Powder Burn - Carl Hiaasen [86]
“I know, but—”
“You know what happens if a shipment turns up short,” Manny said, lifting the bale again.
As they trudged toward the road, Meadows carefully appraised his options. It didn’t take long. Running off with any of the cocaine would be fatally stupid; he would be shot as surely and casually as the opossum. Even if he got away, he had no car and no boat and, most important, no place to put the dope.
A second option was disarming his two partners and stealing both the shipment and the van. That would be brilliant, he thought grimly. What’s a couple of more killers chasing you when you’ve already got some lunatic Cubans on your trail?
The third option was to shut up, comply with Manny’s orders and hope for a there’s-more-where-that-came-from handshake when it was over. That, Meadows concluded, was the wisest course.
“We’ll put these in the van; then I’ll go back and find the other one,” Manny said.
Then he stopped in his tracks. Twenty yards away the van’s horn sounded twice. Then they heard Moe crash into the swamp.
“Shit,” Manny croaked. He dropped the bale, spun and raced back into the marsh, lifting his legs high to clear the water and grass. Meadows imitated in near panic. They stumbled for fifty yards before Manny stopped and dropped to one knee, wheezing like an old man. Meadows crouched beside him, and he saw the nine-millimeter automatic in Manny’s right hand.
“¡Cristo!” Manny muttered. His voice was tense, his eyes moist and fierce. Meadows was close enough now to see the fear.
The Everglades were silent.
The architect’s heart jackhammered against his ribs. He cursed himself for leaving Terry’s pistol in his room.
Manny raised himself to a semicrouch and peered through the night toward the gravel road. He fanned the mosquitoes out of his eyes.
Meadows heard the sound of an automobile, the rocks crunching under rubber as it slowly approached. Manny ducked. The car stopped, and its engine cut off. A door slammed, then another.
Meadows heard several voices at once. He looked over at Manny apprehensively. The stocky young smuggler raised the handgun, tapped it against his cheek and smiled a rictus grin.
FOR HOURS THEY huddled together silently until Manny fell asleep in a fetal curl on a bed of matted sawgrass. Meadows crouched, knees in the warm muck, afraid to move. He strained to listen, but there were no sounds from the dirt road where the strange cars had stopped.
Hunters, Meadows prayed. But what could they be after out here? Rabbits, opossums, raccoons. Not much else. And hunters would be making noise; they would be shooting at something—rats, beer cans, maybe even Moe.
No, it has to be cops, Meadows decided, waiting for us to come out. He felt like pummeling Manny in his sleep.
Another airplane flew over, this one with its full complement of lights winking green and red as it descended toward Miami International. Meadows thought of Terry; she was due back in a week, and he couldn’t wait to tell her everything.
If only he could get out of the Glades.
At dawn the sound of a car’s ignition roused Meadows from a cramped and miserable nap. His pants were soaked with urine-warm marsh water. His arms itched feverishly; his flesh was a topographical disaster, welts everywhere.
Manny was awake, too. He lay still, his head on one arm, listening as the car drove off. “OK, Chris, let’s move.” His voice was raw. The steel-blue handgun was out again.
They crept toward the dirt road, pausing every five or six steps to listen. Suddenly Manny rose to his full height and leveled the gun toward a tall thicket.
“Don’t move!” he ordered in a low voice that cut the morning stillness.
“Shit, Manny, put it away.” It was Moe. He was a wreck; the insects had made a banquet out of his pale skin. His face was splotched with scarlet, a razor cut arced over one eye and his shirt was shredded at one sleeve.
Manny helped Moe to his feet, and they trudged toward the van with deliberate haste, Meadows trailing warily. There were no other cars or trucks on the dirt road, and soon the van was