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“Castro!” Raúl spit.

“Comunistas de mierda,” Pedro whispered. Jesús nodded grimly.

He shuffled to the edge of the grave and reached into his pocket. Then all three stiffened to attention as the paper Cuban flag fluttered from Jesús’s shaking hands onto the casket.

“Murío por Cuba,” Jesús intoned bravely. He had died for Cuba.

The old men wept.

Epilogue

“DON’T JERK IT, you’ll pull it out of his mouth,” Meadows advised mildly.

“Carajo,”Octavio Nelson grunted, “I know how to fish. I’m just a little rusty, that’s all. I’ll get him.”

Meadows watched the struggle from the captain’s chair of the Seacraft. It was a brilliant day that tasted of the subtle Florida autumn, and they had been drifting north along the edge of the Gulf Stream where a chain of seaweed promised dolphin. Meadows felt very good.

“Mierda. I lost him.”

Nelson plopped the rod in its holder near the stem and pulled a fresh can of beer from the ice chest.

“Why aren’t you fishing?”

Meadows shrugged.

“Why should I work when somebody will do it for me?”

Nelson swallowed deeply.

“You know, you’re a funny guy, amigo. I got to thinking about you a lot while you were away.” Nelson drank again. “And what I think is that you conned me. I think that all the bullshit about law and order and justice was smoke.”

“Oh?” Meadows said neutrally.

“All you ever really wanted to do was drive a wedge between Bermúdez and the Colombians, am I right? You didn’t care if I arrested him. And the briefcase. That was a prop. Just like me.”

Meadows stared at the sea. He picked up one of the fishing rods and aimed for the weed line.

Nelson lighted a cigar.

“Watch the match,” Meadows said. “We got gas in the boat.”

Nelson chuckled. “You should have seen that old fart down at headquarters.”

“The Colombian?”

“Yeah, we hassled him pretty good. Strip-searched him, the whole routine. All the while he kept looking around for his pal Bermúdez. Couldn’t figure out why Bermúdez wasn’t there, too. He was mad enough to bite, the Colombian was.”

“There’s a fish rising over there. Why don’t you try floating a live shrimp this time?”

Nelson ignored him. He wagged his cigar toward a distant lighthouse, a white derrick on the horizon. “Fowey Rocks?”

Meadows squinted. “I think so.”

“That’s where they found the body.”

Meadows said, “In a shirt and tie.”

“Yeah. Some boating accident, huh?”

“The papers said he left Crandon Marina with two guys in a speedboat.”

Nelson shrugged. “That’s what the dockmaster says.”

“Any other leads?”

Nelson pursed his lips and blew smoke into the fickle sea breeze. “I don’t investigate boating accidents,” he said.

Meadows twisted the drag down on his reel until it was tightened to his satisfaction. “I was out of town when it happened,” he said. “Arthur saved the clipping.”

“And I was at my brother’s funeral.”

The breeze died. It was the last they spoke of José Bermúdez.

Meadows reeled in his line. His bait, a small blue runner, was dead, torn in half. A thread of violet gut hung from the wounds.

“Fucking barracudas,” Nelson surmised.

“Or sharks,” Meadows said, twisting the mangled fish from the hook. “You know, it’s true about sharks. They’ll eat just about anything. And if you cut one, the others in the school will eat it alive. I’ve seen it happen myself.”

“Me too,” Nelson said. “Every day.”

Meadows scooped another runner from the baitwell and hooked him higher this time, behind the first dorsal point in the back. He stood up and cast the big spinning outfit as far as he could behind the boat. The fish landed with a muted slap. A gull circled overhead, piping hungrily.

“How was your hearing at the police department?”

“No problem,” Nelson said.

It had lasted only one hour. Pincus had read in a firm voice from his blue notebook. The guy was amazing, a regular stenographer. He wrote down everything, Nelson marveled. Then to resurrect Aristidio Cruz, Cristo! Pincus had the balls of a bull elephant, that was for sure.

The hearing