Tricky Business (28 page)

“Get over there with them,” Kaz said.

“You're the guy from the back,” said Arnie. “With the shooting.”

“Shut up, Pop,” said Kaz.

“I ain't your pop,” said Arnie.

“Pop,” said Kaz, “I will blow your fucking head off if you don't shut the fuck up and get the fuck over there
right now.
”

Arnie started to say something, but Mara put her hand on his arm and pulled him over with her to the helm, Phil following.

The unexpected-asshole count had now climbed to seven. Kaz glanced at his watch; Tark was expecting him back soon.
Where was Holman?

Kaz decided, Holman or not, he'd stick to the plan.

“Over there,” he said, gesturing with his gun at the eight captives, waving them toward the wall next to the stairwell. As they crowded over, Kaz, keeping an eye on them, moved to the helm. He glanced down at it, locating the communications console, then up at his captives again. The only one he figured could give him any trouble was the captain, who was watching him impassively. The three younger guys looked pretty scared. Kaz wasn't worried about the two old guys, or the two women. Maybe this would work out OK. After all, the point of the plan was to make it look like Bobby Kemp's operation; this way, Kaz figured, there'd be more witnesses to spread the word.

“Anybody moves,” he said, looking right at Eddie, “I blow everybody's fucking head off. You understand, Captain?”

Eddie nodded.

“That's good,” said Kaz. “Bobby Kemp told me you'd be a good boy, wouldn't give me no trouble.”

Eddie frowned.

“Yeah,” said Kaz. “Pretty fucking funny, huh? A guy sets up his own ship?”

Satisfied that he'd handled that cleverly, Kaz looked down again at the communications console, a little longer this time, locating the main and backup radios. He looked up again at his captives, then quickly turned and fired a shot—
pop
—into the main radio.

“Oh my God,” said Mara.

Kaz looked up again. None of the hostages had moved. Kaz turned away again, located the backup radio, and fired another shot. Then he turned back toward his captives.

Before he got his body around, he realized that he was looking directly into the barrel of a pistol, not three feet from his face.

“Put down the gun,” said Fay.

 

AT T HE STERN, TARK AND REBAR WERE HALFWAY done, having lugged ten of the heavy cash-filled duffel bags to the Zodiac and stowed them, which took time because Tark wanted to make sure each one was securely tied in. Tark was looking at his watch every thirty seconds now, expecting at any moment to feel the
Extravaganza
start moving. It was taking a little longer than he'd expected, but he wasn't worried. He had a great plan, a perfect plan, and everybody who could possibly have screwed it up was dead.

 

THE INSTANT THE LINES WERE CAST OFF, STU Carbonecca's comically overpowered Cigarette boat roared away from the dock next to the Chum Bucket, carrying Stu, Lou Tarant, and six wet, unhappy professional thugs packing enough firepower to successfully invade a Third World nation (or France). Stu was at the helm, with Lou standing right next to him, screaming in his ear to go faster, even though Stu could barely control the boat as it was, what with the bay so rough. Stu had never seen Lou this angry. When Stu had started to suggest that maybe they should unload the boat before they went out, Lou had nearly punched him. So now he was doing whatever Lou wanted. If Lou wanted him to make the boat go faster, OK, he'd make it go faster. Because Stu knew you did
not
mess with Lou when he was angry. He almost felt sorry for the poor bastards out on the ship.

“OHMYGOD,” SAID CONNIE THE GRIEVING DIVORCÉE. “Yes. Yes. Yes yes yes yesyesyesyes YESSSS. Ohmygod. Ohmygod. OH . . . MY . . .
GOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOD.
”

“AAAA
UNHHHHHHHHHHH,
” responded Jock, and he meant it. He could hardly believe this was happening to him for the third time in less than an hour. A personal best.

They were on the floor behind the
Extravaganza
galley's stainless-steel counter. They'd considered using the counter—which was spotlessly clean, as was the rest of the galley, since Emeril never cooked there—but they'd have been too visible if somebody came in. So they'd chosen the floor, which Jock had gallantly covered with some white buffet-table cloths. It was romantically dark, as they'd turned off the lights, with the only illumination coming from the crack under the door.

Jock lay on his back, Connie's head resting on his chest, the two of them happy and drained and naked as jaybirds. For a minute, neither moved, except to breathe, Connie sounding like she was purring. Then Jock began to stir. He was not good with time, but it seemed to him that it now had been a
long
time since the band's break had started. He was just about to tell Connie that he needed to get dressed, when the galley door banged open, hard. Jock and Connie, startled, gripped each other, listening. They first assumed that it was Emeril, but whoever it was, by the sound of it, didn't know where the light was. They heard some fumbling around, the clattering of kitchen implements and bowls falling to the floor. And then footsteps, coming around the counter.

And then a smell. It was a smell that Jock recognized immediately, and it struck fear into his heart.

FOR AN INSTANT, LOOKING INTO THE PISTOL barrel, Kaz thought about it.

Fay saw him thinking about it.

“Don't even think about it,” she said. “I will pull this trigger, and the bullet will go through your left eyeball.
Put the gun on the floor.
”

Kaz put the gun on the floor.

“Now go to the wall, spread your legs, and lean over,” said Fay. “You know how.”

Kaz leaned against the wall. Fay, keeping her gun on him, slid his gun away from him with her foot.

“Everybody OK back there?” Fay asked, glancing back at the rest of her group, their faces showing various degrees of incomprehension. Wally was the first to find words for expressing it.

“You have a gun,” he said.

“Yes,” said Fay. “Captain, we . . .”

“Oh my God, you have a gun,” said Mara.

“Yes. Now we need . . .”

“How come you have a gun?” said Wally.

“I'm a cop,” said Fay.

“What?” said Wally.

“Oh my God, you're a
cop
?” said Mara.

“She's a
cop,
” said Johnny.

“I heard her,” said Ted.

“A nice, quiet evening, you said,” said Phil.

“Shut up,” said Arnie.

“It smells like puke in here,” said Johnny.

“What kind of cop?” said Eddie.

“CGIS,” said Fay. “You familiar with that?”

“More than I'd like,” said Eddie.

“What is it?” said Wally.

“Coast Guard,” said Eddie.

“You're the
Coast Guard
?” said Wally. “But you're, I mean, you're, you're . . .”

“You're wearing a
miniskirt,
” said Johnny.

“It's long enough to hide a holster,” said Fay. “Listen, I would love to chat more with you boys about my career in law enforcement, but right now we have some guys back there with machine guns to worry about, OK? Captain, we need to contact Miami right now.”

“OK,” said Eddie, “but it has to be by cell phone. He shot up both my radios.”

“My cell phone's not working,” said Fay. “Anybody else got one?”

Everybody had one but Arnie and Phil. Everyone checked. Everyone reported: NO SERVICE.

“Damn,”
said Fay. “Captain, are there any other radios on the ship?”

Eddie thought for a second.

“Not on the ship, no,” he said. “But . . .” he stopped.

“But what?” said Fay.

Eddie thought about it, decided he had no choice.

“At the stern, there's a fishing boat,” he said. “It's got a radio.”

“That's right,” said Fay, looking at Eddie hard now, thinking about it, how he'd have to know there was a fishing boat back there, because he was the one who'd stopped the ship out here.

“That's right,” she repeated. “OK, I need to get on that boat.”

“The guys with guns're back there,” said Ted.

“And the shell,” said Johnny.

“You saw that, too?” said Phil.

Fay was thinking about it, about the radio on the boat, about the guys with the guns.

“OK listen,” she said. “Here's what we do.”

“What you do, lady,” said Holman, from the stairwell, “is you put down the gun.”

“About fucking time you got here,” said Kaz.

 

NOW TARK WAS STARTING TO WORRY. HE AND Rebar had secured most of the cash on the Zodiac—only two more bags to go—and the
Extravaganza
hadn't started moving yet. What the hell were Kaz and Holman doing up there? They were supposed to be done and back down by now. That was the plan. They were supposed to be here, so Tark could kill them, as well as Rebar, and then get out of here, leaving nobody alive who knew anything. What was keeping them?

This is why it's better to work alone,
Tark thought.
It's hard to find people you can trust.

 

“TINA, PLEASE,” JOCK SAID. “PUT DOWN THE knife.”

It was a major knife. Tina had found it when she was looking for the galley lights. She was waving it now in the general direction of Jock's genitals. She was an imposing sight: a very tall, very blonde, very angry, very farty woman waving a very big and sharp-looking blade. Jock was scuttling backward on his butt, with Connie, the grieving divorcée scuttling backward behind him, both of them still buck naked.

“HELP!” Connie shrieked. “SHE HAS A KNIFE SOMEBODY OUT THERE HELP US PLEASE!”

Nobody heard her but Emeril, who was not inclined to get involved. It had been Emeril who, in what was for him a rare moment of human interaction, had pointed to the galley door when Tina, on her break, had come looking for Jock. Emeril was reclusive, but he was also, like so many men, a big fan of tits.

“Tina, just put the knife down,” Jock said. “You don't understand.”

“I don't understand?” Tina said. “You're naked, she's naked, you're both on the floor, and I DON'T UNDERSTAND?”

The knife flashed groinward then, and Jock, displaying the reflexes that made him such an excellent drummer, was on his feet, over the counter, and out the door, leaving behind Tina, and Connie, and his clothes.

 

STU CARBONECCA'S BOAT ROCKETED OUT THE end of Government Cut, into open ocean, now getting airborne off some of the waves, the engines over-revving wildly when the props came out of the water. Each time the boat slammed back down, there was a chorus of
FUCK
s shouted simultaneously into the howling wind and rain by the extremely uncomfortable, and now somewhat terrified, cadre of professional thugs huddled in the cockpit.

And still Lou Tarant was not satisfied.

“FASTER,” he shouted into Stu's ear.

“BUT LOU WE'RE ALREADY . . .”

“I SAID FASTER GODDAMMIT.”

So Stu, a man between a very big rock and a very hard place, shoved the throttles forward yet another notch.