Tricky Business (24 page)

“I looked at that, and it's all chemicals in there. I don't think she should be eating that. I tried to give her some nice fish, but she won't eat it. You want some nice fish, Estelle?”

“Namenowhy! Namenowhy!”

“Mom, just call her Snow White, OK?”

“OK, Snow White, you want some nice fish?”

“No!”

“She doesn't want any.”

“Mom, she hates fish.”

“Fish is good for her.”

“Yes, but she won't
eat
it.”

“You don't want a nice piece of fish, Estelle?”

“Namenowhy!”

“She's giving me a headache.”

“Mom, just please for Godsakes
call her Snow White, OK?
”

“You don't have to take that tone with me.”

“I'm sorry, Mom. You're right. It's just that . . .”

“By this hour, your sister's children are asleep.”

“Mom, I really don't see what good it does for . . .”

“Just a minute. Don't put that in your mouth, Estelle.”

“NAMENOWHY!”

“Fay, you're going to have to call back, because now she's . . .

“NAMENOWHY!NAMENOWHY!NAMENOWHY!”

“Mom, please, just . . .”

But her mom had hung up. Fay started to press REDIAL, then decided to first walk around to the stern of the ship, out of the wind. She found her path by a low, locked gate, with a sign on it reading CREW ONLY NO ADMITTANCE AT ANY TIME. She looked around, and seeing nobody—Who would be outside in this weather?—she stepped over the gate.

 

THIS WAS HOW IT WAS SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN:

The fishing boat would raft up to the
Extravaganza,
stern to stern. The men on the fishing boat would form a chain and haul heavy black polyester bags containing product out of the specially made storage compartment in the hull. They would heave these over the transom, onto the platform on the back of the
Extravaganza,
where they were grabbed by the ship's crew. The ship's crew would then heave the bags of cash over the transom onto the fishing boat. Arquero would oversee the operation, holding his AK-47 with the safety off. His policy, understood by everyone involved, was that if he saw any person do anything that he considered suspicious, that person was hamburger. When the transfer was complete, the fishing boat would cast off and get the hell out of there, and Hank Wilde would call Lou Tarant to tell him the Chinese food had been delivered. In good weather, the whole process took about twenty minutes, during which, depending on market conditions, somewhere between $50 million and $100 million worth of money and narcotics changed hands.

That was how it was supposed to happen.

Of course, tonight the weather was bad. That was one difference. Another one was that usually Frank and Juan were standing at the back of the fishing boat with the three Bahamian guys. Tonight, as the boat backed toward the
Extravaganza,
Arquero and Wilde both noted that there was only one man standing in the back of the boat, and it was Tark, the guy who usually drove the boat. He was at the stern on the starboard side, holding a big coil of rope in his right hand.

When the boat was about ten yards off, Arquero shouted, “WHERE'S FRANK?”

“INSIDE, PUKIN',” Tark shouted back. His voice was strained, raspy. “HE'S NOT DOIN' TOO GOOD.”

That sounded plausible to Wilde, who didn't feel so great himself. It almost sounded plausible to Arquero, for a second or two. But then it struck him: If
he
were puking sick, he wouldn't be inside the pitching boat. He'd be outside, hanging over the rail. So why wasn't Frank? And where were the Bahamians?

The fishing boat was now just a few yards away. Tark drew back the coil of rope, getting ready to toss it. One of the
Extravaganza
crew guys moved forward, getting ready to catch it.

Arquero raised the barrel of the AK-47 and shouted, “Hold it!”

“Hey, man,” said Tark, holding up his left hand, “what's your problem?”

“Stop the boat NOW,” said Arquero.

Tark turned and shouted “Hold up!” toward the bridge of the fishing boat, but to Arquero's eye there was something wrong with the way Tark was standing, the way he'd raised only his left hand, the way he was holding the coil of rope in his right. To Manny Arquero, these things, combined with the fact that he had never liked this scrawny redneck prick anyway, were enough to justify conviction and execution. He put the AK-47 to his shoulder and in that instant knew he'd made the right decision, because now Tark had dropped the rope coil, and Arquero saw that it had been concealing a gun. Arquero also knew that he was going to win this one, because Tark had to bring the barrel up, which meant Arquero had time to aim and squeeze the trigger nice and easy, the way they teach you, which is what he was just about to do, when the first bullet made a small hole in his back and exited, much less neatly, through the front of his chest. The second and third bullets weren't really necessary, as Arquero was already going down, and there was no way for him to get any deader than he was about to be anyway.

The four members of the ship crew had absolutely no chance. Before Arquero landed facedown on the platform, Tark opened fire with his gun, a TEC-9 semiautomatic with a 50-shot magazine, an effective weapon used in countless drug-related slayings. Tark started with the two crewmen to his left, the ones farthest away, taking them with two shots apiece,
pop-pop, pop-pop,
easy targets, as neither had time to move. As Tark shot the second crewman, he heard, to his right, a
pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop,
which told him that Kaz, who'd been crouched behind the transom on the port side, was up and firing at the other two crewmen, both turning to escape the platform, neither getting more than a step.

This left only Hank Wilde, whose alcohol-fogged mind had reacted less quickly to the eruption of carnage, still only a few seconds old. As the two bullets, one from Tark's gun, one from Kaz's, struck Wilde virtually simultaneously, he was still staring in bafflement at the back of the platform, at the shooter who'd appeared from the ship and gunned down Manny Arquero from behind, and who was still standing there, still clasping a pistol in both of his hands.

His very big, very pink, hands.

“THIS IS BAD, MAN,” WHISPERED JOHNNY. “THIS is
bad.
”

“Oh man,” whispered Ted. “Oh
man.
”

They were crouched on a dark catwalk at the stern of the
Extravaganza,
starboard side, second-deck level, overlooking the stern platform. They had just lit a joint when they saw the fishing boat backing toward the ship. They had seen Manny Arquero holding a gun and heard him shouting something to the man in the back of the boat. They had heard the man shouting something back. They had seen Manny aiming his gun, and then they'd seen the shell—the
shell
—appear and
pop-pop-pop
shoot Arquero in the back. Then suddenly there'd been two guys in the boat shooting, and in a few seconds there were six bodies down.

Now the fishing boat was tying up, and the shooters were climbing onto the
Extravaganza
platform. For the first time in his entire life, Johnny dropped a perfectly good joint.

“Jesus,” he said, “they're coming on the
ship.
What are we gonna
do
?”

“Oh man,” whispered Ted. “Oh man.”

“Ted,” whispered Johnny, “we have to
do
something.”

“OK,” whispered Ted, fighting to clear the pot fumes from his brain. “OK, listen. We have to tell somebody.”

“Who? We can't tell Manny. Manny is
dead,
man.”

“I
see
that. You think I don't see that? Lemme think.”

“We should tell the captain.”

“Shut up and let me think, OK?”

“OK,” whispered Johnny.

Ted thought for a moment.

“OK,” he whispered. “Here's what we need to do.”

“What?” whispered Johnny.

“We need to tell the captain,” whispered Ted.

“I just
said
that,” whispered Johnny.

“When?”

“Just
now.
I said, ‘We should tell the captain.' ”

“All right, Jesus, whatever, let's just
go,
” whispered Ted.

“All right,” whispered Johnny. “But you got to learn how to listen.”

 

FAY SAW IT, TOO. SHE WAS ON THE SAME CATWALK as Johnny and Ted, but on the port side. She had just come around the corner, out of the wind, and was about to call her mother again when she'd seen the fishing boat, seen Manny Arquero, seen Conrad Conch, seen the shootings. Before the guns had stopped firing, she was pressing buttons on her cell phone, holding it to her ear.

“Shit,” Fay whispered.

She backed around the corner, out of sight of the platform, held the phone up to catch the light from a porthole. The phone screen said NO SERVICE.

Fay peeked around the corner. The fishing boat was tying up to the
Extravaganza,
the gunmen getting ready to board. Fay turned and ran, heading for the bow, for the stairway to the bridge.

 

ARNIE AND PHIL SAW IT, TOO, OR MOST OF IT. They'd gone down a stairway at the stern, past a sign that said CREW ONLY KEEP OUT. At the bottom, they'd followed a corridor to the left, which took them to another stairway. They followed that down, went out a doorway, and found themselves on a small recessed deck, mostly filled with a large inflatable dinghy, suspended from davits, with an outboard motor. Just below this recessed deck was the starboard end of the stern platform. Arnie and Phil could hear men talking out there, so they stayed back, behind the dinghy. There was a stack of life vests there; Arnie had seated himself on it.

“Perfect,” he'd said. “You got comfortable seating, fresh air, a view of the ocean; what else could a man want?”

“He could want to be on land,” said Phil. “With the sane people.”

“Stop your bellyaching,” said Arnie. “Tomorrow you'll say to me, ‘Arnie, that was another great idea you had, going out.' ”

“If we see tomorrow,” said Phil. “I'm looking at those waves out there, and . . . What the hell is that?”

“What the hell is what?”

“We got another boat coming up here. Backward.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” said Arnie, getting up off the life vests and joining Phil, peering out from behind the lifeboat. “Christ, look, there's that shell that we . . . Christ, what is he . . .”

That was when they saw Conrad Conch open fire. As soon as they heard more gunshots, they were on their way out of there, moving stiffly but at a higher velocity than either man had achieved since the Reagan administration.

 

THE INSTANT THE FISHING BOAT TOUCHED THE bumpers hanging from the
Extravaganza
stern, Tark, TEC-9 in hand, was over the transom and catching a line tossed by Kaz. Tark cleated the line down, then quickly caught and cleated another.

Conrad Conch was waddling toward him, gesturing with the pistol in his big pink right hand and shouting something unintelligible through his mouth hole. Tark gave him a hold-it gesture, then pointed to Kaz, who was pointing his TEC-9 right at Conrad.

“Put down the gun gently,” said Tark.

Conrad Conch set the gun down on the platform, stood up, started to shout and gesture again.

Tark pointed his gun at Conrad and said, “Shut up.”

Conrad shut up. Tark quickly went to each of the six bodies on the platform, checking for signs of life. Satisfied that there were none, he turned back toward the fishing boat and shouted, “OK.”

Holman emerged from the cabin. In one hand, he carried a gym bag. In the other, he carried a gray metal case, rectangular, about the size of a desktop computer, with a carrying handle and an antenna on the top. He handed these to Tark, then climbed over the transom, onto the
Extravaganza.
Kaz followed him, also holding a gym bag, into which he was stuffing his TEC-9.

Tark pointed to the metal case. “Is it on?” he asked Holman.

“It's been on,” said Holman, pointing to a small green light.

“Is it working?”

“Yup. I just checked it.”

“And you made the call to Miami?”

“Yup.”

“You got through?”

“Yup.”

“OK, get going,” said Tark. “Then get back here soon's you can and help move the shit.”

Holman picked up the metal case and the gym bag. He and Kaz crossed the platform, climbed the port-side ladderway, and disappeared through the doorway into the ship.