Other people told their own stories after that, and I could feel eyes watching me, wondering what I would say or do, but I refused to be the star of this show. I could not eulogize a man I really did not believe was dead.
The boats were drifting farther apart and the tales had died when Nestor finally threw a flower wreath into the sea. I sprinkled the bougainvillea blooms I had picked that morning onto the surface of the calm water.
Nestor blew his air horn. On each and every boat, horns, whistles, bells, and sirens sounded, the cacophony as loud as the victory celebration after a championship game. They were celebrating Neal’s life. He would like that, I thought. It was a hell of a racket.
The circle broke up, some of the boats heading out for a day of fishing, others heading back to the port. I was among the latter group.
As I motored through the group of sailboats waiting for the Seventeenth Street Bridge to open, I saw George Rice, a broker I knew who actually wore a blue blazer and an ascot. He was puttering toward me in his launch, a varnished clinker hull with a silly-looking white awning with scalloped edges.
“How’s it going, George?” I asked as he pulled his launch up alongside Gorda.
“Fine, fine,” he said, waving his manicured hand in the air. “I saw Madagascar yesterday at Gulf Stream. He told me Gorda is about to come on the market, and I took the liberty of filling out a listing notice for you.” He looked around the aft deck, and flashed an expensive display of dental work my way.
“George, Maddy only owns one third of this vessel.”
“Really . . . hmmmm . . .” He was eying the boat, looking her up and down like a convict on his first night out in a singles’ bar.
“She really is very unique, isn’t she? Is it too much to assume she’ll pass survey?”
It was one thing for my brother to go behind my back and try to fist Gorda with a broker but when the broker started suggesting that she might not be sound, I couldn’t take it anymore.
“George, Gorda’s not for sale. Take your listing agreement and cram it...” At that moment the bridge horn blew, and George Rice did not have the privilege of hearing my detailed description of what he could do with his contract.
After securing the boat and hosing her down, I marched into the cottage, yanked the phone off the cradle, and dialed Maddy’s number.
Jane answered.
“Let me speak to my brother, Jane.”
“He’s sleeping right now, Seychelle, and I don’t want to bother him. See—”
“Jane, go in there and wake him up. It’s almost nine o’clock in the morning, for Pete’s sake. That asshole is trying to sell my boat out from under me to pay his gambling debts. Did you know he’s back at the track, Jane?”
“Yes. But listen, Seychelle, he—”
“I can’t believe you’re still making excuses for him. He’s a bum. He’s—”
“Sey, somebody beat him up yesterday.”
“What?”
“Robbed him first. He was hurt pretty bad.”
“Maddy?” I sat heavily on one of the barstools. “Yeah, he’d had a good day. He was coming home with nearly three grand. They jumped him in the parking lot.”
“What’d they do to him?”
“It’s bad. His face is a mess, and they broke two fingers. But thank God they didn’t kill him. They had a gun, he said. But he didn’t want to hand over the money; we need it bad. He looks awful. They had to fix his retina. They said he’ll never see right with that eye.”
“Jane, I don’t know what to say. I’m really sorry.” I didn’t know my sister-in-law well, and I couldn’t find words that sounded right. “I... well, tell him I called. I guess I’ll try to talk to him when he’s feeling better.”
“Sey, he said if you called, to tell you to take their offer and settle this.”
“What?”
“I don’t know what it means. He was all woozy from the pain pills and his mouth is all messed up, so he was really hard to understand. He made me repeat it. Take their offer and settle it, he said.”
After I hung up the phone, I just sat there and stared for several minutes. When I finally began to comprehend the red light, it took me ages to pull my mind back to a conscious state. I blinked and hit the play button on the answering machine.
“Miss Sullivan. Hamilton Burns. I have been authorized to make a final settlement offer in regards to your efforts in towing the Top Ten to port. You will receive fifteen thousand dollars, after which you will sign a waiver agreeing to have no further interests in the affairs of the vessel and the members of her crew, including any court testimony. I will expect your phone call, and we can meet in my offices on Las Olas. Miss Sullivan, I must impress upon you that it is in your best interests to agree to this settlement. These are very powerful and influential people, and they will reward you for your cooperation. On the other hand, if you refuse, they won’t hesitate to deal with you, Miss Sullivan.” Click.
I turned the machine off and leaned on the counter my forehead resting on the heels of my hands. Deal with me? And how on earth did Maddy know about these offers from Burns? Whoever the real owner of the Top Ten was, he seemed to have an incredibly long reach. Right into my brother’s life.
It must be the debt again. Someone he’d borrowed from was pushing his buttons.
I pushed the speed-dial number for Jeannie. After four rings her answering machine picked up, and I hung up. She’d probably taken her boys to the beach. That sounded pretty good right about then. I used to try to go down to the beach almost every day, but it had been a while now since I’d taken the boat out for an ocean swim. Neal had been diving off the Top Ten. Maybe it was time to have a look around the place where all this started.
I changed into my royal blue tank suit, then grabbed a beach towel and my keys. My scuba gear was gone, but I always kept an old mask in the dock box. I considered taking the Larsens’ Jet Ski, but my thirteen-foot Boston Whaler was up in davits at the far end of the seawall. I hadn’t run it in over a month, and I didn’t want the fuel in the carburetor going bad from lack of use. I was glad when the twenty-five-horse Merc fired up at the first turn of the key. Abaco jumped down off the seawall, her tongue lolling and her tail wagging. She knew where I was headed. She loved to swim, too, and wasn’t about to be left behind.
Once I got the Whaler outside the entrance channel, I opened her up. Abaco had always been a daredevil bow rider and a trip in the Whaler, nose in the wind, was even better than going for a car ride. She stood all the way in the front of the boat, her ears blowing back, her legs bending to the boat’s motion. There wasn’t too much chop, but we pounded a little on the wind waves as we headed up the coast. I throttled down, searching about for approximately the same spot where the Top Ten had been drifting when I found her. There are very few reference points out on the ocean, and even with the coastline on one side, I knew I could be off by up to half a mile.
I started from the shallows where the yacht had wallowed and headed southeast, offshore, the direction from which the Top Ten would have drifted, allowing for the current and wind. When the water turned dark blue, I dropped the anchor over like a lead line to measure the depth. I had about twenty feet of line left when it touched. So, about eighty feet deep. I pulled the anchor back up. I didn’t want to snag it on anything at that depth without my scuba gear. There was all kinds of junk on the ocean floor off the coast of Fort Lauderdale. South Florida has a very active artificial reef program. They take rusty old ships, barges, even a jet airplane, tow them to the spot where they want to create a reef, and then blow holes in them and sink them to make underwater habitats for fish—and anchor snares for unwary boaters.