Trap Line - Carl Hiaasen [0]
Carl Hiaasen
Bill Montalbano
For Patricia Hiaasen
and Vincent F. Montalbano
TRAP LINE
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Epilogue
Prologue
MIAMI, FLORIDA
THEY HAD AGREED to meet at the Omni Hotel, a double obelisk that rises on Biscayne Boulevard near the bay. The businessman had booked a suite for two weeks; bayside, as always.
Manolo flew up from Key West. He had been told to come alone, so he had. He took a Yellow Cab from the airport. It overheated twice on the short trip.
Inside the hotel complex, Manolo wandered like a rat in a maze for ten minutes before locating the right elevator. He stepped out on the eleventh floor and strode across a thick amber carpet to the businessman’s suite. Manolo knocked twice, then shifted the briefcase to his right hand.
The Colombian, lithe and bronzed, answered in bare feet and white shorts with a royal blue stripe. The two men shook hands and exchanged greetings in Spanish, their accents as distinct as Boston and Biloxi.
Manolo followed the businessman along a trail of scuffed sneakers and sweaty socks to a chilled bucket of champagne. He lay the briefcase on a marble coffee table. The Colombian poured two glasses. Manolo, who hated champagne, paid no attention to the extravagant label.
He noticed four new graphite tennis rackets on a toffee-colored sofa.
“For my backhand,” the Colombian explained. “If I improve my backhand, I am unbeatable, I assure you. I have a lesson in one hour.”
Manolo glanced at four large boxes piled haphazardly in a corner.
“Por Dios, Jorge, more Betamaxes? Didn’t you buy three the last time you were here?”
“A primitive model. These are truly sophisticated.” Jorge set his glass on the coffee table next to the briefcase. “Everything is here, no?”
Manolo nodded. The briefcase contained exactly one million two hundred thousand dollars in neatly stacked twenties and one hundreds, nonsequential.
“Good. There are no problems?” The question was rhetorical. The Colombian would have known about problems.
“Things are going smoothly,” Manolo answered, gesturing toward the city’s infant skyline. “The market continues to be magnificent.”
“Did you have a good flight from Key West?”
“Ah, twenty minutes: nothing.”
The Colombian slipped into a canary yellow pullover and attached a gold Piaget to his left wrist. A young woman with coffee-colored eyes and small breasts appeared briefly, nude, in the doorway to an adjoining room. The Colombian waved her away.
“I need a favor,” he said, sipping slowly.
Manolo knew there were no favors, only debts. He also knew that his side of the ledger was perpetually red.
“I have some friends,” the Colombian continued, “who will be needing some reliable transportation.”
“Oh?”
“In about two weeks they will be on an island in the Bahamas. They will need a boat to the mainland. Key Largo will do …”
Already Manolo was shaking his head. “It’s no good, Jorge. My people won’t run aliens.”
“You mean Colombians, don’t you? Your people won’t run Colombians. Not long ago, if I recall, your people brought a hundred thousand aliens into this country from a port in Cuba. Mariel, wasn’t it?”
“That was different,” Manolo said, reddening.
“Oh, no, my friend. A lot of your people did that purely for money, not out of decency or love of family. Is that not so?”
“That was different.”
The Colombian picked up one of the tennis rackets and ran strong fingers across the strings.
“Think of this as a family mission, Manny. Like Mariel, but perhaps a bit less heroic, more private. These friends are important to me. I need them here, and, therefore, you need them, too.”
“But…”
“They will help assure that we do not lose any of this magnificent market.”
Manolo squirmed. The hotel room suddenly seemed small, terribly hot.
“You don’t understand.