With so much daylight left him, he decided to complete the look of innocence he wanted for his ship and himself when he went to sell her. So he worked under the intense sun behind his dark glasses to repaint the registration number on the ship and to give it a new name, using stencils and paintbrush. All of this he did while the ship continued relentlessly forward, no small feat in itself. He first obliterated the original registration numbers and the name of the boat. He then taped on the stencils with care, changing the registration numbers, the port of origin of the ship and finally the name. The work took well over an hour and a half. He went to check the con panel from time to time, resetting his course as necessary while he worked. Later on, he’d do the necessary paperwork.
Once finished with the painting, he tossed the near-empty bucket of paint over the side, got painfully to his feet and made his way below deck again. There, with a cold beer at his side and using his computer, he worked on creating new documents of ownership of the boat. He had purchased an official-looking seal from a street vendor in Cayman which was in fact a seal of government inspection from Grand Cayman, where ships were built. His ship’s registry now was George Town, Grand Cayman Island. He figured he’d have no trouble bartering there.
Once finished with the serial numbers and the boat name, which was now Smiling Jack, he began again to maniacally scrub away at Manley’s blood, seeing a tint of red, like a twelfth shade of gray, clinging to the deck. Angered by the spot, having to go back for more scrubbing materials, he began to mutter to himself now as he scrubbed anew. “Taught that nigger cop a lesson that he won’t forget. Oh, he’s dead… I guess that he won’t forget in the next life?” He laughed at his own crude, little joke.
Now he scrubbed and scrubbed at the blood on deck, but the deck was made of a porous material into which the blood had soaked. Oh well, he told himself; fish blood had stained the boat before, and this pinkish-gray hue looked no different.
He continued to scrub nonetheless, his fingernails breaking, his hand rubbed raw by the force applied to the brush. “Soap, water, ammonia,” he kept repeating like a mantra, “soap, water, ammonia… best way to a clean the rascal,” he added, recalling one of his mother’s more favored sayings.
“ Soap and water… No amount of soap and water can clean out the rotten core of your heart, Warren Tauman, you rascal, you devil, you serpent, you Satan seed…” he heard Mother say in his ear.
Santiva got on the headphones, likely to keep busy in his futile attempt to control his airsickness. Conferring with Jessica, he said, “See anything?”
“ It’s still like soup down there.”
“ What is it you’re looking for?” demanded Don Lansing.
“ We’re searching for a boat.”
“ A boat? A particular boat?”
“ That’s right.”
“ We’ve been following the coast in pursuit of some guy on a boat?”
Santiva barked, “Yes, is that so hard to understand?”
“ What happened to your accent?” Lansing wanted to know. “Look, Mr. Lansing…” began Jessica, realizing they’d traversed nearly a third of their journey to the Caymans now, “I think it’s time you knew the truth.”
“ Truth? What truth?” We’re not being chased by anyone, especially not the cops; we… Eriq and I-are FBI, cops you might say…”
“ What?” His look of shock seemed out of proportion to her revelation.
Eriq explained, “We didn’t lie back in Tampa to the tower guys.”
“ Whataya saying?”
“ We are FBI agents.”
“ Oh, Christ, you’re shitting me. Holy Mother, Pete’s going to kill me when he hears about this. I’ll be damned. How in hell’d I not see it?”
“ We’re good at what we do. But really, Don, we are really FBI, and we’re really in pursuit of the-”
“- the Night Crawler,” he finished, the light coming clear on. “Sure, why not? Story of my life. Always in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“ Mr. Lansing… Mr. Lansing…” Jessica tried to quell his concern, but he kept babbling to himself through the headphones. “I must not live right. Something I did once to my mother, maybe. God has a way of punishing even the blind and ignorant…”
“ Sorry to burst your bubble,” she weakly apologized.
“ Then one of the two stories you made up back at the airport was… was the truth?”
“ ‘ Fraid so.”
“ Damn… damn, you must think I’m some kinda fool. Hey, I want both of you to know that I’m nobody’s fool.”
Jessica realized that Lansing didn’t believe them now any more than he had on takeoff.
“ Whatever your game, I’m not interested. All’s I want is to set down in Miami and we can settle up there. Plenty of guys in Miami’ll be happy to take you on to the Caymans. Just don’t tell ‘em you’re the fuzz, all right?”
“ Miami? We’re not going to Miami,” she countered.
“ It’s on our flight pattern to the Caymans. It’s the only safe way. We attempt another way and we could get in trouble over Cuba. Trust me. Besides, like I told you, we need to stop at Miami to refuel and get in the flight path over Cuba to the Caymans, so we log where we’re going in case of problems.”
“ Do you always follow such rules to the letter?” asked a suspicious Santiva.
“ Always,” he lied.
“ Mr. Lansing, we want you to take us all the way to Grand Cayman,” Jessica pleaded. “I don’t know…”
“ We’ve offered to pay three times your normal rate,” she reminded. “Three times?” asked Santiva, whistling into the headphones.
“ Not if we’re dumped in Miami, no,” she responded.
Lansing broke down, saying, “All right, but we stop over in Miami to refuel and file a flight report, and once we touch down in Cayman, I collect my dough from you people and wave bye-bye.”
“ Agreed,” she assured him, and the cockpit grew silent now as they soared over scattered cloud cover.
“ Can’t you get us down a little lower, so we can see better?” she asked.
“ Lower means more turbulence right now,” he countered, “and your so-called hotshot FBI agent friend is already three shades of green.”
They were on a due-south tack now, coming out of the storm clouds, getting beyond the front. There was bright sunshine and gleaming blue waters ahead. “You can start bringing us down now,” she ordered.
Perhaps to test just how honest or dishonest she’d been with him, Lansing frowned and let go of the controls. “You take the controls,” he said. “Seems to me that’s what you like, being in control.”
She grabbed on to the controls almost immediately, but the plane was already in a screaming nosedive, everyone but Lansing losing his stomach to the cockpit ceiling, Eriq shouting through his headphones, freaking out while Jessica grabbed and then pulled hard on the controls, bringing the plane back under control, leveling her out, tiger stripes and all. The plane was a twin-engine Beechcraft Baron, Lansing having chosen to take it over the smaller, modified Sandpiper back in Tampa. The machine was not nearly so old as it was made to appear. Lansing, or more likely his boss, Pete, had painted the Baron to appear older and perhaps more romantic than it actually was. The seats were plush, the controls state of the art. The World War II look of the tiger stripes, the lettering of the call numbers-all a ruse to mirror what? Experienced, vintage fliers? Lansing was too young for vintage, she thought.
“ What the hell’re you trying to do, Lansing?” Jessica shouted now.
“ Wanted to see if you lied about being a pilot, too. Guess not.”
She shook her head and gave him a half smile, to which he responded by frowning. He wasn’t amused at having literally been taken for a ride. His arms were folded tightly against his chest as he watched her take the bird lower over the water.
Jessica had felt the power of the light plane the moment she’d grabbed the controls. It was a feeling like nothing else she’d ever experienced-flying. She couldn’t hold back the sense of wonder, or her smile.