"Iceberg," I say.
"You gotta take it easy, Jack. I'm not kidding."
A ding in the skeg is the only visible damage to the engine, which re-starts on the first pull. There's about three inches of rainwater in the boat, so Juan dumps the shiners and employs the bait bucket as a bailer. Meanwhile I check the tote bag to make sure that Jimmy's music and Carla's gun are still dry. Then, working quickly, I attach the wires of the portable spotlight to the posts of the twelve-volt battery mounted in the stern.
Juan reports that the GPS still works splendidly and that the mishap has cost us only seven minutes, which can be made up with extra speed. Darkness is rolling in but the worst of the weather has passed. We take a northbound heading and set off again in a muggy drizzle. The time is five past eight. As the storm leaves the lake, clouds high to the east pulse with bright jagged veins of orange and blue. The bursts are so regular I can steer by the light. Thirty-one minutes later, Juan's hand shoots from under the tarp and makes a slashing motion.
We're there.
No sooner do I turn off the engine than the mosquitoes find us. They are famished and unbashful. "That's what we forgotthe damn bug juice," the lump in the tarpaulin mutters.
Five minutes pass. Then five more. I begin to sweep the spotlight back and forth through the blackness. Insects scatter and minnows skip away from the stabbing glare. I count six different pairs of gator eyes, glowing like hot rubies in the marsh grass.
"Where the hell are they?"
"Relax," says the voice under the tarp.
"I bet we got lost in that storm."
"The hell we did," says Juan.
"Then I bet theygot lost."
So I switch off the spotlight and wait. It doesn't take long to become frantic about Emma. Jerry's had another brainstorm, I'm sure. He's not clever enough to let the meeting pass without trying something outlandish. This is a problem with many criminals; this is why we need jails.
In anticipation of trouble, Juan and I have talked through possible scenarios, devising a fitting response for each. Yet now, drifting in a darkness without horizons, all our slick ideas seem puny or improbable. There's no way to know what Jerry will do, but I doubt he intends to behave. Every time he stares in the mirror he's reminded of what I did, and it is impossible to believe he won't try to settle up.
"I hear something," Juan says.
"Me, too."
It sounds like a small plane, flying low to dodge the weather.
"Try the spotlight, Jack. Maybe they're looking for you."
I paint a slow high arc with the Q-beam, flashing it on and off repeatedly. As the engine noise grows louder, I'm thinking Juan's rightJerry probably sent up a spotter to pin my location.
From the bow: "You see it yet?"
"Maybe they went into some clouds."
"I'm not moving," Juan announces, "in case they've got infrared." Flying without lights is not unheard of in South Florida, but it's still ballsy. The boys in Customs are quite proud of their fancy radars. And something else seems wrong: Whatever is buzzing toward us is every decibel as loud as an airplane, but not nearly as fast. A plane would have passed over us by now.
I point the spotlight in the direction of the approaching din but it turns out I'm aiming high. A more powerful beam shoots back at the johnboat and I spin away, to save my eyes. The onrushing roar is now so intense that I put down the spotlight and press my knuckles to my ears. Suddenly the engine changes pitch, and trails off to nothing with a thwocka-thwocka-thwock.
Now I know what we're dealing with: Cleo's bodyguard has swiped an airboat.
The light plays back and forth across our little fishing craft, lingering on the yellow tarpaulin a moment too long for my ragged nerves. I snatch up my own light and aim for the guy's face. He ducks, but not before I catch a telltale glint of an earring and a flash of bare pate.
"Knock it off, dickhead," the shadow barks.
"Jerry, my brother, you're late."
Simultaneously we kill the spotlights. The distinctive L-shaped profile of the airboat becomes visible against a pinkish swath of low skythe faraway glow of West Palm Beach. I see Jerry's burly silhouette on the driver's platform in front of the big propeller. In the bow are two other figures; one is standing and one is seated, cloaked in a hood.
"Where's the package?" Jerry shouts at me.
"Not yet, you silly man!"
The standing figure prods the hooded figure, who says, "Jack, it's me."
I feel like a mule just kicked me in the gut.
"It's me, Emma." She sounds doped and exhausted.
"How are you doing, princess," I hear myself calling in a strained voice. "It's gonna be all right."
I'm shaking so badly it must be rocking Juan in the front of the boat. If I tried to stand up now I'd keel sideways into the lake. "How do you want to do this?" I ask Jerry.
"Right here. Bring your boat over."
Boy oh boy.
The tall figure in the front of the airboat is loosening the hood on Emma's head. I feel for the starter cord on the Mercury and I pull on it once, twice, three times.
That figuresthe fucker won't start. Its moist wheezing reminds me of the late MacArthur Polk.
"Hurry it up," Jerry snaps.
Easy, Jack. Don't panic. Try the chokebut let's not flood it, okay?
"What's the problem, dickhead?" Jerry zaps me with his spotlight. He thinks I'm stalling.
Twice more I yank on the cord before the outboard chugs to life. I put it in gear and idle toward the kidnappers. What else is there to do?
"You look very cool in that contraption, Jerry. Have you driven one of those things before?"
"Shut up, Tagger."
"If you ever get canned by Cleo, maybe you could get a job on the Seminole reservation. Nature tours!"
"Eat me," says Jerry. Descending from the driver's seat, he keeps the spotlight trained on my chest. I guess he wants to make sure I'm not reaching for another frozen lizard.
Pointing my own Q-beam at the bow of the airboat, I see that Emma's hood is a burlap feed sack. She slumps round-shouldered and unmoving. The man guarding her is none other than Loreal. His eyeglasses are bug-splattered and his lustrous waist-length mane is pulled back in a drenched and unglamorous ponytailthe life of a big-time record producer! Under any other circumstances he'd have me in stitches. His distressed expression suggests he'd rather be anywhere else on the planet but here. Obviously Jerry has given him a preview of what lies ahead.
Easing up to the airboat, I put down my light, slip the outboard into neutral and move to the bow. I'm careful not to step on Juan, who remains motionless under the yellow tarpaulin. When I reach beneath it, a large plastic cartridge is pressed firmly into my handJimmy Stoma's unfinished creation.
Jerry's spotlight is scorching the back of my neck, and I know he's looming over me, a gun in his other hand. The glare is so hot that I can't look up.
"Give it here," he says.
"Not until you hand down the lady."
The spotlight's beam jiggles as he shifts positions. I've already decided to knock him into the water if he tries to board the johnboat. The light clicks off, and as my eyes adjust, I can see Loreal leading Emma by the arm; leading her to me. This I can scarcely believe.
Yet now I'm helping her into the johnboat, gently squeezing her arm and whispering that everything's going to turn out fine. In the cloud-glow I see the black stripe of Jerry's eye patch encircling his naked skull. The spotlight bobs restlessly in his left hand, which means the gun is in the other. I expect he'll shoot us the moment he gets his mitts on Jimmy's music.
"Now give it here!" he says.
I pick up the computer box and dangle it above the water on the opposite side of the boat, so that Jerry can't grab at it. "If this baby gets wet, it's all over," I say. "The unit is ruined and the song's lost forever." With such morons it's impossible to belabor the obvious.
"Tagger, what the fuck're you doin'?"