Solomon & Lord Drop Anchor Read Free Page A

or risk jail time…unless it’s for someone I
love.
”
    Now that Victoria thought about it, the
question wasn’t:  
Just what would Steve do for Teresa
Toraño?
  It
was:  
What
  wouldn’t  
he do?
    “That sleazy accountant,” Steve said. “In
Cuba, he kept the books for the student worker program, the
students who cut sugar cane. Ran the whole food services division.
But he had a nasty habit of cutting the pineapple juice with water
and selling the meat off the back of trucks. The kids went hungry
and he got fat. When the authorities found out, he stole a boat and
got the hell out of the worker’s paradise.”
    “Old news,  
hombre
.”
    “Vic, still on two-zero-two?” Steve
asked.
    “I know how to read a compass,” she said,
sharply.
    “Where you taking me?” Cruz demanded.
    “Jeez, how’d you ever get from Havana to Key
West?” Steve said.
    “Everybody in Havana knows the heading to the
States. You want Key West, you keep it at twenty-two degrees.”
    “A bit east of due north. So what’s
two-zero-two?”
    “A little west of due south.”
    “Keep going, Cruz. I think you’re catching
the drift, no pun intended.”
    Steve waited a moment for the bulb to pop on.
When it didn’t, he continued, “Two hundred two minus twenty-two is
one hundred eighty. What happens when you make a hundred eighty
degree turn, philosophically or geographically speaking?”
    “Fuck!” Cruz jerked the handcuff so hard the
rail shuddered. “We’re going to Havana!”
    “Bingo. We’re repatriating you.”
    “You crazy? Cuban patrol boats will sink us.
You remember that tugboat.  
Trece de
Marzo.
  Forty people
dead.
”
    “The  
Marzo
  was trying
to  
leave
  the island.
We’re coming in, and we’re bringing a fugitive to justice. They
should give us a reward, or at least a bottle of Club Havana
rum.”
    “They’ll kill me.”
    “Not without a trial. A speedy trial. Of
course, if you tell us where you’ve stashed Teresa’s money, we’ll
turn this tub around.”
    * * *
    “Dammit, Steve,” Victoria said. “We have to
talk.”
    Steve put the boat on auto — two hundred two
degrees — and took Victoria down to the salon.
    “You could get us killed,” she said. “Or
jailed. Right now, the best case scenario would be disbarment.”
    “That’s why I didn’t want you along.”
    Steve walked to the galley sink and turned on
the faucet, intending to rinse the dried blood from a scraped
elbow. The plumbing rattled and thumped, but nothing came out. He
opened the ice maker. Empty, too.
    “Cruz is a lousy host,” Steve said.
    “Are you listening to me? Let’s go back to
Miami. I’ll see if we can talk Cruz out of filing charges.”
    They both heard the sound, but it took a
second to identify it. A scream from the bridge. “Sol-o-mon!”
    Followed a second later by machine gun
fire.
    * * *
    Steve and Victoria ran back up the ladder to
the bridge. Cruz was tugging against the rail, his wrist bleeding
where the handcuff sawed into his skin. Three hundred yards off
their starboard, a Cuban patrol boat fired a short burst from a
machine gun mounted on its bow. Dead ahead, the silhouette of the
Cuban island rose from the sea, misty in the late afternoon
light.
    “Warning shots,” Steve said. “Everybody
relax.”
    Steve eased back on the throttles, tooted the
horn, and waved both arms at the approaching boat. “C’mon Cruz.
It’s now or never. When they pull alongside, I’m handing you
over.”
    “Do what you got to do, asshole.”
    “Steve, turn the boat around,” Victoria
ordered. “Now!”
    The patrol boat slowed. Two men in uniform at
the machine gun, a third man holding a bullhorn.
    “I’m not fucking with you, Cruz,” Steve said.
“You’ve got thirty seconds. Where’s Teresa’s money?”
    “
Chingate!”
  Cruz
snarled.
    “
Senores del barco de
pesca!”
  The tinny sound
of the bullhorn carried across the water.
    “Last chance,” Steve said.
    “
Se han