Trap Line - Carl Hiaasen [70]
THE SMALL BOAT came with the twilight, a bonefisherman with its engine throttled back. It made no wake and disturbed no one. An egret fishing on a mud flat paused momentarily to stare. A school of mullet ran perfunctorily toward some mangroves to escape its path and then, sensing no threat, darted back to play in the mottled shadows around the dock. The bonefisherman nudged gently against the dock and tied up around a piling draped with a fading orange-and-blue bumper sticker. “Florida Fishermen Have Bigger Rods,” it said.
Willie Bascaro never noticed. He lay on a chaise longue in the lee of his wheelhouse, snapping his fingers to salsa piped through headphones from a cassette deck on his belt. He felt a thump on his deck and looked up incuriously. Then he sat straight up and yanked off the headphones. Before him, silhouetted by the sun, was the figure of a man, arms crossed, waiting. Bascaro shaded his eyes but could see only a black bulk. It reminded him of a ghost. Reflexively, he crossed himself.
“Willie Bascaro?”
“Si.”
“My name is Albury. I have come to burn your boat.”
Bascaro only half-understood the words. That was enough. He jackknifed from the lounger and sprang to the rail. He had learned many things in the streets of Havana, and the most important was knowing when to run. In another second he would have jumped.
Albury grabbed him from behind and lifted him off the rail as though he were a baby.
“No, Willie. No running this time. Now is the time to pay the bill, Willie. Pagarla cuenta, comprende?”
Albury rifled through the Marielito’s pockets for the engine keys. He shoved Bascaro into the fetid litter of his cabin and locked the door. In the new darkness, a few minutes later, El Gallo headed out to sea, skiff towing merrily behind.
Albury drove without thinking, pointing east toward the vastness of the Gulf Stream. From the cabin came the piteous babble of Spanish. Breeze Albury ignored it. He spoke only to himself.
“This is a shit boat, Willie, a real dog. Engine needs an overhaul, the compass is off, and it steers like a scow. I wouldn’t give you a nickel for your chances in a real sea. You probably don’t know how it is in the Keys, Willie. Maybe you can steal a Conch’s woman, but if you cut his traps, you’re a dead man. You should have figured that sooner or later I’d come for you.
“But not you, Willie. Muy macho, huh? You bragged in a bar about cutting the traps, and you even stole the buoys. Saw a whole pile of them up there on your dock, orange-and-white buoys. Been in the Albury family a long time. Those are the last ones, though. I’m leaving the Rock, Willie. Me and Rick.”
Albury broke his monologue to listen. The babbling from the cabin had stopped a few minutes before. Albury lit a cigarette and waited, relaxed at the wheel.
Willie Bascaro erupted from the cabin just as Albury was pitching the butt into the sea.
Albury turned to meet him with a savage smile.
“I knew you’d be coming, Willie. It’s better that way. What is it you’ve got, macho, a gun? No, a tire iron. Is that what you used to cripple my boy, Willie? Come and cripple me, motherfucker.”
With a ferret’s scream, Willie Bascaro lunged, the iron pointed like a sword. He was younger and too quick for Albury. The metal rod caught him in the gut. He felt something tear.
Albury staggered back against the wheel, winded.
“Cobarde de mierda,” he gasped.
Bascaro attacked again in a frenzy. Albury ducked under a roundhouse, the tire iron grazing his ear. He caught the Cuban with a left hand to the face and a right above the heart. Bascaro sagged against the curved coping where the open wheelhouse ran toward the deck. Albury got inside his next weak swing. He seized Bascaro’s arm with all his strength and pushed it back against the coping. Back, back, until finally, with a sickening snap, it broke. The iron fell into the sea. The Cuban screamed. Albury released him to