Free Gagliano,Anthony - Straits of Fortune.wps by Unknown

the case with Matson. Then I started thinking about the money the Colonel had offered me; five zeros after a one, and don't forget the comma. I kept thinking about the yacht out there, inert off the coast with a dead man on board like a thing waiting to be done. I began to feel a strange tension come over me, as though I were being held back, and I knew then that I would do it. I knew in my gut that I had a rendezvous with that boat that I would keep for better or for worse. It was only then that the tension eased and I could relax.
    I t was seven o'clock when I picked up the phone and called the Colonel's house. I was half hoping that it was too late. The maid answered, and a moment later the Colonel picked up the phone. It annoyed me that he didn't sound at all sur- prised to hear my voice. "Did you call to say you've changed your mind?" he asked. "No, I called to ask what your sign was." "A dollar sign," he said, laughing heartily at his own joke. We were good friends now, fellow conspirators. "I knew you were a mercenary at heart, Jack. You were starting to worry me." "Send your daughter over with half the money, and send her soon." He didn't laugh at that one. "You think I keep that kind of cash around the house?" "I don't care where you keep it," I said. "I get the other half when I get back." I listened to the sound of my own voice as I said this, and I didn't particularly like what I heard. 58
    The Colonel must not have liked my tone either. I listened to him breathe for a few seconds. "What time?" he asked. "What time should I send her?" I thought for a moment. "Make it midnight." "She'll be there." "Groovy." "I'd like to ask you a question." "Ask." "Are you doing it for Vivian or for the money?" "What do you think?" "Mercenaries often lack heart, Jack. But love and money aren't mutually exclusive." "So long, Colonel," I said. "You'll be seeing me soon." Then I thought of something. "Oh, and one last thing while I've got you on the phone." "Yes?" "How did Vivian get out to the boat, and how did she get back? Don't tell me she swam." There was only a brief hesitation. "She went out on her Jet Ski, and that's the way she got back." There was another pause. Nothing in his tone indicated that he might be lying, but it's harder to judge a thing like that over the phone. With the Colonel, though, it would have been difficult even if I'd been staring him in the eye. "Anything else, Jack?" "If there is, it'll have to wait." I hung up and sat for a while staring at the phone as though it were a crystal ball, but it wasn't. I stood up and looked around the room. Something about it seemed foreign all of a sudden, like I was standing in a house that belonged to a man I knew only vaguely, someone you meet once at a party and never see again. Eventually I got restless, so I went down to the Cuban place on the corner and had a double shot of espresso. 59
    The first thing I did when I got back to the apartment was get my gear ready for the trip. I got the kayak out of the stor- age room and waxed it so it would slide through the water like a greased-down barracuda. Then I loaded the compart- ments inside the hull with the things I would need. It was not going to be a particularly long excursion, but I made sure I packed two bottles of water, a flashlight, four flares, a dive knife, my spare cell phone, and two protein bars. I took my life vest out of the closet, dusted it off, and laid it across the kayak where it rested, very much out of place, on the living room floor. Then a sudden thought darted into my mind with the ur- gency of an unexpected warning I couldn't ignore, and I went to the desk and got out the Glock 9-millimeter. I didn't much like the look of it for some reason, and I had that feel- ing you get when you meet an old friend you're not quite sure you want to see again. I put in a full clip, felt it click into the handle. A sensation of dread rippled through me and passed on. I put the gun in a plastic bag, sealed it,