‘Throw him the inflatable and let’s get the fuck out of here,’ urged Al.
Dave’s eyes caught something else surfacing briefly in the water near Pepe. It looked like a harmless tarpon, he thought. Around eighty to a hundred pounds in size, it was a good one too. Good silver color, big dorsal. By the time he realized what it was there were others, all of them summoned by the blood from Malta’s body.
Dave’s heart missed a beat and he yelled down to the boy, ‘Look out. Pepe, get out of the water. For Christ’s sake, grab the fucking line.’
Seemingly unaware of the sharks, Pepe shook his head as if Dave’s angry outburst had merely confirmed what he’d suspected all along. By the time he understood what Dave had been yelling about, it was already too late.
As if sensing that Malta would wait, the sharks concentrated their attack on the swimming boy. Dave could only stand and watch, horrified, as the sharks hit Pepe like a gang of playground bullies — first one, then another and then all at once, with an audible snapping of jaws that Dave felt in every nervous fiber of his being. Pepe screamed, slapped the water in front of him and, gulping air and water, disappeared briefly under the foaming confusion of reddening water. It was then Dave saw what species of shark these were. Hammerheads. Bigger deadlier versions of the baby that still lay on the deck. Dave felt himself shiver at the ferocity of their apparent revenge. Pepe reappeared only once, water and blood bursting from his screaming mouth, a hand already missing from his arm. He kept shaking his head as if he couldn’t quite believe what was happening to him and Dave was almost relieved when the boy finally disappeared under the surface of the water.
Al yelled, ‘Did you see that? Did you see that?’ He laughed as if callously enjoying the horror of what he was witnessing and with no more sympathy for Pepe’s savage fate than if the boy had been part of some B-movie’s lengthy body count. ‘Fuckin’ Jaws, man. Jesus, I never thought I’d see something like that. That was totally awesome.’ He shook his head. ‘I knew I was right. I knew it. Don’t ever get in the fuckin’ water.’ And then, like a man who had witnessed the birth of a child instead of the death of one, Al lit a large Macanudo.
Dave watched the frothing boil of shark, water and young blood until he was certain that Pepe wouldn’t surface again, and then cut loose the lifebelt, once pure white, now bright red. Slowly he climbed down from the bridge, sickened. Seeing the baby hammerhead, he stamped on its T-bone head and then flung it angrily into the ocean.
Al was still standing on the lower deck occupying the bloody space where Lou Malta’s body had been, the cigar chomped between his teeth jutting out over the shark-infested water like a warship’s gun barrel. Springing down the steps into the cockpit Dave snatched the big cigar from Al’s mouth and flung it into the sea after the baby hammerhead.
‘What the fuck—?’
‘You dumb ox,’ snarled Dave. ‘Don’t you know anything? Pushing Malta’s body into the water when you did was like sending the sharks an e-mail. Jesus Christ they must have thought it was Thanksgiving.’
Al looked around evasively.
‘OK, I’m sorry,’ he yelled back at Dave. ‘It never occurred to me.’
‘And while we’re on the subject, did you have to kill Malta? What happened to the deal we made?’
‘He came at me with the wrench. I grabbed the jar, smashed it against the side of the boat, and let him have it. I didn’t mean to kill him. Just to mark him up a bit.’
‘Mark him? You damn near sawed his head off.’
‘Yeah, well I ain’t sorry I killed him. Goddamn pedophile. My son Petey’s not much younger than that kid Pepe.’
‘Not any more he isn’t. Thanks to you, Pepe is dead. Thanks to you Al, Pepe just got eaten by the fucking sharks. Thanks to you this boat and Lou Malta were probably the best it ever got for Pepe. Think about that when you smoke your next premium cigar.’
With slow defiance Al pulled another Macanudo from the pocket of his bloodstained pants, sucked its length as if it was his own forefinger, and then lit up. He puffed the cigar in Dave’s face and said, ‘OK, I’m thinking. What the fuck happens now?’
Dave met Al’s eye, hating him, finding the hate returned in spades. He shook his head and turned away, disgusted at Al’s display of cold-bloodedness.
He said, ‘Let’s get out of here. We’ve got a lot of sailing to do.’
The bridge of the Juarista was fully computerized and it took Dave less than an hour to familiarize himself with the electronic chart plotter, the radar system, and the auto pilot. But once he had keyed in their course for Panama and the Canal there was very little else to do except periodically look at the monitor screens. With a fuel tank containing nearly 4,000 gallons, a 600 gallon per day fresh-water maker, and a freezer full of food, they were completely self-sufficient for their voyage back to Miami.
It was a twenty-four-hour cruise down to Panama City and the entrance to the Canal and, keen to be away from the scene of Lou Malta’s murder, Dave decided to avoid any ports of call and sail through the night. Happy to keep out of Al’s murderous way, he stayed up on the flybridge, snatching the occasional hour or two of sleep on the sofa. Al himself remained in his stateroom, drinking beers, watching movies on his VCR, and eating several microwave meals before falling asleep around midnight and sleeping until well after lunchtime the next day, when they arrived off the coast of Panama. The journey through the Canal itself took a full day and a half, and, Dave decided, was probably the most interesting thirty-six hours he’d had in five years. Three sets of locks — Gatun, Pedro Miguel and Miraflores — raised ships entering from the Pacific side on a kind of liquid stairway to the Caribbean side. There were no pumps. Gravity performed all the necessary water transfer.
Summoned by Dave’s calls to come and take a look at one of the modern wonders of the world Al finally emerged from his cabin, reeking of sweat and beer and wearing a Dolphins shirt and a pair of cutoff jeans. He nodded without much enthusiasm as Dave explained what a feat of engineering the Canal was and seemed quite unimpressed by the close proximity of so many larger vessels.
Al said, ‘So what’s in it for them?’
‘Who?’
‘The fucking Panams, that’s who.’
‘The Canal’s controlled by some kind of international body.’
‘Yeah? And what’s their angle?’
‘They charge a toll to get through the canal, of course.’
‘You mean like on the Florida Turnpike?’
Dave smiled slowly and said, ‘Kind of. Except it costs a little more than a quarter.’
‘What?’
‘Tolls are based on a ship’s tonnage.’
‘What?’
‘OK, they once charged a guy who tried to swim the canal thirty six cents. And that was back in 1928. So guess how much it is for a boat like this today?’
‘What is this? Family Challenge? How the fuck should I know. Five, ten bucks? What?’
Dave was enjoying his anticipation of Al’s reaction. Finally he said, ‘It was $1,000.’ He smiled as Al’s jaw hit the deck.
‘Get the fuck out of here. It was not.’
‘I swear.’
‘A thousand bucks? You’re putting me on.’
Dave handed Al the receipt. ‘Average toll for a big cargo ship is around $30,000.’
‘Get the fuck out of here. And they pay it?’
‘They’ve no choice but to pay it. Unless they want to go round Cape Horn.’
‘Shit man, that’s what I call a shakedown.’ Al looked up uncomfortably at the oil tanker that was moored alongside them in the Pedro Miguel. ‘Most expensive fucking drain I’ve ever been in,’ he said and, without another word, returned to his stateroom to watch the US Military’s Channel Eight on TV.