Tampa Burn

SIXTEEN

By noon Thursday, Prax Lourdes and Laken Fuentes were on a DC 10 cargo plane to Pinar del Rio, western Cuba, just them, the pilot, plus several tons of Masaguan rice in burlap sacks. By ten P.M., they were boarding a beat-up old fertilizer freighter that was registered in Monrovia, Liberia, a ship named Repatriate.

For the last six or seven years, when the cops or the Nicaraguan military were really on his ass, Lourdes hopped a freighter. Didn’t matter where it went. Pay cash, no questions. Nothing touched the privacy of a ship that was transporting fertilizers.

He preferred the tramp freighter Repatriate. The ship’s captain was a 250-pound Bahamian white woman named Micki who would do anything for money. Anything. She’d been born in Detroit, grown up in the slums of Nassau, chain-smoked Pall Malls, drank cane liquor, despised women even more than she did children, and probably hated men, too.

Men, at least, though, she could tolerate.

Not that she gave much of a shit about any human being on earth.

Once, in Bluefields, Nicaragua, she’d asked Prax, “Is it true? Do you really do what they say you do? I’d fuckin’ like to see it. Elsewise, I’m thinkin’ you’re jus’ one more freak fulla shit. With my own eyes, I’d like to see it happen.”

That was a first.

Prax had said to her, “You got anyone in mind?”

Micki told him, “Not really. But how about our Greek cook? He ain’t worth a shit, and he’s got so much grease pourin’ out of him, you won’t even need no fire starter.”

Captain Micki was close to right. The woman enjoyed it, watching the drunken Greek sprint toward the dock, ablaze. He was a burner.

Not at all like his driver, Reynaldo. The man had been a disappointment. Too stoic, some of those mountain Indios. Reynaldo, he’d run a couple steps, then just sort of balled up and smoldered.

His heroin junkie plastic surgeon, Fernando Delgado, hadn’t gone up much better. He was too strung out to run. Just slapped at himself and screamed, as if he might have been imagining it.

That took the fun out of it.

Killing the doctor had been a snap decision. It happened that way sometimes. It was after getting the good news about the kid’s blood type, and while looking in the mirror, seeing what a mess the quack had made of his face. That’s when he felt the sudden headache begin to move up his spine, and then the rage came flooding in behind his eyes like a scarlet starburst.

So he’d done the doctor, too.

Talk about burning bridges.

After the way the fat sea captain, Micki, had set up the Greek, Lourdes almost always used the Repatriate. Used it exclusively for trips to Florida. He went there whenever the feds in Central America got too close.

Micki was a psycho bitch, but she was also a hell of a captain. She had the routine down. She could get him off the boat and back aboard without the local cops ever having a clue. Micki, he could trust.

One thing Prax had learned working carnivals was that people who didn’t bother to pretend that they had morals or ethics were the only people who could ever be trusted. You always knew where they stood, and what they were after.

That was Micki. Cash, that’s all she cared about. Prax could do any damn thing he wanted aboard her vessel as long as he didn’t get in her way or piss her off.

Another reason the Repatriate was his vessel of choice was because there were seldom more than a handful of seamen aboard. The ship always carried a skeleton crew because everyone on the docks despised Micki. Seamen desperate enough to stick it out were exactly like her: They’d do anything for cash.

That made doing business aboard Repatriate easy.

All he had to have was money.

Prax had some cash now. He’d stolen Balserio’s $75,000-he loved that; only, the shit-heel had short-counted him. Plus, he had another $25,000 or so he’d copped during the last year traveling around the Masaguan countryside doing his thing.

So he’d flown out of Central America with close to $100K. But the cargo pilot had taken a chunk of that. Then Micki had taken a much bigger chunk.

At the freighter docks in Mariel Harbor, Cuba, she’d called him up to her cabin-the place was too filthy for pigs-and said, “I got all three of those things you said you ordered. Plus the instruments. But they’uz double what you said they’d cost. Even the Russian stuff, and it was used. It all cost more.”

Prax had expected this.

When he asked, she told him what the price was. The numbers had about doubled. He’d expected that, too, and had privately figured it into his expenses. Which was a relief.

Micki reminded him that the cost of the ship, her, and the crew, plus doing all the bullshit he wanted, was a hundred percent markup of the stuff for the infirmary, plus the usual nut, but times two. Cash.

A lot of cash.

She said, “You got that fucking kid locked in one of the cabins. I swear to Christ, if he starts to cry, or whine, or ask for shit, I’ll throw the little motherfucker’s ass overboard without slowing a knot. And I’m still gonna charge you the fuckin’ nut for his passage.”

Micki. You had to love her. She was one of the few people in the world whom Prax actually enjoyed hanging around with. The woman could make him laugh!

Still standing in her stinking cabin, he had listened to her return to the subject of the equipment they’d loaded aboard in Mariel, saying, “Jesus Christ, when you said you wanted a surgical microscope, I pictured something that would fit on a desk. We had to use the fucking ship’s derrick to get the thing aboard. Crew about busted its ass getting the damn thing into the infirmary.”

Prax had said, suddenly very serious, “You found the microscope I wrote to you about in the e-mail? It’s a Carl Zeiss, the floor model. Weighs about three hundred pounds. They had a couple in Havana, ’cause I checked on the Internet. It’s important you got the right model. Same with the surgical instruments. Doctors-the great ones-they’re very damn fussy about what they use in their work.”

Micki had just lit a cigarette. Now she intentionally blew smoke in his face. Prax wasn’t wearing one of his masks. Aboard Repatriate, it wasn’t necessary-another reason he liked the ship.

He leaned into the smoke, tried to suck it in and blow it back at her-which made her smile. The two of them got along pretty good.

She said, “If that face of yours didn’t look like a map of the world, man, you might have a shot at ol’ Micki-but don’t ever be givin’ me orders aboard my own ship again.”

Prax had replied, “If you lost a hundred pounds and took a bath, I might take a shot. I’m not giving orders. I’m just telling you it’s important I get the right stuff. I know what I want.”

Actually, he knew what surgical equipment Dr. Valerie Santos used.

She’d told him in her e-mails.

THE Repatriate left Cuban waters before midnight on Thursday, May 1, crossed the Florida Straits into the Gulf of Mexico, and twenty-three hours later, was being piloted by U.S. authorities into the shipping channels of Tampa Bay.

By three A.M., Saturday morning, the ship was moored at a wing of isolated phosphate loading docks on a river near a highway bridge, and Micki was finishing the last of the paperwork so the two Port Authority inspectors could go on their merry way.

They knew Micki, they knew the ship, and their inspection had been no more thorough than others.

When they left the Repatriate, the U.S. authorities stationed a single male security guard at the bottom of the gangplank, on the starboard side of the vessel, so the crew could not disembark.

There was no security of any kind, not a soul watching the port-or river side-of the ship. And, at this hour, there was almost no car traffic on the usually busy highway bridge.

Micki was smart. That’s the way she always timed it.

By four-thirty A.M., Prax was ashore in his own double-wide trailer, and the boy was safely locked away in another.

The kid hadn’t been any trouble at all. In fact, the little brat actually seemed to get into the adventure of it, climbing down the rope ladder, sneaking around in boats at night.

Ashore, in the weird little trailer park where Prax had grown up, the kid had even stopped outside in the moonlight, taken a good look around and started identifying early morning bird calls and shit, insect noises and frogs, too. Like he was a damn little scientist or something.

Oddball kid. A nerd who didn’t look like a nerd. Not with that gorgeous face of his.

Now home, the first thing Prax did was take a satellite phone from his bag and put it in its charger base. He would be needing the phone soon because he’d be needing a lot more cash very soon. Micki had told him she’d be back in a week, maybe less, and he’d better damn well be ready with the money, or she’d leave his ass.

The number of the phone he’d left for Pilar Fuentes was taped to the back of the charger, and he also had the number written down in a couple of other places.

Next, he poured himself a tumbler of Scotch over ice, lighted a big Cohiba-an El Presidente-and sat at his laptop computer. He had the fast DSL system here in the States-it wasn’t like using those shitty, slow phone lines back in Masagua-and he was instantly on the Internet, checking and sending e-mails.

Yes! There was one from Dr. Valerie Santos.

The famous Dr. Valerie was so attentive. Was very free with information to a correspondent who claimed to be a poor young South American burn victim.

Prax had first written to the “Contact Dr. Valerie” link on the surgical group’s Web page nearly six months ago. It was a con that he’d thought might work, but he’d had no idea how far he’d be able to take it.

He’d written: Forgive the bad English of mine, but my name is Mary Perez, and I am a 19-year-old female film student at the University of Nicaragua. I read about your brilliant work in People magazine, Edition Espanol. I find your work fascinating because my face was badly burned as a child when soldiers attacked our village during the Revolution…

After giving details about that, using stuff he knew-like the burn center in Managua-he’d continued: As a film student, I’m working on a script, and you’re one of the few in the world who can help me. In my script, your character (yes, you are in my film!) must perform a complete facial transplant, but under Third World or even jungle conditions. There’s been a plane crash. The donor is still alive, his face is perfect, but he has no hope. The patient’s face has been burned beyond recognition. I want to make this film as accurate as possible because, as a burn victim, I want the world to know…

The first couple of replies came from the woman’s assistant, Prax could tell by the wording. But then he uploaded and sent a photo that he’d found on the Internet of some teenage Latina crispy critter whose face had been scorched by napalm.

That did it. Prax started getting personal attention from “Dr. Valerie,” as she signed her e-mails. Sometimes, she wrote to him daily.

The e-mail he opened now began, My Dear Mary, I have very bad news for you, and it’s important that you take action immediately. I have done some checking and have found out that your physician, Dr. Fernando Delgado, is not qualified to do your surgery, or to give you advice about the screenplay you are writing. The Mexican Medical Board revoked his license several years ago because of his terrible mortality record as a plastic surgeon…

Prax deleted the letter, thinking, No shit.

Two days later, responding to a note he’d written earlier, Dr. Santos replied: Dear Mary, I don’t doubt that you are who you say you are, but I simply cannot share personal information with patients (yes, I consider you my patient now, dear) such as where I live, or about my husband and family. I will tell you, however, that I live close enough to Tampa General Hospital that I jog to and from work every day. I keep dress-up clothes and heels in the physicians’ locker room just in case!

Lourdes found that useful.

Then, the next evening, when he was pissed off at Pilar Fuentes and her new asshole pals, and whoever the hell it was following them in the black Chevy, he received a very valuable e-mail from the nice doctor lady: Another example that you must leave Fernando Delgado’s care immediately is that he has given you bad information about medication that is out of date by a decade! Yes, transplant patients take medications each day to prevent organ rejection that are called “immunosuppressants.” They help suppress the immune system to prevent or reverse rejection. But not the drugs you were told. All wrong, young lady! Today, cyclosporine is one of the most commonly used antirejection drugs, and it’s usually combined with prednisone. Cyclosporine is a very potent immunosuppressant. Most of our transplant patients prefer the capsule, but the odor, however, leaves something to be desired! There are also some new, recently approved immunosuppressants that I prefer and use exclusively on my patients. ..

A list of medicines followed. All sophisticated stuff that was new to him.

Shit!

How in the hell was he going to put his hands on all those drugs?

Lourdes had brought the boy into the trailer with him. He’d done that the last couple of nights, which he didn’t mind so much. It gave him somebody to talk to; take his mind off it when the headaches and the facial pain came.

The last few years, the facial pain had been as bad or worse than the pounding inside his head. When the headaches came shooting up his spine, the first jolt now seemed to bathe his face in acid. Fucking miserable. So talking took his mind off it.

Otherwise, all the kid did was read. About the only time he opened his mouth was to ask for more books, or to do research on the Internet-which Prax allowed, as long as he was right there to keep an eye on the little brat.

The kid was reading now, sitting at a chair in the corner. Some book about bugs or snakes or some damn thing.

Prax watched him for a second before he said, “Have you ever heard of drugs called cyclosporine or prednisone? I’ve never heard of the fuckin’ stuff.”

The kid looked up from his book and thought about it for a moment before he said, “Cyclosporine, no, but prednisone, yeah. I remember reading about it because the body produces its own form of prednisone, a chemical called cortisol.”

“Really?”

“Um-huh. I’ve been reading a lot about medicine lately, because. .. well, a friend of mine has some emotional problems. There are so many new drugs coming out that can help-almost always from the United States-it’s kind of interesting. The chemistry of it, I mean. I think I’m going to be a doctor.”

Prax said, “No shit? A fuckin’ doctor.”

“Yeah, no shit.”

The kid was like that. A smart-ass, but smart.

Maybe the brat would have some ideas on how to get his hands on those brand-new drugs…