Trap Line - Carl Hiaasen [20]
“A couple of tons, at least, but nobody else on board,” had come a disembodied voice.
“Where’s your crew?” Barnett had demanded.
“What crew?”
“The crew that was helpin’ you run this dope, shithead.”
“What dope?”
They had hauled him away, lights and sirens, then fingerprints and a quick photo session, in handcuffs, for the dreary local press. By the time they had let Albury sleep, it was almost dawn.
He awoke with a hot knot in his guts. Every time he thought it through, it made less sense. Albury had made his contact with Winnebago Tom. Tom worked for the Machine. The Machine had set him up, QED. Why? Albury chewed over the question for hours. They went to a hell of a lot of trouble; they lost a boat and a couple of tons and, not insignificantly, one of the last decent Anglo boat captains on the island.
Albury had lost his ticket out. Maybe for good. A foul taste rose in his mouth. He thought about Ricky.
NEAL BEEKER WALKED out of the El Cacique restaurant at about nine-thirty and headed east on Duval Street, still savoring his wake-up orange juice. The studio was only five blocks away, and Beeker walked leisurely. The morning sun cast a dappled blanket of light over the Conch houses in Old Town. Beeker waved warmly at a young man selling shark’s teeth to tourists outside Sloppy Joe’s. He cut over to Simonton Street, stopping to pet a family of gaunt stray cats near a garbage bin. That was his mistake.
The three teenagers caught Beeker at Simonton and Fleming. They shoved him into an alley and clipped his legs out from under him. Two of them were fat, dull-eyed, with thick flat noses. The third was tall and black, with rust-colored hair. Beeker knew what came next. He got up and offered his leather purse. They emptied it, scrabbling for the loose change. The tall one snatched Beeker’s wallet off the pavement and expertly looted it for credit cards.
“How about jewelry?” demanded one of the porcine kids.
Beeker said he wasn’t wearing any. The teenager kicked him savagely in the chest. Beeker’s lungs emptied in a raw wheeze.
“You faggots always have gold,” said the rangy black kid, sneering.
The second fat kid seized Beeker by the scalp and wrapped a pudgy, hairless arm around his neck. Beeker gulped for air. His face was moist with sweat and tears.
“Come on, princess,” the black kid taunted, “you got some gold, I know.” He ripped Beeker’s T-shirt.
“No necklace? What kind of faggot are you?”
Beeker’s chest was imploding. Desperately he sank his teeth into the kid’s arm and bit madly. The kid fell back, wailing. Beeker screamed.
The black kid slugged him twice, once in the gut, once in the testicles. Beeker went down again. His last image was of a Key West cop standing at the mouth of the alley, one hand on his hip, a look of thin annoyance on his ruddy young face.
Two hours after Beeker was delivered to the emergency room of Duval Memorial Hospital, Bobby Freed was in Huge Barnett’s office, demanding to know how the hoodlums had gotten away. Free’s face was flushed, his neck and veins taut with rage. Neal Beeker was his lover. Huge Barnett only smiled.
ALBURY WAS NOT surprised by the Machine’s choice of attorneys. It was the same man who had defended him the last time, an oily creep with crooked front teeth that reminded Albury of a moray eel. Drake Boone, Jr., was his name. He showed up at the arraignment with the peremptory air of an important man on a trivial errand. The crisp gabardine suit made no concession to the heat. The colorful necktie, and probably the shirt beneath it, was silk.
Boone shook hands politely with his new client, nodded at the judge, and said absolutely nothing when bond was set at $75,000. When Albury touched the lawyer’s sleeve and whispered protests, Boone waved him off. “We’ll talk later,” he promised.
Boone came down to the jail in late afternoon. He and Albury were ushered to a windowless, oblong room with two scarred chairs and a Formica table. The lawyer opened his black briefcase with a click