sweat breaks out across Hard’s forehead. “I ain’t scammin’ with Big. I be a respectable biz-niz man. That’s why I be wearin’ a suit in this scaldin’ sun. No other black boy as pro-fesh-shu-nal as I be.”
“Blood-money gambling on pit bulls tearing each other apart is not a profession, it’s a crime. You think you can dodge the law, moving your secret dogfights between Key West and Miami. Someday I’ll bust you on it, bust you to pieces.”
Hard turns and looks across the gravel at the whimpering pit bull roped to the anchor. Around the dog, the blood from the two sprawled dead animals has leaked out in a damp red circle. Hard raises his Magnum and points it at the whimpering pit bull. “You want that dog?”
“I don’t want a fighting dog.”
“That dog be no fighter, he be a lover. That’s why I poppin’ him. He’d rather lick his balls than fight. That’s why his name be Chicken. You want Chicken or not?”
Luz studies the pit bull squatting on its haunches in a pool of blood. The dog’s pink tongue dangles out as it whimpers; one of its ears is a gnarly stub, bitten off in a fight. The hair of the dog’s short black coat is slashed with white scars left over from the vicious bites of past battles.
Hard chuckles. “Take Chicken home to that baldheaded daughter of yours. She could use a friend.”
“I’ll take the dog.”
“Deal.”
Hard walks across the gravel. He unties the pit bull from the two dead dogs and leads it back to Luz. The sun glints off of Hard’s smiling metallic mouthful of teeth. “Now you finally got a friend for your crippled daughter.”
Luz’s knee whips up in a powerful jackknife kick straight into Hard’s groin. Hard’s Magnum flies from his hand. He grabs his groin in an anguished wail, gaping at Luz with eyes wide in shock. She rips her pistol from its holster and smacks the gun’s gorilla-grip handle against the side of Hard’s head with a loud crack. Hard drops to the ground, his feet kicking out at the gravel in pain. Luz stands above Hard, who is writhing in the dust. She aims her pistol down at him.
“You mention my daughter again, I’ll kill you!”
A line of shrimping boats is anchored along a concrete pier jutting out into Key West Harbor. The boats’ tall masts and winged outriggers are decorated with strands of twinkling white lights. On the pier, a band plays festive Caribbean music to a crowd of shrimpers, their families, and town locals gathered beneath an overhead banner declaring SHRIMP FLEET BLESSING. In the crowd are Luz and Joan with Carmen and Nina. Nina sits in her wheelchair, her brown eyes taking in the scene with nervous excitement.
Big Conch bullies his way through the center of the crowd. He holds two bottles of beer as he cocks his head back and forth, looking for someone. He spots Zoe dancing with a shrimper, her flared skirt spinning around her bare knees as the delighted partner stomps his white rubber boots to the band’s percussive rhythm. Big closes in on the shrimper and shoves him aside. The man stops dancing and sizes up Big’s imposing stature. The man slinks off. Big offers Zoe one of his two beers. She turns her back on him.
At the edge of the crowd, Hogfish wheels to a squeaky stop on his rusty bicycle. Stretched between the handlebars is the taut fishing line strung with barbed J-hooks. He jerks his head back and forth to the music he hears through the earbuds jammed into his ears and rises from the bicycle’s worn leather seat. He looks over the dancing crowd and glimpses Big following close behind Zoe as she walks quickly away from him.
Out of the darkness behind the line of docked shrimping boats, Noah’s trawler motors up. Inside the pilothouse, Noah steers his vessel between two large boats and cuts his engine. He looks through the window at the crowd on the pier. Behind him in the shadows is the slight figure of Rimbaud. Noah turns and speaks reassuringly in French: “Do what I told you and stay out of sight. Don’t go out on the deck. I’ll return soon.”
Rimbaud grabs Noah’s arm. “I’m afraid. What if they find me?”
“They won’t find you if you stay hidden inside the storage closet.”
Rimbaud’s eyes widen with fear. “They’ll find me and send me back to Haiti, where the earthquake cracked open the underworld, releasing zombies. Zombies