The Butterfly Forest

NINETY-TWO

The twin diesels aboard a fifty-foot Ocean Sports Fisherman, three slips down from us, cranked in a cloud of exhaust smoke that floated over the marina in a bluish fog.

“What’d you say?” Dave asked, swirling around.

“He was fishing from M dock. And he was fishing with no bait on his hook. No tackle box. No bait bucket. He wore white sneakers. Pressed, expensive jeans. And he wore a New York Yankees cap on his head.”

“Where is he?”

“Gone. He looked our way for a second before walking down the dock, melting in with the crowd near the Tiki bar, and no doubt disappearing from the parking lot. But he may have left behind a calling card.”

“What do you mean?”

“He left his cigar butt on the railing. No bigger than your thumb, and that might be big enough. Let’s walk over there to see if it’s the same brand Izzy smoked.”

The man had left the wet cigar on the weathered and creosote-stained dock railing. I said, “It looks expensive, dark leaves, probably hand-rolled. It could be the same brand Izzy Gonzales smoked. We can store it in a Ziploc.” I stuck the tip of a ballpoint pen in the warm ash and carried it back to Jupiter.

Dave stopped walking near Jupiter’s transom. “Do you want me to call Cal Thorpe?” he asked.

“Does he have a family?”

“You know I can’t answer that?”

“You just did. I don’t want to risk his life.”

“He speaks Spanish like he was raised in Mexico. Maybe he can get in the inside, find the weak link to Gonzales.”

“All of that takes time, money and people in Langley who have a reason to toss me a rope. We don’t have any of that right now.”

“Maybe we do.”

“What do you mean?”

Dave folded his thick arms. “It depends on how bad they want Gonzales, and my guess is that in this political climate, they want him pretty bad. The president’s pledged to do whatever it takes to stop or dramatically curtail the flow of Mexican drugs smuggled across our border. But a billionaire, like Pablo would operate in an insular environment. It’d be like invading Fort Knox. However, you may be the catalyst to bring him out.”

“You mean the bait.”

“Look at it from this perspective, Sean. You’re already in his sights, and if that fake fisherman you spotted is connected to Pablo, it’s now only semantics. If you’re his prey, it stacks the odds in his court. If you’re bait, and if someone’s got your back, it can give you the edge in an international street fight.”

“There are a lot of fine and dedicated men and women carrying federal shields. And there are some not so competent, and that can put me in a dangerous place.”

A young couple steered a Morgan into the pass, popped the spinnaker and let the east wind push the sailboat into the channel. I said, “What I’d like more than anything is to drive over to Cedar Key and take a few weeks to sail a 41 Beneteau back here to Ponce Marina for the new owner. He’s in Boston, a novice sailor who wants to take delivery when he and his family winter in Florida.”

Dave picked at a hangnail. “Sometimes it’s hard to read your opponent, to play the cards dealt when never asked to sit in the game. But that comes with the territory.”

“I’ve stepped away from the table. Agents Flores, Jenkins and Keyes and their colleagues can take the reins. Izzy Gonzales, the man who killed Molly, Mark, and Luke Palmer, is dead. Frank Soto raped Nicole Davenport and left her shell to be zipped by ranger Ed Crews. The feds can chase them down. I gave them a head start by dropping the tracker in a dead man’s shorts. Let them take the lead and run with it.”

We watched as Joe the cat, a calico, thick with muscle and attitude, strutted by, ignoring us, holding his scarred head high. Dave said, “I’m going back online to see if the GPS signal might have returned. Maybe we’ll see it heading for the Yucatan.”

“Just leave it, Dave. It took too many deaths to get a serious federal posse out there. If the feds want to use me to get Gonzales, let them earn it. I’m done.”

“We both know you can’t walk away. Before, it was to help track down a killer for that lady on your boat. Now, it’s because Gonzales won’t let you walk away. Sean, we need to turn the game around so you do walk away.”

I looked at the cigar stuck to the end of a Bic pen, my hand gripping the pen hard, knuckles white as cotton. Max barked. I turned when she pawed at the glass on the sliding door leading into Jupiter’s salon. The door slid open, and Elizabeth stepped out on the transom with Max jumping up, trying to see the direction Joe the cat had gone.

Elizabeth smiled. She wore beige shorts and a white cotton top. “Max has been such a sweetie. She was napping on the couch until she looked up and saw you two out here. I thought her little tail was going to fall off she was wagging it so hard.”

I smiled. “And then she saw ol’ Joe, and her recessed lioness DNA took control.”

“If you don’t mind, I’ll join you gentlemen up there.” Elizabeth walked to the steps leading from the transom to the short section of dock that held Jupiter’s mooring ropes.

Dave lowered his voice. “This is all yours, now. Think about what we discussed. Think about your options, Sean. That guy with the fishing pole was on M dock, less than fifty yards from where we’re standing. No doubt he’s a pair of eyes for Pablo. You know the next time they come it’ll be on your doorstep, and they won’t be carrying a fishing rod.”

Dave waved to Elizabeth as he walked across the dock and stepped aboard Gibraltar, disappearing into the air conditioned salon.

Elizabeth looked at my arm in the sling and kissed me on the cheek. I could smell the fragrance of hibiscus from the shampoo she’d used. “Welcome home.”

“Thank you,” I said, glancing around the marina. “We have to talk.”