The cigarette boat was cobalt blue and shaped like a shark. It sat perfectly still in the celery-green water at the end of the Flagler House dock. Two guys had stayed on board. Divers. They had stubble beards, crinkled eyes, and wore wetsuit tops unzipped to the solar plexus. One of them reached up to help Sandra into the open cockpit. The other started the twin engines; they fired into life with a roar that shook the ocean. Joey was pushed into the boat, then he was pushed up against a gunwale as Ponte's goons piled in behind him. He just had time for one quick look at the sleeping hotel, early light throwing triangle shadows across its balconies. Then the cigarette spun seaward. In three seconds the hull was up on plane, shushing over the slashed water of the Florida Straits with a sound like a million skis on icy snow.
Charlie Ponte crab-walked across the tilted cockpit and screamed in Joey's face: "So, asshole, where we goin'?"
White-knuckled, Joey squeezed the gunwale and willed his brain to think of something clever. Through the wildly vibrating air he glanced back at Sandra; she was pressed between two goons on a little wraparound settee at the stem, and her eyes did not look good, they looked forlorn as candles whose wicks had gotten buried in wax. Joey was still stalling even as he watched Charlie Ponte's small neat fist coming toward his chin, and the instant before the blow was one of stunning clarity in which Joey realized there was no lie that would save him and the truth probably wouldn't help much either.
Now, what the hell, he was ready to talk, but his mouth wasn't quite right after getting hit, and all that came out was a mumble.
"What, asshole?"
"Like twelve miles up," he shouted. "There's a piece a land shaped like a lamb chop bone. Then it's about five miles out from there. But listen-"
Charlie Ponte didn't want to listen. He had what he needed, and he turned his back on Joey. He shot a look at the guy at the wheel. The guy nodded. Then Ponte smiled. It was a big smile of genuine contentment. Finally he was winning, and winning was what he liked.
Joey leaned back against the gunwale and watched Key West whiz by. Smathers Beach and the open U of the Paradiso condo. The airport with its faceted weather bubble like the eye of a bug. Cow Key Channel, and beyond it, the gross pyramid of Mount Trashmore. Joey gave a bitter silent laugh. Gahbidge, he said to himself. Nice try at a life, kid, but it's all coming down to gahbidge.
He turned around and looked out at the blank green water of the Straits. Here and there it was blotched purple with coral heads or under the ragged shadows of the few small clouds. Joey scanned the horizon, wondering if he'd be able to spot Clem Sanders's salvage boat, wondering if Clem Sanders had even made it out there. He took big gulps of salt air, and each breath carried a different mix of fear and acceptance. He'd had his plan, his plan had been short-circuited, and now what happened would happen. Like Bert said, who could argue with that?
The boat roared on. Sometimes its noise was a featureless rumble; then at moments its engines would sync a certain way and there'd be piston beats like drumrolls. The sun was flame white by now and they slammed straight toward it. Tiny pellets of spray screamed past the boat and pebbled Joey's glasses. Up ahead, maybe half a mile landward, was the promontory that led into the channel for the Sand Key Marina. A low line of mangrove arced around like a rib. The boat driver pointed to it, Joey nodded, and the cigarette banked steeply and headed south.
Joey searched the horizon. But his shades were bouncing on his nose, his eyeballs were rattling in their sockets, and he couldn't see much of anything.
The driver abruptly cut back on the engines.
The deafening noise softened to a rhythmically popping clatter, the spray stopped slicing past. Then the water caved in like a disappointed dream and the blue boat came off of plane and settled down heavy and dead. The driver pointed past the bow. "We got company out there, Mr. Ponte."
Ponte moved his mouth but no sound came out.
The driver reached into a small compartment underneath the steering wheel and produced a pair of binoculars. " 'Bout two miles off," he said. "Could be a shrimper, but I don't think so. Looks to be anchored."
"Gimme the fucking glasses," Charlie Ponte said. He pressed them to his eyes and Joey could see his hands were trembling. Unconsciously, his thugs moved closer around the Boss, as if they could somehow all see through the binoculars at once. With the boat stopped, the morning sun was brutal, and everybody started to sweat. "What you know about this, kid?"
Joey took an instant to look at Sandra. His expression was wry, flat, and fatal, the same expression he'd worn when he asked her to drop everything and move to Florida with him. "It's a salvage boat, Mr. Ponte. I been tryin' to tell ya this all morning."
No one moved, no one breathed. Ponte's face crawled, his upper lip pulled back from his teeth. He wanted to claw at Joey's eyes, wanted him held down so he could kick him around the cockpit. The only thing that stayed his fury was that he couldn't spare the time.
"How the fuck you know about it?"
Joey leaned back against the gunwale and exhaled loudly. He shifted his weight, looked down at his feet. A man with a tortured conscience, with a terrible confession to make. "Gino," he softly said.
Ponte went toward him and hit him with both hands on the chest, as if he were trying to beat open a door. "Gino, what? What, Gino?"
Joey looked off to the side. "Gino put the stones there, ya know, to hide 'em. He's got a piece of the salvage job. That's all I know about it."
Ponte stepped back, rubbed his chin. There were nine of them baking in the boat, they could smell each other through the salt and iodine, but Charlie Ponte was a guy with a knack for making himself a hole in space and disappearing into it all by himself. He thought a few seconds. Then he came up with a way to make himself look at least a little bit smart. "Ya see?" he said to no one in particular. "Ya see? I knew he was protecting his twat of a brother." He paused, tapped his foot. "How many people they got on that boat?" He said it to his two divers.
The divers shrugged so that their wet suits squeaked. "Couple guys to go down probably," said the one who hadn't been driving. "Couple guys to work the winches. Maybe a guy to navigate."
"Armed?"
The divers looked at each other. "Not usually. One gun, maybe, for sharks or whatever."
Ponte went to the edge of the boat and spat thickly in the green water. Then he reached inside his silver jacket and came out with a dainty little pistol. "Fuck it, let's take 'em."
"But Mr. Ponte-"
"Shut your fuckin' mouth. Bruno, smack this fuckin' kid for me, willya? Smack 'im one like it was Gino too. Fucking family. This whole fuckin' family, I'm sick of 'em."