Night Moves (Doc Ford) - By RandyWayne White Page 0,103

attention,” I said. “Don’t go anywhere until you hear from me. Understand?”

I put the phone in my pocket and throttled toward the mouth of Dinkin’s Bay.

29

THREE MONTHS I’D OWNED THE ZODIAC AND HAD come to the conclusion it wasn’t the boat for me, but perfect for what I was doing now: running forty-plus in darkness through light chop, lights of the Sanibel Causeway ahead, a few cars already tunneling their way toward the island where windows sparked behind coconut palms.

I’d bought the twenty-six-foot rigid hull inflatable because it was unexpectedly available, it was equipped like nothing on the civilian market, and it would allow me to run offshore in weather that my previous boat, a Maverick flats skiff—as solid as it was—couldn’t handle. So I’d made a snap decision, which is the worst possible thing a boat buyer can do, but the result was only mildly disappointing, not disastrous as it is for most.

The Zodiac had all the high-tech touches: a bolstered T-top, radar tower aft, a cavernous console, an electronics suite shielded by Plexiglas, Ullman shock-mitigating seats mounted on a forgiving deck, and a full-length Kevlar shoe beneath a collar of rigid black tubes that looked bulletproof—and maybe were, considering the agency that had ordered the boat as a prototype. For power: twin Mercury 200s, top speed over sixty, a range of three hundred miles with extra gas bladders—to Cuba and back or more than halfway to the Yucatán. Great if you’ve got to bull through a hurricane and drop SEAL operatives on a beach but too much draft and too much boat for Dinkin’s Bay.

A very comfortable choice, though, for a fifty-mile trip to Lostman’s River and the Bone Field, so I should have been having fun with my new toy.

I wasn’t. The black-hulled Stiletto was on my mind. And a Haitian drug dealer who had an appetite for revenge when he wasn’t partying with wealthy clientele. My cousin Ransom’s voice reminding me, The rich ones, they think it very cool to have their own Haitian voodoo man they invite for drinks when they in Jamaica, Saint Martin. Ransom’s voice stressing, That boy get around!

Jet-set partiers . . . a Caribbean supplier . . . a jet-set assassin—but there was no tenable connection! One of the country’s top intel gatherers, Donald Cheng, had told me himself—the Stiletto was owned by some faceless company involved with offshore racing.

Stop obsessing, Ford. If you cross the line, vigilance becomes pathology. Shallow up! Float on—enjoy the ride.

The Zodiac’s storage console was chest high. Big enough for a chemical toilet, a handheld shower, and an electrically cooled Igloo. I told myself to be decadent, break a long-standing rule and have a breakfast beer. Instead, I fished out a Snapple, Diet Peach, the bottle cool in my left hand. Took another look inside the locker and considered my khaki gun bag—an old 9mm Sig Sauer pistol therein, a smaller, lighter 9mm Kahr, too, plus a box of Hornaday Critical Defense ammo and fifty rounds of Remington for plinking if I got the chance.

Put the Sig on the console just in case?

I asked myself the question, then mocked myself by answering, In case of what? Steer the damn boat and look at the stars!

After idling beneath the causeway, I muscled the boat back onto plane, bow pointed at the robotic eye of the Sanibel Lighthouse, and left the channel behind, both Merc outboards synced at 4000 rpm. Off the lighthouse, eons of tidal flow have piled sandbars. Cut in close to the point, though, water is deep enough, so that’s what I did, aware that the Holiday Inn was only a few miles up the beach. Then steered west toward a blazing moon that was melting into blackness that was the Gulf of Mexico.

Big moon, key lime yellow. Add rings, it could have been Saturn spinning out of orbit and about to collide with the Earth. I pinned the autopilot to the moon as if it were a target, switched the VHF to Weather Band III, then leaned back, checked the gauges, while a digitized voice reported: “. . . Cape Sable to Tarpon Springs, wind southeast ten to fifteen, decreasing by midday . . .”

Good. Finally, a chance to let my mind drift freely . . . free, at least, to browse the universally limited list of male standbys: sex, unfinished projects, my children, sex, how would the Rays do this year? women, sex, surfing—did Tomlinson ever pay me for that damn paddle?—fishing, sex,