Flame

Chapter 32

Carver drove more slowly toward his office, his mind turning over. There were surely other boats christened Bold Entrepreneur; maybe one of those was the craft he’d seen in the slip at the Del Moray Marina. Not Willoughby’s boat at all.

But he doubted it. The boat had struck a chord of familiarity even without the name lettered on the bow. The same sweeping white hull, the red stripe just above the waterline. The raked angle of the marine navigation antenna above the flying bridge. It had to be the same boat.

When he saw a public phone Carver pulled the Ford over. Limped into the sun-heated aluminum booth, and touch-toned out the number of the Sundown Motel. Asked for Jefferson and gave the room number.

Jefferson didn’t answer. Neither did Ralph Palma when Carver rang his room.

Terrific. They were probably on their way to Willoughby’s place in Hillsboro Beach, acting on Carver’s information. And here was the Bold Entrepreneur. Docked the one place Wesley knew the DEA wasn’t, if Carver had informed them about what had happened last night at the Willoughby estate.

He stood in the sun, wiping sweat from his forehead with his palm and maybe wising up. Wondering if he’d gotten into something beyond his capability. Had Wesley known he’d contact Jefferson? Had he, Carver, been used to misdirect the DEA while the Bold Entrepreneur roamed north along the coast to Del Moray? Carver sensed there was a complicated game going on that he didn’t understand-and he was an essential, yet expendable, part of it. That made him uncomfortable.

A spate of cars passed doing close to seventy. Followed by a silver tour bus that rocked Carver with a crashing blast of wind that reeked of diesel exhaust.

He limped back toward the parked Ford, trying to figure out what to do.

The docked Bold Entrepreneur was probably waiting to be boarded by whatever SCBL members hadn’t yet arrived. The meeting, and whatever other drug business was going to transpire, would happen out at sea on the boat, where there was no concern for security. What more logical and unpredictable location?

Carver lowered himself into the car, sat for a moment in the heat, then started the engine. Gunned it.

He drove fast. Cut west, then north again on Magellan to his office. Ran traffic lights; a wonder he hadn’t picked up a cop.

He had in his desk drawer one of the tiny tracking gadgets known as bumper beepers. Van Meter had given it to him a few months ago. It was a simple and almost foolproof device, a small radio transmitter, about the size and shape of a quarter only thicker, with a magnetic base. It could be attached to almost any metal part of a car, where it would emit electronic signals until its battery ran down. Usually it was stuck on a car bumper, where it sent intermittent signals to a receiver tuned to the same frequency. In a car carrying a receiver, homing in on the electronic beeps made it relatively easy to follow or locate a car carrying a bumper beeper.

There was no reason the beeper wouldn’t work on a boat, once it was attached. The problem was, the Bold Entrepreneur’s hull appeared to be fiberglass. The magnetic base of the tiny transmitter wouldn’t stick.

Carver rooted through his bottom desk drawer until he found the beeper. Then he got a change of clothes from the office storage closet. Jeans, a clean black T-shirt.

With the scissors from a desk drawer, he hacked off the jeans’ legs above the knees. Hadn’t realized denim was so tough. He struggled into his just-made cutoffs, the T-shirt, and brown moccasins with no socks. Thought he might have torn off the rest of his injured ear when he pulled the T-shirt over his head. Hoped it wouldn’t start bleeding again. Butcher. Damn Butcher!

He glanced at his watch; he’d been in the office less than ten minutes. Time didn’t fly when you weren’t having fun. He slid the tiny beeper into his pocket.

Carver limped from the office and drove to a nearby hardware store, where he bought a tube of model-boat-and-airplane glue whose label boasted that on fiberglass and plastic it formed a secure bond that was impervious to water. Nearby was a poster featuring a smiling man standing casually beneath a fiberglass sports car that was supposedly suspended from a steel beam with only some of the glue keeping it from crashing to the ground to claim a fatality. Carver thought that if the miracle gunk in the little tube held up a Chevy Corvette, it would suit his purpose just fine. Assuming, of course, that there was at least some truth in advertising. Mustn’t be too cynical; he’d promised Edwina he’d try to improve in that department.

Before leaving the hardware store, he phoned Jefferson and Palma again, but again got no answer.

Carver left the phone, paid the cashier in the front of the store for the glue, and went out into the heat. He got in the Ford and drove back toward the marina.

The Bold Entrepreneur, looking clean and neat and sleek, looking like money, was still bobbing gently in its slip. There was no sign of anyone on board, but Carver knew that meant nothing. Curtains were pulled over the portholes and bridge windows. And a boat this size was practically a ship, with plenty of room below deck.

Carver turned the small screw that activated the tiny transmitter’s battery, then slipped the beeper back into his jeans pocket. He got out of the car and crossed the road. Made his way along the dock to where an old and apparently deserted Chris-Craft cruiser was tied up.

Because of the crushing heat, there were only a few people on the dock. An elderly man carrying a casting rod gave Carver a curious stare, then seemed to dismiss him from his mind. Put him down as maybe a beach bum who’d gotten in a fight.

On the other side of the Chris-Craft, out of everyone’s sight other than two young boys fishing far down the dock, Carver sat down on the rough wood and removed his moccasins and T-shirt. Paused while a sailboat with its canvas down put-putted past on the power of its motor. A guy wearing only swimming trunks and a blue yachting cap was at the stern wheel. Stared straight ahead and didn’t glance at Carver as the boat glided past. The boat left very little wake and looked graceful even with the sail down. Carver wrapped the T-shirt around his wallet and keys, then weighted it down on the sun-warmed, splintered planks with his moccasins and cane.

With a quick glance around, he lowered himself into the water, holding the beeper high in his left hand to keep it as dry as possible. The little transmitters were supposed to be waterproof, but why take chances?

Carver stayed in the shadows below the dock as he swam slowly toward the Bold Entrepreneur. Even with only one arm, he was a powerful enough swimmer to keep his head well up so the dressing over his ear stayed dry. Bits of paper and garbage floated in the brackish water, and the darting shapes of small fish could be seen inches below the surface. An orange peel, curved like a tiny canoe, was tossed about on the ripples Carver was stirring up, and drifted away. Moved by stronger forces, the hulls of boats swayed and bumped against the tires lashed to the pilings to prevent damage, causing rhythmic hollow thumping noises that were magnified in the silence beneath the dock.

The Bold Entrepreneur was berthed in one of the larger slips, its bow at a right angle to the main dock. Carver had to be careful as he swam alongside it. The rough-hewn plank walkway above him was narrower than the dock itself and provided less shadow. He might be visible from the shore if he wasn’t careful.

He lessened the strength and reach of his sidestroke, hoping no one aboard would hear him splashing around. Sometimes sound carried over water with unexpected volume.

Because of the way the boat was docked, the safest place to plant the beeper would be near the bow and well above the waterline. Keep the supposedly waterproof glue and transmitter dry and away from the force of the waves when the boat was under way. Dry as possible, anyway.

Carver held the beeper gently in his teeth. Treaded water in the shadow of the slip as he wrestled the tube of glue from his jeans pocket. He removed the cap, then, treading briefly with only his legs, took the beeper from his mouth and squeezed out a generous glob of glue onto the magnetic base.

Gripping the beeper firmly and just so, he stroked out into sunlight, reached high above the red stripe near the water-line, and with a twisting motion fixed the beeper on the Bold Entrepreneur’s smooth hull.

He slowly withdrew into the cooler, shadowed water, satisfied. The beeper seemed firmly attached, and while it was well above the waterline, it was still below the curve of the hull where it wouldn’t be noticeable from the dock. And probably no one other than Willoughby himself would think anything of the beeper if it was noticed. Anyone else would assume it was simply part of the boat. A ballast plug or capped vent, or some other mysterious piece of boating paraphernalia.

Carver backstroked until he was beneath the dock. Then, faster now with both arms, breaststroked parallel to the shore, back toward the paint-chipped wood hull of the aged Chris-Craft.

For the first time he noticed a sleek Cigarette speedboat tied at the dock. The elegant, dip-nosed Cigarette was designed by famous boatbuilder Don Aronow and was not so called because of its long low silhouette, as many believed, but was named after a Prohibition-era booze smuggler. The sexy and streamlined V-hulled craft, with its twin 450-horsepower turbocharged engines, could do over seventy miles per hour on open ocean. For its speed and not for its namesake, it was the favorite of drug runners. Carver wondered briefly if the presence of this one had anything to do with whatever was in the planning stages aboard the Bold Entrepreneur.

Within a few minutes he was back up on the dock, pulling his T-shirt over his head with one hand, holding the material away from his injured ear with the other. Wriggling bare wet feet into his moccasins and then using the cane to lever himself to a standing position. He was breathing hard. Felt good. Great, in fact. The lump of gauze and tape over his ear was barely damp.

He limped back to the Ford and climbed in. Didn’t notice the car parked a hundred feet in front of him until the doors opened simultaneously and two men got out slowly. Shut the doors also simultaneously and walked toward him. Their actions seemed choreographed; the two had gotten out of a car together hundreds of times. Partners.

Jefferson and Palma.

Carver wondered why they were here and not down the coast in Hillsboro Beach.

They didn’t seem glad to see him. He wasn’t sure if he was glad to see them.