Free Grand Cayman Slam by Randy Striker

looking out toward sea. The water was so clear that the boat seemed to hover over the coral bottom in midair. What paint there was was white and streaked with rust. The cabin had been built far forward, leaving no bow deck. Behind us, kids played in the sand yards where chickens scratched. Windfall mangos rotted beside colorful ply-board houses, and women on the streets carried parasols to protect them from the March sun.
    The Irishman jammed his fists on his hips and humphed loudly. “I’d be havin’ a prettier vessel ta squire ya around in if I hadn’t a lost me fine sailin’ ship savin’ yer snitty little life back in Mariel Harbor, Cuba.”
    “God, you’ve got a memory like an elephant.”
    “In that case, you’ll not be bad-mouthin’ me little boat again.”
    “Deal.”
    Big black letters on the stern of the boat proclaimed its name: Rogue. O’Davis paddled us out in a leaking tender that threatened to sink beneath the weight of us both. Once aboard, he anchored the dinghy off.
    “It’ll take us all day to get to the other end of the island in this thing—not that I don’t like going slow,” I added quickly.
    “Will it now?” he said slyly. “We’ll see.” Humming his strange Irish tune, O’Davis went below to the cabin and returned with something heavy wrapped in oilcloth. He laid the package on the deck and unrolled it.
    “Fast or slow,” he said, smiling, “we’ll be well armed.”
    There were two old Thompson submachine guns—the kind you see in the old gangster movies, but without the circular drum magazines. These had the standard box clips.
    “Always carry them for sharks,” he explained. “Both of ’em work good as new. Thirty-round clips for each with about four hundred rounds of .45 caliber stashed below.”
    “I take it you have a lot of sharks around here.”
    “Never had ta shoot at one.” He grinned.
    I was wrong about O’Davis’ old dive boat being slow. And I was ready to admit it the moment he fired up the engines. The whole superstructure trembled with the loud burple of mufflers.
    “It’s not diesel?”
    He shook his head. “Twin GMC 442s. Awful hard on fuel, Yank, but this ol’ boat will fairly scream across open water.”
    And scream the boat did. I unclipped the mooring line, feeling comfortable once again after changing out of that damnable suit. O’Davis maneuvered us skillfully through the reef, pointed the bow west and north, then drove both throttles home. The force of it jerked my head back and I had to grab hold of the bulkhead to keep from being thrown overboard.
    “Slow, ye said!” the Irishman cackled. “An’ do ya call this goin’ slow?”
    “Not too bad—for an older boat, that is.”
    O’Davis grimaced and put all his weight on the throttles. There were long glassy swells rolling out of the north. Gulls and a stray cormorant flapped madly out of our path while coral heads through the clear water went by in a blur. The old boat rattled like a skeleton, but the engines ran perfectly. Every wave brought teeth crashing against teeth, jarring the kidneys. We were doing at least fifty.
    And fifty in an old thirty-foot boat is fast. Very damn fast.
    “Okay, okay,” I yelled. “I’m convinced. You have a quick boat. Now slow down before you kill us both.”
    Laughing happily at his victory, the Irishman backed down a quarter on the throttles. “Fastest boat on the island,” he said proudly.
    “Why is it I keep thinking this hull wasn’t made for twin four-four-twos?”
    “Ah, she does shake an’ shimmy a bit. But she’s like an old wife—jest complains ta let ya know she’s around. The hull’s seen a decade or two come an’ go, but she’s made of native mahogany and manchineel—sound as a dollar.”
    We ran just off the reef line past Wreck of Ten Sails, where, according to O’Davis, a fleet of Jamaican merchantmen bound for England had misunderstood a warning light and, one after another, grounded on the reef on a dark night