“So ask the insurance company where he is.”
“Commander, it’s the Fourth of July. Everything’s closed for the day.”
“Director Bulwark, people are dying whether it’s a holiday or not. Start calling people at home.”
“Harold Davis, huh? You have a card?”
He did have. Chambers used the Davis name frequently, and he had a variety of occupations listed on a variety of business cards. He gave Bernice the appropriate card.
Bernice was almost six feet tall, supporting a ton of white-gold hair. She was tanned the color of a Seminole and had black hawk eyes filled with suspicion.
“Wrong insurance company,” she said.
“What?”
“Mac told me all about the shithead company that ripped off his daddy’s marina. It wasn’t Marathon Equitable.”
“Well, no. We weren’t the primary insurer. We had the secondary underwriting.”
“And when those assholes finally settled last year, it liked to kill Mac.”
The plastic nameplate taped to the front of the cash register read: Bernice Gold — Owner-Operator. Like a damned independent semi-truck driver.
“Mrs. Gold, I don’t know anythin’ about the litigation. My company carried a supplemental policy and, as I understand it, was just waitin’ for the first company to reach agreement. All I know is that I’m supposed to find Mc-Cory and give him a check.”
“How much?”
“I’m not at liberty to discuss that, Mrs. Gold.”
Bernice Gold took a long swig from her tall, frosty can of Budweiser. Chambers was thirsty, but she didn’t offer him a beer.
Bernice Gold eyed him for a long time, certainly with disfavor, then said, “Edgewater.”
“Edgewater?”
“Mac bought a marina up there.”
Chambers smiled at her.
Green had not been a popular color for automobiles for some time, Ibn el-Ziam thought. A lot of older cars were green, but very few of the newer models were painted green. It had helped him immensely in spotting the Ford Taurus that Rick Chambers was driving. A large number of people around the Miami marinas had remembered a man some of them called Davis, very tall and big, and driving a green Ford.
He had caught up with the green Ford and its driver in Fort Lauderdale, and he had been following him since. It was a boring existence. He had eaten nothing but American fast food. He had slept in the Pontiac’s front seat outside of motels when Chambers stopped for the night.
Now it was Fort Pierce.
There seemed to be no end to the small towns along the eastern Florida coast. No end, also, to the marinas, salvage operations, and marine repair businesses that Chambers entered and left. And el-Ziam had been looking at an endless Atlantic Ocean for what felt like days.
So much useless water depressed him. He was ready to return to his homeland.
Chambers came out of the marina office, paused, and looked up at the sign that was lettered, “Gold and Silver.” He was grinning widely as he threaded his way through the parking lot to his Ford.
There had been some sort of breakthrough, el-Ziam thought. He started the engine of the Pontiac, waited until Chambers had turned out of the lot, then backed out of his space and followed.
The city of Fort Pierce was draped in red and white bunting. A parade of bands, automobiles, horses and decorated trailers was assembling on a side street. Throngs of people dashed about, laughing and smiling. One day, el-Ziam would have an independence of his own to celebrate.
Chambers went right to a gas station.
El-Ziam drove on for a block, then stopped at another station and filled his own tank. He had the feeling that a long drive was ahead of him.
It was. When Chambers passed again, he drove only two blocks before turning inland, ignoring the coastal highway. He took the northbound on-ramp for Highway 95, and in seconds, had settled in at a steady seventy miles per hour.
El-Ziam stayed a mile back, driving the same speed, but keeping six or seven cars between the two of them. The man named Rick Chambers was a simpleton who thought himself invincible. He seemed intent upon what was ahead of him, and he never once looked back.
El-Ziam wondered how much farther, and how much longer, it would be before Chambers did whatever it was that he was supposed to do.
He assumed that Rick Chambers would kill the man named McCory.
Before or after Chambers located the boat?
The fate of McCory did not matter to el-Ziam. The fate of the boat did.
Ginger stacked cardboard boxes on the stern deck of Kathleen, hauling them up from the salon. She had come dressed to work, wearing Levi’s and an old, faded blue shirt of McCory’s, with a button-down collar.
McCory had backed the motor yacht partway into the dry dock, stern-to-stern with SeaGhost, and the pumps were transferring diesel fuel at 150 gallons per minute. He was aboard the stealth boat, manning the fuel nozzle.
One more tank to go.
While he waited, kneeling on the smooth afterdeck, head drawn back to avoid the fumes, he dreaded the next billing from his bulk fuel supplier.
The nozzle clicked off.
McCory withdrew the nozzle, replaced the filler cap, disconnected the grounding strap, and pressed the filler panel back into place. The panel hid all four filler tubes, blending in with the rest of the deck.
Sliding off the SeaGhost onto the stern platform of the Kathleen, he climbed the boarding ladder to the stern deck and shut down the pump. It took him five minutes to coil and stow the hose and pump, then remove the rest of the grounding straps.
“Last box, Captain, sir.”
“This is not a good idea, Ginger. Why don’t you take Kathleen back to the marina?”
“Not on your life.”
“It could mean your life. I don’t like that.”
She moved up close to him in the dark, gripped his forearm, and looked up at him. “I haven’t done anything meaningful since university environmental protests, Kevin, and those were kind of hollow. Don’t deny me this.”
Her voice was throaty, and her tone sincere.
“Ginger… ”
“Please. I’ll get off if you tell me to get off, but I’ll hate you for it.”
“Ah, damn.”
“No, I won’t hate you, but I’ll be disappointed that I had the chance to contribute something and blew it.”
“Even if it goes smoothly, you could lose your job. Ted tells me you could go to prison, along with me.”
“There are better things than being a bank manager.”
“Like what?”
“Like being with you.”
“I’m broke.”
“You just need a financial advisor.”
“Back to the point,” he told her. “I don’t want you at risk.”
“I don’t want you at risk,” she said.
“It’s different.”
“Bullshit.”
“All I’m going to do is patrol the area. Probably, nothing will come of it.”
“Then the risk is less.”
“Go home, Ginger.”
“I am home.”
He gave up for the moment and descended to the side dock to take the cardboard boxes she shoved through the boarding gate. When they were stacked on the dock, he climbed back aboard the yacht, cranked up the engines, and moved her out to the finger pier. Together, they secured the hatches, then walked around to the dry dock. He went out the side dock and shut the sea door, then turned on the lights.
It took twenty minutes to load, then unpack the boxes. He’d brought linen, pillows, and blankets for a couple of the bunks, more coffee, a couple cases of beer and Coke, bread, condiments, hamburger, hot dogs, frozen potatoes, bacon, eggs. He was half afraid he’d be caught off-coast in daylight and have to hide out for a day.