Chapter 10
M ateo pulled up to the Trading Post in his sister’s Jeep, no top or doors, with Waylan riding shotgun. I hopped into the cargo space in the back. “Why’re you in Doreen’s car?”
“Just switching it up,” Mateo said, glancing over his shoulder but not looking me in the eye.
Something felt off. I watched Waylan, wishing he’d turn so I could read his face. He was bent over, messing with something in the floor though. As we pulled away, I asked Mateo, “So what’s going on tonight?”
All I knew was to be at the Trading Post at midnight. Since there’s no dock at the little grocery store, I came in my truck, confused and half-hoping they’d called it off with all the heat coming down lately.
Mateo shook his head, shrugging. “He hasn’t told me anything except to get you two and go to the marina.”
This was not how the jobs usually went down.
We never met at the same place at the same time.
An invisible hand behind the scenes moved us around like chess pieces so no more than two people ever interacted.
It made sense to me since it was less risky and harder to track.
I knew George employed dozens, but I had only met maybe three others besides these two knuckleheads.
We got out of the Jeep in the marina parking lot, no one else in sight. “This way,” Mateo told us as he headed fro the dock.
Waylan wrinkled his brow, scratching his head.
“Alright,” I grumbled, following them down the dock. The sight of George’s enormous Hatteras motor yacht made me daydream for a moment, imagining what I could do with a 48-foot trawler big enough to double as a house.
A curly gray head popped out the back door, interrupting my reverie.
“Get in here,” he barked. With that, George disappeared back inside as fast as he had appeared.
I looked around skittishly as we stepped onto the boat.
George onsite with us was definitely weird.
I’d only met him twice before, and he didn’t say a word to me either time.
We stood around the chart table on the fly bridge. George looked serious, and maybe even rattled.
“Change of plans,” he said, pulling out a chart.
“The drop is not in the Everglades. It’s now on the reef.
You,” he pointed at me, “are taking Johnny B’s Mako and going here.
” He tapped a spot on the map marked just past Alligator Reef Lighthouse, right on the edge of the reef.
“Your skiff won’t make it in this wind.” He tossed a duffel at me.
“Keys are in the ignition. Put the bag in the lobster trap that’s on the boat when you get to the right spot. ” He tapped the X on the chart again .
I unzipped the duffel, glancing inside at the black trash bag. My face went cold when I realized he was making me the money man tonight. I stared at the package, dumbfounded, while he continued. “Make sure the buoy is secure before you chuck it, then get out of there.”
“You.” He tossed a second set of keys to Waylan. “Take the fast boat in the next slip,” he motioned with his chin toward the port side of the boat. “Keep an eye on Slick. Stay further offshore and make sure he doesn’t get pinched.”
“And you.” He tossed a smaller, second bag to Mateo. “You pay everyone. The bridge tender. The cops. These two when they finish. There’s a list and a handheld VHF inside. We’ll be on channel 22. Switch to 38 if anyone gets spooked. Meet up back here after it’s done.”
The three of us stood there looking back and forth at each other in shock. We were just dumb kids, never hands-on in any of the drops. We weren’t qualified for this. Neither of my companions looked any more convinced about this plan than I felt.
“Leave one at a time,” George barked. “Don’t be seen together until after it’s done.”
I didn’t like the plan one bit, but thankfully it would be my last trip.
Anxious to get it over with, I volunteered.
“I’ll go first.” Peeking out the companionway, I slowly climbed the steps to the back deck.
My heart pounded as I glanced left and right through the plexiglass window.
No one in sight. I slid the wooden door open and stepped from the Hatteras to the dock, hightailing it to Johnny B’s Mako two slips over as casually as one can while questioning every bad decision they ever made, lugging a ridiculously heavy sack of cash.
If it got me out of this life, it was worth it.
The Mako started right up. Stowing the duffel under the seat, I quickly untied the lines and navigated out of the marina.
My racing heart started to calm once I left the shallows for the channel and got up to speed.
With the wind buffeting my hair and my wake spread out behind me, I navigated the twists and turns until the bridge came into sight.
I slowed just enough to pass beneath the light marking the safe channel in the center, then I cranked it up again.
I really wished I was in my truck instead, driving over that bridge and heading to Ellie’s aunt’s house in Tavernier, with all this behind me. Soon.
I pushed the throttle forward again, the 28-foot center console slicing through the water even faster. The Mako was exactly the kind of boat I needed. Johnny B had good taste. A chill ran through me at the thought that he wasn’t going to be needing it in prison.
The light on Alligator Reef came into view, the lens rotating and emitting a flash every five seconds.
My breath quickened as I aimed directly for it.
I knew the depths around the lighthouse as well as I knew the backcountry in the Bay.
The 136-foot iron structure stood four miles east of Indian Key, and had great fishing.
They built it in just a few feet of water, to warn of the shallows of the reef where so many ships had run aground.
But just past the lighthouse, the reef dropped off dramatically, which is where George had marked the charts for me to drop the buoy.
My sweaty palms gripped the wheel as I glanced down at the package at my feet.
This was definitely the riskiest job I’d ever done.
Bootleg champagne was the only contraband I’d ever actually touched for George.
There wasn’t a deputy down here that would do anything other than take a bottle for himself and send me home with an admonishment to not do it again.
But this? They’d bury me under the jail for this.
All of a sudden, the radio lit up. “Hey Johnny,” George’s raspy voice squawked through the VHF.
“Aunt B really wanted gator, but she’s not gonna make it home tonight.
She says she’ll see you the next time she comes to the marina.
” I reflexively pulled the throttle back, the boat bucking as it slowed and sank into its own wake.
What the hell?
Johnny was in jail. I was in his boat. George had to be talking to me. But what did he mean? I tried to connect the dots. Gator … did that have to do with the lighthouse? Not gonna make it home tonight? Did he mean I couldn’t go back to the marina?
As if sensing my confusion, George’s voice came across the VHF again. “On her way out she said weather is coming. It's gonna be hot at the marina tonight and you should have fixed the AC.”
Wait? Hot at the marina? Cops??? FUCK!
The Mako bobbed erratically, the wind and current battling for control, while I tried to figure out what to do.
Should I drop the package?
I realized my hand was trembling when I pushed the button on the VHF and I had to steady my thumb with the other hand.
Somehow I managed to say, “I’ll fix the AC, but should I cook the gator anyway?
” But what I was thinking was: Fuck! I was still at least a mile off the lighthouse, with a duffel bag full of cash that I wanted to get rid of immediately. But not if the site was compromised .
“No, no, skip the gator,” George said, his voice frantic. “Too hot to cook. Hole up at Stark’s till the storm passes.” Sirens wailed in the background for the final second before the radio fell silent.
I didn’t dare reply, but I had no idea what the hell I was supposed to do now.
There was normally a contingency plan. If drops got hot, they had a Plan B.
That was the whole point of our normal elaborate set up of multiple potential drop sites and multiple spotters.
George barely told us about Plan A before rushing us off to this shit show.
I floated there for a couple of minutes, wishing I could chuck the duffel bag overboard and speed off into the darkness in my dream boat.
My heart sped, threatening to come out of my chest at the sound of a motor nearby. The boat approaching had no lights. As it got close, a voice called, “Ahoy, asshole!”
I finally let out my breath when I recognized Waylan on the fast boat. “Fuck, man. You scared the shit out of me.”
“Well, change your drawers,” Waylan said, rafting the speed boat up to the Mako. “We have to figure out what that shit means.”
He was as confused as I was by George’s cryptic message, but I hoped he had some inkling. “Any idea what the hell is happening?”
“No clue,” Waylan said, an urgent tremble in his voice, “but it doesn’t sound good.”
The silence as we floated, thinking, was like a void needing answers. The sky was so clear I could see the Milky Way spread out above us.It would have been beautiful if I wasn’t scared half to death .
Mulling over George’s words on the radio, I had a thought.
“He said ‘hole up at Stark’s until the storm passes.’ You think that means leave the boats in the hurricane hole?
” When a big storm was coming, fishermen tied up their big boats there, deep in the mangroves of an inlet on the west side of Lignumvitae Key.
“Hmm. That’s pretty smart thinking, Slick,” Waylan grinned. “Makes sense. Go stash these boats there and lay low?”
That didn’t address the duffel issue, though. “What about the money?”