15

 

Wednesday, Venice

Meshach sat at the bar tying knots in the anchor rope, using the width of the back on a second barstool to measure the spacing. The rope wasn’t ideal for what he had planned, but it would suffice. He had no doubts about his ability to scale it with ease when the time came.

A warm, musty breeze coursed through the camp house. The French doors stood open. All the windows were up. He sipped tap water and ate raisins from the box. Whitecaps covered the distant bay. The Gulf would be worse with seas three to five feet, maybe less, but enough to make a trip in a small boat rough and wet.

He’d positioned himself next to the French doors, inside far enough that wandering eyes wouldn’t see him and watched Shanteel’s place. If the cop who had paced the dock had the woman in mind, which seemed likely, and returned to snoop, he wanted to know.

He finished with the rope and unfurled a blue, flat bed sheet. The only dark-colored one he could find in the house. He tore it into four-inch-wide strips and laid the narrow pieces across the tabletop. He wove strips between the stabilizer and the anchor flukes, careful not to use too much. The cloth would cushion the metal-to-metal impact, but the flukes had to rotate on the stabilizer so it wouldn’t matter how the anchor landed. He had one attempt. The anchor had to catch on the handrail. No ifs.

Better options were available for purchase. Like the grapples law enforcement used to dredge water for bodies. Again, he could not afford questions.

Shanteel emerged from her place carrying a small sport bag. Had he not just seen her walk out of the house, he wouldn’t have recognized her. She had on clothes. Tan skin-tight slacks and a white blouse, white tennis shoes, hair loose in the wind.

He glanced at the time on his computer—lunchtime. He’d be surprised if she didn’t have a hangover.

She padded out to her car and tossed the bag into the backseat. Shading her eyes, she peered into the distance, toward the highway, then planted both hands on her hips. A white Sheriff’s cruiser sped down the gravel road toward her. Had to be the same cop. He got out in the cloud of dust just as his car skidded to a stop and started in on her. Too far away to hear the exchange. The deputy pointed. She pointed then stomped a foot. He threw his arms out to his sides. She stomped again. He stuck his face in hers, then took an I’m-a-cop-and-a-man stance, arms back, chest out, like an I dare you. She flipped him off, and he slapped her hard enough to make her stumble then looked around. No doubt to see if anyone saw what he’d done.

Shanteel recovered quickly and launched a foot toward the man’s groin that missed the intended target, but not by much. Her shoe marred the leg of his creased uniform. When she stormed away, he didn’t follow.

The girl had spunk.

A heavy knock sounded at the front door. Meshach did a quick survey of the room, grabbed the anchor, the rope, what was left of the sheet and put them in the bedroom closet. After one more quick check, he pulled the Kimber from his belt and stuffed it behind the center cushion on the couch.

Some guy stood at the door. A gray T-shirt hung on boney shoulders and covered about half of his black shorts. He reached for the jamb with a closed fist. Meshach jerked the door open. “What do you want?” Meshach took a step back but didn’t open the screen door.

“Um.” The man moved up his sunglasses, astraddle the bill of his red ball cap. “I’m, Scott Breaux.”

“Am I supposed to know you, Scott?”

“Well…this is my place. Just thought I’d check on you, see how you’re getting along with my boat. I see it’s still in one piece.” He chuckled at what he must have thought was a joke.

Meshach knew the man periodically came by to check on the house. He probably wasn’t used to leaving his renters unescorted.

Scott reached for the doorknob. “Do you mind?”

Meshach flipped the latch, walked into the kitchen, and leaned against the counter.

Scott followed and did a quick scan of the living room. His yellow Crocs squeaked on the floor when he walked. “Something wrong with the air-conditioning?”

“I shut it off.”

“That’s a first.”

“Air-conditioning makes men soft.”

“You don’t look like you’ve spent much time indoors, then.”

The guy wanted to make small talk. Meshach didn’t like talk. Period. If he engaged the man in conversation, he might stay longer and he’d already overstayed his welcome. Meshach stared at him and crossed his arms over his chest.

Scott looked away and moved toward the deck. He spun and pointed outside. “What happened to my table? The glass top is shattered. You didn’t even clean it up.”

Nothing like a little righteous indignation to embolden a man.

Enough was enough. “Here, Scott, come here.” Meshach pulled a wad of bills from his front pants pocket.

Scott eyed the cash and shifted his weight from one foot to the other but remained where he was.

Meshach cocked his head. “Didn’t you make an agreement with the man who rented this place from you? Privacy. I like my privacy. I know he told you that, and I know you’ve been paid handsomely too. You’re not upholding your end of the bargain. Your tabletop is broken. Here’s two grand for a new one.” He counted out two stacks of one-hundred-dollar bills, twenty in each stack. “And another two grand to leave me alone. Let’s call it a bonus. Take the cash and go. Or don’t and I’ll go.” Meshach pocketed the dozen or so bills left, turned his back on the unwanted visitor, and walked into the bedroom. The moment he rounded the corner out of sight, he spun and crouched next to the open doorway.

Meshach followed Scott’s movements by the squeak of his shoes. Four rapid steps to the counter followed by a long sigh. A long squeak as he spun on the ball of his foot and turned toward the door. The screen door bumped the jamb, sounding his exit.

Meshach moved back into the kitchen and watched from the living room window as Scott descended the steps.

As he suspected, Scott had taken the bait. A good stack of C-notes worked every time.

Scott walked to the end of the slip and boarded a Skeeter Bay Boat. He lit a cigarette and watched the camp house. He puffed rapidly then pulled a long drag and blew the smoke from pursed lips.

Meshach knew Scott stewed, weighing his options: keep the cash, or return it and evict his client—his wealthy, albeit eccentric, money-throwing client.

Shanteel drew Scott’s attention as she pulled out of her space onto the gravel road and sped away. He flipped the cigarette into the water, untied his boat and motored into the marsh.

Meshach closed and relocked the front door. At his computer, he opened the Automatic Identification System. He entered the user name and password into the AIS. A broad view of the Gulf of Mexico popped up. He narrowed the display down to twenty-five miles around the Venice area. Dozens of small, bullet-shaped icons, each one representing a ship or boat, appeared on a blue background. The Mississippi River was obvious, displayed as a narrow blue field between bumpers of green, representing dry land or marsh.

He clicked on one of the icons and a small inset window appeared—a Candies boat, Miss Munroe, speed: six knots, course: 105 degrees.

Now, he needed to find the right vessel moving in the right direction.

 

~*~

 

Darkness settled in and quieted the gulls. Mosquitoes woke. The marsh came alive slowly with the croak of toads and chirp of crickets. The only lights in the house glowed blue on the satellite receiver, green on the computer’s charging adapter and red on the coffeemaker.

Meshach glanced at the orange fluorescent hands on his watch—10:25—gathered the anchor and rope and walked out.

He stored the anchor and retied the loose end of the rope onto the bow. The Yamaha purred when he turned the key. He backed out of the slip and eased into the channel before he flipped on the running lights. The Lowrance displayed his previous track. He followed the line on the screen, out of the marsh and into the Gulf. The wind had died down. The boat bucked and bounced across the top of the small swells the wind had left in its wake. Obstruction lights on a thousand platforms flashed over and over, like fireflies drifting through the night.

The GPS took him directly to the platform he’d sabotaged the day before. He bumped the throttle into neutral. A drift test confirmed the current came from the south. He moved around to the north, tied up to a cross member, and let the boat drift back twenty feet before killing the engine. He didn’t want to be directly under the structure. With the anchor wrapped in a dark cloth, if he missed and the hunk of steel fell back into the boat, at night, he could end up with a headache.

To the rhythmic, shrill blare of the foghorn, he gathered loops of the knotted rope in his left hand, grabbed the anchor, tested his footing on the flat area on the bow of the boat, and heaved. The hunk of steel disappeared into the darkness above. The obstruction light flashed just in time for him to see the anchor clear the handrail. He pulled on the rope, one, two, three lengths before it pulled taut. Whether the flukes caught a handrail or not didn’t matter. There was plenty of piping for it to hang-up on. He secured the loose end to a forward cleat mounted on the side rail of the boat, grabbed the rope, and pulled himself hand over hand twenty feet straight up to the main deck. He went down in the same manner, suspended over the water, then scaled the rope again. The second time he pulled himself onto the platform, loosed the anchor from a pipe laid along the deck, and dropped it into the sea next to the boat.

The hum of gas flowing through the pipes meant they’d sent someone to check on the problem and open the line he’d closed the day before. Another glance at the gauge on the wellhead tempted him, but he left the valves alone this time. He climbed the handrail and placed a foot on the wellhead behind him to keep his balance. If his employer saw him now, he’d think Meshach was off his rocker and scream about him risking an injury and jeopardizing the operation. The man might be right too, on all counts, but he would never understand the rush of doing something no one else would ever consider.

Meshach launched himself over the side, into the deep, cold waters of the Gulf, and swam to the boat. He retrieved the anchor, cranked up, and headed for camp. By the time he moored the boat, midnight had come and gone. The anchor was back in its compartment in the bow, proven and ready to go.

The chill of wet clothes felt good for the first fifteen minutes of the return trip. Now, he looked forward to a hot shower. In the house, he turned on the light under the microwave and punched the button to wake up his computer.

Chirp. A start up garnering little to no attention. A perfect tool for him and his clients. Untraceable.

Lamech left him a morsel. akando check paris’s antics west

That was off the wall. He had to think. Some of the text was outside the code they’d agreed to use. His code. Paris, Paris...antics. Paris. A place? No, possessive. Paris’s antics. Paris Hilton was always in trouble. Oh, a hotel. There was no way. Who could know and how had they found out?

Gasoline for the boat would have to wait.