He walked back to the workbench.
“Clyde,” he said, “shoot the first one moves.”
“Now or later?” Clyde said, grinning, and Luke had the sudden feeling he was making a grim, prophetic joke.
The seventeen men in their three cars left Key West at five-minute intervals starting at 8 A.M. There were only five men in Fatboy’s car, including himself, the extra room having been decided upon by Jason as an accommodation to Fatboy’s extreme girth. His car was the first to pull out; he called Fortunato just before he left and said, “We’re off, good luck.”
Fortunato waited five minutes and then called Rodiz. “I’m leaving now,” he said.
“Good,” Rodiz answered. “Take it easy, yes?”
Five minutes later, at eight-fifteen, Rodiz and his partner, a tall Bostonian named Eugene Miller, left the Waterview Motel. They were carrying two small overnight bags, each of which contained their toilet articles and a .38 revolver. They put the bags into the trunk of the rented car and then drove through Key West picking up their men, who had been alerted and were waiting outside their hotels and motels with similar overnight bags. They did not drive out of town — past the sign advising motorists that this was the beginning of U.S. 1 at the southernmost point of the United States of America and that the other end was up in Maine someplace — until close to eight-thirty. The men in the car, two on the front seat with Rodiz who was driving, and three more on the back seat, looked like a group of faintly bored businessmen, dressed in tropical suits of various weights and hues, wearing short-sleeved dress shirts and ties. Rodiz was the best-dressed in the lot because he had been born in a tropical climate and wore lightweight clothing with authority. He was sporting a brown Italian silk which might have been a little too heavy had the thermometer registered a bit higher that morning but which, a tribute to his weather sense, was perfect for the day. His shirt was tan, and his tie was a gold-and-brown stripe held to his shirtfront with a simple circular gold pin fashioned from an old Austrian coin. His hair was coal-black, his eyes only a shade less dark, his cheekbones high and massive like those of a San Blas Indian, the taut skin covering them the pale white of a pure Castilian. His fingers were long and thin, and he guided the rented car effortlessly, assiduously observing the speed limit as they came up Truman Avenue onto Roosevelt Boulevard to U.S. 1. The men did not seem overly tense, but they were nonetheless relieved when they moved safely out of the town, which contained too many naval installations for comfort.
It was thirty-five miles from Key West to Ocho Puertos, give or take a few hundred feet, and Jason’s instructions had been to drive slowly and safely. Slow and easy, that was the way it had been outlined. Slow and easy, that was the way Rodiz was handling it.
They got the flat as they were crossing the bridge connecting Sugarloaf with Cudjoe. They had been driving no faster than forty miles an hour, and so there was no question of losing control of the car. Rodiz cursed softly, and Eugene — sitting in the middle on the front seat — said, “What is it? A flat?”
“Mmm,” Rodiz said. He slowed the car. “Should I drive off the bridge or what?”
“I think you’d better,” Eugene said. “It’s pretty narrow here to be changing a flat.”
Rodiz nodded and said nothing. He glanced at his watch. This was going to spoil their time. He started the car and drove slowly off the bridge. The car was rented, but Rodiz held a high respect for property, and it would have pained him to ruin the punctured tire by driving too fast. He pulled to the side of the road some hundred feet onto Cudjoe and then went to the trunk and unlocked it.
“I’m gonna get my clothes all dirty,” he said to no one, raising the trunk lid. “How we gonna reach that spare?” he asked Eugene when he came back.
“Have to take the bags out,” Eugene said.
They took out the men’s overnight bags, and put them in the road behind the car. They lifted the spare out then, and pulled out the jack. Rodiz looked at the flat tire distastefully and then put the jack in place under the bumper. Eugene began loosening the lug nuts while Rodiz jacked up the car. The other four men stood at the side of the road watching the work, wanting to help but knowing this was a two-man job at the most, and knowing there wasn’t much they could do but wait until Rodiz and Eugene were finished.
The car was up on the jack, and the flat tire was off, when they heard the sound of another car coming down the road from the opposite direction.
“Rafe,” one of the men at the side of the road whispered, and Rodiz looked up and nodded, and then went back to wheeling the spare tire into place.
The approaching car belonged to the Florida Highway Patrol.
There were two troopers in it.
It seemed at first that the car would continue right on past and onto the bridge leading west to Sugarloaf. But instead, it stopped on the other side of the road, about a hundred yards past Rodiz where he was hoisting the spare onto the wheel rim. The door on the highway side opened and a tall muscular man wearing a light tan uniform, with a holstered pistol at his side, a mean suntanned look on his face, began walking toward the car. Eugene and Rodiz had wrestled the wheel into place by then and were screwing on the lug nuts. The other four men stood at the rear of the car and slightly away from it, watching the approaching trooper.
“Hi,” the trooper said.
Rodiz looked up, seemingly surprised, and said, “Hello.”
“Need some help?”
“No, thanks a lot,” Eugene said. “We must’ve picked up a nail back there. We drove off the bridge so we wouldn’t block traffic.”
“Mmm,” the trooper said.
The two men continued working on the wheel. All the lug nuts were in place now. Eugene picked up the wrench and began tightening them. Rodiz went back to the jack, ready to lower the car. The trooper went with him, glancing at the canvas overnight bags in the road behind the car, and then nodding and smiling at the four men who stood silent just behind the right wheel, watching.
“You fellows coming up from Key West?” the trooper asked.
“That’s right,” Eugene said.
“Mmm,” the trooper said.
“You can lower it, Rafe,” Eugene said, and Rodiz released the jack. Up the road, the second trooper had come out of the patrol car and was approaching the sedan.
“What was it?” the trooper asked. “Convention or something?”
“What was what?” Eugene asked.
“I mean, all six of you traveling together,” the trooper said, and smiled.
“I don’t get it,” Eugene said, deadpan.
“The six of you traveling together,” the trooper repeated, as if that made it much clearer.
“Well, what’s wrong with the six of us traveling together?” Eugene asked.
“He didn’t say nothing was wrong with it,” the second trooper said, padding up swiftly and silently to stand just alongside his partner, his thumbs looped in his belt.
“We work for the same company,” Eugene said. “We were down in Key West on business.”
“What kind of business?” the second trooper asked.
“Boats.”
“What kind of boats?”
“Inboards, outboards, you name them.”
“What’s the name of the company?” the first trooper said.
“Framingham Boats,” Eugene said.
“Where at?”
“What do you mean?”