The course was buoyed so the racers would know where to go and the partyers would know where to park. From Miami to Nassau harbor, drinks would roll down throats, money would change hands, and for most people worth millions of dollars, nothing would seem untoward.
Sam was aboard the Pax Bellicosa, but someone important was missing. “Dinino is nowhere,” Sam said when he called from the marina.
“What do you mean nowhere?” I asked.
“Gennaro says he’s always right in the marina for a launch, playing the big guy, but he’s not here.”
It didn’t make sense. He would either be watching the race or..
Up above, I heard the familiar whoop-whoop of a helicopter-there were several in the air covering the event, which made things even more likely to be newsworthy today-and a thought occurred to me.
“Why don’t you ask Gennaro if the family has a helicopter,” I said.
“You think he’s flying to the Ottone yacht?”
“That would be my play. Kill the girls himself if he has to.”
“Not even Bonaventura would let him do that,” Sam said.
“That’s the hope,” I said. In the background, I heard an announcement telling all the racers to make final preparations. “You better get moving.”
“Right. And hey, Mikey?”
“Yeah Sam?”
“If it turns out everything is aces here,” he said, “I’m just letting you know I’m prepared to give a portion of my cut of the winnings to a charity of your choice.”
“Still not happening,” I said and hung up. The reality of the situation was that I wasn’t convinced Gennaro could win on his own regardless. Once everyone was safe, once he knew his wife and child would be fine and that he wasn’t looking at running from Christopher Bonaventura the rest of his life, the odds were that he’d relax, lose that laser focus of fear and would probably just race.
In a fairytale, he’d win. But I felt I knew Gennaro now and if he said he wasn’t as good as the best on the water, I was inclined to believe him.
A large, all black party boat came up along our stern, rock music blaring. I looked and saw bodies writhing on the top deck. It was as if a nightclub sprung out of the clear blue ocean. No one seemed the least bit concerned about anything, which is perhaps because they hadn’t yet noticed the rickety boat from the mid-1970s floating nearby, the only passengers Fiona and me… and Virgil.
“Thanks for inviting me to the party,” Virgil said.
“My pleasure,” I said.
We’d departed from South Beach hours before but were just a few miles outside Government Cut, waiting for the racers to launch and come our way. They all moved at the same leisurely pace until they hit the open water and then the competition actually began. The first leg out of Miami was strictly show. A floating nightclub would only go so far. Right here was about the limit.
Our main goal was just to locate the Ottones’ yacht. Now more than ever, with the idea that Dinino might be aboard, I needed to make sure Bonaventura’s men got there. They might kill Dinino, but they’d never touch Maria and Liz.
The yacht was due to come through this shipping lane any moment now en route to the mouth of Government Cut for Maria to see her husband, which was her ritual. There was only another eight miles of sea between here and international waters, which meant I had a very narrow amount of ground to work in. I was confined to Miami by the government, but I was also confined by my enemies.
Both would shoot me.
Not much of a party.
“How’s your mom doing?”
“Good,” I said.
“I haven’t been able to see her for a bit,” Virgil said. “I’ve been doing some business in Pensacola.”
“Good,” I said. Fi and I were looking through binoculars now for any site of the Ottones’ ship. If Maria and Liz were going to be at Government Cut in time for Gennaro to stream by, that meant Bonaventura was likely to make his move immediately, too. All he needed to do was secure the ship.
And that would be enough to get him arrested.
But I needed to be there in case something, anything, went wrong. I’d promised Gennaro his wife and child would be safe and I wasn’t going to leave it solely in the hands of Christopher Bonaventura, or Alex Kyle, to make that happen. Plus, as soon as Alex Kyle saw us coming close, he was sure to redouble his efforts to stop the Ottones’ ship.
“She said you two were going to start doing more bonding exercises,” Virgil said.
“Uh-huh.”
“Just want you to know I am in absolute support of that,” he said. “Man to man. It’s good to have positive relationships with your mama. Know what I mean?”
“Virgil,” I said, “no offense? But this isn’t a conversation I really want to have with you right now.”
“No problem, Mike,” he said. He put a big paw on my shoulder. “Whenever you want to talk.”
He walked back to the front of the boat and I kept my eyes on the water, as did Fi.
Everyone was silent for a time.
“He’s just trying to be kind, Michael,” Fi said.
“Not talking about this,” I said.
“You know, that’s your prone position, Michael,” Fi said. “It’s like that fellow from Target. What was his name?”
“Davey,” I said.
“Right. Now there was a person just trying to connect with you and you were just rude to him.”
“Fiona,” I said, “can’t this wait?”
“All we’re doing is staring at the sea. We can talk and stare.”
“Fine,” I said.
“Fine,” she said. Now she was mad. It’s never easy to work with people you used to sleep with. She was silent again for a time. Virgil was now spitting dip into a small cup, which I guess is how he relaxes in tense situations. “I’m just saying,” she continued, “that it would be nice if every now and then you admitted that it was your fault when lines of communication break down.”
“Are we talking about us or about my mother and I or about me and Virgil?” I said.
“All of it,” she said.
“Fine,” I said. I was scanning back and forth across the horizon, as was Fiona, which was good since that way we didn’t have to look at each other. “From now on, I’m an open book.”
“I’d find that more convincing if…” she stopped. “Five o’clock. Do you see that?”
Cutting through the water was a gold Chris-Craft Cobra speedboat. I trained my binoculars on it. I couldn’t make out faces, but I could tell there were five men on the boat and none of them had body types that screamed pleasure seekers.
“Virgil,” I shouted, “that’s our target.”
He put down his dip cup and came next to me. “Fast son of a bitch.”
“It’s from this century and everything,” I said.
The best boat to have in a situation like this would be a boat made for stealth tracking. Something like a Night Cat, a twenty-seven-foot boat with twin 300 horsepower engines that purr instead of roar, so that the person you’re tracking doesn’t get the impression that a Nimitz Class is on their ass. A Night Cat can turn at 41 degrees per second, which makes it about as responsive as the muscles that make you blink.
But that would only be if you didn’t want to be seen. I needed Alex Kyle to see me. To know we were making our move on Maria and Liz.
“Let’s rock and roll!” Virgil bellowed and gunned the engine, or as much as you can gun an engine on a fourteen-foot Pinecraft whose best days were probably pre-disco. A plume of blue smoke belched from the engine and a sound like an entire NASCAR race starting soon followed.
The men on the Cobra turned their heads. It was that loud. And that was fine.
“Don’t worry,” Virgil said. “Once she gets moving, she moves.”
“Ship on the horizon,” Fi said. “Six o’clock. Practically the size of an island.”