Money to Burn Read Free Page B

for deep-sea fishing. People expected me to have boating in my blood, but in reality I hardly knew my dad, who had never married my mother. Mom died when I was six, and I was raised by my maternal grandparents, “Nana” and “Papa,” a couple of Depression-era immigrants who had grown up on the south side of Chicago and who regarded recreational boating as the sport of kings and millionaire tycoons. When I finished high school, Papa retired and we moved to south Florida, just a few miles from the ocean, but by then the die was cast. I had spent my formative years in a two-bedroom house that was across the street from an endless cornfield on the Illinois-Wisconsin border. Bowling, not boating, was what we were about. I could also kick anybody’s ass in Ping-Pong or bumper pool, but only if the match was held in an unfinished basement.
    The electric motor whined and the heavy metal chain rattled as the anchor rose through water so clean and clear it seemed I could have reached in and touched bottom. There were no mishaps this time, and with the anchor aboard and the sails trimmed, we were on our way. Our plan was to sail from port to port as we wished—swimming, relaxing, snorkeling, relaxing some more. At the end of each day, if there was no slip available at the marina, or if we felt like a night away from civilization, we would find protected water off a deserted beach and simply drop anchor. Sometimes I called ahead to a local restaurant to arrange for a team to motor out to the sailboat at sunset and pamper us with fine wine, a local feast, and first-class service. On other nights we would “rough it,” take the rubber dinghy to shore, and sample the local brews as we explored the town.
    I relaxed on the bow, watching Ivy at the helm. Right about then it occurred to me that the string bikini had been an excellent invention.
    “What are you looking at?” said Ivy.
    “Perfection,” I said.
    “Thanks, mon,” said Rumsey. “You pretty cute you-self.”
    We laughed, but Rumsey roared. Most Bahamians I’ve met have a great sense of humor and a joy for life. Yesterday, we’d sailed into a marina that was little more than a wooden shack where you could catch a rum buzz and dance to reggae. It was called “Happy People”—and everyone there really was . When I asked Rumsey about that now, he just shrugged.
    “Some people happy. Some people not happy. You choose, mon. Not all Bahamians choose happy.”
    “Like our cabdriver in Miami,” said Ivy.
    I was sorry she’d brought that up. I’d been trying to put the FTAA riots out of my mind, but Ivy did have a point: Our driver definitely didn’t own any condos at the Happy People Marina. His life had probably been pretty simple back in Nassau, I thought. Now—driving a cab in Miami—the poor guy was stressed out enough to work the residential mortgage desk at Saxton Silvers.
    “So, choose happy, mon,” said Rumsey.
    I smiled and climbed into the boat’s hammock with my BlackBerry. I loved people for whom life was so simple. I hated people for whom life was so simple.

    I woke to the sound of steel drums.
    I had no idea how long my nap on the bow had lasted, but the boat was anchored, the sails were down, and we were twenty yards from shore floating in a bay of sun-sparkled turquoise. The beach stretched for miles in either direction, a seemingly endless pinkish-white ribbon of sand. It was deserted, save for a tiki bar we’d stumbled upon, where a half-dozen recreational boaters like us relaxed to calypso music. The choice between light or dark rum would be our only concern.
    “Hey, Rip Van Winkle is up.”
    It was Ivy’s voice, but she was nowhere to be seen. I walked toward the cockpit and spotted her floating on an inflated air mattress near the boat.
    “How long was I asleep?”
    “Forty years,” said Ivy. “The market crashed, we lost the house, the kids hate us, and a pack of IRS bloodhounds turned us into a couple of island-hopping fugitives.