“I can’t deliver; I’m not Revenge Is Us down at your local shopping mall.”
“You can deliver.”
“Well, if can, I won’t.”
Carver said, “Fuck you, then, you and your assassination rifle.”
“What?”
Carver hung up.
He sidestepped a display of caps lettered FISHERMEN DO IT DEPER above the bills, pushed through the restaurant, and limped out onto the sun-tortured parking lot.
Old Sol was laying it on again today; during the brief time Carver had been in the restaurant, the Ford had gotten almost too hot to touch. When he lowered himself in behind the steering wheel and started the engine, he turned the air conditioner on high and then opened all the windows so the heat that had built up would be replaced by fresh and cooler air. Kept the windows down for almost a mile before sealing himself in again.
He was driving the rest of the way into Del Moray, passing the marina, when he saw a familiar cabin cruiser docked there. He slowed the Ford and peered through the space between two other docked boats, making sure he hadn’t been mistaken when he’d read the name on the bow.
He hadn’t. The flowing black script read exactly the way he’d first seen it driving past. The way he’d seen it last night from the dark ocean,
Bold Entrepreneur.
Willoughby’s boat.
Chapter 32
Carver drove more slowly toward his office, his mind turning over. There were surely other boats christened Bold Entrepreneur; maybe one of those was the craft he’d seen in the slip at the Del Moray Marina. Not Willoughby’s boat at all.
But he doubted it. The boat had struck a chord of familiarity even without the name lettered on the bow. The same sweeping white hull, the red stripe just above the waterline. The raked angle of the marine navigation antenna above the flying bridge. It had to be the same boat.
When he saw a public phone Carver pulled the Ford over. Limped into the sun-heated aluminum booth, and touch-toned out the number of the Sundown Motel. Asked for Jefferson and gave the room number.
Jefferson didn’t answer. Neither did Ralph Palma when Carver rang his room.
Terrific. They were probably on their way to Willoughby’s place in Hillsboro Beach, acting on Carver’s information. And here was the Bold Entrepreneur. Docked the one place Wesley knew the DEA wasn’t, if Carver had informed them about what had happened last night at the Willoughby estate.
He stood in the sun, wiping sweat from his forehead with his palm and maybe wising up. Wondering if he’d gotten into something beyond his capability. Had Wesley known he’d contact Jefferson? Had he, Carver, been used to misdirect the DEA while the Bold Entrepreneur roamed north along the coast to Del Moray? Carver sensed there was a complicated game going on that he didn’t understand-and he was an essential, yet expendable, part of it. That made him uncomfortable.
A spate of cars passed doing close to seventy. Followed by a silver tour bus that rocked Carver with a crashing blast of wind that reeked of diesel exhaust.
He limped back toward the parked Ford, trying to figure out what to do.
The docked Bold Entrepreneur was probably waiting to be boarded by whatever SCBL members hadn’t yet arrived. The meeting, and whatever other drug business was going to transpire, would happen out at sea on the boat, where there was no concern for security. What more logical and unpredictable location?
Carver lowered himself into the car, sat for a moment in the heat, then started the engine. Gunned it.
He drove fast. Cut west, then north again on Magellan to his office. Ran traffic lights; a wonder he hadn’t picked up a cop.
He had in his desk drawer one of the tiny tracking gadgets known as bumper beepers. Van Meter had given it to him a few months ago. It was a simple and almost foolproof device, a small radio transmitter, about the size and shape of a quarter only thicker, with a magnetic base. It could be attached to almost any metal part of a car, where it would emit electronic signals until its battery ran down. Usually it was stuck on a car bumper, where it sent intermittent signals to a receiver tuned to the same frequency. In a car carrying a receiver, homing in on the electronic beeps made it relatively easy to follow or locate a car carrying a bumper beeper.
There was no reason the beeper wouldn’t work on a boat, once it was attached. The problem was, the Bold Entrepreneur’s hull appeared to be fiberglass. The magnetic base of the tiny transmitter wouldn’t stick.
Carver rooted through his bottom desk drawer until he found the beeper. Then he got a change of clothes from the office storage closet. Jeans, a clean black T-shirt.
With the scissors from a desk drawer, he hacked off the jeans’ legs above the knees. Hadn’t realized denim was so tough. He struggled into his just-made cutoffs, the T-shirt, and brown moccasins with no socks. Thought he might have torn off the rest of his injured ear when he pulled the T-shirt over his head. Hoped it wouldn’t start bleeding again. Butcher. Damn Butcher!
He glanced at his watch; he’d been in the office less than ten minutes. Time didn’t fly when you weren’t having fun. He slid the tiny beeper into his pocket.
Carver limped from the office and drove to a nearby hardware store, where he bought a tube of model-boat-and-airplane glue whose label boasted that on fiberglass and plastic it formed a secure bond that was impervious to water. Nearby was a poster featuring a smiling man standing casually beneath a fiberglass sports car that was supposedly suspended from a steel beam with only some of the glue keeping it from crashing to the ground to claim a fatality. Carver thought that if the miracle gunk in the little tube held up a Chevy Corvette, it would suit his purpose just fine. Assuming, of course, that there was at least some truth in advertising. Mustn’t be too cynical; he’d promised Edwina he’d try to improve in that department.
Before leaving the hardware store, he phoned Jefferson and Palma again, but again got no answer.
Carver left the phone, paid the cashier in the front of the store for the glue, and went out into the heat. He got in the Ford and drove back toward the marina.
The Bold Entrepreneur, looking clean and neat and sleek, looking like money, was still bobbing gently in its slip. There was no sign of anyone on board, but Carver knew that meant nothing. Curtains were pulled over the portholes and bridge windows. And a boat this size was practically a ship, with plenty of room below deck.
Carver turned the small screw that activated the tiny transmitter’s battery, then slipped the beeper back into his jeans pocket. He got out of the car and crossed the road. Made his way along the dock to where an old and apparently deserted Chris-Craft cruiser was tied up.
Because of the crushing heat, there were only a few people on the dock. An elderly man carrying a casting rod gave Carver a curious stare, then seemed to dismiss him from his mind. Put him down as maybe a beach bum who’d gotten in a fight.
On the other side of the Chris-Craft, out of everyone’s sight other than two young boys fishing far down the dock, Carver sat down on the rough wood and removed his moccasins and T-shirt. Paused while a sailboat with its canvas down put-putted past on the power of its motor. A guy wearing only swimming trunks and a blue yachting cap was at the stern wheel. Stared straight ahead and didn’t glance at Carver as the boat glided past. The boat left very little wake and looked graceful even with the sail down. Carver wrapped the T-shirt around his wallet and keys, then weighted it down on the sun-warmed, splintered planks with his moccasins and cane.
With a quick glance around, he lowered himself into the water, holding the beeper high in his left hand to keep it as dry as possible. The little transmitters were supposed to be waterproof, but why take chances?