A cool breeze blew through the house making it pleasant and comfortable. Looking north toward Cornish and Sandy Cay, I could see the mainland behind them. Two white markers used to line up the pass through the North Bar channel stood like sentinels. On the sloping hills of Abaco dark pyramids of Casuarina pines stood immovably straight in defiance of the seasonal hurricanes, their needles trembling in the sun and wind.
I thought about Dave's brush with death on the reef at Sandy Cay. If it hadn't been for Karl Strange, he would have drowned.
A young woman's brother hired Dave to get her out of Marsh Harbor and bring her back to the United States. She'd gotten in over her head with a mean-tempered New York mobster who was running a money laundering operation in Abaco. She wanted away from him, but he wouldn't let her go, and there was a lot of abuse.
Dave made some mistakes, and one of the Italians chained him to a concrete block at low water on Sandy Cay reef. He left him there for high tide and sharks to finish the job.
Karl Strange risked his life to get him loose from the chain. At one point he thought Dave's foot would have to be amputated to get him out, and Dave urged him to cut it off. On his last attempt, Karl cut through a link in the chain. Dave owed him one.
Getting Will out from under the Snowpowder boys was one way he had of repaying Karl. How he worked his way into the dope pusher's inner circle, I had no idea. Always good at infiltration, it was his specialty when he was a Special Agent with the FBI. It was also his undoing. He got too close to his work.
Kathy brought coffee from the kitchen and sat back down on the couch. "Anything you want to talk about?" The sun threw broken bits of light across her face. She had a serious look of intimate concern.
"I'm working out some details. It's better you not know."
"I see."
"What's your last name?"
She threw her head to one side, black hair moving like pages of a book blowing in a stiff wind. "Peirce, with the 'e' and 'i' reversed."
"Yes, there was an artist from Maine, Waldo Peirce, spelled his name like that. I have some of his work."
"You do not?" The words were pronounced with a singular emphasis. "That's my grandfather."
"Small world."
"What works do you have?"
"A book illustrated by him, a painting titled, DEATH IN THE GULFSTREAM, and a lithograph of him by another artist. Not much really."
Kathy made me forget the reason I was here was to find the sadistic killer of Rene Renoir.
Dave arrived at eight-thirty. Meeting him down at the beach, I noticed that his long, narrow face and taught skin made it appear as if he had to stretch his facial muscles to keep his mouth closed. This gave a suggestion of sternness to a face that displayed nothing else.
There had not been a lot I could do to change my appearance. An old sailor's cap, a peacoat B.J. kept for cold days, and a pair of eyeglasses with the lens removed. Dave thought I could get away with it.
Pointing the cigarette toward Bridges Cay, we pulled in behind the north point of the cay out of sight of the Sun Dog. Dave shut the engine down, and we lay ahull in the calm waters in darkness so black it was scary.
A half-mile to the south, we could see the lights of the Sun Dog anchored in behind Bridges Cay. We had twenty minutes before Dave was to arrive and pick up his part of the load. I still did not know the plan for tonight.
The stars suddenly brightened to their full radiance. To the west, out over the shallow flats known as the 'Marls,' thunderstorms appeared as giant billowing pillars reaching sixty thousand feet into the night sky. Lightening illuminated each individual storm from the inside, making them look false, like a theater stage prop. Having fought my share of wars with these huge battlements that contain enough force to rip an airplane apart, I have seen them make cowards of the bravest of airmen, and make them wish desperately to be somewhere else.
The night was still warm. The peacoat, hot, even though I wore it unbuttoned. Sweat glistened on Dave's face. There was no breeze and the mosquitoes quickly found us.
"Run me through the Nassau thing again."
It gave us something to talk about, so I repeated the whole story starting with how Lynn Renoir's concern for her missing sister led to Glossman in Ocean Springs and the Will that Max Renoir left. How Rene ended up dead in Miami from a gallon of drugs coursing through her veins. My meeting with Mako, and finally, getting caught on board the Sun Dog.
"You should have known someone like Ignacio Sanchez would not leave a boat load of cocaine unguarded."
My mistakes did not need to be pointed out.
"There was a small arsenal of automatic rifles, AR-15s, with enough ammo to take Cuba."
"Another clue for you."
"Ignacio Sanchez…I know that name."
"Used to run the strip joints along the coast, Biloxi, Gulfport."
"Of course. He's been gone since the big cleanup back in seventy-five."
"That's right. He and his brother ran the gambling, dope, and prostitution all the way from Bay St. Louis to Ocean Springs. Ignacio was the brains behind the operation. His brother, Miguel, the muscle. When it all went down, Miguel took the fall. He's still in prison at Parchman. It'll be interesting to see what happens when he's paroled. Word is, he wants to have a talk with his brother.
"So Ignacio moved to the Bahamas and went into the Snowpowder business, and the Dixie Mafia took over the coast until the big boys moved in with the legal 'Dockside' gambling."
"Exactly. But Sanchez is a lot smarter, meaner, and extremely deadly. We will take no chances with this scumbag. There's no way to know how many people he's killed. You came close, my friend. Your luck must be running good."
"Yeah, I've really got fine luck."
"They've moved everyone off Johnston's Harbor. All business will be conducted aboard the Sun Dog from now on. So, I think we're safe with your death and the dinghy being discovered."
"How deep is Will in with these people?"
"More than he needs to be. He's a good kid at heart. Saw a way for some quick money selling to rich tourists. Didn't seem wrong to him. Once Sanchez gets his hooks into you, there is no way out but dead."
"They never think beyond the money."
"Will wanted out when they pushed him to sell at the school. They threatened his family. That's when I got called in."
"How big is Sanchez's operation?"
"He's got six men working for him on Abaco, alone. Moving about seven kilos a week. There's a lot of heat around Nassau at the moment. That's why they've been working out of Johnston's Harbor. He's dealing all over the Bahamas. I haven't been inside long enough to know his distribution network, or where he's getting his supply."
"How did you get inside with Sanchez?"
"Will introduced me. My cover is that of a dealer from Memphis. I made an offer for fifty kilos at ten grand a pop. I've gotten forty kilos so far, and the rest is due tonight. Sanchez thinks I'm stashing it on a sailboat anchored in American Harbor up at Man-O-War Cay. I rented one of BYS's Endeavours and staying aboard."
"That's half a million dollars’ worth of blow."
"I paid in cash and that impressed Sanchez."
"You are using the counterfeit money from the Williams case, aren't you?"
Dave laughed. "Good guess. It would take an expert to tell the difference." He paused, rubbed both hands around the steering wheel of the cigarette. "There is something else you should know. I got word Sanchez plans to take back the Snowpowder he sold me. I would have been disappointed if he hadn't. He'll probably try tonight, after delivering the last ten kilos."
"I'm here to help."
"Nice of you."
"You want to tell me the plan?"
"There is only one way to end this." There was neither cruelty nor animosity in his face, only justice.
"Yes."
He meant taking out Sanchez and his crew. Suddenly we were about to become judge, jury, and executioner. This is a dangerous world. Sometimes one has to do desperate things to survive desperate situations.
"We can take it down there, on the Sun Dog, or we can do it on board my sailboat when they come to take back the cocaine. The problem with my boat is that Sanchez might not show up. Someone will come; it's too easy a target. I vote for the Sun Dog. What do you think?"
He watched my eyes, looking for some sign of disapproval, some weakness in his plan. He knew I would stay with him in the fight. We had been in some rough places together. We trusted each other.
"It's your show. I'll go along with whatever you decide. The Sun Dog is a good choice. Everybody's in one place and we know the layout of the boat."
"It's settled, then."
"What's our firepower?"
"Two full auto Israel machine pistols and two forty-four magnum revolvers with six inch barrels, like the one I killed you with. There's plenty of ammo."
"So how do we go about this war? We will be outnumbered and out gunned."
He explained what he had in mind. It seemed workable, but dangerous. We sat in the small boat fanning mosquitoes, sweat running down my back, waiting for the time to approach the Sun Dog.
"Tell me about Kathy? She seems like a nice person."
"I did her a favor about six years ago. We met on a flight to Chicago, ended up going out to dinner. Strictly platonic. You know I don't fool around on Sally."
It was true, he didn't.
"She asked for advice on divorcing her flyboy. We've kept in touch."
"How did you connect her to Abaco?"
"She mentioned going to an island in the Bahamas to get away. Turned out it was here and, of course, I knew B.J., so that was that. She'd call every time she started down, see if we might be headed this way. That's how I knew she was going to be here this morning."
"Makes sense, but don't you think leaving a written message for her was dangerous?"
"You remember Mike Albury, the man who runs the ferry? Gave it to him and asked that he make sure no one but Kathy got it. That's as safe as you can get. Didn't want her to show up at the house and find you there."
"It was a good find."
He looked at the luminous dial on his watch. "It's time."