Riptide

CHAPTER 22

The racers straggled in, tied up and sprawled out on the barge, exhausted. Most said to hell with the champagne, just leave a six-pack and lemme alone. Lila Summers had finished midway back, helped some by not falling when the Magnum roared by, but she was exhausted too. Jake Lassiter helped her climb aboard the barge, where she peeled off her wet suit and sprawled out on a deck chair, eyes closed, chest heaving. He covered her with a towel and asked what Keaka was up to, but she just shrugged and rolled her eyes.

Maybe Keaka snapped, Lassiter thought. The reincarnated warrior heading for his own Valhalla. But what the hell was going on with the commodore in the Magnum? He wouldn’t answer radio calls.

It was nearly dusk and the ABC producer kept asking when the awards would be given. P. J. Jeter stood nearby, microphone in hand, but with no one to interview. Presiding on the barge, Paul Flanigan convened an emergency meeting of the yacht club board which, after several rounds of Tequila Sunrises, concluded that there was no requirement to show up for the awards ceremony and declared Keaka Kealia the winner. “Victor in absentia,” Charlie Riggs agreed.

Lila Summers accepted the check for Keaka and brush-kissed Jake Lassiter, who handed it over, filling in for the missing commodore. Francoise Duvalier, the surprise women’s winner, gave Lassiter a better kiss than he deserved while Lila watched. He loved the look in Lila’s eyes, like she might have bashed Francoise with her daggerboard if she wasn’t so tired.

For a race with a bizarre finish — a windsurfer and a chase boat that disappeared — the atmosphere on Bimini was strangely calm. Bimini can do that, mellow you out. The judges’ boats ferried the racers to the Big Game Club, where some serious drinking was under way in the Rum Keg Bar. Lila Summers squeaked across the lobby on bare feet, carrying the yellow backpack. Lassiter brought her sail bag with a change of clothes that he had stowed on the Big Daddy.

“Give me twenty minutes,” she said, “then come to the room.” The mystery of the missing Hawaiian wasn’t so important now. Lila was supposed to be sharing a cottage with Keaka, but Lassiter was willing to pinch-hit. He stopped at the restaurant, got two bowls of conch chowder, four broiled Bahamian lobster tails, a loaf of Bimini bread, still warm, and a six-pack of Grolsch, ice-cold.

Twenty minutes later — okay, so maybe it was fifteen — he knocked on her door. Room service, he said. Lila was just stepping out of the shower, white towel wrapped around her, its folds revealing full hips and flat stomach. She smiled at him, a tired but happy smile, kissed him gently on the forehead and grabbed one of the beers.

They devoured the food and drank the Grolsch, and Lassiter stepped out of his shorts while Lila undraped the towel, and on a cool bed with a breeze rattling the latticed windows he held her, his face buried in her wet hair, her skin still faintly salty from the sea. He nibbled at her pouty lower hp and she responded, and he slipped down under the sheet, caressing her breasts, brushing her stomach with light kisses. She purred a sweet song and her breathing quickened and her body moved to a faster beat, but in a moment she stopped moving and her breathing became slow and regular, and in another moment he figured it out… Lila was fast asleep.

0 for 2. No hits in two at-bats. At least the first time I got some wood on the ball, he thought. This time I whiffed. Couldn’t even keep her awake. Damn, maybe the beer was a bad idea.

Jake Lassiter pulled the sheet over Lila, who lay on her side now, her silhouette of slopes and curves visible in the darkness. He crawled in beside her and fell asleep. He dreamed of a jungle covered with swampy mangrove roots that grabbed at his legs and snaked up to his neck, where they tied intricate knots and strangled him, and he yelled and kicked and woke up in a sweat with Lila Summers holding him and whispering that everything was all right. And soon it was, because she kissed him and aroused him and with Jake Lassiter on his back she straddled him and guided him into her. With strong legs she slowly eased up and down, telling him to He still and he obeyed, and she tightened herself onto him and rocked forward and back and when he finally gasped, she smiled, and he knew so he didn’t ask. He knew it had been for him, Lila’s way of saying not to worry about her, it didn’t matter. He thought about it and was happy and sad at the same time and then he slept again, this time without dreams.

When Jake Lassiter awoke, there was something wrong. The telephone jarring him awake was wrong. The space next to him was empty, the sheets cool, and that was all wrong. He could feel the emptiness in the room. The phone still clanged, an ugly sound.

“I hope you’re with the girl,” the husky voice on the phone said.

“What?” Lassiter asked, propping himself up on an elbow, clearing the cobwebs. “Who’s this?”

“Tubby Tubberville here, at your service. I’m at the front desk.”

“Tub, what the hell, didn’t know you could ride a chopper across the Straits. What’re you doing here?”

“Cindy sent me over on the first Chalk’s puddle jumper this morning. She was worried about you, what with the commodore hijacked and you not answering your phone all night. Plus all hell’s broken loose at the firm. According to Cindy, your partners had some kind of emergency meeting to consider your future, or lack thereof. Some dude at the bank claims you nearly broke his neck. Gonna charge you with assault.”

“Forget the firm and the bank. What do you mean about being with the girl?”

“The cottage you’re in is registered to a Mr. Kealia and Ms. Summers. Your room’s been empty all night so I hope you’re in there with the girl, not the guy. Don’t want any of my notions about you going down the drain.”

Lassiter struggled upright and swung his feet onto the cold tile floor. “What’s this about a hijacking?”

“If you’re both decent I’ll drop in and tell you.”

“Only seems to be one of us here. C’mon in, number four.”

Lassiter looked around. The wet suit was still hanging in the bathroom but Lila’s sail bag with a change of clothes was gone. So was the yellow backpack. He had last seen it sticking out from under the bed last night. And there was a note on the dresser.

A note the morning after.

Oh shit. How did he know it wouldn’t say to bring home a jug of wine, a loaf of bread, and thou?

Dearest Jake,

You don’t know how close I came to staying. Grow old along with me, the best is yet to be. You’re very special to me and you deserve the best. But I am not for you. Too much has happened. There are things you don’t know. When you learn them I pray you will not hate me. I know how you feel about me and hope I have not caused you pain. But please do not follow me. It is dangerous.

Love,

Lila

Tubby came in, swung his bulk around, and looked at the empty beer bottles and the remains of the lobster tails. “Whoo-ee! Big-time lawyer buck nekkid, looks like you had yourself an orgy here.”

Lassiter ignored the crack and handed Tubby the note. “Here, play Dear Abby for me.”

Tubby scratched his beard, wrinkled his broad forehead, and moved his lips as he read. “Sorry, bro, a Dear Juan letter, as they say in our hometown. What’s this ‘dangerous’ shit? Got anything to do with yesterday?” “What happened yesterday?”

“Boy, are you out of it, she must be some piece… sorryJake… but don’t you know about the Hawaiian dude cutting out, then some friend of yours makes like Miami Vice, shootin’ at him from this speedboat, goes back across the Stream, disappears at the Miami Beach marina? Meanwhile, nobody’s seen hide nor hair of the Hawaiian, who hops on a seaplane and takes off.”

“What friend of mine?” Lassiter asked, straining to focus on one fact at a time.

“Guy named Marlin, used your formerly good name to board the chase boat, then hijacks it. By the way, the Coast Guard wants to chat with you about it.”

“Great. Tell them to stand in line behind Miami Beach burglary and Metro homicide. Also, tell them I don’t know any Marlin.”

Tubby began eating the crust from last night’s dark Bimini bread. “Now what, bro?”

“How long ago your flight get in?”

“About an hour, and fifteen minutes later the plane headed for Nassau.” Tubby finished the bread and wiped a paw across his mouth. “I know what you’re thinking. Yeah, maybe she was on the plane outta here. Or maybe she took a boat going anywhere. You thinking of chasing her, proclaiming your devotion?”

Jake Lassiter had been thinking just that. But could he catch her if he didn’t know where to start? He needed time to figure it out. His head was spinning. Marlin, who the hell was Marlin? And Keaka, where’d he go? And Lila, what did she mean, it is dangerous?

Lassiter stood up and pulled on his undershorts. “What about this Marlin, the hijacker, what’d he look like?”

“Short guy, balding, probably Latino, wearing an army jacket.”

“A what?”

“You know, one of those camouflage jackets.”

“Holy shit,” Jake Lassiter said. He turned it over, the description the Rodriguez kid gave of the guy coming out of the theater, a short dark guy in a camouflage jacket. He did the B and E. Could be a coincidence, lots of those jackets around, or could be the same guy, now dropping my name, taking the commodore’s boat, then hauling ass after Keaka Kealia, who leaves by seaplane. What’s Keaka got to do with it? It didn’t fit together, not yet. “Anything else? What’d the commodore say?”

“Said you’re never to set foot in the hallowed halls of the yacht club again.”

“Did Marlin say anything to him? Like what he was doing there?”

“Said the Hawaiian kid double-crossed him, that’s all.”

Keaka in on the theft, Lassiter thought, doesn’t make sense. The bonds were stolen before he even got here. Could be just transporting the coupons, but they’d be too heavy. You couldn’t sail like that and carry all that weight. Even Keaka Kealia couldn’t do that. Lassiter wished Charlie Riggs was there to think it through, but the sun was already high in the east, and he would have been off at dawn in pursuit of the wily wahoo.

Tubby reached for another piece of the bread, dipped it into the remains of the conch chowder, then let it slip from his fingers. He bent down to grab the soggy bread from the floor and came up with a scrap of paper, which he crumpled and tossed into the wicker wastebasket. Jake Lassiter saw it out of the corner of his eye, a delayed reaction, the fine print in orange ink finally registering.

“Tubby, what the hell was that?”

“Hmmm. What?”

Lassiter was in the basket now, unfolding the scrap of paper, barely an inch wide by three inches long. His heart raced. “City of Gary, Indiana Environmental Improvement Revenue Bond 6.85 percent,” a coupon worth $171.25.

Oh no, it couldn’t be.

His mind sought an explanation other than the only one that made any sense.

There it was and had been all the time.

Right under his nose, or rather, his bed.

How stupid he had been.

Keaka Kealia hadn’t transported the coupons. He had created a diversion, like some ancient warrior whose forces were outnumbered, King Cantaloupe, or whoever. He had lured the enemy into chasing shadows.

Lila Summers carried the coupons.

Lila Summers was weighted down by the contraband. That’s why she lost the race. Lila Summers was the mule. And Jake Lassiter, what were you? The horse’s ass, he told himself. Should have figured it out, instead of being swept away by her beauty. Don’t get farchadat by the women, Samuel Kazdoy always told him.

Jake Lassiter sat back on the bed, paralyzed. His insides were empty, his guts scooped out. The pillow still carried her sweet scent. He thought about the note. He ached for her just as much as before, only it was a different kind of pain now.

Tubby found a half-empty beer bottle and drained it. “Hey, bro, you look like somebody just stole your girl.”

“No, Tub. My girl just stole my bonds.”

“Huh?”

“My client’s bonds, though I was starting to think of them as half mine. I was thinking of Lila as half mine, too. Isn’t that stupid?”

“Don’t think I follow you,” Tubby said.

“I’m going to need your help, Tub. What do you have t planned the next few days?”, “Workin’ on the Harley, some fishin’, the usual. I’m yours.”

“What’s today, Tubby?”

“You do need help. Sunday, bro.”

“Call Cindy at home, have her get us connections tomorrow to Maui, first-class.”

“Sure thing. You’re paying, I’m flying, but can I ask a question?”

“Shoot.”

“Are we goin’ after the bonds or the blonde?”

Jake Lassiter knew the answer. Lila had the bonds. And had him. Stole his heart and his client’s bonds. He wanted to bring them both back, but could he? And what about Keaka? Funny, that was what he asked Lila on the beach. What had she said — she loved Keaka because he was free. Would she still love him if he were doing five to seven at Raiford for BRC — buying, receiving, and concealing stolen property? Let him windsurf in the urinal trough. But she was guilty too. Sweet Lila, how could she?

He could change her. He would talk her into turning over the bonds and leaving Keaka. Tubby would provide extra muscle in case things got ugly. Jake would use his connections to get her immunity. They’d come back to Miami. And live happily ever after.

He thought about it.

Dumb.

Very dumb.

It was the dumbest idea that ever worked its way into his consciousness. But he didn’t have any other ideas.

“The bonds and the blonde, Tubby. We’re going to get them both.”