed the box of polished teak, saying, “I’m sure you had a damn good reason to do whatever you did.”

“That’s what I explained to the lieutenant.”

“Explained why you had to kill—”

“Yeah. Two men come snooping around at night—big fellas like the one back there”—Figgy motioned—“so I used a baseball bat, a bat I’d carved from a madera, which also makes me sad. I packed their bodies on a mule all night and threw that bat off the cliff, too. What choice did I have? If I promise to protect a certain place, man, I protect it. Same with the briefcase . . . but only because I didn’t know what it contains.” The Cuban glowered at the cabin. “General Rivera, next time I see him, I think I’ll beat his head with my other shoe.”

“You clubbed them with a baseball bat until they were . . .”

“Of course. Isn’t that what I just told you?”

Holy Christ. This new shipmate of his was a stone-cold killer. But sitting alone with a felon in the middle of the Gulf Stream was no place to quibble over morality or the outcome of what was, perhaps, one drunken night and a whim.

Tethered off the stern, the dinghy, with its shiny black motor, urged the need for a plan of escape. Instead, Tomlinson forced himself to think about the briefcase. Intuition told him there was a connection between Castro’s letters and Figgy. No other way to explain the shortstop’s reaction when he saw them. Maybe the letters had been written to a woman in Figgy’s village. Possibly even to a relative. Or even Figgy’s grandmother, but that was a stretch. No matter—Tomlinson felt confident the Cuban would get to it. He offered support by saying, “Typical cops. Even when you tell the truth, they’re pricks.”

“Exactly what I said—‘Man, I being totally straight, here’—and the lieutenant ask me why didn’t I confess earlier? Confess? What a stupid question. Brother, why would I confess to something I never lied about in the first place?”

That made so much sense, Tomlinson wanted to write it down.

The shortstop continued, “I explained to the lieutenant about my vow of honesty. Know what he did? Laughed at me. Laughed right in my face. Said, ‘Boy, you are lying or you are crazy.’ I told him, ‘Cabrón, I never lie.’ For that insult, I knocked him on his puta ass—used my left hand, of course, ’cause, you know, I throw with my right.”

Listening, Tomlinson exhaled a long breath. “Dude, you’re as sane as the day is long. A ballplayer’s got to protect his throwing hand.”

“Yeah! But they took me to crazy prison anyway. The one on the road to José Martí, right there by the ball field.”

Prisión demente is what Figgy called the asylum in Spanish.

“Can you imagine? Sit in the dark, hearing baseball through the walls. You know that sound a bat makes when you hit it good? Hit a ball, I mean, not like the one I used to kill those fellas. Sometimes I cried and cried. Three years, three months, and three days. Got so them guards really believed I was crazy.”

A cooler was strapped to the cabin bulkhead. Tomlinson got up. “You know, Figgy—uhh, is it okay if I call you Figgy?”

“That’s cool. Although ‘Figuerito’ is more proper. Three, you understand now why three’s my lucky number?” The little Cuban accepted a beer and tossed the cap over the side.

Normally, Tomlinson would have mentioned the handy trash bag but stuck to the thread. “Thing is, Figuerito, on these little cruises of mine strange shit always happens for one reason or another. Nobody’s fault, understand. It’s God’s way of preparing us, I think, for the serious weirdness that awaits if a man outlives his pinga.”

A nod; a white-toothed smile.

“We’ve got to stick together, in other words. We’re shipmates, right? After last night, I feel like I can call you my very good friend.”

“Figgy’s okay, too,” the shortstop replied. He was interested in something portside, straining to see through the mist while his shoulders danced to Ms. Omara crooning “Pensamiento.”

Sensing a lack of focus, Tomlinson cleared his throat. “Being called a pussy in Russian was my first clue. That’s a new one even in my world. See where this is going? Amigo, I think we need to read those letters to understand why all this bizarre bullshit’s going down.” A tangent popped into his head. “Hey . . . how’d you know the Russian word for ‘pussy’? Because your father danced ballet?”

The shortstop didn’t respond, continued to stare into the mist, eyes widening while he grabbed the boom and pulled himself up. “Wow!” he said. “Is that Havana already?”

No . . . it was a cruise ship, its bow five stories high and cutting a wake that, if Tomlinson didn’t get the engine started, would crush No Más and drown them.

Thursday afternoon on Bahamasair, Key West to Nassau, Vernum Quick looked down at a glittering sea and watched a ship—one of those newlywed and nearly dead cruise liners—disappear into a cloudy mist. The entire flight, he hadn’t said a word to his Russian handler, a man so big he’d purchased two seats—same as two days ago when they’d landed in Fort Myers.

Kostikov was the guy’s name, supposedly. Who knew? In this strange business, lying was a way of life. It was easier to believe he’d been a super heavyweight way, way back in the day. Boxing or wrestling or weight lifting, Vernum hadn’t inquired. The man’s bad Spanish demanded a lot of work, as did his Cossack temper. Better to smile and pretend to understand.

One thing for certain: Kostikov was a killer. He could kill a man with his hands—snap his neck, crush him to death, or stick a pencil through his eardrum. Vernum had seen him do this in a grainy KGB video, a self-defense instructional that sacrificed three dumbass prisoners—Afghans, they looked like—who had volunteered. The huge Russian, after each demonstration, would grin as they dragged a body away. A man who had aged since those days but still loved his work.

As a mentor, however, Kostikov was a vicious old socialist. Bitch, bitch, bitch, all the way to the airport, then a final dig about Vernum’s cowardice last night because he’d yelled for help, then played dead to save himself from that crazy little bastard with a knife.

Well . . . Vernum had believed the shoe to be a knife, and no wonder: his wounds had required an ambulance ride to the ER. Which is why, aboard this cramped little airplane, he sat alone, his face bandaged and swollen. Thirty-three stitches to close those gashes around his eyes and to mend his lower lip; thirty-three, his unlucky number as of now.

A zombie from Hollywood is what he resembled in the mirror.

Never volunteer, he reminded himself.

Vernum was a thinker, not a fighter.

•   •   •

IN NASSAU, he found a seat far from the steel band so gringos wouldn’t gawk at him and opened his new laptop. Did his smiling act when Kostikov made eye contact, then reviewed a file he’d been secretly compiling. They’d told him lies, mostly, but he’d been putting it together on his own by eavesdropping, searching the Internet, or stealing peeks here and there.

“Vernum Quick is quick, man” was something he liked to brag.

The puzzle was taking shape.

A month ago, Cuban Intelligence Service—the DGI—had recovered an aborted listing on eBay that had been removed shortly after it was posted.

Fidel Castro, Love Letters to a Mistress, 1953–63

Seeing that magic year, 1963, had been enough. There was no record of the letters, no hint of what they contained, according to the Russian, but why risk linkage to the assassination of JFK?

Evidence was already out there, of course, but never in Fidel’s own hand.

The DGI made inquiries. No response from the seller. The DGI went to work on the seller’s passwords. Three weeks ago, for reasons Vernum still didn’t understand, the trail brought two special agents to his doorstep in the village of Plobacho, western Cuba.

“People say you are respected and feared here, a novice Santero who votes the right way. That you’ve helped police in the past.”

This was true.

“You served in air force intelligence until . . . well, an unfortunate incident, but the board’s findings might have been hasty. Care to reopen your case?”

Definitely not. This was a blackmail visit, the way the system worked. How much did they want? Vernum had posed that question. As a Santería novice, he had a little cash, but not much.

Both agents smiled. They didn’t want money, but there was a price. They named it by asking, “Do you know the Casanova family?”

Why . . . yes, he did—if you could call an old woman recluse and her retarded, murdering grandson a “family.”

The agents had liked that, or pretended to.

Was he aware that Figueroa Casanova had escaped from Havana Psychiatric?

Vernum played along. “The one by the airport, José Martí? I’ll help you catch the bastard if it’s true.”

It couldn’t be true. Criminals didn’t escape from that prison—not without a scar on their forehead or in a coffin. Vernum knew this. He stayed current on rumors about Havana Psychiatric for a reason: the place terrified him. Couldn’t even look at the building from the road. His fears were grounded in his own dark secret: a demon lived within his brain. Sometimes the demon had to be fed.

Over the years, only two witnesses—Figuerito and a little girl—had survived after learning the truth. This, too, had been a burden, but it was a Santería maxim that finally set him free: Blame not the heart for demons in your head, nor hungers that torment your soul.

My hunger—that’s the way Vernum thought of the demon now. Instead of an asylum inmate, he’d become a respectable citizen, believed he’d earned pleasure in whatever form it appeared. Like all religions, Santería was quick to forgive, but in a way that was tougher; none of that turn-the-other-cheek bullshit. You want something? Man, go get it. Prayer was okay, but potions and powders and the ancient spells were faster.

Another aspect of Santería that attracted Vernum was its reliance on blood sacrifice to appease the gods and bring good luck. The ceremony was so strict in procedure that it absolved even a young Santero of guilt. Coconut rind cut in four pieces represented the four corners of the Earth. A papaya freshly sliced resembled the undefiled chasteness of a girl. Turpentine, bluestone, ground cowrie shells. The knife must be clean, specially sharpened. The neck of the victim must be gently shaved before the first sure stroke, then tilted just so to fill a ceremonial gourd. All the while chanting Oggún shoro shoro . . . Oggún shoro shoro . . .

Say those words with passion, they assumed the rhythm of a beating heart.

Vernum’s favorite song.

Entering the priesthood was the smartest move he’d made. True believers were eager to reward even a novice Santero who produced results, which is why he had respect, women, and a little money—but never enough, it seemed to him.

The Cuban DGI agents didn’t care about Santería. What they cared about was the deal they offered the next day after driving Vernum to Havana.

“If we close the files on that unfortunate incident, would you be willing to help us?”

Hell yes, but Vernum didn’t want to appear too eager. He knew they thought he was just a dumb peasant who could be used as a mule or fall guy . . . something that now, sitting in Nassau, he was still ferreting out.

Kill Figueroa Casanova is what they wanted but didn’t admit. Said they wanted the little man detained and interrogated about a stolen briefcase (no mention of the letters) before he was sent back to Havana Psychiatric. A special drug, they had instructed Vernum, would provide the needed interrogation time.

That was another key to this puzzle. To store his new laptop, they’d given him a shoulder bag. Inside was a shiny silver Montblanc fountain pen. Use it like a needle, he’d been instructed. Just a scratch is enough and the defector will be cooperative for a week, possibly ten days.

There had been no demonstration. In fact, the DGI agents had behaved as if even the shoulder bag was dangerous. Nor did they touch the pen, which was oddly heavy as if lined with lead and stored in a metal case.

It was something a dumb peasant wouldn’t have noticed.

Vernum Quick did.

This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, as he was aware. But success required that he make some behavioral changes. As village Santero, he had affected aloofness. He had spoken in parables and often began sentences by asking the blessings of Oggún, or hinting that a gift to the High Babalawo would impress the saints. Changó, his guardian saint, was a favorite topic.

But he had dropped all the theatrical bullshit the day he’d met the Russian.

The Russian . . . The man was now returning from the corridor, where tourists scattered to make way. Vernum closed the laptop, stored it, and decided to have fun with a little experiment. He stood and offered the bag to Kostikov, saying, “You mind holding this while I piss?”

“No talk now!” the man hissed, and stepped back—a familiar reaction.

Poison, yes, he’d been right about the fountain pen—a type of poison that required a lead case.

Vernum had researched that, too.

After using the men’s room, he ate some jerked pork and ruminated over a new puzzle: the saints had delivered Figuerito into his hands, no doubt. But how could he keep that little psycho alive long enough to get rich—and without getting killed himself?

•   •   •

THEY FINALLY SPOKE on the government flight to Havana, safe now unless this shitty old Tupolev, with two propellers and a broken door, fell from the sky.

“Comrade, how you like that jerked pork?” Vernum asked. Interested because he’d added a few drops of special oil when he’d added more sauce.

“Ummm,” Kostikov grunted. “Ummm-huh.” The man chewed with his mouth open, red sauce all over his chin. “I tell you plan now.”

Vernum had been wondering about this return to Havana but preferred to look out the window while the man explained. Figuerito had escaped from Key West in a sailboat, the Russian told him. They knew the boat’s name: No More.

“No Más?”

The Russian nodded. “Scarecrow man we saw last night is captain. I still laugh the way he talk so tough. Hah! This hippie boy-girl threatening me, Kostikov.”

Maybe that really was the big guy’s name. It was painful to smile with thirty-three stitches, but Vernum managed. “Yeah, he’s nuts. That’s what I was thinking at the time. But if they’re in a boat, why didn’t we just rent a faster boat and catch them?”

“You question orders?”

Orders? Vernum hadn’t heard any orders. “No, man,” he said, “just asking.”

“The scarecrow likes hear himself talk to women, tells them everything. Don’t worry, we have plan.” The Russian balled up his napkin and lobbed it forward, where a woman sat alone behind the pilot, one of the blondes Vernum recognized from last night. She was lighting a cigarette in a noisy plane that had a rattling door and wasn’t pressurized.

Vernum said, “I didn’t realize there was a connection, but—” He stopped himself before inquiring how the Russian had found time to locate her. At the ER, they’d wasted two hours, counting the cops and the stitches.

“Many sources,” Kostikov said. “Now you go home and wait. That’s all now.” He turned around, his big butt taking up two seats.

Huh? Vernum slipped across the aisle. “Whoa! man. You mean my job is done? You haven’t interrogated Casanova yet. And what about the briefcase?”

The Russian had more hair on his eyebrows than his head, so looking him in the face was like confronting two cornered animals. Lots of vodka and violence and ruptured veins stared back. “You claim used device on defector, yes?”

The Montblanc pen, he meant. Yes, Vernum had tried to use that bad boy, but said, “Well, I think so, but, man, we was punching the hell out of each other. You know how that goes. Those two probably left for a day sail and they’re back in Key West right now.”

The Russian motioned to the overhead bin. “You still have device?”

Uh-oh. He hadn’t expected that but stayed cool, got to his feet and bluffed, saying, “Of course. Issued by my government. I’ll get it for you.”

“No!” The big man didn’t relax until Vernum was seated again. “We have many sources. Information no need for so many people to share. You understand meaning?”

Yes and no—the Russian was a pig and couldn’t speak Spanish but apparently knew where Figuerito and the hippie were headed.