The Jet Skis edged around the stern of the gambling boat and floundered there a moment, motors softly burping. I realized I was squeezing the gunwale of the skiff, sharp aluminum biting deep into my fingers. They were about to pass off the smuggled goods. I was about to witness it.
Maggie handed me the binoculars; I pressed them to my exhausted eyes. The glasses brought me closer but also exaggerated motion—every wavelet, every lean. The image blurred and bounced; I struggled to hold steady, expecting to see ... what? I guess I expected pouches. Pouches like the one that Kenny Lukens died for; produced from mysterious compartments in the innards of the Jet Skis.
But in fact there were no pouches. In fact there was no handoff. What actually happened was something altogether different and totally befuddling.
The Jet Skis idled until a hinged panel was lowered from the transom of The Lucky Duck. The panel became a platform hovering barely above the surface of the water. One at a time the Jet Skis bumped up against the platform and were yanked aboard by a thick silhouette, a figure shorter and more muscular than that of Mickey Veale. The Jet Skis, their drivers—everything vanished into the belly of the gambling ship. All that was left was a faintly roiled piece of ocean with some dying eddies in it.
Baffled, disbelieving, I kept on watching. After a moment some boards creaked faintly; a winch groaned as chain links grated. The platform lifted once again, the transom of the boat sealed off, and it was as if nothing whatsoever had transpired.
I lowered the binoculars, let out the breath I'd been holding.
I looked at Maggie. Maggie looked at me. The letdown and bewilderment were all there in the glance we shared. We didn't even need to shrug.
31
We sat there awhile longer unwilling to accept that nothing more would happen, that there'd be no bigger payoff for our numb butts and our cramped legs and our sleeplessness. But time breathed by, and nothing happened, and there was no bigger payoff.
Eventually Maggie said, "Head in?" But it wasn't really a question and she was already moving back to start the engine when she said it.
The skiff rocked as she yanked the starter cord. The flywheel clattered, gas exploded in the cylinder; but the motor didn't catch. She pulled again, and then again. The groaning of the piston and the splutter of exhaust grew louder with each try, and I started getting paranoid that we were making too much noise. I could not afford to be seen out here; I could not afford to get caught annoying Mickey Veale again. True, our dinghy was a mere speck on the water; with a low profile and no lights whatsoever. But we'd found the Jet Skis in the moon glow; anybody with binoculars could easily find us if he had a reason to look in our direction. I felt my stomach tightening with each abortive grind and pop; I kept expecting to be raked with a searchlight from the gambling boat.
But the light didn't come, and at last the old engine turned over. With my back stiff and arms weak from fatigue and inactivity, I raised the anchor, and we veered away from The Lucky Duck and slowly headed back toward land.
Subdued by disappointment, we stayed silent for a time. Then, apropos of nothing, Maggie said, "Wet suits. Goggles."
"What about 'em?"
"Not necessary," she said, "unless they were really covering some distance."
"Like how much distance?"
Maggie couldn't specify, and I think we both knew we were grasping, pretending to some insight that would make this errand seem to have been worthwhile. But in truth the errand was a washout. We were supposed to learn what Mickey Veale was smuggling. We were supposed to figure out if it could somehow be connected to a blackmail scheme aimed at the Ortegas. But we'd sat there all night and figured out zilch. How could we learn what Veale was smuggling on the Jet Skis if he swallowed up the whole damn Jet Ski?
Sulking, we continued in. The first hint of day appeared in the east. It was extremely undramatic. The black sky turned purple and pushed up from the horizon like a fat man struggling to lift himself from bed. Stars flickered and went out. Off in the distance, Key West slept under the powdery orange blanket of its streetlights.
As the purple was taking on its first tinge of dark red, Maggie said above the clatter of the motor, "But you never finished your story."
"Hm?"
"Your life before," she said. "What you were almost a success at."
I puckered up my face and shook my head. I didn't see the point of resuming that conversation. I half regretted having started it, though I couldn't say exactly why.
"Oh come on," coaxed Maggie, "don't get all tight and cool again."
Tight and cool? I'd never thought of myself as tight and cool. I was just plain tired. Tired and gloomy and afraid. Besides, there are things you can whisper into a velvet quiet that you wouldn't shout above the ugly whining of an outboard engine.