The Haitian freighter Jezi Leve lay at a wharf four miles up the Miami River. The ship’s watchman on deck could see the arch of the elevated Tri Rail with its neon rainbow over the river. He had some skin magazines beside him and a short but legal shotgun; the barrel was 18.1 inches long, measured from the breechface. He had an orange kerchief tied around his neck. He was a thorough man and in preparation for his task he had eaten two entire avocados for lunch.
Hans-Peter’s man Flaco was beside the watchman, armed with an AR-15 and a pistol in his belt.
As evening fell they watched the lights come on up and down the river.
Flaco could hear faint strains of music from the restaurants downstream. They were playing Nicky Jam’s “Travesuras,” there must be dancing, the girls’ boobs hopping to the clave, one then the other. That’s what they were playing at Club Chica when he danced with the girl with a bluebird tattooed on her breast and they went out to the car and did a couple of key bumps and got to smooching and—whoa! Flaco wished he were having dinner with a hot somebody at a restaurant by the water instead of sitting here with this son-of-a-bitch watchman farting every few minutes.
Belowdecks in the shabby wardroom of the Jezi Leve, Hans-Peter Schneider talked with Clyde Hopper from Fort Lauderdale and the ship’s second officer, a young Haitian man with epaulets on his shirt. The second officer called in Tommy the Bosun, in charge of the lifting tackle on the ship. Tommy liked to be called Tommy the Bosun because of the pun in Jamaican patois. It meant “Tommy the Hard-On.”
The captain was ashore, conveniently blameless. Hans-Peter’s man Mateo stood at the bottom of the companionway with a twelve-gauge shotgun.
“Where’s Felix?” Hopper wanted to know.
“His kid’s having his tonsils removed,” Schneider said. “The wife wanted him to be with her at the hospital.”
Schneider had the construction blueprints for the Escobar patio spread on the table, along with pictures of the hole beneath the seawall recovered from Antonio’s camera.
Hopper had pictures of his equipment. “Here’s the high-reach demolition bucket with a hydraulic shear attachment on the barge. We don’t have to turn it around to use the crane. We have a fifty-ton hydraulic winch. We’ll get it out.”
“On one tide.”
“We’ll do it all on one tide. You sure you don’t want us just to swing it into a boat?”
“I want you to do exactly what I said. Put it on the small barge. Wrap it with cargo net. Bring it here.”
Schneider turned to the ship’s officer. “You will have the lifting tackle ready. Show me where you will put it.”
They walked with the bosun back into the hold of the ship.
“In there,” the young officer said. “It comes through the main hatchway down into the hold and we cover it with bicycles. On deck we cover the hatch with another pile of bicycles.”
Outside on the ship’s bridge the watchman saw a lunch truck coming up the river road. Its horn bugled “La Cucaracha.”
The watchman held his stomach. He released a cloud of avocado gas. “I gotta drop a deuce,” he said. “Back in a few.” He left Flaco alone on the bridge with his shattered reveries of romance, waving the air in front of his nose.
Candy drove the lunch truck onto the wharf. She parked and got out.
Candy wore short shorts and a blouse tied at the midriff. She’s looking good.
She called up to Flaco on the bridge of the ship, “Hey, I got hot empanadas.”
“True that,” Flaco said to himself.
“Buck and a half with a cold Presidente. Guys in there? I know they want some. Buck and a half. You could buy me one too.”
She waited a beat, shrugged, and started to get back into the truck.
“How do you buy beer from yourself?” Flaco was coming down the gangplank.
“With your money, I hope,” Candy said. She could see a pistol print against his shirt. He had left the rifle on the bridge.
She opened the back of the lunch truck. It was half-empty. Two thermos boxes held hot empanadas and cold beer and there was one more large ice chest and a butane grill.
She opened a bottle of Presidente and gave it to Flaco. “Want to sit on the bench? I’ll bring the pies.” She slung her shoulder bag and gathered the food.
They sat on a bench on the wharf, their backs to the ship.
She patted Flaco on the thigh. “Pretty good, aren’t they?”
Flaco was chewing. “Your horn plays ‘La Cucaracha,’ that’s funny,” he said with his mouth full. He had difficulty swallowing with his head turned to peer down her blouse.
Behind them Victor, Cholo and Paco slipped up the gangway onto the ship.
“You are very beautiful,” Flaco said. “What else are you selling? We could get in the truck.”
Candy waited for a boat to pass. She looked up and down the river for more traffic and saw none.
“Give you a key bump first and a hundred after,” Flaco said. He showed her a hundred-dollar bill.
Candy pressed the lock button on her ignition key and the lights flashed on the truck.
The ripping sound of two MAC-10s going off in the ship, flashes of light at the portholes.
Candy shot Flaco through her purse, hitting him twice in the ribs. She pressed the gun under his arm and fired twice more.
She looked in his face and saw he was done. She put the hundred in her pocket. Candy threw the bottles and his half-eaten empanada and napkin into the river.
A fish rose to the meat pie. The music from the restaurants came faintly across the water. In the quiet a manatee came up to breathe with its calf.
Inside the freighter, Hopper and the young ship’s officer and the bosun were dead. No sign of Mateo.
Hans-Peter Schneider was under the table with blood on his head. Victor shot him again, bullets plucking at Schneider’s coat and shirt, dust flying off him. The papers were still on the table. Cholo fumbled for Schneider’s wallet.
“Go!” Victor said. “Go! Haul ass!”
Victor and Paco ran for the front companionway up to the deck. Cholo lingered, wanting Schneider’s watch. He was tugging at it when Schneider shot him. Schneider got to his feet and ran aft toward the rear companionway. Victor and Paco shot at him, bullets screaming off the metal.
On deck Schneider fell backward over the railing and into the water on the river side of the ship. Victor and Paco shot at him as he submerged. They went down into the hold for Cholo.
Victor put his hand on Cholo’s neck. “He’s dead. Get his ID.”
They ran down the ramp to the wharf and threw the machine pistols into the big ice chest.
Mateo was fleeing in Schneider’s car.
“The papers,” Candy said. “Where are the papers?” She was dumping her empties in her purse and reloading from a speed strip.
“Papers, shit—let’s go,” Paco said.
“God damn it. Get the papers. Are you sure Cholo’s dead?”
“Fuck you if you think I would leave him,” Victor said.
Candy closed the cylinder on her revolver. “Come on.”
Back in the hold they stuffed the drawings into Candy’s bag. Cholo’s dead eyes were drying. They did not look back at him.
On the wharf, Paco ran to the station wagon parked up on the road, Candy and Victor took the lunch truck. They roared away. Sirens sounded in the distance.
The fish beneath the bridge could feel the elevated train approach. The Tri Rail rolled across the river, shaking bugs from the bridge, sprinkling the water with bugs. The waiting fish sucked them down, making swirls in the smooth surface of the river.